Disappointment and Dreams

Selena attempted to drink out of a mug with all the grace her canine mouth could muster. ‘Ugh, this is so undignified and embarrassing!’ While she towered over the table and didn’t need a chair, dinning at the table didn’t erase the face that she still had eat and drink like a animal despite her best attempts to maintain her human habits. Fortunately, Omthor and Lirhilde were unfazed. “Mmm, this is good!” Lirhilde sighed contentedly, drinking deeply.“Aqua-Kun’s an amazing cook! I shouldn’t be surprised, though. All the produce we bought from him was delicious!”

“Well, he grows his own food. Not surprising.” Omthor shrugged. Despite his casual attitude, he’d enjoyed the meal as much as his wife. The mother and daughter were lucky to have found an ordinary, kind person who was willing to support them while they adjusted. ‘Well, it’s not like we weren’t lucky, either.’ He thought as the three adult Otherworlders enjoyed post-dinner teatime. Aqua was cleaning up in the kitchen and Elfrida had dragged Mahannana out back for some moonlight lessons, giving them plenty of privacy to air their frustrations about their new lives.

“If nothing else, we’ve been eating well.” Selena agreed. “Aqua and Elfrida have been lifesavers. I’d be far more worried about Madoka than I already am if we didn’t have somewhere to stay and someone looking out for her. Studying magecraft wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for her future, but at least she’s still getting an education.”

“Who’s Madoka?” Lirhilde asked in confusion. “Oh, right. Mahannana.” Selena rolled her eyes and groaned. “Because my daughter would rather throw away her real name and life and immediately start living in a fantasy than try to get back home.” Selena knew how pissy and rude she sounded, but she wanted so badly to let out the feelings that had building up inside of her. Now that the slightest little hint had peaked out from behind the curtain, she couldn’t stop everything from pouring out.

“We’ve been through hell, and I had to sacrifice a lot because she’s...well let’s just say she has a diagnosed condition that makes her different. No one gave a damn about her struggles or even tried to meet us halfway, so I had to make up for the lack of help on my own. I was exhausted, but I thought it would be worth it if my daughter could graduate, go to university, and have a successful life. If she was being treated the way she deserved and would be fine when I died, that would be enough for me. But after all the shit we dealt with..." Selena dug her claws into the floor."We ended up here and it’s like she’s treating all my sacrifices and her own hard work like nothing! She’s all too happy to just start a whole new life and pretend like our real lives didn’t matter!” She growled and began grinding her teeth. “This is awful but...I don’t care how happy she is or how much everyone thinks she’s some sort of genius! I don’t want my daughter being a fucking magician! I want her to be a doctor or teacher or something normal! I want her to have friends and get married and have a stable life! Even if this world is technically real, she’s choosing to live out some dumb, useless fantasy instead of facing reality!”

There, she’d said it. As much as she loved her daughter, as much as she tried to be open-minded, and as much as she would beat the crap out of anyone who called her daughter weird...she also thought something was wrong with Madoka in this situation. She’d tried to be accepting, but this was a bridge too far!

“Hey...Selena? Do you think Mahannana-Chan...Madoka-Chan...was happy back home?” Lirhilde asked softly, looking at the wolf woman seriously. “Honestly? Nothing is ever perfect but was her happiness proportional with the struggles she was having?” Selena though back to all the mental breakdowns while studying, all the letters and emails from teachers bad-mouthing her daughter as lazy and incorrigible and the struggle to get any information about the school day out of her daughter. She thought about how her daughter had been through bullying so intense that she had to transfer elementary schools for her own good, and how they’d been isolated by the other parents, who told their children to stay away from Madoka. Madoka was always at home if she wasn’t at school and, while it was seemingly a choice, Selena had rarely ever heard her talk about any of her classmates. ‘Does she even have any friends?’ Selena realized with a jolt. ‘I’ve haven't had time for friends since university, but she’s a teenager! She should be having sleepovers with other girls and participating in clubs, but...’

“Well, of course things were hard for her!” Selena answered evasively, trying to squelch her doubts. “Madoka’s always struggled academically and her teachers were hard on her. She’s had to push herself to merely keep up and I’ve had to be strict at times. Sure, her...condition... could make things to hard for her emotionally, and she couldn’t understand why she was being pushed so hard and had to do things she didn’t want to do...but she’ll understand when she grows up. It’s how things work. I had to work my ass off just to get to study in Japan, but it paid off! I wouldn’t have her if I’d just given up when things got uncomfortably difficult!”

Lirhilde looked at Selena with sympathy. “I won’t pretend to know Mahannana-Chan after just meeting her, and I’ve never been a mother so I might be speaking from an uninformed position but...I think Mahannana-Chan was deeply unhappy and unfulfilled back in our world and loves this world so much because she’s been able to achieve the things that she felt were impossibly out of her reach.” Selena opened her mouth to refute the accusation, but Omthor held his hand up. “I’m sure you have strong parental instincts but, please, at least hear my wife out first.” Selena clenched her jaw shut, knowing he was right. “Thank you, darling.” Lirhilde beamed at her husband before taking a deep breath.

