Ilere, 25 Meowclopes, and an Existential Crisis

     Ilere was halfway through her second cup of rose-mint tea and two-thirds of the way through a book about summoning and containing spirits when she heard a horrible caterwauling from outside.

     For a moment it sounded—horror of horrors!—like a host of crying babies. But after listening for a few more moments, she realised the noise actually came from a somewhat less concerning group of agitated Meowclopes.

     But what would they all be doing outside her home?

     Sophie’s Meowclops had better not have led all of them here, Ilere thought, tucking a bookmark into her book before snapping it shut. I told him not to come back. At least for now.

     Sophie’s current Meowclops, Dusty, had an unfortunate tendency to get himself into trouble. Ilere had been in a position to get him out of said trouble a few times. In the process, she’d used an old spell—the one she’d once used to masquerade as Sophie’s first Meowclops, Eye—in order to communicate with him.

     Ilere still wasn’t certain Dusty understood that Ilere was not, in fact, a Meowclops who sometimes looked like a faerie, but was rather a faerie who very rarely looked like a Meowclops.

     In any case, Ilere was not about to let a group of Meowclopes (sometimes referred to as a “glaring”) keep making a commotion right by her home.

     So she got up, walked to her front door, and flung it open, ready to shoo the Petpets away.

     The glaring of Meowclopes paused in their noisemaking as Ilere emerged, and as Ilere’s gaze swept over the crowd scattered across her front garden, she couldn’t help but notice that they all looked strikingly similar—save for the fact that only one of them was wearing a collar—and entirely too familiar...

     After a few moments, the Meowclopes all raised their voices in an unsettlingly-unified “Meooooooow!”

     Ilere closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I have better things to do today,” she said to herself. After living alone for centuries, she often spoke to herself, and she also found herself to be a better conversational partner than most other people in Neopia. “I don’t see why I should have to deal with this.”

     But alas, the Meowclopes seemed to disagree. They began to rush towards her, and Ilere just barely managed to get back inside and shut the door behind her before she was engulfed by the flood of Petpets.

     Little paws scrabbled at her front door, and the cacophony rose anew as all the Meowclopes raised their voices in protest.

     Ilere couldn’t fully understand Meowclopes when in faerie form; faerie hearing couldn’t pick up the full range of sounds that Meowclopes were capable of, and there were other subtle signals used in Meowclops communication that Ilere could sense far better while she herself was in Meowclops form. The shape-changing spell itself also lent Ilere a sort of instinctive understanding of Meowclopskind which had by now been supplemented by ample experience.

     But even without it, it wasn’t hard to figure out that what the Meowclopes were currently saying went something along the lines of “Let me in! Let me innnnnnnn!!!”

     Ilere was not going to let all those Meowclopes in. They would wreak absolute havoc on her well-kept home.

     Still, she couldn’t let matters simply stand as they were.

     After a few moments’ consideration, Ilere carefully cracked the door open, grabbed a single Meowclops by the scruff of his neck, and with some careful spellcasting, deft maneuvering, and a few exclamations of “Hsst! Back! Shoo!”, she managed to bring just that one Meowclops indoors while preventing any of the others from squeezing in.

     After she closed the door—careful not to accidentally shut it on any paws—she paused to shift her hold on the Meowclops so he was cradled more comfortably in her arms, then gave him a closer inspection.

     He certainly looked exactly like Dusty—a little grey Meowclops with short, smooth fur and entirely too much trust in strangers, which was practically what Ilere was. They’d only met four times before this, after all.

     Still, Dusty seemed to have taken a strange liking to her. Ilere didn’t think any other Meowclopes living in the Haunted Woods would have thought to come to her for help. She kept an eye on the wild and feral Petpet populations in her region of the Haunted Woods and took measures to keep them healthy and, in the case of some of the rarer species, safe from poachers, but she did nothing to promote any sort of bond with them. Though she’d sometimes used the Meowclops shapeshifting spell in the past to communicate with other Meowclopes, she always kept those interactions brief and didn’t let them become too closely acquainted with her.

     Until now, it seemed. Dusty, so far as she knew, was the first Meowclops to have witnessed her shifting shape.

     The Meowclops in her arms mewed sadly. He sounded just like Dusty, too.

