Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

Short-sighted.

Stupid.

He watched Kirielle for a few more seconds, remembering all the promises he made to his little sister over the many restarts he shared with her. He promised he wouldn’t forget her. He promised he would teach her magic.

He promised he would bring her with him to Cyoria.

Just as she was about to run off, Zorian placed his hand on her shoulder, causing her to halt in her tracks and look at him in surprise. Her lip quivered slightly.

"Hey, Kirielle…" he told her with a mischievous smile. "Do you want to come with me to Cyoria?"

Simulacrum number two could practically imagine Zorian screaming at him in the near future, explaining in great detail what an idiot he was being.

He didn’t care, though.

The smile on her face when he asked her that question made it all worth it.

Sometimes he could be so stupid, Zorian lamented. He had known that his simulacrums tended to be more impulsive and whimsical than himself. It seemed to be an intrinsic trait of every one of his copies, no matter how carefully he made them or how closely they were connected to him. They may be very much like him, but they weren’t him. The moment they realized they were just a simulacrum that would not live past a few hours or days, their perspective on long-term consequences would get subtly skewed compared to his own. After all, more likely than not it wouldn’t be them who would have to deal with those when the time finally came.

He also knew that giving his simulacrums unpleasant or boring tasks had a good chance of coming back to bite him in the ass. His simulacrums did not mind dying for him, but they were not at all afraid of inconveniencing him. In fact, they often seemed to relish the idea.

Zorian wondered what it said about him that his simulacrums behaved that way, but that was a thought for another time. The point was that, despite knowing all of that, he had still left his simulacrum in charge of dashing Kirielle’s hopes of going to Cyoria. He should have known that was going to be a problem, but he thought it would be a simple matter of the simulacrum refusing Mother’s offer while Kirielle remained quiet on the sidelines. This was, after all, what usually happened when Zorian didn’t want to bring Kirielle with him. All the simulacrum had to do was just retread his steps and be on his merry way! Instead his copy got bored and actively sought Kirielle out to hang out with, wasting their precious mana on frivolous entertainment, and then got all emotional when it was time to say goodbye…

Ugh. Just like the offending simulacrum predicted, Zorian had been furious. It was a stupid, short-sighted decision! Yes, sending her off to Koth with their parents would be a massive disappointment for her, but at least she’d be out of danger! That was more important than making her momentarily happy!

The simulacrum was completely unapologetic about it, too.

"What’s done is done," his copy told him over their telepathic link. "I already gave her my word I’m taking her with me. If you have a problem with that, you can come over here and personally inform her that you’ve changed your mind and won’t be taking her with you after all…"

"You bastard!" Zorian fumed at him. "I should dismiss you for that!"

"That would leave Kirielle and the rest of the family completely defenseless until you sent a replacement," the simulacrum pointed out. "Besides, do you really think I care about that? From my very first moment, I knew my time was fleeting."

Sadly, true. Since his simulacrums were willing to die and sacrifice themselves for his sake, the thought of dying did not bother them much. Thus, threatening to unmake them was largely ineffective.

"I just don’t understand why you did that," Zorian complained. "We could have just taken Kirielle to Cyoria in a month or two, once the whole situation has hopefully been resolved and she’s back from Koth. There is no need to take her there now , when the situation there is at its most dangerous!"

"When, if not now?" the simulacrum disagreed. "Even if we can resolve everything and save the city, the consequences are bound to be immense. Even a failed invasion will make our parents perceive Cyoria as a place of unspeakable danger. You think they will let her live in the city after that? Even for a few days? Come on. This is probably the last time we can plausibly take Kirielle to Cyoria without literally kidnapping her."

Zorian frowned. He hadn’t really thought of that. It was true that no matter how the situation with the invasion was resolved, it was bound to complicate things. Plus, now that he thought about it a little, Kirielle would have to go back to school at some point soon. It wasn’t like she could visit a different city for several weeks at the time, then. Come to think of it, that was probably the reason why she was so excited to make this trip with him now. She knew this was one of her last chances to experience something like this in the near future…

He sighed internally. For all of its blessings, he sometimes worried that the time loop had damaged his thinking. For more than a decade, anything that did not resolve itself within the span of a month was largely irrelevant. He did consider the future a lot, but that was all highly theoretical and often directed at the far future rather than something only a few months later.

Still. Even with all of that in mind, bringing Kirielle to the epicenter of their clash with Red Robe and Silverlake was simply a terrible idea.

"Besides," his copy continued, "by bringing Kirielle along we actually have a legitimate excuse to rent a room at Imaya’s place. Kael is much more willing to trust us if we come along with Kirielle. And it’s not like we don’t have a plan to evacuate–"

"Those are just excuses you thought up afterwards to justify your decision," Zorian told him.

"Well… yes," the simulacrum admitted after a short pause. "Yes, I admit that. It’s still true, though, and I’m not going to go back on my word. Our word. You promised you’re not going to just forget her once we’re out there in the real world. Now you want to just stick her on a ship to Koth and put her out of your mind while you do your stuff?"

"That stuff is a matter of life and death and getting her out of danger doesn’t mean I’m going to simply forget about her afterwards!" Zorian snapped. "I just want her to be safe. She’s a prime target and I’m just a little bit busy at the moment. It’s not the time for this!"

"Forget it," his copy sighed. "I just… I won’t do it, okay? I already said it. What’s done is done. I’m not going to turn around and tell her it was all a mistake and that I changed my mind. It would kill her. If you think this is such a huge mistake, come over and do it yourself. Go tell her that her dream trip is canceled, I dare you."

The simulacrum then terminated their connection, signaling it considered the conversation over.

After taking several deep breaths and calming down somewhat, Zorian decided that the simulacrum was right about one thing: he should definitely be dealing with this problem personally. As he noted in his earlier lament, it was stupid of him to assign a task like this to a simulacrum to begin with, and only he could truly fix it. Or at least stop the problem from getting worse.

Besides, there was no need for him to stay at Cyoria at the moment. Previously, he had been worried that his simulacrum would get dispelled in the fighting and that he would need to constantly replace them… but that was far less of a concern, now. The first golem simulacrums had been placed into service by now, replacing two of his ectoplasmic simulacrums with a more mana efficient and resilient group. Golem simulacrums were very difficult to neutralize – even punching a hole through the chest or blowing off a limb would not be enough to put them down for good. That extreme resilience, all by itself, should allow his copies to clash with the invaders and Red Robe’s simulacrums without fear.