The latter. This place is my home, and it is the populace of that home that sustains me. Your stories. Your sufferings. Your triumphs.

[When their stories are victorious, so are they. When their stories are mournful...so are they.]

[When their stories bleed sap and pollen, sprinkled over with flower petals, twisted full of tangles of roots until they all hemorrhage bile and blood into the dirt?]

[So are they.]