2103:12:26:08:10:18

  I watched the TV glow without paying it much attention, scenes slipping me by without my mind registering either word or image. My good mood from te st night had quietly, gradually vanished after I returned back home, and especially after I fixed the issue of me having Amber’s form.

  But even after that… grisly matter, I remained in a bit of a mood. With no one to talk to and nothing to distract me, my thoughts invariably wandered back to the usual topics: Nth-Sight, Michael-Darkstar, and Mom-Peakstar. Seeing as I didn’t want to deal with it, I tried seeking refuge in the tried-and-true methods of escapism: movies, serials, NurTube, books, and other entertainment.

  It didn’t help. I couldn’t muster the attention span for the more serious, intellectually engaging stuff, while the shallower stuff that I’d usually enjoy just fine didn’t hold my attention enough to distract me.

  Amber’s recommended reading, Serpents Amidst Smoke, was a prime example of that. While I was still unsure whether it was good or not, it was normally an absorbing read. Yet today, I kept having to turn back the same dozen or so pages over and over again because nothing stuck, my eyes sliding over the words and my hands turning whole fake-paper pages without me remembering a word.

  The only thing that managed to distract me were my memcordings. Old or new, it didn’t matter; scrolling through them and reliving past events – while steering clear of sensitive subjects, naturally – required very little effort on the whole, especially since it wasn’t like I was searching for something in particur. And reliving how I acted back then, how I made friends with Millie, Saga and Jolie, and my time spent with Crowsong and Amber without knowing they were the same; it was soothing.

  At the same time, I hated it. This nostalgia for times that weren’t even that long ago felt nice in the moment, yes, but there was something insidious about enjoying it.

  It had come up during conversation with Marianne once: depression and nostalgia. Not that she suspected I had it, but she’d wanted to talk about it for some reason. Thinking about it now, most of it was after I told her I was Jester. Did that have something to do with it?

  Anyway, she expined to me how depression wasn’t just sadness for an extended period of time, nor solely lethargy and ck of energy and drive. Simir feelings and symptoms arose when dealing with trauma, stress, emotions and mental health in general, and even when found together that doesn’t mean it’s despression – not the clinical variant anyway.

  Nostalgia in particur, she expined, normally helped people cope with their day-to-day struggles during stressful times, but could conversely have an adverse effect on people with depression. Reminiscence turning to longing for an imagined golden past, or remembrance evoking regret of paths not taken and deeds not done; those kinds of things.

  While I knew I didn’t have depression, I feared that me lingering on the memcordings for so long would have the ‘adverse effect’ my therapist warned me about. Not that the pasts I was shown were imagined – my memcordings were straightforward and factual to a fault – but with this reviewing and reinterpreting… I feared that I would stick emotions to these moments of my life that didn’t belong, effectively overwriting the real mind-stored memories I’d already made with them.

  Whether that was true or not, I had felt it necessary to abandon the one thing that did change my mood.

  And now I was stuck on something of a middle route between it all: lying listlessly on the couch, watching a show without watching it, my tablet lying bck-screened on the table, Paperfold open without a word being read, and my phone nearby and at the ready for me to look at videos I didn’t care to see. All occupying a fraction of my attention, and all to avoid unpleasant thoughts. It gave me a meaningless restlessness that set me on edge, but that was still better than overthinking.

  For the second time in my life, I almost wished I could sleep.

  Creaking steps to my left made me turn my head. Mom had woken up and was coming down the staircase, still in her pajamas as she preferred to eat breakfast first and shower after - at least on weekends and off days. I rose from lying down and sat upright at her approach, causing her to freeze upon spotting me. She was still getting used to me not sleeping.

  “Morning Sam,” she said, voice still rough from sleep. She opened her mouth, then thought better of it and closed it again.

  I smiled, paused what I’d not been watching, and said, “Sleep well?”, stealing the words she usually said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Well enough,” she replied, stealing my usual response. “Had fun flying yesterday?”

  I shrugged. “It was fine.” I thought for a second, then decided to eborate. “The city’s nice to see from above, and as a crow I can see the city’s shields even when they’re not active.”

  “Oh? What do they look like?”

  “Purple.”

  She snorted, walked past the back of the couch and sat herself down on the chair. “Makes sense.” And it did, since that was what they looked like they got hit. “How long did you fly?”

  “An hour or so,” I said, “but I met with Crowsong at around ten.” Seeing her frown, I added, “We didn’t go masking or anything-” I didn’t tell her about the zoo of course; too close to masking, and also technically illegal, “-we just cleaned up our new base as much as we could and got ourselves a couch.”

  “Ah, right. You guys’ base got destroyed.” Her frown deepened. “Motorgang, right?”

