"I've no need for flattery when I can just tell the truth," he returns, doesn't really let Phillip run from that opinion. In fact, he rolls back over slightly, enough that he can reach up and cup the side of Phillip's face, "I am certain that Azem had little to complain about in how you were, but I prefer you like this. I could never compare to the heart of someone from that time, to have never known loss, to have never feared death. It would be like falling in love with a god-- distant and hopeless and uncommunicable. In the world I have always known, tragedy and beauty cannot be unwound from one another."

His lips curl into the smallest of smiles,

"That's why we're going to save this world. Meteion isn't wrong. But I can't believe that is wrong, either."