[He closes his eyes to listen, noticing when the rhythm of Cyram's voice alters as he goes into the story of Takëthal—a name spoken so tenderly, so carefully that it rests in the air like an incantation, reaching back for a ghost and pulling it into a slant of light for moments before it is painstakingly returned to the dark. It occurs to him that Cyram's patchwork memory has preserved this fragment of a past exactly because of its significance. So he can fight, too, for what matters to him, enough to dig in the effort of recollection against all the odds of a ruined mind.

Sasuke doesn't know how long he'll be alive. A fraction of the time Cyram has spent in existence, less than the flicker of an eye, less than a blade of grass on a whole planet. Yet he determines, then, to remember Takëthal for as long as he's living. So if one day it should slip from Cyram's grasp, at least Sasuke can give it back to him.]

You changed the language you were speaking in.

[An observation in a voice that emerges quietly between them, low and thoughtful beneath the spell that Cyram has woven over him. The weight of an arm, the hook of a leg. An ease of physicality as he's never shared with anyone, not a parent. Not a teammate. Not even Naruto. Because this is too—gentle, the way Cyram holds him and tells him about the genesis of his name.]

'Cyram'. He chose well. [A mortal father, a fisherman. The image of it is easy, like the cabin and the lake, like the porch. The dying fish.] It's warm. It reminds me of the way it feels when I'm listening to you.

[A shudder, and finally the release, emotion let out like a river in the stream of his breath. His eyes open.]

Sorry.