’

 Preface 
You are… Well, you’re not sure who you are anymore. You just woke up moments ago. You do not
remember your name or anything about your life, nor do you know where you are. All you know is
that you have a pen, a journal, and a story on the tip of your tongue.

In this solo journaling RPG, you will play as somebody whose memories have mysteriously disappeared, waking
up in the middle of a vast, bountiful forest. As your nameless character, you will wander through the wood
rediscovering your past through once forgotten memories. Each memory is a step on the journey you’ve already
taken—a past you cannot change, but can learn from. So, join your character as they learn who they are–or who
they were–and who they can become.

You will need a journal (a notebook & writing utensil, or a blank document).

As the player, you will interact with this world through your journal. You can create anything you’d like. Poems,
journal entries, letters, or something else entirely (like art), it’s up to you! All types of creativity are encouraged for
this game. The goal is simple: experience the story given to you, and then convey it from your character’s point of
view, adding their attributes, emotions, and thoughts on the situation. You will create your character along the way.

There will be several occasions that, while reading this, you may think to yourself, “that is very vague.” This is on
purpose—I would like you to fill those things in for me. After all, this is your character—I won’t take all of your
agency! Instances of this will be noted in bold. I’d recommend writing them down somewhere, perhaps between your
entries. I’d also recommend keeping your entries less than a page long. Character naming help on page 24.

Trigger warning: major memory loss across the whole story; loss of mother [implied death (or
abandonment, if you choose)] in chapters 3 and 4; divorce.

1
  Chapter 0 — The Fool 
Bellis Perennis (Daisy): Innocence

You awaken in the light of dawn—you think—under the cover of foliage so

thick the sun only barely peeks through to kiss your exposed skin at random intervals.
As you simply breathe in the environment—the scent of flowers, the sight of leaves, the
sound of a babbling brook, the taste of morning dew in the air and the feeling of raw
earth beneath your fingertips and body—you come to realize something. While where
you are is tranquil and nearly overwhelms you with a serene calmness, you have no
idea where this “where” is. You sit up quickly to take in the environment from a new
perspective, a new understanding that you do not understand a thing.

Around you are countless white daisies, nearly a full circle surrounding your
body perfectly as though you, too, sprouted from this earth as a part of this patch of flowers. Something else dawns on
you, suddenly and rapidly, as though it had hit you in the face: you have no idea who you are. You know for certain
you did not sprout from the earth (even though it looks like it), because you are clothed, and you are decidedly not a
flower.

Panic sets in quickly. You do not know who or where you are—of course you panic! You look over the clothes
on your body for a sign of who you are. Though they are appealing to you, they do not spur any memories. You
steady your breathing, if only the fault of the relaxing scent of the daisies. You touch your face, your hair, as though
that will help. It obviously does not.

You sigh, wondering what else you can do to solve this looming mystery.

A leather bag is slung over your shoulder, you finally notice, and you immediately dig through it for any
clues of who or where you are. You take out many items that may once have been a representation of who you were
before, but now have no meaning to you One of these things is a small box with an engagement ring inside. You
wonder if that is yours, or for someone else. You do not know, and it is a haunting feeling. The only thing that you
can put any meaning to is a thick, leaf-tipped pen, and a leather-bound journal. The journal is entirely empty, which
is largely unhelpful, but holding the pen and the journal together imbues you with what could only be described as
inspiration.

Though you do not know who you are, you know for certain that you are a writer, of some sort. Not because
the journal is empty (though that’s a good clue), but because you feel a strong urge to put the pen to the first page
and just start writing. So, you write.

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  Chapter 1 — The Magician 
Myrtus Communis (Myrtle): Memory

Your scribing ultimately comes to an end, and you close your journal, satisfied
with what you have written, at least. After replacing each item into your bag, you
carefully stand, once more surveying your surroundings. You see a path, and you begin
to follow it in hopes it will at least take you out of this confusing, floral forest.

The path winds through several trees of differing kinds, mainly deciduous,
though none seem to be flowering right now, their leaves becoming autumnal in their
reds and oranges and yellows. This is strange, you think. You are sure daisies are a late
spring, early summer flower, and you are certain that it is daisies with which you laid
(though you are not sure why you are so certain).

This thought is soon stopped in its tracks, as are your feet, as you come upon a delightfully green plant—a
large shrub, or a small tree, you’re not exactly sure, it is overgrown and wild. You think you recognize the flowers,
though. Myrtle. As you rack your brain for this information, you reach out to touch the plant. Though you are
consciously aware of the movement, it was not a conscious choice. It is instinct.

When your fingertips make feather-light contact with the delicate petals of one of the flowers, it is as though
your brain sparks to life with a memory that nearly pains you with its sudden onset. It is of bright, blue light, of
pain, of the feeling of falling long and landing hard. The memory ends abruptly as you hit the ground, but it causes a
dull ache in the back of your skull.

The more you try to concentrate on what you just remembered, the harder it becomes to make out any details
from the memory at all. It does not fade away, but since you do not know the context for the event, it is hard to place
any meaning or feeling to it aside from fear and pain. Still, you have sufficient cover from the trees, and the pain has
left you tired already. So, you sit to rest, and you open your journal once more.

As you pen the last letter of the last word of your writing, your eyelids grow heavy. You think to yourself,
“would it really be so bad if I were to sleep here for now?”

You decide that it is not a bad idea at all, with how much your head aches.

So, you curl up, head placed on your journal, and you fall into a deep slumber, aided by the song of the nearby
birds, the sound of a stream bubbling from somewhere you cannot see, and the warmth from the morning sun.

