Every night recently, when Seve goes to sleep, he has horrible nightmares. He’s been having them ever since he returned home. He keeps seeing her face, not Billie’s, but his mother’s. Seve thought for sure it would be smooth sailing once he arrived home, but it hasn’t been. One night, after waking up in a pool of his own sweat, dried tears of guilt stuck to his cheeks, he clasps the bell collar and consults the spirit within. Seve speaks to the wise Adrian. A white light flashes before Seve and he’s taken to a void where he is surrounded by nothingness. Here, a kindly old goat awaits him. He turns to Seve, speaking to him softly.
“I sense this isn’t a cordial visit for one of your lessons in magic. Is it, Seve?”
Seve shakes his head but remembers he has to verbally address the blind goat.
"No. Adrian, what do I do? Every time I go to bed, I see my mother. I thought all my troubles had been resolved with her, that confronting her in my dream would make me feel better, but it didn't. I've only felt worse ever since I left Goatshire."
He turns and faces away from Adrian, looking out into the void in shame. Little does he know that he can neither hide his shame nor his guilt from the wise old mage, as even though Adrian cannot see his face, he can see his soul and a mighty blue soul it is. Adrian scowls compassionately at the boy's despair.
“You are riddled with guilt. You feel as though you’ve abandoned that young lady, but at the same time, you feel shame for having abandoned your father. But worst, you feel a deep-rooted sense that somehow you betrayed your mother. It is why she continues to haunt you while Billie does not. Both she and your father love you very much, as do I, but… your resolution was not made with your true mother, but a mere manifestation of her, the monster conjured in your mind to represent her.”
Seve paces back and forth with anxiety, uncertain as to what to do. He sits and pulls his legs in close. Adrian steps forward and places his hoof on Seve’s soft, white, fluffy head.
“I fear I may never get over it.”
Adrian peers down at the boy with his opaque blue eyes.
“Don’t know why?”
The elderly goat asks in a quiet rasp.
“Because even after all she had said, and all the neglect she had shown you, it is within your intuition, your duty, and your honor as her son to love her unconditionally. You love your mother, and it fills you with woe that she doesn't reciprocate. I fear there is only one solution to this.”
Seve rises, looking up into his eyes.
“What is it? Is there a white magic spell you can teach me to make me feel better? That healing spell is swell, and that sickness spell made my dad feel all better after he got food poisoning from that seafood restaurant.”
Adrian can’t help himself but chuckle through his nostrils at Seve’s naive response. He finds the boy to be so precious in his purity. He shakes his head, hoping Seve never changes. Adrian responds.
"No. There is no spell for fixing a broken heart, not even in the realm of white magic, but I am proud of you. You've displayed incredible progress in your casting, young man. I'm afraid that the only way you will ever resolve your differences with your mother is if you confront her, face-to-face."
Seve's eyes grow wide. He cannot think of a worse fate than having to contend with his real-life mother. He's terrified of her, especially after Ré told him that his mother had spent years in a psychiatric ward before being released. Not only that, he worries she might retaliate against him for that, or try to flee from him or call him a monster, just as she had always believed him to be. Adrian weeps for the boy in his heart.
“Only the truth can heal the wound in your soul. Only then will you find acceptance and inner peace.”
Seve stares into Adrian's cold eyes. As close as Seve has gotten to Adrian after returning from Billie's world, he can't escape the strange and eerie feeling that Adrian is hiding something from him. He seems awfully keen on Seve getting his mother's side of the story. More than ever, he wonders why. If the desire to find closure wasn't enough to coax Seve into visiting his mother, the yearning to find out what Adrian is hiding is far more enticing. It is with this that he rises, opening his eyes and planning the very next day to take the bus downtown to her apartment. Taking advantage of the fact that it's Saturday, he gets up nice and early, before his dad is even awake. Seve leaves a note, placing it on the refrigerator for his dad to see, knowing it'll be one of the first places he visits when he wakes up.
The goat heads out the front door, climbing onto his skateboard and riding out into the rain with his little yellow raincoat, all the way to the bus stop. Seve stands there at the stop, waiting in the pouring rain and rumbling thunder. "What a perfect day to see Mom," he thinks to himself sarcastically. For a brief second, he sees out of the corner of his eye a rainbow umbrella being opened up and placed over his head to keep him dry. He peers to his right to see the beautiful Billie standing by his side, tilting her head with a radiant smile. He closes his eyes for a second, knowing very well she's nothing but a mirage. Sure enough, he opens his eyes, and she's gone, just as he expected. He sighs, clasping his bell collar for strength.
The bus pulls up to Seve, and he climbs on board. One of the upsides to the storm, in addition to it being the weekend, is that there’s practically nobody on the bus, although it helps that the 47 bus doesn’t run along any major highways. In fact, it seems to go only to the places absolutely nobody wants to go in the first place, and Seve’s mother’s apartment just so happens to be one of those places. As he finally reaches his destination after traveling fifteen blocks, Seve pulls the drawstring, signaling a cute little bell ring, and he rises from his seat, leaving a puddle of rain behind. He descends the boarding stairs onto the sidewalk on a miserable, dark gray morning. It’s so dark outside that not even the nighttime streetlights have turned off for the day.
Seve stands before the building, the simple apartment complex seeming to tower over him like an ominous obelisk, stretching infinitely into the sky. How appropriate that this would be his mother's home. He treads up the front steps under the overhang where a dim, orange lamp hangs precariously overhead, and opens the door. As he steps into a lobby, he rubs his feet on the doormat like a proper and well-mannered young man. Treading up to the counter and past a pretty young lady, young enough to be his older sister, he stares for a moment, captured by her beauty. She shoots Seve a friendly wink and a giggle as she heads out the door. Seve is promptly reminded by the apartment manager that the mysterious lass in question is indeed one of those "solicitors of dubious favors". Seve doesn't know what he means; he's better off this way. Bless his little heart.
Seve leans over the counter to interact with the apartment manager, a surly and hairless reptile with suspenders over a plain white t-shirt and a cigar that seems almost magically capable of never burning to a stub. He speaks to the man, his squeaky child voice cracking as he addresses the man.
“Excuse me, I’m looking for the room of a woman named Serra. She looks like me. I’m her son, Seve and I’ve come to visit her."
