That's what she does: like last week with the Sheyang. Can't run, can't fight. Guess you have to break the rules and betray yourself. "Let that evil flourish, or unleash another evil against it." She asks D'Argo how he'd call it. Respect. "I suppose I would choose the lesser of evil." NO SUCH THING. The relativity of evil is the most evil lie of all. Get a little on you or a lot, doesn't matter, but ignore it or explain it away and you've become a lie. A half-step off what you were. Minor key. Do the thing or don't do the thing, but don't dither around about whether or not you'll still deserve the gold star at the end of the day. Your goodness is the bedrock on which you're standing, all the time. It's all you've got. You can't wish it to giant size by sitting in a room and praying for hundreds of years any more than you can mourn for it having turned very tiny. It doesn't change size or shape, it just is. It's what you come home to, when you're alone and safe. She looks and looks and looks for it, and the whole time she's standing on it, it's what's holding her up. It's God, and she spits on it. Over and over.

John spots Crais through a gap in the walls of Maldavia and calls to him. "You can't run forever," smolders Crais. "I can wait." John tries to get him to understand about the whole conflict thing and how it's getting Maldis off. Crais, awesomely: "I don't care." John explains, pointing out the manic stuff Maldis shows up and does whenever they get into it, and how his level drops when they're avoiding each other. "Maldis doesn't command me!" Crais screams. John talks sense. Déjà vu time, fast forward...now. "Listen. You're beating yourself up because you were supposed to protect your brother. I understand that now. And you can believe this or you can shine it, but honest to God, I tried to get clear. I didn't mean for him to crash, and I'm sorry he's dead. Do you understand that?" Doesn't matter. "It changes nothing. Tauvo is dead. Struck down by a weak, pathetic, inferior being." He wigs some yelly déjà vu some more and then runs off. Maldis appears: "You're not nearly as thick as I thought, John. You begin to understand what I'm all about." Vampire. "I admit, I feed on death. But don't we all? Some eat plants, some meat. I consume the life essence itself. Preferably medium rare." See what we're talking about? What the hell is that? Banter? Whatever, you poncey old vampire. But he can't kill them yet -- in John's words, interesting vis-à-vis Zhaan's stuff, "Why all the foreplay?" -- because "Death is the main course, all this is the appetizer." He warns him Crais is coming back and politely asks that John fight, not run. "I'm getting hungry again." Which breaks John's heart, he is assured.