“The best strategies run on rails like that.” Miles pointed out. “Live or die, you make your goal.” - Lois McMaster Bujold

He’s not so short,” said Ekaterin defensively. “He’s just . . . concentrated.” Her

“Hair shirts, really, what is the point?” She gave the impression of a faint, dramatic shudder, and Pen smiled despite himself. She added more tartly, “And it indicates a deep confusion of thinking to mistake one’s own discomfort for a benefit to another.”

"The Father of Winter says tells Ista,
"...For my great-souled child is very late, and lost upon his road. My calling voice cannot reach him. He cannot see the light in my window, for he is sundered from me, blind and deaf and stumbling, with none to take his hand and guide him. Yet you may touch him, in his darkness. And I may touch you, in yours. Then take you this thread to draw him through the maze, where I cannot go."

Later, Ista delivers the message,

"Your Father calls you to His Court. You need not pack; you go garbed in glory as you stand. He waits eagerly by His palace doors to welcome you, and has prepared a place at His high table by His side, in the company of the great-souled, honored, and best-beloved. In this I speak true. Bend your head.