He was here. He couldn't quite remember what or where here was anymore, but he was here. He couldn't leave. The room was cold, and the moor wind blew through missing brickwork.

It was easy, when you couldn't quite move, to urge one's thoughts elsewhere, away. Into memory. He fought it for a moment, fought for awareness - but then he felt his head slip under the water, felt himself sink, away.

------------------

"This is Mister Crispin, Core. Say hello." His father's voice was warm and lively, and he was tall, as big as a tree then - or at least he looked it. Crispin stood in front of them, every bit as gray and steady as the tapestries looked, smiling calmly down at him. His father's friend, Collapse stood near at hand too - but Core already knew who he was.

"Hullo." He'd said to Crispin, trying to puff his chest out to seem even just a bit larger. Crispin had laughed, but it had been in a warm sort of way that overrode the embarrassment prickling at Corrode's chest.

It was a good day.

-----------------

"Watch after your brother. As he grows." His father had said so gently into Corrode's ear, while he peered at wobbly little creature who was so like a mirror of himself. Tarnish, he'd been called, and Corrode had slipped off a while later to tell his father's dog of the news. No one had thought to tell her, after all. Seemed a bit important.

He had laid and watched the foal try to get his own bearings the next day, only standing to spring up to catch him when he stumbled.

Very pleased, his father had brought him to a fresh patch of clovers for his dinner.

It was a good set of days.

-----------------

It was Collapse who stumbled into the little house, staggered to his knees, and told Corrode that his father was gone. It had felt like Collapse had incidentally dropped his heavy blade into Corrode's ribs alongside the words.

He was near an adult now, but it was all too much. Tarnish and Corrode's other parent had never materialized - an uninvolved figure, who their father had assured them existed, but was not in want of children themselves.

"He fell over the edge - he- he went into the-" Collapse had cut off the re-telling then, shaking his head. "He's gone."

Three sunsets later, the matter of the funeral required Corrode and Tarnish's attendance. A slow, staggering thing, and no one knew much what to say. Crispin had been there, tucked in a corner - as if afraid he might draw attention away from the death.

They had gone with Collapse, after that. They had never gone back to the little house ever again. The thought of it made his chest ache.

-----------------

There was a sound, in the distance, that caught his ears suddenly - that jerked his mind to the present. He hadn't heard it since, since - since - he couldn't... remember... The old stone door creaked open all the same, and there was something in his throat, a breath, a word he couldn't get out.

A pair of voices came next, drifting closer, closer - almost... something... familiar...

... RAKE?