Heirot

The rogue walked back to the nearly finished laundry and sat down on the sun-warmed rocks. He looked up at Mizuki and stared at her for a moment as if deep in thought, then glanced away again and lay back. "You grew up here, right?" he said casually but awkwardly, squinting at the sky.

"You grew up here, right?" Soran asked her casually. Mizuki nodded and kneeled, with some difficulty, back down near the stream to finish what they started.

"It's where my parents met. My father was passing through, he was following the trail of a criminal he was tracking down and he met my mother. Actually he saved my mother from the criminal." Mizuki said and laughed softly. "Mother fell in love with him because he was the man in her vision's and my father was enthralled by her. They were married immediantly then I was born." She sighed remembering her father fondly. "Throughout their marriage they always acted like young lovers... It amused me as a child then was my own vision of a prefect marriage when I grew older..." She trailed off then remembering that it was around her teenage years that her father and her fought, and he died before they could make up.

Her eyes were distant as she stared idily into the crystal water, the garment laying loose in her hands.

"I see," said the rogue thoughtfully, sensing that it would be best not to ask where her father was now, though he wondered about it. After a long moment he said with almost forced casuality, "So.., those times when you were young here with your parents, you can remember it all? ..Meaning, on your own, not because someone told you it happened..?" He looked rigidly at the clouds passing, knowing it was a strange question, but he was trying to figure something out.

Mizuki raised a brow, coming back into reality.

"Yes?" she said unsure of the question really. She continued scrudbing the garment in her hand then set it aside to dry slightly on the rock.

Soran thought for a moment. "Is that really certain? Those memories can't be stories other people told you, that were absorbed as truth?" He stopped, realizing how far-fetched he was sounding. But there had to be some explanation... why didn't he remember those things? "Scratch that," he said offhandedly, pressing one palm absently against his forehead.

Mizuki looked at him curiously. "Soran?" She reached out her hand to his arm and touch him lightly. "Did something happen...?" She looked at him with concern in her eyes.

Soran took his hand away from his head and looked at her awkwardly. "No, nothing," he responded flatly. He changed his mind and decided to try explaining it - what harm could it do? "Rather, something happened, but it's gone. Everything from my birth up to a few years ago, inside my mind, is blank. All I have to prove to myself that anything happened before that are old wounds, and.. instincts." He tried to behave indifferently, but dread was there in his voice.

Mizuki blinked and listened to him intently. 'That's why he's so distant..?' she thought. A small flashback of him sitting on a doctor's bed with a shirt off came to her, she slightly remembered scars on him.

"So you remember nothing..?" She asked him, pratically whispering. Suddenly she had the urge to hug him and hold him close to her, but she fought it off. "Who could do that....?" she asked herself mostly.

Soran frowned uncomfortably. "Nothing. Like it was erased somehow." He abruptly changed his tone, "Not that it matters. I have no need for those things anyway, so I'd just as well be free of them," he forced, waving his hand disdainfully.

Mizuki blinked in surprise and took her hand away.

"Memories are what make people who they are, because they remember things like mistakes." She said and looked back into the water. "It's those memories of mistakes that will keep us strong. But, happy memories to mold us... Ah... I sound hysteric." She poked fun at herself and continued scrubbing. But she was frowning. She changed the topic slightly.

"Have you ever tried.. to remember?"

Soran looked at her as she spoke. If memories made people who they were, what was he? "Sure, I've considered it, but I decided it doesn't matter," he said, lying. Of course he'd tried, since he'd first woken up in the middle of the forest, and especially since he'd met her. "The majority of the people in the world screw up their lives obsessing over their memories. They see dreams and nightmares while they're asleep that affect their rationality while they're awake. People would be better off without those things anyway. Memories and dreams are like forms of insanity," he thought out loud, testing the theory he'd never tried to put into words before. He sensed it probably wouldn't make sense to her, but at the same time he had a feeling it was safe to say it to her anyway.

"Maybe... but, I'd perferr to remember my father in his glory... I'd rather not lose mine." she said quietly. "but if you feel that way." she sighed. "At least you're getting memories from being with us!" She smiled at him, "Right? You are getting good memories from us..? Besides all the battles and stuff... hehe." She looked at him hopefully, if he couldn't remember his past at least he could have memories of his present and future.

"Yeah. I am," he said after considering it. It was odd to think that despite all the trouble he'd been through since involving him with these people, he'd been enjoying this time more than his calmer days in Hepian, at least in hindsight. "And what about you?" He crossed his arms behind his head and eyed her curiously. "Before all this, you were a pirate, right? You aren't missing that?"

"The sea's? Pluddering other ships? Slightly, I mostly miss the freedom of riding a ship but...When I had become a pirate, I was just running away, if I was giving the chance to do it again I wouldn't. I'd just sail." She said truthfully.

Soran found the prospect of Mizuki being a pirate somewhat difficult to imagine, let alone 'plundering ships'. He watched her washing and grinned. "Rai keeps asking me to teach her to swim. If I drown trying, it's your job to drag me out, miss Pirate," he rambled with a smirk, feeling his eyes growing heavy. The warm sun and the calm atmosphere was bringing on the sleep that didn't visit him the night before. Before he could stop, he dozed off completely, lying on the rocks next to Mizuki.