We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned, T’lan Imass. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the wold. It must be given freely. In abundance.

What matter the colour of the collar around a man's neck, if the chains linked to them were identical?

I was needed, but I myself did not need. I had followers, but not allies, and only now do I understand the difference. And it is vast.

Civilization after civilization, it is the same. The world falls to tyranny with a whisper. The frightened are ever keen to bow to a perceived necessity, in the belief that necessity forces conformity, and conformity a certain stability. In a world shaped into conformity, dissidents stand out, are easily branded and dealt with. There is no multitude of perspectives, no dialogue. The victim assumes the face of the tyrant, self-righteous and intransigent, and wars breed like vermin. And people die.

There is no struggle too vast, no odds too overwhelming, for even should we fail - should we fall - we will know that we have lived.

I hear Seven Cities natives grow fruit just so they can eat the larvae in them.

And over it all, the butterflies swarmed, like a million yellow-pettalled flowers dancing on swirling winds.