Boredom in Kodoka Ⅰ

Mom or Mum: Black

[Mild Content Warning]

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I remember the 27 times Keldeo called me "mom".

They were like, what? 10? 11? Somewhere around that. I was doing some gardening (in a greenhouse, of course) while the little foal was playing & climbing around the steep terrain Grozskontberg was on. I was not as experienced with babysitting Keldeo as I am now, but I still wasn't expecting a moment like this so early.

Where was I? Oh, yeah.

We were outside & suddenly, Keldeo yelped. I thought it was strange for Keldeo to get hurt; I thought he would be more accustomed to mountainous terrain with his time with Virizion. Ah well, an injury's an injury and it's my job to take care of them.

"MOM!" Keldeo yelped. Should I appreciate the fact that they see me as a parental figure or should I be concerned with their relationship with the other Swords? Ah, whatever, I still have a job to do.

I quickly went inside to wash my hands & grab some first-aid stuff. I didn't want to cause an infection for him nor make the pain worse. Acting quickly, as soon as I got what I needed, I dashed out.

"BLACK!" Keldeo yelped again as I finally came over.

"What's wrong, bud?" I pulled out a first-aid ointment, a cup of water, a clean cloth, and plaster.

Keldeo continued whimpering.

"Com'n, Kel, you know it's not gonna hurt for long." I said.

I silently poured water onto the scrape to clean it before gently removing debris with the cloth. Applying the ointment, Keldeo asked me something.

"Mom- I mean, Black?"

"Hm?"

"When would it be gone?"

"Probably tomorrow," I replied as I opened a bandage. "You're immortal now, eh?"

"Can it heal go faster?" Keldeo asked.

"Only if you eat & sleep well, bud." I told them. "As long as you haven't chopped off any part of your body from the joints, nothing should take longer than a week or at most, a month."

"How do you know this?"

"Personal experience," I replied. "You see, one of my brothers, Will, got into a severe breakvan accident some scores ago."

"What's a score?"

"20 years," I resumed. "The loco's inertia was so great, it shattered his hip joints. In fact, the momentum was so great, his legs flew off completely! The only reason nobody knew about this part was the Will was able to reattach it before the paramedics came.

"There was a fellow coworker onboard that only sustained minor injuries because Will shoved them out. Will's glad they survived, but that was quickly overshadowed by being paralysed from the hip down.

"You see, even though we're basically invincible & made of ice, ice can crack and being immobile is not fun. On the bright side, we regained mobility after not being able to walk for 2 months. It does throw off your life flow & gives you some weird 'phantom limb' sensation. Plus, we still had to make our 'recovery' plausible to humans, basically faking it 'til we make it for a solid 5 years. Next time we get into an accident like that, we're flying the fuck away to Celestia to get healed faster then come up with a crappy excuse for disappearing from the crash site."

"Why are you telling me this?" Keldeo asked.

"As I like to say, there's always a light at the end of the tunnel & a really loud train horn." I finished.

...

"Why are you telling me this?" Keldeo questioned.

"Because I, for the life of any god, cannot stay on a single conversational topic for more than a minute."