Windhaven

For as long as this song is sung they'll know about you - the girl who wanted wings so much she changed the world.

It was the feel of it, the love of it, not the thought: it was instinct and reflex and knowing the wind, and Maris was the wind.

Maris and Bari worked with him and did what they could. But Maris wasn't always focused on her work. Once, Evan sent her into the forest to pick some sweetsong, an herb he used to prepare thesis; but Maris found herself thinking about the council as she wandered through the damp, cool woods. It had begun now, she thought, and she seemed to hear Val, Corm, and the others talking, and she considered their arguments, and wondered how it would end, and who they had chosen to preside. When she finally returned, the basket was full of lying grass, which resembles sweetsong but has no medicinal properties. Evan picked up the basket and sighed, shaking his head. "Maris, Maris," he murmured, "what should I do?" He turned to Bari. "Little one, go get me some sweetsong before it gets dark. Your aunt isn't feeling well.

since you love the color black, I will give you plenty of it. I will lock you in a cell without windows or lamps, where it is black day and night, and you will stay there until you forget what sunlight feels like. Do you like these conditions, flier? Do you like them?

On the table before them were wooden boxes, one for each pair of opponents, and piles of pebbles: white for the fly-bys, black for the challengers. At the end of the contest, each judge threw a pebble into the box. If the two competitors were equal, he could cast a tie vote by placing one pebble of each color in the box.

Barrion thought the world of you, Maris, but he also thought you were naive. You can't change one note in the middle of a song, he told me. Once you make the first change, others have to follow, until you've redone the whole song. Everything relates, you see.