Private Finished Not Her Mother

Violet left the community center to catch up with Colten. He wanted to talk with her, and she felt some amount of dread over that.

Just now, Ida had been acting pretty terribly in the Community Center. Colten came in and saw it, and Violet couldn't help but feel like this reflected poorly on her. Despite her best efforts. Colten was pulling out the nuclear option - either Ida signs up for classes like Violet's been nagging her to do, or she's out. And to top it all off, there was apparently some kind of bullshit involving Ida trying to get Sazz fired? The words 'What the fuck, Ida?' had been buzzing through Violet's mind for the last half hour.

Now, Violet and Colten were walking together through Oceania Park, on their way home. She looked over her shoulder to make sure Ida wasn't following. And then, she spoke. "So. Despite all the times she's disappointed me so far, I really did think I was making some progress with her. But this Sazz situation feels... a bit more serious." She exhaled like the weight of her disappointment was squeezing the air out of her.

Violet blinked. "...You mean, when you asked me about her progress?" Was he upset with her about this? Did she come off as some kind of inept liar?

"If I said 'no, she hasn't been making any progress,' or 'she hasn't done anything about those papers I've been nagging her about all month,' she'd feel like I betrayed her. But 'we were talking about maybe signing those papers tomorrow' clearly means the same thing, right?"

She was the good cop, he was the bad cop. Or, rather, just about everyone else was playing the role of the bad cop.

Violet took a breath. Maybe she was the one having a hard time reading him, and not the other way around. It didn't help that he mentioned her covering for Ida right after his bit about, 'there are some lines that cannot be crossed.' But it wasn't really that big of a deal.

"Colten, I didn't lie to you about who I am, and that could still be the death of me. I'm not going to betray your trust in me just to cover someone else's backside."

The conversation moved on. Her tail shifted to become longer, bendier, more like her old one. It twisted casually behind her as they walked. Colten went on to speculate if she was pushing herself into this too much for personal reasons, and her tail froze in its current conformation.

She took a deep breath. "No. You're probably right. Do you remember Izzy?" If Colten didn't, Violet would remind him. Back when she was Chloe, she had saved this imp boy, Izziel, from the eternal torment that his master and creator had set out for him. She took him into their house, not realizing until after the summoning that he was so young. She found a way to break the bond between him and his master. But between Izziel's bad behavior, his failure to show any gratitude, and his making Dalia miserable, Malara wanted him gone. So once the connection between Izzy and his master was broken, he started living at the dorms.

"Maybe I still feel guilty about that," Violet said. "And I thought I could do better with Ida this time around. So, you might be right." She sighed.

In a sense, she felt like she'd failed Izzy as a mother. Even though she wasn't even his mother, and his behavior had nothing to do with her. The parallels between That situation with Izzy and this one with Ida were not lost on Violet.

Violet nodded through Colten's lecture. "... I remember you telling me something like this, before." Right at the beginning of her trying to take Ida on - but maybe it was worth her hearing again. "I thought I had been doing a good job of setting up those limits. But maybe I was wrong. I didn't really think about how I might be letting her too close emotionally. Kind of a big oversight, when I put it that way."

She wasn't used to this. She didn't have the kind of experience distancing herself that Colten did. The closest thing she'd ever done to this, before Izziel, was acting as a mom to Amber and Dalia. Everyone she had to take care of, she thought of as her child. Even now, in some frantic effort to fill the emotional holes that this ordeal was leaving behind for her.

But that last part, which she'd just realized, still felt a little too raw to say out loud. Especially in front of Colten.

"I mean... I'm not her mother or anything," Violet said, talking herself through it. "Hell, she's older than I am. Whether or not I count all the years I was Chloe."

A few seconds after saying this, she took a moment to look around, on alert. Just to make sure nobody saw her say that.

Violet would have liked to keep walking, but Colten was already sitting down. It made sense to stop here, when she thought about it for a second. Adonia was somehow keeping people clear of this place for the sake of their privacy. She wouldn't want that effort to go to waste.

So Violet sat down next to him, her own tail curling up into her lap much like his did. She was quiet at first.

"I was sure that was what you meant," she said. "But I'm staying safe. And I think I'm keeping the boundaries under control, except perhaps for the emotional ones. I'm not prioritizing her over my job or handling my own problems. It's just a little painful every time she lets me down." There were quite a few letdowns, though, so there was plenty of emotional pain for Violet to feel about Ida. Hence Violet's assumption that this *must* be what he was talking about.