Watching and Listening - An Empires SMP AU

False memory

 
         Soon Owen and Scott woke up. The llama, despite having a tight bandage around his neck, craned its head to face Scott's bed and spit in his face. "Owen, I know you're happy I'm alive, but just stop spitting!" Scott sighed. He sat up and rubbed the green saliva off of his face. "Wait, is llama saliva green?" Grian asked. "Yes." Gem and Scott said at the same time. Then Scott shot the double take. "And why does Owen have a bandage around his neck?!"

           "Sorry Scott for that concussion we gave you." False apologized. "And for accidentally slicing your llama. Apparently having a pvp match in a flower field wasn't such a good idea and now you've gotten hit in the head." Gem confusedly wondered what False was saying. She's lying. Why's she lying?

           Scott narrowed his eyes at the hermit. "You're lying." He said. "I feel like I just had a concussion and maybe amnesia, but I clearly remember False from Cogsmeade trying to kill my llamas. So don't try to give me a false memory if that's what you're doing, because it won't work."

           False clenched her teeth. "Why couldn't her amnesia potions have worked in our favor for once?" She muttered under her breath. Gem suddenly remembered the hermits talking about a potion used on Jevin that made him forget things.

           Oh! That must be the potion that she just threw at us. Gem thought, remembering the shattered vials of elixirs that bad missed their mark lying wasted on the ground. False must have recognized them and tried to give Scott a false memory of what happened here so he wouldn't ask questions and get involved in this evil twin business. I can see why False doesn't trust him, but he's too cynical to get tricked so easy.

           Once she saw she didn't need to be there any longer, False started to flee in the same direction her clone did. Cogsmeade. "Don't ask any questions, Scott!" She called over her shoulder as she ran away with the other hermits soon following suit. "I'm just going to stop her from hurting anyone else!" Scott just rolled his eyes and started to fiddled with his bouquet of poppies.

           Gem turned and went with her fellow hermits blindly for a little while before she thought of Scott. He would need some answers and Gem didn't exactly want to leave him in this situation alone with his llamas.

           And he might spill something important to the wrong person. She needed to warn him before he did anything rash, shifting into her princess persona because she thought it would be less suspicious for a fellow emperor to be running to tell Scott something important rather than a shady hermit.

           Gem found him picking more poppies to add to his bouquet, or maybe to keep out of the way of hungry llamas, and then talking to Jimena. Gem didn't want the girl to know anything about what went on before the two Falses so she took Scott to his mega base to have a private conversation before he spilled the beans.

           Gem had barely started to explain when she heard a creaking coming from outside the door. She shifted into her elf form as she flung open the door, ready for a fight just in case. Instead she found Jimena and a Siamese cat and she'd heard everything. Without thinking, Gem cast her magic and knocked the girl out.

           Her head hit the floor with an alarming thud. Gem took a step back, letting the green light around her hands dissolve and fade away. Scott curiously poked his head out of the doorway to see who'd been spying on them.

           "Jimena," He said, and he sounded like he wasn't surprised. "Did you knock her out or...?" "Of course I just knocked her out," Gem snapped, feeling slightly unhinged. "What, did you think I was going to kill a child? I'm not like them!"

           "I wasn't implying anything like that, Gem," Scott said. "You're getting jumpy." Gem ignored him for a second and pressed her hand to Jimena's forehead, concentrating. Spirals of green wrapped around the little girl and Gem started to rearrange some memories.