Serpent Deep Quotes

A person's shadow stood for his legacy, his impact on the world. Some people cast hardly any shadow at all. Some cast long, deep shadows that endured for centuries.

You might not think a hippo could inspire terror. Screaming “Hippo!” doesn’t have the same impact as screaming “Shark!” But I’m telling you—as the Egyptian Queen careened to one side, its paddle wheel lifting completely out of the water, and I saw that monster emerge from the deep, I nearly discovered the hieroglyphs for accident in my pants.

Séverin Montagnet-Alarie knew there was only one difference between monsters and gods. Both inspired fear. Only one inspired worship.

Are you purring at me?" "I might be," Rune said. His deep voice was rougher, and lazy with intimacy. "Unless you've done something wrong. Then I'm growling at you again.

Deep down, I’d known how this would end all along. I’d sensed it from the moment we’d first met, from the time I’d first glimpsed the Balisarda in his bandolier—two star-crossed lovers brought together by fate or providence. By life and by death. By gods, or perhaps monsters. We would end with a stake and a match.

I turned to face Reid, startled to find him directly behind me. His eyes fixed on mine with a deep, unsettling intensity that hadn’t been there before. “Truth or dare.” Butterflies erupted in my belly as he stepped closer still. Heat washed across every inch of my skin. “Truth.” He shook his head slowly. I swallowed hard. “Dare.” “Kiss me.

She shouted at Rune, “You did not just do that!” His deep voice sounded overhead. “How is that disbelief working out for you?

Order is the Shire of Tolkien’s hobbits: peaceful, productive and safely inhabitable, even by the naive. Chaos is the underground kingdom of the dwarves, usurped by Smaug, the treasure-hoarding serpent. Chaos is the deep ocean bottom to which Pinocchio voyaged to rescue his father from Monstro, whale and fire-breathing dragon. That journey into darkness and rescue is the most difficult thing a puppet must do, if he wants to be real; if he wants to extract himself from the temptations of deceit and acting and victimization and impulsive pleasure and totalitarian subjugation; if he wants to take his place as a genuine Being in the world.

Admirable, however, as the Paris of the present day appears to you, build up and put together again in imagination the Paris of the fifteenth century; look at the light through that surprising host of steeples, towers, and belfries; pour forth amid the immense city, break against the points of its islands, compress within the arches of the bridges, the current of the Seine, with its large patches of green and yellow, more changeable than a serpent's skin; define clearly the Gothic profile of this old Paris upon an horizon of azure, make its contour float in a wintry fog which clings to its innumerable chimneys; drown it in deep night, and observe the extraordinary play of darkness and light in this sombre labyrinth of buildings; throw into it a ray of moonlight, which shall show its faint outline and cause the huge heads of the towers to stand forth from amid the mist; or revert to that dark picture, touch up with shade the thousand acute angles of the spires and gables, and make them stand out, more jagged than a shark's jaw, upon the copper-coloured sky of evening. Now compare the two.

But deep under the earth, where the corpse serpent gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasil, the tree of life, there are three spinners. Three women who make our fate. We might believe we make choices, but in truth our lives are in the spinners' fingers. They make our lives, and destiny is everything. The Danes know that, and even the Christians know it, Wyrd biõ ful araed, we Saxons say, fate is inexorable.

The serpent closed in, closer and closer, its lethal promise igniting something deep within Abitha’s breast: the primordial need of every creature that has ever been hurt by another—the need to bite back.

The feeling was a sword thrust as deep as anything he had ever felt, piercing through his body. It seemed like he had been falling for a very long while, and each time he realized it, he had fallen a little deeper, a little further. He had never known that falling in love could be as helpless and complete as this.

The woman is perfected. Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment, The illusion of a Greek necessity Flows in the scrolls of her toga, Her bare Feet seem to be saying: We have come so far, it is over. Each dead child coiled, a white serpent, One at each little Pitcher of milk, now empty. She has folded Them back into her body as petals Of a rose close when the garden Stiffens and odors bleed From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower. The moon has nothing to be sad about, Staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.

A person’s shadow stood for his legacy, his impact on the world. Some people cast hardly any shadow at all. Some cast long, deep shadows that endured for centuries. I thought about what the ghost Setne had said—how he and I had each grown up in the shadow of a famous father. I realized now that he hadn’t just meant it as a figure of speech. My dad cast a powerful shadow that still affected me and the whole world. If a person cast no shadow at all, he couldn’t be alive. His existence became meaningless. Execrating Apophis by destroying his shadow would cut his connection to the mortal world completely. He’d never be able to rise again. I finally understood why he’d been so anxious to burn Setne’s scrolls, and why he was afraid of this spell.

But in this moment, I came to the horrifying realization that I would never be able to carve Raihn from my heart. He had embedded too deep. Roots through stone.

Le regole per scrivere bene (adattate da Umberto Eco) 1. Evita le allitterazioni, anche se allettano gli allocchi. 2. Non è che il congiuntivo va evitato, anzi, che lo si usa quando necessario. 3. Evita le frasi fatte: è minestra riscaldata. 4. Esprimiti siccome ti nutri. 5. Non usare sigle commerciali & abbreviazioni etc. 6. Ricorda (sempre) che la parentesi (anche quando pare indispensabile) interrompe il filo del discorso. 7. Stai attento a non fare... indigestione di puntini di sospensione. 8. Usa meno virgolette possibili: non è “fine”. 9. Non generalizzare mai. 10. Le parole straniere non fanno affatto bon ton. 11. Sii avaro di citazioni. Diceva giustamente Emerson: “Odio le citazioni. Dimmi solo quello che sai tu.” 12. I paragoni sono come le frasi fatte. 13. Non essere ridondante; non ripetere due volte la stessa cosa; ripetere è superfluo (per ridondanza s’intende la spiegazione inutile di qualcosa che il lettore ha già capito). 14. Solo gli stronzi usano parole volgari. 15. Sii sempre più o meno specifico. 16. L'iperbole è la più straordinaria delle tecniche espressive. 17. Non fare frasi di una sola parola. Eliminale. 18. Guardati dalle metafore troppo ardite: sono piume sulle scaglie di un serpente. 19. Metti, le virgole, al posto giusto. 20. Distingui tra la funzione del punto e virgola e quella dei due punti: anche se non è facile. 21. Se non trovi l’espressione italiana adatta non ricorrere mai all’espressione dialettale: peso e! tacòn del buso. 22. Non usare metafore incongruenti anche se ti paiono “cantare”: sono come un cigno che deraglia. 23. C’è davvero bisogno di domande retoriche? 24. Sii conciso, cerca di condensare i tuoi pensieri nel minor numero di parole possibile, evitando frasi lunghe — o spezzate da incisi che inevitabilmente confondono il lettore poco attento — affinché il tuo discorso non contribuisca a quell’inquinamento dell’informazione che è certamente (specie quando inutilmente farcito di precisazioni inutili, o almeno non indispensabili) una delle tragedie di questo nostro tempo dominato dal potere dei media. 25. Gli accenti non debbono essere nè scorretti nè inutili, perchè chi lo fà sbaglia. 26. Non si apostrofa un’articolo indeterminativo prima del sostantivo maschile. 27. Non essere enfatico! Sii parco con gli esclamativi! 28. Neppure i peggiori fans dei barbarismi pluralizzano i termini stranieri. 29. Scrivi in modo esatto i nomi stranieri, come Beaudelaire, Roosewelt, Niezsche, e simili. 30. Nomina direttamente autori e personaggi di cui parli, senza perifrasi. Così faceva il maggior scrittore lombardo del XIX secolo, l’autore del 5 maggio. 31. All’inizio del discorso usa la captatio benevolentiae, per ingraziarti il lettore (ma forse siete così stupidi da non capire neppure quello che vi sto dicendo). 32. Cura puntiliosamente l’ortograffia. 33. Inutile dirti quanto sono stucchevoli le preterizioni. 34. Non andare troppo sovente a capo. Almeno, non quando non serve. 35. Non usare mai il plurale majestatis. Siamo convinti che faccia una pessima impressione. 36. Non confondere la causa con l’effetto: saresti in errore e dunque avresti sbagliato. 37. Non costruire frasi in cui la conclusione non segua logicamente dalle premesse: se tutti facessero così, allora le premesse conseguirebbero dalle conclusioni. 38. Non indulgere ad arcaismi, apax legomena o altri lessemi inusitati, nonché deep structures rizomatiche che, per quanto ti appaiano come altrettante epifanie della differanza grammatologica e inviti alla deriva decostruttiva – ma peggio ancora sarebbe se risultassero eccepibili allo scrutinio di chi legga con acribia ecdotica – eccedano comunque le competente cognitive del destinatario. 39. Non devi essere prolisso, ma neppure devi dire meno di quello che. 40. Una frase compiuta deve avere.

Deep down, I'd known how this would end all along. I'd sensed it from the moment we'd first met, from the time I'd first glimpsed the Balisarda in his bandolier- two star-crossed lover brought together by fate or providence. By life and by death. By gods, or perhaps monsters. We would end with a stake and match.

