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Lizzie couldn’t remember anything from before. Before the ocean kingdom. Her earliest memory was the day she’d ended up in the Ocean kingdom, the sea calling out to her, a sacred connection and a dream to lead. It was frightening the first time she’d realized that she couldn’t remember anything of her life before. Someone had asked her where she’d come from and she had no answer, no memory of a life before. She’d kept her answer vague and mysterious, it would make her seem like a high and mighty ruler. A past wasn’t important, she couldn’t go back to it, whatever it was. The future was what she looked to, with the aid of the present. When she found the ancient tomb things started flooding back to her like raindrops. Not all at once, but each one felt starkly against everything else. Since the day she’d met him she’d felt the strong urge to protect Jimmy. He was so sweet, so kind and genuine. Maybe some would call him a bit naive but the way that she saw it was that he just believed in love, he saw the good in everyone. To find out that he was her long lost brother, to remember the years spent alone waiting for him to hatch, protecting his tiny cracked egg from harm, waiting to meet the only other surviving member of her family…it was a lot to take in. Now having her past in her mind her mind had chosen to bring her back into it at times. Now was one of those times, where she felt like that little girl again, finding herself in the swamp looking for Jimmy.
“Jimmy? Jimmy?” She calls, looking around for him.
“M here!” He calls back. He’s sitting onshore looking at his cod statue, a gift of alliance from Pixandria. She sits down beside him, letting her legs dangle in the water.
“Wanna swim?” She asks, kicking her feet and watching the water ripple. He shakes his head vigorously.
“Nuh uh” he says. “Can’t” She turns to him, confused.
“Can’t swim?” words are hard for her right now, and based on how his mouth moves as he responds she guesses they’re hard for him too.
“Feel…tired” He settles on, his words soft and timid. He’s hiding his face in his knees, sitting tucked in a little ball. He looks like the small damaged egg that she left all those years ago. She takes her legs out of the water, tucking them underneath her as she wraps her arms around him.
“S’ okay Timmy” Her words slur and the “J” in his name doesn’t quite come out right. “M’ gonna keep you safe” He lays his head on hers, curling up one of his arms to grab her hand.
“Pomise?” he asks, gripping her fingers tight, tears in his voice. He sounds so tiny, as tiny as she feels. It’s like he’s that same little codling that she never got to meet, that she’d left before he hatched. She’d hatched into the world alone, with only his egg by her side. And yet she’d left before she even got to meet the little codling that she loved so much she’d given years to protect. Part of her had given up hope of him ever hatching, and in giving up she’d doomed him to grow up alone. But both of them are here now, together, and she’s got him held safe. She squeezes his hand back.
“I promise”