He laughed. "I know you're teasing me. And you should know I'm not easily humiliated. You may hunt for my food, and pound me every time we fight, and protect me when we're attacked, if you like. I'll thank you for it.

This may be a thing you neither want nor need," she said. "But I'd rather you have it, wishing didn't, than not have it and wish you did.

It made Fire so angry, the thought of such a medicine, a violence done to herself to stop her from creating anything like herself. And what was the purpose of these eyes, this impossible face, the softness and the curves of this body, the strength of this mind; what was the point, if none of the men who desired her were to give her any babies, and all it ever brought her was grief? What was the purpose of a woman monster?

Fire sat unbreathing. A life that was an apology for the life of his father: It was a notion she could understand, beyond words and thought. She understood it the way she understood music.

Katsa turned to Po with tears in her eyes. 'He'll be so angry.' 'He won't stay angry forever.' 'Won't he?' she said. 'People do sometimes.' 'Do they?' he said. 'Reasonable people? I hope that's not true.' Katsa gave him a funny look, but didn't answer. Resumed hugging herself and kicking things.

When you're a monster, you are thanked and praised for not being a monster.

It was just that she had the need to tell him something honest, something honest and unhappy, because cheerful lies tonight were too depressing and too sharp, turning in on her like pins