Trinket (Reverse Harem)

On Being A Ribbon

 I said the most intelligent thing I could possibly have said in that situation. "But I don't have any memories."

Which was dumb, because I had plenty of memories.

"You appear to have some," Korr said.

"It doesn't feel like a memory." I pondered the strange little figment and compared it against my other memories, everything from my childhood in the enclave, Tynne, to the more recent memories.

Itek paced over into my field of view and took up a position behind Korr. He leaned forward on the arm of the couch. "What does it feel like?"

"Like the memory of something I imagined."

"Meaning?" Itek asked.

"When you hear a story and imagine it in your head. Like someone describes something to you, and you try to imagine what it'd be like. But when I was kissing you," I looked back at Korr, "it felt like a full memory."

"But when you're not, it feels like something you imagined and just remember it imagining it," Itek said.

Well, at least I was explaining myself well enough. Was that a victory? Had I learned something? It felt like maybe I had. "Just like that. It doesn't feel real. It feels like something I made up, and I'm remembering it that way. And I see it... it was like looking through a window. But the window had cracked and broken, and I was just seeing through a single shard in the pane."

Itek shifted like he was stretching the back of his calves. Tawny gold hair escaped his braid and slipped in silky tendrils around his chin and shoulders. "I've not heard of this Ice dragon magic, Korr. Or Glass dragons. How does it work? Is she really seeing a memory?"

"It's seeing a reflection," Korr explained. "Glass dragons can force you to look, but Ice dragons, if they're powerful enough, can be polished enough to have a reflective surface. Usually the memories are tied to something the Ice dragon reminds you off. A smell, a taste, a sensation that evokes a memory and brings it to the surface."

But... I rubbed my shoulder. I prodded the memory again, but it was just an unattached piece that felt distant and small and flitted around like some vague oh, I heard about that once recollection. There were no other memories attached to it either, nothing at all familiar about it, nothing unlocked in my mind.

Ormiss tapped his fingers on his biceps. "You don't seem happy at the prospect that your memory might be returning."

But it was just a fragment. I'd seen it through a broken window pane. It was just a tiny piece of a half dozen other pieces. Like I felt more and more like a rag blanket with fraying seams at the same time I felt like all those pieces were slipping and squirming in layers over other pieces. It didn't make any sense in my own head, I couldn't make them understand it. I couldn't even explain why I'd tried to resist them touching me besides some paltry it was like being ticklish when it hadn't been that at all.

"How much magic do you dragons have anyway?" Asund asked, mildly annoyed.

"All of it." Korr twirled a pink ribbon around one finger.

Ormiss snorted.

"I have at least some of it," I said.

Itek cracked a grin so handsome my heart melted. He snapped a hand out and tugged another one of Korr's ribbons.

Ormiss paced across the rug and sat on my other side. He slid his palms over my thigh. "My love, you don't want to remember?"

Why did they keep thinking my answer was going to change? I felt nothing towards my memories or past. Everything felt one step removed from myself, and I was chasing all this because they wanted me to chase it. The memories that felt like mine were memories of a dream, and all of that still felt bitter and real and humiliating and sore.