The Simulacrum

Critias wasn't big on Halloween. The whole holiday was kind of a dud around here, which made a bit of sense in retrospect, when I thought about it. Last year, I was way too busy dealing with Fred and his sentai-shenanigans, so I never really had the mental wherewithal to care about it at the time, but Timaeus didn't seem to have any holiday décor, let alone kids trick-or-treating.

However, as I said, it made some sense. Our little island was very Western-European, or rather, Nordic in aesthetics, but with oodles of Japanese media tropes on top, and in Japan, Halloween wasn't much of a thing. In contrast, Christmas, Valentine's, and New Year's were way more prevalent, and we even had some kind of traditional summer festival as well, though we missed that one because we were still stuck in the Abyss at the time.

Why was I pondering all this? To put it simply, today was the last day of October, the day when the alleged 'veil between the worlds' was the thinnest. Or so I have read. It had something to do with some Celtic traditions, which themselves were the root of Halloween, but the point is that I decided to be cheeky and specifically arrange a certain meeting on this very day. Just to be thematic.

"Oh, gosh… Oh, geez…"

I glanced at Penny pacing up and down in the living room, and couldn't help but sigh.

"Ease up, Kiddo. You're way too tense."

"How can I not be tense!" she snapped back at me, hands on her hips and glaring at me with a pout. She was wearing a cute orange dress with white hems, and had her hair done up into twin-tails that matched Snowy's usual hairdo, and she looked every bit the rambunctious little sister. Which, to be fair, she was. Anyhow, she glared at me and declared, "We're meeting your b-biological parents for the first time! Why aren't you tense!"

"Because I already met them a few times," I told her, then pointed at my other sister, sitting calmly on the couch and wearing a sky-blue dress of matching design. "Look at Snowy. She's calm."

"Y-Y-Yes. I-I-I'm calm."

…

On second thought, maybe I shouldn't have dropped the idea on them just the day before. In my defence, doing it on this day still felt way too appropriate, and it wasn't my fault that I only read about that whole 'when the veil between worlds is the thinnest' thing yesterday. Or maybe it was, but there was no point arguing about that now.

"Kids? What's the time?" Morgana asked from the direction of the kitchen, and Penny was eager to respond right away.

"Half past noon!"

"Thank you."

It was at this moment that Arnwald walked down from the upper floor, looking unusually well-combed and freshly shaved (save for the trademark side-burns, of course), and he called out, "Do you need help?"

"No, I'll manage!" Morgana called back, sounding almost defensive.

The question, "What is she making, anyway?" slipped out of my mouth before I knew it, and Snowy managed to stop fretting long enough to respond.

"P-Pumpkin spice latte."

"It's the season," Penny noted absently, then proceeded to peek out the front window for the umpteenth time.

"You two really need to calm down," I told them, and Sir Arnwald backed me up with a soft hum.

"Leonard is right. There's nothing to worry about. They might be his biological parents, but he's part of our Dunning family now, and that's all that matters. It's not like they will take him away, so there's nothing to worry about. Right?"

"R-Right!" Snowy agreed, and… seriously, why were they this on edge? Sure, it was a last-minute arrangement, but it wasn't that big of a deal.

"Neige, dear? Could you come here for a moment, please?"

"C-Coming!" Snowy squeaked and jumped to her feet before rushing into the kitchen, heeding Morgana's call, while Arnwald and Penny unsubtly approached me from two sides.

"So… Son?" the man started, looking a touch awkward. "You met them already, right?"

My response was an uncertain, "Yes?" trying to figure out what he was getting at.

"Are they nice people?" Penny inquired next, but before I could respond, Arnwald interjected again.

"Be honest with us. What should we expect?"

How was I supposed to respond to that? It took me a few seconds to formulate an answer, and I eventually settled on this:

"You really shouldn't worry too much. They aren't here to cause trouble. As for what you should expect…" I had to think long and hard about that. "You can think of them as something like arch-mages."

Penny blurted out a shocked, "Are they?" and I let out a long sigh.

"No, I said 'something like' them. They will probably seem a bit strange at a glance, and some of what they're going to be talking about is guaranteed to sound really weird and esoteric, so when that happens, just smile and ignore it."

