He made himself relax as she lathered him up, occasionally closing his eyes to enjoy the sensation.  He would sigh occasionally, trying to force the natural tension in him out.  It wasn't easy for it - he was given to stress, and there was reason to be stressed in this alien environment with enemies likely outside looking for them, but he had seen people crack.  Just as he knew that Blackvayne, for all his strength, was in the end just meat, he knew it was true of him, too.  Survival<i>demanded</i>taking care of oneself when possible, and he strongly wanted to live.  Sometimes, you had to take the pressure off, even if there was some risk there, too.  It was about managing the danger, and he believed Vara would help him do that.<br/><br/>He opened his eyes and laughed once.  "It's a romantic thought.  I'm not sure how much I want to put my faith in romantic thoughts.  I... aim at practicality, and I'm not sure what the 'moon to my sun' means.  If for no other reason, I am not the sun.  I'm not the moon.  I'm the shadow deep in a cave.  You haven't seen that, yet, but you will.  You will."<br/><br/>He<i>almost</i>stopped there.  He didn't want to move her mind to dark places, but he wanted to be honest with her, too.  He cupped her cheek, looked into her shockingly blue eyes.  "Vara, I don't think we were made to be anything.  I think it's all chaos and madness and for a brief while, it seems to make sense if we squint our eyes and lean our head to one side.  Sometimes happy coincidences happen.  People find each other.  In the Old World, for a long time, they lived in peace and prosperity that we can't even imagine.  Then, because the universe is a mess that doesn't make any sense, it ended.  We're just making our way in this madness, and maybe we can choose this path or that one, but everything I've ever seen in this world says to me that it ends in misery.  It ends with us coughing up blood as we die."