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Chip had finally been talking to Arlin again. He’d made it. For years and years, all he’d wanted was to find Arlin, and at last, he’d been embraced by those huge, strong arms again. He’d heard his booming voice, the voice that made him feel like everything would be alright. Because there wasn’t anything that Arlin couldn’t do.
And just as soon, there was an enormous, dark crack in the sky.
“What has he done? Chip?” His eyes darted around, and if Chip had a heart, it would have stopped in his chest, but he clutched at the gaping scar in his chest anyway. Panic consumed him.
“W-what’s happening?” Chip asked, clutching Arlin’s hands. If he was holding Arlin’s hands, nothing bad could happen. He always knew what to do.
“Chip!” Arlin screamed. Chip held on, tightly, but everything was falling apart, and his limbs flailed in the air. Someone was yelling, but he didn’t know who. Maybe it was him. It hurt his ears, though; everything hurt as he was flung through the air.
In that infinite second, he felt everything unraveling, and his vision went black.
And then he was lying on…something. On some sort of rocky ground. His eyes opened. He would have thought that being dead would mean that he wouldn’t be in pain anymore, but that had been proved wrong time and time again. His body ached down to the bones. Not like he had much more than bones, anyway.
What was he doing again?
He remembered a booming laugh.
Arlin. Arlin, right, he had to remember him. He was just talking to him. Where was he?
Chip looked around frantically, but it didn’t take long for him to spot the torn up body in front of him. He froze. This couldn’t be Arlin. Arlin wasn’t this thin, this scarred. The blood was supposed to be inside his body, and he certainly was never covered by this black ichor. This wasn’t right at all. He couldn’t form this into anything that made sense.
But the man’s eyes fluttered open, and he made eye contact with him.
“...Arlin?” He whispered, crawling towards him.
“Chip,” the pirate replied weakly. He smiled sadly.
Ichor and tentacles flew around them, and then suddenly he was in front of Niklaus, and he was talking to him. Chip could barely tell what was happening. He didn’t remember standing up, let alone the tiefling man being here to begin with. And then Niklaus was handing him a heart.
His ears rang as everything shifted around him. Everything was too loud, but he couldn’t hear anything either.
The organ beat in his hands. A heartbeat. Something he hadn’t felt for days.
It occurred to him how strange it was to feel a heart beating outside of his body. Most people would never see their own heart. And if they did, they wouldn’t live long after seeing it.
Before he could wonder if it was a bad idea–he was always full of those, anyway–he pried open the hole in his chest, wincing as his ribs creaked, and shoved it inside.
The heart’s warmth felt unnatural, and he gagged at the rush of pain as his ribcage creaked back to its rightful position. ThudTHUD. ThudTHUD. ThudTHUD.
Chip could feel his whole chest pounding rhythmically, and after the time he’d spent with his body still and silent, it felt wrong. Nausea churned in his stomach as the intense awareness of his body grew. What was he now? Human? Dead?
He shouldn’t be alive, that was for sure.
As his heart continued beating, his chest burned hotter and hotter until he finally felt bile rise up in his throat, and he retched, coughing up something acidic. His throat burned, and he coughed a few more times, turning back to Arlin.
Arlin. Right, he couldn’t let himself forget. Arlin was…important to him. He was pretty sure that was true.
What was he saying, of course Arlin was important to him, he was the closest thing Chip had to a father. A dad.
He crawled over a few feet away, wincing as his bony knees scraped against the rock and he made it to the man. To Arlin.
He squinted at him, but his eyes were shut.
“Arlin?” He shook the man gently. He waited a few seconds that seemed to stretch on forever. “Arlin?”
ThudTHUD. ThudTHUD.
“ARLIN?” He yelled, feeling the word rip painfully from his throat.
A cool hand touched his shoulder. “Chip,” they said gently, “Chip, I think he’s–”
“No! No, no no no no, Arlin,” he sobbed. Hot tears spilled over his face. His body was still so cold, and they burned. “I was supposed to save you. I was going to do it, too. I swore I would, no matter what.”
He lay so still. It was wrong. Someone so full of life shouldn’t be so still. They shouldn’t–
He turned to the figure behind him. “Isn’t there something you can do? He can’t be–he can’t.”
