After some time, Aelindra finally calmed down and noticed her own behavior, so she pulled away and opened a tentative smile.
"Welcome home, mother…"
Cecilia nodded, without finding the words to say. A certain part of her had been holding a certain hope that Aelindra's behavior would be more NPC-like. But what she just witnessed were proper, real feelings.
No AI would be able to act out this level of emotions. Aelindra is most definitely a real person, which means that Cecilia has no way to escape her 'mother' status anymore.
((What do I say? Or do? What is the expected behavior of a mother…?))
"It's been a long time, my daughter. I'm really sorry."
"It's okay… What matters now is that we're reunited. Please, sit here. I'll have maids bring some pastries and te… oh, right, players don't need to eat."
"No, no… I definitely need to eat right now, and I can feel the taste of food too. A lot has changed about my condition, so I'll be really happy to have pastries and tea."
The food Gertrude made was very good, especially for Cecilia and her past hospital life. But there was something from her childhood that she really missed.
She would be able to eat pastries for the first time in several years.
"Oh, I see."
She looked at a maid on her left, and the maid nodded. Soon the table in front of the two was populated with sweets, and the two were served tea. In the meanwhile, Aelindra asked what had been in her heart all that lonely time.
"What happened back then, Mother? Why did you disappear?"
"I'm not sure myself. I went to that player's tower to buy a bunch of Asterion Lily and was on my way back when everything just blackened out. Next thing I knew, I was at an inn in Aberswan, and five centuries had passed."
"Wait… You didn't just 'log out' like other players used to do? And what happened to your 'real' body in the other dimension?"
((Huh? When did she learn about that???))
There were several players that liked to tell the NPCs that they were just simulations inside a game and stuff like that. There was always someone who wanted to see how they would react to the knowledge that the 'real' world was elsewhere.
But Cecilia was never that kind of person. And, in any case, Hyperborea was a world more real for her than the 'real' world.
"How do you… nevermind. I imagine that you did your research after I went missing. My 'real' body was broken for years before I began 'logging in' to this world. I…"
She looked around at the servants and maids. Noticing this, Aelindra made a gesture for them to leave, which was promptly obeyed.
"Don't worry. They are loyal, and this room is safe from prying."
Cecilia nodded, then disclosed the reality of her life, the hospital, Earth, and what the game world meant to her. If Aelindra was her daughter, she deserved to know the truth.
The moment Cecilia decided to accept Aelindra as a real daughter, she was ready to share everything. And the fact that Aelindra was alone and abandoned for five whole centuries only made her sense of duty stronger.
"So that was it. I really don't know what happened, but my hypothesis is that my 'real' body died there and I reincarnated here, somehow. Though I still have the same powers I used to have."
When she finished speaking, the room went silent. Aelindra had thought that she knew a lot of things about those miraculous entities called 'players,' but the truth was even weirder than the wildest theories she had heard.
She took the teacup to her lips, drinking while she processed all the information. It somehow matched what she had learned from her research and also gave new meaning to some of the happenings of the last few days.
But there was something else, something that made her want to cry.
"Mother… thank you for sharing all that with me. To think that you had that experience in the other dimension… to be a broken adolescent, unable to move freely, while being as powerful as a god in this world…
And being able to dwell here only partially. I can only imagine the suffering you went through."
"Heh… It wasn't easy, but the friends I made in this world sure made my life happier. And being able to be here fully is the best thing I could have ever dreamed of. I just wish that it hadn't taken so long…"
Cecilia had a piece of cheesecake on her plate and took a bit of it with a fork and ate it.
"This is so delicious, by the way… When I was a player, I couldn't sense the taste of anything here. And my life outside meant that I couldn't eat freely. This is the first time I'm eating pastries since… well, a long time."
"I remember that about the lack of taste… And, to be honest, I don't think that we really tasted food back then. Now that you described the difference between experiencing this world as a player and experiencing it now, I feel like…"
Aelindra took a deep breath, trying to put her thoughts in order. Seeing her mother unlocked a batch of memories that she had buried deep within herself, as she avoided facing her loneliness.
She took another sip of tea, and Cecilia kept eating the cheesecake, waiting patiently.
"I feel like my senses in general were a lot duller back then. It's like I had a lot less mental clarity, and all my perceptions were blurred. I wonder how I never noticed it before, but, at some point, things changed.
It wasn't sudden. It was a gradual change… No. No, I remember now. After the Closing of the Servers, something happened. I think that everyone was just too freaked out by the disappearance of the players to notice. But I remember now.
It was like the world froze for an instant. Like that effect some players would describe as 'lag.' It happened to the whole world, but nobody paid much attention to it. And, from that moment on, things began to change."