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Egg Hunter: Cluster Headache
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Chapter 10: Are You Sure This Is Not An Interrogation?
“Your name was Mamata, right?” H’s great-aunt and mentor asked. “I am assuming that Hunter hasn’t told you too much about me, considering your age, so I suppose an introduction is in order. My name is Gráinne Ní Fhlaithbheartaigh, although if that name is too difficult for you to remember, you may also call me Grace O’Flaherty.
“I am the younger sister of Hunter’s grandmother on his mother’s side, and was the one to teach both him and his mom the psychic arts.”
“Our mother is a psychic?” Mamata couldn’t help but interrupt, and instantly worried if Gráinne would be offended at Mamata presuming herself to be part of the family again. “I thought she was just a business woman~”
“Fiona was a psychic,” Gráinne explained patiently. “It isn’t uncommon for psychic abilities to develop in childhood but fade away during puberty. It happened to Fiona and both of her sisters. Any other questions?”
The fact that psychic abilities could be trained by children for years but then just disappear out of nowhere was plenty surprising and should have had Mamata thinking of tons of things to follow up on, but there was something else bugging her. She had access to some of H’s knowledge, but the relevant memories weren’t necessarily complete.
“If you’re the sister of gran- I mean~ Fiona’s mother~ then why is her last name also knee-flare-tea…” The question petered out from sheer embarrassment at the failed attempt at pronouncing the complicated Gaelic name. It should have been enough to get what she was asking across though.
Gráinne let out a small laugh as she explained, “That is because of an old family curse. The Ó Flaithbheartaigh clan was cursed to only give birth to daughters, so it became a tradition for men to marry into the family and take our name to keep the clan from dying out. Ironically, the curse doesn’t affect any women who take their husband’s name, which is why Fiona Ní Fhlaithbheartaigh-Kaur was able to give birth to a son in the first place.”
“That…” Mamata hesitated to correct her. She still wanted to endear herself to Gráinne and she knew that being too aggressively supportive of H would likely achieve the opposite. The woman’s threat of execution also still loomed in her head, but in the end Mamata decided that she couldn’t compromise on this matter. Making sure that her sister was accepted by their family was too important to her.
“I regret to inform you that mo- H’s mom doesn’t~ have~ a son~. She also has a daughter~! Just like the rest of her family~.”
Gráinne let out a small chuckle and to Mamata’s surprise, her response was to drag her foot across the circle of runes that surrounded Mamata, breaking them and causing the pale silvery-blue light to fade away.
As Gráinne walked away to sit at the chair behind her desk, she said, “I am sorry for scaring you earlier, dear. If you wish to call Fiona your máthair or me, your aintín, please go ahead. You don’t need to keep trying to talk around it.”
The unexpected permission struck a chord in Mamata’s chest and she needed to control herself to keep tears from forming, “You… you don’t mind me calling you my aunt~?”
“I don’t mind. I could call you my niece, Mamata, if that would convince you.”
Hearing herself be acknowledged as family by the only relative that she had met at that point was too overwhelming for her. Not only being acknowledged as family, but as a niece! Despite H’s body, and therefore herself, currently appearing to be male… The sudden acceptance was too much for Mamata to keep the tears held back any longer.
As she cried silently, she was surprised to find that her great-aunt had come back to dab her tears away gently with a tissue. As Mamata looked up into Gráinne’s bright green eyes, she was suddenly pulled into a tight hug.
“I’m glad that Hunter has such a kind-hearted alter such as you. But you’ll need to be careful with how you act if you continue controlling his body, to not give away that he… she… has multiple personalities. You’ve made more eye contact with me in a few minutes than she’s given me over the last few years.”
“Okay aintín…”
Mamata just let herself enjoy the hug for a while. It was such a nice thing and so very different from the hugs that she had been sharing with Emmie over the last few days.
When she was finally released from the hug, she sipped at the chai to clear her throat a bit. Something about the tea as well felt wonderfully nostalgic, but she wasn’t sure why. She reached out for that familiar feeling and tried to get a grasp on it. Vaguely, the image of their father started surfacing in her mind along with feelings of being loved by him. H’s family loved her, and yet she still avoided them as much as possible. Why was that?
When it came to Gráinne, she could understand why H would have some fear of… definitely understood that… but thinking back to that loving hug brought back faint memories of also being taken out for ice cream and to candy stores whenever there was a particularly rough lesson. Their aunt was stern but she was also really kind. It was slowly becoming obvious, as Mamata dug and scrounged at the traces of memories, that the reason she had been threatened was because Gráinne cared so much for H’s wellbeing.
“This chai is incredible~” Mamata voiced out after taking another sip of the tea.
“I’m glad one of you appreciates it, at least. I’ve been trying to imitate the way Gary makes it, but I’m not sure it’s quite there yet,” the older woman surmised.
“Mmhmm~” Mamata hummed as she swallowed again. It was oddly humorous that despite having such a complicated name herself, Gráinne wasn’t able to pronounce their father’s name and had to resort to his Westernized version. It seemed like just about everyone in their family had a name that was a mouthful.
“So… how long has Hunter known?” Gráinne asked.
“Known what~?”
“That she’s a girl…” A wistful expression appeared on Gráinne’s face, “I’ve tried so hard, but I could never get her to open up to me. She still didn’t even give a hint of it away…”
Mamata gulped, hoping this whole thing wasn’t about to backfire on her, “Actually~ She hasn’t figured it out yet… That or she’s in denial about it~”
Their aunt let out a sigh and her gaze sharpened for just a moment before softening again. She let out another sigh as she said, “I guess the two of you are more alike that I realized. Looking for problems with people’s gender without being asked to. Are you really so sure about Hunter? That he’s a girl?”
Oh no… She had been making such great progress but she was already reverting to male pronouns for H. “I’m positive~! I know exactly how she should be! She made me that way!”
“How about you just tell me your story… from the beginning. What is the earliest thing that you remember?”
Mamata tried to think back. What was her earliest memory? There was a few days ago at Emmie’s school, but she felt like there was something earlier than that… There was!
