There’s pain in letting go. Some folks go so long carrying around a heavy burden that it becomes a part of them, and they can’t figure out how to drop it without losing a part of themselves in the process.
When your entire life is based around staying just above the water line, with every moment spent trying not to drown, what do you do when it finally recedes and you’re on dry land once more? Some might celebrate, but most spend their life looking over their shoulder, waiting for the wave to come crashing down once more.
Your brother is mourning the loss of everyone he has ever cared about. My advice? Be there with him, stand on that island surrounded by volatile seas and reassure him with your presence that the water isn’t coming back.
Grief demands a witness, and you must be there with him.
- Passage from the memoire ‘Cursing Empty Fields’ by Sergeant Victorian Seneschal, retired after the flower massacre, circa .76
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“I’ve got this memory Jorge” I faltered, my voice cracking slightly.
He looked back at me curiously. “Alright lad, go ahead.”
I tried to gather my thoughts, tangled as they were. “I think I remembered something. Down in that tunnel…probably was loss of blood now that I think about it but...”
I looked up at him with confusion, trying to put into words this indescribable feeling I was having. “Time slipped, you know? I remember stumbling down those stairs, worming my way through that tunnel when it emerged into that huge cavern, seeing the worm-tracks through the stone. But there’s a gap afterwards, between the tunnel going from wide and only a few marks, to narrow and bloody filled with them. Like time slipped.“
“Roots, not worms. Tell me more about it then.” Jorge’s reply was calm and I was thankful he didn’t try and point to my physical state at the time – blood loss, pain, and adrenaline were a potent amnesiac, and I appreciated that he didn’t immediately offer the explanation before I’d finished.
“What? Oh yeah, I guess that makes sense. Gods, how fucking huge was that thing? What was it by the-no, never mind. We’ll get to that later. Point is, if it was just a few lost moments of stumbling around, I’d be right there with you suggesting I’d lost my wits. But I remember this feeling. It’s like I can look back and feel something of great weight happening. Like I learned something. Something that meant a lot to me. Even now, I’ve got this intense feeling of…of”
I gestured about, grasping with my hands as if I could catch the right word as it floated through the air before me. “Loss. But not quite, more like…bittersweet? Does that make sense?” I looked over at him again, hoping for something more than understanding on his face. He looked thoughtful.
“The mountain tribes have a word – lashvagual. It means the feeling one has when a great warrior hangs up their weapon and takes a partner. A sadness brought about by the loss of something great, tinged with gladness at their happiness. Y’see lad; in the Dragon-Spines a warrior surviving to settle down and build a family is a great thing for the tribe, but for the warriors, they lose a respected and loved commander. They are happy for their friend but cannot escape the sadness that this loss in their lives engenders.”
I probed at the amorphous feeling hovering in the pit of my stomach, refusing to disperse but equally refusing my attempts to understand it. Loss, grief, sadness…but also a profound feeling of love and fondness. Something more cutting, more painful lay within as well, as if something lurked within my mind, just waiting to strike at me once I’d peeled back the layers of emotion obscuring it.
“Lashvagual…possibly. It feels like love and pain mixed together. I’m not sure, but I think I may have remembered something, Jorge. It’s the only thing that fits, right? But how? Why then? And why can’t I remember anymore?”
The older man pursed his lips before speaking. “Aye lad…perhaps. There is a lot to discuss after that, and I want Vera and Nathlan here when we do. I do think we’re getting ahead of ourselves right now, but there is potentially an explanation hidden within.”
I shrugged, then hesitated. “Hey, what was all that stuff you were saying to Alvorak the Broken earlier?”
“That is the strangest question I’ve ever heard asked so casually” Jorge replied, one eyebrow trying its best to climb off his head as he looked up at me. “We’ll get to all of that with the others though. Patience.”
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“I can’t believe Nathlan was right…he’s gonna be insufferable now. I spent a few months working that noble superiority out of the brat, and you’re gonna undo all that work with one fucking compliment.” Jorge groused.
I’d appraised him of all that Francis had told me regarding the reason for my capture – the need for god-touched to translate and help navigate the Ashkanian ruin beneath Duke Ryonic’s castle in the Western Marchlands. That Vera was a hated enemy of the Crimson Lions seemed to be little more than a happy coincidence as far as I could tell.
