The crackling of the fire in front of the beds was almost tantalizing as Lurai looked upon her new parental figures and siblings besides her. The tension in the air was near palpable as Lurai had no idea how to expect; fortunately for her, her young brothers were more than capable to lighten the mood. Lykas, the silver-haired boy, was already hanging around her neck as his chin buried into Lurai's right shoulder, while Cial, the purple-haired boy, had laid his head on Lurai's lap, already fading his consciousness due to Lurai stroking his coarse and ungroomed hair.
Sitting on a larger bed across from Lurai and the boys, Kamai and Ramira sat peacefully watching their children as if this is the way things had always been, but a sense of worry was cast in both of their expressions. They watched in silence for a matter of minutes, allowing Lurai to become acquainted with her siblings again. Lurai sighed as she realized that this was the most peace that this night would most likely get.
"Let's play a fun game, okay?" Ramira said with a waning smile towards Lurai and the boys, "Let's pretend that we don't know each other. We will all go around saying our names, our favorite things, and what our jobs are to Duke Eainstal." Ramira, with concealed pain in her eyes, turned to Lurai, "You don't have to answer unless something comes back to you, okay?"
Lurai nodded sorrowfully. "Duke Eainstall, huh?" She thought inwardly, "I think I've heard his name before from father, but.."
Lurai's inner monologue was cut off by the instant stirring of a boy on her shoulder.
"I'll go first!" Lykas said with a big smile as he moved away from Lurai to the bed beside her and sat with his legs crossed. "I am Lykas. I am seven years old, and my favorite thing to do was play in trees with my sister…" Lykas frowned after saying that, "Well…dad said I can't do that anymore now though, or climb trees at all." Lykas went silent for a moment, but his face beamed up bright again, "We can just find new things to do together! We can swim, fish, and eat yummy fruit! We can do all of that!"
Lurai gave a slight giggle, "Well, nice to meet you, Lykas. Eating yummy fruit sounds really good, huh."
"MHM!" Lykas nodded intensely, which made Lurai and the parents laugh.
"And what do you do for Master Eainstal?" Kamai said with a raised eyebrow.
"I help father tend the fields behind the big house!" Lykas said with an air of confidence.
"It's called the manor," Cial said sleepily as he rubbed his eye with his left hand.
"I know that, Cial!" Lykas pouted, "I just forgot, okay?"
"Thank you, Lykas," Lurai interjected as she realized that Lykas was a bit upset. She reached over and ruffled his hair, which was also coarse and a tad dirty. "Forgetting things can be scary but having people to help remind you makes it okay."'
Lykas's head raised instantly to look at Lurai with surprise. "Am I helping?"
Lurai nodded, but she couldn't help but notice the slight look of concern and disbelief from Kamai.
Ramira clapped her hand and reached over to shake the sleepy boy's leg slightly. In a calm tone, she said, "Okay, Cial. Your turn."
Cial took a big yawn as he raised himself from Lurai's lap to look at her.
"That was adorable." Lurai couldn't help but think as she giggled to herself.
"M—My name is Cial." The purple-haired boy said as he rubbed his other eye, "I am seven years old, and my favorite thing to do is play with Lykas and Lurai. I don't like climbing trees though, and I, um, like eating the yummy fruits too." Cial continued as he yawned largely as he laid his head back down on Lurai's lap, "I—awlso hwelp with the fwields too."
Lurai continued to stroke his hair as he laid back down, almost passing out immediately. Ramira giggled softly as Kamai shook his head. Lykas also yawned but was determined to help out Lurai the best he could.
"Did that help, Lurai?" Lykas asked as he began to rub his eyes tiredly, "Do you remember us now?"
Lurai paused from stroking Cial's hair for a moment. With slight hesitation, she turned to Lykas with a small smile, "Of course. I am so happy that my brothers were so helpful today."
Lykas, in a quick motion, reached in to hug Lurai, which took her by slight surprise before welcoming it entirely. She held him for a few moments before realizing that he, too, had begun to sleep.
"It seems we are two down already." Kamai said in a light tone, "I don't blame them. Cial was the one who ran to get me from the fields, and Lykas never left your side."
"I'm glad they did," Lurai said looking up at Kamai and Ramira. She took a deep breath and sighed, "I can't help but feel like I am drawn to you all, and knowing that you are my family—"
"Makes sense?" Ramira said softly as she got up to prepare the torn and stained bedsheets for the boys' bed. "While your mind might not remember, it seems that your heart and body do."
"I hope that's the case," Lurai spoke downwardly as she helped lift the boys to Kamai, who had gotten up to lift the boys to their bed. She stayed silent for a few moments before looking up, "In truth, I am very sorry that your daughter isn't fully back to you, and that you are stuck with me really hurts my heart."
"They really miss their daughter, and while she's here in body, it might break their heart to know that she's not here in spirit." Lurai thought to herself.
"I assure you that while you may not remember who you are and that it might take time to fill the gap, know that we love you, Lurai," Ramira said, finally tucking the boys under their sheets. She then motioned to the table where they had dinner. "Let's continue this talk over there so that the boys can sleep."
"I was about to say the same thing," Kamai said with a stoic tone as he stood up. He reached out and placed his hand on Lurai's head, but his tone of voice became softer, "You seem to keep a lot of thoughts to yourself, which is something that you never used to do."
"Something I used to do?" Lurai said as she winced from the touch of the hand.
"You can trust us." Kamai said with a smile, "After all, we've known you for seventeen years. You aren't strangers to us."
Lurai stayed silent as she rose to her feet. She looked over at the table and nodded, which prompted Kamai to raise his hand from her head. Lurai slowly walked over to the table, pulled her seat out, and slid into the chair.
