I gave you two choices as a test: there are never just two choices. That is a lie to keep you from thinking too deeply.

There's honest work to be done, Johnny," whispered Griss. "The world is full of work, waiting for you.

Dying took commitment. It was easier to go on living incompetently.

You will wander the dark places under the earth, but you will come back with the sun.

It matters less where you go than that you keep moving.

The darkness was full, fuller than she would ever have guessed, and she found this curiously comforting.

The world is surprisingly hard to destroy.

She still held sorrows, but she was not made of them. Her life was not a tragedy. It was a history, and it was hers.

Anyway, it wasn't that flavor of love. She could leave and carry it with her. Time would not put a dent in it, nor distance snuff it out.