A Blue Time

Kiera fidgeted with the phone in her hands, an older model Brenda had lying around and allowed her to use. It still wasn’t connected to any network, mundane or Abyssal, but the fact that the kind woman would so readily offer up things for her, left her feeling unmoored. To say nothing of the bags of clothing and other personal items she had insisted on buying for her.

“Everything alright, dear?” Brenda asked, breaking Kiera from her internal musings to see the older woman looking at her as they sat at a red light. “I would have brought you in on our phone plan, but Vivian said it would be simpler to just get one of those magic SIM cards for it.”

“N-no, everything’s fine,” Kiera quickly said, fumbling the phone a bit before hastily shoving it into the pocket of the hoodie she wore.

“Kiera, I’ve been a mother for eighteen years, I know when someone’s hiding something wrong,” Brenda said in a no-nonsense tone, though there was something else in her voice. A sadness buried under her kind worrying.

There was a fluctuation in Brenda’s aura Kiera could just pick up on with the short distance between them, one that drummed about with a small amount of guilt and regret. She couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to her to have that reaction. Nothing she’d seen spoke of an ill relationship between mother and son, but yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Brenda believed she let John down somehow.

Unable and unwilling to add to Brenda’s perceived guilt, Kiera truthfully answered, “I’m just not used to people being nice like this.”

The light turned green and Brenda had to look to the road as traffic resumed its flow, but Kiera didn’t need to see her face in full to know sadness colored her expression.

“It might be hollow to say this, but I’m sorry you had to live that sort of life,” the older woman said softly after a long moment of silence. She spared a glance at Kiera and offered a small smile. “So, I’ll do what I can, so you can forget about them. At least for a little while.”

Kiera felt her eyes begin to water at the sheer kindness in Brenda’s offer. She couldn’t remember everything from her past, but she had enough to know such things weren’t common in the Abyss. Or at least the part she was unlucky enough to be exposed to. Even the Order wasn’t just going around, doing good for good’s sake.

“Thank you,” she muttered, unable to truly convey just how much those little things and the intent behind them actually meant to her, even if she didn’t think she deserved them. “Just letting me stay at your house is more than enough. I didn’t need all this stuff.”

“Nonsense,” Brenda countered. “I’m not just going to **** you to run around in just one or two outfits. Plus, think of it like a restart. A new page in life. One you can write however you’d like.”

“A new page, huh,” Kiera whispered to herself. Did she really get to have that opportunity? A chance to fix what she could and move on. How could she fix the things she helped ruin? She couldn’t bring back the dead or undo the pain of those who had to deal with those losses.

A small part of her was glad she needed near physical contact to sense auras, otherwise she wasn’t sure if she could bear being in the same area as Aeolia. She still didn’t know how she was so calm about her being so close. Or how she could give her those words of encouragement back in Detreye, to urge her to keep living instead of dying as penance.

Kiera pushed those thoughts out of her head, willing herself to focus on Brenda’s suggestion about making this her fresh start. She touched the connection she had to Verida, the goddess wishing to focus on the Kingdom for a bit. Could she find purpose in aiding the dragon goddess?

She thought it could be a way to atone, helping people find a new place to live, like how they were already helping Teri’s clan. It would mean having to effectively become the Kingdom's ambassador, a task that did fill her with dread. She wasn't all that good at interacting with people, not without drawing upon someone else's confidence.

‘But I can get better with that sort of thing, right?’ she thought. ‘John's a lot more outgoing than he was at school before everything happened.’

She frowned. ‘But that's because his powers let him grow like crazy. I just can't take levels in self-confidence.’

Her thoughts on how she was going to use her second chance came to an abrupt halt as Brenda pulled into her driveway and parked the car.

“Looks like John’s done with that Order business,” the mature woman remarked, pointedly looking at Vivian's car. “Looks like I'll have to whip up the full dinner.”

“I-I can help with that,” Kiera offered.

“Oh, you don't need to **** yourself to help little old me,” Brenda teased. “I'm sure you'd like to relax or spend time with the others.”

“I, I think I liked making breakfast the other day. You know, back when I was a little out of it,” Kiera firmly attested. “I felt happy doing it. I'd rather do something constructive than just hanging around.”

