Chapter 10: Snowglobe of the Soul

Chapter 10: Snowglobe of the Soul

Part 1: Golden Tickets

The newfound summer was an uncharacteristic joy that the citizens of Light’s Hope were making good use of. The fashion district was filled with an unimaginable myriad of costumed goldies, as if the city had been born for cosplay. Saraswati and I had our reservations regarding the socioeconomics of the area and the class differences. Even so, it was too much of a spectacle for us to deprive Amanda from witnessing it. Walking into and around stores meant immersive anti-immersion as you blended into a crowd of hundreds, thousands of different video game and movie characters compiled into one colorful blur. She loved it, of course, but there was one particular place aside from the festival that she wanted to go to in the summer. She begged Sara and I, (the two of us who couldn’t anywhere near afford it), to take her. But it was a gilded summer, and little whispers of the hotel’s favorite, and only, child, drifted to the ears of the right people.

This Saturday, Amanda and I were on our way to go take pictures in the fashion district for the third time that week. School being out meant we were able to visit on Monday and Wednesday too, though Friday was a stay-in girls night with Sara.

Mr. Moseby stopped us on our way out the door, “Amanda, Alianii, dearies! Might I have a word with you, I am privy to a pleasantness I am quite eager to share. Amanda, what joy and prosperity would it bring you to know that your wish might have been answered?”

“No. I don’t believe you Mr. Moseby.”

“Have I lied to you ever dear? On what occasion have I left your heart dissapointed? Has our hotel not accommodated the princess of whom we are so very fond of in every way?”

“There’s too many people. There’s never tickets, they’re like a bazillion dollars.”

“Well, usually, this is true. However, may I remind you that I am not your average Denkeeper. I worked for Disney, for several years, and I am still well-regarded.”

Disney had bought Nintendo’s licensing rights for biologically recreated Pokemon back in the 2040s for twenty billion dollars. Geneticus may have been the rival for home pets, but only Disney had the funding to compile entire theme parks as homage to the Pokemon franchise, with real creatures, all genetically engineered. Of course, they didn’t have the abilities that the creatures had as they did in the Everse immersive battles. But that doesn’t matter to a child, who is alive, awake, and happens to be holding a living and breathing, velvet-soft Pikachu. The setting of it being a Pokemon ranch with hundreds of perpetually baby Pokemon of every shape and color made it all the more immersive. It was a real physicality, constructed in New Titan, not an Everse game level.

Amanda’s jaw dropped, her hand moved up and covered her mouth for a moment, her words muffled, “You got us tickets?”

“Your A’s in effort and academic improvement did not go unnoticed child. You performed incredibly and you earned this. You’ve come so far for such a short period of time!”

My eyebrows raised, almost in alarm, tickets like that cost tens of thousands of dollars because they limit access to the Pokemon to protect the animals and maintain demand and mystery. Of course there was infinite Everse access, with every Pokemon, even the legendaries. But again, even for kids, especially for kids, it’s not the same. Some kids would rather get drooled on by a baby Pikachu than ride a digital Rayquaza. I mean I still had the childhood fantasy of one day owning a lilac moonfox, a realized biological ripoff of Espeon, so it made sense - I was in that very same group myself.

“Two tickets, now, of course, you and Alianii will need to decide who will accompany you.”

Amanda squealed with delight and grabbed my hand and started jumping up and down with utter exuberance.

“Alianii!!!! We’re going to go see Pokemon!!!!”

She meant to say we would were visiting Pokemon Park, it’s kind of the same as saying we’re going to Disney versus Disney World. In any case, this was obviously an incredibly exciting idea, kids for the last century had grown up playing Pokemon, Saraswati and myself included. It wouldn’t have been fair for me to go without even considering Sara, who over months had been taking care of Amanda nearly as much as myself.

“Amanda, I know you’re excited but this isn’t the kind of decision we’re going to make right now in just a few seconds, okay, love? Both Sara and I will have to review our schedules and come up with a decision together. She might take you.”

