[Of all the things Set might have said to him, in the face of his shame and his self-disgust, Liem does not expect the words that reach his ears. It's not as if he has only ever been spurned for his abnormality. He has known other people in the past who have not had any fear of him, and those who have insisted that he need not revile what is natural for his body — people who did not understand, who could not understand, his inability to reconcile Liem the blood-drinker with Liem the man. People who failed to grasp his despair at being unable to wrest such a simple part of his being within his own control, or his fear that his obsessive compulsion to drink — innate to him, and yet disturbingly foreign, something he can't accept as his own — would only run rampant over him if he ever allowed himself to feed it.

But the assertion that someone should wish to take care of him is too much to bear. Because it is degrading, to capitulate to his thirst and his pain and his weakness. It is something that should be beneath him — perhaps as a body's demand for food would be beneath the divine — and yet, he has been forced again and again to endure it — and worse, to enjoy it; to be unable even to maintain his own dignity in caring for the needs of his flesh. He does not want to care for such a thing — and it shames him terribly to think of someone else doing so for him.

The stiff line of his shoulders sags, defeated, as he lowers his gaze from Set's — to his mouth, his jaw. His neck.]

I would suffer mine in solitude if I could. But even that, I cannot do.

[At least Set needs not endure witnesses to his humiliation. There is another reason why Liem prefers not to drink from anyone he knows; if he must suffer someone to watch him — to feel him drink, he would rather it be someone he will never see again.

He closes his eyes, as if against that particular thought.]

What offering would suffice for the blood of a god?