I’m what you need to understand, but I’m not something you can simply hand. I’m in a joke, a tale, a text, a debate. Remove me, and your words lose sense.

One dressed in black, a modern tribe of gloom and song; the other sacked Rome in four hundred years before Christ, forging a kingdom in Iberia. Same ancient name they share, who are these shadowed cousins?

I carry your junk, and climb with grace, yet you shout in my stubborn face. I’ll give you sass, you’ll call me an A S S, but truth be told, I’ve got more class. I bray, I kick, I take no flack, but I will still haul you back.

Its a crime more serious than a misdemeanor. Its what one knee might call the other.

Nay, nothing is ever perfect, I say. In fact, I prefer this idea, tearing things down is easier than building them up, you see?