It's the first time he's been still in the ice bath for more than an instant, but eventually his muscles betray him, his spirit collapses beneath the cold, and his mouth opens to let the agony rush out in a single, chilling sound.

He’s always grateful for the chance to give humans his time when he performs, and though he’s grateful in turn for their attention, they give him no greater blessing than the night the show ends and he realizes the masses are chanting his name…not hers.

Christmas in Vegas can be pretty cool, but when they start talking about holiday plans, he knows she yearns for the unique magic of the city under a glittering blanket of white just as much as he does.

Christmas shopping was hard enough without adding the fact that he was in love with the woman who, quite literally, had everything: money, things, experiences…and an eternity of Christmases left to her.

There’s a lot of spectacular trees in various places on the Las Vegas Strip, but she never stares at them with quite as much awe as she does the healthy little Douglas fir covered in twinkle lights that sits in the corner of their living room at home.

There's truth in being naked when he makes an escape, an honesty that frightens him because when he says there's nothing up his sleeve, that he's got nothing but his own skill to rely on...he means it.

It's a scar of black power on his soul that flares to life every single time he faces The Darkness, leaving him in lethal agony with a thought...yet in his mind, in his suffering soul, his vows burn brighter than his pain.

He was empty before he slipped into the cage, waiting for the power to come and reclaim him until the darkness fled and he burst free from the steel bars rigged to spring, becoming The Avatar and accepting the mantle, both dark and light, that the wildly applauding hands of the audience laid across his shoulders.

Twice I've started my life there, well and truly...no matter who I am or what I become, it's always gonna be home.