I gather you play chess, he’d said, and she’d given him a look, later he’d ralised it was fair warning; yes, she played chess. The had a mignificent coral and ivory set, worth a thousand acres of good arable land. He’d made soft opening, the way you do when you’re playing a girl, and suddenly he found himself staring defeat in the facs - he’d never los a game except three times, to Senza.

Fortunately, I am not of a fainting disposition

If you want to conquer a boy, don't show him how weak you are, instead show him the badass that you are.

No disrespect to the fire god, naturally; blame it instead on His administration, presumably made up of officers of roughly the same level of ability as their terrestial counterparts. That would explain why the mild storm she'd ordered for Oida hit her instead.

Ah well. He’d beaten her twice sind then: once on their honeymoon, though he still suspected her of throwing the game, and once on the day she lost the baby. And two out of eight hundred and six wasn’t too bad, against such an opponent.

I've never been much for tears, anyway.

I'm the kind of girl you don't want to fuck with.

Ran into the wrong end of a knife.

...Ox, I swear to god, if you’ve ruined a normal life for outside of this, I will punch you in the spleen.”Chris said, “She’ll do it too. Trust me. When she was seven, I accidentally --ow, fine, it was on purpose, stop hitting me for fucks sake--left one of her barbies on the heating vent. It melted its face and looked...well, it looked just awesome. She didn’t think so. I still have a scar on my elbow from where she attacked me with her fingernails.

You drop my name again, I’ll hunt you down and cut off everything that protrudes from your body. You get me?