I told her this, but I was lying, I’d already made up my mind, and Sara was going to go. Sara adored Pokemon, she memorized how to play dozens of soundtrack songs from various games. The few hours a month where we saw her playing a game online, on her own, she was playing Pokemon in her own Everse adventure. I loved Saraswati way too much to deprive her of an experience as such, and I put my foot down, and I made her take Amanda.

Part 2: For Alianii

I’m not much of a writer, but considering this book is being made, I do have words to share. You’ve been reading our adventures from the time we met, so it’s hard to pick a good starting place. I’m adding this inclusion here because I feel it belongs here, in this place, in her story. When I’m asked of when and how I came to love Alianii, given our circumstances, I often hesitate to answer. But I will try. Love is complicated and our relationship was no exception. Many eggs share an identity, and she recognized me immediately for who I was. On the other hand, I knew who and how she was because I’d been briefed on her by my commanding officer and Mr. Moseby. So we had knowledge of each other in our own, different ways from the moment we met. Hers was intuition, mine was information. So when did I first love her? I loved her from the moment I first learned of her, when I was first shown her profile as an adventure guide. That is, I loved her as a concept as a teacher who had mastery over working with children with special needs. I’d seen her photos and avatar, and she was very pretty, but what I loved was her selflessness. As a spiritual sister as a fellow egg, I loved her shortly after we met. Our love was real, even if our digital life, during the Great Dream, wasn’t. It was moments like her refusing to go to see Pokemon in person, in her own heaven, out of stubbornness, which made me fall for her. We were crafting heaven for her, but Alianii turned it all around and made it so I had to go with Amanda. I was helping craft dreams for her in real life, and in her embodied dreams, she enacted dreams for me. Her consciousness would accept no other alternative. So the AI replica of me that represented me, and to which I inputted critical decisions, intimacy included, relented. So I watched myself and Amanda go to Pokemon Park, like encapsulated love in a snowglobe in a dreaming soul.

Part 3: Traveling

I was insistent on Amanda and Saraswati being disconnected from me on their journey to Disney’s Pokemon Park. Technically they could have streamed it to me via their brain chips. But I didn’t want that. I wanted to be disconnected from them. I wanted Saraswati and Amanda to have a big sister and little sister moment. Just them and their tranquility. It would be their surprise getaway as though from an accidentally won contest. They tried to convince me otherwise, and I relented partially saying they could text me a bit, and send me a few photos and video clips. But really I just wanted them to be immersed, together, and with each other. I would connect my chip to Sara’s and Butterfree flutter through the memories after they got to our hotel home.

Pokemon Park: New Titan was located to the north of Boston’s sister megacity. For the first time, Saraswati and Amanda would be on an airplane. It was a rare luxury for the underclass eggs like us. They took an air taxi to Light’s Hope International Airport and were escorted by an assistant concierge bot borrowed from the hotel. Mr. Moseby would allow no mistakes, no mishaps. Nothing was allowed to interrupt or affect their magic weekend. The Pokemon tickets were for two days, but they were arriving on a Thursday and leaving on a Monday. Their travel days would be as stress-free as possible, Friday and Saturday would be their joyous trip, Sunday would be relaxation and then they’d return the next day.

Neither Sara nor Amanda, predictably, had ever even been to an airport IRL, even if they’d walked around one in the Everse. Physical actualities are just different than Everse immersion, if only because of psychological insecurities. What is real, and what is fake? What is a dream, and what is an illusion? I do not know, I doubt I’ll ever know, sometimes I find my life to be a waking dream. Once upon a time it was a nightmare made blessed only by my job, but lady luck had caught up with me and now I found myself in heaven. And Amanda was my little girl, my halfway between a daughter and a sister, and I loved her, and I cherished her, and my life was complete. Saraswati was the intimacy that nurtured that other wounded part of my soul, that loved me with balance where I was predisposed to addiction. Mr. Moseby was like the quirky uncle or grandfather I always wished I’d had, and I knew them all under two months.