Kamai and Ramira looked over at their daughter with worried eyes. Ramira, with widened eyes, nudged Kamai, who looked at his wife with confusion before she pushed him towards her. Kamai walked over to the table and sat across from Lurai, and Ramira did the same.
Lurai looked between the two of them with a sorrowful gaze. "Kamai," Lurai said as she looked at her new father, and then turned to her new mother and said, "Ramira." Lurai swallowed hard as she saw the pain in their faces from her calling them by their first names. "I'm sorry."
"This isn't your fault, it's—" Ramira said but she was cut off by Lurai holding up a hand.
Lurai took a pained breath as she looked down to stare at the rotting boards of the table, "What would you do if I wasn't Lurai anymore?"
Kamai and Ramira looked at each other and confusion before Ramira turned back to Lurai, "I'm sorry, my light. I am not sure what you mean."
"What if I told you that I am not Lurai, but someone else entirely?" Lurai said with pain in her voice as she began shaking, "What if the Lurai you've known is gone, and someone else was in her body?"
Kamai placed his hands down on the table, but his gaze never left Lurai's face. Ramira stayed silent too until Lurai spoke again.
"My mind and my thoughts are the only things that I have that make me believe otherwise. If I am Lurai, why do I have memories of a different life?" Lurai's voice began to crack as she began to cry, "Why do I remember my death so vividly, and why that doesn't explain anything that's going on?"
"Lurai, you fell from a tree," Kamai said brashly as he tried to remind her.
"No!" Lurai said loudly as her face bolted up from the table, slamming her hands down in a momentary outburst. She instantly covering her mouth as she looked behind her to see if the boys were still asleep, and they were. She turned back to the two worried elven adults as she whispered, "No. I was stabbed. Straight through the torso by an elven man with a facial scar."
Kamai shook his head at this and reached out to hold Lurai's hand resting on the table where she slammed it. "What delusion are you having, Lurai? You fell from the lower branches, and you landed on your neck." Kamai took a deep breath in before speaking again, "You were mangled, and it tore me to pieces to see you like that. There was no life in your eyes, and yet—"
"Please listen to me." Lurai looked upon her new father with tears rolling down her face, which made him close his mouth. He couldn't help but look pained as he nodded as a sign to continue. "You might not believe me, but I am not this Lurai. My memories tell me that my name is Brenda, and I am a human." Lurai paused, "Or I--was a human." Lurai looked down at her hands, "And the next thing I remember is waking up and now I am like this."
Ramira now reached out and grabbed Lurai's other hand gently. She looked towards both Kamai and Lurai with a worried gaze but began to stroke Lurai's hand as a form of comfort. In truth, she had no idea what to say to her daughter.
"I don't understand," Kamai said in confusion. "You've always been an elf, Lurai. Your mother gave birth to you on a night similar to this night many years ago, and We've known you from your first breath. I don't know how you have these memories, but you—"
Ramira cleared her throat to cut off Kamai, who looked now slightly annoyed from being cut off multiple times tonight, as she began with a pained voice of her own, "Why don't you tell us everything? Maybe following these memories might help us understand what happened to you."
Lurai, for the next fifteen minutes, began to explain her memories from the best of her recollection. She described that she was a human girl at the age of seventeen, her upbringing in the family of the Harenharts, and her first adventure outside of the manor that ultimately led to her death. All this while, Kamai and Ramira listened with worried hearts, and as Lurai described Brenda's death, they both couldn't help but squeeze the hands of the pained girl in front of them as she struggled to recount the horrible event.
Only silence and the falling of silent tears existed in the following moments, as Kamai and Ramira reflected on the story. Lurai slowly pulled away from their hands to wipe her eyes, before clearing her voice again. "Then I met with the goddess," Lurai said softly, which widened both parents' eyes.
"You met with THE goddess?!" Kamai exclaimed as he rose from his seat, before getting slapped quickly and lightly on the chest by Ramira. Kamai quickly sat back down as Lurai nodded.
"Yes, I met with her," Lurai said as she looked away from the parents and realized there was a small window on the far side of the room, which showed the beauty of the two full moons in the sky very far away—the sky reminding her of the night with Seran. Lurai looked back from the window to the table as she spoke, "She looked like a young girl, and it was her who told me that I died. She had promised me that I'd find all my loved ones waiting for me, but I didn't find them."
"It's strange. Ophia was said to be a benevolent deity, at least according to passed down stories." Kamai said with a worried tone. "Why would she lie to you like that?"
Lurai looked at Kamai with an expression of utmost confusion. "Ophia? No, the deity said that her name was Avais."
"The deity that humans worship?" Kamai raised an eyebrow. "That can't be right…"
"That's what she said," Lurai affirmed, "and she told me that negative emotions would burn my soul away, so I tried my best to stay positive as I searched that place." Lurai began shaking again as she recalled the place she was sent to, and Lurai's head fell into her hands as she began sobbing, "It was a horrible, dark place where I couldn't see anything. I searched, and searched, and searched, and sear—"
Lurai froze for a moment before looked towards the two of them with a look of ultimate despair mixed with the tears rushing from her eyes, "Ka'Pa, Ra'Ma…I was so scared."
"Did you—" Kamai's jaw dropped as tears now began forming in his eyes now as recognized the familiar name his daughter used to call him, "Oh, Lurai..."
Ramira, without hesitation, as if her motherly urges shot through her, pushed the chair out from under her as she rose to her feet, rushed over to Lurai, and threw her into a hug, tighter than Lurai could ever remember feeling. Lurai, in response to the warm and squeezing hug, latched on like a small child, crying into Ramira's dress. Overcome with emotions herself, Ramira's tears were streaming down her own face, as Kamai walked over and wrapped both women in his arms. They continued to sob in each other's arms for a long duration of the night.