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Golden Vial - A vial, roughly the size of a finger, filled with slow moving golden liquid. The vial will always be in an unmarked pouch of any color or fabric and can be found discarded or hidden on Homeworlds or Wonders, within the depths of Mirrorspace, or within the Dark Kingdom. To use this item, you must uncork the top and drink the full dose at once. Splitting the dose will yield no effects. The golden liquid tastes sweet, but has no identifiable flavor. Once emptied, the vial will heat up and the glass will appear covered with a dozen cosmetic golden hairline fracture; the vial is not damaged in this process. Drinking this liquid guarantees that you will have some memory from your most recent past life, regardless of your affiliation or faction. Even civilian characters will have a short memory of their past life. Only one memory may be recovered clearly, but that night you may also have vague dreams of up to three other partial memories. Mauvians can also use this but should not have memories on Mau; youma can use this item but the memories they receive should be them as a human in their most recent life. The vial can be kept as a memento.

Tomlin stirs, in the nest of rags he’s been gradually filling his HQ room with. He’s hungry again. It’s been slim pickings outside lately, the weather against him, and he’s not looking forward to going outside. With a grumbling mreow to match his grumbling stomach, he extracts himself from his warm spot, and slinks out of his personal hideaway. The door shunks shut behind him, a copper sigil flashing briefly on the lock. It’s nice to have a bolthole no-one can find. Not a home, not any more than the myriad alleyway boxes he also naps in, but a safe place. He’s restless. Has been for a long time now, can’t pinpoint why. It’s just a feeling, gnawing on his brain. Something he should be doing, on the tip of his pink tongue, then gone.

It’s quiet at the butt-end of the HQ, only the hum of unnamed computer systems, doing their electronic thing. There are so many Mauvians now, he hardly knows any of them, but they’re probably in the main control room, if they’re here at all tonight. There’s no scent or sound of anyone else nearby, so he feels no compunctions about scavenging, tipping out drawers and nosing behind computer banks and bundles of cables. Someone must have left a snack behind. A discarded cookie, inedible ‘catfood’. Anything half-way passing for food.

In the deep dust behind one of the computer banks, his claw catches on fabric. It’s lodged in a crack in the wall where cables run through, but a sharp tug brings it out with an unexpected glass clink as it clips the cabinet corner. More carefully, Tomlin draws the little pouch into the light. The colour has faded except at the stitching, where pale blue shows through. The ribbon, when he pulls gently with a claw, turns out to have been orange once, and still is in the sections that were drawn tight, though the exposed areas leave it tabby-striped like himself. The comparison brings a little smile to his mouth.

He tips out the contents gently, expecting to find broken glass, but the little vial tucked inside is not even chipped. Even the cork is still whole, sealed. The liquid inside is honey-golden, oozing gently around the vial as he rolls it with a paw. He’s heard that honey can last thousands of years and still be safe to eat…

With careful teeth, he carries it back to his room. If it does turn out to be bad, better the rest of the HQ doesn’t witness his food-poisoning misery. Settling into his nest again, he props the vial between his front paws, steadied against his bracers, and pulls the cork with his teeth. There’s no smell, as such, but a sudden feeling, an awareness that no-one keeps honey in a potion-vial. That this is something else. It’s not enough to stop him tilting the vial to his mouth, tasting sweet not-honey, not anything he can identify, warm in his throat, then warm in his paws as the empty glass seems to crack under a golden heat, hairline fractures spiderwebbing in every direction. They cover the whole glass, etching it with light.


*


He remembers this place. He’s in a corridor, long stone walls stretching down one side, while on the other, high arched windows open to the air. The bulk of Jupiter hangs low over the horizon, and other worlds dot the sky. Sun warms the ledges, inviting naps, and beyond, a landscape of tall trees beckons, birds calling and urging him to give chase.

But there’s something else he’s listening for. A human voice, high and sing-song, reciting names he can’t quite hear but feels he should know. It’s a chirpy little voice, a child – but growing increasingly more frustrated as the litany continues, stopping and starting again from the beginning.

He pads towards it – he knows the way.

The little voice falters again as he noses open the door, but he’s not the distraction. The young senshi sitting in the centre of the too-large bed has her eyes screwed tight shut, her lips moving frantically. She’s perhaps twelve years old, and a frown marks her face as she blows out a breath in a noisy sigh, giving up and starting again from the beginning. Names and ranks, titles and duties, planets and moons… she gets stuck at the same place again, and finally opens her eyes, huge and ruby-red.

“Oh Tomlin!” she cries, catching sight of him. “There are so many, how am I ever going to remember them all?”

He gives it due consideration.

“Don’t,” he says.

Now her frown is directed at him. “But I have to!” she protests.

He jumps softly onto the bed beside her, stretching his paws out on the furs and raking his claws across. His bracers are polished, undented. But definitely his.

“You don’t have to,” he says. “They only think you do.”

“But what if I have to meet someone and I get it wrong. I’ll be in trouble!”

She’s almost wailing now. He disengages from the torn bedding, stalking closer to rub his cheek reassuringly against her outstretched hand.

“Why? You’re the senshi. They should remember you.”

She’s still not convinced. He pads closer, letting the little hand trail across his back and tail as he walks onto her lap. As if he belongs there. “Don’t worry, you’ll remember the ones that matter.”

She adjusts to make him more comfortable, one hand stroking his head, his back, the other scritching gently under his chin. He feels the sound in his throat before he hears it, a low, concentrated purr. He closes his eyes.

“Will you remember me, Tomlin?” she says.

“Of course, Euporie. You’re my Senshi, you’re too important to ever forget.”


*


Tomlin opens his eyes with a start. The scritching fingers ghost away, the little voice fades, leaving him alone in his nest in his locked room in the HQ. The empty vial is still propped between his paws, crazed with golden hairline fractures. The memory was so clear.

“Euporie?”




(1008 words)