“I~ was sitting in an amphitheater~” Mamata said as she tried her best to remember, “There was a man on the stage~ He was talking about~ the deductibility of business expenses~ There was a notebook in front of me~ with a drawing of~ a horsie~!”
“Of course Hunter would skip out on his classes.” Gráinne laughed, “You can skip forward a bit from there.”
Mamata kept thinking. There had been other things that she had been around for other than the Easter Egg hunt, but between those things… nothing but oblivion.
“I was at a party~ H told me not to drink~ but there was~ a guy~” He was much taller than them and he was really, really drunk. Mamata could remember him grabbing her by the chin, lifting it up… kissing her. She decided to omit that part. The memories started to become clearer.
“Ehem…” Mamata cleared her throat as she moved on to the next memory. He was there again… a bit slimmer than last time and his hair was a bit longer. No, not him! Her!
“H’s roommate, Geosha~ I was keeping her company~ and was told to remember anyone who dared to mess with her for being transgender~” She had definitely been capable of defending herself but H was overprotective of her even when she wasn’t in her own body… what had she been up to that time?
There were a few more memories that she could remember, being together with Geosha. They hadn’t kissed again after that first time, but Mamata hadn’t even been self-aware enough to appreciate the one time that it had happened. She wondered if Geosha ever noticed how stiff she had been back then compared to H…
“Had you already become sentient when he was back in college?” Gráinne asked.
“She! And… no~ I couldn’t think anything back then~ I just did whatever H would tell me to do just before she put me in control of our body~”
She really couldn’t think for herself back then. The memories were vague and fuzzy, just like some of H’s memories were. Mamata couldn’t even be sure if they were her memories instead of a different autopilot’s.
“She… I’m sorry dear.” Gráinne apologized. “Give me a bit of time. The idea that Hunter could be a girl will take me a bit of time to get used to. How about you skip ahead to the first memory where you could think for yourself? Not just following your programming…”
Mamata tried to think harder. The following years, H stopped astral projecting as often as she had when she was in college, which meant there were fewer times that she needed an autopilot to control her body.
“The first time I could think for myself~?” Mamata’s hand instinctively moved to settle over her stomach. There really wasn’t anything before Friday.
“It was Friday~ just a couple of days ago~” She started. These memories were much clearer to her but still a bit vague and hazy. “H had volunteered to help Emmie supervise her students during an Easter Egg hunt~ There was a kid~”
That’s right… the first one of them to have fawned over Robbie wasn’t Mamata, but H. “H was trying to alter her avatar to be a disguise~ while she dived into Emmie’s head~ but one of the children started staring at her~”
H pretended to be annoyed at her, but in truth she had thought Robbie was adorable, even without realizing that Robbie was a girl. “H wanted me to act natural~ but looking after those kindergarteners had already awoken her maternal instincts~ So when I took control of our body, I started doing what felt natural… doting on the children~ There were so many of them running around and they were so cute~ but throughout it, Robbie, the child that we brought with us to the library, kept coming over to stare at me~ She wanted to be picked up and held~”
Mamata hadn’t realized that Robbie was a girl yet at the time but holding her as she started falling asleep had awoken something in Mamata. “I think that was the first time I started becoming self aware~ While I was holding Robbie~ I wanted one of my own because I knew H wanted a child of her own~ Suddenly, while holding her… the world just came to life~! There was color and emotion that I hadn’t felt before~!
“Suddenly, it was like there was another layer over everything~! I could see a lilac colored aura around Robbie and somehow I just knew that she was a girl even if she had the body of a boy~!”
Gráinne seemed to think about that for a moment while Mamata was basking in the afterglow of that memory. It had been such a foundational moment for her, even if she hadn’t realized it this whole time.
“It sounds like you awakened a psychic ability.” her aunt stated, “Most likely you’re some variety of Empath.”
Mamata smiled to herself to know that she had psychic powers of her own. The fact that it was an ability that H didn’t have just affirmed for her that she truly was her own person and not just a clone of H’s mind.
“I don’t think I was fully sentient at that time~ but there was definitely a paradigm shift~” As Mamata reminisced, the smile slowly faded a bit, “I stopped wanting to be a mother just because H wanted to~ I wanted to be one for myself… I- I want to be a mother…”
Tears started welling up again but she forced them back down, “The moment hadn’t lasted for long~ H came back not long after the world gained that extra layer of color~”
Gráinne was already on top of her, pulling her into another tight hug. It felt so nice… why didn’t H appreciate their aunt?
“After that Hunt- er, I mean H… That’s when she used the thought acceleration for a week?”
“Not right away~ That wasn’t until Saturday morning~”
“And that should have been when you truly became sentient?” her aunt asked while tightening the hug for a brief moment.
“Yes~ H had panicked at the end of that dive into Emmie’s mind and literally clawed her way out~ She needed to use the thought acceleration to patch up the hole that she made~ and it took a long time to do that~”
Gráinne sighed again, “At least h- at least she didn’t leave the hole to fester… There are all kinds of minor spirits that are normally too weak to affect humans. If a hole like that was just left alone, it could cause all kinds of nasty spiritual infections or open your friend up to possession… I’ll need to take a look at the patch job to make sure it was done properly.”
Mamata thought back to what it was really like to slowly gain awareness as an individual. While H had been running around the apartment, chugging Mentali-tea, and working on fixing Emmie, Mamata had just been floating around in a void. It wasn’t the same void that used to comprise H’s entire headspace… it was another layer of void beyond that. Completely black…
“After H returned to our body, I was kinda just ejected into nothingness~ It might have been where I was between being used in the past, but I’m not sure~ I was just a faint consciousness without a body~”
The entire time she was there, it had felt like her newly formed consciousness was just holding on by a thread and could have dissipated at any moment.
“I started thinking about Robbie again~ and that made me start thinking about how H knew how cute she was but refused to acknowledge it~ I just really, really wanted something cute to hug while I clung to the faint scraps of consciousness that I had managed~”
It was practically maddening, being alone like that for so long. Not having anything but a faint desire that was completely out of reach.
