Eternal Winter

Broken Ignorance: Part V

So, I settled down at one of the many tables, cleared a space and began working my way through the lists. I was slow—slower than I would've liked as it was slower than training had gone with Teacher, but I was learning again. Learning about myself and the family I came from, the one thing Teacher hadn't been able to give me—or refused to give me...

I still didn't know how I felt about him keeping my own name from me. But it was here. 

Here.

—Lyra—

"I found it!" I exclaimed, my finger pressing against the tiny branch scribbled with my name. "My name—!" My words faltered as I read the rest of the name: Pearl Lyra Lotus. "My name..."

My name isn't Lyra?

"That isn't right..." I said aloud, to hear it myself. "I remembered my name."

Just...not the right one.

Michaela had hurried back over to me from where she had stood organizing the bookshelf Sammy had begun digging into. I thrust the book into her hands. "Please," I pointed at the name—my name—and begged, "Please, read what it says. Tell me I read it incorrectly."

Her eyes flashed with pain and she looked down at where I pointed. "Pearl Lyra Lotus," at my stunned silence, she took in a shaky breath and continued, "Sibling line with Samuel Noah Lotus, child of Matilda Anessa Lotus and of Travis J. Stormlegion," until I stopped her.

"Only my name, again...please," I breathed.

She set the book down open on top of one of the numerous towers before she gently took my hand in hers. "It is only a name, and name's change."

"But I—I thought I had remembered—" the word stuck in my throat. That word which had been such a bane to me since I had awoken. Remember—because it was the one thing I couldn't do right. Not with the snippets of memories, the snippets of information...I still didn't quite remember. Not Sammy, not Travis, not Matilda, not Alius. Not any Lotus—not any Stormlegion.

Not even Pearl.

Michaela held me up, pulling me up the stairs and into the impossibly warm night, even when there was nothing I wanted more than to fall into that blank darkness and forget all over again. Her words were soft and gentle, spoken in a soothing voice, "A name, even remembered, is not yours unless you claim it. A name can be corrected—it can be changed. It can always be changed. The only thing that is constant, that is unchangeable...is you."

She had led me to the blue flame, the only pale light under an empty sky. "Why here?" I asked quietly as I sunk my knees into the cool dirt anyway.

"It was here when I learned my name—and when I was given my magic," she stated, her eyes gazing directly into the flickering fire, a faint smile on her face. "I thought it was time you found your answers." With that, she turned and went back into the building.

As I sat there, I listened. There was no simple silence here, it was insects buzzing and chirping and humming, it was trees and plants swishing and rustling—here, there was no silence even when the people disappeared.

It was nothing like the lifeless silence in the stillness of the Winter.

Then, another voice broke into the soft sounds of the small world.

"Lyra," the distant yet all-encompassing voice called me.

"That's not—" the words stuck in my chest, silenced there. An untruth and truth all the same.