your mother once told you that when an animal stops being wild, it has given up on being free. there are advantages to captivity, such as stable meals and shelter, but even captive fairies have told you that living under a master's yoke means living or dying or killing at a master's whim.

but, like mothers, not all masters are kind.

have you given up on being free, moon prince?

• YES
• NO
• I DON'T KNOW

MOON PRINCE: my fairy mother told me, when she switched me with that prince of snow, that I would become him in his place.

MOON PRINCE: she would eat him down to the smallest phalange so there would be no trace.

MOON PRINCE: she said it was for my safety. because there would be food in this cuckoo's home, and no natural-born humanーchimeric or otherwiseーwould be able to detect me and the life I stole.

PARTHOGENESIS: but I am not natural-born; I am a clone

and I know.

MOON PRINCE: if you have known the wretched, cramping greed of extreme hunger or thirst then you will know that you cannot let anyone else have the power to control whether you eat.you have no choice but to bite the hand that feeds.

PARTHOGENESIS: but isn't it lonely?

MOON PRINCE: desire, desire the fire that burns inside me, smoldering my entrails to ashes, scorching me wet with regret, regret that I can't be HIM, the prince of snow whose life I stole.I can only be myself. and I hate myself more than anything,and I am so afraid of being myself, alone.

PARTHOGENESIS: at least in captivity you have the HAND OF GOD, the master's hand, to feed and caress you, pet you.with a master, you can never be alone.

【what if I could be your master?】

PARTHOGENESIS: though I am just a puppet of a master, too.

you smile at the unambitious (or too ambitious?) heir to HOUSE ETERNATUS. you have tempered yourself long ago, but the unpleasantness of desire haunts you with its gripping touch.

PARTHOGENESIS: do you know I've always hated that look on your face?

a smile uglier than crying.

MOON PRINCE: don't you think if I knew any other expression, I would use it?

I have such a pretty face, isn't it wasted if I don't smile?

PARTHOGENESIS: the real waste is smiling when you're obviously in pain.

don't you ever want to
just fuckinglose it?

MOON PRINCE: how quaint! what makes you think I haven't

fucking lost

fucking lost

fucking lost

fucking lost

my mind?

PARTHOGENESIS: our noble houses have been enemies since we were born

twenty years ago.

but I have not once
seen you cry

or yell

or fight.

MOON PRINCE: just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean I've never wanted to.