Mind you, I cannot swear that my story is true. It may have been a dream; or worse, a symptom of some severe mental disorder. But I believe it is true. After all, how are we to know what things there are on earth? Strange monstrosities still exist, and foul, incredible perversions. Every war, each new geographical or scientific discovery, brings to light some new bit of ghastly evidence that the world is not altogether the same place we fondly imagine it to be. Sometimes peculiar incidents occur which hint of utter madness. How can we be sure that our smug conceptions of reality actually exist? To one man in a million dreadful knowledge is revealed, and the rest of us remain mercifully ignorant. There have been travelers who never came back, and research workers who disappeared. Some of those who did return were deemed mad because of what they told, and others sensibly concealed the wisdom that had so horribly been revealed. Blind as we are, we know a little of what lurks beneath our normal life. There have been tales of sea serpents and creatures of the deep; legends of dwarfs and giants; records of queer medical horrors and unnatural births. Stunted nightmares of men's personalities have blossomed into being under the awful stimulus of war, or pestilence, or famine. There have been cannibals, necrophiles, and ghouls; loathsome rites of worship and sacrifice; maniacal murders, and blasphemous crimes. When I think, then, of what I saw and heard, and compare it with certain other grotesque and unbelievable authenticities, I begin to fear for my reason. ("The Mannikin")

Oh, Charmian, Where think’st thou he is now? Stands he or sits he? Or does he walk? Or is he on his horse? O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony! Do bravely, horse, for wott’st thou whom thou mov’st? The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm And burgonet of men. He’s speaking now, Or murmuring “Where’s my serpent of old Nile?” For so he calls me. Now I feed myself With most delicious poison. Think on me, That am with Phoebus’ amorous pinches black And wrinkled deep in time. Broad-fronted Caesar, When thou wast here above the ground, I was A morsel for a monarch. And great Pompey Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow. There would he anchor his aspect, and die With looking on his life.

He will always be waiting, I realize. He will never go away. And in time, I may find myself his first mate whether I want to or not, journeying to points exotic so that I might make another dive, and another, and another. And maybe one day I'll dive so deep that the Abyssal Serpent will catch me, and I'll never find my way back. No sense in denying that such things happen. But it's not going to happen today—and there is a deep, abiding comfort in that. Deep enough to carry me through till tomorrow.

Stone waited there in groundling form, his opaque expression somehow conveying a deep disgust with all of them, but especially Moon.

A lifetime of fear and caution, and finally, the opportunity to leave my mark on the world, not with broken fingernails but with teeth that could bite just as deep as theirs.

When your heart flows broad and full like a river, a blessing and a danger to those living near: there is the origin of your virtue. When you are above praise and blame, and your will wants to command all things, like a lover's will: there is the origin of your virtue. When you despise the agreeable and the soft bed and cannot bed yourself far enough from the soft: there is the origin of your virtue. When you will with a single will and you call this cessation of all need "necessity": there is the origin of your virtue. Verily, a new good and evil is she. Verily, a new deep murmur and the voice of a new well! Power is she, this new virtue; a dominant thought is she, and around her a wise soul: a golden sun, and around it the serpent of knowledge.

Once I'm through the doors, I often pause to take in the grandeur of the lobby. It never tarnishes. It never grows drab or dusty. It never dulls or fades. It is blessedly the same each and every day. There's the reception and concierge to the left, with its midnight-obsidian counter and smart-looking receptionists in black and white, like penguins. And there's the ample lobby itself, laid out in a horseshoe, with its fine Italian marble floors that radiate pristine white, drawing the eye up, up to the second-floor terrace. There are the ornate Art Deco features of the terrace and the grand marble staircase that brings you there, balustrades glowing and opulent, serpents twisting up to golden knobs held static in brass jaws. Guests will often stand at the rails, hands resting on a glowing post, as they survey the glorious scene below—porters marching crisscross, dragging suitcases behind them, guests lounging in sumptuous armchairs or couples tucked into emerald love seats, their secrets absorbed into the deep, plush velvet.

Eve wondered what mental illness tasted like to a serpent. Probably depended on the illness, she rationalized. Deep trauma would naturally be raw, pus, and ooze. Something like schizophrenia would be rancid on the outside, frozen and cold at its core. But Eve's mania, her continued depression, her anxiety, she felt would be dry and burnt, as if stuck in a deep freeze too long. Frosty and unsatisfying to the animal devouring it.

There is no such thing as liberty,' she heard the quiet, deep, dangerous voice of Don Ramón repeating. 'There is no such thing as liberty. The greatest liberators are usually slaves of an idea. The freest people are slaves to convention and public opinion, and more still, slaves to the industrial machine. There is no such thing as liberty. You only change one sort of domination for another. All we can do is to choose our master.

There was a wicked man once who called a hatani. ‘Kill my neighbor,’ he said. ‘That’s not hatani business,’ the hatani said and went away. The wicked man found another hatani. ‘My life is wretched,’ the wicked man said. ‘I hate my neighbor. I want to see him die,’ ‘That is a hatani matter,’ the hatani said. ‘Do you give it into my hands?’ ‘Yes,’ the wicked man said. And the hatani struck him dead. Do you understand the solution?” Thorn

Thereforeonyourjourneybesuretotakegoldencupsfull of the sweet drink oflife, red wine, and give it to dead matter, so that it can win life back The dead matter will change into black serpents. Do not be frightened, the serpents will immediately put out the sun of your days, and a night with wonderful will-o'-the-wisps will come over YOU. 140 Take pains to waken the dead. Dig deep mines and throw in sacrificial gifts, so that they reach the dead. Reflect in good heart upon evil, this is the way to the ascent. But before the ascent, everything is night and Hell. . What do you think of the essence of Hell? Hell is when the depths come to you with all that you no longer are or are not yet capable of Hell is when you can no longer attain what you could attain. Hell is when you must thinlc and feel and do everything that you know you do not want. Hell is when you know that your havingtoisalsoawantingto,andthatyouyourselfareresponsible for it. Hell is when you know that everything serious that you have planned with yourself is also laughable, that everything fine is also brutal, that everything good is also bad, that everything high is also low, and that everything pleasant is also shameful. But the deepest Hell is when you realize that Hell is also no Hell, but a cheerful Heaven, not a Heaven in itself, but in this respect a Heaven, and in that respect a Hell. That is the ambiguity of the God: he is born from a dark ambiguity and rises to a bright ambiguity. Unequivocalness is simplicityandleadstodeath.141Butambiguityisthewayoflife.142 If the left foot does not move, then the right one does, and you move. The God wills this.143 You say: the Christian God is unequivocal, he is 10ve.l44 But what is more ambiguous than love? Love is the way of life, but your love is only on the way oflife ifyou have a left and a right. Nothing is easier than to play at ambiguity and nothing is more difficult than living ambiguity. He who plays is a child; his God is old and dies. He who lives is awakened; his God is young and goes on. He who plays hides from the inner death. He who lives feels the going onward and immortality. So leave the play to the players. Let fall what wants to fall; if you stop it, it will sweep you away. There is a true love that does not concern itself with neighbors.

In water so fine, a few minutes of bad memory all but disappear downstream, washed away by ten thousand belly busters, a million cannonballs. Paradise was never heaven-high when I was a boy but waist-deep, an oasis of cutoff blue jeans and raggedy Converse sneakers, sweating bottles of Nehi Grape and Orange Crush, and this stream. I remember the antidote of icy water against my blistered skin, and the taste of mushy tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches, unwrapped from twice-used aluminum foil. I saw my first water moccasin here, and my first real girl, and being a child of the foot washers I have sometimes wondered if this was my Eden, and my serpent. If it was, I didn't hold out any longer than that first poor fool did.

Quetzalcoatl The serpent dressed in lime-green feathers Is the totem of an Aztec priest. It slithers through all rainy weathers Commanding the respect of man and beast. Who would suspect this mighty serpent For whom the Pyramids were built Was nagged to death by a Jewish yent- a, who filled his goyish head with guilt. Deep in the jungle one can hear The piercing battle cry of Mrs. Katz, who says, 'Nu, take an umbrella; Oy, wear your your galoshes, dear. If you Quetz-al-coatl, who’s gonna take care of you?

The more south we were, the more deep a sky it seemed, till, in the Valley of Mexico, I thought it held back an element too strong for life, and that the flamy brilliance of blue stood off this menace and sometimes, like a sheath or silk membrane, shoed the weight it held in sags. So when later he would fly high over the old craters on the plain, coaly bubbles of the underworld, dangerous red everywhere from the sun, and then coats of snow on the peak of the cones—gliding like a Satan—well, it was here the old priests, before the Spaniards, waited for Aldebaran to come into the middle of heaven to tell them whether or not life would go on for another cycle, and when they received their astronomical sign built their new fire inside the split and emptied chest of a human sacrifice. And also, hereabouts, worshipers disguised as gods and as gods in the disguise of birds, jumped from platforms fixed on long poles, and glided as they spun by the ropes—feathered serpents, and eagles too, the voladores, or fliers. There still are such plummeters, in market places, as there seem to be remnants or conversions or equivalents of all the old things. Instead of racks or pyramids of skulls still in their hair and raining down scraps of flesh there are corpses of dogs, rats, horses, asses, by the roads; the bones dug out of the rented graves are thrown on a pile when the lease is up; and there are the coffins looking like such a rough joke on the female form, sold in the open shops, black, white, gray, and in all sizes, with their heavy death fringes daubed in Sapolio silver on the black. Beggars in dog voices on the church steps enact the last feebleness for you with ancient Church Spanish, and show their old flails of stump and their sores. The burden carriers with the long lines, hemp lines they wind over their foreheads to hold the loads on their backs, lie in the garbage at siesta and give themselves the same exhibited neglect the dead are shown. Which is all to emphasize how openly death is received everywhere, in the beauty of the place, and how it is acknowledged that anyone may be roughly handled—the proudest—pinched, slapped, and set down, thrown down; for death throws even worse in men’s faces and makes it horrible and absurd that one never touched should be roughly dumped under, dumped upon.

