[private] a place made for all of us. together.

[garbage]

Alive? he might be dead for aught I know, With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain, And eyes squeezed shut ‘neath rusty mane; He is, historically, not good with families. His own parentage, of course, a mess (he’d never met his father, and his mother only twice). Cancer had spoken of family, as he’d magicked Garbage’s body into something capable of bearing children, but then he’d left, lit off with a new lover. Tabytha had showed off their twins -frail things, made of glass – and then they had left them on the shores of the beach, gone to drown together. (A measure that was only temporary, turns out – dead and then he wasn’t, then he was back.) It frightens him. He knows all this history, of course, and Agetta does not, save for pieces of it (still enough for him to have expected her to leave her, and yet -). But he can hope. God help him, he can hope. He can hope it will be different, that this time – this time! – maybe he can be a good man, a good father. (He’s so sorry she has his eyes.) He tries not to dwell on the rising tide of his failures, instead looks at her. At them. He smiles as Mazikeen speaks, bold and easy. His smile widens at the question and his nods, already affirming before he speaks. “I would love to,” he says, “lead the way, Mazikeen.” Maybe this time, it could be different. Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe; I never saw a brute I hated so; He must be wicked to deserve such pain.