Lindsey

“I'll be fine, they tell me. I won't die. It'll just hurt a lot.”
― E. Lockhart, We Were Liars

“Beware the tyrant – he clothes himself in the armour of ignorance’.”
― Richard Swan, The Trials of Empire

“ONCE UPON A time, there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. He loved each of them dearly. One day, when the young ladies were of age to be married, a terrible, three-headed dragon laid siege to the kingdom, burning villages with fiery breath. It spoiled crops and burned churches. It killed babies, old people, and everyone in between.

The king promised a princess’s hand in marriage to whoever slayed the dragon. Heroes and warriors came in suits of armor, riding brave horses and bearing swords and arrows.

One by one, these men were slaughtered and eaten.

Finally the king reasoned that a maiden might melt the dragon’s heart and succeed where warriors had failed. He sent his eldest daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, but the dragon listened to not a word of her pleas. It swallowed her whole.

Then the king sent his second daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, but the dragon did the same. Swallowed her before she could get a word out.

The king then sent his youngest daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, and she was so lovely and clever that he was sure she would succeed where the others had perished.

No indeed. The dragon simply ate her.

The king was left aching with regret. He was now alone in the world.

Now, let me ask you this. Who killed the girls?

The dragon? Or their father?”
― E. Lockhart, We Were Liars

“When one is faced with such naked evil, there is a temptation to believe that the commonfolk will see it for what it is. In reality it is tenacious, like a weed. It alters perceptions and tolerances slowly, insidiously. It must be fought constantly, and cut out at the roots.”
― Richard Swan, The Trials of Empire