Of Beast and Beauty

Beauty is wherever you find it, and Beast is there when you need to defend it.

And what good is a voice when so few will listen?

I will show her that loving her is my greatest truth, and the most beautiful thing I have ever known. ” — Gem

To be cold and incapable of pity is one thing; to have compassion and use it only when it's convenient is nothing less than evil.

I am her monster, and she is mine.

But maybe that isn't possible. Maybe the mind of the majority is always the healthy mind, simply by virtue of its numbers. Maybe it's the definition of madness to believe I'm right and everyone else if wrong, to find my thoughts rational and reasonable when almost the entire world finds them damaged and flawed.

Its pointless. Hopeless. Even if she weren't afraid of me, we'll always be enemies at the core. She rules a wicked, selfish city, and my tribe suffers for her peoples comfort. Shes a queen; I'm her prisoner. I resent her and she fears me, and there are times when I fear her, too. I am her monster, and she is mine. But right now none of it matters.

His love, his faith in me, his belief that I can be as strong and brave as he is...The way he makes me feel and think and try harder than I've ever tried...All of it, all of him, is better than anything else.

A part of me is eager to be back in my cell. At least there Isra cant cling to my arm, or brush her body against mine, or sigh through her parted lips, or tilt her face up with that look in her eyes. The one that make me want to strangle her. And kiss her. And strangle her some more. And maybe leap off a cliff after the strangling is done.

And for a moment she is my Isra, and nothing is impossible.

They won't take the time to see that Gem's claws aren't extended, that his arms are gentle around me, or that my fingers linger over his. They won't notice that I lean into him, not away, or that my head turns to look over my shoulder, bringing my cheek so near his mouth that his silent breath warms my skin. They would never in a thousand years imagine that my eyes slide closed and a shiver runs through me not because I fear for my life but because Gem's body is pressed against mine, because his hand on my belly makes it ache, because the longing to taste him is stronger than it was before... I would kiss him until I was breathless.

In the beginning there was darkness, and in the darkness was a girl, and in the girl was a secret

Maybe the mind of the majority is always the healthy mind, simply by virtue of its numbers.

If getting my way as ruler is always going to be so difficult, I’ll have to choose my battles carefully, or spend the rest of my life in a state of perpetual exhaustion.