Memory Room: The Photo

Kaivey’s hand was so large, her wing feathers catching air in a way which made picking the photo up off the ground a small challenge. After a moment’s scrabbling, she gently opted to use claws.

The glossy surface looked like water, and the photo glowed with a warmth from hours of absorbed sunlight in whatever world it had slipped from in order to find itself here, on her pawpads.

In the photo, it was her, so small, covered in early years delicate fluff. That mixture of feathery textured fur was a mostly cream color, and she was standing facing the photographer, looking up from a small distance away, the flash of the camera filling her irises with reflected light beamed back as solid wide discs of silver, like the eyes of dead dried sardines.

“ ,,,, ,,, ,, –- ,, ,, ,, .. .. .. .. – – ~ ~` ` whatsa-- - -`` ~~ `` ~```-- – - ,, , - , , ,,, ,, ,, … .. .. ..”

Nerves fired along her back fur from low spine to high. As if someone were standing just ahead of her, off to her right, she heard the question dial in through static of other words not clear enough to be heard. It was a voice unused to speaking, sounds indistinct and musical. Then, her hand was holding a different photograph, and her hand was a different hand.

A smaller hand, with smaller, softer pawpads, and feathers like the duff of a hatchling chick.

In the smaller, softer hand, was a photograph of a tall creature standing in front of a strange house seemingly built of disparate parts, like a house quilted from scraps of other houses. In the photo the creature was a warm brown, with a tufted cream tail, gigantic but unheavy arms built for flight but distorted by pawpads, and a feline face below worn looking feather fringes, looking slightly puzzled in grey eye contact with the camera; this photograph of herself, she recognized.

She paused.

She looked around her at the cozy space, a dome ceiling of interwoven branches and roots and small circular windows. The floor and walls were soft with moss and pine needles. She knew this place somehow. Her wings, her hands, caught her attention once again, and she realized why she was here.

She was a very young person again. She had become the age she was in the photograph, and strangely, she had come home.

Not much existed in the small, warm space. The space seemed not to be realistic, for there was no door. It was self contained, with a small flat surface to serve as a table. There was nothing in this room, just the room itself, living and breathing just as much as her.

Kaivey walked to the flat surface, a circular cut out of a tree. She placed the photograph on the surface, wondering when and where she had found herself. It was not really her first home; after all, there was no door. Only faint memory existed of this place, but she did remember a door in and out. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked again at the photograph of herself as an adult.

She reached out to pick the photo up when static overtook her senses- she heard familiar sounds.

Then, suddenly, she was again an adult, looking at the photograph of herself as a young child.

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What does the item look like?

It is a photograph of Kaivey as a very young child. The photograph has a location encoded to it. The location is a circular room made of mostly living tree and moss. Picking the photo up triggers transport to this memory room, and becoming small. The photo trades places while she is in the memory room, and changes to depict her as an adult. Setting the photo down and picking it back up returns her to where she was before, and to her linear age.

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How did they get this item?

Unexplained right now, but physically the photo washed ashore outside her house.

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What meaning or purpose does it have to them?

Kaivey does not remember being small. In the first visit to the memory room described in this story, she regains some memory about where she lived as a child, which is why the room resembles this former home but has no door. The meaning and usefulness of this photograph and room may change over time, but on a basic level she is now in contact with her younger sense of self.

Badges from different places will be kept on the small table in the room.

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Why did they decide to take it with them?

This photograph is too weird and needs explanation. She often connects other people with things they might need. This photograph feels like the universe gifting her something in a similar way.