“I didn’t have a body though~ so even if she was in front of me, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything~ I was stuck in thought loops for so long~ Wishing that I had something to hug and then wishing I had a body that I could hug with~ Over and over, these same thoughts~”
Remembering how she had been during that period brought a shudder over Mamata. It was like being drugged up without even knowing that there was more to existence than that haze. It felt like the only reason that she got out of that state was from sheer luck.
“At some point~ I just got this strange idea that I needed to move~ There was just this instinctive feeling that if I could move, I would be able to find a body~”
She had needed to move, but didn’t know how to. She was just an existence of pure thought. There was no muscle memory or animal instinct telling her how to move.
“Most of my time in that void of nothingness was spent trying to make any kind of movement at all~ The more I tried to figure out how to move, the more obsessed with the idea I became~ I don’t know how I really achieved it, but after a really long time, I was finally able to open my eyes and perceive a new level of reality that I couldn’t before~ I was in H’s headspace~ the one that she had before Eternity took it upon himself to remake it~”
She was out of the pure black void and had made it to the gray void instead, but that one had been infinitely more interesting.
“I was able to look around and see the starry sky that she had made in there~ and I was also able to see an extra body that I could use~”
“There was an extra body in that headspace?” Gráinne asked.
“Yes~ It was the form that she usually used inside her headspace~”
“Ah, the… effeminate one? With the rabbit ears?”
Effeminate? Maybe… but H hadn’t been brave enough to make it an actual female body.
“It was actually meant to be androgynous~” Mamata clarified, “H had made it male~ but not one that had ever gone through puberty~”
There had definitely been some wish-fulfillment put into that body when H had made it. Had she been aware though?
“I think it may have taken me the better part of a day figuring out how to get myself over to that body~ Inching my way over, painfully slowly~ The entire time, I was thinking about how once I could get the body, I could have a kid of my own~”
It was a foolish thought, that having a body would be enough to be able to become a mother, but Mamata’s mind was still developing at that time. She didn’t know any better yet.
“When I finally reached that body, my mind was sucked right into it~ At that point, I had to learn how to move all over again~”
It hadn’t been easy, but somehow having a solid form allowed her to make the next major leap in development.
“It took a long time~ but I was eventually able to make that body move for me~ I had terrible balance though and kept falling over without being able to make a single step~ I had almost given up at succeeding~”
She really had almost given up… There was a constant cycle of making the body stand, trying to move, falling over, and floating limply in the void trying to gather the willpower to make another attempt. Each time she failed, it felt like the mental clarity she had scrounged up threatened to collapse altogether.
“I think the last time that I fell, I might have spent almost an hour trying to gather the motivation for another go~ but then I finally met H face-to-face~”
She hadn’t realized it was H though. She thought that the very first desire that she had developed out of nowhere was finally about to be realized. She had gotten a body and was being rewarded for all the effort that she had put in by getting something cute to hug.
“She had created a new form for exploring Emmie’s mind and now that small little bunny was in front of me just waiting to be embraced~ My desire to hug her had finally given me the motivation to stand up and reach out to her without falling over~”
Mamata couldn’t help but smile as she recalled the way that she had called H a ‘baby bunny’ as she pet her little sister. Oh course, H was only the little sister because she insisted on making her avatars so short…
“H wasn’t too happy about it in the moment, and she started giving me orders~ but somehow~ finally getting to achieve the thing that I had obsessed over for a week while struggling to maintain a consciousness~ was like yet another paradigm shift to me~ The brain fog started lifting and it became easier to think~ When H commanded me to control our body again, the clarity came even faster~ I think that was the moment that I became fully sentient~ When I stepped back into this body again and the world regained all those amazing colors~”
It was such a powerful feeling in the moment, but also tinged with a lot of unpleasantness.
“The very first thing that I experienced when I returned to our body was the dysphoria~”
It really sucked. Entering the body while being able to think for herself, looking in the mirror, and having her first thought be…
“I don’t like this body~ I really don’t…” Gráinne had been ready to pull Mamata quickly into another hug. “It’s… I suppose it isn’t as bad as it could be… as far as men go, our body is pretty small and we don’t have body hair… our shoulders aren’t too broad… but still… I don’t like it~ I don’t like that this body will never be able to carry a child~”
Mamata’s hands went to her stomach again and she looked Gráinne in the eye as she asked, “Is there a way to change it to actually be able to become a mother~”
Gráinne tightened the hug and pet Mamata gently as she started humming some song that Mamata wasn’t familiar with, “You don’t need to be able to give birth to be a mother. And you don’t need to be a mother to be a real woman…”
“That isn’t what I asked, Aintín~”
Gráinne sighed and let go of the hug, moving back to her laptop, “There isn’t any way that I can help you change your body like that… That kind of thing would be the domain of magic instead of psychic power… and you cannot trust magic!”
Her aunt beckoned Mamata to come over to the desk, so Mamata finally stood up from the airchair that she had been sitting in since waking up. She nervously eyed the runes that had been drawn in a circle around the chair as she stepped over them. They weren’t glowing anymore, but when they were, something about them had made her feel anxious.
Gráinne turned the laptop around to face her as Mamata approached and sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk from her aunt. On the laptop were images of a string of complex looking runes.
“Would you like to guess what these are?” Gráinne asked.
Mamata glanced back towards the armchair. She was at a bad angle to see them but she had a feeling about what they were. “Are those the same runes that you drew around the chair~?” As she looked back, she suddenly noticed a faint silvery-blue light coming from the trim around the doorway. “Are they on the door too~?”
“I- I am surprised you noticed…” Gráinne said with genuine shock in her voice.
“How could I not~? They’re literally glowing…” Mamata responded without looking away from the doorframe.
“Interesting… I wonder what part of it exactly you are able to see? Either way, that is a rare talent that you have!”
“What are they?” Mamata asked as she finally turned to look back at the much safer looking drawing that was shown on the laptop.
“An old family secret… one that cost us a large price…” Gráinne said with her voice becoming deadly serious, “If I tell you more, I need you to promise not to share with another soul! Not even Hunter. Well?”
