Riposte: before the fall.

Your words, you, sting me. But then I knew you would, in your way as others do in theirs. Do you think this gives me pleasure? What pleasure might I ask? As I know life only as what I am: a mortal, a creation of the whim of Whom, What?

How do you think I take more than what is given me when my hands are overflowing? What do you expect me to do with my eyes but see, and feel inside what it is I see, but cannot bear?

Have you forgotten who you, we, are?

Or is this your unforgiving self turning upon an easy target? Because. Because.

Even were I to attempt an answer it would be no more than a whisper in the wind for those not inclined to listen. Why are we alone, we two, among these tumultuous crowds? Why do we move as all stands still and stay when all else is wrapped up in its bed?

Would you watch them if there was no fire to bring them all in, huddled, cold, destitute, wearing clothes you would not discard for fear of ridicule?

You know the shadow questions as they play upon their frozen faces, lost to the world that they have never felt at ease with.

You know their dark sides, never to face diaphanous light; it keeps them strong when they must stand against your disapproval.

You know and yet still you watch, never tiring, never asking if you do not know all the answers. For you do.

But still you watch. And why, you will not say.