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Ch.24: Persistance of Memory |
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I sat up and rubbed my eyes; dawn was getting ready to break and storm-clouds were gathering at the same time. Flotsam couldn't, strike that shouldn't, be here in Sunset Town. He was supposed to be back home, doing his course work and taking care of Sarah with Jetsam. When I turned around though, he was still there.
"What are you doing here?" I asked. "Aren't you supposed to be studying your magic?"
"Yes, but I had to see you," he said. "It's about something important."
Uh-oh! Had he come here to ask me to be his girlfriend? I wasn't ready for that kind of commitment just now. Plus, the way I had just blown him off might have made him mad at me. "What is it?"
"Phoenix sent me here in order to make sure that you never forget Melissa."
"Oh, the mermaid princess who I was friends with for a while? I could never forget her."
Flotsam nearly breathed a sigh of relief, but then stopped. "What do you mean friends for a while? You're still friends now right?"
"Of course, if I ever see her again. She just disappeared from my life without a trace about a month ago. You mentioned a Phoenix person earlier; they wouldn't happen to be Phoenix Rose would they?"
"Yes." He made to say more about Phoenix's visit but then second-guessed himself and changed the subject. "I discovered an old photo of you when you were younger. How come you never told me that you were affliated with the Phantom?"
I blushed. I hadn't known he meant "that" picture. It had been taken on my 13th birthday, the day that marked the half-year I had been taking voice lessons from him and the day I had seen Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. "I didn't want you to feel jealous of me. I was concerned for your tempermant after I found out why you glared at Jareth like you do: because you love me."
"I'm not jealous. I just wish you had told me sooner. Now that I know about it, I want to help you more than ever. Speaking of Jareth, he and I had a little... talk while you were gone."
"Oh, really?", I said a little skeptically.
"It turns out that he doesn't love you." I had been bracing myself for this; I had known it was coming, but it still hurt a little. I didn't say anything and hugged Flotsam close to me. I felt similar to the way I had felt when I had had that disturbing dream: empty and on the verge of tears.
Aoi woke up and stared at us. She was glowing, and I don't just mean that her skin was shiny; a soft white light was coming from her skin, luminescent in the fading day. It was similar to the glow I had seen coming from Mat when we had met up in La Place de L'Opera the day before. She picked up the sword between us, which I hadn't noticed until now, and suddenly looked very grave. "He's gone," she said.
Her voice hinted sadness but her eyes did not glaze with tears. I looked at the sword and realized that it was Mat's. He never went anywhere without it, so I started getting a little worried. "What do you mean?" I asked.
"He too has chosen to live in darkness." Now, I understood. He had given Aoi his power of light in order to grieve in the bleakness of his loss in the most absolute way he could. I wouldn't see him in daylight for a long time.
"Don't be sad Ana," Aoi continued. "He isn't lost to us forever." I looked up into Flotsam's eyes and saw the same glimmer of hope reflected back into mine. "But..."
"But what?" Flotsam asked.
"Flotsam, I think Melissa may be."
I stared at Aoi and then at Flotsam. How had they known each other without me formally introducing them? "She's done it Aoi, hasn't she? She's forgotten her friends."
At that moment, the sun rose and a thunderclap was heard in the distance. I released myself from Flotsam's embrace and punched my fists into the blanket.
The surge of memories that were coming back was almost as forceful as the thunderclap. I saw the night where Melissa had disappeared; she had gone to G-clef cave and Mat and I had followed her. I didn't see what I had seen that night, an illusion created by Lelouch, but the truth: Lelouch had hypnotized both Melissa and me and then he had kidnapped her, jumping from the cliff inside the cave and submerging with a splash in the pool below. Then, the memories fast-forwarded to my most recent encounter with Lelouch. The person he had been holding in his arms when he had vanished... it had been the same mermaid princess who disappeared from my life on that night.
Rain poured down my back as tears flowed from my eyes. Melissa had forgotten, or would forget, her best friend at the same time as I remembered mine. "Leave!" I shouted at Aoi and Flotsam as they made to help me. I wanted to be left alone in my grief. I cried on the beach for as long as it rained, the whole day.