  “Eh.” I waggled my hand side to side. “I mean; yes, they were the ones that did the deed, but really it was Nth-Sight that made it happen.” Though in hindsight they could’ve just not destroyed our base, and they definitely didn't need to do it so completely. Even if we wouldn’t have been able to use the location anymore, we'd at least have kept our stuff. But vilins were vilins, I supposed.

  Michael flitted through my mind.

  “Nth-Sight did?” Mom asked, preventing the thought from fully forming.

  “Yeah. Well, according to Bzin, at least.”

  “Bzin?” She asked, eyebrows rising. “You talked to Bzin?”

  I searched my memories – not my memcordings; that was too much work – and found, “I hadn’t mentioned it in the debrief?”

  She shook her head.

  “Oh. Well basically, Nth-Sight sent me to sabotage Motorgang’s growing maker capabilities, but Bzin had long been onto him and his, ah, conspiracy network or whatever it’s called.” Mom nodded. “He said that his augur contact – Sightsee; another identity of Nth-Sight – told him where our base was and to take revenge on Crowsong for one reason or another, and that I shouldn’t believe it when Nth-Sight told me Crowsong had been killed, aaaand… some other things that became clearer ter on.”

  Mom blinked, stunned, before letting out a long sigh. “You two really have been through a lot, haven’t you?”

  I shrugged.

  “At least he’s gone now,” Mom continued. “I know that it doesn’t feel nice to hear, but… you did the right thing. You know that, right?” I nodded, but Mom saw my hesitation clear as day. “I… can’t say that feeling ever goes away, or that doing it ever gets easier. But as long as you know you did it for the right reasons – which I know you did – and with time and guidance, we can learn to cope with it even if we’ll always remember. And remember this as well: take comfort in that conflict. There are too many stories about heroes that stopped caring, and it’s never for the better.”

  I said nothing, for there was nothing to say. My guilt at killing Nth-Sight was all mixed up with everything else, to the point I could hardly separate what was what. Add to that that ‘knowing I did it for the right reasons’ was the exact problem I was having, and my mouth was cmped shut.

  A moment of quiet followed. Mom looked to the screen, then somewhere off to the side, combed through her hair, then stared back to me. I prepared myself for whatever was coming.

  “You know,” she began, hesitant. “I- Can we talk about the elephant in the room? If you’re up for it, I mean.”

  I didn’t, but I also didn’t want to say no. “Ssssure,” I said hesitantly.

  Mom ran a hand through her hair. “It’s about yesterday,” she said, which I could’ve guessed. “Can you tell me what happened exactly?”

  I worked my jaw as I ruminated on what to tell her. I couldn’t tell the truth, of course; saying anything about my Heroic Impulse would reveal too much, while being vague but admitting I felt a strong urge to ‘take out’ Darkstar… it also wouldn’t be good.

  “I guess I just sort of… panicked?” She didn’t look like she believed me – not fully, at least, but there was one more heartstring I could selfishly pull. “In my first encounter with Darkstar, the one with the Sentinels way back on the 10th of November?” She nodded. “He, ahh, kinda killed me?” I winced as I said it. I’d thrown Michael under the bus with this, but, well, he was a vilin and it wasn’t a lie.

  “He what?!” Mom all but unched forward in surprise and stared at me, narrow-eyed and angry.

  “It was an accident,” I hurriedly expined, hoping to take the edge off. “It was kinda my fault, actually. I attacked him and should’ve stopped when he managed to restrain me, but… I just kept coming at him, attacking him again and again, forcing him to come up with new ways to restrain me until I thought I’d finally found a moment where he was distracted and I could attack him, but…” I trailed off, not eborating.

  “Huh,” Mom said, wide-eyed but much less… animate than before.

  “It was before I or anyone else knew that I couldn’t really die while shifted,” I said, “and so that memory has left a bit of a… mark, or something.”

  I didn’t want to call it trauma because I wasn’t traumatized. Even at the time I hadn’t cared too much – not the dying part anyway. The thing I cared for back then was that I’d failed, and that I'd disappointed Amber with my actions. Oh, and the lecture afterwards, of course; I regretted that too.

  Mom… she didn’t not believe me, that much I could tell at least. But she did narrow her eyes at that, clearly believing – rightfully – I was withholding something.

  Nevertheless, she let it slide in the end. “I see.” She sighed. “And that’s all you can tell me?” I looked away, but nodded all the same. “Alright.” Again, she sighed.

  We sat in silence for a minute. Mom clearly had something more to say, so I waited patiently until, “One more thing, then: if you want- if you need it, you can tell your therapist that I’m Peakstar, and all that comes with it.”

  I blinked, taken aback. “Are you sure? I mean, that’s a lot of risk-”

  “I’m sure.” She smiled ruefully. “I hate to admit it, but I’m not- I don’t think I’m the one that can help you the most. I already failed when I tried that with Michael, and I don’t want the same thing to happen to you.”