"Smile and ignore! Got it!" Penny exclaimed, her fingers balled into determined fists.

"Only if they say something weird and esoteric," I told her, along with a light poke on her forehead.

"Oh, okay! I got it!"

I wasn't sure she did, but then Snowy and Morgana came out of the kitchen carrying trays, one with a couple of novelty pumpkin mugs, the other full of home-made cookies shaped like bats, witch hats, and Jack-o-lanterns. Because while the island might not have really cared about Halloween, the mystery of my kitchen pantry cared not for cultural conventions and had supplies and staples for every single holiday without discrimination.

"I've made some drinks," Morgana noted with just a hint of self-consciousness and placed the tray with the mugs onto the table. "I hope they won't go completely cold by the time they arrive."

"Don't worry, Mom! I'm sure it's going to be fine!" my knightly sister skipped over and picked up one of the mugs hiding some kind of coffee under copious amounts of whipped cream. She gave it whiff, but only to conceal the subtle glance she was sending my other sister, and when Snowy nodded, she sucked in a deep breath and gave it a taste. After a gulp, her eyes opened wide, and she said, "Wow! This is… not bad! I never had this before, so I'm not sure how it's supposed to taste, but it's… really not bad!"

While she tried to remain calm and collected, it was clear to see that her words took a huge weight off Morgana's shoulders. She had no reason to be this worried; while she was still learning about cooking, thanks to Snowy's and my girlfriends' tutelage, she was now able to make some simple dishes without problem, so a latte shouldn't have been out of her league anymore. Not to mention, while she wasn't a great cook, it wasn't like she was especially terrible. At least she never managed to burn water, like someone else I knew.

Meanwhile, Arnwald helpfully handed a napkin to my sister, currently oblivious to the foam moustache over her lips, then turned to his (as of yet still not one hundred percent official) wife.

"When did Tajana leave the house?"

"While you were still in the bathroom," she answered with a modest smile, still in high spirits thanks to her culinary success. "She said she didn't want to intrude on a family moment."

"She does feel like she's part of the family," Arnwald mused aloud, followed by a slight frown and a glance at the back of the house, the direction of the guest room. "But I suppose it's only a question of time until she moves out, now that relations with at Abyss are…"

He couldn't finish that thought, interrupted by the doorbell, and everyone jumped like it was the siren of an emergency drill.

Penny put her mug down with a startled, "A-Awawa!" while Snowy looked left and right and muttered, "I… didn't hear a car? Did you?"

"Thank goodness, the drinks should be still warm," Morgana commented while arranging the trays on the table, and so it fell on Arnwald's shoulders to welcome the guests… though not without my lead.

"Come on, guys. You need to calm down."

"Right!" Penny exclaimed, extra high-strung. "Smile and ignore!"

"S-Smile and ignore?" Snowy repeated after her, and my other sister nodded repeatedly.

"Yes! That's the trick! Just smile and ignore!"

"O-Okay. I'll just smile and ignore… what?"

"Ummm… W-Weird things, I think?"

While they were discussing that, I casually walked over to the main entrance, with Arnwald following right behind me like a hawk-eyed bodyguard.

"Relax," I told him with a reassuring tone. "There's no need to be this nervous."

"… You're right. I'm ashamed of my conduct."

"It's fine, just remember to—" Before I could finish, the doorbell sounded again, so I turned to the entrance and called out, "I'm here! Don't be impatient!"

With that, I unlatched the front door, turned the doorknob, and beheld the sight on the other side of the threshold.

"Hi, Kid! How's it hanging?"

I paused for a long beat and looked over the guests. On the right was a familiar woman with bright red hair, currently wearing a very modest grey blazer over a white button-up shirt and a knee-length grey skirt. She looked like a prim and proper office lady, and she was carrying a big gift basket full of flowers, chocolate, bonbons, and a bottle of wine.

So far, so normal.

And then there was this guy…

"Are you serious about that outfit?" I asked as I looked at the lanky man standing next to her. He was roughly as tall as I was, with a lean build and a mild tan. More importantly, he was wearing a bright blue bucket hat, a pair of reflective sunglasses you'd see on a highway cop in an eighties action movie, a garish red-and-yellow patterned Hawaiian shirt depicting parrots and bananas, and plain beige cargo shorts.

