I felt myself come to, no hard and cold rejection of the earth under my side. It was warm, and the feeling of a soft bed beneath me, and a wool blanket atop me were the first things my senses caught.

This isn’t real.

I kept my eyes closed, praying that when I opened them, the last eight— no… fourteen years, were all some fucked up lie, some kind of comatose fever dream, or simply me suffering psychosis.

You open your eyes, and you’ll be in a military hospital or some shit. Please, just don’t let this be real. Don’t let this be my life.

And then, I opened my eyes. A wooden ceiling greeted me, and the soft, warm glow of candles lit the walls.

Fuck.

I came to in full now, moving my arms and trying to uncover myself, only for my right side to be pinned under something.

“Hm?”

It was Beryl, her face reddened from crying, her cheek scales wettened, and her arms folded as she leaned over the bed and across my waist. I dropped my head back onto the pillow, turning it to the side. At the wall, Vaughn slept, reclined back in a wooden chair held upright by the stone wall behind him. Wyrmstooth leaned against the wall beside him.

‘Do whatever you will, it is your life, no one else’s.’

I thought the words over, and the resentment that welled its way to the surface of my mind.

I hate her for this. She could have done so much more. Warned me, given me some form of direction. ‘This life is yours to do with as you please.’

The reality was setting in now, with all of the questions I wanted, answered, in the least satisfactory way possible. It was painful, the denial of closure, mixed with the pain that everything I thought was lost to someone else, may very well have been lost to both of us, was now my future.

‘You did not want to die. Is that not what you begged for?’ And what of the pain in my heart? You don't care about my mind fraying, so how am I supposed to care about your cryptic bullshit?

“How am I supposed to live in her place?”

I asked weakly, staring back at the ceiling.

What of them? What am I supposed to tell them as it's drawn out? Have them suffer just the same… I can’t hide it forever. Not with everyone around us.

I wanted to just disappear, and a small part of me even wished, for their sake, Vaughn and Beryl, that this was my life from the start.

I’ll have to tell them eventually if I don’t want to hurt them. But– Not yet, only about her life. Not mine, not yet.

“For now, I owe them what they wanted.”

I grumbled, pushing myself up, regardless of Beryl’s sleeping or not.

“Hm? Hwa? Kiyomi!”

I leaned towards the wall the bed was set against, wiping the sleep from my eyes, a stinging sensation lingering some as they were still raw from my earlier crying.

“Hey, you.”

My voice was rough, dehydration set from the drinking.

“Hm? Fu—She’s awake?”

Vaughn was next, nearly toppling over in the chair as he woke. I expected some words, some half-hearted scolding. Instead, a sudden stinging sensation now occupied the right side of my face, and my vision was shot back to my feet. I turned my head back to Beryl, her hand raised and shaking.

She slapped me.

I brought up a hand, rubbing the spot where she’d struck.

“How dare you! Do you have any clue— We searched for you, all through the night! We were terrified!”

Vaughn stood, walking over and standing at Beryl’s side. I looked up at him, and he just shook his head.

“I thought I was only gone for a few hours, I—“

“Well, you weren’t! We searched every floor! Vaughn was nearly arrested after threatening one of the guards to the fifth-floor lift! The only reason he’s here now is because Jozef caught up and explained that you’d gone missing!”

Tears were welling up, her face reddening even more, and the snake hiss that she’d shown a few times before nearly echoed through her voice.

“I didn’t mean to—“

“You never mean to! Do you? To make us worry? To keep withholding shit from us? Keeping us in the dark when we can damn well help you like you did us?”

Her words weighed down on me, solidifying the guilt I was already dragging myself through. Vaughn spoke next, Beryl leaning back into her coils as she tried to reign herself in.

“No more, Kiyomi. You tell us everything, everything you’ve been keeping held down. You said something about remembering, both before and during the meeting.”

He sighed, turning around to grab the chair and dragging it across the room. He turned it around, setting it at the bedside before dropping his weight into it. He leaned forward, posting his elbows onto his knees. I looked into his eyes momentarily, then dropped my own to the blanket, shifting my body as I leaned against the wall.

“I thought you said Lorn told the two of you…”

I felt like my eyes would glaze over at any moment, emotionally dead to anything but the guilt. But still, I felt a slight hint of spite—that the two were told by someone else.

“She told us the bare damn minimum, Kiyomi. That you were high-born, a noble, and to look out for you, nothing else.”