She seemed to him neither man nor woman, but some other sex entirely. How she stood in the window with a hand pressed to the scooped hollow of her back, how once between her shoulder blades he’d seen sweat blot her dress: these gave him a thirst he was afraid he could never drink deep enough to sate.

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Jesus Himself acknowledged that when we go into our world, we are being sent as sheep among wolves—even in the church at large. Everyone is at a different level of maturity. When I begin spending time with a new friend, I have learned to be aware of warning signs to avoid long-term hurt. If a woman is constantly critical of others; carries lots of drama; tells me secrets and then always says, “Don’t tell anyone”; is fearful, gossips, or is not humble but defensive when corrected, I see these as cautions.

Though weeks, even months, have at times gone by without contact, when we were separated by distance and occupied with busy lives and raising families, the thread of connection had continued true and deep, allowing us to pick up where we left off, as if there had been no time lost. Time had never been a part of the equation.

THE FOUR CROWN PRINCES OF HELL SATAN - (Hebrew) adversary, opposite, accuser, Lord of fire, the inferno, the south LUCIFER - (Roman) bringer of light, enlightenment, the air, the morning star, the east BELIAL - (Hebrew) without a master, baseness of the earth, independence, the north LEVIATHAN - (Hebrew) the serpent out of the deeps, the sea, the west

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.

Warriors all rose uneagerly shuffled under Earnanaes lagging with sorrow to look upon death. They found on the sand their soulless gift-lord still and wordless there who served and ruled them for fifty winters—the final life-day had come for the good one—the Geats’ hall-master dear warrior-king died a wonder-death. There they discovered that cooling fire-snake stretched upon the earth, seething no more 3040 with foul flame-death flying no longer with burning bellows, blackened with death. Fifty long feet was his full length-measure stretched on the fire-field. He flew in hate-joy seared through the nights then soared at daybreak to his grayrock den—now death stilled him ended his slumber in that stony barrow. By him were heaped bracelets and gem-cups jeweled gold-dishes great treasure-swords darkened with rust from their deep earth-home 3050 a thousand winters walled against light. Those ancient heirlooms earned much curse-power old gold-treasure gripped in a spell— no one might touch them those nameless stone-riches no good or bad man unless God himself the great Glory-King might give to someone to open that hoard that heap of treasures, a certain warrior as seemed meet to him. They found no happiness who first buried there wealth in the ground—again it was hidden 3060 by an only survivor till an angered serpent singed for a cup till swords cooled him sent him deathwards. Strange are the ways how the king of a country will come to the end of his loaned life-span when at last he vanishes gone from the meadhall his gold and his kin. So it was with Beowulf when he bore his shield to that roaring night-flyer.

A person’s shadow stood for his legacy, his impact on the world. Some people cast hardly any shadow at all. Some cast long, deep shadows that endured for centuries. I thought about what the ghost Setne had said – how he and I had each grown up in the shadow of a famous father. I realized now that he hadn’t just meant it as a figure of speech. My dad cast a powerful shadow that still affected me and the whole world. If

Fafhrd felt as if he had walked unsuspecting into the jaws of a gigantic serpent. His barbaric mind was stirred to the deeps. He thought of the grim god Kos brooding alone in the icy silence of the Cold Waste. He thought of the masked powers Fate and Chance, and of the game they play for the blood and brains of men. And he did not will these thoughts. Rather did the freezing fear seem to crystallize them, so that they dropped into his consciousness like snowflakes.

The fabric was smooth and silky and a dark, rich violet—a strangely familiar shade I couldn’t place. The front fell into a deep V, the top structured enough to define the curve of my breasts. It was held up by black metal chain straps, and that same glistening ebony metal encircled the bodice, adorning my ribcage in a manner reminiscent of armor. The back was low and open, the long chains crossing over my back. The skirt pooled lightly around my feet, which donned delicate silver sandals.

What was injected into Eve’s mind and affections during the conversation with the Serpent was a deep-seated suspicion of God that was soon further twisted into rebellion against him. The root of her antinomianism (opposition to and breach of the law) was actually the legalism that was darkening her understanding, dulling her senses, and destroying her affection for her heavenly Father. Now, like a pouting child of the most generous father, she acted as though she wanted to say to God, “You never give me anything. You insist on me earning everything I am ever going to have.

Ernst of Edelsheim I'll tell the story, kissing   This white hand for my pains: No sweeter heart, nor falser   E'er filled such fine, blue veins. I'll sing a song of true love,   My Lilith dear! to you; Contraria contrariis—   The rule is old and true. The happiest of all lovers   Was Ernst of Edelsheim; And why he was the happiest,   I'll tell you in my rhyme. One summer night he wandered   Within a lonely glade, And, couched in moss and moonlight,   He found a sleeping maid. The stars of midnight sifted   Above her sands of gold; She seemed a slumbering statue,   So fair and white and cold. Fair and white and cold she lay   Beneath the starry skies; Rosy was her waking   Beneath the Ritter's eyes. He won her drowsy fancy,   He bore her to his towers, And swift with love and laughter   Flew morning's purpled hours. But when the thickening sunbeams   Had drunk the gleaming dew, A misty cloud of sorrow   Swept o'er her eyes' deep blue. She hung upon the Ritter's neck, S he wept with love and pain, She showered her sweet, warm kisses   Like fragrant summer rain. "I am no Christian soul," she sobbed,   As in his arms she lay; "I'm half the day a woman,   A serpent half the day. "And when from yonder bell-tower   Rings out the noonday chime, Farewell! farewell forever,   Sir Ernst of Edelsheim!" "Ah! not farewell forever!"   The Ritter wildly cried, "I will be saved or lost with thee,   My lovely Wili-Bride!" Loud from the lordly bell-tower   Rang out the noon of day, And from the bower of roses   A serpent slid away. But when the mid-watch moonlight   Was shimmering through the grove, He clasped his bride thrice dowered   With beauty and with love. The happiest of all lovers   Was Ernst of Edelsheim— His true love was a serpent   Only half the time!

Visual images of the Goddesses stand in stark contrast to the image of God as an old white man, jarring us to question our culture's view that all legitimate power is male and that female power is dangerous and evil. The image of the naked Eve brazenly taking the apple from the serpent, then cowering in shame before a wrathful male God, tells us not only that female will is the source of all the evil in the universe, but also that the naked female body is part of the problem. This image communicates to the deep mind the message that female will and female nakedness must be controlled and punished by male authority. In contrast, the Goddesses show us that the female can be symbolic of all that is creative and powerful in the universe. The simplest and most profound meaning of the image of the Goddess is the legitimacy and goodness of female power, the female body, and female will.

Beneath the bed of the river, below silts almost a storey thick, rested the remains of almost sixteen thousand citizens of Letheras. Their bones filled ancient wells that had been drilled before the river’s arrival – before the drainage course from the far eastern mountains changed cataclysmically, making the serpent lash its tail, the torrent carving a new channel, one that inundated a nascent city countless millennia ago. Letherii engineers centuries past had stumbled upon these submerged constructs, wondering at the humped corridors and the domed chambers, wondering at the huge, deep wells with their clear, cold water. And baffled to explain how such tunnels remained more or less dry, the cut channels seeming to absorb water like runners of sponge. No records existed any more recounting these discoveries – the tunnels and chambers and wells were lost knowledge to all but a chosen few. And of the existence of parallel passages, the hidden doors in the walls of corridors, and the hundreds of lesser tombs, not even those few were aware. Certain secrets belonged exclusively to the gods.

Its chief covering seemed to me to be composed of large wings folded over its breast and reaching to its knees; the rest of its attire was composed of an under tunic and leggings of some thin fibrous material. It wore on its head a kind of tiara that shone with jewels, and carried in its right hand a slender staff of bright metal like polished steel. But the face! it was that which inspired my awe and my terror. It was the face of man, but yet of a type of man distinct from our known extant races. The nearest approach to it in outline and expression is the face of the sculptured sphinx—so regular in its calm, intellectual, mysterious beauty. Its colour was peculiar, more like that of the red man than any other variety of our species, and yet different from it—a richer and a softer hue, with large black eyes, deep and brilliant, and brows arched as a semicircle. The face was beardless; but a nameless something in the aspect, tranquil though the expression, and beauteous though the features, roused that instinct of danger which the sight of a tiger or serpent arouses. I felt that this manlike image was endowed with forces inimical to man.