3
  Chapter 2 — The High Priestess 
Polypodiophyta (Fern): Shelter

You dream.

At first, you dream of birds and streams and the warmth of daylight, but the
dream quickly morphs into one of confusion. You see quick glimpses of a house. You
feel, just for a moment, as though there are arms wrapped around you—somebody who
loves you, whom you love dearly in return. This person speaks to you, but you cannot
understand their words. It is not that you do not understand the language being
spoken—the words simply fall from your ears as though they’d never been heard in the
first place.

There is an overwhelming calming scent that encompasses you as this person hugs you. It is not their
perfume, rather the smell of the house you saw earlier, you are certain you are now inside of it. There is commotion
somewhere else in the house, you can hear, but you cannot parse the words being spoken nor begin to guess what the
sounds could be. It is though you are there, but your brain is surrounded by a thick layer of morning fog.

You wake up soon after that.

The first thing you take in is fog, true fog, not just brain fog. It surrounds you. You realize you are not
where you had fallen asleep—you are positive you had fallen asleep under the cover of myrtle flowers, but draped over
you like a blanket is the large fanning leaf of a fern. Confusion nearly overwhelms you. You don’t know who or where
you are, and now you’ve been displaced, and you could’ve sworn it was dawn when you fell asleep not long ago, but it’s
so dark you can barely see the mist that surrounds you. The only light is the light of the moon above you, peeking
through trees, and a glowing pink light off in the distance.

That’s… Odd. Pink? You follow it on an impulse. It seems to get farther away, the closer you get. Every now
and again, you trip, you almost lose your way, but that pink light stays just as far away from you as it always has
been. Frustrated, you turn. You start walking… North? You think you were headed West before, for some reason. You
glimpse up to the sky, in hopes of stars to guide you, but there is nothing but the bright, cloudy light of the moon as
the fog around you makes it even harder to see.

You are walking without any sort of guide now, but you do not stop. You do not stop, for you do not tire of
anything except being in this godforsaken forest. Then, though you’d stopped trying, you reach it.

The pink light.

4
  Chapter 3 — The Empress 
Dianthus Caryophyllus (Carnation): Motherly Love

From the ground in front of you sprouts a single glowing carnation, a soothing
pink in hue. The light is nowhere near as strong as it would need to be for you to have
seen it from as far away in the fog as you did. You do not find this as strange as you
find the sensation that washes over you when you crouch to touch the carnation’s petals,
again on impulse alone. “Darling?” You hear a woman’s voice calling towards you, but it
echoes within the walls of your skull. This voice is disembodied, not coming from within
the forest, but from within your mind. “Be careful, would you? I would hate to see you
hurt yourself like you did last time.”

“Okay, mama,” you hear a child’s voice respond—but at the same time, your
lips mouth the words, as though they were your own at one point. Perhaps they were, with how strongly you feel about
them. You close your eyes and try to focus more on the memory, and to your surprise, you can. You are in a cozy
kitchen. That same comforting scent from before is present once more, making you certain it is the smell of this home.
You are unsure if it is your home, though.

As the smell of that kitchen once more turns into the smell of a carnation, you remember a conversation.

“Mama?”

“Yes, my darling?”

“Papa said I can have anything I want. Is that true?”

She laughs. “Well, darling, not exactly. But you can ask us and we can try our best to give you what you need.
Is there something you wanted?”

“A hug!” Her chuckle is music to you as it surrounds your entire being in the form of her arms and her chin
on your shoulder. You remember clearly this warmth now. It belongs to you as much as it belongs to your mother. It is
the shared warmth and love of affection between mother and child. This memory does not fade as suddenly as the rest
have. It lasts, and it turns into something sour the longer she holds you. When you finally pull away, nobody is
there—as you expected, of course, you know in reality you are kneeling on the forest floor touching a flower. What
you weren’t expecting, though, is the cold that comes after the warmth is gone. You remember this cold well—the
feeling of leaving your mother’s arms for the very last time. You realize, or maybe you remember, that she’s gone—
that the last time you’d left her embrace, you were but a child.

5
  Chapter 4 — The Emperor 
Rosa Rubiginosa (Rose): Fatherly Love

When you shake the feeling of the memory, you open your eyes to see the fog
has lifted, day has broken, and the carnation (and its pink light) is nowhere to be seen.
The closest thing to it is a nearby bush of red roses that dance slightly in the breeze.
Some of their petals dislodge and flutter with no direction until they land on the
ground some inches away from where they originated.

This rose bush compels you, and since you have been acting on impulse alone,
you allow it to drag you closer with its encapsulating scent and beautiful sight. You
are careful of thorns and leaves as you reach out to press your fingertips to a rose’s petal—you know the drill by now,
and, frankly, you want to learn more about your past. So, you wait patiently for a memory to “happen.”

Nothing happens.

You try again with a different rose, and another, and another, but none of them are the right one, you think.
You do not have the patience to try every rose on this bush—it is a large bush, there could be hundreds. Besides,
you’ve already pricked your finger once, and you’re starting to get frustrated. So, with a huff, you heave yourself to
the ground to sit down. The flower petals around you move just slightly in the abrupt wind this creates, and then they
settle. You heave another sigh and, once more, journal about everything that has happened to you so far.

