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Dans-Prosemaxx-Cowriter-XL

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[ { "from": "system", "value": "AI writing task: user input -> 1 sentence sentences. genre: Science Fiction, Space Opera. match character context." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pell; Red Dock; 1/9/53; 0530 hrs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "md; 1730 hrs. a." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She came, with an escort of armed merchanters, onto the dock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was pregnant, and walked slowly, and the merchanters about her took no chances exposing her to hazard on the wide dock." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Damon stood by Josh, on the Union side, as long as he could bear, and finally risked himself and walked out, not certain whether either side would let him through to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Rifles in merchanters' hands leveled at him, a nervous ring of threat; and he stopped, alone in that empty space." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she saw him, and her face lit, and merchanters moved, ordered aside left and right until their ranks drank him in and he could reach her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Merchanter, and back with her own, and long off the solid deck of Pell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the back of his mind had been doubt, a preparation for changes... that vanished with a look at her face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He kissed her, held onto her as she did him, afraid of hurting her she held him so tightly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stood there with the whole horde of armed merchanters about them in a glittering haze, and inhaled the scent and the reality of her, kissed her again and knew that they had no time for talking, for questions, for anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Took me quite a roundabout to get home,\" she murmured." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He laughed madly, softly, looked about him and back at the Union forces, sober again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You know what happened here?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Some. Most, maybe. We've been sitting out there... a long time. Waiting a point of no choice.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shivered, tightened her arm about him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thought we'd lost it. Then Mazian did pull out, and we moved, from that moment Union's got troubles, Damon. Union's got to move on to Sol and they've got to do it with all their ships intact.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You can bet they do,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But don't leave this dock. What's got to be said, whatever talking you do with them, insist on doing here, on the dock; don't walk into any small space where Azov can get troops between you and your ships. Don't trust him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She nodded. \"Understood. We're just the edge of it, Damon; I speak for the merchanter interest. They want a neutral port the way things are going, and Pell's it. I don't think Pell objects.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" he said. \"Pell doesn't. Pell's got some housecleaning to do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He drew his first whole breath in minutes and followed her glance across the dock at Azov, at Josh standing with Union troops, expecting approach." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bring a dozen with you and keep the rest guarding that access. Let's see what Azov's idea of reason encompasses.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The release,\" Elene said firmly and softly, leaning on the table with one arm, \"—of the ship Hammer to the Olvig family; of Swan's Eye to its proper owners; of any other merchanter ship confiscated for use by Union military. The strongest possible condemnation of the seizure and use of Genevieve. You may protest you're not empowered to grant it; but you have the power of military decisions... on that level, sir, the release of the ships. Or embargo.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We do not recognize your organization.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That,\" Damon interrupted, \"rests with Union council. Pell recognizes their organization. And Pell is independent, captain, willing to afford you a port at the moment; but with means to deny it. I would hate to take that decision. We have a mutual enemy... but you would be tied up here, in long unpleasantness. And it might spread.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were, from the other side of the table—set up on the open dock and ringed by opposing semicircles of merchanters and troops—frowns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's in our interest,\" Azov admitted, \"to see that this station doesn't become a base for Mazianni operation; and that we cooperate in your protection... without which—you don't stand great chance, for all your threats, Mr. Konstantin.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mutual necessity,\" Damon said levelly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Rest assured that none of Mazian's ships will ever be welcome at Pell. They are outlaws.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We have done you a service,\" Elene said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Merchanter ships have already headed for Sol far in advance of Mazian. One early enough to get there ahead of him; not much, but a little. Sol Station will be warned before he arrives.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Azov's face relaxed in surprise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That of the man beside him, delegate Ayres, froze, took on a sudden smile, with the glistening of tears in his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My gratitude,\" Ayres said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"—Captain Azov, I'd propose... close consultation and quick moves.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There seems reason for it,\" Azov said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pushed back from the table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The station is secure. Our business is finished. Hours are valuable. If Sol is going to prepare a reception for this outlaw, we should be there to follow it up from behind.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Pell,\" Damon said quietly, \"will gladly assist your undocking. But the merchanter ships you've appropriated... stay.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We have crew aboard them. They come.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Take your crew. Those ships are merchanter property and they remain. So does Josh Talley. He's a citizen of Pell.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" Azov said. \"I don't leave one of my own at your asking.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Josh,\" Damon said, looking to the side and behind him, where Josh stood with other Union troops, at last inconspicuous among others likewise perfect." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How do you feel about it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Josh's eyes slid past him, perhaps to Azov, returned to a forward stare. He said nothing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Take your troops and your ships,\" Damon said to Azov." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If Josh stays, that's his choice. Take Union presence off this station. You'll be received for docking hereafter by request and by permission of the stationmaster's office; it will be granted. But if time is of value to you, I'd suggest you take that offer and agree to it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Azov scowled. He signaled his troop officer, who ordered the units to form up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They walked away, headed for the upcurving horizon, for blue dock, where Unity was berthed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And Josh was still standing there, alone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elene got up and hugged him awkwardly and Damon clapped him on the shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Stay put here,\" he said to Elene." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've got a Union ship to get undocked. Josh, come on.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Neiharts,\" Elene said to those nearest her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"See that they reach central in good order.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They went behind the Union forces; took the niner corridor as the Unioners headed for their ship, started to run." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the corridors there were doors open, the folk of Pell standing there to observe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some began to shout, to wave, cheers for this last, merchanters' occupation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They're ours,\" someone yelled. \"They're ours!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They took the emergency ramp, came upward at a run; Downers met them in it, scampered along, bounced and bounded and chattered welcomes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The whole spiral echoed with Downer shrieks and squeals and human yells from the corridors outside as the word spread from level to level." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few Unioners passed on the way down, headed out at instructions over helmet com, likely feeling very conspicuous where they were." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They came out in blue one." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Downers were back in occupation of central, and grinned welcome at them through the wide-open doors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You friends,\" Bluetooth said. \"You friends, all?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's all right,\" Damon assured him, and worked his way past a crowd of anxious brown bodies to settle himself at the main board." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked back, at Josh, at the merchanters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Anyone here who knows this kind of comp?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Josh settled into place by him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the Neiharts took com, another one settled into another comp post." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Damon keyed through to com." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Norway,\" he said, \"you've got first release. I trust you'll ease out without provocations. We don't need complications.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thank you, Pell,\" Mallory's dry voice came back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I like your priorities.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Hurry it down there. Have your own troops undock you. You can come in again when we're stable and pick them up. Agreed? They'll be safe.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pell station,\" another voice cut in: Azov's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Agreements specified no welcome for Mazianni, This one is ours.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Damon smiled. \"No, Captain Azov. This ship is ours. We're a world and a station, a sovereign community, and apart from the merchanters who are not residents here, we maintain a militia. Norway constitutes the fleet of Downbelow. I'll thank you to respect our neutrality.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Konstantin,\" Mallory's voice warned him, on the edge of anger." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Undock and stand off, Captain Mallory. You'll stay put until the Union fleet has vacated our space. You're in our traffic pattern and you take our orders.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Orders received,\" she answered finally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Stand by. We're going to pull back and deploy riders. Unity, see that you lay a straight course out of here. And give my regards to Mazian.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your own merchanters,\" Azov said, \"are going to be the ones to suffer from this decision, Pell station. You're harboring a vessel that has to prey on shipping to live. Merchanter ships.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get your tail out of here, Union,\" Mallory shot back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Trust at least that Mazian can't double back on you. He won't dock at Pell while I'm in the area. Go attend your own business.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Quiet,\" Damon said. \"Captain, move out.\" There was a flurry of lights. Norway was loose." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going 5 sentences at a time, also im going for a C. J. Cherryh sorta thing. heads up - might drop you in mid-story with existing characters" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Pell System" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You too?\" Blass asked wryly.\n\nVittorio adjusted his hold on his meager sackful of belongings, awkwardly hand-over-handed his way in the narrow access, null G, in line with the rest of the crew which had held Hammer. It was cold down here, and dimly lit. There was a vibration, the action of a shuttle tube grappling to their lock. \"Don't see that I have much choice,\" he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not staying to talk to the merchanters. Sir.\"\n\nBlass gave a twisted smile, addressed himself to the lock, which opened to take them out a narrow tube and into the waiting warship. The dark gaped for them.\n\nUnity moved, a steady acceleration. Ayres sat in the cushioned comfort of the Unity's top-level main room, carpeted, severely modern, with Jacoby beside him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Screens apprised them of their course, a whole array of screens showing numbers and images." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They made it clear through an avenue opened by merchanter vessels, a narrow tunnel through the surrounding horde, and finally Azov spared time to look in on them by vid link, occupying one of the screens." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right?\" Azov asked of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Going home,\" Ayres said softly, self-satisfied. \"I'll propose something to you, captain; that at this moment Sol and Union have more in common than not. That while you're sending that inevitable courier back to Cyteen, you include a proposal from my side: cooperation for the duration.\"\n\n\"Your side has no interest in the Beyond,\" Azov said.\n\n\"Captain, I suggest to you that that interest may be on the verge of awakening. And that it would be far from Union's advantage... for Union to be less forward in offering Earth its protection—than the merchanter's alliance is going to be. After all, the alliance has already sent Earth its messenger. So Sol can pick and choose, can't it? The merchanters' alliance. Union. Or—Mazian. I suggest a discussion of the matter. A renegotiation. It seems that neither of us has the authority to cede Pell. And I hope that I can give my government favorable recommendations toward yours.\"\n\nElene came, with a great crowd of merchanters, stood in the doorway of battle-scarred central, while Downers scampered aside in mild alarm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Bluetooth and Satin knew her, and danced and touched her for joy. Damon rose from his place, took her hand, gave her a place to sit near him and Josh. \"I don't feel much like long climbs,\" she said, breathing hard, \"We've got to get the lift system working.\" He found time simply to look at her. Looked back to the screen by his own console, at a face lying sideways on white sheets, at tranquility and dark, lively eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alicia Lukas smiled, the faintest of movements." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Call just got through,\" he said to Elene. \"Got word to and from Downbelow. A crippled probe appealing to Mallory for rescue out of main base... and an operator somewhere removed from base—saying Emilio and Miliko are safe. Couldn't confirm it... things are badly torn up down there. The operator's base is somewhere in the hills; but evidently everyone was under cover and all right. I need to get a ship of our own down there, and probably some medics.\"\n\n\"Neihart,\" Elene said, looking up at her companions. A big merchanter nodded. \"Anything you need,\" he said. \"We'll get it down there.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Ive got a bit of writers block, im gonna send you something then keep it going 5 sentences at a time, also im going for a C. J. Cherryh sorta thing. heads up - might drop you in mid-story with existing characters" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'table' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pell: green sector one; 1/29/53; 2200 hrs. md,; 1000 a.\n\nIt was a bizarre gathering, even for Pell, in the rearmost section of the concourse, in the area where separate, illusory screens afforded a little privacy to parties. Damon sat with Elene's hand locked firmly in his and amid the table, the red eye of a portable camera, a presence in itself, for he had wanted her to be among them tonight, as she had always been with his father and with all of them on family occasions. Emilio was by him; and Miliko; and Josh on his left, and next to Miliko and Emilio a small clutch of Downers, who obviously found chairs uncomfortable and yet delighted in the chance to try them, and to sample special delicacies, fruits out of season. At the far end of the table, the merchanter Neihart and Signy Mallory, the latter with an armed escort who relaxed sociably in the shadows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "About them was music, the slow dance of stars and ships across the walls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The concourse had settled somewhat back into routine... not quite the same, but nothing was.\n\n\"I'll be putting out again,\" Mallory said. \"Tonight. Staying—was a courtesy.\"\n\n\"Where?\" Neihart asked bluntly.\n\n\"Just do as I advise you, merchanter; designate your ships Alliance. You're offlimits. Besides, I've got a full load of supplies for now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'll not stray far,\" Damon wished her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Frankly, I don't trust that Union won't try something yet. I'd just as soon know you're in the vicinity.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She laughed humorlessly. \"Take a vote on that. I don't walk Pell corridors without a guard.\"\n\n\"All the same,\" he said. \"We want you close.\"\n\n\"Don't ask me my course,\" she said. \"That's my business. I've places. I've sat still long enough.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're going to try a run to Viking,\" Neihart said, \"and see what kind of reception we'll get... in about another month.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Might be interesting,\" Mallory conceded.\n\n\"Luck to us all,\" Damon said." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand this chapter by adding seven sentences in the Science Fiction, Space Opera genre. Note that some context may come from earlier parts." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pell: Blue dock; 1/30/53; 0130 hrs. md. ; 1330 hrs. a.\n\nThe hour was well into alterday, the docks nearly deserted in this non-commercial zone. Josh moved quickly, with the nervousness he always had outside someone's protective escort on Pell, with the vulnerable feeling that the few strollers on the dockside might know him. Hisa saw him, stared solemn-eyed. The Pell dock crew by berth four surely recognized him, and the troops on guard there did: rifles angled toward him.\n\n\"Need to talk to Mallory,\" he said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The officer was a man he knew: Di Janz." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'familiar' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Janz gave an order and one of the troopers slung his rifle into carry and motioned him ahead up the access ramp, walked behind him through the tube and into the lock, past the quick traffic of troops this way and that in the noisy corridor and suiting room. They took the lift up, into the main central corridor, where crew hastened about last-minute business. Familiar noises. Familiar smells. All of it.\n\nShe was on the bridge. He started to go in and the guard inside stopped him, but Mallory looked his way from her place near the command post and curiously signaled both guards permission.\n\n\"Damon send you?\" she asked when he stood before her.\n\nHe shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She frowned, set her hand consciously or unconsciously on the gun at her side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So what brings you?\"\n\n\"Thought you might need a comp tech. Someone who knows Unionside—inside and out\"\n\nShe laughed outright. \"Or a shot when I'm not looking?\"\n\n\"I didn't go with Union,\" he said. \"They'd have redone the tapes... given me a new past. Sent me out... maybe to Sol Station. I don't know. But to stay on Pell, right now—I can't do that. The stationers—know me. And I can't live on a station. Not comfortably.\"\n\n\"Nothing another mindwipe can't cure.\"\n\n\"I want to remember. I've got something. The only real thing. All that I value.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So you go off and leave it?\"\n\n\"For a while,\" he said.\n\n\"You talked to Damon about this?\"\n\n\"Before coming down here. He knows. Elene does.\"\n\nShe leaned back against the counter, looked him up and down thoughtfully, arms folded. \"Why Norway?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"No station calls, are there? Except here.\"\n\n\"No.\" She smiled thinly. \"Just here. Sometimes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ship she go,\" Lily murmured, staring at the screens, and smoothed the Dreamer's hair." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ship pulled away from the Upabove, rolled, with a move quite unlike most ships which came and went, and shot away.\n\n\"Norway,\" the Dreamer named her.\n\n\"Someday,\" said the Storyteller, who had come back full of tales from the big hall, \"someday we go. Konstantins give we ships. We go, carry we Sun in we eyes, not 'fraid the dark, not we. We see many, many thing. Bennett, he give we come here. Konstantin, they give we walk far, far, far. Me spring come again. I want walk far, make me nest there... I find me star and go.\"\n\nThe Dreamer laughed, warm laughter.\n\nAnd stared out at the wide dark, where Sun walked, and smiled." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 12 sentences sentences in the style of Jane Austen spawning from what the user wrote, within the Romance genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.\n\n\"My dear Mr. Bennet,\" said his lady to him one day, \"have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?\"\n\nMr. Bennet replied that he had not.\n\n\"But it is,\" returned she; \"for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.\"\n\nMr. Bennet made no answer.\n\n\"Do not you want to know who has taken it?\" cried his wife, impatiently.\n\n\"You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.\"\n\nThis was invitation enough.\n\n\"Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and foura to see the place, and was so much delighted with it that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas,b and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.\"\n\n\"What is his name?\"\n\n\"Bingley.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is he married or single?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year.1 What a fine thing for our girls!\"\n\n\"How so? how can it affect them?\"\n\n\"My dear Mr. Bennet,\" replied his wife, \"how can you be so tiresome? You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.\"\n\n\"Is that his design in settling here?\"\n\n\"Design! nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes.\"\n\n\"I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party.\"\n\n\"My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be any thing extraordinary now. When a woman has five grown up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty.\"\n\n\"In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of.\"\n\n\"But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when he comes into the neighbourhood.\"\n\n\"It is more than I engage for, I assure you.\"\n\n\"But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to go, merely on that account; for in general, you know, they visit no new comers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for us to visit him, if you do not.\"\n\n\"You are over scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 13 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the others; and I am sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so good-humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving her the preference.\"\n\n\"They have none of them much to recommend them,\" replied he: \"they are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters.\"\n\n\"Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.\"\n\n\"You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.\"\n\n\"Ah, you do not know what I suffer.\"\n\n\"But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four thousand a year come into the neighbourhood.\"\n\n\"It will be no use to us, if twenty such should come, since you will not visit them.\"\n\n\"Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty, I will visit them all.\"\n\nMr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts,c sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develope. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "NarrativeBot: six sentences sentences. Match character familiarity. Romance genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Bennet was among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Bingley. He had always intended to visit him, though to the last always assuring his wife that he should not go; and till the evening after the visit was paid she had no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in the following manner. Observing his second daughter employed in trimming a hat, he suddenly addressed her with,—\n\n\"I hope Mr. Bingley will like it, Lizzy.\"\n\n\"We are not in a way to know what Mr. Bingley likes,\" said her mother, resentfully, \"since we are not to visit.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you forget, mamma,\" said Elizabeth, \"that we shall meet him at the assemblies, and that Mrs. Long has promised to introduce him.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'bennet' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I do not believe Mrs. Long will do any such thing. She has two nieces of her own. She is a selfish, hypocritical woman, and I have no opinion of her.\"\n\n\"No more have I,\" said Mr. Bennet; \"and I am glad to find that you do not depend on her serving you.\"\n\nMrs. Bennet deigned not to make any reply; but, unable to contain herself, began scolding one of her daughters.\n\n\"Don't keep coughing so, Kitty, for heaven's sake! Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.\"\n\n\"Kitty has no discretion in her coughs,\" said her father; \"she times them ill.\"\n\n\"I do not cough for my own amusement,\" replied Kitty, fretfully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When is your next ball to be, Lizzy? \"2 \"To-morrow fortnight.\"\n\n\"Ay, so it is,\" cried her mother, \"and Mrs. Long does not come back till the day before; so, it will be impossible for her to introduce him, for she will not know him herself.\"\n\n\"Then, my dear, you may have the advantage of your friend, and introduce Mr. Bingley to her.\"\n\n\"Impossible, Mr. Bennet, impossible, when I am not acquainted with him myself; how can you be so teasing?\"\n\n\"I honour your circumspection. A fortnight's acquaintance is certainly very little. One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a fortnight. But if we do not venture, somebody else will; and after all, Mrs. Long and her nieces must stand their chance; and, therefore, as she will think it an act of kindness, if you decline the office, I will take it on myself.\"\n\nThe girls stared at their father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Bennet said only, \"Nonsense, nonsense!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclamation?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "cried he. \"Do you consider the forms of introduction, and the stress that is laid on them, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree with you there. What say you, Mary? for you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know and read great books, and make extracts. \"d\n\nMary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.\n\n\"While Mary is adjusting her ideas,\" he continued, \"let us return to Mr. Bingley.\"\n\n\"I am sick of Mr. Bingley,\" cried his wife.\n\n\"I am sorry to hear that; but why did not you tell me so before? If I had known as much this morning, I certainly would not have called on him. It is very unlucky; but as I have actually paid the visit, we cannot escape the acquaintance now.\"\n\nThe astonishment of the ladies was just what he wished; that of Mrs. Bennet perhaps surpassing the rest; though when the first tumult of joy was over, she began to declare that it was what she had expected all the while." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "ur a writing helper. partner writes, u do next 10 sentences. might have existing chars/stuff - roll with it" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not all that Mrs. Bennet, however, with the assistance of her five daughters, could ask on the subject, was sufficient to draw from her husband any satisfactory description of Mr. Bingley." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They attacked him in various ways; with barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and distant surmises; but he eluded the skill of them all; and they were at last obliged to accept the second-hand intelligence of their neighbour, Lady Lucas. Her report was highly favourable. Sir William had been delighted with him. He was quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely agreeable, and, to crown the whole, he meant to be at the next assembly with a large party. Nothing could be more delightful! To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love; and very lively hopes of Mr. Bingley's heart were entertained.\n\n\"If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield,\" said Mrs. Bennet to her husband, \"and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for.\"\n\nIn a few days Mr. Bingley returned Mr. Bennet's visit, and sat about ten minutes with him in his library. He had entertained hopes of being admitted to a sight of the young ladies, of whose beauty he had heard much; but he saw only the father. The ladies were somewhat more fortunate, for they had the advantage of ascertaining, from an upper window, that he wore a blue coat and rode a black horse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "An invitation to dinner was soon afterwards despatched; and already had Mrs. Bennet planned the courses that were to do credit to her housekeeping, when an answer arrived which deferred it all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Bingley was obliged to be in town the following day, and consequently unable to accept the honour of their invitation, &c. Mrs. Bennet was quite disconcerted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could not imagine what business he could have in town so soon after his arrival in Hertfordshire; and she began to fear that he might be always flying about from one place to another, and never settled at Netherfield as he ought to be. Lady Lucas quieted her fears a little by starting the idea of his being gone to London only to get a large party for the ball; and a report soon followed that Mr. Bingley was to bring twelve ladies and seven gentlemen with him to the assembly. The girls grieved over such a number of ladies; but were comforted the day before the ball by hearing, that instead of twelve, he had brought only six with him from London, his five sisters and a cousin. And when the party entered the assembly-room, it consisted of only five all together; Mr. Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the eldest, and another young man.\n\nMr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike: he had a pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters were fine women, with an air of decided fashion. His brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely looked the gentleman; but his friend, Mr. Darcy, soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report, which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a-year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.\n\nMr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal people in the room: he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance, was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one himself at Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must speak for themselves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What a contrast between him and his friend!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Darcy danced only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party. His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and every body hoped that he would never come there again. Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of his general behaviour was sharpened into particular resentment, by his having slighted one of her daughters.\n\nElizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the scarcity of gentlemen, to sit down for two dances; and during part of that time, Mr. Darcy had been standing near enough for her to overhear a conversation between him and Mr. Bingley, who came from the dance for a few minutes to press his friend to join it.\n\n\"Come, Darcy,\" said he, \"I must have you dance. I hate to see you standing about by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better dance.\"\n\n\"I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it, unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner. At such an assembly as this, it would be insupportable. Your sisters are engaged, and there is not another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with.\"\n\n\"I would not be so fastidious as you are,\" cried Bingley, \"for a kingdom! Upon my honour, I never met with so many pleasant girls in my life as I have this evening; and there are several of them, you see, uncommonly pretty.\"\n\n\"You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room,\" said Mr. Darcy, looking at the eldest Miss Bennet.\n\n\"Oh, she is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld! But there is one of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and I dare say very agreeable. Do let me ask my partner to introduce you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Which do you mean?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'which' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "and turning round, he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till, catching her eye, he withdrew his own, and coldly said, \"She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.\"\n\nMr. Bingley followed his advice. Mr. Darcy walked off; and Elizabeth remained with no very cordial feelings towards him. She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in any thing ridiculous.\n\nThe evening altogether passed off pleasantly to the whole family. Mrs. Bennet had seen her eldest daughter much admired by the Netherfield party. Mr. Bingley had danced with her twice, and she had been distinguished by his sisters. Jane was as much gratified by this as her mother could be, though in a quieter way. Elizabeth felt Jane's pleasure. Mary had heard herself mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most accomplished girl in the neighbourhood; and Catherine and Lydia had been fortunate enough to be never without partners, which was all that they had yet learnt to care for at a ball." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 11 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They returned, therefore, in good spirits to Longbourn, the village where they lived, and of which they were the principal inhabitants. They found Mr. Bennet still up. With a book, he was regardless of time; and on the present occasion he had a good deal of curiosity as to the event of an evening which had raised such splendid expectations. He had rather hoped that all his wife's views on the stranger would be disappointed; but he soon found that he had a very different story to hear.\n\n\"Oh, my dear Mr. Bennet,\" as she entered the room, \"we have had a most delightful evening, a most excellent ball. I wish you had been there. Jane was so admired, nothing could be like it. Every body said how well she looked; and Mr. Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and danced with her twice. Only think of that, my dear: he actually danced with her twice; and she was the only creature in the room that he asked a second time. First of all, he asked Miss Lucas. I was so vexed to see him stand up with her; but, however, he did not admire her at all; indeed, nobody can, you know; and he seemed quite struck with Jane as she was going down the dance. So he enquired who she was, and got introduced, and asked her for the two next. Then, the two third he danced with Miss King, and the two fourth with Maria Lucas, and the two fifth with Jane again, and the two sixth with Lizzy, and the Boulanger e—\"\n\n\"If he had had any compassion for me,\" cried her husband, impatiently, \"he would not have danced half so much! For God's sake, say no more of his partners. Oh that he had sprained his ankle in the first dance!\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear,\" continued Mrs. Bennet, \"I am quite delighted with him. He is so excessively handsome! and his sisters are charming women. I never in my life saw any thing more elegant than their dresses. I dare say the lace upon Mrs. Hurst's gown—\"\n\nHere she was interrupted again. Mr. Bennet protested against any description of finery. She was therefore obliged to seek another branch of the subject, and related, with much bitterness of spirit and some exaggeration, the shocking rudeness of Mr. Darcy.\n\n\"But I can assure you,\" she added, \"that Lizzy does not lose much by not suiting his fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing. So high and so conceited, that there was no enduring him! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very great! Not handsome enough to dance with! I wish you had been there, my dear, to have given him one of your set-downs. I quite detest the man.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing a segment of a larger work\n\nLength:\nseven sentences\n\nStyle:\nJane Austen\nGenre:\nRomance\nNote: Characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in her praise of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister how very much she admired him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He is just what a young man ought to be,\" said she, \"sensible, good-humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners! so much ease, with such perfect good breeding!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He is also handsome,\" replied Elizabeth, \"which a young man ought likewise to be if he possibly can. His character is thereby complete.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I was very much flattered by his asking me to dance a second time. I did not expect such a compliment.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did not you? I did for you. But that is one great difference between us. Compliments always take you by surprise, and me never. What could be more natural than his asking you again? He could not help seeing that you were about five times as pretty as every other woman in the room. No thanks to his gallantry for that. Well, he certainly is very agreeable, and I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a stupider person.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dear Lizzy!\"\n\n\"Oh, you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see a fault in any body. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in my life.\"\n\n\"I would wish not to be hasty in censuring any one; but I always speak what I think.\"\n\n\"I know you do; and it is that which makes the wonder. With your good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of others! Affection of candour is common enough; one meets with it every where. But, to be candid without ostentation or design,—to take the good of every body's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad,—belongs to you alone. And so, you like this man's sisters, too, do you? Their manners are not equal to his.\"\n\n\"Certainly not, at first; but they are very pleasing women when you converse with them. Miss Bingley is to live with her brother and keep his house; and I am much mistaken if we shall not find a very charming neighbour in her.\"\n\nElizabeth listened in silence, but was not convinced: their behaviour at the assembly had not been calculated to please in general; and with more quickness of observation and less pliancy of temper than her sister, and with a judgment, too, unassailed by any attention to herself, she was very little disposed to approve them. They were, in fact, very fine ladies; not deficient in good-humour when they were pleased, nor in the power of being agreeable where they chose it; but proud and conceited." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were rather handsome; had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town; had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds; were in the habit of spending more than they ought, and of associating with people of rank; and were, therefore, in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others. They were of a respectable family in the north of England; a circumstance more deeply impressed on their memories than that their brother's fortune and their own had been acquired by trade.\n\nMr. Bingley inherited property to the amount of nearly a hundred thousand pounds from his father, who had intended to purchase an estate, but did not live to do it. Mr. Bingley intended it likewise, and sometimes made choice of his county; but, as he was now provided with a good house and the liberty of a manor,f it was doubtful to many of those who best knew the easiness of his temper, whether he might not spend the remainder of his days at Netherfield, and leave the next generation to purchase.\n\nHis sisters were very anxious for his having an estate of his own; but though he was now established only as a tenant, Miss Bingley was by no means unwilling to preside at his table; nor was Mrs. Hurst, who had married a man of more fashion than fortune, less disposed to consider his house as her home when it suited her. Mr. Bingley had not been of age two years when he was tempted, by an accidental recommendation, to look at Netherfield House. He did look at it, and into it, for half an hour; was pleased with the situation and the principal rooms, satisfied with what the owner said in its praise, and took it immediately." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Between him and Darcy there was a very steady friendship, in spite of a great opposition of character. Bingley was endeared to Darcy by the easiness, openness, and ductility of his temper, though no disposition could offer a greater contrast to his own, and though with his own he never appeared dissatisfied. On the strength of Darcy's regard, Bingley had the firmest reliance, and of his judgment the highest opinion. In understanding, Darcy was the superior. Bingley was by no means deficient; but Darcy was clever. He was at the same time haughty, reserved, and fastidious; and his manners, though well bred, were not inviting. In that respect his friend had greatly the advantage." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand this chapter by adding 11 sentences in the Romance genre. Note that some context may come from earlier parts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Within a short walk of Longbourn lived a family with whom the Bennets were particularly intimate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sir William Lucas had been formerly in trade in Meryton, where he had made a tolerable fortune, and risen to the honour of knighthood by an address to the king during his mayoralty.3 The distinction had, perhaps, been felt too strongly. It had given him a disgust to his business and to his residence in a small market town; and, quitting them both, he had removed with his family to a house about a mile from Meryton, denominated from that period Lucas Lodge; where he could think with pleasure of his own importance, and, unshackled by business, occupy himself solely in being civil to all the world. For though elated by his rank, it did not render him supercilious; on the contrary, he was all attention to everybody. By nature inoffensive, friendly, and obliging, his presentation at St. James's had made him courteous.\n\nLady Lucas was a very good kind of woman, not too clever to be a valuable neighbour to Mrs. Bennet. They had several children. The eldest of them, a sensible, intelligent young woman, about twenty-seven, was Elizabeth's intimate friend.\n\nThat the Miss Lucases and the Miss Bennets should meet to talk over a ball was absolutely necessary; and the morning after the assembly brought the former to Longbourn to hear and to communicate.\n\n\"You began the evening well, Charlotte,\" said Mrs. Bennet, with civil self-command, to Miss Lucas. \"You were Mr. Bingley's first choice.\"\n\n\"Yes; but he seemed to like his second better.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, you mean Jane, I suppose, because he danced with her twice. To be sure that did seem as if he admired her— indeed, I rather believe he did—I heard something about it—but I hardly know what—something about Mr. Robinson.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps you mean what I overheard between him and Mr. Robinson: did not I mention it to you? Mr. Robinson's asking him how he liked our Meryton assemblies, and whether he did not think there were a great many pretty women in the room, and which he thought the prettiest? and his answering immediately to the last question, Oh, the eldest Miss Bennet, beyond a doubt: there cannot be two opinions on that point.\"\n\n\"Upon my word! Well, that was very decided, indeed—that does seem as if—but, however, it may all come to nothing, you know.\"\n\n\"My overhearings were more to the purpose than yours, Eliza,\" said Charlotte. \"Mr. Darcy is not so well worth listening to as his friend, is he? Poor Eliza! to be only just tolerable.\"\n\n\"I beg you will not put it into Lizzy's head to be vexed by his ill-treatment, for he is such a disagreeable man that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him. Mrs. Long told me last night that he sat close to her for half an hour without once opening his lips.\"\n\n\"Are you quite sure, ma'am? Is not there a little mistake?\" said Jane. \"I certainly saw Mr. Darcy speaking to her.\"\n\n\"Ay, because she asked him at last how he liked Netherfield, and he could not help answering her; but she said he seemed very angry at being spoke to.\"\n\n\"Miss Bingley told me,\" said Jane, \"that he never speaks much unless among his intimate acquaintance. With them he is remarkably agreeable.\"\n\n\"I do not believe a word of it, my dear. If he had been so very agreeable, he would have talked to Mrs. Long. But I can guess how it was; every body says that he is ate up with pride, and I dare say he had heard somehow that Mrs. Long does not keep a carriage, and had come to the ball in a hack chaise. \"g\n\n\"I do not mind his not talking to Mrs. Long,\" said Miss Lucas, \"but I wish he had danced with Eliza.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Another time, Lizzy,\" said her mother, \"I would not dance with him, if I were you.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I believe, ma'am, I may safely promise you never to dance with him.\"\n\n\"His pride,\" said Miss Lucas, \"does not offend me so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man with family, fortune, every thing in his favour, should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a right to be proud.\"\n\n\"That is very true,\" replied Elizabeth, \"and I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.\"\n\n\"Pride,\" observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, \"is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed, that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity to what we would have others think of us.\"\n\n\"If I were as rich as Mr. Darcy,\" cried a young Lucas, who came with his sisters, \"I should not care how proud I was. I would keep a pack of foxhounds, and drink a bottle of wine every day.\"\n\n\"Then you would drink a great deal more than you ought,\" said Mrs. Bennet; \"and if I were to see you at it, I should take away your bottle directly.\"\n\nThe boy protested that she should not; she continued to declare that she would, and the argument ended only with the visit." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "NarrativeBot: six sentences sentences. Match character familiarity. Romance genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ladies of Longbourn soon waited on those of Netherfield. The visit was returned in due form. Miss Bennet's pleasing manners grew on the good-will of Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley; and though the mother was found to be intolerable, and the younger sisters not worth speaking to, a wish of being better acquainted with them was expressed towards the two eldest. By Jane this attention was received with the greatest pleasure; but Elizabeth still saw superciliousness in their treatment of every body, hardly excepting even her sister, and could not like them; though their kindness to Jane, such as it was, had a value, as arising, in all probability, from the influence of their brother's admiration. It was generally evident, whenever they met, that he did admire her; and to her it was equally evident that Jane was yielding to the preference which she had begun to entertain for him from the first, and was in a way to be very much in love; but she considered with pleasure that it was not likely to be discovered by the world in general, since Jane united with great strength of feeling, a composure of temper and an uniform cheerfulness of manner, which would guard her from the suspicions of the impertinent. She mentioned this to her friend, Miss Lucas." