Forged Through Fire Quotes

Strength through adversity. The strongest steel is forged by the fires of hell. It is pounded and struck repeatedly before it’s plunged back into the molten fire. The fire gives it power and flexibility, and the blows give it strength. Those two things make the metal pliable and able to withstand every battle it’s called upon to fight. (Savitar)

The strongest steel is forged by the fires of hell. It is pounded and struck repeatedly before it's plunged back into the molten fire. The fire gives it power and flexibility, and the blows give it STRENGTH. Those two thing make the metal pliable and able to withstand every battle it's called upon to fight.

Only the strongest are put through the fire,' Josiah said. 'And the forge creates things of great strength and beauty.' 'Then I shall be truly glorious by the time my tenure ends.

She yawned, and Rowan rubbed his eyes, his other hand still in hers. But he didn’t let go. And when she awoke before dawn, warm and safe and rested, Rowan was still holding her hand, clasped to his chest. Something molten rushed through her, pouring over every crack and fracture still left gaping and open. Not to hurt or mar—but to weld. To forge.

Something molten rushed through her, pouring over every crack and fracture still left gaping and open. Not to hurt or mar—but to weld. To forge.

We passed through forests of fire, forded rivers of light and forged dark seas and mountains of snow and ice. Each crossing took us thousands of years, though it seemed no more than the blink of an eye.

All that can be cherished from this world, all that makes life worth living is that which is mined from its bowels through your own toil, fashioned from its clay by your own craft, fired in the kiln of your heart. Oh, how precious, how delightful a feast, the life that has been forged by its own master!

Strong women aren’t simply born. We are forged through the fires of life.

But he didn’t let go. And when she awoke before dawn, warm and safe and rested, Rowan was still holding her hand, clasped to his chest. Something molten rushed through her, pouring over every crack and fracture still left gaping and open. Not to hurt or mar—but to weld. To forge

when couples are tested by the greatest obstacles, don’t give up, and make it past them, they become stronger for it. Strength isn’t something that you’re born with, it’s something you build through a series of difficult experiences in your life that break you down and build you back up a little sturdier each time (if you let them). What’s the saying…forged by fire?

Stand like a beaten anvil, when thy dream Is laid upon thee, golden from the fire. Flinch not, though heavily through that furnace-gleam The black forge-hammers fall on thy desire. Demoniac giants round thee seem to loom. 'Tis but the world-smiths heaving to and fro. Stand like a beaten anvil. Take the doom Their ponderous weapons deal thee, blow on blow. Needful to truth as dew-fall to the flower Is this wild wrath and this implacable scorn. For every pang, new beauty, and new power, Burning blood-red shall on thy heart be born. Stand like a beaten anvil. Let earth's wrong Beat on that iron and ring back in song.

Consider this: when you stand at the entry to a steel factory, you can make out through the smoke some men, some metal, the fires. The furnaces roar, the hammers crash; and the metalworkers who forge ingots, weapons, tools, and so on are completely ignorant of the real uses to which their products will be put. The workers can only refer to their products by conventional names. Well, that's where we all stand, all of us! Nobody can see the real character of what he creates because every knife blade may become a dagger, and the use to which an object is put changes both its name and its nature. Only our ignorance shields us from terrible responsibilities.

When the armorer opened the door, the blast of hot air that came through made Ned feel as though he were walking into a dragon’s mouth. Inside, a forge blazed in each corner,

His writing processes involve a psychological scorching, as self-reflection passes through the ‘slow fire of consciousness’: a hellish toasting of thoughts in the forge of the mind.

Let it be known that this bond is unbreakable, as enduring as the strength of our realm. By my will and the power of our ancient rites, Blake Drakharrow and Medra Pendragon are now bound together in fate and duty, forever unyielding, irrevocably united. As the dragon flies and the blood endures, so shall your destinies be intertwined. Your bond is forged. Through fire and shadows, you shall be one. What is spoken is unbroken. What is bound cannot be unbound.

God has perfect timing. If you aren’t of a similar faith, think of it as everything happening exactly when it’s supposed to. You look at your life and the eight things you thought you’d have accomplished by thirty-five and feel depressed. But maybe it’s just that you don’t have enough life experience yet. You’re like the baby who’s balancing in the middle of the room on chubby baby thighs—maybe you have to get your bearings for a while longer. Or maybe that goal wasn’t ever meant to be yours. Maybe you are destined for something so much cooler, which won’t come until five years down the road. Maybe you have to walk through this space you’re in to be ready for that. Nothing is wasted. Every single moment is preparing you for the next. But whether or not you choose to see this time as something wonderful—the time when God is stretching you and growing you or maybe forging you in fires hotter than you think you can withstand—all of it is growing you for the person you’re becoming, for a future you can’t even imagine.

Would it last until they were senile? Hard to say. They had been through trial by fire, and it would either forge them like iron or break them apart like untempered glass. But there was this: They both desired the same thing. They wanted to be loved for who they were. They just had to discover who they were beneath the habits of foray and retreat.

