Last spark from the ashes

"It's not really about that- I know we were just talking about power, but it's not about whether you could beat me in a duel. This is more like... social equality. About you having rights that I - or anyone else - can't override. It's about acknowledging you're a person. Letting you have the freedom to be one."

She pauses, her eyes focused elsewhere for a moment as she takes in Nike's whispered fears and too many of her own memories cry out in echo. "I know it's... frightening, this kind of change. Better than almost anyone, I'd guess. It's terrifying, when you feel-" it all coming apart, shuttering into darkness, every thought falling away to horrific nothing" "like your only anchor's crumbling away. When you don't know what's going to be left of you on the other side." Her gaze flits over nothing; then she shudders a little, deliberately recalibrating.

"But. But sometimes- sometimes, when you choose it - when you have a purpose to hold to-" she reaches out half-consciously as she recalls the Forge, and a warm wind brushes over her fingers, "turns out it's a good kind of frightening. The kind that comes with being free suddenly."

She turns her hand in Nike's hesitant grasp, to touch the angel's fingers. Her glowing gaze is seeking Nike's again. "I don't know all of what it would change, either. Or who you'd become. But I think maybe you want to find out. So I want to help you."