Ok, this writer just keeps getting steadily better... The stories here? Totally insane! Unexpectedly cool and twisted, in an incredibly good way. Actually, we have since ages read and heard fairy tales. How often have we strayed with our thoughts from the usual to contemplate what happens after all those princes marry all those girls and everyone gets their happy ever after. Does everyone get it? Do those gnomes or spirits get to be happy? Are jhinns ever set free or do they go to suffer from th Ok, this writer just keeps getting steadily better... The stories here? Totally insane! Unexpectedly cool and twisted, in an incredibly good way. Actually, we have since ages read and heard fairy tales. How often have we strayed with our thoughts from the usual to contemplate what happens after all those princes marry all those girls and everyone gets their happy ever after. Does everyone get it? Do those gnomes or spirits get to be happy? Are jhinns ever set free or do they go to suffer from their own peculiar shade of PTSD back in their bottles? Do the fairies and godmother(s) get to go happy or free or have wonderful adventures? Here the author made some very cool twists I loved! Things rarely are as they appear.Q:IN THE YEAR THAT SUMMER STAYED too long... THE FIRST TRAP THE FOX ESCAPED was his mother’s jaws. ... IT IS DANGEROUS TO TRAVEL THE northern road with a troubled heart. ... IN THE END, THE CLOCKSMITH WAS to blame. But Mr. and Mrs. Zelverhaus should not have let him into the house. 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. ... When water sang fire... YOU WISH TO STRIKE A BARGAIN, and so you come north, until the land ends, and you can go no farther. You stand on the rocky coast and face the water... Be still and listen. Think of it as part of the bargain. ... (c)Q: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. (c)Q:We all know the story of how the queen became a queen, how despite her tattered clothes and lowly position, her beauty drew the notice of the young prince and she was brought to the palace, where she was dressed in gold and her hair was woven with jewels and all were made to kneel before a girl who had been nothing but a servant bare days before. (c)Q:That was before the prince became a king, when he was still wild and reckless and hunted every afternoon on the red pony that he’d done the work of breaking himself. (c) Sorry? A pony??? Breaking? A guy, wild and reckless, hunting on a pony????? Ok, that's imagery I could have surely lived without.Q:The clocksmith was called Droessen, though there were rumors he was not Kerch, but Ravkan—an exiled nobleman’s son, or possibly a disgraced Fabrikator, (c) Gosh, this reads horrible in any language I can think in and probably in most ones that I can't. Can anything be done to persuade this author to stop spoiling her beautiful, beautiful prose with all those HORRIBLE names she seems bent to stick in any of her books?Q:Shura Yeshevsky ... Genetchka Lukin (c) Yeshevskaya, Lukina would be the correct forms... Q:She was tall and lithe as a young linden tree, and she moved with a grace that was almost worrying—as if, being so light upon her feet, she might simply blow away. (c) Q:You know how the stories go. Interesting things only happen to pretty girls; you will be home by sunset. (c)Q:Well, she thought, for she had learned to keep silent even when alone. At least I do not have to work today, and I will see something new before I die. (c)Q:Perhaps, she thought, I will just drop dead before I ever reach the beast and I have nothing to fear at all. (c)Q:But just because no one bothered to listen to Ayama didn’t mean she had nothing to say. (с)Q:But Ayama remembered the quince and took the sprig from her apron pocket. The flowers were fresh and unwilted, their white petals still damp with dew and tinged with pink. The blossoms glowed like a constellation in her hand. When the townspeople looked upon them, they could taste the tart flavor of quince on their tongues; they could feel the soothing touch of shade falling over their skin. These were no ordinary flowers. Now the people listened as Ayama stood with the sprig clasped in her fist and told them of the beast’s promise, and when she had finished, they led her all the way to the palace, murmuring in wonder, forgetting that the girl they now looked upon with awe still had the marks of their pinching fingers on her arms. (c)Q:... Her pockets shall be weighted with jewels and all shall sing songs of her courage.”Ayama returned his smile, for it was impossible not to bloom in the prince’s sunny regard. But what she really wanted was a glass of water. ...the prince said, “Extraordinary! We shall raise a statue in this girl’s honor and celebrate her birth there every year.”Ayama thought that was a fine proclamation, but what she really wanted was to sit down and take off her shoes. She supposed if the prince had bothered asking, he would know that. But he was not as fond of questions as his brother. (c)Q:Her family was rich now and had many servants, but they’d gotten so used to ordering Ayama about that they’d forgotten how to treat her as a daughter. ... People tipped their hats to her in the street now, but they never stopped to talk or ask how Ayama was faring. The beast might shout and snarl, and he might well devour her, but he’d at least been interested enough to listen to her speak. (c)Q:Do not behave as a tyrant and then tell me to scold a tyrant to behave. Show mercy and mercy you may be shown. (c)Q:... she realized that in all the silent days and nights since she’d left the wood, she’d been storing up words to offer the king’s son. (c)Q:This goes to show you that sometimes the unseen is not to be feared and that those meant to love us most are not always the ones who do. (с)Q:Why not stay a bit longer? Why not rest awhile here? Why not tell another story? (c)Q:She tucked the sprig of quince flowers into her braids, and it was as if she carried the cool leaves and the shade of the wood with her. (c)Q:There is a great difference between not eating a person and trusting a person. (c)Q:... No prince is worth your life.”Ayama supposed it depended on the prince. (c)Q:“‘Come away with me to my palace by the sea,’ said the prince, ‘and all will pay you homage and you will want for nothing in this life.’ And as you may know, when you have had very little and worked very hard, that is no small offer. (c)Q:... she’d thought on this story quite a long time as she’d walked through the wild lands, and how the ending she’d been told as a child had seemed far more enchanting before she’d actually met and spoken to royalty. (c)Q:“It’s true they were selfish and silly in many ways,” said Ayama. “But they also loved their youngest sister dearly. As soon as they found her missing and a golden feather on the chair, they guessed what had happened, for they had seen plenty of the world. They saddled their horses and rode all day and all night to reach the palace by the sea, then pounded on the doors until the guards let them in.“When the sisters entered the throne room, making a racket and demanding that their sister return home to them, the prince insisted that they were just jealous sorts who wanted to be princesses themselves, and that they were wicked girls who liked to drink and dance and be free with their favors. In fact, the sisters did like all those things, and it was precisely because they’d seen so much and done so much that they knew better than to trust handsome faces and fine titles. They pointed their fingers and raised their loud voices and demanded to know why, if the prince loved their sister so, he should let her be made to perform tasks to prove her worth. And when he did not answer, they stomped their slippered feet and demanded to know why, if the prince was worthy of their sister, he should bend so easily to his parents’ will. The prince had no answer but stood there stammering, still handsome, but perhaps a bit less so now that he had nothing to say.“The sisters apologized for not doing their share of the chores and promised to take the girl to parties so she wouldn’t have to settle for the first boy who flew in through her window. The younger sister saw the wisdom in this bargain, and they all returned home together, where their days were full of work made easier in the sharing, and their nights were full of laughter and carousing.”“And what lesson am I to learn from this story?” asked the beast when she was done.“That there are better things than princes.” (c)Q:For when Ayama had awoken after her adventures, it was the wounds from the thicket that had proven all the sweet blossoms and starlight had been real. (c)Q:“Why do you bring this beast to my door?” the king demanded to know. “I told you to return with his heart.”“And so I have,” said Ayama in her loud, clear voice that echoed like a horn of war over the listening crowd. “His heart is mine and mine is his.” ...“I will love an honest monster before I swear loyalty to a treacherous king.” (c)Q:... they drew their daggers and fell upon Ayama.But no matter how many blows the soldiers struck, Ayama stood unharmed.Then she took the hat from her head, and all the people saw that she was a girl no longer. Her tongue was forked; her eyes glowed like opals, and her hair twined in serpents of flame that licked at the air around her in ribbons of orange and gold. She was a monster, and no blade could pierce her skin. With her thorn knife she slashed the brambles that bound the beast’s wrists. (c)Q:After a courtship of many stories, Ayama and the beast married beneath a blood moon, and pride of place was given to Ma Zil, who had sent Ayama again and again into the thorn wood. She had not been much to look at in her youth, and she knew well that only courage is required for an adventure. ... So it was that the valley to the west came to be ruled by a monstrous king and his monstrous queen, who were loved by their people and feared by their enemies.Now in the valley, the people care less for pretty faces. Mothers pat their pregnant bellies and whisper prayers for the future. They pray for rain in the long summer. 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. (с)Q:A lesser creature might have despaired at such cruelty, but the fox saw vanity in his mother’s carefully tended coat and snowy paws.“I will tell you,” he replied. “When we walk in the wood, the animals will say, ‘Look at that ugly kit with his handsome mother!’ And even when you are old and gray, they will not talk of how you’ve aged, but of how such a beautiful mother gave birth to such an ugly, scrawny son.”She thought on this and discovered she was not so hungry after all. (c)Q:But if Koja had words, then he had hope. (c)Q:“I can bear ugliness,” he said. “I find the one thing I cannot live with is death." (c)Q:I am stringy and tough. Only my tongue holds savor. I make a bitter meal, but excellent company. (c)Q:“Come now,” said the fox. “Let there be no more crying. I have spent my life finding my way out of traps. Surely I can help you escape your brother.” (c)Q:Freedom is a burden, but you will learn to bear it. (c)Q:“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.” (c)Q:In the wood, even songbirds must be survivors. (c)Q:But Lula was not only clever.She was wise. (c)Q:Papa, forgive me, but what way is this to choose a husband? Tomorrow, I will certainly have a lot of firewood, but will I have a good man? (с)Q:Will you remain here with the father who tried to sell you, or the prince who hoped to buy you, or the man too weak to solve his riddles for himself? Or will you come with me and be bride to nothing but the shore? (c)Q:She was terrifying in her beauty, bright like a devouring star. (c)Q:The river carried her all the way to the seashore, and there she stayed. She said her prayers in a tiny