It doesn't...hurt, as it used to. This is just what I am now--there's nothing living or human left of me, and there hasn't been for two millennia. [Which was both a reassurance and something that occasionally bothered him; the breathless coughing and agony of poison miasma in his blood was all long since gone, but that only served as a reminder that he was no longer even mortal enough to feel such things.]

It is not beyond my control, but neither is it fully within my grasp. I've been talking to Lup about trying to manage and master it, but...you're right. It responds to things like fear and anger, and I have to be careful about keeping such things in check. If I lose control like that again--no, I already did before I came here. If I were to lose myself a third time, I don't know what might happen or who would be hurt in the process.