no love that ends in love

"I'm not as good at this as I seem."

"Accounting for missing pieces?" is A's suggestion.

Elma sighs, each pulse of breath out making the crystals that line their body shudder and scrape against each other. The smoothness of "mimeosome" form is a luxury surely missed.

"Waiting for people. Leaving people behind."

"It doesn't surprise me."

A little laugh. "No?"

"We're all bound to façades, eventually. If I should think you were perfect, I would allow myself no room for error."

"We're not really the same, you know."

Are they as different as all the bodies in the Lifehold Core, sleeping without breathing and without dreaming but so unique in each passing moment all the same? Will they become the same if only they sleep, if only they slumber and let time pass for their unconscious complexes?

And what would be the point of assimilation?

"After enough time, most everyone is. If they allow themselves to be."

Elma says nothing, waiting for clarification. Elaboration, rather.

"Those choices which have led you to be a protector, an intercessor for humanity. They draw your experience closer to that of one such as me. That is how non-human entities become more human; sympathy." (Some empathy, as well, crossing that crucial boundary.)

"What about Alpha?"

A shakes weighted head. "I believe the phrase proceeds as follows: 'Lacking in compassion.'"