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“It is easy to make fleeting footprints in the snow;
It is hard to make lasting marks in the stone.
Shall I dance ten thousand steps, unwitnessed?
Shall I make one carving, forever known?”
― The Poet Empress
It is hard to make lasting marks in the stone.
Shall I dance ten thousand steps, unwitnessed?
Shall I make one carving, forever known?”
― The Poet Empress
“He never managed to articulate what it was he didn’t know, but I knew his meaning. I don’t know how much suffering is normal.
How much was ordinary, expected, the price we paid to live.
How much was created by us, needless.”
― The Poet Empress
How much was ordinary, expected, the price we paid to live.
How much was created by us, needless.”
― The Poet Empress
“Or, at the very least, turn me little again.' He wiped his eyes with a sleeve, and stared at the plate of mung bean cakes. 'Little enough that all I wanted to reach for was the banquet table. When all I knew to desire was a sweet cake. And even if everyone punished me, or yelled at me, or hated me, at least back then I didn’t know why. If you can’t turn me into a fish, at least turn me little.”
― The Poet Empress
― The Poet Empress
“It is not a weakness to be seen”
― The Poet Empress
― The Poet Empress
“At last, he lifted his face from his sleeves and wiped furiously at his eyes. His voice was still broken as he said, 'I should have you beheaded for seeing me like this.'
It was another flat attempt to get me afraid of him—or perhaps merely a force of habit. But I knew the threat did not have his heart behind it. 'Is that so?'
'Beheaded and worse.'
'Terren, it is not a weakness to be seen.'
There were no knives between us now, no fear, not even enough distance for a sparrow to spread its wings. I looked into his eyes, and though they were older and meaner, there was no question they were the same ones as on the boy I’d seen in the meadow. I looked into them and I saw him.
Maybe it was possible to love somebody that one hated.
Maybe, buried heart-deep, I really did love him. Not the kind of love a wife shared with her husband—that was not possible, after all he’d done to me; I might have borne no scars, but my body still remembered—but the kind of love one human could not help but feel for another when they had to pry away blades to find them.
I did not know what else to call it, if not love.”
― The Poet Empress
It was another flat attempt to get me afraid of him—or perhaps merely a force of habit. But I knew the threat did not have his heart behind it. 'Is that so?'
'Beheaded and worse.'
'Terren, it is not a weakness to be seen.'
There were no knives between us now, no fear, not even enough distance for a sparrow to spread its wings. I looked into his eyes, and though they were older and meaner, there was no question they were the same ones as on the boy I’d seen in the meadow. I looked into them and I saw him.
Maybe it was possible to love somebody that one hated.
Maybe, buried heart-deep, I really did love him. Not the kind of love a wife shared with her husband—that was not possible, after all he’d done to me; I might have borne no scars, but my body still remembered—but the kind of love one human could not help but feel for another when they had to pry away blades to find them.
I did not know what else to call it, if not love.”
― The Poet Empress
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