Feather To Crown Quotes

But that was the nature of life and loss: There was never enough time.

Once, very long ago, Time fell in love with Fate. This, as you might imagine, proved problematic. Their romance disrupted the flow of time. It tangled the strings of fortune into knots.  The stars watched from the heavens nervously, worrying what might occur. What might happen to the days and nights were time to suffer a broken heart? What catastrophes might result if the same fate awaited Fate itself? The stars conspired and separated the two. For a while they breathed easier in the heavens. Time continued to flow as it always had, or perhaps imperceptibly slower. Fate weaved together the paths that were meant to intertwine, though perhaps a string was missed here and there. But eventually, Fate and Time found each other again.  In the heavens, the stars sighed, twinkling and fretting. They asked the Moon her advice. The Moon in turn called upon the parliament of owls to decide how best to proceed. The parliament of owls convened to discuss the matter amongst themselves night after night. They argued and debated while the world slept around them, and the world continued to turn, unaware that such important matters were under discussion while it slumbered.  The parliament of owls came to the logical conclusion that if the problem was in the combination, one of the elements should be removed. They chose to keep the one they felt more important. The parliament of owls told their decision to the stars and the stars agreed. The Moon did not, but on this night she was dark and could not offer her opinion.  So it was decided, and Fate was pulled apart. Ripped into pieces by beaks and claws. Fate’s screams echoed through the deepest corners and the highest heavens but no one dared to intervene save for a small brave mouse who snuck into the fray, creeping unnoticed through the blood and bone and feathers, and took Fate’s heart and kept it safe. When the furor died down there was nothing else left of Fate.  The owl who consumed Fate’s eyes gained great site, greater site then any that had been granted to a mortal creature before. The Parliament crowned him the Owl King. In the heavens the stars sparkled with relief but the moon was full of sorrow. And so time goes as it should and events that were once fated to happen are left instead to chance, and Chance never falls in love with anything for long. But the world is strange and endings are not truly endings no matter how the stars might wish it so.  Occasionally Fate can pull itself together again.  And Time is always waiting.

Where there is will, there is possibility.

History was a living, breathing, changing thing - even when it was your own.

There was a difference between friendship and family, between the people you chose to surround yourself with and the people you were stick with, good or bad.

How Easily a person could convince themselves they were doing the right thing, no matter the damage they did to the person they supposedly cared about, if it was out of love.

We were night and day, moon and sun- darkness and light. We were nothing without each other.

Some families you were born into. Others you mad along the way.

I control you, he said to his fear, you do not control me.

That's the thing with secrets," she said. "They never really die. Just when one bursts into flames, another rises up to take its place.

Sometimes the title of queen is given; sometimes it must be taken.

Like an anchor, love will hold fast in a storm, but it can also pull you under.

Not all battles are fought with ax and arrow.

Maybe fear of fire wasn't the problem, maybe fear of his father was.

The Aristocrat The Devil is a gentleman, and asks you down to stay At his little place at What'sitsname (it isn't far away). They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new, And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do; He can shoot the feathered cherubs if they fly on the estate, Or fish for Father Neptune with the mermaids for a bait; He scaled amid the staggering stars that precipice, the sky, And blew his trumpet above heaven, and got by mastery The starry crown of God Himself, and shoved it on the shelf; But the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't brag himself. O blind your eyes and break your heart and hack your hand away, And lose your love and shave your head; but do not go to stay At the little place in What'sitsname where folks are rich and clever; The golden and the goodly house, where things grow worse for ever; There are things you need not know of, though you live and die in vain, There are souls more sick of pleasure than you are sick of pain; There is a game of April Fool that's played behind its door, Where the fool remains for ever and the April comes no more, Where the splendour of the daylight grows drearier than the dark, And life droops like a vulture that once was such a lark: And that is the Blue Devil that once was the Blue Bird; For the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't keep his word.

War has a way of making regular people into heroes.

It is a fact of life that one must kill or be killed. Rule or be ruled. Win or lose.

But is love ever truly a choice?

When pitch-darkness falls and lanterns fail, fear is a luxury. When war invades and there's no escape, fear is a luxury. When death gladly claims what life forsakes, fear is a luxury.

His trees were now hung all over with scrawled pieces of paper and bits of cardboard with maxims from Seneca and Shaftesbury, and with various objects; clusters of feathers, church candles, crowns of leaves, women's corsets, pistols, scales, tied to each other in certain order. The Ombrosians used to spend hours trying to guess what those symbols meant: nobles, Pope, virtue, war? I think some of them had no meaning at all but just served to jog his memory and make him realize that even the most uncommon ideas could be right.

There is something to be said about the vastness of the earth, as well as the vastness of the heavens, in reminding us how small we are and how great God's creation is.

This was why Veronyka had wanted to be a Phoenix rider in the first place: to protect, to save, to champion the weak and powerless.

She was the kind of person who led by example, and like a lantern in the darkness, she made you want to follow.

Fear, he'd learned, didn't leave room for logic.

In Pyra, death was celebrated as much as life. Only through endings could there be beginnings. That was the lesson of the phoenix, and it was the lesson of my life as well.

