Archive of Our Own ^beta

For what had to be the millionth time, Kima stared at the blonde hair spread out on the pillow next to her. How had she ended up here again? As soon as her memories had come in, she’d sworn, sworn , not to do this again. Had thought about joining some militant environmental group and getting herself shipped off to the Arctic. Or the Antarctic, whatever they were into these days. 

Yet here she was. And here Allura was. Definitely not in some cold, arctic research station together. Although with the way this damn curse worked, she would have come across Allura there too.

“Mmh, good morning,” Allura hummed, turning around to face her.

“Hey, morning,” Kima replied. And as Allura opened her eyes, Kima knew why they were here again. 

Allura looked roughly the same every time they met. Blonde hair, sometimes in braids, sometimes not. A sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her clothes blue, usually dresses, but always stylish and era-appropriate. But her eyes, Kima wasn’t sure why or how, but every time they were reborn or whatever it is they were, Allura’s eyes were different. Always blue, of course, but the shade was always different. Sometimes, a pale icy blue, a bright sky blue, or a dark ocean blue. Not once had they been the same, but they were always just as hypnotizing.

Allura brushed her thumbs across Kima’s cheekbones, stopping on the scar that ran from her right brow all the way down across her cheek. Just as Allura's appearance always stayed the same, so did Kima’s, and so did the scar. It had never been a big deal before, but while they didn’t change, the times did. And generally, nowadays, large facial scars were a rarity. One treated with either suspicion or pity.

Kima couldn’t remember how she got this one. There had been too many stories. A beast, a weapon, a war, an accident. All things to explain away the scar 8-year-old Kima had gotten so many years ago defending her siblings from a creature that couldn’t be found in a storybook, let alone a history one.

Gods, she could barely remember her siblings. It had been so long… It was probably for the best. It wouldn’t be fair for them to get continuously reborn with Kima. Although reborn probably wasn’t the right word. She kind of sprung into adulthood. No parents, no family, but a whole life set up for her, as if she’d always lived it. Literally born with a job, she was. 

Of course, while she had a life, and fake memories of how to live that life and function in this new society, she also had the memories of the hundreds of times she had lived a life just like it before.

She remembered worlds full of magic and monsters, worlds full of wars and disease, worlds with none of those things, and worlds with all of them. This however was the first world where the knowledge of an entire library fit into her pocket without the use of magic. She really understood this world the least.

“I can hear your thoughts,” Allura hummed, her voice still soft and rough from sleep.

“What?!” Kima said, eyes wide.

Allura chuckled. “Not really. I just meant you are thinking so deeply I can almost hear them.”

“Oh, right,” Kima said, running a hand through her hair. She hadn’t been in this world very long, and honestly, mind-reading would not be out of the realm of possibility.

“What were you thinking about?” Allura asked, scooting closer, pressing herself against Kima’s chest, tucking her head underneath Kima’s chin.

Oh, if only I could tell you , Kima thought, that would really make this whole thing so much easier .

She could never tell Allura, of course. Because if she did, this world would end, and they would be whisked away to the next one. So as Kima was cursed with remembering, Allura was cursed to forget.

For Allura, they always met for the first time. No history, no different lives, no curse, just them, living in the moment, falling in love. Of course, then Kima would eventually screw it up and they would have to start all over again.

“Well, I’m thinking of very different things right now,” Kima smirked, letting her hands run down Allura’s back to lightly rest on her ass.

Allura laughed, the sound reminding Kima once more that there really was no avoiding this.

She had tried, of course, she had tried. To live her life without Allura in it. They would just meet, as always, and that was it. No follow-up. They would briefly lock eyes across the street and Kima would not pursue, not speak with her, not become friends, and they would definitely not date. It hadn’t worked out so far. And she had tried .

She was pretty sure it wasn’t even this damn curse of theirs. It was just Allura. How could she not fall in love with her?

“I have work, Kima,” Allura whispered, moving Kima’s hands to a more respectable place on her back.

“I can be quick,” Kima grinned, already shimmying down the bed.

“Kima!” Allura laughed, pawing at Kima’s head through the sheets. Whether to push her away or pull her closer, Kima wasn’t sure.

“Five minutes,” Kima muttered, pressing kisses to Allura’s stomach, as she waited for her reply.

There was a moment of hesitant silence before Allura sighed.

“Fine, you have five minutes. And not a second longer.”

Five minutes later, Kima watched proudly as Allura walked to the bathroom on shaky legs.

As she didn’t have to be at the gym until midday, Kima stared at the ceiling, hands folded behind her head.

