Alice

“I won’t have much responsibility as we travel through the forest together.” “Does it bother you? You’re welcome to do the hunting yourself. Perhaps I can stay by the fire and mend your socks, and scream if I hear any strange noises.” He smiled then. “Do you treat Giddon like this, when the two of you travel? I imagine he finds it quite humiliating.” “Poor Po. You may content yourself with reading my mind, if you wish to feel superior.” He laughed. “I know you’re teasing me. And you should know I’m not easily humiliated. You may hunt for my food, and pound me every time we fight, and protect me when we’re attacked, if you like. I’ll thank you for it.” “But I’d never need to protect you, if we were attacked. And I doubt you need me to do your hunting, either.” “True. But you’re better than I am, Katsa. And it doesn’t humiliate me.” He fed a branch to the fire. “It humbles me. But it doesn’t humiliate me.”
― Kristin Cashore, Graceling

“I knew you then, I know you now, I shall know you again when you come home.”
― Rachel Hartman, Shadow Scale

“Alone in the forest, Katsa sat on a stump and cried. She cried like a person whose heart is broken and wondered how, when two people loved each other, there could be such a broken heart.”
― Kristin Cashore, Graceling

“the Meconi subdivided into a dozen tiny streams, braiding itself among soft little islands.”
― Rachel Hartman, Shadow Scale