"Yes!" Kubo cut in, relieved, as Roland remembered him. He had no idea how much the man had lost, or what would be best for him to remember, but - "We were on the ship together, you and I and Mother - I'm Kubo, I tell stories in the cafeteria every day -"

But he couldn't tell what he and his mother reminded Roland of. The first response that came to his mind was the truth - that settling somewhere safe had not saved his mother's life, or spared him any pain, that she was an ancient and terrible power whose stories he'd never hear the end of. That he'd looked at her face after the monitors had gone black and not seen fear, but readiness to go to war. That he was her son, and the son of a samurai, and he was not born to hide from horrible things. Even if he had tried, even if they had both tried to once.

He bit back on saying those things. This was not his story that Roland was in.

"Did you?"

He paused, wondering what he'd guessed already, what he was misguessing about the boy below them. If that was a figment, then this was all right, but if it were a Legionnaire he couldn't recognize, he could be wasting valuable time needed to save a teammate -

"With Jake? When this - first happened?"

He edged closer, fingers still on the strings, trying to get a closer look at the boy's face.