2103:12:25:20:34:30

  “Graw?” I crowed pitifully as I came to. After a quick internals check – yep, feathers, beak, movable wings – I checked the time. It had been roughly fifteen minutes since my failed lift-off if my internal clock was to be believed.

  I carefully raised my head from the pillow it’d been laid on, anticipating a painful sting to come with the motion. Fortunately, it didn’t. There was only a little pain and neither sharp headaches nor splintered vision. The worst I felt was a dull throb, some tilt to the world like I’d just spun in circles a bunch of times, and some general fuzzy-headedness. All of which was understandable considering how hard I'd smacked my head into the window.

  “Thank God,” Mom’s relieved voice said from my side. I turned my head to look, finding her seated on a chair with a slight and tired smile on her face. “I was worrying whether I should call an ambulance or a vet.” While there was a jokey tone to her voice, it did little to hide the worry.

  Rolling myself over onto my stick-like feet, I examined the situation. Mom had, evidently, carried me up the stairs and to my room, laying me down on my pillow and covering me with a little sheet that I thought belonged to one of other-Sam’s plushies.

  For a moment, I stared at Mom, who stared back without saying anything. Then, I repositioned my body and shifted back to base form, reappearing on my back as my teenaged self. Doing so transformed my headache from the haze-and-throb of a brain shaken too hard to the blunted knife-edge of the post-migraine.

  It caught me by surprise, and I groaned in pain at the shift.

  Mom frowned and leaned in at the noise. “Need some water and a painkiller? We still have that high-dosage one the doctor back at the Renton Suites gave us.”

  My first instinct was to say that no, I didn’t need it, but I ultimately thought better of it. Last time my headache increased even after the migraine symptoms – the messed-up vision, the difficulty hearing things , etcetera – had faded. I also didn’t know whether I’d been quick enough in transforming to stop the migraine from building or if I’d just postponed the due date.

  “Yes please,” I said.

  Mom nodded and rose up from her seat.

  Very carefully, hopefully without provoking my headache, I reexamined and integrated the memcordings of today’s revelations. Most important was, of course, Michael being Darkstar, but no less important was the revelation that Mom apparently hadn’t told Michael the exact ins-and-outs of how other-Sam and my- her dad got displaced – for three whole years! – and the extra information on how strained their relationship had become since then.

  I put it to a timeline. Mom had, by her own admission, been neglectful of Michael, at least in the very beginning of other-Sam and Pierce’s disappearance. Michael had gained powers at some point, became Darkstar and – likely seeking vengeance of a sort – started his life as the type of violent, self-destructive vigilante that Amber had once warned me about. Mom had quickly figured out he was her son and all that combined led to a unnavigable maze of trust issues and a strain on their relationship. Then Michael learned of Mom’s role in the displacement, after which the relationship became more or less unsalvageable.

  It created a clear picture… to an extent. How it all tied into Darkstar- that is, Michael becoming a villain, getting involved with a gang that had no presence here in Charm, and how-

  A spike drove through my forehead as my mind shifted from simple cataloguing to thoughts a bit too complex for my battered brain. On reflex, I stopped thinking about it, and Mom returned from the bathroom at practically the same time, a cloudy-with-medicine glass of fizzy water in hand.

  Without a word she gave it to me and I drank it up as fast as I could – which was pretty slow since I had a hard time drinking the carbonated liquid. Either way, Mom let me do it in silence and in my own time.

  “Thanks,” I said after finishing the last of it. I set aside my glass on the nightstand.

  “No problem.” Mom sat down again. “How are you feeling?”

  “Not… as bad as the first time."

  “Good." Mom sighed with relief. “That’s good. No dizziness or sign of a concussion? You took quite a hit against the window there.”

  I shook my head, which thankfully didn’t bother me. “I took the hit as a crow. It doesn’t carry over to my, ah, ‘base form’.”

