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Beryll has had some weird dreams in his time. There was the time he dreamt about eating a mushroom pizza made by a poptop. And the time when he’d dreamt that the poptop from his other dream had taken over the world. And, even, that time he dreamt about Kuiper, and— well, no need to go there.
This one seems more normal, for him, except, well— he’s watching himself.
Normally, in dreams, he was playing them out. Sort of puppet-like. All he could do was act his memories out, or go along with the plotline, and then he’d wake up. But this one— no.
He’s watching himself, bored, as he is— kinda pathetic, really. Beryll had watched as he’d woken up, and sat at the end of his bed for a minute, doing the ol’ worker’s stare. Or, the noble’s stare, he guesses, since he never was really a “worker” to begin with. But that’s neither here nor there.
He’d watched as he’d negotiated another deal for the kingdom— more time, was always the plea. It wasn’t that exciting. Part of him wondered why he was even watching, at this point. But there was something in Beryll that knew where this was going. This wasn’t exactly a big memory, but even if he didn’t remember it, his body did.
He’s watching himself, and shaking.
Finally, the memory–Beryll goes back to his room, lies down, and stares at the ceiling. He hadn’t eaten dinner yet.
Beryll remembers.
This was the time when his mothers had told him that the king had approached them about him calling them Mom and Momma. And then they’d begged him to stop.
Immediately, he reaches out, one shaking hand pushing at the memory. He doesn’t want to see this again. Swiping at the air with a wild resolve— as if that would do anything— Beryll begs himself to wake up. He feels his mouth begin to say the words. His shoulders shake from the effort.
His hand catches on something in the air, and Beryll tumbles into the memory. It feels like something has split open; like he’s experiencing it as himself now, instead as a hesitant watcher.
But that’s not right— he’s still him. And the younger Beryll is staring at him, eyes downcast.
“Sullen. You again,” he says, and Beryll has to laugh. He does, actually, and the Beryll laying on the bed frowns.
Again? Where does “again” come into any of this?
“Piqued. Again?”
“Indifferent. You really never remember, do you?” Younger Beryll asks, and Beryll shakes his head. The younger Beryll sighs, and then moves off of the bed, walking over to kneel above him. “Watch this.”
Younger Beryll plunges a hand into Beryll’s chest. It comes out the other side, the place where they connect phantasmal. Beryll watches it for a long second, eyes flickering between where the hand connects to his tank and where he can feel it lingering in the air.
“Dull. I’ve explained this to you a thousand times before. Every day, I redo this memory. I cannot progress. I cannot remember what came before. It’s a loop. A day a thousand times, and none of them really… well. You know just as well as I do, that our mother’s will come up soon,” other Beryll snorts, some mechanical sadness leaking out, “or, ‘Mom’ and ‘Momma’.”
Beryll just stares. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t want to look at this younger him anymore, the one stuck in his memory, the one who cannot leave. He doesn’t want to see what will happen next.
Younger Beryll rescinds his arm, turning back around to sit on the bed. The air of despondency is so strong that Beryll wishes he could cry— but, like always, there’s no way to experience that cleansing of emotion.
He breathes in. Breathes out. He thinks of Kuiper, and what they’d do if they were stuck with a depressed version of themself from when they were— nebulously younger.
An idea strikes. It’s stupid, it’s not great, it’s what someone like Beryll’s therapist would call “genius”. If he had one, that is.
“Helpful. Do you want me to tell you what comes next?” Beryll asks, and younger Beryll pauses.
“Resigned. I know what comes next. They tell me to stop calling them—” and younger Beryll turns, a strangled noise emitting from his throat, before he clears it, steam seeping from his ports. “Sorry. It doesn’t—”
“Hasty. Get any easier?”
Younger Beryll stares at the wall and shakes his head. “Helpless. Even though I know what will happen next, it still happens. Do you know how long I’ve had to hear that they don’t want me, over and over again?”
“Interjecting. They want you—”
“Sullen. But they won’t call me by my name. Right.”
Man. This guy is an exact copy of Beryll when he was fifteen. And, yeah, this did happen around that time period.
