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alectology-archive:

When everyone we loved has gone or fled, That’s morning. Empty’s just another word for clean. Let’s put this first-draft dream of mine to bed.ALT
“Maybe that’s for the best,” said Pyrrha. Then she opened her mouth and said quietly— “A…” “Don’t,” Nona found herself saying. “Don’t. Don’t call me that or anything like that … don’t make me remember. I don’t want to … You won’t like it. Don’t. Don’t make me do it.”ALT
“This isn’t how it happens,” said the Body. Which gave Harrow a curious strength.ALT
“Is that the truth, or the truth you tell yourself?” asked Augustine. “What is the difference?” said God.ALT
“I will forgive you,” she said bravely, and she swallowed three times in quick succession. Augustine looked at her with an expression of growing bewilderment. “There’s one thing left—one last chance. If you can do this for me … if you make me believe you … I’ll forgive everything. Rinse my memory, if you want to. That idiot infant Harrowhark did it. I’ll work out how you can do it to me. I’ll let you rip out my brain if you want to. But I will forgive you, if you do just—one—thing.”ALT
"... None of them will have to remember anything. I know where remembrance lives in the brain, and he won’t have any of it. You know that too, don’t you? It’s the easiest thing in the world … to forget.” She said, “To forget … everything?” “Yes,” he said, and more sharply— “Yes. It’s the only way.”ALT
“Thankfully, Pent was quicker on the uptake. “You didn’t remove the memories of your cavalier, Harrowhark. I think that would have been beyond even the powers of a Lyctor. You falsified them. You skinned them over with something that looked good.” What a waste of a woman, to have ended her life at the bottom of a ladder.”ALT
"Her filthiness is on her feet,” he murmured. “She has not remembered her end.” “For God’s sake, raise your hands, Octakiseron,” she said. “Or make me strike down an unarmed man.” And Silas said, “Is this how it happens, then?”ALT
I WILL REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU KISSED ME—YOU APOLOGISED—YOU SAID, I AM SORRY, DESTROY ME AS I AM, BUT I WANT TO KISS YOU BEFORE I AM KILLED, AND I SAID TO YOU WHY, AND YOU SAID, BECAUSE I HAVE ONLY ONCE MET SOMEONE SO UTTERLY WILLING TO BURN FOR WHAT THEY BELIEVED IN, AND I LOVED HIM ON SIGHT, AND THE FIRST TIME I DIED I ASKED OF HIM WHAT I NOW ASK OF YOUALT
This time will be the time we get it right: Forgiveness not so hard, nor anger long; Our graves will be less deep, our lies less true.ALT
“Augustine the First,” said the man who was God, and the God who was man. “My first saint. My first hand, and fist, and gesture. Will you swear your loyalty to me again, clean slate, fresh start? Or not?” He murmured, “You said there was no forgiveness.” “‘I pardon him, as God shall pardon me,’” said the Emperor. “Come, swear your loyalty, my son—my brother—beloved—Lyctor—saint.”ALT
“Augustine, you promised me that after we did it we would go somewhere and drop into the nearest sun—” “That was when this was a fantasy,” he said. ALT
“The bullet went into your head,” said Hot Sauce. Nona tried to remember everything Honesty had ever told her about lying, lies, porkies, and untruths. “You think it did,” she said cunningly, “but it didn’t.”ALT
“Yes,” he said, as though halfway dreaming. He stuck his finger in the sand and made a hole so deep that water glimmered at the bottom. Hypnotized, he did it again. “Yes. Once we’ve rested. No, we’ll do it before you’ve rested. You can rest afterward … resurrection is different from waking up. We’ll get them all back … some of them, anyway … or at least, the ones I want to bring back. Anyone I feel didn’t do it. Anyone I feel had no part in it. Anyone I can look at the face of and forgive. And my loved ones … The ones I left, I’ll bring back. I know I can."ALT
“But why make so many changes? Why is this narrative so different? This isn’t how it happened at all. I understand that … that Gideon had to be—absent, but why…” “This isn’t a picture you’re drawing, Harrow,” said Pent. “It’s a play you’re directing. You set up a stage in the River, you pulled in ghosts as your actors, and you enforced certain rules to keep your cast on-script."ALT
Five for tradition and debts to the dead; Six for the truth over solace in lies; Seven for beauty that blossoms and dies; Eight for salvation no matter the cost; Nine for the Tomb, and for all that was lost.ALT

Harrow the Ninth & Nona the Ninth + rewriting narratives