Eileen Prescott

“Am I really about to rescue a servant of evil from the hands of the righteous?" Nth whimpered. It was a human sound. Lief had, once or twice, been beaten and broken just enough to make that sound.
"Fuck the righteous.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Spiderlight

“Five thousand years of savagery, Barry had believed. But that was time measured on the steps of the pyramids, not by those who lived any part of it. Mark had led his people into a timeless period where the recurring seasons and the cycles of the heavens and of life, birth, and death marked their days. Now the joys of men and women, and their agonies, were private affairs that would come and go without a trace. In the timeless period, life became the goal, not the recreation of the past or the elaborate structuring of the future.”
― Kate Wilhelm, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang

“They would have a ceremony of the lost for her, she thought distantly. The sisters would be comforted by the others, and the party would last until dawn as they all demonstrated their solidarity in the face of grievous loss. In the light of the rising sun, the remaining sisters would join hands, forming a circle, and after that she would cease to exist for them. No longer would she torment them with her new strangeness, her apartness. No one had the right to bring unhappiness to the brothers or sisters, she thought. No one had the right to exist if such existence was a threat to the family--that was the law.”
― Kate Wilhelm, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang

“He looked down at the floor, at the shambles of the pieces he had made, and wiped his face with his arm. "Mother," he said, and stopped. Now Molly moved. Somehow, she reached him before he could speak again, and she held him tightly, and he held her, and they both wept.
"Sorry I busted everything."
"You'll make more."
"I wanted to show you."
"I looked at them all. They were very good--the hands especially."
"They were hard. The fingers were funny, but I couldn't make them not funny."
"Hands are the hardest of all.”
― Kate Wilhelm, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang