The caravan’s bells chimed against the amber wind as Zara pulled her hood deeper over her face. Titan Seven sprawled before them like a fever dream—crystalline spires twisted skyward while floating bazaars drifted between them on currents of sweet-scented air. This was her first time accompanying the Memory Merchants, and the weight of the glass vials in her pack made her shoulders ache.
“Remember,” whispered Kael, the lead merchant, his eyes reflecting the planet’s twin suns, “memories of first love fetch the highest price. Childhood summers run a close second. Never, ever touch a grief memory with bare hands.”
The floating marketplace materialized around them as their platform docked. Vendors hawked everything from bottled laughter to crystallized dreams, but the Memory Merchants commanded respect. Their booth materialized from folded space—a technique Zara still didn’t understand—revealing shelves lined with thousands of gleaming containers.
Their first customer was a Titanean noble, her skin the color of rose gold, seeking memories of Earth’s extinct oceans. Kael produced a vial that swirled with blue-green nostalgia—a grandmother’s recollection of Atlantic waves. The noble pressed it to her temple and gasped, tears streaming down her metallic cheeks.
“How much?” she breathed.
“Twelve stellars.”
As coins changed hands, Zara noticed a hooded figure watching from the shadow of a dream-silk tent. Something about their stillness made her nervous.
By midday, they’d sold memories of first snowfall, a mother’s lullaby, and the taste of perfectly ripe strawberries. But the hooded stranger kept circling back, always at the edge of vision.
When the figure finally approached, Zara’s breath caught. Beneath the hood was a face like shattered glass—literally. Fragments of mirror-bright skin reflected fractured images of everyone who looked at them.
“I seek a very specific memory,” the stranger said, voice like wind through broken crystal. “A child’s last moment of innocence. Before they learned the world could be cruel.”
Kael hesitated. Such memories were rare, valuable, and dangerous to harvest. “That would cost—”
“I’m not buying,” the stranger interrupted. “I’m selling.”
They produced a vial that seemed to contain liquid starlight. Inside, Zara glimpsed flashes of a young face—round cheeks, bright eyes, a smile that believed in everything good.
“This belonged to me,” the stranger continued. “Before I became what I am. I’ve carried it for three hundred years, hoping to find someone worthy of such pure joy.”
“We can’t afford—” Kael began.
“Not for money.” The stranger’s fractured gaze fixed on Zara. “For a promise. That it goes to someone who’s forgotten how to hope.”
Before Zara could respond, commotion erupted nearby. Memory Pirates—raiders who stole experiences directly from living minds—were attacking a family of tourists. Without thinking, Zara grabbed a handful of courage memories from their stock and crushed them against her chest, feeling bravery flood her system.
She launched herself at the pirates, her borrowed valor making her fearless. The fight was brief but fierce. When it ended, the pirates had fled, but not before one had pressed a neural drain against a young boy’s temple, stealing something precious.
The boy’s mother wept over his now-vacant stare. “They took his wonder,” she sobbed. “He’ll never see magic in anything again.”
The stranger stepped forward and placed their starlight vial in the mother’s hands. “Press this to his temple. Gently.”
Light flowed between glass and skin. The boy blinked, looked around, and suddenly gasped at the floating marketplace as if seeing it for the first time. His eyes sparkled with reborn amazement.
“Why?” Zara asked the stranger.
The fractured face attempted a smile, sharp edges catching light. “Because wonder shared is wonder multiplied. I’ve been empty so long I’d forgotten—sometimes the best transaction isn’t buying or selling, but giving freely.”
As the stranger walked away, their form began to shimmer and fade like heat mirage. Just before vanishing completely, they called back: “The memory markets work both ways, young merchant. Sometimes we don’t just trade what we have—we become what we give away.”
Zara watched until the last glimmer disappeared, then carefully packed their remaining memories. She understood now why the Memory Merchants traveled from world to world. They weren’t just dealers in nostalgia—they were gardeners of the soul, planting experiences where they were needed most.
The caravan bells chimed again as they prepared to depart for the next world, the next market, the next chance to turn memory into magic.
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