“We’ve made a lot of progress, Tanya.” Mom said cheerfully. “We’re almost done.”
Tanya grabbed another few bits of floating memory. “First day of school…” She tossed it back into the air, frowning. The ‘plan’ for her new mind had all of the past life memories sequestered in the pyramid, but the third lift memories were to construct themselves around the pyramid once it was sealed. This morning, they had to actively prevent them from doing just that, in fact. They just wanted to make extra sure they got it all. “Getting that stupid hat…” Tossed. “The apple juice incident…” One of the more unfortunate parts of memory retention is that embarrassing incidents tended to stick around, and as a result, an uncomfortably large fraction of the memories she had to keep tossing back were the times she had ended up ‘having an accident’, as that’s embarrassing no matter how old you are. “Do you think we should just make a room in the pyramid for embarrassing memories that I would have forgotten if I was an actual child?” While the level of mortification she felt about the memories had much diminished from exposure, having to briefly experience the memory, echoes of emotion included, was getting very annoying.
Mom paused at the suggestion. That was good, it meant that she thought that Tanya had made a good point that was worth considering, rather than repeating an old one that had already been rejected. “I think… that normally they should already be gone.” She said. “So when we’re finished, they’ll either dissolve normally, or do the opposite and become more influential in your mind because of how many times you’ve reviewed them.”
“...What would that even do?” Tanya asked.
Mom took a moment to think her answer through. “...you don’t want to know.” She eventually said. That meant it was within shouting distance of the topic of sex. Ew.
“Solutions?” Tanya asked.
“We can sequester them for now.” Mom said. “We definitely shouldn’t put it inside the pyramid, but nudging the external mindscape to let you forget embarrassing moments as it forms shouldn’t cause any big changes.”
“Finally.” Tanya said, creating a footlocker. She nabbed more floating memories. “First time seeing an American grocery store…” She tossed that one back to the pool. “The road trip to the Motherlobe…” Into the locker. Ah. “Here’s one.” She unfolded the memory and let it play.
It was the first time she had gotten drunk. The cosplay social club at Todai did have pretty good parties, as it turned out.
“Hey Kagami, I finally convinced Deguchiya to come.” Were the first words out of Daikoku’s mouth when they showed up, the girl in question gaping as her neck craned up. “I told you he was huge, didn’t I?”
Back then, Tanya was pretty proud of their physique, honed through participation in several different sports, so she could remember the exact thought that went through their head here: “You should flex.” Normally, this thought would be shot down with ‘no, that’’ll make you look arrogant and stupid’. But this was Tenya newly lubricated with a saucer of sake, amplified by the placebo effect to act much drunker than he actually was.
Tenya’s muscles strained the T-shirt that he had arrived to the party with as he posed. Daikoku deliberately told him to change into something more casual than his ‘going to class’ button-up shirt and slacks. Instead of the expected sneers and envious glares, as he would have received from his more academic peers, several of the girls at the party actually cat-called and wolf-whistled at him.
This was where it started, his descent into complacency: With positive reinforcement. The memory advanced to a different party with the same people, although she couldn’t quite recall how much time passed between them. “This land is made… of Love and Peace!” Tenya declared, wearing the blonde wig, sunglasses, and giant red trenchcoat while crossing his held out fingers. The rest of the party cheered at Tenya’s impression.
It flashed through a few other scenes with the cosplay club, none of which included sobriety. Once the memory concluded, Tanya rubbed her chin. “In hindsight… Loliruca, Hatsume, and Yaoyorozu were all flirting with me.” She concluded.
Mom spun her head towards Tanya, her hair whipping around from the speed. “You mean you didn’t know?” She asked, incredulous. “I could maybe see you missing some of those signals, but Hatsume was all over you. You couldn’t possibly think that such extensive measuring sessions are normal.”
“Never even crossed my mind.” Tanya admitted. “Romance was always something that was pushed to later. Something that I’d need to do, but never something that seemed important to do right now.” She did recall that one of her work friends complained that his mother was bugging him about relationships, but… hm. When was the last time she communicated with her mother before the train? She can’t remember. There aren’t that many emotionally significant past memories left before they’re done…
Mom hummed thoughtfully instead of elaborating. “...is there anything else to say about the memory?” She asked.
