"You're really good and I'm, ah, sort of a bad person."

"I don't think I've ever managed good. Trying, maybe." 

He entangles his fingers with Sataro's. "I don't even try."

He holds Ashka's hands. "You keep smiling like that." 

"Yeah."

He hesitates for a moment, and then kisses Ashka again. 

Ashka smiles into his mouth. It's genuine.

Good. 

"I think trying counts for a lot."

"....maybe that's true. But if I did nothing but purify all day I still wouldn't feel clean." 

"Have you noticed what everyone else does when someone is new and struggling and maybe a little homesick?"

"...what about it." 

"I'm just saying you might not be pure but you are kind."

"...thank you." He presses his forehead into Ashka's and holds tight to his hands. 

"You're going to be a great prophet."

Tholassi wishes Kirasu had been His prophet instead, he doesn't say. 

"I watched Him being tortured, Ashka," he whispers. 

"Good, maybe he'll learn not to torture people."

He doesn't know where to start responding to that so he just hugs Ashka instead. 

"Maybe it's not helpful because the reason I think you'd be a great prophet is that I think Tholassi is a terrible god."

He isn't sure whether that helps or not. 

"He's already less of a fan of torture, that's something, but — Ashka, he was screaming, and I was the only one who could hear —" 

Ashka holds him.

"That sounds awful."

He nods and presses into Ashka and lets himself be held. 

"You're so you."

"...I'm not sure what that means," very quietly into Ashka's shoulder. 

"You're upset when Tholassi is tortured and not because he's our God but because he's a person."