Oh, aye, Sassenach. I am your master . . . and you're mine. Seems I canna possess your soul without losing my own.

What a mystery blood was -- how did a tiny gesture, a tome of voice, endure through generations like the harder verities of flesh? He had seen it again and again, watching his nieces and nephews grow, and accepted without thought the ehoes of parent and grandparent that appeared for brief moments. the shadow of a face looking back through the years -- that vanished again into the face that was now.

Tell him I hate him to his guts and the marrow of his bones!

It's a good country for myths. Things seem to take root here.

It would ha' been a good deal easier, if ye'd only been a witch.

Do you know,' he said again softly, addressing his hands, 'what it is to love someone, and never - never! - be able to give them peace, or joy, or happiness?' He looked up then, eyes filled with pain. 'To know that you cannot give them happiness, not through any fault of yours or theirs, but only because you were not born the right person for them?

Oh, aye, Sassenach. I am your master . . . and you're mine. Seems I canna possess your soul without losing my own.