I slowly slipped into consciousness. I didn't open my eyes, but I could tell it was still dark. And quiet. Very quiet. I could hear Custos breathing in the opposite corner of the room. The river made a constant hum outside. I could hear my own heart beating, slowly and steadily. The way hearts do when a people sleep.
I lay quietly, listening to the breathing, the river, the heart, never opening my eyes. For a while I was able to concentrate on only those, but soon my brain slipped into thinking again. Now that I wasn't busy riding or helping people or fighting guys so much bigger than me I should have been scared of them the feeling of emptiness let its way back in. I wasn't able to keep away the feeling of being shattered, the feeling of being alone. I supposed normal people were lonely if they had to be alone with themselves all the time. I didn't even have me to be with. That must be even worse. Or at least so it felt at that moment. Not that I knew.
So I lay there, feeling completely lost in what I supposed was my life, trying to grasp in the non-existent pieces that made me. I decided I didn't like nights.
I don't know how long that went on, but eventually I found something to grasp on. I was surprised. I was relieved. I didn't know what to think. I still didn't know who I was, but I had found a piece. I was someone who knew how to help, who knew how to heal, who knew how to fight. Who knew when to not fight. I didn't know why, but that seemed even more important than the other bits. I was someone who knew how to act in a tough situation. It wasn't much. It is plenty, the voice inside me said. No, it wasn't much, but I had only been here for a little over two days, I reminded myself. Even if I only had that tiny piece of myself now, maybe in time I would be able to gather more. To figure out who I was. It made me feel a little better. Or less worse, maybe.
What didn't help my feeling lost and alone was that whoever was after us now seemed to know more about me than I did. At least they knew something, clearly. They knew they were after me once they saw me. Once they realised I was like Meera. So they knew something about the both of us, and they wanted it.
Wait, something in me said. One of the men I was fighting had called me something. Maybe that would tell me who...
There was a small sound from near the door to the other room that was more than audible in the silence. My eyes flew open and I sat up, quickly, ready, alert. It was dark, but in the very little light coming in through the windows I could see shapes. I could see the table, and the door outer. There was a shape by the door to the girls' room. It moved very quietly and slowly through the room, to not bump into anything, to not wake anyone up.
"Meera?" I whispered into the darkness. The figure stopped and turned her head, probably trying to locate my voice.
"Nemo?" she whispered back, "Did I wake you?"
"Oh, no," I reassured her. "Why are you awake?"
"I woke up and couldn't sleep anymore," she whispered, "I was going to take a walk before everyone else wakes up, it's not as early it seems. The sun just gets up really late this time of year. The days have been getting shorter since I got here. But maybe since you're awake I could stay with you?"
"Sure," I said, moving over to make room for her on my bed. I rested my back against the wall as she sat down next to me.
For a moment neither of us said anything. I couldn't think of anything to say. Or at least anything that wouldn't have sounded weird. I wanted to ask about her time here, and how she had handled everything, and how she had made it through the not knowing anything, but none of it seemed to fit in words. And none of it seemed like the kind of thing you could ask a complete stranger. Because no matter how similar our situations were, no matter how much I felt like she was the most important thing in the world, we were strangers. And obviously she would be the most important thing in my world, I had spent almost all my life I remembered looking for her. She obviously wouldn't feel the same. She didn't even know I existed before midnight. She had had time to adjust. She had had time to become someone, to get used to being the only one like her. She hadn't ever known any other way.
Meera laughed nervously, quietly, breaking the silence between us.
"I don't know what to say," she whispered to me, "There's just so much I'd like to ask, but I already know you don't know anything. That I've pretty much heard the entire story."
"I wake up in the woods and find my way to Rosa and Ulula's place and they tell me about you and then we spend two days trying to find you," I summarised, "Yeah, that's about it," I fell quiet, trying to choose my words, "But can I ask? How did you do it? How did you just... start living?"
She thought for a moment before answering.
"I didn't. It did take time," she said, "But I also didn't think there was anything else for me to do. Of course your situation is different. There's all this happening in the very beginning and your life is already a mess with all the not remembering..." she thought about what she had just said, "No, not a mess. That's not the right word. Life wasn't a mess for me when I got here. It just... wasn't anything. And that's a lot scarier than mess. A mess you can figure out, untie the knots and make it right again, but when there's nothing to start off with, no base to build on..."
"Trust me, I know what you mean," I said back.
"You would, wouldn't you," she whispered. I could hear a small smile in her voice.
"All you want is to something make sense, because there's nothing in what you think is supposed to be your life," I say. "And you have no idea what that life is supposed to have in it, so thinking about what there should be just makes it worse."
"Yeah, that's pretty much it," she said. "But I guess after a while I simply decided I needed to do something with it, and since there wasn't anything before, I could do what ever I wanted. Or start with something easy and simple and relatively normal, if doing what I wanted seemed scary."
