Changeling Subplot Quotes

As the Epic Film, Noah, debuts this weekend, those of you who have read Samrajni of Pemako know about the Noah subplot in the novel.
Yes, Safiya, the protagonist is distantly related to Noah... ~ Roy C. Marien

I appeared before him now, he had no such honeyed terms as "love" and "darling" on his lips: the best words at my service were "provoking puppet," "malicious elf," "sprite," "changeling," &c. For caresses, too, I now got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand, a pinch on the arm; for a kiss on the cheek, a severe tweak of the ear. It was all right: at present I decidedly preferred these fierce favours to anything more tender. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Come to Elfland,' the troll said.

The child thought for a while. Other children had gone, and the elves always sent a changeling in their place, so that nobody quite missed them and nobody really knew. She thought awhile of the wonder and wildness of Elfland, and then of her own home.

'N-no,' said the child.

'Why not?' said the troll.

'Mother made a jam roll this morning,' said the child. And she walked on gravely home. ~ Lord Dunsany

The man thought he seemed some sad and solitary changeling child announcing the arrival of a traveling spectacle in shire and village who does not know that behind him the players have all been carried off by wolves. ~ Cormac McCarthy

Once - and most of the night definitely counts as once - you can write off as a mistake. But you do this again and he's going to start thinking he has rights over you." She knew predatory changeling men. They liked control. They particularly liked their women to submit. And Riley was one big giant hunk of testosterone-fueled Neanderthal wolf - he probably thought her submission was his right. She snorted. "Not in this lifetime. ~ Nalini Singh

He was still so very young. Faeries - true faeries, not their changeling throwaways - live forever, and when you have an eternity of adulthood ahead of you, you linger over childhood. You tend it and keep it close to your heart, because once it ends, it's over. Quentin was barely fifteen. He'd never seen the Great Hunt that came down every twenty-one years, or been present for the crowning of a King or Queen of Cats, or announced his maturity before the throne of High King Aethlin. He was a child, and he should have had decades left to play; a century of games and joy and edging cautiously toward adulthood.
But he didn't. I could see his childhood dying in his eyes as he looked at me, silently begging me to answer for him. ~ Seanan McGuire

Distance is meaningless, as is time, when minds and souls intertwine."

-Gerome in CHANGELING- ~ Vaun Murphrey

So this book, while continuing the Psy-Changeling storyline - because nothing is ever static in this world - is also a walk through the interconnected lives of many of the characters who've become important to us over the past books and novellas. With ~ Nalini Singh

She watched as he settled down on the bed with Naya skin to skin on his chest. His hand all but covered her tiny body as he stroked her in that changeling way, bonding with her on the most elemental level. Then he purred, and Naya made a happy little sound of delight, very much a cat in her love of touch. ~ Nalini Singh

Can calm despair and wild unrest Be tenants of a single breast, Or sorrow such a changeling be? ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

If you have ever seen a falling star, you have seen a Changeling arriving. ~ Catherynne M Valente

I believe that creature is a changeling: she is a perfect cabinet of oddities. ~ Charlotte Bronte

George grimaced. Jack is spoiled. Things are hard for him, but he isn't the only one who doesn't have it easy. He gets away with crazy things because he's a changeling and he's different. Jack could behave better, but he stopped trying. He decided that he's worthless and that nothing he could do would make any difference. ~ Ilona Andrews

The Dark Prophecy
The words that memory wrought are set to fire,
Ere new moon rises o'er the Devils Mount.
The changeling lord shall face a dire,
Till bodies fill the Tiber beyond count.

Yet southward the sun now trace its course,
Through mazes dark to lands of scorching death
To find the master of the swift white horse
And wrest from him the crossword speaker's breath.

To westward palace must the Lester go;
Demeter's daughter finds her ancient roots.
The cloven guide alone the way does know,
To walk the path in thine own enemy's boots.

We three are known and Tiber reached alive,
'Tis only then Apollo starts to jive. ~ Rick Riordan

Pearl would smile helplessly back with the sickening feeling that she was collaborating with God. Not the God of her mother's faulty and romantic vision, but the true one. A God of barbaric and unholy appearance, with a mind uncomplimentary to human consciousness. ~ Joy Williams

A subplot is a distinguishing characteristic of the novel; the short story, for example, does not need subplots. ~ Darin Strauss

In the cellar, the two young women were shrouded in darkness as if they were already in their grave. ~ Philippa Gregory

People always say it's changelings who most crave touch, but that's not the truth. A long time ago, long before Silence, Psy craved it more than any other.
He let her words was over him like affectionate rain. His mate, his mate, was trying to temper his grief, trying to tell him they weren't so very different after all. ~ Nalini Singh

There's also a subplot about a guy who manages pop groups. Dave is a very ambitious boy, and he gets offered an audition but only wants to do it on his terms and conditions. He wants to maintain his integrity. ~ Neil Tennant

I'm not sure sex qualifies as R and R, but it's a compromise I can live with. ~ Shelby Morgen

