Disconnection

Disconnection

By: Karen/Collin


Chapter the First:

Sheet of blonde hair falling across my face I held my head in my hands, shuddering, gasping for breath, tears running hot lines down my cheeks. A minor, or perhaps not so minor, existential crisis burned through my skull. It’d taken weeks of research, but I got my answer, and it wasn’t the one I’d been looking for, wasn’t the one that would lack a negative emotional and psychological impact. Long eternities dragged by like the drifting of continents, shifting and revolving around the horrifying realization that my entire being was a falsity, a lie based on someone else’s fiddling. Could I call myself real, when what made me who I was had involved someone toying with the fabric of reality? In my despair, I didn’t notice my bedroom had been entered until a soft voice called “Dinner’s ready.”

When I didn’t immediately respond footsteps approached, a hand touched my shoulder, the voice speaking again “What’s the matter? Are you...”

A pause, the sound of paper being manipulated, my calculations, scribbled over the white lined surface being plucked from amongst the notebooks and single leather bound tome on my wooden desk. A sigh was vented above me “Your theory, eh?”

I just nodded slightly, a minor bob of the head, and was embraced “I’m sorry, Sis. But I don’t think you should get too broken up about it. So you were influenced. It wasn’t just you. So many were affected by this that there’s no way your misfortune could have been intended. And you grew; you were able to develop on your own. Consciously or not you held onto it. You were born, allowed to grow into something more, on your own.”

“I’m sorry...” I muttered into her chest, clinging tightly, while that last sentence sent stinging guilt dripping through my heart. A chuckle, a kiss atop my head “Now now, nothing to apologize for. I’m quite content with my life. Maybe you should take after your big sister a little more, ah? Come on, dinner’s getting cold.”

I rose, following the taller, dark haired form in front of me, mind still lingering on what she’d said. Content or not, she, of the two of us, really, should have been more likely to be having identity issues. Technically less than two years old, she had never been born, created to fill a void in my life. She wasn’t real, wasn’t technically human. She required no food, no water, no air. She would never age without outside influence. But she was content with her lot in life as my keeper, my friend, and my confidant. Perhaps she was right, perhaps I was looking at this too much, putting too much emphasis on the fact I felt my life’s path was not what it could have, or should have been. Even with all the power I’d garnered in the two years since I was gifted that book of arcane power, changing the past directly was not a tool I had access to. A sigh, and I sat at the table in the white-tiled kitchen, silently eating my chicken and potatoes.

The evening ground by past dinner. Television, reading, studying the book again, until finally I headed upstairs, past the empty master bedroom to my own, right across from my sister’s. I was already stripping down to get dressed for bed when I noticed I’d been tailed, and, with a smile, and a kindly look in her soft blue eyes, my faux sibling took over for me. Shirt and jeans on the floor, followed by my panties, and I was led by the hand to my bed. I knew what she had in mind, trying, of course, to cheer me up, and obliged, laying on my mattress with my legs hanging off past mid-thigh. After two years it didn’t feel quite so awkward being naked in front of her anymore.

Humming a little tune she knelt by me, taking a diaper from the bag by the bed, unfolding it, and easily lifting me with strength belied by her figure, slipping the absorbent material beneath me. A puff of pleasant smelling power and the front of the garment came up, a pair of large fasteners attached with practiced speed. I blushed a little at the prints of teddy bears and pacifiers over the front, until interrupted by being garbed in a pink nightie, and tucked in. My favorite plush toy held to my chest, I watched the short rail on the side of the bed go up, present for just such an occasion. The rail in place my sister leaned down, lips brushing my forehead “Goodnight Annie.”

“G’night Lizzie.” was my muttered reply. A pacifier was gently pushed into my mouth, and she drifted out, flicking off the light on the way, leaving the room lit only by the nightlight in the corner. Maybe Elizabeth, or Lizzie as I tended to call her, was right. Out there, somewhere, was someone who I would blame, whose fault it was in my eyes that that situation made me happy. The same manner of situation for which my parents, my own flesh and blood, more or less hated me. I had someone I could blame for my hell of a childhood, for every bruise inflicted. But maybe my fabricated older sister was right, as she often was, to my annoyance. Maybe I was better off this way. Just then, suckling that pacifier, listening to the rustlings under my night dress whenever I moved, I felt that maybe it was for the best after all, though who knew how long that opinion would last once the pleasant stimuli were removed.

Thoughts a muddled mess of contentment and irritation, I slowly dripped from consciousness. In those days sleep was not a time for dreams, for me. I no longer had them, as long as I slept under the right circumstances. Rather, instead, thanks to the book, and the magic I’d learned from its pages, I spent nights inside my own head. As the book said, a person’s mind is represented in an endless hallway of doors that open in onto memories, emotions, fantasies, fears, and so on, the appearance and condition of the hallway reflecting its owner. I could explore myself, relive my happy moments, enjoy pleasant emotions of the past, and relax. As every time I’d entered my head in well over a year by then, I entered into the lounge I’d fashioned. A little alcove, really, no bigger than a walk in closet, carved into one side of the hall, across from my current favored memory, which that night was my first highschool sports victory. It was filled with plush armchairs. Plush armchairs, and a vat of candy I could gorge myself on without having to worry about my teeth, or gaining weight, because it was quite literally all in my head.

After just sitting a time, chewing taffy, I headed off down the hall at a sedate pace. One’s mental state, as the book said, was expressed in the appearance of their mind’s halls. Color, flooring, lighting, the appearance of the doors, all of it had meaning. Mine had improved since I began my foray into the magics detailed in that book, and removed myself from my parents. The off-white of the walls had once had splashes of deep blues and purples, like angry bruises, busted light fixtures, and the occasional battered door that looked like someone had taken a hammer to it. More cohesive now, it was, just the off-white, almost a cream color, and soft, pale blue carpet. There were still a few broken lights and dinged up doors, indication that while better than before there was no way I could consider myself entirely emotionally healthy, but overall it was much improved.

I quickly came to the place I was headed to, brought closer and closer by my thoughts pulling it, exerting subconscious control. The pattern the doors generally spread around in always appeared random, and therefore, in the infinite length of the hallway, finding most specific doors was just chance, but a little bit of a mental pull, imagining the target gravitating in your direction, and they became much easier to find, if not immediately present. The door I wanted that night was a memory, around two years old. Quickly I grasped the knob and tugged it open, stepping through.

For whatever reason, the memories always happened in black and white, like an old movie. Perhaps, I’d theorized, to differentiate them, so they could be told apart visually from the contents of the other doors. No matter the reason the magic worked like that, I had business there that night. The scene was the street, out in a different part of town. In my ever-ongoing efforts to avoid my parents I had, back then, roamed far and wide, to any extent I could be home from before I could get in trouble for my absence. The area in which I stood was mostly stores of various types, be they restaurants, clothing stores, or, this time, a little antique shop.

There I was, in the memory, eyes glaring holes into the sidewalk, garbed in jeans and a sleeveless shirt, sporting bruises on my arm, one on my face. I clearly recalled acquiring those, and felt a flash of hatred towards my family, my drunk, belligerent bigot of a father and the mother who never once tried to protect me. As the previous me was walking by the big display window she stumbled, hand going to her chest, and my own hand raised to mine sympathetically. I recalled that sensation as well, and felt it all the time, like a hook behind my sternum, pulling me, always, to the book. She gasped, looked around, and saw it for the first time, in the far end of the store. Its worn leather spine, bereft of any marking, strangely enough, retained color even in the greyscale past, the soft brown of aged leather sticking out between the colorless spines of its fellow books on the shelf. She hastened inside, right to that bookcase, drawn like a fish on a line, and I followed close behind.

Perplexed, her hand rose, stroked down the old leather, gasping as she felt the warmth. That was one peculiarity of that book, definitely; it felt as warm as if the leather was still attached to an animal, like it’d bleed if you punctured it. I never dared try, though. I watched myself remove it from the shelf, skim several sections, notice it had no tag, and head to the counter. There I inquired how much the book was to the girl, about my own age, who was at the register. In black and white I couldn’t make out her hair or eye color beyond them being a medium shade, but I took a good look at her face. Suspiciously to me, the clerk chose that very moment, in the early afternoon, to close the store, despite it likely being around peak business hours. My past self was downput, stopped from the purchase of this book that I found myself so attached to already. But, as I was moving to leave, I was stopped, that girl claiming I’d forgotten my book. “My book”? Yes, my book, according to her. My life had changed that day. As that memory was fading I took another good, long look at the cashier’s face. I’d long since forgotten what she’d looked like, consciously at least, after all, and I wanted to recognize her if I could locate her again. I’d be seeing her, soon enough, no matter how long it took to find her. Though, finding her might turn out as easy as visiting that antique shop.

My business done, and the memory faded to a blank slate of medium grey, I headed back to my lounge, eating a little chocolate before drifting off in my fluffiest chair. The next thing I knew my eyes were opening to warm sunlight spilling in the window of my bedroom, over my prone form. One long yawn and joint-popping stretch later, and I set into waiting for my sister. We’d long since worked it out, the whole regression treatment thing. It couldn’t start or continue without my consent, but as long as I was in some manner of absorbent underwear my sister was in charge, and would look after me as she saw fit, with rules she felt fit the situation. And one of those rules was that, despite the rails on my bed being very easily low enough to traverse, more ornamental than anything else, if I’d gone to bed diapered she would be getting me up in the morning, so I had to await her arrival before I could start my day. You know, to give more of that feel of childish helplessness. I emptied my bladder while I waited, relaxed into my blankets and various plush toys.

It wasn’t a long wait, thankfully, before she stepped in, humming to herself. She was always so cheerful in the mornings those days; one of the traits, oddly, she’d developed over time that hadn’t been part of her initial “programming”. Quickly she was lowering the rail, moving me about to lift my nightie, removing my used absorbent undergarment, and gently cleaning me while I blushed. Flashing me a bright smile, she queried “So, what do you think for today, kiddo? Diapers, big girl underwear? Trainers maybe?”

“Big girl underwear.” was the immediate, hurried response, which elicited a chuckle from her. And so I was free to dress myself, while she went to dropped the now balled up diaper in my diaper pail, and headed off to wash her hands. I hastily threw on underwear, jeans, and a long-sleeved shirt, along with my ever-present gloves that’d been awaiting me on my nightstand, heading downstairs for breakfast, where I was asked over cereal “So, are we still on for some hiking today?”

A swallow, a sigh, and a shake of my head “No, we’ll have to postpone it for now. I need to talk to that antique store girl. She might know who it is who’s to blame for my problems, and if I put it off too long I might get cold feet. I’d feel really stupid if I went to talk to her and she knew nothing about it, and not knowing will just eat at me...”

“On that subject,” I pushed myself up, while Elizabeth frowned, “I’d better get going. I just hope she still works there...”

“Have a pleasant drive.” drifted to me as I was heading out of the room, accompanied by the clatter of dishes. I stopped in the threshold, taking a long deep breath “Actually, Sis, I think I’m gonna walk.”

Leaving the house, and leaving my sister to her uncertain expression, I started the lengthy walk into the heart of the town, taking my time, enjoying stretching my legs, and trying to arrange my thoughts. I was still trying to decide if I was angry or not about how someone else’s alterations to the universe ruined the majority of my life. I mean, the changes brought happiness, at least after I escaped my parents, but were also the source of many a bruise, many an unkind word, from my own flesh and blood. The two sides of the proverbial coin would probably even each other out more over time, but as of that day I’d only been away from my parents and the abuse those couple of years, rather tilting the scale towards the unpleasant.

Out of habit, I straightened my clothes as I went, being sure my sleeves and gloves covered the runes carved in my skin. Those had hurt a fair bit when I’d done them, but had been necessary for the magic. They held power, so in order to wield that power they had to be permanently applied to my body. I had over thirty of them total, on my hands, arms, chest, stomach, hips, and thighs, forcing me to wear relatively covering clothes no matter the weather, to avoid people seeing what amounted to ink-dyed scarification all over my body. I regretted none of it though, and still studied the book for new means, new potentials, new power. I’d even added to it, mathematically formulated new symbols, and found them afterwards to then be in the book where there’d been nothing before, my contribution to the future of magic. I had to wonder who’d written the math of magic chapters that hadn’t been there the first time I’d read through, only appearing later on. I got the impression that some manner of sub-dimensional magic was in effect on the book itself, adding or removing sections depending on the reader, or rather I should say hiding them until appropriate or needed. It was the reason I frequently returned to reread sections; I never knew what I might find if I just looked again.

It was past mid-morning when I arrived at my destination, shoes scuffing faintly against the sun-warmed concrete of the sidewalk, cars running smoothly past to the left, reflected in the
large sheet of glass that was the storefront window. For some long moments I could only stare at my reflection. My bright green eyes, the pale yellow hair spilling down my back. I hadn’t been back to that store since I got the book, though I was uncertain why that was. I guess I just didn’t have much of an interest in antiques. Why I never came to find the girl who’d given my the book before then was the real question, and one I had no answer too. Too drunk on my new power, perhaps? One, two, three deep breaths, and I pushed open the door, stepping into the shop’s cool, air conditioned innards.


Chapter the Second:

She was there, much the same as I recalled her from that memory, only in color. Red hair, eyes I could mistake for my own, in covering garb including gloves and arm warmers. She was seated on a counter, strumming a guitar, idly chatting with the woman behind the register, who looked to be in her twenties. The music and conversation both ceased at my appearance, and the girl seemed to stiffen slightly. Our eyes locked, and, slowly, I headed towards her, stepping around this or that antique object in my path without really seeing them. A tense silence stretched on endlessly, until I spoke “You gave me a book, two years ago...”

A stiff, wooden nod, and she glanced to the woman at the register “Go ahead and take the rest of the day off, Heather. Paid, of course. I’ve got some, uh, business...”

Heather gave an odd look, a lifted eyebrow, but shrugged it off, moving out of the store with an “If you say so, Boss.”

With her gone the guitar went on the counter, and the redhead slid from her seat, turning the sign at the door to read “Closed” on the outside, before sinking into an antique chair at an antique table, gesturing me to sit across from her. I did, slowly lowering myself into the old chair, taking in her appearance. I was under the assumption she’d read the book too, but honestly she didn’t look the type to be powerful and magical. Hell, she barely came up to my collar bone, little over five feet, flat chested, slightly curly hair spilling over her shoulders. She might have been the least intimidating person I’d met since acquiring the damned book, if it weren’t for the active intelligence in her eyes and the confidence that seemed to surround her.

“I remember you.” she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest “I figured you might come back, eventually. I watched it snag you through the front window that day.”

My eyes widened “You knew I’d want the book before I came in...?”

“Happened to me too.” she shrugged, eyes flicking to the side “And the woman I got it from only mentioned it once, vaguely, when I bought the store from her. I promised myself I’d be more supportive and accessible. I figured you’d be back eventually.”

“So, you’ve read it?” I queried, leaning over the bit of furniture between us, gaze intense. In response she unstrapped the fingerless glove on her left hand, tugging away the leather to bare a rune tattooed into a scar on her palm. Slowly, I pulled off a knit glove, baring the same rune in my own palm. She smirked “Finally, someone who can possibly understand. It’s a relief, though I can’t say I feel too positively towards you. Two years. It still aches to have it gone, but it was time. But what’s so special about...!?”

She slapped her hand over her mouth, cutting off her own sentence, stemming her voice as it was growing more passionate, emotional, and loud. She sat, just breathing deeply for some moments, her face, having briefly contorted with rage, slackening “Sorry, sorry. Jealousy’s an ugly color...”

A frown crossed my face “If you didn’t want to lose it why’d you give it to me?”

“I lost the connection.” came her explanation “The pull stopped. It’ll happen to you eventually. I got all I could from it, and it stopped wanting me. Just like it was given to me, it was time to let it go and help someone else.”

“What, uh, did you use the magic for?” I scratched at the back of my neck, hoping the question wasn’t too personal, or rather that she wouldn’t tell me something especially personal. She gave a shrug “This and that. It was a learning experience. Made mistakes. Lost fifteen years. Changed the world. Made a house for myself in privacy. Fell in love and settled down.”

“Changed the world...?” my blood ran cold “How, exactly?”

“Keep it under your hat,” she glanced from one side to the other, conspiratorially, “but there was an extremely humiliating incident, before I lost that fifteen years, the result of altering reality while delusional from pain and dehydration. I made the world more accepting, made the regression thing more common, as damage control. After a misdrawn rune stranded me fifteen years into the future, I found my change had grown into, well, something wonderful.”

My eyes sprang open, sudden anger boiling through my veins, the emotional dam bursting as suddenly as its existence really registered “You! It was you! My math was right! You ruined my life!”

I fumed. It was all I could do not to dart forth and strangle her. My mind refused to feel anything but negative emotions, faced with the source of my horrid past. I suppose I couldn’t let go of my anger after all. She just stared, eventually her eyes narrowing as she spoke again “That makes two of us. I lost my family, my father, and I have no one to blame but myself and my carelessness. He’s alive and well, but I can never see him again. What would I say, when I should be fifteen years older, and I up and disappeared for a decade and a half? I had to leave my life behind. I was declared dead. And I sleep at night because I know that at least my mistakes left the world a little better off, even if it cost me personal suffering.”

“It may have been sunshine and rainbows for the damned world, but my childhood was hell because of you!” I yelled in her face, standing now, leaning across the table into her glare “I finally escaped it two years ago, but I remember, very clearly ten years of bruises and constant verbal abuse, my parents trying to ‘cure’ me. It was torture. And all of the blame rests on your shoulders. The math doesn’t lie.”

She never had a chance to respond. A barely restrained scream of frustration, and I stormed out of the shop without another word, before I could lose control and actually strike her, intending never to turn back. So, I’d figured out who it was who’d made that change, and my bad luck it just had to be the one person I’d hoped I could talk to. Well, that was out the window, granted looking at or thinking about her pissed me off now. How and when would I find someone I could talk to about this who I didn’t want to pounds my fist into? Ugh!

I made better time back to my house than to the antique shop, on the fact I walked faster when angry, and at that moment “angry” was a gross understatement. I was home in time for a lunch I barely picked at, and an awkward afternoon dodging a worried sibling while she tried to get me to explain what had happened. It wasn’t until sundown I told her how my anger was depriving me of someone who could actually relate to me on the matter of magic.

I needed a drink. I needed a drink bad. Not like I had since the time my dad broke two of my fingers. Not the first time I’d raided his liquor cabinet in an attempt to drown my sorrows the way he did. I suppose it was the one thing I inherited from him. Fine example of our relations, really, getting blind stinking drunk to avoid our problems. Elizabeth tried to dissuade me, but I would not be deterred, not be kept from our rarely disturbed stash of alcohol.

By midnight I was drunk as a skunk, and ranting loudly on topics I would not later recall, and getting into a fight with my sister severe enough I nearly hit her. The next thing I recalled I was pissing myself, and then I was vomiting while Lizzie held my hair, and then I was being diapered, just in case, and put to bed. I woke in the morning with a horrible, terrible hangover and spent the day either vomiting what little I ate or laying in bed groaning in pain.

It all subsided by the following day, besides a vague, lingering ache, and the morning found me seated on the rear porch, staring out blankly onto the back yard, contemplating. The weather was pleasant enough. Warm, just a few wisps of cloud decorating the sky, letting the bright sunlight trickle down on our lemon trees and the flowers that ringed the yard. A sigh as I sat slumped in my chair, where I’d been sitting since waking at four in the morning. I’d watched the dark, watched it recede, fleeing from the sunrise, and lost sight of the sun as it rose too high to perceive around the porch awning. Soft footsteps approached from behind, and not for the first time that morning I heard Elizabeth’s voice, pleading “Come on, Annie, at least eat something, or do something. I worry about you when you get like this...”

“What’s the point...?” I muttered quietly, rather pointedly not looking her direction, staring at tree bark to avoid that look on her face, the one that made me feel guilty. Response was almost immediate “The point? The point of what?”

“Of everything, Lizzie.” I practically hissed, at the one person who cared about me. It only made me feel worse, taking such a tone with her. She meant well. She wanted me to be happy. I vented a groan “What’s the point? No offense to you, but the only person around who knows or cares about me I created to do so. I go through every day doing things that don’t matter in the end, don’t make any difference. Why do I bother? I go through my head at night, and I find no meaning. I do my school work, and it feels pointless. I made myself an amazing house, made my own personal dimension for it, but no eyes but ours look on it. Every accomplishment feels hollow, devoid of any meaning. I feel almost like I died years ago, and I just haven’t realized it yet.”

“Oh, don’t say that.” she sank into the seat next to me “I think what you need is more social interaction, Sister. You have no friends but me, and that’s no good.”

“I tried that once, remember?” I grumbled, sinking yet lower in my chair, pained at memories of the one other person I’d created, the one other person who’d understood me as well as my sister did “It didn’t end well, and I still feel bad about it. I wonder how he’s doing these days...”

It was her turn to sigh “Actually, dear, I was thinking people who, you know, you didn’t make yourself. After all, sometimes you don’t know what you need, only what you want.”

I was silent several very long moments, before “If you’re suggesting I return to school, I protest strongly. I was expelled for a reason.”

“Yes,” she replied, leaning over to tickle at my side a bit, causing me to squirm, “because you can be prickly as a porcupine and sensitive about your personal space. That and you had a habit of breaking boys’ noses when they touch your butt. After the third one they made you leave. You can’t blame them, can you? It’s a very cute butt. And I doubt it helped that you were on the football team. Those guys on your team weren’t exactly gentlemen.”

I just rolled my eyes “Then what are you suggesting?”

“I don’t know,” I heard her shift in her seat, “maybe get you into a club or something, with people you’d have an interest in common with. Oh, or, you know, we could enroll you in daycare. Summer’s coming up, and a lot of parents with kids into regression will be enrolling them. I’m certain you could make some cute little friends.”

Actually, that sounded rather pleasant, until I realized something, hastily objecting “Oh, no way, no way in hell. It took me long enough to get used to you changing me, but strangers? And in trainers would be even worse.”

“I’ve checked into these things, you know,” she said. I was certain she was smirking, but still struggled not to look her way as she continued, “and these places have no rules saying you have to be in any kind of absorbent undergarments to attend. They do get some charges who wear regular underwear. You know, sort of past toddlerhood, but still young enough for daycare.”

“Then I’d just stand out!” I threw my arms up in exaggeration “I’d be one of what, one or two out of a couple dozen? How am I supposed to fit in being different from everybody else? It’s hopeless.”

She sighed again, rising from her seat, and leaning to gently kiss my forehead “Well, you think about it. You really need more social interaction than just me. You’re a smart girl; I’m sure you can think of something.”

And she was gone, into the house, leaving me again alone with the smell of grass, the gentle breeze that lightly stirred my hair. A long, deep sigh, and I pulled my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. Why’d she always have to be right like that? I guess she couldn’t help it with what she was, the fact she was made to look after me. She knew me better than I knew myself, because she’d been designed that way, able to divine my feelings and intentions before I even knew about them. She probably, just then, had relative certainty of what I’d do as a result of that talk, even if I hadn’t figured it out myself. I contemplated a while longer, before heading in for a late lunch, ideas slowly forming and dying and rising from their own ashes in my head.





Chapter the Third:

I suffered many minutes of fitful fidgeting, adjusting my pajamas, and generally feeling restless in bed that night before finally sleep overtook me. Thoughts wouldn’t stop doing things in my head. Squirming, writhing, burning. Frolicking...? Ugh... But sleep was no respite from my rebellious, runaway mind, not with magic propelling my consciousness into my mind. I curled up in an armchair, staring at the strange, multicolored splotches appearing, swirling, mingling, and fading in the paint on the walls. It was representation of what I was feeling, the chaos of uncertainty played out in mobile paint for me to observe.

It had been so long since I’d had real social interaction; Liz was right about that. It was after I’d been expelled from school that I first realized I had no ties there. Friends? I had none of those. I had acquaintances I ate lunch with, who I realized after my expulsion I had no methods to even contact. I knew them so little I didn’t even have phone numbers, couldn’t recall half their last names. The football team, that I’d gotten onto despite my gender? A fair bit of the team didn’t much like me.

I was only kept from being the team’s MVP by the fact I spent half of every game on the bench. Just getting in had been quite the accomplishment, granted what I had between my legs, and I had a feeling many felt that threatened their masculinity. I didn’t have the sheer weight and muscle mass of the bigger guys, but I was tall, I was tough, and I was fast. To those that accepted me I was just “another one of the guys”. And with them, hell, I didn’t even know half their names, just nicknames. Just some fellow meatheads to roughhouse with a little, where I wasn’t treated fragile because of my genitalia. I had some good times there, but after I left the school, I felt no desire to pursue further interaction.

And so, my only human contact remaining, if you can call it that, was my fabricated sister. She was great for conversation, more than willing to horse around, and treat me whatever age I felt like. It was great, at first, especially when she ascended from her programming into a full fledged sentient being, but she was just one person, and one person I could predict like clockwork, at that, at least for the most part. I’d made her, after all. Every foundation of her mind, her thought processes, her morals, were birthed from my own head. I knew her like the back of my hand, and there was only such a degree to which she could therefore be considered social interaction.

One attempt I’d made to expand my social circle. Er, or triangle I guess, since there were three of us then. I’d made someone, for the second time, and it was a mistake; a mistake I wouldn’t realize for a while. At first it was wonderful. He’d named himself Elias. He was attractive, with his dark, shaggy hair, bright blue eyes, kindly features. Soft and gentle when appropriate, but not afraid to get physical when the need arose. A playmate, not too much smarter than me. A lover. My first in my life. My ideal significant other made real, to a degree. But I suppose it’s true that sometimes what you want isn’t what you need, as Liz had mentioned. I was with him about six months.

It’d started off all happiness, exploration, playing around. Gentle kisses and touches in passing, the sensation of his skin on mine igniting a fire deep inside me I’d never known had yet to be kindled. We were exceptionally close, the relationship developing faster than I’d ever expected. We spent several hours together on an almost daily basis, at the least. At one month I lost my virginity to him. It was safe without protection, I knew, because he hadn’t been designed with a fully functional reproductive system. Technically he was incapable of impregnating anyone or anything, but was otherwise fully functional, sexually. It was the four month point when things began to go downhill, in ways I had not predicted.

I’d designed him to be close, but things changed at his ascension, the point his initial programming became a framework to grow around rather than hard coded timers and numbers and if, ands, and so on. A mind that works on hard wiring, resulting in the same response to the same stimulus every time, variables only existing because they were programmed in that way. After he became truly sentient his behavior began to grow uncomfortable for me. I was in love, almost, or I thought I was, before he started getting creepy. He had a home of his own I’d made for him, nearby, but he was spending more and more time in mine.

He practically lived in my room with me. He stopped sleeping, watching me sleep instead, on the excuse he technically had no need for it, and that I was adorable in my sleep. When I didn’t have him over he’d sneak in through my window. He became clingy, possessive, grew hostile towards those that would keep us apart. He was no longer attached, he was obsessed, to an unhealthy degree. It was when he started trying to edge Elizabeth out of the picture so I would be his and his alone that I knew it had gone too far. I’d been crying, when I told him, when I sent him away. I didn’t know where the spell had taken him, just that it was away from me, somewhere he’d be safe, hopefully happy. I slipped into a deep depression in his absence. As much as his overpowering desire was unsettling to me, I had had feelings for him. I couldn’t do it again. No way. I refused to create another person. I’d had a fifty percent failure rate on the result thus far, so the odds another creation would end badly were far too high, and I could not weather that kind of emotional hardship again.

Walking slowly, I moved off down my hallway, brushing fingertips over the colorful splotches in the paint, over the wood of doors and the steel plaques with their blocky black lettering. Memories in my mind came to me quickly, and I viewed them with a silent melancholy. Elias and I fighting playfully over the TV remote. Gentle kisses in parting that lingered almost endlessly. Regressed outings with the two of us sharing a double stroller, giggling as we got ice cream on each other. Our first piercings, that I still wore, when we’d gotten our ears done simultaneously. Long walks in companionable silence. I missed him so much, was heavily tempted to work magic to bring him back, but forced myself not to. He’d been on a steep downslope, psychologically, before I left him, and it had been my fault. I’d made him different from Elizabeth. I’d purposely constructed Elizabeth to be curious, to enjoy learning, so that she could grow, but in my haste personal growth was not something Elias was granted, and it felt like a gross misuse of power to change a living person, even if I was his creator. Lacking other outlets for his attention, I was all he’d had. With him gone, once I’d been able to pull to a degree from the deep sadness the situation had mired me in, I buried myself in my theory and calculation, in the desperate hope to find some good news, some light in the dark. It’d only been a month, and look how that had gone...

I made it back to my chairs contemplating the whole social interaction issue. I wished I could interact with that girl I’d gotten the book from, because surely she could understand me better than anyone else, what with the magic, and regression, but no, my emotions got the better of me. Just thinking of her upset me. But there it was, I realized, the kind of person I might be able to truly interact with, on a significant, meaningful level. The problem was there was no one in the world I knew of that fit the bill, with the exception of antique shop girl. Any interaction with someone normal would have to accompany secrets. It would all be based on lies. I’d feel awful about it at every turn. But, someone with magic too would be someone with whom I could speak of the things the general public would assume me out of my mind for. As I stopped in my tracks, mind reeling with this realization that I felt should have come far earlier, I noticed, with my lounge to my left, that there to my right was a blank, unlabeled white door.

I stared. It was a “dream door”, as the book dubbed it, the kind that led into an empty, blank white space, in which creation could take place. Creation within the mind that could be forced upon the world. There were limitations, partially I suppose in the body and mind of the user, but the potential remained limitless. Elizabeth, Elias, my house, and my sub-dimensional vacation home, as well as Elias’s perhaps I should say banishment, had all been done via dream doors. Should I really do what I was considering? Well, I suppose the question was irrelevant. My hand was already on the doorknob before I realized what I was doing. Would it work? Would it have consequences I wasn’t expecting, or prepared to handle? From what the book’s last bearer had said pretty much the entirety of the development of regression in the past decade and a half had been due to a small change that had grown over time. If I changed something, just how much fallout could I expect? Well, only through action would I know, though I felt like a hypocrite as I stepped out onto empty whiteness, letting the door slip closed behind me, only to realize I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing.

Retreating from the dream door I scanned the hall a moment, and raised a hand, the rune, like all of them, radiating multicolored illumination in a soft glow while I was there, in place of the coloration of their ink, and I drew a few symbols I recalled, being rewarded with a floating door that I wasted no time heading through, finding myself standing in my bedroom, my own sleeping physical body there, just to my left. I had turned semi-opaque, composed of the same glimmering, shining light that was emitted from my runes when I was in my head. I immediately felt a little lightheaded, a little weak, but I figured that was to be expected when I was existing as disembodied energy. While my physical body slept I quickly stepped to my desk, sitting, and pulling open the warm book of arcane knowledge that lay there. I’d need to do a little studying before I could really put myself into this project. Hmmm. Social interaction... Just needed the right runes, needed to make sure I was doing things properly. I could do this.

I threw myself headlong into my reading, and sat there for hours as the clock ticked, reading and re-reading, memorizing symbols and mathematics. I couldn’t take the book with me, for fear that some unfortunate series of events would strand it in my head without leaving me means to get to it, so I had to memorize everything I’d need. When finally I felt I was ready I rose, and returned through the door to my head, drawing a quick symbol behind me and watching the portal fade from existence. Back into the dream door I stood, for some indeterminate period of time, completely still, in a blank space stretching infinitely in every direction, on non-existent “ground”.

Deep breaths, bringing to mind all the symbols and numbers, the wording of the passages in question. I could do this, I told myself. I could and I would. Something had to be done. If I didn’t do this, didn’t do something, anything, I had little doubt things would not go well for me in the future. Ten years of abuse, the loss of the love of my life by my own hand, being incapable of being around the one person I’d hoped to talk to. Something needed to go right in my life. I barely noticed as I started moving. Runes, six, one in every direction, like a cube surrounding me, each lit up like neon, floating in air where palm or foot had traced it, all creating symbolic representation of everything outside of myself as my canvas. I wanted to avoid too many definites, so a representation of the world itself was out, partially because for all I knew the world may have had just the two of us who knew magic. If it was just us two then it rather defeated the purpose, as she was the last person I wanted drawn to me just then. Symbols and numbers were scribbled in the air before me with a finger, inside my loosely defined cube. A means, an effect. A drifting.

Who knew how long it might take, but a drifting towards me of people with similar interests was a minor enough effect, hopefully carrying minor consequences. If it worked the way I intended I’d eventually start meeting people who could understand me. It was merely a matter of time. I checked my runes and numerals, and checked again for good measure, before concentrating, and pushing the change through onto reality, overlaying those new changes onto the fabric of the universe, forcibly rewriting small bits here and there towards an end.

Immediately winded, I stumbled to my knees, breathing hard, head aching, in my cube. With a slow groan I pushed myself up, staggering out to the hall to collapse in a chair. I was so tired, so very drained, I had to wonder how antique shop girl had managed what she had without going into a coma or something. I was briefly tempted to visit her head to get a look at her dream rooms, but almost immediately dismissed the idea. I tried my hardest not to abuse my power, and to invade someone’s head without permission and start poking around would be the greatest breach of privacy possible. Not to mention the fact she knew the same manners of magic I did, I assumed, which meant, if I went in her head, in all likelihood she’d be there too. Not only would I be trespassing, but I’d be caught as well. I’d been wronged by her actions, and I really didn’t want to do something so petty as wrong her in return. I slipped off to sleep as soon as my thoughts slowed down.

Days passed without change, while I kept telling myself what I’d done would take time to come to fruition, that three or four days wouldn’t be long enough for real effect. I would have to wait, and wait. And then wait some more. And, uh, a little more...? I was trying to be patient, but it’d been so long already since I’d had someone other than my sister that every hour of every day felt like a millennia. Elizabeth showered and smothered me with attention, trying to make up for it, to placate me while I waited, or at least distract me, and it did help, to a degree. It helped a little less this wound up having me in diapers those few days, but, really, regression situations were, as Elizabeth said, when we interacted the most. Regression was bittersweet for me, because it’d been demonized by my parents all through childhood, but at the same time it’d always made me feel so good. Every diaper I wore, every childish act or activity, warred with the block in my head, constructed by those that had given me life. It was something I’d grown up with, talk of the sickness and wrongness of the whole lifestyle. So great was their aversion that my growing interest as I aged became a source of abuse.

With the exception of my home school work Liz did her best to keep up full scale regression, and I admit while it often felt awkward it was nice having someone attend to me like that. Though, every attempt to get me outside all dressed up like that was met with a lot of obstinate pouting and refusal. Which of course was countered by her pleading, and those big eyes. Those damned big eyes... She wore me down, proposing outings several times a day, until finally I acquiesced, having been plied with promises of ice cream. In my book that was playing dirty, but at least she’d shut up about it, and I’d get ice cream.

As I stood by my mirror in the mid-morning, garbed only in an absorbent undergarment, fabricated sister rifling through my closet, I sighed, resigned to my fate. I was going to be taken in public, against my own desires. At least the embarrassment would distract me from my impatience better than sitting around watching cartoons. In a whirl I was being dressed. A pale green onesie, shortalls with a ribbon attached that had a pacifier tied to it, socks, and sneakers. A single glance down over my bare, smooth legs made me again glad I’d gotten rid of my body hair via magic. I’d never been much for shaving, and leg hair would have just looked weird with such a childish outfit. Trust me, I’d seen it before, and it always looked off to me.

“There we go!” Liz chirped, smiling and sticking the dangling pacifier into my mouth, while I rolled my eyes “All dressed, and so cute. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

It wasn’t, but the worse part hadn’t happened yet. I just sucked my pacifier, crossing my arms over the front of my shortalls, and the ducky design on the front pocket, while my foot tapped on the carpet impatiently. The sooner we left the sooner we’d be back, and this whole humiliating episode would be over. At times like that I often wondered just how much Elizabeth was enjoying treating me like that. I knew how much she’d been initially programmed to, but she’d long since grown into a real person, grown her own inclinations.

The way I’d designed her she’d only been inclined toward that to any significant extent in situations it would help my mood. However, she’d since seemed to develop an enjoyment in the act of treating me like an oversized toddler, especially in public. Trips to the park to play on the playground, or have a picnic. Specific shopping pertaining to regression. And then even an enjoyment dragging me along on trivial things like grocery shopping, where she lamented the fact I was far too large to fit in the child seat in the cart itself. I let her get away with it, sometimes, partially to placate her, and partially to make a show of pouting and fussing at the idea to hide the degree to which I enjoyed it too. The day I admitted it aloud was the day my self-loathing would explode, and turn a few square miles into a smoking crater.

But however much I’d complain, she knew she’d get me to agree eventually. I could only take so much time cooped up in the house before the chance to stretch my legs a little would more and more begin to outweigh the embarrassment of being treated that way around other people. I’d inevitably agree before my boredom with toys and television could reach critical levels, effectively extending the length of time during which I could take full time babying. I was used to so much more physical activity that quite quickly my sister could either wind up with a cranky brat on her hands, or I’d tire of the situation entirely.

An hour and a half and a trip in my car seat later I was in the same position, arms crossed over the ducky on the front of my shortalls, suckling the fake nipple of my pacifier, only then being pushed about the mall in the next town over from home in my stroller. This was the ultimate, for Liz, in regression situations, only as infrequent as it was because there was no mall in my little home town. Between food, looking at regression-related furniture and clothing, and the toy store, she had innumerable opportunities to embarrass me and dress me up.

A good three and a half hours including a lunch in a highchair passed before I finally got the promised ice cream when we were on the way home. It had been an eventful trip, of course, likely all planned beforehand. She’d ensured that what I had for lunch was likely to be messy by getting pizza and wings. I had never been able to eat wings without getting my fingers and mouth slathered in sauce, which she insisted was adorable, and was unpreventable because she’d neglected to give me any napkins. In the toy store she mused, aloud, on whether or not I should be limited to choices proper for children three and under or not, and had a ten minute chat with the caretaker of some other regressed type who happened to be in the store too. He and I shared a knowing glanced filled with exasperation as they talked over us. And then there was the clothing. She dressed me up in twenty-six different outfits, parading me to and from the big mirrors in the store over and over exclaiming about how cute I was. Yes, twenty-six. I counted. Six of them were purchased, and all were things I would never choose to dress myself in. I loved it all, but hated myself for it, and doubt I stopped blushing once. At least I got ice cream, was distracted from my troubles for a while, and got out of the house. And thankfully I didn’t need changing while we were out, partially because I’d held it in until we were in the car already. I hated changing in public restrooms, even though all the fold out changing tables were in stalls those days. I was fit to burst by the time I was being buckled into my car seat again, where I could finally let go.

As much as, deep down, I enjoyed being shown off in public like that, it was a relief to get home. I was starting to get antsy for more physical activity, and spending the day in my stroller and car seat wasn’t quite cutting it, so once home I spent some time in the back yard, in the dirt under the lemon trees with my toys. It wasn’t much, but it was better than just sitting around. Eventually though I was called in so I could be cleaned up for dinner, and fussed and fidgeted while I was redressed in just a shirt, leaving my infantile undergarment exposed. I blushed at that, but I was being taken care of, so I didn’t get to pick my clothes unless I was asked my opinion. Of course it was into the highchair with me, and I got to watch Elizabeth putter around the kitchen finishing up making my dinner. And by my dinner I mean my dinner; she didn’t seem to intend to eat that evening. Must have been nice to have the option...

I was soon enduring being fed, and reflecting on how much more of a mess it made compared to feeding myself, when I heard “You know, since we missed our hiking a few days ago, I figured we could go out and find a nice cliff or hillside to have a picnic on tomorrow.”

I perked up so suddenly the spoon aimed at my mouth experienced a sudden collision with my chin, splattering mashed potatoes onto me, as I beamed up at her. Yeah, that was my sister alright. After having me cooped up in the house for days she knew just how to avoid sending me full on into cabin fever. A nice, several hour walk through some rough terrain to reach an out of the way location for a nice picnic. If she didn’t do something to alleviate my slowly mounting boredom, which the mall trip had failed to do, I’d start getting irritable, and eventually even hostile. I needed the physical activity, and a long day of travel on foot would certainly help. The exact right solution to defuse me, proposed right when the turning point in my mood was approaching. She always seemed to have perfect timing, knowing precisely how far she could push things before having to distract me with something appealing I could actually agree to without feeling awful about it. I went to bed that night in an air of palpable excitement.











Chapter the Fourth:

I huffed and puffed, sweating as I followed Elizabeth up yet another rocky hillside, grinning despite the fatigue slowly settling into my limbs. After a hasty breakfast I’d dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and my hiking boots, and the two of us passed through the barren white master bedroom, and the floating door residing therein, to my “vacation home”. I’d created it early into my forays into magic, as an escape, both from my family and from the real world, in the process creating the little sub-dimension in which it was constructed, connected to the world by a door only I and Elizabeth could see and touch. This door was situated simultaneously floating above the carpet in our master bedroom and floating above the lawn of the vacation house, depending on which side of the door you were on. The house itself was an eclectic mess of different materials, from its obsidian spire, and levels primarily held up by live tree trunks, to the glass balcony over a waterfall. It was rarely used, most often just to stash gear for traversing the ever-changing terrain surrounding it, leaving me thankful that it was impervious to dust, or I’d be in for bugging my sister into a lot of cleaning. You didn’t expect I’d do that crap myself, did you? Not if I could help it.

The area around the house was something more amazing yet, being different each and every time I went through that door. Some days it was forest, some days steppes, some days sun-warmed mesas and sand dunes. Walking through that door you never knew what would meet you on the other side, but it was always a thing of beauty, completely untouched and unspoiled.

On that particular morning we were climbing through ravines, up steep hills, and through patches of long grasses taking root in the dense, stone-filled earth. I needed occasional breaks pretty soon, but my frustratingly unfazed sibling was perfectly content to wait for me. May sound strange, but I almost always wore something absorbent on those little ventures. A diaper change on a windswept cliffside, beneath an endless vault of blue sky, is an amazing thing to experience. Sounds strange, right? It did to me, however magical and relaxing changes always seemed to be when I was diapered on our little excursions, which was more often than not. The primary reason I’d wear diapers, or, in this instance, pull-ups, for our adventures, however, was actually just because it really beat pissing in bushes.

By the position of the sun high overhead I assumed it to be around noon when finally we stopped, and I collapsed, guzzling water from my canteen as I lay in short grass atop a narrow plateau bearing a single, stunted willow tree. As I rested there, rocky crags falling away to one direction, the other to windswept plain harboring a sea of long grasses, undulating gently in the faint breeze, Liz was laying out a blanket, and a large lunch. I would refuel, rest, and we’d head back to the house to be home in time for dinner, and I’d retire to bed early, sore and satisfied. Or that’s how it generally happened, at least.

I devoured sandwiches, fruit, and a selection of other foods that didn’t require silverware, and multiple glasses of lemonade and water, before settling in against that little tree to rest up for the return journey. However, my almost nap was rudely disturbed by at the sound of a massive rumbling and grinding, seeming to drown out all other noise, occupying the air with its oppressive volume. I heard it for seconds before I felt it, shaking my little cliff, gravel rattling down the rock face mere feet away due to the powerful vibration. Nearly tossed from my perch I hurriedly grabbed for a handhold in the branches, peering, mouth hanging open wide, as, in the distance, a massive jutting sheet of rock emerged from the ground, thrust upward by the quaking earth in a place it never should have occurred.

An earthquake? Impossible. This land around my vacation home existed in a sub-dimension branching from my dreamscape. It was effectively in my head, or at least adjacent. It was generated randomly as I moved to fill in in any direction. There were no tectonic plates, there was no magma beneath to cause hot spots. Unless the terrain called for it there couldn’t even exist volcanoes. There was no way an earthquake could have occurred. It wasn’t physically possible. But there was proof, right there, in the distance, standing undeniable in defiance to everything. Elizabeth was equally surprised, merely staring until I split the ensuing silence with “Uh, I suppose we should investigate that.”

Though I didn’t say so out loud, the primary reason I wanted to investigate was not the impossible occurrence, or the novelty of a rocky ridge to traverse. No, it was because, despite behind at a high enough elevation I could see over it, I could discern nothing on the far side, as though a blurry haze was obscuring my sight right where that wall of stone stood. We made record time back to the house, that sheet of rock becoming more defined as we neared, standing some twelve feet tall, perhaps two hundreds yards from the house, gently angled our direction, and running in an amazingly straight line. I wanted quite badly to go and investigate right then and there, but Elizabeth asserted that it was an adventure that would have to wait until morning. I was filthy, tired, and hungry, she was insisting, and, with a sigh of exasperation, I followed her out into the house in the real world. She was right, I admitted, at least in my head. If there was an adventure waiting to be had, then when it was starting to get dark, and I was exhausted, was not the optimal time. I showered, had dinner, and headed to bed early, itching to be back out there to find out what was on the other side of that big sheet of unnatural stone that should not have been.

I woke bright and early, bathed in warm morning sunlight, eager to be up, and go check out the unusual change to my sub-dimension, and relieved not to be penned in by the artificial restraint of the rails on my bed. I was up in a flash, dressing quick, and popping into my sister’s room across the hall. Stepping over I shook her prone form where she lay in bed, amongst the pristine cleanliness she somehow managed to maintain in her bedroom “C’mon, Lizzie, we gotta go check out that wall!”

I didn’t wait for a reply beyond her tired, bemused expression, heading off towards the stairs, talking to myself “I wonder what it is, where it came from. I know I definitely didn’t put it there, but there’s no way it could have happened naturally. We totally gotta check this thing out...”

I ate a quick breakfast on Elizabeth’s insistence, and finally we were off through that floating door, moving through knee length grass. It wasn’t far, really, to that newly formed ridge, and before I knew it I was running a hand over rough stone. But... it didn’t feel right. It seemed to radiate a faint, worrying energy, causing my flesh to tingle when the rune on my palm touched it. Elizabeth couldn’t feel it, but it was definitely there. Something felt faintly wrong about it, as though it wasn’t supposed to be. Which, technically, it wasn’t. What might await on the other side? I had to know, in spite of any self-preservation instincts I may have had, and just my luck, since that world was an extension of my dreamscape, even without being asleep I could still work magic there. It was hard to focus with the jittery excitement flooding my veins, drawing a pair of runes, the circle shape and a symbol of nonexistence, against the uneven stone surface. I pressed my hand, the rune in my palm, to the sun-warmed stone, which tingled slightly against my flesh, and took a deep breath, before a little mental push. A wide, circular section of the ridge, about my height, disappeared before my eyes, the impossibly clean edges of the cut making it look as though that section had never been there at all.

I could only blink for a moment. There, on the other side, was a girl, hand up, palm flat, like mine, a matching glowing rune adorning it. Just like mine... She stared with wide, bright grey eyes from beneath the wide brim of a hat that mostly contained her messy, short brown hair, the majority of her form concealed underneath a leather duster sizes too large for her, nearly reaching to her knees, the sleeves sagging off her shoulders to brush at fingertips. Beneath hung the hem of a dull brown skirt over heavy looking boots. She looked about as surprised as I felt, to be honest, and I had little doubt our expressions mirrored each other as well as our pose did. Behind her and to the side was a giant of a woman, standing at least seven and a half feet tall, looking surprisingly kindly and comforting despite her imposing size, dressed simply in blouse and skirt, long brown hair spilling around her shoulders. Past them lay an arid backdrop of scrub brush, cacti, ravines, and dry river beds. And dirt. Lots and lots of dirt.

“Um, hello...” I muttered awkwardly. She stared a moment longer, stuttering “H-Howdy...”

“So, magic?” I scratched awkwardly at the back of my neck, slowly lowering my extended hand while she did the same “Learn it from some mysterious book?”

She just nodded, and for some moments silence hung heavy and palpable over us, until I finally made the offer “Uh, wanna come over to my house over there? You know, to talk. I’ve only ever met one other person with magic before...”

She nodded silently, and tailed us back to the house in a daze, while I was starting already to think I had had a hand in that wall showing up after all. We soon sat in an awkward silence while Elizabeth was pouring lemonade. I sipped at the contents of my glass a bit, eventually speaking “I, uh, guess I’ll go first. I’m Anne, but everyone just calls me Annie. I’m a seventeen year old highschool drop out, and I enjoy nature, sports, and exploration. I got my magic from a mysterious book.”

“Uh, Mah turn I guess,” came her voice, in a vaguely Southern accent, “though Ah can’t rightly say I understood all that... Uh, mah name’s Myra. Ah’m sixteen years of age, and Ah’m an apprentice in and live above a machine shop, where Ah mostly work on parts for train engines. Ah like goin’ places and tinkering with things, makin’ things with mah hands. And mah magic came out of a strange book that I was given by a travelin’ merchant.”

It only got more confusing and unfamiliar from there. The town she lived in had a military airfield, she mentioned, but she wasn’t allowed to work on the parts for the zepplins until she finished her apprenticeship. Zepplins? Yes, zepplins. And it became increasingly apparent she couldn’t identify half the things in my house, and had no idea how we got the lemonade so cold. It was almost immediately obvious, dangling right in front of my face the whole time “We’re not even from the same reality...”