But beyond the extravagance of Rome's wealthiest citizens and flamboyant gourmands, a more restrained cuisine emerged for the masses: breads baked with emmer wheat; polenta made from ground barley; cheese, fresh and aged, made from the milk of cows and sheep; pork sausages and cured meats; vegetables grown in the fertile soil along the Tiber. In these staples, more than the spice-rubbed game and wine-soaked feasts of Apicius and his ilk, we see the earliest signs of Italian cuisine taking shape. The pillars of Italian cuisine, like the pillars of the Pantheon, are indeed old and sturdy. The arrival of pasta to Italy is a subject of deep, rancorous debate, but despite the legend that Marco Polo returned from his trip to Asia with ramen noodles in his satchel, historians believe that pasta has been eaten on the Italian peninsula since at least the Etruscan time. Pizza as we know it didn't hit the streets of Naples until the seventeenth century, when Old World tomato and, eventually, cheese, but the foundations were forged in the fires of Pompeii, where archaeologists have discovered 2,000-year-old ovens of the same size and shape as the modern wood-burning oven. Sheep's- and cow's-milk cheeses sold in the daily markets of ancient Rome were crude precursors of pecorino and Parmesan, cheeses that literally and figuratively hold vast swaths of Italian cuisine together. Olives and wine were fundamental for rich and poor alike.

Although it is easy to imagine happiness as the upwards turn on this haphazard rising and falling of emotion which is life, but really it is a foundation of strength of character and inner balance that precipitates peace, a foundation that is slowly built or slowly chipped away. There are times when it may seem that the foundation of happiness is broken, but as the dust settles and the debris is cleared away, we find that the storm has only covered it, still leaving everything we have built in place. True happiness is forged in the furnace of perseverance, fortitude, hope and love. It is not burned or broken by the heat, rather it is made unbreakable—it becomes eternal. Life is the fuel for this purifying fire.

Great men are not made by way of moderation. Those poets, musicians, athletes, entertainers, and all who we’ve come to admire never capitulated to temperance. Their iron forged in the fire of excess. To be weak is to give in. To be strong is to abstain completely, but to be great is to indulge in all the pleasures and pains of life, to swim through the drowning tumult and turbulence and fear.

Her hair came undone and rose off her shoulders, quivering as if from a breeze. Static kept snapping through the strands, and Jasmira’s eyes turned completely white. Her arms were covered in spiraled script. It crawled and twisted on her skin. The text shone burgundy. Single letters kept separating and slowly flaking off. They resembled tiny red fire sparks, burning brightly, and then disappearing all together.

What if you knew that you were never meant to get it right the first time, but to build it through trial and error? How much more grace would you give yourself, how much more human might you be? How much more could you gain from your experiences if your expectation wasn’t that you were supposed to be initially and unquestionably perfect, but that the sculpting of your soul would emerge through the consistency by which you showed up and kept trying, kept going, kept forging yourself through the fire of your own fear?

The fire bullets explode; naturally. I am not quite sure what your air imbued bullets will do upon impact; but don't worry. The calculations and measurements were precise, they will not fail you. The earth bullets may cause whatever they hit to turn to stone, but I have never used earth in forging, so they may also cause a tremor or fissure. The water bullets will freeze. The arcane bullets are the most powerful… Use them sparingly. I infused them with a special compound I invented. They should go through just about anything. Make sure you know what is behind your target before you shoot. They will also explode if they impact a surface they cannot penetrate. You don’t want to be anywhere near when that happens.

Yossarian went to bed early for safety and soon dreamed that he was fleeing almost headlong down an endless wooden staircase, making a loud, staccato clatter with his heels. Then he woke up a little and realized someone was shooting at him with a machine gun. A tortured, terrified sob rose in his throat. His first thought was that Milo was attacking the squadron again, and he rolled off his cot to the floor and lay underneath in a trembling, praying ball, his heart thumping like a drop forge, his body bathed in a cold sweat. There was no noise of planes. A drunken, happy laugh sounded from afar. 'Happy New Year, Happy New Year!' a triumphant familiar voice shouted hilariously from high above between the short, sharp bursts of machine gun fire, and Yossarian understood that some men had gone as a prank to one of the sandbagged machine-gun emplacements Milo had installed in the hills after his raid on the squadron and staffed with his own men. Yossarian blazed with hatred and wrath when he saw he was the victim of an irresponsible joke that had destroyed his sleep and reduced him to a whimpering hulk. He wanted to kill, he wanted to murder. He was angrier than he had ever been before, angrier even than when he had slid his hands around McWatt's neck to strangle him. The gun opened fire again. Voices cried 'Happy New Year!' and gloating laughter rolled down from the hills through the darkness like a witch's glee. In moccasins and coveralls, Yossarian charged out of his tent for revenge with his .45, ramming a clip of cartridges up into the grip and slamming the bolt of the gun back to load it. He snapped off the safety catch and was ready to shoot. He heard Nately running after him to restrain him, calling his name. The machine gun opened fire once more from a black rise above the motor pool, and orange tracer bullets skimmed like low-gliding dashes over the tops of the shadowy tents, almost clipping the peaks. Roars of rough laughter rang out again between the short bursts. Yossarian felt resentment boil like acid inside him; they were endangering his life, the bastards!

