Chapter Text
Gloria always woke up at 7:47 in the morning. She didn’t have to wake up until eight o’clock, but every morning she woke up at 7:47. She had been that way since she was born; the time was engraved in her soul. You had done some research on the importance of times to souls, as some of your customers had come in with times (or dates, on occasion) engraved into their souls. All the books that you had found told you was that these engravings were important to a person’s destiny.
You didn’t know why 7:47 A.M. was so important to her destiny, but you wished it could’ve waited until a little later in the day. You didn’t mind being woken up thirteen minutes ‘til eight every morning, but sometimes you could use the extra time. Despite your constant sleep deprivation, you always woke up for your daughter. She would stare at you with her forest green eyes, a sleepy smile spread across her face as she nuzzled her cheek against your neck.
Your yawn fell into a sigh as she continued to nuzzle your neck. Her green-tinged birthmark resonated with your own blue-tinged birthmark, a small bit of magic sparking for a split-second. “Morning, baby girl,” you greeted after a moment, pulling her small form against your body. You could feel her smile pressed against your neck, and you smiled softly as you rubbed her back.
“Morning, Mama,” she returned after stretching. “I want fruity hoops for breakfast, please!” She pushed herself up to look at you. Her eyes trailed down to your mouth, and she stared at it thoughtfully. Then her chubby little fingers reached up to tug at the piercing in your lip. “You should wear the purple one today! It’s the prettiest, ‘cause it’s got the star in the middle of the bead.” You grinned, rubbing your eyes as you sat up. She fell back and sat comfortably in your lap to wait for your response.
“The purple one, huh?” She nodded, her messy hair flipping with her head. You pat her head, “I’ll change it after breakfast. We both need to eat before we can do anything else.” Gloria nodded and pushed herself off the bed, fixing her nightgown before she waddled out to the kitchen. You stared after her with a laid back smile, running a hand through your hair. Sleep deprivation was worth it if you could wake up to her happiness every morning.
With a final yawn, you swung your legs over the side of your bed and grabbed your phone off of the nightstand. You pressed the button on the side, lighting up the screen so you could check the time. It read 7:59. You unlocked your phone so you could cancel your alarm. It was pretty pointless for you to have an alarm set for eight o’clock when you had a living alarm clock, but you couldn’t bring yourself to delete it. It was a habit to turn it on every night and then turn it off every morning after Gloria woke you up. It was a habit… It was a part of you.
“Mama, come on!” You grinned at her impatience, holding your phone as you walked out of your bedroom. You glanced at the stairs on your way down the hallway, shrugging when you saw that the curtain at the bottom fluttered a little bit. It wasn’t odd for the draft to move it.
You owned a two-story house on the edge of Ebott City, but the second floor was where you and Gloria lived. You had converted the first floor into your business area, where all the stuff you needed to run your Seeing sessions was gathered.
“Glor, Glor, I’m here.” You soothed chidingly, seeing your daughter playfully puff out her cheeks. She continued to pretend-pout as you poured Fruit Loops into her bowl. She only giggled and smiled after you set the bowl in front of her. As was your tradition, you poured some milk into a cup and set it in front of her. She dumped it over her cereal with a gleeful squeal. You had no idea why she took such enjoyment in pouring milk on her cereal, but it made her happy so you saw no fault in letting her do it.
Once she started munching on her cereal, you went over to the cupboard and pulled out a box of s’mores poptarts. You got a silver package out of the box, then took the two pastries out of that and dropped them into your toaster. Leaning against the counter, you sighed and waited for them to cook. Gloria spooned another bite into her mouth, milk dribbling down her chin. She spoke with her mouth full, “Mama, can I do the magic?”
You tilted your head at the question. “You don’t have to ask to use your Sight, baby. Not with your mama, at least.” She nodded, squeezing her eyes close. You grinned at her silly actions; she liked to close her eyes before she used her Sight, simply because she liked to think it turned it on. You did the same, for dramatic effect.
When you opened your eyes back up, the world around you fell into slightly muted colors. Gloria dulled into gray-tones. The Sight did that to help bring focus to the souls around you. In this case, the only soul was your daughter’s. Her soul - mostly hunter green with a fragment of blue, 7:47 etched into it with elegant script - was beating in time to her heart; it looked like her body was gray-colored glass, and that her soul was kept within it.
You watched as she opened her eyes, her pupils surrounded by glowing white hearts. She gasped, covering her mouth as she stared at your soul. You looked down to see what was so strange.
A bright blue soul pulsed with your heartbeat. It looked like glass to you (glass within glass?), but only because of how your soul was cracked. A fragment of it was missing, a void-like blackness taking residence within the blue. You looked back to Gloria’s soul, smiling softly at the blue within it. You had given up a lot to have her and keep her, and it showed in both of your souls. The cracks that came from the missing fragment… They meant nothing as long as you still had your baby.
You looked back at her, that motherly questioning look on your face. You were silently asking what she gasped at. She pulled her hands from her mouth and revealed her wide smile. “Your soul is still so pretty, Mama!” She hopped off her chair (the sound of it scraping against the ground was muted slightly, as the Sight seemed to do that with all of your senses) and approached you. She moved her hands like she was pulling rope, coaxing your soul out. “I wanna touch it, please!”
You grinned, “It’s a little late for ‘please’, but go ahead, Glor.” Though you should probably tell her that she is not allowed to just coax souls out of people without their permission. You put that in the ‘remember later’ section of your brain. Your grin smoothed into a maternal smile, watching as she raised her hands to pull your cracked soul close to her.
She ran her hands over the humps at the top, a soothing green magic trail following her movements. You watched in intrigue. The books you had found said that green magic had healing properties in monster culture. You knew that her magic was weak - both from her young age and the minimal amount present within her - but you wondered if some of the residual healing properties remained with her. It would be interesting to see as she got older, you mused.
“Your soul is so pretty, Mama.” She poked a finger into the inky black space, wriggling it around. You tried to muffle a giggle (it felt like she was tickling you from the inside). She pulled it out and smiled up at you, “I love you!” Then she wrapped her arms around your soul and hugged it. You wheezed at the pressure she was putting on the blue heart, patting her head roughly. She blinked before realizing her mistake, then she released your soul. “Oh no, I squeezed the air out of you again, didn’t I?”
You gasped, “Yeah… don’t worry Glor… I’m good.” You grabbed your soul and pulled it back into your body. After air was back in your lungs and not being hyperventilated out, you said, “I think that’s enough Seeing for now, though.” She nodded, squeezing her eyes closed once again. You didn’t close your eyes, instead turning to glance at the toaster as color and sound faded back in. You frowned, reaching for a plate off the counter and pulling the s’mores flavored pastries out. “My poptarts are cold.”
Gloria’s eyes popped back open as she climbed back into her seat. “My cereal is soggy, Mama!” she complained. You looked between the cold pastries and soggy cereal before sighing defeatedly.
“I think the Bob Evan’s nearby is open… Let’s go get dressed and we’ll go, okay?” She nodded quickly, standing up on her chair and jumping to the floor. She ran off, towards her bedroom, an excited smile on her face. “And you have to wear pants this time!”
She let out a long groan, one that you could hear from the kitchen. “But Mama!”
You grinned as you gathered the dishes, dumping the cereal into the sink and throwing the poptarts into a plastic bag (they could be saved for later). “No butts shall be had, Gloria Hazel! Pants are a must!”
“So skirts aren’t a must?” she asked, trying to worm out of wearing pants. Or, more accurately, underwear.
“I do not want to see your naked butt, Gloria Hazel! No butts!”