She doesn't know the details of this story, doesn't know the identity of Gren's big, bright shining star or how they died. But Bianca's unwanted empathy lurches in her hearts. She knows the story of waste and rage and unbridgable loss intimately. She knows how it ends.

"It really is. Here we are with our hearts still beating - it's positively obscene."

She plucks the bottle back, takes a long pull of her own and then offers it again.

"The whole universe is like this, dear heart. Wrong to its disgusting, pulsing core. One is supposed to say I'm sorry, isn't one? I am. Don't imagine I'm not. But those words are only moving air, Gren, and ...I can't move enough of it to matter."