The Weight of a Memory

This is an original (so-far incomplete) fan-fiction by Synae. It's set in the modern version of Pyrrhia. It's kind of a short story, not a novel-length story or anything.
The song for this story is "Vanilla Twilight" by Owl City.
Characters are Baltic and Gobi.
== The Weight of a Memory ==
Baltic was sick of the sounds of pencil scratches. It had started to grate on her a long time ago, and now it was unbearable. She winced as she kept writing.
Five hundred more words, and she’d be done for the day.
The autumn wind that rushed through the open apartment windows was just slightly too cold, but Baltic couldn’t make herself get up to close them. She stayed rooted in her dilapidated office chair, scratching messy words onto crinkled paper with her almost-useless pencil.
“Don’t you have a pencil sharpener?”
“No.” Baltic whispered, not even glancing up at her SandWing roommate. She swallowed hard, shivering in the chill breeze. Five hundred more, five hundred more. What was she even writing? She’d forgotten long ago. Now her talons were on autopilot, mechanically churning out more fluff to her chapter. There was once a time when she had cared about what she was writing, and that was a bygone era.
“What are you writing?”
“Shut up, Gobi.”
Baltic gritted her teeth as she felt Gobi’s warm scales draw close to her. He peered over her shoulder at the chapter, casting a shadow on the paper.
“Seriously, what are you writing?”
“Can you please leave me alone?” Baltic asked, forcing her voice into a flat monotone. If she raised her voice, she would regret it. She always regretted it when she showed any emotion too strongly.
“Why should I?”
Be silent. Baltic demanded of herself. The breeze grew stronger, and the corner of the thin, creased notebook paper flapped in the air. Baltic slammed a talon on it with unnecessary force, accidentally tearing it.
Baltic stared at the page, her face slack. Hot frustration boiled in her, but she kept it at bay. It must not show on her face.
Not today.
With one calm, fluid motion, she crumpled the page into a ball and dropped it airily into the trash.
“Hey, that was good! Don’t throw your work away!” Gobi pulled away from her, a ridiculously shocked expression on his face. “It was just a little tear!”
Baltic walked away from him, refusing to reply, and made her way across the room to the kitchenette. It was messy. Dried splatters of packet sauce from two nights ago were plastered onto the counters, and the refrigerator was crowded with Gobi's useless magnets. The stove was covered in old crumbs, bits, and burned-on ashes. She halfheartedly rinsed out the saucepan from the night before, not bothering to completely clean it. 
Macaroni and cheese, just like they’d been eating for a week. It was cheap.
“I’m going to go for a hike.”
Baltic nodded slightly in response. She waited a few seconds, then heard Gobi slam the door.
Gobi went for hikes every day. Baltic had asked him once why he did, and Gobi had fumbled around the question, avoiding the answer. Baltic knew that Gobi hated lying, which was probably why he didn’t just say, “I like exercising.”
Really, she had no idea what Gobi did every day, and she didn’t care very much. Whatever it was, Gobi was a gentle soul, and there was no way he was causing any harm to anyone.
Baltic spent the rest of the evening alone, quiet and purposefully numb. Her book was laid aside to be finished some other day, another time when she got her inspiration back. Deep down, she knew that first love for her book would never come back, but she liked to pretend she didn’t care. That was her life as an apathetic, coldly cynical author and artist, just short of a starving artist. She sold her paintings in the farmer’s market and sold her books to publishers, and scratched out a sort-of satisfactory living.
Really, Gobi paid for more of the rent than he should have. Baltic was grateful, but for some reason she’d never really told him. She didn’t understand how one dragon could be kind enough to quietly help support someone who never wanted anything to do with him.
The sun, dimly visible through the smeared and dusty windows, slowly slipped down over the looming cityscape outside. Baltic didn’t notice at all. She started to doze off at the table.
The doorknob clicked. Baltic jerked awake, gasping, as Gobi hurried in from the stairwell. Gobi smiled pleasantly at Baltic, hanging up his coat. “You know, you do overwork yourself.”
“Oh, go to bed.” Baltic mumbled.
_____
The next day, Baltic drove a few miles away from the grey, looming city and towards the quieter suburbs and small towns. The farmer’s market was quieter than usual. The dragons in the booths sat forward with their eyes lazily half-closed, like someone had put a sleeping spell over them. She was there to buy tomatoes.
