Lore

by Alexandra Bracken

A feather fallen from a wing is not lost, Gil had told her, but free.

You could only convince yourself something was prey until it turned around and showed you its teeth.

“If I wanted a moral compass, I would have stopped at a store on the way here.”

“It’s not always the truth that survives, but the stories we wish to believe. The legends lie. They smooth over imperfections to tell a good tale, or to instruct us how we should behave, or to assign glory to victors and shame those who falter.

Monsters had fangs, but that was why lionesses were given claws.

There comes a point where you have to decide what’s right for yourself and act, no matter the consequences.

A person alone could be controlled, but a person loved by others would always be under their protection.

It wasn’t that anger was inherently good or bad. It could lend power and drive and focus, but the longer it lived inside you unchecked, the more poisonous it became.

“When we can’t change the past, the only thing left is to move forward.

You were a safe place to hide my hopes.