Leftover Apocalypse

Some girls did the princess thing when they were little, and I might have had a bit of that phase for a while, but mainly for me it was fairies. My mom had some books on fairies she didn't like me looking at, probably because most of them were not about the Disney version of the fair folk - I didn't even catch most of the racism and antisemitism a lot of the 'authentic' fairy tales were built on since I was a kid, but I understood and was fascinated with the violence of it. One book in particular was my favorite, and unlike most books I got my grubby little hands on I didn't tear out the pages or scribble in it because it was too special. I would just skim through and looked at the pictures while hiding under my bed and pretended to be traveling through a tunnel to fairy land where I would grow giant butterfly wings and live in a hollow tree.

When I was little we would still go camping sometimes and my mom would always tell me to go search for the fairies in the woods to keep me busy - and it worked every time. I'd spend hours calling to them, trying to sneak up on them, examining each tree stump and mushroom in case I found a tiny door. But I had to be careful, because if I wandered too far from camp mom would pack up the car and drive away. Once she even skipped the packing part and left the tent, which came in handy since it rained that night. The camping trips stopped once child protective services was on her case, and my fascination with magic and fairies faded as I got older and realized that it wasn't real.

Except now, apparently, magic and fairies were absolutely real.

I tried not to think about my mom most of the time, not after that last carefully planned abandonment in Arizona, but I found myself wishing I could tell her that fairies were real so I could see the look on her face. It was probably the only interest we had in common. Of course these weren't quite the fair folk as I had imagined them, but they had enough in common from what Cyne told me as he rested and regained mana that I felt like there had to be some connection.

The Sahrger disliked iron, for example, although it wasn't clear if it actually harmed them or was just against some social rule of theirs since in some cases they could touch it and in others they would flinch back like it had burned them. Cyne said there were a few theories, including the idea that intent was the important thing - that iron harmed them only if you willed it to.

"Okay but... that doesn't seem like wild magic or Imperial magic, and it doesn't seem like it's part of the different laws of physics that other planes have. So... what the fuck?"

I'd been expecting Cyne or Katrin to reply, but Aestrid of all people was the one that answered. "There are layers, everything is built on something else. Wild magic works because Imperial magic relied on it for some things when it was new. Other old languages, other types of wild magic, are fully gone now but the Clockmaker couldn't get rid of that last bit because it would be like fixing up your house and trying to replace the foundation. Likewise, there's a layer below the wild magic but it hardly comes up. True names, ancestral blades and other inheritance magic, and the Sahrger hating iron. It's why some families in Markonti can take the shortcut through the mountain, and others can't. Just old inherited stuff you get from your parents."

The other odd thing with the Sahrger was the question of wild magic. None of the people from other planes that had natural magic could do anything else - it seemed to work the same way as getting a Dumine - which for the Sahrger should have meant they could just do curses or closely related things. But there were rumors of all sorts of other magic feats, most involving them tricking people into seeing things. I couldn't help but think of similar stories from Earth - they fit just well enough that it seemed like it couldn't be a coincidence.

I wasn't sure what to think about that. Clearly there was some connection between this world and Earth or I wouldn't have been transported here, but I refused to believe that people on Earth could use magic and were just keeping it secret. That meant the most likely explanation was that there was no ambient mana on Earth at all, or even a negative amount that somehow leeched mana away from people - Connie had told me there were beings called the Uldrati that could drain mana and keep people from using magic, so it was plausible that something could be doing that to Earth as a whole. Of course, anything seems plausible when you don't really know how magic works. At some point I knew I would need to talk to an actual scholar if I wanted to really figure anything out.

For the moment, I felt like I knew as much as I was going to. I went to help Sige set up a makeshift cover for the wagon now that the top had been pulled off and left to burn. It wasn't great, but would provide a little protection if it rained. As we finished up I heard voices raise for a moment before quieting again, and could see that there was some sort of... if not an argument then a heated discussion.

I hopped down and intercepted Errod, who was coming from that direction. "Hey, what are Connie and Aestrid talking about?"

He looked over his shoulder at them, and then at me. "They're arguing about what to do with the Halenvar soldier. The current plans are either to release him and let him fend for himself, or present him as a gift to the Sahrger."