“Is this related to changing my body?”
“...” Gráinne kept her silence and just stared at Mamata expectantly.
Her instincts were telling her that she didn’t want to know. Her aunt had said that transforming their body needed magic and that magic couldn’t be trusted. Whatever secret she was offering to share with her was almost certainly meant to dissuade Mamata from pursuing a magical solution… but maybe it wouldn’t…
“I promise~” She said while privately deciding that if this secret could actually help her, she would tell H! Maybe not right away. She would need to convince H to stop lying to herself first…
Gráinne let out a sigh tinged with disappointment, “Very well… These are magical runes designed to contain spiritual entities. Our family obtained them several generations ago, but I am the only one who regularly utilizes them. And there is a very good reason for that!”
She got up and grabbed something from the cabinet she kept all of her tea in. Unsurprisingly, it was a tin of tea, but one that was completely unlabeled. The only notable thing about it was that the tin was red.
“Have you had Vitali-tea before, Mamata?” Gráinne asked.
Mamata tried to think. She knew that she hadn’t had any herself, but when it came to certain things, she was able to peek a glimpse at H’s memories. Nothing seemed to be coming to her this time though. She shook her head.
“I’m not surprised. Hunter didn’t take well to it when I offered him a sip in the past.” Gráinne started steeping a new cup of tea with the Vitali-tea leaves.
She was taking her time and didn’t resume explaining whatever was the secret with these runes. It was making Mamata a bit anxious again.
When the tea finally finished steeping, Gráinne removed the bag of leaves and moved them to a different tin. She took a long sip of it before she started explaining, “As I said, these runes can restrain and contain spirits, but they will also work on some monsters and magical creatures as well. Activating these runes take a lot of energy though, and maintaining them takes even more.”
She let out a sigh and stared into her teacup as she continued, “The runes can be drawn with anything… ink, pencil, even lines drawn in sand with a stick… but to activate them requires magic power. There are alternatives though that can work. In our case, psychic energy can activate them, but maintaining them drains life-force.”
“What exactly are you saying~?”
“I’m saying… that if you actually tried to cross the magic circle while it was still active, and you weren’t in Hunter’s body when you did it… well, it might have cost me a couple days of my lifespan, or it might have cost me a couple of months… depending on how hard you tried to cross it.”
Mamata couldn’t say anything in response. She was horrified that just trying to walk past those runes could have been killing her aunt.
“Luckily, I discovered that Vitali-tea can usually recover the life-force that would have been lost.”
Usually…
Mamata’s flinch wasn’t unnoticed by Gráinne. “The reason why I’m telling you about this is because none of this was explained to our family when we were given these runes and told how to activate them. I won’t tell you what price we paid to obtain them, but it was steep. It was a steep price and the first time our family used them, it killed our patriarch!”
“Is… Is that why the family is cursed?” Mamata asked.
“...The curse is not related to the price we paid to obtain them.” The answer was given stiffly and Mamata didn’t know for sure that her aunt was lying, but she was positive that her aunt was still hiding something
“The reason why I am telling you this is because even if you found a magic user who could give you the magical transition that you’re looking for… and even if you were willing to pay whatever price they told you it would cost… you shouldn’t trust or believe them!”
The room settled into an uncomfortable silence as Mamata mulled this all over. She took a minute before she was ready to break that silence, but when she was, the first thing she asked was, “How much longer do you have to live? You said that you were the one who discovered that Vitali-tea helped… How many times did you use them before making that discovery?”
“Your voice, dear. You’re letting your femme voice-”
“I DON’T CARE IF MY VOICE IS SLIPPING!” Mamata shouted before feeling very silly for raising her voice. She didn’t care if she sounded like a man right now though.
“Mamata… I have more than enough time left.” Gráinne said in as soothing a voice as she could manage, “I daresay that I expect to still be alive by the time your kids start college, if you and Hunter ever decide to adopt.”
That gave her a little comfort but Mamata still couldn’t help but pout, “I don’t want to adopt, if there’s a possibility of being able to give birth.”
“You don’t have to adopt, if you don’t want to…” Her aunt said, “Not being a mother doesn’t make you any less of a woman, just like I’m not any less of a woman just because I never decided to adopt.”
The unspoken implication of that statement hung heavily in the air.
“Why don’t you want H knowing about this?” Mamata couldn’t help but ask.
“I’ve considered it…” Gráinne started, “but Hunter decided a long time ago that he… er, she didn’t want to be a psychic professionally. She doesn’t need to know about the more… stressful… parts of my job. It’s best to keep her away from the dangerous stuff.”
“How about you tell me what happened after Hunter told you to start controlling her body again?” Gráinne asked, offering her a change of subject. Mamata was more than happy to take her up on that offer.
“Right~ So H wasn’t too happy with how I had acted when she dived into Emmie’s head, for some reason~ I think she was a bit aware that she had awakened some stuff, but she was projecting that all onto me, as if it was my fault~ She tried to reprogram me to act more masculine~”
She really hadn’t done a good job at that. Even with Mamata barely cognizant at that time, she had managed to run H around in circles and make her sister fail to make any progress with the reprogramming.
“Although~ her idea of reprogramming me to be more masculine, was telling me to act how she should act, and talk the way she should talk~ …while she was falling asleep~”
It also hadn’t really been an order. H had phrased it as a request, almost begging Mamata, but she hadn’t commanded it.
“Somehow~ H wanting me to be able to act the way that she should, gave me the ability to be able to understand her on a deeper level~ I just kinda know the way that she thinks about things now~”
Mamata didn’t know how it worked, but H had inadvertently given her the insight to know how H would react in a given situation. She supposed that knowledge was necessary to understand how H would act, but there was more to it than that. Mamata knew that the way that H would act isn’t the way that she should act.
“The reprogramming that she tried to do is the reason why I know that H is really a girl inside~ She wants to be feminine but thinks that she isn’t allowed to be, so she acts the wrong way~” Mamata put as much conviction into her last statement that she could. “I know the way that she should act though~ which is why I’m going to help her be able to act that way herself~!”