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It may, perhaps, be pleasant,\" replied Charlotte, \"to be able to impose on the public in such a case; but it is sometimes a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in the dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all begin freely—a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement. In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on.\"\n\n\"But she does help him on, as much as her nature will allow. If I can perceive her regard for him, he must be a simpleton, indeed, not to discover it too.\"\n\n\"Remember, Eliza, that he does not know Jane's disposition as you do.\"\n\n\"But if a woman is partial to a man, and does not endeavour to conceal it, he must find it out.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he must, if he sees enough of her. But though Bingley and Jane meet tolerably often, it is never for many hours together; and as they always see each other in large mixed parties, it is impossible that every moment should be employed in conversing together. Jane should therefore make the most of every half hour in which she can command his attention. When she is secure of him, there will be leisure for falling in love as much as she chooses.\"\n\n\"Your plan is a good one,\" replied Elizabeth, \"where nothing is in question but the desire of being well married; and if I were determined to get a rich husband, or any husband, I dare say I should adopt it. But these are not Jane's feelings; she is not acting by design. As yet she cannot even be certain of the degree of her own regard, nor of its reasonableness. She has known him only a fortnight. She danced four dances with him at Meryton; she saw him one morning at his own house, and has since dined in company with him four times. This is not quite enough to make her understand his character.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not as you represent it. Had she merely dined with him, she might only have discovered whether he had a good appetite; but you must remember that four evenings have been also spent together—and four evenings may do a great deal.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes: these four evenings have enabled them to ascertain that they both like Vingt-un better than Commerce;h but with respect to any other leading characteristic, I do not imagine that much has been unfolded.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Charlotte, \"I wish Jane success with all my heart; and if she were married to him to-morrow, I should think she had as good a chance of happiness as if she were to be studying his character for a twelvemonth. Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other, or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.\"\n\n\"You make me laugh, Charlotte; but it is not sound. You know it is not sound, and that you would never act in this way yourself.\"\n\nOccupied in observing Mr. Bingley's attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty: he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'conversation' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of this she was perfectly unaware: to her he was only the man who made himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with.\n\nHe began to wish to know more of her; and, as a step towards conversing with her himself, attended to her conversation with others. His doing so drew her notice. It was at Sir William Lucas's, where a large party were assembled.\n\n\"What does Mr. Darcy mean,\" said she to Charlotte, \"by listening to my conversation with Colonel Forster?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That is a question which Mr. Darcy only can answer.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But if he does it any more, I shall certainly let him know that I see what he is about. He has a very satirical eye, and if I do not begin by being impertinent myself, I shall soon grow afraid of him.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'lucas' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On his approaching them soon afterwards, though without seeming to have any intention of speaking, Miss Lucas defied her friend to mention such a subject to him, which immediately provoking Elizabeth to do it, she turned to him and said,—\n\n\"Did not you think, Mr. Darcy, that I expressed myself uncommonly well just now, when I was teasing Colonel Forster to give us a ball at Meryton?\"\n\n\"With great energy; but it is a subject which always makes a lady energetic.\"\n\n\"You are severe on us.\"\n\n\"It will be her turn soon to be teased,\" said Miss Lucas. \"I am going to open the instrument, Eliza, and you know what follows.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are a very strange creature by way of a friend!—always wanting me to play and sing before any body and every body! If my vanity had taken a musical turn, you would have been invaluable; but as it is, I would really rather not sit down before those who must be in the habit of hearing the very best performers.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On Miss Lucas's persevering, however, she added, \"Very well; if it must be so, it must.\" And gravely glancing at Mr. Darcy, \"There is a very fine old saying, which every body here is of course familiar with—'Keep your breath to cool your porridge,'—and I shall keep mine to swell my song.\"\n\nHer performance was pleasing, though by no means capital. After a song or two, and before she could reply to the entreaties of several that she would sing again, she was eagerly succeeded at the instrument by her sister Mary, who having, in consequence of being the only plain one in the family, worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments, was always impatient for display.\n\nMary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached. Elizabeth, easy and unaffected, had been listened to with much more pleasure, though not playing half so well; and Mary, at the end of a long concerto, was glad to purchase praise and gratitude by Scotch and Irish airs, at the request of her younger sisters, who, with some of the Lucases, and two or three officers, joined eagerly in dancing at one end of the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Darcy stood near them in silent indignation at such a mode of passing the evening, to the exclusion of all conversation, and was too much engrossed by his own thoughts to perceive that Sir William Lucas was his neighbour, till Sir William thus began:—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing, after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies.\"\n\n\"Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world: every savage can dance.\"\n\nSir William only smiled. \"Your friend performs delightfully,\" he continued, after a pause, on seeing Bingley join the group; \"and I doubt not that you are an adept in the science yourself, Mr. Darcy.\"\n\n\"You saw me dance at Meryton, I believe, sir.\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed, and received no inconsiderable pleasure from the sight. Do you often dance at St. James's?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Never, sir.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you not think it would be a proper compliment to the place?\"\n\n\"It is a compliment which I never pay to any place if I can avoid it.\"\n\n\"You have a house in town, I conclude.\"\n\nMr. Darcy bowed.\n\n\"I had once some thoughts of fixing in town myself, for I am fond of superior society; but I did not feel quite certain that the air of London would agree with Lady Lucas.\"\n\nHe paused in hopes of an answer: but his companion was not disposed to make any; and Elizabeth at that instant moving towards them, he was struck with the notion of doing a very gallant thing, and called out to her,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My dear Miss Eliza, why are not you dancing? Mr. Darcy, you must allow me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner. You cannot refuse to dance, I am sure, when so much beauty is before you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And, taking her hand, he would have given it to Mr. Darcy, who, though extremely surprised, was not unwilling to receive it, when she instantly drew back, and said with some discomposure to Sir William,—\n\n\"Indeed, sir, I have not the least intention of dancing. I entreat you not to suppose that I moved this way in order to beg for a partner.\"\n\nMr. Darcy, with grave propriety, requested to be allowed the honour of her hand, but in vain. Elizabeth was determined; nor did Sir William at all shake her purpose by his attempt at persuasion.\n\n\"You excel so much in the dance, Miss Eliza, that it is cruel to deny me the happiness of seeing you; and though this gentleman dislikes the amusement in general, he can have no objection, I am sure, to oblige us for one half hour.\"\n\n\"Mr. Darcy is all politeness,\" said Elizabeth, smiling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He is, indeed: but, considering the inducement, my dear Miss Eliza, we cannot wonder at his complaisance; for who would object to such a partner?\"\n\nElizabeth looked archly, and turned away. Her resistance had not injured her with the gentleman, and he was thinking of her with some complacency, when thus accosted by Miss Bingley,—\n\n\"I can guess the subject of your reverie.\"\n\n\"I should imagine not.\"\n\n\"You are considering how insupportable it would be to pass many evenings in this manner,—in such society; and, indeed, I am quite of your opinion. I was never more annoyed! The insipidity, and yet the noise;—the nothingness, and yet the self-importance of all these people! What would I give to hear your strictures on them!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes on his face, and desired he would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections. Mr. Darcy replied with great intrepidity,—\n\n\"Miss Elizabeth Bennet.\"\n\n\"Miss Elizabeth Bennet!\" repeated Miss Bingley. \"I am all astonishment. How long has she been such a favourite? and pray when am I to wish you joy?\"\n\n\"That is exactly the question which I expected you to ask. A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment. I knew you would be wishing me joy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nay, if you are so serious about it, I shall consider the matter as absolutely settled. You will have a charming mother-in-law, indeed, and of course she will be always at Pemberley with you.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He listened to her with perfect indifference, while she chose to entertain herself in this manner; and as his composure convinced her that all was safe, her wit flowed long." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene (which might reference existing characters and worldbuilding), and you will continue the story with 8 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Jane Austen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, in default of heirs male, on a distant relation;4 and their mother's fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply the deficiency of his." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her father had been an attorney in Meryton, and had left her four thousand pounds.\n\nShe had a sister married to a Mr. Philips, who had been a clerk to their father, and succeeded him in the business, and a brother settled in London in a respectable line of trade.\n\nThe village of Longbourn was only one mile from Meryton; a most convenient distance for the young ladies, who were usually tempted thither three or four times a week, to pay their duty to their aunt, and to a milliner's shopi just over the way. The two youngest of the family, Catherine and Lydia, were particularly frequent in these attentions: their minds were more vacant than their sisters', and when nothing better offered, a walk to Meryton was necessary to amuse their morning hours and furnish conversation for the evening; and, however bare of news the country in general might be, they always contrived to learn some from their aunt. At present, indeed, they were well supplied both with news and happiness by the recent arrival of a militiaj regiment in the neighbourhood; it was to remain the whole winter, and Meryton was the head-quarters.\n\nTheir visits to Mrs. Philips were now productive of the most interesting intelligence. Every day added something to their knowledge of the officers' names and connections. Their lodgings were not long a secret, and at length they began to know the officers themselves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Philips visited them all, and this opened to his nieces a source of felicity unknown before. They could talk of nothing but officers; and Mr. Bingley's large fortune, the mention of which gave animation to their mother, was worthless in their eyes when opposed to the regimentals of an ensign.k\n\nAfter listening one morning to their effusions on this subject, Mr. Bennet coolly observed,—\n\n\"From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but I am now convinced.\"\n\nCatherine was disconcerted, and made no answer; but Lydia, with perfect indifference, continued to express her admiration of Captain Carter, and her hope of seeing him in the course of the day, as he was going the next morning to London.\n\n\"I am astonished, my dear,\" said Mrs. Bennet, \"that you should be so ready to think your own children silly. If I wished to think slightingly of any body's children, it should not be of my own, however.\"\n\n\"If my children are silly, I must hope to be always sensible of it.\"\n\n\"Yes; but as it happens, they are all of them very clever.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do not agree. I had hoped that our sentiments coincided in every particular, but I must so far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly foolish.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My dear Mr. Bennet, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of their father and mother. When they get to our age, I dare say they will not think about officers any more than we do. I remember the time when I liked a red coat myself very well—and, indeed, so I do still at my heart; and if a smart young colonel, with five or six thousand a year, should want one of my girls, I shall not say nay to him; and I thought Colonel Forster looked very becoming the other night at Sir William's in his regimentals.\"\n\n\"Mamma,\" cried Lydia, \"my aunt says that Colonel Forster and Captain Carter do not go so often to Miss Watson's as they did when they first came; she sees them now very often standing in Clarke's library. \"l\n\nMrs. Bennet was prevented replying by the entrance of the footman with a note for Miss Bennet; it came from Netherfield, and the servant waited for an answer. Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled with pleasure, and she was eagerly calling out, while her daughter read,—\n\n\"Well, Jane, who is it from? What is it about? What does he say? Well, Jane, make haste and tell us; make haste, my love.\"\n\n\"It is from Miss Bingley,\" said Jane, and then read it aloud." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "hey can u write 4 sentences more sentences? like Jane Austen but Romance style. btw this is from middle of a story" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If you are not so compassionate as to dine to-day with Louisa and me, we shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives; for a whole day's tête-à-tête between two women can never end without a quarrel. Come as soon as you can on the receipt of this. My brother and the gentlemen are to dine with the officers. Yours ever,\n\n\"With the officers!\" cried Lydia: \"I wonder my aunt did not tell us of that.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required dialogue to include (maintain exact wording): \"That would be a good scheme,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dining out,\" said Mrs. Bennet; \"that is very unlucky.\"\n\n\"Can I have the carriage?\" said Jane.\n\n\"No, my dear, you had better go on horseback, because it seems likely to rain; and then you must stay all night.\"\n\n\"That would be a good scheme,\" said Elizabeth, \"if you were sure that they would not offer to send her home.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, but the gentlemen will have Mr. Bingley's chaise to go to Meryton; and the Hursts have no horses to theirs.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I had much rather go in the coach.\"\n\n\"But, my dear, your father cannot spare the horses, I am sure. They are wanted in the farm, Mr. Bennet, are not they?\"\n\n\"They are wanted in the farm much oftener than I can get them.\"\n\n\"But if you have got them to-day,\" said Elizabeth, \"my mother's purpose will be answered.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She did at last extort from her father an acknowledgment that the horses were engaged; Jane was therefore obliged to go on horseback, and her mother attended her to the door with many cheerful prognostics of a bad day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her hopes were answered; Jane had not been gone long before it rained hard. Her sisters were uneasy for her, but her mother was delighted. The rain continued the whole evening without intermission; Jane certainly could not come back.\n\n\"This was a lucky idea of mine, indeed!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said Mrs. Bennet, more than once, as if the credit of making it rain were all her own." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Till the next morning, however, she was not aware of all the felicity of her contrivance. Breakfast was scarcely over when a servant from Netherfield brought the following note for Elizabeth:—" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 9 sentences sentences spawning from what the user wrote, maintaining any existing character relationships or establishing new ones, within the Romance genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I find myself very unwell this morning, which, I suppose, is to be imputed to my getting wet through yesterday. My kind friends will not hear of my returning home till I am better. They insist also on my seeing Mr. Jones—therefore do not be alarmed if you should hear of his having been to me—and, excepting a sore-throat and headache, there is not much the matter with me.\n\n\"Well, my dear,\" said Mr. Bennet, when Elizabeth had read the note aloud, \"if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illness, if she should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of Mr. Bingley, and under your orders.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am not at all afraid of her dying. People do not die of little trifling colds. She will be taken good care of. As long as she stays there, it is all very well. I would go and see her, if I could have the carriage.\"\n\nElizabeth, feeling really anxious, was determined to go to her, though the carriage was not to be had; and as she was no horsewoman, walking was her only alternative. She declared her resolution.\n\n\"How can you be so silly,\" cried her mother, \"as to think of such a thing, in all this dirt! You will not be fit to be seen when you get there.\"\n\n\"I shall be very fit to see Jane—which is all I want.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is this a hint to me, Lizzy,\" said her father, \"to send for the horses?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "DIRECTIVE: Incorporate \"No, indeed. I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing, when one has a motive; only three miles. I shall be back by dinner.\" in response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, indeed. I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing, when one has a motive; only three miles. I shall be back by dinner.\"\n\n\"I admire the activity of your benevolence,\" observed Mary, \"but every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.\"\n\n\"We will go as far as Meryton with you,\" said Catherine and Lydia. Elizabeth accepted their company, and the three young ladies set off together.\n\n\"If we make haste,\" said Lydia, as they walked along, \"perhaps we may see something of Captain Carter before he goes.\"\n\nIn Meryton they parted: the two youngest repaired to the lodgings of one of the officers' wives, and Elizabeth continued her walk alone, crossing field after field at a quick pace, jumping over stiles and springing over puddles with impatient activity, and finding herself at last within view of the house, with weary ankles, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise.\n\nShe was shown into the breakfast-parlour, where all but Jane were assembled, and where her appearance created a great deal of surprise. That she should have walked three miles so early in the day, in such dirty weather, and by herself, was almost incredible to Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley; and Elizabeth was convinced that they held her in contempt for it. She was received, however, very politely by them; and in their brother's manners there was something better than politeness; there was good-humour and kindness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Darcy said very little, and Mr. Hurst nothing at all. The former was divided between admiration of the brilliancy which exercise had given to her complexion, and doubt as to the occasion's justifying her coming so far alone. The latter was thinking only of his breakfast.\n\nHer enquiries after her sister were not very favourably answered. Miss Bennet had slept ill, and though up, was very feverish, and not well enough to leave her room. Elizabeth was glad to be taken to her immediately; and Jane, who had only been withheld by the fear of giving alarm or inconvenience, from expressing in her note how much she longed for such a visit, was delighted at her entrance. She was not equal, however, to much conversation; and when Miss Bingley left them together, could attempt little beside expressions of gratitude for the extraordinary kindness she was treated with. Elizabeth silently attended her.\n\nWhen breakfast was over, they were joined by the sisters; and Elizabeth began to like them herself, when she saw how much affection and solicitude they showed for Jane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The apothecarym came; and having examined his patient, said, as might be supposed, that she had caught a violent cold, and that they must endeavour to get the better of it; advised her to return to bed, and promised her some draughts." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The advice was followed readily, for the feverish symptoms increased, and her head ached acutely. Elizabeth did not quit her room for a moment, nor were the other ladies often absent; the gentlemen being out, they had in fact nothing to do elsewhere.\n\nWhen the clock struck three, Elizabeth felt that she must go; and very unwillingly said so. Miss Bingley offered her the carriage, and she only wanted a little pressing to accept it, when Jane testified such concern in parting with her, that Miss Bingley was obliged to convert the offer of the chaise into an invitation to remain at Netherfield for the present. Elizabeth most thankfully consented, and a servant was despatched to Longbourn, to acquaint the family with her stay, and bring back a supply of clothes." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "ur a writing helper. partner writes, u do next 10 sentences. might have existing chars/stuff - roll with it" }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'indeed' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At five o'clock the two ladies retired to dress, and at half past six Elizabeth was summoned to dinner. To the civil enquiries which then poured in, and amongst which she had the pleasure of distinguishing the much superior solicitude of Mr. Bingley's, she could not make a very favourable answer. Jane was by no means better. The sisters, on hearing this, repeated three or four times how much they were grieved, how shocking it was to have a bad cold, and how excessively they disliked being ill themselves; and then thought no more of the matter: and their indifference towards Jane, when not immediately before them, restored Elizabeth to the enjoyment of all her original dislike.\n\nTheir brother, indeed, was the only one of the party whom she could regard with any complacency. His anxiety for Jane was evident, and his attentions to herself most pleasing; and they prevented her feeling herself so much an intruder as she believed she was considered by the others. She had very little notice from any but him. Miss Bingley was engrossed by Mr. Darcy, her sister scarcely less so; and as for Mr. Hurst, by whom Elizabeth sat, he was an indolent man, who lived only to eat, drink, and play at cards, who, when he found her prefer a plain dish to a ragout,n had nothing to say to her.\n\nWhen dinner was over, she returned directly to Jane, and Miss Bingley began abusing her as soon as she was out of the room. Her manners were pronounced to be very bad indeed, —a mixture of pride and impertinence: she had no conversation, no style, no taste, no beauty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Hurst thought the same, and added,—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but being an excellent walker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really looked almost wild.\"\n\n\"She did indeed, Louisa. I could hardly keep my countenance. Very nonsensical to come at all! Why must she be scampering about the country, because her sister had a cold? Her hair so untidy, so blowzy!\"\n\n\"Yes, and her petticoat; I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain; and the gown which had been let down to hide it not doing its office.\"\n\n\"Your picture may be very exact, Louisa,\" said Bingley; \"but this was all lost upon me. I thought Miss Elizabeth Bennet looked remarkably well when she came into the room this morning. Her dirty petticoat quite escaped my notice.\"\n\n\"You observed it, Mr. Darcy, I am sure,\" said Miss Bingley; \"and I am inclined to think that you would not wish to see your sister make such an exhibition.\"\n\n\"Certainly not.\"\n\n\"To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above her ankles in dirt, and alone, quite alone! what could she mean by it? It seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country-town indifference to decorum.\"\n\n\"It shows an affection for her sister that is very pleasing,\" said Bingley.\n\n\"I am afraid, Mr. Darcy,\" observed Miss Bingley, in a half whisper, \"that this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" he replied: \"they were brightened by the exercise.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'chance' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A short pause followed this speech, and Mrs. Hurst began again,—\n\n\"I have an excessive regard for Jane Bennet,—she is really a very sweet girl,—and I wish with all my heart she were well settled. But with such a father and mother, and such low connections, I am afraid there is no chance of it.\"\n\n\"I think I have heard you say that their uncle is an attorney in Meryton.\"\n\n\"Yes; and they have another, who lives somewhere near Cheapside. \"o\n\n\"That is capital,\" added her sister; and they both laughed heartily.\n\n\"If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside,\" cried Bingley, \"it would not make them one jot less agreeable.\"\n\n\"But it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world,\" replied Darcy.\n\nTo this speech Bingley made no answer; but his sisters gave it their hearty assent, and indulged their mirth for some time at the expense of their dear friend's vulgar relations.\n\nWith a renewal of tenderness, however, they repaired to her room on leaving the dining-parlour, and sat with her till summoned to coffee. She was still very poorly, and Elizabeth would not quit her at all, till late in the evening, when she had the comfort of seeing her asleep, and when it appeared to her rather right than pleasant that she should go down stairs herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On entering the drawing-room, she found the whole party at loo,p and was immediately invited to join them; but suspecting them to be playing high, she declined it, and making her sister the excuse, said she would amuse herself, for the short time she could stay below, with a book." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Hurst looked at her with astonishment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you prefer reading to cards?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said he; \"that is rather singular.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Miss Eliza Bennet,\" said Miss Bingley, \"despises cards. She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in any thing else.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I deserve neither such praise nor such censure,\" cried Elizabeth; \"I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things.\"\n\n\"In nursing your sister I am sure you have pleasure,\" said Bingley; \"and I hope it will soon be increased by seeing her quite well.\"\n\nElizabeth thanked him from her heart, and then walked towards a table where a few books were lying. He immediately offered to fetch her others; all that his library afforded.\n\n\"And I wish my collection were larger for your benefit and my own credit; but I am an idle fellow; and though I have not many, I have more than I ever look into.\"\n\nElizabeth assured him that she could suit herself perfectly with those in the room.\n\n\"I am astonished,\" said Miss Bingley, \"that my father should have left so small a collection of books. What a delightful library you have at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy!\"\n\n\"It ought to be good,\" he replied: \"it has been the work of many generations.\"\n\n\"And then you have added so much to it yourself—you are always buying books.\"\n\n\"I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Neglect! I am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of that noble place. Charles, when you build your house, I wish it may be half as delightful as Pemberley.\"\n\n\"I wish it may.\"\n\n\"But I would really advise you to make your purchase in that neighbourhood, and take Pemberley for a kind of model. There is not a finer county in England than Derbyshire.\"\n\n\"With all my heart: I will buy Pemberley itself, if Darcy will sell it.\"\n\n\"I am talking of possibilities, Charles.\"\n\n\"Upon my word, Caroline, I should think it more possible to get Pemberley by purchase than by imitation.\"\n\nElizabeth was so much caught by what passed, as to leave her very little attention for her book; and soon laying it wholly aside, she drew near the card-table, and stationed herself between Mr. Bingley and his eldest sister, to observe the game.\n\n\"Is Miss Darcy much grown since the spring?\" said Miss Bingley: \"will she be as tall as I am?\"\n\n\"I think she will. She is now about Miss Elizabeth Bennet's height, or rather taller.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How I long to see her again! I never met with any body who delighted me so much. Such a countenance, such manners, and so extremely accomplished for her age. Her performance on the piano-forte is exquisite.\"\n\n\"It is amazing to me,\" said Bingley, \"how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are.\"\n\n\"All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?\"\n\n\"Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses.q I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this; and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished.\"\n\n\"Your list of the common extent of accomplishments,\" said Darcy, \"has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen; but I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen in the whole range of my acquaintance that are really accomplished.\"\n\n\"Nor I, I am sure,\" said Miss Bingley.\n\n\"Then,\" observed Elizabeth, \"you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman.\"\n\n\"Yes; I do comprehend a great deal in it.\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly,\" cried his faithful assistant, \"no one can be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and, besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved.\"\n\n\"All this she must possess,\" added Darcy; \"and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are you so severe upon your own sex, as to doubt the possibility of all this?\"\n\n\"I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe, united.\"\n\nMrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley both cried out against the injustice of her implied doubt, and were both protesting that they knew many women who answered this description, when Mr. Hurst called them to order, with bitter complaints of their inattention to what was going forward. As all conversation was thereby at an end, Elizabeth soon afterwards left the room.\n\n\"Eliza Bennet,\" said Miss Bingley, when the door was closed on her, \"is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds: but, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art.\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly,\" replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly addressed, \"there is meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.\"\n\nMiss Bingley was not so entirely satisfied with this reply as to continue the subject.\n\nElizabeth joined them again only to say that her sister was worse, and that she could not leave her. Bingley urged Mr. Jones's being sent for immediately; while his sisters, convinced that no country advice could be of any service, recommended an express to town for one of the most eminent physicians. This she would not hear of; but she was not so unwilling to comply with their brother's proposal; and it was settled that Mr. Jones should be sent for early in the morning, if Miss Bennet were not decidedly better." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bingley was quite uncomfortable: his sisters declared that they were miserable." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They solaced their wretchedness, however, by duets after supper, while he could find no better relief to his feelings than by giving his housekeeper directions that every possible attention might be paid to the sick lady and her sister." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "ur a writing helper. partner writes, u do next 10 sentences. might have existing chars/stuff - roll with it" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth passed the chief of the night in her sister's room, and in the morning had the pleasure of being able to send a tolerable answer to the enquiries which she very early received from Mr. Bingley by a housemaid, and some time afterwards from the two elegant ladies who waited on his sisters. In spite of this amendment, however, she requested to have a note sent to Longbourn, desiring her mother to visit Jane, and form her own judgment of her situation. The note was immediately despatched, and its contents as quickly complied with. Mrs. Bennet, accompanied by her two youngest girls, reached Netherfield soon after the family breakfast.\n\nHad she found Jane in any apparent danger, Mrs. Bennet would have been very miserable; but being satisfied on seeing her that her illness was not alarming, she had no wish of her recovering immediately, as her restoration to health would probably remove her from Netherfield. She would not listen, therefore, to her daughter's proposal of being carried home; neither did the apothecary, who arrived about the same time, think it at all advisable. After sitting a little while with Jane, on Miss Bingley's appearance and invitation, the mother and three daughters all attended her into the breakfast parlour. Bingley met them with hopes that Mrs. Bennet had not found Miss Bennet worse than she expected.\n\n\"Indeed I have, sir,\" was her answer. \"She is a great deal too ill to be moved. Mr. Jones says we must not think of moving her. We must trespass a little longer on your kindness.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Removed!\" cried Bingley. \"It must not be thought of. My sister, I am sure, will not hear of her removal.\"\n\n\"You may depend upon it, madam,\" said Miss Bingley with cold civility, \"that Miss Bennet shall receive every possible attention while she remains with us.\"\n\nMrs. Bennet was profuse in her acknowledgments.\n\n\"I am sure,\" she added, \"if it was not for such good friends, I do not know what would become of her, for she is very ill indeed, and suffers a vast deal, though with the greatest patience in the world, which is always the way with her, for she has, without exception, the sweetest temper I ever met with. I often tell my other girls they are nothing to her. You have a sweet room here, Mr. Bingley, and a charming prospect over that gravel walk. I do not know a place in the country that is equal to Netherfield. You will not think of quitting it in a hurry, I hope, though you have but a short lease.\"\n\n\"Whatever I do is done in a hurry,\" replied he; \"and therefore if I should resolve to quit Netherfield, I should probably be off in five minutes. At present, however, I consider myself as quite fixed here.\"\n\n\"That is exactly what I should have supposed of you,\" said Elizabeth.\n\n\"You begin to comprehend me, do you?\" cried he, turning towards her.\n\n\"Oh yes—I understand you perfectly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I wish I might take this for a compliment; but to be so easily seen through, I am afraid, is pitiful.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That is as it happens. It does not necessarily follow that a deep, intricate character is more or less estimable than such a one as yours.\"\n\n\"Lizzy,\" cried her mother, \"remember where you are, and do not run on in the wild manner that you are suffered to do at home.\"\n\n\"I did not know before,\" continued Bingley, immediately, \"that you were a studier of character. It must be an amusing study.\"\n\n\"Yes; but intricate characters are the most amusing. They have at least that advantage.\"\n\n\"The country,\" said Darcy, \"can in general supply but few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society.\"\n\n\"But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed,\" cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by his manner of mentioning a country neighbourhood. \"I assure you there is quite as much of that going on in the country as in town.\"\n\nEvery body was surprised; and Darcy, after looking at her for a moment, turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who fancied she had gained a complete victory over him, continued her triumph,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I cannot see that London has any great advantage over the country, for my part, except the shops and public places. The country is a vast deal pleasanter, is not it, Mr. Bingley?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When I am in the country,\" he replied, \"I never wish to leave it; and when I am in town, it is pretty much the same. They have each their advantages, and I can be equally happy in either.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ay, that is because you have the right disposition. But that gentleman,\" looking at Darcy, \"seemed to think the country was nothing at all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Indeed, mamma, you are mistaken,\" said Elizabeth, blushing for her mother. \"You quite mistook Mr. Darcy. He only meant that there was not such a variety of people to be met with in the country as in town, which you must acknowledge to be true.\"\n\n\"Certainly, my dear, nobody said there were; but as to not meeting with many people in this neighbourhood, I believe there are few neighbourhoods larger. I know we dine with four-and-twenty families.\"\n\nNothing but concern for Elizabeth could enable Bingley to keep his countenance. His sister was less delicate, and directed her eye towards Mr. Darcy with a very expressive smile. Elizabeth, for the sake of saying something that might turn her mother's thoughts, now asked her if Charlotte Lucas had been at Longbourn since her coming away.\n\n\"Yes, she called yesterday with her father. What an agreeable man Sir William is, Mr. Bingley—is not he? so much the man of fashion! so genteel and so easy! He has always something to say to every body. That is my idea of good-breeding; and those persons who fancy themselves very important and never open their mouths quite mistake the matter.\"\n\n\"Did Charlotte dine with you?\"\n\n\"No, she would go home. I fancy she was wanted about the mince-pies. For my part, Mr. Bingley, I always keep servants that can do their own work; my daughters are brought up differently. But every body is to judge for themselves, and the Lucases are a very good sort of girls, I assure you. It is a pity they are not handsome! Not that I think Charlotte so very plain; but then she is our particular friend.\"\n\n\"She seems a very pleasant young woman,\" said Bingley." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh dear, yes; but you must own she is very plain. Lady Lucas herself has often said so, and envied me Jane's beauty. I do not like to boast of my own child, but to be sure, Jane—one does not often see any body better looking. It is what every body says. I do not trust my own partiality. When she was only fifteen there was a gentleman at my brother Gardiner's in town so much in love with her, that my sister-in-law was sure he would make her an offer before we came away. But, however, he did not. Perhaps he thought her too young. However, he wrote some verses on her, and very pretty they were.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'elizabeth' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And so ended his affection,\" said Elizabeth, impatiently. \"There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!\"\n\n\"I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love,\"5 said Darcy.\n\n\"Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Every thing nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.\"\n\nDarcy only smiled; and the general pause which ensued made Elizabeth tremble lest her mother should be exposing herself again. She longed to speak, but could think of nothing to say; and after a short silence Mrs. Bennet began repeating her thanks to Mr. Bingley for his kindness to Jane, with an apology for troubling him also with Lizzy. Mr. Bingley was unaffectedly civil in his answer, and forced his younger sister to be civil also, and say what the occasion required. She performed her part, indeed, without much graciousness, but Mrs. Bennet was satisfied, and soon afterwards ordered her carriage. Upon this signal, the youngest of her daughters put herself forward. The two girls had been whispering to each other during the whole visit; and the result of it was, that the youngest should tax Mr. Bingley with having promised on his first coming into the country to give a ball at Netherfield." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lydia was a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion and goodhumoured countenance; a favourite with her mother, whose affection had brought her into public at an early age." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had high animal spirits, and a sort of natural self-consequence, which the attentions of the officers, to whom her uncle's good dinners and her own easy manners recommended her, had increased into assurance. She was very equal, therefore, to address Mr. Bingley on the subject of the ball, and abruptly reminded him of his promise; adding, that it would be the most shameful thing in the world if he did not keep it. His answer to this sudden attack was delightful to her mother's ear.\n\n\"I am perfectly ready, I assure you, to keep my engagement; and, when your sister is recovered, you shall, if you please, name the very day of the ball. But you would not wish to be dancing while she is ill.\"\n\nLydia declared herself satisfied. \"Oh yes—it would be much better to wait till Jane was well; and by that time, most likely, Captain Carter would be at Meryton again. And when you have given your ball,\" she added, \"I shall insist on their giving one also. I shall tell Colonel Forster it will be quite a shame if he does not.\"\n\nMrs. Bennet and her daughters then departed, and Elizabeth returned instantly to Jane, leaving her own and her relations' behaviour to the remarks of the two ladies and Mr. Darcy; the latter of whom, however, could not be prevailed on to join in their censure of her, in spite of all Miss Bingley's witticisms on fine eyes." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 12 sentences sentences in the style of Jane Austen spawning from what the user wrote, within the Romance genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The day passed much as the day before had done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley had spent some hours of the morning with the invalid, who continued, though slowly, to mend; and, in the evening, Elizabeth joined their party in the drawing-room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The loo table, however, did not appear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Darcy was writing, and Miss Bingley, seated near him, was watching the progress of his letter, and repeatedly calling off his attention by messages to his sister." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Hurst and Mr. Bingley were at piquet,r and Mrs. Hurst was observing their game." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Weave this into your narrative: \"How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth took up some needlework, and was sufficiently amused in attending to what passed between Darcy and his companion. The perpetual commendations of the lady either on his hand-writing, or on the evenness of his lines, or on the length of his letter, with the perfect unconcern with which her praises were received, formed a curious dialogue, and was exactly in unison with her opinion of each.\n\n\"How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!\"\n\nHe made no answer.\n\n\"You write uncommonly fast.\"\n\n\"You are mistaken. I write rather slowly.\"\n\n\"How many letters you must have occasion to write in the course of a year! Letters of business, too! How odious I should think them!\"\n\n\"It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of to yours.\"\n\n\"Pray tell your sister that I long to see her.\"\n\n\"I have already told her so once, by your desire.\"\n\n\"I am afraid you do not like your pen. Let me mend it for you. I mend pens remarkably well.\"\n\n\"Thank you—but I always mend my own.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How can you contrive to write so even?\"\n\nHe was silent.\n\n\"Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp, and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful little design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss Grantley's.\"\n\n\"Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again? At present I have not room to do them justice.\"\n\n\"Oh, it is of no consequence. I shall see her in January. But do you always write such charming long letters to her, Mr. Darcy?\"\n\n\"They are generally long; but whether always charming, it is not for me to determine.\"\n\n\"It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long letter with ease cannot write ill.\"\n\n\"That will not do for a compliment to Darcy, Caroline,\" cried her brother, \"because he does not write with ease. He studies too much for words of four syllables. Do not you, Darcy?\"\n\n\"My style of writing is very different from yours.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" cried Miss Bingley, \"Charles writes in the most careless way imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest.\"\n\n\"My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them; by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.\"\n\n\"Your humility, Mr. Bingley,\" said Elizabeth, \"must disarm reproof.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing is more deceitful,\" said Darcy, \"than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.\"\n\n\"And which of the two do you call my little recent piece of modesty?\"\n\n\"The indirect boast; for you are really proud of your defects in writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of thought and carelessness of execution, which, if not estimable, you think at least highly interesting. The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. When you told Mrs. Bennet this morning, that if you ever resolved on quitting Netherfield you should be gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of panegyric, of compliment to yourself; and yet what is there so very laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or any one else?\"\n\n\"Nay,\" cried Bingley, \"this is too much, to remember at night all the foolish things that were said in the morning. And yet, upon my honour, I believed what I said of myself to be true, and I believe it at this moment. At least, therefore, I did not assume the character of needless precipitance merely to show off before the ladies.\"\n\n\"I dare say you believed it; but I am by no means convinced that you would be gone with such celerity. Your conduct would be quite as dependent on chance as that of any man I know; and if, as you were mounting your horse, a friend were to say, 'Bingley, you had better stay till next week,' you would probably do it—you would probably not go—and, at another word, might stay a month.\"\n\n\"You have only proved by this,\" cried Elizabeth, \"that Mr. Bingley did not do justice to his own disposition. You have shown him off now much more than he did himself.\"\n\n\"I am exceedingly gratified,\" said Bingley, \"by your converting what my friend says into a compliment on the sweetness of my temper. But I am afraid you are giving it a turn which that gentleman did by no means intend; for he would certainly think the better of me, if, under such a circumstance, I were to give a flat denial, and ride off as fast as I could.\"\n\n\"Would Mr. Darcy then consider the rashness of your original intention as atoned for by your obstinacy in adhering to it?\"\n\n\"Upon my word, I cannot exactly explain the matter—Darcy must speak for himself.\"\n\n\"You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, but which I have never acknowledged. Allowing the case, however, to stand according to your representation, you must remember, Miss Bennet, that the friend who is supposed to desire his return to the house and the delay of his plan, has merely desired it, asked it without offering one argument in favour of its propriety.