[The face peering at him through the water, slicing through him with the cold precision of a scalpel, is another familiar one that's hard to place among eight hundred years of memories. But at least he knows it belongs to this world. Not what came before, which he thought he left behind altogether, and he was happy to do it. He thought he'd evolved beyond it. He should know better than anyone, though, that new growth does not replace what came before — it adds on.

The silence expands around him, while inside him confusion clamors.]

I don't know what I'm remembering. [A part of him does.] Have you ever just...forgotten something for so long that it doesn't feel like a part of you anymore?