It is not the patterns that enthral me, I’m not one of those fools chasing fractals; no, it’s what sings behind them. Sings that I am beautiful. Sings that I am a home. That I can be fully consumed by what loves me. […]
Perhaps I’ve always heard it. Perhaps the itch has always been the real me, and it was the happy, smiling Jane who called herself a witch and drank wine in the park when it was sunny. Maybe it was her who was the maddened illusion that hides the sick squirming reality of what I am. Of what we all are, when you strip away the pretence that there is more to a person than a warm, wet habitat for the billion crawling things that need a home. That love us in their way.
(The Magnus Archives 32 - Hive)
The young bride says,
“But either way I become a vessel - for your purposes or for theirs.”
The Trawler-man tells her, and his smile is kind,
“You are a vessel, no more than that; to be anything else would be in excess of your own nature. Come. Bear me a gift, and I shall leave you something in return.”
(The Silt Verses Chapter VI: It Winds, It Worms, It Wends)