  A fsh of heat crawled up my neck, and a spiking headache combined with the hurt and anger to make me scowl and cringe at the same time. “I’m not going to turn vilin,” I bit out.

  “I know, I know. That’s not what I meant.” She took a deep breath, in and out. “Back then, I thought I could just… work until I recovered enough, then talk to Michael and tell him about everything. But I didn’t recover, not for a long time. Then things got worse, and I thought that maybe it’d be better to wait until Michael was a bit older, believing he’d just… grow past whatever was bothering him, somehow. But the longer I waited, the worse it got. And then I found out about Darkstar, and- and I. Just. Kept. Waiting. I kept waiting, and things kept getting worse.”

  Angry tears built in the corners of her eyes, Mom wiping them quickly before they could fall.

  Without looking at me, she continued. “Then you got angry after I picked you up from therapy, all but demanding that I tell you what was going on between me and Michael and, well, it made me realize that I was repeating that same mistake all over again. So I figured out a way to tell you, but then everything with the Jannacht happened, and I found out about you being Jester, then you and Nth-Sight, and now the problems with Michael again, and the aftereffects from your achronal dispcement and whatever else you’re carrying with and I can’t- I don’t think I can-”

  Before her rambling, borderline panic-attack of a sentence could derail from the point she was trying to make, she cut herself off and took a few steadying breaths.

  Once she caught herself again, she said, “All that to say: I don’t know how to handle this. I fear that I’m just not equipped to. Never felt I needed to learn when I was young, and ter, well, your father was always better at these kind of things. And now I’m as much a mess as anyone.” She looked up and met my eyes, a mencholic smile on her face. “Besides, I’m too involved anyway. Too close to help without it bringing out my bias. So, to me at least, it seems better to leave it to the experts. Not that I don’t want to be here for you – I’ll always be there when- if you need me. But I just want to give you… options, let’s say. Or multiple paths. Talk with me, with your therapist, or even with Millie. Better yet, talk with all three of us, and figure out what helps. Anything you need, as long as it works. As long as it helps you.”

  Silence hung over us. Half of me expected a headache to rear its ugly head again, or for my Heroic Impulse to reappear and sound the arm, or even for something entirely new yet no doubt bad to happen. But there was nothing.

  “I… you know I was sincere when I said I forgive you, right? I mean I was- I still am a bit angry, but I know it’s not really your fault or anything. Even without talking to the therapist stuff,” I said. Mom nodded, a small smile on her lips, but didn’t retract the offer. I continued, “Still… thanks,” I finished mely.

  “No no, thank you for… well, being you,” she, too, finished mely.

  I snorted, then looked away in embarrassment; these weren’t exactly ughing matters. But Mom didn’t take offense and just ughed lightly.

  Mom turned her attention to the television screen. “What were you watching?” she asked, the change in topic about as subtle as a brick in a washing machine.

  Naturally, I didn’t point that out and looked to the screen. In big, bold letters, the pause menu spelled out ‘Carl’s Crusade against Time’ – an episodic comedy serial known for its dry wit. Under normal circumstances, I liked it quite a bit. Under today’s circumstances? Well…

  I pointed to the screen with my thumb and said, “That. Though I wasn’t really watching it. More like I was slowly sinking into the couch than anything else.”

  “Trying to get your mind off things, hm?” she asked.

  “Yeah, basically.”

  She rose from her chair. “Well, you know what always helps keep my mind busy?”

  “What?”

  “Doing something!” she said animatedly, then walked to the kitchen.

  Whatever she was pnning, I decided to follow. “Like what?”

  “Anything.” She walked to the kitchen. “Let’s make a whole day out of it. Going pces, seeing things, having fun; anything but staying home.”

  She began pulling all kind of things from the cabinets, fridge, and storage. “But before that, let’s make something. Something special, since we didn’t really have a nice and proper Christmas breakfast. Maybe some bacon and eggs, some extra thick and sugary pancakes? That, and whatever else we can think off.” She looked back at me, smiling. “With all the heroing we’ve been doing it’s easy to burn all those calories, right?”

  I hadn’t bothered, nor was I pnning on, telling her I didn’t need to eat. Barring all else, I liked her pancakes too much to say it.

  As we set about doing the work – Mom focusing on the pancake side of things and me on the eggs, with plenty of bumping into each other in between – we continued our pnning. It turned into a day out strolling by the Bayside Boardwalk and its Christmas market, lunch at a nice Mexican restaurant out on the pier itself, a visit to the Grays Harbor Aquarium, and finally a ride and dinner on the combination boat-restaurant running a course from Bayside up the Chehalis river to Riverside, then back again.

  All in all, plenty to keep us busy.