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January 11 - January 25, 2024
for in sleep, no one could quiet her voice.
In time, she came to the banks of a stream, its surface so bright with starlight it was as if someone had peeled the rind from the moon like a piece of fruit and laid it in a gleaming ribbon upon the forest floor.
But just because no one bothered to listen to Ayama didn’t mean she had nothing to say. In fact, she had plenty. And if it was true that the beast was happy to be spoken to, then perhaps it was also true that Ayama was glad to be heard.
You see, some people are born with a piece of night inside, and that hollow place can never be filled—not with all the good food or sunshine in the world. That emptiness cannot be banished, and so some days we wake with the feeling of the wind blowing through, and we must simply endure it as the boy did.”
Bad fates do not always follow those who deserve them.”
It seemed wrong that death should feel like nothing in her hands.
And as you may know, when you have had very little and worked very hard, that is no small offer.
They pray that their children will be brave and clever and strong, that they will tell the true stories instead of the easy ones. They pray for sons with red eyes and daughters with horns.
“I can bear ugliness,” he said. “I find the one thing I cannot live with is death.”
“Just because you escape one trap, doesn’t mean you will escape the next.”
“Freedom is a burden, but you will learn to bear it.
“It is always the same trap,” she said gently. “You longed for conversation. The bear craved jokes. The gray wolf missed music. The boar just wanted someone to tell her troubles to. The trap is loneliness, and none of us escapes it. Not even me.”
In the wood, even songbirds must be survivors.
“What is it you want?” “I want to go home,” Nadya replied. “So go.” Nadya looked outside to where the snow was still falling. “I can’t.” “Well then,” said Magda. “Come help me stir the pot.”
“You cannot come and go from this place like you’re fetching water from a well. I will not have you bring a monster to my door.”
“You know that you are welcome to remain here with me,” said the witch.
But when Karina spoke, her voice was gentle. “Fly away now, little bird,” she said. “Some things are better left unseen.” Then she disappeared into the dusk.
So shut the window tight and make sure the latch is fastened. Dark things have a way of slipping in through narrow spaces. Shall we have something good to eat? Well then, come help me stir the pot.
remember that to use a thing is not to own it. And should you ever take a bride, listen closely to her questions. In them you may hear her true name like the thunder of a lost river, like the sighing of the sea.
This is the problem with even lesser demons. They come to your doorstep in velvet coats and polished shoes. They tip their hats and smile and demonstrate good table manners. They never show you their tails.
Wanting is why people get up in the morning. It gives them something to dream of at night. The more I wanted, the more I became like them, the more real I became.”
I know who I am without anyone there to tell me.”
At the beginning of everything, he discovered loneliness in the quiet of his own thoughts.
This is the problem with making a thing forbidden. It does nothing but build an ache in the heart.
mostly Ulla wished that she could kill the thing inside herself that still longed for their approval.
“Was it?” Ulla asked, a hard carapace glinting from beneath all her gems. “Or was it just something you hadn’t heard before?”
“Magic doesn’t require beauty,” she said. “Easy magic is pretty. Great magic asks that you trouble the waters. It requires a disruption, something new.”
But hope rises like water trapped by a dam, higher and higher, in increments that mean nothing until you face the flood.
There is no pain like the pain of transformation.
as if humans were afraid they might forget what they looked like
I was not made to please princes.
