“I didn’t mean to name that buffalo calf that, but once I said it I couldn’t take it back. But Wolf Calf told me when I was young that a real Pikuni gives away what’s closest to him, and my childhood name was the one thing the Cat Man and the soldiers hadn’t been able to touch. So I had to give it away.”
― The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
― The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
“A man just waiting for someone to do or say the wrong thing so that he might luxuriate in that wrongness, and reward it with fury.”
― Coffin Moon
― Coffin Moon
“All these past selves laid to waste, cut down by time and circumstance and choices made. He didn’t know who he was in this moment, what was left.”
― Coffin Moon
― Coffin Moon
“It’s okay to be a work in progress,” Donut said.”
― This Inevitable Ruin
― This Inevitable Ruin
“Go back to Picardy and ask the bishop to pardon you, if he's still alive.
He'll send you on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella, or maybe on crusade, if there's anyone left to make war on in the east; and back you'll come to the bishop, and you'll say words you don't mean and he'll say words he doesn't mean, and you'll get your castle back. If you can find anyone to run it. And be a seigneur, if anyone's alive to grow the wheat. And you won't have to forgive anyone or be merciful, or thoughtful or courteous, because devils will rule here.
They'll kill the good ones first, and when all the good men are dead, they'll come for men like you, who were almost sound, but not quite; the bowls that leaked. And when you're gone, the worst of men will find themselves in the teeth of their masters, because those that fell have no love for man. And they'll take good and bad alike to Hell, because there won't be anyplace but Hell anymore.
Not without love. Not without forgiveness.”
― Between Two Fires
He'll send you on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella, or maybe on crusade, if there's anyone left to make war on in the east; and back you'll come to the bishop, and you'll say words you don't mean and he'll say words he doesn't mean, and you'll get your castle back. If you can find anyone to run it. And be a seigneur, if anyone's alive to grow the wheat. And you won't have to forgive anyone or be merciful, or thoughtful or courteous, because devils will rule here.
They'll kill the good ones first, and when all the good men are dead, they'll come for men like you, who were almost sound, but not quite; the bowls that leaked. And when you're gone, the worst of men will find themselves in the teeth of their masters, because those that fell have no love for man. And they'll take good and bad alike to Hell, because there won't be anyplace but Hell anymore.
Not without love. Not without forgiveness.”
― Between Two Fires
Derek’s 2025 Year in Books
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