In a way handing him to the Sahrger would make more sense. I didn't care what happened to him, and we needed to give them something, and... then they would... what? Keep him as a pet? "That's... no. That's basically selling him into slavery. And these are the kinds of people that torture animals for fun, it's... ugh. I don't care what Aestrid's logic is, I have to draw the line somewhere."

Errod nodded, looking relieved. "I agree. But despite being from Markonti where I understand some form of slavery is legal, it wasn't Aestrid arguing for that. She was okay with the idea of killing him right away, but she considers this to be different."

"Yeah that's fair. Um. Connie is... she's just trying to be practical about it." I could feel myself trying to back up and switch my opinion to match. Was letting him go any better? He was in their territory. Surely they'd find him anyway at some point, right? But... it was different. I'd been trying so hard over the years to make these rules for myself, and while I hadn't expected selling people to the fey to come up that was for sure not a thing I could do and still tell myself I wasn't the monster mom thought I was.

"It's okay," Errod said, "Constance is... something changed in the years that separate you."

I tried to keep my face blank, while I pictured her knife slashing across Ernie's throat and spraying blood across my face. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I know we still don't actually... I mean we're not close, not yet, but just from some of what you've said I can tell that you haven't always had things easy. And Katrin, she didn't say much because she said it was between the two of you, but she did say... don't be mad at her, but she said that you sometimes found it hard to be... nice."

I looked around to make sure nobody was too close. "I just don't feel bad just because other people do. I can be sad for my own sake, and I can play the part and act sad for other people to be polite, but..."

He waved me off. "It's fine. It's like bravery. If you're not scared of doing something, you're not being brave by doing it. If you don't genuinely feel compelled to do the right thing and do it anyway, you're making that extra choice to be a good person. It's... honestly, it's more impressive. And I expect that sometimes you can't manage, and that's okay too. Katrin and I don't take it personally."

I suddenly had a dim memory, someone putting a hand on my shoulder and saying "if you don't mean it that day, you don't have to say it" and me feeling just so warm and... I couldn't place it. Probably just a dream, or I was accidentally inserting myself into a half-remembered scene from a movie.

Errod shuffled his feet awkwardly, then rested a hand on his sword like he was subconsciously expecting a fight. "But watching the two of you together, I can see the difference. You're... healthier. You have your moments where you seem like you're in a shadow or something but... we all have that. Katrin and I have lost people, our father was shipped off to Tarmestal - it's a sort of prison, it's likely to be a death sentence - but Connie... she looks like she's about to break.

"I want to be a knight of Brinkmar, and that means living up to the ideals of the Savior of Brinkmar. And he said that fighting is something you have to do sometimes, but it's more important to remember why you fight and to try to help people before it becomes about just killing and... I don't remember the actual quote, it was better than this. But what I'm saying is that if she needs help, I want to do something. And I think what she needs is to talk to someone, a healer. I know she has a lot of memories that could get her... kidnapped or something... if everyone knows about them. But we can deal with that together. I'd rather she be healthy and need me to fight people to keep her safe than be in danger from herself - I can't... I can't solve that with a sword."

And a tiny part of me, despite Errod's lovely and heartfelt speech, wanted to add "you can't solve anything with a sword, other than maybe a surplus of toes". Thankfully, I resisted. "I appreciate it, I do. I think she just needs to be done with all this end of the world stuff, you know? We'll go on this adventure, and it'll perk her right up. You'll see."

He nodded, but he clearly wasn't convinced. "Trauma is a battle scar, Calliope. It's a wound that didn't heal right on its own. She's years older than you, years that haven't treated her well, and you already have some scars. If time and some adventure was going to solve it... well. Just think about it. And not just for her."

Oh good, another shrink. Although... I didn't like the idea of anyone poking around in my brain, but magic therapy might actually work for me. Hmm. "I'll think about it. For now, let me go and put my vote in for not being slave traders." He started to leave, and I called after him. "Errod? After this, once we're powered up? We could maybe do an adventure you choose. Maybe a jailbreak?"

