Emelan Quotes

Circle of Magic
The Circle Opens

Circle of Magic

Briar: (to Niko about bathing) Maybe you wouldn't be so bony if you stopped doing this all the time.

Ship's Captain: Master Niko, he's as hard to understand sometimes as any oracle. When the fit's on him, he can talk you so confused you'll forget which bearing is north.
Niko: It's the university education. It teaches us to chase our tails for an hour before breakfast, just to get the exercise.

Niko: Good morning, Briar. I've brought you some housemates.
Briar: Oh, wonderful. More girls.
Daja: It could be worse. It could be more boys.

Briar: It wasn't me nicked them things, Niko. If they told you I did ...
Niko: I know you didn't. But - knives, Briar?
Briar: I need - 
Niko: Knives? I want them. All of them.
Briar: But it ain't safe. What if I have to defend myself?
Niko: The knives, Briar. If you have them, you also have the temptation to use them. Now, if you please.

Sandry: I am silly, now and then. My mother said I was, anyway.
Daja: If you know, you can stop it.
Sandry: Then you've never been silly, or you'd know it just creeps up without any warning.

Lark: Briar, would you tell Rosethorn it's midday? Keep after her so she won't forget to come in.
Briar: What if she bites me?
Lark: Bite back.

Lark: (about Rosethorn) Her bark is worse than her bite.
Daja: But her bite's poisonous.
Tris: And with the bark you die slow.

Lark: If she did want to steal anything of yours, we also know that she would take it herself, not send a deputy.
Rosethorn: Thanks, Lark.

Briar: Traders mourn in red? What kind of barbaric thing is that?

Kirel: (to Daja and Frostpine) Can I play, too? I'll be good.

Sandry: Take care of yourself, Uncle. Let your merchants scream in a courtyard where you can't hear them. The exercise will keep them young.

Rosethorn: Why can't you put me down? People will think I'm dying if they see me carried in by two hulking lads - 
Briar: (smiling dreamily) She's home.
Kirel: We brought her. And believe me, it wasn't easy.

Briar: My name is Briar! Not 'boy', Briar!
Rosethorn: I know perfectly well what your name is, boy.

Briar: None of that. Your helping me doesn't mean I'll let you grow any which-way.
Shakkan: Perhaps one new bud?
Briar: Oh, all right. Which do you want to keep?

Briar: (breaking into Aymery's chest) I love me.

Tris: Amusing? He calls a fire amusing! Why not put a torch to his tail and see if he finds that amusing, too?

Daja: Why are you always asking hard questions?
Briar: Sooner or later you'll have to be able to answer one.

Frostpine: Where is it? Where is your magic?
Daja: Sandry has it.
Frostpine: Sandry has it. I see. You just felt generous and you said, "Take my magic Sandry. I'm not using it ..."
Lark: Don't get in one of your flames.
Frostpine: One of my - You strip my apprentice of her power - 

Briar: (about Niko's illusion) Very nice. Couldn't have done better myself.
Tris: Couldn't have done it at all yourself.

Briar: Didya see that elephant? I wanna complain to a magistrate. Someone let an elephant run wild, and it stepped on me.
Lark: That's just Rosethorn being noble.

Rosethorn: (to Flick) Yes, I said the bad word - 'wash'. It won't hurt, not much. It didn't kill him (points at Briar) so it shouldn't kill you.

Henna: I would have come sooner, but they locked me up with that lunatic Crane, until he decided he couldn't stand me. I don't know how you work with him. I decided quarantine is better.

Rosethorn: Turn right back around. I didn't escape quarantine to get buckled into your harness.
Crane: Charming as ever. However did they manage to entertain you at Urda's House?
Rosethorn: Only you could make 'Urda's House' sound like an ill-wish.
Crane: I would have to care about the place to ill-wish it. I assume their own poor management is curse enough for them.

