Made it safely! Have consumed >60% of Cast in Honor (Everyone in it is a delight), and may constrain myself just to reading tonight instead of attempting tags. |D ETA: Time for quotes, time for spoilers!
Finished! I have some choice quotes; will share them either tonight or when I get home tomorrow. Going out for an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet!
ChickletLARP
(p.146) "When I say that," she finally told Annarion, "I say what I said when I was-was much younger. It was true, then. I didn't have as clear a concept that sometimes even our own truths can change, with time. I'm not the person I was when I first arrived in Elantra. But you're right to question it. It's not true now."
She hesitated. "Where I grew up, if you had something special, you kept it hidden. You kept it to yourself. If you didn't, you were likely to lose it. It could be stolen or broken. You never wanted to stand out. You never wanted to attract too much attention, because some of that attention would be bad.
"I think I say [I don't have many friends] now to protect myself. If I don't acknowledge the things that are important out loud, where people can hear it, no one will take them away from me."
(Also, the exchange with the Emperor from pages 150-154 is hilarious and I love it. Dariandaros (sp?) taking Kaylin off-guard is always a treasure - as is Kaylin managing to give him advice!)
(p.400) "Water as you drink it, water in your wells, water when it is not summoned, exists. It exists as part of the world, and it is not sentient. The glass of water you drink doesn't think. The water with which you bathe doesn't think. "The fire over which you cook, the earth over which you walk - they are part of the elements. They are like-
-like fingernail cuttings, or the dead skin you scrub off. Within my Garden, the elements are sentient. They are also contained-but understand, Kaylin, that they are ancient, ancient forces. They do not exist in on simple fashion; there is water here. There is water where the familiar guides you to look. There is water in the past and water in the present
"We persist in a similar way until our deaths-but only on the narrow path of 'world.' Pretend the world is like a very fine, many-layered cake. We cannot exist on any layer but the top. Or the bottom. The limitations on our perceptions, the limitations of our physical forms, demand it. There are stories-old stories that perhaps even your Arkon has forgotten.
During the time of creations, many creatures were made. "But many of them could not survive. Just as fish need water, men-and in this, I count all the races that have ever lived in Elantra or beyond its borders-need solidity. They need a fixed place, a living world. "Worlds were made. They were made like the cages small rodents live in.
They were made larger, of course, and the bard were meant to be invisible. "But the elements you see and touch and summon can live in any layer of existence, and do. What they are in the other layers is-should be-irrelevant to us, here."
( nikil_sanshowsparrowalchimique You might find this description of how the Elements interact with Elantra/the Garden to be interesting. There's a bit more about how they're 'anchored' that I can go back and quote if you'd like.)
(No, wait, here it is, p.432Yes. I hold the Tha'alaan within me, but it is not the whole of what I am. When I returned, some part of me was not bound by the Keeper and his Garden. The Garden is gone. "But-the world exists because of the Garden." Yes, Kaylin. Yes, and no, as you must now understand.
The fiefs exist because the Towers could contain those living within their boundaries. But the fiefs of Kattea's experience are dangerously unstable. She has not spoken of all of it; I am not sure that she is even aware of the differences, although she will grow to be so. There are four stones in the Garden. "Yes." There are five cages, in your time.
"The Devourer." Yes, Kaylin. But he, too, is not what he was. He has heard our voices, and Evanton's voice. He sleeps. When he wakes-and he will wake-the Towers will not be proof against him. It was always, and only, a matter of time for the small pocket of your world that remains. For Kattea and her kin. For the Barrani. She hesitated.
The way in which they were connected is through time. But time, for many beings, is flexible. It can be manipulated. Such manipulations are not guaranteed to destroy. Think of creation as a vast plane. It seems endless. It is endless. You cannot see its beginning; you cannot see its end. You can dig. You can build. You may build a city. A country.
The Keeper's Garden is built on a foundation of elements and emptiness. Out of this, the natural order arises in this world. "Other worlds have different-" Yes, of course. "Even the ones that are part of that plane?" Yes, of course. When the plane is folded, it wakes-or once woke-Gilbert and his kin. He flattens it. It is what he does.
He can see the plane as it extends through layers of time-but each layer must be distinct, its own. The layers do not contain him; he can pass between them, at need.
If the perturbation is concise, distinct, if it does not materially alter the shape of the plane, it is possible to ignore or overlook. Or to miss. But that is not, I think, what occurred here. What occurred here did not fold the plane-my appearance did.
(p.502) You have to know, Severn told her. You have to know that this is something you want, and not because I want it. Not because what I want overwhelms what you want. When they reached Elani Street, he knocked over Margot's sign before Kaylin could.
And Kattea is adorable and I want to know what her next adventures with him are and the familiar gave her the ability to see as Gilbert does (or something like that?) and they HUG and
ChickletLARP
"The fire over which you cook, the earth over which you walk - they are part of the elements. They are like-
"But many of them could not survive. Just as fish need water, men-and in this, I count all the races that have ever lived in Elantra or beyond its borders-need solidity. They need a fixed place, a living world.
"Worlds were made. They were made like the cages small rodents live in.
"But the elements you see and touch and summon can live in any layer of existence, and do. What they are in the other layers is-should be-irrelevant to us, here."
"But-the world exists because of the Garden."
Yes, Kaylin. Yes, and no, as you must now understand.
"Yes."
There are five cages, in your time.
Yes, Kaylin. But he, too, is not what he was. He has heard our voices, and Evanton's voice. He sleeps. When he wakes-and he will wake-the Towers will not be proof against him. It was always, and only, a matter of time for the small pocket of your world that remains. For Kattea and her kin. For the Barrani. She hesitated.
Kaylin's head began to hurt.
"Other worlds have different-"
Yes, of course.
"Even the ones that are part of that plane?"
Yes, of course. When the plane is folded, it wakes-or once woke-Gilbert and his kin. He flattens it. It is what he does.
When they reached Elani Street, he knocked over Margot's sign before Kaylin could.
Also, everything about the final scene with Kattea and Gilbert just slayed me.)
But also Chao.