Memory Blooms

This Is Fine

You jolted awake, your body briefly spazzing out at the sudden rush of consciousness that flooded your senses. One of your arms even managed to slap a video game controller that was laying by your side. You hit it at an awkward angle, though, sending a spike of pain to shoot up into your wrist. You hissed in pain as held your hand close to your chest.

You were laying on the large pile of pillows that took up half of Hat Kid's bedroom, appropriately deemed; "The Pillow Pool" by the kid herself. Who was also laying a few feet away, sound asleep with her own game controller sitting on her stomach. A small portable tv sat on the floor a few feet away. It's screen long since turned off, whether automatically or manually, you couldn't say for sure. You must've fallen asleep playing that "Spade Chevalier" game that Hat Kid had been so excited to play.

"I've actually had this game for a while, but it requires two players to get through the story mode." She had said.

You smiled at the memory, the pain in your wrist slowly subsiding. She had spent the whole night looking for things you two could do together, watching movies, playing games, exploring the ship. And she was even nice enough to provide you a change of clothes after your shower (a t-shirt and shorts, even if the shirt was a little big).

Despite the near-constant excitable attitude she presented. You couldn't help but shake the feeling that something was...wrong. There were times where you caught a little too much sadness in her eyes and little too much loneliness in her words. It reminded you of...

"I need your help."

Oh right! Moonjumper! Your dream!

You sat up, quietly making your way to the automatic door, Hat Kid had shown you earlier the various functions of different things around the ship. Including the overview map in the main control room, maybe you could access it real quick and get a look at where to find this......manor...?

...You stopped.

It didn't feel right, using her stuff without permission. Even something as harmless as looking at the map. You looked back, seeing Hat Kid still fast asleep on the pillow pile, snoring softly.

It was a rather subconscious decision, but you tiptoed back over and gently picked her up.

She was a little heavier than you expected someone of her height to be, but not so heavy that you couldn't carry her. Her face comfortably nestled into your shoulder, her light snoring resuming after a few nerve-wracking moments.

Goodness, how had she survived all the things she'd been through? Sure she was an alien with super strength, sure she had a laser-shooting umbrella and magical badges given to her by some shady individual, sure she had time-altering artifacts that could give a person massive untold power and a ship she piloted and maintained all by herself. But–but–good god.

She's a pecking kid.

You set her down in her bed, carefully bringing the covers up to her neck and placing her hat neatly on her nightstand. A small strand of her hair was covering one of her eyes, you reached over and....

No.

You turned out the light, quickly making your way out and crawling through the little doorway space leading to the main control room. When you approached the main console, you looked over the mass of buttons before and realized—you couldn't actually read any of this. All the button labels were written in some kind of dialect. You remembered how she had turned on the map before, though. So this language barrier didn't hinder you too much.

A quick flick of a switch, and an entire holographic map materialized in front of you, taking up the entirety of the large glass window. You identified Subcon Forest pretty easily, as the entire place was color-coded purple. Now about that manor...aha! It too was labeled in what you assumed to be the kid's native language, but the image of the manor you had seen from your dream matched perfectly to the cover photo of the location. You had to wonder, though. Did anybody still live there? Moonjumper has said it was "Queen Vanessa's" manor, maybe this "Vanessa" would be kind enough to just lend you the book. Then you recalled your dream, the metallic taste of hatred on your tongue, the ice cold wind that cut into your skin like a knife cutting butter, and Moonjumper's profuse warnings of caution. So maybe talking to her wasn't...the best idea.