Muriah approached him with a new pair of khakis and a couple of T-shirts. “I guessed at the size so you might want to go try these on first.” He took the clothes and slid his arm around her waist, maneuvering her toward the fitting room. “Hey, I didn’t sign on to be your dresser.” She grumbled, but didn’t struggle. He pulled the door closed and turned to meet her eyes. “It’s light in here and full of people. Apep will not be able to surprise us, and his serpents cannot spy. We need to talk.” *** He stripped off the wet shirt, exposing his chiseled torso. She did her best not to choke on her tongue. His tanned skin and taut muscles tempted her, luring her to touch him. Turning around to give him privacy seemed like the right thing to do, but there wasn’t a hint of modesty in this Mayan god, and if he could handle getting this personal, then she could, too. When he unzipped the wet pants, she held her breath. Would an ancient guy wear underwear? She was about to find out. He bent over to lower the wet slacks. When he straightened up, she realized he’d been talking, but she didn’t have a clue what he had said. Instead, all her attention was focused on a fine trail of dark hair leading from just below his navel and disappearing under the low-slung elastic band of his boxer briefs. “Muriah?” Her gaze snapped up to meet his. Thank the universe he couldn’t read her thoughts. “Yeah?” “Did you hear my question?” He stood two feet from her in only his underwear, and he thought she was listening? He was either completely unaware of his sex appeal, or he was way too accustomed to being obeyed. Probably both. She cleared her throat. “I must’ve missed it.” A spark lit his eyes that told her he might have more than a clue to his sex appeal. He picked up the T-shirt and pulled it on. “I asked if you knew of another hotel closer to the airport so we can get out of New York as soon as the sun sets tomorrow.” “I’m sure I can find one.” She pulled out her phone, grateful to have something to pretend to focus on besides him tucking his package into the new khakis she pulled off the rack for him. “I probably should’ve grabbed some dry underwear, too.” “They are nearly dry now. I will be fine.” He popped the tags off, and she glanced up from her hotel search. “They’re not going to like you taking the tags off before you pay.” The corner of his mouth curved up. “They will be honored to take my money.” She groaned and rolled her eyes. “Do you ever not get your way?” He stepped closer to her, his chest an inch from hers until her back pressed against the modular wall of the fitting room. “Rarely.” His dark gaze held hers, and the deep rumble of his voice sent heat through her body. “But some things are worth the extra effort.

Moses Come. When? Now. This way. I will guide you. Wait! Not so fast. Hurry. You. I said you. Who am I? Certainly I will be with thee. Is nothing, then, what it is? I had rather the rod had stayed a rod and not become a serpent. Come. Quickly. While the blast of my breath opens the sea. Stop. I'm thirsty. Drink water from this rock. But the rock moves on before us. Go with it and drink. I'm tired. Can't you stop for a while? You have already tarried too long. But if I am to follow you I must know your name. I will be that I will be. You have set the mountain on fire. Come. Climb. I will be lost in the terror of your cloud. You are stiff-necked and of a stiff-necked people. YOUR poeple, Lord, Indubitably. Your wrath waxes hot. I burn. Thus to become great. Show me, then, they glory. No man may see my face and live. But I will cover you with my hand while I pass by. My people turn away and cry because the skin of my face shines Did you not expect this? I cannot enter the tent of the congregation while your cloud covers it and your glory fills the tabernacle. Look. It moves before us again. Can you not stay still? Come. Follow. But this river is death. The waters are dark and deep. Swim. Now will I see your face? Where are you taking me now? Up the mountain with me before I die. But death bursts into light. The death is what it will be. These men: they want to keep us here in three tabernacles. But the cloud moves. The water springs from a rock that journeys on. You are contained in me. But how can we contain you in ark or tabernacle or You cannot. Where, then? In your heart. Come. Still? I will be with thee. Who am I? You are that I will be. Come.

Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung has come and gone, and the majestic roll of circling centuries begins anew: justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign, with a new breed of men sent down from heaven. Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom the iron shall cease, the golden race arise, befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own apollo reigns. And in thy consulate, this glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin, and the months enter on their mighty march. Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain of our old wickedness, once done away, shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear. He shall receive the life of gods, and see heroes with gods commingling, and himself be seen of them, and with his father's worth reign o'er a world at peace. For thee, O boy, first shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray with foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed, and laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves, untended, will the she-goats then bring home their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield shall of the monstrous lion have no fear. Thy very cradle shall pour forth for thee caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die, die shall the treacherous poison-plant, and far and wide Assyrian spices spring. But soon as thou hast skill to read of heroes' fame, and of thy father's deeds, and inly learn what virtue is, the plain by slow degrees with waving corn-crops shall to golden grow, fom the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape, and stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships, gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth. Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be, her hero-freight a second Argo bear; new wars too shall arise, and once again some great Achilles to some Troy be sent.

Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung has come and gone, and the majestic roll of circling centuries begins anew: justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign, with a new breed of men sent down from heaven. Inly do thou, at the boy's birth in whom the iron shall cease, the golden race arise, befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own apollo reigns. And in thy consulate, this glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin, and the months enter on their mighty march. Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain of our old wickedness, once done away, shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear. He shall receive the life of gods, and see heroes with gods commingling, and himself be seen of them, and with his father's worth reign o'er a world at peace. For thee, O boy, first shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray with foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed, and laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves, untended, will the she-goats then bring home their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield shall of the monstrous lion have no fear. Thy very cradle shall pour forth for thee caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die, die shall the treacherous poison-plant, and far and wide Assyrian spices spring. But soon as thou hast skill to read of heroes' fame, and of thy father's deeds, and inly learn what virtue is, the plain by slow degrees with waving corn-crops shall to golden grow, fom the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape, and stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships, gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth. Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be, her hero-freight a second Argo bear; new wars too shall arise, and once again some great Achilles to some Troy be sent.

Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung has come and gone, and the majestic roll of circling centuries begins anew: justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign, with a new breed of men sent down from heaven. Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom the iron shall cease, the golden race arise, befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own apollo reigns. And in thy consulate, this glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin, and the months enter on their mighty march. Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain of our old wickedness, once done away, shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear. He shall receive the life of gods, and see heroes with gods commingling, and himself be seen of them, and with his father's worth reign o'er a world at peace. For thee, O boy, first shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray with foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed, and laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves, untended, will the she-goats then bring home their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield shall of the monstrous lion have no fear. Thy very cradle shall pour forth for thee caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die, die shall the treacherous poison-plant, and far and wide Assyrian spices spring. But soon as thou hast skill to read of heroes' fame, and of thy father's deeds, and inly learn what virtue is, the plain by slow degrees with waving corn-crops shall to golden grow, fom the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape, and stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships, gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth. Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be, her hero-freight a second Argo bear; new wars too shall arise, and once again some great Achilles to some Troy be sent. Then, when the mellowing years have made thee man, no more shall mariner sail, nor pine-tree bark ply traffic on the sea, but every land shall all things bear alike: the glebe no more shall feel the harrow's grip, nor vine the hook; the sturdy ploughman shall loose yoke from steer, nor wool with varying colours learn to lie; but in the meadows shall the ram himself, now with soft flush of purple, now with tint of yellow saffron, teach his fleece to shine.

Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung has come and gone, and the majestic roll of circling centuries begins anew: justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign, with a new breed of men sent down from heaven. Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom the iron shall cease, the golden race arise, befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own apollo reigns. And in thy consulate, this glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin, and the months enter on their mighty march. Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain of our old wickedness, once done away, shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear. He shall receive the life of gods, and see heroes with gods commingling, and himself be seen of them, and with his father's worth reign o'er a world at peace. For thee, O boy, first shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray with foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed, and laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves, untended, will the she-goats then bring home their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield shall of the monstrous lion have no fear. Thy very cradle shall pour forth for thee caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die, die shall the treacherous poison-plant, and far and wide Assyrian spices spring. But soon as thou hast skill to read of heroes' fame, and of thy father's deeds, and inly learn what virtue is, the plain by slow degrees with waving corn-crops shall to golden grow, fom the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape, and stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships, gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth. Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be, her hero-freight a second Argo bear; new wars too shall arise, and once again some great Achilles to some Troy be sent. Then, when the mellowing years have made thee man, no more shall mariner sail, nor pine-tree bark ply traffic on the sea, but every land shall all things bear alike: the glebe no more shall feel the harrow's grip, nor vine the hook; the sturdy ploughman shall loose yoke from steer, nor wool with varying colours learn to lie; but in the meadows shall the ram himself, now with soft flush of purple, now with tint of yellow saffron, teach his fleece to shine. While clothed in natural scarlet graze the lambs.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who was admired by all, but no one dared to ask for her hand in marriage. In despair, the king consulted the god Apollo. He told him that Psyche should be dressed in mourning and left alone on top of a mountain. Before daybreak, a serpent would come to meet and marry her. The king obeyed, and all night the princess waited for her husband to appear, deathly afraid and freezing cold. Finally, she slept. When she awoke, she found herself crowned a queen in a beautiful palace. Every night her husband came to her and they made love, but he had imposed one condition: Psyche could have all she desired, but she had to trust him completely and could never see his face.” How awful, I think, but I don’t dare interrupt him. “The young woman lived happily for a long time. She had comfort, affection, joy, and she was in love with the man who visited her every night. However, occasionally she was afraid that she was married to a hideous serpent. Early one morning, while her husband slept, she lit a lantern and saw Eros, a man of incredible beauty, lying by her side. The light woke him, and seeing that the woman he loved was unable to fulfill his one request, Eros vanished. Desperate to get her lover back, Psyche submitted to a series of tasks given to her by Aphrodite, Eros’s mother. Needless to say, her mother-in-law was incredibly jealous of Psyche’s beauty and she did everything she could to thwart the couple’s reconciliation. In one of the tasks, Psyche opened a box that makes her fall into a deep sleep.” I grow anxious to find out how the story will end. “Eros was also in love and regretted not having been more lenient toward his wife. He managed to enter the castle and wake her with the tip of his arrow. ‘You nearly died because of your curiosity,’ he told her. ‘You sought security in knowledge and destroyed our relationship.’ But in love, nothing is destroyed forever. Imbued with this conviction, they go to Zeus, the god of gods, and beg that their union never be undone. Zeus passionately pleaded the cause of the lovers with strong arguments and threats until he gained Aphrodite’s support. From that day on, Psyche (our unconscious, but logical, side) and Eros (love) were together forever.” I pour another glass of wine. I rest my head on his shoulder. “Those who cannot accept this, and who always try to find an explanation for magical and mysterious human relationships, will miss the best part of life.

