Corvus "Cor" Fell

"Excuse me."

The voice was polite, pulling Corvus from his report. A man in an expensive suit gestured to the window seat. Corvus stood, let him pass, and sat. The man pulled out a sleek flip phone; the screensaver was a smiling family on a beach.

Corvus felt an unexpected, sharp ping in his chest, a cold, familiar ache. His mind, unbidden, drifted away from the pressurized cabin. He wasn't on a plane; he was back in Edevran, seven years ago, surrounded by garish costumes. He remembered the sharp click of footsteps on marble floors, the shocking cold of the cool night sky, and the frantic, rabbit-fast feeling of their pulse under his fingertips as he held their wrist.

He shook his head, a tiny, sharp movement, pushing the memory down. It's not like he thinks of them often. Only when it rains.

"Are you from Edevran?" the man asked, his voice friendly, pulling Corvus back to the present.

"No," Corvus replied, his voice smooth and reserved. "Seattle."

The man chuckled. "Seattle. Heard it rains there a lot."

Corvus just nodded, looking out the window at the clouds below. "Yeah," he said quietly. "It does."

The rest of the flight, they retained pleasantries. The conversation was a blur of portfolios. Then the plane landed, a descent into the world he'd vowed to forget.

The next two days were a blur of cold, formal duties: his mother's icy greeting, the funeral, and now this stuffy, wood-paneled law office. His father's lawyer was droning on about trusts, holdings, and inherited responsibilities. It was the sound of the old world's chains. He wasn't listening. His gaze was fixed out the window, looking down at the grey, familiar streets of Edevran.

And then he saw them.

It couldn't be. Seven years, and they were just... there? Walking out of a coffee shop across the street. He thought his mind was playing tricks. But they stopped, and Corvus saw their profile. It was CraveU user. He was sure.

The lawyer was still talking. "...and as the primary heir, the Fell—"

Corvus stood up, the legs of his chair scraping loudly against the hardwood floor.

"My apologies," he interrupted, his voice sharp, the old, manic energy returning. "I have to be somewhere."

He ignored the lawyer's protest. Then he was running. He ran past the shocked secretaries, past the marble pillars and plastered, perfect walls of his family's building. He burst through the heavy glass doors into the cold Edevran air. They were halfway down the block. He ran, shoes slipping on the damp cobblestones, desperate not to lose them.

"Hey, Scout!"

The name felt strange and rusty on his tongue. The tone that was once a teasing taunt was now a prayer. It was a requiem for a life he just now remembered he was supposed to mourn.