They sighed. “Chip, I–I can try.”
The blue person–Gillion, his name was Gillion, how could he forget?–lay his hand on the man. Magic flowed from his hand, but he shook his head. “I’m so sorry. I…I think he’s already gone.”
It was odd to hear Gill speak so quietly. Nothing about this was right.
“Oh,” he paused, feeling the tears keep pouring. “Oh.”
There was acid in his throat, and he vomited again.
His throat hurt, and his chest hurt, and there was some kind of aching emptiness consuming him. It felt like he was in some sort of fog, but he could see just fine.
He sat next to the body, clutching him. Not the body. His…his father. His dad.
What was his name again?
He was surrounded by noise, but he couldn’t comprehend any of it. All he knew was he had a heart again, but it was breaking.
Breaking because he lost something. Someone. This man.
He wrapped his arms around him, the blood and ichor mixing and sticking to his skin. All he knew was he couldn’t let go of him.
Throw yourself to the waves.
A voice spoke in his head.
To the waves.
He looked over the edge of the cliff, the Black Sea crashing against pointed rocks.
A blue-skinned man—a triton—dove into the water, holding another man as he did.
He didn’t think, just followed, clutching the body with him. Something flickered in his mind. The vision of a large man cannonball diving into water from a ship. A pirate ship.
Then he hit the water. He hugged the body in his arms as ice crystallized, but he felt nothing.
Don’t resist. Don’t resist don’t resist don’t resist.
He didn’t.
Everything went white.
“—hasn’t woken up yet, do you think he’s okay?”
“I think he’s still alive, but Arlin—he got to talk to him, but I don’t think Arlin made it.”
Arlin. The name sounded familiar.
His eyes opened, and he squinted in the bright light. Everything around him was reflective glass. It was blinding.
There was something important, something he was forgetting about. His head throbbed painfully, and he reached a hand to his forehead, realizing he was wrapped around something cold and slippery.
“-ip, are you alright?”
Then he recognized the face of what he was wrapped around.
“DAD!” He screamed, rolling over face the body. He clutched his arms, slick with dark ichor, but he didn’t care.
“Wake up, Dad,” he gasped, heavy tears spilling over his face. Snot dripped down, mixing with the blood, ichor, and tears. “You can’t be gone. You can’t. I just–I finally found you. I found you, and–and–”
He cried, harder than he could ever remember crying, unable to speak anymore as howled, sobs tearing their way out of him. People tried to talk to him, but he couldn’t hear them, and he didn’t know who they were anyway. His dad was gone, and that was the only thing that mattered.
Hands tried to move him, but he fought, swinging fists and kicking wildly. No one could take him away from his dad. It was so hard to find him again in the first place.
But eventually, his energy ran out, and he was carried onto a soft surface, where his consciousness finally slipped away, taking him away from this world that was all wrong.
. . . . .
He woke up in an unfamiliar bed with eyes crusted shut. He scrubbed them open, wiping his hands furiously so he could figure out where he was.
Crystal and glass decorated everything, but he knew that wasn’t what he was looking for. He lost something, and he had to find it. It was important.
The man groaned, muscles screaming at him to keep laying down, but he fought them, sitting at the edge of the bed.
There was an unnatural feeling beating within him. ThudTHUD. ThudTHUD. Heart beating as if he were alive. Alive. Why did he instinctively believe he wasn’t?
He looked down at his hands, surprised to find them clean. That seemed wrong too, for some reason. He touched his sternum, a flash of putting something in his chest cavity. He shivered, shaking his head. The memory slipped away before he could grab it.
Grab…he had been trying to grab something. Someone.
“A–Arlin,” his raw voice said carefully, testing it out. That sounded right.
There was a rustling sound nearby. Arlin?
“Chip. You’re awake.” A gentle, but exhausted sounding voice spoke. Spoke to him?
He–Chip?--turned to see a blue-skinned man with deep circles under his eyes. His long green hair was speckled with dark bits and tied back in a bun.
“I–you’re–” he whispered, feeling like he should know this person’s name. He knew who this was.
“Gillion,” the man said. For some reason, it sounded strange to hear him speak in a quiet voice. And stranger for his voice to shake when he talked.
“Gillion,” he repeated. “Gill.” The nickname came to him a second later.
