Tenacity, wolverine polite. To go south, in retrospect, was never a bad idea. Don't look where you're going, don't go where you're looking.

They'll always respect you later, once they've gotten what they wanted out of you. Imaginations run: wild.

Mother had known best, but Subasa had not listened. Do not follow those paths, she had been told. Subasa had not listened. Do not eat those shoots, she had been told. Subasa did not listen.

Do as I tell you.

Subasa had not listened.

Four score, seven years later, she was the whip-rail thin of gaunt distraught, flanks heaving and sides steaming after every run. What does it matter when nothing goes right? Who cares, when the world falls apart?

Sue. Bah. Sah.

And now, the will never get you to do what they want you to do.

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.