Arin watched the fire flare crimson. Then he went outside and surveyed the grounds, saw through leafless trees that no one was near. He could steal a few minutes. When he stepped back inside the forge, he leaned against the anvil. With one hand he pulled a book from its hiding place behind the kindling box, and in the other he held a hammer so that, if in danger of being caught, he could more quickly pretend to have been working. He began to read. It was a book he had seen in Kestrel’s possession, one on the history of the Valorian empire. He had taken it from the library after she had returned it, weeks ago. What would she say, if she saw him reading a book about his enemy, in his enemy’s tongue? What would she do? Arin knew this: her gaze would measure him, and he would sense a shift of perception within her. Her opinion of him would change as daylight changed, growing or losing shadow. Subtle. Almost indiscernible. She would see him differently, though he wouldn’t know in what way. He wouldn’t know what it meant. This had happened, again and again, since he had come here. Sometimes he wished he had never come here. Well. Kestrel couldn’t see him in the forge, or know what he read, because she couldn’t leave her rooms. She couldn’t even walk. Arin shut the book, gripped it between rigid fingers. He nearly threw it into the fire. I will have you torn limb from limb, the general had said. That wasn’t why Arin stayed away from her. Not really. He forced his thoughts from his head. He hid the book where it had been. He busied himself with quiet work, heating iron and charcoal in a crucible to produce steel. It took some time before Arin realized he was humming a dark tune. For once, he didn’t stop himself. The pressure of song was too strong, the need for distraction too great. Then he found that the music caged behind his closed teeth was the melody Kestrel had played for him months ago. He felt the sensation of it, low and alive, on his mouth. For a moment, he imagined it wasn’t the melody that touched his lips, but Kestrel. The thought stopped his breath, and the music, too.

That which is unnamed was first,” it said. “But I am named, flesh queen. Remember.” Its pupils thinned. “The cold one on the ship. She was your kin.” Glorian looked at the other skull. “She fell to my flame. So will this land. We will finish the scouring, for we are the teeth that harrow and turn. The mountain is the forge and smith, and we, its iron offspring—come to avenge the first, the forebear, he who sleeps beneath.” Every warrior should know fear, Glorian Brightcry. Without it, courage is an empty boast. “You confess,” Glorian said, “that you slew the blood of the Saint.” Her voice kept breaking. “Do you then declare war on Inys?” Fyredel—the wyrm—let out a rattle. A score of complex scales and muscles shifted in its face. “When your days grow long and hot,” he said, “when the sun in the North never sets, we shall come.” On both sides of the Strondway, those who had not fled were rooted to the spot, fixated on Glorian. She realized what they must be thinking. If she died childless, the eternal vine was at its end. What she did next could define how they saw the House of Berethnet for centuries to come. Start forging your armour, Glorian. You will need it. She looked down once more at her parents’ remains, the bones the wyrms had dumped here like a spoil of war. In her memory, her father laughed and drew her close. He would never laugh again. Never smile. Her mother would never tell her she loved her, or how to calm her dreams. And where there had been fear, there was anger. “If you—If you dare to turn your fire on Inys,” Glorian bit out, “then I will do as my ancestor did to the Nameless One.” She forced herself to lift her chin in defiance. “I will drive you back with sword and spear, with bow and lance!” Shaking, she heaved for air. “I am the voice, the body of Inys. My stomach is its strength—my heart, its shield— and if you think I will submit to you because I am small and young, you are wrong.” Sweat was running down her back. She had never been so afraid in her life. “I am not afraid,” she said. At this, the wyrm unfurled its wings to their full breadth. From tip to hooked tip, they were as wide as two longships facing each other. People scrambled out of their shadow. “So be it, Shieldheart.” It steeped the word in mockery. “Treasure your darkness, for the fire comes. Until then, a taste of our flame, to light your city through the winter. Heed my words.

She thought that she had been seeking a light distraction. But when she heard the clang of metal on metal and saw Arin scraping a shaft of steel across the anvil with one set of tools and beating at it with another, Kestrel knew she had come to the wrong place. “Yes?” he said, keeping his back to her. His workshirt was soaked through with sweat. His hands were sooty. He left the blade of the sword to cool on the anvil and moved to place another, shorter length of metal on the fire, which lined his profile with unsteady light. She willed her voice to be her own. “I thought we could play a game.” His dark brows drew together. “Of Bite and Sting,” Kestrel said. More firmly, she added, “You implied you know how to play.” He used tongs to stoke the fire. “I did.” “You implied that you could beat me.” “I implied that there was no reason a Valorian would want to play with a Herrani.” “No, you worded things carefully so that what you said could be interpreted that way. But that isn’t what you meant.” He faced her then, arms folded across his chest. “I have no time for games.” The tips of his fingers had black rings of charcoal dust buried under the nail and into the cuticle. “I have work to do.” “Not if I say you don’t.” He turned away. “I like to finish what I start.” She meant to leave. She meant to leave him to the noise and heat. She meant to say nothing more. Instead, Kestrel found herself issuing a challenge. “You are no match for me anyway.” He gave her the look she recognized well, the one of measured disdain. But this time, he also laughed. “Where do you propose we play?” He swept a hand around the forge. “Here?” “My rooms.” “Your rooms.” Arin shook his head disbelievingly. “My sitting room,” she said. “Or the parlor,” she added, though it bothered her to think of playing Bite and Sting with him in a place so public to the household. He leaned against the anvil, considering. “Your sitting room will do. I’ll come when I’ve finished this sword. After all, I have house privileges now. Might as well use them.” Arin started to say something else, then stopped, his gaze roving over her face. She grew uneasy. He was staring, she realized. He was staring at her. “You have dirt on your face,” he said shortly. He returned to his work. Later, in her bathing room, Kestrel saw it. The moment she tilted the mirror to catch the low, amber light of late afternoon, she saw what he had seen, as had Lirah, who had tried to tell her. A faint smudge traced the slope of her high cheekbone, darkened her cheek, and skimmed the line of her jaw. It was a handprint. It was the shadow left from her father’s gritty hand, from when he had touched her face to seal the bargain between them.

