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“We do have exceedingly voracious catfish,” said the red-head, with understandable civic pride.
Djdhsjss Galen
😂 I love Kingfisher’s tone
😂
“The Rat, the Forge God, and the Lady of Grass. And the Dreaming God provided some of their nuns, who are extremely literate, and they’re training the ladies who want it on the finer points of recordkeeping so that they can hopefully use this as a springboard to other jobs.” Stephen shook his head. “And the Scarlet Guild approves of that a lot, so they offered to pay the nuns a commission because you know they don’t believe in women working for free, so the nuns plowed it back into the project.
no, don’t start trying to decide what organ at what stage of decomposition is that shade of red. Pick something else. Something that isn’t horrible.
Born to lust after hot redheads, forced to be a mortician
The only darkness across his skin was the fine line of black hair running down his belly and vanishing under the waistband of his pants. It was a good thing Galen had a lot of experience controlling his expression.
I love their mutual “oh no he’s hot”
A handsome man with a hurt looking to be soothed. Paladin catnip, his friend Clara would say, laughing.
😂 Clara’s not wrong
“Tomato-man is a job-human,” said Earstripe. “Bone-doctor is our priest-human.” “I’m not a priest,” said Piper, bemused. Earstripe flicked his ears. “No, a priest.” Piper looked at Galen for explanation. “Priests and healers are the same caste among gnoles,” said Galen. “Also, you’re…” He turned to Earstripe and held up his hands over his ears, cupping them forward in imitation of Earstripe. “He? His?” “Close enough. Humans don’t have whiskers.” Earstripe’s voice dropped on the last word, as if he were bringing up a terrible deformity. “A gnole won’t take offense if bone-doctor doesn’t.” Piper
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“As a priest-caste human, you’re somewhere between a he and an our, but since you really need whiskers and mobile ears to say that properly in gnolespeech, gnoles generally allow us to use whichever.”
Galen coughed. “My dear captain, perhaps you do not need to know why the good doctor and I happened to already be together at this hour of the morning?”
Galen 🙈
“I didn’t think it was any of your business,” said Galen brightly.
😂Galen
Mind you, if you could bring me a body, I could probably find out what His last sensations were…
👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
“What, that we’re screwing like crazed weasels?”
What a way to put it. I should steal this
“You would help a gnole, bone-doctor. You would help the dead.” “There’s no helping the dead,” said Piper wearily, “but I’ll come anyway. Just in case we can help a few more of the living.”
Really interested in Piper’s perspective about the living and the dead now
feel too many things and they want you to feel them, too. And half the time you cannot save them, no matter what you do, but you cannot tell them that. And they act as if you are a fool or a god, and honestly, sometimes you feel like both. It had all been too much. Too many feelings. Too many emotions. He had fought for a post where there were only the dead, who felt nothing any longer, and he had won it, and everything had gotten so much easier. “Even the ones who die by violence?” asked Galen, looking at him with those flawed jade eyes. “Even then. Sometimes I can help get a little justice.
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Re: Piper’s view on the living and the dead
Am I overthinking this?
Yes, hon (affectionate)
Hell, when the doctor bit the index finger of his glove to pull it off, Galen had briefly lost the power of speech. The slide of leather over skin, barely audible, made him want to howl like a dog. It had taken an effort of will to focus on what Piper had been saying, about someone attacking him in the morgue, and then he had been able to focus because he needed to find out who these people were and hunt them down in the streets.
Lolololol Galen. This is the ust I want.
Start thinking you have the right to do things to people’s bodies in a good cause, and you’re halfway to hell and picking up speed.
and that the baker’s boy kept obstinately making full deliveries, even when they’d told him to stop.
I feel like this fits in with the mystery but I don’t remember how
“If we’re lucky, maybe the next house will have a feud with the cheesemaker.”
😂
And clerks if I can get them.” He sighed. “They never stay long, I’m afraid.
Clerks who wear leather soled shoes…
Rather more worrisome, there was an enormous bloody splatter across the floor and a series of drag marks leading to the door they’d entered.
Looks into the camera
If we weren’t in an ancient death-trap, I could really enjoy this part.
gnoles were much better at reading body language than humans—their language was based on it—but
“Oh, good,” said Galen, “he’s a remorseless murderer. That makes me feel better.”
😂
Piper gave up. Paladins wallowed in guilt as a form of meditative exercise.
Paladins gonna paladin
It wasn’t very impressive, but it was related to the dead, and people tended to get very anxious about anything that smacked of necromancy. It was hard enough just being a lich-doctor.
Speaking of water, there was a sudden liquid sound. Piper looked over and saw that Earstripe was urinating off the side of his tile into the pit. “What?” said the gnole. “A gnole had to go.” “You’re pissing on ancient technology!” “Ancient humans did not provide toilets for a gnole.” “Yes, but—” “A gnole will aim for the dead pig, if it makes a human feel better.” “Besides,” said Galen, “if those are clocktaur bits, urine’s not going to hurt them. Trust me on this one.” “You pissed on a clocktaur?” “What can I say? War is hell.” Piper paused. “Did it do anything to the clocktaurs?” “Made them
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Fjdjhdjdkdjs
And god, are they pretty.” “So pretty,” said Piper, almost involuntarily. Galen flashed him a broad grin,
Haha
Piper’s face held sympathy but no pity, which Galen appreciated. “Hard for a human to compete with a god.” The words struck him much harder than the doctor could realize. He had lashed out at Stephen once, to his disgrace. “Trying to replace what we’ve lost, are you? I didn’t think you’d try to find it between a woman’s thighs.” “It isn’t like that,” Stephen had said. “You cannot ask a woman to compete with a god. But we can still love someone and be loved. Even as broken as we are.”
