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Keefe Sencen’s Nicknames

It’s hard, sometimes, to keep track of all the people he’s met. He’s met a lot of people. He started calling them nicknames when he was eight, coming up with new ones that always made his father cross because he couldn’t remember Lord Whats-His-Frowny-Face’s name at the dinner table.

It grew into a bit of a habit, as he got older. Admittedly, he did get better at remembering names, didn’t have to come up with silly things on the spot, and play off the fact that he could never quite remember if this was Zarina or if that was Zarina and this was Clarette. He started mixing the names he could remember into the funny nicknames, until he had majestic titles such as “Lady Foss-Boss” or “New Tamsterdam” or “Dex The Halls”(That one was partly Sophie’s idea).

But it bugs him, sometimes, that he can’t remember things like that.

He doesn’t remember much of the important stuff. Not names, or dates, or times. He doesn’t remember appointments, or lessons, not really. Someone said to him once that it “Goes in one ear, out the other!”

Maybe it does.

He can’t ever quite remember those important things. He has to write down lessons and focus on his photographic memory to keep it all in his head.

He remembers unimportant stuff. The stuff no one actually really cares about. He could not tell you for the life of you what year it was when he first met Fitz. But he could tell you in excruciating detail the way the clouds looked like snowmen. He remembers the color of Sophie’s dress when she walked out of the council the first time, but he couldn’t tell you what she was there for.

Of course, remind him, and he’ll remember, it’ll come back to him. It always does. He snaps his fingers, and grins, “That’s right! I can’t believe I forgot. I’m such an idiot.”

Usually it gets played off as a moment, however brief, of idiocy, of forgetfulness.

And it probably is.

The point remains that Keefe Sencen finds it hard to remember important things, sometimes. And it’s a struggle to keep it all inside his own mind.

It’s why he has to come up with new things on the spot.

Because otherwise, he might not have anything to say at all.