Cruel Reality and Old Memories

Lady Menodora was more beautiful than the last time Yuji saw her. The ruff of lace that adorned the collar of her mixed period dress seemed to draw out its vibrancy. The silvery threads of her hair pulled up, danced in defiance of their bonds, several shorter strands coming free to rest on her delicate forehead and cheeks.

“I apologize my lady.” Yuji had a sense of awkwardness in her presence. “I know the ceremony will be starting soon, but I felt I had to come and thank you for your kindness in recommending me to the escort party and for being willing to aid me if things had turned out differently.”

“Her recommending you was rather an expansion of your difficulties; you needn’t have thanked her for that.” Yuji gave Mirk a sideways glance.

“Not at all, I am pleased to be of aide. Though I must admit, I was rather disappointed I wasn’t able to be of service to you in the matter. I would very much have liked to be.” A smile of morning dew lit her face with such warmth Yuji could see why people put so much value in her based off appearance alone.

“You were of great service to me. Your support gave me courage and that is far more than anything I could have asked for.”

“You are far prettier with words then your predecessor.” Mirk’s hoarse laugh rang through his mind.

“That seems such a little thing.” A gentle rose bloomed into her cheeks.

“It really isn’t. Bravery and confidence can be difficult to come by at times.”

“And the simple courage I gave you inspired both of those?”

“Indeed, it did.”

“That makes me truly happy.”

Her eyes traced the room, her expression of joy growing mild and subdued.

I think this is as close as I’ve ever seen her to being unhappy.

“Forgive me for my insolence, Lady Menodora, but you seem… unhappy.”

Her laugh was light, just a small hardly aural breath, but the way it came, how her eyes turned down to her soft white hands, and how her fingers searched for companionship among each other without seeming to take comfort spoke volumes toward her current state.

“It is wrong for me to ask this of you, I know I shouldn’t, and yet I must. Would you please permit me to confide in you?”

“I’m your servant, it’s both a pleasure and a duty to help you in whatever way I can.”

She tried to smile as she had before, but the expression faltered and fell away with her gaze. “I am rather frightened. I shouldn’t say this, I know I shouldn’t,” her voice dropped into hardly a whisper, “I’m not allowed to speak of my past before the assumption, but it haunts me endlessly. And I have no one else I feel I can speak with.” Her eyes burned blue as they came to meet his, haunting with fading oscillations.

“I think of them sometimes… my parents. I try to recall them as they were, but I can’t see them anymore or remember them. Not even the sound of their voices. I try at times when I’m alone, especially recently, but no matter how hard I focus I can’t seem to draw up anything. It pains me to consider what’s become of them. And it’s been so hard to accustom myself to this life. I’m frightened by what might lay at the end of this road. But I can’t possibly tell this to the envoy, he wouldn’t understand if I did.” Tears like stars fell from her lowered face to her hands, shattering into luminous spatters. “He would say I was focusing too hard on worldly things and not giving myself to my responsibilities as the Centauri Seren, that’s what they always say, or at least what they did say when I was young. I used to cry so much. I was inconsolable.”

A knot had formed in Yuji’s throat as she spoke. Images of his own parents playing through his mind, the sudden fear that soon those would be faded memories, absent thoughts he wouldn’t be able to touch or draw forward. His sister and brother. Their cat. The childhood house they grew up in, all just things he would furtively seek with no reward of retrieval.

She raised her face blinking rapidly; a desperate attempt was made to overcome her grief. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything, the ceremony is in an hour and the envoy will be worried if he sees me in this state.”

“Lady Menodora, loss is a burden we all must bear at some point.” He wasn’t looking at her, rather behind her, into the folds of translucent fabric. “It doesn’t remove the pain of remembering… or for being unable to remember. But I suppose we can take solace in the fact that the pain is an expression of the love they inspired. So, in that way, even if we’ve forgotten everything else, we remember the most important thing.”

With a delicate touch she dabbed away her tears. “I’m sorry my lord, I know you must understand my pain. Your mother, I understand, was a beautiful woman.”

Yuji felt a lump the size of a fist preventing him from swallowing. The image of a woman took shape in his mind, small, with warm skin and dark, straight, glossy hair. He could see a smile so large it appeared in her brown eyes, turning them into crescent moons, and the sound of her voice calling his name.

I miss you.