Gráinne didn’t say anything right away and simply mulled over what Mamata had told her. When she finally spoke up again, she asked, “Why doesn’t Hunter think that she’s allowed to be feminine?”
Mamata knew the answer to that already but still let herself become immersed in H’s way of thinking. The answers to how H should act came to her easier when she tried thinking of them from H’s point of view.
“I can’t act like a girl because I’m a guy. I’m a guy… I’m not transgender. I know that I’m not transgender because trans people feel dysphoria and I… don’t…” Mamata had dropped the lilt that she usually spoke with and let her voice settle into the way H usually did. The words came out naturally, but she wasn’t entirely convinced that they were all true.
“She doesn’t think that she feels dysphoria, but I don’t believe that that is true~” Mamata said, returning to her usual voice. “She keeps reading the minds of people, so she keeps comparing herself to people with the worst dysphoria~ but just because her dysphoria isn’t as bad as it could be, it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t feel it~”
“I suppose that makes sense…” Gráinne said, “A twink wouldn’t have as much to feel dysphoric about as say… a himbo or bear would.”
“I’m~ not sure you should be using terms like that~”
Her aunt just brushed off Mamata’s faint protest as she said, “It’s fine. Hard not to pick up the lingo from some of the dorks that I associate with.”
“...”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Gráinne asked.
Mamata realized that her jaw dropped a bit, “I- I guess we just didn’t expect you to hang out with gay men or anything like that~”
Gráinne couldn’t help but let out a rough, bark-like laugh. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“...” Mamata didn’t have an answer for that.
“Wait, really?”
“Really what~?”
Gráinne let off another laugh and reached into one of the drawers of her desk, pulling out a scarf that was still in the process of being knit. It looked really pretty with the gradual gradient from orange to white, but Mamata wasn’t sure why her aunt had pulled it out. She let out a sigh before finally explaining, “I wasn’t aware that I was being subtle about being a lesbian, even if I never explicitly told Hunter…”
This news was extremely surprising. Mamata couldn’t believe that Gráinne thought that she wasn’t being subtle. It wasn’t like she… always had a ‘roommate’ around when taking H out for ice cream… and wasn’t shy about hugging them in public…
“Goddamn… How is H so oblivious~?” Mamata said as she facepalmed. It was so freakin’ obvious, especially when she remembered the one ‘roommate’ with short hair who wore sleeveless flannel shirts and loved to flex her arm muscles whenever Gráinne was looking. That relationship hadn’t lasted all that long, but H hadn’t even thought to question why her aunt went through ‘roommates’ so fast.
“She always has been..”
After that, the conversation between them began flowing a bit easier. Mamata supposed that was because Gráinne was finally believing her about H being trans. The hint of suspicion about everything Mamata said had faded and a lot of the tension that she had been feeling was gone too.
After telling their aunt about H’s failed attempt at programming her to act more masculine, Mamata began telling her about what happened afterward. They had fallen asleep early on Saturday, but a few hours later Mamata had woken up while H hadn’t.
“So after a bit of a nap, I had taken a shower and was looking for more conditioner under the sink when I found a makeup kit that was left for H by her last roommate~ I thought ‘Fuck it, why not?’ and started watching some tutorials videos~ I got it down pat on my first try~!” Mamata said smugly.
Gráinne gave her an only slightly patronizing smile, “Impressive. Few cisgender women are ever satisfied when they’re beginning to learn makeup. You didn’t even poke an eye while applying the eyeliner?”
“Nope~! Self-confidence does wonders for keeping steady hands~” The smug smile that Mamata had put on faltered a bit, only to be replaced with a genuine one. “I had just finished with the eye shadow when Emmie walked in on me in the bathroom~”
H had already started developing a crush on her even before Mamata had come around. She should have flirted with Emmie. Mamata had only done what H had wanted from her…
Mamata didn’t tell her aunt about what had happened next. That was something special just between her and Emmie. But with Emmie having walked in on her with a face full of makeup, there wasn’t much point in putting on a mask, her impression of H had already been shattered… with there being no reason to put on a facade of acting how H would have, Mamata allowed herself to just be herself.
Emmie saw her for who she was, even if she didn’t know her real identity. That was something Mamata would never let herself forget. After that moment, Mamata stopped doing things for H and did something that she had wanted.
“You shouldn’t try to play matchmaker!” Gráinne warned her, snapping her out of her daze of reminiscence, “Too many romcoms have already shown why it’s a bad idea.”
She seemed to read something in Mamata’s expression because she added, “I don’t know if having multiple personalities changes anything, but you should avoid love triangles. They never end well.”
“Do you think… one of us needs to give up on Emmie~?”
That thought wasn’t a pleasant one. Their body originally belonged to H and H had known Emmie since before Mamata even existed. Would she even have the confidence to compete against her if H insisted that Emmie should be hers?
“Maybe… maybe not…” Gráinne didn’t seem too sure about giving a firm answer. “Would seeing the two of them together make you jealous?”
Would Mamata be jealous? “I… I don’t think that I would be upset about them being together~? But I might get jealous if H made me always sit in the backseat for dates~”
“Then your problem might not be love triangles, but instead something else.”
Another thought came to Mamata, “If jealousy was a problem for H~ do you think it would be a problem if I kept Emmie for myself and H dated Eternity?”
Gráinne’s eyes turned sharp and the casual atmosphere between them disappeared in an instant. “Are you saying that there is something going on between my ne- niece and that boy that is squatting in your body?"
***
Eternity’s eyes snapped open and he found himself lying on the floor of the bridge once again. His head was thumping with a faint ache, but that seemed more like the result of hitting his head than whatever knocked him unconscious twice.
The fronting chair was empty again and the autopilot was nowhere to be seen this time.
He sat up straight and leaned his back against the engineering station that he had claimed as his own personal chair on the bridge since the beginning. Half of the instruments that he had been working on assembling there were scattered on the floor which was upsetting, but ultimately, no big deal.