"What?" he asked back, looking over himself. "It's a conversation-piece! We're here to have a conversation, aren't we?"

He grinned at me, revealing a full set of pearly-white teeth, and it only made the woman standing next to him all the more exasperated.

"I'm sorry, Sol. I tried to stop him, but you know how he is."

"Yeah. I do," I stated morosely, only to freeze up when I remembered I wasn't alone and I hastily stepped aside. "Please, come in and make yourself at home."

"Yes, please," Arnwald added, following my example and eyeing the oddly dressed man as the two guests entered. He eventually accepted the gift basket and returned to the living room, allowing me a moment with the two incognito Emergents. Carmine was the sensible sort, so I didn't need to worry about her too much, therefore my attention remained on the man.

"Behave yourself, you hear?" I hissed in a low voice, and he pulled his sunglasses down to give me a funny look, his golden irises practically shining.

"Come on, kid. You were the one who invited us over. Be a gracious host."

"I am," I insisted in a low voice. "That's why I didn't kick you out and told you to dress properly."

He pondered that for a moment and uttered a flat, "Touché," before taking off his bucket-hat and placing it onto the peg of the nearby coat hanger, revealing a messy head of jet-black hair that may or may not have used to be a pompadour at one point.

Suddenly feeling that this might not have been that great of an idea, I led the two of them into the living room, where the rest of the Dunning family was anxiously waiting for their appearance. As expected, the contrast between the two of them elicited a bit of surprise, but it didn't last long.

"Since we've all gathered here, let's get the introductions out of the way." I gestured at the adults first. "Arnwald and Morgana Dunning, my legal parents," I started, then moved to the girl, "and they're Penelope and Neige, my younger sisters."

"P-Pleased to meet you!" Snowy blurted out, while Penny only gave them a wooden smile.

Now it was the newcomers' turn, so I pointed at them, but before I could get to the introductions, I was beaten to the punch.

"Thank you for meeting us on such short notice. Please, call me Carmine," the woman in grey started her introduction, then glanced at her companion.

"Oh, my turn?" He stepped forth and did a sophisticated scraping bow that looked incredibly uncanny with his colourful casual getup. "Hello, fellow humans! You may call me Apollo Amun Surya Utu Lugh." That was followed by a long beat, then a sheepish, "But if it's too long, just Apollo will do."

Meanwhile, Carmine rubbed the bridge of her nose and whispered, "You're embarrassing us in front of Sol's relatives."

"What? Why's that embarrassing?"

Before the two of them could start arguing, I tapped them on the back and guided them towards the couch.

"Please, have some pumpkin spice latte," Morgana offered at once, pushing the tray with the drinks towards them. "I'm told it's… not bad."

Carmine responded with a modest, "Thank you for the hospitality," while 'Apollo' let out a boisterous laugh followed by, "Don't mind if I do!"

At last, things seemed to have calmed down a little, right until Arnwald cleared his throat and asked, "So… Are you really Leonard's birth parents?"

Morgana uttered a disapproving, "Dear?" but for once, the man stood his ground.

"There really is no need to beat around the bush, is there?"

Meanwhile, Carmine put her mug down and said, "Not in a purely 'biological' sense of the term, as you would understand."

"It depends on how you look at a Seed Amalgam, I suppose," the man in the garish shirt noted in a disinterested tone, only to perk up the moment he bit into one of the cookies. "Hey! These are good! You should try them."

Carmine ignored him, while on the other side of the table, Snowy muttered, "What's a 'Seed Amalgam'?"

"Just smile and ignore," my other sister whispered back, the same wooden grin still plastered on her face.

In the meantime, despite her initial reservations, Carmine picked up a bat-shaped cookie and started nibbling on it while she explained, "I can't exactly explain the details without discussing related matters that Sol would most likely disapprove of, so it's suffice to say that, on purely pragmatic terms, we can be considered his progenitors."

"E-Excuse me?" Snowy interjected with a cautious raised hand. "Why do you keep calling Leo that?"

"Sol?" she asked back, and when my sister nodded, she seemed stumped for an explanation.

