Thursday's memory came without trigger.
Astraea was helping Mrs. Evans fold laundry—a mundane, human task of sorting socks and smoothing wrinkles—when it simply arrived. Full-blown. Vivid.
Not a sensory trigger this time. A temporal one. The feeling of fabric in her hands. The rhythm of the task. The domestic peace of it.
She was in the human village at the mountain's base, not as a dragon but in human-like form—a skill she'd been learning. The village women were teaching her their ways: weaving, cooking, mending. They thought she was a strange, quiet child from up the mountain. They were kind.
Elara, the weaver's wife, showed her how to fold linen. "Like this, little one. Smooth the wrinkles. Make it neat."
Young Astraea (in human form, appearing perhaps eight years old) concentrated. Her dragon instincts wanted to perfect the task instantly, but she forced herself to move at human speed. To learn the way humans learned.
"You have clever hands," Elara said, watching her. "Like you've been doing this for years."
In dragon years, she had been alive for thirty. But in human tasks, she was a beginner. The contradiction amused her.
"Why do you fold it so carefully?" Astraea asked. "It will just be worn and wrinkled again."
Elara smiled, her hands moving with practiced ease. "Because care isn't about permanence, little one. It's about the moment. This moment, I care for this cloth. This moment, I make it neat. The next moment will bring its own needs."
She finished folding a shirt, her hands gentle. "We humans live brief lives. We don't have time for things to be perfect forever. So we care for them perfectly now."
The philosophy was so human. So ephemeral. And so beautiful.
Astraea finished folding her own shirt. It wasn't as perfect as Elara's, but it was hers. Done with her own hands, in this moment.
"Will you remember this?" Elara asked suddenly, her eyes knowing in a way that suggested she saw more than a strange mountain child.
"Yes," Astraea said. And she had. For four centuries.
Elara nodded, satisfied. "Good. Then it's not wasted. Even when the shirt is dust and I am dust, the care remains. In you."
The memory faded. Astraea's hands still held a sock. Mrs. Evans' laundry basket still sat between them. The moment was now. 21st century. Electric lights. Synthetic fabrics.
But the care was the same.
Mrs. Evans hummed as she folded, a tune Astraea didn't recognize. A human moment. Ephemeral. Perfect.
"Your hands have gotten so capable," Mrs. Evans remarked, not looking up. "When you first came, you fumbled with buttons. Now you fold like a pro."
"I had good teachers," Astraea said softly, thinking of Elara four centuries gone.
The memory should have been bittersweet. Elara was dust, as she'd predicted. The village was gone—probably buried under modern city. The linen shirt was certainly dust.
But the care remained. In Astraea. And now, in how she folded Mrs. Evans' socks.
At CYAP that day, the memories kept coming. Not triggered. Just… available. As if the dam had broken and now the past flowed freely.
During "Historical Sparkles" lesson, when Teacher Milly showed pictures of "ancient" Awakened (from 50 years ago), Astraea remembered real ancient Awakened—humans who'd learned magic from dragons, not gates. Their sparkles had been different. Not the bright, controlled things of modern CYAP, but wilder. More connected to the world.
She didn't mean to speak. But when Milly said, "And this is Master Kaelen, the first documented Tier 3!" Astraea murmured, "He learned from the Silver Mountain dragons. His sparkles were tuned to tectonic plates, not pretty colors."
The room went silent.
Teacher Milly blinked. "What was that, Raea?"
Astraea realized her mistake. "I… read it somewhere. In a story."
Milly's smile returned, relieved. "Stories can be so imaginative! But Master Kaelen learned from the first gate researchers, sweetie. There were no dragons."
There were. Astraea had met Kaelen. He'd been a young man then, earnest and overwhelmed by the scale of dragon magic. He'd called his tectonic-plate tuning "earth-sparkles."
But she just nodded. "Right. Stories."
Leo was watching her, his scientific mind connecting dots. Mia touched her hand under the table, a silent "I know."
The memories kept flowing. During lunch, the taste of apple slices brought a memory of orchards the village had tended—trees she'd watched being planted, now centuries gone. During recess, the feeling of sun on her skin brought memories of sunning on mountain ledges with her parents.
It was becoming hard to distinguish past from present. The memories weren't just recollections. They were experiences. Overlaying the now.
[System Notification]
[Memory Activity: Elevated]
[Multiple detailed recollections detected. Timeframe: Inconsistent with user's age.]
[Analysis: User demonstrates knowledge of historical periods predating birth by 200-400 years.]
[Hypothesis: Exceptional imagination combined with advanced pattern recognition.]
[Recording as: Skill - 'History Buff'!]
[Reward: +10 to 'Creative Imagination' stat]
[New Title: 'Storyteller Extraordinaire'!]
[Note: Having a good imagination helps us understand the world in new ways!]
The System's cheerful misclassification should have been funny. It was the exact thing the blueprint promised: the System catastrophically misunderstanding cosmic reality.
