[Kaworu has been generous with praise tonight, and Paul has eased himself into a state of temporary acceptance. He's been playing at the part of princeling to make it possible, and it's been a kind of fun he hasn't had in months. But this - being given an invitation for outpouring, after having his own glass filled - isn't a game the way that is. He takes his time thinking about it, a whole three heartbeats long.]

Like the questions you ask. [He echoes the beat, slowed and softened, on the top of a cervical vertebrae.] You want to know why things are, not just how. It matters to you that things have an order. It's hard for you to understand why people do things that hurt themselves, or each other.

You're kind to people. Not always nice [with a press of reassurance] but kind. There's a difference.

[And Paul can sense it, a glimmer within the vast brilliance of the soul housed in the small body he's cradling - a sun-warm tidepool of self, not wholly angel or human, but something of both, and something only of Kaworu.]

Things like that.