Bonedog Quotes

“You come back with x-ray vision..
your eyes have become a hunger.

You come home with your
mutant gifts to a house of bone.

Everything you see now..
all of it..
bone.”
― Eva H.D., Rotten Perfect Mouth

“Maybe you and I could... not go home together?'

The words hung in the air between them, as fine as spun glass and just as fragile. Marra waited for him to say something, to catch the words or shatter them, whichever he chose.

'I think I'd like that,' said Fenris.

Marra sagged with relief.

She had been so focused on what he might say that she hadn't quite expected what he might do. So it came as a surprise when he wrapped both arms around her and put his lips against her hair. 'I think I would like that very much,' he murmured.

'Oh good,' said Marra, against his neck. And then she would have kissed him or he would have kissed her, but Bonedog decided that they were wrestling and jumped up and barked soundlessly at them both.”
― T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone

“The glamour settled around him and left a smell like burning dust. Marra saw the outlines of flesh, a shadow of fur, and then Bonedog shook himself and he was a great gray dog with a skull like a battering ram and a blaze of white across his chest. His tail was still a narrow, bony whip but there was fur across it. He had immense jowls and when he looked up at Marra, they all sagged into a gigantic smile.

'Oh, Bonedog,' she said. He licked her hand and she could feel his tongue, not quite substantial but more than it had been.”
― T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone

“The staircase seemed much longer going up than coming down. Perhaps that was always the way in a fairy world. The man she had ransomed, the man she needed, had his arm locked around hers. They leaned against each other, shoulder against shoulder, two humans in a place where no humans should ever have come. When Marra looked over at him in the sickly firefly light, she could see a silvery terror in his eyes, mastered but very much alive. Bonedog walked beside them, Marra's hand wrapped around the rope collar. She felt the illusion of fur against her fingers, except when she didn't and he briefly felt like bones.”
― T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone

“She broke in to a run, not caring if the thief-wheel heard her now, half sobbing. 'Fenris! Agnes! Dust-wife!'

'Marra?'

She broke in to the room and before she could even focus, Fenris had thrown his arms around her and had his face pressed against her hair. 'You're alive,' he said. 'I thought I'd lost you. You're alive.'

'You're alive, too!' she said. She wanted to stop and think about what I thought I'd lost you might mean, but it didn't quite seem like the time. And he was very warm and she was very cold and it was very pleasant to be held in such a fashion. 'You're alive.

'Yes, yes,' said the dust-wife testily. 'We're all alive. Please don't cry on me about it, though.'

Fenris finally released her, although not without reluctance. Bonedog immediately leapt up at her, washing her face with his tongue.”
― T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone

“At sunset, just as the light from the fire became brighter than the light from the doorway, she finished. The skeleton lay across her lap, complete, claws wired to paws vertebrae strung like beads.

'Wake,' she whispered, while the light faded outside the door. 'Wake. Please.'

The bones lay motionless in her lap. She bowed her head. Please. Please, Bonedog. I'm never going to see my sister again, or my mother. I'm not going to see the Sister Apothecary or the abbess. I need one more friend. Please.

It was too much like the first time. The second impossible task was also the third. She had always known that she had gotten off too lightly, being handed the moon in a jar.

Fenris took her free hand, careful of her sore fingertips, and held it between his palms, waiting with her.

'Please,' she said again, and a single tear ran hotly down her cheek and splashed on to the white expanse of skull.

Bonedog yawned and stretched and woke.

Marra let out a sob of relief and buried her head in Fenris's neck. He held her in the crook of his arm while Bonedog stood up and bounced and cavorted around the hut.”
― T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone