It felt familiar—she should know.

The blackened shore pulled at frayed tethers, at something clipped and ruined. She willed memory to draw from the unending abyss. The pieces were there; the shoreline whispered asylum from stolen remembrances. Whatever retention there’d been lost and decayed. Anger flushed the roundness of the woman’s cheeks. Frustration strummed at her core. She had followed the shadows, traced where instinct guided. Her steps until then felt pre-destined, fixed much like the map above in the blackened night sky.

She followed the star—she knew that, held that.

Remembered it.

The star.

But then, to find the shoreline the feeling had come again, only to ebb with the rolling froth of foam against inky sand. Her heart fell, swooped by a growing feeling of despair.

The feeling was there—she should know this place, but for all hope against hope, it was lost again.

a happy ending, please
— ❖ —

With great strides did he move down the length of the Shore where he had used to live. A place he had wandered so often that it seemed like it was the only home he had ever known. But now, his place was by Nymeria's side and with her he would stay until she willed him away. A thought he couldn't bare to think of and so quickly shooed it from its thoughts. Instead, catching the movement of something near where his eyes eventually cast to the young lioness in front of him. One that was oh so familiar but had seen so much change that he could hardly recognize her -- but he did. Gareth had not seen @Camelia in months -- perhaps even a year now -- and made the distance at a quick walk. A pace that might have seemed urgent but as he grew closer the pace slowed and he chuffed, opening up the conversation. Camelia? he asked, lingering with her name on the air as he hoped that he had gotten her name right. They had never been very close but they had lived under the same flag once upon a time. One not so far from here in a time that seemed like centuries.

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His voice was an echo against an unyielding wall; built by time and obscurity greater than her own resilience. It rattled like dried bone against stone, filling her with a sense of grief and burdensome self-loathing.

Camelia, he’d said. Steady, meaningful. Founded, by the strength of his voice.

She gripped it fast, held it to her chest though found only ashes and sand.

It slipped and slipped and slipped.

The tighter she held it, the more it fettered away to nothing.

She hummed against the spread of a feeling of indignation, turning a sharp eye to the man who seemed to know her, who seemed assured in what she’d been. Now, if only she could muster it for herself. A terrible thing, she thought, needing to trust a stranger over her own self.

Do I know you? her words felt hollow too, the selfsame rattle of bones and refuse. A tremble collected in her limbs, fraught and strained against the anxiety dashing ever closer. She took him in, and the fact that he too, felt the same as the shoreline, as the stars, and this place unsettled her in a way she simply could not explain.

a happy ending, please
— ❖ —

From the very second that her name leaves his lips does he see her turn and question it. Every moment from the beginning of her name felt like a question lingering between them. Something that could not be described out loud but only felt through the silence that was etched between them. Curiosity growing, festering, as she mentally reached out to him in a desperation claw for resolution. You were younger, as was I. A year or so ago? Boy, he truly could not remember how long ago it had been since he had seen @Camelia in person. It was certainly no less than seven months ago as that had been when his children had been born. So it had to be close to a year since he had last seen her. You and I lived to the east, in Caladan Cove. The question that eventually began to draw itself out was whether or not he was simply forgettable or if her whole life since was.

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A year.

A. Year.

Time was a concept that was impregnable by the death of all else.

A year. She repeated, out loud and in mind. Over and over. She whispered it into the nothingness, a secret poorly kept. It felt brittle, the passage between a then and a now. An ailing, untended bridge crossing nightmares and whatever reality this was meant to be.

She sank to the sand, searching sense of what followed. Caladan. You and I. The East. They held the heft of anchors but were deprived of a sound rein. She clung to them all the same, and folded into herself, searching each with a fervor that was met by the same thin account:

I knew you, yes.

She trusted that. But beyond it, came nothing. The same nothing that replied when asked if she could recall anything else, including herself.

There was assuredly then, following a logic that was left unscathed, that she’d had this name. But the face before her simply escaped her; lost in the blemished smudges of what had been. A name of his own crumpled.

She felt defeated.

She felt ill.