“Not really.” Tanya said dismissively. “It’s just me partying it up in the cosplay club. It happened, I enjoyed myself at the time. The results of this was something that I, in the end, regretted, but it was also probably the first time in my first life that I was happy. Drunk, but happy.” Back when she was first remembering her first life again, she remembered the bad stuff far before the good stuff. “There was a reason I hated Being X so much. I didn’t enjoy my first life as much as I should have, but on the balance, I was happy before I died. Most of that was because alcohol was the only thing holding my crippling anxiety at bay, and because I thought I understood people a lot better than I did, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t happy with my lot.” There was a reason why ‘Ignorance was bliss’ was considered a truism. People who didn’t understand what they were missing could enjoy what they could, with only truly atrocious conditions preventing one from being satisfied with them, assuming ignorance of anything better. It was the kind of thing that Being X’s pawns relied on, offering pleasant lies to help the downtrodden thrive in suffering.
“Do you miss it?” Mom coaxed, sticking to simple questions as usual.
“Yes and no.” Tanya hedged. “I miss… specific things. Games I played, food I enjoyed. Being tall.” She did find out about a restaurant that served wagyu beef in Boston from Grand Head Zanotto, just incidentally, but her allowance just wasn’t large enough to spend over one hundred dollars on a single meal. That’ll have to wait several years. She’d also need a suit. “At times, I miss some of the friends I’ve had. But the thing about gaming friends is that it’s not that hard to make more, you just need to learn whatever’s popular at the time.” She’d go so far as to say that their closest friends were the ones they played with over VASSAL, the online wargaming platform, despite only rarely meeting them in person. That was part of the appeal, honestly. Nothing she said to them would impact her reputation at work. “But that life as a whole? No. My memory of it has been tainted, I wouldn’t go back if I could.” Nor the second. Starting the third life over… she would consider it.
“We’ll see if we can’t bring some of that back to you.” Mom said, smiling. “Perhaps a vacation in Japan?” She started to roll up the memory into a memento to store in the memory tomb.
“That does sound nice.” Tanya admitted. “I’d like to see the cherry blossoms bloom again, enjoy the festival.” In fact… Tanya plucked a memory from the air as it spun around her. “Ah, here’s a good memory of that festival.” She let it expand, showing the cherry blossoms in full bloom as they walked among their high school friends.
After a few minutes, Mom coughed. “You do realize you were on a date, right?” She asked.
Tanya’s head bowed as she realized what she had missed. “I know now, yes.” She was utterly blind. How could she have missed those pursed lips?
“...I have a theory.” Mom said. “I think… that you may have been gay.”
“Impossible.” Tanya insisted.
“Oh? What makes you say that?” Mom asked.
“If I was a homosexual, there would have been more than a single emotional memory that featured a public bathhouse.” Even that one wasn’t even related to seeing naked men. It was his last memory of spending time with his paternal grandfather, and included far more than the bathhouse scene.
“...Point.” Mom said, conceding the small argument. “I suppose you could just be asexual. That exists in the literature… Kinsey put ‘X’ on her scale for a reason…” It was a little disheartening, to hear Mom so hesitant to accept something like this, but Mom seemed to realize the absurdity and shook her head. “Well, if you start having funny feelings about boys or girls, I’ll be here to help you sort through them. If not? We won’t need to speak any more on the subject.” Something about how she said that… this was not the end of things, she knows it.
They folded up the pleasant memory, putting it with the rest. The next one was… a circus memory. She immediately threw it far away. Mom frowned at the act, but respected what little privacy Tanya demanded and refrained from asking about it. It wouldn’t be the first time Tanya had thrown even that particular memory back into the crowd without a word.
“I think I’m ready for a break.” Tanya said, with Mom just nodding and taking out her smelling salts.
Therapy was exhausting.
----------------
“So… it’s official now.” Mary said awkwardly as they both sat on the bed. “My name’s Mary, for real.” It was late at night, and they would normally be going to bed. But Mom had given them permission to stay up late tonight, so Tanya was somewhat obligated to keep Mary company for a little bit. It was a few days after Tanya’s clean bill of health, both physical and mental. She still needed to use psychic reinforcement to allow her pitiful muscles to get through the day, but it was once more as easy as breathing to do so. Addressing that issue is an ongoing project.