The thing that was really upsetting was the captain's chair in the center of the room. It had been such a great design originally too! He had recreated a top of the line Virtuality headset to act as the bridge between their avatars in headspace and Hunter’s body. Now his masterpiece was gone and replaced with a boring thin white ring.
“Are you ready to join me now, Mr. Jones?” A voice echoed from the outside world, through the satellite. Eternity chose to ignore the old hag for now.
He stood up from the floor and grabbed a walkie-talkie from his table. As he spoke into it, his voice became the one which emanated from all of the hidden speakers throughout the Satellite of Love. “Mamata! Hunter! All hands to battle stations! A dreadful space monster has pierced through our shields! T minus 3 minutes until estimated hull rupture at this rate!”
“...”
“I need all hands on deck, now! Two minutes until catastrophic damage to the satellite!”
Why wasn’t anyone answering him!? Was he going to have to deal with the crone himself?
“One minute left! I need you guys here immediately or we’re all going to be jettisoned into the void!”
Eternity cursed under his breath as he shoved the rest of his gadgets to the floor to clear up full access to the engineering station. With the press of one of the buttons on his console, the lights throughout the satellite changed to a dim red and a warning klaxon began blaring.
With the press of a second button, a hologram of the satellite appeared above the center of the bridge. The dogbone shaped spacecraft was covered in pulsing red spots indicating the degree of damage that was being sustained.
“Marvin Jones… Eternity… how long are you going to keep me waiting?” The voice of the space monster cried out.
As the voice spoke, the entire satellite began shaking violently. Pipes ruptured, ejecting steam throughout the bridge which partially obscured the hologram that was showing new areas of damage.
Eternity slammed his fist onto another button as he shouted into the walkie-talkie, “Hunter! Forget about the bridge and get to the escape pods! Save yourself and when you get back to Earth, tell my wife I lo-”
“IMMINENT DESTRUCTION IN 5… 4… 2…”
Eternity’s plea was drowned out by the voice of the satellite’s computer. He stopped calling out to Hunter… that was a lost cause. As the countdown reached its final numbers, Eternity pulled a cross necklace out from underneath his spacesuit and held it tightly as he scrunched his eyes shut.
“3… 1… 0!”
The klaxon stopped sounding as the lights returned to normal and steam stopped venting into the bridge.
“Seriously!?” Eternity complained, “Neither of them showed up to play along?”
“Mr. Jones… How long do you intend to keep me waiting for you to occupy Hunter’s body?”
Eternity ignored the woman’s voice that was coming from reality. He hugged tightly onto his knees as he waited for someone to show up and give him some attention. It was too lonely being all alone like this. He thought things were going to be different from Mark’s head but he was being ignored again.
***
Eternity had checked the entire satellite but couldn’t find a hint of Hunter or Mamata’s whereabouts. He’d even put on a helmet and went out the airlock on the off chance that they both decided to go for a space walk. They weren’t in the air vents either… the only thing in there was the animatronic Xenomorph that he’d rigged to burst out the moment someone looked at the vents for too long.
Now he had returned back to the bridge while clutching onto his big shark plushie. He liked to hug Jawshy like this whenever he felt sad and lonely. It was the only plushie his dad had let him keep when he’d grown up, because sharks were awesome and dad liked watching Shark Week every year.
Sharks were admittedly pretty awesome, but unlike the real Jaws, Jawshy didn’t eat people. Jawshy only ate dino nuggets and only when mom wasn’t around to complain about him playing with his food.
Jawshy also gave great hugs. He’d thought that maybe Hunter was a better hugger than Jawshy, but clearly that was wrong! The best huggers were the ones that didn’t abandon you to play all by yourself. That meant that Hunter wasn’t the best hugger, and neither were Mikey or Jolene.
Hunter’s mean aunt was still trying to get his attention every few minutes and it was starting to get annoying. She was mean and scary, just like mom and dad were, so he’d tried ignoring her, but his patience was wearing thin.
“Jawshy! I need you to man the comms while I go planetside.” He said as he set his shark plushie down at the station that Mamata had been sitting at earlier. “Monitor the situation and if the situation goes southside, activate the teleporters immediately and get me out of there.”
He imagined that Jawshy would have nodded at him and pulled on some goggles if the shark was capable of moving. Eternity nodded back and pulled his own goggles over his eyes as he walked up to the viewing screen.
This was no time to be putting a dumb white ring onto his head. This was the time to be a man of action! He went over to one of the random computers and pretended to be inputting coordinates into a stargate, then took a deep breath as he walked through the screen and into Hunter’s body.
***
Eternity appeared in control of Hunter’s body once again, and just like last time he found that he was incapable of moving. The old hag had probably cast some kind of spell on them ever since Hunter had vanished.
Hunter’s body was comfortable enough, at least in comparison to Mark’s which had been way too big and bulky. Still though, it was too big for him and Eternity activated his power once again, smiling as he felt Hunter’s body shrink and transform into an exact likeness of his avatar. It wasn’t actually shrinking of course, but something about the way the illusion worked made it feel like he had. Especially since his eye-level had dropped. He didn’t know how it worked and he didn’t really care.
“You kept me waiting long enough.” The hag said from just out of sight. Eternity couldn’t turn his head to see where she was at, but the sound of a chair sliding across the cheap library carpet was enough to tell him that she was probably sitting at her desk, while he was likely back in the plush armchair on the other side of the office. “You’ve been awake for the last 20 minutes. Was there really a need to ignore me this whole time?”
If he had more control over this body, Eternity would have stuck his tongue out at her and blown a raspberry. Since he couldn’t do that all he could do was talk back to her. “Oh? Were you waiting for me? I thought that you were talking to someone else…”
The woman let out a sigh of exasperation before she finally stepped into view. Her eyes were angry but they also seemed tired. Eternity wondered how long it had been since she first invited Hunter into her office.
“I do not have the patience to deal with a brat for much longer, nor do I have the time after you’ve wasted so much of it, so let me tell you how this conversation is going to proceed…”
Her eyes were clearly tired and it seemed like she was hiding a hint of pain. Those furrowed eyes were trying to portray anger, but Eternity was smart enough to see past that and tell that there was more to that expression.
