-Memories-

Sage just couldn't sleep, his mind was racing. There used to be a whole other version of him, a version before all this war, a version that lived as a normal fairy.

Well I guess that isn't really true, the other version of himself lived as a prince, and didn't think twice about pushing Aqua into a tree. How did he even do that? That root thing must have been hard to move.

And just when he thought he was drifting off to sleep, he was back at his old home.

In the castle.

He couldn't believe how fancy everything was. He walked down the big empty hallway, trying to find his past self, until he heard a huge thump. He rushed towards the noise, and saw the room it was coming from, but before he could open the door, someone else did.

His father came rushing into the room, shouting at his past self.

"SAGE!! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU TO STOP DROPPING THINGS!!"

Once the door was opened, Sage could see the whole scene. His dad was upset with him for dropping this huge rock in the middle of a strange room, full of plants and rocks of all sizes.

"I'm still learning, I just made a mistake, calm down."

"Calm down? I was having a discussion other domain leaders, only to have to rush out of the room since my son can't lift a boulder."

Past Sage looked down in shame.

"Maybe if I was only studying the stuff everyone else is learning in school I wouldn't be so bad at it." Past Sage argued.

"You're supposed to be royalty, you're stronger than the other fairies, and that's why you have to train harder." His father explained, in the same calm voice he used to push Sage to hurt Aqua later in the story.

"Well, maybe I don't wanna be royalty." Past Sage said, taking the crown off his head and throwing it to the ground like it meant nothing.

"Keep failing and you might just get your wish. However, that would be a shame. You were prophesied to save this village after all, but I guess you would prefer to watch to everyone die."

His father left the room, his long red royal cape dragging across the floor of the hallway. Sage entered the room his past self was in, as his past self looked longingly at the window.

"I'm sorry." His past self said,

"But I can't do this."

He leaped through the window, his wings catching him as he soared and had a much better landing than present Sage did when he had snuck out.

Sage didn't have a way of following him, and everything just faded again until he was still in his bed.

There was a beam of light coming through his curtains, it was morning, he was unconscious for a bit, but he didn't sleep at all. He didn't feel he had slept anyway. But he had a newfound determination, he wanted to learn how he could lift that rock, or do that thing with the roots. If he learnt it once he could learn it again.

And so he sprung out of bed, got dressed and headed to Aqua's door, knocking the appropriate amount of times. Aqua swung open the door.

"You're up early." Aqua said.

"Can you teach me how to lift heavy things like rocks?"

"I'm assuming you mean lift it with your magic, like telekinesis?" Aqua said, moving out of the way of the door to let Sage in.

"Yes, of course I mean with my magic." Sage walked in the spare room and found his seat.

"Just checking." Aqua sat down on the table again.

"Okay, so today we're going to learn about manipulating plants." Aqua said.

"Wait, what? No rocks?" Sage eyed them suspiciously.

"That's way too advanced, it took you a full day to grow a plant." Aqua retorted.

"I did grow it eventually though!!" Sage argued.

"I know, and that's why we're trying something new." Aqua said, turning their book so Sage could see the pictures,

"Nature fairies can cause plants to be shaped differently too." The book showed a picture of a flower with the stem bent to form the shape of a star. "You think you can do something like that?" Aqua asked.

"Well, maybe, but that wouldn't help if I had to face off against hunters again."

Sage hadn't even realised he had said anything wrong until Aqua's expression dropped.

"Wait, what do you mean again? Have you seen hunters before? In this life?"

Sage looked down. "Yeah, I got an invitation to a ball..." "Oh the one held here, in the Mushroom Domain? I heard that hunters had raided it. They snuck in, thanks to their 'cleaver' head-hunter." Aqua suddenly realised Sage had distracted them. "Yes, but practicing this will make bending and moving plants freely come easy to you, and that will be very helpful. Let's go out to your backyard and I'll read you the instructions." Sage agreed, and followed Aqua down the stairs, but halfway down the steps he started to feel kind of dizzy.

"Aqua...I think-"

Aqua heard a loud thud behind them, and they realised Sage must have missed a step and fell down the stairs.

"Sage?" Aqua turned around and saw Sage passed out with his head on the bottom step. They gently lifted his head and saw he was muttering things while unconscious. They were relieved, that means he must be having another flash.

...

Sage saw himself from the past.

He was sitting on a park bench...he looked like he was waiting for someone. It must have been late fall, since all the colorful leaves were on the ground now. Sage didn't really get why this was an important memory, he was just sitting there.

Waiting.

For what? He walked closer to his past self, he noticed he was holding a rose.

They weren't coming. Whoever he was waiting for clearly wasn't coming.

"Hey." He flicked his past self in the face "They're not coming, idiot."

Of course, this did nothing. Sage was still trapped in the memory, stuck waiting for someone.

He didn't know what else to do, so he sat beside his past self on the bench.

His past self looked up, he heard someone coming. It was a girl with brown hair with streaks dyed pink, Sage knew that girl. That was Josephine, his friend from the fairy ball, he recognized her immediately, I guess they knew each other.

"Hi!" His past self said with a smile, Sage realised that up until this point he hadn't seen his past self happy before.

Josephine sat beside his past self, making Sage stand up so he could see the memory.

"I'm sorry, I have to go back to my domain." Josephine started to explain, "But it was nice knowing you."

"So, that's it?" His past self said.

"I don't know what else to say, it wasn't my decision." Josephine responded.