I'm the Firebird, not another jewel for your crown.

There was nothing a phoenix loved so much as heat.

Veronyka didn't feel like a boy on the inside—she wasn't like some of the children she'd known growing up who might be born as boys or girls but didn't feel like they fit that category, and so they dressed in a way that felt right to them. That was their truth, no matter what the world saw.

She had on a black, wide brimmed hat with a bit of a veil coming down over her face. Fluffy, black, chandelle feathers adorned the crown. My first thought was that Elizabeth and her hat would never fit in the back seat of Phil's Eos.

(By the way, I would not recommend stuffing your pillow with vulture feathers. They’re not very comfy.)

My sister taught me there is more than one kind of fire. There is the fire that consumes, and there is the fire that illuminates.

Hold fast to your heart, my daughter. Blood can lead you astray, but your heart will always beat true,

Magic had always been a part of the empire—for some people it was like breathing. How was it okay to make existing illegal?

Love can sometimes twist the mind and make facts out of fictions.

A phoenix is safe inside its shell, resting in a bed of flame and ash. But that is not what firebirds are for. Rise, child of Axura, and spread your wings.

Someday soon you’ll call me Queen.

Life was easier when you didn't care - or so he'd thought. He'd spent so much time afraid of hurting, of losing everything again, that he'd forgotten life wasn't worth living - worth saving - if you had nothing to live for.

The next was a girl with her face and arms painted white, in a gown decorated with gilt to mimic golden thread. Gilded, too, was her crown of feathers and rooster heads, and in her hands a scepter that looked more like a feather duster.

The creature touched me and suddenly feathers covered my arms, he bound them behind me and forced me down to the underworld, the house of darkness, the home of the dead, where all who enter never return to the sweet earth again. Those who dwell there squat in the darkness, dirt is their food, their drink is clay, they are dressed in feathered garments like birds, they never see light, and on door and bolt the dust lies thick. When I entered that house, I looked, and around me were piles of crowns, I saw proud kings who had ruled the land, who had set out roast meat before the gods and offered cool water and cakes for the dead.

The black bird cocked its head to one side, and then said, in a voice like stones being struck, 'You shadow man.' 'I'm Shadow,' said Shadow. The bird hopped up onto the fawn's rump, raised its head, ruffled its crown and neck feathers. It was enormous and its eyes were black beads. There was something intimidating about a bird that size, this close. 'Says he will see you in Kay-ro.' tokked the raven. Shadow wondered which of Odin's ravens this was: Huginn or Munnin, Memory or Thought. 'Kay-ro?' he asked. 'In Egypt.' 'How am I going to go to Egypt?' 'Follow Mississippi. Go south. Find Jackal.' 'Look,' said Shadow, 'I don't want to seem like I'm-- Jesus, look...' he paused. Regrouped. He was cold, standing in a wood, talking to a big black bird who was currently brunching on Bambi. 'Okay. What I'm trying to say is I don't want mysteries.' 'Mysteries,' agreed the bird helpfully. 'What I want is explanations. Jackal in Kay-ro. This does not help me. It's a line from a bad spy thriller.

He gave her gifts: a crown of ice, woven with berries, feathers, and the light of love in his wild fox eyes.

The weight of the world is easier to bear, I think, with others by your side.

He shuffled to the door and didn’t look back. In his memory she would remain there forever, in her scarlet robe, surrounded by the dusty feathers of dead birds.

They are day and night and scattered light; sun and moon and distant stars. They are life and death and what is left; all and nothing and everything in between.

I had known from the outset that we were doomed, that loving her would be the greatest mistake of my life. And I loved her still.

If I am to become naught but ruin, may it be so that you can build anew upon the ashes.

If you don't eventually bend, Val, you'll break.

Nothing of value in life came easy; always there was a price.

To admit that sometimes being kind is better than being cruel?

Love and politics are like oil and water - they don't mix.

How did Val know? How did she always know the way to Veronyka’s heart—and why did she always do damage when she got there?

Either the commander was keeping Sev in the dark, or there was more than one band of Phoenix Riders in existence, and those riders might just be fighting for the wrong side.

Love no one, let no one love you. Less pain that way. Sev could die tomorrow, and not a soul would miss him. Sometimes it was hard to remember why he'd thought that was a good thing.

Bird of Paradise, feather among leaves, To the earthy soil I am bound and tied. Anchored by claws of roots and weighty sheaves, My spirit flies among the birds that glide. My sprawled pinions verdant, tail feathers pied, A crest of orange crowned is my disguise. As winds breathe hope and new life, then subside, Seeds are sown and grown right before my eyes. My vision is centered, strong are my arms, I feed the hungry and withstand their sting, I greet the sunrise, and bathe in rainstorms. Wildflowers fret and speak of blight all spring, But Paradise shuns foreboding such plight. Proud is my nature, I stand strongly bright.

I'm not marrying you,' I spat. 'Yes, you are.' 'Fuck you. I am not.' A muscle feathered in his cheek. 'It's the only way I can keep you alive. If you're not my wife, you're my enemy. And I can't justify letting you go.

