Passage and Piece - an SRL Phrase Game

[karenee]

"You are to be congratulated," Jamrog was saying.
"Not at all, Supreme Director," replied Diltz. "I remind you that it was your idea. I merely oversaw its implementation."
"As you wish." Jamrog nodded solemnly. "I accept the triumph. I am, after all, the generative force of my people. I am the blood and spirit of Empyrion. I am life and beyond life." -(Siege of Dome)

[Tegid]

Avallach smiled, his face mysterious in the torchlight. "A gift should be honored -- that is what you said. I accept your gift, and I ask you likewise to accept the gift which I now bestow."
The statement took Taliesin by surprise. "As my father has said you are under no obligation --"
"I understand that or I would never have come here tonight." Taking up the knife once more, Avallach said, "Will you honor the gift I give?"
Elphin sought concensus in the expressions of his advisors, but their faces offered no help; none guessed what Avallach was planning. "A gift must be offered before it can be accepted. But I see no harm in accepting whatever token you wish to give."
"Rightly said, King Elphin!" Avallach all but shouted in triumph. The Cymry exchanged worried, puzzled glances. Belyn and Maildun frowned.

-- (Taliesin)

[cree8ivone]

"Nav," replied Ranulf scornfully, "the concerns of the Holy Church are the concerns of all good Christian men. What temporal duty can claim greater obligation?"

"Both the bishop and I agree, of course," Abbot Gerardus said. "And that is why we have interceded with the jarl--sadly, to no avail."

-- (The Iron Lance)

[Tegid]

"Doesn't the prospect of time displacement frighten you at all?"
Pizzle shook his head slowly. "I can't say as it does." He shrugged. "It's all the same in the end, isn't it?"
"What's all the same?"
"This -- space travel. It's always into the unknown, right? And as far as time displacement, what difference does it make?"
"Why, an enormous difference!" Treet exploded in exasperation. "A carking pile of a difference!"
"How?" Pizzle blinked mildly back at him.
"What?"
"How? How does it make a difference? You can't tell me that whether I arrive today, tomorrow, or a week ago last Thursday is going to make a molecule of difference -- not to me, not to the colonists, not to anybody else, including you." He jabbed a button on the console. "It's your move. Careful, I've got your coastal lowlands mined."
As much as he hated to admit it, there was a microgram of cockeyed logic in what Pizzle said. In essence, it wouldn't make much difference when they arrived since their arrival had no field of external objectification, to use Belthausen's unwieldy term -- that is, no exact temporal frame of reference.

-- (The Search for Fierra)

[cree8ivone]

So now I stand waiting for the confrontation to begin. The king arrives as I knew he would, with his chariots and warriors, bristling with weapons and stewing for a fight. It took him long enough. Well, he will have his fight, but the streams of regret flowing from this contest will not be mine.

-- (Patrick)

[Tegid]

Annwas Adeniawc reached out his bony hand and touched my arm. "No one is happy in hell, Myrddin. You have carried your burden long enough. It is time to lay it down."

"Burden it may be, but it is all I have left!" I screamed, tears of rage and pain mingling with the rain on my face.

The hermit rose and went into my cave. I sat where I was until he called me. When I looked, there was a fire burning brightly just inside the entrance. "Come in from the rain," Annwas said. "I will cook us something to eat while we talk."

How long has it been since I had warm food in my belly? I wondered, and found myself going in to join him. I do not know where he found the small pot to hold the meaty stew, nor where he got the meat, nor the grain to make the bread. But as I watched him prepare the meal, and smelled it cooking, the fight went out of me and I began, haltingly, to tell him ... and, God help me, I told him everything:

-- (Merlin)

(Today's internet connection graciously provided through the kindness of [red]DanTheMan[/red] and [pink]dreamer[/pink].)

[cree8ivone]

A starving dog barked as we entered the holding, alerting the inhabitants who emerged from the huts as we came near. At the yapping of the dog, my inner vision kindled and I saw the place we had come to. Half-naked children, barefoot and big-eyed, lurked behind their slump-shouldered parents. Everyone wore the grim, hollow look of people whose lives have become a burden they can no longer bear.

Cynan addressed the chief of the holding, a man named Ognw, who told how they were forced to work the fields but were denied the proceeds of their labor. "Meldron takes it all," he complained, the people muttering darkly behind him. "He gives us the leavings. Nothing more."

--(The Silver Hand)

[Tegid]

Just like that, all at once, the weight of the battle fell from us like a wall crumbling inward upon itself after leaning outward for so long. Aurelius wasted not a moment. He wheeled his horse, snatching up the royal standard, and, waving the proud Eagle above his head, mounted the attack.

