Queen Elizabeth's Master of Horse helped her mount and dismount, making him the only man who could touch her legally.
Since a tontine paid an annuity for the lifetime of the designated person, people quickly learned to arrange for the designated person to be a five-year-old girl, for maximum effect. Girls lived longer, and in the 19th century, you waited for five to get past the fearful infant mortality.
In early Islamic empire, you had to affiliate with an Arabic tribe, and usually take on an Arabic name, to convert to Islam.
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Since a tontine paid an annuity for the lifetime of the designated person, people quickly learned to arrange for the designated person to be a five-year-old girl, for maximum effect. Girls lived longer, and in the 19th century, you waited for five to get past the fearful infant mortality.
In early Islamic empire, you had to affiliate with an Arabic tribe, and usually take on an Arabic name, to convert to Islam.
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Finally -- daffodils! Bright as sunshine, clumped together in the lee of a hillside (which faces southeast), both large and miniature. . . elsewhere they are yet to bloom, but yellowing the tips of the buds.
The trees are still drably brown, not even brushed with new leaves, and the birds cheeping merrily away are as brown as their perches, but one. The cardinal perches brilliantly scarlet on its bough, a fleck of color in the brown.
A forest floor is solidly green, in a spread of flowerless leaves.
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The trees are still drably brown, not even brushed with new leaves, and the birds cheeping merrily away are as brown as their perches, but one. The cardinal perches brilliantly scarlet on its bough, a fleck of color in the brown.
A forest floor is solidly green, in a spread of flowerless leaves.
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In the legends of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, the waking sleepers reveal their strange happening by one of them trying to buy food with coins bearing an emperor who reigned decades earlier. Which was indeed a very common way of judging times -- archeologists date graves by the coins in them, in the eras where they are so lucky as to have them included in grave goods.
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Details in prose draw the eye. They announce what's important. Which is why it is wise to curb your world-building in places, even allow the stereotypes to take control.
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Ashes Of Honor by Seanan McGuire
The sixth October Daye book. Spoilers ahead for the earlier ones.
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The sixth October Daye book. Spoilers ahead for the earlier ones.
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