The Memory Keeper

“Uwahh~! We’re finally here!” Dahlia shouts as she runs ahead of the group towards the tall oak tree at the top of the cliffside.

“There she goes again,” Hazel says as we watch her run off, “aren’t you going to tell her to slow down?”

She looks over to Iris who just shrugs and says, “nah, let’s just let her have this moment for now. Besides, I’m pretty excited to see this place too—the place where we all first met.”

Everyone turns to look past the cliffside toward the ocean, which seemed to stretch on endlessly beyond the horizon under the clear blue sky. As we walked towards the edge where Dahlia was standing, we silently stared at the calm waves that gently rolled onto the rocks beneath the cliff.

“It still amazes me,” Hyacinth finally spoke up, “that there’s nothing beyond that vast blue emptiness… if we were to continue travelling westward like this we’d just reach the east side of the continent…. ‘It’s as if the horizon line itself was the edge of the world’… or at least that’s what a line in a book said about this place…”

“Hmm, it’s really a shame though,” I said, “if we’d just waited a bit longer we’d have a prettier scene to look at. The ocean’s clear enough that the light from the twilight sky would’ve perfectly reflected over it.”

“Meh, I’m just glad that we don’t have to be up in the snowy tundras of the north anymore; that place was freezing,” Hazel shuddered as if she was still feeling the cold air blow past her.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Hyacinth said, walking back to slump down next to the tree.

Hazel narrowed her eyes at her.

“You’re just saying that because your hometown of Rau is up there,” she pointed out, “that type of cold takes getting used to.”

Hyacinth shrugged and joked, “or just get thicker skin instead of being so frail. You’re practically a skeleton.”

“Hahh?? What did you say about me, you child?” Hazel asked with an angry smile.

“Child??? I’ll have you reminded that I’m the newest distinguished librarian of the Grand Library of Rau.”

“Which makes you young enough to be my kid,” Hazel smugly pointed out.

“Well that just means you’re an old hag,” Hyacinth shot back, but before Hazel could get another insult in, Iris’s voice shouted over them.

“Roll call! Peony!”

“Here.”

“Lily!”

“Here.”

“Hazel!”

“...Here.”

“Hyacinth!”

“Here!”

“Dahlia!”

“Over here!”

“That’s the wrong response cadet!” Iris says, “100 squats for you later!”

“Aww dang it…” Dahlia muttered, and a quick silence follows after before everyone breaks into laughter.

“That really does bring me back,” Peony said, “how long has it been since we’ve done a roll call like that?”

“Thankfully, not ever since we finished our training and left this place,” Dahlia winced as she remembered being forced to do various workouts after repeatedly responding incorrectly.

“A lot has changed since then hasn’t it?” I pointed out, “for the better it seems.”

Everyone looked at each other with a warm sense of camaraderie and friendship before Iris went over to pat Dahlia’s shoulder.

“I remember how awkward it was when we first got here…” she recalls, “being called away from our homes on such a short notice to fight a war against some alien species… None of us really knew what to say or do, not even Peony who was assigned to train us all. I was so surprised when Dahlia randomly shouted how much she liked eating honey biscuits all of a sudden.”

Dahlia’s face flushed red as she quickly stuttered out, “I-I mean it was just sooo quiet and sooo awkward that I just had to say something to break how weird the atmosphere was, and I guess under the pressure, I just randomly started talking about myself…”

“Hahaha, don’t worry about it, I’m just teasing you,” Iris laughed, “thanks to you, we were able to start talking to each other, and because of that we eventually even got Hyacinth to come out of her shell.”

“Heh, sometimes I wish she hadn’t, that girl’s got a bad mouth,” Hazel joked as Hyacinth sneers at her.

“I wonder how much we’ll have changed the next time we visit this place,” I wondered out loud, the question causing everyone to suddenly turn towards me.

“Next time huh…” Peony silently murmured, “that’s going to be a while isn’t it?”

The question seemed to silence everyone as each of us remembered the real reason why we were even able to make a stop here in the first place.

After a successful campaign up in the north, we were suddenly called to support the frontlines down south of the mountain range. According to the letter we received, more and more of the Wilted were being deployed from the skies in that area as if preparing for something big, and they needed all the help they could get.

What scared everyone the most however, was the rundown of the situation we received through the battle reports. The sheer amount of violence and savagery we saw in them made any battle reports we had look like a children’s book in terms of brutality. Everyone knew that we were marching towards our certain deaths, but no one seemed to want to say the fact out loud.

“Well… if it’s going to be a while until we're back here, then maybe it’d be best to just stay here a little while longer,” Iris suggested, “it’s about an hour until dusk anyway and it’s not like we’ll make it very far before night. I say we set up camp and get moving tomorrow.”

Everyone looks towards Peony, the most righteous and serious one in our group, to see if she’d interject, but she just silently nods her head as well.