A longing agony threaded throughout his chest. An intense, uncontrollable desire to wake up from a dream, he wasn’t sure would ever end, compelling the nervous jittering in his stomach.

“She is, was very beautiful.” Taking a long breath, he forced down his emotions.

“I’m sorry for recalling painful memories.”

“Please my lady, don’t apologize. It’s nice to think of her.”

“Yuji.”

“I’m alright.” He whispered to Mirk forcing a smile.

“My lord, I have something else I wish to tell you.”

Ringing a bell she summoned, from within the distant folds of the room, a servant carrying a tray. The maiden came to him offering its contents which he took allowing her to recede back into the margins.

The netsuke of pale jade sat in his palm, the cold moon shining opaque within the boundaries of the borders created by the maker. Heart palpating he clenched it in his fingers looking up at the Centauri Seren, who had composed herself.

“I wanted to reassure you of the magics that had been placed on that talisman, so I asked one of the elven mages from the escort party to examine it. It seems the magic that was used on it was very ancient, possibly even elven in nature.”

With every word she spoke his heart began to beat that much harder, vibrating into his ears. Mirk was watching him closely, he could feel his eyes but could think of nothing but the words she was saying.

“Apparently, it was some sort of teleportation spell. They said it was meant to save the life of its bearer. But due to the age of the magic and its quick degradation after use it is impossible to tell its exact purpose.”

“So then… will it work again? Is it possible the spell or can its magic be reactivated?”

“I’m afraid not.”

It felt unreal. His body, the skin, floating over him like a casing, a shirt he should be able to remove. This conversation, the lead up. The feeling of the netsuke pressing into the flesh of his hand and the pressure he was applying to it.

“How do they know? How did they confirm that it won’t do whatever it did again?”

“I was curious of that also. They said that the amount of energy necessary to repeat the action after performing it would be impossible to store in such a small object, the magic would fracture and would have failed to trigger the first time if arranged in that manner. As for the magic that was there, once activated it would begin to degrade and the ornament after purification would be capable of being reused as a vessel.”

“And that magic, the one that was originally used, it can’t be recreated or put back in place?”

“For that to be possible someone would have to know what it was, and no one seems to.”

He couldn’t hardly breathe, the impression of the moon sinking into the palm of his hand, creating an imprint not quite as deep as the ones her words had left.

“I had the mage purify it so that I might restore it to you with the intentions I had originally. Now you may wear it as a sign of my hope in you, and my wish for your protection.”

Yuji stood slowly, bowing, “Thank you my lady. It seems I owe you my life. If you hadn’t given this to me that day, I would most assuredly be dead.

“Please don’t bow my lord.”

Yuji rose. “Thank you, my lady. Thank you for giving me closure over the events of that fateful incident.”

“You’re going now?”

“I must. There are some things I need to address before the ceremony. You’ll forgive me for going so soon.”

“Of course, but before you go, will you allow me to ask you a question?”

In her look she begged him to say yes. He could see that she was aware that she had stirred something inside him, but there was equally an unaware of what it was and fear it would chase him so far away she wouldn’t be able to convince him to come back.

Yuji smiled. “Of course.”

“Is the sun out today?”

“I’m afraid it looks like rain today my lady, but the sun… the sun has a way of appearing, even in cloudy skies.”

Bowing one last time he left without looking back, his stride long, and pace quick. Out in the open air he was greeted by humidity, it really was likely to rain. The Centauri Seren’s oasis was surrounded in decorations, it had been readied for the farewell ceremony. They would set out tomorrow in the early hours of dawn for the capital.

“Yuji.” Mirk tried again. His aura a muddle of confused colors.

“Not yet.”

They left the courtyard in haste, not stopping until they reached the tower bedchamber. When they entered Yuji leaned against the closed door. Mirk jumped to the floor for a better vantage point.

“Yuji.”

“Mirk… I knew that was going to be the answer. I knew I would never see them again. So why does it hurt so much.” His knees gave way, and he sank to the floor. “I have been preparing myself for this, but it means nothing. It’s like they all died in a single day.”

The mongoose approached him putting his small foot on Yuji’s. “There is no consolation I can give you for your loss.”

I guess there’s no need to search for that answer in the capital now…

“But I can promise you that when you look up from your grief, I will be waiting for you.” Mirk lay at his feet. “Just as you were waiting for my return.”

Yuji couldn’t help himself. Grief running over, he began to cry.