The man shoots Seve a dirty look for a moment, as if he doesn’t quite trust him, and Seve just stares innocently into the man’s eyes. With a cough, the man clears his throat and brings out his little registration book. The man licks the tip of his finger with his long, forked tongue and flips through the pages. He speaks with the gruff abrasion of a cheese grater.
“Your last name’s Rodriguez, right?”
He nods.
“Yes, sir.”
He closes his book and tosses it back on the shelf.
"Apartment #502. The elevator's down the hall to your right."
Seve turns to tread down the hall, turning momentarily to address him one last time.
“Thank you.”
He says politely as the man throws a coughing fit. Seve can practically hear the phlegm in his throat. Seve summons the elevator down to the first floor. He waits for approximately fifteen seconds before the elevator arrives at the bottom floor and the gate swings open, inviting Seve in. The entire apartment is dimly lit and depressing, and the elevator is no different. Seve pushes the button to the fifth floor and the doors close, but the button itself doesn’t light up. It appears as though several of the button bulbs need to be replaced. It’s also not as springy as it should be and at times gets stuck. After a particularly grinding and noisy ride up to the fifth floor, the gate opens once again and Seve follows the room numbers in reverse order to #502. Seve approaches the dark brown door and the bronze metal numbers emboldened into it. With a sigh, he reaches over and knocks.
“Moment of truth.”
He says under his breath. Seve waits for a good moment with a raised brow, no longer certain she’s home. After a moment, he goes to knock again, but as his hoof is about to meet the door, the door is cracked open, and a platinum blonde goat woman with one horn and messy, shoulder-length locks answers.
“Hello?”
She says in a dry tone. Seve looks up at her with a weak smile. He speaks softly.
“Hi, Mom.”
Serra's eyes grow wide, and she slams the door shut, almost in a panic. Seve lowers his ears in shame and goes to slink away. From behind the door, Serra breathes a deep sigh and swallows. She knows now that she must face her fears, and face her son, or else he'll never have closure. She dreaded this day for a long time, but she knew very well that Seve deserved at least that much from her. With this, she unlocks the door and peers down the hall. She catches her little yellow, plastic-coat-wearing bundle of joy just as he's about to summon the elevator.
“Seve!”
He turns to her. Serra looks back and forth down the hall suspiciously before summoning him.
“Hurry up. Get in here.”
Seve runs back over and into the room, past his mother, as she closes and locks the door once again. Inside his mother's apartment, Seve takes a nice, good look at the decor. It's very plainly decorated, not at all attractive or particularly welcoming, quite old-fashioned honestly, but mostly clean, as clean as a woman living all by herself should be. Serra stands before Seve donned in a mere black tank top, no pants, just like Seve and his father, and a very washed-out pink house robe. Her mascara is a bit runny. For some reason, she paints the tips of her hand hooves as if they have fingernails on them. Serra locks the door and turns to Seve, folding her arms and sneering down at him suspiciously. She approaches, and he backs away momentarily, as if afraid of her.
“What are you doing here, Seve?”
He shrugs at her.
“What? No ‘Hi, Seve’, or ‘How was your day, Seve,’ or even so much as ‘I love you, Seve’?”
The woman facepalms and directs him.
“Go sit at the table. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
She heads into her bedroom for a moment and Seve sighs and sits at the cheap square, plastic table in her kitchen. Serra walks over to her nightstand and reaches into her drawer, opening up a small, bronze, plastic bottle of prescription medicine and tossing a couple of mysterious pills down her throat before closing it and tossing it back into the drawer. With a sigh, she speaks to herself.
“I knew this day would come, sooner or later.”
Serra returns from her bedroom, shuffling over and sitting with the enthusiasm of a tired cat, and proceeds to scowl at Seve. She draws from her pocket a cigarette and a lighter and proceeds to place the cigarette in her mouth and light it after several flicks of the sparkler. She takes a long drag and exhales through her nostrils toward the table and in Seve's face. He just squints his eyes at her. Finally, she speaks again.
“You still haven’t answered my question. Why are you here? Did your father put you up to this?”
He shakes his head and folds his hands at the table, leaning in as if he’s trying to be a good little noodle at school.
“No. First, I came ‘cause, well, I never get to see you… and I wanted to spend time with you.”
She squints at him suspiciously. She’s not as dumb as she looks, and one would have to get up pretty early to pull a fast one on her.
"No, you don't. You don't even like me. Neither of you do. You seem to be under this impression that I hate you."
As Serra takes another drag, she plunges herself into thought for a moment. She figures, that while he's here, maybe she could try being a mom for once in her life.
“So, are you hungry? You want some cereal or something?”
He raises his brow to her.
“Cereal?”
She shrugs back.
“I’m not exactly made of money or anything.”
Seve looks away for a moment, twiddling his thumbs to distract himself from the awkward tension.
“Yeah. I guess I’ll have cereal.”
Serra rises and walks over to the fridge, pulling out a half gallon of skim milk and placing it on the counter. She then makes her way over to the wall-mounted ceiling cabinet above her kitchen sink and draws a generic brand flake cereal from one of a small variety of boxes. From the dish-drying rack, she draws a bowl that still has a little bit of water in it and pours the dry cereal before adding milk. She places the milk back into the fridge and draws a spoon from the drawer, sticking it into the cereal and placing the plastic bowl onto the table before Seve with a soft clink, all while neither of them exchanges a word for nearly a minute.
Serra sits across from Seve and leans on her elbows, staring at him as he starts to eat in uncomfortable silence. Seve scoops up some cereal and milk onto the spoon, placing it into his mouth and sliding the silver across his fanged teeth, the only sounds in the kitchen for the next minute are the crunching of his cereal and the light clink of metal on plastic as he stares up at her, locked in a painfully awkward stare with his mother. She finally speaks and Seve becomes startled, the cereal nearly going down his windpipe.
“Good stuff, huh?”
She says with a light smile. He shrugs while eating, speaking with his mouth full.
“Yeah, it’s not bad.”
She continues.
“I got it down at the little corner store run by that immigrant zebra family. You gotta support your little mom-and-pop stores, ya know.”
The two continue to sit there as she draws her cigarette from the ashtray before her, taking another drag and blowing it up at the ceiling. She sniffs before extinguishing the flame and crushing the butt into the tray. Seve continues to eat as she turns to face out the window off to their side. He follows her eyes as if he feels she's looking at something. Serra rubs her arms up and down. The dampness gives her goosebumps.