She knew she was going into that Cauldron. Knew she would lose this fight. Knew no one was going to save her: not sobbing Feyre, not Feyre's gagged former lover, nor her devastated new mate. Not Cassian, broken and bleeding on the floor. The warrior was still trying to rise on trembling arms. To reach her. The King of Hybern- he had done this. To Elain. To Cassian. And to her. The icy water bit into the soles of her feet. It was a kiss of venom, a death so permanent that every inch of her roared in defiance. She was going in- but she would not go gently. The water gripped her ankles with phantom talons, tugging her down. She twisted, wrenching her arm free from the guard who held it. And Nesta Archeron pointed. One finger- at the King of Hybern. A death-promise. A target marked. Hands shoved her into the water's waiting claws. Nesta laughed at the fear that crept into the king's eyes just before the water devoured her whole. In the beginning. And in the end. There was darkness. And nothing more. She did not feel the cold as she sank into a sea that had no bottom, no horizon, no surface. But she felt the burning. Immortality was not a serene youth It was fire. It was molten ore poured into her veins, boiling her human blood until it was nothing but steam, forging her brittle bones until they were fresh steel. And when she opened her mouth to scream, when the pain ripped her very self in two, there was no sound. There was nothing in this place but darkness and agony and power- They would pay. All of them. Staring with the Cauldron. Starting now. She tore into the darkness with talons and teeth. Rent and cleaved and shredded. And the dark eternity around her shuddered. Bucked. Thrashed. She laughed as it recoiled. Laughed around the mouthful of raw power she ripped out and swallowed whole; laughed at the fistfuls of eternity she shoved into her heart, her veins. The Cauldron struggled like a bird under a cat's paw. She refused to relent. Everything it had stolen from her, from Elain, she would take from it. Wrapped in black eternity, Nesta and the Cauldron twined, burning through the darkness like a newborn star.

Islam tells us that on the unappealable Day of Judgment, all who have perpetrated images of living things will reawaken with their works, and will be ordered to blow life into them, and they will fail, and they and their works will be cast into the fires of punishment. As a child, I knew that horror of the spectral duplication or multiplication of reality, but mine would come as I stood before large mirrors. As soon as it began to grow dark outside, the constant, infallible functioning of mirrors, the way they followed my every movement, their cosmic pantomime, would seem eerie to me. One of my insistent pleas to God and my guardian angel was that I not dream of mirrors; I recall clearly that I would keep one eye on them uneasily. I feared sometimes that they would begin to veer off from reality; other times, that I would see my face in them disfigured by strange misfortunes. I have learned that this horror is monstrously abroad in the world again. The story is quite simple, and terribly unpleasant. In 1927, I met a grave young woman, first by telephone (because Julia began as a voice without a name or face) and then on a corner at nightfall. Her eyes were alarmingly large, her hair jet black and straight, her figure severe. She was the granddaughter and greatgranddaughter of Federalists, as I was the grandson and great-grandson of Unitarians,* but that ancient discord between our lineages was, for us, a bond, a fuller possession of our homeland. She lived with her family in a big run-down high-ceiling'd house, in the resentment and savorlessness of genteel poverty. In the afternoons— only very rarely at night—we would go out walking through her neighbor-hood, which was Balvanera.* We would stroll along beside the high blank wall of the railway yard; once we walked down Sarmien to all the way to the cleared grounds of the Parque Centenario.*Between us there was neither love itself nor the fiction of love; I sensed in her an intensity that was utterly unlike the intensity of eroticism, and I feared it. In order to forge an intimacy with women, one often tells them about true or apocryphal things that happened in one's youth; I must have told her at some point about my horror of mirrors, and so in 1928 I must have planted the hallucination that was to flower in 1931. Now I have just learned that she has gone insane, and that in her room all the mirrors are covered, because she sees my reflection in them— usurping her own—and she trembles and cannot speak, and says that I am magically following her, watching her, stalking her. What dreadful bondage, the bondage of my face—or one of my former faces. Its odious fate makes me odious as well, but I don't care anymore.

One could well ask if there is some subconscious link in the patriarchal mind between the agni-pariksha, fire-ordeal of Sita; the encouraging of women to become satis, the practice of entering the fire jointly in a jauhar when a Rajput raja was defeated in a campaign; and the frequency of dowry deaths in recent times.

Putting wives through fire has continued since ancient times, from Sita to sati to dowry deaths. It is a curious aspect of our social culture.

Even through her coma of grief, Mom was in awe of the complete strangers standing shoulder to shoulder on this road. Some were saluting, many were crying, all of them suffering the loss of a great man they probably didn’t even know. That’s okay, though, I knew him. I know he deserved the respect of each and every one of them.

