2
" Suddenly, I was stopped by a quiet song . .Somebody stood, swaying slowly on the road,In the darkest shadow by a puddle,And low above it a small tree grew . .It might’ve been a wild cherry tree . .He kept singing, watching the puddle fill . .I dragged the pine through the water,And with my other hand steadied my sack,Where a bottle of red vino dangled . .He didn’t move, but kept on singing . .Should I have stopped thereAnd joined his singing? . .Had he foundThe one happy tree? . .No one knows where it grows—Or what it looks like . .And who is allowed to recognize it? . .I never stood under it,Even to wait for rain to passOr watch between the dropsThe silent froth appear . .Swaying, he kept on singing . .Otherwise, he would have fallenAnd the rain stopped . .He danced his own rainUnder that tree . .I can’t do such things . .Perhaps it was a wolf? . . "
3
" With belles no longer did he fall in love,
but dangled after them just anyhow;
when they refused, he solaced in a twinkle;
when they betrayed, was glad to rest.
He would seek them without intoxication,
while he left them without regret,
hardly remembering their love and spite.
Exactly thus does an indifferent guest
drive up for evening whist:
sits down; then, once the game is over,
he drives off from the place,
at home falls peacefully asleep,
and in the morning does not know himself
where he will drive to in the evening. "
― Alexander Pushkin , Eugene Onegin
4
" But Amarantha rolled her eyes and slouched in her throne. “Shatter him, Rhysand.” She flicked a hand at the High Lord of the Summer Court. “You may do what you want with the body afterward.”
The High Lord of the Summer Court bowed—as if he’d been given a gift—and looked to his subject, who had gone still and calm on the floor, hugging his knees. The male faerie was ready—relieved.
Rhys slipped a hand out of his pocket, and it dangled at his side. I could have sworn phantom talons flickered there as his fingers curled slightly.
“I’m growing bored, Rhysand,” Amarantha said with a sigh, again fiddling with that bone. She hadn’t looked at me once, too focused on her current prey.
Rhysand’s fingers curled into a fist.
The faerie male’s eyes went wide—then glazed as he slumped to the side in the puddle of his own waste. Blood leaked from his nose, from his ears, pooling on the floor.
That fast—that easily, that irrevocably … he was dead.
“I said shatter his mind, not his brain,” Amarantha snapped.
The crowd murmured around me, stirring. I wanted nothing more than to fade back into it—to crawl back into my cell and burn this from my mind. Tamlin hadn’t flinched—not a muscle. What horrors had he witnessed in his long life if this hadn’t broken that distant expression, that control?
Rhysand shrugged, his hand sliding back into his pocket. “Apologies, my queen.” He turned away without being dismissed, and didn’t look at me as he strode for the back of the throne room. I fell into step beside him, reining in my trembling, trying not to think about the body sprawled behind us, or about Clare—still nailed to the wall.
The crowd stayed far, far back as we walked through it. “Whore,” some of them softly hissed at him, out of her earshot; “Amarantha’s whore.” But many offered tentative, appreciative smiles and words—“Good that you killed him; good that you killed the traitor. "
― Sarah J. Maas , A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)
5
" Sully's, on South Prospect, was the quintessential biker-bar, complete with hefty, leather-clad Harley worshippers, and stringy-haired heroin-addicted women who made the rounds among the bikers. Its décor was decidedly Medieval Garage Sale, with a dose of Americana thrown in. An old motorcycle carcass dangled from the vaulted section of the beamed ceiling, and the wood plank floors were littered with butts, scarred by bottle caps and splattered with homogenized bodily fluids. The only light to be had was from neon, dying sconces, and lit cigarettes. Various medieval swords perched on each wall, reminiscent of the times of Beowulf and Fire Dragons on the Barrow. "
― Kelli Jae Baeli , Also Known as Armchair Detective
9