“It’s miserable out there. Of all the days, you could have picked to come and visit—“
As he finishes his cereal, he dumps the milk down his throat and places the bowl on the table. He interrupts his mother mid-sentence to cut to the chase.
“Dad told me why you two split up.”
She turns to him, somewhat shocked by his rudeness, more than his calling her out. Her mouth hangs agape for a moment before she turns to him. She clears her throat, clearly somewhat nervous.
“Really? What did he say?”
Seve leans in. He scowls at her accusingly, the brown of his eyes redder than usual. This further escalates her discomfort.
“He said that you wanted to abort me. He told me that you wanted a girl, and you wanted to kill me because I wasn’t.”
Serra blinks slowly as if she just heard the stupidest thing in the world. She then laughs, shaking her head and facing the floor as she leans her head on her hoof, her hair draping in her face.
“That idiot.”
Seve leans to the side so he can look her in the eyes. His expression is deadly serious.
“What’s so funny?”
She turns to him with a facetious smile, her fanged teeth draping over her bottom lip.
“It had nothing to do with you being a boy.”
He leans back in his chair with his arms folded. Seve demands answers.
“Why then? Why did you want to kill me?”
He leans forward, demanding an answer. His voice cracks and she can see that his fortitude is starting to wane.
“Why don’t you love me?… Why?”
A single tear runs down his eye as he forces himself to ask that painful question. Serra stares at him for a moment. Her face turns serious as well, she leans in. Serra takes Seve by the hoof and stares into his eyes, unblinking.
“I want you to listen to me, and I want you to listen very closely. I don’t know what your father said about me, but if he told you that I don’t love you, that is a lie.”
He leans in closer to her until they’re almost a foot apart from each other's faces. Neither of them blink.
“Then tell me the truth.”
Serra leans back in her chair, shrugging candidly, clearly growing frustrated. She laughs.
“Why? I’m clearly the insane one. Can’t you tell by all the meds I have to take now? At least, that's what everyone else says.”
Seve shakes his head, unblinking.
“I don’t buy it.”
Serra smirks at him.
“And that’s because you’re smarter than them.”
She leans on her shoulder over the table.
“Let me tell you. I’m not crazy, Seve, I’m sharp as a tack, but the truth… I don’t even know if you’d believe me if I told you.”
He continues to sit there, staring through his brow line with a scowl.
“Try me.”
He folds his arms. Serra shakes her head with a sigh and after a few seconds of collecting her thoughts, which Seve is mentally trained to assume means she’s organizing her lies, she begins.
“You know, you’re a very special boy. I have, um, how do I put it?… Special abilities—“
He raises his brow to her.
“You mean corn powers?”
She turns to him with a raised brow.
“Corn powers? Where did you hear that term?”
Seve nods.
"From you, a long time ago, back when I was little before my horn even grew in… Did you happen to mean unicorn powers?"
Serra swallows, avoiding eye contact with Seve. He resumes his interrogation.
“You see? I’m not as stupid as you or Dad seem to think I am. I have powers too, you know. I… I can make things happen, things I can’t explain. I have strange dreams, recurring dreams. I’m able to… pull people into my dreams. I was able to do it with Alexis, my ex-girlfriend, and I managed to do it with another girl… a girl from a completely different world.”
Seve twiddles his thumbs as he continues, and Serra just sits there in silence, listening to him.
“There was this girl, Billie. She came from a world where magic was all over the place. The people were magic, there were mages, and she was even living with this mentor named Aristotle, this axolotl. He taught me magic. He taught me that what I had wasn’t just corn powers… It was magic, very powerful magic. He tested my potential with this thing called a Latency Stone, and it… blew up. He seemed pretty scared of me, even though he knew I would never hurt him.”
Seve rises from his chair and approaches his mom so she can look him right in the eyes and know that he’s telling her the truth. He continues.
"I managed to escape this world, the world we live in, here, and through my dream, I traveled to another world, and I went to live with her. This was after Dad and I had a beef, and he told me the truth about what happened between you. I lived with them for about a week. I hung out with Billie, and I met Aristotle, and her pet fox, Oscar, and her friends, and even this sheep named Sleepy Sheepy who helped me get back here… I love them all, and I miss them."
Seve clasps his bell collar. Approaching his mother.
“This belonged to Billie. She gave it to me. I gave her my old headband in return.”
Serra takes the bell collar in her hoof, gently turning the bell in her hand, her reflection distorted by the gold metal sheen. She releases it before taking Seve by the shoulders.
“Do you wanna know the real reason I tried to abort you?”
Seve faces away. He doesn’t answer. She tells him anyway.
"When I was pregnant with you, I foresaw a dark future, one where you, and you alone, were responsible for the deaths of billions upon billions of people. I saw it, a red-eyed goat with a power, unlike anything I'd ever seen. I saw nothing but death and destruction. But at the end of the chaos… It was a young man, a goat with red eyes. Everything is blurry now… but… my premonitions have never been wrong."
Seve stares up into her eyes.
“Your… premonitions?”
She smiles as she places her palm gently on his cheek.
"Yes. Ever since I was a little girl, I would have premonitions, in my sleep, and through my dreams. It didn't happen all the time, and many times, it had nothing to do with me or anyone around me, but I was able to predict things. Sometimes it would be something as small as knowing where my dad's car keys were, or something as big as knowing who would hit the lottery before it happened. It happened many times in my life, but I'd never been wrong, not once. So when I had my dream about you… that… nightmare, it terrified me. I-I d-didn't know what to do. I… I panicked."
Serra finds herself becoming quite upset, and her ability to continue becomes increasingly difficult as she stammers and chokes on her words. Seve can see her eyes starting to water.
“Ré didn’t understand… He couldn’t. He saw what I tried to do as a betrayal. I tried to talk to him, but he just looked at me as if I was crazy. Needless to say, you were born, and you live… but… for the longest time, all I could see was a monster. All I could see was the monster I believed you would become…”
Serra lights another cigarette to calm her nerves. After lighting up and taking a drag, she continues.
