Scalies' Nest

Aeris is.. technically me, but also not.

Artwork by Libertades

I can access her memories from when she lived as a dragon. They don't feel like my own memories though, because this is my first life. She truly lived before me, experienced an entire lifetime as a dragon, and eventually died. After her death, she became an ancestor, a spirit watching over the living dragons.

Then something changed.

At some point, Syrinax, my mate, tried to prevent her death. Instead of saving her, whatever he did unraveled her entire existence. Rather than bringing her back, it was as if her life as a dragon had never happened at all.

Her soul was rewritten. It was reshaped into a completely new beginning. And that new beginning is.. me.

From my perspective, this is my first life because it genuinely is. Aeris isn't my past life in the traditional sense. Her existence was erased from history, and my soul is what remained after it was remade. In a way, I inherited fragments of who she was, which is why I can still experience her memories, even though they don't truly belong to me. No one remembers Aeris anymore, except Syr

The closest comparison I can think of is "Back to the Future". Imagine someone traveling into the past to save another person's life, but instead accidentally changing events so drastically that the person was never born in the first place. Everyone else's memories adjust to the new timeline as if that person never existed. Except the time traveler still remembers.

That's essentially Syrinax's situation. He remembers Aeris because he was the one who altered the timeline. To everyone else (including history itself) she never existed. My existence is the result of that paradox.

But there's still one thing that remains unanswered: If Aeris was truly erased from existence, then why does her spirit still exist at all? And why can I interact with her?