Tanya hummed in agreement. “Just don’t assume that you’ll be able to do that in every life, if you end up having to live more than the two.” Tanya warned.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Mary paled. “Do… you think that will happen? I mean, God granting me a second chance at life is pretty cool, but…”
“It depends.” Tanya conceded. “I’m hardly an expert on reincarnation, despite my experiences.” Why did she continually reincarnate without Being X intervening to allow it? Did he just… make her eternally reincarnate without thinking that he’d lose track of her? If one assumes there’s some semi-automated process that wipes souls clean between incarnations, but he just put in a block that prevented her from going through it… “I’m certainly assuming that I’ll have more lives after this one. Whether or not he did the same thing to you? There’s certainly a reason for him to make sure you reincarnate as often as I do, at least. It means I can’t kill myself to escape you and him.” Not that she would ever trust that to work even if it looked like an appealing path for whatever reason, but it is technically an option.
“You mean… I’ll be following you forever?” Mary said, utterly horrified.
“Not necessarily.” Tanya said. “It all depends on exactly what he did to you to enable this in the first place.” She didn’t know nearly enough about reincarnation to be able to rule out anything. Constructing logic that would permit anything in particular, on the other hand? Easy. “But I consider it likely that you’ll have more lives than just the two, yes.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to pray to God with me? So that he can stop this?” Mary asked.
Tanya snorted. “Even if I thought it would work, which I don’t, “ Mary flinched at the assertion, Tanya sternly glaring at the girl for her suggestion. “He can tell when you’re being insincere. I’ve tried to lie my way through his temper tantrums before, but it doesn't work.” There was that time shortly after she killed Mary…
“That’s not what I meant…” Mary whined.
Tanya softened her expression. “I spent nearly ten years frothing mad with hate and rage for the man, stoking that anger was the only thing keeping me going, in that church orphanage and in officer’s school.” She explained. “That’s before he decided to resort to mental corruption from the type 95.” Even now, the echoes of that anger still burned in Tanya’s throat, still fresh enough after going over every interaction with a fine toothed comb. Still… “Ask me again in thirty years.” She was still pretty confident that she’d be willing to go through at least one more life before she’d consider begging Being X for help, but a lot can happen in that much time.
“Okay.” Mary said, defeated. “I can understand that, at least a little.” She shifted uncomfortably, as she tended to do when she was reminded that her killer was right beside her.
Tanya pulled the six year old girl into a hug, gently rubbing her back as the action prompted Mary to let the tears burst forth. “I’m sorry.” Tanya said quietly. “I shouldn’t have brought it up on such a happy day.”
“Can God even hear me?” Mary asked, sobbing. “Am I forever beyond his reach?”
Tanya could only hope. “I don’t know.” She said instead. “I like to think that, for the same reason that your soul could hunt down mine, that you could, if you tried, seek out whoever you wish.” She just made that up, but upon review, it still made sense. “So enjoy your second life, like I never could. Grow up, become someone you can be proud of. Then, on your deathbed, pray with all of your heart. If he can’t hear you, just get closer.”
Mary sniffled. “You’re right.” She whispered, “I just need to have faith.” Tanya wondered how Being X would take Mary completely missing the point of her quest to instead enjoy some personal growth. Every piece of fiction she had ever seen would indicate that it was the true lesson, to learn to let go of vengeful thoughts. But Tanya knew Being X better than that. She thought so, at least.
Then again, didn’t he mention something about enlightenment in that first exchange? It’s not really important. What is important is the death grip Mary now had on Tanya’s torso. “What would you like to do before bed?” Tanya asked.
Mary had to think about her answer. After a minute or so of silence, she started to speak: “So… this is basically a sleepover, right?” Tanya hummed in agreement. “So… do you have any makeup?”
Tanya’s left eye twitched. She did, actually. While she was now aware of how her experiences have soured her on the concept, she also had enough logical reasons to let the emotional reaction have its way. “I have some nail polish.” She counter-offered. It was gifted by Mom a little over a year ago… is fifteen months enough time for it to go bad? She used it just once…
Mary’s hug finally loosened. “I’d love to paint your nails.” She declared.
That was only the start of things. Mom caught wind of the activity and had gleefully joined in, bringing in hair styling supplies when the nail painting was completed. Fortunately, the nails were the only thing that Tanya had to personally experience, with Mom and Mary being the subject of the other beautifying treatments. Well, also the face mask. Skin care was important, as Mom was quick to remind her.