How can life change so quickly, so abruptly? I do not know.

In any case, back to the adventure of my two beloveds, my little one and the woman for whom I was often, but not always, little spoon.

Light’s Hope International truly was, as far as I’d seen, a shining gem amongst even the most technologically advanced and aesthetically ambitious airports. The walls to the building were made of bulletproof carbonic crystal. The place was built like a transparent fortress shaped like a gemmed tiara. The crescent or half ring of the airport had the different “terminals” for different airlines. The spikes on the tiara were the lounges of various levels of luxury that travelers could stop by, in accordance with their swiped card privilege, or lack thereof.

I’m going to have to reconsider my reluctance to capitalism, to be honest, seeing how Amanda and Saraswati shared the privilege of a Hotel Apollo credit card to cover all the miscellaneous expenses. That shocked me, but it was all thanks to the big money funder, and previous funders, who had bolstered the finances of the hotel.

What’s crazy is we didn’t even have to pay the money back, Saraswati and I were just told “to spend within reason, but to thoroughly take care of Amanda, and to make it a captured dream for her worth paying for, photos and videos included.”

They would be artifact hunters, but the treasures they were to bring back would be crystallized joy, video memories and photos and a few physical souvenirs. 
 I love you Mr. Moseby, I really do. You’re the best Denkeeper that Amanda, Sara and I could ever hope to ask for.

Our concierge bot helped Sara and Amanda check in. They went through security quickly, and arrived at their gate with more than enough hours before the flight for them to go and check out the lounge that the Apollo card granted them access to. It wasn’t much more than a restaurant, at least in theory, but it was decorated lavishly, with an aquatic theme and fish that swam through the floor and up through the glass walls. The decoration was predominantly blue and white, even giving the place a sort of Greek vibe, if Greek decor was mixed with hypermodern aquatic surrealism. They had food together, Saraswati had a little glass of wine (and I happen to know she also had a little anxiety medicine, naughty!). She was terrified of airplane flights! I mean I’ve never been on one so I can’t say if it’s scary or not, but unlike Sara, Amanda was absolutely ecstatic at the opportunity to fly.

They boarded the plane, and I laughed as I saw through Saraswati’s eyes as she grabbed Amanda’s hand and held it, petrified to be blasting off into the atmosphere on a Boeing Skycruiser.

Amanda squeezed her hand sympathetically, “It’s okay Sara I’ll protect you.” 
“From the plane? How are you going to do that?”

“Ali gave me wings remember? The pink ones. I’ll carry you if the plane goes bad.”

“You traded your wings for lightning magic.”

“Well then you’ll be okay but I’m in trouble.”

Sara was a little speechless, her feathers a little ruffled, but eventually responded with the logic of a young woman responsible for being the emotional rock, “You’re right. We’re going to be completely fine, I’m just being silly. How are you so wise, Amanda?”

The rest of the passengers settled into their seats, the luggage compartments were closed, and Amanda was leaning her head against Sara’s shoulder.

“Alright folks, this is Captain O’Connell speaking for myself and Captain Aviotico! We’re responsible for our safe, exciting journey today! At just under three thousand miles, we should be there in about two and a half hours. As a quick word of courtesy, we would like to inform you that we are expecting some significant turbulence today. If that worries you then feel free to login to the Everse. Alternatively, you check out our plane’s guest lounge network if you wish to spend time with the other passengers. If a little action doesn’t make you nervous, then stay tuned, and we’ll get on through a few storms in a jiffy!”

Hahaha! They were going to blast on through a family of thunderstorms while traveling faster than the speed of sound. See? This is what I wanted for them, moments of genuine bonding, and what’s better for that than overcoming a measured dose of light terror? As a matter of fact, I’d checked the weather before the flight, and I knew in advance they would likely be in for a doozie. It was the gentle scare they needed, that they might grow in their loving bond as they held each other with fearful, anxious hearts. The plane took off vertically, its modern design was based off of the more advanced planes from many decades ago. It was silent as a mouse’s whisper too, somehow. I’m not an aeronautical engineer so I don’t know how that works, but it’s cool as hell.

