An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Rating: Not Rated
Category: F/F
Fandom: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Relationships: Mother Miranda/Reader
Characters: Mother Miranda, Alcina Dimitresu, Bela Dimitrescu, Cassandra Dimitrescu, Daniela Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, Angie, Eva
Miranda's dishes remain delicious as always, making you set aside the exorbitant prices demanded by the merchant who calls himself the Duke. Unlike other villagers, he doesn't fear Miranda's presence; he only cares about whether he's making enough lei. When he sees you beside Miranda, there seems to be something meaningful in his money-grubbing smile. You swear he continued to watch you both with amusement as you left.
This village is truly peculiar.
After lunch, Miranda quickly locks herself up in the laboratory. You have noticed this a long time ago. When she first joined The Connections, every time she finished lunch, she was always the first to return to the laboratory. You simply thought she was passionate about the research. But this time, her pace as she walks into the laboratory is not as steady as before. There is a hint of unease mixed in, as if she is running away from something. Is that you make her feel uncomfortable?
Miranda hides in her laboratory. Her frequent interactions with you have left her enthralled. As she sits at the dining table, once again gazing at you, the icy woman within her suddenly awakens, telling her to stay away from you. Her feelings for you would only interfere with her achieving her goal. She should rule over this village with authority, not allowing outsiders in or villagers out, just like her inner self. Many things that have happened recently are unfamiliar to her, yet they bring back the Miranda from over a hundred years ago, a time when she was mortal yet content. She knows that without Eva, she will never truly experience complete happiness, but when you speak to her softly, when you gaze at her eagerly, when you touch her gently, even the coldest ice can melt. This sensation unsettles the Mother Miranda, prompting her to avoid you. She doesn't allow it, she prohibits it.
You walk quietly down the road, contemplating your relationship with Miranda. Despite her refusal, she still considers you her friend. Well, friend is an appropriate term, isn't it?
Although you can't shake off the feeling that your presence is something strange for this village, you're not confined by that feeling and decide to interact with the villagers, maybe they'll get used to your presence. You simply hope so. But things run counter to your wish, as you pass by the houses, you are like a repulsive magnetic pole, the villagers within a few meters stiffen their movements, which is hard to ignore.
It's like an invisible hand pressing the mute button. Until someone breaks the silence.
As you pass by the statue in the center of the village, a girl peeks out from between the iron gates and gently calls out to you. "Miss, are you from the outside?" she asks in a hushed voice.
"How are you still able to be out on the streets?" the girl asks anxiously.
"Sorry, what?" you ask, bewildered.
"Mother Miranda should have sacrificed you, if the rumors I heard are true. And I saw her buying a lot of things from the Duke, preparing for it." Her voice lowers even more.
"Mother Miranda? You mean my Miranda, no, I mean my colleague Miranda?" You blurt out something embarrassing.
The girl doesn't realize your little mistake, she glances outside quickly, making sure there's no one else, then pulls you inside. "Some say it's not auspicious for Mother Miranda to bring outsiders into the village, someone must've offended the Black God here. You must be a sacrifice to it." The girl says nervously.
Your brain is filled with confusion. "Wait, I don't understand. First, you also call Miranda 'Mother'? As they address it in the cloister? Second, who's this 'Black God' and why am I a sacrifice? I was brought here just for vacation," you feel like you're in some kind of cult story and decide to make a joke, and you emphasize the word "brought".
"You don't know? She's our priestess, she preaches to us, blesses our lives," the girl looks at you incredulously.
"Am I dreaming, or am I having some hallucination? If I remember correctly, Miranda is a scientist, who came to my organization for research." The girl's expression is extremely serious, no hint of joking, and you start to feel uncertain about what to say next, "She did bring me here in some unusual way. But what you're talking about, being a priestess or something, she never told me about it."
"Everything that was offered as a sacrifice never appeared again after entering the fields, but you come out of there unharmed," the girl's face holds a bit of hope. But hope for what? "I heard there are traces of lycans at the village border, it's her defense for the village, but it's also trapped us inside... If you can walk around freely, maybe we can..."
The gate behind you creaks open, and an old man with a shotgun slung over his shoulder steps in. "Elena! What are you doing?" then he looks at you, angry and sort of scared, "The outsider? Did you bring her into our yard? What if anyone else or Mother Miranda sees what you’ve done..."