“They admitted me to a psychiatric hospital… to protect you. Half of me was admittedly relieved… because I truly, honestly didn’t know if I could do it. I spent years there, alone… no visitors… I had a lot of time to think. And the thought even crossed my mind… What if I was wrong? What if, for the first time ever, my premonition was wrong? The guilt welled up inside me. I lapsed into despair… knowing that I had driven away my family… knowing that I had given up on the man I loved… and my baby boy.”
She caresses his face as a tear runs down her side. She smiles weakly, and sniffs. Seve’s eyes water as he takes her hoof and holds it close to his cheek, cradling it in his hands, not wanting to let it go.
“I’ve dug myself this little grave, and I’ve been lying in it, knowing that you and your father would never forgive me for what I’ve done.”
Seve says nothing as Serra hangs her head. He leans in, placing a gentle kiss on her cheek. Serra stares at him, unable to speak. Seve turns and faces away from her. He speaks softly.
“All I know is… I don’t want to live in secrecy anymore. I don’t know if I can forgive you… but I want to try. I don’t want to live my life having never known my mother. All I want is… time.”
He turns to her again and peers out the window. The rain has, for the time being, relented, and Seve wants to take that opportunity.
“I should probably get going while the rain’s letting up.”
She speaks to him softly as he approaches the door.
“Maybe we could hang out again sometime.”
He stops with his hand on the door.
“I’d like that.”
She shrugs.
“I’ll come up with something… Maybe we could get some iced cream next weekend. I hear it’s supposed to be nice next Saturday.”
He turns his head to her.
“One of your premonitions?”
She chuckles.
“No… just the weather channel.”
He turns the knob as she speaks once again.
“I know it means little coming from me now… but I love you.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, only turning the knob.
“We’ll see… I… love you too. See you later, Mom.”
Seve closes the door, standing outside the apartment for a moment, Seve heaves a great sigh before returning to the elevator. Once again, he presses the sticky button. The door doesn’t respond right away, so he pushes again with a growl and a grunt before the door finally closes, and he descends to the bottom floor. Upon getting off the elevator, he looks back with a cringe.
“What a piece of crap.”
He shakes his head and heads back outside and into the light. Seve stands outside the apartment. He peers up into the sky to see that the clouds have parted somewhat, and a beacon of some light shines through in the form of sun rays. The goat boy skips down the stairs, settling once he gets to the ground, where he resumes walking normally. He treads across the street and down to the opposing corner to await the bus to return home. As he crosses the street, Seve bumps into a camel man wearing a trench coat and fedora.
He turns to Seve and the goat catches his eyes, a bright red pair of eyes, almost glowing. Seve raises his brow, peering back momentarily before turning his head forward again and shaking his head. No… it couldn’t be. He must have been hallucinating. On the opposite side of the street, he crosses the path of several people, such as a deer woman pushing a stroller. She shoots Seve a dirty look. Her eyes flare red as well as she passes. Seve turns to her.
“Excuse me? Miss?”
She turns to him.
“Hmm? Is something wrong, young man?”
She asks, stopping in her tracks. Her eyes appear normal, quite a pretty shade of emerald green.
“Nothing. Never mind.”
Seve retorts with embarrassment, his cheeks pink with blush as he turns back around and pulls his yellow hood over his head, a hole cut in the top to allow his horn to poke through. Seve rubs his eyes. He figures he must be tired. As he approaches the curb, he notices the rays disappear. Instinctively, he moves faster. As he passes by, several children of various species, all younger than him, stare at him, their eyes a deep, blood-red.
Seve runs, not stopping until he gets to the corner. He waits there, catching his breath and looking back in the direction he came from. With a bright flash and a blast of lightning once again, it starts to rain, twice as heavily as before. He stares up at the sky, which has turned a deep and dark shade of almost black, unnaturally quick. Seve speaks to himself under his breath, cursing the bus. It can’t get there soon enough.
He stares across the street as more people walk by, shooting him dirty looks with reddened eyes. From off to the side, out of his peripheral, he can see them approaching him. Seve turns his head and they’re all approaching him. Just then, a bus pulls around the corner and toward the curb, where he boards immediately. He runs to sit down as the bus driver grabs him by the arm. He turns to face the red-eyed man as he stares down at him with contempt and speaks.
“Aren’t you gonna pay… Seve?”
Seve swipes his bus pass quickly and moves to the back of the empty bus as the red-eyed driver shoots an insidious grin toward the boy. Tipping his hat and turning to face forward, the driver shuts the door and takes off. Seve is all alone. He stares forward, as the bus driver makes his way down the usual route. Seve doesn’t blink. He just keeps staring at the back of the driver’s head. It goes on for so long that he loses track of time. When he gets to a particular corner, the driver turns to him once again with a psychotic smile and a stare through his brow line.
“This is your stop.”
Seve goes to leave the bus when the driver stops him.
“Seve…”
The boy freezes, his eyes wide as he slowly turns his head to the driver.
“I’ll see you real soon.”
The driver turns around and Seve departs, never more grateful to get off a bus in his entire life. Seve sprints to his house, up the front stairs, and in the door, where he slams it shut and locks it in a panic. Sighing in relief, Seve feels as though he can relax.
“Dad! I’m home!”
He shouts. Nothing. Apparently, Ré hasn't returned home yet. The anxiety in the pit of his gut is heightened when Seve finds himself growing weak and tired, reacting to this type of weather the way someone thrice his age would, with creaky bones and exhaustion. It seems to have come from nowhere, but he tosses his soaked raincoat toward the rack and misses entirely, too tired to even care.
Seve lugs his heavy legs up the stairs, each one feeling like a personal mountain climb. As he reaches the apex, he considers the whole journey a mild victory. Seve treads into his room and stumbles toward his bed, cold, achy, and so tired he can’t keep his stinging eyes open. Pulling the comforter over his body, within seconds, Seve is breathing deep breaths and slumbering peacefully, bundled up to keep the chill away.
After what seems like only a minute's worth of sleep, Seve hears the door open. Ré must be home. Strange… He usually announces when he’s home. After nearly ten seconds of dead silence, Seve rises from the bed and approaches the door, entering the hallway. Seve shouts down the stairs.
“Dad? Is that you? I’m up here.”