For a moment I want to tell him that it’s not right, that Vilmötten is our hero, not theirs. But I think of the counts in their bear cloaks and feathered mantles, and of the king in his fingernail crown. You can’t hoard stories the way you hoard gold, despite what Virág would say. There’s nothing to stop anyone from taking the bits they like, and changing or erasing the rest, like a finger smudging over ink. Like shouts drowning out the sound of a vicious minster’s name.

Last and crowning torture of all the tortures of that awful place is the eternity of hell. Eternity! O, dread and dire word. Eternity! What mind of man can understand it? And remember, it is an eternity of pain. Even though the pain of hell were not so terrible as they are, yet they would become infinite, as they are destined to last for ever. But while they are everlasting they are at the some times, as you know, intolerably intense, unbearably extensive. To bear even the sting of an insect for all eternity would be a dreadful torment. What must it be, then, to bear the manifold tortures of hell for ever? For ever! For all eternity! Not for a year or for an age but for ever. Try to imagine the awful meaning of this. You have often seen the sand on the seashore. How fine are its tiny grains! And how many of those tiny little grains go to make up the small handful which a child grasps in its play. Now imagine a mountain of that sand, a million miles high, reaching from earth to the farthest heavens, and a million miles broad, extending to remotest space, and a million miles in thickness; and imagine such an enormous mass of countless particles of sand multiplies as often as there are leaves in the forest, drops of water in the mighty ocean, feathers on birds, scales on fish, hairs on animals, atoms in the vast expanse of the air: and imagine that at the end of every million years a little bird came to that mountain and carried away in its beak a tiny grain of that sand. How many million upon millions of centuries would pass before that bird had carried away even a square foot of that mountain, how many eons upon eons of ages before it had carried away all? Yet at the end of that immense stretch of time not even one instant of eternity could be said to have ended. At the end of all those billions and trillions of years eternity would have scarcely begun. And if that mountain rose again after it had been all carried away, and i f the bird came again and carried it all away again grain by grain, and if it sop rose and sank as many times as there are stars in the sky, atoms in the air, drops of water in the sea, leaves on the trees, feathers upon birds, scales upon fish, hairs upon animals, at the end of all those innumerable risings and sinkings of that immeasurably vast mountain not one single instant of eternity could be said to have ended; even then, at the end of such a period, after that eon of time the mere thought of which makes our very brain reel dizzily, eternity would scarcely have begun.

He could see the Ashfire in her as she soared through the air, the legacy of queens going back centuries. The bravery of Nefyra. The strength of Lyra. The leadership of Elysia. And if history had taught him anything, you did not cross an Ashfire queen.

Staring at the floor, she didn't even look up as the final contestant entered. Not until she heard a deep, rich baritone that filled the hall with the most beautiful sound she had ever heard. Her heart pounding, she looked up to see Stryder holding his mother's lute. Only it wasn't a love song he sang. More like a limerick, it was a song about a woman who fancied herself a goose. And a man who gobbled her up. Laughter and applause rang out as soon as he strummed the last note. Breathe, breathe. It was the only thing Rowena could think. And even that couldn't get her to take a breath as Stryder approached her. He smoothed her hair and straightened her feathered crown. "Methinks my goose has molted." Rowena laughed as more tears streaked down her face.

She didn’t want to be a queen. She didn’t want a war. She wanted peace. She wanted to protect others like her, to make the world safe for animages again. Veronyka wanted to fly in a flock, to be part of the Phoenix Rider resurgence, to stand among her fellows with pride and confidence, not above them.

Exchanging Hats Unfunny uncles who insist in trying on a lady's hat, --oh, even if the joke falls flat, we share your slight transvestite twist in spite of our embarrassment. Costume and custom are complex. The headgear of the other sex inspires us to experiment. Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach with paper plates upon your laps, keep putting on the yachtsmen's caps with exhibitionistic screech, the visors hanging o'er the ear so that the golden anchors drag, --the tides of fashion never lag. Such caps may not be worn next year. Or you who don the paper plate itself, and put some grapes upon it, or sport the Indian's feather bonnet, --perversities may aggravate the natural madness of the hatter. And if the opera hats collapse and crowns grow draughty, then, perhaps, he thinks what might a miter matter? Unfunny uncle, you who wore a hat too big, or one too many, tell us, can't you, are there any stars inside your black fedora? Aunt exemplary and slim, with avernal eyes, we wonder what slow changes they see under their vast, shady, turned-down brim.

Craft the finest arrow Forage jungles for straightest shaft Forge sharpest head of glass Pluck feathers of the wisest crow Without the simplest archer and bow Without a mark that's true Useless Craft the finest vessel Fell the jungle's strongest mast Build the world's mightiest hull A flag the crown of all seas you can sew Without the simplest oarsmen to row Without a port that's true Useless

She squeezed her eyes shut and stopped resisting. She fell into his arms, where he held her gently for a heartbeat then sighed. She thought of Val again. For all her dragging and pulling and demanding, all their ways their bodies had come into contact—and conflict—with each other over the years, Val had never given herself to Veronyka like this. Never offered herself at all. With Val, everything was take, take, take.