When your journal is safely back in your bag, you stand again. You turn to the rose bush. Curiously, you
speak out loud, finally discovering what your voice sounds like. It feels right, at least. You ask the rose bush, “what do
I do now?” It does not respond past shedding a few petals upon you. When the last flutters down, you catch it in your
hand. You remember fire. You remember a lot of it. You remember that the fire was your fault, too. You stand, staring
at your hands as though they are still smoking with the force of the magical fire that had poured forth from them
many moons ago. You can still hear the panic in your father’s voice as he ushers you out of the burning house. You
remember what he said the next day, too.

“The house burnt to the ground, but you and I are safe, yeah?”

“I want mama,” you only reply.

“I know,” he sighs. “But she’s gone. I’m sorry, kiddo.” Though he sounds sincere, you aren’t sure you believe it
at the time. You find yourself aching in the heart at this memory. It’s enough to overwhelm you to sit back down
again, and your shaky hands carefully reach for your journal.

6
  Chapter 5 — The Hierophant 
Gerbera Jamesonii (Gerbera Daisy): Friendship

Your journaling brings you peace, but it does not bring you answers to the
questions you now have. What happened to your mother? Where is your father now?
Who are they? Who are you? Your writing once more took you into the night, though
you’re certain not that many hours have passed. You are now illuminated by just the
light of the moon, a serene lighting that graces beautifully over the dozens of yellow
daisy-like flowers that surround you. Each one sways, almost dancing, in the light
breeze, and in the silence of the night, you hear their subtle song. They call to you.
They want you to pluck them. So, you do. You pick one from the ground, and finally, you are met with clarity. No
longer is your mother’s face in your memory a foggy unknown. You are certain of what your mother looks like. That
fills you with both joy and dread; glee and grief. She is gone, no matter what she looks like. With a shaky breath, you
pick another flower, and this, too, gives you vision of your parentage—what your father looks like.

You don’t stop there. You pick another, and you feel warmth, hear a voice, spur a memory. You hear your
name being called—you don’t parse the actual word of it, but the sound of it is so sweet on your ears that it simply
must belong to you. You respond, just as you would when your name is called. You hear in return a giggle, and from
the fog of memory sprouts a vision: your best friend, who smiles and teases you lightheartedly until the memory ends.

You tuck that flower behind your ear. It is special to you—of that much, you are positive. Almost greedily,
you pick another flower, desperate to learn of anyone else in your life. With each flower you pluck from the earth, you
learn of a new person—your friends growing up, your teachers, your extended family. But something, no matter how
many flowers you pluck, feels incomplete. Just when you think you couldn’t possibly know anybody else, when you
think you’ve picked every singing daisy in the vicinity, you notice one more lone flower, growing stubbornly from
between the roots of a tree. Quietly, you ask it, “how did you get here?” You do not pluck that one. You simply touch
its leaves—it worked too hard to live to be uprooted from its place in the earth.

This next flower fills you with joy, with grace, with the feeling of your heart beating in sync with another’s.
You feel fingers lacing with yours, palm pressed to palm. You hear a whispered melody—once more with your wordless
name—and you hear laughter sweeter than the sound of any bird’s song. You feel arms wrapped around you, kisses
pressed to your cheek and your nose and your forehead. You open your eyes—in the memory, it is too good to stop
indulging—and before you, you see your lover, whose smile is surely the most radiant thing in the world. You feel
yourself smiling back at them. With each addition to the repository of people you know, or perhaps knew, you start to
feel like you again—you think—and that’s something worth writing about.

7
  Chapter 6 — The Lovers 
Paeonia (Peony): Love

Once you are done scribbling down the words that have come to mind, you are
delighted to see the environment around you is exactly as you’d left it—daisies all over
the ground, one tucked behind your ear, and the lone daisy that grows from between the
roots of a tree. It is nice, you think, to be in control for a change. Still, you want more
answers to questions you now have.

You had learned, in the introductions given to you by the daisies, that your
teachers were not simply schoolteachers as one would expect. Instead, they were tutors
as you were kept home from public schooling, and one mentor. This mentor of yours
taught you self-discipline and how to better control your magic. You briefly wonder to yourself, where you are now, if
you can harness that magic, but you do not have it in you to try. You would not even know where to begin. Instead,
you decide to expend your energy continuing to solve the mystery of your personhood.

So, you trudge on through the dirt that starts to become mud in places. The environment around you is
boring, fir tree after tree after tree on either side of the path that you walk. Eventually, through the trees, something
catches your eye—a glimpse of pink. You head between two trees, shaking their branches out of your way, towards a
small clearing just off the path. It is nearly a perfect circle of trees, and in the middle grows a bountiful peony bush.

Finally, you think to yourself, another memory. You take a moment to assess the bush—you do not want to
touch each one. Instead, you find two that are tangled together—they call to you the most—and you gently press
your fingers to where their stems are intertwined.

Once more, with clarity, you see your lover. However, they do not smile at you as they used to. Instead, they
seem upset—angry—and, though you do not know why, you know deep down that you disagree with their anger. You
think it is unjust, that the reason you are fighting—whatever that is—is a moot point and that you shouldn’t be
arguing at all.

Still… You apologize—not because you think you are in the wrong, but because you just want the fight to end.
“I love you,” you remind your lover. “That’s what matters.”

“I love you too,” you hear in response. “That’s what matters.”

So that’s what you told yourself, you realize. You love them, that’s what matters. The ground beneath the
peony bush is dry, so you seat yourself there carefully, and hastily begin to write once more.

