Help! My Moms Are Overpowered Tyrants, and I'm Stuck as Their Baby!-Chapter 141: Strange Familiarity
There was something wrong with me.
Deeply, thoroughly, embarrassingly wrong.
I wasn't sick my skin was still pale and cold, my senses razor-sharp, my magic steady as stone. But my thoughts had become… unhinged.
Untrustworthy.
Since the dream.
It hadn't felt like a dream, not in the ordinary way. Dreams were fleeting, stitched from chaos and mist. This had felt real. Too real. The weight of Elyzara's hand, the warmth of her voice as she whispered something ridiculous like "baby girl" into my very soul. Her lips soft, lingering, inevitable.
I'd woken up breathless.
And now?
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Now I couldn't look at her without feeling like the world had folded in on itself.
She was laughing across the courtyard. Laughing. Just… being loud and annoying and radiant in that absurd way of hers, sitting on the grass with Riven and Aria, all three of them surrounded by crumbs from whatever breakfast tragedy they'd stolen from the dining hall.
She threw her head back when she laughed. One hand rested on her stomach like the hilarity physically hurt her. Her silver hair was braided today, the sun catching it like it was spun from light and defiance.
I watched from the shadow of an archway, half-convinced I had officially lost my mind.
I swear, if this gets sappier, I'll have to intervene, my inner monologue grumbled not that anyone could hear it. Not that I would let them.
I knew what this was starting to look like. It was the same look half the school had when they gazed at Elyzara like she'd personally descended from a divine bloodline which, to be fair, she technically had.
But for me, it was different.
It wasn't a crush. At least… not like that.
It was memory. A bone-deep echo that made no logical sense.
I knew her.
Not from lessons or duels or shared scorn during mandatory teamwork training. I knew her. Like I'd held her before. Like we'd been somewhere together, long before Arcanum, before the cursed sigils, before the fire. Maybe in another life. Maybe in one yet to come.
Which was not helping me function.
Every time I tried to speak to her, my tongue turned traitor. My feet found other directions. My voice normally sharp and merciless retreated into cowardice.
And worse?
She noticed.
Not directly. Not with questions. But she glanced at me when she thought I wasn't looking, her brow furrowing just slightly. Like she was trying to solve a riddle that didn't have a proper start.
She was sunshine and teeth, all glittering confidence and raw power, and I was a half-coherent bat in the rafters.
"Oh look," Riven said from the grass, loud enough for me to hear across the courtyard. "There's your best friend."
Elyzara's gaze followed, casually, until it locked with mine.
I froze.
She didn't wave. Didn't smile. She just tilted her head the slightest fraction to the left, like she was measuring something in me I didn't know I was wearing.
I turned. Not quickly. Not obviously. Just… enough.
Retreated into the hallway. My boots were nearly silent.
Coward.
Utter coward.
I found the library mostly empty. Mid-morning was an ideal time to hide everyone was training or gossiping or pretending they were too good for both. I claimed a corner beneath the stained glass window and opened a book I didn't read.
My fingers turned pages.
My mind turned back.
Why did I want to hold her hand again?
Why had I done it that night in the corridor reached for her without knowing why, only to make both of us freeze like fools?
I pressed my fingers to my forehead, scowling at my reflection in the polished side of the wall sconce.
"I'm broken," I whispered.
"Excuse me?"
I flinched.
A second-year student I didn't recognize blinked at me from a few tables down. I cleared my throat, straightened my posture, and narrowed my eyes.
"What."
The poor girl flushed and quickly ducked back behind her scroll.
Good. Fear me.
The rest of the day passed like fog until the bell rang for afternoon sparring. I nearly skipped it.
Nearly.
But Elyzara would be there , and so would that feeling.
That infernal pulse that told me I wasn't imagining it , that I had held her before.
That in some life or shadow or fractured memory, her hand had belonged in mine.
I sighed dramatically to myself.
"I need therapy," I muttered, marching toward the courtyard.
And possibly an exorcist.
That thought clung to me as I stormed through the east wing corridors, robes swishing with unnecessary drama. The sun was dipping below the tall windows now, staining the halls in shades of orange and violet, like some overly romantic painting. Disgusting.
I reached my dorm blessedly empty, silent, and most importantly, private.
I slammed the door shut behind me with the intensity of someone who'd just survived a tragic opera. "All right," I muttered, tugging off my boots and pacing. "This is ridiculous."
There were only three explanations for my current condition:
I was cursed.
I was dying.
I was in... some hideous emotional crisis that required a sage, an alchemist, or at minimum, a sarcastic elder with centuries of wisdom.
Luckily, I had the last one.
I yanked open the mirror portal, adjusted the runes, and called out, "Initiate bloodline link: House Nightthorn, High Matron."
The mirror shimmered once. Twice.
"Velka?" came a warm, dry voice. "You better not be calling to ask me for bail again."
I sagged with relief. "Grandmother."
The image solidified into the familiar face of Grand Matron Lysbeth Nightthorn: regal, terrifying, and currently wearing a violently pink nightrobe decorated with tiny embroidered bats.
I blinked. "What... what are you wearing?"
She peered down. "Laundry day. Don't judge me."
"You're the most feared vampire of the western provinces."
"And I'm also seventy-six and entitled to comfort. Now, what's the crisis? Is your roommate summoning demons again?"
"I don't have a roommate."
"Oh. Right. I forgot. You scared the last one out with your midnight ranting."
"That only happened once."
"Twice."
"Fine."
She sipped from a mug labeled Blood First, Questions Later. "Well? Speak."
I crossed my arms. "I think I'm broken."
She didn't even blink. "Finally."
"Wait what?"
"I mean, I assumed it would happen eventually. Our family has... theatrical blood."
"Grandmother, I'm serious."
"So am I. Now explain."
I hesitated. Then, like a dam breaking, the words poured out.
"There's this girl Elyzara and I had this dream where she called me 'baby girl'—don't say anything yet and then kissed me, and now I can't stop thinking about her and sometimes I almost say things out loud but then I don't and I might be cursed or in love or emotionally compromised and it's ruining my whole aesthetic."
Silence.
A very long sip.
Then: "Baby girl?"
"Don't make it weird."
"You already did that."
I groaned and collapsed into my desk chair, face in my hands.
Lysbeth chuckled softly. "Velka, darling, I hate to tell you this... but I think you might just be tender on someone."
"I'm not tender," I hissed. "I'm brooding. With fangs."
"You can be both."
"It's... her. It's familiar. Like I've known her forever. But I haven't."
"Or haven't in this life," she said, voice quieter now.
I lifted my head. "You think it's... soul memory?"
"It happens," she said, leaning closer. "When blood remembers what minds forget. A love so deep it carves into your essence and leaves marks that even time can't erase."
I blinked.
Then frowned. "Are you quoting opera again?"
"Possibly."
"Unacceptable."
She smirked. "Look, Velka. You don't have to do anything. But maybe stop running away like a dramatic bat out of emotional hell."
I stared.
Then, grudgingly: "You're not the worst."
"I love you too. Now go light a candle, write a sad poem, and try talking to the girl."
I groaned again. "I hate this."
"You'll survive. And if not, you'll die poetically. Either way, I'm proud."
The mirror shimmered and winked out.
I sat there in my overly quiet room, cheeks burning, heart doing something absurdly fluttery.
Maybe I did need an exorcist.
But I also... might try saying hi tomorrow.
Maybe.