We spent the evening in each other’s arms. Amar plucked glass blossoms from the air and slid them one by one into a crown around my forehead. He conjured the lightest of snowfalls, each flake teasing out into gleaming feathers before melting into the silk. All through the night, he smiled daggers into my heart. “I love you,” he murmured into my hair. “You are my night and stars, the fate I would fix myself to in any life.

The Wheel Revolves You were a girl of satin and gauze Now you are my mountain and waterfall companion. Long ago I read those lines of Po Chu I Written in his middle age. Young as I was they touched me. I never thought in my own middle age I would have a beautiful young dancer To wander with me by falling crystal waters, Among mountains of snow and granite, Least of all that unlike Po’s girl She would be my very daughter. The earth turns towards the sun. Summer comes to the mountains. Blue grouse drum in the red fir woods All the bright long days. You put blue jay and flicker feathers In your hair. Two and two violet green swallows Play over the lake. The blue birds have come back To nest on the little island. The swallows sip water on the wing And play at love and dodge and swoop Just like the swallows that swirl Under and over the Ponte Vecchio. Light rain crosses the lake Hissing faintly. After the rain There are giant puffballs with tortoise shell backs At the edge of the meadow. Snows of a thousand winters Melt in the sun of one summer. Wild cyclamen bloom by the stream. Trout veer in the transparent current. In the evening marmots bark in the rocks. The Scorpion curls over the glimmering ice field. A white crowned night sparrow sings as the moon sets. Thunder growls far off. Our campfire is a single light Amongst a hundred peaks and waterfalls. The manifold voices of falling water Talk all night. Wrapped in your down bag Starlight on your cheeks and eyelids Your breath comes and goes In a tiny cloud in the frosty night. Ten thousand birds sing in the sunrise. Ten thousand years revolve without change. All this will never be again.

She found a small picture made entirely of feathers and was trying to decide whether it depicted a monkey climbing up the back of a man—or possibly a person climbing a flight of stairs or perhaps a cow next to a tree, when she saw a chess piece, sitting by itself on a small pedestal. It was the white queen, carved from ivory. She stood with a regal frown, her body shadowed by the enormous crown that bloomed on her head. The crown was a hollow sphere, exquisitely carved with open work, and when Jemma peered inside she saw inside another sphere, also open, and inside that, yet another.

O Lord, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all.… —Psalm 104:24 (NAS) In her intriguing book What’s Your God Language? Dr. Myra Perrine explains how, in our relationship with Jesus, we know Him through our various “spiritual temperaments,” such as intellectual, activist, caregiver, traditionalist, and contemplative. I am drawn to naturalist, described as “loving God through experiencing Him outdoors.” Yesterday, on my bicycle, I passed a tom turkey and his hen in a sprouting cornfield. Suddenly, he fanned his feathers in a beautiful courting display. I thought how Jesus had given me His own show of love in surprising me with that wondrous sight. I walked by this same field one wintry day before dawn and heard an unexpected huff. I had startled a deer. It was glorious to hear that small, secret sound, almost as if we held a shared pleasure in the untouched morning. Visiting my daughter once when she lived well north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska, I can still see the dark silhouettes of the caribou and hear the midnight crunch of their hooves in the snow. I’d watched brilliant green northern lights flash across the sky and was reminded of the emerald rainbow around Christ’s heavenly throne (Revelation 4:3). On another Alaskan visit, a full moon setting appeared to slide into the volcanic slope of Mount Iliamna, crowning the snow-covered peak with a halo of pink in the emerging light. I erupted in praise to the triune God for the grandeur of creation. Traipsing down a dirt road in Minnesota, a bloom of tiny goldfinches lifted off yellow flowers growing there, looking like the petals had taken flight. I stopped, mesmerized, filled with the joy of Jesus. Jesus, today on Earth Day, I rejoice in the language of You. —Carol Knapp Digging Deeper: Pss 24:1, 145:5; Hb 2:14

Here are seven angels, one with peacock feathers for wings and a crown, but no devil. And here also is God, behind it all, who created both Himself and them, whereby everything else was created. Yet there are other things as well, you must remember—things which have always been, which fools without true religion sometimes choose to worship, or trick themselves into worshipping. Small gods for small minds, trapped in small places. And while these creatures' scope is narrow, as with all half-made things, their reach can be long, long . . . just so long as their names are still known in this world, so they may hear them whispered somewhere, recognize themselves, and come calling. . . .

Why protect them, then?’ I ask, when I can manage to speak again. ‘Why not finish what Saint István started?’ ‘You already know,’ the king says. And it strikes me then that I do. I have known ever since I first saw his gruesome crown, since I saw the counts in their pagan garb, trussed with feathers and draped in bear cloaks. They cannot kill the old ways entirely, or else they will lose their power. They will only take and take the parts that they like, the fingernails and the titles that their pagan blood right grants them, one girl every few years, not the whole village. Nándor told me that the Patrifaith was what made Régország, but that’s not true. It is made of a thousand different threads twining together like tree roots, shooting up tall and thick, aching toward some impossible whole. Mithros and Vilmötten are like a two-headed statue, or a coin with a different face on either side.

