Thank you, but we respectfully decline your overture, being more enjoyably occupied at present.

A pause came between them, and it was so full of Akiva that Karou imagined she could smell him.

Alas. I am not an option.

Music. Close your eyes and it's a rosebush blooming in time lapse so that it shoots and blossoms flow outward in a swift choreography of growth and collapse, twine and coil, release and fade. Close your eyes and music paints light vines and calligraphy on the darkness within you.

Is that all souls are for? For when we die?" "No. They're for living, too.

What are we fighting for? What are we killing for? What do you see when you look into the future?

It is a condition of monsters that they do not perceive themselves as such. The dragon, you know, hunkered in the village devouring maidens, heard the townsfolk cry 'Monster!' and looked behind him.