Well," the Marsh King pursed his beak politely, "at any rate, your manliness need only last for a relatively brief period. I have already discussed this in detail with some of the lower Stars—white dwarfs and the like. I shall bundle you up tight as a mitten in a human skin until," and here he cleared his long blue throat dramatically, "the Virgin is devoured, the sea turns to gold, and the saints migrate west on the wings of henless eggs."

"In the Stars' name, what does that mean?" I gasped.

"I haven't the faintest idea! Isn't it marvelous? Oracles always have the best poetry! I only repeated what I was told—it is rather rude of you to expect magic, prophecy, and interpretation. That's asking quite a lot, even from a King.

Woman! Come out! I have—" She looked down at the bloodless grass, embarrassed. "I have come to rescue you," she finally said, as if admitting that she were covered in boils.

Someone ought to write a novel about me,” said Lebedeva loftily. “I shouldn’t care if they lied to make it more interesting, as long as they were good lies, full of kisses and daring escapes and the occasional act of barbarism. I can’t abide a poor liar.

Men die. It's practically what they're for.

Yes, yes, mistress, I shall go and accomplish your task. Only—I was not only sent to kill the Leucrotta. There is a maiden in a tower—" At this the Witch spat, again rolling her marvelous eyes.

"Those revolting creatures are always getting themselves locked up. If only they would stay that way.

It's funny, you know, they're always telling me to be a man, take it like a man, act like a man, like they're afraid if they don't keep reminding me I'll grow up to be a centaur or a dining room table, like they know, somehow, that I'm not a man, like it's a spell they can cast, if they say it enough I'll be tricked into being a man forever."
..."Yes." Tamburlaine nodded. "They always say: be a lady, speak like a lady, behave like a little lady, that's not very ladylike, is it, dear?"
"Well, I won't be a man, or take anything like one or act like one!" The troll inside him rubbed his hands gleefully, crackling with anticipation.
"Come on, then... Don't let's be men, or ladies either. Don't let's act like them or behave like them or speak like them!