“Wh-What!?” she sputtered, mouth hanging slack as she stared at me. I had the feeling she hadn’t encountered the theory of parallel realities before. On the other hand, I’d rather been expecting I might wind up with people not of my world, granted I doubted there were many of us in a given world. I’d just been expecting parallel worlds that, you know, matched up better. A comparative history lesson ensued, as we compared notes, finding we did indeed come from the same world by locating just where our respective realities branched. The civil war, as it turned out. Where she came from the South had succeeded in seceding, and the continent only fractured further from there. California eventually became its own nation, various Native American nations popped up, a fragmented Mexico controlled sections of the central and southern areas of North America.

And then there was her country of origin, the Republic of New Texas, formed around much of what I knew as Arizona and Nevada, settled initially by refugees when Texas had been retaken by the Spanish. Technology hadn’t developed quite the same, with the seeming inability to move beyond a perpetual Wild West phase of guns, saloons, and war. But still, they hadn’t exactly been slacking off, either. Aerial combat waged with war balloons, mass and public transit in the form of rail running practically everywhere, complex devices of clockwork and steam power. Like a damned steampunk novel. I found it fascinating, and likewise she was fascinated by things like electricity and the television. Eventually, at my urging, we parted for a few minutes, fetching our respective books for comparison. They’d been identical, sitting next to each other on the coffee table, with the exception that only one of them called for my soul, drawing me to its pages, while it felt exceedingly wrong to touch the other, like my very being revolted at its proximity. The difference was more noticeable when they were opened, as we couldn’t make out the contents of each other’s books, which just looked out of focus, like looking overtop the ridge outside, or through someone else's prescription glasses.

However, as much as we might have been able to talk shop about magic, even having a short conversation about the little sub-dimensions we’d made for ourselves, we didn’t seem to have much in common. Sure, we shared enjoyment of physical activity, but beyond that we didn’t have a lot to talk about. I mean, our origins were so radically different there was very little common ground. Almost anything I might want to talk about she’d never heard of, and vice versa. Or so I thought, at first. With her seemingly lost in thought over the situation, yet again, still reeling, an uncomfortable silence reigned. Several failed attempts at conversation were only just behind us, and I honestly had no clue what we could possibly talk about. She didn’t notice, in her reverie, as the large woman accompanying her lifted her skirt, exposing, while I stared, what looked like rubber, and thickness between Myra’s legs. It wasn’t until she was going to slip fingers in the leg the girl took notice, eyes springing wide open, cheeks flushing red, as she shoved her skirt down, shooting a glare at the woman, hissing “Mother!”

“Just checking, dear.” the woman smiled at her, apparently oblivious to the humiliation she was inducing. Eyes so wide I felt they might pop out I very slowly raised a single, shaking digit towards Myra’s nether regions “Are you wearing...?”

She only blushed more profusely, as my slow smile was expanding into a grin “And not because you need them, right? And that’s not really your mother, is it? You made her with magic.”

If it had been possible for her to grow pale while blushing deep crimson I’m sure she would have, by the look of horror settling into her face. With a cry I popped to my feet, pumping a fist in the air “Yes! Ha! The magic worked! That’s why our spaces collided! It all makes sense now! I was starting to doubt it was working right. But I did it. I did the magic and it worked. It worked! Ha, I am awesome, and I dare anyone to claim otherwise! I have...”

And she went from embarrassed to embarrassed and confused, climbing to her feet, and abruptly interrupting my blabbering with a loud “W-What’re you talkin’ ‘bout?”

I grinned at her so wide I felt my head might unhinge “Well, I’ve been kinda lonely recently. So I decided to fix the problem with magic, so I could make friends, and have company. I suspected that our places running into each other might have been my fault, but now I’m absolutely sure. We have been brought together because we share more in common than just magic.”

Her grey eyes went wide like dinner plates “Y-Y’mean, you...?”

“Wear them too?” I finished for her, a light blush dusting my cheeks “Yeah, sometimes. It’s actually not that uncommon where I come from. My book’s last bearer kinda had something to do with that.”

She was clearly in shock over this revelation, though I couldn’t exactly relate. I heard, back in the dark ages of regression, before the magical intervention that made it more common, back before the late nineties, most people with that kind of interest never knew anyone else shared it. I figured she was going through that just then, the realization she wasn’t the only one. Having grown up with it around me already, I’d never had to go through that, but I figured I could assume I knew what it was like. I just waited for her to come out of her near-comatose state, thinking of what I’d be able to do with a potential playmate around that I hadn’t, you know, crafted myself. It’d been so long since I’d had someone I could do that kind of thing with. Not since... Well, I really didn’t want to think about that.

Things were pretty awkward after that, and pretty quiet, but it very slowly eased enough her story came spilling out. She was the oldest and last surviving of six siblings, having grown up in her childhood having to assist with her brothers and sister, while her parents had had no time for her. Until, that was, the train crash three years ago that had claimed all of her siblings and her mother, and the war that had taken her father months later, leaving her all on her own barely into her teens. Her master in her engineering apprenticeship was like a second father to her, but she’d felt starved for parental attention all her life, yet doomed never to have it out of a lack of family. Her jealousy of her siblings growing up had budded into an interest in childishness that she’d never been able to sate. She’d been lonely, dejected, moving through life without really seeing or feeling anything. It was sounding a little familiar to be honest.

But then, several months previous, when a caravan had been passing through town, and she’d been walking to the saloon for a drink, she’d felt a strange tugging in her chest, that I could definitely relate to. It drew her to one of the caravan’s horse-drawn wagons, where a shaggy-haired man had been shuffling things around, and, just as she approached, had opened a case, revealing the spine of a book, between several others, that had taken her breath away. He had turned, looked her in the eye, and, without a word, slipped the book out and handed it to her, despite the fact he certainly hadn’t seen her coming, as though he’d expected someone to be there for him to hand the book to. While she’d held that book he’d taken her by the shoulders, touched his forehead to hers, and quietly wished her luck. Two words, “Good luck”, and she’d never seen him since. Her life had taken on new dimensions when the magic in the book had allowed her to create a space outside her world, where she could explore her inclinations, with the assistance of the entity of gears and magic that was her false mother. For the first time she was discovering the wonder of an actual childhood, and the attention she’d always craved.

We never even noticed her mother and my sister slipping from the room as I told my story in return, the sad tale of a girl who knew what made her happy, in a family in which that happiness was both forbidden and hated. The ice was broken, the morning flashing by as we talked, laughed, and generally enjoyed each other’s company, sharing stories of triumphs and amusement, both blushing about some of the things we found ourselves revealing. Still, we didn’t understand each other all that well, coming from places so very different from each other, but I was feeling already we were kindred spirits, destined to be close. She was loud, once she’d gotten past, or at least gotten sidetracked from the embarrassment of the situation. She was restless, and couldn’t go for long without doing some manner of physical activity or fiddling with something with her hands. She had difficulty being feminine, having grown up and been more comfortable with the mass of boisterous boys that had been most of her family. She was practically me, with a different background and appearance. And an accent. She stayed around through a lunch of sandwiches, though excused herself before dinner, for reasons I couldn’t coerce her into discussing. My assumption was that it had to do with what was between her legs. She’d been there several hours, after all, and was no doubt in need of changing by then. More than once she'd become quite quiet and embarrassed suddenly, and unable to look me in the eye, only for the peculiar behavior to pass shortly after. I had a hunch just what had gone on in those instances. I was sad to see her go, but was afterwards settled into the couch with my sister, uttering quietly “And I think I just made a new friend...”

The fabricated sibling to my side just smiled at me knowingly. I found it suspicious, but made no mention just then. I’d seen that look before...


Chapter the Fifth:

Myra and I were both quite eager to meet again, if you go by the fact we both arrived, the following morning, at that hole in the stone wall that amounted to a border simultaneously. Just like when we’d first laid eyes on each other, except without the glowing palms, both accompanied by our respective fabricated family member. A smile and a greeting later I finally got to get a look at her little sub-dimensional space, though I can’t say there was much more to see. Dirt and sand, rocky desert terrain with brush and cacti. It seemed so empty, but on the short walk to its center I could see there were still things living there. Jackrabbits darted from burrows and bushes. Birds chirped and fluttered around cacti and very dry looking trees, filling the still, arid air with twittering song. Leery coyotes observed us from far off hilltops. It was, Myra told me as we walked, a reflection of where she was from, and she often liked to stride out into the desert, to assure herself that even when things seem desolate and empty there is still life.

The form of her home in that very warm, dusty place honestly wasn’t surprising. A small fortress squatting on a low hill, consisting of several adobe structures, surrounded by a wooden palisade wall, complete with guard towers at each corner, and a huge gate that was operated by some complex mechanism of gears and winches to open and close its ponderous bulk. Inside it felt like a ghost town. An empty stable here, an unfurnished barracks there, a wagon that seemed like it’d never been hooked to anything before. The only areas that even showed any traffic, any prints in the dirt of the courtyard, were a house tucked in a corner and an expansive, cluttered shop full of tools and pieces of machines I didn’t understand the workings of.

While she headed to get us something to drink I eyeballed the various little things on the shelves of her living room. Intricate little clockwork toys, half-built devices next to a jeweler’s loupe and tiny tools, and what looked like a perfectly functional lever action rifle I made sure not to touch. It was all very interesting, especially the little scale model zepplin that, when she returned, and spied me looking at, showed me it would actually float when cranked. I stared in amazement as I took a swig from the bottle she handed me, something lukewarm and alcoholic burning its way down my throat.

That morning was much like the one before, only with more alcohol. She recalled tales over beer of her exploits doing stupid drunken things with neighborhood boys, and getting shot at by farmers while trespassing, and in response I told of the times I’d gotten wasted with the football team and done delinquent things I didn’t remember particularly clearly afterward. Her tolerance for alcohol became quite apparently higher than mine when I actually spilled the humiliating story of the time not long after my fingers had healed from being broken that I’d actually gone to play in one of the games drunk. I’d managed to play it off as jitters after being away from the game a bit, by concealing myself to some degree with my helmet. I’d taken a flask with me, and by the last quarter I was totally wasted, and wound up wetting myself when some guy on the other team had tackled me. Well, wet myself, and, as we tumbled through the grass, him as well. He was so pissed off that I’d peed on him he punched me and got fouled. I had a bruise on my left breast for a week. Myra didn’t understand the game at all, and though it didn’t occur to me at the time some degree of her laughter may have been her humoring me because I was kinda tipsy. She switched to serving coffee pretty soon.

When I professed an urgent need to empty my bladder she showed off her bathroom, quite proud of the indoor plumbing, which was all shiny, ornate copper with exposed piping. I noted before heading back out that though there was plumbing all the water was room temperature, but when I arrived back in the living room, and checked the doorless entryway into a kitchen/dining room, Myra was nowhere to be found. For that matter, now that my buzz was wearing off, where had my sister, and Myra’s mother figure, who had been introduced as Martha, disappeared to? I came to the realization then I hadn’t seen those two since we’d entered the fort. Where had everyone gone? Feeling confused, and still a little intoxicated, I began to wander the house, peeking through doorways as I went, until I saw it.

I froze in the second doorway past the bathroom, staring. Dark, lacquered wood paneling, carved with intricate knotwork coated the walls from about waist height down, the upper walls and ceiling smooth white plaster disturbed only by the lamps built into the walls. The dark wood floorboards were pristine, concealed here and there by contrastingly colorful pastel rugs. Despite the room’s size there was really very little in it. An armoire matching the panels sat against one wall, next to a chest, and a low table. Dolls, stuffed animals, little toys of carved wood and clockwork were scattered around, primarily focused near the table. At the other end of the room, low to the ground, was an oversized bassinet. Literally, a darkly lacquered wooden rocking cradle nearly the size of a twin bed, complete with a fabric hood shading a portion of it, positioned right below the large windows that dominated the far wall. And in a corner a wooden cabinet, a bit over waist high, also matching the other furniture, complete with carvings beneath the sheen that shined in the bright sunlight filtering through the windows’ glass. But it was no regular cabinet. The flat, empty surface on top, the size and shape. I’d been into regression long enough to know a changing table when I saw one, even if it was the most ornate I’d ever seen. Granted the toys and the cradle I had little doubt that’s what it was.

Just to be sure, or I guess more to satisfy my own curiosity as to what I’d find inside, I slowly stepped across the room to the cabinet, and pulled open one door, then the other, to see pretty much what I expected. Stacks of fluffy cloth filled most of the inside, along with a stack of what were definitely rubber diaper covers. Plus a large bucket, which was empty at that moment, and a little ceramic bowl containing fasteners that looked similar to but not quite like safety pins. Of course, I realized, since they didn’t have plastic there’d be no disposable diapers. I’d never tried cloth, myself, and was startled from my contemplation on what it might be like when the silence was split by the creak of hinges. I looked up to see Myra in the doorway, face flushed crimson. Immediately the cabinet was snapped shut, and I blushed as well, feeling suddenly like I’d been rummaging through someone’s underwear drawer. Actually, I guess I had been...

“Uh, n-nice nursery...” I stuttered, the both of us unable to look directly at each other. She gestured back at the hall “C-Can we, uh...?”

A nod, and I followed her out of the room, where she quickly shut the door, attaining a color that looked a little less like her face was going to burst into flame by the time we reached the living room. A glance back and forth, and I queried “Have you seen our, uh, family members? You disappeared while I was in the bathroom, and I noticed they weren’t out here. I went to see if they were somewhere else in the house and, well, I guess you know the rest.”

She scratched idly at the back of her head, eyes scanning the room a moment “Ah was certain they came in. Ah went lookin’. Didn’t find ‘em.”

And so began the epic quest to locate our fabricated relations. Well, okay, not so epic. It lasted all of ten seconds. They were out in the courtyard talking when we went outside, though Myra insisted they hadn’t been there when she checked, and smiled our way when we approached. What were they doing out there? Had they been out there conspiring the whole time we’d been inside drinking? Knowing my sister I doubted there was anything else they could have been up to. Elizabeth grinned at me, and I immediately found myself blushing, before she could even say anything. I knew that look... After a moment I wilted slightly when she said “Guess what.”

“Do I have to...?” I muttered, shuffling my feet in the dirt. Her grin only widened when she announced “You have a play date tomorrow with your new friend! Her mommy’s bringing her over after lunch for you to play together.”

Myra and I just stared for a moment, then shared a look of panic and bewilderment, especially on her side, before she uttered “Wh-What?”

Her massive mother figure gave a warm smile down at her “We talked ‘bout it, an’ we figure the best way to get ya acclimated to everything would be to get ya neck deep in it right quick. Ya can’t tell me ya haven’t wanted someone to play with.”

“But, but...” if at all possible Myra’s face was even brighter than when I’d been looking at her diapers. Her mother just patted her messy mop of brown hair “It’s been decided, Dear.”

Myra clearly wasn’t as used to someone else making decisions for her as I was, but I figured I couldn’t fault their logic. I wasn’t a stranger to being babied around others, or to play dates, so it wouldn’t be too bad for me, but this was entirely foreign territory for her. Like entering a cold swimming pool, though, indeed perhaps the best method was to just jump right in. By immediately immersing her in the situation surely it’d be easier to just go with the flow than some long, protracted process. It’d no doubt be awkward at first, sure, but she’d get used to it faster, and I’d finally have a playmate again. That’s what I wanted, right? I was pretty sure it was. I’d gone to a lot of wasted effort if it wasn’t...

“Run along, Tumbleweed.” the tall figure said, affectionately mussing up Myra’s hair, while I chuckled. She hurried in the other direction with me trailing after, chuckling “‘Tumbleweed’?”

“‘Cause Ah never brush mah hair...” she muttered, trying to get the hair in question to lay down flat again. And, though it’d have worked better if she was blonde, it rather fit. I laughed until she shot me a dirty look, and my sister and I departed not long after. Myra had gotten pretty quiet, and tended to blush and look away when anyone looked at her, likely stressing out over our upcoming play date, so I took it as my cue to head out. Elizabeth and I trekked back through the hot desert to the jutting stone wall, on through the hole, and back through the disembodied doorway into the real world, where I found myself constantly looking at the clock, wondering just what the following afternoon would bring. Would it go well? It would be Myra’s first time being babied around anyone but the mother she’d created for that purpose, which I expected she never dreamed might happen. And, while I was plenty excited, I couldn’t help feeling vaguely disgusted with myself over it.

That afternoon found me emerging from the shower in the steam-filled bathroom, the spray from the showerhead stemmed to just a trickle and drip. Long, pale hair plastered itself to wet skin as I stepped across textured tile to stand at the sink, rivulets of water running down mildly tanned flesh to pool where my feet touched. I raised a hand, wiping away condensation from the mirror, staring into my smeared, wet reflection with a sigh “What am I doing?”

I looked tiredly into the shining green eyes in the slack face in the mirror, almost as if expecting the figure looking back at me to answer. But, of course, it didn’t, it wouldn’t. No one would. I had no idea what I was doing with my life. I had magic, I had amazing power, and what did I do with it? I searched out opportunities to be treated like a child, by an entity I had created to treat me like that no less. It wasn’t normal. What would a normal person try to get out of my situation? Wealth? Fame? I could be out stopping wars and curing diseases, but what did I do when I had the capability to fix everything, to help everyone? I focused on my one most disturbing, disgusting desire. I wore diapers, and used them, and not only for urination at that. I would spend days at a time being a useless burden to the only thing that cared about my well being. I was a selfish child.

With a groan, I smacked a hand against the glass, concealing the look of abhorrence my reflection was shooting my way. Fingers trailed across the glass as I stepped away, slowly lowering myself to sit on the rim of the tub, burying my face in my hands where I sat naked and wet. The following afternoon I’d be going to my first “play date” in over a month. My first since Elias. Elias... I missed him terribly, hated myself for making him leave. Hell, I hated myself for a lot of things. Maybe, I thought, maybe I should call it off. Maybe I should cancel it. But, how would I contact Myra to tell her? I’d have to actually go talk to her. It wasn’t like she had a telephone. That sounded like an excuse... Would she be disappointed? Certainly her mother would. Did I want to do that to them? No, I didn’t, I wouldn’t. I’d disappointed too many people, myself being foremost among them, in my life; I wasn’t about to do it again. I would go, next afternoon, and we would play together. I’d do it for her. Yeah, that’s what I’d tell myself, that I’d do it for her, so I could sleep that night undisturbed by the horrid thing I was. I grabbed a towel on the way out of the bathroom, walking slowly to my room as I dried off my hair. I went to bed that night with mingled feelings of excitement and melancholy.

The following morning I was swept up in my sister’s schemes from sun-up, soon dressed up in onesie and shortalls with, you guessed it, absorbent material underneath. I suppose she was aiming for an early start, sorta warming me up for the afternoon, getting my usual annoyance and fussing with the situation out of the way. One way or another it always happened when things were starting up. I’d complain about being dressed up, remark it’d be much cleaner if I did it myself while she was feeding me, look bored and annoyed while being changed, until I could get caught up in the situation enough to lose myself. It took a little longer than usual that morning, but it happened, of course. With the application of the right stimuli it always did.

It seemed mere moments before lunch was behind me, and I was on the living room carpet in the subspace house, boredly watching cartoons, and awaiting our guests’ arrival. Which, to my amusement, was announced by a muffled voice, audible as it was approaching the entryway outside “Ah can walk mahself, Mama!”

“Ah know, Dear.” was the bemused response, followed moments later by knocking. Hastening to open the door, Elizabeth revealed a sight I had to stifle a laugh at. Our new neighbors stood there, just to the other side of the door. Or rather, Martha stood there, Myra on her hip, garbed in a yellow, knee length sun dress, unruly hair brushed out, and bound up into stubby little pigtails. The look definitely wasn’t her, that was for sure. Her large mother figure, ducking her head to fit through the doorway, stepped in, standing her charge next to me, and greeting my sister with a smile. Immediately seeing the look on my face, Myra shot me a glare, growling “You say nothin’...”

I couldn’t have opened my mouth without laughing anyway, so I just nodded with my hand clasped over it, while she blushed crimson and rather pointedly didn’t look me in the face. Once greetings between caretakers were out of the way Elizabeth grabbed my diaper bag, and led the way, Martha close behind, and Myra and I trailing, down the slope to the other side of the house, where there sat a small, pristine lake at the base of the waterfall the house was perched on. Some toys, both mine and hers, were spread in the grass, and our respective family members retreated to the shade of one of the nearby trees to observe. With the instruction to stay where they could see us, we were left to our own devices.

And so, it was up to me to try to draw my new friend out of her proverbial shell. She was clearly uncomfortable being dressed and treated as she was around others, but hey, at least she wasn’t being taken in public, right? At least her fabricated family member wasn’t parading her around humiliatingly. At least... Okay, okay, deep breath. Dark thoughts towards my sister and her tendency to show me off out of the way, I set into my task, crying out “Race you to that tree!”

“Wh-What?” she looked up, as I’d already started running, hastening to pursue with a yell of “Hey, yer cheatin’!”

Dozens of yards later I was laughing as she caught up to me, where she frowned, looking positively comical in that lacy yellow dress with those teeny tiny pigtails, lecturing “Ya don’t start a race by runnin’ off! ‘At’s not fair!”

“You’re pretty slow, anyway.” I teased, grinning down at her. She just blushed again, suddenly tugging at the hem of her dress, muttering “You try runnin’ in these things...”

On that subject, she did rather have a waddle, and was even standing a little pigeon-toed. Just how thick was what she had on under that dress? The garment was voluminous enough that, besides the secondary evidence of its presence in the way she stood and walked her padding really wasn’t evident. On the other hand, the bulky nature of my nether regions under my shortalls made the presence of my own rather visibly obvious. Grabbing her hand, I started dragging her back over to the toys with a “C’mon, let’s play.”

We showed off what had been brought along with us, her prodding at my toy trucks and things that were made of plastic, while I was eyeing her wind-up toys, and old-fashioned doll complete with a porcelain face. Middle ground was a little challenging to come to, but as the afternoon was slowly dragging past I got her to open up a bit. We were soon immersed in a pretend battle. Her toy soldiers were protecting a dirt bulwark constructed with the plastic toy shovels Elizabeth had brought for me, from my motorized infantry, who were trying to capture the valuable political hostage, whose part was being played by her dolly. You’d think something like playing with dolls and stuff in the dirt would be pretty simple, but the maturity behind the childishness shone through in the details. The reluctantly protected heiress, who was conflicted because the leader of the attack was her star-crossed lover, who she was forbidden to marry by her father the general, whose refusal was both due to his duties as a father and the fact that the man who wanted his daughter had also killed his brother months ago in the war. There was romance and political intrigue and bloody make believe carnage, all disrupted by a lot of blushing when her mother and my sister came checking our diapers.

The mood of the story rather lost due to the interruption we ended the tragic tale on the note of the general and the lover shooting each other down among the chaos of the battle. The heiress was left loveless and alone, to squander her inherited fortune on alcohol and other intoxicants in a never-ending attempt to escape her sadness, until her life was cut short in a questionably accidental automobile crash. Yeah, we were just the cheeriest pair ever, weren’t we? Drifting from the toys, we headed over towards the water, though I was sure to keep us in sight of our caretakers. I didn’t want to be getting in trouble, after all, and if I didn’t pay attention I was doubtful Myra would notice if we wandered out of sight.

The placid waters of the lake were still and clear near the bank, sparkling in late afternoon sunlight, accompanied by the gentle rushing of the nearby waterfall, concealing a small portion of the body of water beneath a cool mist. I inhaled deeply of the smell of clean, running water, while to my side my guest was marveling at what I was pretty sure, with her origins, was the only actual waterfall she’d ever seen. Eventually, I queried “So, can you swim?”

“No.” she shook her head, only seeming to be half paying attention to me, as she watched the waterfall and the mist, observing the ripples in the water slowly lessening to a smooth surface nearer the water’s edge. I smirked “Oh, it’s a good thing the water’s shallow right here.”

“What?” her face turned to me, eyebrow cocked. I quickly put on an innocent, unassuming expression, and pointed out into the water “Oh, check out the fish!”

She leaned forward, gazing with awe and wonder as the fish danced through the water below, one jumping up to snap at a low flying insect. Unable to resist any longer, I reached over, putting a hand to her lower back, and, with the smallest of pushes, sent her tumbling into the cold water with a great splash. She surfaced in a moment, seated on the stony lake bed, dress and hair soaked as she shot me a glare. A little growl and she put up a hand, demanding “Help me outta here!”

Finally letting out a chuckle I took her hand, but it was my turn to be surprised, as she braced and pulled. I was tugged off balance, sent toppling into the water next to her, and came up sputtering while she laughed. Venting a growl of my own I splashed her, was splashed back, and was soon engaged in an all out splash war, water flying everywhere as we both were drenched to the skin and laughing. When finally we dragged ourselves from the lake water was pouring off of us, and out of our completely saturated padding. Giving stifled chuckles behind her hand, Myra pointed at my diaper, swollen beneath my clothing, muttering “Yer all... puffy.”

I rolled my eyes at her “At least I could walk right, before you pulled me in.”

We laughed, playfully shoving at each other all the way to our fabricated family members, both drawn that way without really realizing it on the subconscious knowledge we needed fresh diapers, and dry clothes. That, however, got pretty awkward, once the actual changing started, granted we were less than three feet apart, simultaneously in the nude. At least we weren’t being bathed together, though I wouldn’t have put it past either of our authority figures to do that. We were both blushing bright, and making sure not to look at each other, out of courtesy. I don’t think I was the only one surprised when her mother and my sister swapped bags after undressing us, instructing each other in the act of diapering with diapers they weren’t accustomed to. I’d been curious what cloth diapers were like, sure, but I honestly hadn’t expected to find out right then.

Layers of white fabric cushioned my rear, being brought up, pinned in place, thick between my legs, with the rubber panties added on afterwards, the bulk spreading my thighs. A t-shirt, and Elizabeth pronounced me dressed, allowing me to get up. Myra and I stared at each other, and ourselves, her in a dry dress, but, blushing, holding up the hem to stare at the disposable diaper that had been taped on her, while I pushed at the thickness now residing between my legs. Meanwhile, Elizabeth was saying to Martha “... far more common where we’re from, because they’re more convenient. Much less laundry to do, since they’re just thrown away. And recent types with the cloth-like covers are even better than the plastic cover ones when it comes to air flow.”

“Little Myra does get mighty sweaty down there at times.” Martha was quickly responding. Sharing a look of mixed panic and humiliation, Myra and I hastened away from them before we’d be forced to listen in on any more of them talking about us. I really didn’t want to hear about my new friend’s sweaty ass, and she was turning into a tomato hearing it discussed. She was quickly outpacing me though, and shot a smirk over her shoulder “Who’s slow now?”

“I don’t know how you can move around in these things.” I griped as I went “It feels like I’m wearing a damn pillow between my legs.”

She just giggled at that, and started jogging away, leaving me waddling heavily after her trying to keep up. When I managed to catch her I tackled her, and we engaged in some good natured wrestling in the dirt, our clean clothes quickly dirtied again as we rolled through grass and dead leaves. Before we knew it the sun was fast setting, and we were being led back up to the house, finally parting, with promises to see each other again the next day, only with less babying and humiliation. We’d both pretty much gotten our fill for the time being. With her gone Elizabeth fed me dinner, and was soon enough letting me out of those thick cloth diapers to head to bed, mind filled with thoughts of things Myra and I could do together. That day hadn’t been too bad, had it? I’d had fun, right? I thought I did, even though I was starting to feel stupid already having spent the afternoon in diapers with someone I’d basically just met.

The following day couldn’t seem to arrive soon enough, or far enough away, for my liking. With any luck I’d manage to salvage my slowly dimming mood in the morning. We’d be out of diapers this time, at least, right? That’d be one less thing I could feel bad about. It’d be nice and normal. Just hanging out. Two friends from alternate realities, that only ever met because of a shared interest in something weird and a little bit disgusting. Perfectly, entirely, completely normal. Yeah. Ugh, I was such a freak...






Chapter the Sixth:

Myra was coerced into watching the football game with me at my urging the following day in the living room of my vacation home, while I tried to explain the game’s mechanics to her. She seemed far more interested in the function of the television itself, asking numerous questions along the way, but humored me anyway. Just like I humored her later in the day when she’d wanted to take me out shooting behind her fort, at a little makeshift shooting range full of glass bottles and failed attempts at little devices. I wasn’t all that comfortable holding a gun, didn’t much like the noise, but I went and did it anyway, because she’d asked me to. We were I suppose in an early, tenuous stage of friendship, grasping for things we could both enjoy so we’d have things to do. Grasping at straws, more like. It was hopeless, and became increasingly obvious with every activity we attemped. Video games she didn’t understand. A tour around her shop. Trying to teach her to swim. Explanations of the workings of little clockwork gadgets.

A bunch of things the other didn’t want to do, but said “Ah hell why not?” because the one proposing it seemed excited about it. At least we could both agree entirely on playing poker, though there was no real betting going on. After all, what exactly could we bet that would actually have value to the other? It was an activity we could both understand and were both comfortable with. If only we didn’t tire of it so damn quickly...

Myra and I went back and forth from her place to mine twice that day in our attempts to search out activities, ate a lunch she prepared that seemed almost entirely consisting of meat, but soon found ourselves there at my coffee table, in silence, beers close at hand, holding our cards, with the glass surface of the table between us. Silence reigned for a few very long moments, as she’d requested I turn off the TV while we played, only the sound of cards shuffling around and the clink of glass bottles as we took occasional drinks. We’d... run out of things to do. It was five twenty-six in the late afternoon, and our only activity left was growing increasingly boring. It wasn’t even sundown yet, wasn’t time for dinner, and we’d entirely exhausted our options. With not a single idea left between us we sat, drinking in silence for some fifteen minutes, only two hands of cards going by. She sighed, the cards in her hand flopping to the tabletop “Ah hate to say, but it looks like we got nothin’ left to do...”

“It’s too late in the day to start hiking now...” I slumped where I sat, shooting a glance at the window, and the slowly waning light as the sun ever so slowly eased towards the horizon. She took a long, deep breath, glanced my way momentarily, heat starting to rise up into her face as she took a long draught from her beer, quietly uttering “M-Maybe we should... y’know...”

I looked her way, then immediately away, neither of us able to meet the other’s eyes. So it had come to this? Already? I’d been hoping I could put it off, at least a day or two. The magic had brought me someone with magic, and an interest in regression, like I’d wanted, but it seemed that was all we had. What had that line been Elizabeth had said, about knowing only what you want and not what you need? Yeah... Were all our interactions doomed to this eventuality? We enjoyed few of the same things, had pretty much run dry as far as stories were concerned. All the words we really had for each other had already spilled between us. With a groan, I set my beer back down on the coffee table with a faint click “Yeah, I guess so. Let’s go.”

Her unfinished beer joined mine, cards abandoned on the table as we stood, a blush of my own matching hers as we went to peek into the study. Elizabeth and Martha, who’d been sitting together there all day, both turned their heads to look our way, as if they knew we’d be there, smiling at us. I shuffled my feet a little “Uhhh...”

Myra looked at me, then back to them, and took up the metaphorical torch, continuing my sentence “We... We’re ready to, ummm...”

“We’d like to...” the words died in my mouth, the two of us, even combined, unable to announce our intent in each other's company. But our blushing gave us away, and we averted our eyes in embarrassment simultaneously. Were we really doing this? Okay, stupid question, perhaps. We were already doing it. It’d been fated since she’d walked in my door that morning, was the oncoming tsunami I was trying feebly to keep back with my bare hands. Wordlessly the two of them stood, and ushered us upstairs, right into the nursery, with all its bright white and pastel pink, the bunny patterns around the baseboards, and matching furniture, all so rarely used it’d have been caked in dust, were it capable. Not a word was spoken, or needed as we both made sure not to look while the other was undressed by their caretaker, diapered, and redressed, soon being ushered back downstairs in matching outfits. My clothes, of course, didn’t fit her all that well, to her embarrassment. I found it kinda cute. She was a few inches shorter than I was, but those shortalls fit her well enough to function. But hell, it was water under the bridge as far as embarrassment was concerned. She couldn’t have blushed any deeper if she tried, but she seemed almost eager, despite still finding disposable diapers unusual. Well, maybe not “almost”. More like she was trying not to seem eager, and doing a mediocre job of it. I’d created a monster...

I put on a smile for her, best I could as we sat on the living room carpet, coming up with a long and complex story to accompany the toys we were playing with, like we had the day before, though my heart wasn’t in it. I was at least glad she managed to throw herself in easy enough she didn’t seem to notice I was mostly only humoring her. As much as she blushed, she was having a good time, and so I had to pretend I was too. More than I didn’t really want to be doing that right then I didn’t want to disappoint her. She was new to that sort of thing, after all, so I figured I could expect it to take time for the novelty to wear off. But even then, what else did we have to do together?

We were disrupted in our playing with the announcement of dinner time, the two of us herded into the kitchen, me put in my highchair, while Myra, apparently as she did when she was fed in her own home, sat on her mother’s lap. Dinner wasn’t anything special, just something heated up in the microwave real quick, and I suspected the only reason we weren’t eating finger food on the living room carpet was so my new friend could experience being fed while she wasn’t the only one. Honestly, it was actually pretty cute watching her being fed while doing her best to avoid looking at me, clearly further embarrassed by the bib with the ducky patterns, and the mashed potatoes getting on her face. She was certainly enjoying herself though. Just like the bottles we were fed afterwards, laid over our caretakers’ laps, heads mere inches from each other while we nursed, which was also quite novel for her. She hadn’t drank out of a baby bottle before.

With the feeding out of the way we were given pacifiers, which she also seemed to find interesting, and settled into a pile of pillows on the living room floor, with cartoons playing in the background. A sleepover. While, with Elias’ tendency to stick with me when he’d been around I’d had plenty of those, it was a new concept to her, but one that she seemed ready to explore. Great. Just great. My luck we were laying down to sleep already and I wasn’t starting to enjoy it yet. I just kept telling myself I wanted her to have a good time, over and over again, trying to convince myself.

Myra seemed to be starting to move past her embarrassment a little, which was all well and good for her, but by the look of things it meant I was going to be dragged into that kind of thing pretty frequently. Myra, with her messy hair, and her infectious smile, and her loud laugh, and her infuriating lack of the kind of self hatred I had when it came to regression. Where did she get off having a good time when I was struggling to keep up with her? To be having fun when I just wanted it to be over? Ugh!

I took the opportunity in the morning, when Martha was changing her charge, to grab onto Elizabeth in the hallway, shooting her a panicked look and a hushed, hurried whisper of “I don’t know if I can do this, Lizzie! She’s having a good time, and I’m starting to feel resentful! What do I do!?”

A gentle smile, a soft kiss on my forehead “First, Sis, calm down. Take deep breaths. Now, with me. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.”

I breathed as she instructed, letting my nerves settle slightly.

“Now,” she said, “what you need to do is get into the mood, the right head space. I know it usually takes you some time, but right now is an important time for your friend. She’s discovering herself, discovering the joy of not being alone in her interests, even if she’s having a little trouble admitting it. You want her to be happy, I know. You’re a good person, and you’re being selfless. So, how do we take your mind off it? How do we clear your head? What always helps your mood?”

It was like a lightbulb burst into appearance over my head. I immediately rushed to the window, peeking out to see woodlands spreading into the horizon. Perfect! Maybe this would work after all! Rushing back I popped into the nursery, loudly announcing “After breakfast we’re going exploring in the woods that are outside the house today!”

A strangled shriek was the immediate response, my eyes meeting a naked Myra lying on a fresh diaper on the changing table. Her arms immediately snapped in place to conceal her breasts and crotch, her already present blush deepening significantly. With a muttered apology I turned around, staring hard into the wood of the door, hastily and awkwardly spilling out “I figured we could have fun exploring and getting dirty outside. We can do what Liz and I do, and pack a picnic lunch, and just head out. Sound good?”

“Ah, Ah s’pose so...” I heard among the sound of diaper tapes being fastened, and with a nod I stepped back out of the room, shooting a glare at Elizabeth, where she stood quite obviously trying not to laugh. Rolling my eyes and turning away from her, I kinda started wishing I had to have a bowel movement just then, merely because she had to change me, and I was petty and disgusting. And disgusting. And did I mention disgusting? If I did, obviously not enough. Oh man, I really needed to stuff myself into the right mood, and fast...

It was my turn for changing when Myra was led out of the nursery freshly garbed in my clothes, looking rather like she was playing dress-up in an older sibling’s closet. She shot a little glare when I laughed, before Elizabeth tugged me into the nursery, over to the changing table. A quick change and dressing later, and Myra and I were having cereal, me in my highchair and her on Martha’s lap, eating out of plastic, wide-bottomed baby bowls while Elizabeth busied herself making our picnic lunch. I was fidgety as I ate, wanting to be up, wanting to be out. That, or back home taking a nap. Wouldn’t that be nice? We couldn’t head out soon enough for me.

Two hours later, treading the loamy soil and mossy stone of the forest floor, beneath warm dapplings of sunlight piercing through the thick canopy overhead, breathing deep the smell of trees and dirt, my mood had turned completely around. And I mean completely.

“C’mon, slowpoke!” I grinned over my shoulder, scrabbling up a short rock face, while Myra did her best to keep up “You’re falling behind!”

“Wait up!” she cried “Mah legs aren’t as long as yers!”

I only laughed, pausing a moment for her to climb after me, while Martha was shouting behind “Don’t go gettin’ along too fast, girls. Stay where we can se ya.”

And of course I needed the occasional reminder, making sure I didn’t get too far ahead of our caretakers, who were taking things at a more leisurely pace. I filled up time when I had to wait for them to catch up looking at moss and mushrooms in the dank shadows, and giggling while I chased after little forest critters and got dirty horsing around with Myra. I got at least one shout of “Don’t put that in your mouth, Dear” from my sister. I was in the zone, as it were, lost in that regressed state of mind so deeply at that moment I couldn’t have pulled myself out if I’d wanted to, and if asked probably would have counted my age on less than one whole hand. I felt great! I felt alive! I felt... a little bit soggy. I wasn’t about to go running to Elizabeth, though. Why should I? My diapers were her responsibility, after all. I was too busy being carefree to bother to take note of that kind of thing. If she wanted to know if I needed a change she’d check me. If I leaked it was clearly her fault for not checking frequently enough.

I’d completely blown past Myra as far as depth in the situation was concerned, but my enthusiasm was quickly catching on. Her embarrassment was easing enough she was starting to feel it too, that undercurrent sensation of having not a care in the world. I was in the middle of a massive, dim forest, but was I afraid of getting lost? Not at all. I relied on my sister to know where we were going. Did I worry I might get hurt? Of course not. My sister was there to kiss it and make it better with a cute patterned bandage if I got a scrape. I had no need for worry, no need to think of anything but what might be around the next tree, and being sure I hadn’t lost my binkie. Which of course I hadn’t; it was tied to my shortalls so that wouldn’t happen.

With only the interruption of a squirmy mid-morning diaper change, during which I was too eager to get moving again to hold still for my chuckling, mildly exasperated sister, the whole morning was full of laughter and adventure with my new friend. Lunch was announced in one of the rare clearings, occupied by a pristine, flowery meadow and a little bitty pond. I chased a butterfly while food was set out, and was soon sat down, playfully getting peanut butter on Myra as we had sandwiches and sliced fruit, alongside sippy cups of juice. When the food was all gone we laid back on the picnic blanket, having been given baby bottles to top off the meal, and I shot her a grin “Bet I can finish mine first!”

“Yer on!” she cried in reply, hastily stuffing the nipple in her mouth, as I did the same. Our respective family just chuckled and observed while we frantically suckled, watching the liquid quickly emptying from the plastic containers. But of course, it couldn’t be that simple. Seeing me pulling ahead, with my obviously greater experience drinking out of those things, she was the first to “run interference”, or, perhaps I should say, cheat. She pushed me, disrupting my drinking momentarily. Growling a bit around the fake nipple in my mouth, I pushed back, engaging in what was almost wrestling as we both tried to drink while pushing each other around. My victory, however, was great, and epic, and would be sung from the mountaintops, or at least over Myra’s head since I was taller. The moment I was sucking air I sprang up “Haha! I win!”

“No fair...” she muttered sourly “You got a lot more practice than Ah do!”

“Not my fault I’m better.” I grinned haughtily down at her, dropping my empty bottle on the blanket and sticking my tongue out at her before darting off to a nearby tree. I hopped up, snagging a branch and pulling myself up among the leaves accompanied by my sister calling out “Be careful, Annie.”

A smirk was aimed down at Myra, who’d tailed me to the tree, only to find herself just slightly too low to reach the branches, and I teased “How’s the weather down there?”

Her response could only be classified as a pout, grousing “Oh shut yer mouth and help me up!”

With a little laugh I reached a hand down, and assisted her up to where she settled into the branches nearby. I just nestled in between a couple sturdy limbs, and relaxed. It was a good day. It was pleasantly cool out in the shade beneath the trees, and the air smelled of growing things and happiness. I honestly hadn’t felt that good since I’d had Elias to play with. Nothing could have fazed me, nothing could have spoiled my mood. No, not that day. I was invincible, impervious to anything that could be thrown my way. I could have gone to the mall with my sister, or even grocery shopping like that, and, horror of horrors, actually been happy about it. Terrible, right? And to think only a week or so before I’d been so terribly lonely and melancholy, and there I was, with a new friend, out on an adventure, able to get into that childish frame of mind for the first time in well over a month. I don’t think Myra realized just what a positive effect she was having on me, just then.

The return trip back to the house was just as much fun as the trip out, if a little lower key because Myra and I were getting tired, but I still had energy when we reached the house. When it became apparent my new friend was intending to leave when we got back, I hastily implored her to stay over again. We’d have more fun this time, I promised, and she easily caved, her acceptance of the situation feeding my mood, fueling my childish attitude. If she’d left I probably would have started to wind down, but like a man dying of thirst suddenly finding access to water, there was no way I could have stopped myself even once I’d become full.

Her mother headed back to their place shortly, to bring over some of Myra’s clothes so she wouldn’t need to keep dressing up in mine, and for dinner I showed her one of the most amazing things ever she was missing out on in her world: pizza. I mean come on, a world without pizza? What a nightmare! The rest of the evening until bed time we were two rambunctious, weird little childish peas in a pod, and Elizabeth and Martha were like old friends. We did get sidetracked by being bathed, though thankfully not together, but it was far more fun than the night before, granted this time I was actively involved, and not just doing it for Myra's sake.

One sleep over had turned into a day long adventure, and a second sleep over, and come the next morning neither of us were ready for it to end. We relocated to her house, switching to cloth diapers, and continued on for a third day. After that was a fourth, a fifth. By the time it actually ended, and we both headed back to our respective real worlds for a bit we’d both been in diapers, being babied full time for an entire week, and we couldn’t have been happier. Of course, I should have known the happiness and enjoyment wouldn’t have lasted after I switched back into “big girl mode”, but it was one pitfall I seemed to trip in every single time.


Chapter the Seventh:

A resounding clang echoed through the house as the metal diaper pail collided with the wall across the hall from my bedroom door, tossed through the open doorway. Its contents spilled out over the baby clothes, diapers, changing things, and toys that had preceded it, though while they’d all merely slapped against the wall the pail left a sizeable hole in the drywall. I followed it out, breathing heavily, garbed only in a pair of panties, muttering hoarsely under my breath “Screwdriver, screwdriver, where’d I leave that screwdriver...?”

I was brought up short when behind me a familiar voice called out “Um, Annie...?”

“What?” I snapped, spinning on my heel to shoot a glare at Elizabeth, where she was emerging through her bedroom door, visibly cringing at my tone. She glanced to the heap of childish things and the spilled contents of my diaper pail, then to my crazed expression “Dear sister, what’s all this? Do you want to talk about it?”

“Get rid of it.” I instructed, turning back, beginning to walk away “Throw it all out. I don’t want it in my damn house anymore.”

“Y-You want me to...?” she trailed off, disbelief in her tone. I rounded on her with a shout “I don’t care what you do with this shit! Toss it in the alley! Or off a mountain, or in a fucking volcano, I don’t care! I don’t want to see it anymore!”

Seething with a rage that seemed to seep from my very pores and boil my blood I stomped off down the hall without looking to see Elizabeth’s reaction, heading downstairs to search out a screwdriver. I was filled with an all consuming, unbearable hatred. For childishness, for the world, for my blood relatives, but most notably for myself. I was a disgusting freak, and I’d had enough. No more. I wouldn’t stand for any more of this horrid, filthy, unnatural behavior. Ugh, I was turning into my father... But however much I hated the man, at that moment I was having trouble arguing his logic.

When I returned from the garage, screwdriver in hand, the things were still there in the hall, but significantly more tidy than before. The diaper pail was emptied and righted, the clothing folded and everything stacked. I walked right on by, to my bed, and, tossing one, two, three, and finally a fourth screw over my shoulder, I threw my bed’s rail into the hall with the other things, following as far as the door, where I stood, panting, glaring at all the things that had been in my room that I couldn’t stand to be around just then. Every last thing, removed, expunged. If only I could do that to my head... Elizabeth met me at my doorway, looking worried and uncertain. I couldn’t look her in the eye as she sighed “Sister, dear, what are you doing?”

My arms crossed over my chest “I think it is quite clear what I’m doing, Elizabeth. I’m getting rid of all this shit. I don’t want to see it again.”

“Annie, I think if you give it some time, you might change your mind,” she insisted, “Let’s just calm down, have a cup of coffee, and we’ll see how you feel about it la...”

“No!” I interrupted with a growl, shooting her a glare “I’ve made up my mind. I’ve had enough. It’s over.”

She shook her head gently, pity spilling off her countenance “Annie, please. You’re scaring me here. I know, you’re going through a little emotional fallout, you always do, but think about those that care about you. I love you, Anne. I want you to be happy, and honestly I don’t think this is going to help.”

“Of course you love me.” I muttered “You were programmed to.”

She sighed again “Well then what about Elias? What would he say if he saw you acting this way? He certainly wasn’t designed to love you, but he did.”

The slowly lessening pressure on my soul in Elizabeth’s presence instantly clamped back in place at that one name, tears coming to my eyes “No! Don’t you dare talk about him! You have no right!”

She looked honestly hurt at that “No right? Sister dear, I clearly recall months of changing both your diapers, of taking care of him almost as much as you. I may not have been in love with him, but he was like a little brother to me, and trust me, that means a lot. Family is something I certainly don’t have much of.”

My only response was a grunt, my eyes moving off to the side, refusing to look at her. Giving on deep, long breath, she lifted a hand, placing it gently on my face “Anne, please. We can talk about this.”

Very slowly I forced myself to look back her, all my anger and desperation aimed, for the moment, directly at her, at that pleading expression, and ran a hand down my face, pushing hers off in the process “Look, Elizabeth. You love me, I know. I love you too. You care about me, I know. You plot and scheme behind my back, and yes, sometimes it does help. But this? This is not one of those times. I love you like you were born my sister, so I’m going to ask nicely: would you please, kindly, fuck off? Thanks.”

I shut the door in her surprised, hurt face, and turned to go sit on my bed in the empty silence with my tears, and my despondent, desperate anger. What the hell was I doing...?

Midnight. The house was dark, the lights off, leaving only the nightlight in the corner of my room to cast faint, flickering illumination. I sat on my bedroom floor, diaper pail to my right, bearing a noticeable dent but definitely in better shape than the wall across the hall. All my baby clothes were neatly placed back in my closet and dresser. All my plush toys were stacked back on the bed. Of course my sister hadn’t thrown any of my things away, just moved them when I said I didn’t want to see them, knowing that deep down I didn’t really want to lose it all. I’d easily located them in the garage, no worse for the wear, with the exception of that diaper pail. It had been a mistake, of course. I kinda make a habit of making mistakes in the heat of the moment, don’t I? This one was particularly bad, but just another brick in the wall, really. Everything was back in its rightful place except my emotions, and the rail I was frustratedly trying to reattach to my bed with my vision obscured by tears.

The screw I was attempting to reinsert rattled to the carpet, yet again, eliciting a strangled cry of anger, the screwdriver tossed loudly against the wall as I buried my face in my hands, sniffling as tears wet my fingers. I was pathetic. A hopeless mess. An addict. This was just going to happen again, and again, because I never learned. Binge and purge. It’s a terrible, unhealthy cycle, that I seemed perpetually caught up in. This was not the behavior of someone who was satisfied with their life, this was not behavior that was any good for anyone involved. This was not the behavior of someone who possessed all of their sanity. But I did it anyway. I couldn’t help myself, and I hated myself all the more for it. I needed help, in more ways than one...

Slowly I drew myself to my feet, stumbling out of my room, and straight to my sister, where she lay asleep in her bed in her bedroom. Biting my lip, and wiping tears from my face with my other hand, I reached to gently shake her awake. Her eyes fluttered open, a soft, sad smile shone my way in the dim “Annie?”

A choking sob, and I sputtered “I-I c-can’t get the rail back on my bed myself...”

“I think the rail can wait until morning, little sister,” she told me as she sat up, spreading her arms “C’mere.”

I more or less fell into her embrace, sobbing into her shoulder, still dressed only in underwear, where she held me close against her. She was warm, soft, and comforting.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I murmured against her, “I’m a terrible person...”

“No you’re not,” she shushed me, rubbing my back, “you’re just confused and uncertain. Here, c’mon.”

She scooted over, ushering me into her bed next to her, where she held me close until finally I finished crying, and drifted off to troubled sleep in her arms. She was too good for me, that was for sure. I didn’t deserve a sister so wonderful, accepting, and tolerant. She should have smacked me for talking to her the way I had. But she didn’t. Always the rational, composed one, she was there for me whenever I needed her, to be the calm center to my life. To hold me when I cried, and try to talk sense into me when I was less than well.

When I awoke the next morning in her bed she was up already, all smiles, with a breakfast of fresh waffles ready for me. No mention was made of the day before, even as she helped me screw the rail back into place on the side of my bed. I was quiet and subdued, but she was cheery enough for the both of us, only losing her smile when I proposed that maybe I needed some regression to help me feel better, and she’d put a hand on my shoulder, telling me softly “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Annie. Now’s probably not the time. You had a whole week. A little moderation?”

Of course she was right. She was always right... It was frustrating, even if it was a good thing. I just nodded in reply, and ate my waffles.

Two more days I mostly just sat around the house. I spoke little, asked nothing of my sister, yet she gave everything. She was there every meal time with food, making sure I ate. She was there putting her arm around me, planting little kisses on my forehead in passing, always close at hand with a warm, caring touch. She was there with that comforting smile, and her companionable silence, having no need for words to make me feel more at ease. Slowly, without having to say so much as a word on the matter, she pulled me back up. I only wished she’d been my sister by birth, and been there to pick me up like that when I was younger. Maybe I’d have turned out more cohesive if I’d had someone around who’d actually cared about my well being in my youth.

Finally, I felt I could brave potential contact, and headed out to my vacation home, wondering how much time with my friend I’d lost by more or less disappearing for a while while I’d fallen apart and been pieced back together. I was a little uncertain, as I stepped through that floating door onto the lawn, but my sister gave me a supportive smile that helped bolster me. A quick look showed the house empty, but there were voices, closeby. Slipping around the house I took a glance down, and sure enough, Myra was seated by the lake, dressed much like she’d been when she’d met, in that oversized duster and a skirt, her feet dangling in the water while she spoke quietly with her mother, who was paging through a thick looking book. At the sound of my approaching footsteps her eyes came up from the water, and a wide smile spilled over her face “Annie! There y’are! Where ya been? Ah was just thinkin’ ‘bout goin’ an’ knockin’ on yer door over there.”

“I’ve been, uh,” a glance at Liz, who just smiled at me, “ill. Feeling better now. Anything interesting happen while I was gone?”

“Uh, well, sorry fer trespassin’,” she scratched at the back of her head, looking sheepish, “but Mama went in yer house fer readin’ material. Wanted to learn more ‘bout yer world or somethin’. Ah mostly been workin’ back home, an’ enjoyin’ yer lake.”

“You sure you don’t want those swimming lessons?” I smirked at her, slowly walking down to the shore where she sat. A faint blush dusted her cheeks “No thank ya. Ah can enjoy it just fine without gettin’ in so... deep.”

With a chuckle I lowered myself to sit down next to her, dangling my bare feet into the water as well, drinking in the serene calm of the lakeside. I just sat, for a time, in the quiet, next to my friend, in one of the rare moments we both weren’t moving around and weren’t being babied, yet both seemed content. Really, it was a rare thing. And of course it didn’t last. An intensely loud rumbling, grinding noise split the calm, shaking the earth and causing large waves in the water to be thrown from the lake, splashing over our legs. All eyes were wide, staring into the distance where, at an angle, intersecting with what was there already, an identical stone wall to the one already existing there thrust up from the soil with a great spray of dirt. When finally the ear-splitting noise subsided the air was left unnaturally still, until I muttered “Oh, what now...?”

Myra tore her eyes from the new wall to look at me “What ya did that brought me ya didn’t do to work only once, huh?”

I shook my head “I guess we may have a new neighbor. We should probably check it out...”

Heaving a great put upon sigh, I stood, and started trudging towards the new wall, Myra hastening to grab her hat off the grass and follow after me, Elizabeth and Martha trailing behind, like they always seemed to. It was just like the other wall, really. It looked like the same kind of stone, stood leaning slightly at the same angle, felt unusual and wrong against my rune-adorned palm. The only difference seemed to be where it was placed. Since I was apparently in charge I was the one opening up a hole with a couple practiced runes drawn on the rough surface. With an opening now present, we peered on through.

I was first aware of the smell sea air, and sounds of the water, of waves on rock and ocean spray, drifting through the opening I’d created, as I looked out. Or was I looking in? I couldn’t tell the difference, if there was one. Short grass settled into rocky dirt met our eyes, stretching to bare rock further on, where the lack of soil made it impossible for even the scraggly, rough grasses to take root, right up until it fell off completely to the endless blue of the sea below. Perched on the cliffside right next to the sheer drop was a tower of stone, looking right out of the middle ages, only, well, not quite. It looked about right, but the door was nowhere near heavy enough to be defensible, being just plain wood, and, despite parapets and murder holes, rather than arrow slits it had regular glass windows on each of its four floors.

I’d kind of expected the new person to be there when we breached the wall, like when I’d met Myra, and we’d been mirroring each other, but no one stood there; not a single sign of life was immediately evident. Curious, I stepped through, Myra close at my side, and our relatives somewhere behind. All was silent but for the sounds of the ocean and the cries of gulls, until we drew up to some dozen paces from the doorway. The quiet was disrupted so suddenly I actually started when the air filled with a muted, almost stereotypical maniacal laughter emanating from within the building, that quickly devolved into a coughing fit.

Vaguely amused, I cocked an eyebrow over at Myra, who shrugged back at me. Since it was my fault the place was there, I figured it was probably my duty to make first contact, or maybe I was only thinking it was because no one else seemed like they were in any hurry to make us known to whatever loony had just been cackling. I really didn’t want to, wasn’t in the mood to be meeting anyone, but the expectant looks from Myra prodded me into shouting up at the stone edifice “Um, helloooo?”

Hinges squeaked faintly as a window on the uppermost floor swung open, the top of a rather average looking brown haired woman poking out, looking this way and that, quickly spying us there. She was perhaps as old as her thirties, I guessed, garbed in a pleasant white blouse, and smiling at us. She seemed surprised to see us there, but gave a little wave “Oh, uh, hello down there! Neighbors, how very novel! Haven’t been there too long, have you? Just a moment, I’ll be right down!”

Was that our new neighbor? She seemed too, I dunno, actively interactive with the situation to be a recently fabricated person. Elizabeth and Martha were generally plenty content to let Myra and I lead in everything, after all. From my experience the created one in the situation usually wasn’t the one taking initiative in important matters of that nature. But her? She looked like a damned housewife. I didn’t expect to be bringing in anyone so much older than me. But maybe she wasn’t the one, wasn’t the reason. Just what the hell was going on? Couldn’t it have waited until I was in a decent mood? My magic had horrible timing...







Chapter the Eighth:

The woman looked even more like a housewife up close, when she emerged from the ground floor of that tower, there on that oceanside cliff, leaving the door hanging open behind her. Her white blouse and ankle length, hunter green skirt covered a somewhat generously proportioned body, with plenty of hips and chest, and a bit of weight here or there, making her look almost suspiciously friendly and unassuming. Even though I didn’t want to be there in the first place, still feeling fragile and antisocial, I slowly proffered a hand “Uh, hi. I’m Anne, Anne Turner. Welcome to the neighborhood, I guess, though your sub-dimension makes three. I think some magic I worked a little while back resulted in our, uh, collision. We may not be from the same reality.”

“How very interesting!” she exclaimed, shaking my hand “Well, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Lorelei Savalis. And your friend here in the spiffy hat?”

“Myra Maybelle Shirley.” Myra interjected from my side, moving to shake Lorelei’s hand as well “Pleased to make yer acquaintance.”

I pointed a thumb back over my shoulder “And back there are my sister Elizabeth and Myra’s mother Martha.”

Without waiting for any further degree of introduction, I spoke bluntly “Now, I’ll cut to the chase here, since I’m, uh, kinda recovering right now so my patience is in short supply today. The spell I did was to attract people with magic and an interest in regression. So, it stands to reason that if it’s working properly you or someone else with you has similar interests. Either that, or it’s somehow not my fault our locations are connected now, and this is about to get very awkward.”

“Regression?” she queried quizzically, brow knitted, clearly uncertain what I was talking about. I sighed. Did I really have to explain this? I looked at Myra, and she just stared back expectantly. I had apparently been elected, sans ballot, to do this. Why me...?

“Well, an interest in being treated like a child, to put it simply. It’s pretty common where I’m from.” was the quick clarification. The woman’s eyes widened a bit “Oh dear, there are people out there who enjoy that? That definitely could have saved me some effort, if I’d known. Oh well, what’s done is done. Anyway, I’m rather on the other end of things, I think. I suppose I’ve been a bit obsessed with having a child to look after, but I can’t conceive anymore, and the adoption agency would never approve my application. I’m afraid I took extreme measures to solve this little problem of mine.”

Uh-oh. A sinking feeling was starting to tug downward on my innards. This did not sound good. I’d heard before of the few people in the regression community back home who, rather than wanting to be cared for, had inclinations of equal intensity towards taking care of children, or at least the childish. Usually they birthed their own, or became daycare workers or those government appointed caretaker types. What exactly might someone like that do if they couldn’t have a child of their own to look after? What kind of extreme measures might they be willing to take, if the need was strong enough? It wasn’t exactly a problem in my world, where regression was pretty commonplace, but what about somewhere where the public had never heard of that sort of thing? Fearing the worst I hesitantly queried “Are you telling me you kidnaped somebody or something...?”

“‘Or something’ probably fits best.” she gave a sheepish smile “I”m afraid I did something drastic, and sort of broke a law that carries a very hefty penalty. Hence why I did it here, where the authorities can’t easily find out.”

I groaned, putting a hand to my face. So now I had a kidnapper for a neighbor? First a steampunk girl and now this? But wait, she hadn’t admitted to that, not exactly, and as different as Myra was she’d turned out great to have around, hadn’t she? After a long moment I found myself muttering “So what, exactly, did you do?”

“I summoned a demon!” she chirped cheerily, grinning “Oh, but the real challenge was tricking it into not fully understanding the contract before signing it. I’m actually rather proud of that part.”

I just stared, mouth hanging open, confusion and disbelief bubbling together into a muddled mixture behind my eyes “You did what?”

“Well, I figured if I wanted something to take care of, and I can’t have one myself, and I can’t adopt, and my first attempt to make one myself didn’t go well,” she launched into an animated explanation, complete with emphatic hand gestures, her smile never once budging, seeming nailed in place, “so what could I do that would do the least damage? I certainly didn’t want to hurt anyone, so I ruled out kidnaping, and I had no idea there were people out there who actually liked being treated like children. And then the realization came to me. It was so clear! I would summon a demon, and trick it into a contract I could exploit! The damage to the world would actually be in the negative, because that would mean one less demon out there to hurt others. Here with me it’ll be harmless, much in contrast to if it remained where it came from.”

“You summoned a demon...” came out of me flatly. She just nodded, still with that impervious smile “Oh my yes. Actually, I just finished. I should be getting back, before she figures out how to escape the summoning circle. It’s a good thing it’s silenced, or we’d be getting quite the earful right now. I’ll certainly come visit once I get settled in, but I must be going for now. Nice meeting you!”

A wave, and she disappeared back into her tower, and all I could think was what I muttered quietly, heard only by Myra “I have a bad feeling about this...”

Myra nodded her agreement, and we retreated back to my house in silence with the knowledge our newest neighbor was at the least a little bit crazy. But then again, I couldn’t exactly count myself among the sane. What right did I, of all people, have to judge anyone else for their, aheh, “instabilities”? Still, this didn’t seem good, but I figured I wouldn’t know for sure until I saw the result. What was a demon like, or, really, what was a demon in the first place? I had no idea. The nonchalance with which Lorelei had made mention seemed to assume knowledge of their existence, pointing to likelihood they were well known in her reality. I briefly considered just working magic to get rid of that second wall, remove Lorelei and her demon from the “neighborhood”, as I’d referred to it that once, to nip the situation in the bud. The concept of having something that was literally referred to as a demon in such close proximity sounded like a recipe for disaster. Whether out of curiosity or sheer laziness, however, I decided to see how things panned out a bit first.

Days passed with no sign of our crazy new neighbor, or her as yet unseen new charge, during which I did my very best to avoid talking about why I suddenly didn’t want to join Myra in regression. She almost decided not to indulge, without me to join her, but at my urging she went ahead anyway, taking the role more or less of a younger sibling to me. I didn’t change her diapers, but was essentially put in charge of her while she was being babied in my house, by mutual consent after Martha suggested it. I played with her, I fed her, I took her out to frolic by the lake and for walks, and even put her to bed in my crib when she stayed over for the night. It was a little odd for me, to be on the other side of things for once, but I found myself having fun with it despite not really being the caretaker type. She definitely would have preferred to have me alongside her, but it was the best I could do for the moment. I couldn’t trust myself, just then, to allow myself into that kind of situation without falling apart again afterward. I’d barely recovered from before, and just needed a little down time, to try and get my emotions in order, like setting back up a game of Jenga.

Myra didn’t understand, of course, and probably couldn’t, but after seeing the uncertain looks on Elizabeth’s face every time she asked if I’d join her, and my blank expression, she gave up trying to convince me to join her. Surely she was disappointed, but, thinking more about myself this time around, I felt it better to disappoint her than to subject myself to what would happen if I gave in. I needed to practice restraint, and moderation, and that began with being able to say “no”. There wasn’t anything wrong with getting into the regressed mood, but there’s a difference between getting into the mood and being unwilling to let go of it, and I couldn’t have trusted myself not to do the latter. I’d just have to wait for everything to settle back into place, for my head to calm from its chaotic jumble of complex and conflicting emotions, and maybe take it slow, maybe enjoy a little regression without Myra. Having a playmate made a definite difference in the degree to which I became invested in what was going on. With just myself and Elizabeth it was easier to keep some part of myself distanced, allowing me to fuss and gripe about the situation, so I wouldn’t feel so bad about it afterwards. My ability to cope with what I enjoyed seemed to hinge on my ability to claim against all evidence I wasn’t enjoying it that much.

I’d practically forgotten about the newest addition to the ever so slowly growing community by the morning the knock came on my door disrupting my concentration as I watched the game on television. Myra’s attention came up from the toys she was playing with on the carpet, the both of us staring the direction of the noise, momentarily uncomprehending. It took me a moment to realize who it could possibly be, and slowly rise. Sure enough, when I stepped over and opened the door, there was that woman, my new neighbor, looking much the same, brown hair spilling around her shoulders, smiling warmly, bright green eyes sparkling with delight, and something vaguely mischievous and diabolical. Only her clothing had changed. Different blouse, different skirt, sandals rather than bare feet. If it weren’t for the eyes I’d have expected her to be offering to bake me cookies, or giving me a lollipop, or taking a kid to soccer practice, or something. Now that I thought about it, you know what she really reminded me of? That nice receptionist lady at a doctor’s office, who’d talk down to you kindly, coo about what a brave little girl you were, and give you candy on your way out.

“Hello neighbor!” she gave me a little wave “I finally finished getting settled in and furnishing, and thought we’d come along for a visit. Very nice home you have here; I quite like the design. Is that actual obsidian up there?”

“We?” I uttered quietly, question ignored as I stepped aside, holding the door open for her to enter. A nod and she passed the threshold, drawing a second, reluctant figure along with her by the hand. I could only stare at first, for multiple reasons I suppose. I’d never seen a demon before, for one thing, or at least what was called a demon where this strange woman came from. For another, the sight was so comical I barely stifled a laugh.

Skin a smoky medium grey, taut over a scrawny form a tad smaller than Myra’s average height, all bone and lean muscle, shoulder length, stiff, wiry black hair, piercing blue eyes in a thin, angular face, radiating such smoldering anger it could have made plants shrivel. She looked young, but the hard expression, the lines of old scars in her otherwise smooth skin, seemed to display more age than was readily apparent. She would have been intimidating, were it not for how she was dressed, with her hair held in pointy pigtails by little bows, form draped in a lacy, frilly little pink dress. She was so angry, so very enraged, but dressed as she was it was more adorable than anything else. She quite literally began growling, eyes narrowed at me, hands balled into fists and shaking at her sides, face darkening with a blush while I barely held a laugh behind my hand. Lorelei patted her on the head “Isn’t she just the cutest thing?”

“I will end you, woman...” the demon muttered in a gravelly, raspy voice, crossing her arms over her cute dress. The threat went completely ignored as what was now apparently her keeper spoke again, gesturing to the dark figure at her side “Anne,” she smiled at me, then spied Myra on the carpet, “Myra, this is Azala the Bloodied, Eater of Souls, Lady of the Black Plain, yadda yadda, et cetera.”

She patted her demon’s head again “Sorry dear, I’m not going to bother with all your titles. I forgot them after the thirteenth one anyway.”

Attention back to me, her smile spread into a grin again “I just call her ‘Azzy’. Isn’t it the cutest nick name ever?”

She was sort of cute, if... strange looking, and amusingly absurd dressed the way she was. Pink definitely wasn’t her color. Her caretaker’s morals were rather questionable, what with the fact she’d tricked this entity into this, and I rather felt sympathetic for her situation, but being so very angry just made Azala look all the more like an overgrown toddler about to throw a tantrum.

“So, uh,” I ushered them in further than the doorway with a gesture, and closed the door behind them, still trying not to laugh, “we don’t have demons like this where I’m from. Could you, you know, explain?”

“Oh, of course, of course,” the woman waved dismissively, leading Azala past to sit her down over by Myra, who at the moment was on the floor, garbed in a sun dress next to a stack of blocks and some dolls. The blush that had faded from her face returned quite forcefully with the addition of new guests. How the demon was under any manner of control I had no idea, but I was hoping for some answers as I took a seat on the couch with my new neighbor to my side, though my eyes would barely leave the two sitting on the floor, not feeling overly comfortable having that thing near Myra. Settling into the couch Lorelei began her explanation of what a demon was, claiming she would try to make it understandable for me. I hardly understood anything of it at all, but didn’t have the heart or patience to tell her to explain it again in different terms. Something about the lands of the dead, lessons not learned from life, “soul decay”, and how the dead can become corrupt, souls stagnating, and turn into demons and cause all manner of depraved carnage and bloodshed. That was as much as I gleaned from her fifteen minute monologue, sifting through the terminology and the veritable wall of words she was tossing at me.

“Sounds very... morbid.” I eventually responded, taking what had to be my five millionth glance over at Azala, who was pointedly not looking at anyone. Lorelei just chuckled “Just don’t go feeling sorry for her. She honestly doesn’t deserve it. She’s hundreds of years older than she might look, and she’s a terrible person, to say the least. Selfish, arrogant, prideful, vengeful, violent. Decent people don’t become demons.”

I could only stare at her a second, shooting one more nervous look towards the monster on my carpet “And so... how is she supposed to be ‘harmless’, as you said before?”

A chuckle and a wink were her reply “Oh, I got her to sign a contract when she arrived. Pretty standard for demon summoning, but she didn’t read the fine print well enough. By the wording she has to follow direct orders, but since there was no defined end date, only ‘until dismissed’, she has to follow my orders until I let her go, which I don’t intend to do. And what, let her lay claim on my soul? I don’t think so. So, a few broad orders like ‘no harming or killing anyone’, and she’s helpless to cause injury. Frustrating for her, but she’s cute when she’s flustered.”

Speaking of her little demon, I glanced over to see Myra offer a tentative smile, asking “Um, ya wanna play or somethin’?”

The only response she got was Azala’s arm darting out, sending blocks flying quite literally all over the room. I had to duck to dodge one that nearly smacked me in the face. A sigh came from beside me “Now just to work on that attitude problem. Oh well, you have all the time in the world when you intend to live forever. Thirty-two going on eternity, I always say. Just a moment.”

What? What the hell was that supposed to mean? I didn’t get the chance to ask. Lorelei stood to approach her demon while a disgruntled Myra set about gathering the scattered blocks from around the room. As vaguely restrained as Lorelei claimed her new charge to be, I wasn’t that comfortable having something as violent and unruly as Azala was indicated to be in my house. Though, I couldn’t bring myself to ask Lorelei to leave. I mean, she was polite enough, and nice enough, for a crazy person; it was Azala I was less comfortable with, and seemingly growing less sympathetic to by the minute. At least Lorelei wasn’t about to accept her behavior, heading over to give the demon a talking to and send her to a time out in the corner she quite literally, if I understood the mechanics of the situation, could not come out of without permission because it had been an order.

With Azala in the corner, glaring at the wall, Lorelei went over to help Myra collect the blocks, asking with the gentle, patronizing one generally takes with small children “Are you okay, Sweety? The mean little demon didn’t hurt you, did she?”

At Myra’s blush, and the shake of her head, the woman affectionately mussed up her hair before returning to sit with me, uttering quietly “Your little friend is adorable.”

There was no arguing that. Myra was the very definition of adorable, with that look of concentration on her face, the tip of her tongue sticking from the corner of her mouth as she began to rebuild her block structure, face still flushed red in embarrassment. Lorelei watched her for some long moments, a vague, wistful expression occupying her face, up until she glanced at me “By what you said the other day, I would assume she’s not the only one. So, you too...?”

I flushed crimson, but gave a vague nod, turning my attention back to the television. It became a very... strange day. Lorelei was so unnaturally upbeat, always smiling, always laughing, and by her behavior towards Myra I was willing to admit great with kids, or at least overgrown ones. It was suspicious how very happy she seemed to be, to be honest, but at the same time I couldn’t help but smile back. Didn’t her face get tired, with that grin that never went away? I really knew next to nothing about her besides that she wanted a child so badly she’d summoned a demon and roped it into the situation against its will, seemingly intent on taming it, which didn’t seem to be going all that well. I figured she’d probably eventually have Stockholm Syndrome on her side, but until then her charge was unlikely to be cooperative. She couldn’t have children of her own, she’d said, and there was no way she’d be allowed to adopt where she came from. Just what had she done that she was unallowed adoption? And what had that been about having created a child before? I had so many questions, but I was, maybe a little, afraid to ask.

She was in the lead of any conversation going on, asking all the questions, guiding things this way or that, querying about where I came from. She had particular interest in the history of the development of regression, and in my magic, which, to my surprise, apparently was entirely foreign to her. Unlike Myra and I, she had no book; her magic was the old fashioned kind like you’d find in a fantasy novel. I hadn’t expected that, but I guess it made sense. First a steampunk universe, now fantasy. Would futuristic science fiction follow, or perhaps something that was a closer parallel to my native universe? Though, with how familiar she seemed with the technology, and even the rules of the football game that was going on on television, if not the teams, perhaps hers was the near-parallel world.

I spent the entire morning while we talked, with Elizabeth and Martha drifting around in the background, glancing Azala’s direction, expecting to find her in the middle of something heinous every other minute. Really she did very little besides scowl and be generally unpleasant company, sitting over by Myra, who was quietly playing by herself, but I had a vague, recurring sensation that if I lost sight of her she’d be doing something she wasn’t supposed to. Lorelei finally departed at lunch time, announcing they’d visit again soon, and I was finally able to calm down. She was speaking to Azala, who was trying to ignore her, as she wandered off from the house. I vaguely made out something about the novelty of having neighbors, and something about raw meat.

As soon as the door closed behind them, I turned around to the gathered contents of the room, Myra, Elizabeth, and Martha all standing there with varied expressions. All I could say was “Well that was... interesting.”

“Ah thought she was rather nice.” Martha shrugged. Myra blushed a little, looking away “She was... nice. But that demon was far from pleasant.”

“As long as she keeps that girl of hers under control, I don’t think it’ll be so bad having her in the ‘neighborhood’.” Elizabeth interjected. And it was true enough, so I figured that was it for the moment. She’d been pleasant, I suppose, but I was more concerned about the bubbling pot of violence and trouble waiting for the opportunity to boil over that was Azala, no matter how “harmless” Lorelei insisted she was. At least the thing was kinda cute, all embarrassed and surly in that little pink dress. Which sounded like something my sister would say about me... I figured we’d be seeing them again soon, with Lorelei’s excitement about the concept of neighbors. Maybe then I’d be able to pry Lorelei’s past out of her without being too impolite about it.

Chapter the Ninth:

The time was early afternoon, the place the lake below my house. I was babysitting Myra yet again, while our fabricated family members were up indoors, and Lorelei had brought Azala over for another visit. They’d been around long enough for us to get to see the demon fed a lunch of cut up raw meat of some kind, that the woman handled carefully, being sure not to actually touch with her hands. Azala certainly wasn’t happy about being fed, but hungrily consumed the meat while shooting a heated glare at her “mother”. With her charge nearby “keeping out of trouble”, and Myra enjoying herself in the shallow water near the bank, apparently trying to ignore the presence of our other company, I was joined in the grass by my elder neighbor. She was talking to me again, asking questions again, trying to slake her endless curiosity, but I was hardly paying any attention. Staring at her, it took me a moment to realize she’d just asked me something, but for the life of me I couldn’t recall what it was. I hadn’t exactly been listening.

“You don’t really talk about yourself.” I said suddenly. She looked perplexed a moment, while I continued “I mean, you ask a lot of questions, but... what about you?”

For the first time I’d ever seen, she wasn’t smiling. For the first time, she wasn’t looking me in the face. And for the first time, she didn’t sound happy “I don’t know if this is a conversation we should be having, Anne.”

“And why’s that?” my brows knit, as I stared at her. She looked away, fixing her gaze on where Myra was chasing after fish in the water, heaving a great sigh “Please, Anne. I would rather leave my past in the past. I don’t relish the potential of being removed from the area. I don’t think I could cause a repeat of our little collision, and while I’m growing fond of little Azzy, it’s nice to have actual company.”

“Well, Myra spilled her story,” I glanced at the girl in question, then back at the figure beside me “I think I’d feel more comfortable if you weren’t a mystery. What if I promised not to kick you out of the area?”

She shook her head a moment, while Azala was staring straight in our direction, keenly aware of her summoner’s discomfort “I have done things in my life that would give you nightmares, child. I have committed acts people can be executed for, and barely managed to avoid such a fate. The past is behind, and that’s where it belongs. If I tell my story to you, I doubt you’ll want me around anymore, and here, at least, for now, I’m welcome. That is a rare thing for me. I had hoped that this place being removed from home would allow me escape. So I beg you, Anne, please do not ask this of me. You really don’t want to know.”

I was lost for words, suddenly not so sure I wanted to know after all. As much as I wasn’t exactly comfortable with how little I knew about her, I had a deep, sinking feeling I should take her word that it wasn’t knowledge I wanted to be burdened with. In that moment she did not look like herself, or at least the her that I’d known, however briefly. With her smile gone, the twinkling missing from her eyes, she looked haggard and worn. She seemed so very empty, almost oozing a sense of despondence and hopelessness. I realized, just then, that, though she may have had the most to hide, all three of us were there fleeing our pasts to some degree. Maybe she deserved a clean slate. As long as she wasn’t doing terrible things in my neighborhood, what difference did her past truly make to the present? I would pressure her no further, leave her past her little secret for now. Everyone deserves a chance, I told myself, though deep down a niggling part of me insisted that if her story had been bad enough I would have removed her anyway. I was such a hypocrite...

I gave her a nod “Okay, I’ll leave it at that. I’m not entirely comfortable with it, but I’ll leave it to you to decide when and if you want to talk about it.”

And the smile came back, slowly “You’re mature for your age. Thank you for understanding.”

It didn’t make me any more comfortable around her, but that was that. With Lorelei out of the way, though, now that just left Azala, who I was having a feeling would be more difficult to find comfortable ground with. How do you try to get along with someone whose only words are threats and hatred? I’d only been around her those two times, and she’d threatened to kill basically everyone I knew at least once, and muttered variations of “I hate you so much...” to Lorelei at least half a dozen times. I could only wonder what their home life was like, and when, or perhaps if, she would ever at least stop acting out. I wasn’t expecting her to accept and embrace the situation, but she could at least stop taking it out on those who weren’t responsible.

Later that week I more or less disappeared from my developing location, back to my real world, which seemed more and more to feel less and less real in comparison, for a couple of days. When had I last left the house? I wasn’t even sure anymore, but I wanted the privacy for a little bit of regression. It felt a little off not to be around Myra, who I seemed to spend the majority of my time with those days, but I was trying to ease into things, and Elizabeth was supportive of this choice. It was nice and simple, just a couple days in the mild degree of regression possible in the lack of crib, changing table, or many of my toys. I got to fuss and whine about Elizabeth insisting on feeding me, and making me go with her to the grocery store where a cute cashier boy embarrassed me by smiling my direction when he was ringing up the diapers. In those snug shortalls, with the pacifier clipped to the strap, it was exceedingly obvious who they were for, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d friggin’ winked at me, with that look on his face. At least he’d kept his mouth shut about it.

When it was over I felt mildly disgusted with my behavior, and a little more than mildly annoyed that cashier boy had given me that look. He couldn’t have been much older than me, and Elizabeth certainly wasn’t helping when she just chuckled. I didn’t know if it was more because I didn’t like attention from strangers when I was being babied, or because I’d thought he was cute but certainly didn’t have any chance at a date when he was ringing up my infantile undergarments. If there’d been rash cream too I think my face would have burst into flame because there was no way it wouldn’t have made him think about my ass more than the diapers could have. But... would I really want a date, anyway? I think I was more bothered by the lack of the option. When I’d started that magic I’d pretty much ruled out being with anyone that normal anyway, so my dating pool had about dried up.

I was feeling far more cohesive with that out of the way, and maybe even a little cheery when I stepped out onto the springy green grass of the lawn of what I was no longer sure I could honestly refer to as my “vacation” home. The air was fresh, smelling of grass, and nothing else. No exhaust, no garbage, nothing but clean, unspoiled nature. Usually you have to get far from human habitation for that kind of thing, but right there I had it in abundance.

Myra wasn’t around for once, despite her odd tendency to be in proximity of my house a lot more than her own when being babied. I’d told her and Martha they were free to make use of the nursery and my toys and the lake and all that if they wanted to even if I wasn’t there, after all, and they took me up on it regularly. I admit, with my own experiences with regression, I was growing a little worried about her, and the frequency with which she was being babied. It seemed more often than not, and almost every time I saw her those days. Neither of us seemed to spend much time in our native planes of existence, which, granted how much she was being cared for, meant she was being babied almost full time. I knew I couldn’t have handled that, but that weird little messy haired thing was practically flourishing under all the parental attention. I just hoped she didn’t wind up doing something she’d regret. I’d heard horror stories back home of people into regression winding up dealing with consequences of rash actions, like permanent incontinence. Granted, with the magic we had, that particular problem was something she and I could have reversed, but still.

I hadn’t been home an hour when a knock at the door announced company, and I rushed to answer it, expecting “Tumbleweed”, as I’d occasionally call Myra like her mother did, but found myself face to face with Lorelei’s cheerful smile.

“Oh, I’m so glad I caught you at home!” she practically chirped “I know we haven’t known each other all that long, but I was wondering if I could ask your sister and yourself a favor?”

“What kind of favor?” Elizabeth queried, coming up behind me. The kindly looking woman’s smile turned to her “Well, you see, I’m supposed to check in every so often with certain people, spend certain amounts of time certain places, that I’d rather not discuss right now, and when I got caught up in the whole summoning thing it completely slipped my mind. So I need someone to look after my little Azzy while I’m away. I can’t take her with me, yet certainly can’t leave her all by herself, since she still needs fed and changed.”

“And you didn’t think of this when you were planning everything?” was Elizabeth’s incredulous tone behind me “‘Caught up’ indeed.”

“I seem to remember maniacal laughter.” I cocked an eyebrow. Lorelei actually blushed at that “Come now, I think that’s an exaggeration.”

I shot a look over my shoulder to my sister “I thought for a minute there we might have a mad scientist for a neighbor, before she showed herself in the window.”

She chuckled, and Lorelei rolled her eyes “Alright, I get a little carried away at times. Now, do I have a babysitter, or do I have to go ask Martha?”

“How exactly are we supposed to control your demon if we accept, anyway?” I asked my eccentric neighbor, where she stood in my doorway. She merely smiled more “Oh, that’s simple. I order her to follow the orders of whoever’s in charge of her while I’m away. Easy as that. I would greatly appreciate if you’d do this for me.”

I certainly didn’t want to do it, but my sister sighed at the hopeful, pleading look we were being given, relenting “Alright, I’ll watch Azala for you while you’re gone. Can’t be that hard, can it?”

“Oh, thank you so much!” Lorelei gushed, quickly handing over a bag full of clothing, a stack of demon care instructions, and finally a disgruntled looking little grey girl, who was given the order to follow Elizabeth’s orders for the duration of the stay. And Lorelei was gone, disappeared from the doorway with a loud shout of thanks, running off to go meet up with whoever the hell she was supposed to check in with. That seemed more than a little suspicious, but I’d told myself I wouldn’t ask about Lorelei’s past, and loudly reminded myself in my head. Azala walked right past us to go sit on the couch without a word while I shut the door, and Elizabeth paged through the instructions she’d been given.

I was mildly curious as to what was on those sheets of paper, but more than I wanted to know I wanted to not care. So I ignored it, heading to watch television, only to find my couch occupied by a demon who’d managed to sit in just the right spot I couldn’t sit down without being right next to her. With a sigh, I told her “Scoot over.”

“No.” was the immediate, inflectionless response, so quick she probably hadn’t even had time to process what I’d said. My eyes narrowed slightly “Do I have to get my sister to make you move? Would you rather be sitting on the floor?”

Venting an audible growl, she moved over to the opposite end of the couch, quietly uttering something about my bloody entrails as I sat down. Elizabeth, for her part, just chuckled, reading Lorelei’s instructions as she seated herself in an armchair off to the side. After some moments, she shot a glance my way “I think I’m going to have to ignore or change some of this. Listen to some of these things: ‘diet of raw meat’, ‘allowed only toys for toddlers and infants’, ‘allowed only children’s film and television’, ‘bed time immediately after dinner and mandatory nap time after lunch’. There’s two whole pages of things she’s supposed to be punished for, and a lullaby I’m supposed to sing to her. There must be a dozen pages here...”

“Does it say why Lorelei treats her like a baby?” I questioned “I mean, yeah, she wanted a child, but she didn’t say anything about wanting a baby specifically.”

“Actually... yes.” Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, turning a page “Right here after half a page of claw care instruction there’s mention that when her behavior improves she’ll get to be treated older. It’s worded as a warning that if I babysit her again the rules might be different. And says if that’s the case I’ll be issued a new set of instructions and these will be void...”

“Weird.” was all I uttered, turning my attention back to the television while my sister muttered something about needing an index. Azala certainly looked annoyed that we were talking about her like she wasn’t there, but said nothing. I knew the feeling. She remained silent at the other end of the couch while I watched television, but come late morning, after I’d gone up to the top of my obsidian spire to think for a time while observing my domain I returned to the living room to find her, and my sister, absent. At the sound of rustle and clatter in the kitchen I was drawn through the doorway, to an unpleasant sight.

Eggshells, and some of the eggs from within, some cheese, beans, a plastic container that no longer quite held the remnants of a casserole, a busted pickle jar, complete with pickles and juice, and more lay strewn across the tile. There, halfway inside the fridge, Azala was rifling through the appliance’s contents, talking to herself and occasionally tossing things over her shoulder with her padded rump sticking out.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” I shouted, rushing my way around broken glass, dodging a jar of mayonnaise as it sailed right at my head. The demon turned from the appliance with a predatory look, growling at me, one hand holding a dripping can of beer that looked quite literally like she’d torn it open with her teeth, a hypothesis supported by the wet fabric of her dress “You can do nothing! Go!”

“Go?” I frowned “You’re in my house, going through my fridge, making a mess in my kitchen. Stop it, now.”

I flinched when the near-empty can flew by my head, the creature before me slinking closer “You have no power over me, little girl, and I hunger. Go.”

“Little girl...?” I gritted my teeth, before suddenly covering my nose “Ugh, the stench!”

Heading back towards the door, I called out “Elizabeth! There’s a mess in the kitchen! And in Azala’s diaper!”

Mere moments later my sister popped in, gasping at the state of the kitchen “Azala! What have you done? Look at the mess you’ve made! If you were hungry you should have said something. This is not acceptable behavior.”

And the demon merely crossed her arms over her chest, turning her nose up at us, though blushed profusely when my sister checked to be sure she did indeed need a diaper change. She growled and twitched away when my sister went to take her upstairs, in the end having to ordered to get her to go, and then be ordered to lay still when she was being changed and dressed. Once cleaned up she was put in time out while Elizabeth cleaned up the scattered food. Her behavior got no better from there.

At lunch my sister cooked up some meat for Azala’s apparently carnivorous diet, though the demon wasn’t happy about the state of the meal, expecting it raw, and threw a fit, refusing to be fed. She bent and turned as best she could in the highchair to refuse until Elizabeth grew frustrated and just spilled the sliced beef onto the highchair’s tray for our “guest” to feed herself. She did so, loudly and messily, with at least one piece that didn’t meet her standards being unceremoniously tossed, usually at me or my sister. Cleaning her off afterwards wasn’t much better.

She had a tendency to become furious whenever her diapers beneath her little dress were checked, literally shaking with her desire but inability to attack any time someone’s hands came near her absorbent undergarments. Changes were even worse, when, like the first time, she always had to be ordered to lay still to keep her from attempting to get up and move away right in the middle of it, the gray flesh of her face darkening significantly in a deep blush the whole time. She was nearly as fussy with being dressed, as apparently, due to existing orders, she could not dress or undress herself, leaving interruption as her only potential means of escaping being garbed in the pink and lace that Lorelei had packed for her in her bag. I’d have felt bad for her, sympathized with her situation, if it weren’t for her terrible attitude towards myself and my sister. It was always with the disparaging comments and death threats, and the incessant growling like she was some wild beast being disturbed during a meal. I grew so annoyed with her behavior, the way she couldn’t seem to say anything that wasn’t violent or mean-spirited, that I gave up on feeling bad for her. She made it impossible. I found myself shouting at her on a regular basis, often being met with a sneer in response. It wasn’t like I wanted bad things to happen to her, but she was terrible enough company that quite quickly I found that her humiliation didn’t faze me anymore. I just couldn’t bring myself to feel positively enough towards her to care how she felt about it. My sister was far more patient and forgiving, but then she was an expert at that, and had plenty of practice from having to deal with me.

Azala was a horrible houseguest. No respect at all for anyone’s belongings. I had to hide my best toys, because three of my plush toys would up headless, and had to confiscate the blocks that Myra liked to play with because they were acquiring tooth and claw marks. Was she teething or something, or just being destructive? She couldn’t seem to keep those pointy fangs off my toys. At least it was amusing to see her grimacing when my sister tried, and I emphasize “tried”, to brush her hair out in the morning. I had to deal with that infuriating demon’s presence in my house for two whole days before Lorelei came back to collect her, during which I had to keep her and Myra separate when my friend visited, and she had at least a dozen time outs. I didn’t think they were helping, really. I’d never been a proponent of spanking or anything of that nature, but she was making me question my opinions on corporal punishment, even just considering how badly I wanted to smack her around. It’s a good thing she was picked up when she was, because I’d been about to punch her in the face when the knock came on the door. How did Lorelei stand her, live with her, and still be so cheerful? I just couldn’t understand it, at all.

I was so glad to have her back out of my house, only for her to be dumped on us again a week and a half later, during which I was engaging in regression myself. She almost ruined the situation for me with her moody utterings and sour disposition, but I did my best to concentrate on interacting with Myra, to Azala’s exclusion. Elizabeth implored us, once, to try to include her, but she seemed more satisfied to make a scene of not being involved. I imagined she must have been terribly bored, but couldn’t bring myself to care.

Night had fallen over the rolling plains that had decided to settle around my house that day, the air filled with the soft rustling of grass, and the music of innumerable cicadas beneath the fat, full moon and the twinkling stars high above, so much more visible than they would be with all the artificial lighting of human habitation. My sister was asleep, Myra was back at her own house for once, and there, late in the night, garbed only in panties and a night dress, I walked the soft grass of the lawn, eyes to the sky and a smile slathered over my face. It was so pleasant out, so peaceful. I breathed deeply the night air, and for but a moment I had no worries, no needs, and no desires; just the stars. I moved without bothering to notice where I stepped, out behind the house to the lake. Sections of the water shimmered, lit partially by illumination from inside the house that shone unimpeded through the glass balcony over the waterfall, and I saw something there I didn’t expect.

Looking forlorn on my lake shore sat the form of Azala, dark if not for the pink of the footed sleeper she was dressed in, those bright eyes, the only part of her that wasn’t dingy and colorless, peering into the reflection of the stars shimmering in the edge of the water. She’d never, that I’d seen, looked that vulnerable, though at the noise of my approaching footsteps she visibly stiffened, expression hardening. I stopped some feet away, arms crossed over my chest, and she immediately snapped “You tell no one I was here!”

A slow grin spanned my countenance “Oho, and now I have something on you. Would you look at that. What would your mommy,” I sneered the word at her, “think if she knew you were out here, all alone? Why, I bet it’d never happen again.”

She frowned deeply, but didn’t speak, as I approached nearer, grin still growing “But you know what, I don’t think I’m going to say anything, for the time being. And you wanna know why? Because I pity you.”

She immediately looked as if something sour had been stuffed in her mouth. Oh she didn’t like that, didn’t like it at all. Despite the humiliation, the degradation of being babied against her will, she still did her best to retain her stubborn, vain pride, which I had just wounded. And it was true, in that moment, I did pity her. Her situation, being so very out of her element, trying to keep up her tough facade when behind that she was probably just some sad, despondent little girl who just wanted to go home. I felt sorry for her, and with her pride I could use that to tease her. Weaponized sympathy. Rather than talk too much, to soften the blow with more words, I promptly walked away, calling back to her “And don’t let me see you around my house unsupervised again, or I might change my mind.”

And so she was left at the lakeside to her wounded pride to mull over the newfound power I had over her. Obviously she’d found some way to escape her home late in the night, a respite from her unwanted mother figure and the treatment she got there, though the fact she hadn’t disappeared entirely meant she likely couldn’t escape further. And there I was, able to take it away from her with so much as a single sentence. I think her behavior in my home was likely to improve, because with those few words I could make her life just that much worse. I never considered myself a vindictive person, but leverage is a wonderful thing. Smugly, I returned to the house.






Chapter the Tenth:

“Alright Tumbleweed,” I ruffled Myra’s already messy hair, grinning down at her where she stood on my doorstep in another of those old-fashioned, lacy dresses, with Martha behind her “I’ll see you tomorrow. We’re still on for that picnic.”

She just giggled, and toddled off with a wave “Bye Annie! See ya tomorrow!”

And, slowly, the figures of her and her mother disappeared through the grasses, and the faint haze of dust in the field, back towards their own home. I leaned on the doorjamb and observed them walking off in animated conversation until they were lost from sight. A faint smile gracing my face, I eased back into the house, though the expression slipped slightly at the sight of the demon sitting at the end of my couch. But no, I would not be deterred from my good mood, not even by that thing. Fetching my book from one of the bookcases, as I hadn’t sat down with it in a while, I walked past where my sister was reading some trashy romance novel, and flopped into the couch’s plush cushions, cracking open my tome.

It was one thing that always seemed exceedingly familiar; the oldest thing still in my life. My sister, my house, my other house, my friend and neighbors, had all been preceded by that book. The soft brown leather, warm to the touch, had a soothing effect in my hands, passing across my runes. Flipping randomly I read passages I could recite by heart, re-memorized runes I’d traced with my fingers so many times before. After a time I was pulled from my reverie by Elizabeth’s voice “Keep and eye on Azala for a few minutes for me, Annie. I’ll be right back.”

Of course. The demon couldn’t be left unattended, as previous experience clearly indicated. I merely grunted in response, not taking my eyes from the yellowed pages I was studying. Azala’s behavior, in our house at least, had settled a bit, I imagine because I would occasionally remind her in hushed whispers how I could make her situation worse if I decided I was displeased with her. But, improvement or no, after the incident with the fridge she was not allowed to be left alone in the house, leaving it to me to watch her whenever Elizabeth had to do something, even though it was she who’d agreed to babysit, not me. I could feel that grey girl’s eyes on me as I sat there, but I ignored her. Or, well, I tried to. It became more difficult when I noticed she was suddenly sitting so close our thighs almost touched, and I hadn’t noticed her move.

Slowly I lifted my eyes, finding her gazing intently into my face from mere inches away. Several awkward moments, and I muttered “What?”

In a flash her mouth was pressed to mine, my eyes springing open wide. In the second or two it took for the shock to wear off enough I could move she flattened herself against my side, kissing intensely, heatedly, almost violently. My hands went to her shoulder’s, and I pushed her to arm’s length “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Kiss.” was the simple, almost perplexed answer. I sighed in frustration “Yeah, I noticed. Why?”

For the first time I’d seen, she smiled, a lopsided, toothy grin that rather made me feel like she was up to something “You yell.”

I could only cock an eyebrow, silent for one very long instant, before querying “You like me because I yell at you...?”

“Crazy woman, woman here, they don’t yell,” she was pushing ever closer, it becoming increasingly clear she was stronger than I was, “they beg, plead, implore. Calm, gentle... infuriating. Back home, prey screams, grovels. No one has been so... forceful with me in centuries. You yell, you threaten. I like.”

I brought her up short with a hand on her face, pushing her away again “Okay, I can’t say that made a lot of sense. I’m not going to kiss you. I don’t like you.”

She just stared in confusion around the hand I had planted on her face, eventually merely commanding “Like me.”

A roll of my eyes “It doesn’t work that way. I don’t like you because of your behavior. You telling me to like you doesn’t change anything. Now get off of me and go back to your end of the couch.”

“What I need to do to make you like me?” had she really just asked me that? I frowned at her, spitting “You’re so clueless it’s pitiful...”

A fresh grin spanned her thin face, showing a pointy eye tooth, and she pressed closer again, only for me to remove myself from her path, causing her to flop to the couch cushions I’d just vacated. Alright, so the demon wasn’t acting out at me anymore, but I wasn’t sure if this was better or worse. She observed closely, staring as I took a moment to put my book away, before sitting back down. Sitting back down away from her, in a chair where there wasn’t room for her to sit next to me. She didn’t follow, thankfully, but resumed staring at me until my sister returned, when she went back to looking sullen and inhospitable, as if nothing had happened.

Of course! As long as I didn’t find myself alone with her I wouldn’t have to deal with this crap. Perhaps she viewed it as showing weakness, or thought it would be taken from her if it was seen. Certainly, in line with the way she was treated at home, Lorelei was unlikely to allow her something so mature. Maybe if I ratted her out I wouldn’t have to withstand any more of her, ah, “affections”. With my sister back to watch her I headed up my tower, where my thinking chair awaited me.

Dinner was... annoying. Azala, for once, tossed nothing. I saw her shooting a disgusted look at the best cooked bit of her chicken breast, and make ready to discard it over her shoulder, but at my glare she instead stuffed it in her mouth, chewing morosely. That happened twice more that meal before she actually quit scrutinizing her meal and just ate. She managed to get through the entire meal without misbehaving, thanks to my watchful eye and occasional hard looks. It rather disrupted my own dinner, having to keep an eye on her, making me quite glad for the respite granted by her immediate bed time after the meal.

A couple hours later I was again seated on the couch, my book once more opened on my lap, when my sister came up behind, leaning to smile down when I looked up at her “I’m gonna head up to bed. Don’t be up too late, alright? Remember, we’re taking Myra out on a picnic tomorrow.”

I just smiled her way, and watched her trail off to the stairs, before settling into the peaceful atmosphere of the empty room to read. All was quiet, but for the chirp of insects outsides; all was calm, serene. Despite Azala’s strange behavior the day hadn’t been so bad, and the following day promised to be better. I’d just relax for a while, get to bed, and get a good night’s sleep to be ready for all the walking I’d be doing the following day. Of course, things could never be quite that simple.

No more than twenty minutes into reading, I glanced up to see bright blue eyes inches from my face, starting with a loud “Augh!”

There was Azala, seated right next to me on the couch in her sleeper, sitting so close it was a wonder I hadn’t felt her breathing, or sensed her body heat. What was she doing up, or when, for that matter, had she arrived in the living room? I hadn’t heard the slightest sound of her approach, or even the noise of a body settling into the couch cushions. While I tried to force my heart to slow down I shot her a glare “What are you doing up? Didn’t my sister put you to bed?”

Her only response was to lean closer, breath hot against my neck, fingertips brushing my stomach. My immediate response was to shove her away hard enough she fell back onto the couch, grinning at me. Again. I was getting sick of that mischievous expression... Almost immediately she was sitting up again, leaning on me. With a growl of frustration I stood, pulling her up by the arm after me “That’s enough of that. Come on, back to bed with you.”

