People believed whatever they needed to, to maintain a thread of power in a society that systematically stripped them of it.
Running had become her favorite mode of transport. She lived for that brief snap of true flight, both feet in the air at once. Jumping down a half-flight of stairs then catapulting down another. Aerial Aster. Sky Master Aster! Barely Avoiding Disaster Aster! There was less time lost in transport when she ran as fast as she could, no care for her own safety.
There’s exactly two flavors of queer drama, far as I can tell. The kind that stems from people like you and Gogo, thinking you’re above it all, all chill to the bitter end, and the kind that comes from people that can’t help but feel every peccadillo as a tragedy. Always with the waterworks, those people. I’m sure it has to do with astrology or something. My friend Coline is always tryna read my star chart. If somebody asks you your sign, Vern, they’re a waterworks queer. Just know it.
All that was left of a person’s life was recorded on paper, in annals, in almanacs, in the physical items they produced. To end that was to end their history, their present, their future.
The Remembrance took more than it gave. It required she remember and relive the wajinru’s entire history all at once. Not just that, she had to put order and meaning to the events, so that the others could understand. She had to help them open their minds so they could relive the past too. It was a painful process.
It was flattering to be thought of in those terms. As similar. As sharing something in common with not just one other, but a whole us. Since she was fourteen, she’d always been marked as different.
It was summer, and the world was as bright as a lightning flash. Blue sky. Red dirt. Everything was set alight. Vern tried to cherish it, to turn toward the sun the way bluebells did, but Vern still lusted after the dark of the woods, where she was born, where her true self had been made.
Remember now or perish. Without your history, you are empty.” Yetu told them. “Everyone, shout this person’s name so they remember!
Living without detail long-term memories allowed for spontaneity and lack of regret, but after a certain amount of time had passed, they needed more.
It never ceased to trouble her that peace depended on the violent seizing and squeezing out of other creatures.
I don’t know why, but I’m not thankful. I’m never thankful. I want to be, I do, but all I feel is this annoyance that won’t stop. Every nice thing that anyone could ever think to do to me leaves me feeling enraged. It’s like, too little too late, buddy.
What does it matter where any place is unless you are trying to return to it? It’d do you well not to think of here at all. You’re trying to find yourself, aren’t you? To do that, you must go. Thinking of this place will only hold you back.
My child,” Amaba said, frightened. “What sickness is this? What madness would cause one to put oneself in fatal harm purposely, knowingly? Surely, it cannot exist.
It is easy to do that with the past, even with the blessing of the full visions of the history.
When not properly fortified, a legacy is no more enduring than a wisp of plankton.
I don’t have time to nurse an acquaintance,” she continued, “especially not one as old as ours. An acquaintance this old that has never bloomed into friendship never will, and it’s hardly worth the upkeep and maintenance required.
Aster pulled her feet up onto the stool she was sitting on so that her whole body was scrunched into a ball. “I see,” she said. She’d thought she’d trained her mind out of its predisposition toward excessive literalism, but there it was, persistent as ever, making a fool of her.
Better not to belong at all than belong in a cage.
Words mattered now, in the moment. They spoiled quickly when held inside, and what did they mean when offered too late but nothing at all?
We got a saying here in Tide Wing: Should is for weaklings.