That evening after tea the four children all managed to get down to the beach again and get their shoes and stockings off and feel the sand between their toes. But the next day was more solemn. For then, in the Great Hall of Cair Paravel--that wonderful hall with the ivory roof and the west door all hung with peacock’s feathers and the eastern door which opens right onto the sea, in the presence of all their friends and to the sound of trumpets, Aslan solemnly crowned them and led them onto the four thrones amid deafening shouts of, “Long Live King Peter! Long Live Queen Susan! Long Live King Edmund! Long Live Queen Lucy!” “Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen. Bear it well, Sons of Adam! Bear it well, Daughters of Eve!” said Aslan. And through the eastern door, which was wide open, came the voices of the mermen and the mermaids swimming close to the castle steps and singing in honor of their new Kings and Queens.

There was Brunhilde, a star shining high above the hillside behind her, dark, rippling hair hanging below her waist, standing in full command, spear in hand. Constance could not help thinking the star so large and bright might have shone over Bethlehem. She was momentarily grateful for her veil, not only for the concealment of her identity but also of her amused response to the scene before her. She struggled to contain herself as her eyes moved to the second vignette: here was fair Juliet, standing beneath rather than on her balcony, garbed in simple lines, her head wreathed in flowers, a cross of stars high above her. Ah, those star-crossed lovers, thought Constance. Again, she was glad that she could hide her amusement. How clever these women, she thought. The third was Semiramis, a quarter moon low above the exotic turrets behind her crowned head, a long-handled fan in her hand, like the fan of a servant. How should Constance interpret this? At once she noticed the replication of the shape of Brunhilde’s spear, but it was enlarged. Semiramis, the queen who had served for her son yet had conquered her foes and enlarged her kingdom. And was this moon waxing or waning? Rising or setting? Or perhaps the enigma of a waxing moon rising. Ah, somehow that was comfort. Last, before a rising sun, framed by trees that reached out to touch one another, stood Pocahontas, her costume appearing authentic, a feather in her headdress, the emblematizing dawn of a new age, a new woman in a new world. May it be so, thought Constance.

A small figure in crimson stood before the bench, sleeves rolled to the elbow, muttering. Dumai cleared her throat. “Master Kiprun?” The alchemist whipped around. He wore round amber panes over his eyes, clipped to his nose, huge and misty with steam. “I did ask for duck feathers,” he said, in a tone of sincere annoyance. Dumai could only blink. His cheeks were flushed, threads of hair were stuck to his forehead, and he brandished a grey feather. “You brought me goose feathers. Goose,” he barked, making her jump. “You do know the difference between a duck and a goose, don’t you? One quacks and the other honks, not to mention the neck. The neck alone—” “Master Kiprun,” Kanifa interjected, “this is Noziken pa Dumai, Crown Princess of Seiiki.” The alchemist sleeved the fog from his eyeglasses. “Ah. Yes.” He interlocked his fingers. Each bore a ring of a different metal: gold, iron, copper. “Princess Dumai. I am Master Kiprun, who shines—well, flickers really—for the Munificent Empress. And you?” he said to Kanifa. “Who are you, the Prince of Seiiki?” “No.” Kanifa cleared his throat. “I’m just a guard, a friend to Princess Dumai. Not a noble.” “Is it not noble to be a guard?” Master Kiprun wafted a brown hand, webbed with scars from burns, like his arms. “No matter. I never understand these things. Yes, your message caught my interest, Princess Dumai of the Faraway Isle. You don’t look much like a princess,” he said, cocking his head. “Aren’t you suppose to wear a crown, or something?” Dumai reunited with her tongue. “Well,” she said, indicating her headpiece, “this is—” “Madam, that is a fish.” After a moment, Dumai decided not to kick against the current. “It is a fish,” she agreed, taking a step toward him. “My fish and I flew here to seek your help, Master Kiprun.” “Yes, I did fear as much. Last time, it was a king who disturbed my work. He found me in the mountains, just to annoy me.” The alchemist snorted. “Once, it was the poor who sought my services, asking me to turn grass to gold. They were, at least, polite, if wildly optimistic. Now I am summoned hither and thither, disturbed by everyone from Golümtan to Ginura.