“Well, if you're going to insist on it, I won't say no to some help and pretty company.” Brenda smiled at her.

Kiera flushed at the compliment as they exited the car and collected their bags. She didn't see herself as ‘pretty’ or ‘cute’. She had nothing like Brenda's mature beauty, or Verida’s uniqueness. She wasn't self-assured like Senka, or intelligent like Vivian, or confident like Beth or Aeolia.

‘Even with good people, I don't fit in, do I?’ she glumly thought. It was a bitter irony that a shapeshifter had nowhere to belong. ‘Maybe once we finish this whole thing, I'll just wander about. Yeah, that'll be for the best. There'll be no reason to stick around once the boss and Flora are dealt with.’

She ignored the twisting of her gut at that thought as she entered a very quiet house.

“Well, not the sort of home I expected to come home to,” Brenda remarked as she dropped off her bounty. “With as many people John’s got over now, I expected that we’d be getting noise complaints.”

She laughed as she peeked into the bags around her, moving aside the ones that were hers. As Keira reached to take one filled with her gifted clothing, her hand brushed against Brenda’s and she felt the full brunt of her aura, its deep pulse beating against her with grand intensity, like a heartbeat racing with anticipation.

A deep longing filled Kiera, a long-repressed desire now rising to the surface. Her core throbbed with sympathetic need and the shapeshifter drew her arm back quickly, her face blooming into a heavy blush.

“Are you alright dear?” Brenda asked innocently.

“I-I’m fine,” Kiera squeaked out, her heart beating in her chest. And she wasn’t sure if it was because of embarrassment over reading Brenda’s aura, which she was sure the older woman wouldn’t want her to know what was currently reflected in it, or because of the desire burning in it. A desire that had sparked a fire all her own, one she was trying to tamp out.

‘Don’t think about them,’ she thought, repeating the line like a mantra. She did not want to think of her saviors like that. She did not want to think of Senka pressing her cushiony boobs in her face, or Beth’s toned rear against her thighs. Or John’s deceptively strong arms around her and Vivian’s kind eyes sparkling with mischief as they beheld her.

Or Aeolia’s smirk as she descended upon her, both scary and enticing.

She failed, hard. The want to be closer to them, building since John had helped fix her mind and Aeolia bade her to keep living, to not just give up and die in atonement, was too strong for her to deny. But she was not worthy of them, so thinking of them was just more pain for her to endure.

‘Maybe that’s the way things have to be,’ she thought as she shook away those lurid desires. ‘I hurt them, and countless more by helping the Boss. I didn’t deserve their forgiveness or hospitality. And I don’t desire anything more.’

Passions dulled by the morose reality check, Kiera got back to sorting the bags. In the end, she had far more than her host, something that added to the complicated feelings roiling in her.

“I suppose we may have gone a little overboard,” Brenda admitted now that everything was laid out in a familiar space. “Looks like I’ll need to make more room in the closet.”

“You really don’t need to,” Kiera softly protested. “I can make a small barrier to…”

“Nope,” Brenda cut her off, her tone a mix of playful and serious as she wagged a finger at Kiera. “I know I don’t know the first thing about those barriers, but I’m not going to be as poor a host and **** you to create some pocket of reality to store your clothes.”

“It’s really not a big deal,” Kiera weakly fought back. “It’s perfectly safe and…”

“It’s still rather rude of me to put you in that position,” Brenda asserted. “What’s an easier thing to do in the morning? Opening a barrier and rummaging around in there for your things then stepping back out, or simply opening a closet or dresser?”

Kiera opened her mouth to retort, but found her fight leaving her as Brenda leveled a disapproving stare.

‘Oh, so this is what that sort of look from a mother feels like,’ Kiera thought, her realization coming with an odd mix of emotions. A sense of failing in some way, along with a sad pang from going so long without such a look. A look that held such concern behind the disapproval.

“I’ll take the closet,” Kiera softly relented, instantly causing Brenda’s stare to morph into a kind smile.

“Now, with that all settled, I suppose I’ll need to start on dinner,” Brenda said. “Once we put all these away, that is.”

