#p135

""This would not be a survivable situation, particularly for mortals. Are your people here so willing to die for vengeance?"

"I knew my mom appreciated Kye's generosity and was giving in to the charade to make her happy, but I'd always been proud of her resistance to spiritual conformity and I was sorry to see it surrendered. My mother had never practiced religion, even when it separated her from an already meager Korean community in a small town, even when her sister asked her to on her deathbed. I loved that she did not fear god. I loved that she believed in reincarnation, the idea that after all this she could start anew. When I asked her what she'd want to come back as, she always told me she'd like to return as a tree. It was a strange and comforting answer, that rather than something grand and heroic, my mother preferred to return to life as something humble and still."