\"\n\n\"To yield readily—easily—to the persuasion of a friend is no merit with you.\"\n\n\"To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You appear to me, Mr. Darcy, to allow nothing for the influence of friendship and affection. A regard for the requester would often make one readily yield to a request, without waiting for arguments to reason one into it. I am not particularly speaking of such a case as you have supposed about Mr. Bingley. We may as well wait, perhaps, till the circumstance occurs, before we discuss the discretion of his behaviour thereupon. But in general and ordinary cases between friend and friend, where one of them is desired by the other to change a resolution of no very great moment, should you think ill of that person for complying with the desire, without waiting to be argued into it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Will it not be advisable, before we proceed on this subject, to arrange with rather more precision the degree of importance which is to appertain to this request, as well as the degree of intimacy subsisting between the parties?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"By all means,\" cried Bingley: \"let us hear all the particulars, not forgetting their comparative height and size; for that will have more weight in the argument, Miss Bennet, than you may be aware of. I assure you that if Darcy were not such a great tall fellow, in comparison with myself, I should not pay him half so much deference. I declare I do not know a more awful object than Darcy, on particular occasions, and in particular places; at his own house especially, and of a Sunday evening, when he has nothing to do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Darcy smiled; but Elizabeth thought she could perceive that he was rather offended, and therefore checked her laugh.\n\nMiss Bingley warmly resented the indignity he had received, in an expostulation with her brother for talking such nonsense.\n\n\"I see your design, Bingley,\" said his friend. \"You dislike an argument, and want to silence this.\"\n\n\"Perhaps I do. Arguments are too much like disputes. If you and Miss Bennet will defer yours till I am out of the room, I shall be very thankful; and then you may say whatever you like of me.\"\n\n\"What you ask,\" said Elizabeth, \"is no sacrifice on my side; and Mr. Darcy had much better finish his letter.\"\n\nMr. Darcy took her advice, and did finish his letter.\n\nWhen that business was over, he applied to Miss Bingley and Elizabeth for the indulgence of some music. Miss Bingley moved with alacrity to the piano-forte, and after a polite request that Elizabeth would lead the way, which the other as politely and more earnestly negatived, she seated herself.\n\nMrs. Hurst sang with her sister; and while they were thus employed, Elizabeth could not help observing, as she turned over some music books that lay on the instrument, how frequently Mr. Darcy's eyes were fixed on her. She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of admiration to so great a man; and yet that he should look at her because he disliked her was still more strange. She could only imagine, however, at last, that she drew his notice because there was a something about her more wrong and reprehensible, according to his ideas of right, than in any other person present." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The supposition did not pain her. She liked him too little to care for his approbation.\n\nAfter playing some Italian songs, Miss Bingley varied the charm by a lively Scotch air; and soon afterwards Mr. Darcy, drawing near Elizabeth, said to her,—\n\n\"Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel? \"s\n\nShe smiled, but made no answer. He repeated the question, with some surprise at her silence.\n\n\"Oh,\" said she, \"I heard you before; but I could not immediately determine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say 'Yes,' that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always delight in overthrowing those kinds of schemes, and cheating a person of their premeditated contempt. I have, therefore, made up my mind to tell you, that I do not want to dance a reel at all; and now despise me if you dare.\"\n\n\"Indeed I do not dare.\"\n\nElizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his gallantry: but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner which made it difficult for her to affront any body; and Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed that, were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger.\n\nMiss Bingley saw, or suspected, enough to be jealous; and her great anxiety for the recovery of her dear friend Jane received some assistance from her desire of getting rid of Elizabeth.\n\nShe often tried to provoke Darcy into disliking her guest, by talking of their supposed marriage, and planning his happiness in such an alliance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I hope,\" said she, as they were walking together in the shrubbery the next day, \"you will give your mother-in-law a few hints, when this desirable event takes place, as to the advantage of holding her tongue; and if you can compass it, do cure the younger girls of running after the officers. And, if I may mention so delicate a subject, endeavour to check that little something, bordering on conceit and impertinence, which your lady possesses.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'darcy' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Have you any thing else to propose for my domestic felicity?\"\n\n\"Oh yes. Do let the portraits of your uncle and aunt Philips be placed in the gallery at Pemberley. Put them next to your great uncle the judge. They are in the same profession, you know; only in different lines. As for your Elizabeth's picture, you must not attempt to have it taken, for what painter could do justice to those beautiful eyes?\"\n\n\"It would not be easy, indeed, to catch their expression; but their colour and shape, and the eyelashes, so remarkably fine, might be copied.\"\n\nAt that moment they were met from another walk by Mrs. Hurst and Elizabeth herself.\n\n\"I did not know that you intended to walk,\" said Miss Bingley, in some confusion, lest they had been overheard.\n\n\"You used us abominably ill,\" answered Mrs. Hurst, \"running away without telling us that you were coming out.\"\n\nThen taking the disengaged arm of Mr. Darcy, she left Elizabeth to walk by herself. The path just admitted three. Mr. Darcy felt their rudeness, and immediately said,—\n\n\"This walk is not wide enough for our party. We had better go into the avenue.\"\n\nBut Elizabeth, who had not the least inclination to remain with them, laughingly answered,—\n\n\"No, no; stay where you are. You are charmingly grouped, and appear to uncommon advantage. The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a fourth. Good-by.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She then ran gaily off, rejoicing as she rambled about, in the hope of being at home again in a day or two." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jane was already so much recovered as to intend leaving her room for a couple of hours that evening." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep going w/ one sentence more. Note: Might reference existing chars" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'elizabeth' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the ladies removed after dinner Elizabeth ran up to her sister, and seeing her well guarded from cold, attended her into the drawing-room, where she was welcomed by her two friends with many professions of pleasure; and Elizabeth had never seen them so agreeable as they were during the hour which passed before the gentlemen appeared." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their powers of conversation were considerable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They could describe an entertainment with accuracy, relate an anecdote with humour, and laugh at their acquaintance with spirit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But when the gentlemen entered, Jane was no longer the first object; Miss Bingley's eyes were instantly turned towards Darcy, and she had something to say to him before he had advanced many steps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He addressed himself directly to Miss Bennet with a polite congratulation: Mr. Hurst also made her a slight bow, and said he was \"very glad;\" but diffuseness and warmth remained for Bingley's salutation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was full of joy and attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first half hour was spent in piling up the fire, lest she should suffer from the change of room; and she removed, at his desire, to the other side of the fireplace, that she might be farther from the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He then sat down by her, and talked scarcely to any one else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth, at work in the opposite corner, saw it all with great delight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When tea was over Mr. Hurst reminded his sister-in-law of the card-table—but in vain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had obtained private intelligence that Mr. Darcy did not wish for cards; and Mr. Hurst soon found even his open petition rejected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She assured him that no one intended to play, and the silence of the whole party on the subject seemed to justify her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Hurst had, therefore, nothing to do, but to stretch himself on one of the sofas and go to sleep." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Darcy took up a book: Miss Bingley did the same; and Mrs. Hurst, principally occupied in playing with her bracelets and rings, joined now and then in her brother's conversation with Miss Bennet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Bingley's attention was quite as much engaged in watching Mr. Darcy's progress through his book, as in reading her own; and she was perpetually either making some enquiry, or looking at his page." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She could not win him, however, to any conversation; he merely answered her question and read on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be amused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, \"How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare, after all, there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one made any reply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She then yawned again, threw aside her book, and cast her eyes round the room in quest of some amusement; when hearing her brother mentioning a ball to Miss Bennet, she turned suddenly towards him and said,—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"By the by, Charles, are you really serious in meditating a dance at Netherfield? I would advise you, before you determine on it, to consult the wishes of the present party; I am much mistaken if there are not some among us to whom a ball would be rather a punishment than a pleasure.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If you mean Darcy,\" cried her brother, \"he may go to bed, if he chooses, before it begins—but as for the ball, it is quite a settled thing; and as soon as Nicholls has made white soupt enough I shall send round my cards.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I should like balls infinitely better,\" she replied, \"if they were carried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing made the order of the day.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say; but it would not be near so much like a ball.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Bingley made no answer; and soon afterwards got up and walked about the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her figure was elegant, and she walked well; but Darcy, at whom it was all aimed, was still inflexibly studious." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the desperation of her feelings she resolved on one effort more; and, turning to Elizabeth, said,—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Miss Eliza Bennet, let me persuade you to follow my example, and take a turn about the room. I assure you it is very refreshing after sitting so long in one attitude.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth was surprised, but agreed to it immediately." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Bingley succeeded no less in the real object of her civility: Mr. Darcy looked up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was as much awake to the novelty of attention in that quarter as Elizabeth herself could be, and unconsciously closed his book." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was directly invited to join their party, but he declined it; observing, that he could imagine but two motives for their choosing to walk up and down the room together, with either of which motives his joining them would interfere." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What could he mean?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'could' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was dying to know what could be his meaning—and asked Elizabeth whether she could at all understand him?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not at all,\" was her answer; \"but, depend upon it, he means to be severe on us, and our surest way of disappointing him will be to ask nothing about it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Bingley, however, was incapable of disappointing Mr. Darcy in any thing, and persevered, therefore, in requiring an explanation of his two motives." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have not the smallest objection to explaining them,\" said he, as soon as she allowed him to speak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You either choose this method of passing the evening because you are in each other's confidence, and have secret affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking: if the first, I should be completely in your way; and if the second, I can admire you much better as I sit by the fire.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, shocking!\" cried Miss Bingley." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I never heard any thing so abominable. How shall we punish him for such a speech?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nothing so easy, if you have but the inclination,\" said Elizabeth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We can all plague and punish one another. Tease him—laugh at him. Intimate as you are, you must know how it is to be done.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But upon my honour I do not. I do assure you that my intimacy has not yet taught me that. Tease calmness of temper and presence of mind! No, no; I feel he may defy us there. And as to laughter, we will not expose ourselves, if you please, by attempting to laugh without a subject. Mr. Darcy may hug himself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed at!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "cried Elizabeth. \"That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would be a great loss to me to have many such acquaintance. I dearly love a laugh.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Miss Bingley,\" said he, \"has given me credit for more than can be. The wisest and best of men,—nay, the wisest and best of their actions,—may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Certainly,\" replied Elizabeth, \"there are such people, but I hope I am not one of them. I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can. But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps that is not possible for any one. But it has been the study of my life to avoid those weaknesses which often expose a strong understanding to ridicule.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Such as vanity and pride.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride—where there is a real superiority of mind—pride will be always under good regulation.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth turned away to hide a smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your examination of Mr. Darcy is over, I presume,\" said Miss Bingley; \"and pray what is the result?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am perfectly convinced by it that Mr. Darcy has no defect. He owns it himself without disguise.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" said Darcy, \"I have made no such pretension. I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding; certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offences against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost is lost for ever.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That is a failing, indeed!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "cried Elizabeth. \"Implacable resentment is a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well. I really cannot laugh at it. You are safe from me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And your defect is a propensity to hate every body.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And yours,\" he replied, with a smile, \"is wilfully to misunderstand them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do let us have a little music,\" cried Miss Bingley, tired of a conversation in which she had no share." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Louisa, you will not mind my waking Mr. Hurst.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her sister made not the smallest objection, and the piano-forte u was opened; and Darcy, after a few moments' recollection, was not sorry for it. He began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 12 sentences sentences in the style of Jane Austen spawning from what the user wrote, within the Romance genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In consequence of an agreement between the sisters, Elizabeth wrote the next morning to her mother, to beg that the carriage might be sent for them in the course of the day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Mrs. Bennet, who had calculated on her daughters remaining at Netherfield till the following Tuesday, which would exactly finish Jane's week, could not bring herself to receive them with pleasure before. Her answer, therefore, was not propitious, at least not to Elizabeth's wishes, for she was impatient to get home. Mrs. Bennet sent them word that they could not possibly have the carriage before Tuesday; and in her postscript it was added, that if Mr. Bingley and his sister pressed them to stay longer, she could spare them very well. Against staying longer, however, Elizabeth was positively resolved—nor did she much expect it would be asked; and fearful, on the contrary, of being considered as intruding themselves needlessly long, she urged Jane to borrow Mr. Bingley's carriage immediately, and at length it was settled that their original design of leaving Netherfield that morning should be mentioned, and the request made.\n\nThe communication excited many professions of concern; and enough was said of wishing them to stay at least till the following day to work on Jane; and till the morrow their going was deferred. Miss Bingley was then sorry that she had proposed the delay; for her jealousy and dislike of one sister much exceeded her affection for the other.\n\nThe master of the house heard with real sorrow that they were to go so soon, and repeatedly tried to persuade Miss Bennet that it would not be safe for her—that she was not enough recovered; but Jane was firm where she felt herself to be right.\n\nTo Mr. Darcy it was welcome intelligence: Elizabeth had been at Netherfield long enough. She attracted him more than he liked; and Miss Bingley was uncivil to her, and more teasing than usual to himself. He wisely resolved to be particularly careful that no sign of admiration should now escape him—nothing that could elevate her with the hope of influencing his felicity; sensible that, if such an idea had been suggested, his behaviour during the last day must have material weight in confirming or crushing it. Steady to his purpose, he scarcely spoke ten words to her through the whole of Saturday; and though they were at one time left by themselves for half an hour, he adhered most conscientiously to his book, and would not even look at her.\n\nOn Sunday, after morning service, the separation, so agreeable to almost all, took place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Bingley's civility to Elizabeth increased at last very rapidly, as well as her affection for Jane; and when they parted, after assuring the latter of the pleasure it would always give her to see her either at Longbourn or Netherfield, and embracing her most tenderly, she even shook hands with the former Elizabeth took leave of the whole party in the liveliest spirits." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were not welcomed home very cordially by their mother. Mrs. Bennet wondered at their coming, and thought them very wrong to give so much trouble, and was sure Jane would have caught cold again. But their father, though very laconic in his expressions of pleasure, was really glad to see them; he had felt their importance in the family circle. The evening conversation, when they were all assembled, had lost much of its animation, and almost all its sense, by the absence of Jane and Elizabeth.\n\nThey found Mary, as usual, deep in the study of thorough bassv and human nature; and had some new extracts to admire, and some new observations of thread-bare morality to listen to. Catherine and Lydia had information for them of a different sort. Much had been done, and much had been said, in the regiment since the preceding Wednesday; several of the officers had dined lately with their uncle; a private had been flogged, and it had actually been hinted that Colonel Forster was going to be married." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep going w/ one sentence more. Note: Might reference existing chars" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I hope, my dear,\" said Mr. Bennet to his wife, as they were at breakfast the next morning, \"that you have ordered a good dinner to-day, because I have reason to expect an addition to our family party.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who do you mean, my dear? I know of nobody that is coming, I am sure, unless Charlotte Lucas should happen to call in; and I hope my dinners are good enough for her. I do not believe she often sees such at home.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The person of whom I speak is a gentleman and a stranger.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A gentleman and a stranger! It is Mr. Bingley, I am sure. Why, Jane—you never dropped a word of this—you sly thing! Well, I am sure I shall be extremely glad to see Mr. Bingley. But—good Lord! how unlucky! there is not a bit of fish to be got to-day. Lydia, my love, ring the bell. I must speak to Hill this moment.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is not Mr. Bingley,\" said her husband; \"it is a person whom I never saw in the whole course of my life.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This roused a general astonishment; and he had the pleasure of being eagerly questioned by his wife and five daughters at once." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After amusing himself some time with their curiosity, he thus explained:—\"About a month ago I received this letter, and about a fortnight ago I answered it; for I thought it a case of some delicacy, and requiring early attention. It is from my cousin, Mr. Collins, who, when I am dead, may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, my dear,\" cried his wife, \"I cannot bear to hear that mentioned. Pray do not talk of that odious man. I do think it is the hardest thing in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own children; and I am sure, if I had been you, I should have tried long ago to do something or other about it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jane and Elizabeth attempted to explain to her the nature of an entail." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had often attempted it before: but it was a subject on which Mrs. Bennet was beyond the reach of reason; and she continued to rail bitterly against the cruelty of settling an estate away from a family of five daughters, in favour of a man whom nobody cared any thing about." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It certainly is a most iniquitous affair,\" said Mr. Bennet; \"and nothing can clear Mr. Collins from the guilt of inheriting Longbourn. But if you will listen to his letter, you may, perhaps, be a little softened by his manner of expressing himself.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, that I am sure I shall not; and I think it was very impertinent of him to write to you at all, and very hypocritical. I hate such false friends. Why could not he keep on quarrelling with you, as his father did before him?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why, indeed, he does seem to have had some filial scruples on that head, as you will hear.\"\n\n\"HUNSFORD, NEAR WESTERHAM, KENT, 15TH OCTOBER\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing a segment of a larger work\n\nLength:\nseven sentences\n\nStyle:\nJane Austen\nGenre:\nRomance\nNote: Characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The disagreement subsisting between yourself and my late honoured father always gave me much uneasiness; and, since I have had the misfortune to lose him, I have frequently wished to heal the breach: but, for some time, I was kept back by my own doubts, fearing lest it might seem disrespectful to his memory for me to be on good terms with any one with whom it had always pleased him to be at variance.—\"There, Mrs. Bennet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "—My mind, however, is now made up on the subject; for, having received ordination at Easter, I have been so fortunate as to be distinguished by the patronage of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty and beneficence has preferred me tow the valuable rectory of this parish, where it shall be my earnest endeavourto demean myself with grateful respect towards her Ladyship, and be ever ready to perform those rites and ceremonies which are instituted by the Church of England." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As a clergyman, moreover, I feel it my duty to promote and establish the blessing of peace in all families within the reach of my influence; and on these grounds I flatter myself that my present overtures of good will are highly commendable, and that the circumstance of my being next in the entail of Longbourn estate will be kindly overlooked on your side, and not lead you to reject the offered olive branch. I cannot be otherwise than concerned at being the means of injuring your amiable daughters, and beg leave to apologise for it, as well as to assure you of my readiness to make them every possible amends; but of this hereafter. If you should have no objection to receive me into your house, I propose myself the satisfaction of waiting on you and your family, Monday, November 18th, by four o'clock, and shall probably trespass on your hospitality till the Saturday se'nightx following, which I can do without any inconvenience, as Lady Catherine is far from objecting to my occasional absence on a Sunday, provided that some other clergyman is engaged to do the duty of the day. I remain, dear sir, with respectful compliments to your lady and daughters, your well-wisher and friend, \"At four o'clock, therefore, we may expect this peacemaking gentleman,\" said Mr. Bennet, as he folded up the letter. \"He seems to be a most conscientious and polite young man, upon my word; and, I doubt not, will prove a valuable acquaintance, especially if Lady Catherine should be so indulgent as to let him come to us again.\"\n\n\"There is some sense in what he says about the girls, however; and, if he is disposed to make them any amends, I shall not be the person to discourage him.\"\n\n\"Though it is difficult,\" said Jane, \"to guess in what way he can mean to make us the atonement he thinks our due,6 the wish is certainly to his credit.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth was chiefly struck with his extraordinary deference for Lady Catherine, and his kind intention of christening, marrying, and burying his parishioners whenever it were required.\n\n\"He must be an oddity, I think,\" said she. \"I cannot make him out. There is something very pompous in his style. And what can he mean by apologising for being next in the entail? We cannot suppose he would help it, if he could. Can he be a sensible man, sir?\"\n\n\"No, my dear; I think not. I have great hopes of finding him quite the reverse. There is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his letter which promises well. I am impatient to see him.\"\n\n\"In point of composition,\" said Mary, \"his letter does not seem defective. The idea of the olive branch perhaps is not wholly new, yet I think it is well expressed.\"\n\nTo Catherine and Lydia neither the letter nor its writer were in any degree interesting. It was next to impossible that their cousin should come in a scarlet coat, and it was now some weeks since they had received pleasure from the society of a man in any other colour." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As for their mother, Mr. Collins's letter had done away much of her ill-will, and she was preparing to see him with a degree of composure which astonished her husband and daughters.\n\nMr. Collins was punctual to his time, and was received with great politeness by the whole family. Mr. Bennet indeed said little; but the ladies were ready enough to talk, and Mr. Collins seemed neither in need of encouragement, nor inclined to be silent himself. He was a tall, heavy-looking young man of five-and-twenty. His air was grave and stately, and his manners were very formal. He had not been long seated before he complimented Mrs. Bennet on having so fine a family of daughters, said he had heard much of their beauty, but that, in this instance, fame had fallen short of the truth; and added, that he did not doubt her seeing them all in due time well disposed of in marriage. This gallantry was not much to the taste of some of his hearers; but Mrs. Bennet, who quarrelled with no compliments, answered most readily,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are very kind, sir, I am sure; and I wish with all my heart it may prove so; for else they will be destitute enough. Things are settled so oddly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You allude, perhaps, to the entail of this estate.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ah, sir, I do indeed. It is a grievous affair to my poor girls, you must confess. Not that I mean to find fault with you, for such things I know are all chance in this world. There is no knowing how estates will go when once they come to be entailed.\"\n\n\"I am very sensible, madam, of the hardship to my fair cousins, and could say much on the subject, but that I am cautious of appearing forward and precipitate. But I can assure the young ladies that I come prepared to admire them. At present I will not say more, but, perhaps, when we are better acquainted—\"\n\nHe was interrupted by a summons to dinner; and the girls smiled on each other. They were not the only objects of Mr. Collins's admiration. The hall, the dining-room, and all its furniture, were examined and praised; and his commendation of every thing would have touched Mrs. Bennet's heart, but for the mortifying supposition of his viewing it all as his own future property. The dinner, too, in its turn, was highly admired; and he begged to know to which of his fair cousins the excellence of its cookery was owing. But here he was set right by Mrs. Bennet, who assured him, with some asperity, that they were very well able to keep a good cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He begged pardon for having displeased her." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a softened tone she declared herself not at all offended; but he continued to apologise for about a quarter of an hour." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep going w/ one sentence more. Note: Might reference existing chars" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "During dinner, Mr. Bennet scarcely spoke at all; but when the servants were withdrawn, he thought it time to have some conversation with his guest, and therefore started a subject in which he expected him to shine, by observing that he seemed very fortunate in his patroness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lady Catherine de Bourgh's attention to his wishes, and consideration for his comfort, appeared very remarkable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Bennet could not have chosen better." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Collins was eloquent in her praise." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The subject elevated him to more than usual solemnity of manner; and with a most important aspect he protested that \"he had never in his life witnessed such behaviour in a person of rank—such affability and condescension, 7 as he had himself experienced from Lady Catherine. She had been graciously pleased to approve of both the discourses which he had already had the honour of preaching before her. She had also asked him twice to dine at Rosings, and had sent for him only the Saturday before, to make up her pool of quadrilley in the evening. Lady Catherine was reckoned proud by many people, he knew, but he had never seen any thing but affability in her. She had always spoken to him as she would to any other gentleman; she made not the smallest objection to his joining in the society of the neighbourhood, nor to his leaving his parish occasionally for a week or two to visit his relations. She had even condescended to advise him to marry as soon as he could, provided he chose with discretion; and had once paid him a visit in his humble parsonage, where she had perfectly approved all the alterations he had been making, and had even vouchsafed to suggest some herself,—some shelves in the closets up stairs.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That is all very proper and civil, I am sure,\" said Mrs. Bennet, \"and I dare say she is a very agreeable woman. It is a pity that great ladies in general are not more like her. Does she live near you, sir?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The garden in which stands my humble abode is separated only by a lane from Rosings Park, her Ladyship's residence.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think you said she was a widow, sir? has she any family?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She has one only daughter, the heiress of Rosings, and of very extensive property.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Ah,\" cried Mrs. Bennet, shaking her head, \"then she is better off than many girls. And what sort of young lady is she? Is she handsome?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'which' 3 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She is a most charming young lady, indeed. Lady Catherine herself says that, in point of true beauty, Miss de Bourgh is far superior to the handsomest of her sex; because there is that in her features which marks the young woman of distinguished birth. She is unfortunately of a sickly constitution, which has prevented her making that progress in many accomplishments which she could not otherwise have failed of, as I am informed by the lady who superintended her education, and who still resides with them. But she is perfectly amiable, and often condescends to drive by my humble abode in her little phaetonz and ponies.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Has she been presented? I do not remember her name among the ladies at court.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Her indifferent state of health unhappily prevents her being in town; and by that means, as I told Lady Catherine myself one day, has deprived the British court of its brightest ornament. Her Ladyship seemed pleased with the idea; and you may imagine that I am happy on every occasion to offer those little delicate compliments which are always acceptable to ladies. I have more than once observed to Lady Catherine, that her charming daughter seemed born to be a duchess; and that the most elevated rank, instead of giving her consequence, would be adorned by her. These are the kind of little things which please her Ladyship, and it is a sort of attention which I conceive myself peculiarly bound to pay.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You judge very properly,\" said Mr. Bennet; \"and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time; and though I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His cousin was as absurd as he had hoped; and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment, maintaining at the same time the most resolute composure of countenance, and, except in an occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring no partner in his pleasure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By teatime, however, the dose had been enough, and Mr. Bennet was glad to take his guest into the drawing-room again, and when tea was over, glad to invite him to read aloud to the ladies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Collins readily assented, and a book was produced; but on beholding it (for every thing announced it to be from a circulating library) he started back, and, begging pardon, protested that he never read novels." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kitty stared at him, and Lydia exclaimed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Other books were produced, and after some deliberation he chose Fordyce's Sermons.aa Lydia gaped as he opened the volume; and before he had, with very monotonous solemnity, read three pages, she interrupted him with,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you know, mamma, that my uncle Philips talks of turning away Richard? and if he does, Colonel Forster will hire him. My aunt told me so herself on Saturday. I shall walk to Meryton to-morrow to hear more about it, and to ask when Mr. Denny comes back from town.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lydia was bid by her two eldest sisters to hold her tongue; but Mr. Collins, much offended, laid aside his book, and said,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have often observed how little young ladies are interested by books of a serious stamp, though written solely for their benefit. It amazes me, I confess; for certainly there can be nothing so advantageous to them as instruction. But I will no longer importune my young cousin.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then turning to Mr. Bennet, he offered himself as his antagonist at backgammon." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Bennet accepted the challenge, observing that he acted very wisely in leaving the girls to their own trifling amusements. Mrs. Bennet and her daughters apologised most civilly for Lydia's interruption, and promised that it should not occur again, if he would resume his book; but Mr. Collins, after assuring them that he bore his young cousin no ill-will, and should never resent her behaviour as any affront, seated himself at another table with Mr. Bennet, and prepared for backgammon." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 12 sentences sentences in the style of Jane Austen spawning from what the user wrote, within the Romance genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society; the greatest part of his life having been spent under the guidance of an illiterate and miserly father; and though he belonged to one of the universities, he had merely kept the necessary terms without forming at it any useful acquaintance.ab The subjection in which his father had brought him up had given him originally great humility of manner; but it was now a good deal counteracted by the self-conceit of a weak head, living in retirement, and the consequential feelings of early and unexpected prosperity. A fortunate chance had recommended him to Lady Catherine de Bourgh when the living of Hunsford was vacant; and the respect which he felt for her high rank, and his veneration for her as his patroness, mingling with a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a clergyman, and his right as a rector, made him altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility.\n\nHaving now a good house and very sufficient income, he intended to marry; and in seeking a reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had a wife in view, as he meant to choose one of the daughters, if he found them as handsome and amiable as they were represented by common report. This was his plan of amends—of atonement—for inheriting their father's estate; and he thought it an excellent one, full of eligibility and suitableness, and excessively generous and disinterested on his own part.\n\nHis plan did not vary on seeing them. Miss Bennet's lovely face confirmed his views, and established all his strictest notions of what was due to seniority; and for the first evening she was his settled choice. The next morning, however, made an alteration; for in a quarter of an hour's tête-à-tête with Mrs. Bennet before breakfast, a conversation beginning with his parsonage-house, and leading naturally to the avowal of his hopes, that a mistress for it might be found at Longbourn, produced from her, amid very complaisant smiles and general encouragement, a caution against the very Jane he had fixed on. \"As to her younger daughters, she could not take upon her to say—she could not positively answer—but she did not know of any prepossession;—her eldest daughter she must just mention—she felt it incumbent on her to hint, was likely to be very soon engaged.\"\n\nMr. Collins had only to change from Jane to Elizabeth—and it was soon done—done while Mrs. Bennet was stirring the fire. Elizabeth, equally next to Jane in birth and beauty, succeeded her of course.\n\nMrs. Bennet treasured up the hint, and trusted that she might soon have two daughters married; and the man whom she could not bear to speak of the day before was now high in her good graces.\n\nLydia's intention of walking to Meryton was not forgotten: every sister except Mary agreed to go with her; and Mr. Collins was to attend them, at the request of Mr. Bennet, who was most anxious to get rid of him, and have his library to himself; for thither Mr. Collins had followed him after breakfast, and there he would continue, nominally engaged with one of the largest folios in the collection, but really talking to Mr. Bennet, with little cessation, of his house and garden at Hunsford." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Such doings discomposed Mr. Bennet exceedingly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In his library he had been always sure of leisure and tranquillity; and though prepared, as he told Elizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room in the house, he was used to be free from them there: his civility, therefore, was most prompt in inviting Mr. Collins to join his daughters in their walk; and Mr. Collins, being in fact much better fitted for a walker than a reader, was extremely well pleased to close his large book, and go.\n\nIn pompous nothings on his side, and civil assents on that of his cousins, their time passed till they entered Meryton. The attention of the younger ones was then no longer to be gained by him. Their eyes were immediately wandering up in the street in quest of the officers, and nothing less than a very smart bonnet indeed, or a really new muslin in a shop window, could recall them.\n\nBut the attention of every lady was soon caught by a young man, whom they had never seen before, of most gentlemanlike appearance, walking with an officer on the other side of the way. The officer was the very Mr. Denny, concerning whose return from London Lydia came to enquire, and he bowed as they passed. All were struck with the stranger's air, all wondered who he could be; and Kitty and Lydia, determined if possible to find out, led the way across the street, under pretence of wanting something in an opposite shop, and fortunately had just gained the pavement, when the two gentlemen, turning back, had reached the same spot. Mr. Denny addressed them directly, and entreated permission to introduce his friend, Mr. Wickham, who had returned with him the day before from town, and, he was happy to say, had accepted a commission in their corps. This was exactly as it should be; for the young man wanted only regimentals to make him completely charming. His appearance was greatly in his favour: he had all the best parts of beauty, a fine countenance, a good figure, and very pleasing address. The introduction was followed up on his side by a happy readiness of conversation—a readiness at the same time perfectly correct and unassuming; and the whole party were still standing and talking together very agreeably, when the sound of horses drew their notice, and Darcy and Bingley were seen riding down the street. On distinguishing the ladies of the group, the two gentlemen came directly towards them, and began the usual civilities." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bingley was the principal spokesman, and Miss Bennet the principal object." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was then, he said, on his way to Longbourn on purpose to enquire after her. Mr. Darcy corroborated it with a bow, and was beginning to determine not to fix his eyes on Elizabeth, when they were suddenly arrested by the sight of the stranger; and Elizabeth happening to see the countenance of both as they looked at each other, was all astonishment at the effect of the meeting. Both changed colour, one looked white, the other red. Mr. Wickham, after a few moments, touched his hat—a salutation which Mr. Darcy just deigned to return. What could be the meaning of it? It was impossible to imagine; it was impossible not to long to know.\n\nIn another minute Mr. Bingley, but without seeming to have noticed what passed, took leave and rode on with his friend.\n\nMr. Denny and Mr. Wickham walked with the young ladies to the door of Mr. Philips's house, and then made their bows, in spite of Miss Lydia's pressing entreaties that they would come in, and even in spite of Mrs. Philips's throwing up the parlour window, and loudly seconding the invitation.\n\nMrs. Philips was always glad to see her nieces; and the two eldest, from their recent absence, were particularly welcome; and she was eagerly expressing her surprise at their sudden return home, which, as their own carriage had not fetched them, she should have known nothing about, if she had not happened to see Mr. Jones's shop-boy in the street, who had told her that they were not to send any more draughts to Netherfield because the Miss Bennets were come away, when her civility was claimed towards Mr. Collins by Jane's introduction of him. She received him with her very best politeness, which he returned with as much more, apologising for his intrusion, without any previous acquaintance with her, which he could not help flattering himself however might be justified by his relationship to the young ladies who introduced him to her notice. Mrs. Philips was quite awed by such an excess of good breeding; but her contemplation of one stranger was soon put an end to by exclamations and enquiries about the other, of whom, however, she could only tell her nieces what they already knew, that Mr. Denny had brought him from London, and that he was to have a lieutenant's commission in the—shire. She had been watching him the last hour, she said, as he walked up and down the street, and had Mr. Wickham appeared, Kitty and Lydia would certainly have continued the occupation; but unluckily no one passed the windows now except a few of the officers, who, in comparison with the stranger, were become \"stupid, disagreeable fellows.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some of them were to dine with the Philipses the next day, and their aunt promised to make her husband call on Mr. Wickham, and give him an invitation also, if the family from Longbourn would come in the evening." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was agreed to; and Mrs. Philips protested that they would have a nice comfortable noisy game of lottery tickets,ac and a little bit of hot supper afterwards. The prospect of such delights was very cheering, and they parted in mutual good spirits. Mr. Collins repeated his apologies in quitting the room, and was assured, with unwearying civility, that they were perfectly needless.\n\nAs they walked home, Elizabeth related to Jane what she had seen pass between the two gentlemen; but though Jane would have defended either or both, had they appeared to be wrong, she could no more explain such behaviour than her sister.\n\nMr. Collins on his return highly gratified Mrs. Bennet by admiring Mrs. Philips's manners and politeness. He protested that, except Lady Catherine and her daughter, he had never seen a more elegant woman; for she had not only received him with the utmost civility, but had even pointedly included him in her invitation for the next evening, although utterly unknown to her before. Something he supposed might be attributed to his connection with them, but yet he had never met with so much attention in the whole course of his life." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "help write? 5 sentences more, same character context, Romance genre thx" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As no objection was made to the young people's engagement with their aunt, and all Mr. Collins's scruples of leaving Mr. and Mrs. Bennet for a single evening during his visit were most steadily resisted, the coach conveyed him and his five cousins at a suitable hour to Meryton; and the girls had the pleasure of hearing, as they entered the drawing-room, that Mr. Wickham had accepted their uncle's invitation, and was then in the house.\n\nWhen this information was given, and they had all taken their seats, Mr. Collins was at leisure to look around him and admire, and he was so much struck with the size and furniture of the apartment, that he declared he might almost have supposed himself in the small summer breakfast parlour at Rosings; a comparison that did not at first convey much gratification; but when Mrs. Philips understood from him what Rosings was, and who was its proprietor, when she had listened to the description of only one of Lady Catherine's drawing-rooms, and found that the chimney-piece alone had cost eight hundred pounds, she felt all the force of the compliment, and would hardly have resented a comparison with the housekeeper's room.