Ash Gray > Quotes

“Owllwin was easiest the most contrary person Cricket had ever known. He was arrogant but humble, cowardly but brave, foolish but wise. He was funny, but sometimes she caught him crying when he was off on his own. It were as if he pushed himself to be a better person in spite of himself, in spite of his own failings, and Cricket secretly admired the fact: not many people were willing to admit they had faults in the first place.”
― Ash Gray, The Infinite Athenaeum

“Drop. Your weapon. And. Come quietly,” said a robotic voice.

“Kiss. My ass,” said Zita, mocking the robot’s tone.”
― Ash Gray, Project Mothership

“. . . you can read my mind,” Parmida realized.
“When it is open to me,” Azra admitted apologetically. “. . . I love you too, by the way.”
― Ash Gray, Tales of Talithia

“The man’s mouth fell open in shock and hurt. He slowly shook his head. “So the stories are true. You really are a brat! You smug bastard. You need someone to throw you over a knee --!”
“How dare you!” Mycaela snarled. He lifted his hand to strike the man and couldn’t believe it when the juggler caught his wrist, holding it aloft. They glared at each other, and Mycaela felt small, like a twig caught in the branches of a tree. But now he was forced to really look at the juggler, whose brown muscular chest was in his face, and he grew distracted. The man was wearing nothing except a pair of very colorful, very tight leggings. They clung to his bulge and his buttocks, and he was built like a stallion, lean and taunt and powerful. Mycaela bit his lip, willing himself not to awaken and silently cursing himself for smoking a drug that was sometimes used as an aphrodisiac.”
― Ash Gray, Tales of Talithia

“Some of them are mech,” said Zita, nimbly picking her high heels through the steaming pools of red goo and severed, wriggling limbs. She was splattered with blood and grinning as she came to them, but she frowned to see the utter bafflement on Rose’s face. “Hey, snap out of it. Haven’t you seen mech before?” She kicked a man’s severed head, and Rose gasped when his face slid off, revealing a skull of gleaming silver metal.

Rose shook her head. “Mech are illegal. The government s-said they feared a robot war!” she insisted, turning to follow as Zita limped past her.

Zita laughed dryly, folding up her rifle and tucking it under her skirt. “Is it so hard to imagine your government lied? Governments tend to do that.”
― Ash Gray, Project Mothership

“Aha!” laughed the high queen with almost girlish delight. She slammed the flat of her little hand on the nearby table and the dragon statue leapt. “The idealist speaks again! You actually think the humans can live happily ever after with the elvkarin?” She narrowed her bright eyes, looking at Neferre in pity and amazement. “Don’t you even yet understand? Don’t you know who you are? The dragons were not mindless beasts – they were people, fierce and proud! Good dragons, bad dragons, dragons who were fucking indifferent -- Nineveh exterminated them like so much filth.”
― Ash Gray, Time's Arrow

“Kimaria smirked and placed her hands behind her back. “Come now. It doesn’t have to come to that. Violence is so beneath us.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Helianthus at once.
“Well . . . it is beneath me,” the high queen said and touched a hand to her chest. “Unlike you, I am civilized. I wear shoes and I have a last name.” They watched as she eased into a chair. She crossed one leg over the other, folded her arms, and regarded them calmly. “Aren’t you the least bit curious as to how I snatched the famed Nineveh Atvaris from our dark past? You can’t be that boring.”
― Ash Gray, Time's Arrow

“For elves, sex was two souls finding each other in the dark.”
― Ash Gray, Tales of Talithia

“Halt! We are attempting an arrest!”

“Yeah, we’re aware,” Quinn muttered under her breath.”
― Ash Gray, The Harvest

“I’m surprised you haven’t come to hate humans,” Rose said with hesitation. “I mean, given all that happened to you here. I’m pretty sure assimilating wasn’t easy either. You have a sort of foreign look for an American, and Americans are notorious for their xenophobia.”

Zita laughed softly. “Me? Hate humans?” She darkly shook her head. “I fought in the Midnight War for thirty years, Rosie. I know what happens when people let hate make decisions for them.”
― Ash Gray, Project Mothership

“Is there n-nothing you can do?” Parmida asked, wiping her tears away with the heel of her hand.
The unicorn laughed softly. “She asks for a boon after shooting me in the ass.”
― Ash Gray, Tales of Talithia

“Lisa’s head was tilted back and she was staring at the wall with her mouth open. “It’s . . . beautiful,” she whispered, touching a slender hand to her breasts.
“It’s graffiti,” Rigg said flatly.
Lisa shook her head in awe. “And it’s beautiful.”
Rigg peered up at the wall. “Huh?”
― Ash Gray, The Thieves of Nottica

“No,” agreed Eldon, laughing as well, “but you always looked out for me. If I was hurt, you took care of me. If I was scared, you held my hand.” Eldon paused nervously: Tobias was looking directly at him and listening with a small, fond smile. “I . . . always felt safest in your arms,” Eldon went on sheepishly. He dropped his eyes to the floor as he whispered, “Nothing has changed.”
― Ash Gray, Wicked Witch Boy