He paused, scratching his neck before folding his fingers together.

“But— you’ve kept us in the dark, for how long, we don’t know, and it really doesn’t matter.”

“I—“

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“Kiyomi.”

He looked at me; his eyes seemed pained.

“We didn’t know what you would’ve done. With how you were the past week, on top of the nightmares and shit. We thought you would’ve probably killed yourself.”

“Fucking shit, Vaughn, I—“

He didn’t try to cut me off. The expression he gave was enough to stop me in my tracks.

Would I put that by myself?

I thought about the sword and what I begged Solah to do. To virtually lobotomize who they knew as ‘Kiyomi.’ I pulled my legs in again like before, the motion being a borderline coping mechanism now.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to make you worry…”

“Well we’re worried, Kiyomi! Worried you might pull something like this again, only we might not be able to find you next time! Do you know what that’s like?”

I remained silent as Beryl ripped into me, Vaughn looking back over his shoulder until she’d finished.

“If we’re going to help, you have to tell us. No more of this hard-headed bullshit, please? You remember everything, don’t you?”

I was silent, thinking over everything I could tell them without seeming crazy. Would it be a lie to omit my life? To tell them of the fucked up continuity? Or should I just tell them of the life I– Kiyomi had? Of the one I was virtually told to pick up as if it meant nothing.

They’ve probably heard my nightmares of earth. What even could I tell them?

“Okay.”

Not Earth, I won’t tell them about Earth. Not yet, not until I’ve found the time.

I looked up to Vaughn and Beryl, each of them appearing conflicted by my sudden inability to go against them.

“How do you want me to start?”

I asked, my voice still rough, and they answered in near unison.

“Your name.”

…

…

…

It took every ounce of strength I could muster to recall everything from her life, to keep myself whole and from falling into the same loss of self that broke me at the start of the week.

“My name is Kiyomi Jormangandr, Daughter of Queen Elexis and King Juro, successor to the throne of Va’ren.”

Each word made me crack a little inside, everything about her, the lies I tell myself, that I’m telling them, the denial that I want so much to feed into, that there was no way that this is my name, my body, and my life. It all crashed down on me, and the already blurred line of distinction I found myself fearing crumbled to only a thin veil.

“I can remember as far back as—“

I continued, forcing myself through it. Through each memory I could muster, my vague recollection of my childhood, my memories I could recall the clearest, my brothers and sisters. I told them about Aunt Sarah, who she was to me, another retainer, who had been there for me since I was a toddler.

“It was all so— so—- It all actually happened, I can remember everything that led me here.”

The festival, my childish pleading, Grier, the betrayal of the Kultans, and the Morussian meddling that enabled it. How I recalled spending weeks in the forests with my father and aunt, about what happened when the morussians caught up. I told them about my fathers death, and that its always the one memory that I could recall the moment I awoke in Brenton. It was only after I processed it all, that my life from that point clicked at a deeper level.

“I don’t know who I am anymore, and I think—“

I didn't look up.

“I think I’m afraid. Of this being it, of not making any of it worthwhile. My siblings died protecting me, my father's guard died protecting me, my father—“

Each of them looked pained to put me through the experience. In the few moments I did try to match their gazes, they looked on the cusp of relenting.

“They’re all—“

The later facts—Sarah becoming a retainer—even now. Michal, speaking of the war at home, the recollections and rumors—they were all dawning on me in a painful sense of euphoria, nearly drowning out the sense of guilt that I was relieved for it and that I was, instead of who I am wasn’t the one experiencing it instead.

“My mother is alive.”

I nearly went blank, and as I paused, Vaughn and Beryl each looked up at me, waiting to see what would come next.

Family, not my own… are they? I miss them, so–

“My mother, and my aunt, they’re both alive. Ha— haha-“

I wanted to cry from joy, the sudden high that fought tooth and nail against the rock bottom low I hit before causing such a variance in my perception that I couldn't decide what I should have been feeling, logically.

“I— I thought I was going to be alone, I— I was so— so—-“

And once more, with the breakdown of my own emotions, the veil dissipated, and with it, Vaughn and Beryl seemed to have their fill of answers. Vaughn leaned forward, sitting on the bedside while I began to bawl uncontrollably in a fit where I could no longer understand what was occurring in a manner that my mental faculties eroded under the pressure as usual. He opened his arms, letting me take my pick of whoever it was I was going to leap into, of whoever was going to be victim to my pathetic wailing and torrent of tears.