Much to my annoyance she seemed to be enjoying herself as I dragged her up to the nursery, guiding her into the crib, and putting the side up. She sat on the crib mattress, holding the bars and watching me leave, with an intense, hungry stare. She’d been acting like this less than a day, and I was fed up with it already. Returning to the ground floor only long enough to put away my book, I retired to my room, sighing as I undressed and settled into the blankets, and the softness of the mattress. Sleep found me quickly. I just wanted it to be morning, wanted to go on the picnic, and hope when I returned Lorelei would be back to pick up her demon.

I had a vague dream I would not later recall, except for the eyes. Piercing, insidious blue eyes, filled with desire. Eyes that were still there when my own fluttered open.

“Gah!” I cried, lashing out on reflex, fist connecting with Azala’s shoulder, sending her tumbling off of me, and off of my bed, onto the carpet. Going from asleep to enraged in maybe as much as two seconds, I was standing over her, where she was smirking up at me playfully, rubbing her shoulder where I’d struck her. I glowered down at her “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

“Want.” was her simple reply, as she scrambled to her feet. I rolled my eyes, took her by the upper arm, and for the second time that night pulled her to the nursery, muttering “I have had enough of this. You’re selfish, destructive, and inconsiderate, and it’s really pissing me off.”

And there it sounded like something I’d say to myself. Was I starting to identify with this thing? I thrust the concept away like it was venomous. She was less than cooperative this time when I tried to get her into the crib. It all seemed to be a game to her, getting me angry, pushing my buttons, and she did no better at it than when those teeth clamped down on my hand, eliciting the cry “Ah, you bit me!”

How had she even done that? She had orders to cause no injury! She practically giggled at that, saying teasingly “Ah, you not bleeding.”

Oh, so that’s how it was. She was playing as loose with her rules as they could be interpreted. She hadn’t made me bleed or caused lasting damage, so she hadn’t “injured” me. My eye twitched, and I took deep breaths, trying to cool my boiling blood to keep myself from striking a blow that would likely break her nose. Surely her caretaker would want her returned intact, I insisted to myself repeatedly. Drawing up, I towered over her scrawny form, growling down at her “I have had it with this shit. I don’t know how you keep getting out, but...”

“Found button. Don’t have to ‘climb out’.” she claimed, interrupting me. What? It took me a moment to realize what she meant, and realize Lorelei’s likely mistake in her orders. By the girl’s words my assumption was she had probably ordered Azala not to climb out of cribs, or something along those lines, yet the demon had discovered the switch that lowered the side, and could reach it from within, allowing her to escape on the technicality that if the side was down she wasn’t climbing out. A slight shake of my head, and I went back to what I was saying “No more of this. I’m putting you to bed, again, and you’re going to sleep. I see you out of this crib just one more time, and Lorelei will not only be hearing about this, but I will refuse to host you again, and next time she needs a babysitter she can try her luck with Martha. Or she can invest in a sturdy box with a padlock; I don’t care. Now in the crib. Chew on this,” I stuffed a teething ring in her mouth, “hold this,” I shoved my least favorite plush toy into her arms, “and go to sleep. Good night.”

The crib side came up with such force the entire thing rattled, and I stormed out of the nursery, shutting the door behind me. As much as I wanted her to just stay where I put her, part of me was wishing she’d be out of bed again, so I could go through with my threat and wash my hands of her for good. Perhaps realizing she could push me no further that night, I didn’t see her out of bed again. It took me a seeming eternity to get back to sleep, my bedroom door locked behind me this time around.

I refused to pay any attention to Azala in the morning, not even acknowledging her existence until Myra had already arrived, and I was packing the picnic basket, asking my sister “Do we really have to take that thing with us?”

She smiled at me “Well, I’m coming along so there’ll be someone to change Myra, since Martha’s sitting this one out, and I can’t leave Azala home alone. Now, if you want to take charge of changing your friend’s diapers...”

She trailed off there while my face flushed red at the prospect of touching Myra’s nethers. Yeah, regression situation or no that wasn’t something I was sure I could bring myself to do. I mean, talk about awkward... Sighing, resigned to having to bring the demon along, I hurried to finish stuffing food into the basket, topping it off with our usual picnic blanket, before heading out into the living room. Myra was immediately up and eager, and Azala, though still acting surly, seemed vaguely curious. We hadn’t taken her along on one of these before. I’d been hoping to leave her at the house with my sister, but Myra was in the middle of another week-long regression bender, and I didn’t want to go disrupting her good time. Martha, however, had things to do back at their fort, where they were apparently working on furnishing another room of the house, and doing it all themselves, down to making the furniture. And so, since I was uncomfortable changing Myra, and she wasn’t entirely on board with the idea either, Elizabeth had to come, which left no one at the house to watch Azala. Maybe we could have pawned her off on Martha for the day, but I wouldn’t have wished that little grey brat on anyone who was trying to get something done, or anyone else for that matter. So it had come to this. With luck she’d behave herself, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

The morning was spent trudging through long, dry grasses on a windswept plain, passing by the occasional stunted tree, a little trickling rivulet of water here of there painting verdant stripes of green through the mass of undulating browns and yellows. Myra was having a wonderful time, exploring the different plants, splashing in the little streams, and investigating burrows and the little fuzzy things darting about them. For her it was an adventure, a landscape she’d never seen just waiting for her to find its nooks and crannies. For me, on the other hand, it was a time of laughter and envy, being so very glad my friend was enjoying herself, but jealous of her ability to do so. Elizabeth, for her part, was keeping a close watch on Azala, whose usual perpetual ill mood had eased to tenuous interest in her surroundings.

Lunch was a light-hearted affair taking place under a tree in a little valley, where the constant, buffeting winds couldn’t reach us. Sandwiches and finger foods were eaten, with cake for dessert that Myra ate with her hands, rather adorably. Just as amusing as watching her get icing on her face was seeing Azala be offered a piece as well. At first she refused it, turning her nose up at what obviously wasn’t bloody, raw meat, but then, when she thought no one was looking, she sniffed at it, tongue flicking out, touching the frosting. Her eyes sprang wide, and the lot of us stared while she devoured the confection, immediately rifling through the picnic basket for more. As much as I didn’t like her, it was rather funny seeing her with that basket on her head. As soon as she was done, and Elizabeth cleaned off her face, she resumed acting entirely uninterested in anything that was going on.

As the sun was slowly easing down from its apex in the blue vault above we made our way back through the plain, retracing our tracks towards the house. As usual, the return trip was more subdued, as Myra was growing increasingly tuckered out from having been playing the whole time we’d been out, in addition to traveling across uneven terrain in constant wind. We only had a mile or so left to go when the air was filled with a familiar rumbling, grinding noise, all four of us struggling for footing on the quaking earth. The noise drowned me out entirely as I groaned “Oh, not again...”


Chapter the Eleventh:

It was a disaster, I reflected silently, seated on my couch out in the real world, head in my hands. My tears were spent. My body felt numb. My mind was consumed with a mixture of hopeless emptiness and boiling rage. The worst had happened, an eventuality I had never expected, and could never have been prepared for. Why had I not realized that by working that magic I might have been bringing back to me the very thing I’d lost that had brought me to that action in the first place? Elias had returned.

The last of the daylight had passed with that ever so familiar boy, and his new bitter, unpleasant mother figure, in our house. Only when she dealt with Elias did she ever seem to lose that frown, and the tenseness that made it seem like any second she might explode in a great outpouring of anger. It didn’t help matters that she seemed to regard me as the scum of the earth, and I couldn’t exactly bring myself to argue her point. I was a terrible person, and Elias’s complete lack of any negative emotion over what had happened was definitely not helping. He didn’t hate me, wasn’t in the least bit upset anymore over what had transpired, and it only made things worse. I could have made excuses, tried to justify things more if he’d gotten angry, if he’d blown up at me, but he was just so calm and forgiving.

He forgave me, said those three words “I forgive you”, and it was another dagger in my heart. I couldn’t stand it, couldn’t take any more. I broke down, I shouted, I cried. Why didn’t he hate me, I demanded, and his only response was that he couldn’t, that he would never hate me. His acceptance of everything, and of me, was the worst possible outcome for my emotional state. As much as I’d thought about bringing him back, having him show up out of the blue with a woman who hated me for what I’d done was entirely unexpected, leaving me rather at a loss about how to handle it. I always thought if he’d been back it would have been because I was weak and pathetic and caved to my desire for him. Every last moment I’d spent despondent over losing the love of my life, every time I’d beaten myself up over making him leave, was crashing down on my head, and my entire life I was piecing together, with Elizabeth, and Myra, was falling around my ears.

Maybe it had gone far enough. Maybe it was time to make it stop, to halt the magic working behind the scenes, the snowball I’d set rolling down the hill. But the question was if I could bring myself to remove Elias from my life for a second time. Different factions of thoughts warred bloodily in my mind over the outcome, bringing on a terrible headache. Part of me wanted him gone, before things could boil over again. I’d had reasons for making him leave, after all, reasons that hadn’t changed. But at the same time my feelings for him had never waned. I still loved him and his cheerful, rambunctious energy, and his smile, and the way his hair was always flopping in his eyes, and... And that line of thought wasn’t helping. What, was I going to get back together with him, like nothing had happened? He deserved better than me, yet surely he would pursue me. And could I deny him? At that point I wasn’t sure I could have said no to anything he asked of me. Certainly an unmitigated disaster.

Why did this have to happen to me? I had magic the likes of which people could only imagine! I was one of the most powerful entities in the world! The damned magic had helped the antique shop girl; why was my life still screwing me over again and again? I’d escaped my parents, but their words and actions seemed intent to haunt me for eternity. I’d fallen in love, then had to remove him because he became unstable, and disturbingly possessive, only for him to suddenly reappear in my life. My magic may have brought me my best friend, but at the same time it’d also brought Azala. My life seemed to be incapable of going two weeks without something horrible happening. Could nothing go right?

Just past midnight. I stood amidst chaos and destruction in my living room, hunched over, breathing hard, wild eyes gazing across the devastation. The coffee table was flipped, one leg broken, lying off to the side. The couch had been toppled. The flat screen television lie in the corner in pieces where it had shattered against the wall. Blood dripped from my knuckles, staining the glass-strewn carpet and the place I’d pounded my fists into the wall, accompanying the bloody footprints left after stepping on razor-sharp shards. I collapsed to my knees, face in my hands, and sobbed my frustration, and my rage, though every tear she was just that much more fueling my anger. I was hopeless, pathetic, useless, and the only thing I could do about it was act out physically. A fine example of my behavior, really. Can’t handle what’s happening? Break something. And that night I had broken many things, nearly including my hand. It was a wonder my sister hadn’t shown up to stop me, but then again she had responsibilities besides me that night. Who it was that did come for me was far more surprising.

“Anger has uses.” a voice spoke to me, filling the void, seeming to echo inside my head, “Intimidation, motivation. But should only be felt when beneficial. You allow your emotions to control. Unacceptable. Listen, and follow. Enumerate your troubles, imagine you stand in a darkened room, and picture each a candle. See the flickering flames, the distorted shadows cast on walls, feel heat of rage radiating from them. These lights are what are in your way. The flames are heat of your emotion, shadows the distortion they cause upon your thoughts. Uncontrolled emotion will make you sloppy. Your prey will slip between your claws if you do not approach with a still mind.”

One by one my field of vision filled, as I concentrated, with little dots of light, quivering gently, each multiplying the faint shadows shifting and flowing around me. Elias, my past, my self-hatred, jealousy, Azala... Each and more became spots of illumination in my vision, the warmth of the flames washing over me.

“Snuff them, one by one.” I was instructed, slowly, each word painstakingly enunciated, “Watch the embers of the wicks cease to glow, and allow the heat to trickle away. Find yourself in the empty darkness. Feel the calm. Breathe deeply the cold. It is rationality, ability to think without emotional influence. You will need it.”

A deep, shuddering breath. My heart had slowed, and my racing mind had come to almost a complete stop. All was silent, my head was empty, blank. Very slowly I opened my eyes, staring down into the thin, grey face below, scrunched up in seeming annoyance. Finally Azala queried “Improvement?”

And it was. It all seemed to hit me like colliding with a brick wall. What the hell was I doing? A glance around the living room, and I wondered if I’d be able to fix it before Elizabeth could see. Busted furniture, broken television, my own spilt blood. Why had I done that? It seemed so stupid now, and with the adrenaline draining away my bleeding knuckles and feet began to ache. When my eyes finally returned to the pink-clad form before me, I told her “Go back, before you get caught. I have to get this fixed up before my sister sees and gets all worried and emotional all over me. Ugh, how am I gonna deal with Elias...?”

Turning, I headed for the stairs, for the one way I could fix my actions that night with no remaining evidence: magic. For once Azala actually did as she was told without resistance, heading for the master bedroom, and the portal within, muttering something to herself about how close the air was here. I didn’t waste time with bandages that’d be gone in the morning, just collapsing into bed, exhaustion consuming me immediately.

I ignored the pain in my lacerated feet as I walked through my mind’s hall, ignoring the phenomena going on in the paint, the crumbling plaster and flickering lights. I had no time for them, for the decay surrounding me, as I searched out a fresh dream door, where I quickly constructed the concept of my living room, back how it was supposed to be, and my split flesh healed, blood stains all removed, quickly pushing it through, and heading to my lounge. The calm state of mind I had achieved didn’t last to morning, but I took a moment to repeat the exercise the demon had taken me through the night before, and my nerves settled back into place for the most part. I would take things as they came, and do my best to deal with them without letting my emotions get in the way.

I spent days dodging everyone I knew, seeking seclusion, as though the answers to my problems lie in the silence. My sister disturbed my thinking regularly, but retreated each and every time when I calmly told her I needed to think. Which was the truth. She was relieved enough that I wasn’t moping or enraged she let me be with minimal fuss. As much as the meditative practice Azala had introduced me to gave me an alternative view on my problems less muddled with my emotions on the matter, allowing me to keep my head while thinking on the sensitive nature of my predicaments, there was a lot of thinking to do. Long days were spent by the lakeside, under the lemon trees of my real world home, or hiking alone beyond my secondary home. Long nights in my head sifting memories and thoughts, trying to decide what action to take.

The first real conclusion I came to was that, whatever happened, I couldn’t get back together with Elias. There was too great a likelihood it would end in disaster. He’d seemed more or less fine when I saw him, but before I’d sent him off on his own I wouldn’t exactly have called him well. His every waking moment seemed focused on me, to the point of unhealthy obsession. It was why I’d been forced to make him leave in the first place. He’d become so overly possessive he grew hostile towards my sister, and no matter how much I tried to talk to him about it nothing I said made any difference. And nothing had truly changed since then. If I allowed myself to be with him I could only expect it to happen again. For his own sake I couldn’t allow it to happen again. Before he could get his hopes up that we might reunite I would have to break the news to him, however much I was unsure I could reject him to his face. Possibly just as bad would be dealing with his new mother, who certainly had no positive opinions of me.

The sun was high in the sky, the air warm, leaving me thankful for the gentle breeze causing the grasses to sway as I trudged towards the newest section of wall interrupting my horizon. I’d have to do something about that, some time, as I was growing tired of those sheets of rock disrupting my landscape. The different walls intersected at angles, but only three so far almost penned in my location on one side. The wall itself was nothing new, just another flavor of strange sensation under my rune-adorned palm where I touched, bearing a single large, rectangular hole the shape of an oversized door. Or, I suppose, oversized for me, but about right for Myra or Elias’s mothers. Passing through I found myself walking through short grass, between widely spaced, leafy trees, and even across a little bridge spanning a creek, up to a large, elegant looking two story house with wooden side paneling. It really was a beautiful building, all lacquered wood and tall, arched windows, with a steep, black slate roof.

Ever so slowly I drew up to the building, up the porch steps to the front door, and after doing my best to gather myself gave a hesitant knock. I actually flinched when the door swung open abruptly, revealing that large redhead and her scowl directed down at me. Elias’s new mother figure was certainly intimidating, and the impression was not helped when her greeting was a gruff “You.”

I couldn’t look her in the face, suddenly finding my feet particularly interesting, as I said to her “I need to talk to Elias.”

“I don’t know if I should be letting you inside...” she grumbled “You’ll be a bad influence on my boy. Why should someone like you be allowed in my house?”

I sighed, my hand dragged down my face “Well, this is news you’ll probably be delighted to hear, even if Elias won’t like it.”

“Fine.” the door was pulled open, and shut quickly behind me as soon as I stepped through. Though feeling distinctly unwelcome I tailed her through a hall, into a sitting room as she was telling me “Little Eli is down for an afternoon nap right now, so you’ll have to wait. In the mean time, what is this news you speak of? It had better be good, or you’ll be waiting on the porch. I dislike having you in here.”

Well, that much was abundantly clear. She was watching me like a hawk, like she thought I’d start taking things if she looked away, and I still couldn’t find it in me to look her in the face. While I had her actually talking to me, however, I had another matter to address “First, I have to ask you something. I mean, I know I’ve done terrible things, and I’ve agonized over them and hated myself for them for a long time now, but you seem particularly, uh, intense, in your dislike. Why do you hate me so much? We’ve barely met.”

“You remind me of my baby girl.” she informed me, lifting a picture frame off of a short bookshelf, holding it out at arm’s length, right in my face. The photograph it held displayed her, only smiling cheerfully, without the grey in her hair, next to a teenage blonde girl who was grinning at the camera, blushing faintly while being held close against the woman’s side. They both looked so happy, joy almost radiating off the image. Quietly I asked, almost dreading the answer “What... What happened to her?”

A soft click as the frame was set back down, and I was no longer the only avoiding the other’s gaze, as she grew quiet for a time, eventually uttering “She left me. I waited for her on that porch for seventeen long years, and one day she did come back. A businesswoman in her late thirties, married, with two little ones of her own. Over a decade and a half I waited faithfully for my baby to return to me. And she did. She returned to tell me she didn’t need me anymore. She left her magic behind with me, and walked out of my life forever.”

That explained it, alright. She wasn’t nearly as mad at me because of anything I’d done as she was furious about being discarded. Serious abandonment issues. In me she saw reflections of her creator, drew parallels between what had happened to her and what had transpired between me and Elias. It was no wonder she didn’t like me.

“I’m sorry.” I told her quietly, pity dribbling through my heart. She’d waited, for so long, only to be told she wasn’t needed anymore. With a sigh she turned back to me “I don’t care. Now what is this news you insist I want to hear?”

A nod, and I spoke it aloud for the first time “I have to tell Elias he and I can’t be together again. I love him, and that’s why I can’t let it happen again. He needs more than me in his life, and I don’t think that will happen if we get back together. Before, before I had to let him go, he grew... obsessed. He got so possessive he resented my sister for being close to me, wouldn’t leave my side for a single second, and he refused to listen to reason.”

She “Hmm”ed for a second, before nodding, though she never lost her frown “That is good news. Elias talks about you far too much. Perhaps with this I can convince him you’re not worth it, and he’ll come to his senses.”

That wasn’t exactly what I meant, but at least she wasn’t telling me to get out of her house, or something else along those lines. We sat, and awaited Elias’s awakening in uncomfortable silence, interrupted only by her begrudgingly serving tea. She refused to awaken Elias early from his nap, insisting that “her little boy” needed his rest, though I had a feeling it was more to give her the opportunity to glare at me for an hour and make me feel distinctly uncomfortable in her house. At precisely two o’ clock she headed upstairs, and some minutes later came returned with that familiar boy on her hip, garbed only in a t-shirt and a diaper. He was immediately squirming to be put down, and rushed to embrace me, crying “Annie!”

I hugged him back, feeling worse and worse about what I was about to do, but it had to be done. When he pulled back, grinning down at me where I sat, I gave a sad smile in return “Elias, we have to talk.”

His expression dropped off to perplexity, a hint of hesitance creeping in “What about?”

“It’s not easy to say this,” I looked away, staring into the floorboards, unsure I could say this while looking him in the eye, “but... we can’t be together again. I mean, we can still be friends, of course, but I, um, I don’t think it’d be a good idea if we started going out again. I’m sorry.”

“Wh-What?” he sounded honestly shocked “You don’t want to be together anymore?”

Swallowing hard I stood, and pulled him into a tight hug “I’m sorry, Elias. You deserve better than me, anyway. Please don’t be too broken up about this. I still want you in my life, I just think it’d be best for both of us if we didn’t get too intimate.”

“A-Are you sure?” he pushed me away, holding me by the shoulders, those soft blue eyes piercing into me, cutting a bleeding hole through my soul. I could only nod, momentarily unable to speak. Tears welled in his eyes, and I couldn’t stand to look anymore, leaning to gently kiss his cheek, whispering an “I’m so sorry...” before hurriedly retreating from that house, leaving that unpleasant woman to comfort the only boy I’d ever fallen in love with. What exactly would come of what I’d done that afternoon, who could say, but it had to be done. As much as I hated to hurt Elias like that, us being together would have ended badly for everyone involved. I’d had no choice but to cut it off before it could start, and he deserved better than me, anyway, or at least I insisted so to myself as I retreated back to my house wiping salty fluid from my face. In the back of my mind I held a vague image of a candle, one among many, being extinguished.





Chapter the Twelfth:

I gasped and shuddered in the dim, knuckles white as my fingers wound into the sweat soaked bedclothes. Shaken and shivering I scrambled from my bed, stumbling into the hall, still tasting vomit that had technically never actually left my body. Elizabeth awoke to my heavy footsteps approaching across her bedroom carpet, giving a worried glance into my wide, haunted eyes.

“Anne, what’s the matter?” she questioned, arms extending to receive me as I moved to cling to her, taking some degree of comfort from her close, warm body “Did you have a bad dream?”

If only. I didn’t answer, too overwhelmed by the things still passing behind my eyes. Slowly, gently, she guided me under the covers with her, and held me tightly as the early hours of the morning progressed. I don’t think I so much as blinked for minutes, and even then I couldn’t close my eyes for long without seeing things that were either horrific, nauseating, or both, that I could never unsee. Elizabeth watched over me all night, only stirring at dawn to draw me to my feet, leading me along to the kitchen and serving me food I couldn’t bring myself to eat. I spoke not a word until near noon, where out on the back porch, staring into the gently swaying boughs of the trees, the bright yellow of growing lemons dangling amongst the leaves, I muttered softly “She was right...”

My sister was instantly alert, perking up where she’d been seated next to me, leaning close with a comforting hand against my upper arm “Who was right, Sister?”

“Lorelei...” I uttered quietly in response “She was right. I really didn’t want to know...”

I got only confusion in reply. Right, right, I’d never told Elizabeth about that particular conversation with our neighbor, the one in which that woman had implored me to leave her past undisturbed. I wished I’d listened. I’d wanted merely to snuff another of those little candles in the back of my head, remove another of the things that plagued my mind, so as to calm the chaos, bring more order into my life. Really, I’d only succeeded in exacerbating the issue, like dealing with an annoying bee by searching out its hive and smacking it with a stick. I’d gone poking where I should never have stuck my nose, violated someone’s utmost privacy by invading their memories, and I was paying for it. I didn’t bother explaining this, just slumping in my seat, eyes boring into the yellow of lemon rind to avoid what I’d be witnessing should I close them.

How someone could see, and do, and experience so much and still so much as be alive, or relatively sane, was beyond me. Not that Lorelei was particularly sane, when you take in evidence such as her summoning and tricking a demon, but she was a lot more cohesive than I would have expected. She was hardly into her thirties, if her claims were to be believed. How was she even capable of smiling the way she did? It was an act; it had to be. The one and only time I’d ever seen the real her was that hollow, haunted look when I’d brought up her past. What was she like at home? I was almost afraid to ask Azala to try and find out, as either of the possibilities I could conjure was equally frightening.

I was awake for over sixty hours without sleep, daring not close my eyes. I’d have nightmares, I was certain, if I slept without my specially runed pillow that allowed me to enter my head at night. At this rate I was going to start going prematurely grey before I was even a legal adult. However, my attempts to avoid what awaited in the dark behind my eyelids led inevitably to me drifting off out of sheer exhaustion on my couch, leaned against my sister.

The dark with thick and palpable in the still, split only by the glistening crimson of splattered blood, and the panting and sobbing of a single form. Shining green eyes glittering with tears and fear, a single, small body stood amongst upturned furniture and scattered electronics. Her outstretched hand was wreathed in a haze of heat, flesh blistered and cracking, oozing dark fluid. A child. No more than five or six years old. Bruised and bloodied she stood over her abusive father, in a crumpled heap at her feet, torso torn open by the blast that had originated from her own hand. The man's blood and viscera were scattered across the living room and his daughter in an almost surreal scene of carnage, eyes forever frozen in a blank expression of surprise. The quiet was suddenly shattered by an ear-piercing scream from the doorway.

A youth with short-cropped brown hair stood, absolutely still, sighting down a revolver, immaculate uniform stark contrast to her body. Fresh bruises made dark, purplish splotches in her toned flesh, one eye swollen shut, blood crusted on her chin. Determination and hatred flashed in her eyes, and she squeezed the trigger. The gunshot sounded across the otherwise abandoned firing range, the bullet tearing through the exact same hole in the target as the last four. Silently, she popped out the weapon’s cylinder, and reloaded to no sensation but the clatter of empty cartridge casings and the lingering scent of gun smoke. The weapon slithered into the worn leather of the holster on her hip, and the girl, no older than her early teens, stepped lightly off through an expansive facility in the dark hours of early morning, losing sleep again over the fact she’d be shipped out to war come dawn.

Buildings and people burned as a city was consumed in flame and molten rock, the sky itself blotted out by the billowing smoke and blowing ash, turning midday to the dim of dusk. The air was suffocating and close, rife with toxic fumes and the stench of burning flesh. A young woman in a torn military uniform materialized in the haze, grinning despite the blood running from where a lead slug had torn into her abdomen, her free arm, the one not holding her gut, aiming a pistol. The sound of gunfire, of bodies falling to pavement. Her mind had cracked, all sanity and sensation lost, the bleeding in her stomach matched by a bleed in her head where a blood vessel had burst when she’d triggered that volcano and the ensuing deaths of thousands that would weigh on her for all eternity. A prolonged, wheezing cough, blood spat to the side, and she cackled, striding through the streets as the city crumbled around her “Run, run for your lives!”

“... and to be rendered incapable of reproduction for the good of society.” the judge’s words rang through the head of the shackled brunette being led from the courtroom. She’d been stripped of her rank, of her citizenship, praised as a hero and damned as a war criminal in the same breath, abandoned by even the authority whose orders she’d followed the majority of her life. She left that building that day a pale, ragged, rundown husk of a human being, unable even to dredge up emotion over her upcoming court ordered surgery and exile. She had nothing and no one, had been alone for years, but the stuttered scarring along her wrist was testament to her weakness, her inability to bring herself to end it despite the pain, the guilt, and the rage. Her life had ended the day she’d been born, and it’d been winding down to this, ever spiraling. It could go no further down from here, however. She was being removed, cut from the fabric of society and placed for the remainder of her life in agonizing solitude to rot.

Green eyes flashed in the face of a woman standing over a table, splattered with droplets of dark blood, crackling with energy, electricity arcing from her body as she channeled anything and everything into the form laid before her. Here and there were scattered flesh and muscle tissue, needle and thread, and discarded organs. So much blood, pooling on the floor and spattered where bits of flesh and organ had been tossed in haste when deemed unfit. Thousands of sutures held together the shape of a child there on the table. Cold, dead flesh, harvested and constructed in an act of crazy desperation. So many graves unearthed, so much of her dwindling mind lost, in this venture that had little, if any chance of success. But there was no sense left, nothing but the stir crazy, the all-consuming loneliness. Electricity touched the body. It convulsed as the current passed through the inert muscle tissue, magical energies pulsing through the empty cranial cavity. Technically this was beyond theoretical, attempting to pluck a spirit from the aether, and thrust it into a body. All was silence, breath held, until the body’s fingers began to twitch, a manic grin splitting the woman’s face “Yes, yes, come to Mama!”

Tears ran down the tired, worn face of a woman who was now more recognizable to me as she trudged through the forest, towards city lights in the distance. In her arms lay the trembling, sweating patchwork figure of a child, long-healed stitches separating portions of flesh with contrasting skin tones, form draped in a yellow sun dress. She clung tightly to the woman’s shirt, shining, heterochromatic eyes filled with fear as she coughed blood. The air was filled with panic, and an overwhelming urgency. What would happen to the woman for the violation of her exile was unknown, as it had never happened before, but for years she had known the joy of motherhood, for the first time in her life she had known happiness, and now that was about to be taken from her by a sudden illness she could do nothing to combat. The very thing she continued to live for was dying in her arms, and she would turn the world upside down to save its life.

Panting, a beaten, brown-haired figure stood tied to an upright, jutting pole, timber stacked around her feet. A haze of heat rose off the torches and sweaty bodies of the shouting, blood-thirsty mob milling mere yards away. The words being yelled were drowned out by the sheer number of voices speaking out at once. Family and friends of those who had fallen to her in battle. Survivors of that city lost beneath ash and volcanic rock who'd watched their homes and families burn. They seethed with hate, and a need for vengeance. These were no longer people, no longer individuals, but a mass of unstoppable murderous intent, that would not cease until it saw its definition of justice, courts and law be damned. And their victim seemed resigned to her fate, head hung, awaiting her deserved demise. This was her price, the culmination of her existence, weighed down by so many lives, so much blood on her hands. She put up no resistance, despondent at what she was certain was the loss of the only thing she still lived for, left behind in the hospital bed when she’d been assaulted. A cry of bestial rage split the night, followed closely by screams, and outcry of agony. The lone, bound figure slowly raised her emerald gaze from the wood piled below her, to the sight of a familiar, eclectic collection of flesh coming into view. Face contorted in unfathomable anger, the woman’s fabricated child pressed through the crowd swinging a blade. Blood and limbs were liberated from their owners as her single-minded purpose brought her to her creator’s rescue. Briefly, joy flitted over the woman’s countenance, but the expression fell immediately. This wasn’t her daughter anymore, not this murderous monster wading through bodies that reminded her far too much of herself. The blade whistled through the air, and right through a man’s head, splattering crimson fluid and grey matter across the woman’s saddened, hopeless expression.

I sat up with a gasp on the couch, scrambling to the bathroom to vomit stomach bile and spend a time dry heaving over the toilet, while my sister sat with me, gently rubbing my back and murmuring quiet, comforting words. I’d seen plenty of graphic violence in film and television, but this was something else entirely. I’d witnessed the memories in person. The acrid smells of noxious gases, burning bodies, spent gunpowder, and Lorelei’s father’s opened torso. The sight of tendon and muscle being pieced together, stitches through flesh, eyes being popped into sockets, and the unearthing of corpses in the creation of some Frankenstein’s monster child. That man whose head had been opened with that sword, right before I’d woken up? I’d seen inside him. I could feel the heat of the blood and brain flying through the air. I’d been able to smell it. Sound unpleasant? Trust me, it was far worse to experience it firsthand.

And those had only been some of the things I’d beheld in Lorelei’s head, though it was worse experiencing them again in my sleep, where my mind filled in colors, and there was no sense of self within the events, no detachment. There were happy memories, sure, primarily of that child, but the vast majority of that woman’s thirty-two years of life was pain and blood and hate. An abusive family, a brutal military academy, being pressed into military service years before she was old enough to legally make her own decisions. Being shot, stabbed, and not only witness to but the cause of thousands of deaths, and the destruction of an entire city. Through it all the only thing that was positive, the diamond in the pitch and ash that was her past, was the experience of motherhood. She’d intended to live forever with that child that would never physically age, and without her she’d gone on to grasp for that feeling again, only this time with some degree of control in the matter. Hence, Azala, a charge over which she had complete authority.

It was maybe two more days before I could close my eyes without seeing crimson and death, and felt well enough to go spend some time with Myra, trying to distract myself by plunging into a regression situation. Ever the neighborly type, probably because we were the only neighbors she’d ever had since her youth with her abusive father before his death, Lorelei visited frequently. I flinched every time I saw her, every time I heard her voice, getting flashes of that loony wading through bodies and ash, cackling as she shot down fleeing civilians. I couldn’t say I was afraid of her, exactly. By what I’d seen it was certain she’d changed since her military days, but still, seeing her brought those images to the forefront of my mind. I spoke not a word to her for perhaps a week, and my less than subtle inability to interact with her did not go unnoticed. Despite her tendency to associate most with the fabricated relations of Myra’s and mine that were present, she did still talk to me plenty, and seemed pretty perplexed when at first I could only open and close my mouth at her like a fish on a riverbank.

With the exception of my sister, who seemed intent on smothering me to death with attention, showing up every other minute plying me with sweets and checking my diapers and playing with me, Azala seemed most keenly aware of my out of the norm behavior. I imagine it was hard for her to miss granted the fact she spent any time we were in the same room staring at me, but she asked no questions. She never had the opportunity, I suppose. She wouldn’t want to have a conversation with witnesses, and Elizabeth wouldn’t be out of the same room I was inhabiting for a single moment, even taking me to sleep in her bed with her at night, and refusing to let me bathe with the bathroom to myself, insisting her presence would help keep the nightmares at bay. As usual, she was right. She was always right. It’d have been more annoying if it weren’t so helpful.

Another regressed evening found me lounging on the carpet following dinner, boredly observing the television garbed only in a shirt and a diaper. I was glad for the fact Lorelei and her demon had departed before dinner, but found myself fidgety and restless in the lack of much to do. I hadn’t been out for a good, long walk in too long, and the toys scattered around the living room had completely lost my interest. I found myself staring at the ceiling when the knock came at the door. We weren’t expecting anyone, especially not just then. Lorelei never stayed the night, always departing before dinner since Azala’s bedtime was immediately afterward, and while Myra staying over wasn’t by far an unusual occurrence she always arrived in the morning or afternoon. So... who the hell would be coming by after dark? Clearly just as curious, my sister hastened to answer the door as the knock was repeated.

“Oh, hello.” Elizabeth’s voice drifted in, and I strained to see who was there without having to get up “Come on in. Annie’s in the living room.”

I frowned at the nervous expression on her face when she returned, but immediately knew the reason when it was none other than Elias trailing after her in silence. He shot me a small smile under that mop of dark hair, dressed simply in a t-shirt and jeans, feet bare. He stepped sounlessly across the intervening space, sitting down just out of arm’s reach as I scrambled upright. I hadn’t seen him since the day I’d rejected him, hadn’t dared go near his house and his unpleasant mother figure, who in this instance was mysteriously absent. Quite odd with how overly protective she seemed to be.

“H-Hi...” I stuttered awkwardly, fiddling idly with a strand of carpet fiber, unable to look at him. Almost inaudibly his response came “Hey.”

“I... I guess we need to talk.” he muttered, his tone and expression quite clearly communicating that he wasn’t looking forward to this. I swallowed heavily, eyes flicking back to the floor as the air became increasingly thick with the tension.

“Look, Anne, I’ve come to a decision.” he told me, drawing in a deep breath “As much as it hurts that you don’t want to be with me anymore, as much as I’d hoped with all my being every day we were apart that it’d come again some day...”

Guilt welled up in my gut, leaving a foul taste in my mouth as he continued “As much as it hurts... I’ve realized that now that I have the option I just can’t live my life without you. Even if it’s as...” he frowned, looking like he was swallowing something sour, “‘just friends’, I’d rather be around you than not. No matter how much Mom says you’re a bad influence and all that junk. So, think we can put this behind us and get on with our lives, and try to ignore the sexual tension and me staring at your ass?”

I flushed red, suddenly tugging down on the hem of my shirt as if it’d help it better cover my absorbent undergarment “Yeah, sure, I guess. But that goes both ways, you know. I crafted that butt myself, and I must say it is a masterpiece.”

It was his turn to blush as I leaned back a bit to try and get a look at his rear. His cute, perfect rear, which seemed to be residing beneath some manner of padding, the waistband of which poked out the top of his jeans.

“Diapered?” I queried. He tugged down on his shirt in a fashion that mirrored my own actions “Trainers, actually. I don’t have any regular underwear, so it’s the best I’ve got when I’m not in diapers unless I wanna go commando. I think Mom worries I’ll grow up too much, and after I heard her story the first time I can’t exactly blame her.”

Yeah, I couldn’t either. If I’d been created, and my creator grew out of a need for me, the prospect of having someone else would carry a desire to avoid them growing too much. The more that woman could keep her new charge from acting too mature, the more he would rely on her, in theory at least. Still, empathizing or no, I muttered “She’s still creepy...”

A chuckle was the response, followed by “Oh, she’s not that bad, especially when you get to know her. She has issues, but doesn’t everyone?”

“Yeah, but she’s not always looking at you like you just killed her puppy.” I shot back, poking him in the side, eliciting a little chuckle. He gave a playful shove to my shoulder “Yeah, yeah. Whine more, that’ll help.”

“Hey!” I growled “Not whining! It’s true! It’s a surprise she hasn’t glared me full o’ holes!”

He laughed, and with a little cry of agitation I tackled him, the both of us rolling through the carpet, like we had so many times before, ending with him sitting on me while we both laughed. Shoving him off so I could sit up, I tossed a grin his way “Okay, I missed this. I can screw around with Myra, but you’re way better at initiating play fights with me.”

“Not my fault I was designed perfect.” he spoke haughtily, with an over-exaggerated arrogance dripping from his tone, causing us to break apart into fits of giggles. When the laughter finally subsided we lapsed into a comfortable silence, the likes of which I hadn’t had in so long it was like the relief of a breath when surfacing from a pool of water. We quietly watched television for a few minutes, before he broke the silence with the blunt statement “Something’s bothering you.”

“Wh-What?” I stammered, looking away “What makes you say that?”

An eyebrow was cocked in my direction “Oh, come on. Don’t bother pretending. We’ve been apart months but I can still read you like a book. I’ve always been able to and you know it. You’re unusually tense in the shoulders, you’re nervous when you look at the door, you’re avoiding closing your eyes. And by Liz’s nervousness whatever it is you haven’t discussed it with her for any of numerous silly reasons I’d point out to you don’t make any sense when you actually look at them. Out with it.”

And so I spilled it, to the both of them, or at least the abbreviated version. I’d very stupidly gone poking in Lorelei’s head, feeling uncomfortable with her being such a mystery. I’d just wanted to glance at a few memories, see what her past was like at some key points, to get some kind of frame of reference or something, to sate my curiosity about her being so adamant about not wanting to talk about it. What, I’d thought, could be so bad that she’d refuse to discuss it with someone with maybe two people to potentially blab about it to? But the magic had gone out of control, which I hadn’t even known was possible. I’d viewed a few things, and suddenly I was being forced from place to place, everything seeming to merge into a horrifying slideshow of violence and terror that ended in me passing out in her head with my runes aching. The doors in her hall had all merged together into one thing, all existing simultaneously, and I’d been incapable of not seeing. By the time I’d lost consciousness I’d witnessed far more than I’d have ever wanted to. The imagery and emotion were burned into my head, and I was just barely recovering from it. At the end of my tale all was silent for a time.

“I think,” Elias eventually uttered, frowning, “I think you and this Lorelei need to have a talk.”

He didn’t say what about, but I knew what he meant. Despite the fact I was sitting on my living room floor in a diaper, I had to do the mature thing. I had to apologize for invading Lorelei’s head, and hope she’d forgive me. And if I couldn’t manage that I should at least let her in on the fact that I knew, to give some context for my recent behavior that’d been puzzling pretty much everybody. I didn’t foresee it being a pleasant encounter...


Chapter the Thirteenth:

A simple, wooden door had never before been so imposing. Morning dew still glistened in the weedy grasses clinging to the clay and slick rock of the cliffs overlooking the fog in the sea spray below, congealed, grey clouds drifting overhead, obscuring the bright coloration of the sky. The air smelled like rain, the weather seeming to reflect the nervous, uncertain agitation welling inside me. All was silent but for the whistling of the wind around the structure of close-set stones before me, and the undulating of the ocean far below, until I raised my hand, and knocked softly.

Eternities passed in the overwhelming scents of salty air, wet soil, and the moss that clung to the barren rock dominating the treeless landscape. I was silently reflecting on how fittingly something so very empty and desolate reflected its creator when I was startled by the creaking of hinges.

“Oh, Anne, how nice of you to visit.” Lorelei smiled up at me from the doorway, rather making me notice for once that her perhaps slightly above average height didn’t exactly match up to my six foot two, beanpole frame. I responded with a smile of my own, albeit an uncertain one, and a glance back over my shoulder to where Elizabeth was not so subtly observing from the hole in the wall. Eventually, I uttered “Um, Lorelei, I think there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

The smile tacked to her face dropped off to perplexity, her voice almost a monotone “Oh, of course. Come in, come in. Don’t mind the clutter.”

My immediate thought upon entering was “What clutter?”, though I didn’t voice it. The room comprised the entirety of the tower’s twenty-someodd foot wide first floor. The ground was the same stone the walls were comprised of, though concealed to a large extent beneath a large, circular rug, a staircase spiraling up the wall to the left. Off to the right was an immaculately clean, white-tiled kitchenette, with a single chair at the counter beside an oversized highchair. In the very center of the room sat a rather uncomfortably stiff looking sofa, placed before an entertainment center, with a playpen just off to the side bearing a familiar demon. She went immediately from bored to curious at my entrance. The only “clutter” I imagined the woman might be referring to were some toys and things set out on the rug between the couch and television that looked more or less undisturbed. Granted Azala’s disinterest in things of that nature my guess was they hadn’t been touched since they’d been placed there.

Hoisting her smile back into place, my host queried “So, what was it you needed to talk about? I admit it’s unusual to have you over. You’ve never visited before.”

I scratched idly at the back of my head, unable to look her in the eye “I don’t want you to get upset, but I have something I have to admit that might, well, upset you.”

She actually frowned at that, an expression I was actually more familiar with than her eternal fake smile after that night trapped in her head. She, of course, expressed an uneasy curiosity as to my admission, and, after steeling myself for her response, I told her. I didn’t tell her everything, mind you, just the abbreviated version, that I’d done what I shouldn’t have and looked in her head without permission because I’d been having increasing trouble dealing with her being a mystery, and I’d gotten more than I bargained for, leaving me with rather intimate knowledge at least of some of the highlights of her past. As I spoke the room was deathly quiet, her face completely expressionless, even Azala over in her playpen looking less than comfortable with the situation.

All was absolute silence, even the sound of the sea outside and of the television at the other end of the room leeched from the air by the tension. The very light seemed to ebb, dimming, retreating back towards windows and fixtures, an oppressive heat beginning to beat against me, leaving me scooting back to press against the door when all reality seemed occupied solely by the low growl of “You... did... what...?”

“L-Look, I’m sorry, okay!” I uttered, pressed so tight to the door I felt I could sense its every last crease and feature, the very grain of the wood “I shouldn’t have done it, I know. I’m sorry. I have a habit of making stupid decisions. P-Please don’t, um,” I swallowed, hand at the ready by my side, runes flicking through my head on reflex I knew I wouldn’t have the time to draw, “please don’t be too, uh, mad...?”

Her smaller form somehow towered over me for a seeming eternity, appearing to grow larger and more imposing while I shrank back away from her, sweat running down the back of my neck in the dim as a palpable energy seemed to pour off of her in powerful, buffeting waves. I was about to make a run for it, just in case, give her a little time to cool off, when it all seemed to fade, suppressed light flooding back into the room, momentarily blinding me. One hand came up, wiping down the woman’s now very tired looking face, and she turned, stepping away, sparing a brief glance towards Azala before muttering to me “Come with me for a moment, Child.”

Slightly relieved her anger, outwardly at least, had been short-lived, I hesitantly tailed her up the staircase that led through the bedroom on the second floor, the nursery on the third, and what was some manner of arcane laboratory of the fourth, before we emerged through a hatch onto the roof, only the parapets between me and a long fall to the ground below. Not exactly comfortable going near any sort of ledge with this person after she’d been enraged moments before I stayed by the stairs, watching as she moved to the edge, placing her hands on the smooth stone of the crenelations. For some seconds she merely breathed deeply of the damp, salty air, before finally speaking again “I suppose I have myself to blame for this, to some degree. I ought to have worded things differently. The particular way I tried to avoid the subject likely only fostered your curiosity. I should have chosen my words more carefully. I imagine you see, now, why I prefer my past to remain in the past? I’m not that person anymore. I haven’t been for a long time. I would forget it if I could.”

When she turned, leaning against the stone behind her that reached perhaps to her waist, she bore a small, sad smile “In fact, I suppose I have you to thank for much of the ease and pleasant emotion I’ve had of late. Certainly with Azala I’m fighting my way up an emotional slope, but to be a part of this little ‘neighborhood’ has been very pleasant. I dare say I’ve found friends in Martha and your sister. I’ve never had friends before, and it is a delight I wish I’d known sooner.”

Her expression quite suddenly darkened again, voice hardening from that almost wistful tone “However, this is not a trespass easily forgiven, so I will warn you now, young lady: you touch my mind again, and I may not be your mother but so help me I will take you over my knee, and you won’t be sitting for a week. I have no delusions that your sister would have the heart to punish you herself.”

My hand unconsciously drifted protectively to my rear, heat rising into my cheeks while Lorelei seemed to be staring straight into me, glittering green eyes boring through my soul. With almost jarring suddenness the wide, false grin was back, and she was strolling leisurely past me to the stairs, querying lightly “Would you like some tea?”

I could only nod dumbly, and follow her back to the ground floor, Azala keenly aware of us as I watched my neighbor quietly brewing tea in her kitchen. I accepted the cup I was given silently, mildly disturbed at the roller coaster of suddenly changing moods that was the strange magical type I lived so close to now. I didn’t taste the tea at all, drinking automatically without taking any notice of the warmth or the flavor, while she smiled at me as though our previous conversations that day had never happened at all. I suppose, granted her past, I’d gotten off quite easy. She hadn’t tried to injure or kill me. That was something. And while she hadn’t actually said she’d forgiven me for violating her privacy she’d basically just let me off with a warning. Hell, for all I knew she may have been able to work something to determine if someone interacted with her mind again, which made the threat of reprisal should I make that mistake again all the more real. I hadn’t been spanked since I was little. Hit, sure, but not spanked, which was certainly worse, what with your rump being exposed and all that. I harbored no doubts at all it was not something she threatened me with idly.

She was entirely serious; she’d do it, and there wasn’t a lot I could do to stop her if she tried. I doubt I’d get the chance to draw any runes in such an instance. Her magic was so much more readily and quickly available, and despite my height advantage, and athletic build, I had nothing on the solidity of muscle she hid under those blouses. With a life of military hand to hand combat training, and farming to be able to eat after her exile, she had me outmatched there. I departed after tea to her saying she’d come visit soon, still smiling that almost creepy smile.

“Well, that didn’t go too badly, did it?” Elizabeth asked, as she walked with me through rough grass back towards the hole in the towering rock wall, towards home “I told you she wouldn't hurt you. Feel silly about trying to make yourself invincible yet?”

“Vaguely...” I muttered, rolling my eyes. She hadn’t gone inside with me, but of course she’d been around the whole time, probably listening in while Lorelei and I talked. Relived all my preparation had been for nothing, I hurried home to remove the protective magic from my runes that was the best I’d been able to manage with the short research time I’d taken trying to figure out immortality. The runes themselves were pretty much damage-proof, but they’d been rendered uncomfortably stiff.

I spent the remainder of the day winding down from the stress and nervousness that had accompanied my intent to admit what had occurred to Lorelei’s face. Evening found me seated in the living room alone, surfing channels, my sister feeling, for the first time in a while, more or less comfortable not being at my side every second of the day. Her presence was comforting, but after being unable to be alone for so long, having her there watching while I ate, while I slept, while I showered, and so on, it was nice just to be by myself for a moment. Of course, if I drifted off to sleep and had another nightmare I’d probably wind up right back in her arms. The solitude didn’t last, to my annoyance.

“What do you want this time?” I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest as a familiar, pink-clad, near-monochrome form silently settled into the cushions next to me. Azala didn’t answer right away, staring hungrily at me for a moment, before venting a huff of irritation “Thing you call your sister finally went away.”

Right, because Elizabeth seeing her would likely result in her “mother”’s knowledge she was out of the house. How many times had she come around while I’d been clinging to Elizabeth, only to have to retreat because she didn’t want to be seen? I just rolled my eyes, returning my attention to the television while she stared at me, becoming increasing uncomfortable with just how close she seemed to be edging towards me while I wasn’t looking at her.

With a disturbingly wide yawn that showed off her teeth, especially those pointy little fangs, she wordlessly leaned against my shoulder, eyes closed. She looked oddly peaceful like that, her usual scowling, that I’d even seen her doing in her sleep before, and the mischievous smile she wore when she did her best to bother me, strangely absent for the moment. I stared, eventually breaking the silence with “If you fall asleep, I might decide not to wake you up, you know.”

The grin returned, my attempts to antagonize her once again only seeming to please her, leaving me wondering why I bothered. When she started getting closer, practically cuddled against my side, I pushed her away with one hand, muttering “Just go home, would you? I don’t want to deal with you right now.”

Of course she was in no hurry to depart, but thankfully Elizabeth came to my rescue.

“Annie, are you talking to someone?” she asked, peering into the room, while the figure to my side dropped to the carpet, concealed from her view by the couch. I glanced over “Oh, hey Liz. Um...”

