Don’t Remind Me That It’s Over

Prompt: Don't let the past remind us of what we are not now ~ CSN - Suite: Judy Blue Eyes by pygmymuse. Writing into the Abyss, Part II

So a whole new set of characters, I know, but this was actually the first team I ever developed of this world. Team five. It was kind of nice to find they matched the prompt.


Liana Mir

Liana Mir reads, writes, and wrangles the muses from her mundane home in the Colorado Rockies and, occasionally, from the other side of the Barrier.

Series Listing

16 — 02. Summer

When the Clock Strikes Midnight

16 — 02. Summer through 03. Autumn

Wake and Thrive

16 — 03. Autumn through 17 — 01. Spring

Its Own Absolution

16 — 03. Late Autumn

After the Grief

16 — 03. Late Autumn

Battery Acid

17 — 02. Summer

Accounting for Redemption

17 — 02. Summer

Counting Heartbeats

18 — 01. Spring

Song Between the Waking and the Dreaming

20 — 04. Winter

Echoes of Anchor Lost

21 — 01. Spring

Don’t Remind Me That It’s Over

21 — 02. Summer

Welcome

21— 02 Summer through 22 — 01 Spring

Name Me Another (or Glass Angel, Redux)

22 — 01. Spring

Glass Angel

22 — 01. Spring

Pause the Sonata

22 — 02. Summer

Without a Reason

22 — 03. Autumn

Learning Legato

23 — 02. Summer

Acceptable Cost

23 — 02. Summer

History Lesson on the Night Train

23 — 03. Autumn

Abyss Looking Back

23 — 03. Autumn

Collateral Damage

23 — 03. Autumn

Five Reasons I Love You

23 — 03. Autumn

Little Things

23 — 03. Autumn

Owning Beauty

23 — 04. Winter

Dream the Dance

23 — 04. Winter

Snow Day

24 — 02. Summer

As the River Breathes

AU 21 — 04. Winter

Normal written in coffee grounds

Don’t Remind Me That It’s Over

Ricki had put away the past when she put away the name.

Anna has a new photography job and decides to go back through her old snapshots and memories. Ricki, who is visiting, demands that she stop—before it hurts too much.

21 — 01. Spring
Kingdoms and Thorn Science Fiction
Flash Fiction Short Story

“So I got a new job,” Anna called out from the kitchen. “At a photography studio, taking student graduation photos.”

Ricki could hear the laugh in Anna’s voice. She was standing in Anna’s living room, arms crossed and studying the mantleplace. Each image seemed like a black and white photograph, but none of them were. They were the work of Anna’s ability to sketch on any surface with her mind. People like Ricki and Anna weren’t supposed to exist, but they did and the rest of the populace was slowly but surely getting used to them.

Ricki sighed and dropped into her favorite wicker chair. Anna had always had good taste in furniture, houses, clothes. This was a beach house, tiny but lovely, with wide open glass doors leading out onto a garden patio overlooking the sand.

Anna leaned one hip against the counter, watching her. “You okay?”

“Just tired.” Ricki leaned back comfortably. She had been visiting all their old team members. They scattered in clumps, this group of inseparably close friends, brothers, sisters this way, that group of inseparables that way. Ricki couldn’t really say all that much. Her own home of choice was within ten minutes driving of Flinger, one of the few who hadn’t taken back his birth name. “I’ve been flying almost nonstop across the country.”

Anna nodded and brought in an apparently heavy packing box, book-size. It looked familiar, and suddenly Ricki didn’t feel like Ricki anymore, but like Keeper. It was Sketch’s old box of photographs, and it startled Ricki almost right out of her wicker chair.

“Don’t,” she said.

Anna dropped the box on the floor in front of her and sat between the box and the sofa, leaning back to lift her brown hair onto the seat cushion. Anna had always loved photography, had never minded getting her hands dirty, setting herself down on the dirtiest of house or forest floors to get the shot, but forbid, she ever let anything mess up her almost waist-length hair.

“My pictures, my apartment,” Anna reminded her leader. She had learned skills with the team, ones she probably considered worth revisiting before dusting them off again for more use.

But Keeper was nothing like Sketch. Ricki had put away the past when she put away the name, and she was up and out of her seat almost before registering her own intent, eyes burning gold and saying, “Don’t.” It wasn’t a request.

Anna tilted her head, appraising how serious Keeper was. The two had known each other since they were little girls, both about seven years old, waking from agonizing pain with new inhuman powers and no memories. Keeper had essentially raised Sketch and all the other members of her team, protecting them as best she could from the military trying to turn them into weapons. Sketch knew when she could get away with defying Keeper and when she couldn’t.

She finally blew out a breath. “You’re no fun.” Anna dropped both hands to the top of the box and beat out a rhythm.

Ricki felt her eyes return to normal—brown—as she settled back into her chair and let the adrenaline rush fade. She didn’t want to remember, didn’t want the past to remind her of what she wasn’t anymore. “We’re not operatives,” she said softly to herself.

Anna glanced up at the words.

“We’re not.” Comforting herself. Forgetting again. She smiled at Anna. “So tell me about the new job.”

Anna shrugged and kept it light. “You wouldn’t believe what they charge these kids for pictures,” she started, fingers flexing as though she could sketch for less cost. Anna had always loved photography.

#


Kingdoms and Thorn Science Fiction

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2 Responses to Don’t Remind Me That It’s Over

  1. Kabobbles says:

    Yeah, the teams are a perfect choice for the lyric. If anyone wanted to forget their past, it would be the ones that were forced to be operatives, forced to do horrible things.

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