They had almost come to the tree's central trunk when Pouncer froze, tail erect with the tip cocked forward. She had learned that signal meant freeze and she did. T'suuz, some ten meters behind him, froze as well. Very slowly Pouncer pointed down. For a long moment Cherenkova saw nothing, and then movement on the jungle floor caught her eye. It was a rapsari sniffer, small and round bodied, proboscis swinging back and forth as it searched for familiar scents. It had sensed something, but it was confused. It advanced slowly, circling first left, then right. Its handler came behind it, riding one of the reptilian raiders and wearing full mag armor. He snarled something quietly into his comlink. Cherenkova held her breath. A second raider-mounted Tzaatz came up beside the handler. The two conferred momentarily in muted snarls. A gravcar whined overhead. The handler sniffed suspiciously and Cherenkova held her breath. The second Tzaatz looked up, searching the branches. He seemed to be looking right at her and she wanted to scream, her pulse pounding in her ears. It seemed impossible that he didn't see her. Slowly he raised his binoptics to his eyes and started methodically scanning overhead. He hadn't seen her, but he would any second. The rapsar sniffer had circled back. Two more Tzaatz moved through her field of view, one of the reptillian raiders grunting. How many were there? Suddenly she found herself eye to eye with kzinti binoptics. The Tzaatz snarled and pointed right at her and cold fear shot through her system. They were caught, and she was acutely aware that the Tzaatz were under no obligation not to eat her. The sniffer handler looked up and snarled as well. She started to climb away. They hadn't spotted Pouncer or T'suuz. If she could lead the hunters away they might be able to ambush the Tzaatz. At least they wouldn't all be taken together. She looked down to see the warrior raising a crossbow. There was a scream, suddenly cut off, and the warrior looked away from her. She saw him startle and fire at something she couldn't see, and then a rapsar raider ran past without its rider, and both Tzaatz spun their mounts to run. The ground shook under heavy impacts and then something appeared out of nowhere and bit the closer Tzaatz in half. It was easily twenty meters long, and amazingly fast for that bulk, long necked and sinuous, like a wingless dragon. The other Tzaatz turned to face it, drawing his variable sword in an act of undeniable courage. Before he could swing at it another of the beasts thundered in and snapped him up, impaling him on half-meter fangs and shaking him like a wolf with a rabbit, decapitating his raider rapsar almost accidentally in the process. The other Tzaatz had fled, but distant, heavy footfalls shook the jungle floor, followed by a deep, rumbling call. The grlor hunted in packs, Pouncer had said.

We must live life in the present as shaped by the past. The option to begin afresh does not exist. The past days and nights were the sacrificial coals that fired an internal furnace. The dying embers fueled my present being. I need to locate new nutrients to revitalize an unfulfilled soul. I seek to unearth fresh energy sources and forge a renewed resoluteness to slog through the remainder of this gaseous and hard-pressed sojourn. Any prior personal inspiration for living righteously was lost on a remote outpost somewhere along the fractured trail. I go on because I must. I trust that if I industrially seek, I shall ascertain a purpose in life that currently eludes me. If I tread long enough, if I assiduously track sufficient true miles, I shall discover a purpose that fits me. I continue to push forward with an unbowed determination, navigate into the deep unknown with the confidence of an experienced admiral who knows that if he endures the gale forces of self-doubt and persist despite all setbacks that he will discover what he seeks. A person must rely upon personal consciousness as a guiding compass into penetrating the unalleviated obscurity that shrouds the way. I shall always resist the easy path, because it leads to an apocalyptic demise.

Be forged through the fire, not destroyed by it.

You have to be forged through fire in order to earn the right to say that you can do hard things.

She drew her knees to her chest, wondering who she was becoming. She tried to see herself in a month, in a year. Through springs and summers, autumns and winters. Through rain, drought, famine, plenty. Would she grow old here, living out her days as a hollow shell of who she had been? What was her true place among the Breccans? As hard as she tried, she couldn’t see the path she wanted to forge. But perhaps that was because she still didn’t know where she belonged.

She drew her knees to her chest, wondering who she was becoming. She tried to see herself in a month, in a year. Through springs and summers, autumns and winters. Through rain, drought, famine, plenty. Would she grow old here, living out her days as a hollow shell of who she had been? What was her true place among the Breccans? As hard as she tried, she couldn’t see the path she wanted to forge. But perhaps that was because she still didn’t know where she belonged.

She'd lived through unspeakable pain and blossomed with it, her heart forged in the hottest of fires.

The history of the word treaty begins with a violence, which then moves through something that deals with it -- often writing. After which comes something like: healing. A remedy. All writing, then, and all art, is a kind of treaty -- between the ready and the writing, between the art and the world, between the fire of the past that burnished us and the fire of the present that consumes us and the fire of the future we might forge. Honor the treaty.

While some select sobering situations may be unlaughable, there are few circumstances that humor, subtle or candid, can't improve. Afterall, remembering not to take ourselves or others too seriously can put a lot of things into perspective. Laughter is healing. Laughter creates bonds and forges enduring friendships. A healthy sense of humor can quell almost any overwhelming anxiety, and can quench the fires of fury and fear unlike anything else when appropriate. Even more so when not. Connie Kerbs

Mike Morrison, vice president and dean of the University of Toyota, likes to ask employees: “What’s on the other side of your card?” In other words, the front of your business card may read “Managing Director,” but you may better identify with “big picture thinker” or “educator” or “calm under fire.” This kind of information—or even a few simple details like where a person lives, what his or her favorite hobby is—cuts through the red tape to get somewhere more meaningful, and it can more immediately and effectively forge a connection between two people.

Something molten rushed through her, pouring over every crack and fracture still left gaping open. Not to hurt or mar—but to weld. To forge.

The presence of fire during the ordeal (dark night of the soul) symbolizes burning off remnants of burdens to prepare for integration of the part's re-awakening to its inherent beauty and positive qualities. Braving those flames facilitates this unveiling and a shift towards awareness of Self within. Just as diamonds form under incredible heat and pressure deep within the Earth, so too does the intense fire of inner turmoil and emotional pressure during the ordeal stage forge exiled parts into brilliant gems of Self-realization.

This armour was crafted for the queens of old. Your ancestors from times gone past who shared your heritage and held your Order forms,” Geraldine breathed reverently. “It has the fire of the Phoenix living within it, utterly unbreakable and untarnishable.” A small note lay on top of the stunning breastplate and I swallowed a lump in my throat as I reached for it with shaking fingers, the name Roxanya written in the swirling script I’d come to recognise as my mother’s handwriting. Fly fast and true, sweet girl. Secrets wait beneath the ground, search fearlessly and they shall be found. I arched a brow at what I had to assume was some kind of prophecy, holding my note out for Darcy to read as she showed me hers. When darkness steps closer, lean into the light. The strongest of weapons is forged in the flame, hold your breath and fight through the pain.