  “‘Base form’, huh?” Mom questioned my terminology, but shook it off as unimportant. “Well, good. I mean, I already knew that, but thought maybe it was only physically, and not…” She tapped the side of her head.

  “I mean, a concussion is physical too.”

  Mom shrugged. “True, true. But powers can get weird with boundaries and limitations, especially when it comes to complex things like the brain. In my case, transforming into light-state helps me heal some, but it does nothing for my stamina, concussions or mental attacks and the like.”

  “Huh,” I huh-ed.

  A brief lull in the conversation later, I said. “I’m… sorry for not telling you I’m Jester.”

  “Don’t be.” Mom smiled kindly without so much as a hint of reproach in her tone. “It’s not like I immediately told others I got powers.”

  I studied her face for a moment. Let alone anger, she looked strangely relieved at the acknowledgement I was Jester. “You aren’t… surprised or anything?”

  Mom snorted. “Sam, I’ve known you were Jester for a while now.” I only barely restrained my jaw from dropping. “I just couldn’t say anything because of the Treaty.”

  “Since when?” I asked.

  She tilted her head, humming in thought. “That depends,” Mom said. “I always knew there was a possibility; you being second generation, the achronal displacement and knowing Michael had gotten powers made it pretty likely.”

  That made sense.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Outside of that,” she continued, “I knew something had been going on with you for a while now. Odd sounds in the middle of the night, strange responses to how well and long you’ve slept, lights from your computer and a draft coming out from under your door. Then you left your window open on a particularly rainy day, so I went in to check and saw you’d stuffed the bed with pillows. All while rain was blowing through the gap and soaking it!”

  She laughed as I blushed. “Oh, and can’t forget the broken nose and you being so evasive about how it happened! Really should’ve figured it out then and there, but it was early days and I was worrying enough as it was. The real, definitive proof that convinced me was, ah- remember when you went to Jolie’s and she tried to teach you to play the tuba?”

  “Saxophone,” I corrected.

  “Right, that. You told your friends that I suddenly called you to tell you to hurry home. Since the fighting with the Jannacht was in full swing by that point, Millie send me a message asking if something was up, asking if I got injured or there had been an attack and the like. Of course I knew it wasn’t me that called you – though I did cover for you, you’re welcome – but combined with everything else, and Jester catching a bad guy at roughly the same time, and me finally convincing myself to investigate that not-at-all suspicious space inside your mattress I found while cleaning your room… I mean, do I need to go on?”

  To Mom’s amusement, I rapidly shook my head; I was mortified enough, thank you very much. My head seemed to agree, since it didn’t send me pangs of pain at the movement – that, or the painkillers were working. Likely the latter.

  “You… aren’t going to stop me?”

  “From being a masked?” she asked, to which I nodded. She sighed wearily. “God, Sam, you have no idea how much I want to, but… if I asked you to, if I forbade it, would you?”

  I shook my head without hesitation.

  "Thought so. And what else can I do but accept it? Get angry? Shout at you? Tie you down and lock you up? All that would do is drive you away." She sighed. "All I ask is that you… keep me in the loop, so to speak." Mom's smile was full of self-recrimination. "You're not the first child of mine to turn vigilante, and I'll be damned if I lose you too."

  Another quiet hung in the air as our thoughts lingered on the sore topic. “Where is Michael anyway?” I asked.

  “I've sent him away for the moment,” she said. “Not that he needed much prompting; I bet he has his own thoughts on today’s revelations. You being Jester was… a harder blow to him than I expected, to be honest. Maybe because you’ve fought, and you captured his protégé?”

  I shrugged. I could make an educated guess – him killing me during that fight, for one – but now was not the time.

  After another moment of quiet, Mom asked, “Painkillers working?” I nodded in response and she rose from her chair again. “Okay. Then get some sleep in and see if it gets better, alright?” She made for the door.

  Before she could reach it, and before my Heroic Impulse could stop me, I said, “I don’t sleep.”

