Banned for chef’s kiss x 2.
He thinks about stories, how if they begin at all, then their ends are set, they can only happen one way; or is that so only with the stories Death tells in Ymr, about the beings there? Maybe such stories are told so that the living will learn, and learn again and again, that they'll never win anything from that realm.
It was his story, and the stories about the story were his too. He was girdled in story, trapped in story, and the only way out was to go through.