“Spent my whole life,” Morganith went on, staring miserably into her drink, “thinkin’ that out there somewhere was ah woman who would love me incredibly and I would love her incredibly. Like ah fire consumin’ the very air. Then I meet her, and she leaves me.” Morganith snapped her fingers lazily. “Just like that.”
― Ash Gray, The Thieves of Nottica

“As if the president gives a crap about demons and what they go through just because her father’s got horns?” Morganith returned. “She never opens her coward mouth about the quiet oppression the demons -- your people -- face every single day --!”
“Our people,” Hari calmly corrected.
“No,” said Morganith at once. “Halflings have never been anyone’s people.”
― Ash Gray, The Thieves of Nottica

“I believe Evrard already knows where his lockbox is,” Hari calmly explained. “That’s not what he wants us for or we’d be in his possession right now. The note was clearly an invitation.”
Morganith shook her head, and the distant glow of the streetlights seeped through the cracks of the boarded window, touching her mussed wreath of hair. “Really, Hari? Evrard’s invitin’ us ta tea after we stole from him? Well, hot damn. Maybe he ain’t so bad after all.” She set her feet on the coffee table”
― Ash Gray, The Thieves of Nottica

“Shadowmane sighed as well. :We had better do what this Topaz commands. Unicorns are jerks when they don’t get their way.:”
― Ash Gray, The Seaglass Stair

“I know nothing of magick,” the naked man said to the raven, “except what you told me.” He laughed sadly. “And I barely remember that. I tend to drift off when you ramble.”
― Ash Gray, The Seaglass Stair

“Neferre rested her elbows on her knees and watched as Olorun flipped through the book. “Any answers in there? Like maybe how to take that stick out your ass?”
― Ash Gray, Time's Arrow

“Did I hurt you?” Tobias whispered, frowning.

“N-No,” Eldon stammered. “It’s just . . . No one’s ever touched me like this before.”

“And no one ever will,” Tobias answered.

Eldon smiled, and they kissed again.”
― Ash Gray, Wicked Witch Boy

“Miriva refused to believe that human decency should be a privilege given only to a small few, and when she complained to her mother that she did not want to be a broodmare for the sake of alliances between the villages, her mother slapped her and sent her to the fields to pick mehazi beans”
― Ash Gray, Tales of Talithia

“Rigg pressed her back against a tree and closed her eyes, wishing she could have died in a less humiliating way. She supposed it could have been worse: the frog could have been a cute mechanical bunny.”
― Ash Gray, The Thieves of Nottica

“:No,: Wareska said at once, :we should go back.: She heard the horse laugh softly into her mind.
:Wareska,: he said in amusement, :it is not like you to ever look back.:
:I look back when sense dictates.:
:It is hard for horses to look back. We don’t really have shoulders. I guess we look back over our butt?:”
― Ash Gray, The Seaglass Stair

“Yes,” Lisa said with the usual blank honestly. She frowned. “Was that a sincere question? Or a scolding rhetorical question akin to Harilotecca’s speech patterns?”
― Ash Gray, The Thieves of Nottica

“His legs were still crossed, and his bulge sat atop his crossed thighs, so large it seemed to be taunting her, [...].
“My eyes are up here, you know,” Elbryn said in amusement.”
― Ash Gray, Tales of Talithia

“:Do you trust me?: Wareska quietly linked.
:To stay alive? No. You and the monster will get lost in riddles and philosophizing. Then you will make some grand, heroic gesture, poorly thought-out and overestimating your own strength, and when the creature has roasted you alive, I will be the one sweeping up the ashes – figuratively speaking, of course. Lest we forget, I do not have hands.:”
― Ash Gray, The Seaglass Stair

“Varzo looked with shame at her boots. “Look, I wasn’t serious, alright? It was just a thought.”

Mercy shook her head. “Shitty thoughts become shitty actions, kid. You really gone your entire life without recognizing there's ah link between the two?”
― Ash Gray, The Harvest

“There’s no point running anyway. In t-minus ten minutes, you will have no where to run to.”

Quinn tensed at the triumphant look in his eyes. “. . .what have you done?”

“I have entered launch codes in the computer. In exactly ten minutes, Alpha Star 9 will be a black stain in the middle of Utah.”

Quinn’s lips part in shock.

“Yes,” said. Dr. Zorgone in amusement. “Dramatic gasp!”
― Ash Gray, The Harvest

“Eldon doesn’t have to play if he doesn’t want to,” Tobias repeated, his fist tightening on the fork.

Eldon sensed with dread that their aunt was in great danger of being stabbed.”
― Ash Gray, Wicked Witch Boy

“He was a tyrant who had enslaved and murdered the elves and betrayed his own people. [...] Emperor Qalduun had existed over a thousand years ago and had been forgotten by no one except for the humans, who liked to pretend none of it had even happened. It was hardly shocking that none of Elbryn’s human caretakers would have spoken to him about Qalduun. Humans were notorious for covering up history rather than learning from it.”
― Ash Gray, Tales of Talithia