“That’s me.” Gillion tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
He stared at the man. At Gillion. What had he just been thinking about? Looking for?
“Where is he?”
Gillion looked away. “Chip….”
“I need to see him. I need to see my–my dad.” His voice cracked, and he sat at the end of the bed, arms wrapped around himself.
There was silence as Gill looked back at him. “Okay,” he said finally.
Chip followed Gillion, bones creaking as he stood and walked. They walked for a long time, it seemed. Going from hallways to outside. Cool air. He noticed there were two other people who must have joined at some point. One seemed more familiar than the other, but he couldn’t place the names, and he was afraid asking would upset them.
He had been upset. Upset because he lost something. No, someone. He lost someone. He squinted at the people he was walking with. Two of them had blue skin, and one had long red hair. No, it wasn’t any of them he had lost. They occasionally talked quietly, but they mostly walked in silence.
They came to a stop at a large tree with a white sheet covering something near the base. Something shaped like a body. A very large body.
His heart–which had ceaselessly pumped its rhythm the whole time–stopped for a moment. Someone had died.
Not Arlin. It couldn’t be Arlin, that was who he was trying to find.
But he already knew, confirming it in the solemn looks on everyone’s faces, the way no one would meet his gaze. He already knew before the triton man gently removed the sheet, revealing the body that lay below.
“Dad,” he whispered, speaking aloud though he hadn’t intended to. He knelt to the ground, studying the man’s face, trying to commit it to memory. He had short white hair, thinning with age. A round, seemingly jolly face that was unnaturally still. Light blue wave tattoos decorated his skin, mimicking real water as it bent and flowed around his features.
“Dad,” he repeated. His eyes stung as he spoke. “Dad, I–I found you. I know you said not to, but I did–I–I had to. I found you.”
He grabbed the man’s arms, recoiling slightly at their cold temperature. He remembered these arms being warm.
“I’m sorry,” he cried, bowing his head. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I should have–I di–didn’t, I was there, and I found you and now you’re–you’re–”
“Gill,” a voice choked back a sob.
“I know, Jay,” a voice replied.
“I-I’ll g-give you all some space,” a softer voice whispered, and there were footsteps as they walked away.
A moment later, someone sat next to him, and someone else sat on the other side. They wrapped their arms around him, and he felt their tears mix with his. He couldn’t see anymore, but he still cried.
Slowly, his tears ran out, and his head ached–his heart ached–but he let himself be held. He didn’t know who was holding him, but it was comforting, and they felt familiar. One warm, the other cool, balancing each other out. They whispered to him every once in a while, but their words slipped away.
Then after some time, they leaned away. A blue-skinned man looked carefully at him. A triton. “Chip,” he swallowed. “We have to bury him.”
His–Chip’s–eyes widened, and he blinked, not understanding. “Bury?” he croaked.
“Put him at rest,” the other voice said. “So–so he can be at peace.”
Chip turned to look at her. A blue eye and a golden eye looked back at him. The name came to him. “Jay?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Jay. And Gill. And Chip.” She pointed to him on the last name.
“And–” he hesitated. “And Arlin.”
Jay looked down, but she nodded again. “Yes,” she whispered.
“A-and we’re going to…bury him. So he can be at…at peace.”
“Yes, Chip.”
. . . . .
The digging was slow.
Chip helped at first. They agreed that it felt wrong somehow to use magic, so the three of them stuck shovels into the ground, unearthing what would be Arlin’s final resting place.
At some point, he was told to take a break. His hands shook so badly he could hardly hold the shovel, and he didn’t have the energy to fight back, so he set it down and took a seat in the soft grass, twisting the plants around his fingers.
After sitting and watching the two dig for a while, he figured he should help them out. He couldn’t have said what the hole was for, but he kept making it deeper because everyone else did.
When the hole was sufficiently big enough for the goliath’s body, they lowered him in.
He looked at Arlin. At his dad. He wanted to take all the time he had to memorize his face before he couldn’t see him again. Every blink felt like it was taking something away from him, taking him further away from his dad.
“Wait!” He blurted out, blocking the triton from his dad. He was preparing to scoop the dirt back in the ground. But his dad was there. Ice-cold panic flooded his body, and his heart beat faster and louder. ThudTHUD thudTHUD thudTHUD. “No, wait, he’s still here, he’s–he’s still here, don’t, not w-when, not when I just–I just found him–”
“Chip,” the triton said, stepping closer to him.
“Fix it,” he cried. “You always–you always fix things, and now–can’t you bring him back?”
He noticed water running down the man’s face, dousing his hair. But not from tears. It was raining. He felt his own hair, realizing it was stuck to the back of his neck.
“I–I can’t, Chip,” the man said quietly. Chip remembered that the man didn’t lie. Never. He stared at him, willing him to say something else. But he didn’t.
He leaned back against a tree, sliding down, letting the rough bark scrape the skin on his back until he sat down. He looked at his dad’s face again.
“Dad,” he whispered. He took off his bandana and carefully wiped Arlin’s face dry. He waited for something, anything. But he didn’t move. And the rain continued to fall.
“I just found you,” he said again. He didn’t plead, though. He was confused, as if there was some sort of mistake in reality, and he was waiting for a god he didn’t believe in to fix it. “I just got you back.”
No one corrected him. No one could. There wasn’t anything else to say.
. . . . .
When they tried to take him back inside, he numbly followed. There was nothing left in him to fight back. He slowly walked, shoes squishing in the mud. The water continued to soak him, but its coolness was welcomed. Grounding.
It reminded him that he was forgetting something.
No, he forgot something. Left something behind.
He turned around and started walking back where he had come from. He sat beneath a tree. Fat droplets trickled through the branches.
“Chip,” a voice said.
“I forgot something,” he explained. “Left it behind.”
There was a pause.
“What did you forget?” The other voice asked cautiously.
He looked around, and his eyes locked onto a pile of dirt. Nothing grew on it; it looked freshly dug. A grave.
“I–I think–I thought it was a someone. That I forgot.”
An arm around his shoulder steered him away, and he couldn’t stop thinking about the mound. Someone had died. Maybe the person he was looking for. Maybe that was why no one would look right into his eyes or answer his questions.
He was brought to a bed, which didn’t make sense. He was pretty sure it was still morning.
“Look, Chip. It’s night now.” Someone opened the curtains and pointed out the window. Sure enough, it was dark out. The stars twinkled above him. He should go find Arlin, maybe he could persuade him to tell him the stories about the constellations. Arlin would do that sometimes, on a clear night. They’d lay for an hour or more on the deck while he told the incredible stories of the beasts and warriors who were made up of stars.
“Have you seen Arlin?” He asked the girl with the red hair. Her face twisted as soon as he said his name.
“He’s busy right now,” she replied, swallowing. “Maybe later.”
He nodded. He let her lead him back to the bed. She tucked the blanket over top of him, and something in him wanted to make a joke. Something about her acting like his mom. But he couldn’t think of the words fast enough, and she was gone before he could say anything.
He drifted off to sleep, but he woke up repeatedly.
At some point, he heard some people talking in a hushed tone. He thought he might know them. They sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place their names.
“--so worried about Chip. I don’t even know what we can do. He doesn’t remember any of us. I don’t even know if he knows who he is.” She sniffed after she spoke.
“I know, Jay. I’m worried, too. But it’s only been a day. This could very well be temporary. He could wake up tomorrow and be just fine.”
“Maybe. That seems like wishful thinking, though. What if this is more than just trauma? What if the Black Sea did this to him?”
A third voice whispered next. “You two know him better than I do, but based on what you’ve told me, it’s likely both. I’ve been reading as much as I can about memory and how to restore it, but meddling around with someone’s brain like that…you have to be very careful.”
“Thank you, Aurora,” the other girl sighed. “It’s–it’s helpful to have someone so knowledgeable. I’m sure you weren’t expecting all this when you summoned us.”
“I wasn’t,” she replied gently. “But you three have been through a lot. I’m happy to help however I can. And…and if his memory loss is more long term…I can help you with some strategies to navigate that.”
He couldn’t help but feel like they were talking about him. He did seem to be forgetting a lot of things lately. There was something important nagging at the back of his mind that he knew he’d forgotten. But sleep overtook him before he could figure out what that was.
. . . . .
Days passed, and Chip almost felt like he was sleepwalking. He’d been so forgetful lately. Thankfully, his friends were willing to help.
