Tooth and Claw

by Jo Walton

“Safe, but separate,” said Haner, in tones that told her brother that this was tragedy indeed. “You know Selendra is so impulsive and I am so thoughtful that separated there is no knowing what she might do, while I will never do anything at all.”

Avan felt seventy feet long as he said this, the bold protector of his sisters, a dragon to watch out for.

The beautiful morning that had lightened Avan’s heart seemed almost mockery to Selendra, that the sun could shine when her father was dead and she was so soon to be separated from everything she loved.

Wits I may have, but claws I am without, and while hands are useful for writing and fine work they are no use in a battle.

It has been baldly stated in this narrative that Penn and Sher were friends at school and later at the Circle, and being gentle readers and not cruel and hungry readers who would visit a publisher’s offices with the intention of rending and eating an author who had displeased them, you have taken this matter on trust.

it takes a great deal of resilience in a friendship to be able to endure charity given by one friend to the other.

It is often not the giver who resents this, who, though they have lost in worldly ways have gained the delight of heaven, and also the joy of gift-giving, but the one who must, having little, accept more than they can hope to offer in return.

Some gently born dragons who cling tightly to the rank in which they were born, or have achieved by marriage or accomplishment, do not favor those whom life has placed in rank above them.

“Respectable,” Sebeth corrected. “And if he will not marry me?” “Then he’s a fool,” her father said. “If he will not, you should marry your cousin, or whoever you choose. But marry. You cannot hope to hold the demesne without. Telstie is too big to leave to a—” he hesitated. She was not maiden, wife, or widow, there were no words for what she was.

We are not all lords, Honorables, to eat those dragons of the demesne too weak to survive. But we are all free dragons who may all hope in the fullness of time to eat our parents and thus grow as dragons should grow.

THE NARRATOR IS FORCED TO CONFESS TO HAVING LOST COUNT OF BOTH PROPOSALS AND CONFESSIONS

“If it’s only the money that concerns you, I am rich now,” Selendra said, remembering. “Wontas and Gerin and Sher and I found some treasure in the mountains. Sher insists that a quarter of that is mine outright. How much do you need to marry Londaver? I can dower you, what fun!”