He smiled, but he looked sad. "It's... more complicated than that. But maybe."

I headed over to the two of them, and saw that the discussion had stalled for the moment. "Aestrid, you think we should send him off into the woods and let him fend for himself? You've got my vote. Leave him a little knife and some trail rations too, tell him where he is, and tell him we're going to start hunting him in fifteen minutes so he'd better put some distance between us."

Connie threw up her hands in exasperation. "Fine. Could have killed two birds with one stone here," - the translation was only slightly different for that one, it was arrow rather than stone - "but instead we're giving our enemy a chance to attack us or to make a deal and get home so he can tell everyone where we went."

Aestrid smiled at me, looking for the first time like she might actually like me a little, and then walked off to where Sige was guarding our captive. Connie pulled me aside deeper into the woods until we had some privacy, and then switched to English for good measure.

"Listen. I'm not stupid, or at least not any stupider than you are. I saw that look, you think I'm some kind of monster. You're looking at me like mom used to."

"I'm not going to sell someone into slavery, Connie."

"So you're doing your forced morality thing, fine. But you act like your arbitrary moral rules are objectively right, like fitting into this one narrow definition of good person means you're doing things right. But the rules don't have to be the same here, it's a whole different world with different cultures and different morals," she said, gesturing around us, "Plus, you've killed people now. You'll do it again before this is all over, it's virtually guaranteed. We're not killing this guy, even though frankly it would be justified. Instead he would be held onto by the fair folk for a while until they got bored of him or forgot about him or whatever at which point he could maybe escape or something."

"You're right," I said, and Connie stopped just as she was about to launch into her next point. "I don't really give a shit about that guy. If Sige had broken his neck I wouldn't have minded at all. But he didn't, because Cyne and Errod and probably Katrin - and maybe Mila if she noticed - would have been pissed. And now that that decision is made, he's our responsibility and we're not going to give a human being away as a housewarming gift. Because even though there's no objective morality, even though my rules are arbitrary, I have to decide that some things are wrong and some things are right."

"Like volunteering at soup kitchens every weekend?"

"Exactly, you don't do it because you give a shit or because you enjoy it, you do it because it's a thing you should do."

Connie arched an eyebrow. "You've never volunteered at a soup kitchen, not once."

"Of course we did, we..."

It was every Saturday, right? Even if I locked my bedroom and pretended to be sick, we would go and... no. I hadn't had a bedroom of my own, because I was in high school but the last time I lived with my mom was when I was twelve. I shared a room in all the group homes. Plus, how would I do anything every Saturday when I was constantly running away and sleeping on the street? I'd eaten at a soup kitchen before, was I getting confused with... no, I was for sure serving. Right?

"Let me guess," Connie said, "as soon as I mentioned serving people at a soup kitchen you remembered doing it. Every weekend, probably on Saturdays, and you hated it at first but eventually came around and started to feel like it was a rewarding and good thing to do."

I nodded.

"It's not a real memory. It didn't even exist a minute ago. We're broken, Callie. Maybe just totally insane, or maybe something is oozing in because of all the shit that happened on my timeline. I warned you about this, I've been remembering things that didn't happen. Things from lives I didn't live. Just little bits, little flashes. Stabbing some people to death in their sleep, I think they were abusive foster parents or something. Meeting with an adoption case worker and actually being excited about it. Being chased through secret tunnels by some creepy old dude. Growing up by myself in the woods. Random shit. Shit that not only didn't happen, but couldn't plausibly have happened."

She sighed, and leaned back to look up through the branches of the trees around us. "And when you feel like you're supposed to be a good person, like you had some moment of character growth and vowed to do the right thing and help people even when you weren't capable of actual empathy? That's always part of the fake memories, Callie. Think about it next time you have a burst of moral outrage. Trace it back. It's a lie, it's a dream, it's... it's bullshit. Just be yourself, don't worry about that nagging little voice. And I'm not saying you should go out of your way to hurt people - obviously not. I care about you, and Errod, and Katrin, and Mila. I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to any of you. But for people like that soldier? You don't care if we give him to the Sahrger, so don't pretend you do."