They were maybe fifteen minutes into the flight when a warning light came on and told them they were about to enter a thunderstorm. Amanda, who had been starting to doze off, contently, woke up and was wiggling with excitement.

Amanda turned to Sara, who was facing her, as I observed through Amanda’s eyes through the recorded footage, after the fact, “We’re going to learn lightning magic today!”

I didn’t need to see through Amanda’s perspective to predict the look of horror that Sara’s face was wearing when Amanda said that.

The plane, as fast it was going, was still shaken around a bit by the storm as though it were a walnut in a metal can. The rain that battered the windows was absolutely torrential, and the captain turned off the lights to make the overall experience a little less disorienting. I don’t know if that was misguided, or not, as it made the periodic bolts of cloud-to-cloud lightning all the more illuminating. Except for the warning lights, the sole lights in the plane’s cabin were the result of the storm’s angry flashes.

“Hold on folks, those of you still with me, haha, our plane Sheila here’s going to be fine, but it is a bit of a ride now! Don’t worry, we’ll be outside of a storm in a little bit and should have a solid half hour or so before we hit the next storms.”

Sara looked down at her hands, one of which was holding Amanda’s. Sara was shaking. I don’t know why she didn’t decide to go into the Everse, it would have made everything so much easier. I suspect she just wanted to be there with Amanda, to experience the whole thing, holistically, even if it was a little, or very, terrifying.

“This is the coolest thing ever, I wish we could be in a storm forever,” said Amanda, who was grinning almost manically, her little jade eyes sparkling with mischief. She knew Sara was terrified, but her glee and excitement superseded her empathy, she was just a kid, after all.

“I wouldn’t quite say that,” said Sara, calmer than I figured she’d manage given her fears, “It’s…interesting…”

Amanda scooted closer to Sara and gave her a long hug and soothed her, “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to see Pokemon!”

Sara hugged her back and stroked Amanda’s dyed hair with affection. They’d both changed their appearance a good bit to cosplay for the park. Saraswati dyed her head to be an orange and gold gradient, like an anime girl born of a celestial lion, she was pizazz and splendor. Amanda insisted on dying her hair brown with reddish highlights, away from her normal black. When I told her I would allow this, she gave me a little mischievous look as if at some level I created what she knew would be a “precedent”. Even if she didn’t know that word, she knew what she was doing. She was thinking, “if Alianii let me dye my hair brown, she has to let me dye it silver, too”. The little rascal of mine, oh Amanda. What am I going to do with you? Stealing my fashionable eccentricities, you and all your nonsense, love. Sara and Amanda made it through the plane ride, of course, they were cuddled up together under a blanket, holding hands. They were like a mamma bear and a baby cub, except it was mommy who was a little nervous.

Part 4: Reflections on a Dream

There are tens of millions of applications yearly, and just over a million people manage to get tickets to visit Pokemon Park. The park is limited to four or five thousand visitors a day. But when you do go, you go for the whole two day booking, and you get to play with more animals than you can count. The tickets cost more than many cars for a two day pass. A hyper luxury to be sure, even if it doesn’t involve a space yacht. Of course, if you are one of the lucky fraction of a minority able to visit the technological marvel, you dress for the occasion.

Saraswati and Amanda attended the park in matching printed clothing meant to mimic Pokemon fashion. Saraswati was a big fan of the latest Everse remake of the third generation of the games. The classics had been effectively immortalized. Sara showed Amanda the outfits from the games titled Resplendent Ruby and Serendipity Sapphire and they both loved them. Accordingly they matched to the female protagonist May; their outfits were sporty with a sort of cherry red short-sleeve jacket and black jogging shorts. For utility the outfit was accompanied by a sunflower yellow sidebag that wrapped around their waists. The jacket had the neomagi fashion accentuation of black and gold shoulderhoods, and they each wore a Tye-dye bandanna from the days of hippies over a century ago. Their shoes matched their bags and were colorful with yellow and black as the dominant base, with a trim of white. Their shoes looked as if they were bumblebees stopping at white flowers. No one said that Pokemon colors or fashion made sense. Japanese anime and video games have always been larger than life.

