I didn’t want to know that the monster that lived under your bed when you were a kid not only really is there but used to have a few beers with your dad.

He grunted; she recognized it as relief that she wasn't going to nag him further about Tor the Just, who probably wasn't that boring if he could hold off the Notherners for nine days and melt a hole in the hills.

...there remained a strange formality between them, and her pleasure in his presence felt too much like missing him had felt during the last week.

Sometimes it is better not to know. Sometimes when you do know you just fold up.

What was she to say? "The prodigal has returned? The mutineer wishes to be reinstated? The subordinate, having gone to a great deal of trouble to prove her commander wrong, has come back and promises to be a good little subordinate hereafter, or at least until next time?

Those single-track military minds never think to ask their cleaning staff for help in giant lethal marauding creature matters.

...but with the hours I sometimes kept at the coffeehouse I had to have learned to take naps during the day or die, and I had learned to take naps. Up until five months ago "something or other or die" had always seemed like a plain choice in favor of the something or other.