Memory is not an archive, however much scholars wish it were. I write because, after more than five centuries of life, I have learned that basic facts may remain while the smaller truths decay or warp: the exact turn of a phrase, the sound of a friend’s laughter, what I felt before later knowledge altered the recollection. Ink preserves the moment before memory begins adapting it.
Isha is the nearest exception to this that I have encountered. Her recall borders upon the eidetic. She can repeat conversations held ten or twenty years earlier with unsettling precision if given a name of a person she has met. She stated she can recall the words used, where each person stood, even pauses and changes in tone; she claims that each memory is linked to the face of the person. Yet her memory is, unfortunately, a gift she cannot set aside. At times, I have watched her face as some unwanted recollection surfaced without warning: her expression tightening, her eyes losing focus, the present moment briefly displaced by something only she can see. Those old voices and memories intruding upon the present, with faces, words, and feelings she would rather forget remaining as clear as those beside her now. That level of recall I would consider a true nightmare.
Esriella remembers differently. Her childhood remains bright, as do her recent years of travel with the White Wing, and nearly every detail concerning her son Valin. Other periods are strangely indistinct. She recalls little of her enslavement; whether because the memories were never firmly laid down or because some merciful part of her mind sealed them away, I know not. Matters of state fade from her almost as soon as they are resolved, leaving space for the people affected rather than the petitions themselves. Her most vivid memories, she has told me, are all linked to sights, smells, and music of our people.
I remember the past neither as Isha does nor as Esriella does. I retain patterns, arguments, and conclusions, but lose the lesser details of daily life. So I write. Not because my memory is poor, but because even a strong memory seems to choose what sort of past it wishes to preserve in our own minds.
— from the research notes of Zyr’Magi Tes’Lothen, Magi “the Blade”, high-aelv scholar, mage, and swordsman
