"Look, I just don't want you to keep hiding things from me," Kaye said, handing him back the bottle, "Or hurt my feelings because you think it's going to keep me safe, or sacrifice yourself for me. Just tell me. Tell me what's going on with you."
He tipped the champagne so that the liquid fizzed on the snow, staining it pink. "I taught myself to feel nothing. And you make me feel."
"That's why I'm a weakness?"
"Yes. It hurts, to feel again. But I'm glad of it; I'm glad of the pain."
"I know I failed you. In the stories when you fall in love with a creature--"
"First I'm a thing, now I'm a creature?"
"Well, in the stories is it often a creature. Some kind of beast. A snake that becomes a woman at night, or someone cursed to be a bear until they can take off their own skin."
"How about a fox?"
"If you like. You're crafty enough."
"Yeah, let's say a fox."
"In those stories, one is often asked to do something unimaginably terrible to the creature. Cut off its head, say. A test. Not a test of love, a test of Trust. Trust lifts the spell."
"So you think that you should have cut off my head?"
"I should have accepted your declaration, whether I thought it was wise or no. I loved you to much to trust you. I failed."
"Good thing I'm not really a fox. Or a snake or a bear. And good thing I'm sneaky enough to figure out a way around your dumb quest."
"Once more I mean to save you, and yet you come to my rescue...."
I wasn't kidding. It did remind me of you.
But can you guess why?
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