We are all of us, every one, our own works; we present our souls to our Patrons at the ends of our lives as an artisan presents the works of his hand… - Lois McMaster Bujold

“Can you be paranoid about being paranoid?”
She smiled sweetly. “If anyone can, it’s you.”

Over and over in his career, Pen had confronted the insight that the gods did not care for humans' material concerns, much to the humans' dismay. Only with what record of them was carved into their souls by their unique and individual lives, presented as the final offering upon the alter of their deaths. All deaths, in whatever form. One by one, each attended to with the same singular consideration. Each valuated with the discernment of a connoisseur adding to his collection. Each placed in the niche found most fitting to it. Denied by self-will sometimes, by the gods' will at others, but never lost by carelessness.

Mark had a Thing about Miles. Thing was not accepted psychoscientific terminology, she’d been informed by his twinkling therapist, but there was scarcely another term with the scope and flexibility to take in the whole complexity of the…Thing.