Cordolium - Part 7
Another chapter in the saga of Emma and Oron.
As they struggle to recover their memories, I think a lot about how memories impact us as people.
I think our memories are how a lot of people try to define themselves. They base their identity off the things that happened to them rather than how they responded.
But that mode doesn’t put us in control of our lives. It makes us a passenger to the events rather than the navigator steering our reactions and actions through the event. These characters are given the opportunity to relearn who they are as their memories are restored. They learn little bit by little bit as it helps them better understand what led them to this moment.
It had been a rough night. Oron returned to his room after the sun had set and found Emma lying on his bed staring at her screen. It wasn’t unusual to find Emma in his space, but this felt different. She felt distant and not by choice. She didn’t speak when he entered or even when he asked if she had eaten. So, Oron went to the kitchen to get her some food. He returned with a plate of noodles and bread that smelled of honey. Teagan was a fairly decent cook, and Oron planned to ask him how he made the bread. Emma ate her food and then found the words she was looking for.
She first told Oron about her conversation with Galen. How he had been hiding the harmful consequences of their injuries. A tinge of fear ran up Oron’s spine. To die was one thing, but what Emma was alluding to was something else entirely. It unnerved him. And he could tell Emma was unsettled by it as well. But Oron was unsure how to calm someone worried about the same thing that haunted you. He did the best he could.
“We’ll figure it out. We’ll get our souls back,” he reassured her.
“We better. I do not plan on dying like this,” Emma resolved. “Incomplete.”
Emma then told Oron about calling her sister, Scarlett. She explained how Scarlett berated her for disappearing for months and pleaded with her to come home. It was weird to hear her voice, Emma explained, because it had been so long since they had spoken but the cadence of Scarlett’s words brought a flood of memories back to her. They needed to meet with Scarlett if for nothing else other than to let her know that they were fine. Scarlett insisted she would come to them. Since she served as an envoy for the city of La Rezza, a political ambassador to the other cities, it would be easy for her to travel. Emma only agreed to meet if Scarlett promised that it would just be them. That their father was not a part of the meeting.
“I don’t want to face father right now,” Emma had added.
“You know he’s furious with you,” Scarlett replied. “You stormed off the last time we were all together and then you went silent for months. He was livid.”
“I’m sure he’ll manage.”
“Emma, things are a lot more complicated now-”
“If he comes then I don’t show up, Scarlett. It’s as simple as that.” The line was silent for a moment and Emma knew she was forcing Scarlett’s hand. She’d have to go all in to see this through.
“Fine. It’ll be just me. Where are you now?”
“We’re just outside Ena Larisa.”
“I can be there in a week. I’ll contact you when I’m there.”
“See you then.”
Emma finished her story and stood up. She looked exhausted as the dark of night peeked in through the windows. But she could not bring herself to stop moving. She paced, and Oron watched as she tried to carve a grove in the floor with her feet. She needed to rest. But sleep was hard the past few nights. He knew it was true for him, and he could see signs of it coming from Emma. The fatigue of recovery and training could only do so much, but the bags forming under their eyes told the world that not even sleep could bring peace.
“You need to rest,” he told her, standing to block her path.
“We need to keep going. We’re almost ready to head out.”
“And we’ll be the same in the morning. You seem restless. Sleep.”
“Fine,” Emma huffed. “But what about you? You need your rest too.”
“I’ll go to sleep once I know you’re asleep.”
Emma turned away from him. “Then I shall sleep here tonight. So that we both make sure the other gets rest.” A quiet calm enveloped the room. “I’ll take the bed.” Emma hopped in the bed before Oron could object. She flopped down on the mattress, pulling the covers over her. She shuffled around, pulling out a layer of blanket and an extra pillow from the bed and passed them to Oron.
“The floor is better for me anyways.” Oron was being truthful to himself. Ever since his childhood, there had been a unique comfort in the floor. Being closer to the earth brought Oron a muted sense of peace. He felt more connected. Plus, it saved him the breath of arguing with Emma over the bed. This was not the first time Emma came to his room to sleep. Oron understood the urge. In a house filled with shadows, another body is a welcome guest.
That night Oron dreamt of a wooded grove. The air smelled of smoke. He couldn’t see them, but there were figures behind him. They were friendly. Oron felt safe. A soft glow in the distance drew his attention and he began to move through the thicket, pushing branches away from his path. As he walked though, the figures behind him began to fade. He couldn’t see them, but he knew. Darkness set in, blanketing the land in an ominous twilight. A pounding filled his ears. It was his heart beat. Thumping. Red clouded the corners of his eyes. Oron looked ahead and saw a figure before him. They were running. To him or away from him? Oron reached out his hand. The red began to seep in.
Oron shot up. He clutched the blanket tight over his scar. He felt damp, covered in sweat and his chest heaved as he took in ragged breaths. The moon lit the room in a soft blue light, making it hard to see until his eyes adjusted. Oron fell back onto his pillow with a sigh. He tried to be quiet, but a rustling in the bed caught his attention. Before he could fall back to sleep, a soft voice spoke to him.
