My skill didn't lie in planning battles, only in fighting them.

A curve of silver hung amid the brighter specks; it looked to me like a curved dagger, pretty but deadly, as if it might slice the sky in two.

It’s easy to do right when everything goes right. But let everything go wrong, and see how difficult it becomes.

Sometimes the past needed to stay buried; it was the only way you could move on. And sometimes you had to dig it up, because that too was the only way.

My body was a machine, plain and simple. I worked it to stay strong; I fed it to keep it running.

You could miss someone, but it did no good to fixate on loss. I wished I had the ready words of a Breeder or the ability to comfort with a soft touch. I didn't. Instead I had daggers and determination. That would have to do.

We're broken in complementary ways, thus rendering our damage comprehensible to each other.