To Have Loved, and Lost

 A Dystopia Rising: TX Fanfic, post-Feb'22 Trade Meet

Love, can't protect you now

The love that I can't feel

It'll only break you down

Love, the secret that I keep

Who wakes as the world sleeps

Finds you in the moonlight

---

Somewhere on the long stretch of road between Bravado and Luckytown, things began to fall apart. 

Anxiety took hold, sweeping away the sureness that kept Collie steady and replacing it with holes of doubt that sunk inward and expanded like quicksand. Her hands gripped the worn leather handles, white-knuckled, but her mind did not occupy the Moment. Instead, she thought back to the past trade and all that had transpired. So much had occurred. So much had gone wrong. So much had been lost.

The kidnappings, NASCENT, the Memory Thief, Lyra firing Gus, Teef and Victoria, the conversation with Slink… all of it pressing, all of it urgently in need of answers, but none of it at the forefront. No, much to her increasing frustration, the primary thing tugging at her mind while the wind and sand whipped across her face was the godsforsaken situation with Roscoe. Roscoe, of all people. Pompous, idiotic, self-indulgent, impulsive, infuriating, Roscoe. It shouldn’t be an issue. There should be nothing there to feel, nothing to say. But the more she thought about it, the angrier and more confused the Iron became. 

Collie turned the facts over in her mind once more, hoping for some nugget of wisdom that would solve this puzzle of circumstance. The Memory Thief took something from each of them. Took their Moments, important ones, and spirited them away. Despite her initial doubts, it had been proven true. Roscoe had forgotten Luckytown, a place he had personally helped to found. Gus forgot his chosen name, something that he took pride and honor in. Ryker forgot… something, but she hadn’t been able to pin him down to ask. And she forgot… Roscoe. Or rather, their Moments together. Why? They weren’t close. And despite the knowledge that this perception came from a place of missing memories, Collie could not for the life of her understand how they had even become close in the first place. Sure, he was the Host of her faith and a fellow boss in her crew, but they were not on familiar terms. She had watched him from the door of Revels as he made a damn fool of himself and occasionally preached on the Light. Had seen him around Luckytown, worked with him to keep their people supplied and safe. But trying to connect her feelings about him on any meaningful level was proving impossible. He was a crew member at best, a nuisance that got into more trouble than he was worth at worst. 

Others seemed to think differently. Everyone that learned what had happened to her, to them, looked upon her with pity - infuriating, unnecessary pity - and had lamented their loss of companionship. But how could she mourn the loss of something she could not remember? Something she could not recall? Collie gritted her teeth and sped up the bike, the wastes whipping by in a blur. Some seemed to think they were closer than companions - lovers, maybe even in love. 

That was where she stumbled. That was the realization that brought forth the doubt. 

---

Ooh Daylight's dying Run, baby, run, baby run Ooh Full moon rising Run, baby, run, baby run

---

Collie was incapable of love. She knew this as surely as she knew every scratch and nick in her blade, every dent in her shield, every plant in her field. She had known for as long as she had been aware of the concept of love, of what it entailed and required of a person. Lyra had tried to convince her more than once that she was able to experience the phenomenon, but Collie could only humor her with platitudes and promises to keep an open mind. She thought of Candy, of what she felt for them and how it had progressed through the years. She was fond of the Vegasian in ways that were very different than for her crew, but would be hard-pressed to call it love. She was fond of Finn, despite thinking it a terrible idea for the Natural One to seek to get close to her. It could only ever end in disappointment. Even her familial feelings towards Lyra and the crew could be chalked up to fondness and a sense of duty regarding their well-being. When she tried to imagine a world in which she could feel any of that for Roscoe… she couldn’t. At first, it was a relief. Whatever closeness she had had with the man, if she couldn’t remember the connection there then why bother worrying about it? Maybe the Memory Thief had simply grabbed the closest connection to the surface, rather than the deepest ones she held. 

But then anxiety crept in. If what she had felt for Roscoe was stronger than her feelings for Lyra, for Candy, for her crew… then what had she truly lost? What magnitude of said loss had she experienced? The spiral of worry twisted deeper still, making her evaluate every relationship in her life and wonder at its importance compared to what she may have once held. If the memories were gone, and the feelings along with them, then she had no way of knowing what those feelings truly were. She would never know if she had been close to the concept of love, if there was a version of herself who had felt that and indulged it. The thought was driving her mad. If she’d felt that strongly, but had lost that entirely, then how would she know how to even identify it? How would she know if she were truly, fundamentally broken and incapable of that feat, or if somehow he was the one who had convinced her otherwise? There were entirely too many “what ifs” for the Iron’s liking, and the pounding in her brain got worse with every mile.