"But father, she might be the hope we..." Elena is immediately cut off by her father's stern voice, "Go back to your room." Elena looks at you, her lips trembling, then turns and runs into the house. Her father stares at you, his hand gripping the shotgun strap tighter, poised as if to raise the barrel any second, "Outsider, you're not welcome here. Leave."
"I... I'll leave right away, just calm down." You almost make a gesture of surrender and leave their yard, closing the gate behind you.
It's not normal if you don't feel a wave of anger. You did nothing wrong. You shouldn't be treated like this. Miranda clearly still hides a lot from you. What did that girl Elena mean by her words?
"What did she tell you?" Miranda looks out the window. She has her back to you, hands gripping the window sill.
You recount Elena's words to her in detail. The air around Miranda suddenly chills, and you don't know why she looks taller. Instead of defending herself, she asks you, "Do you believe those nonsensical words?"
"Do you believe I brought you here as a sacrifice to the Black God?" she questions again.
"She said they've always been isolated, and from what I saw, it seems to be true. Perhaps that's the only explanation for why this village seems so peculiar." Did you respond directly?
Her knuckles turn white. "I haven't told you the truth. Originally I have a better way to tell you this, but it seems impossible now."
"Better than your fluctuating attitude. Listen, Miranda, I don't know why you were still willing to bring me to your hometown, and tell me about Eva after rejecting me, maybe because we seem to be good colleagues and friends. " When you mention "friends", Miranda's body seems to shrink abruptly. You walk towards her, hand attempting to touch her shoulder.
"You know, I've been preventing some irreversible things from happening all along." She thinks about how you have unwittingly stepped into her shattered, insane life and found yourself sinking deeper into this bottomless quagmire.
"I don't care who you are, I just hope you'll reveal your true self to me."
"As you wish." You see the fabric behind her cardigan tear, and black feathers protrude from the cracks, covering her beige cloth in an instant.
"Miranda..." Your hand freeze in mid-air. "This is the truth." Miranda's voice carries a steel-like coldness. " Yes, I am the priestess of this village, I am their Mother Miranda."
"The portraits I saw in some places, the goddess with black wings..." Images of the the details you once skimmed over in the village flash in your mind. That is Miranda...
Her figure almost blends into the dark night outside, only the faint lights in the room outline her, letting you know she is still there. But her words want to push you far away, "I’ve controlled the village for a long time. Those who resisted me were dealt with by myself. They were all nothing but my lab subjects, only useful for sacrificing themselves for my Eva." You can hear her gritting her teeth. "You’ve seen Moreau and Heisenberg, they were all subjects I once wanted to use as vessels for my Eva, along with Dimitrescu and Beneviento. I bestowed various abilities upon them, making them my assistants, and appointed them as the Four Lords to help me manage this village. And I joined The Connections just to find a way to resurrect my daughter. I don't expect ANYTHING unnecessary to happen." Her voice intentionally becomes cruel, coming from behind the dark feathers.
"So, you're saying I'm a burden to you." Your voice decreases, but you don't think it is due to the revelation that this woman is kind of the ruler of this place.
"You ARE my burden!" Miranda sounds fierce, her words are like sharp spikes, ready to shoot from the jet black feather clothes at any moment. "And I'm going to deal with it."
Her harsh words are her thorny shield, a way to protect her love for Eva, her only love. No one can understand her feeling of spending a lifetime trying to retrieve her daughter. She needs to block out her other feelings. She has to become ruthless to control the villagers, she must eliminate other thoughts in order to focus solely on her research. She rarely leaves the village, maintaining her sacred image within this small rural settlement. In her interactions with the outside world, with you, she remains to be high and mighty, making things difficult for you at every turn. In her inner world, there are only she and Eva, and everyone else is a blur. Once she thought you were just one of them. After enduring various forms of intolerable behaviors from her, you still chose to stay in the laboratory, assisting her in research. Miranda won't admit that she enjoys seeing you meticulously conducting experiments, she won't admit that she enjoys your company.
She suddenly turns towards you, her ten wings as black as the night, obscuring everything.
