drive to derive

Perhaps Alpha was not so kind after all. Perhaps he wasn't even so much of a man.

("Mister Alpha, sir.")

But A is kind. Infinitely so. Each judgement measured and particular, yet, too, almost humorous in its melancholy.

If they were to move on, to ascend to that promised higher world, they would have to leave people like A behind. People who carried a certain...infinite derivative quality.

How proud Na'el feels, now, to be a Vandham. Not just despite but also because of who the first was; who was determined to snuff.

How proud to earn the esteem of the willful, persistent heart.

What honor, in thriving. What thrill, in beating the odds. Next. Again.

Even, to earn the pride of another wholly separate from their struggle.

People will always kill people. But they'll also always connect, branch, spiral, and in the grandest scheme of bewitching things, make more.