I was bright, and I could use that as a weapon: words can wound, whatever those sticks and stones sayings claim about them never hurting, and I could use them if I had to.

You can't trust other people. If it's important, you have to do it yourself.

You're brave. You are the bravest person I know, and you are my friend. I don't care if you are imaginary.

She had forgotten them all; forgotten Richard down in the mud, and the marquis and his foolish crossbow, and the world. She was delighted and transported, in a perfect place, the world she lived for. Her world contained two things: Hunter, and the Beast. The Beast knew that too. It was the perfect match, the hunter and the hunted. And who was who, and which was which, only time would reveal; time and the dance.

People are icebergs. So much of us is underneath.

It stared at them, and it paused for a hundred years, which transpired in a dozen heart beats.

You're a poem?' I repeated. She chewed her lower lip. 'If you want. I am a poem, or I am a pattern, or a race of people whose whose world was swallowed by the sea.' 'Isn't it hard to be three things at the same time?' 'What's your name?' 'Enn.' 'So you are Enn,' she said. 'And you are a male. And you are a biped. Is it hard to be three things at the same time?