\n\nIn describing to her all the grandeur of Lady Catherine and her mansion, with occasional digressions in praise of his own humble abode, and the improvements it was receiving, he was happily employed until the gentlemen joined them; and he found in Mrs. Philips a very attentive listener, whose opinion of his consequence increased with what she heard, and who was resolving to retail it all among her neighbours as soon as she could. To the girls, who could not listen to their cousin, and who had nothing to do but to wish for an instrument, and examine their own indifferent imitations of chinaad on the mantel-piece, the interval of waiting appeared very long, It was over at last, however. The gentlemen did approach; and when Mr. Wickham walked into the room, Elizabeth felt that she had neither been seeing him before, nor thinking of him since, with the smallest degree of unreasonable admiration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The officers of the—shire were in general a very creditable, gentlemanlike set, and the best of them were of the present party; but Mr. Wickham was as far beyond them all in person, countenance, air, and walk, as they were superior to the broad-faced stuffy uncle Philips, breathing port wine, who followed them into the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Wickham was the happy man towards whom almost every female eye was turned, and Elizabeth was the happy woman by whom he finally seated himself; and the agreeable manner in which he immediately fell into conversation, though it was only on its being a wet night, and on the probability of a rainy season, made her feel that the commonest, dullest, most threadbare topic might be rendered interesting by the skill of the speaker." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With such rivals for the notice of the fair, as Mr. Wickham and the officers, Mr. Collins seemed to sink into insignificance; to the young ladies he certainly was nothing; but he had still at intervals a kind listener in Mrs. Philips, and was, by her watchfulness, most abundantly supplied with coffee and muffin.\n\nWhen the card tables were placed, he had an opportunity of obliging her, in return, by sitting down to whist.ae\n\n\"I know little of the game at present,\" said he, \"but I shall be glad to improve myself; for in my situation of life—\" Mrs. Philips was very thankful for his compliance, but could not wait for his reason.\n\nMr. Wickham did not play at whist, and with ready delight was he received at the other table between Elizabeth and Lydia. At first there seemed danger of Lydia's engrossing him entirely, for she was a most determined talker; but being likewise extremely fond of lottery tickets, she soon grew too much interested in the game, too eager in making bets and exclaiming after prizes, to have attention for any one in particular." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'wickham' must appear 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Allowing for the common demands of the game, Mr. Wickham was therefore at leisure to talk to Elizabeth, and she was very willing to hear him, though what she chiefly wished to hear she could not hope to be told, the history of his acquaintance with Mr. Darcy. She dared not even mention that gentleman. Her curiosity, however, was unexpectedly relieved. Mr. Wickham began the subject himself. He enquired how far Netherfield was from Meryton; and, after receiving her answer, asked in a hesitating manner how long Mr. Darcy had been staying there." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'elizabeth' × 3" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"About a month,\" said Elizabeth; and then, unwilling to let the subject drop, added, \"he is a man of very large property in Derbyshire, I understand.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Wickham; \"his estate there is a noble one. A clear ten thousand per annum. You could not have met with a person more capable of giving you certain information on that head than myself—for I have been connected with his family, in a particular manner, from my infancy.\"\n\nElizabeth could not but look surprised.\n\n\"You may well be surprised, Miss Bennet, at such an assertion, after seeing, as you probably might, the very cold manner of our meeting yesterday. Are you much acquainted with Mr. Darcy?\"\n\n\"As much as I ever wish to be,\" cried Elizabeth, warmly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have spent four days in the same house with him, and I think him very disagreeable.\"\n\n\"I have no right to give my opinion,\" said Wickham, \"as to his being agreeable or otherwise. I am not qualified to form one. I have known him too long and too well to be a fair judge. It is impossible for me to be impartial. But I believe your opinion of him would in general astonish—and, perhaps, you would not express it quite so strongly any where else. Here you are in your own family.\"\n\n\"Upon my word I say no more here than I might say in any house in the neighbourhood, except Netherfield. He is not at all liked in Hertfordshire. Every body is disgusted with his pride. You will not find him more favourably spoken of by any one.\"\n\n\"I cannot pretend to be sorry,\" said Wickham, after a short interruption, \"that he or that any man should not be estimated beyond their deserts; but with him I believe it does not often happen. The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence, or frightened by his high and imposing manners, and sees him only as he chooses to be seen.\"\n\n\"I should take him, even on my slight acquaintance, to be an ill-tempered man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wickham only shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I wonder,\" said he, at the next opportunity of speaking, \"whether he is likely to be in this country much longer.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do not at all know; but I heard nothing of his going away when I was at Netherfield. I hope your plans in favour of the —shire will not be affected by his being in the neighbourhood.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh no—it is not for me to be driven away by Mr. Darcy. If he wishes to avoid seeing me, he must go. We are not on friendly terms, and it always gives me pain to meet him, but I have no reason for avoiding him but what I might proclaim to all the world—a sense of very great ill usage, and most painful regrets at his being what he is. His father, Miss Bennet, the late Mr. Darcy, was one of the best men that ever breathed, and the truest friend I ever had; and I can never be in company with this Mr. Darcy without being grieved to the soul by a thousand tender recollections. His behaviour to myself has been scandalous; but I verily believe I could forgive him any thing and every thing, rather than his disappointing the hopes and disgracing the memory of his father.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth found the interest of the subject increase, and listened with all her heart; but the delicacy of it prevented further enquiry.\n\nMr. Wickham began to speak on more general topics, Meryton, the neighbourhood, the society, appearing highly pleased with all that he had yet seen, and speaking of the latter, especially, with gentle but very intelligible gallantry.\n\n\"It was the prospect of constant society, and good society,\" he added, \"which was my chief inducement to enter the—shire. I know it to be a most respectable, agreeable corps; and my friend Denny tempted me further by his account of their present quarters, and the very great attentions and excellent acquaintance Meryton had procured them. Society, I own, is necessary to me. I have been a disappointed man, and my spirits will not bear solitude. I must have employment and society. A military life is not what I was intended for, but circumstances have now made it eligible. The church ought to have been my profession—I was brought up for the church; and I should at this time have been in possession of a most valuable living, had it pleased the gentleman we were speaking of just now.\"\n\n\"Indeed!\"\n\n\"Yes—the late Mr. Darcy bequeathed me the next presentation of the best living in his gift. He was my godfather, and excessively attached to me. I cannot do justice to his kindness. He meant to provide for me amply, and thought he had done it; but when the living fell, it was given elsewhere.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good heavens!\" cried Elizabeth; \"but how could that be? How could his will be disregarded? Why did not you seek legal redress?\"\n\n\"There was just such an informality in the terms of the bequest as to give me no hope from law. A man of honour could not have doubted the intention, but Mr. Darcy chose to doubt it—or to treat it as a merely conditional recommendation, and to assert that I had forfeited all claim to it by extravagance, imprudence, in short, any thing or nothing. Certain it is that the living became vacant two years ago, exactly as I was of an age to hold it, and that it was given to another man; and no less certain is it, that I cannot accuse myself of having really done any thing to deserve to lose it. I have a warm, unguarded temper, and I may perhaps have sometimes spoken my opinion of him, and to him, too freely. I can recall nothing worse. But the fact is, that we are very different sort of men, and that he hates me.\"\n\n\"This is quite shocking! He deserves to be publicly disgraced.\"\n\n\"Some time or other he will be—but it shall not be by me. Till I can forget his father, I can never defy or expose him.\"\n\nElizabeth honoured him for such feelings, and thought him handsomer than ever as he expressed them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But what,\" said she, after a pause, \"can have been his motive? what can have induced him to behave so cruelly?\"\n\n\"A thorough, determined dislike of me—a dislike which I cannot but attribute in some measure to jealousy. Had the late Mr. Darcy liked me less, his son might have borne with me better; but his father's uncommon attachment to me irritated him, I believe, very early in life. He had not a temper to bear the sort of competition in which we stood—the sort of preference which was often given me.\"\n\n\"I had not thought Mr. Darcy so bad as this—though I have never liked him, I had not thought so very ill of him—I had supposed him to be despising his fellow-creatures in general, but did not suspect him of descending to such malicious revenge, such injustice, such inhumanity as this!\"\n\nAfter a few minutes' reflection, however, she continued,—\"I do remember his boasting one day, at Netherfield, of the implacability of his resentments; of his having an unforgiving temper. His disposition must be dreadful.\"\n\n\"I will not trust myself on the subject,\" replied Wickham; \"I can hardly be just to him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth was again deep in thought, and after a time exclaimed, \"To treat in such a manner the godson, the friend, the favourite of his father!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could have added, \"A young man, too, like you, whose very countenance may vouch for your being amiable.\" But she contented herself with—\"And one, too, who had probably been his own companion from childhood, connected together, as I think you said, in the closest manner.\"\n\n\"We were born in the same parish, within the same park; the greatest part of our youth was passed together: inmates of the same house, sharing the same amusements, objects of the same parental care. My father began life in the profession which your uncle, Mr. Philips, appears to do so much credit to; but he gave up every thing to be of use to the late Mr. Darcy, and devoted all his time to the care of the Pemberley property. He was most highly esteemed by Mr. Darcy, a most intimate, confidential friend. Mr. Darcy often acknowledged himself to be under the greatest obligations to my father's active superintendence; and when, immediately before my father's death, Mr. Darcy gave him a voluntary promise of providing for me, I am convinced that he felt it to be as much a debt of gratitude to him as of affection to myself.\"\n\n\"How strange!\" cried Elizabeth. \"How abominable! I wonder that the very pride of this Mr. Darcy has not made him just to you. If from no better motive, that he should not have been too proud to be dishonest—for dishonesty I must call it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is wonderful,\" replied Wickham; \"for almost all his actions may be traced to pride; and pride has often been his best friend. It has connected him nearer with virtue than any other feeling. But we are none of us consistent; and in his behaviour to me there were stronger impulses even than pride.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can such abominable pride as his have ever done him good?\"\n\n\"Yes; it has often led him to be liberal and generous; to give his money freely, to display hospitality, to assist his tenants, and relieve the poor. Family pride, and filial pride, for he is very proud of what his father was, have done this. Not to appear to disgrace his family, to degenerate from the popular qualities, or lose the influence of the Pemberley House, is a powerful motive. He has also brotherly pride, which, with some brotherly affection, makes him a very kind and careful guardian of his sister; and you will hear him generally cried up as the most attentive and best of brothers.\"\n\n\"What sort of a girl is Miss Darcy?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I wish I could call her amiable. It gives me pain to speak ill of a Darcy; but she is too much like her brother,—very, very proud. As a child, she was affectionate and pleasing, and extremely fond of me; and I have devoted hours and hours to her amusement. But she is nothing to me now. She is a handsome girl, about fifteen or sixteen, and, I understand, highly accomplished. Since her father's death her home has been London, where a lady lives with her, and superintends her education.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: bingley, frequency: 3" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After many pauses and many trials of other subjects, Elizabeth could not help reverting once more to the first, and saying,—\n\n\"I am astonished at his intimacy with Mr. Bingley. How can Mr. Bingley, who seems good-humour itself, and is, I really believe, truly amiable, be in friendship with such a man? How can they suit each other? Do you know Mr. Bingley?\"\n\n\"Not at all.\"\n\n\"He is a sweet-tempered, amiable, charming man. He cannot know what Mr. Darcy is.\"\n\n\"Probably not; but Mr. Darcy can please where he chooses. He does not want abilities. He can be a conversible companion if he thinks it worth his while. Among those who are at all his equals in consequence, he is a very different man from what he is to the less prosperous. His pride never deserts him; but with the rich he is liberal-minded, just, sincere, rational, honourable, and, perhaps, agreeable,—allowing something for fortune and figure.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The whist party soon afterwards breaking up, the players gathered round the other table, and Mr. Collins took his station between his cousin Elizabeth and Mrs. Philips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The usual enquiries as to his success were made by the latter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It had not been very great; he had lost every point: but when Mrs. Philips began to express her concern thereupon, he assured her, with much earnest gravity, that it was not of the least importance; that he considered the money as a mere trifle, and begged she would not make herself uneasy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know very well, madam,\" said he, \"that when persons sit down to a card table they must take their chance of these things,—and happily I am not in such circumstances as to make five shillings any object. There are, undoubtedly, many who could not say the same; but, thanks to Lady Catherine de Bourgh, I am removed far beyond the necessity of regarding little matters.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Wickham's attention was caught; and after observing Mr. Collins for a few moments, he asked Elizabeth in a low voice whether her relation were very intimately acquainted with the family of De Bourgh.\n\n\"Lady Catherine de Bourgh,\" she replied, \"has very lately given him a living. I hardly know how Mr. Collins was first introduced to her notice, but he certainly has not known her long.\"\n\n\"You know of course that Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Lady Anne Darcy were sisters; consequently that she is aunt to the present Mr. Darcy.\"\n\n\"No, indeed, I did not. I knew nothing at all of Lady Catherine's connections. I never heard of her existence till the day before yesterday.\"\n\n\"Her daughter, Miss de Bourgh, will have a very large fortune, and it is believed that she and her cousin will unite the two estates.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This information made Elizabeth smile, as she thought of poor Miss Bingley." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Include the following text] → \"I believe her to be both in a great degree,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vain indeed must be all her attentions, vain and useless her affection for his sister and her praise of himself, if he were already self-destined to another.\n\n\"Mr. Collins,\" said she, \"speaks highly both of Lady Catherine and her daughter; but from some particulars that he has related of her Ladyship; I suspect his gratitude misleads him; and that, in spite of her being his patroness, she is an arrogant, conceited woman.\"\n\n\"I believe her to be both in a great degree,\" replied Wickham: \"I have not seen her for many years; but I very well remember that I never liked her, and that her manners were dictatorial and insolent. She has the reputation of being remarkably sensible and clever; but I rather believe she derives part of her abilities from her rank and fortune, part from her authoritative manner, and the rest from the pride of her nephew, who chooses that every one connected with him should have an understanding of the first class.\"\n\nElizabeth allowed that he had given a very rational account of it, and they continued talking together with mutual satisfaction till supper put an end to cards, and gave the rest of the ladies their share of Mr. Wickham's attentions. There could be no conversation in the noise of Mrs. Philips's supper party, but his manners recommended him to every body." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whatever he said, was said well; and whatever he did, done gracefully." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth went away with her head full of him. She could think of nothing but of Mr. Wickham, and of what he had told her, all the way home; but there was not time for her even to mention his name as they went, for neither Lydia nor Mr. Collins were once silent. Lydia talked incessantly of lottery tickets, of the fishaf she had lost and the fish she had won; and Mr. Collins, in describing the civility of Mr. and Mrs. Philips, protesting that he did not in the least regard his losses at whist, enumerating all the dishes at supper, and repeatedly fearing that he crowded his cousins, had more to say than he could well manage before the carriage stopped at Longbourn House." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "hey can u write 4 sentences more sentences? like Jane Austen but Romance style. btw this is from middle of a story" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth related to Jane, the next day, what had passed between Mr. Wickham and herself. Jane listened with astonishment and concern: she knew not how to believe that Mr. Darcy could be so unworthy of Mr. Bingley's regard; and yet it was not in her nature to question the veracity of a young man of such amiable appearance as Wickham. The possibility of his having really endured such unkindness was enough to interest all her tender feelings; and nothing therefore remained to be done but to think well of them both, to defend the conduct of each, and throw into the account of accident or mistake whatever could not be otherwise explained.\n\n\"They have both,\" said she, \"been deceived, I dare say, in some way or other, of which we can form no idea. Interested people have perhaps misrepresented each to the other. It is, in short, impossible for us to conjecture the causes or circumstances which may have alienated them, without actual blame on either side.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Very true, indeed; and now, my dear Jane, what have you got to say in behalf of the interested people who have probably been concerned in the business? Do clear them, too, or we shall be obliged to think ill of somebody.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "can you add this somewhere in your response:\n\"I beg your pardon;—one knows exactly what to think.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion. My dearest Lizzy, do but consider in what a disgraceful light it places Mr. Darcy, to be treating his father's favourite in such a manner,—one whom his father had promised to provide for. It is impossible. No man of common humanity, no man who had any value for his character, could be capable of it. Can his most intimate friends be so excessively deceived in him? Oh no.\"\n\n\"I can much more easily believe Mr. Bingley's being imposed on than that Mr. Wickham should invent such a history of himself as he gave me last night; names, facts, every thing mentioned without ceremony. If it be not so, let Mr. Darcy contradict it. Besides, there was truth in his looks.\"\n\n\"It is difficult, indeed—it is distressing. One does not know what to think.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon;—one knows exactly what to think.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Jane could think with certainty on only one point,—that Mr. Bingley, if he had been imposed on, would have much to suffer when the affair became public." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two young ladies were summoned from the shrubbery, where this conversation passed, by the arrival of some of the very persons of whom they had been speaking; Mr. Bingley and his sisters came to give their personal invitation for the long expected ball at Netherfield, which was fixed for the following Tuesday. The two ladies were delighted to see their dear friend again, called it an age since they had met, and repeatedly asked what she had been doing with herself since their separation. To the rest of the family they paid little attention; avoiding Mrs. Bennet as much as possible, saying not much to Elizabeth, and nothing at all to the others. They were soon gone again, rising from their seats with an activity which took their brother by surprise, and hurrying off as if eager to escape from Mrs. Bennet's civilities." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The prospect of the Netherfield ball was extremely agreeable to every female of the family." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'wickham' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Bennet chose to consider it as given in compliment to her eldest daughter, and was particularly flattered by receiving the invitation from Mr. Bingley himself, instead of a ceremonious card. Jane pictured to herself a happy evening in the society of her two friends, and the attentions of their brother; and Elizabeth thought with pleasure of dancing a great deal with Mr. Wickham, and of seeing a confirmation of every thing in Mr. Darcy's look and behaviour. The happiness anticipated by Catherine and Lydia depended less on any single event, or any particular person; for though they each, like Elizabeth, meant to dance half the evening with Mr. Wickham, he was by no means the only partner who could satisfy them, and a ball was, at any rate, a ball. And even Mary could assure her family that she had no disinclination for it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"While I can have my mornings to myself,\" said she, \"it is enough. I think it is no sacrifice to join occasionally in evening engagements. Society has claims on us all; and I profess myself one of those who consider intervals of recreation and amusement as desirable for every body.\"\n\nElizabeth's spirits were so high on the occasion, that, though she did not often speak unnecessarily to Mr. Collins, she could not help asking him whether he intended to accept Mr. Bingley's invitation, and, if he did, whether he would think it proper to join in the evening's amusement; and she was rather surprised to find that he entertained no scruple whatever on that head, and was very far from dreading a rebuke, either from the Archbishop or Lady Catherine de Bourgh, by venturing to dance.\n\n\"I am by no means of opinion, I assure you,\" said he, \"that a ball of this kind, given by a young man of character, to respectable people, can have any evil tendency; and I am so far from objecting to dancing myself, that I shall hope to be honoured with the hands of all my fair cousins in the course of the evening; and I take this opportunity of soliciting yours, Miss Elizabeth, for the two first dances especially; a preference which I trust my cousin Jane will attribute to the right cause, and not to any disrespect for her.\"\n\nElizabeth felt herself completely taken in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had fully proposed being engaged by Wickham for those very dances; and to have Mr. Collins instead!—her liveliness had been never worse timed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no help for it, however. Mr. Wickham's happiness and her own was perforce delayed a little longer, and Mr. Collins's proposal accepted with as good a grace as she could. She was not the better pleased with his gallantry, from the idea it suggested of something more. It now first struck her, that she was selected from among her sisters as worthy of being the mistress of Hunsford Parsonage, and of assisting to form a quadrille table at Rosings, in the absence of more eligible visiters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The idea soon reached to conviction, as she observed his increasing civilities towards herself, and heard his frequent attempt at a compliment on her wit and vivacity; and though more astonished than gratified herself by this effect of her charms, it was not long before her mother gave her to understand that the probability of their marriage was exceedingly agreeable to her. Elizabeth, however, did not choose to take the hint, being well aware that a serious dispute must be the consequence of any reply. Mr. Collins might never make the offer, and, till he did, it was useless to quarrel about him.\n\nIf there had not been a Netherfield ball to prepare for and talk of, the younger Miss Bennets would have been in a pitiable state at this time; for from the day of the invitation to the day of the ball there was such a succession of rain as prevented their walking to Meryton once." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No aunt, no officers, no news could be sought after; the very shoe-rosesag for Netherfield were got by proxy." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even Elizabeth might have found some trial of her patience in weather which totally suspended the improvement of her acquaintance with Mr. Wickham; and nothing less than a dance on Tuesday could have made such a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday endurable to Kitty and Lydia." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around two sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Match the familiarity level of any character introductions. Stick to the Romance genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Till Elizabeth entered the drawing-room at Netherfield, and looked in vain for Mr. Wickham among the cluster of red coats there assembled, a doubt of his being present had never occurred to her. The certainty of meeting him had not been checked by any of those recollections that might not unreasonably have alarmed her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had dressed with more than usual care, and prepared in the highest spirits for the conquest of all that remained unsubdued of his heart, trusting that it was not more than might be won in the course of the evening. But in an instant arose the dreadful suspicion of his being purposely omitted, for Mr. Darcy's pleasure, in the Bingleys' invitation to the officers; and though this was not exactly the case, the absolute fact of his absence was pronounced by his friend Mr. Denny, to whom Lydia eagerly applied, and who told them that Wickham had been obliged to go to town on business the day before, and was not yet returned; adding, with a significant smile,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do not imagine his business would have called him away just now, if he had not wished to avoid a certain gentleman here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This part of his intelligence, though unheard by Lydia, was caught by Elizabeth; and, as it assured her that Darcy was not less answerable for Wickham's absence than if her first surmise had been just, every feeling of displeasure against the former was so sharpened by immediate disappointment, that she could hardly reply with tolerable civility to the polite enquiries which he directly afterwards approached to make. Attention, forbearance, patience with Darcy, was injury to Wickham." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was resolved against any sort of conversation with him, and turned away with a degree of ill-humour which she could not wholly surmount even in speaking to Mr. Bingley, whose blind partiality provoked her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Elizabeth was not formed for ill-humour; and though every prospect of her own was destroyed for the evening, it could not dwell long on her spirits; and, having told all her griefs to Charlotte Lucas, whom she had not seen for a week, she was soon able to make a voluntary transition to the oddities of her cousin, and to point him out to her particular notice. The two first dances, however, brought a return of distress: they were dances of mortification." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Collins, awkward and solemn, apologising instead of attending, and often moving wrong without being aware of it, gave her all the shame and misery which a disagreeable partner for a couple of dances can give." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The moment of her release from him was ecstasy.\n\nShe danced next with an officer, and had the refreshment of talking of Wickham, and of hearing that he was universally liked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When those dances were over, she returned to Charlotte Lucas, and was in conversation with her, when she found herself suddenly addressed by Mr. Darcy, who took her so much by surprise in his application for her hand, that, without knowing what she did, she accepted him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He walked away again immediately, and she was left to fret over her own want of presence of mind: Charlotte tried to console her.\n\n\"I dare say you will find him very agreeable.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Heaven forbid! That would be the greatest misfortune of all! To find a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! Do not wish me such an evil.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the dancing recommenced, however, and Darcy approached to claim her hand, Charlotte could not help cautioning her, in a whisper, not to be a simpleton, and allow her fancy for Wickham to make her appear unpleasant in the eyes of a man of ten times his consequence. Elizabeth made no answer, and took her place in the set, amazed at the dignity to which she was arrived in being allowed to stand opposite to Mr. Darcy, and reading in her neighbours' looks their equal amazement in beholding it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They stood for some time without speaking a word; and she began to imagine that their silence was to last through the two dances, and, at first, was resolved not to break it; till suddenly fancying that it would be the greater punishment to her partner to oblige him to talk, she made some slight observation on the dance. He replied, and was again silent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After a pause of some minutes, she addressed him a second time, with—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.\"\n\nHe smiled, and assured her that whatever she wished him to say should be said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Very well; that reply will do for the present. Perhaps, by and by, I may observe that private balls are much pleasanter than public ones; but now we may be silent.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?\"\n\n\"Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together; and yet, for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged, as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you imagine that you are gratifying mine?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Both,\" replied Elizabeth, archly; \"for I have always seen a great similarity in the turn of our minds. We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb.\"\n\n\"This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure,\" said he." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How near it may be to mine, I cannot pretend to say. You think it a faithful portrait undoubtedly.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I must not decide on my own performance.\"\n\nHe made no answer, and they were again silent till they had gone down the dance, when he asked her if she and her sisters did not very often walk to Meryton?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She answered in the affirmative, and, unable to resist the temptation, added, \"When you met us there the other day, we had just been forming a new acquaintance.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The effect was immediate. A deeper shade of hauteur overspread his features, but he said not a word, and Elizabeth, though blaming herself for her own weakness, could not go on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At length Darcy spoke, and in a constrained manner said, \"Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his making friends—whether he may be equally capable of retaining them, is less certain.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He has been so unlucky as to lose your friendship,\" replied Elizabeth with emphasis, \"and in a manner which he is likely to suffer from all his life.\"\n\nDarcy made no answer, and seemed desirous of changing the subject." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At that moment Sir William Lucas appeared close to them, meaning to pass through the set to the other side of the room; but on perceiving Mr. Darcy, he stopped with a bow of superior courtesy to compliment him on his dancing and his partner." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have been most highly gratified indeed, my dear sir. Such very superior dancing is not often seen. It is evident that you belong to the first circles. Allow me to say, however, that your fair partner does not disgrace you, and that I must hope to have this pleasure often repeated, especially when a certain desirable event, my dear Miss Eliza,\" (glancing at her sister and Bingley), \"shall take place. What congratulations will then flow in! I appeal to Mr. Darcy:—but let me not interrupt you, sir. You will not thank me for detaining you from the bewitching converse of that young lady whose bright eyes are also upbraiding me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The latter part of this address was scarcely heard by Darcy; but Sir William's allusion to his friend seemed to strike him forcibly, and his eyes were directed with a very serious expression towards Bingley and Jane, who were dancing together. Recovering himself, however, shortly, he turned to his partner, and said, \"Sir William's interruption has made me forget what we were talking of.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I do not think we were speaking at all. Sir William could not have interrupted any two people in the room who had less to say for themselves. We have tried two or three subjects already without success, and what we are to talk of next I cannot imagine.\"\n\n\"What think you of books?\" said he, smiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Books oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same feelings.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions.\"\n\n\"No—I cannot talk of books in a ball-room; my head is always full of something else.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The present always occupies you in such scenes—does it?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'created' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "said he, with a look of doubt.\n\n\"Yes, always,\" she replied, without knowing what she said, for her thoughts had wandered far from the subject, as soon afterwards appeared by her suddenly exclaiming, \"I remember hearing you once say, Mr. Darcy, that you hardly ever forgave, that your resentment once created was unappeasable. You are very cautious, I suppose, as to its being created.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am,\" said he, with a firm voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice?\"\n\n\"I hope not.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"May I ask to what these questions tend?\"\n\n\"Merely to the illustration of your character,\" said she, endeavouring to shake off her gravity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am trying to make it out.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And what is your success?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shook her head, \"I do not get on at all. I hear such different accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly.\"\n\n\"I can readily believe,\" answered he gravely, \"that reports may vary greatly with respect to me; and I could wish, Miss Bennet, that you were not to sketch my character at the present moment, as there is reason to fear that the performance would reflect no credit on either.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But if I do not take your likeness now, I may never have another opportunity.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours,\" he coldly replied. She said no more, and they went down the other dance and parted in silence; on each side dissatisfied, though not to an equal degree, for in Darcy's breast there was a tolerable powerful feeling towards her, which soon procured her pardon, and directed all his anger against another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had not long separated, when Miss Bingley came towards her, and with an expression of civil disdain thus accosted her:—\"So, Miss Eliza, I hear you are quite delighted with George Wickham! Your sister has been talking to me about him, and asking me a thousand questions; and I find that the young man forgot to tell you, among his other communications, that he was the son of old Wickham, the late Mr. Darcy's steward. Let me recommend you, however, as a friend, not to give implicit confidence to all his assertions; for as to Mr. Darcy's using him ill, it is perfectly false, for, on the contrary, he has been always remarkably kind to him, though George Wickham has treated Mr. Darcy in a most infamous manner. I do not know the particulars, but I know very well that Mr. Darcy is not in the least to blame, that he cannot bear to hear George Wickham mentioned, and that though my brother thought he could not well avoid including him in his invitation to the officers, he was excessively glad to find that he had taken himself out of the way. His coming into the country at all is a most insolent thing, indeed, and I wonder how he could presume to do it. I pity you, Miss Eliza, for this discovery of your favourite's guilt; but really, considering his descent, one could not expect much better.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"His guilt and his descent appear by your account to be the same,\" said Elizabeth angrily, \"for I have heard you accuse him of nothing worse than of being the son of Mr. Darcy's steward, and of that, I can assure you, he informed me himself.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I beg your pardon,\" replied Miss Bingley, turning away with a sneer. \"Excuse my interference: it was kindly meant.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Insolent girl!\" said Elizabeth to herself. \"You are much mistaken if you expect to influence me by such a paltry attack as this. I see nothing in it but your own wilful ignorance and the malice of Mr. Darcy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She then sought her eldest sister, who had undertaken to make inquiries on the same subject of Bingley." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jane met her with a smile of such sweet complacency, a glow of such happy expression, as sufficiently marked how well she was satisfied with the occurrences of the evening. Elizabeth instantly read her feelings, and at that moment solicitude for Wickham, resentment against his enemies, and everything else, gave way before the hope of Jane's being in the fairest way for happiness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I want to know,\" said she, with a countenance no less smiling than her sister's, \"what you have learnt about Mr. Wickham. But perhaps you have been too pleasantly engaged to think of any third person; in which case you may be sure of my pardon.\"\n\n\"No,\" replied Jane, \"I have not forgotten him; but I have nothing satisfactory to tell you. Mr. Bingley does not know the whole of his history, and is quite ignorant of the circumstances which have principally offended Mr. Darcy; but he will vouch for the good conduct, the probity, and honour of his friend, and is perfectly convinced that Mr. Wickham has deserved much less attention from Mr. Darcy than he has received; and I am sorry to say that by his account as well as his sister's, Mr. Wickham is by no means a respectable young man. I am afraid he has been very imprudent, and has deserved to lose Mr. Darcy's regard.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mr. Bingley does not know Mr. Wickham himself?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No; he never saw him till the other morning at Meryton.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This account then is what he has received from Mr. Darcy. I am satisfied. But what does he say of the living?\"\n\n\"He does not exactly recollect the circumstances, though he has heard them from Mr. Darcy more than once, but he believes that it was left to him conditionally only.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have not a doubt of Mr. Bingley's sincerity,\" said Elizabeth warmly; \"but you must excuse my not being convinced by assurances only. Mr. Bingley's defence of his friend was a very able one, I dare say; but since he is unacquainted with several parts of the story, and has learnt the rest from that friend himself, I shall venture still to think of both gentlemen as I did before.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She then changed the discourse to one more gratifying to each, and on which there could be no difference of sentiment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth listened with delight to the happy, though modest hopes which Jane entertained of Bingley's regard, and said all in her power to heighten her confidence in it. On their being joined by Mr. Bingley himself, Elizabeth withdrew to Miss Lucas; to whose inquiry after the pleasantness of her last partner she had scarcely replied, before Mr. Collins came up to them, and told her with great exultation that he had just been so fortunate as to make a most important discovery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I have found out,\" said he, \"by a singular accident, that there is now in the room a near relation of my patroness. I happened to overhear the gentleman himself mentioning to the young lady who does the honours of this house the names of his cousin Miss de Bourgh, and of her mother Lady Catherine. How wonderfully these sort of things occur! Who would have thought of my meeting with, perhaps, a nephew of Lady Catherine de Bourgh in this assembly! I am most thankful that the discovery is made in time for me to pay my respects to him, which I am now going to do, and trust he will excuse my not having done it before. My total ignorance of the connection must plead my apology.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are not going to introduce yourself to Mr. Darcy!\"\n\n\"Indeed I am. I shall entreat his pardon for not having done it earlier. I believe him to be Lady Catherine's nephew. It will be in my power to assure him that her ladyship was quite well yesterday se'nnight.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth tried hard to dissuade him from such a scheme, assuring him that Mr. Darcy would consider his addressing him without introduction as an impertinent freedom, rather than a compliment to his aunt; that it was not in the least necessary there should be any notice on either side; and that if it were, it must belong to Mr. Darcy, the superior in consequence, to begin the acquaintance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Collins listened to her with the determined air of following his own inclination, and, when she ceased speaking, replied thus:—\"My dear Miss Elizabeth, I have the highest opinion in the world of your excellent judgment in all matters within the scope of your understanding; but permit me to say, that there must be a wide difference between the established forms of ceremony amongst the laity, and those which regulate the clergy; for, give me leave to observe that I consider the clerical office as equal in point of dignity with the highest rank in the kingdom—provided that a proper humility of behaviour is at the same time maintained. You must therefore allow me to follow the dictates of my conscience on this occasion, which leads me to perform what I look on as a point of duty. Pardon me for neglecting to profit by your advice, which on every other subject shall be my constant guide, though in the case before us I consider myself more fitted by education and habitual study to decide on what is right than a young lady like yourself.\" And with a low bow he left her to attack Mr. Darcy, whose reception of his advances she eagerly watched, and whose astonishment at being so addressed was very evident." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her cousin prefaced his speech with a solemn bow, and though she could not hear a word of it, she felt as if hearing it all, and saw in the motion of his lips the words \"apology,\" \"Hunsford,\" and \"Lady Catherine de Bourgh.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It vexed her to see him expose himself to such a man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Darcy was eyeing him with unrestrained wonder, and when at last Mr. Collins allowed him time to speak, replied with an air of distant civility. Mr. Collins, however, was not discouraged from speaking again, and Mr. Darcy's contempt seemed abundantly increasing with the length of his second speech, and at the end of it he only made him a slight bow, and moved another way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Collins then returned to Elizabeth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have no reason, I assure you,\" said he, \"to be dissatisfied with my reception. Mr. Darcy seemed much pleased with the attention. He answered me with the utmost civility, and even paid me the compliment of saying that he was so well convinced of Lady Catherine's discernment as to be certain she could never bestow a favour unworthily. It was really a very handsome thought. Upon the whole, I am much pleased with him.\"\n\nAs Elizabeth had no longer any interest of her own to pursue, she turned her attention almost entirely on her sister and Mr. Bingley; and the train of agreeable reflections which her observations gave birth to, made her perhaps almost as happy as Jane." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw her in idea settled in that very house, in all the felicity which a marriage of true affection could bestow; and she felt capable, under such circumstances, of endeavouring even to like Bingley's two sisters. Her mother's thoughts she plainly saw were bent the same way, and she determined not to venture near her, lest she might hear too much." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When they sat down to supper, therefore, she considered it a most unlucky perverseness which placed them within one of each other; and deeply was she vexed to find that her mother was talking to that one person (Lady Lucas) freely, openly, and of nothing else but of her expectation that Jane would be soon married to Mr. Bingley." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was an animating subject, and Mrs. Bennet seemed incapable of fatigue while enumerating the advantages of the match." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His being such a charming young man, and so rich, and living but three miles from them, were the first points of self-gratulation; and then it was such a comfort to think how fond the two sisters were of Jane, and to be certain that they must desire the connection as much as she could do. It was, moreover, such a promising thing for her younger daughters, as Jane's marrying so greatly must throw them in the way of other rich men; and lastly, it was so pleasant at her time of life to be able to consign her single daughters to the care of their sister, that she might not be obliged to go into company more than she liked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was necessary to make this circumstance a matter of pleasure, because on such occasions it is the etiquette; but no one was less likely than Mrs. Bennet to find comfort in staying at home at any period of her life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She concluded with many good wishes that Lady Lucas might soon be equally fortunate, though evidently and triumphantly believing there was no chance of it.\n\nIn vain did Elizabeth endeavour to check the rapidity of her mother's words, or persuade her to describe her felicity in a less audible whisper; for, to her inexpressible vexation, she could perceive that the chief of it was overheard by Mr. Darcy, who sat opposite to them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her mother only scolded her for being nonsensical." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is Mr. Darcy to me, pray, that I should be afraid of him? I am sure we owe him no such particular civility as to be obliged to say nothing he may not like to hear.\"\n\n\"For heaven's sake, madam, speak lower. What advantage can it be to you to offend Mr. Darcy? You will never recommend yourself to his friend by so doing!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nothing that she could say, however, had any influence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her mother would talk of her views in the same intelligible tone. Elizabeth blushed and blushed again with shame and vexation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could not help frequently glancing her eye at Mr. Darcy, though every glance convinced her of what she dreaded; for though he was not always looking at her mother, she was convinced that his attention was invariably fixed by her. The expression of his face changed gradually from indignant contempt to a composed and steady gravity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At length, however, Mrs. Bennet had no more to say; and Lady Lucas, who had been long yawning at the repetition of delights which she saw no likelihood of sharing, was left to the comforts of cold ham and chicken." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth now began to revive. But not long was the interval of tranquillity; for, when supper was over, singing was talked of, and she had the mortification of seeing Mary, after very little entreaty, preparing to oblige the company." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By many significant looks and silent entreaties, did she endeavour to prevent such a proof of complaisance, but in vain; Mary would not understand them; such an opportunity of exhibiting was delightful to her, and she began her song. Elizabeth's eyes were fixed on her with most painful sensations, and she watched her progress through the several stanzas with an impatience which was very ill rewarded at their close; for Mary, on receiving, amongst the thanks of the table, the hint of a hope that she might be prevailed on to favour them again, after the pause of half a minute began another." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mary's powers were by no means fitted for such a display; her voice was weak, and her manner affected. Elizabeth was in agonies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked at Jane, to see how she bore it; but Jane was very composedly talking to Bingley." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked at his two sisters, and saw them making signs of derision at each other, and at Darcy, who continued, however, impenetrably grave. She looked at her father to entreat his interference, lest Mary should be singing all night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took the hint, and when Mary had finished her second song, said aloud, \"That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mary, though pretending not to hear, was somewhat disconcerted; and Elizabeth, sorry for her, and sorry for her father's speech, was afraid her anxiety had done no good. Others of the party were now applied to." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If I,\" said Mr. Collins, \"were so fortunate as to be able to sing, I should have great pleasure, I am sure, in obliging the company with an air; for I consider music as a very innocent diversion, and perfectly compatible with the profession of a clergyman. I do not mean, however, to assert that we can be justified in devoting too much of our time to music, for there are certainly other things to be attended to. The rector of a parish has much to do. In the first place, he must make such an agreement for tithes as may be beneficial to himself and not offensive to his patron. He must write his own sermons; and the time that remains will not be too much for his parish duties, and the care and improvement of his dwelling, which he cannot be excused from making as comfortable as possible. And I do not think it of light importance that he should have attentive and conciliatory manners towards everybody, especially towards those to whom he owes his preferment. I cannot acquit him of that duty; nor could I think well of the man who should omit an occasion of testifying his respect towards anybody connected with the family.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And with a bow to Mr. Darcy, he concluded his speech, which had been spoken so loud as to be heard by half the room. Many stared—many smiled; but no one looked more amused than Mr. Bennet himself, while his wife seriously commended Mr. Collins for having spoken so sensibly, and observed in a half-whisper to Lady Lucas, that he was a remarkably clever, good kind of young man." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To Elizabeth it appeared that, had her family made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit or finer success; and happy did she think it for Bingley and her sister that some of the exhibition had escaped his notice, and that his feelings were not of a sort to be much distressed by the folly which he must have witnessed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That his two sisters and Mr. Darcy, however, should have such an opportunity of ridiculing her relations, was bad enough, and she could not determine whether the silent contempt of the gentleman, or the insolent smiles of the ladies, were more intolerable.\n\nThe rest of the evening brought her little amusement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was teased by Mr. Collins, who continued most perseveringly by her side, and though he could not prevail with her to dance with him again, put it out of her power to dance with others." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In vain did she entreat him to stand up with somebody else, and offer to introduce him to any young lady in the room. He assured her, that as to dancing, he was perfectly indifferent to it; that his chief object was by delicate attentions to recommend himself to her, and that he should therefore make a point of remaining close to her the whole evening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was no arguing upon such a project." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She owed her greatest relief to her friend Miss Lucas, who often joined them, and good-naturedly engaged Mr. Collins's conversation to herself.\n\nShe was at least free from the offence of Mr. Darcy's further notice; though often standing within a very short distance of her, quite disengaged, he never came near enough to speak." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She felt it to be the probable consequence of her allusions to Mr. Wickham, and rejoiced in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Longbourn party were the last of all the company to depart, and, by a manœuvre of Mrs. Bennet, had to wait for their carriage a quarter of an hour after everybody else was gone, which gave them time to see how heartily they were wished away by some of the family. Mrs. Hurst and her sister scarcely opened their mouths, except to complain of fatigue, and were evidently impatient to have the house to themselves." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They repulsed every attempt of Mrs. Bennet at conversation, and by so doing threw a languor over the whole party, which was very little relieved by the long speeches of Mr. Collins, who was complimenting Mr. Bingley and his sisters on the elegance of their entertainment, and the hospitality and politeness which had marked their behaviour to their guests." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Darcy said nothing at all. Mr. Bennet, in equal silence, was enjoying the scene." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Bingley and Jane were standing together, a little detached from the rest, and talked only to each other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth preserved as steady a silence as either Mrs. Hurst or Miss Bingley; and even Lydia was too much fatigued to utter more than the occasional exclamation of \"Lord, how tired I am!\" accompanied by a violent yawn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When at length they arose to take leave, Mrs. Bennet was most pressingly civil in her hope of seeing the whole family soon at Longbourn, and addressed herself particularly to Mr. Bingley, to assure him how happy he would make them by eating a family dinner with them at any time, without the ceremony of a formal invitation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bingley was all grateful pleasure, and he readily engaged for taking the earliest opportunity of waiting on her, after his return from London, whither he was obliged to go the next day for a short time.\n\nMrs. Bennet was perfectly satisfied, and quitted the house under the delightful persuasion that, allowing for the necessary preparations of settlements, new carriages, and wedding clothes, she should undoubtedly see her daughter settled at Netherfield in the course of three or four months." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene (which might reference existing characters and worldbuilding), and you will continue the story with 8 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Jane Austen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The next day opened a new scene at Longbourn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Collins made his declaration in form." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Having resolved to do it without loss of time, as his leave of absence extended only to the following Saturday, and having no feelings of diffidence to make it distressing to himself even at the moment, he set about it in a very orderly manner, with all the observances, which he supposed a regular part of the business. On finding Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth, and one of the younger girls together, soon after breakfast, he addressed the mother in these words: \"May I hope, madam, for your interest with your fair daughter Elizabeth, when I solicit for the honour of a private audience with her in the course of this morning?\"\n\nBefore Elizabeth had time for anything but a blush of surprise, Mrs. Bennet instantly answered, \"Oh dear!—yes—certainly. I am sure Lizzy will be very happy—I am sure she can have no objection. Come, Kitty, I want you upstairs.\" And, gathering her work together, she was hastening away, when Elizabeth called out:\n\n\"Dear madam, do not go. I beg you will not go. Mr. Collins must excuse me. He can have nothing to say to me that anybody need not hear. I am going away myself.\"\n\n\"No, no, nonsense, Lizzy. I desire you will stay where you are.\" And upon Elizabeth's seeming really, with vexed and embarrassed looks, about to escape, she added: \"Lizzy, I insist upon your staying and hearing Mr. Collins.\"\n\nElizabeth would not oppose such an injunction—and a moment's consideration making her also sensible that it would be wisest to get it over as soon and as quietly as possible, she sat down again, and tried to conceal, by incessant employment, the feelings which were divided between distress and diversion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Bennet and Kitty walked off, and as soon as they were gone Mr. Collins began." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Believe me, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that your modesty, so far from doing you any disservice, rather adds to your other perfections. You would have been less amiable in my eyes had there not been this little unwillingness; but allow me to assure you, that I have your respected mother's permission for this address. You can hardly doubt the purport of my discourse, however your natural delicacy may lead you to dissemble; my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as soon as I entered the house, I singled you out as the companion of my future life. But before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it would be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying—and, moreover, for coming into Hertfordshire with the design of selecting a wife, as I certainly did.\"\n\nThe idea of Mr. Collins, with all his solemn composure, being run away with by his feelings, made Elizabeth so near laughing, that she could not use the short pause he allowed in any attempt to stop him farther, and he continued:\n\n\"My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example of matrimony in his parish; secondly, that I am convinced it will add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly—which perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness. Twice has she condescended to give me her opinion (unasked too!) on this subject; and it was but the very Saturday night before I left Hunsford—between our pools at quadrille, while Mrs. Jenkinson was arranging Miss de Bourgh's footstool, that she said, 'Mr. Collins, you must marry. A clergyman like you must marry. Choose properly, choose a gentlewoman for my sake; and for your own, let her be an active, useful sort of person, not brought up high, but able to make a small income go a good way. This is my advice. Find such a woman as soon as you can, bring her to Hunsford, and I will visit her.' Allow me, by the way, to observe, my fair cousin, that I do not reckon the notice and kindness of Lady Catherine de Bourgh as among the least of the advantages in my power to offer. You will find her manners beyond anything I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence and respect which her rank will inevitably excite. Thus much for my general intention in favour of matrimony; it remains to be told why my views were directed to Longbourn instead of my own neighbourhood, where I assure you there are many amiable young women. But the fact is, that being, as I am, to inherit this estate after the death of your honoured father (who, however, may live many years longer), I could not satisfy myself without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters, that the loss to them might be as little as possible, when the melancholy event takes place—which, however, as I have already said, may not be for several years. This has been my motive, my fair cousin, and I flatter myself it will not sink me in your esteem, And now nothing remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affection. To fortune I am perfectly indifferent, and shall make no demand of that nature on your father, since I am well aware that it could not be complied with; and that one thousand pounds in the 4 per cents,ah which will not be yours till after your mother's decease, is all that you may ever be entitled to. On that head, therefore, I shall be uniformly silent; and you may assure yourself that no ungenerous reproach shall ever pass my lips when we are married.\"\n\nIt was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now.\n\n\"You are too hasty, sir,\" she cried. \"You forget that I have made no answer. Let me do it without further loss of time. Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me. I am very sensible of the honour of your proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than decline them.\"\n\n\"I am not now to learn,\" replied Mr. Collins, with a formal wave of the hand, \"that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second or even a third time. I am, therefore, by no means discouraged by what you have just said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long.\"\n\n\"Upon my word, sir,\" cried Elizabeth, \"your hope is rather an extraordinary one after my declaration. I do assure you that I am not one of those young ladies (if such young ladies there are) who are so daring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second time. I am perfectly serious in my refusal. You could not make me happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who would make you so. Nay, were your friend Lady Catherine to know me, I am persuaded she would find me in every respect ill qualified for the situation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Were it certain that Lady Catherine would think so,\" said Mr. Collins, very gravely—\"but I cannot imagine that her Ladyship would at all disapprove of you. And you may be certain that when I have the honour of seeing her again I shall speak in the highest terms of your modesty, economy, and other amiable qualifications.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 9 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Indeed, Mr. Collins, all praise of me will be unnecessary. You must give me leave to judge for myself, and pay me the compliment of believing what I say. I wish you very happy and very rich, and by refusing your hand, do all in my power to prevent your being otherwise. In making me the offer, you must have satisfied the delicacy of your feelings with regard to my family, and may take possession of Longbourn estate whenever it falls, without any self-reproach. This matter may be considered, therefore, as finally settled.\" And rising as she thus spoke, she would have quitted the room, had not Mr. Collins thus addressed her,—\n\n\"When I do myself the honour of speaking to you next on the subject, I shall hope to receive a more favourable answer than you have now given me; though I am far from accusing you of cruelty at present, because I know it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on the first application, and, perhaps, you have even now said as much to encourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the female character.\"\n\n\"Really, Mr. Collins,\" cried Elizabeth, with some warmth, \"you puzzle me exceedingly. If what I have hitherto said can appear to you in the form of encouragement, I know not how to express my refusal in such a way as may convince you of its being one.\"\n\n\"You must give me leave to flatter myself, my dear cousin, that your refusal of my addresses are merely words of course. My reasons for believing it are briefly these:—It does not appear to me that my hand is unworthy your acceptance, or that the establishment I can offer would be any other than highly desirable. My situation in life, my connections with the family of De Bourgh, and my relationship to your own, are circumstances highly in my favour; and you should take it into further consideration that, in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you. Your portion is unhappily so small, that it will in all likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications. As I must, therefore, conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall choose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females.\"\n\n\"I do assure you, sir, that I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.\"\n\n\"You are uniformly charming!\" cried he with an air of awkward gallantry; \"and I am persuaded that, when sanctioned by the express authority of both your excellent parents, my proposals will not fail of being acceptable.\"\n\nTo such perseverance in wilful self-deception Elizabeth would make no reply, and immediately and in silence withdrew; determined, that if he persisted in considering her repeated refusals as flattering encouragement, to apply to her father, whose negative might be uttered in such a manner as must be decisive, and whose behaviour at least could not be mistaken for the affectation and coquetry of an elegant female." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "ur a writing helper. partner writes, u do next 10 sentences. might have existing chars/stuff - roll with it" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Collins was not left long to the silent contemplation of his successful love; for Mrs. Bennet, having dawdled about in the vestibule to watch for the end of the conference, no sooner saw Elizabeth open the door and with quick step pass her towards the staircase, than she entered the breakfast-room, and congratulated both him and herself in warm terms on the happy prospect of their nearer connection. Mr. Collins received and returned these felicitations with equal pleasure, and then proceeded to relate the particulars of their interview, with the result of which he trusted he had every reason to be satisfied, since the refusal which his cousin had steadfastly given him would naturally flow from her bashful modesty and the genuine delicacy of her character.\n\nThis information, however, startled Mrs. Bennet: she would have been glad to be equally satisfied that her daughter had meant to encourage him by protesting against his proposals, but she dared not to believe it, and could not help saying so.\n\n\"But depend upon it, Mr. Collins,\" she added, \"that Lizzy shall be brought to reason. I will speak to her about it myself directly. She is a very headstrong, foolish girl, and does not know her own interest; but I will make her know it.\"\n\n\"Pardon me for interrupting you, madam,\" cried Mr. Collins; \"but if she is really headstrong and foolish, I know not whether she would altogether be a very desirable wife to a man in my situation, who naturally looks for happiness in the marriage state. If, therefore, she actually persists in rejecting my suit, perhaps, it were better not to force her into accepting me, because, if liable to such defects of temper, she could not contribute much to my felicity.\"\n\n\"Sir, you quite misunderstand me,\" said Mrs. Bennet, alarmed. \"Lizzy is only headstrong in such matters as these. In every thing else she is as good-natured a girl as ever lived. I will go directly to Mr. Bennet, and we shall very soon settle it with her, I am sure.\"\n\nShe would not give him time to reply, but hurrying instantly to her husband, called out, as she entered the library,—\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Bennet, you are wanted immediately; we are all in an uproar. You must come and make Lizzy marry Mr. Collins, for she vows she will not have him; and if you do not make haste he will change his mind and not have her.\"\n\nMr. Bennet raised his eyes from his book as she entered, and fixed them on her face with a calm unconcern which was not in the least altered by her communication." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'elizabeth' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have not the pleasure of understanding you,\" said he, when she had finished her speech. \"Of what are you talking?\"\n\n\"Of Mr. Collins and Lizzy. Lizzy declares she will not have Mr. Collins, and Mr. Collins begins to say that he will not have Lizzy.\"\n\n\"And what am I to do on the occasion? It seems a hopeless business.\"\n\n\"Speak to Lizzy about it yourself. Tell her that you insist upon her marrying him.\"\n\n\"Let her be called down. She shall hear my opinion.\"\n\nMrs. Bennet rang the bell, and Miss Elizabeth was summoned to the library.\n\n\"Come here, child,\" cried her father as she appeared. \"I have sent for you on an affair of importance. I understand that Mr. Collins has made you an offer of marriage. Is it true?\" Elizabeth replied that it was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Very well—and this offer of marriage you have refused?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have, sir.\"\n\n\"Very well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists upon your accepting it. Is it not so, Mrs. Bennet?\"\n\n\"Yes, or I will never see her again.\"\n\n\"An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.\"\n\nElizabeth could not but smile at such a conclusion of such a beginning; but Mrs. Bennet, who had persuaded herself that her husband regarded the affair as she wished, was excessively disappointed.\n\n\"What do you mean, Mr. Bennet, by talking in this way? You promised me to insist upon her marrying him.\"\n\n\"My dear,\" replied her husband, \"I have two small favours to request. First, that you will allow me the free use of my understanding on the present occasion; and, secondly, of my room. I shall be glad to have the library to myself as soon as may be.\"\n\nNot yet, however, in spite of her disappointment in her husband, did Mrs. Bennet give up the point. She talked to Elizabeth again and again; coaxed and threatened her by turns. She endeavoured to secure Jane in her interest, but Jane, with all possible mildness, declined interfering; and Elizabeth sometimes with real earnestness, and sometimes with playful gaiety, replied to her attacks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Though her manner varied, however, her determination never did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Collins, meanwhile, was meditating in solitude on what had passed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He thought too well of himself to comprehend on what motive his cousin could refuse him; and though his pride was hurt, he suffered in no other way. His regard for her was quite imaginary; and the possibility of her deserving her mother's reproach prevented his feeling any regret.\n\nWhile the family were in this confusion, Charlotte Lucas came to spend the day with them. She was met in the vestibule by Lydia, who, flying to her, cried in a half whisper, \"I am glad you are come, for there is such fun here! What do you think has happened this morning? Mr. Collins has made an offer to Lizzy, and she will not have him.\"\n\nCharlotte had hardly time to answer before they were joined by Kitty, who came to tell the same news; and no sooner had they entered the breakfast-room, where Mrs. Bennet was alone, than she likewise began on the subject, calling on Miss Lucas for her compassion, and entreating her to persuade her friend Lizzy to comply with the wishes of all her family. \"Pray do, my dear Miss Lucas,\" she added, in a melancholy tone; \"for nobody is on my side, nobody takes part with me; I am cruelly used, nobody feels for my poor nerves.\"\n\nCharlotte's reply was spared by the entrance of Jane and Elizabeth.\n\n\"Aye, there she comes,\" continued Mrs. Bennet, \"looking as unconcerned as may be, and caring no more for us than if we were at York, provided she can have her own way. But I tell you what, Miss Lizzy, if you take it into your head to go on refusing every offer of marriage in this way, you will never get a husband at all—and I am sure I do not know who is to maintain you when your father is dead. I shall not be able to keep you—and so I warn you. I have done with you from this very day. I told you in the library, you know, that I should never speak to you again, and you will find me as good as my word. I have no pleasure in talking to undutiful children. Not that I have much pleasure indeed in talking to any body. People who suffer as I do from nervous complaints can have no great inclination for talking. Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.\"\n\nHer daughters listened in silence to this effusion, sensible that any attempt to reason with or soothe her would only increase the irritation. She talked on, therefore, without interruption from any of them till they were joined by Mr. Collins, who entered with an air more stately than usual, and on perceiving whom, she said to the girls,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now, I do insist upon it, that you, all of you, hold your tongues, and let Mr. Collins and me have a little conversation together.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth passed quietly out of the room, Jane and Kitty followed, but Lydia stood her ground, determined to hear all she could; and Charlotte, detained first by the civility of Mr. Collins, whose enquiries after herself and all her family were very minute, and then by a little curiosity, satisfied herself with walking to the window and pretending not to hear. In a doleful voice Mrs. Bennet thus began the projected conversation: —\"Oh, Mr. Collins.\"\n\n\"My dear madam,\" replied he, \"let us be for ever silent on this point. Far be it from me,\" he presently continued, in a voice that marked his displeasure, \"to resent the behaviour of your daughter. Resignation to inevitable evils is the duty of us all: the peculiar duty of a young man who has been so fortunate, as I have been, in early preferment; and, I trust, I am resigned. Perhaps not the less so from feeling a doubt of my positive happiness had my fair cousin honoured me with her hand; for I have often observed, that resignation is never so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our estimation. You will not, I hope, consider me as showing any disrespect to your family, my dear madam, by thus withdrawing my pretensions to your daughter's favour, without having paid yourself and Mr. Bennet the compliment of requesting you to interpose your authority in my behalf. My conduct may, I fear, be objectionable in having accepted my dismission from your daughter's lips instead of your own; but we are all liable to error. I have certainly meant well through the whole affair. My object has been to secure an amiable companion for myself, with due consideration for the advantage of all your family; and if my manner has been at all reprehensible, I here beg leave to apologise.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing a segment of a larger work\n\nLength:\nseven sentences\n\nStyle:\nJane Austen\nGenre:\nRomance\nNote: Characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The discussion of Mr. Collins's offer was now nearly at an end, and Elizabeth had only to suffer from the uncomfortable feelings necessarily attending it, and occasionally from some peevish allusion of her mother." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As for the gentleman himself, his feelings were chiefly expressed, not by embarrassment or dejection, or by trying to avoid her, but by stiffness of manner, and resentful silence. He scarcely ever spoke to her; and the assiduous attentions which he had been so sensible of himself were transferred for the rest of the day to Miss Lucas, whose civility in listening to him was a seasonable relief to them all, and especially to her friend.\n\nThe morrow produced no abatement of Mrs. Bennet's ill humour or ill health. Mr. Collins was also in the same state of angry pride. Elizabeth had hoped that his resentment might shorten his visit, but his plan did not appear in the least affected by it. He was always to have gone on Saturday, and to Saturday he still meant to stay.\n\nAfter breakfast, the girls walked to Meryton, to enquire if Mr. Wickham were returned, and to lament over his absence from the Netherfield ball." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He joined them on their entering the town, and attended them to their aunt's, where his regret and vexation and the concern of every body were well talked over. To Elizabeth, however, he voluntarily acknowledged that the necessity of his absence had been self-imposed.\n\n\"I found,\" said he, \"as the time drew near, that I had better not meet Mr. Darcy;—that to be in the same room, the same party with him for so many hours together, might be more than I could bear, and that scenes might arise unpleasant to more than myself.\"\n\nShe highly approved his forbearance; and they had leisure for a full discussion of it, and for all the commendation which they civilly bestowed on each other, as Wickham and another officer walked back with them to Longbourn, and during the walk he particularly attended to her. His accompanying them was a double advantage; she felt all the compliment it offered to herself; and it was most acceptable as an occasion of introducing him to her father and mother.\n\nSoon after their return, a letter was delivered to Miss Bennet: it came from Netherfield, and was opened immediately. The envelope contained a sheet of elegant, little, hot-pressed paper,ai well covered with a lady's fair, flowing hand; and Elizabeth saw her sister's countenance change as she read it, and saw her dwelling intently on some particular passages." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jane recollected herself soon; and putting the letter away, tried to join, with her usual cheerfulness, in the general conversation: but Elizabeth felt an anxiety on the subject which drew off her attention even from Wickham; and no sooner had he and his companion taken leave, than a glance from Jane invited her to follow her up stairs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When they had gained their own room, Jane, taking out her letter, said, \"This is from Caroline Bingley: what it contains has surprised me a good deal. The whole party have left Netherfield by this time, and are on their way to town: and without any intention of coming back again. You shall hear what she says.\"\n\nShe then read the first sentence aloud, which comprised the information of their having just resolved to follow their brother to town directly, and of their meaning to dine that day in Grosvenor Street, where Mr. Hurst had a house. The next was in these words:—\"I do not pretend to regret any thing I shall leave in Hertfordshire except your society, my dearest friend; but we will hope, at some future period, to enjoy many returns of that delightful intercourse we have known, and in the meanwhile may lessen the pain of separation by a very frequent and most unreserved correspondence. I depend on you for that.\" To these high-flown expressions Elizabeth listened with all the insensibility of distrust; and though the suddenness of their removal surprised her, she saw nothing in it really to lament: it was not to be supposed that their absence from Netherfield would prevent Mr. Bingley's being there; and as to the loss of their society, she was persuaded that Jane must soon cease to regard it in the enjoyment of his.\n\n\"It is unlucky,\" said she, after a short pause, \"that you should not be able to see your friends before they leave the country. But may we not hope that the period of future happiness, to which Miss Bingley looks forward, may arrive earlier than she is aware, and that the delightful intercourse you have known as friends will be renewed with yet greater satisfaction as sisters? Mr. Bingley will not be detained in London by them.\"\n\n\"Caroline decidedly says that none of the party will return into Hertfordshire this winter. I will read it to you." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'When my brother left us yesterday, he imagined that the business which took him to London might be concluded in three or four days; but as we are certain it cannot be so, and at the same time convinced that when Charles gets to town he will be in no hurry to leave it again, we have determined on following him thither, that he may not be obliged to spend his vacant hours in a comfortless hotel. Many of my acquaintance are already there for the winter: I wish I could hear that you, my dearest friend, had any intention of making one in the crowd, but of that I despair. I sincerely hope your Christmas in Hertfordshire may abound in the gaieties which that season generally brings; and that your beaux will be so numerous as to prevent your feeling the loss of the three of whom we shall deprive you.'\n\n\"It is evident by this,\" added Jane, \"that he comes back no more this winter.\"\n\n\"It is only evident that Miss Bingley does not mean he should.\"\n\n\"Why will you think so? It must be his own doing; he is his own master. But you do not know all. I will read you the passage which particularly hurts me. I will have no reserves from you. 'Mr. Darcy is impatient to see his sister; and, to confess the truth, we are scarcely less eager to meet her again. I really do not think Georgiana Darcy has her equal for beauty, elegance, and accomplishments; and the affection she inspires in Louisa and myself is heightened into something still more interesting from the hope we dare to entertain of her being hereafter our sister. I do not know whether I ever before mentioned to you my feelings on this subject, but I will not leave the country without confiding them, and I trust you will not esteem them unreasonable. My brother admires her greatly already; he will have frequent opportunity now of seeing her on the most intimate footing; her relations all wish the connection as much as his own; and a sister's partiality is not misleading me, I think, when I call Charles most capable of engaging any woman's heart. With all these circumstances to favour an attachment, and nothing to prevent it, am I wrong, my dearest Jane, in indulging the hope of an event which will secure the happiness of so many?' What think you of this sentence, my dear Lizzy?\" said Jane, as she finished it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is it not clear enough? Does it not expressly declare, that Caroline neither expects nor wishes me to be her sister; that she is perfectly convinced of her brother's indifference; and that if she suspects the nature of my feelings for him she means (most kindly!) to put me on my guard. Can there be any other opinion on the subject?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'believe' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, there can; for mine is totally different. Will you hear it?\"\n\n\"Most willingly.\"\n\n\"You shall have it in a few words. Miss Bingley sees that her brother is in love with you, and wants him to marry Miss Darcy. She follows him to town in the hope of keeping him there, and tries to persuade you that he does not care about you.\"\n\nJane shook her head.\n\n\"Indeed, Jane, you ought to believe me. No one who has ever seen you together can doubt his affection; Miss Bingley, I am sure, cannot: she is not such a simpleton. Could she have seen half as much love in Mr. Darcy for herself, she would have ordered her wedding clothes. But the case is this:—we are not rich enough or grand enough for them; and she is the more anxious to get Miss Darcy for her brother, from the notion that when there has been one intermarriage, she may have less trouble in achieving a second; in which there is certainly some ingenuity, and I dare say it would succeed if Miss De Bourgh were out of the way. But, my dearest Jane, you cannot seriously imagine that, because Miss Bingley tells you her brother greatly admires Miss Darcy, he is in the smallest degree less sensible of your merit than when he took leave of you on Tuesday; or that it will be in her power to persuade him that, instead of being in love with you, he is very much in love with her friend.\"\n\n\"If we thought alike of Miss Bingley,\" replied Jane, \"your representation of all this might make me quite easy. But I know the foundation is unjust. Caroline is incapable of wilfully deceiving any one; and all that I can hope in this case is, that she is deceived herself.\"\n\n\"That is right. You could not have started a more happy idea, since you will not take comfort in mine: believe her to be deceived, by all means. You have now done your duty by her, and must fret no longer.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'being' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But, my dear sister, can I be happy, even supposing the best, in accepting a man whose sisters and friends are all wishing him to marry elsewhere?\"\n\n\"You must decide for yourself,\" said Elizabeth; \"and if, upon mature deliberation, you find that the misery of disobliging his two sisters is more than equivalent to the happiness of being his wife, I advise you, by all means, to refuse him.\"\n\n\"How can you talk so?\" said Jane, faintly smiling; \"you must know, that, though I should be exceedingly grieved at their disapprobation, I could not hesitate.\"\n\n\"I did not think you would; and that being the case, I cannot consider your situation with much compassion.\"\n\n\"But if he returns no more this winter, my choice will never be required. A thousand things may arise in six months.\"\n\nThe idea of his returning no more Elizabeth treated with the utmost contempt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It appeared to her merely the suggestion of Caroline's interested wishes; and she could not for a moment suppose that those wishes, however openly or artfully spoken, could influence a young man so totally independent of every one." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She represented to her sister, as forcibly as possible, what she felt on the subject, and had soon the pleasure of seeing its happy effect. Jane's temper was not desponding; and she was gradually led to hope, though the diffidence of affection sometimes overcame the hope, that Bingley would return to Netherfield, and answer every wish of her heart.\n\nThey agreed that Mrs. Bennet should only hear of the departure of the family, without being alarmed on the score of the gentleman's conduct; but even this partial communication gave her a great deal of concern, and she bewailed it as exceedingly unlucky that the ladies should happen to go away just as they were all getting so intimate together. After lamenting it, however, at some length, she had the consolation of thinking that Mr. Bingley would be soon down again, and soon dining at Longbourn; and the conclusion of all was the comfortable declaration, that, though he had been invited only to a family dinner, she would take care to have two full courses." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 9 sentences sentences spawning from what the user wrote, maintaining any existing character relationships or establishing new ones, within the Romance genre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Bennets were engaged to dine with the Lucases; and again, during the chief of the day, was Miss Lucas so kind as to listen to Mr. Collins. Elizabeth took an opportunity of thanking her. \"It keeps him in good humour,\" said she, \"and I am more obliged to you than I can express.\" Charlotte assured her friend of her satisfaction in being useful, and that it amply repaid her for the little sacrifice of her time. This was very amiable; but Charlotte's kindness extended farther than Elizabeth had any conception of:—its object was nothing less than to secure her from any return of Mr. Collins's addresses, by engaging them towards herself. Such was Miss Lucas's scheme; and appearances were so favourable, that when they parted at night, she would have felt almost sure of success if he had not been to leave Hertfordshire so very soon. But here she did injustice to the fire and independence of his character; for it led him to escape out of Longbourn House the next morning with admirable sliness, and hasten to Lucas Lodge to throw himself at her feet. He was anxious to avoid the notice of his cousins, from a conviction that, if they saw him depart, they could not fail to conjecture his design, and he was not willing to have the attempt known till its success could be known likewise; for, though feeling almost secure, and with reason, for Charlotte had been tolerably encouraging, he was comparatively diffident since the adventure of Wednesday. His reception, however, was of the most flattering kind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Lucas perceived him from an upper window as he walked towards the house, and instantly set out to meet him accidentally in the lane. But little had she dared to hope that so much love and eloquence awaited her there.\n\nIn as short a time as Mr. Collins's long speeches would allow, every thing was settled between them to the satisfaction of both; and as they entered the house, he earnestly entreated her to name the day that was to make him the happiest of men; and though such a solicitation must be waved for the present, the lady felt no inclination to trifle with his happiness. The stupidity with which he was favoured by nature must guard his courtship from any charm that could make a woman wish for its continuance; and Miss Lucas, who accepted him solely from the pure and disinterested desire of an establishment, cared not how soon that establishment were gained.\n\nSir William and Lady Lucas were speedily applied to for their consent; and it was bestowed with a most joyful alacrity. Mr. Collins's present circumstances made it a most eligible match for their daughter, to whom they could give little fortune; and his prospects of future wealth were exceedingly fair. Lady Lucas began directly to calculate, with more interest than the matter had ever excited before, how many years longer Mr. Bennet was likely to live; and Sir William gave it as his decided opinion, that whenever Mr. Collins should be in possession of the Longbourn estate, it would be highly expedient that both he and his wife should make their appearance at St. James's. The whole family in short were properly overjoyed on the occasion. The younger girls formed hopes of coming outaj a year or two sooner than they might otherwise have done; and the boys were relieved from their apprehension of Charlotte's dying an old maid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Charlotte herself was tolerably composed. She had gained her point, and had time to consider of it. Her reflections were in general satisfactory. Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible nor agreeable: his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object: it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and, however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want. This preservative she had now obained; and at the age of twenty-seven, without having ever been handsome, she felt all the good luck of it. The least agreeable circumstance in the business was the surprise it must occasion to Elizabeth Bennet, whose friendship she valued beyond that of any other person. Elizabeth would wonder, and probably would blame her; and though her resolution was not to be shaken, her feelings must be hurt by such a disapprobation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She resolved to give her the information herself; and therefore charged Mr. Collins, when he returned to Longbourn to dinner, to drop no hint of what had passed before any of the family." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A promise of secrecy was of course very dutifully given, but it could not be kept without difficulty; for the curiosity excited by his long absence burst forth in such very direct questions on his return, as required some ingenuity to evade, and he was at the same time exercising great self-denial, for he was longing to publish his prosperous love.\n\nAs he was to begin his journey too early on the morrow to see any of the family, the ceremony of leave-taking was performed when the ladies moved for the night; and Mrs. Bennet, with great politeness and cordiality, said how happy they should be to see him at Longbourn again, whenever his other engagements might allow him to visit them.\n\n\"My dear madam,\" he replied, \"this invitation is particularly gratifying, because it is what I have been hoping to receive; and you may be very certain that I shall avail myself of it as soon as possible.\"\n\nThey were all astonished; and Mr. Bennet, who could by no means wish for so speedy a return, immediately said,—\n\n\"But is there not danger of Lady Catherine's disapprobation here, my good sir? You had better neglect your relations than run the risk of offending your patroness.\"\n\n\"My dear sir,\" replied Mr. Collins, \"I am particularly obliged to you for this friendly caution, and you may depend upon my not taking so material a step without her Ladyship's concurrence.\"\n\n\"You cannot be too much on your guard. Risk any thing rather than her displeasure; and if you find it likely to be raised by your coming to us again, which I should think exceedingly probable, stay quietly at home, and be satisfied that we shall take no offence.\"\n\n\"Believe me, my dear sir, my gratitude is warmly excited by such affectionate attention; and, depend upon it, you will speedily receive from me a letter of thanks for this as well as for every other mark of your regard during my stay in Hertfordshire. As for my fair cousins, though my absence may not be long enough to render it necessary, I shall now take the liberty of wishing them health and happiness, not excepting my cousin Elizabeth.\"\n\nWith proper civilities, the ladies then withdrew; all of them equally surprised to find that he meditated a quick return." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Bennet wished to understand by it that he thought of paying his addresses to one of her younger girls, and Mary might have been prevailed on to accept him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'happiness' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She rated his abilities much higher than any of the others: there was a solidity in his reflections which often struck her; and though by no means so clever as herself, she thought that, if encouraged to read and improve himself by such an example as hers, he might become a very agreeable companion. But on the following morning every hope of this kind was done away. Miss Lucas called soon after breakfast, and in a private conference with Elizabeth related the event of the day before.\n\nThe possibility of Mr. Collins's fancying himself in love with her friend had once occurred to Elizabeth within the last day or two: but that Charlotte could encourage him seemed almost as far from possibility as that she could encourage him herself; and her astonishment was consequently so great as to overcome at first the bounds of decorum, and she could not help crying out,—\n\n\"Engaged to Mr. Collins! my dear Charlotte, impossible!\"\n\nThe steady countenance which Miss Lucas had commanded in telling her story gave way to a momentary confusion here on receiving so direct a reproach; though, as it was no more than she expected, she soon regained her composure, and calmly replied,—\n\n\"Why should you be surprised, my dear Eliza? Do you think it incredible that Mr. Collins should be able to procure any woman's good opinion, because he was not so happy as to succeed with you?\"\n\nBut Elizabeth had now recollected herself; and, making a strong effort for it, was able to assure her, with tolerable firmness, that the prospect of their relationship was highly grateful to her, and that she wished her all imaginable happiness.\n\n\"I see what you are feeling,\" replied Charlotte: \"you must be surprised, very much surprised, so lately as Mr. Collins was wishing to marry you. But when you have had time to think it all over, I hope you will be satisfied with what I have done. I am not romantic, you know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and, considering Mr. Collins's character, connections, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth quietly answered \"undoubtedly;\" and, after an awkward pause, they returned to the rest of the family." