epic-fantasy

They have forgotten that war is momentum.War is natural. And war makes one strong.

...Prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is... and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams... Prophecy will bite your prick off everytime,

Yet while Owllwin was arrogant, he was also humble enough to admit when he had made a mistake. Perhaps it was his sheer clumsiness that kept him so humble: the first time he spoke to Cricket was in the great dining hall, and he brought down six tables five minutes after.

You said the d-word,_ Owllwin said regretfully. __ didn__ think you would, or I woulda warned ya.__ . . . the d-word?_ Cricket repeated in confusion.__eah . . ._ Owllwin paused as if he was glancing around, then he whispered through the wall, __ragon._ Cricket blinked. __hy can__ I say that?

Owllwin was easiest the most contrary person Cricket had ever known. He was arrogant but humble, cowardly but brave, foolish but wise. He was funny, but sometimes she caught him crying when he was off on his own. It were as if he pushed himself to be a better person in spite of himself, in spite of his own failings, and Cricket secretly admired the fact: not many people were willing to admit they had faults in the first place.

There was love, a reliable and real love grown in a handful of days, and Tristan did not know why it was: friendship had happened to both of them, on the sudden, completely aside from Tristan's both endangering and saving Crissand's life. It was no reason related to that, it was no reason that either of them quite knew. Crissand had simply risen on his horizon like the sun of his banner...and that was that....They were together, and there was a great deal right with the day simply in that.

My strings are being pulled, this time by a different puppet master.

The door opens, and I turn my head, my heart thudding at the sight of Griffin. Tall, broad, muscular but sleek, he stalks into the room like a predator, his gait balanced and sure, his glittering, gray eyes focused entirely on me. Inky hair, a hawkish nose, that stubborn jaw, and thick, black stubble make him look hard and intimidating. With his sword strapped on and his dark brows lowered, he__ a warlord on the prowl. I shiver. I couldn__ want him more.

Isaac stopped her at the bottom of the stairs with a crooked smile. "I would wish you sweet dreams, but how can they be memorable if I won't be in them?

His gaze hits mine with the force of a battering ram. He looks_ appalled. __-I won__ do this. I can___ be with you.

You don't pity a warrior for her scars, because scars are proof of survival and victory.

I'm trying to do what's right, but I don't know if there is a such a thing as a right option anymore. Just different kids of wrong."Breakfast narrowed his eyes at her. "Don't get too comfortable with that notion.

You'd claim me?" he asked, hopeful but cautious.She nodded once. "Because I'd never set a monster like you loose in the world.

J. R. R. Tolkien, the near-universally-hailed father of modern epic fantasy, crafted his magnum opus The Lord of the Rings to explore the forces of creation as he saw them: God and country, race and class, journeying to war and returning home. I__e heard it said that he was trying to create some kind of original British mythology using the structure of other cultures_ myths, and maybe that was true. I don__ know. What I see, when I read his work, is a man trying desperately to dream.Dreaming is impossible without myths. If we don__ have enough myths of our own, we__l latch onto those of others _ even if those myths make us believe terrible or false things about ourselves. Tolkien understood this, I think because it__ human nature. Call it the superego, call it common sense, call it pragmatism, call it learned helplessness, but the mind craves boundaries. Depending on the myths we believe in, those boundaries can be magnificently vast, or crushingly tight.

The first time I saw Cricket, I loved her. Little did I know that skinny, goofy girl would one day grow up to be a great dragon slayer. I would have pegged her for a shoemaker.

It was your personality that consumed me. You became my favorite. My favorite of them all_

His gaze ran over her body again, resting on the deepest of the fracture lines in her shields. 'Come here.'Purple feathers fanned around Riana's sides. Sudden tears moistened her eyes at the unexpectedness of what Sier was offering. She sank against him, and his arms folded around her back. Her weight supported, Riana let herself float on the night and tucked her face into his neck. Sier's power closed around her in a violet wave, running into her halo, slipping though her opened shields.

This is what I mean..." I say softly, "you don't seem very angel-y right now""I'm not feeling very angel-y right now", he reply