“But it's not the name I'd give to a conqueror of worlds... I would've gone with Thundro or Ragnor. I might just call him Thundro anyway.”
“My smile faded, and I suddenly felt confused. My heart leapt in my chest. "Why would you do that for me?"
"What wouldn't I do for you?”
“Mistress, I have never asked anything of you in my servitude. But now, I beg you this: do not make me keep passing these adolescent sentiments back and forth all night.”
“He stepped forward and punched Dorian in the face, hard enough that I heard a thwack.
"Ow," moaned Dorian, wincing from the pain. "My greatest asset.”
“Everything‟s fine,” I said, with a tight smile. “Kiyo was just giving me
his latest explanation about how my son is a terror to be feared.”
Dorian scoffed. “Little Thundro? A terror? Hardly, unless perhaps
we‟re discussing diapers.”
“I can’t have it either. It affects the babies in utero.”
“Nonsense,” he said, tossing his long auburn hair over one shoulder. Life would be easier if he wasn’t so damned good-looking. “Why, my mother drank wine every day, and I turned out just fine.”
“I think you’re proving my point for me,” I said dryly”
“My life was split by two worlds, but he kept me whole.”
“If we could manage any sort of trust again... Well. That would make me happier than you can imagine”
“This dress makes me look fat," I told Jasmine as we stood near the back of the crowd and watched the last minute preperations fall into place.
She glanced over at me and my efforts to rearrange the folds of my long, gauzy dress.
"Your pregnant," she stated. "Everything's supposed to make you look fat."
I Scowled. "I think the correct reponse was 'No it doesn't.”
“How do you know it was the blighted pile? Did you recognize Maiwenn’s gift?”
“No, but there was a marble bust of Dorian in there, which I figured must have been his kingdom’s ‘humble’ gift.”
“And you think that's it? All is forgiven and he'll just be cool with me having Storm King's grandchildren because we're all united in some super team? That's naive."
Dorian's face suddenly hardened. "Equally naive is the thought that I would carelessly allow him to do anything to you or your children. How many times do I have to convince you of my protection? Do you really think that if he comes back here and attempts to harm one hair on your head, I'll allow it? Eugenie, if he so much as looks at you in a way I don't like, Rurik and his conspirators over there won't have a chance to act because I'll have long since run that bastard kitsune through myself." Dorian's tone astonishingly became light and easy again. "Now then. I wonder where we'll be making camp tonight.”
“A man can never compete with a woman's father”
“Why not wear a scar of Motherhood? Better than a tattoo or a mark of Honor. Let the world know what you've achieved.”
“We can't do this without you," I managed at last. "Everyone talks about my powers, but you're the badass here.”
“I did, however, manage to do it without hurting those dogs. Very considerate of me. Don't let it be said I'm not an animal lover-that wretched kitsune aside.”
“People get too caught up in what they don't have and get bogged down as a result. There's joy in the present. It's important to just make the most of the these moments we have. Keep an eye on the future, but don't forget to enjoy NOW.”
“Oh,” she said. “You can rest assured that I will kill him. Mostly this is to emphasize what I said before: no more time to lounge around and decide with no consequences. For every moment you waste deliberating today, the Oak King will be in the hands of my torturers, experiencing the most excruciating pain. Your delay extends that agony.”
“Oh, irony,” murmured Dorian.”
“That was ridiculous," I told Dorian, once she'd left. "She's not the kind of person to fall for your flirting."
"On the contrary," said Dorian. "She's exactly the kind of person to fall for it. I understand these warrior maids, you know. They live such harsh, cold lives, always trying to keep up with the men... when really, they just need someone to make them feel like a woman. And that, of course, is an area in which I excel. Why, if I'd had ten minutes alone with her—”
“Once you cross into the next loyal kingdom, however... be warned. You may not find such a warm reception. The Mimosa Land and its residents are not nearly so accommodating."
This was warm and accommodating? That didn't bode well for the next kingdom. I also found it sad that a place called the Mimosa Land was unfriendly. It sounded like a party waiting to happen.”
“Wine's terrible for babies." Dorian swept into the sitting room to join me, elegantly arranging himself on a love seat that displayed his purple velvet robes to best effect.
"Well of course it is. I'd never dream of giving wine to an infant! What do you take me for, a barbarian? But for you... well, it might go a long way to make you a little less jumpy. You've been positively unbearable to live around.
"I can't have it either. It affects the babies in utero.”
“I lifted the lid and found a piece of bread and some water—and a rat that quickly darted off the tray. Talk about adding insult to injury.”
“And so went the rest of our conversation, with me having to constantly stop and explain what I’d just said. Each time, Dorian had some gentry equivalent for whatever I described. Some were more far-fetched than others, like when he said he was certain gorging on cake all day would achieve the same results as a blood-sugar test. He also had a very complicated explanation about how balancing a chicken in a tree was a well-established gentry method of determining gender. I was almost certain he knew there was no real equivalent to half the things I told him about and that he was making most of this up on the spot. He was simply trying to entertain me with the outlandish.”
“Between the end of that strange summer and the approach of winter, my life went on without change. Each day would dawn without incident and end as it had begun. It rained a lot in September. October had several warm, sweaty days. Aside from the weather, there was hardly anything to distinguish one day from the next. I worked at concentrating my attention on the real and useful. I would go to the pool almost every day for a long swim, take walks, make myself three meals.
But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drank, the very air I breathed, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o'clock in the morning.”
“In the South you are ashamed of being a virgin. Boys. Men. They lie about it. Because it means less to women, Father said. He said it was men invented virginity not women. Father said it's like death: only a state in which the others are left and I said, But to believe it doesn't matter and he said, That's what's so sad about anything: not only virginity and I said, Why couldn't it have been me and not her who is unvirgin and he said, That's why that's sad too; nothing is even worth the changing of it...”
“A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.”
“Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat.”
“If we cannot live entirely like human beings, at least let us do everything in our power not to live entirely like animals.”
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