My village is too poor for such things...and too many died too swiftly in the plague for such fine treatment.

[ He spares the headstone a glance, wistful and fleeting, and returns his attention to Jade. ]

I'm not about to pretend my goddess had a hand in all of that. I think the reason we survive lies within ourselves.

[ If Yuri's brutally honest with himself, he may be where he is because of equal parts love and spite. He adores his mother and he's been doggedly determined to live at the very least for her sake. Much of what he had endured was in order to support and provide for her.

At the same time, he'd hated the people who used him, who treated him as a means to an end. A substitute, a toy, an obsession. He'd been many things to nobles he'd come to despise, none of them for any reason better than needs must. Yuri'd be a liar if he claimed he wasn't motivated in some measure by exacting justice on the corrupt... Most often by draining their coffers.

You know, as one does. ]

Suffering can end. We can make it end — but only if we keep surviving. Keep fighting.