She and Allura had been dating for a few months now. There had been talk about moving in together when Kima’s lease was up in another two months. She wondered if they’d make it that far.

There had been times early on in this endless cycle of reincarnation where their relationships lasted for decades, but for the last couple of tries Kima hadn’t been able to make it last longer then a few months. One forgettable life she’d only made it one date before slipping up and telling Allura their entire story. Sooner or later she always screwed up and they faded out of existence and started over somewhere new.

There had to be some sort of trick she wasn’t getting. Something she could do to break this curse. Because the one thing she was certain of was that this was a curse.

It should be a blessing, endless lifetimes with the one she loved, and it would have been if only Allura could remember…

Now there was always this invisible barrier between them made of things Allura didn’t remember and things Kima couldn’t say. Allura didn’t really know her, didn’t really know herself , while Kima knew too much, previous lives starting to blur together.

“You’re doing that thing again,” Allura said, startling Kima out of her thoughts.

“Mmhh? What thing?” Kima asked, watching as Allura walked through the room clad only in a towel.

“Thinking yourself into knots. What’s on your mind, love?”

“Nothing important,” Kima lied. “Just what I’m going to have for dinner.”

Allura chuckled. “Must be a difficult choice between chicken and chicken.”

“Funny,” Kima said, getting out of bed to walk over to Allura, tugging away her towel. “I do eat other things you know.”

“Yeah, me,” Allura grinned, dancing out of Kima’s reach. “But not right now. I’m already late.”

Kima looked at the clock and pouted. “Your class doesn’t start for another ninety minutes.”

“I have to get to the library before that. You can have your wicked way with me tonight, Kima,” Allura said as she quickly started getting dressed.

“I was gonna go home tonight,” Kima said, spinning Allura’s towel around. “I’m covering for Will so I have to work late. Tomorrow?”

Allura nodded. “Tomorrow then. Will you cook for me?”

Kima smiled. “Of course, it’s the only way I can make sure you have all the food groups and not just coffee for dinner.”

“You know me too well,” Allura said, leaning down to kiss Kima, only half dressed in a skirt and bra.

You have no idea , Kima thought.

“Come on! Five more! You can do it!” Kima said, encouraging the woman laying panting on the mat on the floor.

The words just kind of bubbled up automatically if she didn’t think about it too much. If she concentrated too much on the fact that she didn’t actually know what the hell a personal trainer was or did, she fucked up. Same with driving a car or using the internet. Her body knew what to do, even if her mind didn’t.

Her client managed five more pushups and then collapsed on the ground with a smile.

“Good session,” Kima congratulated her. “Ten-minute cooldown walk on the treadmill and I’ll see you next week.”

Weaving between the fitness machines, she made her way to the staff room. She had about fifteen minutes before Will’s client was gonna show up for their session, giving her just enough time to pull their training plan and eat something.

She was already halfway through her rice bowl when she found Will’s binder of training plans, promptly starting to choke on her last bite as she saw the picture attached to Glenn Vandervoort’s file.

The name was obviously a fake, but familiar enough, because staring back at her from the picture was someone she knew. Someone she knew very well and hadn’t seen in about two millennia.

Kima coughed up the rice that had gone down into her lungs. 

It had to be a coincidence. It had to be. Never, never in any of her lifetimes had someone she knew in her first life been reincarnated with them. Never in two-thousand years.

She left her dinner on the table and rushed to the lobby. Maybe this Glenn could help her break the curse for once and for all.

It was odd, the memory of them had been vague before right now, replaced by the faces she’d met in a thousand other lifetimes, but now it was as clear as if she’d last seen them yesterday.

“Ghenn?” Kima called, watching her friend from the past turn as their name was called.

They hadn’t changed a bit, same lanky body, same floppy blue mohawk, dressed completely inappropriate for a gym in a leather skirt and cropped hoodie.

“Hey Kee,” Ghenn greeted with a smile.

“Oh, thank the gods it’s actually you,” Kima said, rushing to give her oldest friend a hug.

“Who else here could be this handsome?” Ghenn joked.

Kima grabbed their hand and dragged Ghenn into the staff area. They needed to talk. Now.

“How-how are you here?” Kima asked after making sure the lounge was empty.

“I’m not entirely sure. I was dead, and now I’m not, but I still am? I don’t know. And this place is weird but I somehow understand it perfectly?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s messed up. Ghenn, please tell me you know how to fix this.”

“Fix what?”

“Allura’s memory, please. Whenever I tell her something about our past lives the one we’re in ends and we have to start all over again.”

“Allura’s here too?”