By sundown, I was getting tired out from the lack of food and sleep I had gotten during the day. The rain had stopped but my heart was still struggling to keep above the surface of my grief. I collapsed on the boardwalk after getting off the beach, too exhausted to go any further.
I woke up with a quilt on top of me and a pillow behind my head. "It's a good thing I did actually practice something while you were gone," said someone near my head. Flotsam was there, as I had thought, holding a spoonful of something near my mouth. "You were soaking wet when Aoi and I found you on the boardwalk."
"Aoi? Where is she?" I asked, sitting up to get a better view of where I was. The room had white walls, with brown wood paneling near the floors, and was lit by a single lamp on the bedside table beside me. Flotsam was sitting in a chair near my head for easy access to medicine and other things on the table.
This was all I saw for Flotsam pushed me back down in bed saying, "You've caught a serious cold. You need to rest, mistress, not worry about your friends. As for Aoi, she went off to see what's become of Mat. It's nighttime, so he'll probably be around."
Sea-witches aren't supposed to catch colds, being creatures of water, but when we do, we can't control our magic. I drifted back into unconsciousness without any more questions. I was dreaming I knew because I was in total darkness, but that's not what surprised me. What did surprise me was that Flotsam was here in my dream. "What are you doing here?" I asked.
"I could ask you the same thing," he said.
"This is my dream," we said together. We both blushed and then I realized that we were in the same dream together. I felt comforted, and strangely very shy, that we were together in the darkness. He gripped me closer as a voice said, "I brought you here to tell you something important."
I clung tighter to Flotsam, but he didn't seem at all afraid. "Phoenix?" he inquired of the darkness. "Is that you?"
"Yes, actually." Phoenix Rose materialized out of the receding darkness and my fear left me instantly. (I don't know why or how but I was never scared when he was around.) "Anastasia, it wasn't really Lelouch who you saw in your dreams."
"Who was it then?" I asked.
"It was me, and I am sorry for deceiving you." I made to protest, but he held up his hand to silence me. "Let me explain. The vision was untruthful, but the information I gave wasn't. It was really Lelouch that you saw in the graveyard when you were with Jareth. (That means that I had given Lelouch the locket and not Erik. I felt genuinely betrayed.)
"In order to make you forget about Melissa, he used his Geass on you in combonation with the kiss you gave him. (So this was the strange new power I had heard Flotsam tell me about.) What I didn't expect was the command coming into full effect when I was forced to leave the dreamworld and was replaced by the real Lelouch. I couldn't do much to help you there, so I gave you back your memories in pieces and had Flotsam here watch over you to make sure you never forgot her completely."
I looked up at Flotsam, who was staring at Phoenix, then back at Phoenix. This man had already done so much for me, and I hadn't even said thank you. I decided to make it right. "Thank you for all that you have done for me. You've helped me more than you know."
"The fact that you remember her now is all the thanks I need," he replied. "As for the matter of Flotsam, you have found a good match in him, both as a student and a companion."
I turned back to Flotsam, who stared deeply into my hazel eyes with his sparkling blue ones. I felt the stirrings of love in my heart begin to emerge as Phoenix walked over to us. "Before you go, I have one more gift for you. I came across it in my travels and think that you could use it."
He placed a large sapphire locket around my neck. "Read what it says." I did as I was told. I saw the words for "No One Would Listen" engraved on the back of it. "Wear it until Melissa returns and always know that you can call me anytime you are in darkness."
He disappeared and I woke up to find Flotsam asleep with his head on his arms. He soon stirred out of his slumber and we both looked towards my neck. The sapphire locket was still there but my feelings of mild love and betrayal caused by Lelouch were not. All that remained was pure hatred and righteous anger; this man had wronged me and I needed to stand up for myself or else no one would. Wait! Flotsam would stand beside me; he loved me and I realized now that I loved him too.
 srs diva 2011 xxl · Sat Apr 11, 2009 @ 12:30am · 2 Comments |
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