as i cuddled the porcupine, he said i had none to blame but me

"You didn't understand her!"

"And you still don't!"

"There is nothing to understand. Alvis is..."

He'd gone to the Spirit Crucible, after hearing of the supposed hero rested there, out of an irreparable curiosity about the man who'd apparently been much as he was, among aegises and origins.

A new word for Alvis, even if one that only half-applied. Not especially surprising.

Alvis was...what? He didn't, couldn't know, wholly.

His own wounded pride, long thought forgotten, soon flared in defensive accusations hurled at the emerald ghost.

A ghost that smiled faintly, crown bare, for the futility of it all.