It’s not always the truth that survives, but the stories we wish to believe. The legends lie. They smooth over imperfections to tell a good tale, or to instruct us how we should behave, or to assign glory to victors and shame those who falter. Perhaps there were some in Sparta who embodied those myths. Perhaps. But how we are remembered is less important than what we do now.
Scars are tallies of the battles you’ve survived.
A person alone could be controlled, but a person loved by others would always be under their protection.
A feather fallen from a wing is not lost, Gil had told her, but free.
When we can’t change the past, the only thing left is to move forward.
Fear is a foreign land I shall never visit and a language that will never cross my tongue.
Monsters had fangs, but that was why lionesses were given claws.
It wasn’t that anger was inherently good or bad. It could lend power and drive and focus, but the longer it lived inside you unchecked, the more poisonous it became.
Sometimes you just have to survive to fight another day.
You are the strongest person I’ve ever known, Castor Achilleos, and it wasn’t because of how fast you ran or how hard you hit. It was because even when you got knocked flat on your back, you fought your way back up. You have to do it again now. Whatever you’re feeling, you have to leave it on the mat and get back up.
It’s not always the truth that survives, but the stories we wish to believe.
Monsters lived in the shadows. To hunt them, you couldn’t be afraid to follow. And the only way to destroy them was to have the sharper teeth and the darker heart.
Lore wondered where one might procure a poisoned shirt in this day and age, and how well it would hold up in its gift wrapping when she mailed it directly to Philip Achilleos.
Bind your fate to mine.
Your ancestors carried the shield that bore her head,” Athena said. “They wielded her power until they lost her. If the shield should be carried by anyone, it should be you – you, the one who knows the darkness of men yet refuses to be afraid.
But you were like this invincible force to me, even then. You were a safe place to hide my hopes.
It is acceptable, even preferable, to be alone,” Athena told her, “when those around you would hold you back or deceive you. The exceptional among mortals will always stand alone, for no one in the world was made for their task. Take confidence in that, and let it be a poison to your fear.
Athena wasn’t at her most terrifying when her skin was flushed with fury, or she was snarling deadly promises. It was in moments like this one, when her eyes cooled and her body went still with a predator’s confidence that nothing would escape it.
He’s looking for something, and I don’t know if it’s you.
Sometimes you had to push away the bad things until they left you alone for good.