A quick look down revealed, however, the demon was suddenly absent, disappeared in the moment I hadn’t been observing. How she’d managed to sneak away so stealthily I had no idea, but I just shrugged, lying “Not really.”

Elizabeth headed off back upstairs with a quiet “Alright then”, leaving me to ruminate on why I bothered protecting Azala at all. I didn’t like her, after all. Her unwanted affection was quite annoying, and, at times, even infuriating, but I suppose I just really didn’t envy her situation. Being able to escape in the night, however briefly, was the only relief she had from full time regression, which was something even I couldn’t take for long, and I was one of those weirdos who actually enjoyed that sort of thing. Or, enjoyed it sometimes at least. As much as I threatened I was unsure I could bring myself to take that away from her, which she probably knew and was taking advantage of. Ugh. I shortly retired to bed, or rather Elizebath’s bed, where she sat reading, having no desire to think too much on that creature’s motivations, and no immediate outlet for my growing boredom.

I turned down Myra’s company in the morning in favor of going out exploring with just my sister; a thing we hadn’t done in a while. It had been Elizabeth who’d actually suggested we go by ourselves this time. I’d declined any regression, and on these ventures more often than not, when I wasn’t being babied too, I inevitably wound up as my friend’s babysitter. That, in itself, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was nice to go out without that kind of responsibility, without having to keep an eye on someone. The morning was strenuous, yet emotionally relaxing, spent trekking over hills and through meadows, having to weave around occasional lakes and rocky outcroppings.

I did my best to let all care and thought drain away, as we walked. A gentle breeze stirred the grass, brushing softly through my hair, sending wayward strands afloat about my head like golden threads. The air filled with the scents of water and grass, moss and moist dirt, and the repetitive dull sound of dirt and stones shifting beneath my boots accompanied by faint birdsong. Chittering little things darted here and there from burrows, birds flitting around bushes and the occasional, widely-spaced trees.

I took a deep breath of fresh air, grinning, legs vaguely aching, as I sat on a little section of lakeshore nestled between a pair of low hills, Elizabeth nearby setting out the picnic blanket. For long minutes I silently observed the fish beneath the smooth, crystal clear surface of the water, disturbed only by the occasional attempt by the little aquatic creatures to snap at low-flying insects, sending ripples through the liquid that flattened to nothing well before reaching the shore. Little sprays of droplets turned to spherical rainbows by the sunlight shattered on contact with the water below. There, just then, I had nothing to worry about, not a single notion plaguing my mind. All thought was suspended, stilled in the back of my head in favor of the beauty of the unnatural “nature” of my own make. Nothing could compare to the calming serenity of that place, worlds away from anything and everything. I would have wondered why I hadn’t gone out more often while I’d been in the deeper depths of my terror and unease after seeing inside Lorelei’s mind, but at that particular moment there was no room in my head for anything but what my senses were telling me, and I liked it that way.

The food was laid out quickly, but I didn’t head back to my sister right away, basking in the contrasting sensations of cool, moist sand beneath me and the warm sun beating down from high above. I was smiling vaguely when I relocated to the picnic blanket, looking forward to my sandwich, the only thing I was allowing into my head just then. If only I had that much control over the flow of my thoughts when I, you know, wasn’t in the isolated wilderness miles from anyone but the silent, comforting figure of my sister. After several moments observing a solitary shred of cloud scuttling across the wide, blue vault overhead, I reached for my sandwich, only for my fingers to touch the bare porcelain of my plate.

“This is a good sandwich!” I heard to my left, which was most peculiar, granted my sister was sitting at my other side. Eyes snapping wide open, I shot a look in the direction of the new, unfamiliar voice, with no clue who or what might have just snuck up on me and my poor, defenseless sandwich.







Chapter the Fourteenth:

A shock of messy, dyed neon purple hair assaulted my vision, so bright, in such contrast to the surrounding greens and browns it practically blinded me for a brief instant, dominating my view. How did I know it was dyed? The roots were rather a giveaway. Big, sparkling blue eyes set into a widely smiling, tanned face were intently on the sandwich, my sandwich, in the hands of the mysterious girl now seated at my side. Her rumpled skirt, its purple hue no match for the brightness of her hair, probably reached to past her knees were she to stand, the waist concealed beneath the hem of a long, black shirt that lacked sleeves and looked almost too small to contain her more than modest bust. She couldn’t have been much, if any older than I was, and there she sat, intently and happily consuming my sandwich, having seemed to appear out of nowhere. My sandwich. My sandwich!

Who the hell was she? Where had she come from? And most importantly, why was she eating my sandwich? I certainly hadn’t been expecting company, granted a lack of the sort of earthquakes that heralded the arrival of new dimensional spaces. And even if one had occurred, all the previous walls to arrive had been the same distance from the house, pretty much exactly, and we were hours away. I could think of no way, no reason there could possibly be someone else out there. What was this girl doing out in the middle of a randomly generated wilderness that only existed when it was being experienced? I stared, while she continued to take large bites out of the sandwich, completely oblivious to the two pairs of eyes observing her. I was shocked, not only by her appearance but also by her audacity to show up out of nowhere and eat my food without so much as introducing herself.

“There you are!” a new voice came, feminine in pitch, drawing around one of the nearby hills “What trouble are you getting into now?”

I found myself staring at the figure that was revealed, my eyes going wide. Beautiful, in an eerie, inhuman way, there stood someone with hair longer than my own that fell to my waist, of a silvery hue, practically glittering in the bright morning sunlight, spilling in a hanging sheet about a tall, narrow form with milky white skin, draped in a loose, coarse-woven shirt and a pair of jeans, bare feet and hands all bearing little claws. The most particularly unusual feature, however, was not the yellow, slit-pupiled eyes so luminescent they almost glowed in the daylight, but the seeming aura of cool relaxation that permeated the surrounding air. Having lived around Azala as long as I had, any surprise over the odd appearance was pretty short-lived, replaced by curiosity as to what exactly it was. Definitely nothing I knew of from my own native reality, that much was certain. At least she didn’t seem hostile, merely bored and annoyed.

Bare feet moved silently over dirt and grass on the approach, stepping so softly there seemed to be no bent blades, no soil out of place, as if this woman weighed nothing, stepping light as a feather. Her eyes flicked to my sister and I “This is a surprise. I did not expect to see anyone here. It has been weeks since we last saw people.”

Hands moving to her hips, hair brushed out of the way in the process, she frowned down at the one eating my sandwich, seeming so very elegant even in annoyance. At my side her companion smiled back with turkey and bread in her teeth as she was asked “Now what have I said about taking things that don’t belong to you?”

“‘It’s mine now, and let’s see them try to take it from me’.” was recited back at her, eliciting a roll of those peculiar eyes. Exasperation clear in her tone, the woman clarified “No, what have I told you about you taking things that don’t belong to you?”

The blank expression that was her only response for a moment was starting to make me think this strange girl wasn’t exactly all there, a feeling not alleviated by the eventual response “Don’t get caught?”

“Exactly.” the woman nodded, waterfall of shimmering metallic hair undulating at the movement, “And what do we say when we get caught so we don’t get in trouble?”

With a pout the bright eyes beneath that purple hair turned to me, the girl muttering an insincere sounding “I’m sorry.”

She looked to the half a sandwich remaining in her hands, then back to me, and, seeming almost ready to shed tears to be parting with it, held it out to me, offering it back, still with mayonnaise and mustard on her face.

“Just, keep the sandwich...” I told her flatly. She immediately perked up, grinning wide and returning to eating, while the odd-looking woman sighed, somehow making even irritation look oddly... attractive. I wasn’t even into girls like that, but this woman was making me feel vaguely tingly.

“Sorry about her.” she spoke, voice soft like silk, returning her attention to me, looking somehow immensely relaxed as she flowed into a crouching position on the picnic blanket just out of arm’s reach “She’s not quite right in the head. This may surprise you, you may not understand, but we are not from this place, this reality. We have been traveling for some time now. I am called Blight. You don’t have to touch me if you do not want to. Most normal humans don’t. I will take no offense should you desire not to shake my hand.”

I didn’t hesitate to offer a hand in greeting, which seemed to surprise and please her. I noted how incredibly smooth that skin felt against my own, saying “I’m not that normal. I’m Anne. This is my sister Elizabeth.”

“Pleased to meet you.” she smiled at me, showing off pointy eye teeth that reminded me of Azala, yet infinitely more pleasant, “Now, could you inform me as to the location of the nearest society? I would assume by your presence there would be something. Weeks alone with this little loony can become trying, cute as she may be.”

Glancing to her traveling partner, I didn’t have to imagine that hard to believe it. She was observing us alertly, but didn’t seem to actually be paying that much attention. That is, she was seeing and hearing what was happening, but had no apparent response, or particular understanding, just those big blue eyes, watching. It was mildly unsettling, and a moment passed before I could look back to Blight, as the creature had called herself “Oh, uh, not exactly. I live a ways away, near a few neighbors. But you’re not in a full dimension. This is just sub-dimensional space that fills in as you go. I like to explore, so it changes on a regular basis.”

“This place is yours?” her brow knit, eyebrows, the same light, faintly metallic coloration as her hair, almost invisible against her skin as she glanced one way, then the other “I suppose I will believe anything these days. Might I inquire as to its origin?”

“I could be asking the same about how you got here.” I countered. Yellow eyes went to her companion “To be honest, I do not know how it functions. I doubt you’ll get any better answers than I did when I was roped into this.”

I followed her gaze, the girl to my side looking back at us blankly until I queried “And you are?”

“Kala’terusavis Sel Da Vorinne Salana Tephuri Visato.” she smiled wide, looking proud of herself. Leaning a little closer, Blight informed me quietly “I just refer to her as Kala. I can never recall her full name.”

I just nodded “Alright, Kala it is then. So, how is it you’ve been traveling dimensions?”

Her grin widened further, and from behind her she produced a bag, looking to be constructed of leather, or perhaps faux leather, circular, all in red, with black trim, and a large yellow star design on the side. I hadn’t really noticed the strap by which it hung from her shoulder where it’d been visible overtop her shirt until just then. Holding it in my face she announced “My magic bag!”

“Your bag...?” I muttered, only to quickly be corrected with annoyance “Magic bag!”

“Okay, okay, magic bag.” I made placating gestures, an indignant pout visible on her face when the “magic” bag lowered enough I could see around it “And how exactly does that work?”

She gave no verbal response. Instead, she unzipped the container, slipping in one, then the other arm, then her head. By then it was quite obvious that the bag was indeed magic, or something, granted there was no other way I could have imagined she’d been able to fit so much of herself into it. My eyes went wide when she went in to the waist, and then, her legs kicking a bit, they followed after her. Everything was absolutely still for a moment, before her hand stuck out, gripping the edge, and pulling inward. It all seemed to fold into itself, disappearing entirely with a faint popping noise. Seconds later she reappeared, stepping out from around one of the hills we sat between, the “magic bag” on her shoulder, shouting “Tada!”

Okay, there was certainly some magic involved, and, as she approached, looking immensely pleased with herself, I had a feeling it was more than her own. By the definite bulk beneath her skirt, I had the assumption she’d shown up in my particular dimensional space for a reason, but I found that no real surprise.

“Daddy!” she yelled, rushing to the woman “I disappeared! Did you see? Did you see?”

Wait, what? “Daddy”? I took a closer look at the strange figure crouching nearby. Was I absolutely sure that was a woman? “Blight” didn’t exactly sound gender specific, or like it was a birth name, and the creature was quite flat in the chest. I was too, and we were around the same height, so that really said nothing. But still, the curves, the facial features, the voice, all seemed so feminine. Blight raised an eyebrow at her “Oh, it’s ‘Daddy’ now? Wasn’t it ‘Big Brother’ last week? And ‘Uncle’ three weeks ago?”

Perplexity was the response, to the exasperation of the cat-eyed individual, who waved a hand dismissively “Never mind. ‘Daddy’ it is, if you insist.”

At the look of curiosity and dawning realization that was blossoming on my countenance, Blight gave a frown “I do suppose I ought to assuage any confusion you may be experiencing at this. There is no blood relation between Kala and I. How she survived on her own before she found me, I have no clue, but I was in a less than desirable situation, and her dimensional transportation capabilities allowed means for escape. Relying on her for this manner of transportation, as her bag cannot seem to function for anyone else, I have grown rather close with her these past six weeks. She needs someone to tend her, and I have elected to fill that position.”

“When you say ‘tend her’...” I trailed off, eyes to Kala’s crotch as she toddled over, flopping back down on the blanket.

“She is quite childish, often requiring guidance, and I greatly suspect she is incontinent.” the reply was a flat, matter of fact statement, carrying no real tone or emotion, even though this person had effectively just admitted they’d spent the past six weeks changing a teenage girl’s diapers. Could Blight even blush? Her, or his perhaps, I was starting to lose certainty, skin was so very pale was there even blood beneath it? Initiating a conversation that was starting to become old already, I said “I have a feeling you haven’t come to this place by chance. You see, I worked some magic to try to bring together certain types of people. It works by altering probability and tweaking the fabric of reality, so it can be pretty subtle. I was lonely.”

When asked what manner of people I was referring to the obvious answer was, of course “People into regression. Which, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, is about as it sounds. An interest in being treated like children, and related things, despite technical age. It’s not that uncommon where I’m from. I have neighbors now that include a girl from a steampunk universe who created herself a mother to have someone to look after her, and a woman from a magic-heavy universe who summoned a demon in order to have something to take care of.”

“Intriguing.” Blight declared, taking a glance at his, or her or, uh, its charge, who had begun chewing on a spot of mustard she’d gotten on her shirt “I believe that does sound about right for Kala. So, I presume this means you hold such an interest.”

It hadn't been a question. I only blushed a little at the admission of “Yeah. I suppose so. I, uh, indulge now and then.”

“After I finish having lunch,” I said, after a moment’s thought, “we can go back to the house, and I can show you around.”

He, or she, agreed. I had the remainder of my meal to the sounds of Blight calmly telling Kala variations of “Don’t put that in your mouth”, until getting her to produce another shirt from her bag for her to be changed into. The old one with the mustard on it disappeared right back where the new one had come from. I said not a word until Elizabeth was packing things back up, when I finally queried, with a hint of nervousness “If you don’t mind me asking, Blight, are you, uh, a man or a woman? I mean, Kala called you ‘Daddy’, but, uh...”

“I am male.” I was informed, with a small frown, an expression this person still managed to make pretty, “But I do suppose I get that frequently.”

“The hair doesn’t help...” I muttered. A shrug sent a ripple through the hanging tendrils in question, akin to supple platinum wire “I would cut it if I could. However, I lack access to a diamond-tipped cutting implement, and nothing less will part these fibers. It has a tendency to grow faster when cut, anyway.”

Huh. How peculiar. Wondering at what it felt like, to be running my fingers through those smooth, silvery tresses, I blushed as we began the journey back to the “neighborhood”, with our newest acquaintances in tow. It wasn’t long before Kala whined to her “Daddy” to be carried, contentedly clinging to his thin-looking body as we walked. For his part Blight didn’t so much as break a sweat on the entire way to the house, lifting her as though she weighed nothing, and spoke only a few words, to accept Kala onto his hip to carry her like a child, and to tell her to get his hair out of her mouth. She definitely seemed to have something of an oral fixation.

“And that’s where I live most of the time these days.” I gestured down towards my house from a hilltop a ways off, taking a moment to point out the jutting stone walls penning the location in on one side “And my neighbors live through those. I still need to get around to trimming them to just the entrances, so the walls stop cluttering the view. Come on, it’s about time for dinner. I can give you a tour while Elizabeth starts cooking.”

Down and into the house we went, a vague mention of my floating door as we went inside, Elizabeth disappearing off to the kitchen after querying as to whether steak sounded okay with our guests. I showed them the ground floor, in which Kala had to be pried from her interest in the toys scattered on the living room floor, followed by the nursery upstairs. Through it all the man seemed only vaguely interested, yet his charge was quite actively fascinated by pretty much everything I showed them, with particular focus on the toys. Her “Daddy” got her situated on the carpet, after borrowing the nursery for the purpose of a diaper change, which Kala didn’t seem in the least bit embarrassed to have mentioned. Something told me she’d probably been in them far longer than she’d ever known her caretaker.

“Alright, let me ask you something.” I spoke, causing him to look up from where he’d been observing the girl on the living room floor, “I get what she gets out of your situation, but, what about you? As far as I can tell you have no interest in this sort of thing. Why haven’t you just, you know, left her by now?”

He seemed to contemplate that for a moment, coming back with “When she came to me I was serving out several consecutive life sentences in a high security prison for metahuman offenders. I was raised taught only one profession, and I have decided that I am retired now. I initially intended to depart at the earliest convenience, but I have no further purpose without my line of work, so I thought for a long time on just what I would do with the new lease on life provided by the potential of a relocation.”

I nodded along as he spoke, definitely understanding what he meant “We’re all running from our pasts here, to some extent. Looking for a fresh start. It’s kinda the purpose of this budding community, it seems.”

With a vague smile, even the faint expression seemingly almost otherworldly in its beauty, he continued “I came to the conclusion that I could not abandon Kala after she had freed me from the monotony of the cell I had occupied for the past several years. She was reminiscent of a lost puppy. So very helpless and dependent that it is difficult not to find yourself sympathetic. I am indebted to her for bringing me my freedom, and so have decided to repay her by giving her the care and attention she needs. I had never intended to engage in childcare, but life does tend to lead us places we had not expected.”

I suppose that explained it, though he seemed awfully complacent with the unexpected places his life was leading him. He had become this loony girl’s caretaker out of a sense of obligation. He was, by his own admission more or less, a criminal, but he certainly seemed to have some sense of honor and duty. Conversation lulled, though he was appreciative when, after yet again needing to instruct his charge to not put something in her mouth, I offered a pacifier, which Kala was content to suck on while she played. Blight seemed quite pleased to finally have some way of dealing with the girl’s oral fixation. That he’d never thought of it before was making it quite clear he had a fair bit to learn when it came to looking after an oversized child. He hadn’t been doing it so much as two months yet, after all, with no guidance on the matter at that. At least he felt no awkwardness about it, which was very peculiar to me. Was I the only one I knew who had issues with this sort of thing, or what?

Dinner was an amusing affair with Kala occupying my highchair, eating loudly and happily. Her complete lack of manners was immensely in contrast to Blight, who sat perfectly straight, yet somehow still exuding relaxation, consuming his steak and potatoes in a very delicate, almost regal fashion that reminded me of the kind of behavior you’d expect at some formal dinner in a fancy restaurant. Much akin to his pleasure at finding a way to deal with the girl’s oral fixation, he showed apparent relief in the concept of the sippy cup, which he seemed not to have considered before. Conversation was minimal, primarily just me talking about how I’d introduce them around come morning, and about how if they decided to remain in the area I could see about making them a place to stay. Kala spent the night in my nursery, seeming so enthralled by her new surroundings it took a while for her to wind down enough to quit exploring the crib and lay down, while Blight was shown to one of the guest rooms after using our bathroom for one very long, hot shower. Something about bathing in rivers and lakes for weeks was said, but I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, my mind seeming stuck on the concept of him wearing no clothing, with rivulets of hot water streaming over his smooth skin, the sound of his contented sigh, and faint moan in the steamy heat.

Whether or not these new additions would actually stick around was unknown. The purple-haired girl seemed quite happy with it, but I had a feeling her caretaker wasn’t the type to grow easily attached, and would have been just as happy moving on. I’d have to try and get more of his origin out of him later on, but for the night I was content to tiptoe from my room after I was certain our guests were asleep, to pad to my sister’s side and slip into her bed with her, finding myself embarrassed at the fact I still couldn’t bring myself to sleep alone.


Chapter the Fifteenth:

Pale skin, and a wide, fanning splay of shining, silvered hair, lay beneath the beams of morning sunlight slipping through the window panes. The milky white of the exposed flesh seemed almost to shine in the bright illumination, nearly as brightly as the metallic hue of the many wayward strands scattered about. And by exposed flesh, I mean exposed flesh. All of it. Curled up, seeming almost bonelessly relaxed, despite the contorted position, Blight lay atop the pillows and undisturbed bedclothes, rather reminiscent of a house cat tucked into a ball, snoring lightly, completely in the nude. I didn’t have a good view of his naughty bits, but that changed entirely when, moments after the door had swung open, he awoke, giving a wide yawn and a long, joint-popping stretch that spilled out a series of faint crackling sounds while the movement exposed him. Were it not for the odd skin coloration, the cat eyes, and the presence of those little claws, he could have passed for a model with his sleek, toned muscles, smooth, hairless skin, and aura of seductive presence. Just what gender of model I suppose would depend on how much of him was bared. His torso being uncovered definitely helped dispel any notion of being female, with his lack of breasts, and compact yet hard musculature, not to mention the sight of what lie between his legs. As to that location, I am not going to going go into detail, other than to say I imagine he’d been having a, ahem, “pleasant” dream. Suffice to say, we will take a moment of silence right here while I drool over the recollection. Oh yeah...

“Good morning to you as well.” his face lit up with a slight, bemused smirk, while I stared, eyes wide, and seemingly glued to his groin. I immediately whipped around to look the other way, face flushing crimson, stuttering hastily “B-Breakfast’s almost ready! I’mma go, uh, ch-check on how Elizabeth’s doing. Kala’s still asleep. Igottagonowbye!”

The door snapped shut at my exit, accompanied by the sound of his chuckle from the other side, like the cheerful tinkling of rustling crystal, clearly amused at my reaction to his unexpected nudity. I hastened down the stairs, trying my best to avoid the all-consuming mental image of the naked man in my guest room that seemed burned into my retinas. Any doubts I could have possibly been having regarding his gender were completely absent now, obliterated at the sight of the genitals my teenage hormones refused to let me forget. I was absolutely silent as I sat in the kitchen while Elizabeth cooked, awaiting our guests’ arrival at the table. My sister certainly knew something was up by the lingering, profuse blush coloring my countenance, but didn’t bother asking even though it did not wane in the least throughout breakfast.

“I guess it’s a bit of a ‘girls club’ around here so far,” I was informing Blight, as we relocated to the living room after the meal, with the exception of Elizabeth, who was taking care of the dishes, “with the exception of you the only boy around here is my ex, Elias.”

And Blight sure was a lot of “boy”. Oh man... I had to struggle not to make any glances towards the crotch of his jeans, and I definitely had to stop thinking about his junk so much. Tearing my eyes from the denim, again, I continued “But there aren’t that many of us yet. Just the eight, if we’re not including you two.”

As soon as Elizabeth was done cleaning up we departed from the house as a group, though it took a little convincing to get Kala to stop playing long enough for us to get her out of the house, and even then she was throwing longing looks back inside until the door shut behind us. The lawn was springy and fresh beneath my shoes, Blight’s bare feet again seeming to leave no footprints as he went, despite the fact he was carrying Kala, and even the long grasses that sprouted nearer to the wall we were approaching seemed to show no sign of his passage.

The moment we’d passed through the portal into the hot, arid landscape on the far side Kala was squirming to be put down, and soon rushing about, giggling, wide-eyed and manic, as she explored cracks and crannies. Birds and jackrabbits fled before her, and no bush or stunted tree we passed seemed to go unmolested by her overflowing curiosity. An overflowing curiosity that came crashing down the moment she got too close to a cactus, coming running back with a cactus needle in her hand, wailing “Daddy!”

I observed a mildly exasperated Blight, gently as possible, remove the barb from her skin, having her retrieve an adhesive bandage from her bag for him to apply. Sniffling and rubbing at her eyes she refused to walk the rest of the way, instead clinging to her caretaker, giving sour looks over his shoulder at all the cacti we passed. It was actually rather adorable, though her being injured in the first place was another testament to Blight’s inexperience with small children. Were it me, I would have certainly heard my sister telling me not to get too close, but that feminine man didn’t seem to realize until it’d happened already that his charge might actually hurt herself on accident. Once again I found myself thinking he would need more practice.

Kala’s energy burst out again once we arrived inside the fort, wanting down again as I led the way up to the door of the main house. I really didn’t visit there all that frequently, but as many times as I went the abandoned barracks to the other side of the courtyard, and the stable, completely empty but for fresh straw, never failed to be mildly unsettling. The knock on the door of the house, in the fort’s courtyard, was answered in an instant, Martha smiling down at the lot of us “Oh, hello there! Come in, come in.”

Seated on a rug on the floorboards, before a little table bearing myriad little gears and things I didn’t recognize the use of, was my best friend and neighbor. Absorbed entirely in her tinkering with some half-constructed device, holding tweezers and a tiny screwdriver, jeweler’s loupe in her eye, and much of her hair tied up into a spiky little brown puffball atop her head, Myra had yet to notice us entering. She only actually saw that anyone or anything but her and her little clockwork device existed when Martha, standing over her, loudly cleared her throat. The girl seated there on the floor started suddenly, the magnifying device quite literally popping from her eye to clatter on the table as the looked up. A slight blush tinting her cheeks, she reached up to pull the tie from her hair, allowing it to flop back down from the potentially amusing style it’d been bound into to keep out of her eyes “Oh, Annie! H-Howdy! Didn’t see y’all there!”

“Hey Myra,” I smirked at her, “Sorry to disturb you’re tinkering, but we might have new neighbors again. I don’t think they’ve decided for certain whether to stay or not.”

Stepping aside, I gestured towards the pale-skinned girly man and the purple-haired crazy that had followed my sister and myself, putting special emphasis on the masculine pronoun as I said “This is Blight, and his charge Kala.”

“Kala’terusavis Sel Da Vorinne Salana Tephuri Visato.” I was corrected as the girl recited her full name with a smile. I cocked an eyebrow “Yeah, we just call her Kala. There’s no way I’m going to remember that.”

She probably couldn’t spell it herself, anyway. The way she recited it in that rote, mechanical fashion seemed to imply it was something she herself only recalled through repetition. Maura sprang to her feet, offering a hand with a wide, beaming smile “Well, howdy! Welcome to the neighborhood! Pleasure to make yer acquaintance. Ah’m Myra Maybelle Shirley, an’ this is mah mother Martha.”

Seeming surprised someone was offering to actually touch him during a greeting for the second time I’d seen, Blight gladly shook her hand “Yes, very pleasant to meet you as well. Might I ask what you’re constructing, there?”

After a fleeting moment of confusion, the brunette took a glance down at the thing on her table “Oh, uh, just a windup toy. Nothin’ special.”

“She builds a lot of her own toys.” I interjected, before making a gesture towards the entrance “Anyway, I just wanted to gather people together to meet Blight and Kala here, but I don’t have any way to contact you guys or Lorelei, so I figured I’d show off your handiwork while I was at it. I was about to take them to go meet our resident wizardy-type neighbor. You coming?”

She brightened, and grinned “O’ course! Ah’mma go get redressed. Ah was gonna head to yer house later anyway.”

And off she went down the hall, Martha offering us drinks we declined until her charge returned in a dress that, unlike the shirt she’d been wearing, didn’t have grease stains on it. The walk back out of Myra’s dimension was accompanied by Martha and Elizabeth’s usual chatter, which Blight observed with interest but a degree of detachment, while Kala clung to him and pouted at the cacti some more. I had a feeling she wouldn’t be coming back through there again any time soon.

The damp, barren cliff side Lorelei’s tower was situated on was surrounded by the echoing noise of water droplets striking stone, a light rain falling as we passed across scruffy grass taking root in the tough, clayey soil. The sky was overcast with a heavy, grey cloud cover, the windows of the nearing tower showing bright in the dim, amongst the whistling of wind, and the sound of waves crashing against the rock face below. In perhaps the first real show of parental behavior I’d seen, possibly having learned from the cactus incident shortly before, Blight was sure to reign in his “daughter” well before we reached the cliff the structure was perched atop. My knock at the door was quickly answered by a smiling Lorelei, dressed as she always seemed to be in skirt and blouse, saying to us “Please, please, come in before you get too wet.”

“And who might these two be?” she smiled at our latest potential additions as we all filed into the warmth of her home’s living room, extending a hand to the again surprised Blight “Hello there. I’m Lorelei Savalis, and the sour-looking one over in her playpen is Azala. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Smiling, the man gladly took her hand “A pleasure, Miss. I am called Blight, and this is Kala.”

“Kala’terusavis Sel Da Vorinne Salana Tephuri Visato.” Kala corrected again, even though I imagined the formality of introductions was for the most part lost on her. Lorelei chuckled slightly, saying condescendingly to the bright-haired girl “Well, it’s nice to meet you too, little lady.”

Kala smiled at her, with a vaguely vacant expression, and moved on to look around the room, becoming perhaps the first person to play with Azala’s toys, to the demon’s annoyance. Certainly that grey creature had no desire for the things her parental figure gave her, yet seeing someone else interacting with them seemed to stir a possessive jealousy in her that she couldn’t readily act on trapped in her playpen. Her caretaker didn’t seem to notice, offering tea she already had prepared for herself as we moved in to occupy more than just the entryway. I didn’t have anything, but Blight looked very elegant and sophisticated holding a teacup, sipping silently at its steaming contents while Lorelei spoke to him “I don’t mean to sound rude, but I’ve certainly never seen anyone with an appearance quite like yours. Might I ask what you are?”

“Metahuman,” was the response, followed by a slow, graceful sip from the china cup held delicately in his thin, clawed fingers, “I suppose you might not have the sort where you’re from. A mutation to human genetics resulting in anything from unusual hair and skin and eye colorations to the manifestation of supernatural and psychic abilities. My parents were perfectly normal humans, but I was born... different.”

She nodded, clearly interested “Blight isn’t exactly a common name, I would think. It’s not your birth name, is it? That is, if you don’t mind me asking. If it’s a tender subject I’ll gladly retract the question.”

“An alias, technically,” the man shrugged vaguely, once more sending the shimmering wave of silver around him flowing against his body, “My birth name has been dead to me since my childhood. I was dubbed Blight in my youth because I had little control over my abilities and seemed a plague on anyone who came too near. Needless to say, it stuck quite well. I assure you however I will cause no accidental harm here.”

Lorelei’s eyebrows went up, but she made no questions as to the nature of the mentioned “abilities”. I had a feeling that she, not feeling comfortable speaking about her own past, had stopped short of satisfying her curiosity in order to avoid eventual probing in return. When they’d finished their tea all eight of us relocated back to the lake below my house, where the weather was less dreary, it being a pleasant, sunny day out on my side of the wall. Elizabeth headed up to the house to make a phone call to gather the last of the neighborhood, while the rest of us relaxed on the lakeshore. Myra observed Kala playing in the shallow water by the edge, with Azala on the grass nearby looking sullen, while Lorelei and I seemed more interested in Blight, especially when he shed his moist shirt, baring his flat, hard chest, and abdominal muscles looking like they were carved from marble, glistening in the sunlight with the remaining moisture. Mine and my neighbor’s heads both tilted to the side slightly as we stared, the pale man’s masculinity so much more apparent without anything covering his torso. Noticing she wasn’t the only one looking, Lorelei smirked at me.

“Enjoying the scenery too?” she teased. I blushed profusely, finding myself muttering “Had an even better view when I went to get him up this morning. He sleeps in the buff...”

“Oh my...” her eyes widened, her cheeks tinting red as her eyes moved back to Blight’s built torso “Perhaps I ought to invite him to stay at my house.”

I stared at her a moment, stating flatly “You have only one bedroom, and the only door in your entire place is at the entrance.”

“I know.” her smirk only expanded. With an exaggerated gasp, I pushed playfully on her shoulder “Oh, you are a perv!”

She only laughed “What, a woman can’t appreciate a good looking man once in a while? I don’t exactly get out much, you know.”

I rolled my eyes, and went back to watching. Blight either didn’t notice or didn’t care we were observing, as he followed what was occurring between his charge and Myra, and to a lesser extent with Azala as well, seeming clearly interested in the mechanics of the childish interactions. I imagined he wasn’t someone who had a whole lot of experience with children, and now that he was in charge of looking after Kala it seemed fairly obvious he was trying to figure the ins and outs of childcare through observation. Meanwhile, my elder neighbor and I observed the rippling muscle across his narrow frame as he moved around, noting his tendency to crouch rather than sit, and the way he appeared to make being half dressed seem not only entirely natural, but also effortlessly attractive.

Elias arrived fairly shortly, looking annoyed to see me staring so longingly at another man, muttering something about a distinct lack of breasts in the situation. Further introductions were made, and the day progressed, full of loud voices, fun, and plenty of staring at the new guy and his nice body. It was almost like a party. Elizabeth broke out the grill and some picnic blankets, pool toys, bathing suits, and swim diapers, and we all had barbecue, sitting around the grass watching Kala trying to drag an unhappy looking Azala into playing with her and Myra and Elias. The morning and afternoon were consumed by laughter and splashing and good food, Lorelei and Sally discussing parenting with the pale, as he’d called himself, “metahuman”, who seemed more than happy for the advice.

It didn’t start breaking apart until dusk, when Lorelei reluctantly gathered and dried her charge, taking Azala back to the tower, and Sally dragged Elias off despite his reluctance to leave me with the attractive newcomer as the only male in my company. While he seemed to get along with Blight just fine, he was definitely threatened by my apparent interest in the man, even though he had to realize from his knowledge of me that I had no real intentions of pursuing a relationship with the older man. He had to be in his mid twenties at least, though with some of his unusual features it wasn’t overly easy to tell, which would make him at least a decade my senior. Elias wasn’t the only one who found him intimidating, though for me it was in an entirely different fashion, my attraction, and apparent inability to control my thoughts regarding him, feeling a little unsettling. Myra departed for home soon after the others, professing a desire to get back to work on her latest toy, and so it was just my sister and I having dinner with our guests that night.

When the meal had been packed away, and Kala returned to the toys on the living room floor after having her diaper changed, Elizabeth and I sat with Blight, who had his shirt back on by then, to both my relief and disappointment. We just lounged, observing that girl with her odd hair coloration seeming so very interested in every little thing she found, like every toy she went to play with was a new frontier, fresh amazing and fascinating. Turning to glance at Blight, there just to my left, I took in the faint smile on that pale, narrow, feminine face, framed in his unnaturally colored hair, and finally asked “So, what do you think?”

Shaken suddenly from a reverie, he turned to regard me, confusion dribbling over his countenance “What might you be referring to?”

“I was wondering if you’d decided yet whether or not you’re going to stay.” I clarified “I said before I’d introduce you around and let you make the decision. I suppose you don’t have to give an answer right now, but I’m not going to try to make you stay if you want to leave.”

Ever so slowly he turned to regard Kala, where she was seated on the carpet, uttering quietly “I don’t think it is my decision to make. Give me a moment.”

And so he stood, approaching his charge, who looked up at him curiously when he neared. He smiled warmly down at her, the expression so kind, and caring, lowering himself to a crouch at her side. A single hand raised, clawed fingers running through her hair, pushing strands of bright purple back from her eyes. Leaning close, he spoke softly to her, carrying on a brief conversation. I didn’t have to wait to find out their decision; the look on that girl’s face made it so very, very clear.







Chapter the Sixteenth:

“She’s mighty... spirited.” Myra muttered, seated beside me on the couch, the both of us observing Kala having a hard time splitting her attention between her over-enthusiasm for the dolls and plush toys scattered around her and her over-enthusiasm for cartoons. It was honestly amazing how she managed to make everything she experienced seem like it was the most captivating and awesome thing she’d ever seen in her life, yet still retain a fairly short attention span. She’d spent the past hour while we’d been in charge of her being repeatedly delighted by the television and the toys, with that widely smiling, semi-vacant expression plastered over her countenance. She’d play for a time, then find sudden interest in the television, wide-eyed wonder over whatever was playing, only to suddenly rediscover the playthings scattered on the carpet with such enthusiasm it was as though they were entirely new to her all over again, only to shortly return to the television, then back, and forth, and back, and forth.

“That’s one way to put it.” I replied, taking a long, slow drink from the cold can of soda in my hand. Myra mirrored my actions with a sip of her own. I can’t say I was particularly enthused about being asked to watch that strange, mysterious girl, but Blight was in the other room getting parenting lessons from Martha and my sister, who both seemed to jump at the opportunity to have another person to discuss things of that nature with, especially someone new to such experiences they could lecture at and share embarrassing stories with. Well, stories that’d be embarrassing for Myra and I at least. I imagine they were doing it in the other room so the two of us wouldn’t be complaining about having our most humiliating moments bared to a relative stranger.

Sitting there, watching Kala, with her brightly dyed pixie cut hairdo and boundless energy, I couldn’t help wondering just who she really was, and where she came from. The problem was I doubted I could get an explanation from her, though not due to any hesitancy on her part. If she could even actively recall, I highly doubted she could communicate it comprehensibly. The idea of checking around inside her head flickered briefly over my mind, but was tossed aside as hastily as if it were on fire. I’d been burned once by looking inside someone else’s head, and it wasn’t an experience I desired to repeat. As much as it outwardly seemed like a simple solution it was something I swore to myself I’d never do again. Even were the subject willing, I was too frightened the incident from Lorelei’s head would occur all over again.

Did I really want to be subjected to the life story of someone else, once more, when there was such potential it would be terrifying and haunt me forever? I was still having nightmares from seeing Lorelei’s memories, though they weren’t nearly so frequent anymore. But then, who’d ever said I wouldn’t be able to get answers without resorting to drastic measures like that? I hadn’t even asked yet, after all, though I’d have to wait for more privacy. As the one responsible for this slowly growing gathering of people I felt it was my duty to know about them, but that didn’t make their pasts anyone else’s business. Nothing against my good friend Myra, no, not at all, but, while I had a deep need to know, it was none of her concern.

I was startled from my reverie by a faint gasp to my side. A quick glance showed Myra blushing faintly, eyes, below that unruly mop of rough, light brown hair, lowered towards her skirt. I slowly lifted a finger, gesturing at her nethers “You just...?”

A slight nod, the dusting of red in her cheeks intensifying “Uh-huh. Ah... didn’t notice Ah had to go...”

Which rather begged a question I’d been considering asking for a while “When was the last time you used a toilet?”

“Uhm...” her hand scratched lightly at the back of her neck, the red tint in her face growing further, “Ah, uh, don’ recall...”

“At least incontinence is one thing we can reverse easily, huh?” I shrugged, relaxing back into the plush surface of the couch. Myra, however, didn’t seem able to brush it off quite as easily. I guess I could understand that. She was the one, after all, having bladder control issues, not me, and incontinence was probably a lot more common where I came from. With a slow nod, she quietly uttered “Ah don’ mind it much. Ah dunno if Ah’d feel right without the feel o’ bulk between mah legs, anymore, ya know?”

I didn’t, and was doing my best to shake off the jealousy beginning to well up inside me. Why did she get to be so complacent with her desires, lording them over me, taunting me with them without realizing she was doing it? I wanted, ever so badly, to be able to just accept what I wanted, to not feel the guilt over it that plagued me, but no, apparently that kind of happiness was reserved for people who weren’t me. I could feel a frown beginning to take residence on my face in the ensuing silence, but tilted my head to hide the expression behind a golden sheet of hair, having no desire to let my friend in on just how much what she’d said had actually bothered me. I may have been upset, but I wasn’t deep enough in that emotional pit to get petty and vindictive, especially towards someone I was so close to.

“Reminds me, actually,” her shifting glance tore from the paint on the walls to regard me, vaguely visible through the waterfall of blonde that had flopped over my face, “Ah don’ think Ah ever, uh, thanked ya fer everythin’. Bein’ able to be here with you, and yer sister, and Mama, has been the happiest Ah been in a long time now. Some o’ mah most pleasant experiences are all thanks to you, an’ ya probably can’t understand just how much it means to me. Ah ‘preciate all ya’ve done, an’ yer friendship, an’ Ah dunno what Ah’d do without it. So, Ah guess Ah been meanin’ to say fer a while now, just, y’know, thanks.”

And now I felt worse about my jealousy. The sincerity and the warmth in her tone only served to intensify the burden of my guilt. She was my best friend, almost like a sister to me, and here I was being envious and resentful. Stifling a sigh, I accepted and returned the embrace that ensued, with less than matching enthusiasm. At least the awkwardness I was experiencing eased when she headed off to find her mother for a diaper change, still seeming at the most only mildly embarrassed that she was apparently losing control of her bladder. Sometimes I just didn’t understand that girl at all. But then, who did I know, beyond those whose creation I’d had a hand in, I could really claim to understand?

With my friend absent, for the moment, I turned my attention to Kala, where the strange little thing seemed to be playing pretend with some plush toys. Only, she was keeping the dialogue to herself. She was moving them about as though they were supposed to be talking, but where usually that’s when you’d voice them she remained completely silent. I figured she was doing the voices in her head, if she wasn’t quite literally “hearing voices”. A distinct possibility, I felt. Just what was the extent of her issues? I doubted even Blight knew the answer to that particular mystery. The question, however, was not if I’d try to ask, but rather when and how. Thankfully I didn’t have to wait overly long for the opportunity, but it still ate away at me all day long.

The sun had drifted below the horizon, moonlight painting the landscape outside in high contrast shades of silver and pitch, the still, cool night air split only by the songs of cicadas and the gentle rushing of the waterfall below the house. The day had come and gone to the laughter of our newest regressed addition, who managed almost effortlessly to get Myra to play with her through the afternoon after the other girl decided to join her on the floor, dropping into that childish mindset with frustrating ease. She roped in Azala as well, once Lorelei came over with her demon in the early afternoon, though the creature’s involvement seemed limited to holding the doll she was handed whilst glaring daggers at Kala, who appeared entirely oblivious to her ire. Everyone headed home before dinner, but Blight soon left his charge in the care of my sister and I, to go and continue the conversation he’d been holding with Lorelei that had consumed their afternoon.

I elected to be the one to but the strange girl to bed, and so, there we were, in the nursery, her redressed for bed in pajama pants and top she’d taken from her magic bag that never seemed to leave her side. With only my sister in the house besides us two, downstairs tidying up the living room last I saw, I felt there was sufficient privacy for this. I pulled my guest from her inspection of the patterns in the paint on the walls with “So, Kala, there’s something I’d like to ask you about, before you go to bed.”

That got me something of a blank stare, but at least I’d gotten her attention. When there was no actual response was forthcoming, I continued “Could you tell me more about yourself? You know, where you’re from, who you are, that sort of thing?”

She appeared perplexed by the question, remaining silent. I pressed further “Can you tell me about where you’re from, Kala? Can you tell me your story?”

That actually got something, sort of, the questioning word “Story?”

“Yes, Kala,” exasperation was quite clear in my tone by then, the words coming out very slow and deliberate, as I kept steady eye contact, “Can you tell me your story?”

“Story time!” an abrupt grin splattered across her countenance, her hands moving fast, unzipping her bag, and pulling out a big, brightly colored hardbound book, thrusting it into my hands with an expectant look. I glanced at the book in my hands, the bright red of a fire truck, bearing not a single mark, no symbols with the exception of a single, large yellow star on either side, just like her bag.

“Read, read!” she practically bounced there in front of me. Slowly I cracked open the book to glance at the first page, which held no words, only symbols and images, primarily of stars, and a stylized image of that ever-present container she took everywhere with her. I went to turn the page, but was startled by her sudden repeat of the cry “Story time!”

Wait... Did she really...? A little hesitantly, I queried “You want me to read to you?”

Her head bobbed in a nod so energetic it was a wonder she didn’t hurt her neck. With a slow sigh, I stepped across the room to sit in the singular chair the nursery contained, venting a faint “Oof” when she flopped onto my lap without warning. I was bigger than she was, significantly so granted I had almost a foot of height on her, but she was still a little big for my lap, a little awkward a burden to have there. I think perhaps it was the wide, happy smile that convinced me not to make her relocate to the carpet. I’d never been good at that sort of thing, and in fact had never been much for “story time” at all, but I obliged, opening the book back up, flipping to the next page, awkwardly reading aloud “There once was a little girl named...”

I paused at the sight of her name, which, in the large font within the book, above the cartoonish image of a young girl with brown hair, was long enough to practically span the whole page. I skipped it before I continued reading. I suppose it made sense, in a slightly convoluted fashion. Kala was giving her story, as I’d requested, but quite literally in story form, because she lacked the words, or perhaps capability, to explain it herself.

It was a strange, rather sad story, about a girl growing up plagued by things in her life seeming to quite suddenly appear and disappear. She was perfectly normal as a small child, if a little sensitive, but every so often things would go missing, like a favored toy disappearing without a trace, or appear seemingly from nowhere when she wasn’t looking. At first it was little things, like toys, and crayons, and her parents would scold her for losing things, or question her as to where certain things came from, but it escalated as years went by. Family pets, the car, and finally her parents, to my surprise, all seemingly vanished. That was a pretty dark turn in the tale. She couldn’t have been more than a few years old by the depictions in the book when her mother and father had mysteriously gone missing one morning, forcing her, without any family or friends in the area, to fend for herself for weeks, even as the electricity was turned off in the freezing cold of winter and she ran out of food.

The isolation and loneliness came to a head when, while snowed in, unable to get away from the reminders of her absent family for even a single moment trapped there in the house, she cracked, suffering a complete mental collapse. By the time she was found she’d been half starved and near-catatonic, next to a fancy bag she’d never seen before. But even with the heavy subject matter, and the potentially depressing imagery, it was all still formatted as a children’s story book. Each page was dominated by an image, accompanied by as much as a few lines of bold, large print text with simple terminology and vocabulary a child could comprehend. The pictures looked right out of a cartoon show, all simplistic in detail, and brightly colored, even the sad ones.

The story went on from there to the little stylized Kala being passed off from place to place, never quite the same, never quite cohesive, and unable to mature further. Things stopped appearing and disappearing on their own. She discovered as she went that things she put into the bag, that always seemed to be there even after until after being taken away, just disappeared, and if she thought about something she wanted it’d come out of the bag for her. But no one ever believed her, ever took it seriously, especially since the unexplained phenomena that occurred on their own had ceased. To them it was just more of her displaying unusual behavior, and some kind of unnatural attachment to her particular accessory. Following a “long talk with a nice man in a little room”, she was sent to stay at a “big, white building”, that in context was rather obviously a mental institution, even if it never said so and she never seemed to understand that.

It was actually the happiest she’d been since she had her parents, there at that institution. She made friends with other patients, was loved by the doctors and orderlies, and was generally nice to have around, up until the day she accidentally got into her bag and couldn’t get back out, finding herself quite suddenly somewhere else, lost and alone. She had no clue where she was, how she got there, and wasn’t exactly in any mental state to take care of herself. It was days of experimentation later that she discovered going into the bag again would take her more places, and with concentration she could even control where, to a degree. In the hope of finding herself where she belonged, she traveled this way fervently and hastily, coming soon to be standing in a cell with what was obviously Blight, but was referred to at that point in the book as “the nice kitty man”. I pretty much knew the rest from there, though the book didn’t end quite yet.

It was an interesting tale for me, certainly, but Kala appeared to have far more reaction, as if everything I was reading to her was new. Her completely unrestrained emotional responses were actually kind of adorable. At parts she found scary or sad she would hide her face in my shoulder. At parts she liked she would laugh, and clap in a childish manner. She seemed honestly surprised, to the point of gasping and wide-eyed wonder at what would happen next at every twist and turn. I can’t say I was entirely satisfied with it. Sure, it explained some of her origin, but at the same time raised more questions. Where had the bag come from? Why had things been departing and manifesting in her life out of nowhere in the first place, and why had it ceased? What had ever really happened to her parents? So much was left unanswered, but that was the end of the story. The book concluded when she’d sat next to me to eat my sandwich the day we’d met, complete with an artistic interpretation of myself and my sister.

With the story completed Kala reclaimed her book, slipping it back into the bag, where it disappeared. Deciding not to bother asking any more questions, partially out of a fear she might produce more things she’d want me to read to her, I put her to bed in my crib, holding that star-patterned container to her chest as though it were a plush toy, thumb stuck in her mouth. I shook my head slightly as I headed out of the room, and downstairs to my sister, figuring I was at least fortunate it had been far less dramatic a reveal than Lorelei’s past. All I’d done was read a story in a book. No horror, no vomiting, no smells of toxic volcanic fumes and dead people, and certainly no nightmares. Even if it didn’t answer everything I’d wanted to know, it’d do for the time being.


Chapter the Seventeenth:

Jealousy is an ugly color, that I admit to having worn on plenty of occasions, and that afternoon, some days after Blight and Kala officially joined the neighborhood, was one of them. I’d been going over the plans for the new house I was planning to create with Blight, when Lorelei had interrupted, asking to speak with the beautiful, feminine man in private. I knew what about, of course. She’d had a talk with me the day before, seeking my approval, wanting not to harm our friendship with her actions. Far be it from me to get in the way of potential relationships, even if I wasn’t exactly happy about it.

When they returned, the woman looking immensely pleased with herself, I just kept repeating over and over in my head how I hadn’t really wanted him anyway. He was too old for me, I insisted to myself, and it would cause friction with Elias, which I didn’t want so soon after we’d patched things up, and with Lorelei, who while still a little unsettling I definitely classified as a friend. I was making excuses in order to try to convince myself, however minimal my success at it, that the attractive male, so sleek and smooth, leanly muscular, looking like he was carved out of marble, wasn’t for me. Despite any effort to the contrary, some deep, instinctively possessive part of me seemed to defy the logic that couldn’t take him for myself, burning with jealousy at the fact someone else had claimed him. Maybe it was the fact I couldn’t partake in the eye candy as readily knowing it was taken, the knowledge making me feel guilty to be looking too closely.

