Lisa Mantchev

“Mustardseed grinned at Bertie. "I was never any good at geometry, but you’re stuck in a love triangle, aren’t you?""Shut up," she ordered even as Moth asked, "But what if there were four of them?""That’s a love rectangle, and five people would be a love pentagon.""And what are six people in love?" Cobweb demanded.Mustardseed thought it over a moment. "Manslaughter, I suppose.”

“When everything else crumbles to dust, all we have left are the memories. I thought of Ophelia, wandering the theater, mind half gone...Never shall I cut from memory my sweet love's beauty.”

“Ariel looked at her then, instead of the sky, instead of the horizon that surely beckoned to him. “Out of a thousand different winds, I think I can resist nine hundred and ninety-nine of them.Now she was the one unable to swallow. “And the last one?” "That one wrenches the beating heart from my chest, the blood from my veins, the marrow from my bones.” Grasping her hand, he brought it up to his face and rubbed it against his cheek. Pain radiated from his pale skin, from his eyes, from his lips when they grazed her knuckles. “You’ve two birds to do your bidding, my fair huntress, but I want you to choose me, to love me above all others, to make the pain in my soul worthwhile… or I would be free of you.”

“We'll find paradise together, whatever form that might take.”

“I have flown and fallen, and I have swum deep and drowned, but there should be more to love than "I survived it.”

“If you wanted to play with fire, milady, you could have simply asked me for a kiss or three.”

“There is a Beatrice who exists beyond the obligations of a daughter, outside the object of man's affections.”

“Ariel spoke Tybalt's line: "'Have at thee, coward!'""Save yer breath for a pretty death rattle.”

“A blind man could see that man would die for you, but that doesn't mean you won't die alongside him.”

“Never mistake complacence for the illusion of control. She is like wildfire, at once utterly beguiling and wholly untameable.”

“This has been such a Monday! I wish I stayed in bed, and I wish that yesterday had never happened.”

“The fairies put on their thinking caps, which were red and pointy.”

“You must be mistaking me for someone else with silver hair.”

“Say ye love me.Even if its not true, let me keep th' words. -Nate to BertieTell me you love me, at least as much as you love him. -Ariel to Bertie”

“If biscuits were stories, I'd bake a pan of piping hot fables right this second." (Bertie)”

“You're missing the point! ... We could make it rain cupcakes from the sky! Raspberry-jam pies would grow on trees, and chocolate rabbits would poop chocolate buttons!”

“Ariel laughed and now her goose bumps had goose bumps.”

“The moment you tire of my company, we'll part ways.”

“Our unguarded reactions are the most honest ones.”

“Nate handed it over the expert, and Waschbär examined it in turn, finally concluding with a low whistle. "No, not a diamond. It's a star.""A star?" the fairies chorused."Yer cryin' th' stars from yer eyes." Nate's hands on the reins tightened as he added, "Fer Ariel.”

“The illusion of freedom is just another sort of prison-”

“Ariel contributed nothing to the speculation, instead crossing his arms one over the other. The action recalled his butterfly familiars from the skies, and they flocked to him with eager wing beats."Bats!" Moth flailed at the air. "Vampire bats!""Don't be ridiculous," Peaseblossom said with a sniff. "Vampire bats don't sparkle.”

“What's past is prologue, and the world awaits.”

“her spine was the crease on a piece of paper, her bones no more than diagonal folds on a bit of origami”

“A cupcake temple?' Her chest still tight with anxiety, Bertie forced herself to imagine it: bricks of pound cake mortared with buttercream and chocolate ganache, torches like striped birthday candles set into the walls, pilgrims upon the Path of Delectable Righteousness delivering daily tributes of almond paste and raspberry filling. . . .”

“Crazier than a bag full of crazy?”

“You're a little tall to play Ariel." said Moth."And you have way too many muscles," said Mustardseed."But you might be able to pull it off," Cobweb said, "if you can look really constipated.”

“The Brigands charged in with their weapons drawn."Who are you?" Young Bertie asked."We're the bad guys!" their leader announced."What are you going to do?""Plunder and pillage!" one of them yelled.The others immediately shoved him. "Not in front of the kid, Ralph! Fer cryin' out loud...""Oh, yeah. Sorry! We're here to take your candy!”

“I always walked the ragged edge.”

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”

“The collar had restrained his winds but not killed them. They uncoiled from behind the shadows, ready to surround her, to lift her up, to carry her away with only Ariel’s silk-clad arms wrapped about her to keep her from falling.Spirare, they whispered to her like an incantation. Breathe us in.Bertie didn’t mean to, but she inhaled, and everything inside her was a spring morning, a rose opening its petals to the sun, the light coming through the wavering glass of an old, diamond-paned window.Tendrils of wind reached for Bertie with a coaxing hand. Release him, and he will love you.”

“He dodged remarkably fast for a melancholy introvert.”

“His tiny, naked butt disappeared into the stream as he cried, "Wheeeee! Balls out!"I think that's a rugby reference," Bertie said. "But don't quote me on that.”

“perchance to dream"What are you doing here, Ariel? I would have thought you'd be halfway to Timbuktu."— lisa mantchev perchance to dream”

“The only reason I'm friends with any of you is because I outgrew the von Trapps, one annoying Austrian at a time.”

“Peaseblossom-decorous, proper Peaseblossom-dropped her trousers to waggle her naked, pale bottom at the Stage Manager. Bertie laughed involuntarily, choked on her coffee, and nearly died as it came out her nose, but it was worth the searing pain in her nostrils to see the look on the Stage Manager's face. ”

“Maybe I didn't try as hard as I ought when he started calling you names. Serves him right, the nasty old turd. Punch him again, Moth" - Peaseblossom”

“About the time he threatened her nose with his finger, Peaseblossom lost her grip on the situation with the boys. The door crashed open, and three irate fairies launched themselves at the Stage Manager. Cobweb and Moth pelted him with sequins while Mustardseed rammed beads into his ears."Dance!" they commanded, and dance he did, hopping with impotent anger and pain from one foot to the other as he batted his meaty hands at them.”

“She's under duress," Peaseblossom said."I don't care if she's under duress, over it, or alongside it," Moth said. "Nothing in this world supersedes cake.”

“This is a theater," Bertie, annoyed by the inquisition, dropped him onto stage. Several feet of slack cable landed atop the fairy in a slithering heap."Oh!" Peaseblossom said. "You've buried him alive!”

“And now, the bane of your existence, the killer of all joys, the Stage Manager-”

“Won't SOMEONE think of the PUDDING?”

“PEASEBLOSSOMA gloaming peace this evening with it bringsIn the countryside where we lay our sceneToad-ballad accompan'd, crickets sing,and cupcake crumbs make fairy hands unclean.An indignant Moth squeaked, "There were cupcakes?!”

“There should be more to love," said the earth, "than 'it did not kill me.' More than 'I survived it.”

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a fairy in possesion of a good appetite must be in want of pie.”

“There was no slipper, nor spinning wheel, nor true love's first kiss. This was not a fairy tale with a happily ever after.”

“And you can call me Bertie. Unexpected use of Beatrice makes me think I'm in trouble.”

“Words are like the delicate stitches in the dress you wear, holding the fabric of the garmet together. Without them, the dress and the world are nothing but barren cloth”

“I know I'm supposed to be the new Mistress of Revels! But that doesn't mean I have pockets full of muffins!”

“Maybe I got sick of accusations, sick of being Polonius's daughter, and Laertes's sister, and Hamlet's girlfriend. Maybe I wanted, for a short while, simply to be myself.”