Weronika

“You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me, and still come with me, and hating me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.”
― Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla

“She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear, “Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.”

And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glow upon my cheek.
”
― Sheridan Le Fanu

“One flesh, one end, bitch.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

“So many gods. Which was the god of test scores? Which was the god of unmarried shopgirls who wished to stay that way?
She decided to simply pray to all of them.
“If you exist, if you’re up there, help me. Give me a way out of this shithole. Or, if you can’t do that, give the import inspector a heart attack.”
She looked around the empty temple. What came next? She had always imagined that praying involved more than just speaking out loud. She spied several unused incense sticks lying by the altar. She lit the end of them by dipping it in the brazier, and then waved it experimentally in the air.
Was she supposed to hold the smoke to the gods? Or should she smoke the stick herself? She had just held the burned end to her nose when a temple custodian strode out from behind the altar.
They blinked at each other.
Slowly, Rin removed the incense stick from her nostril.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m praying.”
“Please leave,” he said.”
― R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War