Curioso walked a few more paces with her, lost in thought, before he spoke.
"I know him best of all? Maybe at one time, ma fleur, but I'm not so sure anymore...Something has changed."
"Oui," sighed Annette, "We all have changed. We change every day, but there are certainties that do not change. Our only hope is in finding le problème de noyau, that which does not change."

"Pardonnez-moi," she continues, "I fall on this thought because it is the one thing I know. Dissect, assess, and solve." she stifles a giggle, "Lise would be proud, non? Ah well, we go. La première idée, the anger. He is angered by anything that would alter his being. Our reaching the monastery triggered something, chere. What is he trying to protect here? The delusion? Oui, there is the minor melting of the physical realms, but perhaps he feeds his own delusion. He takes great pride in the creation of this world, that is evident. He feels that his way is now perfection, if that is so, then why is he angered? If he dwells in the perfection, why does he give a thought to YOU? Because he knows there is something more, something you have that he cannot attain."

"That is obvious.." Curioso mumbles, as he tightens his grip on Annette's shoulder.
"Non, non, non chere. I am thinking that is what he WANTS you to think. It is not l'atom...l'energie. You know how the scientists are, they cannot keep their mouths shut. In no time at all, that information will be available to anyone at a price. If it is not already..." she stares at the path ahead. "And it is not womanhood. There are women everywhere who would line up for that kind of power. He could choose his own."

Curioso turns to her, wide-eyed, intense. "What if he already has."
Annette's first urge was to laugh out loud, until she saw the fear in Curioso's eyes. "Non, c'est impossible. Mon coeur appartient à vous. He could try to break me into a million atoms of my own and all I will think of is happy times and bubblebaths in Budapest...this he already knows....So it would not be l'amour itself, but the idea of it that he is after."

Annette stopped so quickly that she almost toppled backwards to the trail. "Le coeur qui a l'amour! So very simple!"
"Nets? What are you talking about?"
"Do you love me?"
"Chere, of course..." Curioso confusedly answers
"Very good, now, do I love you? Do I?" she cuffs him lightly on the arm.
"Well, there are times that I wonder...but I'll go with yes."
"And Tirseng? The Geshe? You love them? Would give your life for them? And they for you?"
"Yes." he replies
"And Dominic? Do you love your brother?"
Curioso's eyes darken as he stares off to the White Mountain. "Yes, I love my brother."
"Yes, but no one else loves him that much. Is there one who would die for him? Everyone who might have brought him back from this black prison, they left...."
Curioso starts to interrupt, but Annette raises her hand to him. "Non, chere, écoutez moi. Not from what you know, but from what your brother feels. Abandonné. Unworthy of anything but the dark.....Now, chere, the only question is, when he flies too close to the sun, do we catch him or let him fall?"