8
  Chapter 7 — The Chariot 
Chrysanthemum: Life

Writing these thoughts out is cathartic. Whether or not you cried is between
you and the peonies, they won’t tell. You spend a long time with the peonies, just
recuperating, thinking about your lover. As you do, more memories flood over you, even
without the aid of the flowers. You do not need magic, or whatever this is, to remind
you of the lips that touched yours so tenderly so often. You do not need a reminder
other than the breeze in the wind to know exactly what the voice that sang to you and
laughed with you sounds like. As peony petals fall upon you, you remember more and
more of who they are, and the parts of you that they love. It overwhelms you. You
stand, and you leave the clearing. In all of this bliss and harmony and happiness, you are filled with equal amounts
of dread and discordance and emptiness. You cannot place the source of this misery. Is it because this love had come to
an end? Is it because this lover is out there, missing you? Is it because they couldn’t care less? You think it may just
be because you don’t know it ends. You need to know. So, you walk and you walk until you stumble upon another
flower. This time, it is a lone chrysanthemum, attached to nothing, simply laying in the dirt and grass on its side. You
pick it up, cradling it carefully, asking for its secrets. It divulges.

It shows you your life after. Your partner is still present in your life, ever so, and they make you feel whole in
ways you could not describe even if you tried (though you may anyway). Your father is proud of you, you are a
controlled person, and you are finally becoming who you’d always wanted to become. You are in control. You are whole.
You are you.

The memory ends, and it leaves you with a bitter taste in your mouth.

You know you are far from your journey’s end—you can see beyond you a trail of uprooted flowers that beg
for your attention. Each one an equidistance apart, you start to wonder if you are being led astray, but you are too
caught up in your memories to care.

Before you approach the next flower, though, you sit in the grass, and you journal about the memories you’d
experienced. The lighting around you changes many times—night to day to night to day—in the short amount of
time that you write, but by now, you are used to the strangeness of this forest. It almost brings you peace to know
that things will not be as they should be—flowers will grow out of season, trees will grow regardless of their type right
next to others from regions far away, birds chirp tunes you have never once heard. You know that this should all be
alarming to you, but nothing can serve to surprise you anymore, you think.

9
  Chapter 8 — Strength 
Gladiolus: Strength

The sun settles in the sky as soon as you put your journal away. It gives you
the energy you need to carry forth, even if it is not far, to get to the next flower on the
path. Gladiolus. You wonder if this is some kind of cosmic joke—a call to strength—or
if it is simply just the next step in your journey. You no longer have the energy to
care. You simply reach for the flower, and the stem flops pathetically in your hand as
you hold it. This flower is dying.

Still, it shows you a memory, even if it’s a fuzzy one.

You remember the living room of your house with your partner. You remember
it well, for you spent plenty of time in there with them, just holding one another, reading to one another, singing,
dancing, laughing. But it is also where you spent time disagreeing, fighting, fuming after said fights. It is not a
perfect room by any means.

You are not perfect people.

This memory shakes you to the core, because as you walk through the living room in your memory, you come
to see that the shelves are too empty, there are photographs missing from the walls, a blanket from the sofa.
Everywhere you look, essences of your partner are just gone; a grave of empty space surrounded by dust in the shape
of things missing.

You call their name. To your surprise, you hear a response. It is a weak one, you can tell they have been
crying, but you follow the source of the noise to your bedroom.

“Sit down,” they say. You do. You would do anything for them, you think. You wonder if that is why they are
leaving you—clearly, that is what they are doing. Are you too needy? You wish you knew your faults so you could
remedy them as to not lose the love of your life sitting across from you with a disappointed look on their face.

They explain to you why they’re leaving. You… You understand. You know that to be a part of you that you
are not proud of. You wish that you handled it better, but you know it’s too late. So, you watch with tearful eyes as
your partner packs the rest of their things and leaves you in your bedroom—just yours.

You feel sick when you finally shake the memory, throwing the gladiolus to the ground. What kind of joke is
all of this? Why is this happening to you? What did you do to deserve this? You don’t know. You sit down to write
again, distraught, hoping maybe you’ll find some answers in ink and parchment.

10
  Chapter 9 — The Hermit 
Nelumbo Nucifera (Lotus): Mindfulness

As always, you do not find answers—there are none to be found in

questions you ask only yourself when you simply do not know. Your feet
carry you forward once you’ve stood, and they carry you to the stream that
has been an ever-present sound in your periphery, but never something in
your line of sight. It brings you great peace that, when you look into the
water, you see just the person you expected to see, if not a little worse for
wear. You see you, for all of who you are, even if you’re ashamed of who that is right now.

You notice, on the surface of the water, a lone lotus among its leaves. It is just close enough that if you reach,
you can touch it. So, you do, but you are careful not to fall in, plucking one single petal before leaning back to a
seated position.

You remember loneliness. A lot of it, too. You remember reclusive nights, ignoring your best friend knocking at
your door, ignoring your father as he came straight into your home and tried his best to pick you up off of the floor
where you sat eating your feelings. You remember losing a lot of friends this way, but your best friend always stuck
around, sticking through the worst. This depressive era of time spans much longer than you’d like it to, longer than
you think you’ll admit even to yourself. Nothing seems to pick you up out of it, and, in the same vein, you cannot
seem to snap out of this long memory, even as you are aware of the sun setting and rising around you.

You spiral. You spiral terribly, until one day, your best friend shows up at your door. “Go away,” you mutter,
trying to close it, “I don’t want to talk.”

“I don’t care,” they stick their foot in the door and shove it back open. “You’re either talking to me, or you’re
talking to no one, and I know you like to talk. You need to talk about this or it’s just going to eat you alive.”

“Fine,” you grumble. You let them in. And then, you let them in some more, finally opening up to somebody.

