[Memory Crystal Two: Little Butterfly]

  Maya's Perspective

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  “We have a small stable in the back,” Olayemi explained. “Cupcake can stay there. If the animals like her.”

  Cupcake and I had made it back to the tavern, and Olayemi greeted us outside. My headache immediately dissipated the moment I saw him; surely an indication of safety, but it was still disorienting. But was it ghost-Marcel’s sudden silence, or the presence of safety itself that was unsettling?

  “Why would there be a stable in a tavern?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “I shouldn’t auction animals?” Olayemi said, sarcastically. Cupcake tilted her head. “Don’t worry, Cupcake. You can stay indefinitely. And so can you, Maya. As long as you both work.”

  “Stay?” I wondered. I’d been told Olayemi ran a tavern, not an inn.

  “In your brother’s room. It’s nice, and there are clothes for you.”

  “Clothes…for me?” I spluttered. “…how?” Marcel might’ve been strong, but he wasn’t clairvoyant. He couldn’t have possibly known I would come here, could he?

  “Of course. I picked them out and had him buy them for you. They’re beautiful—you’ll love them.”

  “…Thank you?” I said, unsure. He seemed to show far too much concern for me. He acted as if we’d known each other forever; even Cupcake regarded him with an almost eerie familiarity.

  At least there would be work for me to do. Suspicions aside, he was letting me stay with him. I would hate to be a freeloader.

  “No problem,” he beamed, leading Cupcake and me behind the tavern to the stable. The floor was heavily padded with hay, and four gated stalls awaited. A small goat and a fat pig already occupied two of them. The pig panicked and oinked furiously upon seeing Cupcake, who huffed exasperatedly. The goat seemed unaffected by our presence until it heard Olayemi speak.

  “The goat is blind,” he explained, the goat rearing in excitement upon hearing his voice. “No good for work. Reminiscents don’t acknowledge goat meat as food, even though it’s delicious. He can’t work, no one will buy him, and there would be no point in slaughtering him. So he remains.” Now that he mentioned it, I realized I’d never had goat myself, despite their abundance in Snowcrest. We usually just bred them for work.

  “And the pig?” I asked.

  “Too much, ehn… personality. She’s hot-tempered.”

  “A hot-tempered pig?” I giggled.

  “You laugh, but the pig will show you p?p?. Trust me.”

  “I believe you,” I assured him. “Cupcake can work though. And she’s a good worker, aren’t you?” I scratched her behind her ear, receiving light static shocks.

  Woof! She agreed.

  “I see the saddle; how much can she pull?”

  “I couldn’t give you a number,” I postulated, “but she can pull tree stumps out of the ground with relative ease.”

  “Ease abi? Wonderful. I know what to do. But please, rest. Make yourself at home.” He rushed back into the tavern, leaving me, Cupcake, and the other animals.

  “Are you going to behave, Cupcake?” I asked. She snorted, but reluctantly padded her way into the stable. I pitied her; she would most certainly be bored. She’d never been caged before, mostly because she could easily break her way out—and this stable was no different. Cupcake was barely domesticated, yet she actively chose to restrain herself for my sake.

  The pig was not having it.

  Eeeeeek! She shrieked, running to the furthest corner in her stall as Cupcake made her way in. Cupcake ignored her and dramatically collapsed onto the hay-strewn floor.

  “You know, you don’t have to stay here,” I told her, removing her saddle and placing it against one of the stable’s pillars. Her ears perked up. “This is just where you sleep. You can explore, just stay close to the tavern.” Cupcake immediately shot up and bolted out of the stable, nearly trampling me in the process. I’d told Olayemi that she was a good worker; but that was only if he could find her.

  ***

  “Maya-mi!” Olayemi called with his typical enthusiasm, mixing somebody’s drink as I re-entered the tavern. His warmth was still…unfamiliar to me. I found myself struggling to internalize it. Was it really for me? How long would it last? I couldn’t trust it, how could I? Anything good that had happened to me was always temporary: my relationships, my homes, even my own autonomy. Olayemi seemed genuine, but was it really safe to relax?

  “Mr. Olayemi—”

  “Please,” Olayemi tsked. “Uncle Yemi to you. Are you a stranger?” Technically, yes.

  “N-no.” I stammered. “Um… where’s Marcel’s room?”