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Charlotte did not stay much longer; and Elizabeth was then left to reflect on what she had heard. It was a long time before she became at all reconciled to the idea of so unsuitable a match. The strangeness of Mr. Collins's making two offers of marriage within three days was nothing in comparison of his being now accepted. She had always felt that Charlotte's opinion of matrimony was not exactly like her own; but she could not have supposed it possible that, when called into action, she would have sacrificed every better feeling to worldly advantage. Charlotte, the wife of Mr. Collins, was a most humiliating picture! And to the pang of a friend disgracing herself and sunk in her esteem was added the distressing conviction that it was impossible for that friend to be tolerably happy in the lot she had chosen." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene (which might reference existing characters and worldbuilding), and you will continue the story with 8 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Jane Austen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth was sitting with her mother and sisters, reflecting on what she had heard, and doubting whether she was authorised to mention it, when Sir William Lucas himself appeared, sent by his daughter to announce her engagement to the family." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With many compliments to them, and much self-gratulation on the prospect of a connection between the houses, he unfolded the matter,—to an audience not merely wondering, but incredulous; for Mrs. Bennet, with more perseverance than politeness, protested he must be entirely mistaken; and Lydia, always unguarded and often uncivil, boisterously exclaimed,—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good Lord! Sir William, how can you tell such a story? Do not you know that Mr. Collins wants to marry Lizzy?\"\n\nNothing less than the complaisance of a courtier could have borne without anger such treatment: but Sir William's good-breeding carried him through it all; and though he begged leave to be positive as to the truth of his information, he listened to all their impertinence with the most forbearing courtesy.\n\nElizabeth, feeling it incumbent on her to relieve him from so unpleasant a situation, now put herself forward to confirm his account, by mentioning her prior knowledge of it from Charlotte herself; and endeavoured to put a stop to the exclamations of her mother and sisters, by the earnestness of her congratulations to Sir William, in which she was readily joined by Jane, and by making a variety of remarks on the happiness that might be expected from the match, the excellent character of Mr. Collins, and the convenient distance of Hunsford from London.\n\nMrs. Bennet was, in fact, too much overpowered to say a great deal while Sir William remained; but no sooner had he left them than her feelings found a rapid vent. In the first place, she persisted in disbelieving the whole of the matter; secondly, she was very sure that Mr. Collins had been taken in; thirdly, she trusted that they would never be happy together; and, fourthly, that the match might be broken off. Two inferences, however, were plainly deduced from the whole: one, that Elizabeth was the real cause of all the mischief; and the other, that she herself had been barbarously used by them all; and on these two points she principally dwelt during the rest of the day. Nothing could console and nothing appease her. Nor did that day wear out her resentment." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'without' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A week elapsed before she could see Elizabeth without scolding her: a month passed away before she could speak to Sir William or Lady Lucas without being rude; and many months were gone before she could at all forgive their daughter.\n\nMr. Bennet's emotions were much more tranquil on the occasion, and such as he did experience he pronounced to be of a most agreeable sort; for it gratified him, he said, to discover that Charlotte Lucas, whom he had been used to think tolerably sensible, was as foolish as his wife, and more foolish than his daughter!\n\nJane confessed herself a little surprised at the match but she said less of her astonishment than of her earnest desire for their happiness; nor could Elizabeth persuade her to consider it as improbable. Kitty and Lydia were far from envying Miss Lucas, for Mr. Collins was only a clergyman; and it affected them in no other way than as a piece of news to spread at Meryton.\n\nLady Lucas could not be insensible of triumph on being able to retort on Mrs. Bennet the comfort of having a daughter well married; and she called at Longbourn rather oftener than usual to say how happy she was, though Mrs. Bennet's sour looks and ill-natured remarks might have been enough to drive happiness away.\n\nBetween Elizabeth and Charlotte there was a restraint which kept them mutually silent on the subject; and Elizabeth felt persuaded that no real confidence could ever subsist between them again. Her disappointment in Charlotte made her turn with fonder regard to her sister, of whose rectitude and delicacy she was sure her opinion could never be shaken, and for whose happiness she grew daily more anxious, as Bingley had now been gone a week, and nothing was heard of his return.\n\nJane had sent Caroline an early answer to her letter, and was counting the days till she might reasonably hope to hear again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The promised letter of thanks from Mr. Collins arrived on Tuesday, addressed to their father, and written with all the solemnity of gratitude which a twelve-month's abode in the family might have prompted. After discharging his conscience on that head, he proceeded to inform them, with many rapturous expressions, of his happiness in having obtained the affection of their amiable neighbour, Miss Lucas, and then explained that it was merely with the view of enjoying her society that he had been so ready to close with their kind wish of seeing him again at Longbourn, whither he hoped to be able to return on Monday fortnight; for Lady Catherine, he added, so heartily approved his marriage, that she wished it to take place as soon as possible, which he trusted would be an unanswerable argument with his amiable Charlotte to name an early day for making him the happiest of men.\n\nMr. Collins's return into Hertfordshire was no longer a matter of pleasure to Mrs. Bennet. On the contrary, she was as much disposed to complain of it as her husband. It was very strange that he should come to Longbourn instead of to Lucas Lodge; it was also very inconvenient and exceedingly troublesome. She hated having visitors in the house while her health was so indifferent, and lovers were of all people the most disagreeable. Such were the gentle murmurs of Mrs. Bennet, and they gave way only to the greater distress of Mr. Bingley's continued absence.\n\nNeither Jane nor Elizabeth were comfortable on this subject." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Day after day passed away without bringing any other tidings of him than the report which shortly prevailed in Meryton of his coming no more to Netherfield the whole winter; a report which highly incensed Mrs. Bennet, and which she never failed to contradict as a most scandalous falsehood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even Elizabeth began to fear—not that Bingley was indifferent—but that his sisters would be successful in keeping him away. Unwilling as she was to admit an idea so destructive of Jane's happiness, and so dishonourable to the stability of her lover, she could not prevent its frequently recurring. The united efforts of his two unfeeling sisters and of his overpowering friend, assisted by the attractions of Miss Darcy and the amusements of London, might be too much, she feared, for the strength of his attachment.\n\nAs for Jane, her anxiety under this suspense was, of course, more painful than Elizabeth's: but whatever she felt she was desirous of concealing; and between herself and Elizabeth, therefore, the subject was never alluded to. But as no such delicacy restrained her mother, an hour seldom passed in which she did not talk of Bingley, express her impatience for his arrival, or even require Jane to confess that if he did not come back she should think herself very ill used. It needed all Jane's steady mildness to bear these attacks with tolerable tranquillity.\n\nMr. Collins returned most punctually on the Monday fortnight, but his reception at Longbourn was not quite so gracious as it had been on his first introduction. He was too happy, however, to need much attention; and, luckily for the others, the business of love-making relieved them from a great deal of his company." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The chief of every day was spent by him at Lucas Lodge, and he sometimes returned to Longbourn only in time to make an apology for his absence before the family went to bed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Bennet was really in a most pitiable state. The very mention of any thing concerning the match threw her into an agony of ill-humour, and wherever she went she was sure of hearing it talked of. The sight of Miss Lucas was odious to her. As her successor in that house, she regarded her with jealous abhorrence. Whenever Charlotte came to see them, she concluded her to be anticipating the hour of possession; and whenever she spoke in a low voice to Mr. Collins, was convinced that they were talking of the Longbourn estate, and resolving to turn herself and her daughters out of the house as soon as Mr. Bennet was dead. She complained bitterly of all this to her husband.\n\n\"Indeed, Mr. Bennet,\" said she, \"it is very hard to think that Charlotte Lucas should ever be mistress of this house, that I should be forced to make way for her, and live to see her take my place in it!\"\n\n\"My dear, do not give way to such gloomy thoughts. Let us hope for better things. Let us flatter ourselves that I may be the survivor.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing a segment of a larger work\n\nLength:\nseven sentences\n\nStyle:\nJane Austen\nGenre:\nRomance\nNote: Characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Bingley's letter arrived, and put an end to doubt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The very first sentence conveyed the assurance of their being all settled in London for the winter, and concluded with her brother's regret at not having had time to pay his respects to his friends in Hertfordshire before he left the country.\n\nHope was over, entirely over; and when Jane could attend to the rest of the letter, she found little, except the professed affection of the writer, that could give her any comfort. Miss Darcy's praise occupied the chief of it. Her many attractions were again dwelt on; and Caroline boasted joyfully of their increasing intimacy, and ventured to predict the accomplishment of the wishes which had been unfolded in her former letter. She wrote also with great pleasure of her brother's being an inmate of Mr. Darcy's house, and mentioned with raptures some plans of the latter with regard to new furniture.\n\nElizabeth, to whom Jane very soon communicated the chief of all this, heard it in silent indignation. Her heart was divided between concern for her sister and resentment against all others." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To Caroline's assertion of her brother's being partial to Miss Darcy, she paid no credit." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That he was really fond of Jane, she doubted no more than she had ever done; and much as she had always been disposed to like him, she could not think without anger, hardly without contempt, on that easiness of temper, that want of proper resolution, which now made him the slave of his designing friends, and led him to sacrifice his own happiness to the caprice of their inclinations. Had his own happiness, however, been the only sacrifice, he might have been allowed to sport with it in whatever manner he thought best; but her sister's was involved in it, as she thought he must be sensible himself. It was a subject, in short, on which reflection would be long indulged, and must be unavailing. She could think of nothing else; and yet, whether Bingley's regard had really died away, or were suppressed by his friend's interference; whether he had been aware of Jane's attachment, or whether it had escaped his observation; whatever were the case, though her opinion of him must be materially affected by the difference, her sister's situation remained the same, her peace equally wounded.\n\nA day or two passed before Jane had courage to speak of her feelings to Elizabeth; but at last, on Mrs. Bennet's leaving them together, after a longer irritation than usual about Netherfield and its master, she could not help saying,—\n\n\"Oh that my dear mother had more command over herself; she can have no idea of the pain she gives me by her continual reflections on him. But I will not repine. It cannot last long. He will be forgot, and we shall all be as we were before.\"\n\nElizabeth looked at her sister with incredulous solicitude, but said nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You doubt me,\" cried Jane, slightly colouring; \"indeed you have no reason. He may live in my memory as the most amiable man of my acquaintance, but that is all. I have nothing either to hope or fear, and nothing to reproach him with. Thank God, I have not that pain. A little time, therefore—I shall certainly try to get the better—\"\n\nWith a stronger voice she soon added, \"I have this comfort immediately, that it has not been more than an error of fancy on my side, and that it has done no harm to any one but myself.\"\n\n\"My dear Jane,\" exclaimed Elizabeth, \"you are too good. Your sweetness and disinterestedness are really angelic; I do not know what to say to you. I feel as if I had never done you justice, or loved you as you deserve.\"\n\nMiss Bennet eagerly disclaimed all extraordinary merit, and threw back the praise on her sister's warm affection.\n\n\"Nay,\" said Elizabeth, \"this is not fair. You wish to think all the world respectable, and are hurt if I speak ill of any body. I only want to think you perfect, and you set yourself against it. Do not be afraid of my running into any excess, of my encroaching on your privilege of universal good-will. You need not. There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense. I have met with two instances lately: one I will not mention, the other is Charlotte's marriage. It is unaccountable! in every view it is unaccountable!\"\n\n\"My dear Lizzy, do not give way to such feelings as these. They will ruin your happiness. You do not make allowance enough for difference of situation and temper. Consider Mr. Collins's respectability, and Charlotte's prudent, steady character. Remember that she is one of a large family; that as to fortune, it is a most eligible match; and be ready to believe, for every body's sake, that she may feel something like regard and esteem for our cousin.\"\n\n\"To oblige you, I would try to believe almost any thing, but no one else could be benefited by such a belief as this; for were I persuaded that Charlotte had any regard for him, I should only think worse of her understanding than I now do of her heart. My dear Jane, Mr. Collins is a conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man: you know he is, as well as I do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that the woman who marries him cannot have a proper way of thinking. You shall not defend her, though it is Charlotte Lucas. You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade yourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of danger security for happiness.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I must think your language too strong in speaking of both,\" replied Jane; \"and I hope you will be convinced of it, by seeing them happy together. But enough of this. You alluded to something else. You mentioned two instances. I cannot misunderstand you; but I entreat you, dear Lizzy, not to pain me by thinking that person to blame, and saying your opinion of him is sunk. We must not be so ready to fancy ourselves intentionally injured. We must not expect a lively young man to be always so guarded and circumspect. It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And men take care that they should.\"\n\n\"If it is designedly done, they cannot be justified; but I have no idea of there being so much design in the world as some persons imagine.\"\n\n\"I am far from attributing any part of Mr. Bingley's conduct to design,\" said Elizabeth; \"but without scheming to do wrong, or to make others unhappy, there may be error, and there may be misery. Thoughtlessness, want of attention to other people's feelings, and want of resolution, will do the business.\"\n\n\"And do you impute it to either of those?\"\n\n\"Yes; to the last. But if I go on, I shall displease you by saying what I think of persons you esteem. Stop me whilst you can.\"\n\n\"You persist, then, in supposing his sisters influence him.\"\n\n\"Yes, in conjunction with his friend.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I cannot believe it. Why should they try to influence him? They can only wish his happiness; and if he is attached to me, no other woman can secure it.\"\n\n\"Your first position is false. They may wish many things besides his happiness: they may wish his increase of wealth and consequence; they may wish him to marry a girl who has all the importance of money, great connections, and pride.\"\n\n\"Beyond a doubt, they do wish him to choose Miss Darcy,\" replied Jane; \"but this may be from better feelings than you are supposing. They have known her much longer than they have known me; no wonder if they love her better. But, whatever may be their own wishes, it is very unlikely they should have opposed their brother's. What sister would think herself at liberty to do it, unless there were something very objectionable? If they believed him attached to me, they would not try to part us; if he were so, they could not succeed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By supposing such an affection, you make every body acting unnaturally and wrong, and me most unhappy. Do not distress me by the idea. I am not ashamed of having been mistaken—or, at least, it is slight, it is nothing in comparison of what I should feel in thinking ill of him or his sisters. Let me take it in \"the best light, in the light in which it may be understood.\"\n\nElizabeth could not oppose such a wish; and from this time Mr. Bingley's name was scarcely ever mentioned between them.\n\nMrs. Bennet still continued to wonder and repine at his returning no more; and though a day seldom passed in which Elizabeth did not account for it clearly, there seemed little chance of her ever considering it with less perplexity. Her daughter endeavoured to convince her of what she did not believe herself, that his attentions to Jane had been merely the effect of a common and transient liking, which ceased when he saw her no more; but though the probability of the statement was admitted at the time, she had the same story to repeat every day." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'bennet' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Bennet's best comfort was, that Mr. Bingley must be down again in the summer.\n\nMr. Bennet treated the matter differently. \"So, Lizzy,\" said he one day, \"your sister is crossed in love, I find. I congratulate her. Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then. It is something to think of, and gives her a sort of distinction among her companions. When is your turn to come? You will hardly bear to be long outdone by Jane. Now is your time. Here are officers enough at Meryton to disappoint all the young ladies in the country. Let Wickham be your man. He is a pleasant fellow, and would jilt you creditably.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir, but a less agreeable man would satisfy me. We must not all expect Jane's good fortune.\"\n\n\"True,\" said Mr. Bennet; \"but it is a comfort to think that, whatever of that kind may befall you, you have an affectionate mother who will always make the most of it.\"\n\nMr. Wickham's society was of material service in dispelling the gloom which the late perverse occurrences had thrown on many of the Longbourn family. They saw him often, and to his other recommendations was now added that of general unreserve." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The whole of what Elizabeth had already heard, his claims on Mr. Darcy, and all that he had suffered from him, was now openly acknowledged and publicly canvassed; and every body was pleased to think how much they had always disliked Mr. Darcy before they had known any thing of the matter." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Bennet was the only creature who could suppose there might be any extenuating circumstances in the case unknown to the society of Hertfordshire: her mild and steady candour always pleaded for allowances, and urged the possibility of mistakes; but by every body else Mr. Darcy was condemned as the worst of men." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative chapter writing\nMy role: Provide a story segment\nYour role: Expand with 3 sentences, emulating Jane Austen in the Romance genre\nNote: This is part of a larger work" }, { "from": "human", "value": "After a week spent in professions of love and schemes of felicity, Mr. Collins was called from his amiable Charlotte by the arrival of Saturday." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The pain of separation, however, might be alleviated on his side, by preparations for the reception of his bride, as he had reason to hope, that shortly after his next return into Hertfordshire, the day would be fixed that was to make him the happiest of men." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took leave of his relations at Longbourn with as much solemnity as before; wished his fair cousins health and happiness again, and promised their father another letter of thanks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the following Monday, Mrs. Bennet had the pleasure of receiving her brother and his wife, who came, as usual, to spend the Christmas at Longbourn. Mr. Gardiner was a sensible, gentlemanlike man, greatly superior to his sister, as well by nature as education. The Netherfield ladies would have had difficulty in believing that a man who lived by trade, and within view of his own warehouses, could have been so well bred and agreeable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Gardiner, who was several years younger than Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Philips, was an amiable, intelligent, elegant woman, and a great favourite with all her Longbourn nieces. Between the two eldest and herself, especially, there subsisted a very particular regard. They had frequently been staying with her in town." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first part of Mrs. Gardiner's business on her arrival was to distribute her presents and describe the newest fashions. When this was done, she had a less active part to play. It became her turn to listen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Bennet had many grievances to relate, and much to complain of." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'before' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had all been very ill used since she last saw her sister. Two of her girls had been on the point of marriage, and after all there was nothing in it.\n\n\"I do not blame Jane,\" she continued, \"for Jane would have got Mr. Bingley if she could. But, Lizzy! Oh, sister! it is very hard to think that she might have been Mr. Collins's wife by this time, had not it been for her own perverseness. He made her an offer in this very room, and she refused him. The consequence of it is, that Lady Lucas will have a daughter married before I have, and that Longbourn estate is just as much entailed as ever. The Lucases are very artful people indeed, sister. They are all for what they can get. I am sorry to say it of them, but so it is. It makes me very nervous and poorly, to be thwarted so in my own family, and to have neighbours who think of themselves before any body else. However, your coming just at this time is the greatest of comforts, and I am very glad to hear what you tell us of long sleeves.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Gardiner, to whom the chief of this news had been given before, in the course of Jane and Elizabeth's correspondence with her, made her sister a slight answer, and in compassion to her nieces turned the conversation.\n\nWhen alone with Elizabeth afterwards, she spoke more on the subject. \"It seems likely to have been a desirable match for Jane,\" said she." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am sorry it went off. But these things happen so often! A young man, such as you describe Mr. Bingley, so easily falls in love with a pretty girl for a few weeks, and when accident separates them so easily forgets her, that these sort of inconstancies are very frequent.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"An excellent consolation in its way,\" said Elizabeth; \"but it will not do for us. We do not suffer by accident. It does not often happen that the interference of friends will persuade a young man of independent fortune to think no more of a girl whom he was violently in love with only a few days before.\"\n\n\"But that expression of 'violently in love' is so hackneyed, so doubtful, so indefinite, that it gives me very little idea. It is as often applied to feelings which arise only from a half hour's acquaintance as to a real, strong attachment. Pray, how violent was Mr. Bingley's love?\"\n\n\"I never saw a more promising inclination; he was growing quite inattentive to other people, and wholly engrossed by her. Every time they met, it was more decided and remarkable. At his own ball he offended two or three young ladies by not asking them to dance; and I spoke to him twice myself without receiving an answer. Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh yes! of that kind of love which I suppose him to have felt. Poor Jane! I am sorry for her, because, with her disposition, she may not get over it immediately. It had better have happened to you, Lizzy; you would have laughed yourself out of it sooner. But do you think she would be prevailed on to go back with us? Change of scene might be of service—and perhaps a little relief from home may be as useful as any thing.\"\n\nElizabeth was exceedingly pleased with this proposal, and felt persuaded of her sister's ready acquiescence.\n\n\"I hope,\" added Mrs. Gardiner, \"that no consideration with regard to this young man will influence her. We live in so different a part of town, all our connections are so different, and, as you well know, we go out so little, that it is very improbable they should meet at all, unless he really comes to see her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And that is quite impossible; for he is now in the custody of his friend, and Mr. Darcy would no more suffer him to call on Jane in, such a part of London! My dear aunt, how could you think of it? Mr. Darcy may perhaps have heard of such a place as Gracechurch Street,ak but he would hardly think a month's ablution enough to cleanse him from its impurities, were he once to enter it; and depend upon it, Mr. Bingley never stirs without him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So much the better. I hope they will not meet at all. But does not Jane correspond with his sister? She will not be able to help calling.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She will drop the acquaintance entirely.\"\n\nBut in spite of the certainty in which Elizabeth affected to place this point, as well as the still more interesting one of Bingley's being withheld from seeing Jane, she felt a solicitude on the subject which convinced her, on examination, that she did not consider it entirely hopeless. It was possible, and sometimes she thought it probable, that his affection might be reanimated, and the influence of his friends successfully combated by the more natural influence of Jane's attractions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Bennet accepted her aunt's invitation with pleasure; and the Bingleys were no otherwise in her thoughts at the same time than as she hoped, by Caroline's not living in the same house with her brother, she might occasionally spend a morning with her, without any danger of seeing him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'engagement' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Gardiners staid a week at Longbourn; and what with the Philipses, the Lucases, and the officers, there was not a day without its engagement. Mrs. Bennet had so carefully provided for the entertainment of her brother and sister, that they did not once sit down to a family dinner. When the engagement was for home, some of the officers always made part of it, of which officers Mr. Wickham was sure to be one; and on these occasions Mrs. Gardiner, rendered suspicious by Elizabeth's warm commendation of him, narrowly observed them both." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Without supposing them, from what she saw, to be very seriously in love, their preference of each other was plain enough to make her a little uneasy; and she resolved to speak to Elizabeth on the subject before she left Hertfordshire, and represent to her the imprudence of encouraging such an attachment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To Mrs. Gardiner, Wickham had one means of affording pleasure, unconnected with his general powers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "About ten or a dozen years ago, before her marriage, she had spent a considerable time in that very part of Derbyshire to which he belonged. They had, therefore, many acquaintance in common; and, though Wickham had been little there since the death of Darcy's father, five years before, it was yet in his power to give her fresher intelligence of her former friends than she had been in the way of procuring.\n\nMrs. Gardiner had seen Pemberley, and known the late Mr. Darcy by character perfectly well." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene (which might reference existing characters and worldbuilding), and you will continue the story with 8 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Jane Austen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Gardiner's caution to Elizabeth was punctually and kindly given on the first favourable opportunity of speaking to her alone: after honestly telling her what she thought, she thus went on:—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are too sensible a girl, Lizzy, to fall in love merely because you are warned against it; and, therefore, I am not afraid of speaking openly. Seriously, I would have you be on your guard. Do not involve yourself, or endeavour to involve him, in an affection which the want of fortune would make so very imprudent. I have nothing to say against him: he is a most interesting young man; and if he had the fortune he ought to have, I should think you could not do better. But as it is—you must not let your fancy run away with you. You have sense, and we all expect you to use it. Your father would depend on your resolution and good conduct, I am sure. You must not disappoint your father.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My dear aunt, this is being serious indeed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, and I hope to engage you to be serious likewise.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, then, you need not be under any alarm. I will take care of myself, and of Mr. Wickham too. He shall not be in love with me, if I can prevent it.\"\n\n\"Elizabeth, you are not serious now.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon. I will try again. At present I am not in love with Mr. Wickham; no, I certainly am not. But he is, beyond all comparison, the most agreeable man I ever saw—and if he becomes really attached to me—I believe it will be better that he should not. I see the imprudence of it. Oh, that abominable Mr. Darcy! My father's opinion of me does me the greatest honour; and I should be miserable to forfeit it. My father, however, is partial to Mr. Wickham. In short, my dear aunt, I should be very sorry to be the means of making any of you unhappy; but since we see every day that where there is affection young people are seldom withheld, by immediate want of fortune, from entering into engagements with each other, how can I promise to be wiser than so many of my fellow-creatures, if I am tempted, or how am I even to know that it would be wisdom to resist? All that I can promise you, therefore, is not to be in a hurry. I will not be in a hurry to believe myself his first object. When I am in company with him, I will not be wishing. In short, I will do my best.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it will be as well if you discourage his coming here so very often. At least you should not remind your mother of inviting him.\"\n\n\"As I did the other day,\" said Elizabeth, with a conscious smile; \"very true, it will be wise in me to refrain from that. But do not imagine that he is always here so often. It is on your account that he has been so frequently invited this week. You know my mother's ideas as to the necessity of constant company for her friends. But really, and upon my honour, I will try to do what I think to be wisest; and now I hope you are satisfied.\"\n\nHer aunt assured her that she was; and Elizabeth having thanked her for the kindness of her hints, they parted,—a wonderful instance of advice being given on such a point without being resented.\n\nMr. Collins returned into Hertfordshire soon after it had been quitted by the Gardiners and Jane; but as he took up his abode with the Lucases, his arrival was no great inconvenience to Mrs. Bennet. His marriage was now fast approaching; and she was at length so far resigned as to think it inevitable, and even repeatedly to say, in an ill-natured tone, that she \"wished they might be happy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thursday was to be the wedding day, and on Wednesday Miss Lucas paid her farewell visit; and when she rose to take leave, Elizabeth, ashamed of her mother's ungracious and reluctant good wishes, and sincerely affected herself, accompanied her out of the room. As they went down stairs together, Charlotte said,—\n\n\"I shall depend on hearing from you very often, Eliza.\"\n\n\"That you certainly shall.\"\n\n\"And I have another favour to ask. Will you come and see me?\"\n\n\"We shall often meet, I hope, in Hertfordshire.\"\n\n\"I am not likely to leave Kent for some time. Promise me, therefore, to come to Hunsford.\"\n\nElizabeth could not refuse, though she foresaw little pleasure in the visit." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'would' 3 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My father and Maria are to come to me in March,\" added Charlotte, \"and I hope you will consent to be of the party. Indeed, Eliza, you will be as welcome to me as either of them.\"\n\nThe wedding took place: the bride and bridegroom set off for Kent from the church door, and every body had as much to say or to hear on the subject as usual. Elizabeth soon heard from her friend, and their correspondence was as regular and frequent as it ever had been: that it should be equally unreserved was impossible. Elizabeth could never address her without feeling that all the comfort of intimacy was over; and, though determined not to slacken as a correspondent, it was for the sake of what had been rather than what was. Charlotte's first letters were received with a good deal of eagerness: there could not but be curiosity to know how she would speak of her new home, how she would like Lady Catherine, and how happy she would dare pronounce herself to be; though, when the letters were read, Elizabeth felt that Charlotte expressed herself on every point exactly as she might have foreseen. She wrote cheerfully, seemed surrounded with comforts, and mentioned nothing which she could not praise. The house, furniture, neighbourhood, and roads, were all to her taste, and Lady Catherine's behaviour was most friendly and obliging. It was Mr. Collins's picture of Hunsford and Rosings rationally softened; and Elizabeth perceived that she must wait for her own visit there, to know the rest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jane had already written a few lines to her sister, to announce their safe arrival in London; and when she wrote again, Elizabeth hoped it would be in her power to say something of the Bingleys." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her impatience for this second letter was as well rewarded as impatience generally is." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jane had been a week in town, without either seeing or hearing from Caroline. She accounted for it, however, by supposing that her last letter to her friend from Longbourn had by some accident been lost.\n\n\"My aunt,\" she continued, \"is going to-morrow into that part of the town, and I shall take the opportunity of calling in Grosvenor Street. \"al\n\nShe wrote again when the visit was paid, and she had seen Miss Bingley. \"I did not think Caroline in spirits,\" were her words, \"but she was very glad to see me, and reproached me for giving her no notice of my coming to London. I was right, therefore; my last letter had never reached her. I enquired after their brother, of course. He was well, but so much engaged with Mr. Darcy, that they scarcely ever saw him. I found that Miss Darcy was expected to dinner: I wish I could see her. My visit was not long, as Caroline and Mrs. Hurst were going out. I dare say I shall soon see them here.\"\n\nElizabeth shook her head over this letter. It convinced her that accident only could discover to Mr. Bingley her sister's being in town.\n\nFour weeks passed away, and Jane saw nothing of him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She endeavoured to persuade herself that she did not regret it; but she could no longer be blind to Miss Bingley's inattention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After waiting at home every morning for a fortnight, and inventing every evening a fresh excuse for her, the visitor did at last appear; but the shortness of her stay, and, yet more, the alteration of her manner, would allow Jane to deceive herself no longer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The letter which she wrote on this occasion to her sister will prove what she felt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My dearest Lizzy will, I am sure, be incapable of triumphing in her better judgment, at my expense, when I confess myself to have been entirely deceived in Miss Bingley's regard for me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But, my dear sister, though the event has proved you right, do not think me obstinate if I still assert, that, considering what her behaviour was, my confidence was as natural as your suspicion.I do not at all comprehend her reason for wishing to be intimate with me; but if the same circumstances were to happen again, I am sure I should be deceived again. Caroline did not return my visit till yesterday; and not a note, not a line, did I receive in the mean time. When she did come, it was very evident that she had no pleasure in it; she made a slight, formal apology for not calling before, said not a word of wishing to see me again, and was in every respect so altered a creature, that when she went away I was perfectly resolved to continue the acquaintance no longer. I pity, though I cannot help blaming her. She was very wrong in singling me out as she did; I can safely say, that every advance to intimacy began on her side. But I pity her, because she must feel that she has been acting wrong, and because I am very sure that anxiety for her brother is the cause of it. I need not explain myself farther; and though we know this anxiety to be quite needless, yet if she feels it, it will easily account for her behaviour to me; and so deservedly dear as he is to his sister, whatever anxiety she may feel on his behalf is natural and amiable. I cannot but wonder, however, at her having any such fears now, because, if he had at all cared about me, we must have met long, long ago." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He knows of my being in town, I am certain, from something she said herself; and yet it would seem, by her manner of talking, as if she wanted to persuade herself that he is really partial to Miss Darcy." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 9 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I cannot understand it. If I were not afraid of judging harshly, I should be almost tempted to say, that there is a strong appearance of duplicity in all this. But I will endeavour to banish every painful thought, and think only of what will make me happy, your affection, and the invariable kindness of my dear uncle and aunt. Let me hear from you very soon. Miss Bingley said something of his never returning to Netherfield again, of giving up the house, but not with any certainty. We had better not mention it. I am extremely glad that you have such pleasant accounts from our friends at Hunsford. Pray go to see them, with Sir William and Maria. I am sure you will be very comfortable there." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep going w/ one sentence more. Note: Might reference existing chars" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This letter gave Elizabeth some pain; but her spirits returned as she considered that Jane would no longer be duped, by the sister at least." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All expectation from the brother was now absolutely over." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She would not even wish for any renewal of his attentions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His character sunk on every review of it; and as a punishment for him, as well as a possible advantage to Jane, she seriously hoped he might really soon marry Mr. Darcy's sister, as, by Wickham's account, she would make him abundantly regret what he had thrown away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Gardiner about this time reminded Elizabeth of her promise concerning that gentleman, and required information; and Elizabeth had such to send as might rather give contentment to her aunt than to herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His apparent partiality had subsided, his attentions were over, he was the admirer of some one else." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth was watchful enough to see it all, but she could see it and write of it without material pain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her heart had been but slightly touched, and her vanity was satisfied with believing that she would have been his only choice, had fortune permitted it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sudden acquisition of ten thousand pounds was the most remarkable charm of the young lady to whom he was now rendering himself agreeable; but Elizabeth, less clear-sighted perhaps in this case than in Charlotte's, did not quarrel with him for his wish of independence." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing, on the contrary, could be more natural; and while able to suppose that it cost him a few struggles to relinquish her, she was ready to allow it a wise and desirable measure for both, and could very sincerely wish him happy.\n\nAll this was acknowledged to Mrs. Gardiner; and, after relating the circumstances, she thus went on:—\"I am now convinced, my dear aunt, that I have never been much in love; for had I really experienced that pure and elevating passion, I should at present detest his very name, and wish him all manner of evil. But my feelings are not only cordial towards him, they are even impartial towards Miss King. I cannot find out that I hate her at all, or that I am in the least unwilling to think her a very good sort of girl. There can be no love in all this. My watchfulness has been effectual; and though I should certainly be a more interesting object to all my acquaintance were I distractedly in love with him, I cannot say that I regret my comparative insignificance. Importance may sometimes be purchased too dearly. Kitty and Lydia take his defection much more to heart than I do. They are young in the ways of the world, and not yet open to the mortifying conviction that handsome young men must have something to live on, as well as the plain.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene (which might reference existing characters and worldbuilding), and you will continue the story with 8 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Jane Austen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With no greater events than these in the Longbourn family, and otherwise diversified by little beyond the walks to Meryton, sometimes dirty and sometimes cold, did January and February pass away." }, { "from": "human", "value": "March was to take Elizabeth to Hunsford." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had not at first thought very seriously of going thither; but Charlotte, she soon found, was depending on the plan, and she gradually learned to consider it herself with greater pleasure as well as greater certainty. Absence had increased her desire of seeing Charlotte again, and weakened her disgust of Mr. Collins. There was novelty in the scheme; and as, with such a mother and such uncompanionable sisters, home could not be faultless, a little change was not unwelcome for its own sake. The journey would, moreover, give her a peep at Jane; and, in short, as the time drew near, she would have been very sorry for any delay. Every thing, however, went on smoothly, and was finally settled according to Charlotte's first sketch. She was to accompany Sir William and his second daughter. The improvement of spending a night in London was added in time, and the plan became perfect as plan could be.\n\nThe only pain was in leaving her father, who would certainly miss her, and who, when it came to the point, so little liked her going, that he told her to write to him, and almost promised to answer her letter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The farewell between herself and Mr. Wickham was perfectly friendly; on his side even more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His present pursuit could not make him forget that Elizabeth had been the first to excite and to deserve his attention, the first to listen and to pity, the first to be admired; and in his manner of bidding her adieu, wishing her every enjoyment, reminding her of what she was to expect in Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and trusting their opinion of her—their opinion of every body—would always coincide, there was a solicitude, an interest which she felt must ever attach her to him with a most sincere regard; and she parted from him convinced, that, whether married or single, he must always be her model of the amiable and pleasing.\n\nHer fellow-travellers the next day were not of a kind as make her think him less agreeable. Sir William Lucas, and his daughter Maria, a good-humoured girl, but as empty-headed as himself, had nothing to say that could be worth hearing, and were listened to with about as much delight as the rattle of the chaise. Elizabeth loved absurdities, but she had known Sir William's too long. He could tell her nothing new of the wonders of his presentation and knighthood; and his civilities were worn out like his information.\n\nIt was a journey of only twenty-four miles, and they began it so early as to be in Gracechurch Street by noon. As they drove to Mr. Gardiner's door, Jane was at a drawing-room window watching their arrival: when they entered the passage, she was there to welcome them, and Elizabeth, looking earnestly in her face, was pleased to see it healthful and lovely as ever. On the stairs were a troop of little boys and girls, whose eagerness for their cousin's appearance would not allow them to wait in the drawing-room, and whose shyness, as they had not seen her for a twelvemonth, prevented their coming lower." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All was joy and kindness. The day passed most pleasantly away; the morning in bustle and shopping, and the evening at one of the theatres.\n\nElizabeth then contrived to sit by her aunt. Their first subject was her sister; and she was more grieved than astonished to hear, in reply to her minute enquiries, that though Jane always struggled to support her spirits, there were periods of dejection. It was reasonable, however, to hope that they would not continue long. Mrs. Gardiner gave her the particulars also of Miss Bingley's visit in Gracechurch Street, and repeated conversations occurring at different times between Jane and herself, which proved that the former had, from her heart, given up the acquaintance.\n\nMrs. Gardiner then rallied her niece on Wickham's desertion, and complimented her on bearing it so well.\n\n\"But, my dear Elizabeth,\" she added, \"what sort of girl is Miss King? I should be sorry to think our friend mercenary.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end, and avarice begin? Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me, because it would be imprudent; and now, because he is trying to get a girl with only ten thousand pounds, you want to find out that he is mercenary.\"\n\n\"If you will only tell me what sort of girl Miss King is, I shall know what to think.\"\n\n\"She is a very good kind of girl, I believe. I know no harm of her.\"\n\n\"But he paid her not the smallest attention till her grandfather's death made her mistress of this fortune?\"\n\n\"No—why should he? If it were not allowable for him to gain my affections, because I had no money, what occasion could there be for making love to a girl whom he did not care about, and who was equally poor?\"\n\n\"But there seems indelicacy in directing his attentions towards her so soon after this event.\"\n\n\"A man in distressed circumstances has not time for all those elegant decorums which other people may observe. If she does not object to it, why should we?\"\n\n\"Her not objecting does not justify him. It only shows her being deficient in something herself—sense or feeling.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around two sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Match the familiarity level of any character introductions. Stick to the Romance genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Every object in the next day's journey was new and interesting to Elizabeth; and her spirits were in a state of enjoyment; for she had seen her sister looking so well as to banish all fear for her health, and the prospect of her northern tour was a constant source of delight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When they left the high road for the lane to Hunsford, every eye was in search of the Parsonage, and every turning expected to bring it in view." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The palingam of Rosings park was their boundary on one side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth smiled at the recollection of all that she had heard of its inhabitants.