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7bea74f
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If only someone else hadn't done that. I hoped she would learn sooner, rather than later, that you can't unchoose anyone's choices, least of all your own. All you can do with your past is try to grow out of it.
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Kevin Hearne |
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eabb822
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Oberon asked. No, Oberon, I told him via our mental link. You're only the second companion I've done that with. Some people--and some creatures--don't handle long lives very well. It changes them for the worse. But you just keep getting better, buddy. I briefly glanced at the slobbery hunk of beef underneath Oberon's paw. No thanks; I'm full. I'll tell you some other night, okay? It's a story in itself.
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Kevin Hearne |
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f3c7ee0
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But people who truly want to shed blood will find a way to shed it, just as people who wish to do good will find a way to be a benediction to their neighbors. Building and growing are so much harder than cutting something down.
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Kevin Hearne |
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79d51bc
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Fear is a weapon. Leaders use it to manipulate the people they lead and to cow other nations. Your enemies will use it to manipulate you.
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Kevin Hearne |
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b72f941
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There's a reason Bath & Body Works doesn't have a line of products called Huge Fucking Squirrel.
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Kevin Hearne |
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eef7481
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Oberon asked me. After my bathtime story, he wanted to be the Genghis Khan of dogs. He wanted a harem full of French poodles, all of whom were named either Fifi or Bambi. It was an amusing habit of his: Oberon had, in the past, wanted to be Vlad the Impaler, Joan of Arc, Bertrand Russell, and any other historical figure I had recently told him about while he was getting a thorough cleansing. His Liberace period had been particularly good fo..
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Kevin Hearne |
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275444e
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Fires were warm cups of non-thinking serenity after the daily rigors of training.
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Kevin Hearne |
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0694c99
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Shared knowledge can weigh heavy in the scales of power,
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Kevin Hearne |
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e5c9a11
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should be going in there with a thousand naked warriors who fight like wet cats with dodgy bowels.
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Kevin Hearne |
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bb46475
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What do pharmacists dream of? Caribbean vacations paid for by GlaxoSmithKline? Sample packs of Percocet? Her
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Kevin Hearne |
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d072c53
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If you don't give people a conventional path to power, they will seek out their own unconventional path.
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Kevin Hearne |
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4ecb8e5
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He was, undeniably, a mobile mountain of musk and virility,
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Kevin Hearne |
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a1e7092
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Shared knowledge can weigh heavy in the scales of power," he replied, and I have seen the truth of it since. "Controlling what you want shared is always the issue, and writing down nothing is the most extreme method of control. But while this preserves our secrets, it also limits our ability to spread our wisdom, does it not?"
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Kevin Hearne |
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bbc4883
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No, Oberon, stakes, as in a wooden stake you drive into the ground. It's a homophone." "And you've been so patient too."
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Kevin Hearne |
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4d430d4
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What? Oberon, no." "It's not something I would think to ask." "It's not pandering! Felicity still has a part to play in this. I said at the start there would be vintage poodles. Would you just let me finish?" Granuaile did a poor job of stifling a laugh when she heard me protest the pandering charge. Oberon said, all high and mighty as if he were doing me a favor."
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Kevin Hearne |
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fab7216
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What does one do when one needs to pray to the gods for patience but a god is causing the need for patience?
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Kevin Hearne |
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0138c24
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What? Who? You can't throw around pronouns like that without their antecedents if you want people to follow you.
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Kevin Hearne |
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eb6e6d9
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That good, huh? It's free, Oberon.
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Kevin Hearne |
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a7c5c28
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Horns honked in our wake, and people stomped on their brakes at the sight of a black Mustang being pursued by an airborne chariot.
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Kevin Hearne |
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c0d4efc
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and a too-passionate love of books can mew one in a cloister, putting up walls where there should be free range.
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Kevin Hearne |
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e1802ef
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At this point we hated each other as much as it was possible for two Irishmen to do-and that's quite a bit.
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Kevin Hearne |
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dbfb43e
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Damn all hieroglyphics for making the ancient Egyptians look cool. Those old gods were best left in oblivion; you'd think the fact that they appeared most often on tombs would be a big hint that they weren't friendly.
