Daniel O'Connor

“He felt his hunger no longer as a pain but as a tide. He felt it rising in himself through time and darkness, rising through the centuries, and he knew that it rose in a line of men whose lives were chosen to sustain it, who would wander in the world, strangers from that violent country where the silence is never broken except to shout the truth. He felt it building from the blood of Abel to his own, rising and spreading in the night, a red-gold tree of fire ascended as if it would consume the darkness in one tremendous burst of flame. The boy’s breath went out to meet it. He knew that this was the fire that had encircled Daniel, that had raised Elijah from the earth, that had spoken to Moses and would in the instant speak to him. He threw himself to the ground and with his face against the dirt of the grave, he heard the command. GO WARN THE CHILDREN OF GOD OF THE TERRIBLE SPEED OF MERCY. The words were as silent as seed opening one at a time in his blood.””

“and the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.””

“I asked you what your name was, first-year.” This time, the answer had come, though in a much higher pitch than Rei suspected the red-headed boy had ever previously spoken in his life. “D-Daniel, sir…” Rei had almost felt bad for the poor guy. He knew all-too-well what it was like to catch the Lasher’s attention when you didn’t want it, just like he knew all-too-well how hard it was not to call the A8 “sir” even if they were technically the same rank. “Your last name,” Lennon had pressed coolly. “Uh… Biggs, sir.” “Daniel Biggs…” Lennon muttered with only the faintest hint of annoyance, frame coming to life in his eyes as the other third-years of Steelbound had looked to be trying hard not to snicker all around him. “Biggs… Ah, here you are. Maston’s. Mauler. C…” He smirked suddenly. “My apologies. D9.” He’d closed his NOED again and jerked his head pointedly up the aisle towards the rest of the milling schools. “If you’ve got something of value to say to our underclassman, Biggs, you can spit it out now. Otherwise, move on. At your rank, I can assure you’re about as interesting to Cadet Ward as you are to me.””