Dust floated softly over the market, leaving the shine of the fresh-picked vegetables slightly dulled. Baltic breathed in deeply, feeling the dust grate against the sides of her throat. SeaWings weren't supposed to breathe dust. They were supposed to feel cold, salty fresh water, tinged with seaweed, rushing through their gills and cleansing them from the inside out. But Baltic hadn't seen the ocean in years. The oil spills clogged the nearest beach too much, and rotting trash took the place of kelp forests and fish.
So she breathed dust, stoically eyeing the farmers in their booths.
She knew where the tomato farmer was. He was always there, some vague hybrid with a raspy voice and an old, worn-out straw hat. She bought tomatoes from him every month, as a sort of tradition, to make something other than cheap instant noodles for one night. Fresh marinara sauce, tomato stew, herb-and cream tomato soup, pot roast... it didn't matter. The tradition lasted from when she was a small child, raised in another small apartment with her single mother. But there was a difference there. Baltic's mother had kept the apartment pristine, sparkling clean.
When she died, the habits of cleaning apartments seemed to slip away. Baltic knew, deep inside her, that it wasn't laziness. It was the odd feeling that she couldn't quite place every time she wiped down the windows.
She fished her her purse, looking blankly down at the loose change. It seemed the pile of money decreased every day. For all she knew, this would be the last month of fresh tomatoes for dinner. Baltic set her jaw and marched down to the tomato farmer's booth. Whatever happened, she was going to get those tomatoes, and if it was the last time she could afford it, then by golly it was going to be a good dinner.
"Are you Gobi's roommate?"
Baltic whirled around, her heart leaping into her throat. A SandWing had been standing behind her the whole time.
She swallowed, regaining her composure. "Um, yes." Her voice came out hoarse. She coughed quietly. "Yes," she repeated. "Do you know him, or something?"
"Yeah, we're sorta friends." the SandWing said, smiling lopsidedly. He had the face of a trickster- laugh wrinkles and a permanent smirk. "He talks about you a lot."
"What?" Surprise edged into Baltic's blurted response.
"Yeah. I figured it was you 'cause he said you were a dark blue SeaWing with a broken horn, and that you wore these hippy-looking dangle earrings."
Hippy-looking? Baltic subconsciously reached up to touch her earrings, which had swirled tree-of-life designs on them. "Huh." she barked a laugh. "Okay, then."
"Anyway, well, he's here, too, you know. He was stopping by here on the way to..."
"To what?"
"He's over there right now." he said abruptly, as if ignoring his unfinished phrase. The SandWing gestured behind him towards a booth full of scarves, carpets, and tapestries. Sure enough, Baltic instantly recognized Gobi's sandy, freckled tail marked with faint brown diamond patterns, sticking out from a cloud of hanging area rugs.
For the first time in a very long time, a real, actual laugh bubbled up inside her. Baltic was stunned at the sound that escaped her lips. 
When was the last time she had laughed like that? Just a small, real laugh at something funny. It didn't seem like the kind of thing she was prone to do.
Baltic made her way through the smooth, worn-down dirt road to Gobi, who stumbled backwards out of the forest of hanging rugs just as she reached him. "Oh!" he exclaimed, looking Baltic over and smiling in surprise. "I didn't know you were here!" Gobi's entire face lit up whenever he smiled, and he seemed to glow- his eyes glowing soft orange like a sunrise and his deep dimples showing. It was a happy sight, and Baltic allowed herself to feel a bit of happiness because of it.
"I came here to buy tomatoes. I thought you were taking your hike today." Baltic cautiously let a smile linger on her face. 
Gobi's smile faded. "Oh... um, yeah."
Would Gobi ever just tell her what he was doing? Baltic half-closed her eyes, sighing quietly. At least the weirdly happy mood was ruined. "What are you doing, Gobi?"
"What am I doing?" Gobi's voice rose in pitch, cracking slightly. "Uh, well, I'm getting a rug, obviously!"
"No, you're not." It was an obvious fact that they couldn't afford a rug. Baltic held his gaze for a couple seconds, then decided to try getting to the point. "Why are you so afraid of telling me the truth?"
"I'm not lying to you!"
Baltic stared at him, her face stony. Gobi's gaze faltered.
