Vrenille gives a small, slow nod, his eyes on the makeshift table where they sat. He would like people to remember Carver for that, yes, and he will remember him that way. He'll remember his love for the son he lost who wasn't his by blood but was his nonetheless. He'll remember the way he sought to honour his people and the sacred way he treated the ones he'd lost, the respect he gave to the truth of grief.

"He said they're heavy, the weight of souls, and I told him how your world denied you had one, but how I knew you did 'cause I feel it when I'm with you...I felt it when you were gone." When K was gone and they knew in his world he died.

"Carver's dead in his world." And of course he doesn't need to spell that out--this place was a second life, an interval, and now he is just dead, and Vrenille feels that weight of his soul, the way his knees want to buckle with it, how he could beat the ground with his fists and scream at how breathtakingly unfair and arbitrary it all is, losing him this way. He could, for all the difference it would make, which is none.

"I wanted to bring him to mine. Wanted to see him have the chance for a life there. In my mind when I'd picture it, he'd be with us. But I never got a chance to ask him, never made the offer. I dunno what he woulda said."