But in the moment, with Elara's teaching fresh in her mind and Kaelen's earnest face superimposed over CYAP posters, it wasn't funny. It was lonely.
The System saw centuries of lived experience and called it "Creative Imagination." It saw memory and called it "Storyteller Extraordinaire."
It was trying to be helpful. To categorize. To make the incomprehensible fit into its frameworks.
But the frameworks were too small. Like trying to pour an ocean into a cup labeled "Imagination."
After CYAP, walking home, Leo fell into step beside her. "The memories are coming more frequently," he stated. "Triggers are becoming less specific. Now domestic tasks activate them."
"They're not activated," Astraea said quietly. "They're just… here. All the time. Like a radio tuned to two stations at once."
"Synesthesia of time," Leo said, making a note in his mental catalog. "Present sensations evoking past experiences with equal vividness. Common in certain neurological conditions. And, apparently, in dragons recovering from centuries of stasis."
"Is it going to keep getting worse?" Astraea asked, and hated that she sounded like a child asking if a scrape would stop hurting.
"Unknown," Leo said with scientific honesty. "But if pattern holds, frequency will increase until… integration." He looked at her. "You're not just growing physically. You're integrating four centuries of frozen experience."
They walked in silence. The city around them—cars, gates, Awakened advertisements—felt thin. Like a curtain over a deeper, older world.
At home, Mrs. Evans was making dinner. The scent of sautéing onions filled the apartment. Another memory surfaced: Elara teaching her to cook over a hearth fire. "Onions are the base of everything good," Elara had said. "Like kindness is the base of everything good in people."
Same lesson. Different teacher. Different century.
"Everything alright, sweetie?" Mrs. Evans asked, noticing her stillness.
"Just remembering," Astraea said.
Mrs. Evans smiled. "Good memories, I hope."
"The best," Astraea said, and it was true. Even the painful ones—the losses, the goodbyes—were precious because they proved she had lived. She had loved. She had been part of things.
That evening, as she did homework (simple math problems that felt absurd after calculating orbital mechanics with her father), memories floated through her mind like leaves on a stream. Not intrusive. Just present.
She measured her height: 152.7 cm. Growth still minimal. Energy diverted to memory integration.
The System offered another notification:
[Skill Level Up: 'History Buff' is now Level 2!]
[New Ability: 'Vivid Recall' - Your historical imaginings are more detailed!]
[Reward: +5 to 'Focus' stat]
[Note: Keeping track of details helps us tell better stories!]
Astraea looked at the notification. The System was so earnest. So completely wrong. It was giving her rewards for being herself. For remembering her own life.
She imagined trying to explain: This isn't imagination. This is Thursday, November 12, 1642. I was in the Library of Silver Leaves. It was raining, and the memory-leaves were drinking the rain, and the knowledge in them was growing.
The System would say: [What a wonderful story! +5 to Creativity!]
The comedy was cosmic. And currently, it hurt.
She checked on the moonthread plant. It had grown again. Its crystalline structure was more complex now—fractal patterns emerging in the leaves. It glowed with a light that matched her sparkles exactly.
Mia had said plants remember. This one remembered so well it was becoming what it remembered: a plant from a dragon's garden, tended by starlight.
Before bed, she tried something. She focused on a single memory—Elara folding linen. She held it in her mind, examining it. Not just reliving it. Understanding it.
The care in Elara's hands. The philosophy in her words. The love in the teaching.
And she realized: the memory wasn't just about folding laundry. It was about transmission. Elara teaching her. Her remembering. Her now, folding laundry with Mrs. Evans.
The care was passed. Not perfectly. Not permanently. But passed.
The memory settled then. Not as an intrusive overlay, but as integrated knowledge. She understood it. She owned it.
Perhaps that was the process. Not just remembering, but integrating. Making the past part of the present rather than a ghost haunting it.
[System Notification]
[Memory Integration Detected]
[Process: Emotional and cognitive synthesis of recalled material]
[Status: 23% of recent memory influx integrated]
[Note: Learning from our experiences helps us grow! Even imaginary ones!]
Still wrong. But closer.
The System was learning. Slowly. It saw "integration" where before it saw only "imagination." It was a child learning to describe colors it had never seen.
Astraea lay in bed, the memories swirling gently. Not overwhelming now. Just… there. Like furniture in a familiar room.
She had lived centuries. She had known dragons and humans. She had seen libraries burn and recipes survive. She had been taught by weavers' wives and cosmic makers.
And now she was here. Folding socks. Learning sparkle-safety. Being a child again, but with all that behind her.
The System called it "History Buff." Called her "Storyteller Extraordinaire."
Maybe, in a way, it was right. She was a storyteller. The stories were true. And she was living the next chapter.
The System saw centuries of life and called it imagination. But imagination was just memory of things that hadn't happened yet. And her memories were real. They just hadn't happened to anyone else in a very, very long time.