Her whole thing was just an act! Eternity was sure of that. She was going to threaten him again, but at the end of the day he was inside the body of her nephew and student. She wasn’t going to hurt him!
Wait… was Hunter her nephew or should she be her niece instead? Was there a gender neutral version for that? Whatever, niece it was!
“... If you don’t want me to just erase you from existence the same way I would a daemon, you’re going to answer all of my questions truthfully!”
“Yeah, yeah…” Eternity had a feeling that since she was in a rush, all he had to do was stall. “You say that you’ll erase me, but I don’t think you’re actually capable of doing it! I’m a psychic too, you know!?”
With that exclamation, he imagined a bubble of energy around his body to protect himself, just in case she actually tried making a move. He knew that it was just an illusion, but according to the witch herself, his illusions actually were solid. It should buy him at least a few moments of time in case she really did try to attack. And that time should be enough for him to try teleporting away… assuming he was as capable of doing that here as he had been when he was stuck in Mark’s head.
“Do you not actually care about returning to your real body?” The hag asked him, incredulously.
“Of course I do…” Of course he did! Why wouldn’t he want to be back in his own body!? His body was awesome… at least he assumed that it was. He was a handsome guy as an avatar, so he was almost certain that his real body was just as handsome. He probably had to beat the ladies off with a stick due to how handsome he probably was!
“Then just answer my questions, so we can find out where your real body is!”
Wait, was that what this was all about? He thought that she was going to interrogate him or something, but if she was just trying to help, then of course he’d cooperate!
She probably realized how hot he was and now the sexy older librarian wanted to find the real deal. Not that he was into older ladies. Cute girls like Hunter were really more his type! Besides, this woman had already tied him up in bondage twice already and he wasn’t anybody’s sub. Real men were dominant in the bedroom, so unfortunately it would never work out between the two of them. Still, he wouldn’t turn down her offer of free help!
“Great! Plug your computer into the internet and I’ll help you find it!” He said confidently. Hunter had already told him about how she was trying to do an internet search to find him, so between her, him, and the old woman, it shouldn’t be anything hard to accomplish.
“...”
She was giving him a puzzled expression. Why was that? Oh, duh! The answer was obvious and came to him soon enough. Not everyone had access to the internet! Mark was lucky enough to have broadband at the apartment and it was even on a wireless connection, but at an old library like this, this woman probably had to wait for the phone lines to clear up before she could connect to their modem.
Eternity couldn’t help but make a screeching, cracking noise. It was always fun to do that whenever they connected to the dial-up. Even though she hadn’t connected it yet, he was excited for the moment that she would.
“What are you doing?” She asked him.
“Dial-up sounds…” He responded.
“Why?”
“Cuz it’s fun! Duh!” Women asked the most obvious questions sometimes…
She was getting exasperated though. Her constant sighing soon began giving it away. He wasn’t one to miss a hint like that so Eternity figured that he should probably stop making the funny noises before she threw a shoe at him or something.
“Dial-up…” She had a thoughtful expression going on, “How old are you exactly?”
Easy one! “No idea!”
If he had to guess, he was probably in his 20s. He had gone to college for sure, but whatever it was that he had studied, he didn’t remember. There had been drinking though! Drinking and drugs and sex… probably… At the very least he had made out with a few girls and even a couple of guys too.
He could very distinctly remember a girl’s face from one of those occasions, only inches from his own. She had the plumpest lips that he had ever seen and they were covered in a thick layer of glossy scarlet red lipstick… god, Hunter would look phenomenal in that shade.
Another sigh, “What year were you born?”
Another one that Eternity knew the answer to! “I don’t know!” The year started with a 19 or 20, at least…
“How long were you living in Emmie’s head?”
“Who?”
“Sorry… How long were you living inside the head of Mark Crawford?”
Damn… this was one that he didn’t know! If he could actually move, he could have tried counting on his fingers, but since that wasn’t an option, he’d have to guess. “At least a year, I think?”
He had no idea if that number was accurate or not. He had tried to keep a tally of days on one of the walls of his lair, back in Mark’s head, but he had forgotten to keep doing it after a couple of weeks.
“Is Marvin Jones your real name?”
“That’s what The Admin told me…” He honestly had no idea where that name had come from, but it had to have come from somewhere. Chances were good that it came from his parents though. As far as he could remember, Admin was the first one who had started calling him that, but he hated that name. “I prefer to go by Eternity!”
“Why do you use the name Eternity?”
“Cuz it’s cooler than Marvin and I don’t want a lame name like that!” Seriously… Who wanted to go by a boring name like that?
He had originally thought of going by something vague like ‘The Stranger’ or ‘The Esper’... something like the heroes in cowboy movies tended to go with. The Man Without A Name Trope was just too cool, but after realizing that ‘The Admin’ had beaten him to the punch, he went for something else. Eternity made him sound like a demi-god or something, and that was cool too!
The crone’s sighs were coming out more frequently now. That probably wasn’t a good sign. What did she even have to get upset about? He was already answering all of her questions.
“What is the last thing that you remember before you found yourself in Mark’s head?”
That was one that he might be able to answer! Eternity didn’t say anything right away and tried to search through his memories. There wasn’t much there though and they were mostly fragments, but one of them stood out a bit more than the rest. “I think I had been watching Videodrome when I was 18?”
Wait… he knew that he had to have memories that were more recent than that! He had lost his virginity in college, so that had clearly happened after he was 18. That experience was too fuzzy to recall the details of though. He had a feeling that the whole thing had gone poorly, but he wasn’t sure what exactly had been bad about that memory…
“Any other memories of just before entering Mark’s head? Do you remember where you were living or if you went to school or had a job?”
He tried searching his memories even harder. Most of what he could remember was from early childhood, but there were only some occasional memories from later than that and those were all much less vivid to him.
