Supernova

Chapter One Hundred and Thirteen - Introducing Queen Miko Stronghold

I wasn't going to get my hopes up.

That was the promise I made to myself. If I thought of it in the way that I didn't really have much to gain nor much to lose, it kept me from losing my mind and my footing and everything else I'd gained so far. If I didn't gain a mom, it didn't matter, because I didn't really lose one either.

Well, that, and Aizawa had told me not to get to get my hopes up, just in case.

So, I spent the whole time standing in the glass room outside the aviary, the same one we'd paused in front of when I'd brought him here the first time, in the very house I'd been ambushed and married off in, tucked into Katsuki's chest, begging myself to stay neutral and failing tremendously.

My mom was everything to me. She always had been. She was so much more than the person who gave me life. She was the person who gave me sisters. She was the person who gave herself for me. She was the person I had destroyed and spent my entire life trying to be good enough for even though I'd never been able to speak to her or have her see all that I had done for her.

And I think part of the reason I was able to love her so much was because I'd never really had the chance to fail her, disappoint her, or know whether or not I had been successful.

So, really, it was fucking terrifying, this thought that I would have answers to those questions. That she would be able to love me or not love me of her own free will. That disappointing her or failing her was a real possibility. I would be able to talk to her. She would be able to form opinions of me. The love I had for her could be shattered.

The thought I had of my dad loving her and her loving him back could just as easily be proven nothing but a delusion I heard once and swallowed and never let too far to my chest because of how much I valued my fairytales.

It was a very quiet affair, the rescue mission of Queen Stronghold. Elias knew, of course, because I had to tell someone who would all at once just understand every single one of my fears without having to be told. Which, of course, he did. But he wasn't around. Jojo was somewhere in the house, but keeping himself scarce. Aizawa had gone in with Eri, the only ones in there with Wendy and my mom.

And me and my safe place in the form of a human were waiting outside, barely breathing, barely looking at each other.

To his credit, he had tried, but he didn't really get it, and I wasn't in any position to be an easy person to comfort. He told me it would be fine, it would all be fine, and I pretended to believe him. He could tell I didn't. I could tell he was getting discouraged and ashamed. I didn't have it in me to comfort him for his poor comforting skills. It was a tense moment and I don't blame either of us for it.

And then, all of a sudden, it was over. Aizawa was coming out, hand in hand with Eri, and she came right up to us.

"I did it," she said. "I really did it."

But she was just a kid, and I wasn't really sure if she knew what she was saying or how much I should take her word for it. She'd done something, done something well, and clearly had been praised for it, but there was still so much to come.

"Honestly, Wendy," I then heard, and I instinctively wanted to reach for a trash can. But there was none to be found and I'd managed to keep it together.

I'd heard her voice, from the way she could mimic and mirror, but I'd never heard her speak with such substance. When she spoke my English back to me, it was perfect. But in her own voice, she had an accent. I wondered if she even knew she was back on her home soil. I wondered so much about her and this entire situation.

"She's been briefed," Aizawa told me, but that barely told me anything at all. "She knows where she is. She knows she's not married anymore. She knows she's a refugee here. She might be confused for a while."