“Why the cucumber slices, though?” Tanya asked as she laid down on the floor along with the rest of her family. Apparently, TV was wrong (big surprise): face masks were only used for about twenty minutes at a time, unless you had special overnight masks. Tanya’s sleeping circumstances preclude using those.
“They help reduce puffiness in your eyes. Excellent if you’ve had a good cry.” Mom said confidently, pointedly not directing anything at Mary’s reddened eyes. Thinking about it, that did make sense, they were cool and mostly made of water, so they’re like tiny cold compresses. They did feel slightly soothing… How much of that is placebo Tanya wasn’t sure, but thinking too much about it diminishes the potency of it, so Tanya put it out of her mind.
The masks were removed after light conversation, Mary looking much more put together after the treatment was concluded, especially after the curlers were also removed. “Wow!” Mary said after looking in the mirror. “I look great!” She played with her now curlier hair, grinning widely.
“You are very adorable, Mary.” Mom complimented. “Don’t you agree, Tanya?”
“Very cute.” Tanya agreed honestly. “She just needs a sparkly outfit and a talking animal, and she’ll be ready to lead her own maho shojo anime.” She already has phenomenal magical power, after all.
Mary looked at Tanya in confusion. “...What’s that?”
Ah, she shouldn’t have said that out loud. “Something from my first life.” Tanya deflected. “Cute enough for television, is what I meant.”
“You think so?” Mary asked excitedly. She looked at herself in the mirror some more, probably imagining herself in one of those dresses celebrities wear on the red carpet. Wait, that was definitely what she was imagining. Not constantly shutting out her telepathy was still a little weird sometimes, now that she has a handle on tolerating the extra input. Mostly. There was a reason she liked sleeping in psycho-isolation, after all.
“Well, it’s been fun,” Mom began, literally radiating her sincerity when she said it. Having a daughter that enjoyed feminine things was good for her. “But two hours past bedtime is late enough.”
Tanya yawned, the mention of the time reminding her that she was up significantly later than normal. Normal bed time was nine in the evening, and given that Tanya had been pretending to be actually twelve just a few months ago, that circadian rhythm had been formed as a habit years back. “Good night, Mom. I love you.” Tanya said sleepily as she went into her room to check her psychoisolation bed’s air cycler for the night.
“I love you both. Goodnight!” Mom said cheerily as she started to clean up the impromptu beauty salon.
Once inside the room, Mary stared at Tanya as she did her routine check. “...is that really comfortable?” She asked.
“It is.” Tanya insisted. “I used to use a psychic barrier to block all telepathic signals, but it’s not healthy to do that.” Tanya wasn’t entirely convinced of the necessity of it, but Mom was quite insistent on that fact. “I can tolerate psychic noise much better now, but it disturbs my sleep to be in such close proximity to so many psychics without such a defense.” It slowed down her recovery for a while until they realized that was what was exacerbating her headaches.
“I meant more… the suffocating amount of blankets and how cramped it’s bound to be.” Mary said to elaborate.
Oh. “There’s a complicated psychological reason why I like it this way, but the heat and weight makes it very similar to sleeping with another person.” Tanya explained. “I could theoretically sleep fine without that part, but it’s preferable that way.” After a moment, she added: “I also don’t move much when asleep,” a habit that served her well in both cramped Japanese living spaces and military bunks, “-so the size doesn’t bother me.” She looked assessingly at Mary, deliberately measuring her. “You’d fit in much better.” While Tanya could fit with a little clearance, as an average-sized twelve year old girl, she had over a foot on the six year old body of Mary. The bed was already sized for children her age, in fact.
Mary flushed at the suggestion. Oh? “About that… I was wondering if I could try it? Just once?”
After a moment of considering the logistics, Tanya replied: “I’m not going to switch beds.”
“We could both fit.” Mary countered.
Tanya couldn’t really think of a reason not to, she knows how bad of a liar Mary is by now. She’s not being tricky here. Tanya twisted the dial on the air cycler, doubling both the air flow and the noise that the machine made. “Come on in.” Tanya crawled into the chamber, telekinetically removing most of the filler and letting it pile on the ground. With the extra body heat, she’ll need to skimp on the insulation.
When the two girls were properly cuddled up and covered by a single blanket, Mary breathed out a sigh of relief. “I didn’t have any siblings before.” She whispered. “But… I’m glad that it’s you.” After a pause, she elaborated. “You proved that I wasn’t crazy.” Well, not completely so. “I don’t think I’ve actually said this… but I forgive you.”