     Sighing, Ilere carried the Meowclops down to her cellar, which was far better-insulated from the sounds from outdoors.

     Once she set him down, he looked up at her with a single piteous eye, and she looked back down at him with a thoroughly unamused pair.

     She performed a few quick diagnostic spells and determined that the Meowclops indeed seemed to have been affected by a temporary-multiplication spell. The magic felt reasonably fresh, but given the number of copies involved, it probably wouldn’t last more than a few hours.

     Ilere supposed she could wait it out, but she couldn’t help but wonder exactly what had happened, and it seemed like talking to the Meowclops would be the best way to find out how several dozen Meowclopes had wound up around Ilere’s home.

     So Ilere cast the shapeshifting spell.

     Though she barely needed more confirmation, once she was in Meowclops form with she could tell that this was, indeed, definitely Dusty. Or a Dusty, at least. She could recognise his scent, even if it was a bit masked by the scent of magic.

     And with her Meowclops eye, she could see the glow of magic all over Dusty’s body, and standing next to him she also felt that magic as a very faint tingling that somehow made her think of temporariness.

     “What,” asked Ilere, “is going on here?”

     “I don’t know!” Dusty wailed. “My tall mother was doing something with some funny-smelling water in a big pot, and then there was this popping sound, and something appeared on the table, and my mother looked at it and got all upset and ran out, and I just meant to take a tiny sip of the water to see what it tasted like, but then I fell in, and then there were lots and lots of me, and I don’t know where my mother is or what I’m supposed to do now!”

     His “tall mother” was, of course, Sophie. He’d presumably had another mother at some point who was an actual Meowclops, though Ilere had never inquired too deeply on that point. It seemed a rather personal matter.

     “You shouldn’t drink the ‘funny-smelling water’ your mother works with,” said Ilere, perhaps hypocritically. But as Eye, she’d only ever sampled Sophie’s potions for very good reasons, usually with full knowledge of what those potions would do, and also knowing that if anything went wrong, Ilere had the ability to deal with any deleterious potion effects.

     Dusty, on the other hand, was just a Meowclops. He was a witch’s Meowclops, and the Petpets of witches did tend to become more intelligent than the average Petpet, but he was still just a Meowclops.

     And he didn’t seem to be a terribly sensible Meowclops, at that.

     “But she puts so many delicious things in it!” said Dusty. “Though there are some not-delicious things, too.” His ears lowered, and his eye narrowed in irritation. “There’s this thing that looks like a fish on a stick that always smells really interesting, but then I turn into a fish for a little bit after I eat it.”

     “How is it you’re getting your mother’s… things she puts in her water?” Ilere asked. Perhaps she could discourage him from stealing magical reagents, for his sake as well as Sophie’s.

     “When she’s putting things in the water, sometimes she uses her glowy stick-with-an-eye to bounce ingredients over to her pot,” said Dusty. “Sometimes things drop, and I get to eat them! But sometimes they turn me into a fish or make my tongue feel really hot or make me really dizzy. And sometimes they just taste bad. And sometimes they’re weird buzzy rocks that I can’t eat at all. But sometimes the stuff that falls tastes really good! So I always try to eat it, just in case.”

     This seemed like a terribly inefficient way to make potions, especially when one had a Meowclops with far more of a tendency to eat random falling objects than “Eye” ever had.

     “But she hardly ever lets me have any of the funny-smelling water she makes,” said Dusty. “And this stuff had such a pretty glow…”

     “It glowed because it was magic,” said Ilere. “Magic can do things to you that you won’t like. Such as making more of you.”

     “And now there are too many of me!” said Dusty. “Our home is too small to fit this many Meowclopes, and I don’t want to move!”

     Ilere sighed. “There won’t be this many of you for long. Things like this are only temporary. At some point, the extra copies will disappear.”

     “Oh,” said Dusty, looking concerned. “And then... only I’ll be left?”

     “Well,” said Ilere. “One of you will be left. I believe the Meowclops wearing the collar is the original Dusty, and that’s the one that will remain once the magic is finished.”

     Dusty stared at her, wide-eyed.

     “I… I’m gonna disappear?” said Dusty. “But… where will I go?”

     Oh no. Ilere didn’t want to talk a magical Meowclops clone through an existential crisis.