I suppose I should have been expecting it even before Lorelei’s intentions were brought up to me. I hadn’t been the only one enjoying the, aheh, “scenery”, when Blight had had his shirt off by the lake, or any of the subsequent times over the days he liked to shed anything covering his torso, somehow so completely and utterly comfortable with himself and his body he could have made going around in the nude seem natural and relaxed. My magically-inclined neighbor had started becoming awkward around him, with occasional blushing, stuttering in embarrassment when startled from getting lost in the bright yellow of his eyes.

She’d been crushing on him since they met, I suppose. And it only got worse over time, especially after she’d more or less asked my permission to pursue him, insisting if I was uncomfortable with it she would back off. With the knowledge at hand that there was no longer anything but her own insecurity keeping her away from him, she spent the remainder of the day we’d had that talk returning to me, asking again and again if I was really okay with it, still trying to convince herself, and utilizing my acceptance to bolster her resolve. She didn’t exactly have any relationship experience, despite her age, and quite clearly was uncertain just how to go about things, in addition rather lacking anyone to ask for advice. Who could she go to? Me? My only romantic partner was someone I’d crafted myself, even if that hadn’t been Elias’s initial purpose. No one else in the area, except Elias, of course, and perhaps Blight himself, had been with anyone before. It wasn’t like she had a very deep well of individuals to draw on.

She was so nervous, quite literally fidgeting, a tad red in the face, when she’d approached, keenly observed by her charge, who just loved whenever anything was awkward for her caretaker. When she and Blight returned from their brief, private conversation she appeared positively gleeful, in contrast to Blight who seemed just as relaxed and vaguely disinterested as he always seemed to. As bitter as I was trying not to feel, it was about the happiest I’d seen Lorelei since I’d met her. While she cheerily headed to check on her demon I took leave of the house, meandering down the hill to the lakeside, hoping the gentle rushing of the waterfall and the twittering of birds would have a calming effect and lessen the envy burning in the pit of my stomach. If only he’d been a few years younger, I’d have been all over him, or so I told myself. I wasn’t even an adult yet, after all, and he seemed almost Lorelei’s age, at least a decade older than I was. Ugh, damn him for being so uncannily attractive...

“You are upset.” was said behind me, quite surprising granted I'd thought I was alone. Starting suddenly I spun on the spot at the sound with a gasp, hand going to my chest as my heart rate spiked. Blight bore that same usual expression of near-boredom on his narrow, angular face, even though he'd just almost given me a heart attack. A single, thin, elegant clawed hand rose to brush hair from his eyes, sending a ripple through the shining sheet of silver flowing down his back, before his arms crossed over the loose material of the long-sleeved shirt he wore. Of course I hadn’t heard him approach, with that graceful yet potentially troublesome silent, untraceable step he had. For a brief moment I wondered if he was even capable of leaving footprints in his wake, if he was moving the way he did on purpose.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” the lie came unbidden from my lips, eyes refusing to look directly at him, with his pristine white skin practically shining in the bright sunlight, and his eerily enchanting unnaturally colored cat eyes. He was completely still, but for strands of hair stirred by a gentle breeze; not a single change in expression or stance for long, agonizing seconds. I twitched, shifted under his unwavering gaze. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. He saw through me like I was made of glass, and his piercing, flat stare became increasingly unbearable until I threw up my arms, crying “Okay, fine! You’re right! Happy?”

“You do not need to raise your voice.” his calm tone was almost infuriating “Please, explain what is troubling you.”

I stared, eventually muttering “You’re kind of the last person I could really talk to about this.”

A faint frown was the response, his brow creasing ever so slightly. I couldn’t help my thoughts drifting to whether he was even able to display extremes of emotion, or if this was all he had. Shortly, he spoke again “Is this concerning Lorelei’s romantic interest in me?”

For appearing more or less clueless, he’d sure managed to hit the nail on the head there. Perhaps he understand better than he let on. I gave a little grunt “I suppose. I’m jealous, alright? You’re very good looking, and I’m bothered that she gets you even though I decided not to try for you myself already because of the age difference. It’s petty and stupid, I know. I just need time to get used to the idea.”

His eyebrows rose slightly “You...?”

The sentence died in the air, incomplete.

“I what?” my tone was rife with impatience. He actually seemed somewhat puzzled “You desired to engage me romantically as well?”

“Hence why I’m not in the best of moods now that you’re taken.” I grumbled “But I didn’t want to disrupt Lorelei’s good time, so I came out here to keep it to myself until you showed up to bother me. Is it that really so unexpected? Have you seen a mirror before?”

A shrug sent a fresh undulation through the waterfall of shimmering strands flowing against his narrow form “Physical attraction I have come to expect, as I have very little control over that aspect of my nature, and my physical appearance refuses to change despite any efforts I have made. Desire for relationships, however, is something I have less experience with.”

“Your ‘nature’?” my eyes returned to him, brow furrowing “You know, you never explained these ‘abilities’ you’ve mentioned.”

It was an abrupt change of subject, that was for sure. I wasn’t particularly comfortable discussing with him how I wanted to jump his bones, but it seemed a good time to perhaps dig for a little more information, and at the same time not have to have the conversation we'd just been having. Lorelei had gone for him, and by her reaction his response was obvious. I insisted to myself I was happy for her. There was no more to it, I just had to stop being such a selfish brat. Yeah, right...

I was pulled out of my latest little bout of self-loathing when he began speaking again “I am not exactly human, not entirely, if that were not already quite obvious. My body produces pheromones that cause attraction to draw prey, and put them off guard. My movements are unnaturally silent and leave no trace to mask my passage and allow for stealth. Foremost, however, at a touch I am capable of temporarily disabling muscles and nerves. In my youth my control of this was minimal. I was abandoned as a baby, and as such do not identify with my birth name. I was dubbed ‘Blight’ because before I could fully control it my presence was a plague on those around me, especially come puberty when I began producing chemicals that drew others in. Alluring, but deadly, you could say. Not the best of circumstances for romance, especially with those that know of me. Most are hesitant to come into physical contact, be it because of what I can do or my appearance.”

My curiosity was piqued “And what did you do with these powers of yours? You mentioned prison; something about life sentences.”

“I have since retired, but I liberated things from their rightful owners for a living.” was the admission, “I was quite good at it, but was caught by some annoying vigilante types, and put away based on my very long list of prior discrepancies where the law is concerned. Judges tend not to look favorably on potentially dangerous metahuman offenders. Even without homicide charges I would have been incarcerated for life.”

And so he was a supervillain. Practically right out of a comic book. I guess it fit, even if he seemed a little unusually forthcoming about his criminal past. By the way he discussed it without shame or remorse, or really any particular emotion, like he were merely mentioning what he’d had for breakfast, or talking about the weather, I had a feeling he just didn’t view it as anything to feel negatively about. I wasn’t sure if his complete acceptance of his illegal and harmful activities, but claims he had retired from that “profession”, was better or worse than Lorelei’s guilt over her horrific past. He definitely seemed a lot more emotionally cohesive, yet at the same time was entirely unrepentant over a life spent taking things that weren’t his and the vaguely mentioned “homicide charges”.

I’d have to keep an eye on him to some extent, as if I could keep myself from looking in the first place, and hope my attraction wouldn’t color my opinion too much. As I’d done with Lorelei, I decided the past was in the past. So long as he didn’t start doing anything harmful to the community, I would do nothing about it, doing my best to judge him based solely on his actions since our meeting. Having cooled off a bit, distracted by the turn in the conversation, I decided to head back up to the house before it could grow awkward again.

It had been a while since I’d last holed up in my room, to the extent it felt a little weird to be at my desk sulking, especially with people over. I just couldn’t sit around with Lorelei and Blight anymore. It wasn’t logical, I know, but my envy refused to wane. I wanted a hot, sexy pretty boy too, damn it! But Lorelei deserved a little romance, no matter how much it might have bothered me, hence why I’d retreated to my bedroom to avoid getting my foul mood on anyone else. I tried to meditate the way Azala had instructed me, but I just couldn’t seem to douse that final flame in the back of my mind, burning bright and hot. Surely everyone in the house knew something was up, but no one came up to check on me, at least not until dinner.

“They’re gone now.” I heard from the doorway, glancing up to see my sister standing there, leaned against the door jamb “You can come out of hiding. It’s almost time for dinner anyway.”

A frown tugged at the corners of my mouth, annoyance flaring “I am not hiding!”

“Really?” she smirked, then suddenly glanced up and to the side, lips pursing in faux concentration “So it’s called something else when you avoid portions of your own house in order to avoid the people in it?”

My arms crossed over my chest, eyes narrowing up at her. Bare feet made muted thumps against the carpet as she crossed to pat me on the head “Oh, quit your pouting, Annie. So you didn’t get the sexy hunk. You weren’t going for him anyway, were you?”

“Not the point!” I argued, pushing the hand away “It’s one thing not wanting him, but not having the option at all because someone else went for him first is something else entirely. If Lorelei hadn’t gone for him at least he’d still be an option. I didn’t want him nearly as bad before I couldn’t have him. I’m jealous and pathetic...”

With a great, loud sigh, I flopped my head and arms onto the wooden surface of the desk, gaze moving to the wall as I muttered “I’m a terrible person, aren’t I? I should be happy for her. She’s never had anyone before. She deserves a shot at a relationship.”

A gentle hand was laid on my shoulder “Oh, don’t say that, Sister. You are not a terrible person, you hear me? So you didn’t get him. At the rate this situation is growing the community is just going to keep getting bigger, right? I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities in the future to look for love.”

“I don’t think I’m in the mood for the ‘other fish in the sea’ routine, Liz.” was my response, my eyes refusing to move from the paint on my wall. It was her turn to sigh, and, with one more gentle touch on my head, tell me “Alright, alright. Well, I just came up here to get you back downstairs. I need to start dinner, and we’re saddled with Azala for the night. She’s probably been without supervision for too long already. C’mon, if we hurry down and we’re lucky the house’ll be in one piece.”

Groaning in annoyance, I pushed myself to my feet, and followed her through the hall and down the stairs, where, to my amusement, Kala was annoying the hell out of our demonic guest. The strange girl seemed to be in the process of playing with Azala against the other girl’s will, and the agitated grey figure’s heated glares went entirely unheeded. She just sat, holding the toys she was given because when she dropped them they’d be immediately shoved back into her hands, while the weird one beside her seemed completely in control of the situation, oblivious to the fact the demon wanted nothing to do with her. The sadistic side of me was immensely pleased to see Azala unable to escape from the hell of being forcibly involved in someone else’s playing pretend, unable to get a single word in edgewise against Kala’s overflowing enthusiasm. Now this I had to watch.

Azala shot me what could almost be classified as a pleading look, a little out of character compared to her usual stoic defiance. Of course, I wasn’t about to go doing her any favors. With a little malicious grin I settled into the couch to watch her suffer, held hostage with juvenile activities by an overgrown child. For being so cheerful and spunky, Kala sure was capable of causing inadvertent unpleasantness surprisingly well, at least for those that didn’t want to interact with her. I highly doubted she’d understand someone who was on the same level with her not wanting to play together, and, like she was putting Azala through, would therefore rope them into things they wanted no part of. The little grey demon seemed immensely relieved when dinner time came, and the two of them were finally split up, and even appeared glad that her bed time immediately followed. Too bad for her Elizabeth and I decided they’d bunk together once it was time to put Kala to bed. The crib was big enough to fit the two of them, and I took a degree of pleasure in knowing that Azala would be subjected to our newest childish neighbor for the night later on, and letting her know about it ahead of time just so she could stew in the dread of having to share a bed for the night with who rather clearly was her second least favorite person, only less loathed than her summoner.

A knock split the silence in the night, a glance at the clock revealing it to be past nine in the evening, perhaps a half hour after when Elizabeth had taken Kala upstairs to get her changed and put to bed. I hadn’t gone up with her, but just imagining Azala’s reaction to having the weird girl put into the crib with her was amusing. The knock repeated after a couple of seconds, leading to the sudden realization Elizabeth was nowhere to be seen. Giving a faint grunt I pushed myself up, padding silently to the entryway. My immediate thought was perhaps it was Blight returning, but there was only one person I knew who might be showing up that late that would be knocking, seeing as how Blight was living there at the moment. Sure enough, the door swung in at a touch to reveal Elias standing there, shaggy black hair hanging in his eyes, smiling at me, garbed in jeans and a t-shirt.

“Something’s bothering you again.” he told me, as he stepped past me, smirking at my annoyance. Why’d he always have to go and do that? I knew something was bothering me, damn it; he didn’t have to be all perceptive and bring it up the moment he saw me. Grumbling, I loudly shut the door after him, and we went to sit down together. Arms over my chest, I said to him “So I haven’t seen you in a few days. Where you been?”

A shrug and a dismissive wave “Oh, Mom had a bad dream about her maker the night after that pool party, and got all possessive on me. I barely managed to convince her to let me out of her sight to come over tonight. I guess she would have come too, but she doesn’t like you very much, and she’s not in the best of moods already. But this isn’t about me. You’re in a mood, and you know you can’t deny it to me. What’s up?”

I seemed to be doing a lot of sighing that day, I noted, before I informed him “Lorelei asked Blight out. She asked me if I was okay with it first, since I have the hots for him too, and I told her it was, but now I’m upset because I can’t have him. It’s stupid and selfish, but there’s not much I can do but try to get used to the idea I can’t have him. I’ve talked about it with Liz and Blight already. I don’t need to discuss it again, so just let it go.”

He was visibly relieved at this revelation, likely due to some selfish desires of his own, and a slow grin spread over his face “Oh, hey, know what’d help you feel better?”

“What’s that?” I cocked an eyebrow. His eyes gleamed with mischief “Sex.”

A deadpan stare was the only reply he got, until I shoved him on the shoulder hard enough he fell onto his side on the couch laughing hysterically. Quickly sobering, and sitting back up, he shot me a lecherous look, less than covertly glancing towards my chest, as if there was much to see there “No, seriously, I guarantee you’d feel better after.”

“Would you quit thinking with your crotch?” I growled, glaring into him.

“I will if you will.” his brow rose at me. I was about to toss a remark back at him, but realized he was right. I was letting my attraction to the hot new guy cloud my moods and opinions too much. Ugh, damn Elias for being right... Grabbing up a pillow from the couch, I made to smack him with it “Oh, you’re gonna get it for that!”

“Bring it on!” he called back, cackling as he stood, motioning for me to come at him.

Five minutes later we lay on the carpet side by side, entirely out of breath but unable to cease our laughter. Not for the first time since we’d been reunited I couldn’t help questioning my decision not to be with him any longer. He didn’t have Blight’s hot, hard body, or freaky pheromones, but he, better than anyone else I knew, could always make me feel better, if just for a bit.







Chapter the Eighteenth:

“... so while I very much appreciate your effort and intent, it will not be needed.” the words echoed in my head “I have discussed this with Lorelei, and her home will now become mine and Kala’s as well.”

The plush recliners in my head were the same as ever, just as cushy and comfortable as I recalled. Even if they technically didn’t exist, were merely a figment, nothing but a concept taking residence in a place that was just the mind’s way of representing itself comprehensibly, they were the most comfortable places to sit I’d ever experienced. I could have sat there for an eternity, enjoying the soft, warm, leather-covered surface I had sunk myself into. I had something to do, a reason for being in my head that night, but I was doing my very best to procrastinate.

I’d been sort of avoiding Lorelei for days, since before her first “date” with Blight. Was it really called that when you didn’t actually go anywhere for it? All they did was have dinner and be together alone for a while, which I wasn’t certain counted as a date, though I wasn’t exactly in any position myself to determine what did or did not qualify. With Elias and I the only difference between being in and not being in a relationship had been the amount of intimacy involved, at least initially.

It had been several days, and three of their dates, but still a hard, dark core of jealousy was settled in the pit of my stomach. Having Blight around the house wasn’t exactly helping, so I’d been pushing to work more on the blueprint and the furniture designs for the house I had been intending to make for him and Kala to occupy. That concept came crashing down that night when he’d broken the news that, instead, he intended to move into Lorelei’s tower. The man who preferred to sleep in the nude, moving in with his significant other, in a house with only one bed and no doors. It wasn’t helping the envy at all, though maybe it’d be easier to deal with without him living with me. They seemed to be taking things a little fast...

I sighed heavily, drawing a hand down my face. What business was it of mine how fast their relationship progressed? None, that’s how much. The more I thought about it the more potential there seemed to be in Elias’s far from subtle mentions that maybe I’d feel better about it all if I was getting laid. In fact, he was probably right; some degree of my frustration likely stemmed from the idea that I wasn’t getting any, but Lorelei probably was. Was I really that hard up for sex? No, I insisted silently to myself, no I wasn’t. If I wanted it that bad I’d have been screwing Elias already. With any luck we’d get more cute boys soon. I mean, I could appreciate beauty just fine, but I’d never, you know, been into girls that way, and there were so few males around to pursue. Maybe that was it. Since I’d sworn not to get back together with Elias for the sake of his own mental health, that meant that Blight was the only guy in the neighborhood I could have gone for. The singular option, taken off the market.

I’d have liked to stay sitting around my little lounge moping all night, but the dimmed lighting was starting to grow a little creepy. Grabbing a handful of self pity chocolate from my candy vat, I pushed myself up, stuffing my face as I set of down the hall. Wait... I hadn’t really noticed at first, what with the fact it seemed someone had turned down the lights, but there were splotches of the wrong color on the walls. I had to get my nose inches from the paint to really tell what it was though. Green? Why was there...? Oh, I got it. “Green with envy”. Oh, ha ha, very funny, brain. If my mind had an ass I’d have kicked it for that one...

Grumbling to myself I continued along, looking for a white dream door to get my business for the night out of the way. The unsettling ill-lit nature of the place, coupled with the absolute silence but for my footfalls, was starting to make me feel like I was in some crappy horror film and something was going to sneak up behind me. The notion rather made me smirk though, thinking about making Myra watch some horror flicks with me. She had so little experience with things like special effects and all that that they frightened her so much easier, even the lamest, cheesiest crap, and she was kind of adorable when she was scared. Plans for that could wait until later, however; I had something to do that night I wasn’t overly looking forward to.

I located my goal shortly, though there was an odd sensation, an itching I suppose you could call it in the back of my head, like a thought was trying to bubble up but couldn’t get a finger hold on my conscious thoughts. A word seemed to be on the tip of my tongue, and a faint, undefinable echo had me glancing either way to be certain I was alone. Of course, I was. It was my head, after all, and I only knew of two people with the capability of invading it, neither of them seeming very likely. The things inside the doors, to my experience, never passed the thresholds, even in the couple of cases I’d accidentally stumbled into fears while exploring. Traumatizing, certainly, but nothing that’d ever really actively pursued me after I fled in horror from the dark things in the depths of my psyche that terrified me. Like clowns. Ugh, just thinking about them always gave me the shivers, and inside my head they were infinitely scarier than anything I could have seen in real life.

Shaking off the unusual sensations, I gripped the knob, pushing open the door, and stepping through into the blank white canvas I would be crafting on that evening. A simple matter of concentration to surround myself in the concept of Lorelei’s tower, with its stone walls and flooring, not particularly well covered by that rug, that I certainly doubted was very comfortable when it got cold. Did she even have some kind of heater? Maybe she managed with magic. Made sense enough to me. It’s not like I had any clue what the limits of magic were where she was from. Why was I thinking about it in the first place? I had a job to do. Blight didn’t want me to make him a house anymore, so instead I was helping prepare Lorelei’s place for the new additions. Not nearly as much to do compared to making a house, but I bathed in the praise and appreciation all the same.

I only made three things there, that night. In the kitchenette, alongside the chair and Azala’s highchair, first I just made a replica of the existing chair, so Blight would have somewhere to sit, and then came the actual creative portion. A second highchair was added by the first, but rather than the pale pink of the one already there this one was bright red, with yellow star patterns, predominantly a large one on the back. A crib added when I went upstairs to the nursery matched, all the wood painted that same fire truck red, the red sheets and pillows adorned with more patterns of that same stylized star. Granted how much that strange girl seemed to like those colors, and stars, I was sure she’d love it.

It didn’t exactly mesh with the subdued tones that were predominant in that house, especially all the pink and white up in the nursery, but then I imagined the one the furniture was made for wouldn’t exactly blend in there either. I considered, briefly, crafting some more things for Kala, but it didn’t really look like I needed to. With that bag of hers she could produce just about anything she wanted anyway, and I had little doubt she’d be satisfied with Azala’s as yet untouched toys. Slightly annoyed there was nothing more I could do to show off, I shoved the changes onto the fabric of reality, and headed out of the dream door.

That echo, if you could really call it that, was back when I emerged into the gloomy hall. I wasn’t sure how to classify it. It didn’t seem like I was “hearing” it, technically, with my ears. When you hear something there’s usually some way to determine, however vaguely, direction and distance, but this seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. It was almost a word, like some audio equivalent to the impenetrable blur I saw overtop the walls of stone near my house. Whatever it was, I couldn’t make it out, and not from a true lack of comprehensibility. It was definitely something, I just couldn’t wrap my head around what, and it was honestly starting to creep me out, especially with my hallway so lacking in lighting. I hunted down something nice and safe, a memory door of some time Myra and I had been hanging out together, to go to sleep in in favor of the hallway.

I had my nursery and guest room back by mid-morning, Blight and Kala’s very few possessions collected before they departed for what was to be their home now. I sat up in my obsidian tower, in the cold of my open-air thinking room, containing only the single chair, commanding a clear view of my domain, and got to sullenly observe the man I wanted to screw and his charge head through the partition that led to Lorelei’s dimensional space. I should have been happy for them, and knowing that, thinking it so clearly, only made me feel worse. I mean come on, Blight had been in isolation in prison for years, and all his life most people didn’t want to get close to him, and Kala, before coming along her “nice kitty man” had been lacking in real parental figures since she’d gone crazy alone in her home while it’d been under six feet of snow. She’d found a parent, he’d found a partner, and Lorelei got the first relationship in her life. It was a happy occasion, so why’d I feel so lousy about it...?

I spent a very long time up there, a hundred feet off the ground, only a cylinder of obsidian, a spiral staircase, and an ornate, darkly lacquered wood chair beneath me. The wind blew though the open spaces where windows might have gone, massive gaping holes in the hard yet brittle material, the ceiling above held up only at the corners of the little room. The smooth stone was cold to the touch, beneath my bare feet, not warming to slightest with my body heat. Winter was right around the bend; I could tell by the shivering that set in after the first hour or so. It wasn’t until evening when my solitude was disrupted, someone coming up my staircase to burst my bubble of angst and self-loathing. Maybe I was just aching for contact, but I clung to the first thing with a pulse that came close, and I didn’t let go for a long time.

“What the hell am I doing...?” I muttered, staring wide-eyed into my ceiling in the dim, the room lit only by the nightlight in the corner. My clothing lay in a trail from the door to the bed. Jeans, shirt, bra, panties. My naked form was covered only by the blanket. From my side, a voice replied “Well, you should be basking in the afterglow, but I guess you’re done with that already.”

“This was a mistake...” my tone was laced with panic. I jerked upright on the sweat-soaked sheets, twitching away from the form close at my side. Feet to floor, I stumbled away from the bed “I-I... We shouldn’t have done this!”

A hand touched, turning me gently. I was enfolded in firm, narrow arms, pulled to a masculine chest while black hair tickled against my face. Elias’s voice was soft, but failed to comfort me “Annie, please, don’t say that.”

My arms thrust out, pushing him away “No! No, we can’t do this, Elias! I swore when I made you leave I wouldn’t do this again!”

“And I still don’t get why you keep pushing me away.” he insisted, expression anxious, agitated, concerned. He didn’t. He never had. It was the issue that had started the whole thing in the first place. He was so clueless about my emotions, for once, seemingly incapable of seeing past his own desire to clearly perceive on the matter. A long stare shattered as my face contorted in anger. It could only have been termed a scream “Which is exactly the fucking problem, Elias! You never got it! You never understood that! If you’d understood, this was something we could have worked out! It’s called a last resort for a reason, damn it!”

“I... I kept trying to explain it,” the anger drained in an instant, voice turned to choking sobs, “but you refuse to understand! You were obsessed, but you just don’t get it!”

“Then explain it again!” he implored, the pleading look only cutting deeper “Please, Annie, I need you! It hurts when you get like this. I worry about you, I love you. Just talk to me, please.”

And him trying to be reasonable about it definitely wasn’t helping. Legs buckled under me, spilling me to the carpet, my body seeming to crumble in a moment into a cross-legged position. I couldn’t do this again. I tried so many times to point out to him, going into excruciating detail about what in his behavior was bothering me, but he just never seemed to absorb the information. He never understood what he’d done wrong, and probably hadn’t even noticed he was doing it. His denial was so great you could almost call it legendary. But then it clicked. I had an idea.

I burst to my feet with such suddenness I almost knocked him over while he’d been bending down trying to comfort me, coming inches from slamming my head into his chin. With a determined glare, I told him “Telling you never seems to work, so instead I’m going to show you. I’m getting my special pillow, and we’re going to bed.”

“We’re getting back in bed together?” a smirk flashed over his countenance, an eyebrow quirking. I frowned, smacking him with the runed pillow I’d picked up, and crossing back towards the bed “You’re sleeping on the floor. Try and get in my pants again, and I swear I’m punching you in the crotch.”

“You’re not wearing any pants.” was pointed out, but I didn’t deign to answer, laying down a fresh blanket overtop the still-damp sheets, and settling down, head atop the symbol drawn onto the pillow. With a little sigh, Elias took a moment to re-don the pull-up that had been discarded on my floor when we’d gotten naked, likely to mask any further arousal, before scrounging extra blankets and pillow from my closet to make himself at home on my floor. I was mildly disturbed already that in his pursuit he seemed not to recall he had a worried, possessive, control freak mother figure at home, who’d probably blame me for the fact he wouldn’t be back until morning. I was tempted, in the ensuing uncomfortable silence, to send him home, but the only thing coming out of my mouth was the eventual “Are you asleep yet?”

“No.” was uttered to my left, and a bit down “How am I supposed to sleep thinking about you up there naked?”

Grumbling to myself, I got up long enough to throw on panties and a shirt before returning to bed with a disgruntled “There, now get to sleep...”

That was met with a disappointed groan, and the sound of shifting fabric as he rolled over and I tried to settle into a comfortable position while doing my best to avoid thinking about the fact we’d been having sex, right there, and were both still there, still not exactly fully dressed. Ugh, I had serious business to conduct, and I couldn’t get to sleep. Because of the gravity of the situation, or the anxiety? No, it was because I couldn’t stop thinking about my ex-boyfriend’s junk. It seemed like hours before I was able to drift off.

Okay, so how to bring Elias into my head. I’d barely been considering for five seconds when I heard “Is there a light switch in here somewhere?”

Spinning about, there he was, standing behind me, looking a little silly in just his white training pants, with the blue tear-away sides and star patterns that would fade when wet, lean, flat, near-hairless stomach and chest exposed. After a moment his arms crossed over his chest “Okay, if you keep looking like you’re gonna laugh I’m just going to take it off. It’s not my fault my options are these or diapers.”

I tore my eyes off his, aheh, “underwear”, and set off down the hall “Alright, come on, let’s do this. I am going to prove to you, once and for all, by showing you your own past behavior, that I did have a reason for making you leave.”

He seemed vaguely exasperated, but followed after me, while I concentrated on bringing forth the memories in question. Elias seemed a little uncomfortable in my hallway, but I imagine anyone would, especially with it looking like the lightbulbs were failing and someone had been splashing green paint around. If I wanted to really plunge him into the concept I was trying to prove I had to pick the right event to start off with. It took some thinking, but I found it, tugging him through a doorway into the greyscale of a memory, telling him “Just watch this from an outside perspective, and try to tell me it’s not screwed up.”

Sunlight spilled through the windows over the sink in the kitchen of my real world home, the lack of color causing little change to the near-monochrome decoration already there, onto the scene of me trying my hardest to decorate a cake despite a complete lack of experience with either applying frosting or baking. My hair was bound up in a ponytail to keep it out of the way, flour dusted over my shirt, a smudge of frosting on my cheek. It was bad enough it had come out lopsided, but I’d doubted then that I had the time or patience to try and make another. Besides, flaws gave it character, and it was the thought that counted, right? The past me slipped a bit, mussing the lettering, when a pair of arms slipped around her belly, a body of equal size to her long, lanky frame pressing against her back, Elias planting a kiss on her cheek, muttering “You’re taking so long with this. Hurry up, so we can slip off for a while.”

She rolled her eyes, shrugging him off with a blush “We can make out whenever, Elias. This is important. It’s Elizabeth’s birthday, and I want it to be perfect. We can always fool around later.”

He reluctantly pulled away, gaze slipping off while I returned to the cake, trying to repair the imperfect letter that had been going so well before I’d been interrupted. She froze when he spoke again “So it’s her birthday. Is that really more important than love?”

“What are you saying?” she shot him a glare, anger flaring in her eyes as she turned to face him. Arms crossed over his chest “I’m saying do we actually need her for anything? What does she do that I can’t do for you? Do we even really need her around?”

My previous self’s mouth hung open in disbelief that her boyfriend was literally proposing the removal of her only family. I turned to look to the frowning present Elias, identical to his old self but for the color and clothing, telling him “And that was only the first time you proposed getting rid of the only loving family member I’ve ever had, and on her birthday no less. Her birthday, you insensitive ass! One day was too much for you to not have me to yourself. If that’s not obsession I don’t know what is.”

“I-I...” he started, his frown deepening, as he prepared to try to explain himself. My hand went up in his face “No. I’m not done yet. There’s more for you to see, and you can talk when we’re done. If you’re still not getting it by then we’ll look at more. Time means nothing here; I can keep going forever if I have to.”

Snagging his hand, I dragged him to the next door down the hall, then the next, and the next, one after another, many of them more extreme or disturbing than the first. The time he broke a guy’s nose at the mall for staring at my ass. Times he’d observed me “sleeping” when I’d been unable to drift off with him watching me. All the way up to the end when his possessiveness reached such heights he didn’t want me leaving the house. We observed an argument in which his neuroticism had led to the decision quite literally to confine me to the house where he could keep an eye on me at all times, growing increasingly anxious if I left his sight, as though something terrible would happen to me if, even for just a second, he allowed me by myself or around others.

He’d even locked Elizabeth out of the house, and she’d spent all night on the back porch. The night that followed was when I’d finally managed to bring myself to part with him, unable to handle his behavior any longer. As a final jab for the guilt trip, the last I showed before I let him speak was the morning after I’d removed him, when I’d been sobbing and wailing in Elizabeth’s arms, and had to be talked down several times from going to bring him back.

Finally I was done, for the moment, and I stood in the hall glaring at him, arms crossed over my chest. He seemed unable to bring himself to look me in the face as he fidgeted and shifted in place. Silence reigned for a long time in the gloom, hardly disturbed by the muttered “I’m sorry...”

“You’re sorry?” my hands balled into fists at my sides, practically twitching as my anger welled in me “That’s it? That’s all you have to say for yourself? I was afraid I’d find myself chained to the damn bed if I didn’t make you leave! I still haven’t gotten over you, and here you come back into my life like nothing happened, being charming and insightful and sexy.”

“What else can I say?!” he shouted, blue eyes wide and moist beneath his loose mop of hair “I’m not right in the head, I get it! I’ve made mistakes, I’ve been an ass, and there isn’t exactly anything I can do about it, is there? Tell me, Annie! What do I have to do to make this right? Tell me!”

I was backed against the wall by then. He was no bigger than I was, but I’d practically never heard him raise his voice in anger, especially not at me, and his tone was rife with a potent mixture of frustration, panic, and agitation. It was, to be honest, rather disturbing. A hand came up, burying itself in his mass of black hair, his feet making soft thumps against the carpeting as he began pacing up and down the hall. I said nothing. I had no answer. I had no idea what to tell him. I’d tried so much just to convince him that something what wrong, with so little success, I’d never exactly considered what I might say if he ever actually accepted that there was a problem, if I ever managed to pierce his shell of denial. As an eventuality it’d seemed so farfetched I had never exactly gotten around to planning what to do about it.

Elias suddenly stilled. His pacing ceased, his hands moved from where they’d been nervously running through his hair. What he said then was so faint, so soft I wouldn’t have heard it if the silence hadn’t been so thick and overbearing, the simple two word demand “Fix me.”

I glanced up from where I’d been staring into the paint’s green splotches, surprise etched into my expression “Wh-What?”

“Fix me.” the demand repeated, as he gripped my shoulders, a little uncomfortably tightly “I know you can. Use your magic to make me better.”

And I admit to being very sorely tempted. I almost did it, almost gave in to the desire, with him there, actually asking me to poke around and tweak the insides of his head for my own purposes to sate my selfishness. But I just couldn’t do it. My reasons for not screwing with his mind in the first place still stood; the only difference now was he was actually asking for me to do something that seemed entirely opposed to my morals and attempts to keep power from corrupting me. I pushed him off, starting down the hall at a hurried pace for the sake of moving, too much emotion flowing through me to keep still “No, no, no, no! I can’t, Elias! I won’t! I have sworn not to go changing things in people’s heads for the sake of convenience! It’s a slippery slope towards being power mad!”

“But...!” his argument began, only to be interrupted by my shout “I said slippery slope!”

“Besides,” a sigh, it being my turn to start running my hands through my hair, which I certainly had a lot of, “I don’t know if I could live with you if I did it. You’d be fine. Oh sure, you’d be happy; it’d be all sunshine and rainbows for you. But me? Every time I saw you, every time I interacted with you, all I’d ever be able to feel is the guilt, knowing you’re not the same. You’ll be clueless, but I’ll know every time I look at you that you’re not you anymore, that you’ve had your thoughts cut apart and pieced back together for my benefit. I’m not doing it, and that is final!”

His footsteps stopped, prompting me to quit moving as well, turning to face him. And so from his lips came the same question that’d been on my mind since he came back into my life “Then what do we do?”

“I have no idea.” I muttered morosely in response “I was doing my best to ignore it all until tonight. Why’d it have to be you coming up to get me and not Liz? If it’d been Liz I’d have just cried on her shoulder a while. Why am I so weak and pathetic? I’m so jealous of a friend it’s tearing me apart, and now this.”

“This is all my fault.” he grumbled, slumping against the wall, and slowly sliding down into a sitting position on the carpet. I flopped down opposite from him “No, it’s my fault. It’s always my fault...”

We groaned simultaneously, and seemed to be mirroring each other as we both looked up, catching the other’s eyes. We met quite suddenly in the intervening space, slamming together, lips smashed fervently against each other, hands going to each other’s underwear. We both felt immensely guilty, burdened over the complexities of our not-relationship. All the stress wasn’t exactly helping us keep our hands off each other, the two of us seeming to take advantage both of ourselves and each other in our moment of weakness. For the second time that night, if not technically physically, my boyfriend and I made hot, sweaty, desperate love to each other, no matter how much I insisted we couldn’t have a relationship anymore.

We were soon lying on the carpet, spent, staring up at dim, flickering light bulbs, at least feeling a little less of that powerful, unpleasant cocktail of emotions in the lingering afterglow. This was such a terrible idea, but I couldn’t seem to help myself, not around him. He’d been designed to be the perfect, close friend, to understand me and be able to support me and be complement to my strengths, but he’d become so much more. I’d never realized just how well that translated into the perfect lover, and after certain events we seemed almost fated to come together, again and again. No matter how much I tried to swear off him, refuse forevermore to be with him, it wasn’t something, granted the right stimuli and circumstance, that I really had much control over. See where I keep coming back to the whole “weak and pathetic” point? It’s not something I return to frequently without reason, or at least more reason than self-hatred.

Our lethargic state following my second failure in self-control of the night ended rather abruptly at the arrival of a massive, painful pressure right behind my eyes, an excessively loud, yet undefined noise seeming to burst inside my head. It seemed like it was a word, like those feelings before, only far “louder”, if you want to start applying concepts like volume to what technically wasn’t a sound, to a painful degree. It seemed vaguely clearer than last time, like whatever it was was right on the cusp of making sense, like when you’re talking, and you know that you know the word you intend to use, but quite suddenly can’t seem to recall what it was. I slowly reached a hand to feel, checking to make sure I wasn’t bleeding from the ears as I sat up, while the sensation in my skull departed as quickly as it’d set in. I wasn’t the only one feeling it though, it seemed, as Elias was upright next to me, eyes wide, stuttering “Wh-What was that?”

At least it wasn’t just me, but that was of little consolation as the only reply I could give was “I don’t know...”


Chapter the Nineteenth:

Three days with no further word from Elias since our night together, and I was doing just about anything I could think of to avoid the urge to visit him. It was such a short walk away, but more than I felt awkward after what had happened I really didn’t want to go near his mother figure after he’d been at my house all night long. With her already low opinions of me I had no doubt she’d blame me for him being out all night. I’d gone on a group hike with basically the whole neighborhood but for Elias and Sally, spent time trying to get to better know the excruciatingly manic ball of energy and weird that was Kala, hung out with Myra and beer on the palisade walls of her fort watching coyotes. I got pretty drunk, got a little belligerent with my sister. It seemed the only thing I didn’t do was get into a regression situation. I was sorely tempted to descend into that escapism, but I didn’t know, just then, how well I’d be able to come out of it, and deal with myself when I eventually managed to.

Trying to dodge the crazy sex dreams that’d been plaguing me, that third night I went to bed with my rune pillow, intent on distracting myself by investigating the strange sensations that’d been popping up when I’d been in my head lately. The same sensation that assailed me the moment I found myself in my hallway. I fell to my knees, clutching my head as pain lanced through my skull, tinged with fear and desperation, and that all-consuming almost word. Pushing myself back to my feet in its almost immediate absence, I grumbled to myself “Alright, time to take care of this, once and for all...”

It was actually a pretty simple matter, now that I was actively trying, to find the source of this unpleasantness. Just what exactly it was, what message was trying to find its way into my head, I had no clue, but maybe if I could get to where it was originating it’d come through clearer. Just a matter of calculation, some mathematics drawn on the wall in glowing light with my finger like chalk on a chalkboard. Whatever this feeling was, it had to be coming from somewhere, and felt foreign to my mind. I had to move to a new section of wall after a few minutes, rapidly scribbling characters and numerals. In the end the answer I came to, even after checking for mistakes, was more or less gibberish to me. It was a location, that much I knew, but the book had never gone into much detail on “coordinates” or things of that nature. The only part of it I actually understood was that it was, as I’d suspected, not coming from inside my own head. The last symbol wasn’t the rune that stood for the user’s own mind. Still, even if I didn’t understand just what or where my answer was, that didn’t mean I couldn’t utilize magic to get there now that I had a mathematic representation of its exact location. It was time for an adventure.

The door that was produced was unusual to me. It felt vaguely wrong to the touch, something about it seeming to rebel at my presence, causing an unsettling sensation, akin to the stone walls that had popped up around my house, only a different flavor. Besides that it was just a plain floating door, out of the ordinary only in the fact it seemed well lit despite the failing light sources. Something told me that wherever this door led was somewhere I didn’t belong, but when had that feeling stopped me in the past? It opened almost too easily, swinging inward on silent hinges. And what did I see through that opening? Nothing. A blank, black void.

I tested, sticking one foot through, to make sure there was something to stand on, and flesh, sure enough, met “floor”. It felt smooth and cool against my bare toes, but didn’t give at all, so I put my weight on it, and, once satisfied it ought to hold me, I stepped through, peering into the impenetrable, inky blackness, looking for any sign of, well, anything. One, two steps deeper into the emptiness, and I was startled by a faint click piercing the silence. A glance behind me revealed the door I’d come through now closed, and fading from existence. It was a good thing all I had to do to get back to my body was go to sleep, or that might have caused a little panic. As it was, though, I did my best to shrug it off, and start moving along, testing the “floor” in front of me before taking each step. There was no guarantee it’d be there, so I was doing my best to be careful.

Step by slow, shuffling step, I moved in as straight a line as I could manage, able to hear my heartbeat in the soundless, empty space. Besides the sight of my body, somehow well and evenly lit despite a complete lack of light sources, there was nothing. Nothing to see, nothing to smell, nothing to hear, and even the surface I stood on was featureless to the point there was little other way to describe it. I was starting to feel like I’d never find anything but emptiness by the time I spotted a dot of light in the distance, and began to edge towards it. Ever so slowly the little bitty blotch of illumination began to grow and define. But, wait... Wasn’t it getting larger awfully fast for my sluggish pace? I paused where I stood, stock still, and sure enough it was still approaching, more quickly by the second.

What was once a dot had become a rectangle, coming ever nearer, until its light engulfed me, and suddenly I was within, walls and floor blurring past with such dizzying speed it all seemed like nothing more than smears of color. I held my arms close to my sides for fear that if I let them stray too close to the speeding scenery it might clip me and snap off one of my fingers. It wouldn’t be an injury that would affect my physical body, but it’d still hurt like hell. The movement stopped with jarring suddenness, leaving me standing in an unfamiliar hallway, swaying unsteadily. I vomited stomach bile on the soft blue carpeting by the wall, and stood, hunched, heaving for a minute or two. I’d never been prone to motion sickness before, but this was something of an extreme circumstance. When I could finally compose myself enough to take stock of my surroundings, I could only stare at first.

Blue carpeting, almost cream colored walls. It looked like the hallway I’d just been in, my hallway, with some exceptions. The lights were properly functioning, it wasn’t in the best of shape, and it felt vaguely off, as though basically everything was slightly out of place. It reminded me more of how mine had been before I’d gotten away from my parents, all beat up, but where at that point in my life mine had borne blue and purple splashes like bruises, in this one it was pink, as though someone had been tossing around heavy cans of pink paint. The one thing, however, that made me certain it was, in fact, not my own mind, was the fact the plaques mounted on the doors were all blank, where my own had all been labeled via magic. That, and of course the fresh headache that soon assaulted my brain.

“Ugh!” I cringed, gripping my head with both hands, having to lean against the wall for support, as that concept forced into me again, only this time much clearer. What was it saying? “Help”. That one, simple word; a plea for assistance. Whatever or whoever had been broadcasting the idea that seemed to be shaking my grey matter around in my skull wanted, or rather needed, help. I’d come all this way, gone to all this trouble, just to get there in the first place, so I figured there was no reason not to investigate further. With any luck I’d be able to help someone, which would be helping myself feel like less of a selfish jackass, and it’d continue to distract me from my own problems. I didn’t exactly know where to start, especially since none of the doors were labeled, so I just started walking. In my experience, in hallways like that, if you just started going you’d end up where you needed to be soon enough.

The ensuing silence didn’t last long. A voice echoed hollowly through the hallway, crackly with static like it was coming through cheap, old, failing speakers “I can’t do this... I can’t keep going like this... I wish someone would save me... Someone, anyone... Help...”

Punctuated by a final bit of feedback, the voice was gone. Well, it definitely sounded like someone needed assistance. I wasn’t exactly the heroic type, but hell, I’d come so far already, and if I didn’t go through with this the headaches would probably never stop. So, for my own self-serving reasons, I continued looking for something out of place that might show me what I could do to fix this stranger’s problem.

My footsteps slowed to a stop in front of one thing I’d definitely never seen in my own hallway. I’d researched plenty about this manner of magic, about what various things meant and were inside your head, but never once before had I read anything about an unlabeled black door like the one that was there, just to my right. Not only was its coloration in intense contrast to the soft shades surrounding, but it was the one and only door that not only had no label, but didn’t even have a plaque on which to bear one. Slowly, cautiously, I took hold of the shining steel doorknob, strangely warm against my palm, and opened the door.

A nursery. The door opened into a nursery. Even in the minimal, shifting illumination of the nightlight in the corner, the nature of the room that lay at the other side of the doorway was immediately clear. Unlike the nurseries I was familiar with, however, everything was, uh, “properly” sized. That is, not made large enough to accommodate adults. Drawn by pitiful sniffles and sobs emanating from the crib, I stepped down the inches from the doorway to the floor, leaving what was apparently a floating portal behind as I crossed to peer down inside.

Laying within, as I stared down, was a little blonde girl, dressed in a pink, footed sleeper, crying into a plush toy clutched to her chest, tiny body curled up around it. She seemed very vaguely familiar, and perhaps a little old for a nursery, but couldn’t have been more than a few years of age. Never having been good at dealing with comforting others, I stood for long seconds, again and again opening my mouth to say something, only to dismiss it as stupid, especially granted I’d just shown up out of nowhere in this kid’s room. I was glancing back towards the door, considering making a retreat to regroup, and didn’t notice the weeping had ceased, until words drifted up to me “Wh-Who are you...?”

A feeling of nostalgia seemed to well in me as I looked down into wide, misty green eyes, stuttering “N-No one! Just, uh, don’t mind me.”

A hesitant grimace, and I began slowly backing towards the door floating at the other end of the room. The last thing I needed was for this child to call for a parental figure. How exactly was I supposed to explain what I was doing in their house? I stilled at the cry of “Wait, please! You gotta help me!”

“Help you...?” I repeated dumbly, watching her scramble to her feet on the crib mattress, little hands gripping the railing “You have to get me out of here! Before she comes back!”

I was about to reply, when we were both startled by the sound of approaching footsteps from outside the room. Panic poured through bout our expressions at once. Hastily backpedaling to my entrance, I stumbled when my ankle caught the door frame, tumbling backwards into the hall on the other side of the black door. I was certain, when the door to the bedroom I was looking in on opened, I’d be caught trespassing, but when a tall, nondescript brown-haired woman entered, and looked this way and that, she seemed not to perceive my presence as she asked “Were you talking to someone, Sweetheart?”

Seeming somehow perplexed, the little girl said only “No Mama.”

Wait... Oh! Haha! They couldn’t see the door! That had to be it. So long as I didn’t set foot in their world, they didn’t see me, just like my own floating door from my world of origin could only be seen by those touched by the magic. A sigh of relief pulled itself from me, and I pulled myself to my feet to observe the woman fawning over her charge, soon wandering off, saying something about a bottle of warm milk. Sure enough, she wasn’t gone long, returning shortly to tuck the girl in with a baby bottle, planting a kiss on her forehead before departing again. When I was absolutely sure she wasn’t coming back I set foot within once more.

The kid, still nameless, was on her feet the second I lost physical contact with the hallway, bottle forgotten on the sheets, staring with wide eyes “How’d you do that?”

A glance back over my shoulder “Oh, uh, you just can’t see the door. Now, what’s all this about getting you out of here?”

“I can’t do this anymore.” she seemed to wilt where she stood, sagging against the bars “That woman is crazy...”

“She didn’t seem that bad to me...” I muttered, glancing towards the door. She sighed, shaking her head “You don’t see the whole picture. I wanted regression, and I wanted it bad, and she started showing up in my dreams, saying she could make all my wishes come true. But, but she twisted it all! As soon as I agreed she changed me. I’m twenty-three years old, but look at me now. I never asked to be four, I never asked for all this, but once I was made this small I couldn’t exactly fight back. Any time I try to argue, I just get punished...”

Sniffling, she slumped into a sitting position on her rather clearly padded rear, tears streaming from her eyes anew “And now I’m incontinent, and she won’t let me talk like an adult, or feed or bathe or dress myself, and I’m stuck, and it’s torture, and I need help. You have to save me!”

Call it pity, call it impulse, but I asked no further questions, lifting her out of the crib, and carrying her along with me, through the door into the hallway. Her eyes bugged out, little hands clutching at my shirt when we passed through the portal she hadn’t been able to see before. If this girl was so hard up for assistance she would beg help from a complete stranger to get away from the woman who was taking care of her, could I really say no? As I set her on her feet, I could hear quick steps, a near-panicked voice calling “Anne? Anne!?”

Wait, what? Oh. With the way the child perked up at the name, I guessed it was something we shared. I had little time to wonder how this woman had any clue her charge had suddenly gone missing before the door was hurriedly slammed closed, shutting out the cries, and that kid stood, panting, leaned against the black-painted wood, demanding “She can’t follow us here, can she?”

“I don’t think so...” was the reply, to her immense relief. For a couple of very long, empty, silent minutes she stood there against the door, looking empty, shell-shocked, eventually regarding me again, looking me up and down, and saying “Please, please tell me there’s no time travel shenanigans involved here...”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? After a moment I voiced my confusion “Uh, what?”

And that seemed like the answer she wanted, heaving a sigh of relief before telling me “Well, you look, like, almost exactly like I did a few years ago, except for your glowing tattoos, and after what I’ve been through it didn’t exactly seem that far fetched for there to be time travel. I think that would have only led to more and more complications though, ‘cause then I’d have to travel back in time to tell my younger self I needed help, and...”

She stopped quite suddenly, shooting a suspicious glance up at me “How did you come to me in the first place?”

