To be dead was a state which played odd tricks on dreams of vengeance. - Tanith Lee

The sky powdered her cheeks with rouge, and the forest was mantled in crimson. Then the face of the sky altered, became that of a beautiful black damsel having no wish for rouge, but only for a net of stars and a piece of silver moon to hang on her forehead. And the forest mantled in sable, whispered with waters and the lyres of the grasshopper, and with the turning pages of leaves, and the unheard footsteps of unseen things.

We should go and ask the princess for help. She seems very nice, and she’s much too beautiful to be unkind.

He had been too near the hard facts of religions as a child to find it soothing.