The history of the word treaty begins with a violence, which then moves through something that deals with it—often writing. After which comes something like: healing. A remedy. All writing, then, and all art, is a kind of treaty—between the reader and the writing, between the art and the world, between the fire of the past that burnished us and the fire of the present that consumes us and the fire of the future we might forge. Honor the treaty. THE LIMITS OF WHITE FANTASY

My sister and I had been moulded for survival since the day we’d been born. We’d escaped the Nymphs who’d killed our parents here in Solaria, then survived the flames which had destroyed our mortal family too. Together, we’d made it through countless foster homes, neglect, uncertainty, poverty and hunger. We’d always found our own way to endure it. We’d been born to survive. The fire that should have killed us when we were babies hadn't; it forged us into something stronger, cast our bones in steel and gave us strength in each other’s company.

The history of the word treaty begins with a violence, which then moves through something that deals with it—often writing. After which comes something like: healing. A remedy. All writing, then, and all art, is a kind of treaty—between the reader and the writing, between the art and the world, between the fire of the past that burnished us and the fire of the present that consumes us and the fire of the future we might forge. Honor the treaty.

What is David without Goliath? What is Jesus without the Cross? What is destiny without the journey? On the other side of struggle is fortune. To pick and choose which battles one is willing to fight or let go before ultimately traversing the uncertain realm of nonexistence is the ultimate war. We must run through life’s troubles, not from them, because smooth seas do not make great sailors and the strongest steel is forged by the fires of Hell. Carry the Cross toward immortality. Embrace the challenge.

Lament's trot soon became a canter. Her canter, a gallop. The forest blurred around them as they picked up speed, blazing through copses and thickets, the rhythm of the horse's hooves drumming like thunder. Despite the stinging wind crushing past them, it wasn't cold. Heat radiated from Lament's black coat, and when Emeline looked down she found red flames flickering in the horse's mane. Tongues of fire engulfed Emeline's fingers, licking her skin. She jerked hand free, staring in horror. But her fingers were unsinged. Holy cats! Was Lament an ember mare? It was impossible. The wild, unearthly horses were forged of fire and said to be uncatchable. Untamable. In no story she knew had one ever been ridden. But Emeline had thought shadow skins impossible too. The pungent tang of smoke smoldered in the air. They were out of the Stain---nothing dead surrounded them here. The forest was lush and green and living. But in the distance, Emeline saw red. Fire. It surged toward them from the right, spreading quickly. Emeline was about to cry out in alarm, in case the boy at her back hadn't seen it, when she heard the sound of hoofbeats. Hundreds of them. Pummeling the earth in time with Lament's. Wait. Emeline squinted into the distance. It wasn't a forest fire advancing on them. It was a massive herd of ember mares. Their black bodies raged red, like burning coal, and their manes smoldered with bright flames. They were stampeding, headed straight for Lament with no sign of slowing or stopping.

I’d done everything possible to handle how much the cold had begun to affect me, but it seemed impossible to hide anything from Casteel. Halfway through our journey, he ended up wrapping his arm around my shoulders, tucking me close to him as we forged forward, his body absorbing the brunt of the wind.

Peace. Warm yourself, warrior, while I tell you of peace. History is unerring, and even the least observant mortal can be made to understand, through innumerable repetition. Do you see peace as little more than the absence of war? Perhaps, on a surface level, it is just that. But let me describe the characteristics of peace, my young friend. A pervasive dulling of the senses, a decadence afflicting the culture, evinced by a growing obsession with low entertainment. The virtues of extremity — honour, loyalty, sacrifice — are lifted high as shoddy icons, currency for the cheapest of labours. The longer peace lasts, the more those words are used, and the weaker they become. Sentimentality pervades daily life. All becomes a mockery of itself, and the spirit grows… restless. Is this a singular pessimism? Allow me to continue with a description of what follows a period of peace. Old warriors sit in taverns, telling tales of vigorous youth, their pasts when all things were simpler, clearer cut. They are not blind to the decay all around them, are not immune to the loss of respect for themselves, for all that they gave for their king, their land, their fellow citizens. The young must not be abandoned to forgetfulness. There are always enemies beyond the borders, and if none exist in truth, then one must be fashioned. Old crimes dug out of the indifferent earth. Slights and open insults, or the rumours thereof. A suddenly perceived threat where none existed before. The reasons matter not — what matters is that war is fashioned from peace, and once the journey is begun, an irresistible momentum is born. The old warriors are satisfied. The young are on fire with zeal. The king fears yet is relieved of domestic pressures. the army draws its oil and whetstone. Forges blast with molten iron, the anvils ring like temple bells. Grain-sellers and armourers and clothiers and horse-sellers and countless other suppliers smile with the pleasure of impending wealth. A new energy has gripped the kingdom, and those few voices raised in objection are quickly silenced. Charges of treason and summary execution soon persuade the doubters. Peace, my young warrior, is born of relief, endured in exhaustion, and dies with false remembrance. False? Ah, perhaps I am too cynical. Too old, witness to far too much. Do honour, loyalty and sacrifice truly exist? Are such virtues born only from extremity? What transforms them into empty words, words devalued by their overuse? What are the rules of the economy of the spirit, that civilization repeatedly twists and mocks? Withal of the Third City. You have fought wars. You have forged weapons. You have seen loyalty, and honour. You have seen courage and sacrifice. What say you to all this?" "Nothing," Hacking laughter. "You fear angering me, yes? No need. I give you leave to speak your mind." "I have sat in my share of taverns, in the company of fellow veterans. A select company, perhaps, not grown so blind with sentimentality as to fashion nostalgia from times of horror and terror. Did we spin out those days of our youth? No. Did we speak of war? Not if we could avoid it, and we worked hard at avoiding it." "Why?" "Why? Because the faces come back. So young, one after another. A flash of life, an eternity of death, there in our minds. Because loyalty is not to be spoken of, and honour is to be endured. Whilst courage is to be survived. Those virtues, Chained One, belong to silence." "Indeed. Yet how they proliferate in peace! Crowed again and again, as if solemn pronouncement bestows those very qualities upon the speaker. Do they not make you wince, every time you hear them? Do they not twist in your gut, grip hard your throat? Do you not feel a building rage—" "Aye. When I hear them used to raise a people once more to war.