“I-I can handle that,” Kiera offered. “Then I can help with dinner.”

Brenda teasingly hummed, bringing a finger to her lips as she thought over Kiera’s suggestions, causing her to squirm a bit. “I think that sounds like a lovely idea. Haven’t had a lot of opportunities to cook with someone recently.”

“G-great!” Kiera stuttered, her body still wracked with nerves from being on the receiving end of the mother’s stare. “I’ll be r-right back.”

Kiera quickly gathered up all her bags and hurried up the stairs, trying to settle her emotions.

‘Why do they have to keep being so nice to me?!’ she yelled in her head as she reached the second floor. It made her attempts to figure out what to do with her life crumble away like a sandcastle at high tide and left her adrift with warm and conflicted feelings. She was half tempted to reach out to Verida for advice, but she couldn’t overcome the guilt that welled up at the thought of interrupting whatever she was doing.

‘I can deal with this without dragging anyone into it,’ she thought, though her declaration felt incredibly hollow.

Head filled with a myriad of conflicting thoughts and emotions, Kiera reached the top of the stairs and her eyes drifted not to Brenda’s door but John’s. Tempting curiosity and deep longing warred with her innate timidness and fear as she froze upon the landing. She couldn’t help but recall those flashes of desire that ran through her mind and her legs felt as if lead encased them.

‘A little peak couldn’t hurt, right?’ a traitorous thought broke through her gridlocked mind. What caused that to break through wasn’t known. Perhaps a mix of her desires reinforced by Brenda’s? Whatever the cause, Kiera spent a moment fighting that selfish urge before briskly making her way past John’s door to drop her bags in Brenda’s room.

Then, still not entirely sure why she was doing it, she crept back towards John’s door. Her finger lightly touched the wood, feeling more than just the woodgrain. John’s aura was well infused into the material, as was Brenda’s in a less intense measure. Far more fresh were the light touches of Aeolia, Beth, Senka and Vivian.

The redhead’s aura was the most prominent of those new additions, as Kiera could feel some magic of her working on the door. She took in the barest amount of it, just enough to match it and stretched her senses into the room beyond.

In an instant, Kiera was assailed by the shifting auras of the five people within the room, all of them at various levels of passion and affection. They crashed into the bluenette like a crushing wave, knocking her back as her heart rate spiked and body grew unbearably warm. Phantom sensations groped her breasts and teased her core, causing her to breathe heavily.

She was barely aware of one of her hands drifting into the waistband of her pants and underwear, and of her fingers beginning to press into her now dripping lips, though she let out a relieved moan as some of the building pressure was relieved.

“Kiera?” Brenda’s voice just reached her ears through the rushing of her pulse, though the caring caress of her aura as her host touched her shoulder was far more than enough to break whatever sexual spell she fell under and the bluenette nearly tripped over herself as she flinched away from Brenda, her sex coated hand snapping out of her pants.

“I, I,” she tried to speak, but everything was too much. The lingering arousal, burning desire and growing shame dried her throat out but she felt she needed to say something.

Brenda cut her off with a shushing sound and gently placed her hand over Kiera’s mouth.

“I think this is a conversion we need to have somewhere private,” Brenda said in a kind voice before removing her hand. “No need for us to rely on Vivian’s magic to keep this talk between us.”

Brenda moved, practically wrapping Kiera up in a hug, and escorted her back to her room. She only let go for a moment to close the door, the clicking of the latch causing Kiera’s heartbeat to increase again.

“Relax,” Brenda urged as she led Kiera to sit on the bed. “I’m not going to blow up at you.”

“Why not?” Kiera managed to say, her face beet red and eyes fixed down at the floor as they sat. “I was…”

“I’m not going to berate you for something that was likely out of your control,” Brenda said in a firm tone. “I might not know all the details about what happened to you and some of the more magical elements went over my head, but I’m going to guess that you were overwhelmed by something, right?”

Kiera didn’t trust herself to speak her answer and just nodded, unsure how she would even bring up that she was spying on John and the others.