     Though she supposed she could technically evade the issue by just throwing him back outside and waiting.

     ...no, that would be a bit too cruel, even for her.

     “Well,” said Ilere, “in a while, you and the other copies will merge back with the original Dusty. Or, if you’re actually the original Dusty, they’ll all merge back with you.”

     “But I don’t want to be any other Meowclops but me!” said Dusty.

     “That’s just how the magic works,” said Ilere. “And all your memories from this body will go right back to the original Dusty, so you won’t really be gone. Just this body.”

     Though the experience would doubtless be deeply confusing for Dusty once all those multiple sets of memories came rushing into his head.

     Hopefully it would teach him not to try drinking any more “funny-smelling water.”

     “But I don’t want to be a memory!” Dusty cried. “I want to be me!”

     “You’ll still be you,” said Ilere. “You’ll just also be all the other yous, and you’ll all be the same you.”

     Dusty stared at her, uncomprehending, which Ilere supposed was fair, given that she wasn’t entirely certain she understood what she’d just said, either.

     “I don’t want to disappear…” said Dusty, ears drooping.

     Ilere felt her own Meowclops ears lowering themselves back against her head. This was not how she had wanted to spend her day, and she had no idea what she could possibly tell Dusty—this version of Dusty, anyways—that would make him feel better.

     Well… there was something that might work.

     “Would you like a treat?” Ilere asked.

     Ilere kept a supply of medicated Petpet treats to protect the local wild and feral Petpet populations from certain illnesses and parasitic infections. Dusty probably didn’t need that sort of medication, as Sophie presumably saw that he was protected from such things, but it wouldn’t do him any harm, either.

     Dusty’s ears lifted a tiny bit at the mention of treats, though he still seemed rather droopy. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not sure I’m hungry. I don’t really know what I feel right now.”

     Perhaps this called for something stronger than standard Petpet treats. Ilere did have some dried fish in her stores that should be safe for a Meowclops to eat...

     Casting magic was a little trickier while in Meowclops form, but Ilere could manage basic spells without trouble. With a wave of her paw, she summoned a Meowclops-snack-sized portion of dried fish, nudging it towards Dusty.

     “Here, try this,” said Ilere. Hopefully, this would distract him from his impending change in existence.

     Dusty dipped his head, sniffed at the fish, and took a delicate bite.

     One less-delicate bite later, the fish was gone.

     “That was good,” said Dusty, ears ever-so-slightly perkier. “Can all the other mes have some, too?”

     Ilere hesitated. That would be a lot of hungry Meowclops mouths to feed…

     ...but now that she thought of it, perhaps that would be a good idea.

     “Yes,” said Ilere. “Let me put you back outside. Tell the others to gather up calmly, and I’ll give everyone a treat.”

     “Okay,” said Dusty, ears edging closer to their normal elevation.

     “And… perhaps don’t mention disappearing,” said Ilere.

     “...yeah,” said Dusty, his ears drooping back down. “It… it won’t hurt, will it?”

     “No,” said Ilere. She’d never experienced this sort of spell herself, but she didn’t see any reason why it would. “It won’t hurt.”

     “Okay,” said Dusty. “Can I have a little more?”

     “Yes,” said Ilere, summoning forth another small portion of dried fish for him.

     Ilere shifted back to faerie form, then waited for Dusty to finish his second helping before scooping him back up. She carried him back to her front door, carefully deposited him outdoors while still keeping the rest of his fellow Dusties out, then went to prepare…

     ...wait a minute, just how many Dusties were there?

     She supposed she should check.

     With a deep breath, she readied a mighty spell and opened the door.

     Numerous Meowclops heads whipped around in unison. Before the whole glaring could come charging inside, Ilere waved her hands and enveloped them all in her magic, lifting them into the air and setting them back down in nice, neat rows.

     Pleasingly, once she’d finished, there were exactly five rows of five Dusties. A perfect square, with one original in his enchanted Petpet collar and exactly two dozen copies, assuming none of the copies had gotten lost on the way to Ilere’s home. Satisfied, Ilere disappeared back inside to prepare twenty-five little portions of dried fish.