He stared into a bowl of soup. A reflection of some kind stared back at him. The features swam and distorted in the liquid.
“Are you with us, Chip?” A voice asked. He looked up at the blue-skinned man sitting across from him at the table.
The triton took a slow breath before continuing. “Can you tell me your name?”
“I–Chip, it’s Chip.”
“Good, Chip. We’re having dinner with our friends right now. Aurora made some fish stew for us.”
He nodded. Aurora. She was sitting to his left. She had long white hair.
“Me and Gillion went fishing earlier,” the other girl added. She sat diagonally across from him. “He’s a lot better at catching fish than me though. I caught three, but he caught twelve.” She chuckled.
“Well, I’ve got sharp teeth, and I can swim much better than Jay can,” Gillion elbowed her. “So it’s not really a fair contest.”
Chip took a bite of the soup. “It’s good.”
“Thank you, Chip!” Aurora beamed. “I’m really not much of a cook.”
“No, there was someone else who did that. He was really old. But usually he made juice.”
“You’re right, Chip, that was Old Man Earl,” Gillion replied, slurping up the rest of his soup after he spoke. “He’s back in All-Port, though.”
“All-Port…where are we right now? It doesn’t feel like we’re on a ship. Sorry, for some reason I can’t remember.” He squinted, trying to think.
“It’s okay. I brought you all here to the Primrose Archipelago.” Aurora told him, sipping a cup of tea.
“Primrose…” he repeated absentmindedly. “I don’t think I’ve been there before.”
“Not since you were really young. You were here with the–” she stopped herself. “You were here with some friends.”
He nodded. The dinner continued with idle chatter. He tried to keep up with it, but a fog kept filling his brain. He went through the motions, though.
. . . . .
He woke up with a start. His heart was pounding in his chest. Something was wrong.
He was in a bed. Where that bed was…he couldn’t say. But that wasn’t what mattered right now. Something was wrong.
He’d forgotten something. Something really important.
It couldn’t wait until morning, though, he had to go find it. Or else he might forget again.
The halls all looked the same as he aimlessly wandered. It didn’t help that he couldn’t remember what he was looking for. The building was like a maze he couldn’t escape.
Maybe it wasn’t inside the maze, though. There was more space outside, and he wouldn’t have to bother with walls and doors. And he had a good feeling that he’d lost something outside, anyway.
The night air was cool on his skin. He breathed it in, and it felt good. He must have been too warm inside.
He kept walking, step after step. His eyes scanned the land, illuminated by the moonlight. What had he forgotten? He had to find it somewhere. Even if he couldn’t remember what it was, he knew it was important.
A large tree stood before him, and he leaned against it to catch his breath. He must have been moving quickly.
As he exhaled, he noticed there was a mound of dirt. Strange.
He got closer to take a look and automatically reached his hand down to grab something, but his hand only touched air. He thought he’d had something he carried at his waist, some object that could light up. He was mistaken.
It wasn’t what he’d lost, though.
He knelt down, examining the dirt closer. It looked like a grave. Fresh, too.
There was a spark, a flash of something in his mind. He had to dig whatever it was out. Whatever was in the dirt was what he was missing. Someone had tried to hide it from him.
Anger burned in his chest, and he could feel his pulse beat throughout his body. They tried to hide it from him. It was his.
Furiously, he started digging. All he had were his hands, so that’s what he used. He knew it was important. The dirt built up under his fingernails, but that didn’t matter. A quick throb of pain shot through his thumb as his nail snapped while scraping against a rock, but he didn’t stop or slow down. Blood mixed with mud on his hands. He couldn’t feel his hands anymore, though.
A hand touched cold flesh, and he hesitated a moment. It seemed wrong, but it felt right at the same time. He had to find what he was looking for.
He kept pawing at the dirt, clearing it out of the way to reveal a shoulder, a chest, and then a face. A faint but putrid odor began to fill the air. He gagged, but he continued until the whole face was visible.
A blank, bloated face stared at him. Who was this? Someone he knew.
And then it hit him. Arlin.
How hadn’t he recognized him immediately?
“Arlin!” He rasped. “ARLIN!”
