The things Sovann would do simply because they’ve more or less ‘adopted’ Doppie are insane. They know nothing about this little shadow creature that, essentially, isn’t anything or anyone-- but they’d level cities if it made the little guy even remotely happy. They’d tear and shred and devour anyone or anything that threatened what slight grasp Doppie has on the existent world. They can and will and have snuffed out lives just to bring Doppie a possible look to try on, a possible identity for it to devour and claim and they do not care if Doppie rejects the offer and an empty sacrifice was for nothing. Because to Sovann it is not nothing. It’s a shred of a chance that their baby that they love so much it hurts might find a form it likes, a form it can take so it can actually feel their touch, a form that might be able to speak with them even if only for a few seconds. And it’s really not healthy for them because so much of their attachment to Doppie is based off pure projection. They look at Doppie, amorphous, undefinable, forgotten, outcast Doppie, forever burdened to become and un-become over and over again, and they see their failures. They see the fading memories of their siblings (what did miryin’s face look like again? it’s covered in shadows, it’s lost, it’s gone, it haunts without being a ghost at all), they see the potential for something. They don’t know what, but something. They are pressing and pushing the idea of what they so violently lost onto this blameless being whose only sin is existing without actually having a means for it, and so it has to take because nothing has been willingly given. Just like them. It’s a reflection of Sovann's own sins. And they try to hold Doppie and comfort it and find a way for it to exist outside the confines of the peripheral because never again, never again can they watch this struggle for belonging from another creature that was predestined by some other force to not belong. 

But then, so much of their attachment is the most pure and healing thing Sovann has experienced in a long time, even if it results in some of their more extreme behavior. Their love for Doppie sprouted because of the nothingness it must wallow in. The potential for them to shape it into what they desperately want is there, but so is the potential for it to take the shape of something, of someone, of anything. Before their history became overshadowed by paranoia and myth, Sovann’s kind was linked to growth out of perceived nothing, to being guides in an impenetrable dark, to being a living a promise that there is something beyond the inky depths of the unknown. Doppie, despite not having a true self, reminds Sovann no, it’s not all lost, there is still something in that unknown. Their attachment to Doppie is as selfish and codependent as it is the germinating possibility that they don’t have to remain a venomous husk, terrified and bitter and hurt, at least not forever, not with everyone. They coddle and provide for and watch out for Doppie like a child because that is what Doppie is to Sovann. Doppie’s a child that’s yet to be fully born, a child they want to nurture and protect so fiercely, without any expectation of recompense, even if that birth is never fully realized. They love Doppie. They love anything Doppie could become. They love, and it hurts. It is the only pain they have ever willingly subjected themself to. It is a pain they are glad to feel.