Aww 🥺
One thing I love is that these books are about healing. Stephen and Grace, Istvan and Clara, Galen and Piper, they all find connection and healing in one another. And that’s what makes the romances beautiful.
His fellow broken paladin had found love against long odds. Galen did not begrudge him that, exactly. Stephen deserved love if anyone did. No, it was…envy. Envy, because Stephen had not been at Hallowbind. Envy, because Stephen deserved it, and after Hallowbind, Galen never would again. In the death throes of the Saint of Steel, the god-touched priests had died outright or killed themselves or fallen into death-like comas from which they did not wake. Galen did not know which one his mother had done. The high priest of her temple had burned it to the ground, screaming about a pyre fit for a
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two left hands. The broken paladins had torn them to shreds and when they could not find another enemy, they had turned on each other. The survivors had fallen comatose when they could no longer fight, but only Marcus and Galen had woken up again.
“Why did you join the city guard?” The gnole shrugged. “Burrow said to join. Guard not always good to gnoles. Blame gnoles for things. If a guard is a gnole, that guard can speak up.” He picked at a loose thread on one of his rags. “A gnole was a rag-and-bone gnoll, but she was good at human speaking.” His diction shifted noticeably, becoming more precise, taking care with each syllable. “Burrow said to become a guard-gnole. Become a job-gnole.” “Ah.” Galen knew enough about the gnole caste system to know that would be a step up for Earstripe. “If you became a guard, you’d be promoted.”
“A gnole’s compassion does not require fur.”
“Crazy humans building a crazy thing,” muttered Earstripe. Galen knew from experience that gnoles had about fifty words that all translated as crazy, none of which actually involved mental illness, which they called head-sick.
Once a thing is made, it exists in the mind of the world. The next one is easier to make, and the next one after that.”
“Some of those machines have existed for a long time,” said Judith, who didn’t talk about her past.
Mysterious Judith
“The first takes a twisted genius. The hundredth can be done by any blacksmith. It is why our first lesson is always to be careful of what you make.”
“This place feels like it will kill you and then you’ll be dead. Just dead. It isn’t trying to carve you up in little increments. You don’t have time to panic or see what’s happening to you. It isn’t evil. It’s just here.”
said Piper. “You’ve put your finger on it. This doesn’t feel cruel, exactly. It feels like a test.”
He’d been stupid because he knew the paladins. He’d met them. He’d never seen one of their legendary berserker rages and he’d never had to fit the reality in with the gentle, dutiful men he knew.
More than that, he was a doctor and of course that meant he knew better than anyone who wasn’t.
Womp, womp
“Did you kill him?” asked Galen, his voice slurring.
I am the kitten sucking a juice box dry emoji
and all Piper had was a nauseating sense of guilt that wasn’t going to do fuck-all against a yard of steel.
🙈
His voice rose on the last word, a child crying against unfairness.
Galen 🥺
Galen said nothing, more loudly.
😂🙈
hmm, I think this rib might be cracked.” “Oh, thank god,” said Galen. “That’s not a good thing.” “If it stops our tour of sleepwalking through the ages, I’ll take it.”
🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈
I’m sorry about your sword, though. Did it have a name?” Galen looked blank. “Did what?” “Your sword.” “Why would it have a name?” “Don’t warriors name their swords?” The paladin stared at him. “Is that a euphemism?” Piper felt a flush starting. “I didn’t think it was, no. You know, the pointy metal thing?” “…you know they don’t come when called, right?” “Neither do cats, but people name those.”
Fjdhdjsjjs 🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈
We’re rather hard on weapons.” He climbed to his feet, his gaze darkened. “And everything else.” Dammit. For a second there, Piper thought he had managed to distract the man. “That’s hardly your fault,” he said. “Don’t do this,” said Galen. “Don’t excuse it. You of all people should have seen it enough by now. A man beats the shit out of his loved ones, and all they can say is, ‘but he loves me, he doesn’t mean it.’
Oh shit. This is dark. I get the point Galen is trying to make. There’s no excuse for his violence. But he’s also mentally ill and traumatized but The Saint’s death. What he needs are better coping methods for his responses to trauma. Not to beat himself up over it and push others away
“It’s not the same,” said Piper furiously. “You have a medical condition. Sleep disturbances have been known to medicine for centuries. Including violence. Sleepwalkers have murdered people and judges found them not accountable because they were asleep.” Too late, he realized that this was the wrong tactic. Galen’s face grew even bleaker. “Fat lot of good that did the people they killed. Fat lot it would have done you, if I’d...” He couldn’t seem to finish the words. So softly that Piper could barely hear it, he added, “I should have killed myself after Hallowbind. I should have known that I
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😭 Here it is. Galen 😭