The picture of human life in the market-place, though its general tint was the sad gray, brown, or black of the English emigrants, was yet enlivened by some diversity of hue. A party of Indians—in their savage finery of curiously embroidered deerskin robes, wampum-belts, red and yellow ochre, and feathers, and armed with the bow and arrow and stone-headed spear—stood apart with countenances of inflexible gravity, beyond what even the Puritan aspect could attain. Nor, wild as were these painted barbarians, were they the wildest feature of the scene. This distinction could more justly be claimed by some mariners—a part of the crew of the vessel from the Spanish Main—who had come ashore to see the humours of Election Day. They were rough-looking desperadoes, with sun-blackened faces, and an immensity of beard; their wide short trousers were confined about the waist by belts, often clasped with a rough plate of gold, and sustaining always a long knife, and in some instances, a sword. From beneath their broad-brimmed hats of palm-leaf, gleamed eyes which, even in good-nature and merriment, had a kind of animal ferocity. They transgressed without fear or scruple, the rules of behaviour that were binding on all others: smoking tobacco under the beadle's very nose, although each whiff would have cost a townsman a shilling; and quaffing at their pleasure, draughts of wine or aqua-vitae from pocket flasks, which they freely tendered to the gaping crowd around them. It remarkably characterised the incomplete morality of the age, rigid as we call it, that a licence was allowed the seafaring class, not merely for their freaks on shore, but for far more desperate deeds on their proper element. The sailor of that day would go near to be arraigned as a pirate in our own. There could be little doubt, for instance, that this very ship's crew, though no unfavourable specimens of the nautical brotherhood, had been guilty, as we should phrase it, of depredations on the Spanish commerce, such as would have perilled all their necks in a modern court of justice. But the sea in those old times heaved, swelled, and foamed very much at its own will, or subject only to the tempestuous wind, with hardly any attempts at regulation by human law. The buccaneer on the wave might relinquish his calling and become at once if he chose, a man of probity and piety on land; nor, even in the full career of his reckless life, was he regarded as a personage with whom it was disreputable to traffic or casually associate. Thus the Puritan elders in their black cloaks, starched bands, and steeple-crowned hats, smiled not unbenignantly at the clamour and rude deportment of these jolly seafaring men; and it excited neither surprise nor animadversion when so reputable a citizen as old Roger Chillingworth, the physician, was seen to enter the market-place in close and familiar talk with the commander of the questionable vessel.

First to strike a visitor was the raucous music: strident jerking jazz, faster than anything that had gone before; it was the sound of speed. Yet more striking were the dancers: thin young women, diaphanous short skirts showing their legs, their heads crowned with iridescent feathers twitching in time to the music. To those used to Strauss waltzes, these ‘flappers’ seemed to be suffering from some new nervous disorder.

El Cielo, god of the sky. He’s always depicted with great wings and a crown of feathers around his smooth, bald head. Here, he stands with arms stretched out toward the sky and his wings stretched down to his taloned feet. The

They should be paid more than the men,” she said. With her belligerent face beneath the feathered crown of her bonnet, she looked like an angry titmouse. “They work double: both in the colliery and in the home.

You say that hens should not announce the dawn.” She spoke powerfully enough for all to hear. “And yet it has happened every morning since the day I was crowned. You presumed to know Heaven’s will, claiming that the five falling stars at my coronation were Heaven’s disapproval of me, rather than indictments of your own treachery. But the spirits have spoken. I am the rightful empress of China, chosen by my predecessor and given the Mandate of Heaven. And I will remain empress of China until the gods, not you, decide otherwise.

Always a bleeding heart.

A riot of transparent blue flowers grew up the side of a tree, reaching its highest branches and sending tendrils of milky blue to nearby trees. A net made of tiny lilac-hued blossoms crawled over the moss, snaking into the patterns of the bark. And overhanging the path, where two branches came close to touching each other, a canopy that looked as though it must have been made of downy feathers, if feathers could be diluted into something like a cloud. It was eerily strange, yet so beautiful. "Who made this?" she murmured, tracing a blossom of syrup gold suspended by a streamer from something not unlike a willow tree. "Did you?" "No one made it," the girl answered. "It is just--- this place. It takes what is given from your world and uses it." "The whole world---the world does this magic?" "What is magic?" The girl lifted her finger and beckoned Delphine. She pulled a thread from the red broadcloth. "Where did this come from?" "It's wool, the fibers from a sheep. It's cut off, and spun, and woven, and---" "Sheep. Where did 'sheep' come from?" Delphine paused. "I--- I suppose from some wild animal, domesticated many years ago." "Ah. A wild animal. A creature, begot from--- what? Its dam and sire?" She shook her head. "Now that is magic. And your plants--- they sprout, from seeds in the ground? That, too, is magic." She tested the thread between her fingers, rolling it--- no, Delphine saw with wonder, stretching it. It became thin under her fingers, flat like a ribbon, and lengthened, the color washing from scarlet to pink to palest apple blossom as the single thread became two yards long and the girl wrapped it around the crown of her head, binding her wheat-sheaf hair. "And that is what we call magic.

the canvas narrow and long, star-dotted indigo blue at the top that gradually darkened to deep red. It depicted a lone figure: a Rishan vampire, falling, frozen halfway to his death in the center of the frame. His nude body was mostly covered by dark feathered wings splayed out around him, save for a single outstretched hand, reaching desperately for something that he could see but we could not.

He stretched them wide as he rose to the top of the enclosure, red-black feathers tinted purple beneath strokes of silvery moonlight.

You would tell me to help them, I know. You would tell me to show them the way.

I know I must fight. I know it is my duty, but... I am so very tired.