After hours of careful deliberation, you come to realize that you were, in fact, the problem. That your partner
was right to leave you. That’s why, you think, you were so bummed about it in the first place—you knew that you
didn’t have ground to stand on to beg them to stay. So, you promise your best friend—and yourself—that you’ll pick
yourself up off of the floor and carry on. You know you can’t very well just instantly “get better,” but you can become
better than you were yesterday. The memory finally fades, leaving you with just a lotus petal in your hands and an
ache in your heart. You reach to your journal. You know what to do.

11
  Chapter 10 — Wheel of Fortune 
Trifolium (Clover): Luck

After penning each word that came to you, you close the journal, and once more,
you make to reembark on your journey of self-understanding. Before you can even stand,
though, you notice next to you in the grass is a patch of clover, in the middle of which
stands tall a four-leafed one. You pick it for good luck, and it, too, offers you a piece of
who you are: the rest of the memory from when your best friend confronted you.

“You’re lucky,” your best friend chuckles, “that I love you! Or else I wouldn’t have
stuck around as long as I did.”

“Right,” you say, solemnly yet with an acceptance you didn’t know yourself
capable of. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“Don’t thank me,” your best friend is sincere when they say this. “Just heal, yeah? That’s all I can ask you to
do. I’m proud of you.”

So, you smile.

In the days following this conversation, you are uplifted. You remember clearly the day that you stood from
your place in the living room, and you went out to nature and found yourself wandering through the flowers, much as
you are now. Your memory is distant but clear as your shaky hands picked up a four-leaf clover, giving you a strong
sense of déjà vu for what you’d just done moments ago in reality. Or, perhaps, what you’d done was just reminiscent
of this time before. You’re not sure.

You remember looking up to the sky, eyes squinted from the sunlight, wondering “what do I do?” The sky does
not answer, nor do the birds. Your heart does.

“Live.”

That… That, you can do, you remember thinking. You remember smiling. You remember moving on, whole. at
ease. You do better for yourself in the ways you needed to, and you find rising out of bed much, much easier. At first,
you are just surviving, but you transition into living, and eventually, into thriving, a new person, your past forgotten
and left behind.

This memory leaves you with a blissful smile. You press the four-leaf clover between the latter pages of your
journal, then flip back to the near beginning to write once more.

12
  Chapter 11 — Justice 
Hyacinthus (Hyacinth): Regret

Writing the words that are on the tip of your tongue makes you feel a lot calmer, a lot
more ready for what else is about to come. So, eventually, you stand up and you start to wander,
hoping the flowers will simply continue to guide you.

They do. Quickly, you notice a purple streak, and you follow that until it is less of a blur
in your vision. It becomes hyacinths, a patch of them, and you simply sit nearby them,
contemplating what you have learned so far. Things seem to have been going so well for you…
Surely your luck ran out. You’re scared to touch the next flower, as though learning the next
memory in the succession will burst a joyful little bubble. It takes you a few moments, but
eventually, you hesitantly reach out to the hyacinth.

Verdant canopies span overhead as you smile widely, filled once more with the sensation that being around
your lover brings to you. You don’t know how, or when, or even why, but you are back in their arms once more.

They speak to you eventually, a mutter of “thank you for apologizing. It’s all I could’ve asked for.”

“It’s what you deserved,” you reply instantly. “And I meant every word.”

“I know,” they whisper, moving closer to you as they lay draped over your chest. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” you whisper. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” they hum. Then, quietly, they ask, “can I suggest something stupid?”

“Nothing you could say is stupid,” you say, voice dripping with the adoration they deserve.

“Marry me.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Marry me.”

You stammer wordlessly for a few moments, then nod, a wide smile on your face. “Yes, of course,” you laugh.
“Yes!” The sound of your laughter becomes a duet with theirs, a ballad of giggles into the night.

You swear you can still hear their laughter on the trails of the wind when the memory comes to an end, and it
leaves a smile on your face as you pull your journal out once more.

Even the sound of your pen scratching against the paper is like music to you.

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  Chapter 12 — The Hanged Man 
Strelitzia Reginae (Bird of Paradise): Freedom

You are eager to find the next flower after you finish writing. So, you stand,
and you head quickly to the nearest flash of color that catches your eye. This time, it is
a vibrant bird of paradise plant that draws you in, and you eagerly press your
fingertips to its “beak.”

The days that follow the proposal are beautiful, blissful. You two both get
rings, and you wear them proudly. They convince you to do things you’ve never done,
try things you’ve never tried, go places you’ve never been. You experience so much in
such a short period of time, finally loosening up from your tight grip on life. You
realize that, in your effort to continue to thrive as you were thriving, you had such a grasp on life’s reins that you
weren’t enjoying the horseback ride.

You remember, clearly, the moment you decided to let go. Your lover asks you, shyly, to dance—something you
don’t normally like to do. Instead of saying “no, thank you,” like you normally would, you say “yes.” You dance with
your partner, and you let go.

Letting go is just like riding that horse, clutching its reins so tightly until your hands give out and thus,
giving up the reins. You expect in this moment that you decide to be spontaneous, that you will crash and it will hurt.
However, despite having let go of the reins, the horse still follows the exact path you belong on.

You learn to enjoy yourself. To let go and be free and laugh and dance and sing and bake cookies and you
even pick up a hobby.

You make new friends, you spend quality time with your best friend, with your father, and with your partner.
You couldn’t be happier, you think. You get a pet and you care for that pet with all of the love in your heart that you
aren’t already allocating to your lover.