“Oron,” Emma mumbled, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” Oron rolled over, his back to her. He hid his face.
“Okay,” Emma whispered. She rolled back over and tried to rest, but found that she couldn’t. Instead she tilted her head up. “Hey, Oron?”
“Yes?”
“Nevermind.”
They each fell asleep on their own.
Oron awoke in the morning feeling somewhat more groggy. He made his way down to the kitchen and began preparing two plates of breakfast. Frankie had offered to make meals for them with the rest of the household, but Oron had refused. After finding out they were healing him and giving him shelter, Oron didn’t want to take anything else from these people. He maintained that he could prepare his own meals and would find a way to pay them back for the food.
“I get where you’re coming from,” Frankie admitted. “You were the same way before the injury. Always willing to do the housework. But, just so you know, me making your food ain’t too different from you making her food.”
“Honestly, it’s not a big deal.” Oron buttered some slices of toast. “I enjoy doing it. And it’s still kind of my job.” There was comfort in establishing a routine.
“Part of me had hoped you would forget that part of your life.” Oron stopped and stared at Frankie, his face stern. “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I know I’m still learning a lot from my past, but I can tell you this.” He went back to preparing the plates. “I owe the Hughes family a debt, and I owe Emma my life.”
“If you say so.” Frankie left. Oron clenched his fist and placed the plates on the table. Emma stumbled down a few minutes later.
“Thank you, Oron,” she sang, sitting down and stuffing her face. She was always a messy eater. They ate in silence and then Oron cleaned the dishes. As Lady Emma’s retainer, it was his duty to make sure that she was properly fed and seen too. He had been her retainer ever since the Hughes noble family took him in at the age of seven. In the beginning his job was mainly cleaning her room, carrying things for her, and doing dishes. As he grew older though, more duties fell under his purview. Oron became versed in cooking, cleaning, sewing, time keeping, transporting, and protecting. After all these years, it was just part of his nature. He knew each day his duties would include seeing to Emma’s needs. And that steady checklist gave him guidance.
“What’s the plan for today?” Oron asked, wiping down the plates at the sink.
“I’m not going to Galen today. I can live one day without stitching,” Emma mumbled. She stretched her fingers and flexed her hand. “We should focus on our memories today.” That meant they would visit Frankie. Perfect, he thought, right after his death glare. Oron offered to go first to get it over with. The two parted ways and began their day.
Oron found Frankie upstairs in one of the computer rooms, clicking away at a terminal. Oron knocked on the doorframe and cleared his throat. Frankie waved him in and he sat in an open seat behind the work station. They continued working and Oron sat in silence. He didn’t know where to look, so he just looked at the floor and picked at his nails. Two months unconscious had let them grow fairly long. He would need to clip them soon.
“And done.” Frankie smacked the last key and spun around. “Right, so you’re first today?”
“Yeah.”
“What would you like to explore today? We’ve done peaceful, angry, scared, sad-”
“I was thinking that today we could do a sense of loneliness.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“You know, you can pick a happier emotion.”
“I know.”
“Maybe something like ‘happy’?”
“Not today.”
“Is there something you’re looking for, Oron?”
“No,” he lied.
“You always leave these sessions upset. Maybe we should try something different-”
“Loneliness.”
“Fine,” Frankie grunted. “I’m a fully trained empath who can access countless emotions and states of mind, but let’s focus on all the negative emotions.”
Frankie took a deep breath and then placed their hands on the side of Oron’s face, their fingers grazing his temples. It wasn’t necessary to touch him; all that was needed was for Frankie to be able to see him, but they both felt that the small touch helped each other focus. Their gift was a rare one, but it was proving to be useful. Frankie was an empath, someone capable of influencing the emotional state of their targets. It wasn’t mind control, just a nudge in the direction the empath wanted you to go.
It was Frankie’s idea to use the gift to help unlock their memories. Empaths were not usually knights, so their gifts were seldom seen in use. More often than not they were used either in espionage or in therapy. Evidently, Galen found a use for Frankie’s gift and kept them on the payroll. Frankie was not forthcoming with how they learned to manage their gift or why. But in the days since these little exercises began, Oron had started to recover most of his memory.
When looking at a target, an empath can force someone to experience or feel a particular emotion or physical state. Oron learned that ‘exhaustion’ was something Frankie could hit them with. And had when they woke up unexpectedly. Normally, the emotions were forced on a person to get them to do some kind of action. A scared person might run away. An angry person might make a mistake. But by focusing on a specific emotion, with no goal in mind, Frankie was able to bring memories tied to that emotion to the front of Oron’s mind. After that, it was just a matter of Oron sifting through everything in his mind to make sense of his life.
At this point, Oron had most of it put together. He remembered first being taken to the Hughes mansion, tending to Emma, starting his training to be a knight, taking the trials, and then the hunt for the murderer. But there were noticeable gaps in his timeline.
Oron struggled to remember what happened to his parents. All he knew of them was death. They were gone and that it had not been natural, but every time he tried to think of them, all he could see was red. A deep, crimson red that no light could pierce. They had been murdered, and Oron had the memory locked away somewhere deep inside. That shade of red haunted him.
