[ Matt nods, emotions lightening for a moment to open curiosity. Appreciating things at a distance sounds like a skill he wishes more humans would learn. But then ... that's mostly so he wouldn't feel so lonely, so vulnerable to judgment when he opens up to the wrong person. Is it selfish of him to want people to be different just for his comfort?

He also can't help but wonder if it's morally defensible to love a creature who eats the souls of children. At the very least, it seems all too easy for that love to go wrong. Which is Matt's fundamental problem, really, but he sees no reason to bother Sebastian with those qualms. They're Matt's to figure out. ]

I don't know how anybody could see what you are and not feel some bhakti, [ he notes, quiet but amused. ] It's, um. Awe-inspiring. Or maybe the inverse of awe.

[ But awe and its inverse, for all practical purposes, strike Matt as the same sensation. The same spiritual free fall, the same smallness in the face of something vast. ]