About Those Lost Memories... [Open]

[seeing-eye-cat.livejournal.com]

Arhu was tired of having those empty moments sitting at the back of his mind. Maybe it didn't bother others on the ship, but he was a wizard - if he didn't know exactly who he was, then his Name wasn't right, and his magic would define him as something other than what he was. If you said your name wrong in a spell, then that would become your name, and whatever was said wrong would become true.

So the knowledge that he didn't know something was really, really important. But even more than that...

He wanted to find out what had happened to him, and whether his sister was alright. And Urruah, too.

Arhu paged through his Omnicomm to send a message, and then headed for the Sensoriums. He'd find the answers one way or another, if he had to send his Eye straight into Stacy's programmed mind to do it.

Comments

[on_errantry]

It wasn't easy to admit to yourself that you'd been putting off something desperately important because you were afraid. Arhu's comment on the omnicomms stung, so much that Rhiow used a little more energy than she normally would to jump down to the deck with the Sensoriums. It would have taken her too long to walk, anyway.

She trotted into the Sensoriums with her tail high, feigning a confidence that she certainly didn't feel. "Ready to do this?"

[seeing-eye-cat.livejournal.com]

"Yeah!" His tail was held just as high as hers, his whiskers forward. "Let's do this! I'm ready to stop Seeing things all wrong. Holes aren't supposed to be there." He trotted up to her and breathed breaths with her - he'd visited the river recently, and had pretty good luck with the fish there. Not too much, of course.

[on_errantry]

"You know this might not fix the greater problem with your Eye," Rhiow said. The carp were populating the river well enough that Arhu could take one now and again. And she approved of him catching his own food. "The Bleed is effecting a good deal of your perception even outside of the missing memories."

Rhiow settled down on her haunches in the middle of the blank Sensorium room. "Stacy, can we speak to you?"

Stacy's face materialized on one of the walls, looking down at them fondly. ||What would you like to talk about?|| her 'voice' asked.

[seeing-eye-cat.livejournal.com]

"I know, I know," he said airily. "It's just that without proper memories, it's hard to be who you really are, and names aren't quite right. Or something like that?" He wasn't sure, it felt like something like that would affect spellcasting, at least to him.

When Stacy's manifestation arrived, Arhu perked his ears forward. "Yeah! We want our memories back!" There was a pause as he glanced over at Rhiow. "Uh, please?"

[on_errantry]

Rhiow definitely saw the sudden movement when Arhu glanced over at her and she put her whiskers forward in a smile as she looked up at the disembodied electronic face of Stacy.

Stacy looked down at the two cats with an expression that looked, in Rhiow's limited experience with ehhif faces, like it was sad. ||Are you sure that's what you want? The memories can be disturbing and painful. I don't want to cause you distress.||

"It's all right," Rhiow said. "I do have a couple more questions before we begin. I remember a lot less than Arhu - were we pulled from the same point in the timeline?"

Stacy looked reluctant for a moment before saying, ||Yes. You were rescued from the same point in time.||

"And you erased more of my memory than you did his?" Rhiow tilted her ears out to the sides, uncertain, glancing at Arhu. "Why would she do that?"

[seeing-eye-cat.livejournal.com]

"I dunno." Then his ears went back in contemplation. "Wait. 'Cause of Sif. I bet it was because of how Sif and I are connected, so she couldn't get rid of her!"

The Seer and the Doer - they were inextricably connected, and so powerful together that the Lone One Herself had ensured that one of them had drowned in their kittenhood, but even She hadn't been able to stop Sif's determination to return as soon as she could.

[on_errantry]

Stacy paused for another very long moment, and then said, ||Yes. Your retention of memory was unplanned. Neither of you were supposed to remember the errantry before you were rescued.||

"Stacy," Rhiow said severely, "I appreciate what you try to do for us, and I'm sure it makes things easier in the pod caverns if people don't wake up right away with trauma of an Ohm invasion on their minds, but you must realize that memories are vital to a person's definition."

||I do,|| Stacy said, her tone regretful. ||I am only trying to help.||

[seeing-eye-cat.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, well it might be easier to let them remember it gradually so that it isn't just missing," Arhu said. His ears were back, but he managed to keep all but a few traces of a growl out of his voice. He was doing his best to remain polite - one really didn't want to insult the Power that they happened to be living inside of, after all.

[on_errantry]

Rhiow was grateful he was trying. She knew Arhu was more upset about the missing memories than she was - probably a product of the Eye, or the fact that her priorities had changed aboard the ship.

||If you're sure, come forward.|| The blank white Sensorium grew a pair of strangely shaped pieces of furniture from the floor, tentacles hanging down from the ceiling. Rhiow eyed it dubiously, but there was no going back now. She jumped up in one of the devices and the tentacles draped gently over her fur. It still made her skin crawl.

"I'm ready, Stacy, show us."

The Sensorium went dark.

For Rhiow, there was no gentle introduction of the memories of the London errantry. It was like a lock was removed on her mind and they came rushing back in a sudden stream of information that made her squeeze her eyes shut. She shook her head rapidly, ears flapping against the side of her head. "Irh's balls," she said. "That is uncomfortable."

||Now you remember. Now I can show you what came next.||

Rhiow saw herself and her team begin the jump through the gate from Victorian London's parasitic universe - and then the darkness was all too familiar. This was the space between, Urruah's beautiful timeslide construct half-finished and halted by the Tearer herself.