… Nothing. Seve knows he heard the door. Their house door has a very particular sound to it, an absolutely obnoxious creak to it that’s unmistakable. It makes the door itself a pretty good security measure. Nary a single villain is getting into that house through the front door undetected, not that any halfway decent criminal would use such an obvious route. Still, he wonders. If it wasn’t his dad, who could it be? Seve approaches the foot of the stairs, treading down with a gulp. He is no coward, but he hasn’t felt so vulnerable in a long time. His knees tremble as he descends, and he genuinely cannot tell if it’s nerves or his sudden tiredness getting to him.
“D-dad?”
He calls, timidly. Dear God. Is there someone in his house? Seve closes his eyes and sighs. He tries to reason with himself.
"What am I doing? If I can handle giant towers, exploding birds, giant sock freaks, and a killer snake, I can handle some burglar."
Seve cracks his neck to either side and punches his palm in anticipation.
“It’s go time.”
Seve marches toward the kitchen and peers around suspiciously.
“Whoever’s in my house, you’re gonna get a whole loaf of bread’s worth of knuckle sandwiches when I’m through with you! Come out now, and I might show mercy if you beg me hard enough!”
The light in the kitchen suddenly shuts off and a cackle can be heard in the darkness.
“Who is that?! This isn’t funny! Dad, if this is some sort of sick prank, I’m gonna slug you in the gut! I’m warnin’ ya!”
Seve can hear the rattling of the doorknob at the front door. With a raised brow, he walks backward into the main hall and turns his head to the door. The annoyingly creaky door swings open, revealing the front stairs, which nobody is standing or sitting on. Seve treads outside to see who is there. The door behind him slams and locks without warning, startling Seve and making him jump. He turns around, gripping the doorknob and trying to open it, but it won't budge. He's been locked out. Turning around, he breathes heavily. Where once was a dark gray sky, there is only pitch-black darkness. At least it isn't raining anymore. Seve turns to walk down the sidewalk, and there he is. There's Ré.
“Dad!”
Seve smiles, approaching his dad, until he realizes his father bears the same red eyes as the people from before.
“Dad?”
Ré stares down at the boy with a scowl. Seve backs away, falling to his rear as he questions the mysterious figure.
“Who are you? You’re not my father. Show yourself!”
The being before him closes his eyes as he is taken by a black mist. Seve stares as a new form takes shape, the shape of a towering demonic figure with red, scaly skin, long black hair, and red, crepuscular eyes stands before the boy. He spreads his blackened, plague-like wings to the sky as he approaches the boy. Seve screams, running for his life. The being smiles, pursuing Seve down the street and into oncoming traffic. The boy just narrowly manages to miss being struck by several cars as the demonic entity enters the street.
A car screeches to a halt, nearly slamming into the demon as the driver pumps on the brakes. The entity slams his fist on the front end of the car and the back end lifts over the demonic being, flipping several times over his head and landing on its roof on the other side, killing the driver immediately. The demon does not avert his threatening gaze once. All this occurs while the demonic entity is left completely unimpeded.
The demon catches up to Seve, appearing before the goat. Retaliating, Seve throws a punch. The demon catches his fist with lightning-fast reflexes and squeezes the boy's knuckles. Seve screams in agony as the demon tosses him aside, slamming the boy into the side of a car, winding him, and pulverizing his back. Seve rises and the demon backhands the boy into a wall. Enraged, Seve slams his fists into the ground and pulls up two slabs of concrete, slamming them into the face of the demon with all his might. The entity barely even seems fazed as he redirects his gaze. The demon rushes Seve, sending a knee right into the boy's gut. He's clearly outmatched.
The goat panics, continuing to run as the being approaches, gaining effortlessly with a smile, having fun as he plays his sick little game of cat and mouse with the goat. Seve turns around corners and leaps over cars and through people as the demon slashes and slaughters his way through helpless innocents like butter. Seve retreats into an alleyway and an unfortunate dead end. Turning around, he walks backward, falling and scooting backward on his behind as the massive demonic being approaches him.
Lightning flashes, revealing his cracked and crumbling facade of a face. In the darkness, all Seve can see are blaring, red crepuscular eyes. The being treads forward.
“You… It all started with you.”
Beaten, bruised, and exhausted, the child cowers, unknowing of how to deal with such a terrible creature in the real world. In Seve’s dream world, he was unstoppable. The boy is pretty brave, daringly stupid, one would go as far as to say, but the demon has more than proven to be beyond Seve’s handling. Never before had he witnessed something so incomprehensibly evil. With horrified, dilated eyes, he questions the demon.
“W-who are you?”
The demon stands tall, his blackened muck-like wings draped over his shoulders like a cape.
“I… am Vadrigar.”
The lightning flashes and the demon goes from being more than ten feet away to right in front of the boy, startling him. The flash highlights his eyes to the boy once again, and this time he gets a nice look at them.
“Red eyes… My mom… She saw—
The demon leans over, right in Seve's face, invading his personal space, and finishing Seve's sentence.
“Red eyes.”
He rises, elaborating.
"Fifteen years ago, nearly sixteen, in fact… you laid dormant in her womb, the precious child, a one-horned goat. In the comfort of her bed, she lay, her and your father… unaware of the true nature of their offspring."
Seve rises onto his weakened knees, nearly collapsing. Now he feels as though this invasion is personal. Gritting his fanged teeth, Seve wishes to know more.
“What do you know about my mother? Tell me!”
Vadrigar’s mouth widens into a smirk. The demon indulges the boy.
“I didn’t always have such ease of access to this world. Only through the power of the magical gems… and the sins of her world, did I obtain enough strength to return.”
Vadrigar caresses the boy’s chin with his claw, forcing Seve to gaze into his eyes.
“You, dear boy, were meant to be my gateway into this world. It was your body I had chosen to use as my instrument of chaos. The body of this sweet, innocent child before me. And to think, you could have been something truly magnificent. We even share the same eye color.”
The demon chuckles. Seve tries to wriggle away, but Vadrigar clenches his chin tighter. His arms feel like anchors, or else he would sock Vadrigar right in the jaw where he had him. The demon resumes his insufferable monologue.
“But for some reason… You resisted.”
The demon grips Seve’s jaw, squeezing him so hard, he feels like his head may burst. Vadrigar rears his fangs at the boy.
“I was to take from you… everything, your body, your mind… your life, and yet, to my shock, to my humiliation!... You resisted… and instead… you took from me.”