In The Frog Prince, a beautiful princess drops her golden ball into a deep spring and must allow a frog into her bedroom to get it back, maturing thereby into a woman. Fairy tales and myth often place an odd creature on the path of the hero to signal an opportunity exists: turn right for good or left for evil. Of all the harbingers of change in fairy tales and myth—disfigured dwarfs, shriveled witches, even Yoda—it is reptiles (and amphibians) that are considered ugly enough without embellishment to awaken the part of the brain that listens to fairy tales. In real life, it is possible that reptiles have the power to switch off a person’s thinking brain and switch on the subconscious, opening the door to a person’s most deeply suppressed passions. Perhaps this is what makes reptiles so terrifying. Coiled at the center of the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of the word fascinate is this: “of a serpent.” Evolved from lizards, deliverers of venom—snakes are the villains of the animal kingdom. And yet, throughout history, snakes have been recognized for their power to bewitch man, to deprive him of resistance, to draw him near.

The Serpent stirred. Then it slept again. It whimpered in it's slumber. There was a call. A deep echoing call that made the thick black water shimmer. The Serpent cried. There was no answer.

And the rest of it—the buzzing sound of the flat, green line—had echoed in his head all night long. Still echoed there now, a serpent of sound with its fangs buried so deep in his skull he feared he would hear that sound every waking moment for the rest of his life.

New York City is a tinderbox. The Sons of the Serpent - a white supremacist group with a twisted history, deep pockets, and long reach - declared it a combat zone. As they have many times before, they're unashamedly ginning bigotry and hatred into violence and bloodshed. But this time, they've gotten smart about it. Instead of parading through the streets in hoods and robes... they've gone undercover. Dozens upon dozens of them, hiding inside the New York justice system so they can control the law. Control the people. And as God is my witness, I will drive them out and strike them down... no matter what the cost.

To sum up, the dove used to reveal Christ; the serpent used to tempt him. The former from the first was the herald of divine love; the latter from the first was the thief of God’s image. Therefore, innocence by itself can easily both recognize and exhibit God. Wisdom by itself can rather attack and betray him. Now, let the serpent hide himself as much as he can; let him twist his entire wisdom into the windings of his lairs. Let him live deep in the ground, push into dark holes, unroll his length coil by coil; let him slither out—but not all of him at once, the light-hating beast.

Beauty lies between you and you and eye and eye Do not compare beauty, For it resides in all, Try if you will, But a slave to the mind you shall be. To compare a dandelion to a lily, And to say the lily is of greater beauty Is a sin we often see. The dandelion is everywhere to be seen, But it is not picked from the ground on a whim. A weed, it was labeled in those grown-up minds, Minds, which have been weeded through time. The same minds which cut lilies from the ground, And stare as they wonder ‘how sad that beauty dwindles down’. They let their thoughts haunt them, And get trapped in the world around them. The truth masked as lies of the eyes. The dandelion and lily, When left to be, Dance in the wind with such beauty, Free. Compare beauty and you'll eclipse your sun's light, And because you only know the stars That come to life when they die, You'll have to wait for the dandelion to fly, Specking light in your darkened mind's eye. Explain beauty and you'll stay for eternity, Trying to capture infinity. Only then will you look into the stilling river, And cry from the open wounds you hide. Bandaging your reflection, you try. Only when it drowns in the murky crinkling water, Do you realize That the stars won't offer the same blinding light, And the darkness has given you sight. Your comparisons’ prism lives only in your eyes, But it travels down your stem, Like a Serpent, Coiling around your breath, With your tongue, Sharper than the air of death, Shedding words you've been fed. Like the grey, Settling deep within your Soul, And the shade, That makes you feel whole. Perhaps you'll try to save the mirrored water, But as you thrash about in infinity, Do not break stems anymore. Instead cut the chains keeping you shackled to the shore. Still, as you roam free, Do not forget to remember, (Infinity said while knocking at eternity’s door) A rigid mind leads to a life lived hollow, But do dip into the mind’s eye knowingly, For the strongest light casts the darkest shadow.

The one night a year when millions of balolo, tiny sea worms, come up from the deep and transform the surface of the sea into a billowing, undulating carpet. The small deep-water serpent that's lifted up by the full moon for one single, magical night to lay its eggs and sperm in a gelatinous soup- it's a gastronomic delicacy the people of Korototoka can't get enough of.

Prayer frees us from FOMO, the busybody life. It is liberating when we realize that the burden of all-knowing is one we were never meant to bear, one we can resist and let go as we rest in the joy of knowing God and being known by him.8 The serpent’s lie doesn’t lead us toward joy but toward a restless life of wanting, but never finding, control. God, in Christ, offers us a deep rest. We don’t have to worry about missing a conversation or a conflict. We can lay down the futile attempt to be the most informed person in the room. Because the quick thrill of being in the know is a cheap substitute for the peace of knowing the One who created us and rescues us from our fruitless pursuits and is leading us toward a place where our longings to know and be known will be fully realized.

A lot of new money— paid out in the least educated provinces, to elect fools who’ll take orders, who can only see ways to entrench themselves and make sure contracts go to the right companies. Some of these fools are evident, and shrewd country-folk keep voting them in because the powers in their districts might buy one ten times worse and far more subtle.

Deep in our hearts we believe that being Mexican has nothing to do with which country one lives in. Being Mexican is a state of soul—not one of mind, not one of citizenship. Neither bagel nor serpent, but both.

Deep in our hearts we believe that being Mexican has nothing to do with which country one lives in. Being Mexican is a state of soul—not one of mind, not one of citizenship. Neither eagle nor serpent, but both.

The birds that struggled to successfully locate crustaceans searched for snails and clams, with varying luck. However, a new option presented itself. An aroma pierced their nostrils, drawing their attention to a speck of light circling the island. The object was a quarter mile off, but judging by the motoring sounds, it was one of those large objects that carried clothed biped creatures across the water.

When I was five years old, my mother took me to a Baptist Sunday school, where I first heard the Garden of Eden story. I was shocked to learn that Eve, the first woman, was created as an afterthought by God out of Adam’s rib and that she was responsible for all of the sorrows of the world. Eve had listened to the serpent and persuaded Adam to join her in eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I was humiliated by the message that all females share the guilt of Eve’s original sin. At the same time, this knowledge resolved my deep confusion about why my daddy was so mean to my mother and to me―why we were always being brutally punished. Suddenly I realized that my father―who was male, just like God―could kill us and it would never make up for our sin of being female. I began to pray every night to become Eve so I could somehow reverse the curse so that there would be no more pain and suffering in the world. - excerpt from Foremothers of the Women's Spirituality Movement: Elders and Visionaries, edited by Miriam Robbins Dexter and Vicki Noble

Long before the Gorgon Medusa constellated within the archaic Greek world and was demonized as ugly and ultimately monstrous—with her tongue lolling between sharp fangs, with writhing serpents for hair and glaring eyes—the roots of her multi-layered iconography extended deep into pre-Greek cultures. The earliest agrarian societies of Southeastern Europe, from the 7th-4th millennia BCE, were intimately bonded with the seasonal realities of the living Earth. These egalitarian farmers who developed long-lived, sustainable societies understood that life feeds on life. Death and decomposition are inevitable consequences of being alive, and the nutrients released from previously living matter are essential for life's renewal. Within this context, concepts of the sacred are analogous to the cyclic continuity of all existence. In mythic terms, the Great Goddess, as the Sacred Source of all life, is a metaphor for life giving birth to itself and absorbing itself in death. Therefore, the Goddess of Life is also the Goddess of Death who is responsible for regeneration. Goddesses in various guises who represent this eternal cycle are found in ancient traditions throughout the world. The nature of every society is shaped by prevailing attitudes—honoring and respectful, or fearful.

