Love is hard, harder than steel and thrice as cruel. It is inexorable as the tides, and life and death alike follow in its wake.

And having once chosen, never to seek to return to the crossroads of that decision-for even if one chooses wrongly, the choice cannot be unmade.

To recongnize that the treachery of one member of a house does not taint all born within it

My lord. It is too much, and not enough

We are meant to taste of life ... and drink the cup of it to the dregs, bitter and sweet alike.

Are you a minor character in my tale, or am I a lesser figure in yours?

There are those who do not hold that there is any innate goodness to mankind. To them I say, had you lived my life, you would not believe it. I have known the depths to which mortals are capable of descending, and I have seen the heights. I have seen how kindness and compassion may grow in the unlikeliest of places, as the mountain flower forces its way through the stern rock.