So they were dressed for the part, and they thought they were ready, but they weren’t. No one is ready to see the magnificent red and white glass archway that leads into the park. The entrance was like a cutout of a Pokemon ball. You walk through the “gate”, and in doing so symbolically become a Pokemon, and enter the world brought to biological life through Big Mouse money. It was all a dream worth reflecting upon.

You got to hold genetically engineered Pokemon, anime creatures brought to tangible life. You didn’t just get to watch them from afar, like zebras at the zoo. You got to walk and frolic amongst them as though they were the sunflowers, and you were the bee, and they were as tame as spoiled-by-wealth dogs. Of course, considering the creatures were extremely valuable, they were closely protected with surveillance and security personnel that’d make the government look meek. You have to understand that this park is the epitome of a crystallized dream almost exactly a century in the making. The games go back to the 1990s, and in the 2090s they actually made the park into a reality, after over a decade of research and construction. I don’t want to know how many haphazardly born creatures were brought to life only to be euthanized in the process of making this vision a reality. We eggs have a complex relationship with philosophy and morality - don’t ask us about the hundreds of millions of abortions that occurred around the world historically. Maybe the number is even bigger. In any case it all led up to artificial wombs, eleven years of horrific deformities, and now, a brand new underclass of socially-rejected “citizens”.

Pokemon, at least, are extremely loved, and extremely valuable.

Alright I’ll stop with the contemplation and go back to the appreciation for genetic engineering and step away from comparisons to the existence of eggs. It’s similar, and it’s different, and I guess I’ll leave it at that. Those two days of Saraswati and Amanda weren’t about me or my opinions anyways, Pokemon Park isn’t about ethics or morality or abortion or law. It’s about a century of creative vision brought to breathing life, holdable life, it is the embodiment of the creative nature of the human spirit. And everything, everything about the park radiated creativity, color, joy, and the cherishing of the animals that lived there.

I won’t and probably would fail at any attempt at a minute-by-minute recount of their two day traversal of the park. Out of around four thousand species (including various life stages of the same Pokemon), the park had more than five hundred varieties. Amanda and Saraswati went to almost every exhibit, to almost every nook and cranny.

Their favorite section was called Misty’s Bay. It was like an interactive aquarium, where many of the creatures (but not all) would approach the edges of their exhibits and could be pet through openings in the glass. Some of the pockets of the section were fully immersed in that Pokemon, the smaller, cuter, fluffier ones, wandered freely, like playing puppies. Through the carbonic glass walls they saw a rainbow of different types of fish pokemon. They saw some that looked as hard as rocks, others that looked like eels (multiple kinds of eels, actually). There was a sizable amount of differently colored and sized crustaceans, I don’t even know all of their names. Some of the ones I recognized included Cristayshun, a light-blue crystalloid crab the size of a kitchen oven from the Americana movies. Despite being crabs, with formidable claws, they were completely tame and enjoyed being pet by guests. There was the classics Krabby and Kingler from the original generations, the recurring re-released forms of which everyone inevitably played at one point or another if out of reverence. There were a couple of the species known as Steampinch, which is a reddish crab that almost has a lava-esque pattern to its shell, but it has holes in its body and puffs out mist like surfacing whales. They were a little smaller than the Cristayshuns but were a good deal more alien.

Amanda and Saraswati counted, there were twenty-seven varieties of turtle-based Pokemon, including even some of the “OG” fan favorites like Blastoise. The Blastoise they engineered was one of the most advanced pokemon designs - Blastoise has shoulder cannons, literal cannons, that shoot out water. This was too classic of a Pokemon to mess up, so what did they do?