Press through your mindset limit and decide your own potential. Once you figure that out, we’ll forge a fire so fucking big—no one will ever be able to overlook it or escape it.

Not even a fire burning through the building, scorching and tumbling the walls, burying us in its wreckage could’ve stopped the unbreakable reconnection we were forging.

There’s a sweet kind of abyss in the unknown. In diving headfirst into whatever the universe sends one’s way. "Whether we confront that unknown or evade it, it remains there, a silent test, one that we ultimately must pass or fail. Whether it be at that moment or in thirty years’ time, the test will never fade for we are that test. We are the sum of many tests that we sit through without even knowing. They forge us in fire, strengthening us like we were steel, and that is why we must embrace change. "Today is the first change as we pass from adolescence into adulthood, and as we sit here today, or in my case, stand, we face the unknown of the future and rather than fear it, we’re excited for it. Today, we’re passing our first test as an adult.

Beth went over the tally sheet in her head, trying to make it add up. What had begun as treachery had morphed into something else. She had been through fire and was stronger for it. Forged in the flame of a New York summer. And what have I learned? she asked herself. That no one friend could give you everything. That complex friends came with complex agendas. That liars tell the best stories.

What had begun as treachery had morphed into something else. She had been through fire and was stronger for it. Forged in the flame of a New York summer. And what have I learned? she asked herself. That no one friend could give you everything. That complex friends came with complex agendas. That liars tell the best stories

Olivia slipped her arms around my waist and hugged me tightly. I grabbed Disco and pulled him into the embrace. We were all laughing, more shaky chuckles than anything else, but laughing nonetheless. Emotions overwhelmed me: disbelief, joy, amazement, and perhaps love, for I was experiencing right then a kind of brotherhood with Disco and Olivia I had never before experienced, one forged through trial by fire. We had been tested beyond reasonable limits, we had stuck together in the face of adversity, and we had survived.

This sword has been passed down through my family for generations. It was forged in dragon fire from the bones of a white dragon killed centuries ago

With the web uncovered, the intricacies of the belowground alliance still remained a mystery to me, until I started my doctoral research in 1992. Paper birches, with their lush leaves and gossamer bark, seemed to be feeding the soil and helping their coniferous neighbors. But how? In pulling back the forest floor using microscopic and genetic tools, I discovered that the vast belowground mycelial network was a bustling community of mycorrhizal fungal species. These fungi are mutualistic. They connect the trees with the soil in a market exchange of carbon and nutrients and link the roots of paper birches and Douglas firs in a busy, cooperative Internet. When the interwoven birches and firs were spiked with stable and radioactive isotopes, I could see, using mass spectrometers and scintillation counters, carbon being transmitted back and forth between the trees, like neurotransmitters firing in our own neural networks. The trees were communicating through the web! I was staggered to discover that Douglas firs were receiving more photosynthetic carbon from paper birches than they were transmitting, especially when the firs were in the shade of their leafy neighbors. This helped explain the synergy of the pair’s relationship. The birches, it turns out, were spurring the growth of the firs, like carers in human social networks. Looking further, we discovered that the exchange between the two tree species was dynamic: each took different turns as “mother,” depending on the season. And so, they forged their duality into a oneness, making a forest. This discovery was published by Nature in 1997 and called the “wood wide web.” The research has continued unabated ever since, undertaken by students, postdoctoral researchers, and other scientists, with a myriad of discoveries about belowground communication among trees. We have used new scientific tools, as they are invented, along with our curiosity and dreams, to peer into the dark world of the soil and illuminate the social network of trees. The wood wide web has been mapped, traced, monitored, and coaxed to reveal the beautiful structures and finely adapted languages of the forest network. We have learned that mother trees recognize and talk with their kin, shaping future generations. In addition, injured trees pass their legacies on to their neighbors, affecting gene regulation, defense chemistry, and resilience in the forest community. These discoveries have transformed our understanding of trees from competitive crusaders of the self to members of a connected, relating, communicating system. Ours is not the only lab making these discoveries—there is a burst of careful scientific research occurring worldwide that is uncovering all manner of ways that trees communicate with each other above and below ground.

He said he was, but I didn’t believe him,” Mom said, and I heard her shake her head through the phone. “But he told me that whatever happened to him would affect you and that you needed to know about him sooner rather than later.” “And this was in your dream?” I checked with her. “Don’t sound so skeptical, Mister I-Can-Touch-Fire-With-My-Bare-Hands,” Mom snapped playfully.