Kima nodded, her heart sinking. “You didn’t know?”

“No, I just - I just woke up here with a little rectangle with the name of this training ground on it.”

“Your gym membership pass, yeah…” Kima sighed. “So Bahamut didn’t send you?”

Ghenn thought for a second. “I think he must have… I was with him after I died. I wouldn’t have been able to leave Mount Celestia without his permission.”

“Did he tell you anything? A message you had to give to me or something?”

Ghenn shook their head. “No, I don’t think so. Not that I remember, anyway.”

“Then why would he send you? Sorry, Ghenn, not that I am not happy to see you. I am. I really am. It’s great to talk with someone who remembers, I just -”

“You wish Allura would remember. Hey, I get it. No offense taken. Maybe I can still help? The place I woke up, my apartment? I think something there that might be of use to you.”

Kima grabbed her coat. “Let’s go then. Something of use is better than anything I’ve gotten in the last two-thousand years.”

“Two-thousand? Damn, that’s a long time.”

“Yeah, it is. Let’s go.”

Kima drove them to Ghenn’s place on the outskirts of the city as Ghenn was still too fascinated by everything in this world to pay much attention to things like the road. Or traffic laws.

“Do you have one of those phones I keep thinking about?”

“Yeah, I do. I’m sure you have one in your place as well. Everyone here has one.”

“And it lets you talk to anyone on the planet? And read entire libraries?”

“Uhu, it does. Next left?” Kima said, tapping on the steering wheel. She understood Ghenn’s fascination with the wonders of this world, but this was the closest she’d ever been to a solution for the curse.

“Yeah, next left, and then it’s in one of those towers.”

Kima drove slowly until Ghenn recognized their building and then parked haphazardly in the nearest spot.

“So, what’s the something you think might be useful?” Kima asked as they took the elevator up to the top floor, where Ghenn apparently lived.

“A little Bahamut idol. It’s pretty much the only thing in this apartment . Must be important.”

Kima desperately hoped it was. Perhaps Bahamut had finally found a way to reach out to her and tell her to fix Allura’s memory.

Stepping into Ghenn’s place was odd. It felt like no place Kima had been in any of her recent lives. It was positively thrumming with divine power, radiating off the small dragon statue sitting on the kitchen counter.

“Can you feel that?” Kima whispered.

“Feels just like a temple,” Ghenn said. “It didn’t feel like that when I left.”

Kima swallowed, stepping close enough to the statue that if she reached out she could touch it.

She kneeled in front of it, her hand automatically going to a holy symbol that was no longer there.

“Bahamut, please tell me how to break this curse,” she whispered, slowly putting her hand on top of the dragon’s head.

Immediately, she heard a deep, rumbly, and rich voice inside her head.

My champion, Bahamut spoke, it has been many eons since we last spoke. You have forgotten much.

Kima chewed on her lip, feeling like a child who’d just disappointed their parent.

“What have I forgotten?” she asked.

That this is a curse of your own making. You and your wife cheated death in Exandria, and every world since.

“What do you mean? How did we cheat death?”

You simply refused to let lady Allura die when her life came to an end, instead opting to start over somewhere else.

“I - I did that? I don’t remember.”

You and your lady amassed a lot of powerful magicks in your lives in my world. You found a way no one ever found before.

“If we did this ourselves, then why doesn’t Allura remember?”

I do not know. Perhaps it was her choice. To forget all you would leave behind. Start fresh instead.

“But-” Kima started, not knowing what to say. “Is there a way to get her to remember? I - I miss the Allura’s I knew.”

I can return her memories to her, but –

Bahamut was quiet for a moment.

Once she remembers, the cycle will end. This life together will be your last.

Kima gasped. “That isn’t fair! How can I make that choice for the both of us? Please, let Allura have her memories now, just for a moment, so we can decide together!”

She decided to forget the first time for a reason, my champion. What makes you think she’d choose different now?

“I-I don’t know. But you said I wasn’t ready to give her up before. I am now. If I can have the rest of this life with her, fully with her, then it will be enough.”

Then you’ve made your choice.

“What?! No! I didn’t mean! No!” Kima cried, but the divine presence she’d felt was gone, the apartment empty. Even Ghenn had disappeared.

“Shit,” she cursed. “Shit, fuck, shit!” She needed to get home. Now.

She broke several speed limits as she raced to Allura’s place, taking the stairs up three at a time.

“Allie?” She called, knocking on the door, completely forgetting she had keys.

The ten seconds it took for Allura to open the door took forever.

“Kima?” Allura said, pale blue eyes wide and teary. “I remember.”