“Vivian told me a bit of what happened to you, how it overloaded your mind,” Brenda softly revealed, gently running her hand up and down Kiera’s arm, an action that did calm the nervous bluenette down a bit, causing her to lean slightly against the more plush woman.

“She also had a theory that you might be more sensitive to auras,” Brenda continued. “That’s what happened, isn’t it? You got too close to John’s door and picked up on what he and the girls are up to in there.”

Kiera shifted guiltily at Brenda’s innocent framing of the event, like it had just been an accident. A part of her, the vestige of the type of person she had to be for most of her life, was willing to let Brenda believe it had been a random chance, to let this whole event just fade away. But she couldn’t and didn’t want to lie to Brenda. To someone who she helped put in danger yet was welcoming her with open arms.

“It, it wasn’t an accident,” Kiera admitted in a small voice, curling into herself a bit. “I was curious about what they were doing, so I touched the door.”

Kiera expected Brenda’s aura to shift, taking on an edge of some negative emotion. Anger or disappointment at the intentional invasion of privacy or disgust at the act itself. Instead, only surprise joined the caring sensation she could feel, along with the smallest amount of warm excitement bubbling up from the depths of Brenda’s being.

“Well, I suppose that does change things a bit,” Brenda said after a moment of thought. “Now, I can’t go casting stones. My eyes wandered a bit when I was around your age. I’m going to guess you haven’t exactly had the normal chance to look for romance?”

“Not that I remember,” Kiera answered.

“And I’m guessing none of us have made it easy for you,” Brenda continued. Before Kiera could protest, Brenda lightly placed her finger against her lips to prevent her from interrupting. “Dear, I don’t need magical talent to see that you’re attracted to John and his girls.”

Brenda’s aura fluctuated and took on a more melancholic timbre as she pressed on, “Just seeing them all together would be hard for anyone, I think, but your magical senses can pick up on things, right?”

“Yeah, they can,” Kiera replied, fidgeting as she wondered if she should tell Brenda she was picking up certain things she’d rather remain hidden. “Um, Brenda, uh, I should say…”

“You’re picking up something from me, huh?” Brenda asked softly. “I figured you were from how you reacted earlier. I haven’t exactly been playing the field since John’s father passed. And for John to go from being close to a shut-in to having so many lovers, well, I can’t say that it’s helping my dry spell. John growing into the young man I always knew he could be isn’t making things easier.”

Kiera didn’t quite know how to take her host revealing an attraction to her son, the same son she was nearly falling for.

“Are, are you sure you want to be saying stuff like that?” Kiera timidly asked.

“And just keep it all bottled up until things explode? No,” Brenda answered before sighing. “I’m sorry for just dumping this on you, but there’s not a lot of people I could speak to about this. And I just had to go browsing the magic internet and find that **** isn’t as much of a big deal. Not with the medical issues fixable with magic.”

Kiera hadn’t known that, but she hadn’t lived the sort of life where that would come up in casual conversation.

Brenda shook her head. “But those are thoughts I’ll have to deal with later. Right now, we’re focusing on your issue.”

“Um, I don’t see how we can,” Kiera said, not sure how they could address her conflicting feelings and attraction.

Brenda hummed, running her hand up and down Kiera’s arm. “I’d say perhaps you need to go and meet people, but that’s not really an option for a few reasons. And it doesn’t deal with the possibility of you having another episode.”

Kiera flushed, not only from the faint memory of masturbating in front of John’s door, but from the feeling of Brenda’s touch. Both her soft hand tickling her skin and the comforting rhythm of her aura. Even with the constant beat of arousal that lurked in the background feeding into her own, the conveyed concern left her feeling warm and safe, something she rarely felt before.

Brenda peered down at Keira. “I have an unorthodox idea. It’s clear to me that you’re going to need to vent some of those frustrations.”

Kiera shifted in her seat. “You’re, um, suggesting I should, um, masturbate?”

“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Brenda answered, her voice taking on a deeper register. “But I can think of a way that’s a bit more fun. For both of us.”

Thanks again for reading this little story. If you liked the chapter, please hit that thumbs up, and if you want to support my writing, check out my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ScrapCrow. Get access to my chapters before they’re published here and join my private Discord.