It was a lovely sentiment. Which made the excessively petty and mundane problems that followed even more irritating. It was agreed to never repeat the experiment ever again.
----------------
Dear Tanya,
How are things with the Psychonauts? Its so cool that you get to live there at the Motherlobe! Dads still not teaching me anything. No fighting no mind reading no mind walking, nothing! Just flying. He says stuf like ‘wait until your older Razputin’ and ‘you should learn from an expert’ and ‘telepathy is dangerous’, but thats stupid!
Dions stopped talking about you. Frazie is fine. Mirtala is still alive. Nonas not any different. Mom started performing in the show again.
Those True Psychic Tales you sent are super cool! Dad says that Milla Vodello and Sasha Nein are the ones he saw in your head! Do you know them? Frazie thinks their dating, but shes dumb.
Your friend,
Razputin Aquato
Tanya smiled as she read the letter. Despite being in one of the generations that saw the first smart phones, she was still on the older side of that demographic. As such, she was quite well versed in the arts of keeping in contact via letters. In her second life, she had at least eight contacts in the Imperial Military, plus one of the Sisters in the orphanage, to exchange letters with. It helped her a lot, although none eclipsed the utility of her favorite contact, Maximilian Ugar. In the event that the Empire ended up throwing out everyone’s pension and she couldn’t access her foreign currency accounts, he was first on her list of contacts that may be able to shelter her. The orphanage was number two.
So it was with warm memories that she brought her own pen to paper to reply. This was actually the second letter Razputin had sent, it took him about a year to improve enough with his writing that his parents allowed him to send one. Tanya sent back ten dollars worth of comic books, which turned out to be nearly a year’s worth of back issues at the comic book store.
Dear Razputin,
I’m glad that you enjoyed the comic books. I am quite familiar with Agent Vodello and Agent Nein. As for them dating, that information is technically classified. But on an unrelated note, I’m glad to see that your sister remains as insightful as she was during our brief interactions.
Tanya smirked. Razputin would respond well to a cloak and dagger type of response, she was sure.
On the subject of telepathy, it is indeed quite dangerous, your Father is correct. It would be wise to wait until you receive official Psychonauts training before delving into that particular set of skills. Further, I would not call flight ‘nothing’. Levitation is normally a rather basic skill, true, but the flight techniques that your father learned from my mind are quite advanced. If you master them, you will find yourself a cut above the average Psychonauts recruit, when it comes time to test yourself.
Hopefully that will encourage Razputin to do things that aren’t potentially leading him to Maligula. Even hinting that Nona’s mind has something to hide would be too dangerous, so she could only hope. Oh, that’s a good point, given his hero complex.
I should reiterate my previous point about avoiding telepathic training. To elaborate: the danger is not so much to you, should you try it, but instead to whoever’s mind you are invading. You could severely damage your family’s minds if you attempted to invade them for whatever reason you concocted. Do. Not. Try. It is illegal, and you will be arrested and put in jail by the Psychonauts if you manage to hurt someone psychically like that.
Well, it’s theoretically a possible outcome. The circumstances that would make it actually happen, given that he’s a minor, are nearly impossible to arrange. Really, in comparison to conventional wisdom vis a vis lying to children, pointing out that he’d need to actually screw it up to get punished was already being exceptionally honest. How to finish…
In other news, Agent Mentalis has assigned me a new project for one of my classes: I must construct an example of one of his larger patents, specifically, his flying car schematics. Flawlessly fusing enough psitanium to create a telekinetic engine will be a challenge, but I’m looking forward to the results.
Your friend,
Tanya Dosva
There. She’ll drop it off at the post office the next time she’s in town. Mom hasn’t seen any of these letter exchanges yet, and she’ll be glad to put that off as long as possible.
…Should she? It would probably not be appreciated. But to leave it unaddressed… Screw it. Tanya took out her red pen and started correcting Razputin’s spelling and grammar, placing it back in the envelope after her corrections were complete.
It was something she’d have done back in Japan. It was something she did, the first time around. Sometimes she worried about how much she’s changed after her mental restructuring, such as how she continually found herself selecting childish options more often than not, without regretting it later. But then she ends up reminding herself of how much of her hasn’t changed. It was growth.
After all, when one grows older, they discard childish things, including the desire to be seen as grown up.