You don't know where you wake up, but it's not Miranda's warm bed. The only thing you can tell from the exquisite wine rack nearby is that it's a wine cellar.
Someone opens the door, and the light that streams in makes you squint. The person's footsteps are silent, as if gliding in. A woman's voice rings out, "Our guest is awake."
"Let me see her!" Another woman enters. As you adjust to the light, you open your eyes to find two women in gothic dresses and hooded cloaks standing before you.
"Who are you? What is this place? And where is Miranda?" You panic.
"Don't be nervous, we won't harm you, I suppose," the woman with dark hair says in a playful tone.
"Cass, isn't this the woman Uncle Karl mentioned, the one who makes Miranda unsettling?" The other woman with red hair seems excited.
"Really? I thought Mother Miranda had maintained her calm priestess demeanor for decades. How do you manage that?" Cass, the dark-haired woman, asks you curiously.
You have no idea what kind of situation you've gotten yourself into. A while ago, you were working in the lab, and now you're trapped in a strange wine cellar, surrounded by two women dressed more archaically than the villagers. What's even more confusing is about her—Miranda. You never doubted her true identity, not even questioning how she brought you to the village. Have you been too deeply immersed in her rejection, lost in her ambivalent behavior? Now everything that's happening requires you to understand and digest. You don't believe she really kidnapped you and offered you to some 'Black God'. You are convinced of Miranda's unusual identity. Oh, how you wish this was an illusion. But deep down, you hope some of her behaviors are real.
"So Miranda dumped me here and left you two to watch over me?" You can only accept the reality temporarily.
"In fact, it's not like that," the redhead says. "Mother said she was entertaining Donna and Angie when suddenly there was a knock on the door. Mother Miranda was standing there, not as calm and collected as when she usually comes for discussions but rather agitated. And she had someone unconscious with her, who seems to be you."
"She never used to bring the heretics herself, you're probably the first one she brought here in her arms," the dark-haired woman chuckles. "And you don’t look like a heretic."
"She didn't even give Mother any instructions. She just pushed you onto Mother and said, 'Alcina, take care of her,' then vanished. That left Mother quite puzzled, so she ended up locking you in the wine cellar as usual." The redhead vividly describes the scene, as if she were there herself.
"How did you manage to make the stone-hearted priestess flustered, outsider?" The dark-haired woman leans in to observe you. You vaguely feel she's not entirely mortal either.
"Cassandra! Daniela! Why are you still here? Mother told you to behave and not run around when we have guests," a blonde woman enters.
"Bela, do you know she's the one who made Mother Miranda so different?" Daniela's big smile still hangs on her face.
"I do. Mother just discussed how to deal with her with Donna. In fact, they were also at a loss." Bela replies.
"Wait, can I say something?" You can't help but speak up, "I know Miranda is your priestess, but from what you just described, she didn't intentionally abandon me here, is that right?" Warmth floods your heart, along with a chuckle, even though they're still shrouded in unpredictable facts.
"That's right. Mother decided to let you stay in our castle until Mother Miranda returns to decide what to do with you," Bela says.
"Um, since this is a castle, can I not stay in the wine cellar? Can I sleep in a fancier place, like the living room floor?"
You are led into the foyer by the sisters. When they levitate, you feel like your eyeballs are about to pop out. "Come on, startled little thing," Daniela tugs at your arm. Sitting on the sofa in the foyer are two ladies. One has a towering figure you've never imagined, dressed in a white silk gown with a wide-brimmed black hat. Bela tells you she's their mother, Lady Dimitriscu. The other lady is in mourning attire, veiled in black, with only her ears and hands exposed. You're informed she's Lady Beneviento, accompanied by a doll named Angie. When you decide not to be surprised by anything today, the doll speaks up."The Bird Lady’s favorite!"
You see Lady Beneviento gesture to quiet Angie down.
"You truly are a miracle. No one has ever elicited such a reaction from Mother Miranda in all the years since she lost her daughter," Lady Dimitriscu speaks as she sizes you up.
"How many years has Eva been gone from her?" you ask sorrowfully, knowing how much Miranda loves her daughter.
