"Tegan you're limping again," she said with a disapproving frown.

I sighed as I slipped into the booth across from her, "Hi mom. Nice to see you too."

She ignored the sarcastic tone in my voice and said "Tell me the truth, is it getting worse?"

"No mom," I sighed again. "Its no worse, and it's no better. It's just sore again today."

It was the first of October. Me and mom still met for lunch on a regular basis, but lately it started to feel like a chore. She was always disappointed, always had something to complain about or some unkind observations to make.

I knew it was my own fault. If I was still in college, or literally doing anything worthwhile with my life she'd probably be a lot nicer. Instead it was like that sense of disappointment permeated everything, and tainted all our conversations, all our time together.

"You didn't used to limp so much," she stated. "I think it's getting worse. And you still won't consider seeing a doctor?"

"Mom we've talked about this a dozen times," I said quietly. "I can't go to human doctors. And I went to a fae doctor once, it cost me five thousand dollars for a thirty minute consult. And all he did was tell me to keep doing what I was already doing."

The whole shadow-economy thing was crazy expensive. I guess I understood, like there weren't that many people in the fae community so you didn't have a lot of options. So they could pretty much name their price and you were stuck with it. Though if you had a source of fae currency it wasn't quite as bad as it sounded.

The gold coins Maeve sent me were worth about twenty-five-hundred dollars apiece here. And the shadow-economy took fae coin just as readily as they did human cash. So any time I needed to deal with them, I just paid in gold coins. Seeing that stupid doctor cost me two coins. I got my name and ID all changed 'legally', or at least I had the government database records updated so the old me was completely deleted and the new me was officially and legally recognized. That cost me five coins.

Actually changing fae gold to human currency was expensive though. You had to go through shadow-economy money-changers, and if you thought human banks had outrageous fees... Let's just say they've got nothing on fae bankers. I did it once, I converted a huge load of Maeve's gold into human money. I actually wound up with a few million dollars after that.

Half of it went into long-term investments, so in fifty or a hundred years I'd have some serious lucre saved up. A chunk of it went into buying my house and property. And the rest I kept in cash and in a bank account, so I had money to use when dealing with the humans. And of course I kept a cache of gold coins for dealing with the fae.

Mom was still frowning at me, "Something should be done about that. We have free health-care in this country. It's not right that some charlatan can go around charging exorbitant fees just because you're different."

I rolled my eyes and said softly "Mom I don't think the government is going to recognize fae as part of the population any time soon. And it's fine, don't worry about it. I get healing treatments from Kelly, and Keira's learned to do it too. And if I really needed it, I can go visit Maeve. She has the best healer in Otherworld working for her, I get my free healthcare over there."

"What if Kelly and Keira aren't around? You still need regular treatments, don't you?"

I replied quietly, "I can do it myself if I have to."

Technically you can't heal yourself. It's because of how healing magic interacts with your aura, when you're casting a healing spell your body can't receive healing magic. One of the first things I did with my free time was figure out a way around that limitation. The solution was easy, just arrange it so there was a delay in between casting the spell and receiving the magic.

Everyone knew crystals could store raw magical energy. It was less well known that they could also hold finished spells. Normally you needed rare and expensive gems if you wanted to store a spell for any length of time, but in this case my requirements weren't long-term so quartz was good enough.

It cost me three gold coins but I had a chunk of rose quartz cut and polished to some very exacting specifications and mounted in a pretty silver setting. There was a length of black nylon cord attached, and most of the time I wore it around my neck where it was just a simple but pretty piece of jewelry.

But if both Kelly and Keira were away and I needed healing, I could cast the spell into my custom-made crystal necklace. Then press the crystal against my leg and a couple seconds later the magic would come back out. Presto, I was good for another forty-eight hours.

I still liked it better when Kelly did it though. It was something we shared together, a kind of private and personal ritual for the two of us. Though we both trusted Keira enough that she'd done it a few times too.

The waitress finally came by to get our orders, and I hoped mom would let the subject drop after that. Mom ordered a burger and a salad. I got a pasta dish off the kid's menu.

As soon as the waitress was gone though, mom was back on it. "So why are you limping today? If it's not getting any worse?"

"It's cold out, the weather makes it hurt more." I sighed. "And I've been trying to exercise. Kelly says if I use it more, it'll help the healing. So I've started going on walks."

Mom looked conflicted about that. Like she wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or supportive.

After a few moments she asked, "Is it helping? It can't be helping if it's making you hurt more."

I shrugged, "It's only been a couple weeks mom. I figure, give it a month or two." In a half-whisper I reminded her "Everything's going to be slower with me, mom. It just takes longer to find out what works and what doesn't."

She continued to frown for a while longer, before finally letting the subject go. For now.

Instead she had another way to get under my skin. "Are you still planning to come home for thanksgiving? And you're still bringing your two girlfriends?"

