The eye of the beholder, having lost track of where it is, inadvertently ends up going backwards. Taking a peep out of the hole in the ceiling, it finds that it is back somewhere it has already been.

“Why are you still here?!” yells the dungeon-master, slapping their hands against the table loudly, shaking the wood. “I thought I told you goons to go back to your spots and pack up!” they yell, pointing at the fairy-mother.

The fairy-mother silently lifts her hand up into the air, not saying anything.

“Go on! Scoot!” The dungeon-master rolls up a piece of paper and starts swatting the arm of the fairy-mother. “Get! You’re allowed to walk now, there’s nobody to see your metaphor anymore. So walk! Scram!”

The fairy-mother doesn’t say anything, looking around the library, before standing up.

“We’re rebuilding your floor now, so take a long walk. By the time you get there, it’ll be ready for the next one,” explains the dungeon-master. “Just do what it is that you do. It worked out great this time,” they say. “Really gotta foster that maternal instinct in them, you know?” they add on, scribbling on a piece of paper. “It’s important for their proper development.” The dungeon-master lifts up a sketch they are working on and turns the sheet of paper upside down to look at it from a different angle. “Now where should I put those secret stairs…” they mutter.

The fairy-mother doesn’t say anything, flying away over the pit as she begins to make her way down to her floor, near the bottom of the dungeon.

The thing that beholds watches the fairy-mother, sliding through the walls as it opts to follow her as she walks back down through the dungeon.

Below the library is the demon-foundry. The fairy-mother walks down the stone pathway, past the many shuffling oozes who are busy climbing out of a pit with a broken pipe, with the help of a giant metal golem who holds his hands down into the goo. She spares them an idle wave as she walks through the floor, taking in all the sights that there are to see.

It’s worth seeing her fill of things now. Once the next one respawns, she’ll have to sit there and pretend to be a rigid part of the system again, never showing her children any affection or even her face. It seems a little cruel, but that’s the point. To foster that desire in them to earn her recognition, to make their expressionless, loveless mother proud. It is impossible to do. But it is what they should strive to do nonetheless. That is what the beholder understands.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The fairy-mother heads down another floor, walking through the cultist stronghold. Purple-robes run past her in all directions, carrying large boxes and wooden poles on their shoulders. A group of them carries a giant brazier, filled with fire. The fairy-mother nods to the dancing fire-elemental in the brazier, who stops every so often to yell at the cultists around her, who appeared to be slacking. She’s also a metaphor.

“How’s it going?” asks the elemental. The fairy-mother flashes them a thumb’s up. “This one didn’t spend a lot of time with me. I’m a little jealous of you today,” says the elemental, crossing her arms as they carry her away. The fairy-mother shrugs, waving goodbye and heads through the sewer below this floor. Though here, she is simply ignored by the rats and the rat-queen who is busy nibbling on her own finger in agitation as she mumbles some incoherent nonsense.

The spider forest comes next on her way down. The beholder watches her posture tighten and straighten, as if she didn’t like it here. As she walks through the forest, she waves to a group of red-caps who are busy wrestling and tumbling on the ground. They stop, waving back to her excitedly, before getting back to their violent, but harmless, tussle. It’s just a play-fight, nobody is getting hurt. She stares at them though, not stopping her walk. She doesn’t like them, or at least their purpose.

Some metaphors are too cruel and on the nose. She shakes her head and keeps walking.

Fire and sweltering heat blow all around her on the next floor down, causing the fabric of her clothes to billow around. She heads towards the giant red-dragon, sitting by the next staircase. Sensing someone approaching, he opens a massive eye and lets out an angry growl. The dragon is apparently still more animalistic, than cooperative.

She places her hands on her hips and gives him a stern look. The great dragon eyes her for a moment, but then lets his giant eye-lid fall back shut, as a huff of a breath leaves his massive nostrils. The fairy-mother doesn’t say anything, but stops and sits down next to his giant claw for a while. Both of them staring out over at the broken egg-shells that fill the floor, just next to the heaps of useless, worthless gold coins. The two of them sigh at the same time.

After a while, she gets up, her hand rubbing the giant creature’s snout as she goes to keep walking. The next floor, the domain of the great-old-one is fairly quiet. A group of skeletons stands on the edges of the floating stone platforms, pushing and nudging the interconnected things apart, so that they can be rearranged. She jumps into the air, simply flying over the floor that is now untraversable by foot. Unless she wants to swim. The great old-one waves with a giant tentacle and she waves back. The two of them had filled a symbologicially maternal role in the metaphor that was constructed for the lance-hero, but the great old one’s was more on the nose, as well. She doesn't like that, judging by her shadowy expression.

The grand treasury is the final floor before she gets back home, though there is little to see here. She nods to the great mimic once as she walks past him and he nods back.

The beholder follows her in the shadows, as she heads down the next staircase, down towards the moonlight-arena.

As the fairy-mother walks down the staircase towards the emptiness below her, fresh stones form beneath her feet as she moves deeper into the darkness. Fresh rock grows out of the void, merging in with the world where she stands, as the entire floor ninety-seven is regrown in the span of a few seconds. Giant toad-stools pop out of the rock. The new growth slowly fills up with cold, pale water. The only difference is, now, there is no blue glow to any of it.

The woman sighs, her shoulders drooping a little as she heads towards the giant toadstool in the center of the room and flies up on top of it. Looking around once, to see that the room is empty, she crawls to the side of it and grabs onto the edge, leaning over towards the water as she pulls her hood back and stares at the reflection beneath her.

Tilting her head, she adjusts her long, sharp ears and silver hair, pulling them tightly back behind her head and pulling the hood back up to cover it.

The thing that beholds, blinks, before crawling off into the darkness as it hears something new that attracts its attention. A vibration. A strange, unnatural series of shuffling, dragging footsteps.