Perhaps even a veteran soldier like herself was afraid of the upcoming battles ahead, or perhaps she just wanted to give her underlings a little more time to enjoy what few peaceful moments we had left. After all, the five of us had been mere civilians only a year ago, and had only been dragged into the war due to the circumstances of our birth.

Whatever the reason was, we all seemed to exhale a collective sigh of relief, as we immediately began unpacking our supplies to set up camp for the night.

It was as if none of us wanted to leave the place we originated from just yet.

                                                                         -ˋˏ ༻❁✿❀༺ ˎˊ-

While everyone was hard at work on their respective tasks, I slowly lumber over to Dahlia, carrying a large pile of fire-starting materials I had collected from the nearby forest and dumping them in front of her before collapsing onto the ground in exhaustion.

Dahlia silently turns towards me, and gives me a weird look.

“...Are you okay Lily?” she asked, taking some dry leaves from the pile and tossing them onto the campfire mound she was tasked with making, “you know you didn’t have to carry everything here all at once right?”

I took a deep breath and said, “I know I know… I just… wanted to improve my strength and stamina before the upcoming battles down south… unlike the rest of you guys, I don’t really specialize in anything, and my Esper powers are effectively useless outside of combat...”

“Hmm…” Dahlia murmured, tossing some dry twigs onto the pile, “is that what you believe? Because I don’t think so.”

“You… don’t think I’m a hindrance to the team’s capabilities?” I asked.

“Hindrance?” Dahlia questioned, taken aback by the sudden statement.

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t really have a specialized role in this group like everyone else. Hyacinth’s our sniper, Hazel’s our medic, Iris is our strategist, Peony’s our pointwoman, and you’re our automatic rifleman… I’m just kind of here as backup,” Lily explained, “and my ability isn’t particularly useful in combat either. Hazel’s able to create webs, Peony’s able to ignore pain, Iris’ voice has a calming effect, you’re able to run really fast, and not only can Hyacinth turn herself invisible, but she’s also able to feel vibrations in the air… meanwhile all I have is the ability to remember everything, which does me so much harm I have to keep it locked away most of the time… as well as these stupid wings which aren’t even big enough to let me fly.”

Dahlia chuckled.

“Those wings on your back are a lot less useful than they would seem,” she admits, “but outside of that you’re acting like being a jack of all trades in each one of our roles is a bad thing. Sure you’re not the best, but I’m pretty sure most of us appreciate not having to do their roles alone.”

She begins smashing a few rocks together to try to create some sparks but then pauses, as if coming to a thought in her mind.

“And I wouldn’t say your Esper powers are all that useless,” she continued, “I find it… comforting in a sort of way… knowing that someone is able to remember me like that. Lily… do you know what I fear the most? More so than dying out on the battlefield?”

I shook my head.

“It’s dying far, far away from home… away from my parents, my family… my friends… all of whom probably worry themselves sick over me, just for them to only receive a letter who knows how long after my death that says nothing except some generic slob about how I died heroically,” she said, “I don’t want that. What if I wanted to say something to them before I died? What if I wanted them to know I was doing all right in every single one of those days they worry about me? That just because I got drafted into this stupid war doesn’t mean I’m no longer the same bright, cheerful, person they always knew me as? The thought that those I care about the most will know nothing about me before I die… that thought alone scares me more than dying itself.”

The air seemed to hang still for a moment as Dahlia took a long pause before striking the rocks together and finally getting the campfire to start.

“That’s why having someone like you around is nice Lily,” she continued, “because you’ll remember us no matter what. Because as long as you’re alive, I can trust that you’ll be able to pass on what I want to pass on. Having that reassurance makes me just a bit less afraid of death, but enough so that I can continue to pick up my feet and do my duty as a soldier—and I’m sure that it’s not just me who feels this way either… So… if you ever feel like you’re not doing enough for us, just remember that your ability to remember things keeps us all going, which, for someone with such an ability, it’s kind of funny how that’s the thing you’re forgetting the most.”

I silently stared at the campfire, watching as each of the pieces of dried wood and leaves I collected start to catch fire and burn.

Does my existence on the team really mean that much to them? I wondered, before turning towards the cliff that overlooked the ocean.

The sun was now sinking just above the horizon line, as the stars in the night came out to mingle with the darkening shades of pinks and purple—the perfect time to look over the clear waters of the ocean below.

Taking a deep breath, I make a choice.

If being their team’s memory keeper meant that much to them, then I was going to fulfill that role to the fullest. Walking over to the tents that Iris had set up, I pulled out my camera from my bag, before calling everyone over to the cliffside.

As everyone gathers around the tall oak tree, Peony asks, “what are we doing Lily?”

“We’re going to take another team photo,” I replied.

“But why now?”

I smile and look over at the beautiful scenery behind them.

“Why not?”