Vadrigar releases the boy and rises. Seve tries to make a run for it, dashing past Vadrigar and toward the entrance to the alleyway. With the mere raise of his hand, a towering inferno, a wall of fire erupts before the boy, barring his exit. The demon treads slowly toward him.
“You took my black magic away from me, Seve. Haven’t you ever wondered why you’re so powerful? Haven’t you ever wondered why you have powers you cannot control?”
The heat rises up Seve’s back as the demon approaches, leaning over like a hawk, his terrible face hovering over the boy and his black mane of hair draping over his face.
“Your mother’s visions, Seve. They weren’t of you… They were of me…”
Seve hangs his head in shame. He balls his fists so tightly, that his hands bleed from him digging into his palms.
“Your mother foresaw you in her dreams, bringing about the end of existence, and for such a reason, she sought to terminate you, not to kill you… but to protect everyone else... from me. Your mother was unaware of your biological sex at the moment, uncertain whether she would be blessed with a little girl… or cursed with a very evil young man. But it was a boy she saw in her nightmare. Ah, yes, she was certain of it! And so, when your true nature was discovered, she tried to destroy you. She tried to warn them of me! But none of them listened. ‘Crazy old Serra’ they called her as the white coats hauled her away.”
Vadrigar cackles and Seve goes to swing at the demon, but with the flick of his wrist, Seve is cuffed to the ground by a series of black chains extending from the ground.
“Shut up!”
He screams in the demon’s face. Vadrigar snickers. Seve grits his fangs, staring hatefully into Vadrigar’s eyes. Vadrigar continues to dig deep, right where it hurts.
“Luckily for me, I had found a new host in a different world. Not too long after you had rejected me, an intrepid young man named Arthur, related to someone quite special to you, stumbled upon my black book, a book that belonged to my disciples. He wasn’t quite as powerful as you, but he got the job done.”
The demon’s eyes burn with fire as he shows Seve a mirage of the man he possessed in Billie’s world. Seve remembers this man from the tower in his dream, and it all makes sense to him now.
“I’m going to kill you, and I’m gonna do it with the powers I stole from you!”
With this, Vadrigar banishes the wall of fire around him, releases the boy from the chain, and whisks him away to an open area so they can begin their battle.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way!”
The demon shouts with a sneer. Vadrigar raises the surrounding buildings, tearing them from their foundation and lifting them infinitely into the sky so that all that is left is a big arena. Seve clenches his fists, summoning with all his might a fury unlike any other. Seve shouts, channeling his rage.
“Yes, boy! Feel the rage! Feel the hatred coursing through your veins! That is my gift! That is what true power is!”
Seve lunges at the demon, swinging, punching, kicking, missing, and the being parries with a series of left and right blows to the ground.
“Slow, sloppy. How dare you use my powers against me so poorly?!”
Seve throws every spell he can muster at the demon, every offensive spell he'd been taught by Adrian or Aristotle. He even starts tossing around spells he never even wound up learning. Seve emits from his palm a pair of death balls, tiny, slow-moving black orbs with seemingly infinite destructive power, killing all who get close. Vadrigar evades the balls with ease but is shocked to know his own spell was used against him. Wide-eyed, he goes from curiosity to almost pride.
“I’ve never been attacked by one of my death balls before. I’m surprised you have the will to summon such destruction.”
Seve leaps forward while he's distracted, smashing him in the jaw with a left and right hook. Retaliating, the demon unleashes massive fireballs at the boy. Seve digs into the dirt around him as Vadrigar pummels the ground with embers. From underneath, Seve rises into an uppercut right to the jaw. Vadrigar stumbles but grabs the boy by the arm, slamming him into the ground as hard as he can, creating a crater. Seve lies there, exhausted, as Vadrigar approaches. From nowhere, Vadrigar is pelted from the side by multiple fireball spells as a raging figure steps into the fray, a familiar figure.
“Stay away from my son!”
She continues to throw left and right hooks at the demon, but her rage isn't quite as strong as Seve's, and Vadrigar merely smirks mockingly as he grabs the woman by the neck. He pulls her in close, staring into her eyes.
“That boy is mine!”
He shouts. Seve lies there, uncertain of what to do. He clasps the collar.
“Adrian, help me! I can’t beat him!”
The bell collar glows white as Adrian speaks to him from within.
“You have the power to defeat Vadrigar. Use the white magic. Use the power of the Gem of Love. Remember those you love. Remember Billie. Let your love for her be your mighty blade.”
With great trust and conviction, Seve clutches his bell collar. Seve takes a deep breath, time slowing down as many faces rush across his mind of the people he loves: Ré, Serra, Alexis, Aristotle, Lewis, Lily, Sleepy Sheepy, Oscar, and of course, Billie. Seve glows a bright white aura as he stands before Vadrigar, a holy white being bearing a gift greater than any the demon could ever hope to wield. Vadrigar stares, eyes widened in curiosity.
“Put her down. Your fight is with me.”
With a hateful grin, Vadrigar tosses the woman to the ground. Serra chokes as she beholds the bravery of the young man before her. Seve rushes forward faster than light, slamming his fist into Vadrigar like a thunder shock to the face. Vadrigar swings and Seve grabs his arm, snapping it upward with such force he bends it backward, nearly tearing the limb from the socket. Vadrigar screams as he lunges at Seve. The goat has Vadrigar right where he wants him and with the power of the half of the Gem of Love, he casts the ultimate white magic piercing right into Vadrigar’s heart, or at least where it would be.
With a mighty roar, the demon laments, shaking the entire world as light rays emit from him. Spiraling into a massive blackened monstrosity, the mist shoots into the sky and the demon is gone, fled from this realm in weakness and cowardice. Turning, Seve faces his mother. He approaches her, and she's somewhat apprehensive, and scared. Seve takes her hoof gently, pulling her up from her incapacitated state with dignity and grace. Placing his hoof to her chest, Seve uses the last bit of his magic to cast a healing spell on both of them. Finally depleted, Seve collapses. Serra reaches out and grabs him, laying him down on her lap and stroking his white hair.
Seve jolts awake in his bed in a cold sweat. What was that? Did that really happen? He doesn't know. All he knows is that he wants to forget that dream even happened. His mom. Why was Serra there? Is this part of her power? Was she really there, or was it only Seve's imagination? He doesn't know. All he can do is wait til Saturday to find out. Eventually, that day does arrive and Seve couldn't possibly be more excited. She told him where to meet. Seve removes the little folded-up sticky note from his pocket, revealing the address.
