***
I stayed until the night’s life
left my wrinkled skin
and white hair
as old as ever,
but I was so scared
to check if Sliptide got her memories back
that of course
I punished myself
by tracking her down
in the woods near a salty lake–
I said hi,
you remember me,
right?
But the dragon
wasn’t Sliptide,
said her name was Trunktide,
but I could’ve sworn
she looked the same as Sliptide
with those shale-spikes on her tail
and swirling emerald scales
and the matching hatch lines on her pair
of taloned feet,
and how odd
they both had “tide” in their name–
but she said
she definitely wasn’t Sliptide,
she’d have remembered that.
So I asked
what she did remember
about the past hundred years or so,
or earlier than that,
and she had a whole story
about exploring forests and mountains
and even magma in a ravine
and cooking delicious cuisine
and I supposed
I couldn’t prove she didn’t remember anything from more than a hundred years before
but what if…well.
What if she’d done all that quite recently?
So I told her
I knew someone
who lost their memories
and I didn’t know how to find them
but did she have any idea
what might happen
to a dragon
without any memory?
Trunktide thought about that
and said
the dragon
would probably move on fine
since they’re immortal;
they wouldn’t die or anything
while relearning how to, say, fly
and really, the dragon’s the same person
so they’d re-figure themselves out again,
what they like and don’t like, who they like being around.
I stared at
Trunktide
and thanked her for her help
and said if she saw a blue dragon anywhere
missing memories
that might’ve been who I was looking for
but anyway
it was nice to meet her
and I’d be on my way.
And she said
watch out for other green dragons;
they tend
to eat mortals,
even witches.
Jordyn Saelor 