“Gentle. I have a roommate named Kuiper.” Younger Beryll turns around. “Kuiper Ursa.” Younger Beryll watches, and Beryll feels the full force of his eyes. “I like him a lot. And you will too. You just have to know him, first. He’s kind of annoying. But he’s quite nice. He put— hah, he put some stuff in my bunk bed once, as a joke, and I was scared stiff. But that’s because I wasn’t— well, I was an asshole. To be frank.”
“Confused. Why are you saying this?”
Beryll sighs, hands sliding up and down his thighs as he stares at the cobblestones. The door begins to open.
“Final. I wanted to tell you about the future. I-”
“Your Grace, we have to talk to you.” His Mom says, his Momma right behind. Beryll turns, but he knows that the younger one of him has stayed his gaze.
He sees them again, the displeasure on their faces, the awkward way they make themselves at home in his room, his old room, the way they don’t even see him.
And Beryll wakes up.
“Sullen. You again,” says Beryll. Older Beryll— geez, himself, when did he start thinking of himself as old?— realizes, suddenly, that this is not the first time he’s heard those words after falling into a memory. This is the fifth time— and fifth memory, to be precise.
“Piqued. How many times, this time?” Beryll asks, and younger Beryll looks up. He’s wearing a purple suit with puffy sleeves, and oh, Beryll remembers this.
“Excited. You never remember! But you remember this time, right? I knew this would happen. I knew it. You’ll get me out of this loop,” younger Beryll says, and Beryll can pin down that he’s, oh, six, maybe?
Shit. He’s not good with kids.
“Unsettled. How long?”
Younger Beryll narrows his eyes, then looks away. “Upset. Thirty-three times.”
Too much time, to a child.
Beryll sits up and leans forward, resting his weight on his knees. “Informative. Y’know, I met someone who had done this for near a thousand.”
Younger Beryll’s head turns, shooting towards him. The child actually gets up, stumbles— Beryll barely remembers not being used to his adult body, but this child probably was still feeling it— and falls over, crawling towards him on his knees.
“Pleading. You’ll get me out of here, correct?”
Beryll still doesn’t know what happens to these fragments of dream–memory when he wakes up. He remembers them, sure. But they’re always a different memory. Beryll hates this one.
“Dishonest. I can… try?”
The light from younger Beryll’s eyes fade.
“Resigned. I’m sorry, I don’t know what happens when I leave,” Beryll says, looking away. He presses his head to his knees and tries not to shake.
Younger Beryll is already shaking. He reaches a hand out, touching Beryll’s knee, and it goes through. His expression flits in and out.
They sit there for a moment.
Silence.
“Dull. I sit there for five hours every day. The painting is never done. How long does it even take?” Younger Beryll asks, and Beryll looks at him. He looks tired.
“Reminiscing. Two days,” and the six year old in front of him sobs, “but… it burns. One day.”
This causes his other self to look up. No need in telling a child all about the rebellion; just this part.
“Piqued. Really?”
Beryll nods, one hand tracing the floor. He really doesn’t want to think about the rebellion, but the words pour out anyway. He can’t shut his damn mouth when he’s in these memories, apparently. “Quiet. Yeah. Unfortunately, it’s quite a time for us, but that always felt freeing. Watching it burn, I mean.”
“Tired. What happens next?”
Beryll laughs. “Reflecting. We meet our best friend. And we meet our roommate. So, really, it’s pretty good for us.”
Younger Beryll thinks for a second, and then nods. “Resolved. I can do it.” It almost surprises him, how much fight has suddenly come back into his younger self’s eyes. “If I know I— we, get friends, I can do it.”
Beryll snorts and decides not to point out how traumatizing meeting the two were, but, yeah.
There’s some positive in there, somewhere.
All around him is darkness. Beryll had been having the same dreams for three nights in a row; all about the rebellion and the fires and the beheadings. He watches his mothers die in tri-color. He watches his king run from his throne room, crown falling to the ground as a mob chases him. Catches up to him. Drags him across the stone floor.
He steps up to the chopping block.
He is so, so, so tired.
