Threads That Bind

I think the people we love can be cruel. Our love doesn't absolve them. Nor should it. "What kind of person are you," Edei whispered, "if you love someone who is cruel?" It was a question Io had often asked herself. She opened her mouth, closed it. Tried again. "You're someone who loves. That's it. That's the only part that's yours to give and yours to take.

You know, one day you'll need to grow the hell up and let other people decide for themselves if they like you or not.

If she loved something, even for a minute, like the fish noodles at the market stall or the teacher who'd smiled at her last week, she held on to that love with tooth and claw. Most threads frayed over time and distance, but never Io's. Her love was evergreen.

Three bodies, one soul. You go when your sisters need you. No questions asked.

She chose to risk her heart; if her heart ended up broken, then so be it. She was free now. To love. To get hurt. To stitch herself back together. To love again, without guilt, and, one day, be loved in return.

Tolerating wickedness can ensure your survival - but also cause a feeling of slow death.

Because what is art, what is inspiration, if not the deepest, darkest secrets of the artist?

Io you need to go now," he breathed, eyes large and fearful. "And I promise, the moment I'm better. I'll come find you" "How?" she asked, the word breaking into a sob. How would he ever find her in the endless Wastelands beyond these walls? Tenderly, he took her hand and placed it, palm down on his chest. "I will follow this," he whispered, pressing their joined hands over his heart, over their fate-thread. "I'll always find you

Someone wise told me once that tolerating wickedness is just a slow kind of death.

Her heart just craved. The softness, the calm, the intimacy. To know what it’s like to be loved.

I think the people we love can be cruel. Our love doesn’t absolve them. Nor should it.” “What kind of person are you,” Edei whispered, “if you love someone who is cruel?” It was a question Io had often asked herself. She opened her mouth, closed it. Tried again. “You’re someone who loves. That’s it. That’s the only part that’s yours to give and yours to take.

It was safe to love people from afar, to dream of kisses but never seek them.

Each historian and scientist seemed to have a different theory about what had brought on the Collapse, but they all agreed on its major turning point: the once singular moon split into three—Pandia, Nemea, and Ersa—causing the sea level to rise globally. Whole nations were swallowed by dark waters, and the few remaining coastal cities faced a tide that sank them half underwater every night. At first, people took refuge at higher altitudes, waiting for the tide to settle. But despite every scientist’s prediction, despite the very laws of nature, the shifting earth and sea never calmed. Instead came a never-ending circle of catastrophes: neo-monsoons and heat storms, chimerini coming out of the waters, leviathans breaking out of the ice farther up north, enormous and extremely hard to kill—and the appearance of other-born, more and more with every generation.

In the last dregs of sunlight shifting through the high windows, he looked like a painting, both faded and vibrant, ancient and timeless.

The Teatro Blanco, as was its proper name, was a massive structure of white marble, ten tall columns supporting the roof, each decorated with figures of major deities. The Furies, depicted as ugly crones with serpentine hair; the Graces, young, beautiful, and naked; the Muses, each with their instrument; the Dioscuri, solemn and identical; the Fates, weaving their tapestry; the Erotes, seven winged brothers of lovel the Horae, three sisters who controlled the passing of time, long-haired and holding hands; the Keres, the three dark sisters of death; the Oneiroi, three brothers of sleep and dreams; and the Asclepies, the four daughters of health and medicine.

...he started telling her where he had found each book, stories as strange and mythical as those inside the pages. He was particularly interested in similarities: how, for example, midsummer songs and festivities from all over the world celebrated death and rebirth in one way or another. His eyes shone, and he talked fast, going over narratives from faraway city-nations. In turn, Io told him about the local legends her parents came back with from the Neraida Plains, about nymphs and naiads...

Part certificate of birth, part medical records, part court-evaluated mental health status, and almost entirely badge of shame, other-born papers stated the nature of their powers and their known relatives. Other-born always came in a packageL in two or three or more siblings descended from sibling gods. Myths talked of the existence of other gods, too, but only twin, sister, or brother divinities bestowed their progenies with power. Some believed the power was too much for a single person to inherit, but Thais disagreed. Multitude is power, she used to say, We are stronger together.