You cannot escape us, Reid Labelle. We are part of you. As if to prove its words, it latched tighter, the pressure in my head building—painful now—as tendrils of gold snaked outward, stabbing deep and taking root. Into my mind. My heart. My lungs. I choked on them, struggling to breathe, but they only pressed closer. Consuming me. For so long we have slept in the darkness, but now, we are awake. We will protect you. We will not let you go. Seek us.

The missionary then told his congregation how after the Lord had instructed Adam and Eve to care for the Garden of Eden they were seduced by the serpent into committing mortal sin, as a result of which the Almighty “cursed the ground” and banished the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve to a life of toil in the fields. This particular Bible story made more sense to the Ju/’hoansi than many others the missionaries told them—and not just because they all knew what it meant to be tempted to sleep with people they knew they shouldn’t. In it they saw a parable of their own recent history. All the old Ju/’hoansi at Skoonheid remembered when this land was their sole domain and when they lived exclusively by hunting for wild animals and gathering wild fruits, tubers, and vegetables. They recalled that back then, like Eden, their desert environment was eternally (if temperamentally) provident and almost always gave them enough to eat on the basis of a few, often spontaneous, hours’ effort. Some now speculated that it must have been as a result of some similar mortal sin on their part that, starting in the 1920s, first a trickle then a flood of white farmers and colonial police arrived in the Kalahari with their horses, guns, water pumps, barbed wire, cattle, and strange laws, and claimed all this land for themselves.

The Vackna rang loud, Waking-horn bold and blaring, In the hills ringing as red sun was rising, Filling all Vigrið, This Battle-Plain, This land of ash, This land of ruin. Gods stirred from slumber deep, Fell Snaka, the slitherer shed his skin, that slayer of souls. Wolf-waking, hard-howling Ulfrir, the breaker of chains ran roaring, Racing to the Guðfalla, The gods-fall. Orna, eagle-winged came shrieking, wings beating, talons rending, beak biting, flesh tearing. Deep-cunning dragon, Lik-Rifa, Corpse-tearer from Dark-of-Moon Hills, tail lashing as she swept low. Berser raging, jaws frothing, claws ripping. Gods in their war glory, Brave Svin, mischievous Tosk, deceitful Rotta, Gods and kin, their warriors willing, Blood-tainted offspring, waging their war, all came to the Battle-Plain. Death was dealt, Red ran the rivers, Land laden with slaughter’s reek. There they fought, There they fell, Berser pierced, Orna torn, Ulfrir slain. Cunning Lik-Rifa laid low, chained in chamber deep, Beneath boughs of Oskutreð, the great Ash Tree. And Snaka fell, serpent ruin, venom burning, land-tearing, mountain breaking, cracked the slopes of Mount Eldrafell. Frost and fire, Flame and snow, Vaesen clambered from the pit, And the world ended… And was born anew… A silence settled, all staring at the skáld, though

Images of a pale dragon caged and raging, locked within a chamber among the roots of a great tree. A wolf upon a plain, a thick chain binding him, small figures swarming, stabbing, the wolf’s jaws wide as it howled. “Ulfrir, wolf-god,” Kráka breathed. “It’s the Guðfalla,” Biórr whispered. “The gods-fall.” So many images, Elvar struggled to take it all in: figures hanging from the boughs of trees, many of them, skeletal wings spiking from their backs. “The Gallows Wood,” Elvar said. She remembered that tale, of how the gods Orna and Ulfrir had found their firstborn daughter slain, her wings hacked from her back. Lik-Rifa had done it, the dragon, Orna’s sister. As vengeance Orna and Ulfrir had hunted Lik-Rifa’s god-touched offspring and slaughtered them. Ripped their backs open and hacked their ribs apart, pulling them out in a parody of wings and hanging the corpses from trees. The blood-eagle, it was now called. The first blood feud, Elvar thought. The images went on and on, telling the tale of the gods at war: Berser the bear, Orna the eagle, Hundur the hound, Rotta the rat, many, many more; and Snaka, father, maker, coiling about them all, glowing venom dripping from his fangs as he entered the blood-fray and consumed his children. “I thought all of the oath stones had been destroyed,” Sighvat said. “We are on the arse-end of the world,” Agnar said. “This one has survived.” He was still staring up at the huge slab, eyes following the glowing lines as they traced the images. “So, that is where your bloodline comes from,” Agnar said to Berak in his chains. He pointed to an image of a giant bear, jaws wide, spittle spraying. Berak said nothing, just glowered at the image. “They are the fathers and mothers of all us Tainted,” Kráka said. “Snaka loved his creations, when he was not feasting on them, and so did his children.” She stared at the serpent-coils that spiralled across the granite. “Why did they fight?” Sighvat muttered. “What started this war, led to the near-destruction of all?” “Jealousy and murder,” Uspa said. “Blood feud. Lik-Rifa the dragon thought her sister was plotting her death, and Rotta the rat fuelled her paranoia. She murdered Orna and Ulfrir’s daughter, created the vaesen in secret, would have used them to destroy Orna and all those who supported her. But Orna found out and lured Lik-Rifa into the caverns and chambers deep within the roots of Oskutreð, the great Ash Tree, and with her siblings bound Lik-Rifa there. That is what caused the war.

Kundalini is a primitive spirit, a creative force that typically resides in a dormant state within our bodies. We realize our innate power and completeness upon awakening. We know there is everything within us that we need to be happy and fulfilled. Kundalini is not a physical reality but a perceptible reality. Once we have been awakened, we are shedding our old tendencies, and negativity like a snake sheds off its old skin. The kundalini is said to empower us with Shakti — that Divine Mother's primordial energy. Charged with this feminine creative force, we get filled with the vigor, enthusiasm, willpower, and self-confidence that we need to shake off negative memories and emotions hidden deep within our subconscious mind. Our mind is getting dormant. Issues and issues that had once held our focus now seem insignificant. Such a mind-state automatically produces intuitive wisdom.  Released from the endless chain of uncertainty and misunderstanding, insight is our guardian and guide.  The strength of discernment is unfailing. The reason kundalini awakening is such a remarkable aspect of spiritual awakening is that it is not based on complex theological arguments or religious norms that are culturally defined. Instead, Kundalini concentrates on the divine's immediate, ultimate experience within us. And regardless of your particular religious background and values, we can all use kundalini yoga to assist in our spiritual evolution. Most ancient myths allude to the meaning of kundalini. Tiresias narrative is a prime example. If Tiresias–the ancient Greek seer discovered two copulating snakes, he would stick his staff between them to distinguish them. He was immediately turned into a woman and remained like that for seven years until he was able to repeat his action and turn back into a male. In this novel, the force of change, powerful enough to completely reverse both male and female physical polarities, emerges from the fusion of the two serpents, passed on by the ring. Tiresias staff was later passed on to Hermes along with serpents. Several medical organizations use the ancient Greek icon of Hermes, the Greek god and messenger of all gods, called “Karykeion.” In occult Hermetic philosophy, Hermes Caduceus represents the masculine's potential as a central phallic rod surrounded by two coupling serpents ' writhing, woven Shakti energies. The rod also represents the spine (sushumna), while the serpents perform metaphysical currents (pranas) along the inda and pingala channels from the chakra at the base of the spine to the pineal gland in a double helix pattern.

Trickster is amoral, and neither malevolent or benevolent. He teaches us through reaching into our own sexual wounds and seducing us to reveal them...In a wild sensuous epiphany, he confronts the forbidden psyche of the woman with his raw masculine essence that is alluring and sexually potent, and ignites her erotic imagination...Trickster, through his mischievous games, highlights our shadow— sometimes in a subtle way, sometimes in a shocking way. He brings us the gift of nous, instinctive knowing that comes from deep within. The message Trickster delivers is, “Never allow your compassion to get in the way of your discernment” or as Yeshua put this, “Be as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves.” Often what we mistake for love and compassion is actually a pattern of powerlessness, inherited from our ancestry, which we keep repeating.

Our relationship to the law isn’t worth celebrating fourteen days into February. However we learned about it, whether through counsel or conscience, we responded by resisting all of the goodness it had to offer, proving something deep and dark about ourselves. Mainly that we don’t like to be like God. That’s not to say that our sinfulness isn’t a parody and a rather silly way of deifying ourselves. The serpent still incentivizes unbelief by promising that it will make us “like God,” but our motive has never been to be like God in terms of righteousness but of rights.

He will always be waiting, I realize. He will never go away. And in time, I may find myself his first mate whether I want to or not, journeying to points exotic so that I might make another dive, and another, and another. And maybe one day I'll dive so deep that the Abyssal Serpent will catch me, and I'll never find my way back. No sense in denying that such things happen. But it's not going to happen today—and there is a deep, abiding comfort in that. Deep enough to carry me through till tomorrow.