“Me and Mahannana-Chan talked a lot outside. You can ask Elfrida-Sensei to confirm I’m telling the truth. But... Mahannana-Chan told me she's never had any friends and always felt lonely. I told her that I could relate, as my parents were absent a lot and I was an only child, so I suppose she thought I’d be sympathetic and told me more about herself. Her teachers treated her like dirt and constantly punished her for perceived disrespect and wouldn’t let her explain herself. Her classmates thought she was weird and the class idiot because she was so far behind them. She tried as hard as she could, but she felt like it was never enough because all her teachers would tell her when she asked for help was that she was lazy and would figure it out if she actually put the work in. No one acknowledged her effort or the pressure she was putting on herself. And then she would go home and, despite knowing that you loved her, she was paranoid that you were constantly judging her, too. She was already exhausting her self but thought if she didn’t do more, you’d be mad and think she was worthless, too.”

Selena’s mouth fell open. “I-I just wanted her to graduate with good grades! I was only tying to hold her accountable! Maybe I did sometimes think she wasn't trying hard enough, but I’d never think she was lazy or worthless!” Selena insisted. “I believe that.” Lirhilde agreed. “I believe both of you. Both you and Mahannana said it; whatever condition she has, learning and social interaction has always been hard for her because her brain works differently. If all her teachers and classmates have been consistently putting her down and making light of her work for years, why wouldn’t she become paranoid that you secretly thought the same thing?”

Selena was stunned. “I-I...I...when she was little...Madoka got bullied. Badly.” She confessed, surprised she was unlocking this part of their past. “I’m talking being beaten bloody and told she was worthless so many times that she eventually was saying things that she didn’t realize were borderline suicidal. The school didn’t care, and it was so bad that I had to pull her out halfway through elementary school and transfer her.” Selena didn’t know why she was telling the older couple all this when they were total strangers. Maybe the years of having no one to turn to and the loss of her own parents had taken a heavier toll than she’d realized.

“In kindergarten, she’d come home crying because people were mean to her but, by the next grade level, she’d stopped talking about it. I’d ask if she was still being bullied, but she always told me things were fine, and I trusted her. Then, the grade after that, I found out what had really been going on!” Selena wailed. “The bullying had always been happening and progressively getting worse! I only found out when she was too hurt and sad to hide it anymore.” The wolf shrunk into herself in shame. “I asked her why she didn’t just tell me, and she said...” The tears started to fall, despite Selena trying to hold it together. “She said “Mommy, you’d get so upset whenever I’d tell you and you’d go into school to yell at the teachers. I thought you were disappointed in me, and I didn’t want you to worry.” She thought that I was so angry because she did something wrong, not that I was angry that she was being hurt and no one else cared!”

Lirhilde’s eyes went wide. “Oh God. Now it makes sense. She thought you were disappointed in her and that’s why you were always trying to get her to study. And she thought you’d either be worried or even more disappointed if she told you that she had no friends. She probably had a misplaced desire not to worry or upset you from all the bullying.” The three stared at each other in shocked silence for a few moments. “Mahannana-Chan...” Lirhilde said hesitantly. “...she flat-out told me and Elfrida that she was happier here than she ever was back home and was glad she didn’t have to go back. She got overly excited when I praised her magecraft and Elfrida was talking about her unnaturally high levels of natural talent and... it’s like something broke and she suddenly told us how much happier she was here. Back home, she always felt like there was an invisible wall preventing her from going anywhere or achieving anything and she spent most of her time being stressed out and lonely.”

“Really?” Selena asked dully, feeling absolutely rotten. ‘How could I fail so badly at my one job in life? I not only didn’t realize how miserable my daughter was, but I made it worse. I made her feel like I didn’t care and was just another bully that would never be satisfied with her no matter what she did, to the point that she told a woman she just met a few hours ago and her teacher of two weeks all this, but she never told me any of this !’

“She said that everyone here was kind and acted like she was some sort of idol. She’d never been called smart, pretty or gifted before and this was the first time she’d been treated with respect. You might not know, butt word’s been traveling about you and your daughter because of how personable you both are. That and Elfrida has practically been screaming from the rooftops about her new student being a prodigy Otherworlder. When I told Mahannana-Chan that I’d heard people call her cute and bubbly and talk about how she brought a smile to their faces, she looked like she was going to cry. She said she always wanted to be a top academic scorer, have lots of friends, and be seen as someone who was cool and kind, but she’d given up on her dreams a long time ago."

“I’m a failure as a parent.” Selena lamented. “I wanted her to succeed but I was just pushing my own ideas onto her, wasn’t I?” ‘Since we got here, I’ve only been thinking about my own misery and not taking Ma-Chan's feelings and desires seriously.’ Selena realized. ‘I wasn’t just worried she’d eventually have a meltdown but, in some twisted way I wanted her to have one to validate my pessimistic outlook on this world. “oh, sure you like it here, sweetie! Once you get a taste of reality, you’ll realize it sucks!"...I was completely invalidating her autonomy and ability to think and feel for herself.’