Great Light, we are saved!

Aurelius retaliated quickly and without mercy. Instantly the remaining horsemen gathered to him, and they rode down the enemy from behind.

There is no honor in slaughtering a fleeing foe -- only grim expedience. It had to be done.

-- (Merlin)

[karenee]

No, it was more than imagined, I think: I really felt something--the force of his presence perhaps, groping, searching, penetrating the obscurity, and finally brushing against me. That fleeting touch chilled me, and my heart lurched in my chest.

Blessed Jesu, Bright Protector, save me! I prayed--though I do not know why. - (Arthur)

[Tegid]

Suddenly there were so many things I wanted to know, so many questions I needed to ask. I asked the first that occurred to me. "But, Pelleas, how did you know where to find me?"

"I did not know, my lord," he said simply; he fastened and stepped away. "There, you are a king once more."

"You mean --" I stared at him. "You mean you have been searching for me all this time ... these many years? It has been years, has it not? Of course it has. Look at you, Pelleas -- you are a grown man now. I -- ... Pelleas, tell me, how long has it been? How long have I been away?"

"You have been away a fair time, lord. Many years."

"A good many?"

"Yes, lord, a good many."

"How many?"

He shrugged. "Not so many that the name of Myrddin Emrys is not still remembered and revered in the land. In fact, your fame has increased most wonderfully. There is not a corner of the Island of the Mighty that does not know and fear you." He fell to his knees once more. "Oh, Merlin, my master, I am so happy to have found you at last ..."

"How you must have searched -- have you never stopped searching?"

"Until this moment, never. And if I had not found you just now, I would have gone on searching."

I was awed by his devotion to me, and shamed by it. I turned away from him. "I am not worthy of your sacrifice, Pelleas. God alone is worthy of such devotion."

-- (Merlin)

[karenee]

"You must not blame yourself, for in the end he chose his own course, as he ever did. It was his wish to die serving the kingdom he loved. And of all his loves this one, his love for his realm, claimed his highest devotion. He was a king first and a man only second."

"Thank you for your words, my Lady. They do soothe me well. I will not blame myself, though I did at first. I know now that his course was set for him long ago. He would not bend to another."

- (Warlords of Nin)

[Tegid]

"Soon you will forget all about him." She offered her daughter a hopeful smile. "Time will heal, and the hurt will pass. Mark my words, the pain will pass."

Merian knew her parents were right, though she would not have expressed her opinions quite so harshly. Even so, she could not make her heart believe the things they said: it went on aching, and nothing anyone said soothed the pain. In the end, Merian determined to keep her thoughts, like her grief, to herself. -- (Hood)

[karenee]

I was sometimes put with the older boys and young men, even though I was rarely a match for their prowess--or even skillful enough to create much in the way of an interesting challenge. Consequently, I was the butt of their humor and the target of all their scorn.

Nor did I blame them. I was a hopeless warrior. I knew that. But, until today, I had not really wanted to succeed. I wanted it now. And not only success, I wanted to win acclaim and honor. I wanted to cover myself in glory in Scatha's eyes...or at least avoid further disgrace. - (The Paradise War)

[Tegid]

The bishop then asked us to describe our work. Brocmal began a lengthy account of the undertaking and how the labours had been divided among the various members of the scriptorium; Libir added observations from time to time, and Bishop Cadoc asked many questions of them both. I listened, awaiting my turn to speak, but it did not come.

It is a sign of my prideful spirit, no doubt, that I began to feel slighted -- and I was not the only one. Master Cellach, under whose skilful and painstaking direction the great labour was accomplished, never received a mention, nor did any of the other scribes -- and there were many. Listening to Brocmal and Libir's account, one would have thought they had produced the entire book between the two of them alone.

-- (Byzantium)

[karenee]

One Dance, but it took all space and time to describe it. One life, but it took all living things to define it. One mind, but it took all thought to know it. And still it could not be described, defined, or known in its entirety. He knew why Kyr and his kind called it the All Being, for it transcended all that it touched even as it stooped to create it.

And though it spawned a billion worlds, gave voice to a trillion celestial lights, directed the course of a quintillion lives, the All-Being was One: inseperable, indivisible, indissoluble, immutable. All-Wise, All-merciful, All-Holy, All-Knowing. Infinite and eternal...

The rest went spinning by Spence in a dizzying flood of thoughts and feelings and images of power and grandeur untold. - (Dream Thief)