Nico!” I yelled. He looked where I was pointing, saw the serpent women, and immediately understood. He took a deep breath and held out his black sword. “Serve me,” he called. The earth trembled. A fissure opened in front of the dracaenae, and a dozen undead warriors crawled from the earth—horrible corpses in military uniforms from all different time periods—U.S. Revolutionaries, Roman centurions, Napoleonic cavalry on skeletal horses. As one, they drew their swords and engaged the dracaenea.

The single most important Hatha-Yoga technique of purification is a particular type of breath control that is performed by breathing alternately through the left and the right nostril. This practice is intended to remove all obstructions from the network of subtle channels through which the life force circulates, thus making proper breath control and deep concentration possible. In the ordinary person, state the scriptures of Hatha-Yoga, the circulation of the life force is obstructed. The technique of alternate breathing is known as nādī-shodhana. When the subtle conduits (nādī)—or arcs of the life energy—are completely purified, the life force can circulate freely in the body, and it becomes amenable to voluntary control. Already Patanjali noted in his Yoga-Sūtra (2.52) that breath control has the effect of removing the “covering” (āvarana) that prevents one’s inner light to manifest clearly. The objective of Hatha-Yoga is to conduct the life force along the body’s central axis to the crown of the head. This flow of prāna through the central conduit—called sushumnā-nādī—is thought to awaken the full psychospiritual potential of the body. This potential is better known as the “serpent power” (kundalinī-shakti). When the kundalinī is awakened from its dormant state in the lowest center (cakra) at the base of the spine, it rushes up to the crown center. This ascent is accompanied by a variety of psychic and somatic phenomena. These include visionary states and, when the kundalinī reaches the top center, ecstatic transcendence into the formless Reality, which is inherently inconceivable and blissful. As the kundalinī force is active in the crown center, the rest of the body is gradually depleted of energy. This curious effect is explained as the progressive purification of the five elements (bhūta) constituting the physical body—earth, water, fire, air, and ether. The Sanskrit term for this process is bhūta-shuddhi. Purification of the body not only leads to health and inner balance but also affects the way in which a person perceives the world. This is clearly indicated in Patanjali’s Yoga-Sūtra (2.40), which states: Through purity [the yogin gains] a desire to protect his own limbs [and a desire for] noncontamination by others. The decisive phrase sva-anga-jugupsā has often been translated as “disgust toward one’s own body,” but this is not at all in the spirit of Yoga. Jugupsā is more appropriately rendered as “desire to protect.” The adept is eager to protect his body against contamination by others. This is combined with an inner distance from one’s own physical vehicle through sustained witnessing.

By virtue of his dominance over nature, man can also combine souls, and engraft the essence of one upon another. Thus he inspires that which his hands have worked on, and equips his implements with qualities calculated to render them useful in their calling. When be fastens a bunch of feathers to his arrow, he gives its flight the accuracy of a bird, perhaps also something of a bird's force in swooping on its prey; as surely as he gives himself a touch of birdnature by fastening feathers about his body. Or he may, in the strength of his artistic faculty, content himself with a presentment of nature. He chisels a serpent on his sword, lays “a blood-painted worm along the edge” so that it “winds its tail about the neck of the sword”, and then lets the sword “bite”. Or be may use another form of art, he can “sing” a certain nature into his weapon. He tempers it in the fire, forges it with art and craft, whets it, ornaments it, and “lays on it the word” that it shall be a serpent to bite, a fire to eat its way. So also he builds his ship with the experience of a shipbuilder, paints it, sets perhaps a beast at the prow, and commands that it shall tread sure-footed as a horse upon the water. Naturally, the mere words are not enough, if there is no luck in them; they take effect only if the speaker can make them whole. How he contrives to accomplish this is a question too deep to enter into here, but as we learn to know him, we may perhaps seize upon one little secret after another.

The cunning and malicious serpent fails not to tempt us by his artifices even by means of the very virtues we have acquired, that, leading us to regard them and ourselves with complacency, they may become our ruin; exalting us on high, that we may fall into the sin of pride and vainglory. To preserve yourself from this danger, choose for your battlefield the safe and level ground of a true and deep conviction of your own nothingness, that you are nothing, that you know nothing, that you can do nothing [without God].

Through the smoke, a white dog appeared. Nicholina blared her teeth at it, blasting awareness through me the second before the dog transformed. If I'd been standing, my legs would've buckled. As it was, I rose slowly to my knees, the ringing in my ears deepening to a rushing sound. A roar of blood and hope and fear. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real. Ansel ambled toward me. "Hello, Lou". At my dumbstruck expression, he grinned, the same sheepish grin he'd given a thousand times and the same sheepish grin of which I wanted a thousand more. He wore a pristine powder-blue coat with golden tassels and buttons—my heart ached at the familiarity—with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his pants. An eternal initiate. No blood marked his person, not his hair or his skin, and his brown eyes sparkled even in the dark. "Did you miss me?

She seemed to relax at the warm touch of wind on her face. Then her eyes found Reid, and the entire world faded to that blinding, soul-deep connection. Anyone could see it. Everyone could feel it. If I reached out a hand now, I sensed I could've touched it. Though I knew not of magic patterns, this thread that connected Lou and Reid—this gravitational pull, this cosmic one—it was a magic in itself. It pulled them together. It would keep them there.

He studied what he'd long avoided, and there was now no detail obscured, no truth denied. Here he stood in the cold light of eternity, and by some magic greater than chromaturgy, all that was wretched and self-deprecatory and judgmental and hating fell away like a serpent's scale from his eye. He had seen through Orholam's mask of being an old prophet, and beheld something ineffably beguiling beneath the old prophet's age spots and deep wrinkles and snaggle teeth. And now he saw something of that same beauty in himself, an image of the divine. Here was Dazen Guile through the eyes of charity. And as unwilling tears flooded his eyes, he realized that —wonder of wonders!—he was glorious.

He must, if one day call'd upon, produce an over- head view of a World that never was, in truth-like detail, one he'd begun in silence to contrive,— a Map entirely within his mind, of a World he could escape to, if he had to. If he had to, he would enter it entirely but never get lost, for he would have this Map, and in it, spread below, would lie ev'rything,— Mountain of Glass, Sea of Sand, miraculous Springs, Volcanoes, Sacred Cities, mile- deep Chasm, Serpent's Cave, endless Prairie....another Chapbook-Fancy with each Deviation and Dip of the Needle.

He must, if one day call'd upon, produce an over-head view of a World that never was, in truth-like detail, one he'd begun in silence to contrive,— a Map entirely within his mind, of a World he could escape to, if he had to. If he had to, he would enter it entirely but never get lost, for he would have this Map, and in it, spread below, would lie ev'rything,— Mountain of Glass, Sea of Sand, miraculous Springs, Volcanoes, Sacred Cities, mile- deep Chasm, Serpent's Cave, endless Prairie....another Chapbook-Fancy with each Deviation and Dip of the Needle.

He must, if one day call'd upon, produce an over-head view of a World that never was, in truth-like detail, one he'd begun in silence to contrive,— a Map entirely within his mind, of a World he could escape to, if he had to. If he had to, he would enter it entirely but never get lost, for he would have this Map, and in it, spread below, would lie ev'rything,— Mountain of Glass, Sea of Sand, miraculous Springs, Volcanoes, Sacred Cities, mile-deep Chasm, Serpent's Cave, endless Prairie....another Chapbook-Fancy with each Deviation and Dip of the Needle.

For so long, he and I had danced around each other’s pasts. It didn’t behoove either of us to learn too much about the other. The less we knew, the easier it would be to carve each other out of our lives with a single well-placed strike of our blades, like a cancer excised. But in this moment, I came to the horrifying realization that I would never be able to carve Raihn from my heart. He had embedded too deep. Roots through stone.

this island and her sister city, Sidon, just twenty-five miles north up the coast, had a far more dark and fascinating spiritual significance than mere Greek imperial expansion. The gods of the Phoenicians, Ba’al, Asherah and Molech, constituted a trinity of wickedness that shadowed Israel through much of her history. The Seed of Abraham never seemed to fully eradicate this Seed of the Serpent from their land. These gods seemed to have their talons dug deep into the soul of the nation.

series of torches surrounded the curved opening of a large pit, the opening of the Abyss. The high priestess from earlier stood on the opposite side of the pit, before an entourage of twelve nymphs, all seductively alluring in translucent gowns and jewelry. The priestess wore a headdress of gems on her raven black hair. Her purple robe, made from the finest of Phoenician silks, flowed behind her like a spirit. Her eyes were large, deep brown and hypnotic. Her beauty was beguiling. When she spoke, her voice sounded like seven voices blended into one bewitching unity. “Welcome to the Gates of Hades, Son of God,” she said. “And your ass-kissing suck-upssss.” Her “esses” slid through the air like the serpents that wrapped around her arms and neck. Jesus stared her down. She faltered and visibly shivered, but regained her composure and approached him. “What is your name, woman?” “I am the Ob of Paniassss.