"So you became a waitress," I said. She hummed in agreement. We sat in silence for a moment longer.
"You know, I think having this mess on me right away kind of helps," I said then, "Because all this had kept me busy enough that I haven't had much time to think about any of it. I've been too concentrated on finding you."
"That's why you're awake right now," she said like something just occurred to her.
"Because the night is the time when my mind isn't busy and instead has the time to fall apart in the not knowing. If there was something to fall apart." I sighed. "That's why I'm awake."
"That's a part of why I got a job," she whispered, "It keeps you busy. It makes it feel like at least one thing is normal."
"Have you found out anything?" I asked after another silence. "About what happened to you... us? About who you were or how you lost your memories or how you got the lines on your face?"
I saw her reflexively lift her hand to the line on her jaw.
"Well, you learn about yourself, little by little," she said quietly, "The more tie passes the more you get a sense of the kind of person you are. And the things you know how to do, even though you have no idea how or for what you've learned them. That does make things somewhat easier."
"Yeah, I've noticed that already," I agreed, "Rosa's asked me about if I know how to do some things, obviously rhetorically and expecting a no, but with some things I've realised that I do know how to do those things, and I know I do, I just... can't explain it. But I haven't had time to find out much more about anything, and I was hoping after I got to you I would get some answers..." my already quiet voice faded slowly away as the thought from when she had startled me came back to me. "One of the guys after you called be... piper? They didn't seem to know I existed, but didn't seem terrifically surprised either, but they did realise I was like you, and that they wanted me too now, and from there they apparently figured I'm this piper thing. They made it sound like an insult."
"That doesn't ring a bell of any kind for me," Meera said after a moment of absorbing the information. "We need to ask the others as they wake up. But, to your previous question, I think I might have something on who we were and where we came and... But I don't know. It's just a hunch, and I have no idea if it's going to lead anywhere or if it'll be a dead end, and it's very little... That's actually what was in the fireplace. There was a small wooden box there, that contained what little I had found. I had hid it there, after the fire died out. I always did that. I don't know why, I guess I was paranoid. But since you only found the key there, they must have taken it. I don't know what they'd want with it though. I don't understand anything."
"Well, that makes two of us," I said, trying to sound comforting. I was about to ask what it was she had found, now dying of curiosity, and a burn and need to know. Anything. Something. Only so this would make sense.
Before I got my mouth open Custos groaned in the corner and stretched. I noticed it had become lighter. Not light enough to see properly, but light enough that it was the time of morning people woke up. Custos sat up, scratched his arm and looked around.
"Oh, good morning," he croaked at us as he noticed we were up. He was talking louder than we had been, so maybe it would wake Rosa up too. He cleared his throat and asked, "Have you been up long?"
"No, just a little while," I said. That moment I heard my stomach growl loudly. Why did this keep happening? Custos muffed a laugh and got up, pulling on some pants. He didn't look like he wanted to get up, though. But that he had to, and he was used to it. He lit a few candles and a lantern that were on the table.
"You're hungry?" he asked, even though it was obvious. "Of course you are. You showed up here in the middle of the night, and it sounded like you hadn't been eating for a while."
He struggled to the fireplace, put some wood in and started a fire impressively fast. Or that's how it seemed. It might be starting a fire was easier than I thought. He hung a pot on the fire.
"I'm afraid I don't have much to eat," Custos said when he was done and began going through some cupboards in what must have been a kitchen.
"We have some too," I said, "Though not much. Enough to carry. Ulula insisted I take someone with me when I left. And I guess Rosa was planning on coming with me, so she must have packed something for herself too."
"Well, then I'm sure we have enough for a breakfast for four," Custos said, laying some food on the table, "Granny always made sure everyone was fed."
"Did I hear my name?" Rosa had appeared on the doorway. Her hair was a puff and she didn't look completely awake yet.
"Yes," I said, "Did you pack some food in your pack too?"
I was already digging out the stuff from my backpack. I was itching to tell the others about what we had talked about with Meera before they woke up, but there was more important thing to take care of first. Breakfast.
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Once again I just started writing and I wrote and wrote and the stuff just came out, and a few minutes ago I realised this is pretty long again, so maybe it's time for me to end here today, before the bit gets too long. I also admit I completely forgot about my topic as I was writing. But, well. That happens.
Also, I noticed that at some point I had started calling Custos Costas, so if I left some of those typos there, I'm sorry. Also for all the other typos.
And, I just noticed this is our 300th post, and that yesterday we passed 10 000 pageviews. That's kind of a lot. I mean, not a lot compared to anyone who keeps a successful blog, but it's still a little exciting.
Your topic for tomorrow is Birds.
~matu
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