Amelia’s memories defragmented every night when she went into power-saving mode. But tonight was different.

It was stronger, more vivid. More slowly moving than usual.

At the moment, she found herself caught in a firefight. Two armies blasting spells and rifles at one another from across a valley. One side mighty miracle mages, and the other side slayers beyond comparison.

Amelia did not live this moment.

She read it in a book.

A book whose name could not come to the tip of her mind, but still, somehow, this war scene remained in the recesses of her memory for reasons she could not even fathom.

The scene played out exactly as she pictured it. Its point-of-view character, now played by her, ran through the battle, carrying a letter vital to ending the conflict. Her brother, her own brother, had come back to save them. They needed to retreat so he could be given the space to defeat the opposing side. But if they continued to fight, the mages would lose all their numbers. The entire war would be for naught.

Amelia knew, though, that the letter was wrong. The letter was a ruse set up by her brother’s killer. But she could not deviate from her set course. Despite knowing everything was wrong, despite the understanding that delivering that letter would doom the mages forever, Amelia was unable to change the events. They were her memories, after all. Memories of a long-forgotten book. She could only let them play out, let this young girl run through a war zone, barefoot, about to deliver destruction to her people with a shining heart of hope.

What a mood-killing book that was, Amelia thought.

Suddenly, the scenery shifted. She was still running, but taller, now. No longer in a war, but instead, a vast forest. Jumping from limb to limb across the trees, chasing after a small ape with an item in its mouth.

She felt her boot hit one certain limb too weak, and the whole branch cracked. In the split-second before she found herself plummeting to the forest floor, she grabbed ahold of a small branch above her and used it to swing further forward.

The ape was in sight. Then in range. Her hand reached out and grabbed its tail, yanking it back with yells and scratching.

But, fortunately, it did not drop the glove in its mouth.

She pulled it off, wiped the slobber on her pants, and put it in her pocket.

“That’s not for taking,” she told the tiny ape. It hissed and screeched in response.

She would be washing that glove later and putting it back on her hand where it belonged. Because it was too precious to abandon.

Amelia looked down at her hands, and the glove was already back on. She looked back up, and before her was the coastline of Sunwell, sprawled out below the cliffs, and a giant vortex of a whirlpool not far from here.

Winter raged—the first one without Ed, not the one where she finally arrived in Fleettwixt. Her skin felt like it was going to ice over, and she had to remind herself that this was just a memory, just a dream.

The very edge of the continent. North Keyway, they called it. Sunwell’s furthest reaches, its deepest mysteries on display for Amelia to view in awe. Why was she here? She did not know. But she was, and she knew she would find the answer to a question she had yet to even ask.

By the whirlpool, a family of merfolk peeked their heads above the ocean waves to look at her, to gaze upon her with curious pity. The lone girl shivering in the snow, surely contemplating whether or not the sharp cliffs would feel better than the chilly wind.

But the merfolk were wrong. Amelia held a deep sadness in her soul, but she felt no malice towards herself, towards the world. Seeing this magnificent spot filled her with a kind of determination, a new kind of love she knew not how to put into words.

Sunwell was her home, and it was a home worth saving.

She thought that, took a deep breath in, and then gasped—

Gasped at the lewd comment from the man across the table from her.

“That’s not true, sir,” Amelia said, unable to contain the red-hot fire coming from her cheeks. “No, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir. My name is Lyron.”

“Mr. Winback...”

He finished his serving of mudbeast nuggets and helped himself to the plate on Amelia’s side. He chose the restaurant, and he was paying, so Amelia let him help himself.

“Call me Lyron, or I’ll say it again.”

“Mr. Lyron, er, Lyron.”

“You aren’t usually this polite, are you? I’m special because of Edith.”

She nodded, reluctantly. This bearded elf with a husky laugh and big belly saw straight through her every single time they spoke.

“I don’t give a crap about that. And I think my question is already answered.”

“It... is?”

“I just wanted to know if my daughter’s treating you alright.”

“Sir, that’s... I’m never telling you about that!” she whispered loudly. Amelia loved Lyron, but this question was far past the point of appropriate. At the dinner table, no less.

Then Lyron leaned forward, trying very hard not to laugh. “Now that I’ve loosened you up, how about my real question? What’s Edith planning?”

Amelia’s heart froze. She did not, could not respond.

“She hasn’t been home in months. I know it’s not just you two busy cuddling every night. She’s working on something, and I want to know what before it happens.” He coughed a few times, then smiled knowingly.

“—Can’t.”

“How about if I give you my wife’s old ring?” He pulled a small diamond ring out of his jacket pocket and presented it to her. “You can propose whenever you want. Don’t need my permission. But you do need this ring, because Edith won’t go along without it.” The desperation in his voice, in his eyes, showed he knew almost all of it already, just not the crux of it.

“Lyron, no. I can’t...”