"It's been a century. When I first met her, she wasn't as distant as she became in the following decades. Perhaps it was because her hope for Eva's resurrection was greatest at that time. But after countless failures, she became more and more indifferent, sometimes even cruel. Besides accepting volunteers, she would tie the heretics to the operating table and complete her experiment, which was when the rumors of lycans began. For those decades, her life was only about preaching and experimentation, and nothing else could move her." Lady Dimitriscu tells you with grief. "You're the first."
You cannot imagine how much pain Miranda has gone through. The Spanish flu took away her only love, causing her to isolate herself for a hundred years. You finally fully understand her various ambiguous behaviors before. There's something pulling her true self, restraining her, forcing her to suppress her emotions and desires. Who could treat her like this? Only herself.
You get lost in your thoughts for a while until Angie sharply calls your name, which brings you back to reality. You see Lady Beneviento gesturing something to her doll, then Angie speaks with a soothing voice, "Miranda has helped us a lot, and I'm grateful for that. I'm willing to do something for her. But in recent years, she's become increasingly reluctant to appear in public eye, you know, she's almost like Donna now." Angie's voice suddenly becomes sharp at the end of her statement.
"With her help, I have three daughters, Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela. That's the happiest thing for me. I hope she can find her happiness too, just hoping the process isn't so painful. I'm looking forward to sharing the joy of raising daughters with her." Lady Dimitriscu smiles, but her eyes look bitter at the three girls teasing around Lady Beneviento and Angie, one slightly reserved, one ready to quarrel with Angie and start a chase, and one teasing her sisters.
"In any case, we really enjoy our lives," Lady Dimitriscu concludes. Bela can't stop her sisters and Angie from quickly leaving to play, so she awkwardly sits beside Lady Beneviento, letting go of Cassandra's cloak in her hand. Lady Dimitriscu shares a lot about their experiences with Miranda.
"I didn't know about these things before. I was attracted to her, even confessed my feelings to her, and then she rejected me." You tell them about your laboratory life with Miranda.
"Perhaps you are the new variable in Miranda's experiment," a deep, slightly hoarse voice comes from behind the black veil.
At this moment, the three wind-like women return to the living room, all saying in unison, "Miranda is at the door!" They've watched her hesitating to knock on the door for several minutes.
You realize you have to say something to her now. You really hope Miranda can find her true self. It's something you can do.
You open the door and see her standing there in a subdued manner, her hands twisted together uncomfortably.
"Hey, this doesn't look like you're the village's priestess!" you step forward and gently place your hand on hers. Miranda looks up, surprised to see you opening the door. There's a hint of panic in her blue eyes, "Oh." Then she seems to try to calm herself down. She releases her hand, letting yours slip away naturally. "Aren't you afraid of me?"
You come a bit closer to her, "No." "Even if I tell you my true identity, the things I've done, including abducting you." Miranda tries to bury her unease in the pebbles on the ground. "No, Miranda. You don't need to be flawless," your hands cover her cold cheeks, making her look up, meeting your eyes, "I know I can't completely understand your pain, but you're allowed to have other feelings. You've just kidnapped yourself, thinking your love for little Eva should be everything. But accepting others' feelings for you doesn't change anything, my dear. You're the village's priestess, people should love and respect you, not fear you. The wooden goat would prefer neighbors who play and laugh with it, rather than being lonely in a solemn shrine. It would also want to see the world outside the mountain." You see waves in her eyes. "Allowing yourself to be whole won't stop you from finding Eva. If Eva wakes up and sees her mother is so different from the last time she saw her, will she feel strange and sad?" "I...never thought about these things." She closes her eyes, feeling your thumb brushing away her tears.
"It's okay, Miranda. You can try, so the villagers won't be afraid, and the Four Lords can find their friend Miranda, rather than having a chilling superior-subordinate relationship."
"What about you?" Miranda asks softly.
"Me? I'll do my best to help you achieve your wish, to have Eva by your side again."
"I have a simpler wish." You've hardly ever seen Miranda smile like this. She puts her hand on the nape of your neck, pulling you towards her, planting a gentle kiss on your lips.
"Hey, Miranda." You tuck a strand of her dark hair behind her ear.
"Do you know crows are actually colorful in the eyes of other birds?"
"Didn't the Megamycete tell you?" you chuckle, embracing her.
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