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She's going to eviscerate you later.

Firm but gentle. She doesn't envy you the choice.

She pauses for a moment of internal gloating.

Piqued, can't help herself.

No mystery as to who he wants getting down on their hands and knees.

How does it feel to come face-to-face with yourself?

His soul is still new to the world, fresh and vulnerable. You need to walk him back one step at a time.

Her name seems to brush across your inner thigh.

You are fucked up.

It's his own current condition he is describing: the terminus of mistrust.

The work: To care for yourself, even and especially when no one else does.

Recognition like that never goes amiss.

All HOLOCENE did was hunt for meaning... especially, perhaps, where it doesn't exist.

All HOLOCENE does is hunt for meaning... especially, perhaps, where it doesn't exist.

Not surprising. HOLOCENE's worldview isn't shared by many -- if anyone -- except the author of that particular book.

Artist types have their own uniform -- usually, whatever constitutes the opposite of formal.

Some people's baseline is kindness.

Not a people person, then.

Translation: please, stop, I can't take this any more.

Her face softens -- an expression you haven't yet seen.

This is exactly her kind of thing.

It occurs to you that this little magazine may well be the sum total of this woman's life and legacy.

'Maybe I do', she thinks to herself.

'I deserve a much worse fate', she thinks to herself.

It's been much harder than she's letting on. That magazine was her life.

There's a bit more to it than that, but she's reluctant to admit it.

His lopsided smile is the same, though perhaps cut with a streak of bitterness that might be new.

A small silence as you rearrange your understandings of each other.

He needs to feel useful somehow. Especially as you're trying to help him out.

Unbelievable. He finds the sound comforting.

Or at least -- he was.

Morbidly transfixed, you as much a slave to what you are watching as the unblinking spectator.

You're in -- as a poet. Don't let them believe you're anything else.

Your human situation.

They didn't really talk, but she gravitated toward his presence like an animal to an abandoned building.

You can feel the tension going out of her shoulders, her diaphragm slackening as she straightens in her chair.

She's done this many times before. She'll say as little as possible. Treat it like a formality to get through the moment.

She's done this many times before. She'll say as little as possible. Treat it like a formality to get through the moment.

She's done this many times before. She'll say as little as possible. Treat it like a formality to get through the moment.

She's done this many times before. She'll say as little as possible. Treat it like a formality to get through the moment.

For a moment he seems to consider his reflection in the bottom of the tiny glass.

You mark a distinct change in the old spy's demeanour. Gone are the cryptic circumlocutions and knowing flourishes. For once, you're on the same page.

The world is huge, and strange, and it is flirting with him. He is pondering the offer.

And no one else to attest to what he saw. Over years the memory has smudged into dream.

He relishes the thought. He thinks it's funny.

Specialists, collectors of the rare and the defunct. People like him, in other words.

Agreement is not, in itself, agreeable to him.

A box of little nemeses.

You barely recognise her voice, emerging like a stranger's from a haze of red mist.

432 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 8 of 9