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The term lunagree, you should know, refers to the places where the twelve moons hang in the sky around Tress’s planet in oppressively low stationary orbits.
Impt
Well, this isn’t the part of the story where you ask questions. So kindly keep them to yourself.
quippy
Tress wasn’t your ordinary heroine—in
Impt
A cup with a chip or ding in it had a story. She loved them all because they brought the world to her.
The duke had sent out a declaration: he and his family were going to leave the island that very day.
Impt
In the pretend world, marriage was about love. In the real world, it was about politics.
Once I’ve bored the current princess to death—and my father has decided we need to move on—I’ll send you the cup. As proof, you see.”
Impt
It was delivered by Hoid the cabin boy. (Yes, that’s me. What tipped you off? Was it perhaps the name?)
Narrator
The duke was returning to Diggen’s Point at long last, and he was bringing his wife, his heir…and his new daughter-in-law.
:(
“The king sent Charlie to try to marry the Sorceress?”
Oop
She felt less like a mere human being, and more like a human who was merely being.
Leaving the island to rescue the man she loves might sound like lunacy, but if every other option has been discarded as impossible, then insanity might—in this case—be practical.”
Well, parents have to say things like that. They’re required to see the best in their children, otherwise living with the little sociopaths would drive a person mad.
It might seem that the person who can feel for others is doomed in life. Isn’t one person’s pain enough? Why must a person like Tress feel for two, or more? Yet I’ve found that the people who are the happiest are the ones who learn best how to feel. It takes practice, you know. Effort. And those who (late in life) have been feeling for two, three, or a thousand different people…well, turns out they’ve had a leg up on everyone else all along. Empathy is an emotional loss leader. It pays for itself eventually.
That “wizard” from the stars wasn’t me, by the way. I’ve always wondered who traded the device to Fort. That’s Nalthian tech, with Awakened predictive Connection circuits.
“So she turns them to piracy, then ‘accidentally’ sinks a few ships,” Huck said. “Making them into deadrunners. Chased by the law, ostracized by other pirates, they’ll have no choice but to follow her orders.”
Sus
She felt a deeper connection to the sea when standing there, and—if not a power over it—an ability to ride it. There was strength in being the one who steers. It was a freedom she had never before known, and had never before realized she needed.
Freedom at sea
One of the great tragedies of life is knowing how many people in the world are made to soar, paint, sing, or steer—except they never get the chance to find out.
Human beings, we can’t create energy; we can only harness it. We can’t create matter; we can only shape it. We can’t even create life; we can only nurture it. But we can create light.
For better or worse, Tress was a pirate now.
Impt
It’s one of the reasons the Sorceress set up there, Fort explained. She controls trade through the region—the passage that connects the planet. Only her ships can sail the Midnight.
Impt
the Sorceress doesn’t ask for money as ransom. She asks for souls, usually from the royal bloodline. Mere money would never satisfy her.
Impt
But the person who is willing to reconsider their assumptions? The hero who can sit down and reevaluate their life? Well, now that is a gemstone that truly glitters, friend.
It makes you wonder who the true monster is: the killer, or the society that created them?”
Even small actions have consequences.
And while we can often choose our actions, we rarely get to choose our consequences.
People are like stomachs, you know. They can process some of what you feed them, but stuff in too much too fast, and eventually it’s going to come right back up.
You can’t taste a memory without tainting it with who you have become.
He thinks firing guns is about controlling your surroundings. Having access to power.”
But what did Tress have? She wanted to save Charlie, but that wasn’t her purpose. That was her goal.
Impt
If bravery is the wind that makes us soar like kites, fear is the string that keeps us from going too far.
I love memories. They are our ballads, our personal foundation myths. But I must acknowledge that memory can be cruel if left unchallenged.
Memories are fossils, the bones left by dead versions of ourselves.
Enjoy memories, yes, but don’t be a slave to who you wish you once had been. Those memories aren’t alive. You are.
kept you in the dark to protect you” is not only frustrating, but condescending as well. It’s a truly economical way to demean someone;
No, my greatest nightmare is the one where I learn I’ve been repeating myself for years, telling the same tired jokes, the same stories—energetically wearing a path through people’s patience and fondness until even the weeds upon it are dead.
“Dragon Xisis,” Tress said, her voice ragged, “I have come to initiate your ancient pact of promise. To this end, I have brought you this slave to work in your domain.”
Shook omg
Yet irony is an intriguing concept. It exists only where we want to find it, because for true irony, expectation is key. Irony must be noticed to exist. We create it from nothing when we find it. But unlike other things we create, like art, irony is about creating tragedy. Irony is reversal. Set up, then collapse.
The very journey she’d taken to find what she wanted had transformed her into a person who could no longer enjoy that victory.
Impt
Sometimes the moments in our life pile up and become an unstoppable force that makes us change.
“It’s really not a problem that someone needs to be saved. Everyone needs help. It’s hard to be the person who makes trouble, but the thing is, everyone makes trouble. How would we help anyone if nobody ever needed help?”
With a few tips, he wasn’t so boring after all. Secretly, I’ll tell you that you aren’t either. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to lower your value. Don’t trust them. They know they can’t afford you otherwise.