“And why’s that?” I asked in amusement.
“Oh lad, you’ve no idea the looks I’ve been getting from him the last few days! We were under the assumption you’d been kidnapped by the Lions to hold as a hostage to draw out Vera, but Nathlan thought the two things were disconnected. We didn’t exactly argue about it, since it was less important than tracking your useless hide half way across the desert at the time, but he definitely let us know he thought we were wrong.”
I smirked, knowing that the lanky scholar would, in fact, be a bit of an insufferable prick about it once he found out. “Bet you a tarot that he says ‘I told you so’ within the first half a bell.”
Jorge snorted in response before replying. “Make that half a sentence and you’ve got a deal.”
I nodded, smiling to myself and enjoying the banter, before cocking my head to one side. “Wait, does that mean that you’re betting he will say it within the first sentence, or that you’ll accept the bet if I change my prediction to that? Cus that’s a shitty deal if so, mate.”
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I felt a weathered hand clap me on the back as the shorter man looked up at me with fondness. “I’d forgotten how much you just jabber on about the dumbest things lad, it’s nice to have you back.”
I tried to look affronted, but he looked so genuine that I couldn’t help but smile in turn. “Thank you for coming for me” I simply said instead.
We shared another moment of fond silence before I decided the tone was becoming far too emotional. I had been through a lot, was exhausted beyond belief, and really didn’t fancy breaking down right now in front of Jorge and Vera, so I searched around for something to break the moment with.
“Seriously though, you don’t wanna formalise the bet? I’m feeling pretty lucky, reckon I could grab a few of your tarots off you...unless you’re scared of losing?”
He laughed, glancing back at Vera as she trudged behind us and sharing a conspiratorial eyebrow raise. She just rolled her eyes in return. “You’re as easy to read as a gods damned book. But no, I don’t mind formalising our bet. Won’t be tarots though – pretty much useless outside of Colchet and the main trading routes in the Copper Canyons.”
I sighed at that, realising that once again I had no idea how the world worked. Jorge ploughed on though, sticking out his hand as he stated his terms. “He will say ‘I told you so’ within the first 7 sentences after learning what you’ve just told me. If he doesn’t, I’ll find you something to upgrade that spear of yours with.”
He saw a grin start to split my face and pushed forwards, speaking louder to account for the inevitable interruption he was expecting from me. “If he does though…you have to take over my tracking lessons for Nathlan for an entire two weeks.”
The smile dropped off my face abruptly, and Jorge nearly cackled at my conflicted look.
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We emerged from the cavern into fading daylight, the sky brushed with pinks and blues, reminding me of the riot of colour I’d witnessed during the migration of the jackal-beaks so many weeks ago. Nathlan had kept a fine perimeter going, and was there to meet us, camp set and eager to hear the news.
We took our seats, and I recounted my journey, allowing Jorge and Vera to fill in parts for me as I set to devouring the stew and thick bread courtesy of Nathlan. When it came to discussing the motives of my capture, Nathlan surprised all of us.
He nodded perfunctorily, muttered a quiet ‘interesting’, and then continued listening intently. Jorge couldn’t hold his surprise in and looked up with open-mouthed astonishment.
Vera chuckled. “Close that big mouth before you start catching flies” She cajoled, and I heard Jorge’s teeth snap shut with a satisfying click. The three of us shared glances as discreetly as possible while I continued the narrative, and I had to fight off a smug grin as I spoke.
By the time I’d finished recounting my dive into the caverns, the mad flight through them and then the impossible meeting with whatever the hells I’d met, Jorge had come to accept his loss of our bet, and was engrossed in thought again.
“So Nathlan…any thoughts?” I asked into the silence that had followed my story. He cocked his head from side to side before seeming to come to some conclusion.
“No, not particularly.”
We exchanged glances again, perplexed but attempting to hide it. I coughed and complimented the stew, hoping to draw out something more from him, but he simply looked at us one after the other, serene as a duck in a pond.