chapel where the waves ran right up to the door, and each day she sat by the ocean’s edge and watched the tides come and go. She lived in happy solitude, and grew old, and never worried when her beauty faded, for in her reflection she always saw a free woman. (c)Q:Now, if you have been foolish enough to wander from the path, it is up to you to make your way back to the road. Follow the voices of your worried companions and perhaps this time your feet will lead you past the rusting skeleton of a waterwheel resting in a meadow where it has no right to be. If you are lucky, you will find your friends again. They will pat you on the back and soothe you with their laughter. But as you leave that dark gap in the trees behind, 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. (c)Q:And yet, though he could smile readily, charm easily, and play the part of a gentleman, he had never truly understood people or the workings of their steady-running but inconstant hearts. (c)Q:But as the years passed, Clara stayed the same strange, dreamy girl who might let a sentence trail off because some secret, unspoken thought had caught her, who would endure language lessons and cotillions with distracted grace, then smile and drift off to some dim corner where whatever invisible world her mind had conjured might unfurl without distraction. (c)Q:I loved you when no other would, and you chose me for your queen. ... She would find herself atop a great white horse, clutching her beloved’s waist, whooping with joy as they sailed through the night, past the clouds, and into the lands beyond. ... She would try to smile at the drab world around her, though her cheeks were still warm with sunshine, though her tongue was still sweet with the taste of honey wine.(c)Q: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. (c)Q:But a rat can’t live with seven heads always talking and arguing. It took us hours to make the simplest decisions... (c)Q:Your desire must be stronger if you wish to get free of the cabinet, if you wish to be real. (c)Q:Only take me with you to your home and I will forsake this place. We can stay forever in the land of dreams. (c)Q:The nutcracker thought of the road again, but now he saw the road was a future—one his father would want him to choose for himself. He imagined the snow in his hair, the ground beneath his boots, the limitless horizon, a world full of chance and mishap and changing weather—gray clouds, hail, thunder, the unexpected. (c)Q:The young man left silently through the front door of the house and headed east along the road, toward the sun rising in the gray sky.At the beginning of everything, he discovered loneliness in the quiet of his own thoughts. (c)Q:She considered her options and decided there was nothing for it but to become a writer. She sold her pearl earrings and moved to Ketterdam, where she took a small apartment with a window facing the harbor so that she could watch the ships come and go. There, she wrote fantastical tales that charmed children, and under another name, she penned rather more lurid works that kept her in nougat and sweet cream, which she always took care to share with the mice. (c)Q:he took up the family business and boarded one of his father’s vessels to fetch a shipment of tea from Novyi Zem. But when it was time to return home, he hopped another ship, and then another, stopping in ports only long enough to mail a postcard or, occasionally, a parcel. He sent home a packet of tea that made a flower bloom beneath the drinker’s tongue; another that, when sipped before bedtime, assured you would dream of the city of your birth; and a blend so bitter one sip would make you cry for three hours. Frederik’s parents wrote letters begging him to return and take up his responsibilities. Every time, he vowed to do just that. But then the wind would change direction and the sea would lift, and he would find himself shipboard once more, certain another world must wait beyond the next horizon. (c) Reminded me a bit of the beautiful short stories of Alex Grin. This is one of the things his heroes might find themselves doing.Q:Now their laws are different. They know the land is a place of danger. Yet still they long for a taste of mortal life. This is the problem with making a thing forbidden. It does nothing but build an ache in the heart. (c)Q:The dwelling place of its kings and queens was distinguishable only by its six spires that rose like grasping fingers around a craggy plain. Those bony spires were layered with the scales of trench-dwelling creatures so that, in the daytime hours, they glowed with blue light like a captured moon, and at night their chambers and catacombs gleamed phosphorescent in the heavy dark. (c)Q:Song was not just a frivolity then, something meant to entertain or lure sailors to their doom. The sildroher used it to summon storms and protect their homes, to keep warships and fishing boats from their seas. They used it to make their shelters and tell their histories. They had no word for witch. Magic flowed through all of them, a song no mortal could hear, that only the water folk could reproduce. In some it seemed to rush in and out like the tide, leaving little in its wake. But in others, in girls like Ulla, the current caught on some dark thing in their hearts and eddied there, forming deep pools of power. (c)Q:But hope rises like water trapped by a dam, higher and higher, in increments that mean nothing until you face the flood. (c)Q:Ulla felt the cold settle in her bones, the night rushing in, vaster than the sea. Still she followed. (c)Q:The storm had brought Ulla to the cold shelter of the northern islands, to the darkened caves and flat black pools where she remains to this day, waiting for the lonely, the ambitious, the clever, the frail, for all those willing to strike a bargain.She never waits for long. (c)
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