Faeries are twilight creatures, and I have become one, too. We rise when the shadows grow long and head to our beds before the sun rises. It is well after midnight when we arrive at the great hill at the palace of Elfhame. To go inside, we must ride between two trees, an oak and a thorn, and then straight in to what appears to be the stone wall of an abandoned folly. I've done it hundreds of times, but I flinch anyway. My whole body braces, I grip the reins hard, and my eyes mash shut. When I open them, I am inside the hill. We ride on through a cavern, between pillars of roots, over packed earth. Then are dozens of the Folk here, crowding around the entrance to the vast throne room, where Court is being held- long-nosed pixies with tattered wings; elegant, green-skinned ladies in long gowns with goblins holding up their trains; tricksy boggans; laughing foxkin; a boy in an owl mask and a golden headdress; an elderly woman with crowns crowding her shoulders; a gaggle of girls with wild roses in their hair; a bark-skinned boy with feathers around his neck; a group of knights all in scarab-green armour. Many I've seen before; a few I have spoken with. Too many for my eyes to drink them all in, yet I cannot look away. I never get tired of this- of the spectacle, of the pageantry. Maybe Oriana isn't entirely wrong to worry that we might one day get caught up in it, be carried away by it, and forget to take care. I can see why humans succumb to the beautiful nightmare of the Court, why they willingly drown in it. I know I shouldn't love it as I do, stolen as I am from the mortal world, my parents murdered. But I love it all the same.

She had seen her mother looking ethereal, in her tutu and swan feathers and dinky little crown, in the poster from a Denver Opera Ballet production—looking like something you could break in two. But looking over her shoulder one day and seeing Nita eyeing dubiously that old framed poster, her mother had said, “Honey, take my advice. Don’t mess around with swans. One of those pretty white wings could break your leg in three places.” And off she had gone with the laundry basket, sailing past, graceful and strong, with the danger showing only around the edges of the chuckle.

A crown of feathers amidst the rugged terrain, an eagle's kingdom takes its reign.

A dam was broken. She was not just a being of flesh and bone and feather. She was not a homunculus. She was no creation of Phileander or the baroness or the crow master. No one else had named her. She was Torment, a crow's dream of being a woman, a spirit's dream of being alive and a dream of being the All-Mother up in the sky. She was a hope of once finding love without regret; she was queen of the discontented dead and mistress of this tiny, wondrous fraction of the universe that was her. And she was very fond of shiny things, so she appreciated this beautiful crown and put it on her head.

Like an anchor, love will hold fast in a storm. But it can also pull you under.

Despite being only fifteen, if Clay returned home today with an egg, he would pass into adulthood. With that, he’d earn the right to braid ostrich feathers and beads made from the eggshell in his hair. Best of all, he’d join Lynx in the raiders.

You do not make your own cross, although unbelief is a master carpenter at cross-making; neither are you permitted to choose your own cross, although self-will wants to be lord and master. But your cross is prepared and appointed for you by divine love, and you must cheerfully accept it; you are to take up the cross as your chosen badge and burden, and not to stand complaining. This night Jesus bids you submit your shoulder to His easy yoke. Do not kick at it in petulance, or trample on it in pride, or fall under it in despair, or run away from it in fear, but take it up like a true follower of Jesus. Jesus was a cross-bearer; He leads the way in the path of sorrow. Surely you could not desire a better guide! And if He carried a cross, what nobler burden would you desire? The Via Crucis is the way of safety; fear not to tread its thorny paths. Beloved, the cross is not made of feathers or lined with velvet; it is heavy and galling to disobedient shoulders; but it is not an iron cross, though your fears have painted it with iron colors; it is a wooden cross, and a man can carry it, for the Man of Sorrows tried the load. Take up your cross, and by the power of the Spirit of God you will soon be so in love with it that like Moses you would not exchange the reproach of Christ for all the treasures of Egypt. Remember that Jesus carried it; remember that it will soon be followed by the crown, and the thought of the coming weight of glory will greatly lighten the present heaviness of trouble. May the Lord help you bow your spirit in submission to the divine will before you fall asleep tonight, so that waking with tomorrow’s sun, you may go forth to the day’s cross with the holy and submissive spirit that is fitting for a follower of the Crucified.

His hair was not only long and glossily anointed with bear fat, but most resplendently dressed, with a high tail twisted up from the crown of his head and dropping down his back, ending in a dozen tiny braids decorated—like the rest of his costume—with wampum shell beads, glass beads, small brass bells, parakeet feathers, and a Chinese yen; God knew where he’d got that. Slung by his saddle, his newest and most prized possession—Jamie’s rifle.

Grief, as in everything, should be experienced in moderation. There is a time to grieve heavily but then there is a time to set it aside and become happy in life again.

We had little but we didn't know we had little. It seemed to us that we had much and we were very content.