“I don’t like this body. I don’t like things being unfamiliar. Even if my life wasn’t fulfilling, I’d rather start over in our world.” Selena confessed. “I personally don’t like this world. I’ve been frustrated because Madoka hasn’t realize how bad it is and I assumed she's been living with rose-colored glasses but...” Selena didn’t want to say the words out loud; didn’t want to admit how cruel and selfish she’d been all this time to anyone else. But it needed to be said.

“You’re stressed and struggling so, even though you were happy for your daughter, you were jealous of her and angry about your own situation.” Omthor surmised. “And the fact that she was finally succeeding and finding happiness was frustrating because it didn’t happen the way you thought it would.” Selena nodded before slumping to the ground and curling up into a ball on the ground. “Yep” She concurred, muffled by her fluffy tail. “I’m a demon of a mother. I’ve pressured my daughter to fit a mold, made her pain worse and spent the last few weeks having a condescending and bratty shit fit. I’m just as ableist and closed-minded as the people who called my daughter defective or said their children couldn’t play with her because they saw her violating societal norms as a moral defect.”

Sinking into self-loathing when her daughter was the one who’d suffered because of her actions was just a different form of selfishness, but Selena couldn’t help herself. She could already feel the creeping internal panic and disorientation that she’d felt when her husband had left them. She wanted to forget about that period of her life when she’d sunken into depression and had lost her ability to feel anything. Madoka was probably better off without her at this point since her attempts to help her had been worse than useless...

Suddenly, Selena felt a pair of arms wrap tightly around her. “Stop that. It’s not your fault. You’re only human. You’ve been stressed and forced to carry a heavy mental load alone for years, so it’s only natural you’d hit your limit. Yes, you messed up but, parent or not, who doesn’t? You realized that you hurt your daughter, and you’ve already taken responsibility for it. You are a good mom, just one who tried the wrong things in her attempts to help.” Lirhilde gave Selena a tight hug and rested her head on the wolf’s. Selena wanted to pull away, but she couldn’t help letting her body melt into the other woman’s.

‘She’s right...I’m so exhausted...it’s so tiring feeling like I'm responsible for everything...’ Selena admitted. ‘I thought if I could force everyone to accept Madoka, then things would get better...but what’s the point of trying to please the assholes who treat her like the plague because they’re narrow-minded? Making Madoka mask herself was never going to make either of us happy. The fact that no one will notice or care that we disappeared into this world and Madoka’s ability to adjust so easily prove that everything I did was pointless. It accomplished nothing and just made both of us miserable.’

“B-but I was an idiot and made her life worse!” Selena blubbered. “How can I make things better when Ma-Chan must hate my guts?” Lirhilde gently made Selena lift her head and look at her. “That’s a lie. You and I both know it.” She scolded gently. “Yes, Mahannana-Chan felt like you didn’t understand, but a big part of that was irrational fear that she’d be rejected by you in the same way she was rejected by everyone else. She loves you and knows you love her! She said as much both directly and implicitly. You might have hurt her, but you didn’t scar her for life, and she hasn’t picked up how much you’ve been struggling internally in this world.” She smiled reassuringly at Selena. “Do you get it? Whether you ever discuss this with Mahannana-Chan is up to you and what’s best for her, but you can change before you get upset that you lash out and have something to really regret.”

Selena blinked, trying to clear her vision. At some point, she’d have to apologize to Madoka. It was only right. But, while her actions might have affected her daughter, right now, she needed to help herself and get it together. Madoka was genuinely doing fine, but she wasn’t, and everything wouldn’t just go away if she ignored it harder.

“Thanks, Lirhilde.” Selena sighed. “I’m glad I was able to talk to you two before my frustration made me lash out at Ma-Chan. Or Aqua. I’ve been so moody that I’ve been overly critical of him, too,  even if it’s just in my head.” Lirhilde and Omthor looked at her with a deep empathy, but there wasn’t even a trace of judgement in their faces. “This is a strange situation, and no one is going to have the same reaction to it.” Omthor reassured her. “Some people like us and your daughter will be fine when faced with things that can't be explained, but most people will have varying level of stress. We’re not going to judge you for acting normally. Besides, we can understand feeling lonely and isolated, to an extent, being as old as we are. Or were, anyway.”

For the first time in decades, Selena didn’t feel like she was repressing herself or putting on a mask to get along with others. ‘Why couldn’t someone have listened to me sooner?’ She thought sadly as Lirhilde continued to comfort her. ‘But...I’m glad someone finally did. Between the stress of the years since Madoka was diagnosed and the rage that’s been eating at me since we ended up here...it would have had to reach a tipping point sooner or later. And my chest feels far less tight now that I’ve been able to admit my feelings.’ For the first time since they’d woken up in the town center, Selena began to feel a small spark of hope and optimism instead of an impending disaster waiting on the horizon.