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Vendetta is a cruel gauntlet, enslaving both the agent and recipient under the scourge of strike and counterstrike, flogging both onto more severe retaliation with the whip of hatred and intolerance, each lash laid upon wounds barely healed, further fomenting the spiraling cycle of reprisal, until the original transgression is a forgotten blur and the requiters resemble raw masses of flayed flesh, the gauntlet rarely killing early.—Lex Talionis: The Unlawful Law, by the Sectathon Wizard Probing Gaze.
Rippling Water hurried toward the house, liking Seeking Sword, wishing she could talk with him more, knowing she would later.
Flowering Pine awaited her.
Dread stirred in her bowels. Walking briskly toward the house, Rippling Water passed the fountain. Many years before, her mother had