Feather" Rather be a bandit than a lover Rather be a man with the other To run the mountain down run it down Rather be a whisper in heaven Then a daughter locked in your prison So run the mountain down run it down You are airborne You've got silver rays Will it ever float will it ever soar along Grip the crown like winner Pretending like a beginner So run the mountain down run it down You are airborne You got silver rays will it ever float will it ever soar along All for the feather Did it all for your feathered hand Will it ever float will it ever soar along

Come out, White-Eyes,” the voice called. “I bring gifts, not bloodshed.” Henry, wearing nothing but his pants and the bandages Aunt Rachel had wrapped around his chest the night before, hopped on one foot as he dragged on a boot. By the time he reached the window, he had both boots on, laces flapping. Rachel gave him a rifle. He threw open the shutter and jerked down the skin, shoving the barrel out the opening. “What brings you here?” “The woman. I bring many horses in trade.” Loretta ran to the left window, throwing back the shutters and unfastening the membrane to peek out. The Comanche turned to meet her gaze, his dark eyes expressionless, penetrating, all the more luminous from the black graphite that outlined them. Her hands tightened on the rough sill, nails digging the wood. He looked magnificent. Even she had to admit that. Savage, frightening…but strangely beautiful. Eagle feathers waved from the crown of his head, the painted tips pointed downward, the quills fastened in the slender braid that hung in front of his left ear. His cream-colored hunting shirt enhanced the breadth of his shoulders, the chest decorated with intricate beadwork, painted animal claws, and white strips of fur. He wore two necklaces, one of bear claws, the other a flat stone medallion, both strung on strips of rawhide. His buckskin breeches were tucked into knee-high moccasins. Her gaze shifted to the strings of riderless ponies behind him. She couldn’t believe their number. Thirty? Possibly forty? Beyond the animals were at least sixty half-naked warriors on horseback. Loretta wondered why Hunter had come fully clothed in all his finery with wolf rings painted around his eyes. The others wore no shirts or feathers, and their faces were bare. “I come for the woman,” the Comanche repeated, never taking his gaze from her. “And I bring my finest horses to console her father for his loss. Fifty, all trained to ride.” His black sidestepped and whinnied. The Indian swayed easily with his mount. “Send me the woman, and have no fear. She will come to no harm walking in my footsteps, for I am strong and swift. She will never feel hunger, for I am a fine hunter. My lodge will shelter her from the winter rain, and my buffalo robes will shield her from the cold. I have spoken it.

There could be some new famous tales now—the Chicken-Killing General and the Feather-Plucking Crown Prince,” he lamented.

Cardano was a lot more than a gambler and part-time mathematician. He was the most famous physician of his age, and the Pope and Europe’s royal and imperial families eagerly sought his counsel. He had no use for court intrigue, however, and declined their invitations. He provided the first clinical description of the symptoms of typhus, wrote about syphilis, and developed a new way to operate on hernias. Moreover, he recognized that “A man is nothing but his mind; if that be out of order, all’s amiss, and if that be well, the rest is at ease.” He was an early enthusiast for bathing and showering. When he was invited to Edinburgh in 1552 to treat the Archbishop of Scotland for asthma, he drew on his knowledge of allergy to recommend bedclothes of unspun silk instead of feathers, a pillowcase of linen instead of leather, and the use of an ivory hair comb. Before leaving Milan for Edinburgh, he had contracted for a daily fee of ten gold crowns for his services, but when he departed after about forty days his grateful patient paid him 1,400 crowns and gave him many gifts of great value.

You still think I'm the same girl, don't you, Zero?" I ask as we make our way deeper into the woods, under the cover of starlight and swaying bare branches. Zero's nose glows brighter, and I run a hand along his pale ghost body. He is both solid and made of cool winter air, and sometimes I swear I can feel his ears beneath my palm, while other times my fingers pass right through. He is both here and not here. Alive and dead. And right now he feels like my only friend--the only one who thinks I'm unchanged. Made of the same linen and blue thread. Everyone else in Halloween Town seems to think I am someone entirely new--a girl with a royal title whose hair should be like the silken threads of a spider's web, with coffin-straight posture and a crown of feathers atop her head. But I am not these things.

On the night of All Hallow's Eve party, I sew my own black gown using the Witch Sisters' chiffon fabric, and a crown made of forged iron and dove feathers from Valentine's Town. I stand at the mirror, pressing down the silky fabric along my ribs, still feeling like myself--like a rag doll, who is also a queen. Instinctively, I tug at the thread on my wrist, but beneath the seam, I feel the softness of cotton, not the crunch of dead leaves. When I was born, my insides were filled with air-puffed cotton--Dream Town cotton. But when Dr. Finkelstein kidnapped me, he replaced the cotton with dead leaves; he wanted no reminders of where I was really from. But now I have filled myself with both: cotton and dead leaves. Because although I am the queen of Halloween Town, I am also a daughter of Dream Town. Made of nightmares and dreams. A little of both.

Women and men with bodies covered in feathers and heads crowned with tiny curved horns dangled from the ceiling, twirling and spinning around thick sheets of gold or magenta silk that hung like massive party ribbons. Below them, performers in costumes made of fur, more feathers and paint slathered over skin, prowled and crawled as if they were wild chimeras escaped from another world. Tella saw performers dressed to look like tigers with dragon wings, horses with forked tails, snakes with lion manes, and wolves with ram horns, who growled and nipped and sometimes licked at the hells of guests. There were a few low balconies where shirtless men with wings as large as angels' and fallen stars pushed grinning couples back and forth on giant swings hanging from canopies of thorns and flowers.