231 Shalahan Boulevard, some sort of government building; that's all Seve knows about the place other than it being where his mom works. Folding the piece of paper back up, he makes his way downtown on his skateboard. Unlike last time, it's a lovely day, not a cloud in the sky, a perfect day for riding the wind and sloping down hills. In his usual fit of showboating, Seve grinds the brick hedge rails, leaping over an entire bush to the other side and then leaping once again over an entire bench. Unlike the last time he did this, he didn't scare an old lady half to death. The boy is making progress.
Angling himself properly, he aims to shoot himself right through the rope between the two girls handling a swinging pair of Double Dutch ropes without messing up the girl jumping in the middle. The last time he did this, he failed spectacularly, and the girls wouldn’t give him back his skateboard until he could keep pace with a jump for a solid minute. This is when Seve discovered that, somehow, he’s incredibly gifted at jumping rope. He’d show those girls, even if he messed up. Darting past them, he turns to blow raspberries at the little redheads, and they return their tongues back at him. So far, it’s been a great day.
Up and around the corner and down a hill so steep it makes San Francisco look like a boring, horizontal line; he grinds to a halt just before the Shalahan government building. Entering through the automatic glass door, he “oohs” and “ahs”.
“Fancy.”
He says with a smile, treading up to an oak desk to a bored-looking mole woman with curly brown hair and outwardly slanted eyes behind a tiny pair of glasses, he asks.
“I’m looking for Serra Rodriguez.”
She leans over her desk and looks down at the tiny boy with the dimpled smile.
“Name?”
Seve responds immediately with a smile and an unintentional wagging of the tail.
“Seve. I’m her son.”
She looks through some sort of book for Serra.
“You want me to call her?”
He rocks back and forth, waiting eagerly.
“Would you do that?”
The bored woman picks up the phone and dials Serra's office number. After a couple of seconds, she responds.
"Yes… Uh-huh… I have a young man down here that says he's your son… Looks the part… Okay… Will do. Bye-bye."
She hangs up the phone and leans over with her hands folded to address Seve.
“She’ll be down in a moment, hon. She’s just wrapping up some paperwork. In the meantime, just rest yourself on one of those chairs, and she’ll be right with ya.”
Seve nods and obediently goes to sit in one of the plastic chairs in the corner of the room.
“Thank you.”
He says as he dismisses himself from the woman. Seve sits there for a moment, swinging his dangling legs back and forth and texting some kid he's been arguing with over which random overpowered muscle guy is more powerful of the two in some stupid anime the two of them watch, that nobody else cares about with the possible exception of Lewis (assuming he gets that anime in his world). Serra comes into view from her office, a purse slung over her shoulder and wearing a leather jacket. She treads down the hall toward Seve, stopping once he comes into view for her and shooting him a smile.
“How’s it going, bud?”
She says as he runs to her, knocking the wind out of her with a hug. Laughing, she runs her hoof through his hair.
“Ready to go get some iced cream?”
Seve performs a righteous fist pump of enthusiasm as Serra laughs at his silliness.
“You bet!”
She shoots a nod and a small wave at the woman at the oak desk, and the two of them head out onto the sidewalk. She and Seve head in the opposite direction from which he arrived and toward an iced cream shop. The two engage in small talk to set a casual mood between them. Seve didn’t really feel as though the last engagement was a particularly good way to break the ice, but now that the dust has settled, now that wounds have been exposed and disinfected to properly heal, he feels as though all he can do is tend to it with love and care. A scar may be left, but all either of them wants to do is heal. It’s the best they can hope for.
“So, what is it you do in there?”
Serra reaches behind her head and stares up at the sky as she tries to explain her job.
"It's just a local government job, paper management, organization, arrangement of meetings, faxing stuff, boring grown-up stuff you'd have no interest in, I'm sure. I know because I'm not interested in it either."
She chuckles. Naively, he asks.
“Why work there, then? Why not get a job where you get to do something interesting that you like?”
She shrugs as she faces away. The two continue walking.
“Well, I’m kind of limited in the kinds of work that are available to me. At this point, I’ll just take what I can get.”
Seve doesn't understand but nods anyway.
“That’s fair enough, I guess.”
Now it’s her turn to ask a question.
“So, how’s school been treatin’ ya?”
She smiles down at him, and Seve delivers her almost a sneer at the mere mention of school. This causes her to snort. She covers her nose momentarily.
“Eh, it’s okay. I’ve been working on getting my grades up.”
He feels the need to reassure her almost immediately, getting defensive.
“I’m not failing, but I’ve always been, like, a C or D student, and I’m trying to become an A student.”
She nods and smiles at him, looking him in the eyes.
“I know you can do it. You’re a very bright young man with a good head on your shoulders.”
She sighs.
"I can relate. I was your age once, totally jaded with school, and didn't really care about grades. I could have been something big, but I settled for my little side hobbies. I have a little online store where I sell custom prints on the side, and I've been fooling around with the Cryptocurrency stuff, playing both sides, selling high, buying low, just playing it smart."
Seve turns to her, asking her a sincere question.
“So, are you a millionaire yet?”
She chuckles.
“No, not yet.”
The two approach a neat little iced cream shop with a see-through glass door. Seve is a perfect little gentleman and holds the door open for his mom to tread through, to which she thanks him. They approach the counter. It’s practically dead inside. She looks up at the plastic menu and turns to Seve.
“See anything you like?”
He looks up at the big, lit-up plastic menu, and his eyes are immediately drawn to a particular dish.
“Ooh! I like that one!”
Seve points to a picture of a large, shiny plastic bowl with two scoops of chocolate chip iced cream with waffles and wafers shoved into them like antennae and strawberry drizzle coating the top in a nice arrangement. Serra points to the one she likes, a two-scoop of similar size, butterscotch iced cream with caramel drizzle and covered in a thick coating of rainbow sprinkles.
Honestly, she just thinks it looks pretty and isn't too fussy about iced cream or types. So she orders while Seve sits across from the counter at a corner booth set before a big glass window with a decal on it, facing out toward the public and where the two are lit by the natural sunlight. Seve sits and immediately can feel the beacon of heat poking through and warming his fur. His black shirt absorbs the sunlight and makes him toasty, but also extra prepared for that sweet, cold iced cream.