Maybe it would be better this time to not raise a fuss, but, as if on command, he feels his hands raise. He hears his voice command them to let him go.
“Upset. You told me it gets better,” someone says, and suddenly the fire pauses. His
Momma’s head rolling across the cobblestones stops. Beryll watches this with dull eyes, and then turns around.
There’s nineteen of them, all from different ages. Beryll’s eyes flicker over each one, and he recognizes them each; the six year old, the three fifteen year olds, the seven ten year olds and the five twelve year olds. The rest are an assorted bunch, each of them from his memory.
The six year old steps forward. “Accusing. You told me the painting burns.”
Beryll shrugs, and looks down, not really caring that much. He wasn’t lying when he said he was bad with kids. Kuiper would have probably been honest from the get–go, or something equally as good. “Honest. It does.”
Then, a chorus.
“Scared. What about our mothers?”
“Piqued. Is the king dead?”
“Saddened. What happens to our kingdom?”
Finally, someone yells from the middle: one of the fifteen-year-olds. “Confused. Where’s Kuiper?”
Beryll looks up. “Indifferent. What?”
The fifteen-year-old points at him, other hand bunched into a fist. “Reflecting. You told me there was a Kuiper, in our future. And a bunk bed. And a prank.”
Beryll snorts.
“Numb. That’s not until later.”
Someone else pips up. “Comprehending. So, we survive?”
There is silence. Beryll stares at the rest of himselves, each of them staring back.
And he nods.
The original fifteen year old, the first one, the one who he told about Kuiper, he nods.
“Calm. So we have a future, you just have to get out of this memory. Like you helped me do.”
“Confused. What?”
The six-year-old says, “Faint. I want to meet our friends.”
The nine-year-old yells, “Rejoicing. We live!”
One of the ten-year-olds sob.
All around him, there’s rejoicing, and Beryll doesn’t understand. He feels his hands raise, tugging against the rope they’re tied in.
“Upset. What— what don’t I get? Is this some kind of— sick joke? This is the worst point in my— in our life!”
“Joyous. So far!” Someone yells.
“Angry. Shut up!” He yells back, and they quiet, staring at him with wide eyes. “I don’t get it. Why are you all so happy? We’ve— I’ve been watching everything replay for three nights straight. Our mothers just died. Don’t you get it? I’m stuck here, forever. Rewatching these memories. I’ll never be free.”
The first one he’d ever met looks him dead in the eyes. “Solemn. We have a future, though. And you sounded happy. Are you happy?”
Beryll wakes up.
His internal clock tells him that it’s five in the morning. There is a voice in the back of his head, and it asks, again, “are you happy?”. If he could cry, he would. He doesn’t understand.
Why is this happening to him? To himselves?
Sitting up, he looks across the dorm. There’s Kuiper, slumped over his classwork, snoring. With a sigh, he moves off his bunk, walking over to cover them with a blanket, waking them in the process. They raise their head, fixing him with a stare as their glow brightens.
“Beryll? Whatta you doin’ up?”
Beryll shrugs, and looks away. He’s about to say something snarky— maybe a good, well–placed, ‘it’s five in the morning, and this is when well–adjusted people wake up’. A voice in the back of his head says, “you told me there was a Kuiper, in our future.”
“Honest. Had a weird dream.”
“Well, what was it about? Ya can tell me, yaknow. I’ll— er, fight the brain demons? For ya?” Kuiper rubs the back of his corona, moving to sit up. Beryll watches him, and realizes.
There was a point.
There was a reason he survived.
Was he happy?
“Solemn. I think I’m happy,” Beryll says, and reaches out. Kuiper stills as Beryll slumps into him, head resting against Kuiper’s shoulder, his arms coming up to wrap around them. It’s a strange hug, and Kuiper’s glow blinks at him, something Beryll has recognized that they do when they’re confused.
“Are ya alright there, pardner?” Kuiper laughs a bit, but their arms raise anyway, hands settling on Beryll’s wrists. It’s gentle. It’s warm. It makes Beryll purr, and laugh at himself for doing so.
“Truthful. I think I’m just fine.”