Tiara

“Everybody made faces around here. Human beings, she discovered, could not maintain the stony, frozen expressions of the merfolk, not for an instant. There was not a moment where their faces remained blank. There was always a light in their eye, and the light, like red wind, would flare into a raging fire without notice.”
― Esther Dalseno, Drown

“Losing something she loved had ripped her open in a way she had not expected. The pain hurt, but the pain was right. The Order had wrought a galaxy in which good capitulated to evil, where human feelings—Aryn’s feelings—were crushed under the weight of Jedi nonattachment.”
― Paul S. Kemp, Deceived

“The president is not at all like the powerful icon I imagined her to be. She’s more like I remember Amma: small and delicate with a sari that dances behind her as she walks. Of course, the president is clad in white, the color that shows eternal mourning of a lost child, while Amma never wore white. She wore reds and oranges and deep greens. Colors of celebration, of happiness. Perhaps she wears white now. Now that I am dead to her.”
― Holly Bodger

“Have to wait my turn.
Have to follow the rules.
Have to smile like I agree.
Have to
Have to
Have to
Have to
Choose him.”
― Holly Bodger, 5 to 1