  “àyàà,” he cooed sympathetically. “You’re tired, ?e?”

  “Long travel, you know.” He pointed to a door across the bar and dropped a key into my palm. I followed his hand, trying to push my way past the wall of patrons.

  “Watch yourself, Wanderer,” warned one of the patrons, particularly offended by my pushing. “Your tavern, our city.” I didn’t know what he meant by that, so I ignored him and made my way to the door.

  I tried the handle, and it creaked open. Behind the door was a winding staircase leading to a long hallway. More doors lined the walls. Uncle Yemi pointed here, but didn’t tell me which room actually belonged to Marcel. I would have to figure it out.

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  I ran into a depressing problem. I didn’t know enough about my own brother to identify his room.

  On the rare occasion he was home, he never spoke much about himself. He always wanted to know what was going on with me, which was sweet, but it inadvertently made our relationship one-sided. He knew everything about me, but I knew nothing about him. I didn’t even know his actual scent; he always smelled of blood or metal shavings when he came home.

  I walked down the hallway until I came to a door with a small sign hanging off its handle: ‘DO NOT DISTURB.’ If it was any door, it was this one; but how awkward would it be if I walked in on someone changing? Or worse? I gently placed my ear against the door. Hearing nothing, I tried the handle.

  Creeeeak…

  The room wasn’t occupied, but it did look like someone had been staying here. I decided to explore.

  There was a single bed, made neatly, with white, folded robes sitting on the covers. The closet was split in half; one side held similar, hung robes, and a small toolbox sat on the floor. The most worn tool in the box was a screwdriver. On the other side of the closet were vibrant, flowing dresses—far different from what I’d seen the Reminiscents wearing. The fabric was clearly different, with more ornamentation. Cosmaran, perhaps?

  A small nightstand stood next to the bed, with a cracked portrait and a candle. I picked up the portrait—

  It was me.

  Which meant the dresses in the closet were also for me. No wonder I had never seen them; I would surely have frozen to death if I’d worn them in Snowcrest.

  I noticed a small chest, poorly hidden under the bed. As I moved to dig it out, I spotted another, larger, padlocked chest further beneath the bed. I opened the unlocked box and discovered numerous memory crystals. I inspected them one by one: one showed the Gates of Mnemosyne, another some sort of bustling marketplace, another the mighty Snowcrest Mountain from afar. As I skimmed through them, a realization struck me:

  I’d already seen these. He’d already shown me all of them. Years ago.

  I carefully returned the crystals to the box and slid it back under the bed.

  It was barely light outside, and fatigue tugged at me. I wanted to bathe before resting, but Lou’s vimtree rune could only take me so far. Gently, I placed Marcel’s robe into the closet, kicked my shoes off, and sank into Hypnos’s caress, the weariness of travel finally catching up with me.

  Final Part; Part Four:

  Marcel had told me horror stories about Reminiscents and communal bathing.

  Fortunately, Olayemi’s tavern was a Cosmaran establishment, so I didn’t have to worry about that. To my surprise and confusion, the bathhouse was inside the tavern, on the same floor as the other rooms. There was even fragrant olive oil waiting for me.

  I struggled to figure out how to operate…everything. In Snowcrest, the bath was literally in the ground, and as long as you had a ‘Frost’ rune, you could just step in and step out on a whim. Here, there were plugs and spigots and dials apparently, the bathroom was designed for Arkhimedes himself.

  Eventually, I figured it out, bathed, lathered in olive oil, and made my way back to my Marcel’s room, where I encountered a problem:

  All my clothes were in Cupcake’s saddlebag, still in the stable. Which meant I had to wear the clothes Marcel had picked for me. The vibrant colors were pleasant, but it was strange picturing myself in them. In Snowcrest, most people wore dark colors because they were warmest, but here in Reminisce, functionality was clearly sacrificed for style. All of these dresses were pretty, sure, but Olayemi would probably put me to work within the same second he saw me downstairs.

  Of all the colors in the wardrobe, black was the hardest to stain, so I decided on a black skirt and a simple black blouse. Trying them on, I wasn’t sure if they were my size. The skirt went down to my shins… but was it meant to go to my ankles or stop at my knees? The waist was far too wide at first, and I struggled to find the drawstring. The blouse had long sleeves—I could hide the thunder rune in them! It was snug, but not tighter than my thermal layers. At least the design was cute.

