You said it, not I. [ Smiling blandly and spoken with misplaced, unfitting cheer, of course, as ever. Was it strange for him, being on this side of the replacement child paradigm? The replacer rather than the replacee. Or was it simply strange to be subject to that kind of care from a stranger, as opposed to the mother he could no longer muster up sentiment for?

Ah, well. To dwell upon it... they have both agreed that it is something to be left behind them. ]

Things are much more permanent here in a way they were not in the Underground, that is true. But I think ... [ They hum, blinking quite deliberately, slowly at him. ] You, in particular, tried to remind us of the concept regardless. Your insistence that regardless of what was or was not undone. You, at least, would know what had happened because of that power.

[ The power to reshape the world, as he put it. Even if his desires for the Underground were overpowered by theirs. ]