I wake, holding my hand up to block the sun peeking in through some gaps in the nearby trees. Mentally, I make a note to sleep in a different position on future days. Standing up, I feel all manner of cracks and pops as I stretch -- suffering a slight punishment of soreness for having the audacity to sleep on the floor sitting up. I glance over to Ayre, vaguely thinking about what, exactly, she does around here. When I settle my eyes on her, the information I took while draining her comes into my mind's eye.

  Guardian of the A’khana Shrine

  I stand there for a moment, taken aback at the clarity of recollection. I see hundreds, thousands of days looking at two piles of rocks and shining them. Always feeling sad and scared in every single one, but as I think, the memories go away after a few moments. “So, a guardian of a shrine…” I step out into the morning sun as it chases away the frost and cast around, trying to find some sign of a shrine in need of a guardianing. “Field of crops, Pile of stones with a support and some rope, Handcart, Dock in the distance, Cabin, Cave.” I list the things I see aloud, trying to solidify what, exactly, I do know and what I don’t. The question puzzles me quite a lot. I know how to read, what reading is, what books are. I know how to use a knife. I don’t know my name, where I came from, and how I wound up in this state. I stand for a little while, attempting the futile task of remembering what I can’t remember, and failing because it’s quite hard to come up with ideas you don’t know. After a bit, my head begins to hurt, as if I was doing strenuous exercise.

  I feel a breeze and am reminded of something I’d not thought about. My clothes are in utter tatters -- to the extent that I’m about ten strips of fabric away from being nude, and am entirely without a shirt. The realization has an instant effect on me. I feel cold, and that “cold” is unpleasant. “Right. There was frost on the ground…” I sigh, dreading my future “learning”, and re-enter the cabin to take stock. “Dragon still asleep and still breathing. Door, Missing. Food, Inedible. Me, Cold. Is she cold?” I walk over and can feel heat pouring off her once I get within arm's reach. “Definitely not cold. Why? Is that normal? Why am I not like that? Too many questions that I don’t have answers to. That fact doesn't change that I am still cold, however.”

  In a trunk near the rear of the cabin I find a knit blanket, and a small hoard of utilitarian clothes. Roughspun, off-brown, tunics and pants, simple socks and underwear. They are all too large (she is a good deal taller than me), and all the shirts have vertical slits splitting the back into three equal sections, with columns of fabric missing where her wings must go. All of the missing fabric would probably make me lose out on any heat I’d gain by wearing it. So that’s a no-go. The pants as well have a large section for her tail. I slump my shoulders. With great care, I unfold the blanket. It’s a multicolored and very bright-looking fabric depicting a rising sun in simple shapes. “This could do. No points for style, though.” I begin to very slowly and very awkwardly wrap this oversized blanket around my person with my left arm, only for it to rapidly become ungainly with all of the excess material. I eye the dagger sitting in the corner for a moment, debating. But I shake my head, “Not without asking.” And refold it as best I can. I decide to give the pants and shirt an actual try. Worst-case scenario, I can just tie them up or wear multiple if the holes leave too much open space. The idea sticks in my head to wear multiple, and I ponder for a moment before smiling in victory.

  Homemade Tunic

  Fabrica

  Created by Ayre A’khana

  Homemade Sock

  Fabrica

  Created by Ayre A’khana

  Homemade Sock

  Fabrica

  Created by Ayre A’khana

  After about 15 minutes, and with minimal casualties, I am dressed. I look ridiculous because everything is one size too large, and I'm wearing multiple layers of identical clothes, but I am warm. I decide to wear two shirts and two sets of pants, one pair forward and one pair reversed, that way each of their holes are covered by the other's full side of fabric. I regret the ones we lost, but it was a necessary sacrifice on the altar of learning. Now I am reasonably confident about how to put on these exact shirts without destroying them. Less so about the socks, but there’s at least a few more to keep practicing with. I find a broom and dust the unfortunate remains out of the cabin, scattering my crimes to the wind.

  “Okay. Warm. Now what?” I pause, “Right. Guardian of the shrine. What does a shrine look like anyway?” I look around, eyes locking on the strange pile of stacked rocks with some wooden bracing and ropes nearby. I wander over, moving a little awkwardly with all of the extra material I’m wearing, and inspect the mysterious pile of stones. This pile of stones is drastically different in shape than the ones from the memories, but there's a fundamental similarity in that they're deliberately stacked stones…

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  Nearby I find a pile of ropes with a clay vessel in the middle tied to one end of the length. Vexed, I peer inside the vessel to find…nothing. “Are you for swinging around? A weapon? You’re kinda heavy, it could work.” I set my first unsolved mystery down and walk over to the stones. They’re held together with mortar, and arranged roughly in a cylinder, and the walls are about four feet tall. Along the sides is a simple bit of woodwork supporting a sloped roof. I lean over the edge and strain to see the bottom. It goes down maybe ten yards and at the bottom, I see the fine ripples on still water.

