Caylah Coffeen

“The thunderstorm-heaviness in the air intensified; above them there was a jangle as if the wind had blown through the glass floats in the solarium. The same gust whipped through the room, scattering the limericks and sending a spray of sparks up out of the brazier.
Very deliberately, Cliopher smiled.
Fitzroy uttered one of those words of magic, which made the air ring like the inside of a struck bell, and without moving a step he growled out a line of poetry.
'Hear, O ye children of the sun and of the wind, of the emperor Aurelius called Magnus and his fanoa from across the sea: sing with me of their deeds of magic and daring, their high-hearted courage, their love that crested the very sky, and weep, all you lovers of beauty, for what glory once was in the world.'
Oh, thought Cliopher, very clearly: There it is.”
― Victoria Goddard, At the Feet of the Sun

“Cliopher had not been right, after all, about what fanoa meant.
Not right at all.
He felt sick with loss, as if his heart had been pierced and all his wistful dreams had gushed out of it, disappearing into the sand below their feet.
It did not matter, Cliopher told himself fiercely, that they were lovers as well as friends. They could still be the greatest of friends. They could still be fanoa, reaching across cultures and across oceans and even across the divide between the human worlds and Sky Ocean, the realms of the gods.
And yet-
People understood the idea that a lover might follow his beloved anywhere. It had always been a strange and difficult idea that one might love a friend that deeply.
That was how people always talked about romantic, sexual love. As if that sort of love was necessarily better, greater, more, than friendship. As if being the greatest of friends was a step down.
It had always been so important to Cliopher that Elonoa'a and Aurelius Magnus were celebrated for their great friendship, and that no one had ever hinted at that sort of romance. Even for the Islanders there were many stories of lovers loving that profoundly... and there was this one story of the greatest of friends, the human iteration of Ani and Vou'a's friendship.
Cliopher had never thought it was a step down.
He had wanted-”
― Victoria Goddard, At the Feet of the Sun

“Look first! Listen first! Questions later.”
― Victoria Goddard, The Hands of the Emperor

“Who is this who comes out of the sunrise?”
― Victoria Goddard, The Hands of the Emperor