Rahab could swim the waters above and below the firmament. It was all her territory. But her special domain was the Abyss. From there, she could access every body of water that ultimately connected to this underwater abode. Her birth waters were Lake Urimiya, where Elohim created her and held her at bay when he established the heavens and the earth. She was in the Lake again at that moment. She had returned to this sacred ground to give birth to her own spawn. The Nephilim paddled on the surface of the water. They were unaware of the nemesis below, a protective mother sea dragon and her very hungry newborn offspring, Leviathan. Leviathan was every bit the armored sea serpent as its parent. Even so young, it was already about half the size of Rahab. But it had something its progenitor did not: seven heads. Seven dragon heads on seven snakelike necks with seven times the predator’s snapping jaws, and seven times the rows of razor teeth. Leviathan’s strike zone was wide and it was more agile and speedier than Rahab. And it had seven times the fury. The Nephilim were oblivious to the shadowy forms approaching them from the darkness below. They filled the waters with their crafts The lead skiffs were only two thirds of the way across. The first casualties came at the front of the line. A huge explosion of water erupted. Pontoons snapped in two, throwing Nephilim into the water. Yahipan screamed, “RAHAB!!” The Nephilim stopped rowing and looked about the water. The huge serpentine armor broke the surface again, crushing a slew of the flatboats and dragging Nephilim into the depths. The spiny back cut through the water and disappeared. The Rephaim yelled orders. The Nephilim rowed for their lives. But it was an easy feast for the monsters of the deep. Rahab simply opened her mouth and scooped up dozens of Nephilim like so many minnows. Leviathan came next, with the seven dragon heads snapping up Nephilim faster than they could get out of the way. Leviathan might be a newborn and smaller than its mother, but already armor covered it. It was even able to launch small pillars of fire from its nostrils. Its youth and speed made up for its size as it darted and dodged around, all of its heads coordinated in a bloodbath of feeding. Inanna wondered where all that food went. Some Nephilim tried to fight back But it was futile and the smart ones made for the shoreline. They hoped they might get lucky and be overlooked by their serpentine predators. That was only the beginning. The sorry paddlers were no match for the worst of all Elohim’s creatures. Another creature came up from the depths. Its body could not be seen, only tentacles bursting from the water and crushing demigods in its grip. Yahipan and Thamaq were in the middle of the mayhem and counted eight of these snakelike appendages grabbing hapless soldiers.

the accusation was false, and although doubts still slithered through my mind like restless serpents

The sound of water is deep, its form is serpent-like, its color green, and it is best heard in the roaring of the sea. The sound of fire is high pitched, its form is curled, and its color is red. It is heard in the falling of the thunderbolt and in a volcanic eruption. The sound of air is wavering, its form zigzag, and its color blue. Its voice is heard in storms, when the wind blows, and in the whisper of the morning breeze.

The origin myth of the Tukano speaks of the time, eons ago, when humans first settled the great rivers of the Amazon basin. It seems that 'supernatural beings' accompanied them on this journey and gifted them the fundamentals upon which to build a civilized life. From the 'Daughter of the Sun' they received the gift of fire and the knowledge of horticulture, pottery-making, and many other crafts. 'The serpent-shaped canoe of the first settlers' was steered by a superhuman 'Helmsman.' Meanwhile other supernaturals 'travelled by canoe over all the rivers and ... explored the remote hill ranges; they pointed out propitious sites for houses or fields, or for hunting and fishing, and they left their lasting imprint on many spots so that future generations would have ineffaceable proof of their earthly days and would forever remember them and their teachings.

There's a marble bed completely different from what the dust and reflection saids, reserving and resurrecting all the genuine moments that collided without a second to spear in all the overwhelming despair casted out like a net of dead dreams. You are somewhere in-between your eyes and off the brim of our solar system. Going into a pulse from another worldy mind, feeling the involuntary serpents tongue; agonizing the astounding words left unsaid on that marble bed made of reflection beyond any idea or soul; encapsulated by ivy bridges and weightless exotic phrases, escaping out of a strange world I never had a hand in making.

How can you rescue your fair maiden if she can’t stand the smell of you?” Fighting her own grin, Madame Labelle braced my other side. “Perhaps his fair maiden doesn’t need rescuing.” “Perhaps she will rescue him,” Victoire called over her shoulder. “Perhaps they will rescue each other,” Violette snapped back. “Perhaps we will,” I murmured, feeling lighter than I’d felt in ages. Perhaps we could. Together. In a swift burst of realization, I saw things clearly for perhaps the first time: she wasn’t the only broken one. I’d closed my eyes to hide from the monsters—my monsters—hoping they couldn’t see me. Hoping if I buried them deep enough, they’d disappear. But they hadn’t disappeared, and I’d hidden long enough.

Please,’ the man wept, ‘please don’t kill me.’ Through his helm’s olfactory receptors, Talos scented the cloying incense on the mortal’s robes, and the sour reek of his breath. He was infected with… something. Something within his body. A cancer, perhaps, eating at his lungs… Taint. He reeked of taint. Talos let the man stare into the impassive skulled face of his helm for several more beats of his panicked, mortal heart. Let the fear build. The words of his gene-father, the teachings of the VIII Legion: Show the prey what the predator can do. Show that death is near. The prey will be in your thrall. ‘Do you wish to join your friends in death?’ he snapped, knowing his helm’s speakers turned the threat into a mechanical bark. ‘No, please. Please. Please.’ Talos shivered involuntarily. Begging. He had always found begging particularly repulsive, even as a child in the street gangs of Atra Hive on Nostramo. To reveal that level of weakness to another being… With a feral snarl, he pulled the man’s weeping, pleading face against the cold front of his helm. Tears glistened on the ceramite. Talos felt his armour’s machine-spirit roil at the new sensation, like a river serpent thrashing in deep

Deep within me, the burning serpent bit the star and with a wordless scream, a great tide of energy burst out, like an exploding sun.

With a snarl of pain, she forced herself to sit up, her head spinning with the sudden movement. One hand touched her temple, sticky with dried blood. She winced, feeling a gash along her eyebrow. It was long but shallow, and already scabbing over. She clenched her jaw, teeth grinding, as she surveyed the beach with squinting eyes. The ocean stared back at her, empty and endless, a wall of iron blue. Then she noticed shapes along the beach, some half-buried in the sand, others caught in the rhythmic pull of the tide. She narrowed her eyes and the shapes solidified. A torn length of sail floated, tangled up with rope. A shattered piece of the mast angled out of the sand like a pike. Smashed crates littered the beach, along with other debris from the ship. Bits of hull. Rigging. Oars snapped in half. The bodies moved with the waves. Her steady breathing lost its rhythm, coming in shorter and shorter gasps until she feared her throat might close. Her thoughts scattered, impossible to grasp. All thoughts but one. “DOMACRIDHAN!” Her shout echoed, desperate and ragged. “DOMACRIDHAN!” Only the waves answered, crashing endless against the shore. She forgot her training and forced herself to stand, nearly falling over with dizziness. Her limbs aches but she ignored it, lunging toward the waterline. Her lips moved, her voice shouting his name again, though she couldn’t hear it above the pummel of her own heart. Sorasa Sarn was no stranger to corpses. She splashed into the waves with abandon, even as her head spun. Sailor, sailor, sailor, she noted, her desperation rising with every Tyri uniform and head of black hair. One of them looked ripped in half, missing everything from the waist down. His entrails floated with the rear of him, like a length of bleached rope. She suspected a shark got the best of him. Then her memories returned with a crash like the waves. The Tyri ship. Nightfall. The sea serpent slithering up out of the deep. The breaking of a lantern. Fire across the deck, slick scales running over my hands. The swing of a greatsword, Elder-made. Dom silhouetted against a sky awash with lightning. And then the cold, drowning darkness of the ocean. A wave splashed up against her and Sorasa stumbled back to the shore, shivering. She had not waded more than waist deep, but her face felt wet, water she could not understand streaking her cheeks. Her knees buckled and she fell, exhausted. She heaved a breath, then two. And screamed. Somehow the pain in her head paled in comparison to the pain in her heart. It dismayed and destroyed her in equal measure. The wind blew, stirring salt-crusted hair across her face, sending a chill down to her soul. It was like the wilderness all over again, the bodies of her Amhara kin splayed around her. No, she realized, her throat raw. This is worse. There is not even a body to mourn. She contemplated the emptiness for awhile, the beach and the waves, and the bodies gently pressing into the shore. If she squinted, they could only be debris from the ship, bits of wood instead of bloated flesh and bone. The sun glimmered on the water. Sorasa hated it. Nothing but clouds since Orisi, and now you choose to shine.

Do you want me to say I'm sorry now? Because I'm not." He laughed. Not a chuckle or a scoff—a laugh, full and deep and shockingly loud. I couldn't even remember the last time I had heard someone laugh like that. Myself included. Not since... not since Ilana. "That fucking face," he said, shaking his head. "No, I was not waiting for you to apologize. I'd be disappointed if you did." "I have no regrets. I'd throw you out that window again." "Oh, I know, princess. I know.

Apparently he wasn't expecting that, because he hissed, "Ix's fucking tits!" and staggered away from me. I had buried my knife deep enough in his thigh that I had to yank hard to pull it out.

His tongue rolled against my skin as he took his first swallow, one languid, slow movement. I imagined that this is what he would feel like inside me, too. This deep and all-consuming.

I wanted his magnificent length inside me, taking me so deep I couldn't remember my own name, and I wanted him to remind me of it when he came. I wanted to watch him go.