  Mom froze mid-stride and turned around. “You-” she cut off. “Don’t, or can’t?”

  “Can’t,” I replied. Mom’s face grew heavy and she opened her mouth, prompting me to quickly continue and say, “Not like insomnia or anything, but as in: my powers make it so I both don’t need to and also can’t sleep.”

  She sighed, expression clearing. “Well, that explains a lot- wait, you’ve never slept? Not even once?” Now she looked astonished.

  I nodded.

  “You’ve been awake all this time?”

  Again, I nodded.

  Mom opened and closed her mouth a few times before a thoughtful expression took over. “I… okay. Okay. Do you want me to stay with you? We can watch some movies or something, though I can’t promise I’ll be able to stay awake.”

  “No, no, that’s- you don’t need to do that,” I said. “I just- I wanted to tell you so you don’t have to worry. About how long I’ve slept, I mean.” I shrugged. “Besides, I think… I think I’d like to go flying for a bit. To clear my head.”

  “You aren’t going masking are you?” Mom said worriedly. “I mean, I don’t- I can’t really stop you, but going out now after-”

  “No no!” I interrupted. “Just flying. No masking, I… promise?” This felt kind of weird. A vigilante daughter telling their superhero mom that she wasn’t going out to fight tonight? Was this something families of masked always had to deal with?

  Mom must’ve thought something similar if her funny expression was anything to go by. “Alright,” she said. “Just… stay safe, and if you feel the headache come back, you return home, okay? Promise?”

  I nodded twice in confirmation.

  “Okay. Then… have fun?” She stood up and left, leaving the door open.

  X

  I flew for an hour or so, head clear of thought as I enjoyed the sight of Charm’s drenched streets and buildings covered in the normally-invisible purple hue of the city’s shield. It’d thankfully stopped raining sometime during dinner, meaning that while the air had been cold, the flying had been fun, easy and soothing.

  But after a while, my thoughts began to stew and simmer around the multiple elephants in the room again. About my villainous brother, my heroic mother, the Treaty-breaker I killed, and above all, how my Heroic Impulse had all but grabbed me by the throat to force me to obey its commands. None of which I wished to think about.

  I needed a change, so I decided to do something more productive with my time, something laborious and physical. I went to Amber and my new base at the abandoned Malik’s Maker Machinery and Machinations warehouse in The Hub to do some preliminary cleaning, and afterwards occupied my time with thinking about how to furnish it, imagining interior decorations – if there were going to be any – and compiling a list of things we might need, etcetera, etcetera.

  All to get my mind off of things.

  I couldn’t do much real cleaning without proper supplies, but hauling piles of scrap metal and the trash others had dumped here was fair game. So, I started hauling and depositing the junk in the backyard of the warehouse, ready to be picked up and disposed of by a yet-unknown third party. Hopefully Amber knew a rogue or something that could help.

  As I was nearing the end of the cleanup, I heard the door of the warehouse – the smaller side door, not the big double ones in the back I’d been using – loudly close, the noise reverberating as it bounced off warehouse walls. I turned to look and, to my surprise, saw Amber standing there in full Crowsong regalia.

  “Sam?” she said, noticing me despite the dark interior. “What are you doing here?” She moved to join me.

  I looked at the pile of junk I was cradling in my arm. “Cleaning,” I replied.

  As always, I didn’t need to be able to see her face to know she was rolling her eyes; that, and the crossing of her arms and change in stance did more than enough to convey that. “On Christmas? When I know you had plans with your family?” She snorted. “C’mon Sam, be real: why are you here?”

  I looked at the pile of junk a second time and decided to put it down for now. “Just some… family trouble,” I said, then shrugged. “Christmas stuff, you know?” I didn’t, but I’d seen enough movies, shows and online conversations to know the clichés.

  “Oh?” Amber said, then waited, clearly thinking I was about to elaborate or start a ‘rant’ about what was bothering me – something I never did, no matter how many times she claimed the opposite.

