The rule for finding plots for character-centered novels, which is to ask: 'So what's the worst possible thing I can do to *this* guy?' And then do it.

Your father calls you to his court. You need not pack. You go garbed in glorious raiment. He waits eagerly by his palace doors to welcome you, and has prepared a place at the high table, by his side, in the company of the great-souled, honored, and best-beloved.

Well, what is a blessing but a curse from another point of view?

It's an ancient and honorable term for the final step in any engineering project. Turn it on, see if it smokes.

My home is not a place, it is people.

Forward momentum only worked as a strategy if one had correctly identified which way was forward.

We should have taken our chances back then, when we were young and beautiful and didn't even know it.