Troubled, she could no longer fight against the compulsion to wear a pleading look, and reached out to @Gareth with it.

a happy ending, please
— ❖ —

In his own confusion by her uncertainty and feeling worried, he had not realized that he had failed to produce his own name. Failure to give her some semblance of familiarity even when she announced that she knew him. He wished that the news of her remembering him made him feel lighter and more at ease, but he felt it was only more troubling. @Camelia had suffered through something and he had no way of knowing what had caused her to forget but only knew that he would be of good help to her, if she would let him. It seemed she thought so, too, as her face seemed to fall drastically as she looked to him with a deepened expression. One built on sorrow and hopelessness, one he knew too well and instantly grappled onto. It's okay, Camelia. I won't let you go. A reminder that she could let it out and let it go; he would not judge her but would instead protect her. Give her shelter should she need it, food and water if she so desired. Gareth was not about to let her waste away and disappear again. Only as he was left looking into her lilac eyes did he clue into having not given her his name. She remembered him -- knew him -- but had not said his name. I am Gareth, you are Camelia. I can help you. However she wanted to be helped, he would be there. She just had to say the word and he would do his best to ease the world back into her control.

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Go. A recollection; a thought. The echo was not a command, nor a question. It fell past the part of her mouth, as eyes dumbly sat their gaze onto the dark sea-kissed sands. She understood wetness.

She had gone, hadn’t she?

So rudimentary, so simple: she was here, and then she went. Blotted from existence, but to what ends? By which means? The thinking frown deepened, with compunction, with befuddlement. It was far too rich for the trifles of her blemished mind. Too savoury for the blandness of her current palette.

Gone, and went.

But the star led her back.

He was speaking again, and the words called her back. They echoed in the vacuous chamber of her conscience, a faraway sound that soon became a glowing light in contrast to the dark she’d been surrounded by.
@Gareth. She soon parroted, and a warmth brushed her cheeks. A fleeting sensation of girlish whim, but not from their present. But something of the past. He spoke that word again, Camelia. A flower, but also a name. She was Camelia. It felt important.

It felt real.

This was no dream, she decided.

And words found their way to her lips. Her voice no more than a croak, Where am I?

a happy ending, please
— ❖ —

Go. Such a simple word that held more weight when it had more tone behind it. A word that forced his mind to hitch as he wondered what he had done to be told go. Prepared as ever to depart and leave if that was truly what she wished, yet he didn't get the idea that that was what she wanted. Instead, he saw motions somewhere on her face and posture that denoted quite the opposite. The vacancy behind those eyes as she tried to work through a complicated puzzle. His name spoken aptly, brushing through the air as he tightened his cheeks in an uncertain smile. Desiring to give @Camelia the information that she wanted or needed but not knowing what was lost and what was found. This is Stygian Shore. North of where you and I used to live. He paused, trying to give her a moment to process before he relayed even more information that may or may not have been forgotten. So far, he had a feeling that she had lost everything. Jewel, she was our leader. She does not lead there anymore. A great friend that had given her crown to Drakon before taking a step back but now, he wasn't really sure where his ex-leader had gone. He hoped she was alright wherever she had ended up.

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Stygian shore -- pale hands reached into the abyss, finding naught but rust and rot.

It disintegrates, it pools beneath—like ink and murky shadows, milled in decay and a rainfall of malaise. Her mind was far too marred and obscured. Much like the face before her and the voice it served. She tested what he spoke on her own lips, low murmurs lacking any true sense of acknowledgment. It was all no more than a faded echo, corroding further with every replication, every reverberation.

Anguish was a brutal punch to the gut, and she felt her lungs empty of a long, forced breath.

Jewel.

It was old. Musty. A forgotten heirloom. Her expression pinched as she swallowed another feeling of rout and defeat. With a sharp inhale through her nostrils she eased her way to her feet. It would have made better sense to distrust the stranger; to meet him with skepticism. But something whispered from the dark, from the gyre of sharp obsidian tides and lost memories, that he was true. That each thing @Gareth gave came from light, and hope.

I—I don’t remember, she finally admitted. The words felt unbalanced, felt wholly incorrect, I don’t know. a happy ending, please
— ❖ —

There was no world where he would let the woman be alone when she could barely remember a thing. Not knowing her name, for one, was an indicator that he should keep an eye on her. Essentially make sure that she continued to be alright in the face of a much larger unknown world. Gareth could see the fog rolling through her mind through her windowed eyes and hoped for clarity but saw none. Instead, she reverberated in defeat. Falling prey to the unknown to which Gareth shook his head. It's okay. Hopefully it will come back to you in time. He could attempt to pray to Maua for her memory to return but knew that even then it couldn't be guaranteed. Do.. you want to stay in my pride for now? While your memory heals itself? A question that he knew could likely end in rejection but it was a place he knew that she would be safe and well taken care of. If at any point you want to leave, you're free to do so. They won't keep you. Nor will I, if it's really what you want. Though, he'd be hard-pressed to let her slip away if she wasn't ready. @Camelia

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