Luckily for her, my other sister finally stopped her weird smiling act, and she snapped her fingers with a loud, "A-ha!"

"What?" Arnwald blurted out, glancing around the room by reflex, while my knightly sister pointed at me.

"That 'S' in your middle name!" she deduced on the spot. "It was 'Sol' all along! Why didn't you tell us? No, wait! Since when did you know? Did you also know about them since you started saying that?"

Ugh. Yeah, in retrospect, arranging this meeting without laying more groundwork was definitely one of my less stellar ideas, but at this point, I had to deal with it.

"We've known each other for a while, but we only discovered that we're related a short while ago," I explained, but it only raised more questions.

"Meaning, you were aware of each other's existence for some time," Morgana stated with slightly narrowed eyes aimed at Carmine. "But if so, then how did Leonard end up in St. Haerviu's?"

"Excuse me? I'm unfamiliar with that term."

"It's the orphanage," Penny clarified for Carmine in a hurry. "It's where Brother and I grew up, back in England."

"Did you give Leonard up for adoption?" Arnwald asked the next question, but before she could respond, the re-Defined Crowned Coalescence cut in with a wagging finger.

"You people are misunderstanding something. Carmine here didn't even know about the kid until recently."

"How can that be?" Morgana looked at the two with equal measures of confusion and suspicion. "Did you not give birth to Leonard?"

"Actually…" Carmine started, but then Apollo cut her short by interjecting again.

"Actually, no. It's more like we both provided some material for the kid, but didn't actually see the process to its end, if you catch my drift."

"Oh. I think I heard of something like that," Arnwald mused with a hand on his chin. "It's that process where they fertilize eggs in a tube."

"In vitro fertilisation," I uttered a tad morosely, and he nodded in appreciation.

"Yes, that's the one. Thank you, son."

Meanwhile, Morgana tried her best to rationalise the information and came up with the following:

"In other words, you two had provided the… 'seed' for Leonard, but you did not give birth to him, meaning he was born to a surrogate mother, and then eventually ended up in St. Haerviu's?"

"That's… not entirely incorrect," Carmine granted her, causing Penny to let out a jaunty whistle.

"Wow! And then, many years later, you got to meet again like this? What are the chances of that?"

"Higher than you'd think, little miss," Apollo declared with a confident grin, followed by a contemplative, "So, you've been Sol's little sister since you were small?"

"Yes!" she declared proudly, only to add, "E-Even though Brother doesn't remember the orphanage anymore… But I'm still his sister!" She blinked and suddenly hugged my other sister's shoulder, startling her in the process. "And Snowy too! We're definitely Brother's sisters, right?"

My Abyssal sister agreed with a less-than-definitive, "D-Definitely," and the man at the other end of the table let out a delighted chuckle.

"Of course you are! You couldn't deny being sisters even if you tried!"

"R-Really?" Penny blurted out, suddenly looking delighted.

"Yeah. You've got the same hairdo and everything," Apollo said, raising his hands to the sides of his head to mimic a pair of pig-tails.

"You see, Snowy? I told you it was a good idea to match!"

"I suppose…"

The man let out a silly chuckle, then leaned in and loudly whispered, "Hey? So, since you know the kid for so long, I bet you have a few embarrassing stories about him."

Penny echoed, "Embarrassing?" with a tilt of her head, making the guy chuckle again.

"Hehe. Yeah, like wetting the bed and such. If you do, can you share a few? I'm supposed to be the kid's old man, but he keeps bullying me. I need some leverage."

"A true father should gain his son's trust through deeds and actions, not attempt to get the better of them through such underhanded means," Arnwald slipped into the conversation with a disapproving frown, but the other man only waved at him.

"Come on, Arnie. It's all in good fun," he insisted with a smile.

"I don't think we're close enough for you to refer to me as 'Arnie'."

Meanwhile, Carmine and Morgana were lost in their own little world, as once the initial antipathy was overcome, they hit a common chord right away.

"So the two of you had to resort to external fertilization? Did you have some… medical complications?"

"Not medical, no. It's just that…" Carmine picked up her mug and took a gulp, then finished the sentence with, "… our reproduction is… complicated."