Collie thought back to the break-in. Thought back to the strange thief in the night, being bound and feeling something tugging oddly in her mind, but being unable to identify what that sensation had been. She thought back to Saturday morning, of waking up in their shared cabin with only the concern of the event itself rather than its repercussions… and quietly wished that no one had even informed her of what had been taken. There was bliss in ignorance, after all. And for the first time in all of her lives, in all of her Infections, Collie would have preferred to remain ignorant. 

---

Dear, the kiss that steals your breath Will steal your soul instead The night is all that's left

So wait, keep your heart inside

My hands won't keep it safe

I'll just feed on dreams, and smile as hope slowly dies

---

She pulled through the gates of Luckytown with those thoughts roiling under the surface. Remington, ever vigilant, waved from the small guard tower near the entrance and she waved back automatically, barely registering the man or the action. She parked her ride in the shared garage space, went through the rituals of unloading every item and placing it where it belonged. Night had settled in by the time she was finished, and the rest of the caravan wouldn’t be back for some time still. She preferred it that way. 

Exhausted in mind and body, the Iron made for her small sleeping quarters. It wasn’t much - a back room with a bunk, a side-table, a footlocker, various scattered belongings. But it was hers, and she was glad for the privacy that it provided when she needed it. Immediately upon entering though, there was a sense of wrongness. Her hand snapped to her sword’s pommel. Things were out of place, things were here that didn’t belong to her - a pair of reading glasses on the nightstand, old boots in the corner that looked entirely too large for her feet, a half-empty glass of hooch that she never would have left sitting out when she left for Bravado. Had someone been here while she was away? Was her space offered as a temporary lodging to some traveler? 

Anger welled up deep in her throat at the thought. Collie did not have many indulgences in life, but her space and her privacy were one of them. These luxuries were something she never thought herself able to afford until she had found them, and the idea of someone invading her small sanctuary without her knowledge or consent struck too close to home and the harrowing realities that she had faced over the trade weekend. Rather than find the nearest townie and demand an explanation, the Iron simply sighed and went to investigate the items herself. The glasses were nondescript with no identifiable markings, and the glass of hooch was one from the Luckytown kitchen. Unhelpful. The boots seemed to be the same, but upon turning one over in her hand she stopped short. “R.K.”, in ragged script, was scrawled upon the inner tongue. Understanding clicked into place. Collie looked at the thing for a moment without really seeing it, and placed the boot back down gently on the floor. A confirmation, then. 

She stood, sighed, and made her way to the bunk. The energy and will to remove her own boots had left her, and Collie simply flopped onto the ragged sheets and breathed deeply. Rather than the familiar smell of the herbs that she kept to rub into her laundry and keep them smelling less like Wasteland and more like home, however, she smelled something… else. The scent that hit her nose was one vaguely smell of alcohol, of leather, of a smokey bar atmosphere. It smelled like him. The pang of sadness that accompanied this realization was entirely unexpected, and caught in the Iron’s throat as she exhaled. 

Why him? Why now? Collie never slept in the same bed as anyone she didn’t trust. She would have never let him get that close, especially not close enough to leave belongings behind. Close enough that her sheets held his lingering scent. What did they have? What had she lost? 

And why hadn’t he told her himself? 

She let her mind linger on the last question. If he was that important to her, why had he not felt the ramifications of her memory theft? Why had he not come to her directly to try and sort it out? Was it one-sided? …Had he even known?

The Iron sat up with a jolt, the exhaustion pulling at her bones but the anxiety making her unable to give in to the rest. She couldn’t stay here. Not with his familiar, unfamiliar scent on her sheets, his belongings taking up space in her small sanctuary. Within minutes she had repacked and was out the door, hustling back to the garage and back onto her bike. The road always made it easier to think, Luckytown was far more stifling than comforting under these circumstances. Remington asks after her with a worried expression, and Collie doesn’t know how to respond. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. Instead, she says the first thing that comes to mind,

“Falken Castle. I need to see Lyra.”

---

Look, can you see behind these eyes?

Can you see what isn't there?

The truth dressed up in lies

Ooh Daylight's dying Run, baby, run, baby run Ooh Full moon rising Run, baby, run, baby run