“Well, you’ve kinda been broadcasting.” I shrugged “I’ve been getting headaches and some weird, unclear message lately, so I came to investigate. Once I got here I could make it out though, someone crying out for help.”

“Oh, sorry...” her gaze slipped to her feet “You know, for the headaches. I don’t exactly have much control over that stuff. I didn’t think anyone would hear me, anyway.”

My eyebrow went up, curiosity dripping through my head “Over what stuff?”

“That telepathy crap.” she waved dismissively, as though it was perfectly normal, as if being blase was the proper response to something like that, “It’s been called a ‘gift’ but until now it’s never done me any good. Anyway, thank you for rescuing me, uh...”

“Anne,” I told her, offering a hand down to her, which she took in her own tiny appendage, “Anne Melody Turner. And you are?”

She stared at me, uttering flatly “Anne Melody Turner...”

Okay, so there may not have been “time travel shenanigans” as she’d put it, but it looked like things might have lined up more than assumed. She had, after all, mistaken me for a “younger” her, and I was just starting to realize why she seemed so familiar. I’d seen her before, even if I only recalled vaguely, in pictures from my childhood. Pictures of me. When the ensuing shock began to wear thin, I launched into a volley of rapid-fire questions “Born nineteen ninety-five? Interest in regression from a young age? Childhood of hell due to unaccepting parents? On the football team in highschool? Lived on Ivy Street?”

“Hey, you are me from the past!” she accused, but I just shook my head “No no, not from your past. Alternate universe. I’m guessing in yours you never got that magic book from the antique shop girl when you were fifteen.”

She frowned, looking like she was swallowing something foul as she recollected “No, at fifteen my dad broke my leg in a fight and I finally got taken by child services and moved to the city in a foster home. After I barely managed to finish highschool I moved out, but I never went to college. I’ve been working menial jobs for low pay for years to get by, until that woman started showing up in my dreams. And I’m guessing you never developed those psychic powers?”

“Nope.” I scratched a bit at the back of my neck, rather surprised at how unsurprised I was really finding myself at these developments “But I got magic from the book, and removed myself from my parents’ place at fifteen to live with an older sister I made. I named her Elizabeth. She’s really nice.”

For a short time she just stared into space, before seeming to just shrug it all off, perhaps deciding it was too much to worry about all at once, or perhaps worrying it might have detrimental effect on her mental health to consider it too thoroughly “Well, it’s nice to meet you, me. You think there’s anything you can do to get me back to normal? I mean, I always had a thing for regression, but after being stuck like this the last few months I’m pretty burnt out. By now I just wanna go home to my tiny, crappy apartment, eat some instant ramen, and use a toilet for the first time in a seeming eternity.”

“We’ll see what we can do, once we get back to my head where I actually have control of things.” I assured her. Apparently satisfied enough with that, she just nodded, and observed while I did the calculations for the return journey back to my own mental hallway. It was less eventful, really just stepping through a door. I guess the initial contact had brought our minds “nearer” to each other, as though a concept like distance really had any meaning in a place that’s effectively endless and doesn’t exist physically. She made no comments about the green splotches, or the lack of sufficient lighting, as I searched out a dream door, to see what I could do for me, er, her, or, uh, you know what I mean. Pronouns get weird when you’re dealing with an alternate self. Not a problem I’d ever expected to have to deal with, though I seemed to be taking it in stride pretty well.

“This,” I gestured to a blank, white door, “is what the book refers to as a ‘dream door’, a blank space in which creation can take place. Through use of one of these I should be able to get you back to normal.”

She just nodded, head bobbling, trying to catch her breath after having to keep up with my much longer stride. Yeah, I really hadn’t hit that growth spurt and start to attain my freakish height until I’d reached double digits age-wise. From about ten to fourteen years old, though, I’d been sprouting up so quick I needed a new wardrobe every year, because the old stuff just didn’t fit anymore. We went on through, into the white emptiness awaiting within, so much brighter than the hall that I just stood blinking for a moment before getting to work. I don’t think I’d ever been observed while working like that, and felt mildly self-conscious as I brought up the concept of my younger older self, as confusing as the phrase sounded, which was basically a semi-opaque representation of her physical shape. I’d done this kind of thing, or at least changes in general, so much that it was almost second nature, runes and numbers popping into my head on a whim. Well, that is, until I made the alterations to undo whatever had been done to her, and tried to push it through. The resulting backlash sent me stumbling, and falling to my ass with a cry of pain, the rune in my palm burning like it was being branded in place while a bright flash of light blinded me.

“What was that!?” the squeaky voice nearby exclaimed. Groaning, I pushed myself up with my good hand, holding the injured one, that had started bleeding from its rune, tightly to my stomach, blinking repeatedly to attempt to clear my vision of the many multi-colored dots that had taken up residence there. My voice was unsteady when I replied “That, I guess, might be called a ‘lock-out’. I don’t think there’s anything I can really do about this...”

She seemed about to argue, until she saw the blood, the material of my shirt being balled up in my right hand despite the pain to try to stop the flow of sticky crimson fluid. Dejectedly, she slumped to the floor with a whine “So I’m gonna be stuck like this forever...?”

“Uhhh...” Oh, I really didn’t want to look at that sad face. She was too cute. If she gave me those watery puppy dog eyes again I might wind up hurting myself further trying again to fix her. Still, there had to be something I could do. Anything to stop her crying before it turned into a full on banshee wail. I began drawing numbers and runes in the air a little sloppily with my off hand, sifting information, trying to find a way around whatever that weird woman had done to me, I mean her. As for the thing keeping me from making changes, it looked like some kind of aftereffect of the powerful magic that had changed her. She had so much power from the change still bleeding off of her mind and coursing through her that trying to change her was like trying to redirect a landslide with a shovel; it just crushed me under the sheer volume without letting me make any headway whatsoever. Whatever that woman was, she had clearly been more potent than I, so I really hoped she couldn’t find us. Still, though, hadn’t little me said that she hadn’t done anything until she’d more or less asked for it? I wasn’t sure if that meant her affects needed consent or not, however vague, but it was a mildly comforting thought. I eventually did manage to come to one bit of slightly good news.

“Well...” I turned to look back at her, where she sat, knees to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs, looking forlorn “I might not be able to directly reverse anything she did, but it’s right here in the math that it’s not permanent. You should be able to grow normally, and, y’know, toilet train, just fine. It’ll just take some time.”

“But, but where am I supposed to go?” she pouted “I can’t go back to my apartment like this. Can’t go back to my life. I mean, it sucked, but it was mine! No one will even believe I’m me! I don’t have anywhere to go except back to, to...” she swallowed hard, fear dawning over her expression, the last word coming out quiet and breathy “her...”

“You can come home with me.” I offered, before really noticing the words coming out of my face. She sniffled a bit, those big, soft eyes coming up to me “R-Really?”

I could only shrug “I, uh, don’t see why not. I have plenty of room in the house, you’d probably like the neighbors just as much as I do, and it’d give Elizabeth someone to bother besides me. I think she’d be ecstatic about the, uh, ‘family’, getting bigger. I mean, we’re related, right, if you wanna get technical about it? So I think that counts. How could I not help what’s basically, to a large degree, myself?”

Fresh tears welling in her eyes, she rushed to hug my legs, granted they were what she could reach, shouting her thanks over and over again. Me as she may have been, I was starting to think the changes may have screwed with more than just her physical maturity, but I wasn’t about to go mentioning her seeming tendency to burst into tears like a baby with the situation she was in. I mean come on, talk about rubbing salt in a wound. Still, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting myself into.







Chapter the Twentieth:

I could feel an unfamiliar weight atop me as I rose through the hazy cobwebs of lingering sleep. Bright morning sunlight poured in through the windowpanes, all quiet but for the chirping of birds outside, the almost inaudible rushing of the waterfall, a sucking noise, and the very faint sounds of soft, deep breathing. Wait... Slowly I lifted my head from the pillow, to the sight of a sunlit, messy mass of blonde hair, my little bitty alternate universe self asleep on top of me, garbed still in that pink sleeper, her thumb stuck in her mouth. That shaggy mop of bright gold, long enough just to get into her eyes, was almost reminiscent of Myra’s, only a little shorter, and a fair bit less coarse. She was so peaceful, slumbering curled up there on my chest, suckling on that digit, I was hesitant to disturb her, but was quickly finding I had little choice. I had to piss like a racehorse, and, not being diapered, and even lacking a plastic mattress protector on that bed, I didn’t really want to let go right there.

Breath held, moving very, very slowly, hands eased, inch by inch, to shift the little thing to the side. My right palm was aching something awful, which certainly didn’t help matters, but still she slept when I’d gotten her relocated to the sheets. All my joints froze, breath catching in my throat again when she muttered unintelligibly around her sodden thumb, stirring slightly, but she seemed to settle after a moment, free hand gripping at the blanket, pulling a handful of the material to her chest. Silently as possible I tip-toed out of the room, and rushed to the bathroom to take care of the growing pressure in my bladder.

Returning shortly, much relieved, I was trying to think of just how to begin to integrate this other me into my existence. First, though, I had to get dressed, a quest that was immediately derailed at the sight of the four year old in my bed, nested amongst scattered blankets and pillows, sitting up, hair dangling over her face as she yawned widely, little fists rubbing sleepily at her eyes.

“Uh, good morning?” I offered awkwardly, a lopsided smile spilling over my face, uncertainty sticking its barbs into my gut. Sure, she was me to a large extent, but I was just starting to realize how little I knew her, and what degree of difference we might have had, not to mention the responsibilities that might accompany her addition to my life. Her muzzy gaze snapped to me, emerald eyes, clouded over with sleep mere moments before, becoming suddenly bright and alert. A grin erupted across her countenance so wide it threatened to expand beyond her face as she scrambled off the mattress, nearly tripping in the process, to embrace my legs with shouts of “Oh thank you so much! You saved me! I was so afraid it had just been a dream, and I’d be back there with that lunatic!”

And so commenced a very, uh, interesting morning. Elizabeth arrived to investigate the cries, and was immediately gushing over what was essentially a far younger version of me, physically at least. She’d seen pictures of me from my childhood before, at her insistence, even though I’d done my best to scour anything relating to my parents from my life, and immediately picked up on the resemblance, and rambled on about getting the little one set up in the nursery, and getting a new highchair for her, and so on. Mini-Anne’s immediate response was horror. She hid behind my legs, quite a feat granted I was built like a pole, wailing that she wasn’t a baby, and “never again”, much to Elizabeth’s confusion, prompting me to have to explain the situation.

It was bound to happen eventually, I know. I couldn’t have had a second self around the house without cluing Liz in sooner or later, but I felt a little silly reciting what I knew of the circumstances. Yeah, I’d found and assisted a younger older version of myself from another universe who’d been kinda sorta non-consentually trapped in a regression situation, and was a little averse to the idea of being babied just then. It makes perfect sense, sure, but I was getting into degrees of improbability by then that were starting to get ridiculous. My own fault I guess, but that didn’t make it any less bizarre, or make it feel any less strange for those words to be spouting from me.

I had a feeling my sister, or rather, now, the larger of my two sisters, was having a little trouble with it. Not with the circumstances, no, she took that in stride without so much as a blink, but rather the concept that this cute little thing wanted nothing to do with any regression. It becoming increasingly clear the extent of the tiny blonde’s change wasn’t just young age and incontinence did not help. She was promised a room, and we went to the nursery so she could be changed out of her wet diaper, and, at her insistence, into pull-ups, since she at least had no delusions about her control of certain bodily functions, but it was abundantly obvious she could hardly manage to undress or dress herself. Her coordination was practically nonexistent.

“I can do it myself!” tiny hands waved off yet another attempt to intervene and assist the little naked girl as she tried, with minimal success, to don the slip-on absorbent garment unaided. Biting her lip in concentration, she held it open, and, aiming once more, managed to stick a leg through, in the correct hole this time, emitting a cry of triumph. Our bigger sibling, meanwhile, stood stiff, quite obviously forcing herself not to step in and help. Every time she tried she got yelled at, but she could hardly seem to resist the urge when confronted with something so helpless and pitiful. A squeak was emitted when my double’s attempt to stick the other leg through spilled her to her little rump on the carpet. I winced slightly at the little “thump” of skinny, naked butt hitting floor, but she didn’t seem fazed, too focused on her task.

At least she found it easier to fit the limb through in a sitting position, and finally got the padding tugged up around her nethers, scrambling back to her feet looking pleased with herself. It didn’t exactly fit right, wasn’t snug enough in certain places, granted it was one of mine I’d shrunk with magic. It was the best I could manage until I slept, seeing as without a dream door the most I could do was alter things that already existed. She’d likely leak as soon as she wet any significant amount, and we all knew this, even though it was only Elizabeth who addressed the fairly obvious conclusion aloud with the declaration “We need to go shopping.”

The both of me frowned at that, though I brightened a bit at the knowledge I wouldn’t have to go. Sure, the itty bitty me would have to, since Liz would likely insist on getting her into something that wouldn’t sprout leaks at the first sign of moisture as soon as possible, but there was no reason I’d have to tag along. I did not, however, take into account Elizabeth’s complete inability to look at something cute and sad without doing everything in her power to make the cute thing in question feel better. I stilled at the grin my faux sibling shot my way, and the statement “You know, I think I’ve got an idea.”

That look meant trouble, but the third inhabitant of the room was distracted from the upcoming misery of being dragged out for the dreaded "shopping". It only got worse for me when Liz’s idea met the air “I doubt she'll be comfortable with strangers looking at her much while we’re out, if she's so averse to being babied, and I know just how to keep her from being overly noticed. We just need to have a younger little one around to absorb all the attention.”

I was ready to refuse, but the hopeful look on the angelic little face off to the side was... difficult to refuse. I didn’t particularly want to join them, but I just couldn’t say no to that face. Swept up into Elizabeth’s scheming, everything seemed to pass in a flash as we prepared to leave.

It was a cool morning out, making me glad for the fact I’d at least been put in overalls instead of shortalls, as I gazed about the near-empty grocery store parking lot, the black asphalt bathed in a gloomy dim by the dark, congealed cloud cover. Arms crossed over the sleepy kitten pattern on my chest pocket, my sore hand tucked into a fist to minimize contact with anything, I stood alongside my morose-looking miniature self, awaiting our big sister while she fetched the diaper bag out of the car.

“I swore I’d never come back to this town...” the child muttered, getting a smile and a pat on her head, and being offered “Well, look at it this way: since it’s not your reality of origin, you haven’t gone back. Now come on, we are in a bit of a hurry.”

I had to suffer being led by my good hand, to my annoyance, while the other me got to walk on her own, until we got a cart, at which point I was instructed to keep a hold of the wire basket so I wouldn’t get lost, which was no better. Through motion-activated glass doors, in the building’s innards, it was vaguely warmer than outside, far brighter, and much more colorful. The black of tar, the white of the building’s outside, and the vague greyness spread over the town by the cloud cover were all replaced with the store’s myriad products, assaulting my vision with brilliant, colorful designs meant to draw attention, to pop and stand out, to scream “look at me, buy me”.

With my good hand’s fingers clasped around cold steel, and faintly blushing to be dressed so childishly in public, I just kept telling myself, over and over again, that I was doing this all for someone else, that I was putting up with it for good reason. My new me had been so excited when Elizabeth had proposed it, so ecstatic to not be the youngest present, if just for a little bit, grasping at shreds of dignity and maturity amongst what must have been some manner of hell. Anything I could do to assist what was more or less myself, to ease the burden she was being crushed beneath, I insisted to myself I would suffer through for her sake. Even if I’d been so ready to let them go without me right before my attendance in such a capacity was suggested. Selfish, yeah, I know, but good deeds for someone who was almost me was a step in the right direction. Now, maybe a little less so given that I’d been coerced, but still.

Elizabeth made a beeline for the baby products aisle, the cart I had a hold of rattling slightly as it was wheeled along. Like she’d mentioned, we were in a hurry, so she wasted no time on the usual manner of flaunting me and making embarrassing comments and musings aloud. It was actually a relief, granted how far I was from being in the mood for any of it, however short-lived my relief turned out to be. The one place we were headed in that building was the last area I really wanted to go, but it was the only section of the store we were actually going to be visiting that day. A mixed blessing, I suppose.

Our newest family member was eyeballed in silence for a second, before plastic packages of training pants I figured were as assumed fit were plucked from the shelves. I saw multiple sizes dropping in, likely because there was no being certain just yet they were the right size for her. As the cover, though, something had to be picked out for me as well. After all, if I was supposed to keep attention, how was that supposed to work if the only purchases we made were quite clearly not for me?

“Oh look, Annie!” was exclaimed, drawing the attention of the both of me, even though the sight of the package being pulled from the shelf made it fairly clear she was referring to me and not the, uh, other me “They didn’t have these in your size before. It has been a while since we’ve been shopping, hasn’t it? I wonder what else is new around here...”

Apparently plenty. The bags of pull-ups were joined by several of different brands of diapers, all size twelve of course. The same standardized size I’d fit in since Elizabeth had come to be. I still recalled, barely, in my youth when they’d only gone up to size seven, if that, back before the companies manufacturing products for actual babies had decided to cash in on the growing regression trend. They were all designs I couldn’t recall wearing before, one even a brand I’d never heard of. Manufacturers certainly hadn’t been slacking off just because I hadn’t been around, and now, oh joy of joys, I’d get to put up with my sister dressing me in them and exclaiming how cute I was, and talking about the prints in what bordered on baby talk. Yes, I watched many different children’s programs while regressed. That didn’t mean I wanted the characters over my crotch. Even if they were rather adorable sometimes... Still, the occasional different fit, and new developments in shape and air flow were interesting, I guess. It did nothing to help my blush to have my sister showing me the bright, eye-catching packaging, with the happy-looking young woman on the front, pointing out the cartoon characters featured on the infantile garments.

At least the cute boy from before wasn’t manning the checkout we went through, handling my undergarments and thinking about my ass. The middle-aged woman who was there, however, turned out not to be any real improvement.

“Oh, what a cutie!” she exclaimed, smiling across at me. Oh man, not one of those. Couldn't people just keep their mouths shut once in a while? It was almost worse than the disapproving looks of the ones who were, well, less accepting of those with the kind of uncommon interests my appearance displayed. The increased prevalence of regression tended to mean more people who'd actually pipe up and say the kind of things you used to only hear about normal children. I didn’t like being fawned over when I wasn’t in the mood for it, especially by strangers, though my blushing and glancing the other way probably just appeared “bashful”. The machine beeped as the plastic packages were drawn past one by one. It actually took her until she’d touched the bags of training pants to even notice the little figure to my side, my freakish size lending itself well to my use as a distraction tactic. A smile was aimed down at her as well “My, aren’t you adorable too. And so much alike. Are they related?”

“Sisters.” Elizabeth chirped in reply to the chatty cashier with a little grin, turning to me long enough to tell me “Now you be good for your big sister while I pay the nice lady.”

I certainly looked sour and pouty as we left, but the short one was practically beaming at being referred to as the “big” sister; a line certainly included for her benefit. It didn’t last, the expression transforming immediately to a frown when it was insisted she change immediately into an undergarment that actually fit properly, and, for the sake of not taking forever for the simple switch out, Elizabeth did it herself, despite protests. I guess she didn’t want a half naked toddler in the parking lot for nearly how long it’d have taken the squirt to change herself. It was done in under a minute, and we were off. Back to the house? No, I only wished I was so lucky. We still had clothes shopping to do, but at least the alternate me seemed about as enthused at the prospect as I was. I just hoped we didn’t get stopped by the police. At her small size it wasn’t exactly legal to be driving her around without a car seat.

Four hours. I had to suffer four hours of car rides and mall shopping, a significant portion spent trying to hold my bladder so I wouldn’t have to be changed in a filthy public restroom, and when we got back, climbing out of the car in the driveway in a gentle yet cold drizzling of rain, what Liz had to say to the two of me was “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

I shared a look with the little one beside me, the both of us crossing our arms over our chests simultaneously, wearing, no doubt, matching looks of discontent.

“Do you think she was having an out of body experience?” was grumbled.

“That or she’s delusional.” came the reply “Did she miss the part where you spilled rice all over yourself? Or when you leaked in that one store?”

A glare pierced up at me through a thin veil of blonde hair, the tot’s temper flaring at that “I thought I told you not to mention it again, ‘baby sister’. I didn’t tell her about you doing the ‘potty dance’ when she was looking the other way; the least you could do is not bring up the humiliating things I told you never to mention again.”

My face flushed red, my attention quite suddenly on the soggy padding pushing my thighs apart “Hey! That’s not...”

I never got to finish that sentence, the tall, dark-haired shape of our third family member intervening between us with a “Girls! Girls! That’s enough of that. We don’t need you two arguing.”

We stopped, sort of, glaring daggers at each other while she brought things inside, up and through, and inside again back within my dimensional space. At least I didn’t have to help bring anything into the house, and finally got back into regular underwear, which I vindictively flaunted for a couple of minutes before bothering to get my pants on, much to my alternate self’s immense annoyance and jealousy. The kid refused to talk to me as we settled into the couch, our sister upstairs busying herself getting all the new disposable undergarments, and the profusion of new clothing, put away.

I assumed she was done when footsteps approached from behind, and she leaned on the back of the couch, cocking an eyebrow at us “Are you two going to be like this all night?”

We pointedly ignored her, petulantly glaring into the television, a pair of moody, petty children taking out our bad days on each other. With an exasperated sigh, she wandered off, leaving us to our tense silence. The very silence that cracked and fell away in pieces not fifteen minutes later, broken by a pitiful sniffle. A slow, hesitant glance revealed the one I was sharing the couch with bearing an expression laced with such misery that it was starting to make my heart hurt. Her little lip trembled, eyes glassy and watery, not being able to hold back the tears welling up inside for long.

“Wh-What’s the matter...?” I queried awkwardly. She wouldn’t look me in the face as, so softly I could barely make it out, she breathed “I’m sorry...”

“For that argument when we got home?” my butt scooted across the couch, edging closer to the crying child “It’s alright. I’m sorry too. I, I shouldn’t have mentioned that stuff, and I shouldn’t have, uh, taunted you after we got back the way I did. I’m an asshole, I know, I’ve just been under a lot of stress lately...”

“Not that.” she shook her head, eyes glued to the carpet “Y-Your couch...”

At my apparent confusion, she climbed off of the furniture, leaving behind a wet spot on the upholstery, matching the moisture on the seat of her pants. I didn’t say anything, just watched as she trudged off, muttering “I’mma go find Elizabeth...”

She was wearing different jeans when she returned, clambering back up onto the cushions, far closer this time granted she was avoiding the site of her last accident. Such was her small size her feet didn’t even stick off the edge when she sat all the way back. Silence reined once again for long minutes, a deep blush settled into her cheeks that seemed to refuse to budge.

“I’m sorry for that other stuff too.” I finally heard over the television, glancing over to see her refusing to look at me “Making you come with was a mistake. I could see you didn’t wanna go, but, but not being the baby for once was... nice.”

No response was given, as I just sunk back into the plush surface beneath me. I was uncertain I could have replied without saying something snarky and mean-spirited, so I kept my trap shut, and watched television, more or less satisfied that we’d worked out our issues, for the moment at least.

“Awwww, isn’t that cute!” was exclaimed from the doorway. My immediate reaction was confusion as to what Elizabeth was going on about now, but I shut my mouth again upon realizing there was a small form leaned against my side. The other me was so tiny and light I hadn’t even noticed she’d gotten so close. I figured perhaps she hadn’t either when she twitched away, face flushing red in embarrassment while Liz leaned down over the back of the couch again “Aren’t you two getting close! Dinner’s almost ready, but there’s something I figured we should talk about first.”

“And what’s that, Elizabeth?” I groaned “What do we have to talk about this time?”

“Names!” she announced cheerily “We can’t call you both the same thing all the time. It’d get confusing. So, who gets referred to as what?”

“I get the first name!” I insisted immediately. Green eyes flared up at me with annoyance, my alternate self’s mouth opening to argue the matter. However, no words came out. She merely froze for several seconds before slumping, and grumbling “You know what? I’m not going to argue about this one. Take the name. I’ll go with our middle name. I always kinda like ‘Melody’ anyway.”


Chapter the Twenty-First:

“You want me to what?” came out of me, tone flat, as I stared down into bright green eyes. Melody shifted under my gaze, tiny hand coming up to nervously fiddle with strands of blonde hanging over her face “Um, never mind. Forget I asked...”

“Fine, I’ll do it.” I spoke suddenly after several moments of awkward silence, the words seeming to bubble up unbidden “For you. Just for a little while.”

She was positively beaming up at me, radiating a glee I wasn’t sure I could understand, as I rolled my eyes, walking of with a muttered statement I’d go find Elizabeth. The search was brief, the sibling I sought just where I’d expected to find her, with her nose stuck in a book. Regression fiction, I could tell. I recognized the title.

“Liz,” the name seemed to fill the empty, silent air, her eyes coming up from the pages, “I, uh, need help getting redressed.”

Book left forgotten on her chair she was up in a flash, leading me upstairs to the nursery with a big, wide smile slathered over her face. She didn’t say anything until we were upstairs, where, as she started undressing me, she asked “So, little Melody asked you to go regressed, huh?”

“You heard?” I blushed a little as my torso was exposed, shirt dropped to the floor. She just grinned “Nope, but I figured it’d happen sooner or later. She was so happy about it yesterday, before we left at least. Admit it, you just can’t stand to see that adorable little thing sad.”

“I admit nothing.” my arms crossed over my rather flat, bare chest, head turned to the side to give an obstinate pout at the wall, to my sister’s amusement. With my pants and panties joining my shirt, I was assisted onto the changing table, having to listen to rustling in the nude for a long minute or two before she finally came up with one of my new diapers, and, with liberal application of baby powder, finally got the padding slid under my butt, and snugly taped in place. All I could think about as I was ushered back downstairs, waddling along with my fabricated sibling holding my left hand because my right still ached a little, was my growing certainty this new brand of diapers were thicker than my usual ones.

Melody was grinning like the proverbial cat that ate the canary while I settled in with my toys on the carpet, an expression that only grew more extreme when our sister wandered off, telling her “If anyone needs changing or anything, come and get me. Otherwise, you’re in charge for now.”

I doubted it would have been possible for that kid to be any happier about her promotion to babysitter, and I do suppose she did her best to fulfill the role. Being fawned over and doted on by a four year old who can hardly even dress or feed themself at all can be pretty awkward. She was so small, but took such immense pleasure in getting to be in charge, and not being the baby, I found myself going along with it. It was the happiest I’d seen her, with the exclusion perhaps of when I’d first removed her from the woman who’d regressed her. Constantly she was all over me with diaper checks, asking if I was hungry or thirsty, playing with me like I was a small child to the best of her limited ability, asking if I wanted her to put something else on the TV. The only time that day her mood seemed to wane were the couple times her undergarments, despite fitting far better than the one I’d shrunk for her, were proving marginally more leak-proof than a sieve, and she started crying again. Wasn’t I supposed to be the baby...?

I had never been much for the whole caretaker side of a regression situation, never really had any kind of parental instinct, and I was getting a distinct feeling this was now an area in which she and I deviated from each other. Even if such a thing probably wouldn’t have been true before she’d been shrunk like that. Some driving need to not be on the bottom rung of the age ladder was my assumption. The more she could treat someone else that way the less she felt it herself, and the less obviously noticeable her own problems would become. Not that she was particularly mature, herself. She seemed to cry every time her pull-ups leaked, she sucked her thumb in her sleep, tended to whine and pout, and seemed to unconsciously use occasional childish terminology, such as the word "potty" in reference to the toilet.

Elizabeth seemed to think her looking after me was adorable, more than glad to play along, and give Melody as many of the duties in my care as her tenuous control of her physical body could manage. That is, she wasn’t allowed to feed me, with the exception of bottles, or change my diapers, or dress me, but otherwise more or less got to be my caretaker for that regression situation. Not to say she didn’t help, or at least try to, during those instances as well, taking on the role of “diaper change assistant”, which was embarrassing for me, handing things to our big sister while she got me changed or standing on something to be high enough to playfully distract me with things like plastic toy keys while I was on the changing table, and picking out my pajamas when I was being redressed for bed.

At least, being regressed at the time, it wasn’t my responsibility to explain Melody when, in the morning, Myra and Martha dropped by, or when, in the afternoon, Lorelei and Blight showed up with Kala and Azala in tow. My best friend, for her part, was more caught up in being glad to have her favored playmate back instead of having to deal with me in a semi-babysitter/charge capacity. My little big sister’s head was practically spinning from all the introductions, and being told who, and what, our neighbors were, but was very quickly distracted from her surprise and confusion by the fact it’d gone from one regressed type in the house to two, then four. She especially liked Kala, probably because she was the most purely childish of the lot of us, the one who would most make her feel secure in her dwindled maturity.

For her presence, things really didn’t change all that much when so much of the community was together at once. She refused to engage in the childish activities of the regressed, but had so little experience on the other side of things she mostly only listened in conversation with the parental types, being mostly overlooked herself. The only time she really had much attention focused on her was when her training pants leaked, again, and she started crying, half the room trying to console her at once while she was moments away from wailing like an infant. Not particularly fitting into either side of the charge/caretaker equation didn’t seem to bother her though. I think she was having too much fun treating the four of who were regressed, though almost all at least two feet taller than her, like small children, effectively lording her status as the “older one” over us.

Reactions to her were mostly positive or ambivalent. Myra seemed to shrug it off as another addition, the adults didn’t really pay her much mind, and Kala didn’t seem like she could dislike anyone. Azala, though, loathed her practically since they were first introduced, and Melody had made a remark about her “pretty pink dress”. All she had to say, when everyone departed around dinner, was “Your friends are weird.”

Yeah, like she was one to talk. She seemed mighty cheery about it though.

Another day drifted by to the sounds of Kala’s giggling, and Myra’s insistence we’d have to go out exploring again some time soon, and the sensations of wearing and making use of my diapers, getting a bath that got my designated babysitter about as wet as it did me, and the smell of baby powder that seemed to follow me everywhere, and I was actually feeling pretty good. I hadn’t thought too much about Elias, I hadn’t pined after the sexy, pale neighbor or been consumed by envy over the fact he and Lorelei were most likely bumping uglies, if you could even use such terminology when referring to someone so very pretty. And I’m not talking about Lorelei. No, all I seemed to be focusing on was messing around with my friends and relaxing under the continued attentions of my “big” sister. Well, at least until, in perhaps the first diaper change since the regression had started that Melody wasn’t assisting. She was, at the moment, downstairs wrestling with her frustration over her difficulties with the remote control, when I was asked “So, mind spilling the reason for all this?”

“For...?” I just stared at her dumbly a moment, then stuttered “M-Melody asked me to. Remember?”

“Oh, she certainly did,” deft, gentle hands tugged fresh, dry padding up around my nethers, the bulk spreading my thighs, “but I’m sure you know as well as I do that she probably would have been satisfied with an afternoon. You’ve been denying yourself a while now, and if you ask me, that sounds more like an excuse than anything else. I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but I need to be sure this is what you want, before you wind up going through another downward spiral.”

Have I mentioned before how annoying it tended to be that she always seemed to be right about everything? Yeah, I’m going to stress that point for a moment. All was silence as she attached the garment’s two velcro-like fasteners, and helped me up, sending me along back to the living room with a pat on my rustly, poofy posterior, and a digging, persistent thought in my head.

I sat a very long time in my lounge in my mind that night. The lighting seemed to have recovered itself, the green splotches were gone, or at least not immediately present, but I hardly noticed. So, I was distracted from my brooding and jealousy. That was a good thing, right? And going along with it all was certainly making my alternate self feel better. But... what about me? Elizabeth had a point. In the past I generally couldn’t take much babying without some significant fallout afterward. If I kept going, sure, Melody would enjoy herself, but when it ended, what then? What would I do when all the negativity I’d grown up with surrounding that kind of behavior came crashing down on my head? Sulk and mope some more? Maybe it’d be best to break it off, quit while I was ahead, and insist as much as I could that I hadn’t enjoyed it that much to try and save face. Well, in my own eyes at least. I was pretty sure everyone else could see that for the farce it was.

Why couldn’t I just accept myself? Elizabeth did, despite all my faults, my bad moods, and myriad other issues, and Elias had not only accepted me but fallen in love with me. They probably weren’t the best of examples, granted I’d made them myself, but then what about Myra, who was perhaps the best friend I’d ever had besides Elias, and Azala, who, no matter my dislike of her, certainly seemed to like spending time with me when she could get the opportunity? What did they all see in me that I seemed blind to? I just didn’t get it. I was selfish, stubborn, prone to extremes of emotion and fits of self-loathing. All things considered I probably should have been in therapy, or on medication or something.

I found no answers that night, merely an endless, empty hallway, with no company but my thoughts. In the morning the mood was lost, Melody seeming disappointed to be losing her “baby sister”, at least for the time being, but I just couldn’t keep it up. Too many things were dragging their way through my head with all the speed of snails towing anvils, and I was far too preoccupied to do much but stare into space. My new sister, who’d yet to see me like that, appeared worried, but after Elizabeth had a private talk with her I had the feeling she made the decision not to bring it up.

An ear-piercing high-pitched wail shattered my bubble of thought, bringing me suddenly to awareness of my surroundings, and the crying tot seated arm’s length away on the couch. Again? It was barely past noon, and that was the second time that day she’d burst out crying. If all the previous instances in which it had occurred were any indication, I knew exactly what the problem was. A little sluggishly this time, trying my best to mask my exasperation, I moved to comfort her, holding her, and patting her back until she trailed off into sniffles, and muttered apologies about the upholstery. Drawn by the noise, our faux sibling arrived shortly to lead her off to get changed, again. It was a problem, that was certain, these frequent insufficiencies in the absorbency of her undergarments, but I wasn’t about to do anything about it. Liz, however, was far more proactive.

When she called for our itty bitty sister from the next room, I allowed my curiosity to lead me, observing from the doorway as the little blonde girl crossed the carpet, querying “What is it...?”

Elizabeth’s arms crossed over her chest, expression serious as she replied “We have to face it, Melody, the pull-ups just aren’t cutting it.”

Shining green eyes shot wide open, panic lancing through Melody’s little face. Quite loudly she insisted “I am not going to wear diapers! Y-You can’t make me!”

“Just look at this please,” Elizabeth indicated the computer screen next to her with a single, long finger, entirely calm in the face of the child’s emotional response, “see, these are for active babies.”

“Not a baby!” Melody whined with a pout that certainly didn’t help her argument. Eyes were rolled in response “I know, I know. That’s just what it says on the packaging. The point is, they can be adjusted and removed via the tapes like other diapers, but they’re made to be able to be pulled on. You won’t have to give up any of your independence, and they’ll hold up to your accidents much better than your trainers.”

“But, but...” the kid’s lip trembled, eyes growing moist, threatening to spill over with tears at any moment. The tall figure in the office chair heaved a sigh, and I observed with interest, looking forward to getting to see her do her whole “I’m going to calmly reason with you until you agree with me” thing from an outside perspective, but instead I got to see something far less common. Just a bit, her composure cracked.

One hand drew silently down her face, before she turned an impatient, vaguely tired-looking gaze on our newest family member “Look, Melody. I’m trying my best, but you have to work with me here. You’re so cute, and, let’s face it, helpless, that all of my instincts tell me I should be coddling and caring for you.”

Melody’s mouth opened to reply, but she was cut off as Elizabeth continued “But I know you don’t want me to. I get it, but it doesn’t make it any easier to keep myself from getting ‘motherly’ with you. I’m trying to be understanding, but I’m trying to be practical too. The pull-ups just don’t have the absorbency you need, and you can’t keep going through three pairs of pants a day, making stains on the upholstery. Do we really need to have an argument about this? Can you honestly say you don’t understand that there is an issue here that needs to be addressed?”

No words formed a reply, just the soft thump of a little, cushioned rump hitting carpet as my alternate flopped into a sitting position, staring morosely into her lap with tears in her eyes. Even when she didn’t entirely keep her cool, Elizabeth was still way too convincing. I observed in silence as she joined the child on the floor, dwarfing the much smaller frame her arms enfolded, her soft, whispered apologies drifting through the empty air. On request, and our little sister’s grudging acceptance, I planned to replicate the indicated product that night. On the up side, there’d probably be far fewer instances of Melody’s undergarments springing sudden leaks, and the ensuing “upset baby” routine we had to put up with that she apparently had no control over, but I was uncertain how well this fared for her emotionally. One more shred of maturity and dignity she’d been trying to reconstruct stripped away, even if the necessity was fairly apparent. I could foresee a lot of regression in my immediate future trying to bolster the little one’s mood, which didn't fare well for me in turn...






Chapter the Twenty-Second:

The first snow of the season had fallen, thick and fluffy, blanketing the terrain outside in a sheet of white. Little flurries of flakes still drifted down here and there from the grey ceiling of dark clouds above, casting the glistening sheen beneath in a frigid dim. The trees and grasses outside shined with frozen rainwater still left from a recent deluge, turned fragile and brittle as though they were made of glass, crumbling at a touch, practically flash-frozen by the rapid drop in temperature, preserved in a perpetual state of green until disturbed.

Wind blew tiny bits of snow, near-invisible with the backdrop and the minimal sunlight, past the window Myra’s tanned face was practically pressed to. Her breath fogged against the glass as she gazed out, bright, grey eyes, wide in awe, reflecting back from the smooth surface. Her childlike wonder brought a smile to my face of the like I’d not borne in days. She was itching to be out there, to frolic in the unfamiliar sensation, but the freezing cold, and the fact we were waiting for others to arrive, kept her at bay for the moment. Elizabeth was upstairs, digging through my spare baby clothes for a snowsuit she could borrow, as she had nothing to wear of her own sufficient for such weather, and had arrived on our doorstep shivering on her mother’s hip. Martha, for her part, didn’t even seem to notice the temperature at all, but then, she wasn’t even entirely organic if I recalled correctly. Myra had once claimed she was part clockwork. Did the cold affect gears and springs...?

“Ah never saw snow ‘fore today!” my friend declared, hand moving up to push her coarse, tangled mop of dull brown off her face, finally tearing her eyes from the window, and rushing to flop beside me on the couch cushions “An’ Ah didn’t even walk on the way here. What’s it feel like? Is it rough, or slick, or what? Ah can’t wait to get out there!”

She certainly couldn’t, shaking with restrained energy, but definitely wasn’t dressed for the weather in just her diapers, boots, and old-timey dress, even if this one was long-sleeved, with a hem that fell to her shins. I wasn’t exactly certain how to respond, but was thankfully saved from having to say anything at all as my big sister tromped down the stairs, loudly announcing “Found it!”

And sure enough, in her arms was a garment I hadn’t seen in what felt like an eternity, a pale green, childish, one piece snowsuit.

“It’ll be kinda big on you, since you’re so much smaller than Annie,” she was saying as she approached, “but it’ll work just fine, and keep you nice and warm. I found a cute hat, too.”

Grinning, she plopped a matching, floppy knit beanie topped with a puffball onto the girl’s head. A wide, excited smile splattered across Myra’s face, so wide it seemed to be trying to display all her teeth at one time, as the brunette snagged the proffered, poofy garment, and rushed to her fabricated mother with it. A stab of jealousy shot through my heart, leaving a cold feeling in my innards and a bad taste in my mouth, while I noted she was growing so used to her frequent regression that she didn’t even seem to blush while being undressed to her cloth diapers and the frilly, long undershirt she’d had beneath her dress, to be garbed in the thick cold weather suit right there in the living room. Like Liz had assumed, it didn’t fit quite right, baggy on a frame so much smaller than it was meant for, but it’d do just fine.

The repetitive thuds of knocking at the door drifted through the air, heralding the arrival of our remaining company, whom Elizabeth rushed to greet. All smiles, as usual, though they had grown far less false and hollow, Lorelei strolled in, cheerily greeting everyone, followed after by Blight, the pale, pretty man oddly underdressed for the weather, in his usual jeans and long-sleeved shirt, waving sheet of silver hair bound back into a simple ponytail, Kala on one hip and Azala on the other. That was peculiar, that last part. Usually Azala would have refused to be carried, and unlike his partner the man tended to leave her be, but I figured I understood how it had come about when, set on her feet, the demon rushed away from the door, rubbing at her arms and shivering like a leaf in a hurricane. She was dressed heavily in jacket, dress, warm-looking opaque stockings, a hat, and even mittens, but she shook as though she was standing naked in a walk-in freezer.

“Sorry if we’re late,” Lorelei was apologizing, taking a moment to remove her coat, hanging it on the hook by the door, “we had to head back in to dress a little more warmly when we saw it was snowing here. It certainly got chilly quickly in your little dimension.”

Kala was uncharacteristically quiet, one hand holding tightly to her “father”’s, as though he might not be there if she let go, the uncertainty in her expression far from the norm for her. It was perplexing, very briefly, before her backstory spilled back into my thoughts. It was the snow. When her mind had fallen apart she’d been snowed in, all alone, crying for days, lost in a sea of fear so deep she’d never been the same since. She was probably frightened that her parental figure would go the way of her birth parents and mysteriously vanish, leaving her alone again, if she didn’t stay close.

“We been waitin’ for ya so we can go play in the snow!” Myra grinned, earning a chuckle and a pat on the head from Lorelei.

“There’s a bit of a complication with that, child.” the woman replied, glancing meaningfully towards her charge, where the grey girl had stripped the blanket from the back of the recliner to wrap around herself, eyes coming up to stare back as the entire room seemed to shift its attention to her.

“I just don’t think little Azzy is cut out for this kind of weather.” auburn hair shifted faintly as the mage’s head shook with a frown. Someone would have to stay behind to keep an eye on Azala. It didn’t have to be said; we all knew it. But who? Kala would definitely want to go play, and with how much she was clinging to the cat-eyed pretty boy he’d have to attend to her. My little sister Melody was up in my obsidian spire brooding over her recent change of undergarments, so she was unavailable. My larger sister, the second tallest person in the room after the massive, seven foot form of kindly Martha, had clear disappointment in her face. She badly wanted to be there for Myra’s first experience playing in snow, but was about to take the responsibility, as usual, opening her mouth to say so until I spoke “I’ll watch her.”

“Are... Are you sure?” my sister frowned down at me. I shrugged “I’m not really in a mood for it. If I wanna watch I can do it from the balcony. Now go on, before I change my mind or the weather changes again and it all starts to melt.”

After I was pulled into a big, crushing hug, and given a bit of a disappointed glance from Myra, they all rushed off, outside and down by the lake, through several inches of fluffy white, leaving me all alone with my least favorite person in the neighborhood. Azala was ignored as I fetched my book from its place on the shelf, the warmth of the leather cover, and familiarity of the yellowed pages and hand-written text vaguely comforting while I leafed through, reading familiar passages whilst checking for anything new.

“You must help me.” a gravely voice insisted suddenly, a thin hand venturing into my field of vision to grip tightly at a handful of my shirt. Annoyed, I pulled my eyes from the pages to look up into piercing blue eyes gazing back at me from the narrow, grey face of the pink-clad monster standing there, blanket still wrapped around her shoulders, held in place with her other hand. A frown, a cocked eyebrow, and I teased “What, do you need your diaper changed? Should I go get your mommy?”

The questions were ignored as she shot nervous, conspiratorial glances towards the doorways, her voice low, quiet as she leaned nearer “They never go away! When it’s not that woman it’s the crazy girl! Not a minute to myself since she and that freak moved in.”

Not the first time I doubted she knew or cared about anyone’s names. How long had she been living there again, yet still didn’t refer to anyone by their actual name? I peeled her hand off of me. She wasn’t particularly trying to hold on, I could tell, by the fact I’d actually been able to remove her. Had she been putting effort into it I doubted I could have unbent her fingers. My attention slid back to the book in my lap “Am I supposed to care?”

“Yes.” was the immediate response, so quick and toneless it was as though she didn’t understand why I’d bother asking “You must help.”

I rolled my eyes, refusing to look up from the words spread over the book’s pages “Go sit down, and behave yourself, and I’ll think about it.”

The soft thump of padded rear hitting couch cushions right next to me prompted the clarification “And by ‘go sit down’, I meant over with the toys. If you aren’t out of arm’s reach in three seconds I’m going to refuse to help you in any way, and I’ll be insisting to Lorelei that you miss her very much and shouldn’t be left with anyone else.”

That earned me a coarse grumble, but sure enough she moved to the other end of the room, where the toys were located nearer to the large television mounted on the wall. Ha. Azala’s caretaker was pretty much the best thing I could threaten her with. Of the two of us, the woman certainly trusted me far more. If I told her that her little demon had admitted in confidence to desiring more contact with her, to feeling left out, she’d believe it, no matter how much her charge might growl and glare to be getting more attention. Azala knew this quite clearly. It wasn’t like I made it any secret to her, nor my capability of exploiting it.

Finally, a little peace and quiet to read, though I doubted those blue eyes drifted from me all morning, with the exception of when I took some hot cocoa up to Melody. I got to sit through amusing, loud recounting of the morning’s events from three sources at once. I wasn’t sure what I found funnier, Kala’s attempts at wild gesticulation while still holding her caretaker’s hand or Liz’s giddiness and apparent desire to utilize as many synonyms for the word “cute” as there were in the English language.

It was mid-afternoon, everyone seated around the living room with something warm to drink, when I spared a glance into Azala’s intense gaze. It had been a little while since she’d paid me such undivided attention, but her, ah, “roommate”, was too busy clinging to the almost eerily attractive supervillain she called “Daddy” to be pestering her just then. Was I really considering this? I guess it’s was a moot point; the words were already coming out of me “You know, Lorelei, it’s been a little while since Azala stayed over the night.”

Lorelei seemed surprised that the subject had come up, lifting an eyebrow at me “I suppose so. With Blight to take on the responsibility when I’m unable I don’t need to impose her on you like that. Unless I’m mistaken, however, you don’t have any particular fondness for her. She is rather a handful. I would have thought you’d welcome no longer being asked to babysit.”

And so I told her the truth, more or less, saying “She asked.”

Which she had, if not in so many words. The demon had begged assistance, and this was the assistance I was willing to render. I’d allow her a degree of escape from her mother figure, and the loony girl she had to share a nursery with, for the night. It was agreed, and, when, shortly after, following Lorelei going again over her “demon care instructions” that Liz and I had never exactly followed to the letter, I grumbled to the grey girl as I walked past “And you owe me for this.”

Azala, for her part, was less appreciative than she might have been had Melody not been around. With a regressed type in the house for her to dote on, my other self didn’t have to feel as immature as her little “demotion” was forcing on her. But hey, I’d told Azala I’d consider helping her with her inability to get away from Lorelei and Kala, not my babysitting-obsessed other me. I had to put up with less of her getting out of the crib after being put to bed, too, since she had to wait until Melody retired for the night, and even then, with another person in the house, I imagine required a bit of extra stealth. It wasn’t the first time she bothered me while I was trying to relax in the living room at night, sitting annoyingly close and trying to convince me to kiss her, or the first time she came into my room after I’d gone to bed, but at least she didn’t get on the bed with me that time, or come through my door again after I’d put her back in the crib the second time.

I was awakened quite suddenly by a piercing, high-pitched shriek, followed by an increasingly familiar wailing. Venting a faint groan, I checked my clock, noting it was barely six in the morning. It wasn’t even light out yet, but, groggy with lingering sleep, and almost stumbling as I went, I hurried to go help calm the banshee that was assailing my eardrums.

“Shhh, what’s the matter?” Elizabeth was already asking, having arrived to my double’s bedroom before I had “Did you have a bad dream?”

Melody nodded as she clung to the much taller woman’s shirt, sobbing into the material as she gave a stuttered, sniffle-ridden description of her nightmare, in which the mother she’d only recently escaped from had arrived there in her bedroom to reclaim her, whisking her away “assuring” her that she’d never, ever have to grow up. It sounded a little silly, but I could see how it’d be genuinely terrifying for her. The fact she was badly in need of a fresh diaper certainly didn’t help the ensuing sullen moping, but at least the change helped the smell.

She didn’t come down for breakfast that morning, didn’t leave her room at all, just sulking in bed. Elizabeth seemed distracted as she went through the morning on autopilot, changing and dressing the demon in the nursery, preparing breakfast. She wanted to help, badly, but what could she do? It was beyond her realm of experience. Her knee-jerk reaction was to be motherly and condescending. It was just the way she was, but she was doing her very best to suppress it. I had to act. I couldn’t just let little me rot in that horrid mood, so, feeling like it or no, I did what I could without actually descending into regression, and then headed to her bedroom, knocking faintly at the door as I went in.

“Better?” I asked down at her. Momentary confusion melted to a faint smile, her tiny hand coming up to pat at my exposed, freshly diapered rear “A little.”

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to draw her out, to our big sister’s relief. No mentions were made of my diapers or my lack of pants as our usual company came around, which wasn’t surprising with the sort of company I kept, but that didn’t stop me from blushing. The snow had, overnight, become just masses of muddy slush, so everything was kept in the house for the moment. I mostly stayed out of the conversation and goings on with my friends and neighbors that day, just observing, and reflecting on how much had happened, how far I’d come, yet how much I still held myself back.

