The Wicker King

"Just because I don`t see the kingdom doesn`t mean it doesn`t still exist," Jack said furiously. "As long as one of us remembers it, it still counts. We decide the end of the game, not them. Not anyone else. You`re so stupid, August. You`re so stupid and I love you so much."

And as the champion stood, boots firm on the ground, howling to the sky, I knew at once that he`d never been mine at all. He was a thing of the earth. He belonged to the streams and the deserts and the darkness. To the sound of thunder and the whispers of the ocean as it clawed the shore. To the rain that fell when the sun was still blazing, to the grime clenched between my fingers.
I stood by his side.

Time passed both quickly and slowly in the hospital -- kind of like a weird, oppressive summer vacation. Where every day seemed like it took ten thousand years, but then you looked up and three months had passed in what felt like an instant.

August sat up suddenly and gripped Jack`s forearm. "I`m doing this for you. Not the Wicker King. Not what we have become. But for you. If anything goes wrong, I want you to remember that."
Jack nodded. August slipped beneath the water -- and breathed.

"If he`s your responsibility, you should be responsible enough to fix it. If you`re looking after him, look after him," she whispered furiously.
"What do you think I`m doing?" August shot back.
"I think you`re doing your best," Rina said, tossing the wet dishrag into the sink. "But your best is not good enough sometimes," she said, deflating a bit. "Sometimes... you have to stop trying and just let someone else try their best. In order to survive."

Quests always have an ending, whether it`s a good one or a bad one. Always.

What is scarier, one large scary thing or many, many small scary things?

"My mom once told me that being alone makes you feel weaker every day, even if you`re not," he said quietly. "But it`s not as bad if you`re with other people who are alone, too. We can hold each other up like a card tower."

All virtues not granted at birth are taught to you by life, one way or another. My mother told me that.

I know I`m not particularly nice. But niceness and kindness are two different things, and I am nothing if not kind -- regardless of the methods I use to achieve such a thing.

“You burn things all the time these days,” Jack said softly. “Would you burn for me?”
August stared him down. Stared into the gray of Jack’s eyes. So clear, they were—not a hint of delusion. Just fierce and grand as the day he lay with his back in the river’s mud. Ten thousand years ago.
“You already know I’ll do it,” August said.
You already know. You fucking know.

How did we all decide that clapping is a good way to let people understand appreciation with a nonverbal cue?

His favorite thing was watching her put on her makeup. He liked the dark liquid she spread around her eyes to make them deeper. He didn`t really know what everything else she used was, but the way she slathered it on was like an art. She was stunning in the dim yellow light.
Rina waited until the very last to put on her lipstick. It was like war paint, red and vivid, smeared across her mouth.
She smiled at August for effect.
He shivered.

Nothing dies. At least that`s what they write on the walls. They write all sorts of things on the walls of stone buildings -- prayers, jokes, news. But mostly warnings.