I closed my eyes and took a deep slow breath. "Mom, how many times have I asked you not to say that? Kelly is my girlfriend. Keira and I are just friends. She's Kelly's sister, she's not my girlfriend."

"Uh-huh," she stated. "You're all still living together. How do you even know which one's which? For all you know they're taking turns with you."

I took another deep calming breath. "Mom, just because they look the same doesn't mean they're interchangeable. They're different people, and I can tell them apart." I sighed, "I know you know that. And yes, the three of us are planning to come for thanksgiving. But if you call them both my girlfriends, or you try to imply Keira and I are sleeping together, it'll probably be the last time we visit."

She gave me a hard stare. I knew my threat wouldn't go over well, but I had to be firm. I was already feeling anxious about my relationship with Kelly, the last thing I needed was my mom hinting that I was cheating on my girlfriend with her sister.

Mom hadn't always been like this. She used to be a lot more understanding, a lot more caring. A lot nicer. I don't even think she realized how much of a bitch she could be nowadays, but I knew what it was. All she saw when she looked at me was the failure. The drop-out. The girl who'd got all sorts of wonderful gifts then squandered them all.

I sometimes wondered if she might even be jealous. I knew my seemingly-endless youth was something she probably envied. Either way though, I was sure she was angry with me for wasting all the good-fortune I'd received.

We were both quiet again as the waitress delivered our lunches. Then happily we stayed quiet for a while longer as we both started eating. The food was just ok. I was used to human food of course, but this wasn't even that good for Earth fare.

It was a trade-off. The kids menu was always limited and the options weren't great, but I still sort of resented having to pay full price for a meal I could never finish. Even though I could easily afford it, it was just the principle of the thing. Mom seemed to be enjoying her burger, so at least there was that.

Eventually as we both started to fill up, the conversation resumed.

She had a sip of her coffee and asked, "Any thoughts on going back to college? Or finding a job? Or finding anything to do with yourself?"

I nodded, "Yeah, actually. When me and Kelly and Keira are over there at the end of the month for Samhain, I'm going to talk with Maeve. I've decided I want to learn some skills that'll be useful over there. She's been on me for a few years about it, so I'm going to see about taking her up on it."

That caught her off-guard, and she frowned. "What sorts of skills?"

"Sword fighting, using a longbow, horseback riding. And I want to learn more about politics, and history too."

I probably shouldn't have told her that stuff, but honestly I just wanted to see how she'd react. After bugging me for ages to get off my arse and try doing something with my life, I was curious to see how she'd respond if I told her I'd decided to do something, but that something didn't involve Earth.

Sure enough it seemed to trip her up. She just stared at me for a minute or so, looking like she didn't know how to respond.

Finally she found her voice, "Does that mean you're going to move away? You're going to live there?"

"No mom," I shook my head. "Not yet at least. Kelly's got two more years of University and I'm not going anywhere without her. But I'm going to discuss it with Maeve and see what she says. I mean, stuff like history and maybe politics, I could probably learn from books? Maybe I'll start doing like a distance-learning thing, bring books back home to study. Honestly I have no idea. But you asked if there was anything I wanted to do. That's what I want to do."

"But... Eventually you'll be moving there?" she asked. Now she sounded sad.

I suppressed a sigh, "Eventually, yes. But don't worry mom. Remember, 'eventually' for me could be like, fifty or a hundred years away. It's not likely to happen soon enough to affect you or dad in any way."

And just like that, the sadness was replaced with more attitude.

"I don't know how you can treat that subject so lightly, Tegan." She gave me another disapproving frown. "It's not the sort of thing you should be joking about. Especially not with your parents."

This time I didn't bother trying to suppress the sigh. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, then asked in a whisper "Mom, be honest with me. Are you jealous? Envious? What if you had the option for a do-over, the chance to be young again. Would you take it?"

She scowled as she replied in a low voice, "That's an awful thing to tease people about."

"I'm not teasing," I replied quietly.

My eyes were on hers and I watched her expression closely as I stated quietly, "I could do it. I have the magic, I know the spells. I could make you young, any age you wanted. I could change anything else you wanted too for that matter. And I could get you new legal ID, I know who to talk to. It'd cost me ten or fifteen thousand but I could get you a new birth certificate, drivers license, health card, the works. I'd probably get a discount if I did both you and dad together. But I'm not teasing. You'd have to start over. New name, new life, move somewhere else. It's doable though."

As I spoke her expression shifted. Her eyes widened and her face paled slightly, her scowl faded into a look of surprise, and perhaps even a little fear.

After a few seconds I added, "Think it over. Or if you're seriously considering it, talk it over with dad. Maybe we can discuss it more when I'm there for thanksgiving."

At a normal volume I said, "Anyways I'd better get going. Nice to see you again mom. I'll call over the weekend, and if we don't meet up next week I'll see you the following Monday for thanksgiving."

I left a fifty-dollar bill on the table to cover our meals, then slipped out of the booth and limped away as I pulled on my jacket.

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