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Kevin Hearne |
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37c9598
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To seek absolution from humanity would be to seek my own folly. One may speak of forgiveness here, and another may actually mean it there, but legions remain who would condemn a starving man to amputation for pinching a crust of bread. We are petty creatures who seek to aggrandize ourselves by feasting on the dignity of our fellows. There
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Kevin Hearne |
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0d96d9e
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All right, buddy. What'll it be?
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Kevin Hearne |
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e649fe7
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are the worst.
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Kevin Hearne |
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2b3b135
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Yes, I felt guilt. Somehow I had pushed Fand to the precipice without realizing it, and had I not been so blind, perhaps she wouldn't be trying to pull us all over the edge with her now. I was sure Manannan felt it too--the crushing questions of how we got to this place and whether we could have avoided it, where we went wrong, and whether we would ever learn how not to cock up other people's lives in the course of living our own.
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Kevin Hearne |
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cb112f0
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There are many perks to living for twenty-one centuries, and foremost among them is bearing witness to the rare birth of genius. It invariably goes like this: Someone shrugs off the weight of his cultural traditions, ignores the baleful stares of authority, and does something his countrymen think to be completely batshit insane. Of those, Galileo was my personal favorite. Van Gogh comes in second, but he really was batshit insane. Thank
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Kevin Hearne |
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69fb4a0
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But this is going to be difficult enough without running my words through a filter of illiteracy.
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Kevin Hearne |
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ef96664
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I had privately changed "This, too, shall pass" into "You, too, shall die," and it helped me avoid all sorts of conflict."
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Kevin Hearne |
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54ba5d2
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It's odd how a dog roaming around is a health code violation but serving fried death on a stick isn't.
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Kevin Hearne |
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191b2a5
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Well, look at the bright side, Granuaile. Emo Douche Bags would be a great band name." "
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Kevin Hearne |
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0fed18a
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Cowardly? Bleh. Tell you what: Let's debate the meaning of honor and see who lives longer. The
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Kevin Hearne |
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d6bef56
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Manannan's door-cum-portal
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Kevin Hearne |
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1b2bf02
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You, sir," I said, "have all the dignity of a badger with the clap. Shark shit has more fiber than you. I'm going to tie you nuts-first to a monkey's cage and make a mix tape of the resulting noise. Then I'm going to take a bag of marshmallows and a pair of granny panties and--"
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Kevin Hearne |
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f38bd7e
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You hear that? The nice blonde in her thirties is actually more than 140 years old.
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Kevin Hearne |
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837093c
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to steer from the passenger seat. I sniggered. "You have"
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Kevin Hearne |
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106a73e
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threat that I forgot how good it feels to be rooted. And to be rooted is not the same thing at all as being tied down. To be rooted is to say, here am I nourished and here will I grow, for I have found a place where every sunrise shows me how to be more than what I was yesterday, and I need not wander to feel the wonder of my blessing. And when you are rooted, defending that space ceases to be an obligation or a duty and becomes more of a d..
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Kevin Hearne |
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edb5eb6
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You said Americans assert their own opinions as if they were facts and dismiss inconvenient facts as mere opinions.
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Kevin Hearne |
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390725a
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Leif, you spooky bastard, how the hell are ya?
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Kevin Hearne |
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83617e8
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now; it was not then. Satisfied that he had cowed me sufficiently, he mounted his chariot and snapped the reins, flying back into the dark clouds that had concealed his approach. From that day to this I have mourned the loss of my unnamed friend and cursed the name of Thor. He ripped from me the wonder of the ocean; he stole from all men the knowledge of a world they can never inherit. The Finns may no longer
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Kevin Hearne |
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1059c18
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is better than running.>
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Kevin Hearne |
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c3ff481
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one cannot sass me with impunity.
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Kevin Hearne |
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f173772
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I don't get it. You guys look down on chimps for flinging their own poo but you think it's fine to fling other kinds of poo around? I mean, you get opposable thumbs and this is what you do with them?]
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funny
oberon
monkeys
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Kevin Hearne |
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9f896f0
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I have never thought that winds howled so much as moaned. My imagination gives them reasons: They moan because they're weary of their never-ending journey around the globe and are haunted by what they've witnessed--species extinction and coral-reef death and miles of trash floating in the ocean and a strange collection of humans who keep saying the earth is doing just fine, in spite of clear evidence to the contrary.
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Kevin Hearne |