Juushika

“Later in the evening Misabel went for a solitary stroll by the sea. She saw the moon rise and start his lonesome journey through the night.

"He's exactly like me," Misabel thought sadly. "So plump and lonely."

At this thought she felt so forsaken and mild that she had to cry a little.

"What are you crying for?" asked Whomper nearby.

"I don't know, but it feels nice," replied Misabel.

"But people cry because they feel sorry, don't they?" objected Whomper.

"Well, yes--the moon," Misabel replied vaguely and blew her nose. "The moon and the night and all the sadness there is..."

"Oh, yes," said Whomper.”
― Tove Jansson, Moominsummer Madness

“There was something compelling in his eyes. Something of that strange compulsion of an abyss. That invitation of the void, of great heights: Come, cast yourself down. Just let yourself go. How do you know it isn't sweeter than anything you have ever imagined or experienced in life? Why do you fear? Why do you fear what you do not know as yet? Come! Come!

Oh! the opium-sweet attraction of death!”
― Guy Endore, The Werewolf of Paris

“Where have you been?" she cried. "Damn you, where have you been?" She took a few steps toward Schmendrick, but she was looking beyond him, at the unicorn.

When she tried to get by, the magician stood in her way. "You don't talk like that," he told her, still uncertain that Molly had recognized the unicorn. "Don't you know how to behave, woman? You don't curtsy, either."

But Molly pushed him aside and went up to the unicorn, scolding her as though she were a strayed milk cow. "Where have you been?" Before the whiteness and the shining horn, Molly shrank to a shrilling beetle, but this time it was the unicorn's old dark eyes that looked down.

"I am here now," she said at last.

Molly laughed with her lips flat. "And what good is it to me that you're here now? Where where you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you, how dare you come to me now, when I am this?" With a flap of her hand she summed herself up: barren face, desert eyes, and yellowing heart. "I wish you had never come. Why did you come now?" The tears began to slide down the sides of her nose.

The unicorn made no reply, and Schmendrick said, "She is the last. She is the last unicorn in the world."

"She would be." Molly sniffed. "It would be the last unicorn in the world to come to Molly Grue." She reached up then to lay her hand on the unicorn's cheek; but both of them flinched a little, and the touch came to rest on on the swift, shivering place under the jaw. Molly said, "It's all right. I forgive you.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

“To the spectator the ex-Commando might be standing impassively, the meerkats clinging to him, his hand resting lightly on Surra’s round skull, the eagle quiet on his shoulder. But an awareness, which was unuttered, unheard speech, linked him with animals and bird. The breadth of that communication could not be assessed outside a 'team,' but it forged them into a harmonious whole, which was a weapon if need be, a companionship always.”
― Andre Norton, The Beast Master