Oron also struggled to remember what happened at the trials for his knighthood, and what happened when he was stabbed. All major moments in his life. All a blur. It felt like his mind was a road map, but there were no markers or labels. He could see the paths, but couldn’t figure out where they were going or how they connected. Just a jumbled mess of asphalt and lost moments.
Frankie focused on the sense of loneliness and pulled it out of Oron’s center. A rush of isolation came over him. He felt lost and little; a single leaf drifting in the wind. He closed his eyes and Oron was back in his tiny one room shack behind the Hughes mansion. He remembered how Lord Hughes made him live outside the house. Sometimes Oron would watch the mansion through his window and think about sleeping in a house with other people. Oron took a breath and then found himself standing off to the side in a fine suit as the Hughes family waved at their guests from the grand staircase. He was instructed to stay back, separate from the family.
Another breath and Oron was waiting on the street outside a shop as Emma bought some items. He recalled how the clerks were keen to wait on a member of a noble family and how they treated him like an object in their way. To most of the nobles, Oron didn’t have a name, he was just the ‘retainer.’ Not a very original thing to call someone, it was just his job. But it was certainly better than what many of the commoners referred to him as. A memory of someone calling him a noble’s dog popped up in his mind. There it was.
It didn’t matter how many times Oron tried to explain why he served a noble family, those in the poorer sections of the cities that didn’t care for the nobles just saw someone selling out in the hopes of moving up in the world. Growing up, Oron had almost no friends. There were people he was friendly with at school, but once they graduated at eighteen, none of them kept in touch with him. He met people once he started training to be a knight, but again, at first they were just friendly with him.
For most of his life, the only person who saw Oron as an actual person was, ironically, the one he served. He and Emma did not get along at first. When she was younger, Emma was rude, abrasive, and childish. Now, years later, Emma was still those things, but Oron had learned that there was more to the girl than just her temper. She had a hunger to prove herself. At one point, the two of them fought as children. Not just shouting, but punches and kicks.
Oron was having a particularly sad day, and when Emma found him crying, she hit him to try and make him stop. Oron was not having any of Emma’s shit that day and hit her back. They brawled as children do, rolling around and flailing against one another. Lord Hughes had been furious with Oron, but that night, Emma found him and the two shared a moment. They saw through one another and for the first time since he arrived, Oron felt like he belonged somewhere.
He kept searching his mind, looking for a moment to latch on to. Sitting at a table outside an ice cream parlor, listening to the others bicker, he found it. Emma sat next to Ingrid Marigold, a commoner who wanted to become a knight. The two of them were listening to Ashe Langston and Finn, Ingrid’s twin brother, argue. It was a few days before the trials, when they would each be tested. Oron hung off to the side and merely observed. Even with the arguing, there was a sense of comradery. They had hopes and goals and things Oron could not really relate to. It was easier to just sit off to the side. That was usually where he found himself. Isolated.
But this had been one of the moments Oron struggled to find. Despite the feeling of loneliness, he remembered Finn and Ashe being there. The two knights who became friends. And then died. A lot of memories that Oron had recovered had them in it, but there was always a part missing. Here, Oron could finally remember their faces.
Ashe was scrawny, with brown hair and glasses. Finn had messy auburn hair and a frame built for hard manual labor. They were shouting, but Oron could see their eyes. Their cheeks. Their smiles. How could Oron have forgotten them?
“Is that good?” Frankie asked. They had been pulling memories for nearly an hour.
“Yeah,” Oron sobbed. His voice was soft, his gaze distant.
“Did you find what you needed?”
Oron didn’t answer Frankie at first. “I couldn’t remember their faces.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“They were good guys,” Frankie whispered.
“And we got them killed.”
“Oron, that’s not true. You weren’t-”
“It was our mission. They joined us. We got them killed.”
“Oron,” Frankie sighed.
“It’s fine.”
“For what it’s worth, they made the choice to join you on your mission.”
Oron shook his head. “That’s not true, is it?” It was still fuzzy, faded in his mind. Frankie averted their eyes, afraid to look at Oron. The finer details were lost to him, but Oron could tell that at the end it was not for him or Emma that they charged into the jaws of Erebus. Frankie couldn’t answer, and Oron knew that was the only answer he needed. He made to leave.
“I’ve still got some time,” Frankie stopped him before he left. “Why don’t we try something like joy?”
“No,” Oron lingered in the doorway for a moment. “But thank you, Frankie.” He left.
In the few days since he had awoken, Oron had learned that he was a knight, he was gravely injured, two of his friends died, and this vile man named Erebus was still on the loose. Oron had forgotten the faces of his friends, he had forgotten what had been stolen, he had forgotten most of his life.
When would he be able to find Erebus and set things right?
When would he have all his memories back?
When would he remember his parent’s faces?
In a few days, all Oron had really learned about himself was that his life was a series of moments where he either depended on someone else to survive or his actions had caused tragedy for others. What right did he have to relive his happy memories?