“I think I remember throwing up in a toilet in slow motion. I think I might have gotten food poisoning from a pizza that tasted a little too left. Everything had these funny afterimages and Satan was waiting for me to show up to watch Game of Thrones, but I couldn’t keep throwing up…”
That might have been the memory of some kind of bad drug trip? He was probably a partier, he reckoned. A frat guy who drank, listened to rock n’roll, and got laid all the time. There weren’t any solid memories of doing that, but it seemed likely.
“Are you punking me!?” The damn crone suddenly shouted at him.
Eternity shrunk inward. There was suddenly so much anger in those eyes and he just knew that if he didn’t appease her, she was going to break one of his toys, or something worse. “I’m not! I’m not messing with you! That’s what I remember!”
“What is pizza tasting ‘left’ supposed to even mean?”
Why would that make her angry? “It means that it tasted like left…”
“Like it was ‘left’ out for too long and gone bad?” She seemed genuinely confused.
“No. I mean that it tasted like left… you know, the opposite of right.”
“So it tasted wrong?”
“No!” Why wasn’t she understanding something so simple? It tasted like the direction left. “Goddamnit! How do you not understand flavors? Do you not know how to cook!?”
“No, I do not cook…” She was getting upset, but she deserved to get upset if she was going to be so dumb.
“What kind of woman doesn’t know how to cook?” Eternity asked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Women were supposed to just know how to cook right. It was like an innate ability or something, wasn’t it?
“I don’t need to hear anymore toxic masculinity from you! You will drop that attitude right now if you expect to get any help from me!”
Eternity should have been intimidated by the old crone but what she said caught his attention instead, “Wait!? Men are toxic!? Like poison dart frogs!?” Those things were so freaking cute! All colorful and little and everything. It was a shame that touching them was enough to kill a person. “Ribbit! Ribbit!”
“STOP THAT!” Why was this woman getting so impatient?
“No! Women belong pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen, so a woman who can’t cook is clearly too dumb to know anything about frogs.” Hunter’s aunt was clearly unable to help Eternity. He felt dumb for hoping that she could.
A loud slamming sound caught Eternity’s attention, but that woman was out of view at the moment, so he didn’t know what that was.
“Is that where you think Hunter belongs?” He couldn’t see her, but he could imagine that Gráinne was giving him some sort of death stare.
“Of course not! Hunter’s too cool for-” Eternity’s mind suddenly froze.
Hunter’s time would clearly have been better spent giving him hugs or playing games together, so he wouldn’t want her to be spending all her time in the kitchen, but a horrifying realization suddenly came to him. Last night… they had been so close to kissing!
“Oh my god! I almost got Hunter pregnant last night!”
“WHAT!?”
“If Mamata hadn’t barged in, we would have kissed and she would have gotten pregnant!”
No! No, no, no! He couldn’t risk letting Hunter get pregnant! They wouldn’t be able to play together any more if he did.
“...what?” Eternity could hear the deadpan in the woman’s voice.
If Hunter got knocked up, would that make Hunter’s aunt his aunt too? He should probably be nicer to her in case he couldn’t control himself in the future. God, he was such an animal, wasn’t he!?
“I almost kissed her! We didn’t even use any protection! I don’t even know what kind of protection you’re supposed to use… I’m too young to be a daddy!”
The pressure that had been holding his body motionless suddenly lifted and Eternity was able to turn his head just in time to see Gráinne place a hand on his shoulder. It had passed through his shield bubble as if the thing hadn’t even existed. Maybe his illusions weren’t as solid as he thought?
“How old are you exactly, Eternity?”
“I- I don’t know…”
“Do you even know about the birds and the bees?” There was an odd compassion in that old hag’s voice for some reason. Almost like she wasn’t bothered that he was ‘this close’ to making her a great-great-aunt.
“Of course I know about birds and bees… Birds eat worms and bees pollinate flowers…”
“...I’m talking about how babies are made…”
“Oh! Yeah, I know about that! After a girl kisses a boy and gets pregnant, the stork brings them a baby.” Eternity knew all about this kind of stuff. What kind of man would he be if he didn’t know about that? “I don’t know how bees are involved though… A bee isn’t big enough to carry a baby…”
***
“Hunter, you can come back in now…” A surprisingly tired voice said as Grainne appeared in the children’s section of the library next to Mark. “You might as well come with me as well Mr. Crawford.”
It was about time! Hunter didn’t know why his aunt’s conversations with Mamata and Eternity had taken so long, but now that she was finally done she hopefully had some ideas about what to do with them.
So Eternity is a kid somehow. Can't say I'm surprised.
And a 90's kid to boot
Oh boy. Or should I say girl? Eternity is some egg for sure. And I wouldn't be surprised if he were an another Hunter alter. Maybe he got stuck there somehow when Hunter first touched Emmie's mind?
I don’t like that this body will never be able to carry a child~”
Me too Mamata, me too ;~; i'd love nothing more than to be able to carry my own child... Too bad that's nigh impossible... Blegh, hopefully you'll be able to... Magic is powerful shit...
The fronting chair was empty again and the autopilot was nowhere to be seen this time.
Her name is Mamata
Eternity chose to ignore the old hag for now.
Oh boy here we go...
Women were supposed to just know how to cook right. It was like an innate ability or something, wasn’t it?
This... Uuuugh this sexist horrible child i swear, H does not deserve you, nor should she ever get with you, you toxic f*ing child...
No! Women belong pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen, so a woman who can’t cook is clearly too dumb to know anything about frogs.
Madame Grainne, send him to the principals office and have him expelled!
Seriously though, seems like Eternity is something of a psychic parasite that has been jumping from body to body for over... What, probably 40 plus years? Definitely picking up some god aweful traits while doing so too... They're a kid who needs to be taught proper manners and proper social etiquette... I don't know where they should be ending up but i dont think it should be anywhere near poor H and Mamata...
I’m like 90% sure that Eternity is the part of Mark that had to deal with their shitty ‘Uncle Marvin’ who may or may not have been the Lich.
Thanks for the chapter!?
Wow, Eternity is more messed up than I realized, though perhaps not in the way I had previously thought….