"Well, okay then." Josephine stood up and walked away. Past Sage didn't look at her at all, just stared down at the leave-covered ground. Sage felt like he had walked in the wrong movie at a theater, he had no clue what just happened. What's the use in seeing your memories if they aren't in order?

But he slowly opened his eyes and found himself back on his couch. He smelt eggs.

"Aqua?" He called out, "Oh hey, you're awake." He heard in response, Aqua sat beside him.

"What did you see?" Aqua asked.

"I saw Josephine." Sage said, although he supposed Aqua wouldn't know who that was.

"Oh." Aqua said, but from their awkward expression maybe they did, "That's not important."

Okay, who made them the boss of which of his memories were important or not?

"Want some breakfast?" Aqua changed the subject, "Sure." Sage replied.

...

The third time it happened was when Sage was out in his backyard, with the book Aqua gave him beside him, trying to shape a flower's stem into a star.

He bent his hands over it, drew the star symbol out with his finger, everything the book said to try, but nothing was working. He couldn't get it right. It reminded him of having his binder open and sprawled across his bed, filled with math worksheets, his computer on his lap as he tried to understand homework that was due long ago. This mattered for his survival though, this wasn't something he could procrastinate on, but it wasn't something he could watch video tutorials online for either.

Why couldn't he do it?

Why-

Suddenly he felt dizzy again.

No, not right now.

This was starting to get annoying.

He felt his head hit the soft grass, and suddenly he saw his past self back at school. He was outside on the schoolyard, with his lunch bag beside him, so it must have been lunch break, and he was drawing in his sketchbook.

I guess he's always liked to draw.

And then he saw Aqua, and Josephine beside them, and someone else too but Sage didn't recognize her. They were walking towards his past self, but they all stopped before they were in his sight.

"We can't all go together, he'll know something's up." Aqua said.

"I can't talk to him, he's still all mad at me." Josephine said. He was mad at her?

They turned to the girl with long black hair that stood beside them.

"Hey Amethyst, weren't you and Sage friends a while ago?" Aqua asked.

"Yeah...but that was a really long time ago." Amethyst said.

"And you haven't talked to him since?" Aqua asked.

"No, I guess not." Amethyst said.

Aqua smiled at this. "Then he won't suspect a thing." They said, handing Amethyst a beaded braclet. She continued walking over to past Sage as the others watched.

"Hey, Sage?" She said, catching his past self's attention,

"Oh...hi, I didn't know you went here now." Past Sage said.

"I totally forgot you went here too, but I made this for you." She said, holding up the small beaded braclet.

"Really? I kinda thought we weren't on the same page anymore." Past Sage said, as he took the braclet from Amethyst, Sage could hear the others giggling quietly from around the corner.

The second his past self put the braclet on his wrist, blood came spewing out his mouth. He immediately put both his hands over his mouth as he looked up at Amethyst with a face of horror. The others laughed hard as Sage ran to the school doors, Sage chased after his past self.

He ended up chasing himself through the hallway and into the bathroom, where he saw himself open his mouth to cough, but several loose teeth fell out of his mouth.

Why would they do this?

Why would Aqua do that?

Past Sage tried to wash the blood out of his mouth but it just kept coming, he had lost about four of his front teeth after all.

Sage closed his eyes, he didn't want to see any more of this. When he heard he was a prince he though that meant something, he thought he had a good life before.

He thought that people liked him.

And that's it.

He was lying on the grass again.

He picked his head up, and saw the book was right where he left it.

He felt mad at Aqua, even though they were nicer now, they still did something to that braclet in the past. Something that made his teeth fall out.

He opened the book again, and tried to twist the stem into a star with his magic, but he just couldn't get it off his mind. Aqua did that, and then a couple years later asked to live with him just because he didn't remember it.

Sage angrily threw his hand up, and the plant moved, but it didn't make a star.

All the petals popped out, and the empty stem fell limp.

Well, there was no point in trying to think about something else now.

Sage stormed up the stairs, and into the spare room, where Aqua was filling their purse.

"Oh hey Sage, I'm just going to go out and find some ingredients for a power-boosting potion if you want to keep practicing while I'm gone. It should help you get the hang of things." Aqua said, not looking up at him.

"Can you curse something?" Sage asked.

This made Aqua stop what they were doing, and turn around to face him.

"Yes, you can curse objects, but why would you want to do that?" Aqua responded.

"Is that what you did to make my teeth fall out?" Sage asked, with an angry voice that hardly sounded like his own.

"Oh...I really hoped that memory wouldn't come up." Aqua said, walking closer to Sage as he took two steps back, "There's a lot of things I did, things I'm not proud of."

"You seemed pretty proud of yourself." Sage said.

"Well I was a just a sad kid, and so I joined a group of other sad kids that were all jealous of you." Aqua explained.

"Jealous of me?"

"Yes? Who wouldn't have been? You were the prince, you lived in a castle." Aqua said.

And yet the only memory Sage had of that castle was his father yelling at him.

"Well, I guess that makes sense." Sage said.

"I'm not saying it was deserved, I took things way too far on multiple occasions...I'm sorry." Aqua said.

Sage smiled.

"You had pretty good fashion sense for a sad kid, you know?" Sage said, trying to lighten the mood after he had darkened it.

"Ah...you really think so?" Aqua asked.

"Yeah! You had like those leggings with the stars on them, and that skirt with the chains..."

Sage didn't really know who Aqua was before but he knew who they were now.

And Aqua was his friend now.