The small man groaned as he woke, his brain wondering what had happened.

Remembrance flooded back to him. The servant-sorcerer, sharpening his knife, the boy going from absolutely silent to suddenly screaming at the top of his lungs, and blackness closing in like putting out a torch.

A wave of nausea engulfed him, and he moaned again. He was an assassin, used to working from the shadows and always, always with complete control over his victims. Pain was not something he was used to. For a fleeting moment he wished the boy was still living with him, but discarded the idea. He'd never hurt the boy before, but that was when he hadn't had a reason to.

A memory unfolded in his head, still reeling in confusion. The boy had come back from being out in the woods...

"Papa?"

The small man looked at the boy with no expression. The boy flushed and said, "Woodsman? H-he's not waking up."

The small man glanced briefly over to the man chained to the floor, then back to the boy. It was rather unfortunate he had come back to the cabin at this time. Ten minutes later and the body would be gone.

"He's dead." the small man said bluntly and turned back to the fire.

"Dead?" there was evident confusion in the boy's voice. "What's dead?"

The small man resisted the impulse to sigh in irritation. "Dead means he won't wake up. Ever."

There was a short silence, and a quavering voice asked, "Why did he die?"

The small man considered. On one hand, the boy was annoying him. It would be fun to see his face if he knew the woodsman had killed the man. On the other hand, though, the boy had had a few conversations with the man and might recoil from the woodsman if he knew that. Rebellion was dangerous, even if it was only from a three year-old boy. Plus, they sometimes had to go to the market in Camelot. It would prove a tricky situation if the boy blurted out his companion had killed a man.

So the small man said, "He was sick. If you're sick, you can die."

The boy was quiet after that.

The small man blinked his eyes open as the nausea receded. He hadn't thought of that conversation in months. Not for the first time, he cursed himself for not cutting the boy's throat when he had a chance. A small child who knew who he was, where he was and what he did was a serious liability. If the exact right - or exact wrong - person pulled it out of him the woodsman was in deep water.

But those were thoughts for another time. Right now, he had a sorcerer who was apparently quite a bit more powerful than anticipated, and a good deal more unstable.

Slowly, the small man levered himself into a sitting position, where he could see the sorcerer.

He frowned, an uncommon expression on his face. The sorcerer was still chained, on his side and clearly conscious. His eyes were open, and they flickered around the room, but there was no spark of...anything. No fear, or pain, or triumph, or even recognition.

That was it, the small man realized. The sorcerer obviously saw the room, the small man, the kettle on the fire, and he also heard the slight crackle of the wood and the groaning, obviously felt the floor under him and the chain on his leg, yet he didn't comprehend them. There was a look in his eyes, one that said he was experiencing more than one reality at once.

The small man couldn't help but feel slightly curious. What kind of sorcerer had he trapped, one that had managed to overcome the cuff, if only for an instant, and produce this kind of reaction? True, other sorcerers had gone insane, but they had raved and wept and tried desperately to bargain with anyone who would listen, imaginary or not.

This sorcerer looked more like...like his soul had been torn away.

Abruptly, the small man shook his head. Trying to figure out the why to any situation was useless. The only way to survive was to simply deal with what happened.

And this little incident did not change his plan in the slightest.

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Colors he had no name for swirled in and out of his vision, sounds and sensations he'd never experienced pressed against him, vying for attention. Years passed with each breath he took, but he couldn't tell whether he was moving forward or back.

Did he even exist anymore? Perhaps he didn't, because everything he was seemed to be gone. Memories, experiences, thoughts and emotions seemed to unwind from his tangled mind and spin away into the darkness, their bindings gone.

There was someone he had to protect...

But their name slipped away from him into the darkness. He began to panic. That wasn't right. He knew there was someone important, someone he had to protect at any and ALL costs, but surely he would know their name.

Who am I?

The thought - can someone who doesn't exist have thoughts? - sent him reeling as his mind came up empty - is it empty if there's nothing there in the first place? - and he realized he didn't know his name either.

Images came to him, images so incomprehensible he wasn't sure they were from his own reality. But could he remember his reality? There were colors and sounds and images there, too. Did that make the things he was experiencing real or false? How could he tell the difference?

Time existed in his reality, but not here. Here it took millennia to draw a breath and lifetimes went by in a heartbeat. He shouted and screamed as loud as he could, but no sound can come from something that doesn't exist. He knew there was something he needed to do, something he desperately tried to fight for, memories fading away just like him as he became quieter and quieter and he tried to remember some...one...

Forms and things moved around him, paying him no mind. He got the faint feeling they were alive, but it was hard to know what alive was anymore. Did alive mean exist? He didn't exist, but did that mean he wasn't alive?

Did he want to be?