To you, these memories bring back pieces of you that you are certain you didn’t realize existed until they were
gone. The joyous parts of you, the parts of you that love life. The parts of you that are compassionate and loving and
caring and funny and generous and so, so kind. You are you. Isn’t that beautiful?

These memories bring you so much joy that it brings tears to your eyes when they start to fade and you are
once more reminded that you are within a forest that seems to only serve to confuse you. You bid goodbye to the bird
of paradise and you sit down on a nearby fallen log to, once more, write out your feelings.

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  Chapter 13 — Death 
Lilium (Lily): Death

When you put the journal down, it is once more night. The moon is waning in her beauty, and
she glistens softly above you with the light of a thousand stars accompanying her. You feel blissful,
even if it makes you sad that your memory has ended. You are eager for more—just as eager as you
are to get back to your lover and tell them about this mess with the forest and the magical flowers.
You think you see an opening, a bright light that will lead you from the forest, but that light—much
like the pink light of the carnation from many moons ago—taunts you, and stays the same distance
away from you as from when you started.

Eventually, you are brought to a clearing, following this light. The light disappears and you
are left in abject darkness—save for one lone glow from a single lily on the ground. This does not bode
well for you, you think, but you kneel by the flower, and you touch it with the same gentle touch that you’ve offered to
each plant so far.

You regret that almost immediately. The memory that washes over you starts with a feeling of dread. You are
in your kitchen, and your best friend is at your house. You are not having a good discussion, though. They are angry
with you, and you soon realize why when they finally finish fuming, and speak to you.

“I can’t believe you’re getting married to them,” they nearly cry. “After everything you went through when
they left you? After all of that hurt, you’re just going to set yourself up for it again?”

“It was my fault!”

“It was their fault, too,” they plead with you.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I love you,” they sob. “Because I care about you. Because you’re my best friend, and…” They sigh,
straightening up. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t watch you hurt yourself, over and over, for them. You act like a
lost puppy when they’re around. It’s… It’s not you.”

“So, what, then?” You cross your arms over your chest. “You want me to change, too?”

“It’s not you that needs to change,” they sigh. “But… I can’t stay if they’re around. Look… It’s me, or them.”

“Fine,” the words break your heart as they leave your throat. “Leave.”

You are almost too angry to write anything when the memory fades, but you manage, even if it’s hasty.

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  Chapter 14 — Temperance 
Dahlia: Balance

Putting your journal away is difficult with how much your hands shake. At
this point, you’ve had enough of this forest. You’re done. You want out. You want your
partner. You want to be held.

You want all of this and more and all you get is a couple of fucking dahlias in
your wake, tangled around one another as though they are in love—just as the peonies
were—taunting you. You touch them almost sarcastically, muttering, “let’s just get this over with, already.”

Your wedding is beautiful. Your partner steals the show with the way they look, even if they insist it’s you
that did that. It is your perfect night. Well, almost. Your best friend should be there, but… They’re not. It breaks your
heart, but you expected as much, even if you’d hoped they’d change their mind and show.

There is a beautiful equilibrium in your marriage. Where there were gaps, you patched them. Where there was
loose foundation, you fixed it. Where there once were arguments are civilized discussions, and where there once was
fault on you is…

Fault on them.

You realize, both in and out of the memory, that these “calm, civil discussions” happen more and more
frequently as days pass.

They do little things that upset you that lead to you finally asking them to fix a small behavior, and they
insist on a lengthy talk to “help find the root of the problem,” which is always determined to be them. They do not
make an effort to change, which you find incredibly hypocritical considering the reason they’d left you in the first
place was, in part, your inability to change.

Still… Everything works out in the end, and you never fall asleep angry at one another, an “I love you”
always muttered before your heads hit your pillows.

It is a bittersweet taste left in your mouth as the memory ends. You sigh.

You suppose you have some writing to do.

It takes you a while to find somewhere adequate to sit down, with this ground a little muddier than you’d like,
but you eventually find a place to roost and write.

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  Chapter 15 — The Devil 
Amaranthus Caudatus (Love-Lies-Bleeding): Hopelessness

Closing your journal, you sigh again. You’ve been doing that a lot, lately,
haven’t you?

It’s just that… Even here, in reality, you know. You know that the next plant
you find will bring forth the feeling that threatens to bud in your chest. So, you are
not reluctant to find it. You want to rip the bandage off, bear the sting of losing
adhesive that was so attached to your skin.

You find answers in a love-lies-bleeding branch that hangs sullenly over a small pond. You touch the tip of it
so tenderly, stroking it in your fingers, and close your eyes as you allow memory to, once more, overwhelm you.

That feeling in your chest that was but a seed becomes a full blossom, and you recognize it for what it really
is. Hopelessness. Despair. Grief. The feeling of waking up one day after a dream where you were much happier than
you are in life, because in your dream, your best friend was with you. Not just with you, but with you. Married to
you, as you should have been to them all this time.

It’s always been them, hasn’t it?

Even though your best friend is stubborn and you kind of resent them for leaving, you find you can’t stomach
looking at your spouse in the following days.

You realize with utmost clarity that you have made a grave mistake. You chose your partner over the true
love of your life, thinking that you were choosing that love. In doing so, you removed it entirely from your life.

The memory fades away and leaves you confused, and wanting to know more. Did you leave them? Did you
find your best friend again?

You suppose you will learn in due time.

This brings a small smile to your face. Despite the inconsistency of this strange and terrifying forest, you still
have the consistency that you will learn.

So, with that all in mind, you find a place to rest, and you, once more, pull out your journal. As you write, day
breaks and birds sing and you feel new, fresh, as though this decision is coming to you for the first time.

Well, in a way, it is, no?

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  Chapter 16 — The Tower 
Rhododendron: Caution

In the light of the new dawn, you carry forth. There is a dusting of flower
petals on the path that you now follow. They are pink and purple, brightly colored, and
you know them to be rhododendron, so you do not touch them. Better safe than sorry,
you think. But you do carefully nudge a petal with your shoe. That’s not enough to
spark a memory, huh?

Fine. You pick up some of the petals.

Well, they don’t hurt to touch, but the heartache that the memory comes with almost makes you wish you’d
just left well enough alone. You feel as though your heart has been ripped from your chest, and you do not understand
why until you finally take in your surroundings.

It is raining.

Hard.

It is raining hard, and you are carrying three bags: a suitcase, a leather bag slung over your shoulder, and a
duffel bag. It is the middle of the night, and you are crying.

You already know exactly what this means, but a sob heaved from your throat as you look to your empty left
hand tells you for certain that you’d done it. You left them.

For good this time.

As the rain washes over you, chilling you to the bone, you can’t help but laugh. It’s weird, you know, but as
you walk empty, lonely, dimly lit streets towards your father’s house, you just chuckle to yourself. Giggle, even. You
laugh, because you did it.

You are finally, despite all of the pain and heartache, free to be who you are—alone.

You just wish your best friend were around to see it.

You look up to the sky, even if doing so gets rain in your eyes, and you laugh and you smile and you even
jump in puddles as you carry on forward.

You are you, and you are alone, and that is the best damn thing in the world to you right now.

You have a smile on your face when you come back to reality, and it remains as you write your next entry.

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  Chapter 17 — The Star 
Trientalis Borealis (Starflower): Hope

You feel almost whole. Almost complete. Almost as though there is a light at the
end of the tunnel, and you can see it. You press forward, knowing you must, and you
find yourself once more in a clearing, this time with three flowers. One stands tall, the
one furthest from you. It is a sunflower. Both eclipsing and surrounding it is creeping
moonflower that has grown all the way up its stalk. Surrounding it are thousands of
tiny little starflowers that almost seem to twinkle in the dark of the newly fallen
twilight.

You are drawn first to the stars. You sit among them, and you allow a few to
whisper to you before you finally reach forth to the one closest to you. It shows you your father’s home. You see your
quivering hands wrapped around a warm mug filled with your favorite hot drink, a blanket draped over your arms
and shoulders.

You look up to your father as he struggles to find the words to say.

“It’s okay, papa,” you sigh. “There isn’t really anything you can say that will make me feel better.”

“Okay,” he nods. “Well, then, can I get you anything?”

You shake your head.

“Okay,” he says once more. He’s never been good with emotions. You don’t blame him for it, though. It’s just
who he is, as you are who you are. You do not try to change him.

“I’m okay, papa, really,” you insist. “At least, I will be, in time. I just need to rest, I think.”

“You do that. I’ll see you in the morning, kiddo.”

“I love you, papa.”

“I love you, too.”

That serenity lasts in the following days as you stay with your father. You find yourself at ease, at peace
once more. You may feel incomplete, but you know that doing this is another step in making yourself whole again—
even if you’re now unsure you ever were whole in the first place.

The peaceful feeling does not go away when the memory fades, and it continues as you scribe to yourself.

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  Chapter 18 — The Moon 
Ipomoea Alba (Moonflower): Dreams

You take your time to approach the next step, deliberating long and hard
whether you should go with the moonflowers or the sunflower first. Ultimately, though,
you go first for the moonflower—an underappreciated, yet still beautiful, plant.

It takes you not back to a memory, per sé, but to a dream.

The first thing you hear in this dream is the gorgeous, melodious sound of
your name. You still do not understand the sounds made to form it, but it is
harmonious nonetheless, because it is from the voice of your best friend.

That is how you know this is just a dream. Your best friend is long gone from your life, likely never to be seen
again. You’re unsure you should even call them “best friend” anymore, but it’s the best you’ve got. So, you stick with
it.

In this dream, they hold you. They tell you they are sorry, and you say the same.

When you wake up, it is alone and it is cold and it is with the utmost certainty that you were right—it has
always been them.

You cry that night. What else could you do? They left. You told them to go. It’s your fault, and you hate
yourself for it.

When the memory ends, you realize that those tears are more than just a memory, but a reality on your face.
You sigh and you sit down on the ground, asking a moment of the sunflower, for it to wait for you.

It waits, patiently, of course. The forest no longer seems adamant to change around you, happy to settle on a
hazy, twilit sky with minimal stars in it.

You write, of course, but you also reflect. You have gone on so many little journeys that all turned into one
long, perilous one, and yet you know this is not the end. You find yourself wondering what could possibly come next,
with a glimmer of hope involved.

You hope it’s not an illusion.

As you stand and straighten yourself to match the sunflower’s height, you realize you do not come even close
to its petals. It towers over you, its head hanging down to face you. You think it would smile, if it could. You wish it
would. You could use a smile, right about now.

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  Chapter 19 — The Sun 
Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower): Loyalty

You reach with confidence towards the sunflower, granting it the same tender
touch you have each plant before it.

It repays you in kind by granting you a memory so pleasant that it fills your
heart with warmth.