"But you still wanted to have a child," Morgana concluded, and the other woman nodded with a difficult expression.

"It's… also complicated, but yes. Back then, I was still young, and it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"At the time…" Morgana glanced over at the happy-go-lucky man still pestering my sisters and Arnwald, then back at the redhead woman. "Can I presume that you're not currently in a relationship?"

"No, not really," Carmine admitted with a sigh. "We weren't in a 'traditional' relationship back then either, but…" Another sigh later, she put her mug down. "Things seemed so much simpler back then, but then I started to focus on my work, and we kind of… drifted apart, I suppose."

"I can relate."

That caused Carmine to stop and raise a brow.

"Can you?"

"Indeed," Morgana responded with a warm smile and glanced over at the men and their gradually heating debate.

"I'm telling you; it's a father's duty to raise his child and be there when he's needed," Arnwald lectured the other man, but he only rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses.

"But I was! I mean, not in a direct way, but you can ask the kid if you don't believe me! I taught everything to his Superego, and this one time, I even taunted someone scary to give him some time to get his shit together."

"Please watch your language in front of the children," our Sir Eagle scolded him, while the girls on the side were more confused than anything.

"What's a 'super ego'?" Snowy pondered, but my other sister put a hand on her shoulder and shook her head.

"Remember the mantra. Just smile and ignore."

"R-Right. Smile and ignore."

Seeing them being silly like that drew a smile on Morgana's face even as he turned back to Carmine, and she told her, "Arnwald and I also had our own 'wild youth', but when we had to choose between duty and love, we both chose the former. I thought that was the end of it, but if I have learned one thing since I came to Critias, it's that it's never too late to rekindle an old flame."

"But… I mean…" Eventually, Carmine got up and shuffled over to Morgana's side so that they could continue in hushed whispers. "Look at him! He's not taking anything seriously! He's immature, and inconsiderate, and doesn't care about the consequences of his actions at all!"

"Now, now. Another thing I've learned is that men are just big, hairy boys," the other woman noted with a soft smile. "Look closely. Even now, he's very conscious of you."

"Is he?"

I could've asked the same question, because from where I was standing, he looked like he was neck-deep in a winding argument about various definitions of fatherhood, and nothing else.

"Certainly. You can tell by his body language." Morgana sounded very sure of herself and even pointed at the wildly gesticulating man. "To me, he looks just like my Arnwald when we were young trainees in the… in the army. Full of bluster and bravado and constantly provoking me, because that was the only way he knew how to get my attention, yet too self-conscious to say his feelings out loud."

"No, that's…" Carmine started, but then her expression grew conflicted, and she quietly asked, "Do you really think so? That he's doing these things on purpose just to get my attention?"

"I'm positive," Morgana declared with full confidence, but before she could elaborate, the two men suddenly rose to their feet.

"Very well!" Arnwald exclaimed and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. "Let me get my shoes, and we shall meet in the backyard."

"Hah! Your funeral!" Apollo responded with the same gusto, but then he paused and added, "But speaking of shoes, I only have my flip-flops."

"You should've thought of that before issuing the challenge, then!" Sir Eagle declared, but then immediately did a one-eighty. "However, honor dictates that we must stand on equal ground, so… Come. We'll see if we have anything in your size."

"Lead the way, Arnie!"

"Don't call me Arnie."

With that, the two of them left the living room, so I took the opportunity to approach my sisters and ask, "What was that about?"

"Oh? Dad challenged Mister Apollo to a duel," Penny told me like it was no big deal.

"M-Mister Apollo got to choose the rules, and they settled on interpretive dancing."

"… Excuse me?" I blurted out, while Morgana stifled a laugh in the background.

"See, Carmine? Just big, hairy boys."

The two of them shared a good chuckle over that, completely on the same wavelength. So just to summarise: My mothers were sharing relationship advice, my fathers were having a dance off, while my sisters…

"Penny? Can I stop smiling?"

"Not yet. I still need to ignore that thing he said about submerged things."

"Oh, okay then."

… my sisters were still silly. In conclusion, maybe this family reunion wasn't the worst of my ideas, but it was definitely one of the more chaotic ones. And you know what? I could live with that.