They made it trainable, like a dog, and modified its shell to fit a small motor. The motor aided it in sucking up and blasting out water, spraying the mesmerized Pokemon fans who happened to be in the way. The Pokemon were smart enough to cooperate with equipment built so as to enable them to be entertaining, and were docile and friendly enough to enjoy the act. Smarter than dogs, not quite as intelligent as chimpanzees, emotional, sensitive creatures that lived to please the people they were constantly around. Were they slaves, or in heaven? I don’t know, but they ate well, they didn’t live off Quickmeal. They were celebrities, even if without consent.

Reef and coral pokemon of every color and level of translucence, colorful otters, miniature dolphins and giant clams (Cloyster). The little dolphins were white with purple splotches and were called Purpoise, like purple plus porpoise. I liked them, as you can imagine. If you waited in line and were one of the lucky members of the audience in a given time session, you could feed them from your hands. Amanda wasn’t selected, but she and Sara were mesmerized anyways.

Okay. The craziest Pokemon they brought to life, in Misty’s Bay, and one you could not touch, was the evolution (Pokemon “evolve” or transform into stronger forms) of a classic “legendary” called Suicune. Hydrocune was basically a giant crystal-and-water wolf, bigger than a polar bear, and it had its own exhibit which was massive. It was a bit more majestic and reclusive in nature, by design I think, it didn’t come up to the glass walls. It sat at the top of a little oceanic reef-esque mountain, under a waterfall, looking content like a wolf of Poseidon. Sara and Amanda got to hug a Ludicolo, which was basically a dancing pineapple with a head crowned by a lilypad, it sung too. It’s hard to describe what they look like, honestly, look them up - the Ludicolo is perhaps a play on the word ludicrous. I can’t believe they brought them to life. The staff even showed how the Ludicolo would sit under water spouts and drink from the top of their heads, like a rain dish built into their skull.

Misty’s Bay was just one small fraction of Pokemon Park. There was the Amethyst Aviary, with more than eighty species of “birds” of colors and shapes ranging from the delicateness of a Hawaiian hummingbird to desert condors with crushing wings. You could not pet those, though they too were designed to be friendly, happy to be confined to their encasements. There was a cowboy-Texas-esque area called “Respite Ranch” with multiple varieties of cow pokemon, the names of which I do not know, and Amanda and Sara tried milk from a pokemon called Miltank. It was apparently very sweet, almost like a liquid caramel. Miltank was another of the OGs, as the park was made for the 100th year anniversary of the franchise, the park did of course pay extra homage to the originals. The originals meaning the first three to five hundred or so, as ridiculous as that sounds, they started with a hundred and fifty and now there’s four thousand or so. Maybe Pokemon and their arch-nemesis Geneticus, together, could undo the mass extinction of species over the last few hundred years of humanity. Jeez, there’s something wrong with me.

Amanda and Sara were on their heavenly vacation, which I viewed through memory capture, and yet I go back and forth between reminiscing, glorification and measured horror at the contrast between their engineered reality and the real world actuality. I’m complicated, alright? Can’t a girl find an imitation bear adorable, while finding the extinction of “polar bears” saddening?

The more I write, the more I reflect, and in my own way, and maybe this sounds arrogant, I’m actually happy I didn’t go. It was all so perfect, so sublime, so innocent, but I am an egg who is keenly aware of my bastardized existence - and - somehow - I don’t know. It was a joy and splendor and luxury meant for Sara and Amanda. A teacher mentor of mine once told me, “fantasy is sometimes, often, better than reality”. But it’s okay. I loved the smiles and warmth on the faces of my two dearest, who cherished the experience, and that’s enough for me.

Part 5: Is Motherhood Pink

Amanda waited a month or so after she and Saraswati visited Pokemon Park to broach the topic of, once again, dying her hair. She thought she was being slick too, strategic, as if I didn’t see her surprise attack coming. Call me a selfish hobgoblin, but she was trying to steal my precious silver. I both loved the idea and was also quite selfishly reluctant. It didn’t seem to matter that she didn’t technically need my permission. But my little dearie made a sheepish game of it all, and I will say I humored her. I was picking her up from her school Helios, which was in a summer session, when she broached the subject.

