Zala > Recent Status Updates

“I never cared about the money,” she snaps. Then she swipes the coins from my hand anyway. “That’s a lie. Give me that.”

”He could bring down the empire.”
“Don’t I know it.” I all but dance through the doorway, into the harsh winter daylight, and tip him a mock salute in dismissal. “Good thing I’m on my way out.”
girl how? you didn’t figure out anything

“Think he knows how to swim in those irons?” I ask Poldi.
Poldi and I wait a moment, watching the river. The surface doesn’t break.
“Doesn’t look like it,” he hisses.
I give it another beat or two, then turn and head back inside. “Eh. He’ll figure it out. Hopefully before the waterfall. Let’s go get you some mead.”

”I can do what she never did, not all the times her mother had too much mead and struck out because I was just there, not when Irmgard had me whipped for nothing, not even once.
I can save her. Like she never saved me.”

did not expect a suggestive wurst scene

what are these spellings? glohwein? rohtpfenni? frohlein?

”Traders frequently get stuck in Minkja while Ungra or Östr heckle the empire over the more profitable border crossings; sometimes the merchants decide, for whatever reason, that they like it here, and settle down.”
oh there’s the hungary and austria

”My name was—is—Vanja. And this is the story of how I got caught.”
her name being vanja makes me think german fantasy land that includes the slavic peoples ruled by them? pls say yes

should’ve read the blurb at least, did not expect a german fantasy land (there’s a “prinzessin” on every page to remind us)

”To the gremlin girls,
I would like to tell you something inspiring,
but the truth is, when life closes a door for us,
it doesn’t always open a window.
The good news is:
That’s what bricks are for.”
oh I like this dedication

”Thus began the fourth of the great battles, Dagor Bragollach, the Battle of Sudden Flame.
In the front of that fire came Glaurung the golden, father of dragons, in his full might”

eol is such trash

”Then Galadriel spoke to Melian of the Silmarils, and of the slaying of King Finwe at Formenos: but still she said no word of the Oath, nor of the Kinslaying, nor of the burning of the ships at Losgar. But Melian said: 'Now much you tell me, and yet more I perceive. A darkness you would cast over the long road from Tirion, but I see evil there, which Thingol should learn for his guidance.'”

”Again after a hundred years Glaurung, the first of the Uruloki, the fire-drakes of the North, issued from Angband's gates by night. He was yet young and scarce half-grown, for long and slow is the life of the dragons, but the Elves fled before him to Ered Wethrin and Dorthonion in dismay”

”but he cursed the name of Morgoth thrice, and laid it upon his sons to hold to their oath, and to avenge their father. Then he died; but he had neither burial nor tomb, for so fiery was his spirit that as it sped his body fell to ash, and was borne away like smoke; and his likeness has never again appeared in Arda, neither has his spirit left the halls of Mandos.”
lol this guy

”Evil indeed were the tidings that came at last to Angband, and Morgoth was dismayed. Ten days that battle lasted, and from it returned of all the hosts that he had prepared for the conquest of Beleriand no more than a handful of leaves.”
lol a handful of leaves

”To Hildorien there came no Vala to guide Men, or to summon them to dwell in Valinor; and Men have feared the Valar, rather than loved them, and have not understood the purposes of the Powers, being at variance with them, and at strife with the world.”
well idk maybe if they invited them too

“Then Feanor laughed as one fey, and he cried: 'None and none! What I have left behind I count now no loss; needless baggage on the road it has proved. Let those that cursed my name, curse me still, and whine their way back to the cages of the Valar! Let the ships burn!'”
wow this pos

”Then the Unlight of Ungoliant rose up even to the roots of the Trees, and Melkor sprang upon the mound; and with his black spear he smote each Tree to its core, wounded them deep, and their sap poured forth as it were their blood, and was spilled upon the ground. But Ungoliant sucked it up, and going then from Tree to Tree she set her black beak to their wounds, till they were drained”

“For Fëanor[…] was filled with a new thought, or it may be that some shadow of foreknowledge came to him of the doom that drew near; and he pondered how the light of the Trees, the glory of the Blessed Realm, might be preserved imperishable. Then he began a long and secret labour, and he summoned all his lore, and his power, and his subtle skill; and at the end of all he made the Silmarils.”

”For Manwe was free from evil and could not comprehend it, and he knew that in the beginning, in the thought of Iluvatar, Melkor had been even as he; and he saw not to the depths of Melkor's heart, and did not perceive that all love had departed from him for ever.”

”Nerdanel also was firm of will, but more patient than Feanor, desiring to understand minds rather than to master them, and at first she restrained him when the fire of his heart grew too hot; but his later deeds grieved her, and they became estranged.”

”Even among the radiant flowers of the Tree-lit gardens of Valinor they longed still at times to see the stars; and therefore a gap was made in the great walls of the Pelori, and there in a deep valley that ran down to the sea the Eldar raised a high green hill: Tuna it was called.”
lol tuna

”In after days he became a king renowned, and his people were all the Eldar of Beleriand; the Sindar they were named, the Grey-elves, the Elves of the Twilight and King Greymantle was he, Elu Thingol in the tongue of that land. And Melian was his Queen, wiser than any child of Middle-earth; and their hidden halls were Menegroth, the Thousand Caves, in Doriath.”

“Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressea, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes.”

”‘Would that the trees might speak on behalf of all things that have roots, and punish those that wrong them!'
'This is a strange thought,' said Manwe.
'Yet it was in the Song,' said Yavanna.”
lol manwe be like “trees that talk? ion know about that”

”Aforetime it was held among the Elves in Middle-earth that dying the Dwarves returned to the earth and the stone of which they were made; yet that is not their own belief. For they say that Aule the Maker, whom they call Mahal, cares for them, and gathers them to Mandos in halls set apart”

”It is one with this gift of freedom that the children of Men dwell only a short space in the world alive, and are not bound to it, and depart soon whither the Elves know not. Whereas the Elves remain until the end of days”

”Among them Nine were of chief power and reverence; but one is removed from their number, and Eight remain, the Aratar, the High Ones of Arda: Manwe and Varda, Ulmo, Yavanna and Aule, Mandos, Nienna, and Orome.”

'Truly, Water is become now fairer than my heart imagined, neither had my secret thought conceived the snowflake, nor in all my music was contained the falling of the rain. I will seek Manwe, that he and I may make melodies for ever to my delight!'