Lark: Once they stop fussing, they really do well together. They just have to get the fuss out of the way.
Crane: She has no system.
Rosethorn: He'd rather criticize how other people work.
Lark: You see what I mean?

Rosethorn: There are adult mages, rejoicing in great power and knowledge, who would kill for the chance to work for Dedicate Crane. Of course, they don't know him personally. It won't kill either of us, though we may wish it had.

Lark: (to Briar about Rosethorn) She must be feeling a bit better if she's tormenting people.

Crane: Have you any respect for proper order?
Frostpine: Depends on who's idea of order it is.

Rosethorn: If you go, they must train someone else for your job - and someone after that, and someone afterr that, since Crane will get rid of anyone new who looks at him cross-eyed.
Crane: Unjust.
Osprey: Absolutely right.

Rosethorn: I am so sick of this rubbish! I swear, I'm going to float away in a sea of horse urine!
Lark: Oh, no, love. I assure you, horse urine is much more strongly flavoured.
Rosethorn: How - ?
Lark: You don't want to know.
Rosethorn drinks the tea.
Lark: (to Tris and Briar) You just have to know how to talk to her.

Rosethorn: Enough! The next one who, who peers at me is going to die in a dreadful way! Either come in or stay out!
Daja: Stay out.
Briar: Ah, the sweet birds of spring. I hear their glorious song.

Frostpine (about Rosethorn and Crane being left alone together): Do you think she's killed him?
Briar: It's too quiet for murder. And he'd yelp more if she were mauling him.
Frostpine: We'd better check.

Briar: Don't your eyes ever hurt you? If you can see so much?
Niko: One grows accustomed.
Briar: You sound like Crane.
Niko: Dear Gods, anything but that.

Frostpine: (after tasting Rosethorn's medicine) Are you trying to kill me, woman?
Rosethorn: If I mean to kill someone, I do it. I don't try.

Rosethorn: Don't patronize me. I'm not 'your dear' anything.
Briar: (to the others) I love it when she talks mean.

Crane: Rosethorn is one of the most powerful mages with regard to medicine and plants in all the Pebbled Sea and it's environs.
Rosethorn: He says 'one of' because he means he's another.

Rosethorn: Briar, it's my time, and it isn't yours. Go back to the girls. You'll break their hearts if you get lost here.
Briar: You're breaking my heart.
Rosethorn: I can't go back. It will hurt.
Briar: 'Scuze me for thinking maybe it's worth it to pick up a few ouches! 'Scuze me for thinking maybe you liked me enough to want to come home!
Rosethorn: I like you, boy. I love you. And I am dead. That's that.

Rosethorn: (after bringing Rosethorn back from the dead) You'll regret this for the rest of your life. I'm going to see to it.
Briar (cheerfully): I know!

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The Circle Opens

Erdogun: The mail's arrived. I honestly don't know what to tell Lord Frantsen anymore.
Sandry: Tell him and that grasping wife of his that Uncle cut them from his will.
Duke Vedris: Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind.
Erdogun: (muttering) Wonderful.

Sandry: Can you manage without Rosethorn here?
Lark: It might even be easier, at least for the first few months. Never tell Rosie I said that.

Sandry: (about Pasco's three cousins floating in mid-air) If you didn't know how to get them down, you shouldn't have put them up there.

Pasco: (about Yazmin) She's a monster. A pretty, tiny, sqeaky-voiced monster with muscles like a smith's.

Pasco: I'm not stiff at all, lady. I'm weak as an overcooked noodle. Pray excuse me while I crawl home.
Sandry: A hot bath will help.
Pasco: Oh, good - a way to drown myself before I have another morning like this one.

Girl: Your grace, I tried to stop him!
Wulfric Snaptrap: And I told you I don't care if he's with an assembly of gods, I need to talk to him!

