“Who’s to say if that’s the case? Did who we are really come after what we are, when time doesn’t matter and ideas are malleable? Oh, yes, I was fashioned to be madness, but madness didn’t turn out to be what the other gods expected it to be. I wouldn’t be myself if I wasn’t madness, and instead was ‘madness.’ But then, I’m mad, so what do I know?” he laughs.

Then he’s somber again. He changes quite fluidly and comfortably around Valdis; there’s less of a need to mask around her, less of a worry that he’ll frighten her off with his nature.

“And if the opposite is true, if we are what we are before we are who we are… I think maybe it’s worth it, sometimes. Because the other choice is that no one is that god, no one is that idea. But that doesn’t mean an idea just goes away, either. Imagine a world where the mad are mad, but they have nothing to belong to.”