She stood up, stretching, and started to walk away before turning back. "Just don't give me that look, okay? You want to override me on something, fine. It's not a big deal that we let him go, I think the odds of him causing us more trouble are slim. So fine, fuck it. But don't look at me like I'm some monster. I'm you, without a false memory making up rules."

I felt shaken, but managed to take a few deep breaths and tried to examine my memories. There really wasn't anywhere that the soup kitchen memories would fit, plus they were indistinct - my memory was usually pretty good, and yet this was all jumbled and lacking detail. But I'd been trying to be a good person for a long time, hadn't I? It was hard to say. At the very least I had long ago learned to fake caring about people, but that wasn't the same thing. I could remember being at the helping that older woman that lived across from my last group home carry groceries from her car just because it seemed like the right thing to do. Unless that was a fake memory too.

Or even if it wasn't, it could be that things were slipping into my head back on Earth. Magic had reached me there to transport me away, it could have also tampered with my head. Or it could be that it had nothing to do with magic at all, and I was just crazy. Like mother like daughter, although as far as I knew her memories hadn't been the issue. Or had they? Could that have explained why she kept trying to leave me places?

Katrin and Errod were lurking nearby looking concerned, so I waved them over. "Okay listen. I still don't really feel right talking to you guys about this sort of shit and I'd rather lie to you and then hope it goes away. But you've been nice about the whole thing where my brain doesn't work right, so... I may be having some false memories."

Errod raised an eyebrow. "Is Earth a false memory? Are you actually just from this world like everyone else?"

"Fuck. No? No. I mean there's a whole language, and more than that. Details, a whole society and crazy shit like internet memes and... that's not fake. But there's some chunk of my life that has... overlapping memories? I think? Some time two or three years ago, though if Connie is to be believed it will get worse and I'll have other parts that are like that too. Or I already do, but I can't tell because they seem real."

Errod looked disappointed, presumably because he thought all of Earth being a fever dream would make things simpler. "Well, if you want we can just... remember for you. The big things, I mean. You can tell us whatever seems important from your life, and then later on if you think your memory has changed you can tell us again and we'll let you know. It won't work for everything since there's no way you could tell us your whole life story, but it's a start."

"Yeah. That... that could work. Not now though, I'm just realizing the Sahrger could be listening in or something. But once we get out of here and back on the road, maybe. Thanks. You guys are great." Something was bothering me. Looking at Errod and Katrin, there was something I was forgetting, or something more I should say. Oh. He'd said 'Katrin and I don't take it personally' when he was talking about my lack of empathy. Had I missed something?

"Aw, shit. Fuck. Katrin, I'm sorry. I just realized you've been dealing with something since... I don't know, since the battle in Theramas? And I've just been ignoring it and thinking you're being weird without... are you okay?"

She smiled, and opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Suddenly her eyes watered up, and she started crying. "They ran into my shield and just cut themselves almost in half, and I could feel it through the magic. I saw one pick up his own arm. And then Betrad was stabbed, and. I. It's fine. I'll be fine."

Well, fuck. I thought she was thinking about ditching me or was pissed or something. Because it's all about me. No wonder she had been trying to find a non-lethal spell - and I suggested she use the shield one to slice the Halenvar guy in half. I pulled her into a hug, and gave her a minute to compose herself. I still didn't really feel what I was sure I was supposed to. I was holding her, and whispering that it was okay and I was sorry, and really inside I was wondering how long I would need to stand there like that. Thirty seconds? A whole minute? Longer?

But I latched onto Errod's words. "If you don't genuinely feel compelled to do the right thing and do it anyway, you're making that extra choice to be a good person." I had to hold onto that thought. I had to be better than mom thought I was.

I was saved by the wagon beginning to move. Errod scrambled up and reached an arm down to pull Katrin up behind him, and Connie wrangled Mila who had started to wander off into the woods. Aestrid stayed behind for a moment as we got moving, watching through the trees at the place where the Halenvar soldier had vanish into the woods in case he turned back around. I asked Cyne what we needed to do next and he sighed.

"Now we just travel and wait for the Sahrger to find us and take us to the local noble family," Cyne said, "Cross your fingers it's one that likes humans."