Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longham
'The brief sum of life forbids us the hope of enduring long'
Horace

A good friend of mine once said that sometimes you can’t understand the beginning of a story unless you know the way it’s going to end.
She was a wise friend...
 
 

Ever had a nightmare and had that strange feeling that it’s not the first time you dream of it? So you want to go on dreaming its horror, just to see if it’s really the same one you had before, or maybe to remember a forgotten ending. Let me tell you, waking up in that bed, in that room… was nothing like that. I had lived that nightmare before… and I wanted out.

Loosing your calm in front of someone who wants to harm you is not just naïve, but stupid too. Because whatever you lose, your enemy will find. And once that enemy takes that one look into your bare soul, he knows the best ways to destroy it. The moment he angers you, he concurs you.
In war, one moment of desperation can cost you... everything
 

Don’t trust your memory. Meet people you’ve known your whole life and look at them as if they were strangers. As if they can could do anything to you. And before you put your life in the hands of your friends, remember that those are the ones that can kill you faster than your worst enemies… and multiple times.
Don’t trust, period. That’s always a fatal mistake.

Have you ever asked yourself what you would do for someone you love? How far would you go to protect something that you know is unprotected from the filth of the world? How much of your soul would you risk, how bad will you be able to soil yourself to keep the dirt from reaching someone pure?
I never had to ask this question. I was already filthy, soulless, soiled, dirty and permanently damaged when I knew that I had to save someone.
THE THIRD PART OF THIS CHAPTER IS UPDATED - it was not present in the previous version
 

 You know how some say that evil is a matter of perspective? Never believe it. It is usually said by those who have done the worst wrongs they can live with

Memories of my early childhood are a blur of wallpaper and stories that don’t belong to me. I don’t remember the time when I was like my siblings and parents, but I have seen many pictures that have pressed those moments into existence. Now when I see myself so incapacitated in magic, it’s hard to believe that the three year old girl with black ringlets that could fly without a wand or a broom is really me. The only real memory I have of myself is of me as I am now (and as I will always me): magicless.
 

Getting stuck in one's own nightmares can kill you. Dont trust people who tell you different. It happened to me once and it almost did kil me - I just didn’t die. Because someone saved me… When I think about it, even now, I still whisper it to myself, as if it’s some kind of prayer. As if I’m speaking a heresy. She saved me…
So I loved her.

“My dear young cousin, if there's one thing I've learned over the eons, it's that you can't give up on your family, no matter how tempting they make it. It's what families do: they put their arms arounud you and love you even when you're not so lovable” 
Rick Riordan ; Deb Caletti