The underground is dark. Your feathers work to cancel out the chill, huddled in the dead ends of these strange passageways. Perhaps you should’ve stayed near where you started, been looked for or gone looking for the way back. It’s too late now- You’ve lost the path, and you have to keep searching for more food in the minecarts scattered about the tunnels.

There’s things in here with you, rattling bones that you shouldn’t be able to see through skin. (But how do you know, really?) There’s a heat in one of the wider areas, a light that burns your eyes and a warmth that singes skin. You miss it, being able to see the change between dirt and stone, but light draws too much attention, and staying wasn’t safe.

--

He tilts his head, and if it weren’t for that you might not have even seen them. They have feathers, dark ones, reminiscent of a raven or a crow. You came here to find resources and gunpowder, to plan the next prank event you wanted to do. There’s something concerning about him, a lack of the things you see in the others you have met here. There’s been no news of other travelers to the smp, but maybe you just haven’t paid attention.

Maybe you see a lost person, clearly alone, close to the person you were before you lashed out, and try to help a bit. It’ll be fine, right?

--

You tell him what you are and he takes it as a name. It’s confusing, at first, the way he shortens it. He’s removed the part you find most important, but you’ve been alone enough that you do not correct him. It’s calming, to be called a companion, even if it’s meant differently.

He’s full of questions, and you hadn’t realized how many answers you lack.

But you’re supposed to respond, right? “Don't make it all about yourself?”

Says a voice in your head, harsh and demanding and cruel, and you do not know anything of the speaker except that you should fear them.

You ask him a question. It’s the right thing to do.

--

“You don't like the way I answer you. Do you not want to see yourself in me? Or are you just scared you’ll end up just like I am?”

To say you flinch is an understatement. The raven speaks and you turn your blade to face them, frantic twisting of your head as you search for signs of danger. They open their hands, the same way you did when you first found them, the same way you did when you said his name, and you freeze.

You can recognize, now, just what unnerved you.

--

You know enough to see it as a threat. You’re sure you once knew how to respond, how to fix it, but all you can remember now is that moment when the memory demanded that you respond in kind, and choose to do so.

His reaction to your questioning speaks volumes, but you’ll keep your tone low.

It’s only polite, right?

--

You run.

You run back through the mine, back to the surface, back to daylight and people who do not speak of being left behind, who do not tell you about memory and the loss of it. He follows, and you cannot begrudge him for it- You’re sure now that he would know the way out without you. Still, you run, seeking to flee from the fear and the person that brought it, back to your friend, who tilts their head the same way as the thing in the mine, and you run.

It takes two days before you try to approach him again. They stand next to her, the woman who smiles at the kings and the subjects and never leaves her axe behind, the one person you know to leave alone.

It takes five days before you let your partner in crime reintroduce you to him, and you’re civil. You will not like them, but they do not deserve your hate.

You’ll do your best to help them, but you’ll keep your distance.

--

He has numbers in his name, and they do too. You pay attention to the ways they write it down, and assemble your own little pile of letters. You replace the vowels until it makes sense, and pretend like that’s the way it was all along.

4B4ND0N3D_FR13ND looks nice on the sign you put up next to your tree. You still don't quite get it, but it makes them happy, and that’s enough for now.

(“That’s a threat. I know it is, I know that much, I know to respond in kind, and I know that you have started this exchange. I know this, and I don't; I assume and you believe me, because you have not yet grasped what I mean when I say I have forgotten. I have forgotten. I have forgotten who I am and what I’ve done and what to do. I have remembered that I was alive before I forgot, but I know no more, except this one thing-

I was ordinary.

I was ordinary and undeserving, I should never have received this curse, and finally, I did it myself.

You reacted badly when I called myself abandoned. It’s easy to be. Just forget and be forgotten. Your memories haunt you, in the way you flinch at my movements, in the way you seem to repeat things you’ve heard others say, and I could free you of it, you know. I could give you the blessing, the curse, of leaving all of it, everything behind. Do you fear it? The way you could be just like me, just like that?

I could make it so no one remembers your name.

"I̵ ̸d̵o̸u̷b̵t̵ ̴i̷t̸ ̵w̸o̷u̶l̸d̵ ̶e̷v̵e̸n̸ ̷b̷e̴ ̴t̷h̴a̸t̵ ̴h̵a̵r̵d̷.̶"