  Unfortunately for her, “I… can‘t really tell you about it.” I shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “What do you mean you can’t?” Amber was taken aback. Unsurprising, since out of the two of us I was normally the one to quickly spill personal problems.

  “I meant I can’t,” I said, shuffling a bit. It was Treaty stuff, and I while I technically could just say that, pointing it out would’ve made drawing conclusions uncomfortably easy.

  Besides, how could I explain that when your brother turned out to be a villain, my creator’s pre-programmed Heroic Impulse tried to get me to either capture or kill him. How could I explain that apparently every single one of my family members had tried to kill me?

  Wait, no, Mom hadn’t – not me, at least. She’d only blipped other-Sam, her real daughter, out of-

  With extreme prejudice, I cut off that line of thinking. “I literally cannot tell you.” Not that Amber couldn’t figure it out with just that, but it was better than trying to lie outright. I hoped the emphasis would at least deter her.

  And it seemed it did, since Amber shrugged. “Really having a rough time these days, huh? First that shit with Soliloquy, then Nth-Sight and now this?” I stiffened and she sighed. “But alright. I won’t ask. Just, you know, if you need it, you can talk to me about anything. If you want, I mean.” She sounded awkward, but sincere.

  I repressed a sigh of relief and nodded instead, returning back to the topic that started it. “What about you? Wasn’t your family coming over for Christmas as well?”

  Amber groaned, and if there’d been a sofa in our base, she’d no doubt have collapsed on top of it dramatically. “Well yeah, that’s exactly the problem. My brother was being an ass as usual, and my parents kept trying to one-up each other with their oh-so-subtle sniping.” She sneered at the memory. “Then my uncles got a bit too deep into their glass and started their usual separatist rants – as if that cause hadn’t died with the APF!”

  I nodded in agreement. Much like the American Popular Front itself, the separatism that sprung up after Malcator’s death had mostly died out. The why’s and how’s differed per region, but in the case of North America the APF failed after a string of infighting resulted in multiple internal takeovers, then a general decay in popular support, and ultimately villainization by its powered militants. Others blamed hidden depths of Malcator’s powers for the failure of separatism. Which might even be true considering their lack of success despite early popularity.

  But nowadays, nobody cared, and those who did were deemed annoying, out-of-touch, and overly sentimental for a time they hadn’t lived and wasn’t that good in the first place. The ideologies that once rallied behind the separatism now focused more on regional autonomy within the system rather than full-blown independence.

  In short, the cause was as good as dead, and had been for near thirty years.

  “At least my nieces don’t take after them,” Amber said, breathing a sigh of relief and, I imagine, smiling fondly. “They’re sweethearts, really. And when they got tired of it all, I ‘volunteered’ to put them to bed and decide to just say ‘fuck it’ and not go back down again. And go do something useful, I suppose.”

  “Same as me then,” I said.

  She nodded. “Seems I got here a bit too late, though.” True enough; I was practically done with what could be cleaned simply by hands alone. “Though now that you’re here,” she continued, “I suppose we can do something else I’d planned. Let’s wrangle you some extra forms tonight. Think of it as a Christmas present. Santa knows you need some after that whole Soliloquy business.”

  That sounded great, except, “I don’t have my costume with me,” I said. And I promised Mom to not go masking, though I wasn’t sure if this counted as such.

  Instead of answering with words, Amber reached into some place underneath her feathery cloak – she didn’t bring her war-cloak with this time, it seemed – and threw me a balaclava. Did she always have one in reserve?

  “That should be enough,” she said. “And it’s not like we’re going out fighting or whatever, so no need to look your best. Just a trip to the zoo again, and you’ll be shifted most of the time. So, any more complaints?”

  I quickly decided that no, this didn’t count as masking. So I shook my head and put on the mask with a bit of effort. It seemed to have a hole in the back to push my hair through, so it wasn’t too bad.

  “Then let’s get going.”