“Ali?” she asked, timidly, she was holding my hand as we walked across the street back home.

“Yes dear?”

“I wanna dye my hair silver. Would you be mad at me?”

I stopped and turned to face her, we were on the glass and steel sidewalk but a block from our hotel home. 
“Okay. Well. Technically you don’t need my permission…but why silver, anyways?”

Amanda blushed and looked away, “I wanna look like you. I don’t want you to be upset.”

“Why would I be upset? I love you. I don’t own the color.”

Amanda looked at me and frowned, knowing very well I was being disingenuous, it’s stupid but I was a little possessive of that part of my identity. It had been me, what made me me, what made me unique, for around a decade.

“If I copied you it could make you upset. Some people don’t like that. A girl at school got mad at her friend for dyeing her hair color red too.”

“I see. Well. As I’ve said I don’t own the color silver, but I do want you to think a bit about this decision. Why silver? Why you? Does it suit your personality? I changed my eyes to violet and my hair to silver for a reason, for a reason that’s very important to me. It’s wonderful to experiment with how you look, but I think your choices are meaningful, if you change too much you might forget who you really want to be.”

“Why did you do silver?”

“I wanted to look like Alianii, a character from a book I really love. She’s a demon queen, and she’s really strong, and really beautiful, and really dangerous. So I changed my eye color to purple, and my hair color to silver. I don’t think I did it for the best reason. I did it because I didn’t like who I was, I didn’t like what I looked like. I permanently changed who I was, Amanda, even if the hair color needs extra dye now and again. I hated myself so much I remade myself in the name of a character from a story. I love my silver, and it’s up to you to decide what you want to look like…but if you’re going to copy a style, maybe it’s best you understand it and the reasons behind it.”

“But you’re nice. You’re a teacher. Why would you be a demon queen?”

“Because I felt powerless, and lonely, and Alianii was powerful and for the most part, until she met someone she loved, very at peace with being totally alone. She’s very independent. I wanted to be like her, well, without killing people. So this is my “context” or reason, if you haven’t heard that word. This is why I’m me. I even copied her name. I really hope you don’t change your name, Amanda, I think your name suits you perfectly. And I think you’re cute as a button just the way you are.”

“I don’t know if I want to be a demon queen.”

I laughed, and hugged her.

“I didn’t think you did. You’re too sweet for that. Black is just fine, but if you really want to play with colors why not bubblegum pink? With streaks of gold like Saraswati. You would look so cute, and it would make her so happy.”

“Would Sara be mad at me?”

“Certainly not, she would be delighted. And I won’t be mad if you want to try silver, either all of your hair, or a streak or something. But just remember I made this identity for a very dark reason. I did it out of anger and hurt. So whatever you do, do it for the right reason, because it makes you happy and feel pretty.”

“You could change your hair too Ali, you’re not stuck with silver.”

“Oh don’t be silly, it’s me, it’s….well. Technically you’re not wrong, but this is how I am, this is how I look, this is how I’ve looked for years and years.”

“But you’re not a demon queen.”

I contemplated this. I had experienced the demonic, and I tried to be a queen at heart, but I didn’t need to explore such darknesses with her at that time and place.

“No. But I’m no saint, either, Amanda. But enough about me, I’ve told you enough about my choices for now. What do you think? Are you going to stay with your beautiful black, or are you going to be a colorful fashionista?”

Amanda titled her head thoughtfully, “…do you think I would look pretty in pink?”

“Oh I don’t think, I know, sweetie. I transformed your hair to pink when you were being sneaky in my house, or don’t you remember, love? It looked adorable on you. It made you look like a little anime girl, like a magic princess with fancy spells. All you needed was a magic pet.”

“Ok. I’ll do pink with silver and gold for you and Sara. Ali I have another question.”

Her tone changed from playful to very serious, I could tell something was wrong.

“Yes love?”

“Would you give me a birthday gift…but early?”

“If I can I certainly will. What did you have in mind?”

