Young Writers Society

James didn’t look back at Eve, but he did look up at the sky. He could see the clouds slowly beginning to gather, and darken, in the far distance. It looked like it might rain in a few hours.

“It’s alright,” he said. He’d expected her to ask about his family too. It was only natural.

It was a little easier though, to talk about his family, pretending they were dead - because they might as well have been, to him. He hadn’t seen them in years, and now, it was sure. He never would again.

So he didn’t mind veiling the truth thinly, behind fake names, and altered circumstances.

“I had a little sister,” he said. “We were five years apart.”

He didn’t have to fake the sadness in his voice.

“Her name was Lauren. She was adorable, and she loved to follow me around everywhere. And she was always trying to get me in trouble.”

He smiled a little, but kept his face out of Eve’s line of sight.

“She was six years old when she passed.”

Evaline's face darkened. She knew Yoen's family didn't have a happy ending, but it pained her to hear him talk about a little sister who passed when she didn't even get a chance to grow up. She almost wanted to prod further and ask how she passed, and considering Yoen's current circumstances, she had a feeling it wasn't a natural process.

She decided not to at the last second.

"I'm sorry," she said again. "That's so awful."

The silence hung in the air, and she wanted to change the subject, but she didn't know how to transition out of something like this.

James hummed quietly. He knew a lot of people didn't know what to say, and that was fine. Death and loss were painful and uncomfortable. It wasn't supposed to be easy to hear about it, or talk about it.

"I lost her to the goblin wars," he said quietly. "And my parents."

He let another pause pass as he thought back. The memory was buried away, but he did lose one family member that day.

That was... kind of what started it all. How he was where he was now, in a way.

Evaline sympathetically nodded along, but she actually had no idea what the goblins war was about, or what a goblin even was. She figured there was a land named Goblin and wars ravaged through it, but she wasn't going to test that theory.

Though at the same time, she wasn't going to let this slide, either. This piqued her curiosity.

"Did they fight in the war?" she asked. It seemed like a fairly neutral question to ask.

James took in a quiet breath and kept his eyes forward, on the ground, and on the forest ahead of him as they followed the creek.

"No. There was a goblin raid," he said slowly. "They pillaged our farm."

He looked over at Elliot and gripped the reins he was leading him with a little tighter, to ground him.

"That was ten years ago."

By the context, Evaline wasn't sure if Goblin was the name of a land anymore, but she couldn't be sure. Either way, it didn't change what happened.

There was an atrocity committed to innocent people. To Yoen's family.

She felt his pain, and she was angry at whoever did this, even if it was ten years ago.

"Did you ever find who did this?" she asked quietly, controlling her shaky voice.

James glanced back at Eve for just a second.

The only time he had ever run into goblins was in war, battle, and conflict. And in the last year, stumbling onto them and quickly fleeing because he was greatly outnumbered.

He looked back up at the sky, which was now overcast.

"I don't think I could remember," he said. "What they looked like."

It was an honest answer.

He could remember seeing them converge upon his father. He could remember seeing the spear come through his father's back, and how his body went limp so suddenly.

But no faces.

"I was... too busy fleeing," he said. "So. No."

Evaline went quiet for a moment as her gaze fell back to the back of Yoen's head. She wondered if it pained him to talk about this, but she couldn't see his expression.

Most of all, though, she wondered if he regretted not seeing the perpetrators' faces. He has to endure a lifetime of pain without justice.

She sighed, tossing an idea back and forth before deciding to take a risk.

"Do you wish you remember?" she said after a long pause. "What they looked like, I mean."

James had thought about it a lot.

He'd spent many nights of his youth thinking about what he could've done differently, somehow, as an eleven-year-old. He wasn't even supposed to be looking in the first place when he rode off on their horse with his mother and little sister, but he'd looked back.

He'd been the only one who saw.

He had felt like it should've been his responsibility to remember - to remember the goblins that killed his father. But he didn't.

"Yes. Sometimes I do," he said quietly.

But sometimes, he was glad that he didn't, because he had a feeling that it would haunt him forever if he did know, but could never find them.

The desire for revenge could be all-consuming, and he didn't know if he wanted that.

Evaline quickened her steps until she passed Yoen, standing to face him so he stopped walking. "I think I can help," she said, eyes serious as she locked eyes with him. "I can help you remember. But you have to trust me, just for a minute."

She was taking a huge risk, but she had calculated it to be worthwhile.

James came to a halt, and Elliot stopped beside him.

His eyebrows drew together as he met Eve's eyes, and he looked at her, trying to figure out...

"I'm not sure what you mean," he said hesitantly.

"I can't really explain it," she said. Well, she could, but she had no idea how he would take it or what context, if any, it had in this world. A little part of her regretted bringing this up and hoped that it wouldn't work in this world at all.

"But it won't hurt or take much time. I can help you remember, right here, right now." She paused, looking to the side before back at him. "But only if you want to."

James still wasn't sure what exactly it was Eve planned on doing. Normally, he would expect just a bunch of questions or something as an "attempt to jump-start his memory," but Eve seemed like she wanted to do something, and James had no idea what it was.

Was there magic for something like this?

If his suspicions that she was a mage were true, that could be an explanation, but he didn't know any kind of magic that brought back memories.

"I--" he didn't know. He hadn't been prepared for something like this. He'd thought he was just sharing a story to gain trust. He was just building rapport. He wasn't actually trying to find the people who killed his father.

That was ten years ago. He wanted to move on. He wanted to heal. From that. That's what his father would've wanted.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't think I do."

Of course Yoen didn't want to remember. Of course he didn't. He would rather feel sorry for himself instead of accepting a little help and do something about his wounds. He would rather run away his whole life instead of facing his enemy head-on. And now, he would rather live in ignorance than avenge his family.

So no, this didn't surprise Evaline one bit. She knew the type, and she loathed it.

"I don't understand you," she said with venom laced in her voice, hands waving in front of her for extra dramatic effect. "I give you a chance to remember, and you decide to turn it down? Why? Why would you rather live in ignorance?"

James met Evaline's eyes, and his expression relaxed while something stirred in his chest, twisting and balling up until it was very, very small.

"Eve, you don't know me," he said cooly. "And I don't know you. I have spent years of my life wishing I could have done something on that day, but no matter how many goblins I kill, none of that will bring them back."

He refused to break eye contact.

"I had to let it go before it took over my life."

It had already altered the course of his life enough. He'd made enough decisions out of the anger and fear he had on that day.

"I would rather remember the joys of when I knew them alive than the one moment where their lives were taken from me."