SHADESLAYER.

❝ It began as all things did: a girl on the shore, terrified and desirous. ❞

❝ The ephemerality of things is what gives them meaning. ❞

❝ They were both creatures of rage and salt and foam. Both could strip me to the bone. ❞

❝ I wanted nothing more than to tempt their wrath, because if I were brave enough, I might earn their love instead. ❞

❝ I was a treacherous, wrathful, wanting thing, just like he was. Just as he had always wanted me. ❞

❝ Although the tide pools had not shown me my face, I had been revealed. ❞

❝ It was fae-like trickery. There was no answer that wouldn’t damn me. ❞

❝ You’re so pretty. You really are. You’re the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever seen. Do you know that? ❞

❝ We must discuss, then, the relationship between women and water. When men fall into the sea, they drown. When women meet the water, they transform. It becomes vital to ask: is this a meta-morphosis, or a homecoming? ❞

❝ I wanted to say I don’t believe you. ❞

❝ I wanted to say thank you. ❞

❝ I wanted to say tell me more about who I am because I don’t know anymore. ❞

❝ I could tell the whole story as if it had happened to someone else, and it would be completely painless. ❞

❝ The weight of a memory is one thing. You get very used to swimming with it dragging you down. Once it's loosed, you hardly know what to do with your body. You don't understand its lightness. ❞

❝ You don't have to take up a sword. Survival is bravery, too. ❞

❝ In the end I learned that the water was in me. It was a ghost that could not be exorcised. But a guest, even uninvited, must be attended to. ❞

❝ If you can learn to love that which despises you, you can dance on the shore and play in the waves again, like you did when you were young. ❞

❝ Anything can be taken from you, at any moment. Even the past isn't guaranteed. You can lose that too, slowly, like water eating away at stone. ❞

❝ It saved me in more ways than I can count. Because I knew no matter how afraid I felt, I wasn't truly alone. ❞

❝ Are there any ships on the horizon? Will they signal back to me? I never got the chance to know. ❞

❝ But stories were devious things, things with agendas. They could cheat and steal and lie to your face. They could crumble away under your feet. ❞

❝ I wish I had fought. ❞

❝ I know I beat him in the end, but for so many years all I could do was run and hide. I just sat there and let the water pour in around me. ❞

❝ I didn’t know that I could fight back. I didn’t know how to do anything but wait to drown. ❞

❝ Every wanting man has the same wound he can use to slip in. ❞

❝ I wanted you, too. For so long. It was terrible. ❞

❝ Sometimes I could barely eat—sorry, I know that sounds like the strangest thing. But for days I didn't feel hungry at all. I was... occupied. ❞

❝ You took away all the other wanting from me. ❞

❝ It was a beautiful house, but not a clever one. It was a house with no imagination. ❞

❝ Fear could make a believer of anybody. ❞

❝ Didn't all drownings begin with a harmless dribble of water? ❞

❝ There's very little worse than when our heroes fail us, is there? ❞

❝ Men just say whatever they want and everyone believes them. ❞

❝ Love transcends petty theological squabbles. ❞

❝ But if fairies and monsters were real, so were the women who defeated them. ❞

❝ It doesn't matter. I'm not afraid to care about you. ❞

❝ It's very hard to believe something when it feels like the whole world is trying to convince you otherwise. ❞

❝ You're not just one thing. Survival is something you do, not something you are. ❞

❝ You're brave and brilliant. You're the most real, full person I've ever met. ❞

❝ The sea is treacherous, but women are even more treacherous. ❞

❝ You don't see yourself very clearly. ❞

❝ Challenging me isn't pestering. I'm not always right. Sometimes I deserve to be challenged. And changing your mind isn't foolish. It just means you've learned something new. ❞

❝ Everyone changes their mind sometimes, as they should, or else they're just, I don't know, stubborn and ignorant. ❞

❝ Moving water is healthy; stagnant water is sickly. Tainted. ❞

❝ If you want to see what you are, look into the tide pools at dusk. Look into the sea. ❞

❝ I will love you to ruination. ❞

❝ You can die as easily of thirst as you can of drowning. ❞

❝ Love is a fire that cannot burn alone. ❞

❝ The better you know someone, the more terribly you could hurt them. ❞

❝ You don't have to love something in order to devote yourself to it. ❞

❝ A romance is a belief in the impossible: that anything ends happily. ❞

❝ If a story repeated itself so many times over, building itself up brick by brick, did it eventually become the truth? A house with no doors and no windows, offering no escape. ❞

❝ How terrible, to navigate the world without a story to comfort you. ❞

❝ That was the cruelest irony: the more you did to save yourself, the less you became a person worth saving. ❞

❝ I was a woman when it was convenient to blame me, and a girl when they wanted to use me. ❞

❝ I believe you. ❞

❝ It takes courage to let down your armor, to welcome people to see you as you are. ❞

❝ I can’t risk having people behold me as I truly am. ❞

❝ You will miss so much by being so guarded. ❞

❝ I don't think you realize how strong you are. ❞

❝ Sometimes strength isn't swords and steel and fire, as we are so often made to believe. Sometimes it's found in quiet, gentle places. ❞

❝ I hope you will find your place, wherever you are. ❞

❝ I think we all wear armor. I think those who don’t are fools, risking the pain of being wounded by the sharp edges of the world, over and over again. ❞

❝ I am coming to love him, in two different ways. Face to face, and word to word. ❞

❝ I am destined to always be at war within myself. ❞

❝ Your grief will never fully fade; it will always be with you--a shadow you carry in your soul--but it will become fainter as your life becomes brighter. ❞

❝ You are not alone. ❞

❝ I never told you that I love you. And I regret that, most of all. ❞

❝ That’s it. You’re doing great, ____. ❞

❝ I think there is a magical link between you and me. A bond that not even distance can break. ❞

❝ It’s not a crime to feel joy, even when things seem hopeless. ❞

❝ ____, look at me. You deserve all the happiness in the world. And I intend to see that you have it. ❞

❝ I don’t want to wake up when I’m seventy-four only to realize I haven’t lived. ❞

❝ I’m not going anywhere, unless you tell me to leave, and even then, we might need to negotiate. ❞

❝ I realize that people are just people, and they carry their own set of fears, dreams, desires, pains, and mistakes. ❞

❝ I can’t expect someone else to make me feel complete; I must find it on my own. ❞

❝ I pray that my days will be long at your side. ❞

❝ Let me fill and satisfy every longing in your soul. May your hand be in mine, by sun and by night. ❞

❝ Let our breaths twine and our blood become one, until our bones return to dust. Even then, may I find your soul still sworn to mine. ❞

❝ I’m not afraid to be alone, but I’m tired of being the one left behind. ❞

❝ I broke my engagement, quit my job, and traveled six hundred kilometers into war-torn land to be with you. ❞

❝ And yet I keep moving forward. On some days, I’m afraid, but most days, I simply want to achieve those things I dream of. ❞

❝ Let us make our names exactly what we want them to be. ❞

❝ How do you make your life your own and not feel guilt over it? ❞

❝ I am so afraid. And yet how I long to be vulnerable and brave when it comes to my own heart. ❞

❝ I grew something living in a season of death. ❞

❝ I don’t think you can even begin to understand what your words mean to me. ❞

❝ I want your hand to be in mine, no matter what comes. ❞

❝ You’re distracting me, ____. ❞

❝ Endings were often found in beginnings. ❞

❝ By law, we’re both legal adults who can drink and be formally charged for murder. ❞