" As he sat up, he heard soft dripping sounds from the bathroom, little plips like water slipping over the edges of the tub and into the floor. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as he realized where he‟d last heard that sound. His muscles tight with strain from his earlier exertions, he stood and walked warily toward the half open bathroom door and the tub beyond it. Slipping quietly past the door, he saw that the curtain was drawn, and again the shadowed figure lay behind it. One long, slim, leg dangled from the end of the tub, beads of water gliding down its length and off the polished toes. At the other end he saw a mass of auburn curls, matted deep red near the porcelain of the tub. It was the dream and the vision again, more real now, too strong to deny. Shaking, he moved toward the curtain, gagging on the sickly smell of rust and roses, feeling the thin nylon glide between thumb and palm as he pulled it back to reveal his darkest nightmare and deepest regret. He could see the crimson water now, blood bubbles gliding over its surface and clinging to the legs dangling over the tub‟s edge. When he‟d pulled the curtain completely away from the tub and around to its opposite side, he saw her face. Her eyes were closed and he saw that her lids were bruised and purple against the translucent paleness of her face, drained completely dead white under the makeup she‟d brushed on before she‟d died. Staggering by the sight of her, he knelt by the tub and extended one shaking hand to touch her cheek. It all seemed as if he‟d walked into a horror film and once again he needed to prove to his mind that this wasn‟t real. His hand shook as he lifted it nearer to her flesh, waiting for the corpse, the supposedly dead and buried to move. He touched his quivering fingers to her face, feeling its claylike reality. The sensation caused an immediate shudder of revulsion and he fought not to vomit. Even as the moment came, the sight of her moving in the water startled him and he jumped away from the tub. It wasn‟t an obvious movement at first, only soft breaths moving in and out of her nostrils, but then her chest rose and fell with it and he quaked, feeling unstable where he knelt on the floor.
Her eyes opened next and he felt the blood fall out of his face, wanting to scream but too afraid he would cause her to take some action, to reach out and touch him, proving well and forever that he was indeed insane. Scream and you might as well slit your own throat. He swallowed the scream like a rock and stared as her eyes moved slowly in their sockets, locking on him. Slowly, as if she‟d lost control of her muscles, she rose from the tub and looked down at him, smiling. Blood water slid down her bare body, over her neck, down her back and the smooth ridges of her breasts, to slip slowly down her thighs and down over her calves. A puddle spread on the floor, and as it extended toward him he struggled to his feet, skittering away from it. As he watched it spread, he shivered, weak as he started to cry frantic, horrified tears. Breaking down, he looked back up at her face and slipped to the floor once more, his knees incapable of sustaining his own weight. The smile grew wider as she strode to his shivering form, thrown on his side and struggling to rise. The blood water seeped into his clothes, making him sick, a drop of it trickling along the lobe of his ear and into it. And then she leaned down, holding those dim, stained curls of auburn out of her face and tucking them behind her ear. Her lips parted, blue beneath the strong crimson red of her lipstick, and she spoke into his ear with the chill breath of the dead. His eyes grew wide and horrified as she spoke, the hair on his neck rising, sending a maddening shiver of fear through him. “I‟ve returned, Raven.” She whispered “And I want what is mine.” The last thing he saw before his mind, finally, thankfully, shut down was her face in front of his. They were pursed for a kiss. "
― Amanda M. Lyons
11
" Around me shone the kitchen I'd worked in each day: the copper pans hung neatly, the scratched wooden table and neat blue plates set in rows on the dresser. I got up to rake out the cinders and suddenly clutched at the black stone of the hearth. How long was it since as a new girl I'd first spiked a fowl and set it to roast on that fire? What great sides of beef had we roasted on the smoke-jack, while bacon dangled on hooks, and meat juices basted puddings as light as eggy clouds? Never, in all my ten years at Mawton, had I let that fire die out. Every dawn, in winter or summer, I'd riddled the dying embers and set new kindling on the top. I touched the rough stone and let my cheek press on its everlasting warmth, wishing I could take that loyal fire with me. Foolish, I know, but a fire is a cook's truest friend. It was a good fire at Mawton: blackened with hundreds of years of smoking hot dinners.
I think no heathen ever worshipped fire like a cook. So I kissed the smutty hearth wall and packed instead my little tinderbox, to light new fires I knew not where. "
― Martine Bailey , An Appetite for Violets