“I was scared for so— for so long! I thought I was alone! That all the things that happened, that they were for nothing!”

I dropped myself into Vaughn, half curling into his lap as he awkwardly did his best to cradle my upper body.

“I thought— Gods— I tried keeping you both at a distance, I just wanted what was best— I—“

I’d cycled through my emotions in full at least a dozen times now: happiness, sadness, relief, anxiety, regret, self-loathing, but it all cycled back to the one I clung to now. Pure, unfettered relief in an attempt to stave off the guilt.

I’m relieved, I’m so fucking relieved! None of it was pointless! They’re alive, Mommy, Auntie Sarah— Even past them, Vaughn, and Beryl— I won’t have to see this unwritten! Mama, uncle Callum—

At that moment, I couldn't tell if it was her bleeding through or if it was my subconscious telling me something I couldn't stand to be real, as the thoughts and the words slowly became my own.

…

…

…

Who am I really?

The thoughts swirled, then drifted from mind.

----------------------------------------

“You feeling better now?”

Vaughn's voice was soft, as he and Beryl each looked down into my periphery. I was still huddled in his lap, idly picking at my nails. I nodded limply, my bangs smothered against his stomach as my horns snagged his gambison.

“Barely.”

Beryl lowered a cup of water into his left hand, tilting it towards me as he willed me upward.

“Thanks, Ber.”

I croaked, taking the cup and downing it for all I was worth. By the time I finished, I was gasping for air after downing the cups worth of water.

“That must have been hell… to tell us. But that wasn’t everything, was it?…”

Vaughn released me, coming to his feet and leaving me to the bed. He and Beryl both seemed to be waiting for me to say something further. What it was, I could hardly bring myself to say, knowing they at least knew some of what didn’t fit together, the absence of my nightmares mentions the memories of earth, the occasional gibberish to them that was terminology or slang from earth. I tossed my legs over the edge, looking around the room.

“Just the extra time to think it over, please? It’s very little to do with the last week.”

Or it has everything to do with the last week, depending on which part of my fucked up life is influenced by it… I can’t tell them about Earth, not yet.

Beryl smiled softly, the expression bittersweet.

“We all have our secrets… But it hurts that you still won’t trust us.”

Fuck, Beryl, I–

I clenched my teeth in an attempt to fight back my guilt again.

Why does it hurt so much to do this to them? So fuckin much...

Beryl spoke once more just as I was about to crack one last time.

“We can wait for a time. But you can’t let it get to this point again. Do you understand?”

Beryl spoke the words as if she didn’t want to utter them herself, and I felt compelled.

“I do, and I will… I promise.”

She and Vaughn both nodded, with his expression shifting into that of disappointment as he relented alongside her. With that, an awkward silence set in for a moment, each of us unsure how to continue until our scenery set in.

“Where are we?”

I asked, swinging my feet over the bed.

“As much as I regret to tell you, we owe that to Sabine. She was pissed off that you ran away and supposedly ‘walked out’ on your supposed agreement to look at the night sky.”

She shook her head a moment, pushing something from her mind.

“So that’s what happened? Why you came back so messed up earlier in the week?”

She asked as I grabbed my boots.

“It’s a long story.”

I nodded to Wyrmstooth.

“That's why I was down in the dumps when we fought the Wyvern way back.”

“So that’s what that time was about.”

Vaughn muttered.

“Is the story so long you can’t tell us what little is left?

I found my strength to give an affirmative answer.

“Yes, and I will tell you both.

I slid the boots on.

“But for now, I need some more time to think through it.”

To understand who I really am…

“To think through what this all means to me.”

I fought not to say my inner monologue at that moment.

Some time, and a way, to explain how I may not even be sure who I really am.

I tucked the trousers into them, setting the seam as best I could.

“By the by, how long has it been since I ran away?”

Vaughn and Beryl looked at each other, then back to me, before averting their eyes.

“Maybe a day or so? We found you the next morning with brother Michal and Sabine. It's probably late afternoon already.”

I rolled my eyes, standing with a little trouble thanks to my time in bed.

“Now I owe her twice over, shit.”

I stamped my feet, ensuring they were seated in the boots, then latched Wyrmstooth.

“Before anything, I owe Michal an explanation… and my thanks.”