"Rather" alive, and no more than that, was what the events had been able to grant to Flavio's conditions. In a world where probabilities corrode every supporting pillar of certainty about Reality, Fate had just revisited, doubtful, its own intentions. Distracted by Chance, it had taken a moment of reflection and, uncertain, had retraced its steps. Now it was on the verge of being deceived by a human thrown around by a stormy Fortune. To face that storm, Flavio had had to push the sails of his own human Will to the limit of resistance.

Among the strands of Fortune's hair, there is a budding lily, with jet-black petals gathered around a cluster of candid stamens sprinkled with shining pollen. The grains of that pollen are the lights of a wonderful city carved in ivory, an ivory that shines in a night as dark as the petals that wrap it. One of the lights of the city is a dancing flame, an untiring dancer whose body is adorned by a fluttering veil of silk. That ethereal fabric is irradiated by the light and energy of the fire dancer, who spreads around herself an air with the colors and vibrancy of the autumn wind. In its perpetual fluttering, the veil releases in the wind the vapors of a delicate perfume, and one of the droplets of those vapors reflects a luminous ray that breaks down exploding, with inaudible roar, into a myriad of galaxies.

In one of those galaxies, Flavia managed for an infinitesimal instant to save Flavio's life.

Fortune then stroked her hair making the lily sway and moving the droplet of perfume from whose reflection countless universes are created. The universe on which Flavia was located then gently merged with the one where the Assembly was located, and Flavio reopened his eyes.