I finally broke after another few moments of silence and started speaking. “Well then, I guess I’ll go first-“
Nathlan cut me off however, with a heavy sigh. “Fine. Jorge…I told you so.” He sounded so weary in that moment that I’d have guessed him to be some ancient farm-hand lamenting bad weather in harvest season if I didn’t know him.
Vera cheered and Jorge sagged in place. I couldn’t hold back the grin that split my face and leapt to my feet, spinning around our little circle in merriment and doing a dumb little dance to celebrate my win.
“You are painfully easy to read. All of you. Lamb is over here rushing through his story until he hits Francis’s monologue, at which point he stops every other bloody word to wait for my reaction. Jorge – you’re practically biting your nails in anticipation, and you and Lamb keep grinning over at each other like hungry cats. Vera is the only one with a somewhat passable poker face, and yet she is just sitting there stoically without a word, which on its own tells me something weird is going on, even if you two weren’t quite so obvious! You wouldn’t last a day in the Ancient Archipelago.”
Nathlan’s explanation turned into more of a tirade mid-way through, but I didn’t care. New spear upgrade for me! I did have to end the dance soon after, on account of my body almost collapsing without warning.
I managed to turn the move into a careful wobble and lower down to a seat on an upturned rock, but by then it was too late. Vera had hustled over and started pulling away my shirt to get a look at the heavy bruising all along one side of my stomach and chest.
“Gods Lamb, why didn’t you mention this earlier!?” She said, exasperated and worried in equal measure. “Jorge – get me that salve. No, the one with the Wymsbane in it. No, the other one. What’s wrong with you tonight? Yes, that’s the one, bring it over.”
She bustled around, laying me out on the grass with all the strength of a gorilla. I was literally powerless to resist, and soon accepted my fate. A cold compress was strapped to my right side, and a generous slather of salve beneath it made me feel all gross and sticky. I couldn’t argue though – Vera had dealt with far more battlefield wounds than I had, and seemed hellbent on making me recover properly.
I tried to continue the conversation, but Nathlan had already set to washing up the aftermath of our meal, and Jorge was checking the permitter ward that Nathlan had put in place earlier, muttering to himself and making some notes on a piece of hard bark with his chisel.
By the time Vera was done and the other two had reconvened by the fire my eyes were drooping, and I had a hard time staying awake. The adrenaline of the last few bells had finally caught up to me, and I felt my head lolling forwards unless I consciously focused on keeping it supported.
Jorge snorted as he saw my latest attempt at staying awake and finally called it. “Right then; bedtime lads and ladies. Get some rest, we’ll finish this tomorrow. I’ve got some news to share, and I’m sure we all have questions, but I won’t do myself the indignity to having my audience fall asleep mid-way through any story I tell.”
I tried to put up a token groan, but it turned into a yawn midway through, and I hobbled over to my bedroll nearby where Nathlan had so helpfully set it up earlier. The stars twinkled above me, reminding me of the constellations within my soul, but I was too tired to check on them.
Despite my exhaustion though, sleep didn’t come easy. I shifted about, thoughts churning, picking over the rawness in my chest and the feeling of emptiness, of missing something. Emotions not entirely my own were left to swirl around my mind, and I clawed fruitlessly at them, hoping in vain that they would somehow unlock the memories I so desperately wanted.
I’d thought I was over my amnesia. I thought I had accepted it and decided to live in this new world many months ago, given the fantastical and magical nature and scale of it. So much to explore, so many things to see and taste and experience. But despite it all, here I lay. Wishing I could remember my presumably pitiful life from before.
It was the feeling of love that I think was driving me mad. I had loved something – someone – so dearly, and that was still missing in my current life, despite all the wonder and magic. I remembered sitting atop that valley so many weeks ago, right before gaining my class, realising that what I desired above the adventure was people to share it with.
Vera and Jorge were great companions, and I’d stuck to them almost like parents, feeding off their wisdom and the security they provided. Nathlan felt like a brother – not quite a friend yet – we were still too unsure of each other and ourselves to really have the confidence to choose a relationship on our own terms, and instead relied on convenience and circumstance to draw us together.
But there was progress, slowly. I needed more though, something to balance out the pain and loss of those missing memories, some reason to stay in this new reality. I needed a reason to choose the present over the past.
Eventually, sleep claimed me.