(A/N): For @originalficfest .Ā This has been a heck of a scavenger hunt, particularly for the NO LOYAL KNIGHT ones. I only have the first one or two chapters written for each of these stories (all of which can be read here), so I had to go digging through old drafts for some of these quotes. Pardon the quality on the NLK v2 quotes--Those were all written in 2013, with all the melodrama of a high school senior. Iāve included as many introductory quotes as I can, either from the characterās first appearance or their first POV scene, as well as a couple of quotes that really sum up the heart of the character or their story as a whole. You can read more about all these projectsĀ on my WIP page and my Characters and Worlds masterpost. Enjoy!
Koltor cried out. He couldnāt move. They had him tied down, and intense pain pulsed through the right side of his body. He pulled against the restraints, but they refused to give.
He jerked his right arm and heard something rip. The unexpected release of tension set him off balance, and a loud thunk met his fall to the floor. The impact startled him the rest of the way awake. His breath came in short gasps, and every time the air rushed past the back of his throat, he felt a sharp prickle accompanied by the bitter taste of copper. Heād been shouting in his sleep again.
Di swung her legs over the edge of the catwalk and slid under the guard rails. She crouched low as her feet hit one of the long cylindrical pipelines that fed pressurized steam from one end of the engine to the next. Snapping one of her carabiners onto the safety wires almost as an afterthought, Di scurried over to one of the feedback panels set into the outer shell of the boiler.
This must be what the inside of an ice grinder feels like, Jericho thought dully. The dust-turned-ice storm had blown in quickly, and the temperature on the surface was well below freezing. Shards of ice howled around him in miniature tornadoes that felt like they were made of dull knives, and the oxygen converter on his face felt like it was about to short out at any second.
A leaf blew across the book on Aniaās lap, sticking in the crease between the pages. She brushed it away, and read the last line again. To understand yourself is to understand your opponent, and to understand is to respect. This is the meaning of victory.
Back pressed against the exterior wall of the tenement sphere, Magatha squeezed her eyes shut and tried to breathe. She gripped the catwalk railing with one hand, her fist so tight that the bones of her hand threatened to come apart at the joints. The blue morning light filtering through the leaves of the distant Mother Tree at the center of the spheres of the House was at odds with the black pit inside her chest. She was dizzy, and everything was out of focus. She had to hurry. The people inside the sphere needed her.
The speakerāa man about her ageāwas dichromatic, more so than any other person she could remember ever having seen. The dual skin tones, a deep brown and a paler beige, swirled around each other, like two dyes dropped into a beaker of water, frozen in that fraction of a moment before the solution diffused to a single color.Ā
RandenĀ sat on the mattress with his shirt in his hands, and looked down at the scratches that covered his tan arms. Most of them were fairly shallow, but more than one was still a deep crimson, with white, enflamed skin puckering about the edges.Ā Ā He couldn't really feel the pain ā he'd pushed it to the back of his mind, where it was nothing more than a dull buzz ā but just looking at the cuts brought back the wrenching fear that had filled his gut the night before.Ā
His mother had always told him that he was useless, and he was incapable of doing anything, but he couldn't remember if he'd ever done anything besides just being a boy to prove her right. There had been a man among those three blood soldier. He hadn't seemed weaker than the others. In fact, he seemed like he was their equal.Ā Ā
His mother had sent him here to die. He never had to see her again. He didn't have to live up to anything she thought ever again.Ā Ā
"I decide who I am," he whispered. "I decide."Ā
Skaught Farstrend (NLK v2)
He fell to his knees as a scream forced its way out of his throat. His arm was on fire. It felt like the bone had shattered and was trying to force its way out through his old scar. The back of his neck was filled with shooting sparks of pain until his mind had nearly shut completely down. He'd never felt this much pain before. His heart started skipping beats. It couldn't keep up with the waves of pain that were shooting out of his arm.Ā Ā
She yanked her knife out of one of the figures, twisting it on the way out the same way she did when slaughtering an animal back at home. She had a sick taste in her mouth, and it wasn't from the pale dust that covered her blade and hands where there should have been slick red blood.Ā Strength? That girl obviously knew nothing of strength. There was no strength in words, only actions. There was power in knowing she could do anything to anyone and no one could stop her. That was why she was hereĀ āĀ to have that power.
Quintessential Character Quotes:
"Oh, come now, MasterĀ āĀ I thought tricks were what you were looking for,"Ā she shouted to the darkness.Ā "Who can jump the highest, last the longest, fight the hardest? Who can be the bestĀ bloodĀ soldier? That's what you want me to be, isn't? You want me to be just likeĀ you!"Ā With a vicious stab, she got rid of another black cloak, this time before it had even raised a weapon.Ā "But that's the problemĀ āĀ you don't even know what you are! You think you're blood soldiers. You think you're apathetic, and apart from everything. You think nothing concerns you anymore. You think that you're above everything, and that even if you wanted to, there's nothing you could do to help anyone but yourselves!"Ā She yanked her spear out of the gut of another black cloak. Her voice grew louder and louder with each word until it sounded like it was coming from the mouth of a giant.Ā "That's what everyone else believes about you, and now you believe it, too. You think that just because someone expects it of you, that's what you have to be. And now you think you can do it to me. You think that you can decide who and what I am just because of a name, or what you think is most important. Well, let me tell youĀ āĀ I won't let you!Ā I still believe in what Knights are, even if you don't. I believe in helping people, even if they are scared of what I am. You can't take that away from me, because I won't let you. You can't define who I amĀ āĀ I do that. You think I'm weak. You think I'm naive. But I still believe in myself, and that's all the strength I need!"Ā
He hadnāt slept in five months. Sure, heād close his eyes, and sometimes heād slide in and out of consciousness, but the exhaustion was still there every time he crawled out of bed. Instead of resetting every night, the days strung together like a single never-ending nightmare. There was a dry ache in his left eye socket, and a dull pressure just behind his brow ridge, but those had been there long before the coma. Sleep had always been a rare commodity on deployment, but this was worse. He was used to ātiredā, not this bone-melting exhaustion. He had no reason to be awake any more. Everything was so silent, like heād been buried alive. His cabin was just a proactive coffin.
Sometimes, just before he woke up, heād hear breathing near him, and heād feel the heat of twenty bodies around him. Heād hear the snap as wind caught the edges of the tent. Heād feel the ground rumble beneath him, feel the weight of his rifle on the cot with him. But then the air conditioning unit would switch on, and heād realize the rumbling he felt was the engines of the cityship Arboretum, and he was back in his cabin, alone, the same way he had been every day for the last five months.
āI thought these black and white birds were the most beautiful things in the sky. When they fly, theyāre focused, like nothing in the world can stop them. When the sun catches their feathers, they shine like a stained glass window. Theyāre more than just black and white, but the starkness of their feathers is only emphasized by the iridescence.ā The bird adjusted its wings, and Magatha saw itāa flash of the deepest greens and blues. āThey are beautiful because they are different, but even that doesnāt matter. They are simply themselves.ā
The magpie hopped up onto Kaelanās hand, and he lifted the bird to his eye level. āIāve noticed that the people of the House have a tendency to think in binaries, with no thought to the true nature of things. They see only the black and white, not the color that makes those things beautiful. Black, white. Success, failure. It isnāt all or nothing. Success isnāt dependent on you running yourself into the ground, trying to save the world all by yourself. Maybe everyone else sees you as the only one who can do this, but that isnāt the way the world works. There is nuance there, just like the color of a magpieās wings.ā
āIf I say yes, will you stop disturbing the peace?ā
āAnd let you die of boredom?ā Jericho laughed as Joshua rolled his eyes, but then his voice turned quiet. āIāve told you before, Joshua. I donāt disturb the peace. No one in their right mind can disturb true peace.ā
āOh? Then what do you do?ā
āI make people notice things.ā Jericho met the young manās eyes. āBut you already notice most of the important things. If you were in charge, something tells me that those shackles up top wouldnāt see use for a very long time.ā