The memory begins with your favorite sound: your name on the lips of your
best friend. You smile brightly and turn to the sound and nearly fall down when you
are met with their body slamming full force into yours with a hug. You both giggle, and you wrap your arms around
them. “Hi,” they breathe.

“Hey,” you whine. “I thought I’d never—”

“I know. I’m sorry—”

“I know. I love you—”

“I know.”

You two pull away from the hug to stare at one another, then your lips meet in a passionate kiss that is
initiated not by anyone in particular; a flame sparked by your decades-old love for one another.

You pull away only to breathe, and you both giggle.

“Seriously, though, I’m so sorry,” you whisper.

“I know,” they hum. “Thank you. I’m sorry, too.”

“Stay.”

“I will.”

The memory ends and you have a wide, bright smile on your face.

“I have to find them,” you whisper to yourself. The path before you becomes clear, after that—quite literally.
Trees move, nearly walking on their roots as they slide to the sides to clear a walkway for you. As the trees clear, so
does your mind. You are left with a newfound understanding that what you have always needed was right under your
nose the entire time. You hope that rings true for escaping this forest. Before doing that, though, you sit to write—
hopefully, for the very last time.

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  Chapter 20 — Judgement 
Narcissus (Daffodil): New Beginnings

After hastily scribbling each thought that comes to you, you stand up and
practically run down this new path created just for you. The trees become shrubs as
you run, and the shrubs eventually become a lining of bright, tall daffodils that seem
to cheer you on.

You hear them saying something, but you do not stop to listen, for you see the
light—the one you’d seen before—at the end of the walkway. It gets closer as you
approach it, and day seems to slowly break the more you near the edge of the wood. By
then, you are sprinting as fast as you can. You feel a calling to this light. You know that this light, no matter how
bright, is the end of your journey, should you just make it there.

So, naturally, you trip.

You trip and you land face-to-face with a row of daffodils. They do not laugh at you.

Here, in your newfound closeness to them, you realize what they have been singing—or saying—this entire
time.

It’s your name.

That delightful, melodious tune that sounded perfect coming from your best friend—lover?—‘s lips, this time
made beautiful on the breath of a flower’s petal.

And this time, you can understand it. With clarity, you are certain. You know who you are. You are you. You
always have been. Some kid with magic and control issues, sure, but… You’re so, so much more.

It all comes rushing back to you as you go rushing to the edge of the forest: the days that follow, where you
settle into your new life. The day you decide you’re going to propose, going ring shopping.

You remember all of this, and then you remember, finally, the very first thing you’d been shown in this forest.
Bright, blue light, pain, the feeling of falling long and landing hard. But you also recall what had happened just
moments before. You’d heard the voice of someone you’ve never met telling you, “you are headed down the right path,
but you must remember where you came from to know why it is the right path.” Naturally, you asked why. This
person told you, “because you will not know how to appreciate what you have until you lose it once more, and I believe
you deserving of the love you have worked so, so hard for. Will you accept my trial?”

22
  Chapter 21 — The World 
Lavandula (Lavender): Healing

You suppose you said yes.

That doesn’t matter to you now so much as the light of day does as you finally
reach a breaking point in the trees. You grasp the side of a tree, breathless, as you
double over in sunlight. This is not a clearing. This is simply the absence of forest.

You have finally made it to the end. You nearly collapse from the exhaustion of
running so far and fast, but you manage to (somewhat gracefully) sit down. You don’t
even notice that you’re pulling your journal from your bag until you’re several words
into writing in it.

When you finish writing, you rest for a few moments. You move to stand, but freeze when you hear your
name.

It is a song.

You look towards the source of the sound. Dressed in lavender and large smile, your best friend—no, your
soon-to-be-fiancé(e)—runs towards you. You stand fully and you allow them to barrel into you with the force of their
hug. This one knocks you over, but you’re okay with it.

They pepper your face with kisses, and you do the same to them. You pull away after a few moments with a
delighted gasp, and you dig through your bag. They sit up to look at you, confused, and you quickly scramble onto one
knee. Though this small box once haunted you, it is now the most important object in the world to you in this
moment—at least, that’s what it looks like as you ever-so-delicately open it and present it to your love.

With all of your love in your eyes and all of the passion in your heart (and miniature speech), you propose,
“will you marry me?”

They burst into laughter when you finish, not at you, but with you, as they pull a box from their pocket and
offer to you the exact same—a ring within the box, a proposal from their lips, a “will you marry me?”

You realize that the answer you’ve been searching for all along was not the answer to some complex,
philosophical question at all. The answer you’ve been looking for was simple.

It was them.

It was always them.

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  The End 
Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little inspiration station, and I hope that it did offer
to you the encouragement you needed to make works you are proud of.

If you enjoyed this RPG and want to support me, consider using the Pay What You Want feature on the game
page if you haven’t already. There is also a link to my ko-fi on my itch.io page.

Feel free to email me at (leonadawnn@gmail.com), or @/DM me on Twitter with any communications:

questions, concerns, if you want to show off your work (I’d love to see it!).

 Index 
Name help:
 Fantasy Name Generators  Behind The Name (random) 

 Image Sources 
All images are sourced from Internet Archive Book Images on Flickr and are in the public domain. Links follow:

 Header on itch  Cover on itch  Daisy  Myrtle  Fern  Carnation  Rose  Gerbera Daisy 
 Peony  Chrysanthemum  Gladiolus  Lotus  Four-leaf clover  Hyacinth  Bird of Paradise 
 Lily  Dahlia  Love Lies Bleeding  Rhododendron  Starflower  Moonflower 
 Sunflower  Daffodil  Lavender 

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