[Thoughtful, emotionless, Jade nods once in his agreement.] Yes, I also believe that to be true. In order to change, one can neither hide from the past nor refuse to accept the future.

[That is what Nebilim tried to teach him that Jade could not understand. That is what Luke showed him through his own choice to change himself and the world.]

If you'll allow an old man his biases, without acknowledgement that change is possible, motivation is lacking. There is little to drive a person if that individual feels no effect will come from their actions. It is the desire to prove change possible that motivates my research.

[Much of Jade is dead, but not all of him. But even what is alive in Jade is caught up in death. Living, he loves the dead: his teacher and the child he refused to call a student. If he can honour their memories by trying to create the change they believed possible, then he thinks he himself might be able to some day truly understand the preciousness of life that they both cherished so much.]