  “Maya-mi!” Olayemi exclaimed the moment he laid eyes on me. “Blessed by Aphrodite herself!”

  “Good morning,” I smiled. There were no patrons, at least not yet. So, it was just me and Olayemi in the bar area.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked. I hesitated.

  “Kind of,” I shrugged. Actually, I was starving.

  He smiled, retreated behind the bar, and returned with two bowls of food I couldn’t name. A grain of some kind, covered in…a sauce? And meat from a nondescript animal.

  And it smelled heavenly. Olayemi took a small portion from both plates, presumably to be burnt as an offering. That wasn’t typically something I did, but I’d seen Marcel do it on the rare occasion I witnessed him eating. They were clearly more devoutly religious than I was.

  “Ah-ah, what are you waiting for? Eat, now.”

  I devoured the food. Not a single grain was left in the bowl.

  “Thank you,” I said when I was done. “That was delicious.”

  “Not true Cosmaran cuisine,” he laughed, then added wistfully, “Back home we’d have goat. Or bush meat. Are you sure you don’t want more?”

  “No, thank—”

  “Then it’s time to put you to work!”

  “Of course!” I assured him, eager to earn my keep.

  I soon found out why he was so excited to put me to work. Walking into the tavern and seeing Olayemi kicking his feet up, it was easy to assume he was lazy. Even I thought that for an instant.

  That was the furthest from the truth I’d ever been.

  The reason Olayemi allowed himself to relax during the workday was because all the heavy lifting had already been done by the time the patrons arrived. And in my humble opinion, all that work had been done because Olayemi was superhuman. It was easy to assume he was lazy; it was much harder to notice that the floors were scrubbed every morning, the tables always pristine and organized, the ale taps cleaned—

  That he’d been doing it by himself.

  When he handed me my list of responsibilities, which he claimed was half of his, my first thought was, there is no way I can complete all of this on time. My second thought was, there is no way he has been completing all of this on time.

  Living in Snowcrest, I’d gotten used to working for my…belonging. Valorie and I were much stronger than the rest of the girls in our age group, so we usually ended up performing manual labor with the men. If I had a choice between shoveling hot-tempered-pig excrement and gasping for air while timber felling on the mountain, I’d grab an ax and hold my breath.

  For hours, hours it was ‘clean this,’ ‘scrub that,’ ‘lift this,’ ‘move that.’ I couldn’t even be angry with Olayemi because he worked just as diligently.

  “I’m happy with you, Maya-mi,” he patted my shoulder as we finished up. “I thought I would have to teach you how to work—but you already know! I’m impressed.”

  He dropped three munins into my hand. I appreciated the gesture, but I still didn’t know how to quantify the coins’ value. I’d much rather have a potato or something. I at least knew what that was worth.

  “You’re dismissed,” he said.

  “Dismissed?”

  “Go and do whatever you like,” he shrugged. “You could stay here with me and continue working, explore the Wanderers’ Enclave, whatever you like. We’ll pick back up tomorrow.”

  I didn’t really know how to respond, so I just smiled, nodded, and left the tavern. I went around back to the stable to see if Cupcake was there.

  Woof! She greeted me the moment she saw me. Marcel hadn’t shown up yet, and I had to admit I was a little worried. It’s only been a day, I convinced myself, trying to write my worry off as impatience. If he could fight platoons like he’d indicated in his crystal, then he was virtually unkillable, no?

  I had more pressing matters anyway: I’d survived the Forest and all its tribulations but would I survive the boredom that came with normalcy?

  Olayemi had said I could do whatever I liked…but I didn’t even know what that was. My goal had been to meet him and wait for Marcel; but now that I was here, I had no purpose or direction. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I was used to not having a choice, having my usefulness or lack thereof spelled out in front of me. In the time I had to wait for my brother, was I also waiting for him to give me… meaning? Or would I have to define that for myself?

  Did I even want to? Lacking agency had always frustrated me. Things just… happened to me. But now, that seemed almost comfortable in the face of true autonomy. I almost missed it. I almost preferred being a sheep, waiting for my shepherd.

  And to be honest, I hated that part of myself.

  Woof! Cupcake said. She was getting antsy; she probably wanted to explore around.

  “Alright, Cupcake,” I patted her head. “Let’s see how much five munins can buy.”

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------