Aquiles

“I am in the ocean. I am on the shore. I am trying to remember or to see.

The space between me and me is you. This is a mystery.”
― Anne De Marcken, It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over

“I don't miss my name and I haven't bothered to replace it. I miss your name. I'm sorry but I have forgotten it, too. I don't look for it on the walls. The thought that I might read it and pass it by, just to go on to the next name is terrible. Like meeting you in another life and failing to recognize you.”
― Anne de Marcken, It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over

“I have tried to dismantle you, Gideon Nav! The Ninth House poisoned you, we trod you underfoot—I took you to this killing field as my slave—you refuse to die, and you pity me! Strike me down. You’ve won. I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

“Gideon looked down at her necromancer. She had the heavy-lidded expression of someone who was concentrating in the knowledge that once they stopped concentrating, they would fall abruptly asleep. Harrow had gone unconscious once before: Gideon knew that the second time she let Harrow go under, there would probably not be any awakening. Harrow reached up - her hand was trembling - and tapped Gideon on the cheek.
'Nav,' she said, 'have you really forgiven me?'
Confirmed. They were all going to eat it.
'Of course I have, you bozo.'
'I don't deserve it.'
'Maybe not,' said Gideon, 'but that doesn't stop me forgiving you. Harrow - '
'Yes?'
'You know I don't give a damn about the Locked Tomb, right? You know I only care about you,' she said in a brokenhearted rush. She didn't know what she was trying to say, only that she had to say it now. With a bad, juddering noise, a tentacle had started to pound their splintering shelter again: WHAM. 'I'm no good at this duty thing. I'm just me. I can't do this without you.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth