The Prince of Hope, much like the Heir of Void in the alpha timeline, manages to fulfill his role even when he's absent, doesn't he? Romantic hate is confusing and Kanaya may not actually be skilled with romance, but she's even worse with platonic relationships. Back home she had them, with members of her own species, but Gamzee... There wasn't really anything there back then, was there? There's something now, and it's enough to pull her down halfway over her chair's edge, attracting her hand to hover over the twisted curls of his hair.

"It's pretty silly, isn't it, Gamzee? That we could have created a species so similar to ours yet so different." That's blabbered poetry, but it's a good enough substitute for the classic pseudophilosophy of her stupid sunny novels. Eridan always made fun of them. Gamzee might not even know she reads them. Being alive is terrible. Nothing is real and she's not a god and she's not anything supernatural, she's just six sweeps old or probably half again by now, she feels seventeen and nobody else in here is, not with Willow gone.