Ouroboros Spine let me hear you sing

Valiant's ears flicked as if tickled by a fly. He heard the same sort of poetry in her words as he often heard in his cousin's. Walking the same steps. He liked that, though. It did make him feel just a little less like the goal was insurmountable.

"I know it," was his quiet reply; commiseration, as Galana spoke of her love for familiar strangers. "It's lonely, ain't it? Havin' someone so close again, 'cept somehow you're years'n'years apart."

He watched her face; the stars were reflected in her eyes. Valiant felt no need to look up at them. The world above had little to do with him.

"But that's just perception, ain't it," he went on. "If you reach out and touch 'em, well — they're right there, sure enough."