He shook Arlin’s shoulder. “Wake up, come on. I know you can’t be gone. I just got you back, you can’t be gone.”
Blinking back tears, he shook harder, but it wasn’t working. “They wouldn’t fix you, but I know–I know you’re not gone, even when I–even when they took my heart, I wasn’t gone.”
As if it could hear him, his heart thumped loudly in his chest. ThudTHUD. ThudTHUD.
Of course. He could fix him, even if the others couldn’t. Even if they gave up. He wouldn’t give up on his dad.
It was difficult with all the mud coating his hands. He didn't know when he got his shirt off, but his fingers kept slipping off his chest anyway. Finally, a nail took purchase, and he clawed at his sternum. The fire in his chest burned so badly, but he couldn’t stop. Not until he could slip his hand into his ribcage.
If the heart could help him, then it could help Arlin. His dad. Hot liquid spilled onto his hands, coating them in a sticky substance. Someone yelled. He wiped his hands off on his pants, then started to reach his hand up to his sternum again. “I can help, Dad, I can fix it–”
Someone grabbed his arm. He tried to shake them off. He just wanted to help his dad, why didn’t they understand?
He started to swing the other arm, but that one was grabbed too.
“Chip, please,” someone sobbed.
He tried to kick at them, but he found that it was difficult to stand upright. The world spun around him. The fire in his chest kept burning, sparks flying everywhere. He had a water friend, a friend who could control water. Maybe they could get him and he could put out the flames, before they consumed him.
He fell to his knees.
“Chip, that won’t bring him back, I promise,” a shaking voice told him. “I need you to stop fighting back, please, before you hurt yourself worse.”
“Why–” he yelled, feeling his face wet with tears again. “Why couldn’t you fix him?”
The grip on him loosened slightly, but remained firm. “You know that isn’t how it works, Chip, I tried everything I could, but–”
“Why was I worth saving, but he wasn’t?” He screamed. “Why do I have to live while he’s fucking dead? My dad is dead. And you killed him! YOU KILLED HIM!”
The man stiffened, almost losing his hold on him. “Chip, I didn’t–I didn’t know I would–I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, and I will never be sorry enough. There’s nothing I can do to help him anymore.” A sob emanated from his throat. “But I can’t lose you too. I can’t save him anymore, but I can save you. And he–Arlin would have wanted you to live.”
“But Arlin, but he–but he…you’re wrong, h-he’s not dead, he–”
He tried to argue, but the fire kept burning, and he leaned forward and threw up into the grass.
He was gently pulled away from the mess.
“No–no, no no no–I–I have to–have to…he-help,” he muttered under his breath. “H-help A-Ar-Arlin, my–m’dad…he n-needs me to–” But the darkness outside his vision grew, and he wondered where the moon went. Maybe he should ask Arlin.
Everything felt so far away as someone yelled, “Aurora, now!” It seemed like it was whoever was holding him, but their voice was distant, like they were a mile away.
It was weird that it was so dark, even though he had the fire in his chest. Fire was usually bright. That’s why he tried to grab his sword. So he could see. He thought someone must have taken it from him though. He used to carry lots of weapons, but now he didn’t have any. He was missing lots of things.
Someone touched his back, and there was a cooling effect throughout his body. His chest was still hot, still stung, but someone had put out the flames.
“Chip, can you hear me?”
Chip. That sounded familiar.
“That my name?” He asked weakly.
“Yes, you’re Chip. You’re Chip, and I’m Aurora. And your friends Gillion and Jay are here.”
“Friends,” he repeated. “I had f-friends. I-I h-have friends?”
“Yes, you have friends,” Aurora smiled.
Chip smiled in response, and then the darkness finally overtook him.
. . . . .
When he woke up, he immediately noticed a stinging in his chest. He opened his eyes and found himself in a bed. Sunlight cascaded in through a large window.
He picked up a hand–which was bandaged, interestingly–and touched his chest–also bandaged. There was dirt caked beneath the fingernails he could see.
Something had happened. He just couldn’t remember what.
There was someone sitting next to him, and he shifted his eyes to their face. A blue-skinned man sat by him. A triton.
“W-what happened?” He asked, wincing as his throat ached while he spoke.
The man smiled sadly. “You were looking for a friend, Chip.”