“Make your hair pink with me?” she asked.

“Of all the things Amanda, really. That’s what you want. Seriously. Pink? Me? Amanda. Is there anything, anything else you might possibly want? Your birthday isn’t for two weeks anyways.”

She shook her head and started crying, “Please. Please, please, please. Please Ali.”

She was crying in only a moment, and I had no idea why.

“Honey…what’s wrong, why are you crying? Talk to me,”

Amanda, still sobbing, looked at me, and then looked away. I saw something in her jade eyes, a little dash of longing, and loneliness.

“I want…to look like my mom.”

“Me? Sweetie,” I said, trying to be delicate, kind of dodging the significance of her words, I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her and rubbed her back, “I adore you, you are my world. You’re my little sister. Not all sisters have to look the same.”

“No, Ali. You don’t get it. I wanna look like my mom. All the other girls moms are coming.” 
It all hit me at once - I’d seen the newsletter, but it totally skipped over my mind. It was take your parent to school day, at Helios. She wanted me to go with her as her mother, so she could fit in with the other kids, most of whom would be with a parent. Helios Academy was a school for the elite and the children there generally came from traditional, two parent households.

“Amanda, of course I will go with you. I…I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this, but fine. We’ll go in pink hair, you’re too young for Alianii demon silver, babe.”

“Are you going to tell people we’re not related?”

“No. But you shouldn’t be afraid to talk about being an egg, either. Eggs are all sisters and brothers, we have no mother and father. We’re different, and that’s okay.”

Amanda shook her head at me, still tearing up, her cheeks thoroughly shiny, “I want you to go as my mom.”

“Do you mean you want me to lie, or play pretend for the day?”

Amanda resumed crying and looked away from me before turning and planting her head back into my shoulder, she was unable to meet my gaze.

She half-whispered, half-muttered, words that I would never forget, muffled and spoken into my blouse, which was wet with her tears, “…I don’t want you to lie…I want you to be my mommy.”

“Honey…oh.” I was holding her close, her little head nuzzled into my embrace, “I didn’t know you felt that way. I…I adore you, and I love you, I love you so, so, so much. I don’t even know what it means to be a mother. What’s the difference between a mother, and a big sister, to you?”

Amanda was smart for her age, but wise, doubly so, in her own intuitive way, even in moments of sorrow, “Big sisters help you get out of trouble. Mom’s get mad at you for getting into trouble. I want Sara to be my big sister and you will be my mom and if we get in trouble you get mad at us and make sure we don’t do it.”

“So that’s who you want me to be,” I said, letting go, “…I can be that for you, Amanda.”

She looked at me, almost solemnly, her cheeks reflective, glazed by tears, “…Is it okay if I call you mom tomorrow? Please don’t be mad at me.”

Her face was so sweet, so innocent, her eyes red, puffy, her cheeks wet, and she was terrified of a rejection I would never put her through.

“You can call me mom whenever you like Amanda. If that’s who you want me to be, then I will be her, okay, baby girl? I love you. You’re my world.”

Amanda sniffed and nodded her head gently, a little emotionally raw, I saw in her a heavy heart I wish I didn’t see in a girl so young.

“I love you more mom.”

Amanda smiled and put her arms around my neck and I picked her up and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and plopped her down again. My child, my little Amanda, who in truth was on the edge between between daughterhood and sisterhood. Which was she closer to, I don’t know. I tried to care for her and nurture her and protect her like a mother, but be there for her for fun and adventure like a sister. Why isn’t there a word for both in one?

“One of the things moms are supposed to do is stop their kids from lying,” I said, booping her on the nose, “And what you said was most certainly a lie. I adore you even when you’re sleeping, drooling on my pillow, and I assure you you do not want me hogging your bed and drooling on your pillow, baby girl. I’m your mom, and I love you more, and that’s that. Now. Let’s go home and go get ready for tomorrow, we have to visit the salon, and I think we should go play a movie together. Just us. Ice cream can come too, but just a little.”