[ kanaya hums quietly at that. it was a lesson she hoped nepeta would come to learn, but she hadn't exactly been very good at teaching it, either. by the time she really understood it herself, that bridge had already been burned. ]

I wasn't sure what to make of you at first, Karen, but I can say with more certainty that you're a good person to be liked by.

But I think the problem is that we grow too accustomed to it. One some point the pan becomes so normal that we fail to notice it's become self-inflicted. If we're lucky, we may be woken up to that fact.