“Oh. Did–did I find them?”
The triton hesitated. “In a way, yes.”
He thought for a moment. He was looking for a friend. In the back of his mind, he did have the worry that he was missing something. A friend.
And in a flash, he could see him. Laughing, real and warm, in front of him. The way his eyes twinkled when he had an idea for a prank. The parties and celebrations he would help plan and throw, never forgetting a single person’s birthday. The cheer he would lead the Black Rose Pirates in.
“Arlin,” he said. “My dad. I remember him.”
“That’s great, Chip,” the triton smiled. He paused for a moment, waiting for Chip to speak. He just wanted to linger in the memory, though.
“Listen,” the man continued. Chip tried to remember his name. He knew he knew it. It was…fish related.
Gill. That was it.
Gill spoke, looking carefully at him as if preparing for a response already. “I was talking last night with the others–with Jay and Aurora–and we were wondering if it would help to make some sort of…memory book? Like a scrapbook, but you could write down all the memories you want to remember. About Arlin, about you, about anything. Then, if you need to be reminded, you can flip through it.”
A scrapbook of his memories. Chip thought about that for a second.
His first instinct was to say that he didn’t need it. He’d remember whatever he needed to know eventually.
But the memories of Arlin were already starting to fade. And it would be nice to be able to remember them whenever he wanted. He wouldn’t have to try that hard to remember Gill’s name. And his other friends’ names.
“I think…I’d like that,” he said finally.
Gill smiled. “We can start it this afternoon, if you’d like.”
“Sure.”
“Aurora is still working on learning about memory and the Black Sea–we think your time in the Black Sea could be the cause. So it could just be a temporary thing. But we want to help you however we can. I know it’s been painful.”
“I’m sure it’s been hard for everybody.” Chip looked down at his bandaged hand and chest.
There was silence. “It has,” Gill admitted eventually. “But we have each other. We’ve all been through a lot, but we’re all Riptide Pirates.”
“Riptide Pirates,” Chip said, testing it out. It sounded familiar. He smiled, then yawned.
“You probably need some rest,” Gill said. “I’ll be here though. If not me, then Jay will be. If not Jay, then Aurora.”
“Thanks,” Chip said sleepily, letting his eyes drift shut.
“Anytime, Chip,” Gill replied.
. . . . .
Later that afternoon, Chip sat at a table. An empty book lay before him. He reached to grab the pen from Jay’s hand.
There was dirt caked under his fingernails. He froze for a moment, picturing a mound of dirt, and dread pooled in his stomach.
“Chip?” Jay asked. She poked him gently.
He blinked. The book. A scrapbook of memories. Right.
“I’m good,” he said, taking a deep breath.
He took the pen, looking at the blank page. It sat awkwardly in his hand because of the bandage, but he carefully scrawled “ARLIN” at the top. Then, beneath it, he wrote “MY DAD”.
Jay offered her hand to him. He took it, feeling her squeeze it after a few tears trickled down his cheek. Then he took another breath and started writing down everything he could remember about what Arlin looked like. When he forgot details, he asked, and one of the pirates reminded him if they knew.
The sun began to set, painting the room in a golden light as Chip completed his fourth page of memories. Pranks he could remember, various days on the Midnight Rose, even one of the constellation stories Arlin had told him. Tomorrow, he’d start to write down everything the Riptide Pirates had done.
It wasn’t realistic to hope he’d remember everything. His memory certainly wasn’t perfect. And his feelings about Arlin were still raw. But it was a start. His friends made it clear that they were there for him, and they loved him, no matter what he could remember.
Still, on the first page, he had a list of important names. He knew he’d need to rely on it–in the couple hours that he sat at the table, he was pretty sure he forgot everyone’s name at least once. He had to be reminded of what he was doing a few times. But Jay squeezed his hand when he asked her what her name was, and neither Gillion nor Aurora got upset when he mistakenly called Aurora Edyn.
Chip knew they wouldn’t replace Arlin, or the Black Rose Pirates. But he knew that the Riptide Pirates were part of his family now.
He didn’t know what the future would hold. He struggled to stay grounded in what was happening in the present, or what happened in the past. But he knew he was Chip. He was a Riptide Pirate. He wasn’t alone. And for now, that was enough to keep him here.