She turned away, away from his cheerful, sloppily concealed secrets. It wasn't worth it to know. "Don't miss dinner. It might be the last tomato dinner we'll have, at this rate."
_____
There is nothing quite so awkward in the world as a silent dinner where both attendees are acutely aware that there are secrets being blatantly withheld.
Baltic slowly dipped her spoon in the tomato bisque she'd made, letting the thick soup wash around the spoon before actually eating it. She refused to look at Gobi, although the tiny table brought them so close that she was enveloped in the heat radiating from his scales. The occasional clink of spoons against bowls was equal to a flash of lightning, in the heavy, tangible silence that had settled around the room.
"Are you okay?"
Baltic jolted in her seat at the quiet question from Gobi, then looked up, utterly shocked. It was the last question she would've ever expected.
Gobi's soft orange eyes were glassy, unblinking, their usual energy dulled to a quiet glow. He stared Baltic straight in the eyes, not an intimidating stare, but the kind of stare when you're trying to read someone's mind but they aren't letting you in.
Flustered, Baltic thought about his question for far too long, each second of silence stretching like an eternity. "Um- uh- well, I, well-"
"You can think about it. I don't need an answer right now."
Baltic grabbed her bowl and abruptly stood up. Without saying anything, she turned heel and marched to the kitchenette, dumping the empty bowl and spoon in the plain metal sink. She stayed standing there for a long time, staring at the dishes, unable to turn and look at Gobi.
Are you okay?
Baltic wasn't okay, but she wasn't not okay, either. She was neutral, decidedly neutral, just like everything else. She'd worked hard to hold up that standard, and she wasn't going to just abandon it like that.
Are you okay? Are you okay?
The question repeated agonizingly around her head, like a broken record. Wasn't she okay? That was what she told herself. What did that question even mean? Why did it strike a chord deep in her soul, like that was the one question that was meant to topple the persona she'd built for herself? Frustration and anger welled in her like a hot, writhing mess, but it didn't show on her face. Nothing ever showed on her face. That was the way she liked it.
Did she like it?
Are you okay?
"Goodnight." she said, short and harsh. As she walked to the small bedroom and to her old mattress on the floor, she was painfully aware of Gobi's eyes on her, staring at her, watching her as she left the room. Bitterness washed over her, the feeling that most often seemed to cleanse her of all her other emotions, and she climbed onto the bed, letting it boil out everything else.
Bitterness was her saving grace.
_____
Baltic woke up early and wrote five chapters of her book. Early morning was a good time to work, because it gave her a fresh sense of productivity. There must be something about the still-black sky that worked as a canvas for the imagination, because all her best ideas came while she was waiting for daybreak. A sort of calm settled on her. She had sharpened her pencil with her own claws, and there was nothing quite so satisfying as seeing fresh, dark graphite appear effortlessly on paper after a pencil had been sharpened.
The dark, calm, sleepy silence of an early winter morning gave the world a fresh atmosphere. Baltic had always thought of it as a portal to a parallel universe- an eerie, subtle altercation in the fabric of reality that lasted until the weak city sunlight poured through her stained windows. It eased her mind.
Quiet footsteps came from behind her. Baltic turned, giving Gobi a blank look. "You're up early."
Gobi's heavy eyes were still filled with sleep, and his wings drooped. SandWings looked rather sickly and washed-out before the sun rose. "I should say the same to you." he mumbled, his words slurring slightly.
"I'm a writer," Baltic said calmly. "I can wake up as early as I choose. I often wake up this early to work. Do you want some coffee? There's still some left in the pot."
"I prefer tea."
"Suit yourself." Baltic turned back to her paper, but she her mind lingered on Gobi. She listened as he quietly filled up the rusted teakettle with tap water and set it on the gas stove to boil. Turning her mind back to her book, she wrote a few more words, trying to re-emmerse herself in her story's world. 
"I wish you'd tell me what you were writing." 
Baltic closed her eyes for a moment, silently sighing. "Why do you want to know so bad?" 
A few seconds of silence passed. 
"Because I'm a writer myself." 
"Hmm." Baltic set down her pencil, gently turning to face him. "Well, I didn't know that." 
Gobi looked at her from the corner of his eyes. The splatter of freckles on his face seemed to stand out more 
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Fanon)
Category:Genre (Short Story)
Category:Genre (Romance)