At last they came to the lower slopes of the great mountains. Here she met a wild and bedraggled boy. He stumbled across her when she had stopped to rest and suckle the baby. The boy stared at the unlikely pair for a moment, then seated himself on the ground at a respectful distance, obviously preparing to converse. He was the strangest looking boy she had ever seen. Evidently a changeling like herself, for he was tall and straight with long slender limbs, but his hair was golden like the sun and his eyes a deep blue like the sky. He looked to be about fifteen years old, not quite a man, yet man enough to survive. She guessed he must have originated from the fabled district of Shor, in the far south, where it was rumoured that all the people were changelings, and all golden-haired.
Astelle tensed, fully expecting Torking to deliver one of his pain bolts to the curious boy, but the child seemed unperturbed, and simply carried on suckling. This boy's attention was obviously not deemed as a threat. She relaxed and smiled at the youth.
He returned the smile, white teeth startling against his tanned and dirty face. 'Why are you travelling all alone?' he asked.
Encouraged by Torking's mindwhispers, Astelle managed to concoct a story very close to the truth.
'As you can see, my child is rather unusual,' she explained. 'I could not bear to raise him among mortals who would constantly deride and insult him – and his father has left me, so I had no choice but to run ~ Bernie Morris

In 'Changeling,' I tried to show something you'd never see nowadays - a kid sitting and looking at the radio. Just sitting in front of the radio and listening. Your mind does the rest. ~ Clint Eastwood

At that moment, she saw not the man but the leopard within. And she realized the truth far too late - he wasn't human, wasn't Psy, was *changeling*. The leopard lived in every aspect of him, from his strength to his anger to his rage. ~ Nalini Singh

Of those few fools, who with ill stars are curst,
Sure scribbling fools, called poets, fare the worst:
For they're a sort of fools which fortune makes,
And, after she has made them fools, forsakes.
With Nature's oafs 'tis quite a different case,
For Fortune favours all her idiot race.
In her own nest the cuckoo eggs we find,
Over which she broods to hatch the changeling kind:
No portion for her own she has to spare,
So much she dotes on her adopted care.
Poets are bubbles, by the town drawn in,
Suffered at first some trifling stakes to win:
But what unequal hazards do they run!
Each time they write they venture all they've won:
The Squire that's buttered still, is sure to be undone.
This author, heretofore, has found your favour,
But pleads no merit from his past behaviour.
To build on that might prove a vain presumption,
Should grant to poets made admit resumption,
And in Parnassus he must lose his seat,
If that be found a forfeited estate. ~ William Congreve

How do you always know about a birth?" Ruby asked with a mystified smile. "Wait a minute. Did Lorenzo call you?"

"Nope." Hawke winked, the thick fan of his silver-gold lashes coming down over an eye of a blue so pale, it was immediately clear that Hawke was a changeling, was wolf. "It's an alpha thing."
[...]
"Garnet."

Turning the screen in her direction, Garnet raised an eyebrow. "Yes?" She had a good idea of what was coming.

Wolf-blue eyes gleamed. "Where's your mate?"

Kenji shifted so he could scowl at Hawke. "Now you're just showing off. ~ Nalini Singh

The child who gets lost in a book can emerge from the experience a changeling. ~ Maureen Corrigan

There's more than one way between your world and ours. There's the changeling road, and there's the Ravishing, and there's those that Stumble through a gap in the hedgerows or a mushroom ring or a tornado or a wardrobe full of winter coats. ~ Catherynne M Valente

Aren't you going to get up?"

He put a hand on the curve of her hip, a possessive gesture that had already become
familiar.

"No. Let's have more sex. ~ Nalini Singh

He sniffed her. The rubbery black nose inhaled deeply as it passed back and forth over her face, along her throat, her ears. Jeez, it was like being vacuumed-only most Hoovers didn't have the potential to bite her face off. ~ Dani Harper

She was a thin, a thin burning flame, colorless yet fresh. Her smile came first slowly, shy and bold, as if all the life of that little body had gathered for a moment around her mouth and the rest of her was a wisp that the least wind would blow away. She was a changeling whose lips were the only point of contact with reality. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

You might think you have a really good reason, but nothing could be worth this. Nothing could be worth feeling this way. I feel like a changeling wearing someone else's skin. I can't remember what I liked, or what I wanted, why I worked or left the house or did anything. It's all gone... I think whatever I used to be, it dropped through the binding. I wish the rest of me had gone with it. ~ Melissa Albert

There passed a child of four, a small girl on a footpath over the fields, going home in the evening to Erl. They looked at each other with round eyes.

"Hullo," said the child.

"Hullo, child of men," said the troll.

. . . "What are you?" said the child.

"A troll of Elfland," answered the troll.

"So I thought," said the child.

"Where are you going, child of men?" the troll asked.

"To the houses," the child replied.

"We don't want to go there," said the troll.

"N-no," said the child.

"Come to Elfland," the troll said.

The child thought for a while. Other children had gone, and the elves always sent a changeling in their place, so that nobody quite missed them and nobody really knew. She thought awhile of the wonder and wildness of Elfland, and then of her own house.

"N-no," said the child.

"Why not?" said the troll.

"Mother made a jam roll this morning," said the child. And she walked on gravely home. Had it not been for that chance jam roll she had gone to Elfland.

"Jam!" said the troll contemptuously and thought of the tarns of Elfland, the great lily-leaves lying flat upon their solemn waters, the huge blue lilies towering into the elf-light above the green deep tarns: for jam this child had forsaken them! ~ Lord Dunsany

Riley : "Do you want to claw at me, kitty-cat? Come on."
Mercy: "Sorry, I don't beat defenseless puppies. ~ Nalini Singh

Demon, they called me in their minds. Changeling. Cursed. And every time I took hold of someone's mind, I wondered if perhaps they were right. ~ Jessica Leake

His hand closed around her throat. Not a threat. Just the most possessive way a predatory changeling male had of touching a woman outside of sex. "Don't say his name." He brushed his thumb across her pulse. ~ Nalini Singh