Until Then

The last handful of years had passed in a blur. It seemed like weeks, maybe, but people told Niall it had been two years, five years, six, since they had last seen him. A number of them, he couldn’t remember encountering even once in his life.

He best remembered the instructor who set about teaching him how to handle a mace. Evidently, Niall had been proficient with axes before the blow to his head. When he’d recovered enough of his coordination to walk and eat without assistance, a period of time others referenced but he did not recall, the shepherd bade him return to his studies.

“You’ll be a fine talent again, lad, I’m sure. Shake off the dust,” he’d said, sometime before or after fuming at Niall’s struggle swinging in the right direction.

It was among the few memories he managed to hold onto in those early days.

The instructor, an imposing woman with the close-cropped hair of newly-retired warriors, was more patient with him than anyone else, but her frustration was clear. No matter how many times she reminded him how to position the axe in his hand, he managed to do wrong by the time she stepped away.

His knowledge was gone.

It was this same instructor who suggested he pursue the mace. As she had some experience with both weapons, she dedicated the rest of their days together seeing to it that he absorbed enough familiarity with a mace to present himself to a new instructor.

Achieving this, Niall earned occasional nods from the shepherd, who seemed to regard his improvement as ‘passable.’

In the time since the Incident, Niall came to understand the shepherd was a sponsor of his rather than any direct relation. The Bran he and Maura – the shepherd’s daughter – sometimes spoke of had been a cousin, and Niall’s good friend.

Bran and Niall had met sometime as children, when Niall’s parents sent him to the cliff-side village in hopes of his one day becoming a high-ranking soldier.

He struggled to remember what happened and to whom he spoke from day-to-day, and when he consulted the notes he had scrawled to record events, he felt they had been written by a stranger. Even so, it seemed his note taking itself left much to be desired; throughout the record of each day, often was there a gap in the hours, accounted for only by large splotches of ink where he must have stalled the pen as he tried to recall what occurred.

Neither could he remember most names – either of place or person – or many details regarding their wielder that would allow their face to enter his memory. It seemed he met people every day offended or exasperated that he had forgotten them yet again.

Directions were easier. He wrote them down as he heard them, and consulting them frequently ensured he completed his tasks to the instructors’ satisfaction.

Eventually, someone suggested to him that he ought to do the same whenever he met a new person. The advice was not infallible, as he did not always have time to flip through his notes before encountering someone in the hall, but it saved him from the ire of enough people that he considered the remedy a success.

In spite of these troubles, Niall had, he was told, remained extraordinarily gifted in the realm of combat. He lost few sparring matches, and his skill with the mace was unmatched. The shield, he was not as adept at holding, but this, too, was said to be a consistent fault of his. In fact, it was reportedly the reason he had such difficulty remembering things.

Many were the rumors of how exactly it had happened. One instructor said Niall had taken a blow to the head by way of his opponent’s weapon; another claimed he had lost his balance after clumsily deflecting a blow, that he had injured himself by falling, instead. The shepherd told him the ground itself had given way.

People gave every explanation under the sun, but the truth of it didn’t matter much to Niall. It had no bearing on the present or the future. He never corrected those trying to give him an explanation for his troubles, as it seemed they thought it something he needed. It didn’t bother him.

What was unusual was that he remembered several such accounts. Not all of them, surely, but enough that led him to wonder now and then why he recalled some things but not others. Was it, in fact, a question that troubled him? Was it more important than he wanted to admit?

Or was it simply that there was no rhyme or reason to why he remembered the things he did? It would have been helpful to understand the workings of it, if only to harness it and employ it elsewhere.

Another thing, less hazardous but more disquieting, was the consensus he had once been someone else. Those who had known him when he was younger remarked on the change with what could only be called dissatisfaction.

“You’re altogether serious, now,” they would say with a mystified twist to their features.

Niall did not care for the idea he used to be the careless, undisciplined person many implied. The boy they spoke of seemed repugnant. He enjoyed callous jokes, endangered livestock for fun and games, engaged in gossip, and was by all accounts a selfish braggart.

Why did people miss him? Why did they not prefer the responsible, if at times forgetful, man who kept an even temper and was always willing to do his part?

He supposed this, too, mattered little at the end of the day. At some point, surely, people would know him only as he appeared before them now. That awful lout would disappear, and he would be himself again without worrying people wished to meet another whenever they spoke to him.