When necessity demands it, I’m an excellent liar. Not the noblest of skills, but useful. It ties closely to acting and storytelling, and I learned all three from my father, who was a master craftsman.
Some were bitter. Some were sweet. Some were hardly anything. That was just the way of things.
There is a great difference between a gift given freely, and one that’s meant to tie you to a man.
It was too full of love. Nothing could shift it. Nothing could turn it from itself. When all the world was palimpsest, it was a perfect palindrome. Inviolate.
They were the best sort of friends. The sort everyone hopes for but no one deserves, least of all me.
Deep in the Underthing, stones warm beneth her feet, Auri heard a faint, sweet strain of music.
Her name was like an echo of an ache in her.
It was the sort of anger that comes to a slow boil inside the hearts of good men who want justice, and finding it out oftheir grasp, decide vengeance is the next best thing.
Some places had names. Some places changed, or they were shy about their names. Some places had no names at all, and that was always sad. It was one thing to be private. But to have no name at all? How horrible. How lonely.
I love her more than just a little. I think it’s because we’re both somewhat broken, in our own odd ways. More importantly, we’re both aware of it.
So we rode in silence. It was nice just being near her. You wouldn’t think a girl in bandages with a blackened eye could be beautiful, but Denna was. Lovely as the moon: not flawless, perhaps, but perfect.
The three boys, one dark, one light, and one – for lack of a better word – fiery, do not notice the night. Perhaps some part of them does, but they are young, and drunk, and busy knowing deep in their hearts that they will never grow old or die. They also know that they are friends, and they share a certain love that will never leave them. The boys know many other things, but none of them seem as important as this. Perhaps they are right.
She was not vain enough to work her will against the world. But she could use the things the world had given her.
Nothing was nothing else. Nothing was anything it shouldn’t be.
Things are too full of life in the spring months. In the summer, they’re too strong and won’t let go. Autumn... ” He looked around at the changing leaves on the trees. “Autumn’s the time. In autumn everything is tired and ready to die.
The night is perfect in a wild way, almost terrifyingly beautiful.
Besides, there was a dignity to doing things in your own time.
I realized how common this feeling is. I’ve had person after person tell me that they empathize with Auri. That they know where she’s coming from. I didn’t expect that. I cannot help but wonder how many of us walk through our lives, day after day, feeling slightly broken and alone, surrounded all the time by others who feel exactly the same way.
It will be worth it if I am remembered, if not flatteringly, then at least with some small amount of accuracy.
The gesture was so tight with rage she feared she’d snap and crack the world in two.