Kore: You’ve touched me and it was never painful.

Xander: Everyone says ‘don’t look directly into the sun’, but it’s a fascinating machine, the sun.

Kore: I have to go back to that horrid sterile office, personnel shortages and staffing companies, emails at three A.M.—no one can touch me! It makes me remember what was done to me. I’ve lost consciousness on a boardroom floor, vomiting blood, terrified—

Xander: I’ll not have you *cough* vomiting blood on my carpeting, if you don’t mind.

Kore: I do things with my power, I take revenge, whether right or wrong. You give in to this, and it’s the end of the world.

Xander: But you want me to give in.

Kore: I am the Smaragdine Tablet, the Emerald of Venus—

Xander: — you see I don’ t believe any of that mythology nonsense—

Kore: — that’s why I could use telepathy, I amplify yours. I sing in the hands of a hero like a blade—

Xander: — you’re just a girl. You’re just a girl. And I’m not the end of the world.

Kore: I can’t feel this way about you, Ves. I can’t feel like this. You said I couldn’t feel pain, but that was you. Give me back my pain.

Xander: Why do you want the pain?

Xander: There’s no logical reason for you to want the pain.

Kore: It’s all I have…to remember with.