46
" I got the groceries and lugged them all the way to Akinli’s dorm, running slightly behind because I couldn’t get into the building on my own. The university required ID cards to get into the dorms after six, and since I wasn’t an actual student, I had to wait for someone else to come along and scan his so I could piggyback in.
“You need some help?” the boy asked, his eyes lingering on my mouth.
I shook my head no.
“Aww, come on. That’s way too heavy for you.”
He came closer, and again I cursed our natural appeal. I wasn’t in danger exactly, and I knew that, but it didn’t make these encounters any less uncomfortable. I shook my head again.
“No, really, which floor are you on? I can—”
“Hey, Kahlen!” I looked up to see Akinli walking down the hall. His button-up was open over the gray shirt beneath it, but I was thrilled to see that he’d at least put one on. “I was starting to worry. Hey, Sam.”
“Hey.” The boy gave Akinli a look and headed toward the stairwell, his displeasure at Akinli’s arrival clear. In the meantime, I felt my mood lift significantly. I was now officially on my first date. "
― Kiera Cass , The Siren
48
" Out in the shadows of the city, in the houses and cellars, in the secret rooms and locked attics, a stirring cold be sensed. The ghosts and spirits-of-place whispered and muttered on the edge of hearing, glided and flowed on the edge of sight. They were pleased with the turn of events; it was they who had driven the small garrison of Polypontian troops out to die in the snow. It was they who’d haunted their movements through the cities. And it was they who had joined them on watch in the dark of the night, filling their minds with a slow-growing fear, which had evolved into a terror that had driven them mad… The Queen had returned, and some of the people, and the rest of the folk would one day come back and they could slip back into their minds, becoming the warp and the weft of the legend and stories. Becoming the fireside companions of long winter nights, living their lives for a while in the minds of the breathing, in the blood that still flowed, in the feelings that still thrilled to nerves that still sensed. "
― Stuart Hill , The Cry of the Icemark
49
" It was unearthly, and the men were--No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it--this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled, and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity--like yours--the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you--you so remote from the night of first ages--could comprehend.
And why not? The mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valor, rage--who can tell?--but truth--truth stripped of its cloak of time.
Let the fool gape and shudder--the man knows, and can look on without a wink.
But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet that truth with his own true stuff--with his own inborn strength.
Principles? Principles won't do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags--rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief. An appeal to me in this fiendish row--is there? Very well; I hear; I admit, but I have a voice too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced. Of course, a fool, what with sheer fright and fine sentiments, is always safe. Who's that grunting? You wonder I didn't go ashore for a howl and a dance?
Well, no--I didn't. Fine sentiments, you say? Fine sentiments, be hanged! I had no time. I had to mess about with white-lead and strips of woolen blanket helping to put bandages on those leaky steam-pipes--I tell you. "
― Joseph Conrad , Heart of Darkness
51
" Issib wasn't thrilled to see him. I'm busy and don't need interruptions." " This is the household library," said Nafai. " This is where we always come to do research." " See? You're interrupting already." " Look, I didn't say anything, I just came in here, and you started picking at me the second I walked in the door." " I was hoping you'd walk back out." " I can't. Mother sent me here." Nafai walked over behind Issib, who was floating comfortably in the air in front of his computer display. It was layered thirty pages deep, but each page had only a few words on it, so he could see almost everything at once. Like a game of solitaire, in which Issib was simply moving fragments from place to place. The fragments were all words in weird languages. The ones Nafai recognized were very old. " What language is that?" Nafai asked pointing, to one. Issib signed. " I'm so glad you're not interrupting me." " What is it, some ancient form of Vijati?" " Very good. It's Slucajan, which came from Obilazati, the original form of Vijati. It's dead now." " I read Vijati, you know." " I don't." " Oh, so you're specializing in ancient, obscure languages that nobody speaks anymore, including you?" " I'm not learning these languages, I'm researching lost words." " If the whole language is dead, then all the words are lost." " Words that used to have meanings, but that died out or survived only in idiomatic expressions. Like 'dancing bear.' What's a bear, do you know?" " I don't know. I always thought it was some kind of graceful bird." " Wrong. It's an ancient mammal. Known only on Earth, I think, and not brought here. Or it died out soon. It was bigger than a man, very powerful. A predator." " And it danced?" " The expression used to mean something absurdly clumsy. Like a dog walking on its hind legs." " And now it means the opposite. That's weird. How could it change?" " Because there aren't any bears. THe meaning used to be obvious, because everybody knew a bear and how clumsy it would look, dancing. But when the bears were gone, the meaning could go anywhere. Now we use it for a person who's extremely deft in getting out of an embarrassing social situation. It's the only case that we use the word bear anymore. And you see a lot of people misspelling it, too." " Great stuff. You doing a linguistics project?" " No." " What's this for, then?" " Me." " Just collection old idioms?" " Lost words." " Like bear? The word isn't lost, Issya. It's the bears that are gone." " Very good, Nyef. You get full credit for the assignment. Go away now. "
