Page 983 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

Gepetto's laziness. He still wanted the puppet to dance-- he just didn't want to go to all the trouble of working the strings."
"You being Pinocchio," said Miro. "And Ender ..."
"My brother didn't try to make you," said Old Valentine. "And he doesn't want to control you, either."
"I know," whispered Young Val. And suddenly there were tears in her eyes.
Miro reached out a hand to lay atop hers on the table, but at once she snatched hers away. No, she wasn't avoiding his touch, she was simply bringing her hand up to wipe the annoying tears out of her eyes.
"He'd cut the strings if he could, I know," said Young Val. "The way Miro cut the strings on his old broken body."
Miro remembered it very clearly. One moment he was sitting in the starship, looking at this perfect image of himself, strong and young and healthy; the next moment he was that image, had always been that image, and what he looked at was the crippled, broken, brain-damaged version of himself. And as he watched, that unloved, unwanted body crumbled into dust and disappeared.
"I don't think he hates you," said Miro, "the way I hated my old self."
"He doesn't have to hate me. It wasn't hate anyway that killed your old body." Young Val didn't meet his eyes. In all their hours together exploring worlds, they had never talked about anything so personal. She had never dared to discuss with him that moment when both of them had been created. "You hated your old body while you were in it, but as soon as you were back in your right body, you simply stopped paying any attention to the old one. It wasn't part of you anymore. Your aiua had no more responsibility for it. And with nothing to hold it together-- pop goes the weasel."
"Wooden doll," said Miro. "Now weasel. What else am I?"
Old Valentine ignored his bid for a laugh. "So you're saying Ender finds you uninteresting." "He admires me," said Young Val. "But he finds me dull."
"Yes, well, me too," said Old Valentine.
"That's absurd," said Miro.
"Is it?" asked Old Valentine. "He never followed me anywhere; I was always the one who followed him. He was searching for a mission in life, I think. Some great deed to do, to match the terrible act that ended his childhood. He thought writing The Hive Queen would do it. And then, with my help in preparing it, he wrote The Hegemon and he thought that might be enough, but it wasn't. He kept searching for something that would engage his full attention and he kept almost