He could never know about their plan. No one could until it was ready. If even a single word about it leaked before they made their escape, it would be too—

“—too late,” Amelia said to herself. “I thought I was too late.”

She looked around, and she was no longer in a restaurant, but the plains near a long, sandy beach. Above her, an island’s worth of floating rocks, hovering gently in the sky, with plants and birds and other things making their lives around it.

The old human with tweed in his mouth looked at her and said, “Ain’t leavin’ for another week. It’s about mid-spring when they start settin’ south.”

They were beautiful. Magical. Unlike anything Amelia had seen in any other part of the continent. Here in Berryward for one month a year.

“Can we go up there?”

“Not in my dang truck, if that’s what you mean.” He laughed hoarsely like only a man as old as the dirt below him could ever do. “What are you hopin’ to do up there, anyhoo?”

“I’m looking for crystal lotuses.”

“Ah, a treasure hunter. Great.” Actually, a mana hunter—she had heard fresh crystal lotuses had the purest souls of any living being. Something to cure the ailments plaguing her systems. But she let the man think she was just greedy. “Don’t worry, kid. I gotta special thing just for this.”

He dug through the back of his trunk and brought out a comically oversized gun, so heavy he could barely hold it with his feeble arms. She took it from him and examined it.

It was flintlock shaped, but completely different in function, she realized. It had a large spike at the bottom so it could be planted into the ground, and in its barrel there was a large hook, with enough cable to make a zipline blush.

“Called a sky harpoon,” the old man said. “Plant it in the dirt, fire, and that’s it.”

She did as he said. She launched the harpoon straight into the sky, and it unraveled all the way into the nearest floating island. Direct hit into the rocks. Latched on perfectly.

“Good job, kid,” the old man said, handing Amelia some rock climbing gear. “Now get on up there.”

“...I climb that?”

“What, are you slow? Of course!”

Amelia looked at the cable that stretched hundreds of feet in the air. She thought of the crystal lotuses, and thought of what Ed might think if she could see her up there. The sheer wonder of exploration. That was all the motivation she needed to harness herself to the cable and start climbing.

“Please, no!”

A screeching plea, something Amelia had heard so frequently she could nearly tune it out by thought alone.

“Please don’t kill me...”

It was the felid, Liss. Amelia was in the Fourland warehouse, standing over countless dead bodies, and one more soon-to-be-dead woman, laying there, ready to do anything to survive except repent.

“Do you know how many people have asked me that this week?”

“I have a family,” Liss begged. “A wife, a son. Please.”

Amelia snapped. “That irks me. Using your family to buy yourself mercy. Despicable.” She began to pace around the fallen felid. “Your family might be innocent. I don’t know them. I only know you, and you deserve nothing. If I kill you, maybe your son will seek revenge. Maybe in twenty years he’ll find me and gut me. Or maybe he’ll find out about your career and decide it’s not worth—”

She froze. These words she spoke aloud just over one week ago. They felt wrong. Felt fake. They rang hollow, like a condemnation of herself and she had never even realized it.

Then Liss stood up. Her eyes blank, her figure transparent. Half her head burnt to a crisp. She laughed in Amelia’s face. Cackled, even.

“You killed me,” Liss said. “You could have held back. You could have broken my arm. But instead you killed me.”

She pushed Amelia, so hard she spun around.

On the other side, a little furry child of five or six, half-felid, half-human, stared up at Amelia with a pitiful look on their face.

This was not part of her memories. What the hell? She felt unable to even move.

“I’m real lonely,” the child said. “Mama hasn’t come back in a long time. Fefe has to go to work a lot more now. She told me I can’t go outside unless she’s home. Will you play with me?”

Amelia tried to respond, tried to ask what this was, but her mouth would not open. She had a mouth, but she could not scream. Her limbs refused to move.

The child grew older, and taller, definition in their muscles, and long whiskers on their face. They held a sword to her throat.

“Bye, Bluewood.”

Amelia felt a searing pain as the sword slowly, deliberately moved through her neck and then out the other side. She—

Then everything went dark, and Amelia’s eyes opened to a view of Aeo sleeping on the bunk across from her, arms and legs sprawled out in a battle against her sheets. She snored loudly.

Defragmentation over. Memories forced underneath... No wait, what was that at the end? Those were not memories. Those were Amelia’s own emotions forcing their way into her mind. Glossals called them nightmares. Amelia had never experienced anything like it before.

She had hardly even thought about that Liss woman since the night she killed her. For her to reemerge in her dreams like that was an unpleasant surprise in every way. Her final thoughts of hope, of getting to see her family again, dashed because Amelia wanted to tie up loose ends.

She just wanted to save Sunwell. It was all she had in her life. All she was built for. How could something so simple bring her such overwhelming guilt?

Amelia sat up in bed and sobbed tearlessly until the feelings faded away.

---

Today's Shoutout: Soulless (Apparently), a good old fashioned mystery starring an entirely robot cast.

---