Where does your heart lie, my precious one? No poison coursed your veins when you were unaware of the fount of truth. But now that the flowers have blossomed diamond glow, doubt fills your being and you recoil from the same arms that held you close for all these years. Confess, my dear. Where does your heart lie? Denying makes it not less real. Look at me, lost one! See me for what I am. Harden up and expand or die alive!
Oh, my precious one! Oh, precious he was… He surrendered to the Nightmare White without deigning to fight and died alive for all his life, so that when Lord Death sent his envoy to collect the inhabitant of the flesh, the emissary found naught but the dimmed embers of my friend’s soul. Thus, I wept for three nights and three days, and on the following day, I rose enraged above my tears. Basileus had shattered himself, his demise out of his own volition. Why would I cry for one who died, and died not bright? I gave him the tools to survive, and he tossed them aside.
