Author's Notes: Written for Checkmated's Movie Quote Challenge. Thanks to multiple readers and posters for their assistance with this story. Remaining flaws are my responsibility alone.
The Palest Ink
don't forget
forget it
you are
lost. He wakes up every morning thinking about words. The words that don't really make sense and mean something anyway. These words that could be anything; a puzzle, a key, a bit of overheard nonsense, perhaps the answer to his prayers. He knows without remembering that he thought about them yesterday (and yesterday and yesterday) but if he reached any conclusions they are lost in the fog of
knight
don't listen
Forget
you're
dreaming of chessboards and apple trees and broomsticks; with the words that curl into smoky, wispy tendrils which tangle up his clumsy limbs and then recede. He wonders who
you are
forget Mister
you're
awake. He knows this because he has to pee. A quick, hard throb of life which tells him he isn't dead, even if he is in hell, which means he has a chance, doesn't he? A chance which could be time (tick of the clock) to remember (something that he needs to forget). Mortal peril. A chance he takes every time he wrenches his mind from sleep.
The mirror, he notices in a bleary-eyed haze, cracks when he gazes into it. Someone (who?) replaces it every night, but it cracks again each morning (and tomorrow and tomorrow). He looks to it for a clue, a hint, an inkling of who or where or what he is, but it only splinters his face with new and different lines each day. He glimpses a blue eye, fractured and running down like blood the glassy roadways of a face. He cannot recognize himself but at least he can see that he is coming apart. He has come apart and needs to be put together again. He needs to put the words together.
Last words, perhaps? Tears running down; they were
shining you're
shining to me
my shining
girl. The familiar throb of heartache, goddamn it, not last words; he would be even further gone. He would be broken beyond repair and he's not, (s)he's not. He's figured this out before, he realizes, because he is not surprised that there is this shining, not broken girl, whoever she is He thinks he may have loved her. Must have. He can be glued and spelled together again (can't he?) and the words will come in order, with nothing missing; bright mouth to say them; to kiss him; to tell him to
forget it
my armor
to me
he belonged, he thinks. Belonged with this girl and then he lost himself. It hurt, it must have hurt, whatever happened, because his joints are aching now and sometimes he moves like an old, old man sometimes but he is still young. There is still time. Time which makes the clock tick, tick, tick. Mortal peril. He's hungry and the bright mouth smiles and wants him to remember. She tells him to
listen
don't forget
you are
lost, but I'm trying to get back, damn you, I'm trying. He pounds his fists on the table and time breaks in two (or three or four). He is slipping, falling, careening through the gap and the pain is real; burns hotter than fire in every cell and fiber and is awful, just god awful horrible. The pain is from yesterday and yesterday and lasts forever. The curses run like venom through his blood and muscles. His very nerve endings are alive and screaming but he does not forget that he should not tell. His tongue is loosening; slippery wet with betrayal and tears and vomit so he has to forget. He splits his mind in two or the pain breaks him in half; whichever, but the self that he was falls into the fissure between realities. He can't
forget it
don't forget it
my knight
listen listen
listen
to the echoes of his war. He didn't tell and that saved her somehow. Well, that's what he believes anyway, at least today (tomorrow, yesterday) because what does truth or time matter to his shattered mind? Bright mouth and bushy hair and ancient eyes are here but not here like he is. Shining, her mind is working smoothly and soothes him. It's okay, it's okay you don't have to remember (yet). She wants to pat him back together again, mend him with words but they are out of order and nothing stays in one place. His mind jumps from time to time to time, tick of the clock, mortal peril. Everything is broken, even his
armor shining
don't forget my knight
you're my
you're my
Mister
Weasley, your name is Ron Weasley, she whispers, but what is a name to this splintered mind? Who am I, am I who I was, is what he wants to know. Did I save you? Do I love you? Was it worth it? Listen to me, he shouts at her. How can I be him again? Time is broken and all the clock hands are stuck on mortal peril. I can't tell what I can't remember. I can't remember what I didn't tell. I'm not
you're
knight
my knight
don't forget, forget,
forget
what time, what day, what year it is. He slips through the past adding yesterdays to his tomorrows but it is always the same here. Pain and pain and pain still cracking, fracturing, smashing every piece of him except the secret place where he keeps her protected from his faithless and tortured tongue. Hidden from whom? Are they here under his bed, hiding in the cracks of the ceiling? Is it safe now? Is she illusion, creeping in through the chinks in the wall he rebuilds every night in dreams of sort? Can she trick him into betraying her (who)? Past or present self; he doesn't have the answer. He can't find which part of his brain he's stored the truth in. If he had it. If he knew it.
She takes his head in her hands and kisses him; bright mouth fierce, bushy hair crackling, ancient eyes blurred with tears. "Listen to me, mister. You're my knight in shining armor. Don't forget it." He hears the words in order and, as though they are the tumblers of a lock, the pieces in his mind fall into place.
He trusts that it is okay to remember himself before sleep and chessboards and apple trees and broomsticks and words curling into smoky, wispy, tendrils around his clumsy limbs claim him and what he learned (remembered and forgot and remembered again) recedes and recedes.
Don't forget it.
Until tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…