Serra approaches with the two bowls of iced cream and Seve plays with his spoon, his little tail banging on the back of the seat from how hard he's wagging. She sits down, distributing their iced cream, and finds herself involuntarily wagging as well. She laughs as she sits across from him, and the boy digs in, making a huge mess and a total pig of himself. Serra leans on her elbow, wondering how the hell she ever thought for a moment that someone so innocent and precious could ever be a monster. But then she remembers, the strange nightmare she had last Saturday. Curiously, she inquires as he digs away.
“Seve?”
He stops eating momentarily to respond to her, having already achieved a world record for the quickest to get iced cream all over his face. He speaks with his mouth full.
“Yeah, Mom?”
She thinks for a moment, choosing her words carefully.
“Did you have a strange dream that night after we hung out?”
He stops eating and swallows, shuttering from the brain freeze before responding.
“Yeah… Why? Did you too?”
He digs in again but stares at her suspiciously.
“Just to make sure… are you talking about the same kind of dream? The one I had involved this red-eyed demonic monster. He called himself—”
She sits up straight and stares him in the eyes.
“Vadrigar?”
He swallows his iced cream, the cold substance chilling the back of his throat. Seve looks away for a moment. He wants to change the subject, so he turns to his mother’s neglected iced cream.
“Aren’t you gonna eat up, Mom?”
She looks at him momentarily before snapping out of her daze.
“Huh? Yeah. Right. Iced cream.”
She laughs somewhat nervously. The two continue to shoot the breeze about casual nonsense for the remainder of their meal, exchanging stories of history and whatnot. He tells her more about Billie and the time he spent in Goatshire. He’s not entirely sure if she believes him, but she just sits there smiling compassionately with her head on her hoof against the counter, as if she could just listen to him go on and on for hours on end. She wants to hear it, all of it. She wants nothing more than to fill her heart with the experiences she’s missed out on for fifteen long, lonely, excruciating years. Serra just wants to believe that the sweet young man before her isn’t the monster that Vadrigar makes him out to be. She can’t even believe that part of such an awful creature is a part of him.
The two sit apart from each other, leaning their heads back. Seve belches loudly. He half-expected his mother to tell him, "Excuse you." Instead, she looks forward and lets out the biggest, nastiest belch he ever heard, with such force that she blows his hair back. Embarrassed, Serra places her hooves on her mouth for letting something so horrid escape her. Seve laughs hysterically, and she joins him in his infectious guffaw. After causing a whole ruckus in the iced cream shop, they leave together, hand in hand. Seve looks up at his mom. He leans his head on her hip, being careful not to spear her in the rib cage with his horn.
“I’m glad we spent this time together, Mom.”
She lies her head on his as they tread toward his house. He goes to let go so he can go home, but she maintains her grip. He turns to her, somewhat confused.
“Do you mind if I walk you home? I… kinda have something I want to tell your father.”
Seve nods with a smile.
“Yeah, sure.”
Seve has no idea what she wants to say, but a small pit of anxiety sits at the pit of his stomach on the way home. He doesn't want them to fight or anything. He fears a physical encounter may erupt into something even more physical in nature, considering he hasn't seen the two in the same room in many years. Seve doesn't bring it up, though. He merely enjoys the fresh, warm day, the nice spring breeze, the smell of fresh-cut grass and dandelions, and the serenity. Seve feels as though he's earned it. They both have after their altercations.
After about twenty minutes of straight walking, including being stuck behind some pretty bad traffic, Seve and Serra wind up in front of his house. Seve and Ré have lived there almost the entirety of Seve’s life, and Serra recognizes the place as somewhere she too once lived. The two exchange smiles and Seve runs inside as she’s left holding her purse before her. After a moment where Serra is left alone to contemplate, each second taking what seems to be an hour, Ré arrives at the door. He steps outside and beholds the woman he once loved, and still, very deep down, continues to.
Their eyes meet and Ré approaches the bottom of the stairs. Silently, awkwardly, he scratches the back of his head as she faces away, scratching her arm in return. The two are locked in a moral standoff over who should actually speak first. Ré bites the bullet.
“Hey, Serra.”
She responds softly.
‘Hey, Ré.”
Ré inhales, trying to start up a casual conversation. He tries to remain as gentle and delicate as he can, to not cause any sort of conflict. He doesn't care if she doesn't want to see him again. He tries to keep the situation light in tone.
“So, uh, you two enjoy your iced cream?”
She nods.
“We sure did.”
The two just stare at each other.
“It’s nice to see you, Serra. You’re looking good.”
Ré says, rocking back and forth awkwardly. Serra fiddles around in her purse to pretend to be doing something.
“Yeah. You too, I like the, uh, little goatee you got there.”
He plays with it.
“Yeah, I’ve been growing it out.—“
Serra clenches her bag and just blurts out what she has to say.
"I might as well cut to the chase. This isn't easy. Ré… I was wrong about Seve… I was so very wrong about so many things, and I just wanna… thank you… for stopping me… from making the biggest mistake of my life. And even though… we aren't together anymore, the fact that I can see my beautiful baby boy… means that all the pain and suffering was worth it. I was angry and resentful of you. I thought for sure you had doomed us all. Yet… I've never been able to tell myself that I don't love you anymore… I still do. So… that's it."
Ré says nothing. He stands there facing the ground in thought. In response, Serra lowers her ears in shame with a sigh and leaves without announcing her departure. She turns to walk away but only makes it a few feet before Ré stops her.
“Wait…”
Serra turns to him. He doesn’t face her, but he modestly proposes a small truce.
“Maybe we could, um… talk about this over coffee.”
He turns his body, pointing with both hooves in the direction of his house.
“Would you like to come in? It seems like there’s a lot about this whole situation I don’t fully understand… but I want to… because losing you is one of the biggest mistakes I ever made.”
Serra smiles modestly. The two approach the door to the house together, and he holds the door open for her to step inside. For the first time in over fifteen years, the Rodriguez family is united under one household, at least for the time being. Neither Serra nor Ré is capable of seeing themselves together in the foreseeable future, even with Serra's powers, but their wounds are just that, wounds. Eventually wounds, ones that don't kill anyway, heal. Some things, a white mage cannot heal. Love is one of them.