Following lunch Melody and I sat slouched on the couch in matching positions of bad posture, Myra on the floor with a little screwdriver, and a jeweler’s loupe in her eye, tinkering with one of her wind up toys. All was quiet for the moment, because the most vocal of our number, the loud, overenthusiastic, less than sane Kala had more or less crashed after lunch, taking an impromptu nap on her caretaker’s lap, and being transferred to the carpet, drooling and snoring faintly. With a twitch, she woke suddenly, sitting up, gazing blearily around her. She seemed vaguely upset, but her “kitty man” was out of the room, having excused himself to use the restroom. Without him present, who did she run to? Does it really require that much conjecture?

Lorelei seemed a tad surprised to find the manic, diapered teenager plopping onto her lap, but nowhere near as surprised as when she heard the cry “Mommy!”

The woman’s green eyes took on a glassy, bright shine, as though she were about to shed tears of joy, a vast grin growing to dominate her countenance, threatening to unhinge her head. Immediately she wrapped the girl tightly in her arms, holding her close to her chest, voice almost cracking as she questioned “Yes Sweetheart? What’s the matter? What can Mommy do for you?”

And right there Kala had officially pressed her “happy button”, unconsciously pandering to the woman’s intense, driving need for motherhood. The sheer ecstacy that seemed to be coursing through my magical neighbor was so intense I was uncertain I could have replicated it. Having been trapped inside her head before, I suppose I could understand, despite doubting my capability of ever feeling that happy over a single word. I think I was the only one who noticed the demon at the other end of the room being consumed by smoldering jealousy.

Some twenty minutes later the cheerful, loony girl made to approach her “Mommy” again, but never made it there. Azala roughly shouldered her out of the way, seating herself on Lorelei’s knee first while shooting her a glare. I had to clamp a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing, the demon trying to remain moody and disinterested, while preventing anyone else from occupying the mage’s lap. Her caretaker smiled warmly at her “Why hello there, Azzy. Aren’t you being affectionate?”

Complexion darkened to a medium grey with a blush, the monster refused to look at her, a single clawed hand shooting out to push Kala away again before she could approach further. Sure, she hated her summoner, but, though she never said it aloud, the message was clear. Even if she didn’t want Lorelei, they were still connected by a supernatural bond. The mage had been claimed, and her summoned beast had no intention to share. Honestly, I found it hilarious. Kala, for her part, was only confused that she was being pushed back from joining her “sister”, as the relation seemed to be becoming, on their female parental figure’s lap. So much trying to maintain her distance from the parent she loathed; this little display of possessiveness was certain to only get Azala more attention. A single, seemingly clingy act of physical contact, no matter its roots in selfish and bitter emotion, and the floodgate was opened. Her jealous nature had just sunk her deeper into her situation than anything I could have threatened her with would have.


Chapter the Twenty-Third:

A resounding clang echoed through the hallway, reverberating into infinity and resonating through flesh and bone. My arm tingled with the impact, ears ringing from the all-consuming volume of metal colliding with metal in an enclosed space. Why me? Why was it always me? I had magic, I had power, but what had changed? Nothing! I was the same as I’d ever been, the same stupid, meatheaded, antisocial, selfish child. I had achieved things most people could never dream of, imposed my will on the fabric of reality and experienced the act of creation firsthand, but still I remained the same, unchanged even as my surroundings underwent extensive transformations.

No matter how I twisted the universe, how many people I had brought together and brought joy to, where was my happiness? Myra had found that she wasn’t alone, found the joys of regression with others. Lorelei had children to call her own again, the one thing in her entire, horrid life that had ever seemed to give her meaning, and had found some manner of love. Kala had found a place that embraced her inherent childishness as relatively normal, and a father who cared deeply for her, even if he showed little emotion on the surface. Blight had escaped the endless monotony of prison life. Even Sally, who I didn’t particularly get along with, finally had someone to take care of again after years of despondent isolation. I couldn’t claim responsibility for all of it, but so much of that had directly or indirectly been because of me.

But me? I was still just as prone to self-hatred and discontent as I’d ever been, falling again and again to my own flaws and weaknesses. Every time I tried to grasp at something I thought would help, it always came crashing down on my head. More and more it seemed to be shoved in my face that the problem wasn’t with anyone else, it was me. The only thing that was still holding me back was myself. My arm rose, and the hammer came down again.

I just couldn’t take it, couldn’t do it anymore. Something had to change. The day had started well enough, all determination and focus. I would make progress, I’d told myself. I went to visit Elias, whom I hadn’t seen since the night I’d finally convinced him he had a problem. Never in my life had I been more content than the earlier half of our relationship. I wanted that back, and I knew it just wasn’t going to happen with anyone else. No one could make me feel that same comfortable, warm tingling inside I got with him. Things were different. This time around he had some manner of support system, he had perspective and something in his life besides me to keep him from growing obsessed again. It could work, and I kept insisting so to myself as I slogged through wet, half-melted snow, and ankle-deep mud, through the hole in that jutting wall of stone.

I got an earful from the towering form of Sally before I could even set foot inside the house, but at least she let me in, my soil-caked footwear left on the porch. By her offhanded mention of her “baby boy”’s moping, I rather got the impression she was hoping I could do something about it, even if she wouldn’t sink so low as actually asking me for help. Elias was on the living room floor, in just a diaper and t-shirt, listlessly observing cartoons. He’d been convinced, more or less, I wanted nothing more to do with him, hence the surprise he displayed to be seeing me there. Not nearly as much, however, as he was when I told him I wanted to be together again.

He’d been ecstatic at first. Of course. It was what he’d wanted before, so why wouldn’t he be? The matter of his indiscretions, and less that stellar psychological track record came up, but I insisted that things could work out this time, that with his mother and other things involved we could avoid the pitfalls we’d suffered the first time around. Had I entirely convinced him? No, but my weakness and his weakness conspired together, and it didn’t much matter if either of us were convinced anymore. I wanted him back in my life, to try and re-attain the contentment I’d lacked in his absence, and already we’d begun planning time together. Perhaps it was doomed to another failure, but I had to try, had to do something, before my life and my mind began to corrode further. I spent much of the remainder of my day wracking my brain for just how I could make it work, how to get around the biggest problem of all: myself.

Another loud clang shattered the air as I brought the hammer down yet again. Something snapped under the blow. Metal rattled and clattered, glittering bits of broken steel spilling to the pale blue of the carpet below. The door before me was merely a marred slab of painted wood now that it lacked its knob, its means of opening. It could have been the physical exertion, or the sensation of violent destruction that was improving my mood just then, but I badly wanted to believe that making that door unopenable was the first step in the right direction. One down, infinity more to go.

Days seemed to pass, as I scoured my head for memories and emotions relating to what had ruined my life from the beginning, and set me up for failure, again and again. How could I ever be happy with what I created, I had asked myself, when all through my childhood it had been instilled in me that the very things my existence seemed to revolve around were wrong and unnatural? I couldn’t even admit aloud to myself that I enjoyed regression. The words died on my tongue, leaving a foul taste behind if I tried, all of my self-worth riding on my refusal of one of the pillars that supported and defined me. Always I tried to convince myself when I did it that I did it for others. Oh, I’d done it because it made Elizabeth worry less, or because Elias was having fun, or because Myra enjoyed it, or more recently because it made Melody feel better, but it was all lies. Everyone else could see it, and see through it, I was sure. I was transparent, and I was ashamed of everything I was, even with how far I’d come and how much I’d accomplished.

If anything was to change, was to improve, in my life, it had to start with me. It sounded absurdly self-centered as a concept, but it all revolved around me. The magic brought others to me, twisting the universe so I wouldn’t be alone, but no matter how many friends and neighbors I found myself with I still felt like I was all by myself, and there was no one to fault for it but me. So I’d gotten the idea, the idea to cut off all of my ties to the pitiful, beaten child that I had been. I could be better, I would be better than that. As far as I was concerned, I had no parents, no family but my sisters, and memory that proved otherwise was only blocking progress. No more would I be weighed down by that baggage, no more would I let the influence of those that had birthed me cloud my mind and muddy my judgement. I had long since left them behind, and it was time to do so for good.

Another doorknob fell to the floor, symbolic of the fragmented connection between what lay beyond and my conscious mind. I was unsure how many that made, just then. One hundred, two hundred? I’d lost count far back, consumed in the frenzied slamming of my tool into these portals onto the things that barred me from bettering myself and my life. I’d tried to use magic to remove the doors, to do anything to get rid of my past that I could without actually using a dream door. I was afraid that if I directly altered my past I might inadvertently remove things that I wanted to remain, like the magic itself. If I deleted my childhood from my head, would that mean it hadn’t happened? If it hadn’t happened, then how had I ever gotten the book? It was a paradox I had no desire to explore, so, finding myself unable to do much on a large scale that didn’t amount to merely boarding them up, which would be easily and simply reversed, I’d manifested for myself something with which I might remove these things in a little more of a permanent fashion.

Certainly it may have been possible for me to recover the state of the doors I damaged, but without magic they wouldn’t open again, and I wouldn’t have been able to say that if they’d only been barricaded. Besides, every blow felt like I was chipping away at my hell of a youth that tormented me. With every stroke of that hammer my body grew heavy and weary, slicked in salty sweat that shined wetly in the light, but my mind grew clearer, and a great weight eased off of my heart and soul. When finally I collapsed to the soft fibers of the carpeting, panting, leaving behind destruction in my wake, a lengthy series of broken connections, no effort had to be made to lose consciousness.

Sunlight spilled in over me, the bright, false star, just an illusion in that place, low over the horizon in the east. Slowly I drew my body, feeling sore and depleted, yet surprisingly optimistic, from the sheets. A faint smile graced my expression as I drew to my full height, stretching with a great series of pops and crackles from my joints. It was going to be a good day, I could feel it in my bones. And why? Because I said it would. I would not be deterred, I would not be halted. I was an unstoppable force, I was invulnerable, I was... starting to get a bit of a god complex, wasn’t I? Oh well. I’d accomplished great things, I guess it was about time I started to realize it.

Bare feet padded quietly across carpet to the restroom. A nice, hot shower would help soothe the soreness spread throughout my flesh. My reflection caught my eye, bringing me up short, causing me to turn and stare. Looking back out at me was the tired visage of a lanky tomboy. Her body was big but thin, lithe and muscular but ungainly. The tall, masculine one the boys found intimidating, and the girls would disparagingly suggest must be a lesbian behind her back. The one who never fit in, was never accepted by her peers, and had allowed her hair to grow into a long, silken sheet in a vain attempt to seem more feminine. It was all wrong. It was too much... me. A quick search through the house commenced, barely a wave of greeting given to Elizabeth, who was perplexed that I was scouring the house’s desks and drawers early in the morning.

It was the last thing I felt tied me to my past. My mother, whose face I could no longer clearly recall, had always approved of me growing out my hair. It was pretty she’d said, just about the only compliment she’d ever paid me. I recollected times when I was younger when she would actually talk to me for long stretches of time, brushing and braiding it, making conversation on the subject of me one day getting a cute boyfriend. The memories slipped through my fingers like grains of sand as the scissors made soft snick snick noises, parting strands to fall in a golden halo of thread around my feet. I wasn’t sorry in the least to see them go, or the memories. Once satisfied, I dropped the implement by the sink, admiring the new, shoulder length haircut I’d given myself. My back felt vaguely cold, unused to not having a wave of blonde spilling over it. It wasn’t very neatly done, but it was fresh, it was new, and most importantly it was less familiar than what I’d been forced to see in my reflection for far too long.

A gasp from the entrance drew my attention to my big sister, framed in the doorway that wasn’t much taller than she was, hand to her mouth, and eyes wide.

“Annie?” she ventured softly, hesitantly “Are, are you alright? You... you cut your... hair...?”

That last part hadn’t been a question, not exactly, but it had sounded like it needed a question mark, sort of a grasping, reaching tone of amazement and uncertainty. I just shot her a grin “Yeah. It’s been way too long since I had a haircut. How’s it look?”

“Different...” was the faint response. My grin only widened at that “Good, that’s what I was going for. I’m getting a fresh start on life, and this time I’m not gonna let it get screwed up. From now on, this is the new Anne. Not Anne Melody Turner, not anymore. I refuse to associate with the last name of the people who birthed me,” I suppose I omitted there the fact I couldn’t exactly remember their names anymore, “and I gave ‘Melody’ to my little sister, so now it’s just ‘Anne’.”

She could only stare for a few seconds, blinking at me, before eventually posing the question “So is this why the floating door on the lawn is gone this morning...?”

“Oh yeah, that.” a shrug “Don’t need it anymore. I’m not going back there again.”

Worry etched itself into her features as she readied to say something, but after opening her mouth a couple of times, she just bit her lip, nodded slowly, and walked off. After taking a second to gather up the hair on the floor and dump it in the trash, I finally got that shower. It felt like the steaming water was washing away further traces of the old me, down the drain alongside the sweat.

Breakfast was quiet, little Melody mostly staring into her eggs as she poked them around her plate. She looked so very sad, utterly dejected and disheartened. I knew the feeling, and empathized more than I wished were possible. It wasn’t right for her to be so down while I was so, well, not. Not right at all. Then I got an idea. Without a word I was on my feet and headed upstairs, the both of my siblings looking my way as I went, and I did something impulsive, that I hoped I wouldn’t come to regret. But hey, it was a fresh, new life, so why not put myself out there? I was free; free to enjoy myself, and free to make mistakes too. When I returned to the kitchen my pants and panties were gone, replaced again with a diaper, that, for once, I couldn’t seem to feel guilty about. It was thick, bulky and awkward between my legs, but it was a nice, comforting kind of awkward. The kind that made a vague little smile tilt up the corners of my mouth as I waddled and rustled. In my arms I carried every pair of underwear I owned that weren’t disposable.

“Um, Annie, what are you doing...?” Liz asked, in that uncertain tone from before, giving me a look like I’d lost my marbles. The garments were dumped into the trash can, before I returned to the table, declaring “I have resolved that so long as Melody is stuck in diapers, I’m going to wear them too.”

A quick glance to my orange juice, and I gave a little gesture towards my cup “Can you put that in a sippy cup for me?”

Mouths hung open in reply for a few very long seconds, my larger sister eventually rising to comply with my request, taking my cup and replacing it momentarily with a spill-proof variant matching Melody’s. My little sister, for her part, eventually managed “R-Really? You’d do that for me?”

I gave her the best confident grin I could muster “Hell, if it takes long enough we can even toilet train together, but so long as you can’t get to the bathroom neither of us will.”

She was so happy she clambered down from her makeshift booster seat, rushing under the table to come hug me around the waist. The moment the meal had concluded, my fabricated sibling pulled me aside, speaking quietly, with nervous glances towards our third family member “Anne, what are you doing? Are you sure this is something you should even be trying? Do you feel alright? This isn’t like you...”

“I feel better than I ever have.” I insisted in reply “I think I can pull this off, and even if I can’t manage it I’m sure as hell going to try. I’ve worn and even gone regressed to try and help her feel better, but we all know, each time, it’s not going to last. Every time, she knows it’s only a matter of time before I go back to my underwear while she still has to wear her diapers. It’s not fair to her. If I’m going to try to help by mimicking her situation, it’s going to have to be long term if it’s going to do any real good.”

“To be honest, I’m more worried about you, right now...” her eyes seemed to bore into me, filled near to overflowing with intense doubt and apprehension. It ached deep inside that she didn’t believe in me, didn’t think I could do it, but then, twenty-four hours previous, I wouldn’t have either. But I would show her, in time. She doubted me because she knew me, and that was entirely understandable, but in time she would have faith in me, because I would succeed, and she would see that I could do it. In the mean time I could only insist with confidence, and hope it would rub off on her.

The notion of wearing diapers on a longer term basis alongside my smaller sister had passed through my head before, but niggling shame seemed to dig its barbs into me, dragging me away from even the consideration of attempting it. But that shame had now fled, buried deeply in my mind where it would trouble me no more. A grin, that I hoped would help inspire confidence, and I waddled off to join the itty bitty shape of Melody on the couch.

I felt good. No, scratch that, I felt great. I had two wonderful sisters, a life bereft of the kind of worry that used to pull me down, and fill my innards to the brim with doubt. I had friends, I had neighbors that I felt close to, and soon enough I would once more have my loving, caring boyfriend that could always make me laugh. In one evening, a single night’s sleep, I had freed myself from the past that held me back, the very past I was having more and more difficulty recalling. Why hadn’t I done it earlier? I would show Elizabeth, I would foster faith in me within her. She would see that I could do this without falling apart and without hesitance. My blood had been replaced with liquid determination, like I could do anything, accomplish whatever I desired, and I do suppose, with the power I wielded, I could. Things were only going to go up from there, and, as I said quietly to my magical book that night, smiling at the familiar sensation in my chest that drew me ever more to its pages “We are going to do great things, my friend.”






Epilogue:

“... so that’s more or less what the place is all about.” my practiced, repeated explanation of the situation concluded, the frail-looking girl before me staring with wide, faintly bloodshot, chocolate brown eyes. I'd told my story so many times by that day it didn't seem unusual in the least anymore. Slowly she arose from her seat, knees creaking faintly as her weight settled onto her narrow, bare feet. Her footfalls were silent against cream-colored carpeting, her unhealthy looking thin body crossing to glance out the large front window of the fresh new house, late morning sunlight turning her milky complexion to a weak, soft gold color. The voice she replied with was raspy, almost a hoarse whisper “If I hadn’t been watching things through this window all morning long, I think I would insist you were spouting lies.”

“It’s farfetched,” I shrugged, “I know. But I’ve seen so much the past months I’m ready to believe just about anything. Besides, doesn’t ‘an immortal sick girl’ sound like lies at first too?”

She turned, framed in the window as a blush, in high contrast to her deathly pallor, rose into her cheeks “I suppose that’s true. If I hadn’t experienced it myself it would certainly be hard to swallow. But... thank you for believing me. Do you know how many forms I’ve had to falsify, how many webs of lies I’ve had to spin just to...?”

The rapidly intensifying emotional tone was cut off by a fit of coughing that had her doubled over, a bit of blood evident on her hand she was using to muffle the sound. The silent, nondescript woman in the white coat and old fashioned nurse cap, who’d stood off to the side as we’d spoken, rushed to her side, gently prying away the hand to wipe her mouth with a handkerchief and help her back to her chair. I bit my lip in worry, but she merely waved dismissively, her shifting eliciting rustling noises both from her rear and the plastic cover on the furniture.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry,” she told me with a smile, “I cough sometimes when I talk too loudly, and it can make my lungs a little bloody. Don’t pay it any mind. What’s it gonna do, kill me?”

A faint chuckle bubbled out of her at her little “joke”, while I just rose an eyebrow. If her story was to be believed, and those days I felt I’d believe just about anything, she was actually over sixty years old, despite appearing perhaps slightly younger than my almost eighteen years. She’d spent her youth plagued by illness after illness, confined to bed or a hospital room much of her youth, but after an event in a dream the night after she’d been informed she had a terminal cancer and wouldn’t live more than a couple of months, she ceased aging, and despite tumors in many of her organs, perpetually failing lungs, and regular heart attacks, her body refused to die.

After some decades in a coma in the basement of a hospital, she’d awoken with a desire never to sleep again, and dealing with some lingering issues she went into physical therapy for that left her incontinent and near bed-ridden. She claimed she’d significantly improved since her little forty year nap, but had grown quite fond of the diapers, and the childishness they represented to her. Her life was eternal, but so was her pain, and the escape of childhood allowed her relief from that. Her nurse, the woman who’d found her in a bricked up room in that hospital basement, and decided to help her, was basically just along for the ride, committed to her charge enough even to come with her as she’d inadvertently found her way into my realm one night, pulled through a hole in yet another of her strange dreams. I’d made her the house, or rather brought a pre-made one out of my “stock” so I wouldn’t require a dream door, and she was officially part of the neighborhood, the newest of my ever-increasing quantity of neighbors.

“I’ll let you settle in for today,” I flashed a small smile, pushing myself up, “and I’ll come back tomorrow to take you around to meet everyone, and to my place in the afternoon. I’m having everyone get together for mine and my sister’s birthday party. It’s gonna be a blast.”

She waved a little as I excused myself from the house, stepping out into to cool, crisp late February air. Winter was almost through, and you could feel the warmth seeping back into the land. A single, deep breath, taking a moment to straighten out my t-shirt, and the jeans I wore over my absorbent garment, and I took a glance around with a slow grin slathering itself over my face. It had been months since that day, the day I’d changed my life for the better, and things had only gotten bigger and more grandiose with the passage of time. A slowly growing gathering of outcasts and outsiders, who had never felt at home, or had never felt welcome where they came from, if they came from anywhere at all. We all had two things in common, and in many cases little more, each hailing from a universe foreign and alien to the others. The supernatural, and an interest in regression or diapers were the ties that bound the community together. A whole population of accepting, like-minded people who generally enjoyed each others’ company. Not to say there weren’t frictions, but hey, a little bit of drama never hurt anybody, and when it comes to people the best you can truly hope for is a minimal quantity of real aggression towards one another.

Just over a dozen houses, nearly four dozen people, were spaced around the outside of a circular ribbon of asphalt, and more seemed to arrive on a weekly basis. My own home was there at the far north, flanked by Myra’s and Sally’s. Of course, for them they were mere facades. The doors set into the front of each building was a secondary door leading into the front room of the actual structures back in their respective dimensional spaces, to keep up the appearance of a complete neighborhood, while still allowing those who had their own worlds to retain access to them. The only thing that hadn’t actually moved was my home; everything else had sprung up around it. First one house, then another. Once there were a few I’d made the street, just a circle, and established the central area as a playground and community area. There was even a designated community center, with a bulletin board and everything, so people could have events and put up advertisements and things, and work out scheduling. We’d had a little concert for the town’s one and only band so far once before, and I’d been trying to scrounge up enough people without supernatural advantages that I could get together to play football with once the weather became more fitting.

I would have been content to stand on my newest neighbor’s front step, breathing deeply the fresh air, but I had places to be and things to do before my time was my own for the rest of the day, until my scheduled dinner. My shoes made soft scuffing noises against the concrete steps, and the path or circular stones set into the grassy front lawn as I made my way down to the sidewalk.

“Good day to you, neighbor,” a voice called out, soft and sweet and cheerful, “might you identify yourself?”

Turning, I looked into the unfocused, milky eyes Sirri, smiling even though she couldn’t make out the expression “Oh, hey, it’s just me, Anne.”

She was a bit of an odd one, but then, who of our number wasn’t? What color her eyes actually were, I never knew, could never tell. It was hard even to make out irises through the scarring that caused her blindness. With soft skin the pale brown of mocha, and short-cropped, messy black hair, she was a wanderer like me. You almost never saw her off her feet, and when she was it was usually because her elder sister was laying her down to get her changed. Outwardly, she always appeared so pure and kind, but to a large degree it was an act, an act that could be seen through once in a while, with the right prodding. She was usually quite hospitable and easy to get along with, but in the right mood she could be one of the last people you’d want to be around.

Her story, that I’d convinced her to tell just like everyone else when they showed up, involved a lot of bitterness, being an indrawn recluse when she was younger after the incident that had rendered her eyes useless, put into diapers in her youth because her inability to see had made it difficult for her to get to the bathroom, or really get around at all, not that she tried that much. With her parents always too busy, her elder sister, nearly a decade older than her, had had to look after her. Perhaps a year ago, however, she’d been approached by a faerie who’d promised her the ability to see again, after a fashion, in return for a favor. The nature of this favor she refused to speak of, leading to all manner of rumor and conjecture, generally not of the most pleasant variety. If the subject came up she would grow awkward and clam up. But, the creature had been true to its word. It hadn’t been able to heal her damaged vision, but had amplified her remaining senses to a point she almost didn’t need sight anymore.

She perceived the world through echolocation, and a sense of touch so acute she could feel the vibrations of movement through the air and the ground. It was, in her opinion, not as good as being able to see, bearing drawbacks, but she was satisfied enough with it despite her new limitations. She could hear someone’s heartbeat from twenty yards away and know what was around corners, but couldn’t stand to eat food that was too hot or cold or spicy, or to bathe in water too hot, and she was sensitive to loud noises enough she’d had to wear earplugs during the town band’s concert. She could make out shapes easily enough to get around, and had even gone out hiking with me with no difficulty, absolutely loving the exertion and exploration after a lifetime helpless and cooped up.

She would never read, or ever again experience other people’s facial expressions. She could no longer recall color, couldn’t appreciate art that wasn’t sculpture, and was so young when she lost her vision she’d never learned the written word to begin with. Through her sister’s attempts she had the alphabet down, but beyond that could hardly spell anything more than three letters long, and couldn’t really be considered to be trying to learn. More than once her sister had talked over her head condescendingly like she was a small child, spelling words so she wouldn’t understand what was being said.

Her smile widened at me “Oh, Anne, how nice to meet you out here! I’m looking forward to the party tomorrow. Sissy says she’s making her infamous empanadas. You have not truly tasted something delicious until the sensation was so powerful and clear you could tell exactly what was on every individual taste bud...”

Her ensuing expression seemed vaguely inappropriate, her teeth gently biting her lower lip, a bit of a blush risen in her cheeks, eyes half closed, and her body seeming to slacken. She looked almost like she was about to have an orgasm or something... I lifted a hand to my mouth to silence myself when I saw a faint haze begin to well up beyond her shoulder. Behind her rose the semi-transparent shape of a teenage asian girl with long, flowing black hair that trailed off into wisps of vapor, vaguely visible body garbed in a school uniform of some kind. Eyes on me, a finger came to her lips, signaling for silence, as she crept nearer and nearer to the girl in front of me.

“Boo!” the see through schoolgirl erupted suddenly, throwing up her arms. Sirri shrieked, springing forward in surprise to grip onto my shirt. And cue the “nasty side”...

“Mikaru, you transparent bitch!” she screamed, spinning back towards the floating figure, arms wildly flailing at something she couldn’t perceive while her face contorted in rage “How many times do I have to tell you to announce yourself, damn it!? Don’t sneak up on me! I’d kick your ass if you had one! I’ll find a way to bring you back to life just so I can kill you again myself!”

I stifled a laugh behind my hand, but the ghost had no such restraint, guffawing so hard she couldn’t control her movement and was drifting listlessly through the air. And when I say “ghost”, I mean it quite literally. She’d been dead for years, wandering her dimension of origin as a disembodied spirit after dying in her sleep in her highschool, during class at that, still wearing the school uniform she’d died in that she’d never be able to rid herself of now. Out of boredom, and attempts to live vicariously through others, she had long since turned to voyeurism, observing people doing things because she couldn’t do them herself. It was a sad, empty life, but she’d certainly brightened since joining my community.

About a month previous she’d just sort of shown up in the neighborhood, having materialized, floating around in the middle of a nap, and could never recall just how she got there. She was something of a point of contention with the populous. Some loved the mischievous scamp, and some found it creepy she was always floating in through their walls. Sirri, especially, didn’t like her, because, since she had no physical body, the only way the sightless one would notice her at all was if she intentionally made noise. This tended to make her one of Mikaru’s favorite people to mess with, to her endless annoyance.

With a quick wave and word in parting, I hurried away from the blind girl who continued loudly yelling at the laughing dead girl, for the eighth time that week that I’d witnessed, off to the first of my remaining appointed destinations for the day. Three houses down from the newest, counter-clockwise around the ring of asphalt that was our singular street, was a pleasant, powder blue structure with a grey slate roof and a few bushes. Lights were on within, so my assumption was they were up by then, but you know kids, always sleeping in when they can. I stepped up the walk, just beginning to lift a hand to knock, when an explosion shook the building, rattling its windows, and a shrill klaxon began to sound from within, nearly drowning out loud voices.

Hastily, I pulled open the door, peering through smoke as words were being toss about in high-pitched tones.

“Quick, quick, get her AI into the back-up!” shouted one over the alarms, the other squeaking back “Damn, damn, damn! I’m going as fast as I can!”

Coughing, and waving smoke out of my face, I stepped into the room, calling “Mindy, Simon, what’s going on in here!?”

“Nanny’s crashing again!” pouted the boy, maybe ten years old, to the left, standing to one side of a humanoid robot that had finally ceased emitting that loud siren, vaguely visible through the obscuring, dark fume “And it’s all her fault! She messed up the update!”

“Me!?” squealed the girl with the pigtails, roughly the same age as he was that he was pointing at, giving an indignant pout “Liar! I did everything right! You soldered the board wrong because you’re dumb! And now Nanny’s stuck in the handheld until we fix her!”

She held up a device that looked rather like a portable television made for small children, consisting of a screen set into a brightly colored plastic case that bore a handle at either end, sturdy enough you could smack it against the sidewalk and not damage it. On the screen appeared a cartoony smiley face, the little speakers emitting a halting, almost toneless, cheery voice “It’s okay, you two. I’ll be fine here until my body is fixed.”

Yeah, that wasn’t really anything new with these two. The kid genuises, not technically related to each other, granted abnormal intelligence by magical rituals performed by their respective parents before birth, and the robot nanny they’d constructed to take care of them. They always seemed to be tinkering with it, and always seemed to be on the precipice of losing the sentient AI they’d stuck into it when the device suffered seemingly inevitable meltdowns. They refused to have a backup of it, claiming it was wrong to keep copies of a person lying around, and that it wouldn’t be the same because a back up’s memory and growth wouldn’t match up in the event they had to restore it, yet they never seemed to quit it with the constant updates and upgrades, always more enthusiastic about each one than the last. “Oh, we’re improving her speakers so she can talk louder” or “Oh, we’re replacing some circuitry and servos to increase her arm strength”. They may have technically been the smartest people in the neighborhood, academically at least, and it was amazing they could make something like that in the first place, but it sure seemed prone to catastrophic failure. Explosions seemed to happen on more than a weekly basis.

The male, named Simon, a cute kid with a bright smile, and a degree of enthusiasm only matched by his counterpart, and of course Kala, hurried to hit the filtering system they’d installed for just such an occasion. With a soft whirr and wheezing noise, the smoke was sucked from the air in the matter of seconds, revealing more clearly where a panel on the chest of the robot, a nondescript humanoid form in an apron with a screen for a face, had popped open, the inside full of blackened wire and circuit boards.

“If this is a bad time,” I muttered, “I could come back later...”

“Simon can start replacing the boards he messed up right now,” the female, Mindy, with her little blonde twin puff-balls of hair, shot a glare to her counterpart, before giving a big, wide smile up at me “but I have a minute! What’s up, Annie?”

While the little boy pouted, starting to moodily tear bits out of the robot’s innards, I told her “Well, you know the ‘auto-change’ thing you guys installed in the bathroom in the community center? It’s kinda on the fritz. I had to put up an out of order sign, because it goes off without warning, and it kinda diapered a few people who didn’t wanna be, and I don’t know how to turn it off.”

“Probably more of Mister Dumb-Head’s bad wiring!” she glanced over her shoulder, the boy, now with soot smeared on his face, sticking his tongue out, shouting back “It’s probably the switch! That one’s all your fault!”

She flushed red in response, turning back to me “We’ll fix it soon. It’ll be back to normal in time for your party tomorrow if someone doesn’t take too long rewiring it.”

Putting his hands on his hips, Simon stamped his foot “Why don’t you do it for once, if you’re just gonna complain about it?”

Her nose went up in the air, response coming in a haughty, breathy tone “What do I look like, hired help? You do the grunt work, I’m the brains.”

“More like the butt!” was argued in response with a sneer “Nanny always has to change your messy diapers like twice a day ‘cause you eat so much!”

The little girl was so utterly incensed by that it was a wonder her pigtails didn’t start smoking at the ends as she screamed back “I am a growing girl! The amount I eat is perfectly natural and healthy for my age and size! I just have a, a, an overactive digestive system!”

I made my retreat before they could drag me into their bickering this time. Sure, they argued like an old married couple, but as long as I’d known them they at least worked in a timely manner, so I could take their word their little device in the public restroom would be fixed. It was a fancy gadget, I suppose, even if it wasn’t much needed, or much used. At the press of a button, a subject would be measured by a high-tech scanner that would determine their height, weight, and shape, and a series of mechanical arms would come out and enact a diaper change, removing existing garments, cleaning, applying powder, and finally a fresh diaper selected with the individual’s measurements in mind. Problem was, overnight it had starting working on its own, without anyone having pressed the button, and almost no one in the neighborhood was strong enough to resist it, leading to various people being diapered against their will upon entering the restroom. Amusing, yes, but inconvenient.

Practically the whole community seemed to be out that morning, enjoying the sun, and the slowly improving weather, the playground in the neighborhood’s center positively teeming with life, and the rambunctious cries of the childish at play. I was observing, as I walked, with a contented smile dripping over my countenance, when I was interrupted by the shout of “Anne, stop her! She’s coming your way!”

In the direction the voice had come from, my vision was assaulted suddenly by a flash of energetic movement that I recognized clearly by then. I stuck my hand out reflexively, gripping a handful of fabric, and bringing the bundle of highly mobile, weapons grade cute to a sudden halt. She would have seemed older than me, a woman of average proportion in her early twenties, with shoulder length strawberry blonde hair, if it weren’t for the unbridled, almost infantile joy and curiosity etched into her soft, pretty face, and those blue, slit-pupiled eyes. She didn’t seem to even notice she’d stopped advancing, her legs still going, arms still outstretched, feline tail twitching and triangular furred ears full forward. Neither did she appear to notice she was naked below the waist.

“Thank you!” panted the skinny young man who’d been running after her, stopping, actually bent over, hands on his knees, wheezing loudly as he caught his breath “You have no idea how hard it is to catch her when she gets going.”

“Mimi.” his tone turned to the stern word one takes with misbehaving children, once he’d composed himself, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Butterfly!” her hand rose, finger pointing, while the ears atop her head twitched, black-furred tail wiggling in excitement “Pretty!”

The boy rolled his eyes, exasperation clear in his expression, practically oozing off of him as he brushed strands of his unkempt brown hair from his face “Yes, Mimi, butterflies are often pretty, but that doesn’t mean you can run off in the middle of a change.”

“But, but...!” she began to whine, cut off when he lightly bopped her on the head “No! Bad kitty! You don’t run off during changes. Do you want to make a puddle again? Do I need to start bringing the squirt bottle when we go out?”

Gaze longingly following the insect she’d been chasing, the adorable catgirl reluctantly allowed herself to be led away by her annoyed owner, our very own resident otaku and artist, one Alex Winston. When he wasn’t watching anime, looking after his feline companion, or with his face buried in some manga, he was either drawing or trying to pull others into his interests. Already he’d started an anime viewing club he held in the community center Wednesday nights that had several members, including his childish charge, who shared his enthusiasm for the Japanese animation he loved so much. The comics she was a little less enthused with because she couldn’t read, despite being fluently bilingual, but she still liked to sit on his lap for him to read them to her, or even just look at the pictures.

I suppose she was a great indication of his interests. He’d acquired a limited ability for manifestation, and what was the first thing to pop out of his head into existence? A catgirl from his drawings. Trouble was, she was about as mature as her technical age. Physical body in its twenties, but the mind of a toddler. By his own admission he’d never expected to have kids, but gladly took on the responsibility of caring for her, even if she tended to be more than a handful. With a slight shake of my head, I continued on my way. The one other person I was looking for had declined a house, so I really had no concrete idea of where she’d be, but it wasn’t that big a community, just yet, so if I wandered a while I’d be sure to come upon her eventually.

Along the way I exchanged short greetings with various others, observing their interactions as I walked. Blight played fetch with the werewolf girl, while his now-fiancé Lorelei was discussing magical artifacts and practices with the artificer with the magically functional false limbs. Sally chatted cheerily with the undead twins in the gothic lolita dresses and the matching parasols that shaded their photosensitive flesh from the sunlight. Soon enough a fairly familiar bare leg dangling from among the boughs of a tree, and the chainsaw-like, loud, rattling snore told me I’d come upon exactly who I’d been questing for. It was a wonder the racket she made didn’t shake the budding leaves right off those branches.

A hand went up, gripping the delicate ankle of the hairless limb, tugging slightly “Hey, wake up up there. We need to talk. ”

The leg twitched as its owner gave a snort and a grumble. Though I saw nothing but the leg from my vantage point I could hear the groans, the sounds of joints popping as the figure in the tree stretched. Finally the other leg came down, weight shifted, and down drifted a woman in her mid-twenties, slow as a falling leaf, dressed, despite the cool weather, in only a half shirt and, as usual, the biggest diapers in the neighborhood. The inches of padding wrapped around her nethers was of such thickness the lowest extent of the garment was over halfway to her knees.

A hand bearing a faintly glowing golden ring on the index finger lifted to brush curly brown hair out of a pair of eyes that matched the jewelry’s hue, irises like molten precious metal. Her feet never touched the ground, merely bobbing slightly as she hovered there in the air, legs spread by the mass of absorbent material between her legs to such an extent it was unclear if she was even capable of walking. As she always liked to comment, her ability to levitate was quite the blessing when you considered her obsession with bulky undergarments. She practically refused to wear anything thin enough she could touch her knees together, to the extent of declining to change entirely if she didn't have something that met her exacting standards.

“Yeah Annie?” she muttered, rubbing at her tired, shining eyes with a fist “What’s up? I’m tryin’ to sleep.”

“Usually you’re up by now.” I noted with a raised eyebrow. A nod in reply was followed shortly by a yawn, and then “I stayed with Silvas and Talania last night. Couldn’t sleep a wink in that creepy house.”

Yeah, I could imagine. The two little vampires seemed to cultivate a “haunted house” type atmosphere in their home with minimal lighting, disturbing imagery, dark and gloomy colors, and of course the use of their abilities to cause things to move on their own, and fill the building with unsettling creaks and murmurings. This was actually something of the issue I was there to touch on. You see, she was a nomad of sorts, and a dependent one at that. She had no home of her own, no caretaker, but if she could help it she never prepared her own meals or changed her own diapers, even though she carried around her own diaper bag all the time, since no one else seemed to have absorbent garments of sufficient thickness for her distinct tastes.

So, how did she get food, and get into fresh undergarments? She asked people, without seeming to care who or where, or if they bothered taking her somewhere private to clean her up. Similarly, she disliked sleeping in the same place two nights in a row, and would go around asking to crash at this or that person’s house for the night. Some were content to comply, but I’d begun to get complaints about her, since, after all, I was in charge, so if anyone was going to be lodging formal complaints it’d be with me. A bit of a burden, certainly, but it was my dimension, and thus my responsibility.

“We need to have a talk, Tandy.” I informed her with a frown. Her own matching expression dripped across her countenance “If this is about the broken fence post at Sally’s house, that was totally an accident, and I told her I’d fix it but she said she’d do it herself...”

“No, it’s not about the fence post.” my voice droned, eyes rolling at what certainly wasn’t the first time she’d been spewing excuses about that particular incident “We already had a talk about destruction of property, remember? I’ve been getting complaints. Some people are getting sick of you asking them to change you or let you stay over at their houses.”

“But, but if I don’t ask, how will I get changed and where will I sleep?” the pout and sniffle were fake, I could tell by then. I’d grown quite familiar with the cute, innocent act barely covering up the manipulative pervert underneath that loved to have herself exposed in public and would willingly sit around stewing in her dirty diapers the better part of a day if it meant getting someone else to touch her in her diaper area and clean her up. My hand slipped into my pocket, drawing out a folded slip of paper “Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’ve gotten enough complaints I did a survey, and I’ve put together a list of people in the neighborhood who don’t want to be asked. I even put pictures in it in case you forgot the names.”

The paper went from my possession to hers, being flipped open for her to peruse, a frown of annoyance creasing her face at the list of just under ten names, each accompanied by a thumbnail portrait. I got moving before she could start whining, and complaining about how she’d get a rash because people were being mean by not being willing to change her. And where she came from she’d been some crime-fighting vigilante, powers fueled by the magic ring on her finger. I couldn’t see it, no matter how much I tried to imagine it. I could, however, entirely believe the rest of her backstory, that when the world had stumbled upon what the hero Sunspot, her alternate identity, did in her free time, one of her hired caretakers selling the story to the press, she'd moodily renounced her position as a protector of the people, and, when soon after finding her way to my dimensional space, had ditched her revealing, skintight latex costume for the bulky absorbent undergarments she refused to be out of anymore.

Her ability, as a part of my community, to finally indulge her love of diapers, and thickness between her legs, had definitely had a corrupting influence. She was adorable when she got in a regressive mood, and proved, via the ghostly schoolgirl, she was perfectly capable of making friends, but more often than not I found her annoying, and a little disturbing in her barely concealed arousal whenever she had her diapers changed in public. With nothing else on the agenda until dinner, I started the short journey back home.

Repetitive thumps of feet against grass rapidly approached from the side before I could get there, a voice calling suddenly “Annie! Annie!”

I recognized that voice. Heaving a bit of a put upon sigh, I turned to face my latest hindrance in my trek back to my house for a well-needed diaper change “Hello Meer, what’s up?”

Moving with such momentum she actually overran my position, not managing to stop until she’d gone a few steps past, was, as I’d suspected, Miranda, or just “Meer” as she was generally called. One of the Sturluson girls, part of the biggest family in the community. She gave a wide grin, speaking with her thick accent I could never quite place “Mama wanted me ta ask ya if’n yer still gon’ come ta supper t’nigh’!”

I took a moment to prod at my ear to be sure her excessive volume hadn’t got me bleeding out the side of my head. Could she speak at anything less than a yell? Thankfully my eardrum was still intact, but that might have been luck. As her relayed question would indicate, her house was the one other place I had to be that day, though not until dinner time. They were an... interesting bunch. A polygamous lesbian relationship between four women, with five adopted children, two of which were older than some of their mothers, and three more that had each been born of one of the four women, most of the daughters in diapers full time. So many different hair and eye and skin colors were present that the family pictures on their walls looked less like a family and more like a bunch of people gathered at a bus stop. In total they made up roughly a quarter of the entire community, and lived in a big three story mansion that was the largest home in the area.

I found them all a little weird, with their accents, the constant affection between the four mothers, the extremely frequent use of various simple magics to do things like fetch objects from across the room, or heat or cool food and drink. Still, no matter how odd they seemed, I felt, I suppose, rather at home with them. The eight kids were all female, sure, but they were an active, rambunctious bunch that always seemed to be roughhousing, and were likely to become a large chunk of the local football league once I could get it put together. Their parents seemed to like me too, and even told me once they’d adopt me, and my sisters, if we asked. I wasn’t inclined to accept the offer, but, polite refusal or no, they made it clear I was welcome in their house, and invited me over on a regular basis. They weren’t particularly used to company, having lived in the middle of nowhere in their dimension of origin, outcast by society as witches and freaks, but they were plenty welcoming to me. Nice people, if strange, but we were all strange in our own ways.

Knowing better than to say too much to Miranda, lest she decide to be talkative, and start up that motor mouth of hers, I gave a short, concise positive reply, sending her running back across her lawn to the kindly looking woman on the porch who was knitting without actually touching the needles or yarn to relay my reply just as loud.

“Well, she alright with lamb fer supper?” was asked. In a flash the girl spun on her heel, hurtling back my way to say “Annie, Mama wanna know ‘f lamb’s alright wit you!”

Another single word answer, and this time I made sure to get away before she could come back and trap me in more of her ear-shattering conversation. It’s not that I didn’t like her, in fact quite the opposite, she was just someone I tended to need to be in the right mood to interact with. She was almost as big as me, and fun to wrestle with, but she was a lot easier to deal with indoors, where her mothers would constantly remind her to use her “indoor voice”. Outside, though? As long as you were talking to her you would never escape the noise, and would certainly walk away with your ears ringing.

Finally my own front yard was beneath me, the door before me, my hand on the knob. And none too soon. My undergarment was getting quite sodden, and I was in fairly dire need of changing. Any more moisture, and I’d be needing a new pair of jeans too if I sat down. It’d been long enough since my pledge to wear them alongside my little sister that I usually didn’t feel when I had to go anymore, and ever since I’d switched to something a little thinner I needed to be changed pretty often. I’d gotten quite sick of being unable to fit into my pants, and hadn’t wanted to get a new wardrobe or break my word, so after a few days I’d begun wearing diapers that matched Melody’s, only proportioned for my much larger size. I went through more changes in a day, and ran significantly greater risk of leakage than in the thicker ones I wore when regressed, but hey, it’s not like I had to do it myself, and my pants actually fit again, even if you could quite clearly tell there was something far thicker than panties underneath.

Since I'd made the decision I had not once used the toilet, which felt like an odd thing to be proud of, not even entering the bathroom except to bathe, primarily to avoid the temptation. I had given my word, so, even if it never happened, I was committed to wearing and using my disposable undergarments until Melody no longer needed her own. Not that I didn't have second thoughts now and then, especially when I had to exasperatedly excuse myself from a room because I had to have a bowel movement and had trouble going with people watching. Still, even if I would occasionally give looks of longing towards the poor, neglected toilet when I went to bathe, I exercised my self control, and kept pissing my pants until I stopped noticing when I had to go and didn't really have a choice anymore. Maybe it was the acceptance of the concept in general, but my bladder control had dwindled with surprising speed. I couldn't seem to get all that worked up about it, though. I could always retrain, or fix it with magic if I had trouble going the traditional route.

No sooner had I opened the door, than my little big sister was running up to me in naught but a shirt, a pull-up, and a wide grin of pride. The training pants were strange enough, since she’d been diapered when I left to go greet our newest neighbor, but the bigger thing I noticed was her lack of pants. She’d always been far more insecure about her undergarments than I was those days, so it was quite unusual for her to not be wearing something over them.

“Guess what!” she demanded loudly, her huge smile not waning in the least. She was certainly excited, and granted what she was wearing I had a pretty good idea. It wasn’t often I saw her that utterly enthused about anything. Eventually I teased with a smirk “Did you lose your pants?”

Her grin melted into a frown of annoyance “No! I made it to the potty!”

I was about to say something, but thought better of it. If there was one thing she hated it was when people condescended to her, so in a situation where she said something that juvenile, that proudly, you had to be careful. I doubted she even consciously realized how much that made her sound her physical age, or even the fact she’d referred to the toilet as the “potty”. My eventual response was a simple “Good job.”

Walking with me further inside, she kept talking “So Liz agreed I could go back to, uh, these, and leave my pants off so it’s easier for me to go. Something about, um, ‘fewer obstacles’...”

Yeah, that sounded like our sister. Speak of the devil, that dark-haired head popped around a corner “Annie! Back already huh? So, what was it this time? Psychic? Fantasy creature?”

“Immortal sick girl.” I informed her, as though it were perfectly normal. She gave a little “Ooo”, coming out more fully to approach “I’ll have to meet her soon. So, does somebody need a new diaper?”

A blush and a nod, and I took the proffered hand, letting myself be led up to the nursery, as she kept talking "You know, Melody managed to get to the potty for the first time today. With any luck it won't be too long before we'll have to get her some big girl underwear. So, shall we get you into a fresh diaper, or do you think I might have two sisters ready to potty train?"

My agreement to take her up on that was immediate. She was definitely enjoying the situation way too much, ever since she'd decided I wasn't about to fall apart emotionally at the drop of a hat, more than content with the situation, and with dealing with the bodily functions of everyone else in the house. Unlike with our other sibling, she really didn't pull any of the childish terminology when she was talking to me, though. While Melody herself may have unconsciously used the word "potty", I knew that any time Liz would make mention to her it'd be "toilet", but for me she'd switch to "potty", just like how while she'd just said "big girl underwear" to me, there was no doubt it'd have been "panties" if she'd said it to the short one, absolutely loving having someone around the house she could be motherly and condescending to at all times. She'd definitely miss it once no one in the house was diapered full time anymore, but she seemed to be looking forward to toilet training us as much as we were looking forward to not needing our disposable undergarments anymore. I was rather behind Melody already on the whole potty training thing, finding myself a little jealous she'd managed to use the toilet that day, but I was sure I'd catch up if I tried. Though, I couldn't do too well. If I overtook her too easily it'd be disheartening for her, so if I started progressing faster I'd need to have more "accidents" than I really needed to to match her progress. That is, if I could match her progress. I couldn't go getting too ahead of myself. I had, after all, completely lost my bladder control within about two weeks of swearing off the toilet.

Freshly changed into training pants, I headed back down alongside my elder sister, idly chatting at about mine and Melody’s birthday party coming the next day. I was turning eighteen. It promised to be huge, everyone in the neighborhood gathering together for something of a barbecue and potluck, plus games, and presents, and cake, and swimming, down by the lake. It was going to be a lot of fun, I could feel it already, excitement welling up inside me at the thought, even if it looked like I was going to spend it in exposed pull-ups with Elizabeth all over me constantly asking if I had to go to the bathroom.

I’d acquired so much responsibility, and it was only growing with time, but I wasn’t worried. I studied city planning and infrastructure in my spare time, already mapping out the beginnings of a commercial district, my best friend Myra in the process of designing steam-powered railcars for public transit. It was promising to be a huge project, but with my sisters at my side, and my book in my hand, there was nothing I couldn’t take on, nothing I couldn’t accomplish. I was unstoppable as the tide, no longer fettered by rotten memories that festered in the back of my mind, left free to make a new past, new memories. This time around, they’d be good ones, too, of that much I could be certain.


End...