Sandry: Not just me, Uncle. Pasco's going to help.
Vedris: That feckless, rattle-pated ... Well. Knowing that makes all the difference. Now, instead of wishing to throw Winding Circle's mage council into the harbour, I will do so. Immediately.
Lark: (gravely) Your grace, you know we can't allow that.

Oama: Pity your mate Tris isn't here. She'd whisk all this damp off like a maid with a feather duster.
Sandry: She might disappoint you. These days she worries a lot about not interfering with the natural order of things.
Vedris: Exactly as I suspected. Too much education does ruin a perfectly good mind.

Briar kisses Rosethorn lightly on the cheek.
Rosethorn: Oh, stop that! People will start to think I like you if you pull that kind of nonsense.
Briar: They already know you do. I'm still alive after years in your company.

Briar: What's so funny?
Rosethorn: You. Teaching table manners. You! Please - don't let me interrupt! I'll see you tonight!

Rosethorn: (about Evvy) I won't scare her. I'll be as kind as her own mother.
Briar: Don't do that. Her mother sold her.

Briar: You're more trouble then you're worth.
Evvy: I'm a girl. That's my job.

Briar: You have to obey Rosethorn. She mostly doesn't give orders without a good reason.
Rosethorn: Mostly? Just mostly?
Briar: Sometimes you give orders just to be crotchety.

Briar: So I guess I was the last to know.
Rosethorn: Of course you are. You're a man, aren't you?

Briar: Aww, you're getting soft. Time was you'd have skinned anyone who fooled with your pots.
Rosethorn: I may do that yet.

Briar: They never tell you some things. They tell you mages have wonderful power and they learn all kinds of secrets. Nobody ever mentions that some secrets you don't ever want to learn.
Rosethorn: All you can do is learn good to balance the bad. Learn and do all the good within your reach, so when you wake in a sweat, you have something to set against the dream.

Daja: You'll set yourself on fire if you move any closer to the hearth.
Frostpine: Then I'll die warm.

Daja: You're sure you can catch him?
Frostpine: I handle enough of his fakes and I'll sniff him out like a hound.
Daja: You said that when someone was filching your tools back home. It took you all winter to find him.
Frostpine: I didn't know I was looking for a child. I suspected dark plots by - oh, you have no respect for me.
Daja: (grinning) I have plenty of respect for you. Truly. I swear it.

Daja: That nobleman in Olart who wanted you as his teacher - he was respectful. He 'sir-ed' you across the realm and back. You called him a, a 'cake-mouthed ninny dressed as a peahen'. And you told him memorizing runes and chants did not make him a smith-mage. We had to sleep in someone's barn that night.
Frostpine: Is it my fault he disliked criticism?

Heluda: You look half dead.
Frostpine: Magistrates' mages, so pessimistic. I prefer to think that I am half alive.

Matazi: You can come out. Breathe some air. It's good for you.
Frostpine: That air is cold, wet and moving.
Kol: That's the green wind of the Syth. Smell it. Damp earth, growing things - spring is on it's way.
Frostpine: On it's way, maybe. Here, no. I love you both dearly, but I am going to find some real spring. The kind that's actually warm.

Niko: I can't think of the last time I held dragon vomit in my hand. Why, never, in fact. There are no such things as dragons. Need I also point out there are no such things as living glass dragons?

Jumshida: Put yourself in this man's shoes.
Kethlun: I don't want anyone in my shoes. I don't want to be in my shoes.

Kethlun: You are a wicked girl.
Tris: (shrugging) So I've been told. I've learned to live with the shame of it.

Kethlun: Here I was, all hopeful you wouldn't even have the strength to pick on me once you woke up. So much for boyish dreams.

Tris: For all you know, there were prathmuni everywhere on that street. They're not stupid.
Dema: No, they're not. They're negotiating a contract with Tharios right now, from hiding. They won't return until the Assembly grants certain concessions, like pay for their work, and better living conditions.
Keth: (grinning) What a shame.
Tris: (innocently) I feel for you. I feel for all Tharios.

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