     Naturally, by the time Ilere emerged once again with a large platter of fish, the Dusties had disorganised themselves again, but that was easily dealt with. Once the Dusties were all back in neat rows, Ilere swiftly distributed the snacks, keeping an eye on all the Meowclopes to make sure none of them tried to steal a snack from his neighbor.

     But Dusty, it seemed, was an uncommonly-polite Meowclops, as despite his apparent propensity for eating random spell ingredients that fell in front of him, he and all his copies seemed quite happy to quickly eat their own portion without swiping food from any of the others.

     Which was good, as Ilere had dosed all the snacks with a few drops of sleeping potion.

     Soon the Dusties began to fall like dominoes, flopping down or curling up wherever they were, until there was a group of 24 softly-snoring Meowclopes—which could probably no longer be accurately referred to as a “glaring,” since their eyes were all shut—lying in front of Ilere’s home.

     Number 25 remained sitting upright, his fish uneaten, looking with apparent confusion at his suddenly-sleeping clones.

     Then he looked at Ilere.

     Ilere half-expected to see some sense of betrayal in that golden eye. But the remaining Dusty simply blinked at her, then picked up his portion of fish and carried it over to Ilere, setting it down at her feet and looking up at her.

     “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to,” said Ilere, though of course the Meowclops wouldn’t be able to understand her as a faerie.

     Dusty lowered his head, nudging the fish towards Ilere with his nose before looking up at her again.

     Ilere blinked. “You… want me to have it?”

     Dusty’s tail flicked, and he blinked back at her, slowly.

     “...I’m not going to eat something you’ve just had in your mouth,” said Ilere. “Much less something that’s been in your mouth, then on the ground. Even leaving aside the fact that it’s dosed with a sleeping potion, which I don’t need right now.”

     Dusty moved closer, rubbing his cheek against Ilere’s leg and purring.

     Ilere sighed, then stooped to scratch him behind the ears.

     “I can’t tell any of you copies apart by sight,” said Ilere. “But I get the feeling you’re the one I brought inside.”

     Dusty purred harder, pressing his head into Ilere’s hand.

     “I…” Ilere started. Then she closed her eyes. Something in her chest tightened.

     “I’m sorry,” she said, then whispered a sleep spell, channeling it through the hand cupping Dusty’s head.

     Moments later, the final Dusty laid limp on the ground, uneaten snack beside him. She smoothed back the fur on his head one last time, then stood back up.

     Ilere had learned long ago that the curse the Spirit of Slumber had placed on her—the one that would harm anyone Ilere got too close to—could apply to Petpets, too.

     But that first time, it had taken more than a week of acquaintance and a few days of frequent close contact. She hadn’t spent quite that long with Dusty, but… Ilere wasn’t entirely certain what metric the curse used. Dusty seemed far quicker to trust strangers than… than that first Petpet, many years ago.

     Ilere took a long, slow breath. Then another.

     She felt nothing but ordinary tension, which was ever-so-slightly eased once Ilere concluded that the curse wasn’t yet taking hold.

     It seemed she, and all 25 Dusties, would be fine for the time being.

     But for how much longer?

     She needed to get all of these Meowclopes away from her home.

     Ilere waved her hands, calling forth her magic once more, and after a few moments she set off on the path down towards Sophie’s hut, a long train of levitating sleeping Meowclops clones bobbing along behind her.

     It would make for a bizarre sight for any passersby, though thankfully not too many faeries or Neopets lingered long in Ilere’s territory. Sophie had somewhat more people passing through her swamp; would-be clients had started visiting her hut when she’d still been quite young. A few of those clients had questioned why someone Sophie’s age was living by herself; in response, Sophie had claimed that she was apprenticed to the true owner of the shack, a crotchety old witch who was conveniently away whenever any clients came by.

     It had been a rather threadbare excuse, but it seemed no one cared to dig too much deeper as long as they got whatever magical concoction they’d come all that way to purchase, and eventually Sophie had gotten old enough to could drop the charade.

     As Ilere approached Sophie’s shack, she heard Sophie’s voice calling “Dusty! Dustyyyyy! Where in blazes did you get off to?”

     “He’s over here,” Ilere called back. “All twenty-five of him.”

     There was a pause.

     “Oh, for crying out loud…” Sophie’s voice returned. A few moments later, the swamp witch came clomping over, looking thoroughly annoyed.

To be continued…