  I wrack my brain, looking between the hole and the rope, and I am struck with the most infuriating sensation. I know I should know what I’m supposed to do. I have all of the puzzle pieces. There must be a logical reason these things are here together. Ayre is too organized for it to not be the case. Growing increasingly distressed, I take a few steps away and unceremoniously sit with my legs before me. “What makes me remember some things but not others? I’m sitting here, and I know for a fact that I should know what to do, but I can’t even figure out what steps to take to find the right question to ask.” I feel something heavy welling up within me, starting in my stomach and rising to my throat. “No, no, no, no, no. Not losing control here. Too close to the cabin.” I jump to my feet and walk directly away from the…thing, and directly towards the mouth of the cave.

  That heavy feeling in my throat starts to recede, and my eyes feel less tense with every step. By the time I’ve made it to the mouth of the cave, I feel marginally better. I can see inside a little ways and on the right side I see a copper lantern with a flint striker next to it. “Well, at least I know what that is,” I say bitterly, desperately avoiding looking back the way I came. Opening the front hatch of it, I pick up the flint and steel in my left hand, setting the lantern on the ground, but then realize that lighting it will be impossible one-handed. I stare at the problem for a long time, thinking; long enough that I lose track of time entirely. Breaking out of the daze after a time, I carefully set the flint and steel down next to the lantern on the ground. I realize then that my hand is shaking, and look at it curiously. “Why am I shaking? I don’t even know.”, I clench my fist to stop it from shaking and feel a sharp pain immediately after. Opening my good hand, I realize that I had dug my nails into my palm and drawn a small trickle of blood.

  The pain centers me a little bit, and I turn my back on my current tormentor. I make a point to keep my head down as I progress, trying to retrace my steps without looking at the other thing to defeat me today. Luckily, doing so is the definition of simple: I have a near perfect recollection of everything I've seen since waking.

  Plodding along, dragging my feet in the dirt with my spirit and mood, I make it to the cabin and step inside. I cast a glance over to Ayre, looking very peaceful, even smiling slightly, and it buoys me a bit, though I can’t quite place why.

  It’s getting later in the day again, so I take some time and walk down to the river to retrieve water, silently lamenting the ten minutes of walking each way that was lengthened by skirting out of sight of the stone thing. The whole way there and back, feeling unshakably glum.

  On returning to the cabin, nothing has changed. Ayre seems to have settled into a position she will stay in indefinitely, which is good. I wanted to avoid manhandling her if at all possible. I know somewhere deep inside that touching her any more than was necessary while in this state is inappropriate, and keep it in mind when tending to her. I settle in with the bucket and blue cup to give her water over the next hour, drop by drop. As the sun falls beneath the horizon and the chill sets in, I become more acutely aware of the cold, and that this woman's incredible body heat is keeping it at bay. I feel deeply envious, and my right hand seems to clench and unclench of its own volition. The thought calling to mind information about her.

  Malformed Gate (inert), Greater Ignia Affinity, Minor Aero Affinity

  “Ignia affinity, huh?” I muse. “That must be fire, then. Explains the heat she gives off.” I look at her face, placid and peaceful, beautiful, too. That thought awakens some feelings now that it’s brought on naturally, rather than by the pesky fairy. But while I think about it, my hand moves without my permission again, and I freeze, staring at the cursed thing as it hovers in the air, just inches from her. The weight in my throat rises, dragging the air out of my lungs with it. “She doesn’t need all her heat.” The thought pulses again, stronger this time. My hand twitches, and for a split second, I think of giving in. Just a little, just to ease the cold.

  “No!” I jerk my arm back, and in doing so, the weight inside me snaps as I stand and move to the door frame, sitting hard against it with my back to her. All the thoughts—the lantern, the jug, the stone structure, Ayre—swirl into a thick, choking fog. My vision blurs. “I can’t remember. I can’t think right. Those stones, the water below, what was I even trying to do earlier? It’s all wrong.”

  The pressure in my chest rises again, pushing up into my throat. It burns, and my eyes start to sting, but I fight it. I’ve fought it these past couple of days. “I can’t — Not here, not now.” My knees curl up to my chest. I grip them with my left arm, keeping my right one far, far away from the blanket and from Ayre. But that steadily gets colder, so cold it almost feels like it’s not part of me anymore. “Maybe it isn’t. Maybe it never was.”

  My self-control finally fails, and I bury my face in my knees as the tears come. I can’t stop them anymore. I don’t even know why I’m crying, only that everything — everything — is wrong, and I’m so tired of not knowing what to do, of failing at everything I try. The darkness presses in, the cold gnaws at me, and I can’t fight it any longer.

  It’s going to be a long, long night.

  In the process of researching how amnesia affects people who have suffered it I stumbled upon a story from someone who had fairly reaching amnesia.

  They were functional, but on their way to get on a flight they stopped into a public bathroom for the first time since coming out of the coma they'd been in. They went about their business, up to walking up to the sink -- all on muscle memory.

  But on arriving at the sink, they realized they didn't know what to do. They described it as the single most frustrating experience of their life. They knew they should be there. They knew that they knew they needed to do something. They'd even washed their hands at home since the event. But the mental connections of what to do in front of a public sink was simply not there. It was so disconnected that they couldn't even approach the idea to try to form a question of how to progress.

  They explained that it locked them up for a solid 10 or so minutes until the person they were traveling with came looking for them and had to spend the better part of a half hour repeating instructions with them to teach them -- no differently than someone would a toddler.

  Thanks for coming to my amnesia ted talk.