"Oh! Wow, I want one."

"There are other places dead people in my world go that do nice things instead of unmaking."

"It'd be kind of nice to have both," he says wistfully. "If people got to hang out in the nice places until they were ready and then leave."

"The river pulls people. Who do not want it. If it were just there for people who want it, maybe nobody would write this song."

"Do the other places pull too?"

"Yes. But if you go to the nice places, like where the person who wrote the song is from, and you want things to stop, they will say 'I think you are making a mistake' but they will not stop you. And some of them will help, I think."

"That might be okay. Once we have ghost-destroying weapons and have killed Hylia, if you figure out a way to stick people in a nice desert or something until they admit they'd rather not exist..."

Air elementals can't really sputter so much as mimic a sputter, which is kind of pointless, so ey doesn't bother. "Wait, what? Why would they do that? Why do you say 'admit'?"

Sigh. "...We say 'admit'  when someone was thinking something but not saying it for a long time before saying it. Or if it's true but they worry someone would think they were bad, so they were afraid to say it. Other than that, it means the same thing as 'say'. And... well, the people you met, back at the stable, grew up hearing a lot of things that make them afraid to say that."

"…so you think people want to die but won't say it."

"'Die' usually means the thing that results in being born again, but I get what you mean, and... yeah. Even to themselves, sometimes. Sometimes it's hard to notice."

"I should say 'be unmade', I made a mistake." Griffie pauses a moment to think.

"There is a kind of thing people in Suaal turn into to not be unmade, called a 'lich'. Other people have to die for you to do this, and it is bad in other ways too. So most places say 'if you try to turn into a lich, we will fight you'. And say 'turning into a lich is bad, we do not like it'. Why do you think people want this thing, when people tell them 'you can avoid being umade but this is very bad and we will not like you'?"

"Because they're afraid. - And that's called having a rule against becoming a lich."

"A 'rule'! Thank you. Very thank you."

"First you said, 'they worry someone would think they were bad'. Then you said 'they lie to themselves'. Now you say 'they are afraid'. So many ways to say 'they are mistaken'. Why do you think you know that?"

"What do you think I want for myself? You can ask any questions to help you guess."

"If you will say 'I want to be unmade and help people by unmaking them' I will not be surprised? I do not think you want to hurt people."

"I do want to help people that way. I like helping people. I feel very happy when I help people. When I think about what I want the future to be like... the first thing I think of is that I want to help people. But I don't. Because I can only help people who need help. And I don't want people to need help.

"There are things that make me happy and every time I do them, then afterward, there are fewer things like that left to do."

"…so. People here don't have many things. But when people who want to help people have more things and more time, they make things for each other, not to stop a bad thing, but to do more things people like? Food is for eating so you don't die, but many people also like to eat things even if they don't need to, and there are lots of things like that."

"People have things they feel that way about, but it's... fake? It's not true? It's like... hmm. There's another species that lives to the east and was part of Hyrule for a while. Actually there's more than one but there's one I'm talking about right now. Hylians used to fight them, and used to be afraid of them. Then they joined Hyrule. For a while after that, they were still afraid of each other. But they kept not fighting and now they're not afraid of each other anymore. It's like that when people enjoy food."

"Now I say again: How do you know other people lie and make mistakes, not you?"

Vaal comes to a stop and stares at Griffie. "What do you mean, not me? You think I don't make mistakes? I make mistakes!"

"Words!" The cloud says frustratedly, getting eir notebook out.

"Your idea for why everyone wants to be unmade is that they lie or make mistakes. But that is very many people all making the same mistake. Why not one person making one mistake? I know other mistakes happen. I just mean this thing."

"No, I mean - " Vaal looks away, scanning their surroundings almost casually, and frowns. He starts walking again. "I mean I'd stay in that desert a long time."

"And you think that would be a mistake."

Shrug. "It'd be... because the world was broken, at least for a while. It'd be a mistake if I served Hylia, or tried to stop Ganon, or something. I don't know if it'd be a mistake, if I only did it to myself, and knew what I was doing and how it'd end."