Or maybe that goal wasn't ever meant to be yours. Maybe you are destine for something so much cooler, which won't come until five years down the road. Maybe you have to walk through this space you're in to be ready for that. Nothing is wasted. Every single moment is preparing you for the next. But whether or not you choose to see this time as something wonderful- the time when God is stretching you and growing you or maybe forging you in fires hotter than you think you can withstand- all of it is growing you for the person you're becoming, for a future you can't even imagine.

The fire in the library was colorless. You could look right through it, as if it were a sheet of glass. Where the flame had any color, it was pale blue. It was so hot that it appeared icy. Hamel said he felt like he was standing inside a blacksmith’s forge.

When we’re thrown into this world we all start out as prey. If you’re lucky someone protects you, if you’re not then your parents or family become your first experience with predators. If you survive all this, as you grow you become stronger. Some stay prey their whole lives, scared of every leering face, every raised voice, every clenched fist. Some fight back, find they can hurt as well as get hurt. They discover they like it. They become predators. They think they are the strong ones. But they aren’t. The real strong ones are a different breed than the other two altogether. They also fight back, but they get no thrill from the victory. From an early age, they feel a pull to escape not only the predator prey cycle, but the entire society that spawned it, they would rather forge through the wilderness and hack out a place of their own without wasting one moment regretting their rejection of a dying, cannibalistic culture. These wild ones, they’re the ones to watch. If they ever find each other, they could change everything. Not through politics, which is the illusion of change while making sure nothing does, and not through revolution. They could change things by creating something so much better, so much more appealing that people will abandon the old world cycle of abuser and abused in droves till there is nothing left but a handful of elites screaming, “Come back, come back, we have tv, we have cool cars and fidget spinners, don’t miss out on your fidget spinners.” So, if you’re one of those wild ones and you cut yourself out a little piece in the wilderness, burn a big, bright fire at night so the rest of us can find you.

I’d rather you tell me that you don’t want to do something instead of pushing through it.

When humans go through something hard, they react in one to two ways. They come out on the other side either better or worse. It's impossible to walk through hell and leave it the same way you went in. Nobody walks through fire unscathed. You either burn up into ashes or you get forged in the flames and emerge as something new.

Family, friends, teammates... there isn't a place this killer hasn't attacked... Yet, with all this devastation, my hope, faith, and inner circle remain unwavering... forged by the same fire that threatens us. We will get through this. We will be stronger because of it.

When the interwoven birches and firs were spiked with stable and radioactive isotopes, I could see, using mass spectrometers and scintillation counters, carbon being transmitted back and forth between the trees, like neurotransmitters firing in our own neural networks. The trees were communicating through the web! I was staggered to discover that Douglas firs were receiving more photosynthetic carbon from paper birches than they were transmitting, especially when the firs were in the shade of their leafy neighbors. This helped explain the synergy of the pair’s relationship. The birches, it turns out, were spurring the growth of the firs, like carers in human social networks. Looking further, we discovered that the exchange between the two tree species was dynamic: each took different turns as “mother,” depending on the season. And so, they forged their duality into a oneness, making a forest. This discovery was published by Nature in 1997 and called the “wood wide web.

Poem of the Phalanx (Perception as Visual Personal Art) Memories, shard, intersect and twitch, Create images anew as they inter and switch. Amid blackness eternal, the ground breaks the day And the shape which cuts the ground— Phalanx in time—reapers way. 5 Thoughts as geometric planes galley the night mind, Images thoughted, float raging ever by. Comets to the mind–bolt outta the black they mortise and fly– Disappear they do–into their midnighted cry. (Yea, evil is wrought from the want of the want of Love’s lost ought. 10 Goodness wrights of the abundance of Love in blood ’twas bought. —Live the moment within God’s Mind too, For once missed she will pass by you. But He alone shall remember thy days, For in His Heart He will hold thy ways. 15 (. . . Surmount untold; reproaching its summits hidden self face, Can’t make for a daydrop of lost opportunity and regret’s disgrace. Yes, eternities of regrets can never create The day’s bested instance that was forsaked). Fleets of illusion harbor and snag, 20 Bristled spears impale with emotive jags. Willish anvil beaten and enhammored in bers red embs, Guards the hellgates unhinged in forged remembered contems. (Aye, the anvil of will beaten and wrought Sentinels the gate ripped in forged oughts). 25 Phalanx of dreams penetrate they deep, Guard thy soul they do lest the enemy storms thy keep. They rancor and barb thyself under penalty of arms, And kill the dragons that would do thee most harm. Yea, in the Belly of the Beast thy wounds do feel pierced, 30 For Love Eternal must cut darkness as the Spirit is so fierce. The hour of shadows exalt—! ’Gainst the Christ in His plain splin‴try array– Yet curshed in a moment on that ill-fated day. The way of caution doth forbear to tread beyond the mire In those bleak hours when the ‘Powers that Be’ seek to solace thee in thy soulish desires. 35 Mercy travails deep upon the Fires of His Winds To heal by His cut; His own everlasting His– Is to die to Love Eternal with He, –as He now does and is . . . Hell for others, heaven for some, His work ’tis finished all given and in all thrust done. 40 As Love rejoices His shed blood run red for thee—, —Things Divined and precioius for you and for me forever in He (The spear that killed Him gave Him life –the enemy’s travesty). Phalanx comes, phalanx goes, Wither are thou—dost thousest know? 45 Are ye pierced through and through out within? Seek his face so life may begin Sharp keys to hell the warriors doth say, Yet unlock they the gate to heaven’s pathway. End