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Title: Gods of Jade and Shadow Authors: Silvia Moreno-Garcia Category:supplementals Number of Highlights: 10 Date: 2024-09-06 Last Highlighted: **
Highlights
She knew about patan. Not just tribute, but duty and beyond duty, the obligation that carves your place in the world, and she wasn’t about to disregard it. But her hands were trembling.
The things you name do grow in power, but others that are not ever whispered claw at one’s heart anyway, rip it to shreds even if a syllable does not escape the lips.
Like many young people, ultimately she saw herself as a completely new creature, a creation that had sprung from no ancient soils.
The nature of hate is mysterious. It can gnaw at the heart for an eon, then depart when one expected it to remain as immobile as a mountain. But even mountains erode.
Fate is a force more powerful than gods, a fact they resent, since mortals are often given more leeway and may be able to navigate its current.
“You did not rescue me,” Casiopea replied. “I opened that chest. Besides, I wasn’t a princess in a tower. I knew I’d get away one way or another, and I was not waiting for a god to liberate me. That would have been both silly and unlikely.”
Ah, there is none more fearful of thieves than the one who has stolen something, and a kingdom is no small something.
Mortals have always been frightened of the night’s velvet embrace and the creatures that walk in it, and yet they find themselves mesmerized by it. Since all gods are born from the kernel of mortal hearts, it is no wonder Xibalba reflected this duality.
The imagination of mortals shaped the gods, carving their faces and their myriad forms, just as the water molds the stones in its path, wearing them down through the centuries. Imagination had also fashioned the dwellings of the gods.
Folktales are full of such coincidences that are never coincidences at all, but the brittle games of powerful forces.