\n\nAt length the Parsonage was discernible." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'house' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The garden sloping to the road, the house standing in it, the green pales and the laurel hedge, every thing declared they were arriving. Mr. Collins and Charlotte appeared at the door, and the carriage stopped at the small gate, which led by a short gravel walk to the house, amidst the nods and smiles of the whole party." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a moment they were all out of the chaise, rejoicing at the sight of each other. Mrs. Collins welcomed her friend with the liveliest pleasure, and Elizabeth was more and more satisfied with coming, when she found herself so affectionately received." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She saw instantly that her cousin's manners were not altered by his marriage: his formal civility was just what it had been; and he detained her some minutes at the gate to hear and satisfy his enquiries after all her family." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were then, with no other delay than his pointing out the neatness of the entrance, taken into the house; and as soon as they were in the parlour, he welcomed them a second time, with ostentatious formality, to his humble abode, and punctually repeated all his wife's offers of refreshment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth was prepared to see him in his glory; and she could not help fancying that in displaying the good proportion of the room, its aspect and its furniture, he addressed himself particularly to her, as if wishing to make her feel what she had lost in refusing him. But though every thing seemed neat and comfortable, she was not able to gratify him by any sigh of repentance; and rather looked with wonder at her friend, that she could have so cheerful an air with such a companion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Mr. Collins said any thing of which his wife might reasonably be ashamed, which certainly was not unseldom, she involuntarily turned her eye on Charlotte. Once or twice she could discern a faint blush; but in general Charlotte wisely did not hear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After sitting long enough to admire every article of furniture in the room, from the sideboard to the fender,an to give an account of their journey, and of all that had happened in London, Mr. Collins invited them to take a stroll in the garden, which was large and well laid out, and to the cultivation of which he attended himself. To work in his garden was one of his most respectable pleasures; and Elizabeth admired the command of countenance with which Charlotte talked of the healthfulness of the exercise, and owned she encouraged it as much as possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Here, leading the way through every walk and cross walk, and scarcely allowing them an interval to utter the praises he asked for, every view was pointed out with a minuteness which left beauty entirely behind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could number the fields in every direction, and could tell how many trees there were in the most distant clump. But of all the views which his garden, or which the country or the kingdom could boast, none were to be compared with the prospect of Rosings, afforded by an opening in the trees that bordered the park nearly opposite the front of his house." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a handsome modern building, well situated on rising ground.\n\nFrom his garden, Mr. Collins would have led them round his two meadows; but the ladies, not having shoes to encounterthe remains of a white frost, turned back; and while Sir William accompanied him, Charlotte took her sister and friend over the house, extremely well pleased, probably, to have the opportunity of showing it without her husband's help." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was rather small, but well built and convenient; and every thing was fitted up and arranged with a neatness and consistency, of which Elizabeth gave Charlotte all the credit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Mr. Collins could be forgotten, there was really a great air of comfort throughout, and by Charlotte's evident enjoyment of it, Elizabeth supposed he must be often forgotten." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had already learnt that Lady Catherine was still in the country. It was spoken of again while they were at dinner, when Mr. Collins joining in, observed,—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, Miss Elizabeth, you will have the honour of seeing Lady Catherine de Bourgh on the ensuing Sunday at church, and I need not say you will be delighted with her. She is all affability and condescension, and I doubt not but you will be honoured with some portion of her notice when service is over. I have scarcely any hesitation in saying that she will include you and my sister Maria in every invitation with which she honours us during your stay here. Her behaviour to my dear Charlotte is charming. We dine at Rosings twice every week, and are never allowed to walk home. Her Ladyship's carriage is regularly ordered for us. I should say, one of her Ladyship's carriages, for she has several.\"\n\n\"Lady Catherine is a very respectable, sensible woman, indeed,\" added Charlotte, \"and a most attentive neighbour.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very true, my dear, that is exactly what I say. She is the sort of woman whom one cannot regard with too much deference.\"\n\nThe evening was spent chiefly in talking over Hertfordshire news, and telling again what had been already written; and when it closed, Elizabeth, in the solitude of her chamber, had to meditate upon Charlotte's degree of contentment, to understand her address in guiding, and composure in bearing, with her husband, and to acknowledge that it was all done very well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had also to anticipate how her visit would pass, the quiet tenour of their usual employments, the vexatious interruptions of Mr. Collins, and the gaieties of their intercourse with Rosings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A lively imagination soon settled it all.\n\nAbout the middle of the next day, as she was in her room getting ready for a walk, a sudden noise below seemed to speak the whole house in confusion; and, after listening a moment, she heard somebody running up stairs in a violent hurry, and calling loudly after her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She opened the door and met Maria in the landing-place, who, breathless with agitation, cried out,—\n\n\"Oh, my dear Eliza! pray make haste and come into the dining-room, for there is such a sight to be seen! I will not tell you what it is. Make haste, and come down this moment.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth asked questions in vain; Maria would tell her nothing more; and down they ran into the dining-room, which fronted the lane, in quest of this wonder; it was two ladies stopping in a low phaeton at the garden gate.\n\n\"And is this all?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "cried Elizabeth. \"I expected at least that the pigs were got into the garden, and here is nothing but Lady Catherine and her daughter!\"\n\n\"La! my dear,\" said Maria, quite shocked at the mistake, \"it is not Lady Catherine. The old lady is Mrs. Jenkinson, who lives with them. The other is Miss De Bourgh. Only look at her. She is quite a little creature. Who would have thought she could be so thin and small!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She is abominably rude to keep Charlotte out of doors in all this wind. Why does she not come in?\"\n\n\"Oh, Charlotte says she hardly ever does. It is the greatest of favours when Miss De Bourgh comes in.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I like her appearance,\" said Elizabeth, struck with other ideas." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She looks sickly and cross. Yes, she will do for him very well. She will make him a very proper wife.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Collins and Charlotte were both standing at the gate in conversation with the ladies; and Sir William, to Elizabeth's high diversion, was stationed in the doorway; in earnest contemplation of the greatness before him, and constantly bowing whenever Miss De Bourgh looked that way.\n\nAt length there was nothing more to be said; the ladies drove on, and the others returned into the house. Mr. Collins no sooner saw the two girls then he began to congratulate them on their good fortune, which Charlotte explained by letting them know that the whole party was asked to dine at Rosings the next day." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around two sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Match the familiarity level of any character introductions. Stick to the Romance genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Collins's triumph, in consequence of this invitation, was complete. The power of displaying the grandeur of his patroness to his wondering visitors, and of letting them see her civility towards himself and his wife, was exactly what he had wished for; and that an opportunity of doing it should be given so soon was such an instance of Lady Catherine's condescension as he knew not how to admire enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I confess,\" said he, \"that I should not have been at all surprised by her Ladyship's asking us on Sunday to drink tea and spend the evening at Rosings. I rather expected, from my knowledge of her affability, that it would happen. But who could have foreseen such an attention as this? Who could have imagined that we should receive an invitation to dine there (an invitation, moreover, including the whole party,) so immediately after your arrival? \"—\"I am the less surprised at what has happened,\" replied Sir William, \"from that knowledge of what the manners of the great really are, which my situation in life has allowed me to acquire. About the court, such instances of elegant breeding are not uncommon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Scarcely any thing was talked of the whole day or next morning but their visit to Rosings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Collins was carefully instructing them in what they were to expect, that the sight of such rooms, so many servants, and so splendid a dinner, might not wholly overpower them.\n\nWhen the ladies were separating for the toilette, he said to Elizabeth,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin, about your apparel. Lady Catherine is far from requiring that elegance of dress in us which becomes herself and daughter. I would advise you merely to put on whatever of your clothes is superior to the rest, there is no occasion for any thing more. Lady Catherine will not think the worse of you for being simply dressed. She likes to have the distinction of rank preserved.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "While they were dressing, he came two or three times to their different doors, to recommend their being quick, as Lady Catherine very much objected to be kept waiting for her dinner. Such formidable accounts of her Ladyship, and her manner of living, quite frightened Maria Lucas, who had been little used to company; and she looked forward to her introduction at Rosings with as much apprehension as her father had done to his presentation at St. James's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As the weather was fine, they had a pleasant walk of about half a mile across the park." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every park has its beauty and its prospects; and Elizabeth saw much to be pleased with, though she could not be in such raptures as Mr. Collins expected the scene to inspire, and was but slightly affected by his enumeration of the windows in front of the house, and his relation of what the glazing altogether had originally cost Sir Lewis de Bough.\n\nWhen they ascended the steps to the hall, Maria's alarm was every moment increasing, and even Sir William did not look perfectly calm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth's courage did not fail her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had heard nothing of Lady Catherine that spoke her awful from any extraordinary talents or miraculous virtue, and the mere stateliness of money and rank she thought she could witness without trepidation.\n\nFrom the entrance hall, of which Mr. Collins pointed out, with a rapturous air, the fine proportion and finished ornaments, they followed the servants through an ante-chamber to the room where Lady Catherine, her daughter, and Mrs. Jenkinson were sitting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her Ladyship, with great condescension, arose to receive them; and as Mrs. Collins had settled it with her husband that the office of introduction should be hers, it was performed in a proper manner, without any of those apologies and thanks which he would have thought necessary." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In spite of having been at St. James's, Sir William was so completely awed by the grandeur surrounding him, that he had but just courage enough to make a very low bow, and take his seat without saying a word; and his daughter, frightened almost out of her senses, sat on the edge of her chair, not knowing which way to look. Elizabeth found herself quite equal to the scene, and could observe the three ladies before her composedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lady Catherine was a tall, large woman, with strongly-marked features, which might once have been handsome." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her air was not conciliating, nor was her manner of receiving them such as to make her visitors forget their inferior rank. She was not rendered formidable by silence: but whatever she said was spoken in so authoritative a tone as marked her self-importance, and brought Mr. Wickham immediately to Elizabeth's mind; and from the observation of the day altogether, she believed Lady Catherine to be exactly what he had represented." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When, after examining the mother, in whose countenance and deportment she soon found some resemblance of Mr. Darcy, she turned her eyes on the daughter, she could almost have joined in Maria's astonishment at her being so thin and so small." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was neither in figure nor face any likeness between the ladies. Miss De Bourgh was pale and sickly: her features, though not plain, were insignificant; and she spoke very little, except in a low voice, to Mrs. Jenkinson, in whose appearance there was nothing remarkable, and who was entirely engaged in listening to what she said, and placing a screenao in the proper direction before her eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After sitting a few minutes, they were all sent to one of the windows to admire the view, Mr. Collins attending them to point out its beauties, and Lady Catherine kindly informing them that it was much better worth looking at in the summer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dinner was exceedingly handsome, and there were all the servants, and all the articles of plate which Mr. Collins had promised; and, as he had likewise foretold, he took his seat at the bottom of the table, by her Ladyship's desire, and looked as if he felt that life could furnish nothing greater. He carved, and ate, and praised with delighted alacrity; and every dish was commended first by him, and then by Sir William, who was now enough recovered to echo whatever his son-in-law said, in a manner which Elizabeth wondered Lady Catherine could bear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Lady Catherine seemed gratified by their excessive admiration, and gave most gracious smiles, especially when any dish on the table proved a novelty to them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The party did not supply much conversation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth was ready to speak whenever there was an opening, but she was seated between Charlotte and Miss De Bourgh—the former of whom was engaged in listening to Lady Catherine, and the latter said not a word to her all dinner-time. Mrs. Jenkinson was chiefly employed in watching how little Miss De Bourgh ate, pressing her to try some other dish, and fearing she was indisposed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maria thought speaking out of the question, and the gentlemen did nothing but eat and admire." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'every' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the ladies returned to the drawing room, there was little to be done but to hear Lady Catherine talk, which she did without any intermission till coffee came in, delivering her opinion on every subject in so decisive a manner as proved that she was not used to have her judgment controverted. She enquired into Charlotte's domestic concerns familiarly and minutely, and gave her a great deal of advice as to the management of them all; told her how every thing ought to be regulated in so small a family as hers, and instructed her as to the care of her cows and her poultry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth found that nothing was beneath this great lady's attention, which could furnish her with an occasion of dictating to others." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the intervals of her discourse with Mrs. Collins, she addressed a variety of questions to Maria and Elizabeth, but especially to the latter, of whose connections she knew the least, and who, she observed to Mrs. Collins, was a very genteel, pretty kind of girl. She asked her at different times how many sisters she had, whether they were older or younger than herself, whether any of them were likely to be married, whether they were handsome, where they had been educated, what carriage her father kept, and what had been her mother's maiden name?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth felt all the impertinence of her questions, but answered them very composedly. Lady Catherine then observed, —" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your father's estate is entailed on Mr. Collins, I think? For your sake,\" turning to Charlotte, \"I am glad of it; but otherwise I see no occasion for entailing estates from the female line. It was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family. Do you play and sing, Miss Bennet?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A little.\"\n\n\"Oh then—some time or other we shall be happy to hear you. Our instrument is a capital one, probably superior to—you shall try it some day. Do your sisters play and sing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"One of them does.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why did not you all learn? You ought all to have learned. The Miss Webbs all play, and their father has not so good an income as yours. Do you draw?\"\n\n\"No, not at all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What, none of you?\"\n\n\"Not one.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That is very strange. But I suppose you had no opportunity. Your mother should have taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My mother would have no objection, but my father hates London.\"\n\n\"Has your governess left you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We never had any governess.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No governess! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without a governess! I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have been quite a slave to your education.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth could hardly help smiling as she assured her that had not been the case.\n\n\"Then who taught you? who attended to you? Without a governess, you must have been neglected.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Compared with some families, I believe we were; but such of us as wished to learn never wanted the means. We were always encouraged to read, and had all the masters that were necessary. Those who chose to be idle certainly might.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Aye, no doubt: but that is what a governess will prevent; and if I had known your mother, I should have advised her most strenuously to engage one. I always say that nothing is to be done in education without steady and regular instruction, and nobody but a governess can give it. It is wonderful how many families I have been the means of supplying in that way. I am always glad to get a young person well placed out. Four nieces of Mrs. Jenkinson are most delightfully situated through my means; and it was but the other day that I recommended another young person, who was merely accidentally mentioned to me, and the family are quite delighted with her. Mrs. Collins, did I tell you of Lady Metcalfe's calling yesterday to thank me? She finds Miss Pope a treasure. 'Lady Catherine,' said she, 'you have given me a treasure.' Are any of your younger sisters out, Miss Bennet?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am, all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All! What, all five out at once? Very odd! And you only the second. The younger ones out before the elder are married! Your younger sisters must be very young?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, my youngest is not sixteen. Perhaps she is full young to be much in company. But really, ma'am, I think it would be very hard upon younger sisters that they should not have their share of society and amusement, because the elder may not have the means or inclination to marry early. The last born has as good a right to the pleasures of youth as the first. And to be kept back on such a motive! I think it would not be very likely to promote sisterly affection or delicacy of mind.\"\n\n\"Upon my word,\" said her Ladyship, \"you give your opinion very decidedly for so young a person. Pray, what is your age?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"With three younger sisters grown up,\" replied Elizabeth, smiling, \"your Ladyship can hardly expect me to own it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer; and Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence.\n\n\"You cannot be more than twenty, I am sure,—therefore you need not conceal your age.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am not one-and-twenty.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the gentlemen had joined them, and tea was over, the card tables were placed. Lady Catherine, Sir William, and Mr. and Mrs. Collins sat down to quadrille; and as Miss De Bourgh chose to play at cassino,ap the two girls had the honour of assisting Mrs. Jenkinson to make up her party." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their table was superlatively stupid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Scarcely a syllable was uttered that did not relate to the game, except when Mrs. Jenkinson expressed her fears of Miss De Bourgh's being too hot or too cold, or having too much or too little light. A great deal more passed at the other table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lady Catherine was generally speaking—stating the mistakes of the three others, or relating some anecdote of herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Collins was employed in agreeing to every thing her Ladyship said, thanking her for every fish he won, and apologising if he thought he won too many. Sir William did not say much." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was storing his memory with anecdotes and noble names." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Lady Catherine and her daughter had played as long as they chose, the tables were broken up, the carriage was offered to Mrs. Collins, gratefully accepted, and immediately ordered. The party then gathered round the fire to hear Lady Catherine determine what weather they were to have on the morrow." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From these instructions they were summoned by the arrival of the coach; and with many speeches of thankfulness on Mr. Collins's side, and as many bows on Sir William's, they departed. As soon as they had driven from the door, Elizabeth was called on by her cousin to give her opinion of all that she had seen at Rosings, which, for Charlotte's sake, she made more favourable than it really was. But her commendation, though costing her some trouble, could by no means satisfy Mr. Collins, and he was very soon obliged to take her Ladyship's praise into his own hands." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "help write? 5 sentences more, same character context, Romance genre thx" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sir William staid only a week at Hunsford; but his visit was long enough to convince him of his daughter's being most comfortably settled, and of her possessing such a husband and such a neighbour as were not often met with. While Sir William was with them, Mr. Collins devoted his mornings to driving him out in his gig,aq and showing him the country: but when he went away, the whole family returned to their usual employments, and Elizabeth was thankful to find that they did not see more of her cousin by the alteration; for the chief of the time between breakfast and dinner was now passed by him either at work in the garden, or in reading and writing, and looking out of window in his own book room, which fronted the road. The room in which the ladies sat was backwards. Elizabeth at first had rather wondered that Charlotte should not prefer the dining parlour for common use; it was a better sized room, and had a pleasanter aspect: but she soon saw that her friend had an excellent reason for what she did, for Mr. Collins would undoubtedly have been much less in his own apartment had they sat in one equally lively; and she gave Charlotte credit for the arrangement.\n\nFrom the drawing-room they could distinguish nothing in the lane, and were indebted to Mr. Collins for the knowledge of what carriages went along, and how often especially Miss De Bourgh drove by in her phaeton, which he never failed coming to inform them of, though it happened almost every day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She not unfrequently stopped at the Parsonage, and had a few minutes' conversation with Charlotte, but was scarcely ever prevailed on to get out.\n\nVery few days passed in which Mr. Collins did not walk to Rosings, and not many in which his wife did not think it necessary to go likewise; and till Elizabeth recollected that there might be other family livings to be disposed of, she could not understand the sacrifice of so many hours. Now and then they were honoured with a call from her Ladyship, and nothing escaped her observation that was passing in the room during these visits. She examined into their employments, looked at their work, and advised them to do it differently; found fault with the arrangement of the furniture, or detected the housemaid in negligence; and if she accepted any refreshment, seemed to do it only for the sake of finding out that Mrs. Collins's joints of meat were too large for her family.\n\nElizabeth soon perceived, that though this great lady was not in the commission of the peacear for the county, she was a most active magistrate in her own parish, the minutest concerns of which were carried to her by Mr. Collins; and whenever any of the cottagers were disposed to be quarrelsome, discontented, or too poor, she sallied forth into the village to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold them into harmony and plenty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The entertainment of dining at Rosings was repeated about twice a week; and, allowing for the loss of Sir William, and there being only one card-table in the evening, every such entertainment was the counterpart of the first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their other engagements were few; as the style of living of the neighbourhood in general was beyond the Collinses' reach." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This, however, was no evil to Elizabeth, and upon the whole she spent her time comfortably enough: there were half hours of pleasant conversation with Charlotte, and the weather was so fine for the time of year, that she had often great enjoyment out of doors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her favourite walk, and where she frequently went while the others were calling on Lady Catherine, was along the open grove which edged that side of the park where there was a nice sheltered path, which no one seemed to value but herself, and where she felt beyond the reach of Lady Catherine's curiosity.\n\nIn this quiet way the first fortnight of her visit soon passed away. Easter was approaching, and the week preceding it was to bring an addition to the family at Rosings, which in so small a circle must be important. Elizabeth had heard, soon after her arrival, that Mr. Darcy was expected there in the course of a few weeks; and though there were not many of her acquaintance whom she did not prefer, his coming would furnish one comparatively new to look at in their Rosings parties, and she might be amused in seeing how hopeless Miss Bingley's designs on him were, by his behaviour to his cousin, for whom he was evidently destined by Lady Catherine; who talked of his coming with the greatest satisfaction, spoke of him in terms of the highest admiration, and seemed almost angry to find that he had already been frequently seen by Miss Lucas and herself.\n\nHis arrival was soon known at the Parsonage; for Mr. Collins was walking the whole morning within view of the lodges opening into Hunsford Lane, in order to have the earliest assurance of it; and after making his bow as the carriage turned into the park, hurried home with the great intelligence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On the following morning he hastened to Rosings to pay his respects." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were two nephews of Lady Catherine to require them, for Mr. Darcy had brought with him a Colonel Fitzwilliam, the younger son of his uncle, Lord—; and, to the great surprise of all the party, when Mr. Collins returned, the gentlemen accompanied him. Charlotte had seen them from her husband's room, crossing the road, and immediately running into the other, told the girls what an honour they might expect, adding,—\n\n\"I may thank you, Eliza, for this piece of civility. Mr. Darcy would never have come so soon to wait upon me.\"\n\nElizabeth had scarcely time to disclaim all right to the compliment before their approach was announced by the door-bell, and shortly afterwards the three gentlemen entered the room. Colonel Fitzwilliam, who led the way, was about thirty, not handsome, but in person and address most truly the gentleman." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Darcy looked just as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire, paid his compliments, with his usual reserve, to Mrs. Collins; and whatever might be his feelings towards her friend, met her with every appearance of composure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth merely courtesied to him, without saying a word." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Fitzwilliam entered into conversation directly, with the readiness and ease of a well-bred man, and talked very pleasantly; but his cousin, after having addressed a slight observation on the house and garden to Mrs. Collins, sat for some time without speaking to any body. At length, however, his civility was so far awakened as to enquire of Elizabeth after the health of her family. She answered him in the usual way; and, after a moment's pause, added,—\n\n\"My eldest sister has been in town these three months. Have you never happened to see her there?\"\n\nShe was perfectly sensible that he never had: but she wished to see whether he would betray any consciousness of what had passed between the Bingleys and Jane; and she thought he looked a little confused as he answered that he had never been so fortunate as to meet Miss Bennet. The subject was pursued no farther, and the gentlemen soon afterwards went away." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 12 sentences sentences in the style of Jane Austen spawning from what the user wrote, within the Romance genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners were very much admired at the Parsonage, and the ladies all felt that he must add considerably to the pleasure of their engagements at Rosings." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was some days, however, before they received any invitation thither, for while there were visitors in the house they could not be necessary; and it was not till Easter-day, almost a week after the gentlemen's arrival, that they were honoured by such an attention, and then they were merely asked on leaving church to come there in the evening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For the last week they had seen very little of either Lady Catherine or her daughter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Colonel Fitzwilliam had called at the Parsonage more than once during the time, but Mr. Darcy they had only seen at church." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The invitation was accepted, of course, and at a proper hour they joined the party in Lady Catherine's drawingroom. Her Ladyship received them civilly, but it was plain that their company was by no means so acceptable as when she could get nobody else; and she was, in fact, almost engrossed by her nephews, speaking to them, especially to Darcy, much more than to any other person in the room.\n\nColonel Fitzwilliam seemed really glad to see them: any thing was a welcome relief to him at Rosings; and Mrs. Collins's pretty friend had, moreover, caught his fancy very much. He now seated himself by her, and talked so agreeably of Kent and Hertfordshire, of travelling and staying at home, of new books and music, that Elizabeth had never been half so well entertained in that room before; and they conversed with so much spirit and flow as to draw the attention of Lady Catherine herself, as well as of Mr. Darcy. His eyes had been soon and repeatedly turned towards them with a look of curiosity; and that her Ladyship, after a while, shared the feeling, was more openly acknowledged, for she did not scruple to call out,—\n\n\"What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking of? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is.\"\n\n\"We are speaking of music, madam,\" said he, when no longer able to avoid a reply.\n\n\"Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I must have my share in the conversation, if you are speaking of music. There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully. How does Georgiana get on, Darcy?\"\n\nMr. Darcy spoke with affectionate praise of his sister's proficiency.\n\n\"I am very glad to hear such a good account of her,\" said Lady Catherine; \"and pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel, if she does not practise a great deal.\"\n\n\"I assure you, madam,\" he replied, \"that she does not need such advice. She practises very constantly.\"\n\n\"So much the better. It cannot be done too much; and when I next write to her, I shall charge her not to neglect it on any account. I often tell young ladies, that no excellence in music is to be acquired without constant practice. I have told Miss Bennet several times, that she will never play really well, unless she practises more; and though Mrs. Collins has no instrument, she is very welcome, as I have often told her, to come to Rosings every day, and play on the piano-forte in Mrs. Jenkinson's room. She would be in nobody's way, you know, in that part of the house.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Darcy looked a little ashamed of his aunt's ill breeding, and made no answer." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'danced' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When coffee was over, Colonel Fitzwilliam reminded Elizabeth of having promised to play to him; and she sat down directly to the instrument. He drew a chair near her. Lady Catherine listened to half a song, and then talked, as before, to her other nephew; till the latter walked away from her, and moving with his usual deliberation towards the piano-forte, stationed himself so as to command a full view of the fair performer's countenance. Elizabeth saw what he was doing, and at the first convenient pause turned to him with an arch smile, and said,—\n\n\"You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me. But I will not be alarmed though your sister does play so well. There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.\"\n\n\"I shall not say that you are mistaken,\" he replied, \"because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know, that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which, in fact, are not your own.\"\n\nElizabeth laughed heartily at this picture of herself, and said to Colonel Fitzwilliam, \"Your cousin will give you a very pretty notion of me, and teach you not to believe a word I say. I am particularly unlucky in meeting with a person so well able to expose my real character, in a part of the world where I had hoped to pass myself off with some degree of credit. Indeed, Mr. Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention all that you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshire—and, give me leave to say, very impolitic too—for it is provoking me to retaliate, and such things may come out as will shock your relations to hear.\"\n\n\"I am not afraid of you,\" said he, smilingly.\n\n\"Pray let me hear what you have to accuse him of,\" cried Colonel Fitzwilliam. \"I should like to know how he behaves among strangers.\"\n\n\"You shall hear then—but prepare for something very dreadful. The first time of my ever seeing him in Hertfordshire, you must know, was at a ball—and at this ball, what do you think he did? He danced only four dances! I am sorry to pain you, but so it was. He danced only four dances, though gentlemen were scarce; and, to my certain knowledge, more than one young lady was sitting down in want of a partner. Mr. Darcy, you cannot deny the fact.\"\n\n\"I had not at that time the honour of knowing any lady in the assembly beyond my own party.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"True; and nobody can ever be introduced in a ball room. Well, Colonel Fitzwilliam, what do I play next? My fingers wait your orders.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said Darcy, \"I should have judged better had I sought an introduction, but I am ill qualified to recommend myself to strangers.\"\n\n\"Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?\" said Elizabeth, still addressing Colonel Fitzwilliam. \"Shall we ask him why a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, is ill qualified to recommend himself to strangers?\"\n\n\"I can answer your question,\" said Fitzwilliam, \"without applying to him. It is because he will not give himself the trouble.\"\n\n\"I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,\" said Darcy, \"of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.\"\n\n\"My fingers,\" said Elizabeth, \"do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault—because I would not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman's of superior execution.\"\n\nDarcy smiled and said, \"You are perfectly right. You have employed your time much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you can think any thing wanting. We neither of us perform to strangers.\"\n\nHere they were interrupted by Lady Catherine, who called out to know what they were talking of. Elizabeth immediately began playing again. Lady Catherine approached, and, after listening for a few minutes, said to Darcy,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Miss Bennet would not play at all amiss if she practised more, and could have the advantage of a London master. She has a very good notion of fingering, though her taste is not equal to Anne's. Anne would have been a delightful performer, had her health allowed her to learn.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth looked at Darcy to see how cordially he assented to his cousin's praise: but neither at that moment nor at any other could she discern any symptom of love; and from the whole of his behaviour to Miss De Bourgh she derived this comfort for Miss Bingley, that he might have been just as likely to marry her, had she been his relation.\n\nLady Catherine continued her remarks on Elizabeth's performance, mixing with them many instructions on execution and taste. Elizabeth received them with all the forbearance of civility; and at the request of the gentlemen remained at the instrument till her Ladyship's carriage was ready to take them all home." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "help write? 5 sentences more, same character context, Romance genre thx" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth was sitting by herself the next morning, and writing to Jane, while Mrs. Collins and Maria were gone on business into the village, when she was startled by a ring at the door, the certain signal of a visitor. As she had heard no carriage, she thought it not unlikely to be Lady Catherine; and under that apprehension was putting away her half-finished letter, that she might escape all impertinent questions, when the door opened, and to her very great surprise Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Darcy only, entered the room.\n\nHe seemed astonished too on finding her alone, and apologised for his intrusion, by letting her know that he had understood all the ladies to be within.\n\nThey then sat down, and when her enquiries after Rosings were made, seemed in danger of sinking into total silence. It was absolutely necessary, therefore, to think of something; and in this emergence recollecting when she had seen him last in Hertfordshire, and feeling curious to know what he would say on the subject of their hasty departure, she observed,—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How very suddenly you all quitted Netherfield last November, Mr. Darcy! It must have been a most agreeable surprise to Mr. Bingley to see you all after him so soon; for, if I recollect right, he went but the day before. He and his sisters were well, I hope, when you left London?\"\n\n\"Perfectly so, I thank you.\"\n\nShe found that she was to receive no other answer; and, after a short pause, added,—\n\n\"I think I have understood that Mr. Bingley has not much idea of ever returning to Netherfield again?\"\n\n\"I have never heard him say so; but it is probable that he may spend very little of his time there in future. He has many friends, and he is at a time of life when friends and engagements are continually increasing.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Somewhere in your response, you need to say: \"This seems a very comfortable house. Lady Catherine, I believe, did a great deal to it when Mr. Collins first came to Hunsford.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If he means to be but little at Netherfield, it would be better for the neighbourhood that he should give up the place entirely, for then we might possibly get a settled family there. But, perhaps, Mr. Bingley did not take the house so much for the convenience of the neighbourhood it as for his own, and we must expect him to keep or quit it on the same principle.\"\n\n\"I should not be surprised,\" said Darcy, \"if he were to give it up as soon as any eligible purchase offers.\"\n\nElizabeth made no answer. She was afraid of talking longer of his friend; and, having nothing else to say, was now determined to leave the trouble of finding a subject to him.\n\nHe took the hint, and soon began with, \"This seems a very comfortable house. Lady Catherine, I believe, did a great deal to it when Mr. Collins first came to Hunsford.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I believe she did—and I am sure she could not have bestowed her kindness on a more grateful object.\"\n\n\"Mr. Collins appears very fortunate in his choice of a wife.\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed; his friends may well rejoice in his having met with one of the very few sensible women who would have accepted him, or have made him happy if they had. My friend has an excellent understanding—though I am not certain that I consider her marrying Mr. Collins as the wisest thing she ever did. She seems perfectly happy, however; and, in a prudential light, it is certainly a very good match for her.\"\n\n\"It must be very agreeable to her to be settled within so easy a distance of her own family and friends.\"\n\n\"An easy distance do you call it? It is nearly fifty miles.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day's journey. Yes, I call it a very easy distance.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I should never have considered the distance as one of the advantages of the match,\" cried Elizabeth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I should never have said Mrs. Collins was settled near her family.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is a proof of your own attachment to Hertfordshire. Any thing beyond the very neighborhood of Longbourn, I suppose, would appear far.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "As he spoke there was a sort of smile, which Elizabeth fancied she understood; he must be supposing her to be thinking of Jane and Netherfield, and she blushed as she answered,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do not mean to say that a woman may not be settled too near her family. The far and the near must be relative, and depend on many varying circumstances. Where there is fortune to make the expense of travelling unimportant, distance becomes no evil. But that is not the case here. Mr. and Mrs. Collins have a comfortable income, but not such a one as will allow of frequent journeys—and I am persuaded my friend would not call herself near her family under less than half the present distance.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Darcy drew his chair a little towards her, and said, \"You cannot have a right to such very strong local attachment. You cannot have been always at Longbourn.\"\n\nElizabeth looked surprised. The gentleman experienced some change of feeling; he drew back his chair, took a newspaper from the table, and glancing over it, said, in a colder voice,—\n\n\"Are you pleased with Kent?\"\n\nA short dialogue on the subject of the country ensued, on either side calm and concise—and soon put an end to by the entrance of Charlotte and her sister, just returned from their walk. The tête-à-tête surprised them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Darcy related the mistake which had occasioned his intruding on Miss Bennet, and after sitting a few minutes longer without saying much to any body, went away.\n\n\"What can be the meaning of this?\" said Charlotte, as soon as he was gone. \"My dear Eliza, he must be in love with you, or he would never have called on us in this familiar way.\"\n\nBut when Elizabeth told of his silence, it did not seem very likely, even to Charlotte's wishes, to be the case; and, after various conjectures, they could at last only suppose his visit to proceed from the difficulty of finding any thing to do, which was the more probable from the time of year." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'sometimes' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All field sports were over. Within doors there was Lady Catherine, books, and a billiard table, but gentlemen cannot be always within doors; and in the nearness of the Parsonage, or the pleasantness of the walk to it, or of the people who lived in it, the two cousins found a temptation from this period of walking thither almost every day. They called at various times of the morning, sometimes separately, sometimes together, and now and then accompanied by their aunt. It was plain to them all that Colonel Fitzwilliam came because he had pleasure in their society, a persuasion which of course recommended him still more; and Elizabeth was reminded by her own satisfaction in being with him, as well as by his evident admiration of her, of her former favourite, George Wickham; and though, in comparing them; she saw there was less captivating softness in Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners, she believed he might have the best informed mind.\n\nBut why Mr. Darcy came so often to the Parsonage it was more difficult to understand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It could not be for society, as he frequently sat there ten minutes together without opening his lips; and when he did speak, it seemed the effect of necessity rather than of choice—a sacrifice to propriety, not a pleasure to himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He seldom appeared really animated. Mrs. Collins knew not what to make of him. Colonel Fitzwilliam's occasionally laughing at his stupidity proved that he was generally different, which her own knowledge of him could not have told her; and as she would have liked to believe this change the effect of love, and the object of that love her friend Eliza, she set herself seriously to work to find it out: she watched him whenever they were at Rosings, and whenever he came to Hunsford; but without much success. He certainly looked at her friend a great deal, but the expression of that look was disputable. It was an earnest, steadfast gaze, but she often doubted whether there were much admiration in it, and sometimes it seemed nothing but absence of mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had once or twice suggested to Elizabeth the possibility of his being partial to her, but Elizabeth always laughed at the idea; and Mrs. Collins did not think it right to press the subject, from the danger of raising expectations which might only end in disappointment; for in her opinion it admitted not of a doubt, that all her friend's dislike would vanish, if she could suppose him to be in her power." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In her kind schemes for Elizabeth, she sometimes planned her marrying Colonel Fitzwilliam. He was, beyond comparison, the pleasantest man: he certainly admired her, and his situation in life was most eligible; but, to counterbalance these advantages, Mr. Darcy had considerable patronage in the church, and his cousin could have none at all." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "hey can u write 4 sentences more sentences? like Jane Austen but Romance style. btw this is from middle of a story" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "More than once did Elizabeth, in her ramble within the park, unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy. She felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought; and, to prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him, at first, that it was a favourite haunt of hers. How it could occur a second time, therefore, was very odd! Yet it did, and even the third." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed like wilful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance; for on these occasions it was not merely a few formal enquiries and an awkward pause and then away, but he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He never said a great deal, nor did she give herself the trouble of talking or of listening much; but it struck her in the course of their third rencountre that he was asking some odd unconnected questions—about her pleasure in being at Hunsford, her love of solitary walks, and her opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Collins's happiness; and that in speaking of Rosings, and her not perfectly understanding the house, he seemed to expect that whenever she came into Kent again she would be staying there too. His words seemed to imply it. Could he have Colonel Fitzwilliam in his thoughts? She supposed, if he meant any thing, he must mean an allusion to what might arise in that quarter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It distressed her a little, and she was quite glad to find herself at the gate in the palesas opposite the Parsonage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was engaged one day, as she walked, in re-perusing Jane's last letter, and dwelling on some passages which proved that Jane had not written in spirits, when, instead of being again surprised by Mr. Darcy, she saw, on looking up, that Colonel Fitzwilliam was meeting her. Putting away the letter immediately, and forcing a smile, she said,—\n\n\"I did not know before that you ever walked this way.\"\n\n\"I have been making the tour of the park,\" he replied, \"as I generally do every year, and intended to close it with a call at the Parsonage. Are you going much farther?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, I should have turned in a moment.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And accordingly she did turn, and they walked towards the Parsonage together.\n\n\"Do you certainly leave Kent on Saturday?\" said she.\n\n\"Yes—if Darcy does not put it off again. But I am at his disposal. He arranges the business just as he pleases.\"\n\n\"And if not able to please himself in the arrangement, he has at least great pleasure in the power of choice. I do not know any body who seems more to enjoy the power of doing what he likes than Mr. Darcy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He likes to have his own way very well,\" replied Colonel Fitzwilliam. \"But so we all do. It is only that he has better means of having it than many others, because he is rich, and many others are poor. I speak feelingly. A younger son, you know, must be inured to self-denial and dependence.\"\n\n\"In my opinion, the younger son of an earl can know very little of either. Now, seriously, what have you ever known of self-denial and dependence? When have you been prevented by want of money from going wherever you chose, or procuring any thing you had a fancy for?\"\n\n\"These are home questions—and perhaps I cannot say that I have experienced many hardships of that nature. But in matters of greater weight, I may suffer from the want of money. Younger sons cannot marry where they like.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Unless where they like women of fortune, which I think they very often do.\"\n\n\"Our habits of expense make us too dependent, and there are not many in my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to money.\"\n\n\"Is this,\" thought Elizabeth, \"meant for me?\" and she coloured at the idea; but, recovering herself, said in a lively tone, \"And pray, what is the usual price of an earl's younger son? Unless the elder brother is very sickly, I suppose you would not ask above fifty thousand pounds.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He answered her in the same style, and the subject dropped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To interrupt a silence which might make him fancy her affected with what had passed, she soon afterwards said,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I imagine your cousin brought you down with him chiefly for the sake of having somebody at his disposal. I wonder he does not marry, to secure a lasting convenience of that kind. But, perhaps, his sister does as well for the present; and, as she is under his sole care, he may do what he likes with her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" said Colonel Fitzwilliam, \"that is an advantage which he must divide with me. I am joined with him in the guardianship of Miss Darcy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you, indeed? And pray what sort of a guardian do you make? Does your charge give you much trouble? Young ladies of her age are sometimes a little difficult to manage; and if she has the true Darcy spirit, she may like to have her own way.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'heard' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As she spoke, she observed him looking at her earnestly; and the manner in which he immediately asked her why she supposed Miss Darcy likely to give them any uneasiness, convinced her that she had somehow or other got pretty near the truth. She directly replied,—\n\n\"You need not be frightened. I never heard any harm of her; and I dare say she is one of the most tractable creatures in the world. She is a very great favourite with some ladies of my acquaintance, Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley. I think I have heard you say that you know them.\"\n\n\"I know them a little. Their brother is a pleasant, gentleman-like man—he is a great friend of Darcy's.\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" said Elizabeth, drily—\"Mr. Darcy is uncommonly kind to Mr. Bingley, and takes a prodigious deal of care of him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Care of him! Yes, I really believe Darcy does take care of him in those points where he most wants care. From something that he told me in our journey hither, I have reason to think Bingley very much indebted to him. But I ought to beg his pardon, for I have no right to suppose that Bingley was the person meant. It was all conjecture.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is it you mean?\"\n\n\"It is a circumstance which Darcy of course could not wish to be generally known, because if it were to get round to the lady's family, it would be an unpleasant thing.\"\n\n\"You may depend upon my not mentioning it.\"\n\n\"And remember that I have not much reason for supposing it to be Bingley. What he told me was merely this: that he congratulated himself on having lately saved a friend from the inconveniences of a most imprudent marriage, but without mentioning names or any other particulars; and I only suspected it to be Bingley from believing him the kind of young man to get into a scrape of that sort, and from knowing them to have been together the whole of last summer.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did Mr. Darcy give you his reasons for this interference?\"\n\n\"I understood that there were some very strong objections against the lady.\"\n\n\"And what arts did he use to separate them?\"\n\n\"He did not talk to me of his own arts,\" said Fitzwilliam, smiling." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He only told me what I have now told you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth made no answer, and walked on, her heart swelling with indignation. After watching her a little, Fitzwilliam asked her why she was so thoughtful.\n\n\"I am thinking of what you have been telling me,\" said she. \"Your cousin's conduct does not suit my feelings. Why was he to be the judge?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are rather disposed to call his interference officious?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do not see what right Mr. Darcy had to decide on the propriety of his friend's inclination; or why, upon his own judgment alone, he was to determine and direct in what manner that friend was to be happy. But,\" she continued, recollecting herself, \"as we know none of the particulars, it is not fair to condemn him. It is not to be supposed that there was much affection in the case.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That is not an unnatural surmise,\" said Fitzwilliam; \"but it is lessening the honour of my cousin's triumph very sadly.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'there' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was spoken jestingly, but it appeared to her so just a picture of Mr. Darcy, that she would not trust herself with an answer; and, therefore, abruptly changing the conversation, talked on indifferent matters till they reached the Parsonage. There, shut into her own room, as soon as their visitor left them, she could think without interruption of all that she had heard. It was not to be supposed that any other people could be meant than those with whom she was connected. There could not exist in the world two men over whom Mr. Darcy could have such boundless influence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That he had been concerned in the measures taken to separate Mr. Bingley and Jane, she had never doubted; but she had always attributed to Miss Bingley the principal design and arrangement of them. If his own vanity, however, did not mislead him, he was the cause, his pride and caprice were the cause, of all that Jane had suffered, and still continued to suffer. He had ruined for a while every hope of happiness for the most affectionate, generous heart in the world; and no one could say how lasting an evil he might have inflicted.\n\n\"There were some very strong objections against the lady,\" were Colonel Fitzwilliam's words; and these strong objections probably were, her having one uncle who was a country attorney, and another who was in business in London." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing a segment of a larger work\n\nLength:\nseven sentences\n\nStyle:\nJane Austen\nGenre:\nRomance\nNote: Characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "human", "value": "When they were gone, Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself as much as possible against Mr. Darcy, chose for her employment the examination of all the letters which Jane had written to her since her being in Kent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They contained no actual complaint, nor was there any revival of past occurrences, or any communication of present suffering. But in all, and in almost every line of each, there was a want of that cheerfulness which had been used to characterise her style, and which, proceeding from the serenity of a mind at ease with itself, and kindly disposed towards every one, had been scarcely ever clouded. Elizabeth noticed every sentence conveying the idea of uneasiness, with an attention which it had hardly received on the first perusal. Mr. Darcy's shameful boast of what misery he had been able to inflict gave her a keener sense of her sister's sufferings. It was some consolation to think that his visit to Rosings was to end on the day after the next, and a still greater, that in less than a fortnight she should herself be with Jane again, and enabled to contribute to the recovery of her spirits, by all that affection could do.\n\nShe could not think of Darcy's leaving Kent without remembering that his cousin was to go with him; but Colonel Fitzwilliam had made it clear that he had no intentions at all, and, agreeable as he was, she did not mean to be unhappy about him.\n\nWhile settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of the door bell; and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in the evening, and might now come to enquire particularly after her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In a hurried manner he immediately began an enquiry after her health, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she were better. She answered him with cold civility. He sat down for a few moments, and then getting up walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised, but said not a word. After a silence of several minutes, he came towards her in an agitated manner, and thus began:—\n\n\"In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.\"\n\nElizabeth's astonishment was beyond expression." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This he considered sufficient encouragement, and the avowal of all that he felt and had long felt for her immediately followed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'answer' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He spoke well, but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed, and he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority, of its being a degradation, of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit.\n\nIn spite of her deeply-rooted dislike, she could not be insensible to the compliment of such a man's affection, and though her intentions did not vary for an instant, she was at first sorry for the pain he was to receive; till, roused to resentment by his subsequent language, she lost all compassion in anger. She tried, however, to compose herself to answer him with patience, when he should have done. He concluded with representing to her the strength of that attachment which, in spite of all his endeavours, he had found impossible to conquer; and with expressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance of his hand. As he said this, she could easily see that he had no doubt of a favourable answer. He spoke of apprehension and anxiety, but his countenance expressed real security." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Such a circumstance could only exasperate farther; and when he ceased, the colour rose into her cheeks, and she said,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot—I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to any one. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration. The feelings which you tell me have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Darcy, who was leaning against the mantel-piece with his eyes fixed on her face, seemed to catch her words with no less resentment than surprise. His complexion became pale with anger, and the disturbance of his mind was visible in every feature. He was struggling for the appearance of composure, and would not open his lips, till he believed himself to have attained it. The pause was to Elizabeth's feelings dreadful. At length, in a voice of forced calmness, he said,—\n\n\"And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavour at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance.\"\n\n\"I might as well enquire,\" replied she, \"why, with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my own feelings decided against you, had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As she pronounced these words, Mr. Darcy changed colour; but the emotion was short, and he listened without attempting to interrupt her while she continued,—\n\n\"I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. No motive can excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted there. You dare not, you cannot deny that you have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing them from each other, of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability, the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind.\"\n\nShe paused, and saw with no slight indignation that he was listening with an air which proved him wholly unmoved by any feeling of remorse. He even looked at her with a smile of affected incredulity.\n\n\"Can you deny that you have done it?\" she repeated.\n\nWith assumed tranquillity he then replied, \"I have no wish of denying that I did every thing in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success. Towards him I have been kinder than towards myself.\"\n\nElizabeth disdained the appearance of noticing this civil reflection, but its meaning did not escape, nor was it likely to conciliate her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But it is not merely this affair,\" she continued, \"on which my dislike is founded. Long before it had taken place, my opinion of you was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham. On this subject, what can you have to say? In what imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself? or under what misrepresentation can you here impose upon others?\"\n\n\"You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns,\" said Darcy, in a less tranquil tone, and with a heightened colour.\n\n\"Who that knows what his misfortunes have been can help feeling an interest in him?\"\n\n\"His misfortunes!\" repeated Darcy, contemptuously,—\"yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed.\"\n\n\"And of your infliction,\" cried Elizabeth, with energy. \"You have reduced him to his present state of poverty—comparative poverty. You have withheld the advantages which you must know to have been designed for him. You have deprived the best years of his life of that independence which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this! and yet you can treat the mention of his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule.\"\n\n\"And this,\" cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, \"is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed! But, perhaps,\" added he, stopping in his walk, and turning towards her, \"these offences might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I, with greater policy, concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by reflection, by every thing. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of relations whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Find a natural way to mention that You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she tried to the utmost to speak with composure when she said,—\n\n\"You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner.\"\n\nShe saw him start at this; but he said nothing, and she continued,—\n\n\"You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it.\"\n\nAgain his astonishment was obvious: and he looked at her with an expression of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went on,—\n\n\"From the very beginning, from the first moment, I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that groundwork of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.\"\n\n\"You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And with these words he hastily left the room, and Elizabeth heard him the next moment open the front door and quit the house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The tumult of her mind was now painfully great." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 8 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew not how to support herself, and, from actual weakness, sat down and cried for half an hour. Her astonishment, as she reflected on what had passed, was increased by every review of it. That she should receive an offer of marriage from Mr. Darcy! that he should have been in love with her for so many months! so much in love as to wish to marry her in spite of all the objections which had made him prevent his friend's marrying her sister, and which must appear at least with equal force in his own case, was almost incredible! it was gratifying to have inspired unconsciously so strong an affection. But his pride, his abominable pride, his shameless avowal of what he had done with respect to Jane, his unpardonable assurance in acknowledging, though he could not justify it, and the unfeeling manner in which he had mentioned Mr. Wickham, his cruelty towards whom he had not attempted to deny, soon overcame the pity which the consideration of his attachment had for a moment excited.\n\nShe continued in very agitating reflections till the sound of Lady Catherine's carriage made her feel how unequal she was to encounter Charlotte's observation, and hurried her away to her room." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 12 sentences sentences in the style of Jane Austen spawning from what the user wrote, within the Romance genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth awoke the next morning to the same thoughts and meditations which had at length closed her eyes. She could not yet recover from the surprise of what had happened: it was impossible to think of any thing else; and, totally indisposed for employment, she resolved soon after breakfast to indulge herself in air and exercise. She was proceeding directly to her favourite walk, when the recollection of Mr. Darcy's sometimes coming there stopped her; and instead of entering the park, she turned up the lane, which led her farther from the turnpike road. The park paling was still the boundary on one side, and she soon passed one of the gates into the ground.\n\nAfter walking two or three times along that part of the lane, she was tempted, by the pleasantness of the morning, to stop at the gates and look into the park. The five weeks which she had now passed in Kent had made a great difference in the country, and every day was adding to the verdure of the early trees. She was on the point of continuing her walk, when she caught a glimpse of a gentleman within the sort of grove which edged the park: he was moving that way; and fearful of its being Mr. Darcy, she was directly retreating. But the person who advanced was now near enough to see her, and stepping forward with eagerness, pronounced her name. She had turned away; but on hearing herself called, though in a voice which proved it to be Mr. Darcy, she moved again towards the gate. He had by that time reached it also; and, holding out a letter, which she instinctively took, said, with a look of haughty composure, \"I have been walking in the grove some time, in the hope of meeting you. Will you do me the honour of reading that letter?\" And then, with a slight bow, turned again into the plantation,at and was soon out of sight.\n\nWith no expectation of pleasure, but with the strongest curiosity, Elizabeth opened the letter, and to her still increasing wonder, perceived an envelope containing two sheets of letter paper, written quite through, in a very close hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The envelope itself was likewise full. Pursuing her way along the lane, she then began it. It was dated from Rosings, at eight o'clock in the morning, and was as follows:—\n\n\"Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments, or renewal of those offers, which were last night so disgusting to you. I write without any intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes, which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten; and the effort which the formation and the perusal of this letter must occasion, should have been spared, had not my character required it to be written and read. You must, therefore, pardon the freedom with which I demand your attention; your feelings, I know, will bestow it unwillingly, but I demand it of your justice.\n\n\"Two offences of a very different nature, and by no means of equal magnitude, you last night laid to my charge. The first mentioned was, that, regardless of the sentiments of either, I had detached Mr. Bingley from your sister,—and the other, that I had, in defiance of various claims, in defiance of honour and humanity, ruined the immediate prosperity, and blasted the prospects of Mr. Wickham. Wilfully and wantonly to have thrown off the companion of my youth, the acknowledged favourite of my father, a young man who had scarcely any other dependence than on our patronage, and who had been brought up to expect its exertion, would be a depravity, to which the separation of two young persons, whose affection could be the growth of only a few weeks, could bear no comparison. But from the severity of that blame which was last night so liberally bestowed, respecting each circumstance, I shall hope to be in future secured, when the following account of my actions and their motives has been read. If, in the explanation of them which is due to myself, I am under the necessity of relating feelings which may be offensive to yours, I can only say that I am sorry. The necessity must be obeyed, and further apology would be absurd." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I had not been long in Hertfordshire, before I saw, in common with others, that Bingley preferred your elder sister to any other young woman in the country." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it was not till the evening of the dance at Netherfield that I had any apprehension of his feeling a serious attachment. I had often seen him in love before. At that ball, while I had the honour of dancing with you, I was first made acquainted, by Sir William Lucas's accidental information, that Bingley's attentions to your sister had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage. He spoke of it as a certain event, of which the time alone could be undecided. From that moment I observed my friend's behaviour attentively; and I could then perceive that his partiality for Miss Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your sister I also watched. Her look and manners were open, cheerful, and engaging as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard; and I remained convinced, from the evening's scrutiny, that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of sentiment. If you have not been mistaken here, I must have been in an error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter probable. If it be so, if I have been misled by such error to inflict pain on her, your resentment has not been unreasonable. But I shall not scruple to assert, that the serenity of your sister's countenance and air was such as might have given the most acute observer a conviction that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be easily touched. That I was desirous of believing her indifferent is certain; but I will venture to say that my investigations and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I did not believe her to be indifferent because I wished it; I believed it on impartial conviction, as truly as I wished it in reason." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to use 'there' 2 time(s) throughout your message" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My objections to the marriage were not merely those which I last night acknowledged to have required the utmost force of passion to put aside in my own case; the want of connection could not be so great an evil to my friend as to me. But there were other causes of repugnance; causes which, though still existing, and existing to an equal degree in both instances, I had myself endeavoured to forget, because they were not immediately before me. These causes must be stated, though briefly. The situation of your mother's family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison of that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by herself, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your father:—pardon me,—it pains me to offend you. But amidst your concern for the defects of your nearest relations, and your displeasure at this representation of them, let it give you consolation to consider that to have conducted yourselves so as to avoid any share of the like censure is praise no less generally bestowed on you and your eldest sister than it is honourable to the sense and disposition of both. I will only say, farther, that from what passed that evening my opinion of all parties was confirmed, and every inducement heightened, which could have led me before to preserve my friend from what I esteemed a most unhappy connection. He left Netherfield for London on the day following, as you, I am certain, remember, with the design of soon returning. The part which I acted is now to be explained. His sisters' uneasiness had been equally excited with my own: our coincidence of feeling was soon discovered; and, alike sensible that no time was to be lost in detaching their brother, we shortly resolved on joining him directly in London. We accordingly went—and there I readily engaged in the office of pointing out to my friend the certain evils of such a choice. I described and enforced them earnestly. But however this remonstrance might have staggered or delayed his determination, I do not suppose that it would ultimately have prevented the marriage, had it not been seconded by the assurance, which I hesitated not in giving, of your sister's indifference." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had before believed her to return his affection with sincere, if not with equal, regard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Bingley has great natural modesty, with a stronger dependence on my judgment than on his own. To convince him, therefore, that he had deceived himself was no very difficult point. To persuade him against returning into Hertfordshire, when that conviction had been given, was scarcely the work of a moment. I cannot blame myself for having done thus much. There is but one part of my conduct, in the whole affair, on which I do not reflect with satisfaction; it is that I condescended to adopt the measures of art so far as to conceal from him your sister's being in town. I knew it myself, as it was known to Miss Bingley; but her brother is even yet ignorant of it. That they might have met without ill consequence is, perhaps, probable; but his regard did not appear to me enough extinguished for him to see her without some danger. Perhaps this concealment, this disguise, was beneath me. It is done, however, and it was done for the best. On this subject I have nothing more to say, no other apology to offer. If I have wounded your sister's feelings, it was unknowingly done; and though the motives which governed me may to you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn them.—With respect to that other, more weighty accusation, of having injured Mr. Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his connection with my family. Of what he has particularly accused me I am ignorant; but of the truth of what I shall relate I can summon more than one witness of undoubted veracity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many years the management of all the Pemberley estates, and whose good conduct in the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my father to be of service to him; and on George Wickham, who was his godson, his kindness was therefore liberally bestowed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My father supported him at school, and afterwards at Cambridge; most important assistance, as his own father, always poor from the extravagance of his wife, would have been unable to give him a gentleman's education. My father was not only fond of this young man's society, whose manners were always engaging, he had also the highest opinion of him, and hoping the church would be his profession, intended to provide for him in it. As for myself, it is many, many years since I first began to think of him in a very different manner. The vicious propensities, the want of principle, which he was careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself, and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr. Darcy could not have. Here again I shall give you pain—to what degree you only can tell. But whatever may be the sentiments which Mr. Wickham has created, a suspicion of their nature shall not prevent me from unfolding his real character. It adds even another motive. My excellent father died about five years ago; and his attachment to Mr. Wickham was to the last so steady, that in his will he particularly recommended it to me to promote his advancement in the best manner that his profession might allow, and if he took orders, desired that a valuable family living might be his as soon as it became vacant. There was also a legacy of one thousand pounds. His own father did not long survive mine; and within half a year from these events Mr. Wickham wrote to inform me that, having finally resolved against taking orders, he hoped I should not think it unreasonable for him to expect some more immediate pecuniary advantage, in lieu of the preferment, by which he could not be benefited. He had some intention, he added, of studying the law, and I must be aware that the interest of one thousand pounds would be a very insufficient support therein. I rather wished than believed him to be sincere; but, at any rate, was perfectly ready to accede to his proposal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I knew that Mr. Wickham ought not to be a clergyman. The business was therefore soon settled. He resigned all claim to assistance in the church, were it possible that he could ever be in a situation to receive it, and accepted in return three thousand pounds. All connection between us seemed now dissolved. I thought too ill of him to invite him to Pemberley, or admit his society in town. In town, I believe, he chiefly lived, but his studying the law was a mere pretence; and being now free from all restraint, his life was a life of idleness and dissipation. For about three years I heard little of him; but on the decease of the incumbent of the living which had been designed for him, he applied to me again by letter for the presentation. His circumstances, he assured me, and I had no difficulty in believing it, were exceedingly bad. He had found the law a most unprofitable study, and was now absolutely resolved on being ordained, if I would present him to the living in question—of which he trusted there could be little doubt, as he was well assured that I had no other person to provide for, and I could not have forgotten my revered father's intentions. You will hardly blame me for refusing to comply with this entreaty, or for resisting every repetition of it. His resentment was in proportion to the distress of his circumstances—and he was doubtless as violent in his abuse of me to others as in his reproaches to myself. After this period, every appearance of acquaintance was dropped." }, { "from": "human", "value": "How he lived, I know not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But last summer he was again most painfully obtruded on my notice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I must now mention a circumstance which I would wish to forget myself, and which no obligation less than the present should induce me to unfold to any human being." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Having said thus much, I feel no doubt of your secrecy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My sister, who is more than ten years my junior, was left to the guardianship of my mother's nephew, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and myself. About a year ago, she was taken from school, and an establishment formed for her in London; and last summer she went with the lady who presided over it to Ramsgate;au and thither also went Mr. Wickham, undoubtedly by design; for there proved to have been a prior acquaintance between him and Mrs. Younge, in whose character we were most unhappily deceived; and by her connivance and aid he so far recommended himself to Georgiana, whose affectionate heart retained a strong impression of his kindness to her as a child, that she was persuaded to believe herself in love, and to consent to an elopement. She was then but fifteen, which must be her excuse; and after stating her imprudence, I am happy to add, that I owed the knowledge of it to herself. I joined them unexpectedly a day or two before the intended elopement; and then Georgiana, unable to support the idea of grieving and offending a brother whom she almost looked up to as a father, acknowledged the whole to me. You may imagine what I felt and how I acted. Regard for my sister's credit and feelings prevented any public exposure; but I wrote to Mr. Wickham, who left the place immediately, and Mrs. Younge was of course removed from her charge. Mr. Wickham's chief object was unquestionably my sister's fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds; but I cannot help supposing that the hope of revenging himself on me was a strong inducement. His revenge would have been complete indeed. This, madam, is a faithful narrative of every event in which we have been concerned together; and if you do not absolutely reject it as false, you will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr. Wickham. I know not in what manner, under what form of falsehood, he has imposed on you; but his success is not perhaps to be wondered at, ignorant as you previously were of every thing concerning either. Detection could not be in your power, and suspicion certainly not in your inclination. You may possibly wonder why all this was not told you last night." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But I was not then master enough of myself to know what could or ought to be revealed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the truth of every thing here related, I can appeal more particularly to the testimony of Colonel Fitzwilliam, who, from our near relationship and constant intimacy, and still more as one of the executors of my father's will, has been unavoidably acquainted with every particular of these transactions. If your abhorrence of me should make my assertions valueless, you cannot be prevented by the same cause from confiding in my cousin; and that there may be the possibility of consulting him, I shall endeavour to find some opportunity of putting this letter in your hands in the course of the morning. I will only add, God bless you." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep going w/ one sentence more. Note: Might reference existing chars" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If Elizabeth, when Mr. Darcy gave her the letter, did not expect it to contain a renewal of his offers, she had formed no expectation at all of its contents." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But such as they were, it may be well supposed how eagerly she went through them, and what a contrariety of emotion they excited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her feelings as she read were scarcely to be defined." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With amazement did she first understand that he believed any apology to be in his power; and steadfastly was she persuaded, that he could have no explanation to give, which a just sense of shame would not conceal." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With a strong prejudice against every thing he might say, she began his account of what had happened at Netherfield." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She read with an eagerness which hardly left her power of comprehension; and from impatience of knowing what the next sentence might bring, was incapable of attending to the sense of the one before her eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His belief of her sister's insensibility she instantly resolved to be false; and his account of the real, the worst objections to the match, made her too angry to have any wish of doing him justice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He expressed no regret for what he had done which satisfied her; his style was not penitent, but haughty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was all pride and insolence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But when this subject was succeeded by his account of Mr. Wickham—when she read, with somewhat clearer attention, a relation of events which, if true, must overthrow every cherished opinion of his worth, and which bore so alarming an affinity to his own history of himself—her feelings were yet more acutely painful and more difficult of definition." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Astonishment, apprehension, and even horror, oppressed her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wished to discredit it entirely, repeatedly exclaiming, \"This must be false! This cannot be! This must be the grossest falsehood!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "—and when she had gone through the whole letter, though scarcely knowing any thing of the last page or two, put it hastily away, protesting that she would not regard it, that she would never look in it again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In this perturbed state of mind, with thoughts that could rest on nothing, she walked on; but it would not do: in half a minute the letter was unfolded again; and, collecting herself as well as she could, she again began the mortifying perusal of all that related to Wickham, and commanded herself so far as to examine the meaning of every sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The account of his connection with the Pemberley family was exactly what he had related himself; and the kindness of the late Mr. Darcy, though she had not before known its extent, agreed equally well with his own words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So far each recital confirmed the other; but when she came to the will, the difference was great." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What Wickham had said of the living was fresh in her memory; and as she recalled his very words, it was impossible not to feel that there was gross duplicity on one side or the other, and, for a few moments, she flattered herself that her wishes did not err." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But when she read and reread, with the closest attention, the particulars immediately following of Wickham's resigning all pretensions to the living, of his receiving in lieu so considerable a sum as three thousand pounds, again was she forced to hesitate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She put down the letter, weighed every circumstance with what she meant to be impartiality—deliberated on the probability of each statement—but with little success." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On both sides it was only assertion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Again she read on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But every line proved more clearly that the affair, which she had believed it impossible that any contrivance could so represent as to render Mr. Darcy's conduct in it less than infamous, was capable of a turn which must make him entirely blameless throughout the whole." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The extravagance and general profligacy which he scrupled not to lay to Mr. Wickham's charge exceedingly shocked her; the more so, as she could bring no proof of its injustice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had never heard of him before his entrance into the—shire militia, in which he had engaged at the persuasion of the young man, who, on meeting him accidentally in town, had there renewed a slight acquaintance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of his former way of life, nothing had been known in Hertfordshire but what he told himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As to his real character, had information been in her power, she had never felt a wish of enquiring." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His countenance, voice, and manner, had established him at once in the possession of every virtue." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She tried to recollect some instance of goodness, some distinguished trait of integrity or benevolence, that might rescue him from the attacks of Mr. Darcy; or at least, by the predominance of virtue, atone for those casual errors, under which she would endeavour to class what Mr. Darcy had described as the idleness and vice of many years' continuance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But no such recollection befriended her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She could see him instantly before her, in every charm of air and address, but she could remember no more substantial good than the general approbation of the neighbourhood, and the regard which his social powers had gained him in the mess." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After pausing on this point a considerable while, she once more continued to read." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But, alas! the story which followed, of his designs on Miss Darcy, received some confirmation from what had passed between Colonel Fitzwilliam and herself only the morning before; and at last she was referred for the truth of every particular to Colonel Fitzwilliam himself—from whom she had previously received the information of his near concern in all his cousin's affairs, and whose character she had no reason to question." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At one time she had almost resolved on applying to him, but the idea was checked by the awkwardness of the application, and at length wholly banished by the conviction that Mr. Darcy would never have hazarded such a proposal, if he had not been well assured of his cousin's corroboration." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She perfectly remembered every thing that had passed in conversation between Wickham and herself in their first evening at Mr. Philips's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Many of his expressions were still fresh in her memory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was now struck with the impropriety of such communications to a stranger, and wondered it had escaped her before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw the indelicacy of putting himself forward as he had done, and the inconsistency of his professions with his conduct." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She remembered that he had boasted of having no fear of seeing Mr. Darcy—that Mr. Darcy might leave the country, but that he should stand his ground; yet he had avoided the Netherfield ball the very next week." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She remembered also, that till the Netherfield family had quitted the country, he had told his story to no one but herself; but that after their removal, it had been every where discussed; that he had then no reserves, no scruples in sinking Mr. Darcy's character, though he had assured her that respect for the father would always prevent his exposing the son." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How differently did every thing now appear in which he was concerned!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His attentions to Miss King were now the consequence of views solely and hatefully mercenary; and the mediocrity of her fortune proved no longer the moderation of his wishes, but his eagerness to grasp at any thing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His behaviour to herself could now have had no tolerable motive: he had either been deceived with regard to her fortune, or had been gratifying his vanity by encouraging the preference which she believed she had most incautiously shown." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every lingering struggle in his favour grew fainter; and in further justification of Mr. Darcy, she could not but allow that Mr. Bingley, when questioned by Jane, had long ago asserted his blamelessness in the affair;—that, proud and repulsive as were his manners, she had never, in the whole course of their acquaintance—an acquaintance which had latterly brought them much together, and given her a sort of intimacy with his ways—seen any thing that betrayed him to be unprincipled or unjust—any thing that spoke him of irreligious or immoral habits;—that among his own connections he was esteemed and valued—that even Wickham had allowed him merit as a brother, and that she had often heard him speak so affectionately of his sister as to prove him capable of some amiable feeling; —that had his actions been what Wickham represented them, so gross a violation of every thing right could hardly have been concealed from the world; and that friendship between a person capable of it and such an amiable man as Mr. Bingley was incomprehensible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She grew absolutely ashamed of herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think, without feeling that she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How despicably have I acted!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "she cried. \"I who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable distrust. How humiliating is this discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossessionav and ignorance, and driven reason away where either were concerned. Till this moment, I never knew myself. \"9" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From herself to Jane, from Jane to Bingley, her thoughts were in a line which soon brought to her recollection that Mr. Darcy's explanation there had appeared very insufficient; and she read it again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Widely different was the effect of a second perusal." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How could she deny that credit to his assertions, in one instance, which she had been obliged to give in the other?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He declared himself to have been totally unsuspicious of her sister's attachment; and she could not help remembering what Charlotte's opinion had always been." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Neither could she deny the justice of his description of Jane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She felt that Jane's feelings, though fervent, were little displayed, and that there was a constant complacency in her air and manner, not often united with great sensibility." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she came to that part of the letter in which her family were mentioned, in terms of such mortifying, yet merited reproach, her sense of shame was severe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The justice of the charge struck her too forcibly for denial; and the circumstances to, which he particularly alluded, as having passed at the Netherfield ball, and as confirming all his first disapprobation, could not have made a stronger impression on his mind than on hers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The compliment to herself and her sister was not unfelt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It soothed, but it could not console her for the contempt which had been thus self-attracted by the rest of her family; and as she considered that Jane's disappointment had, in fact, been the work of her nearest relations, and reflected how materially the credit of both must be hurt by such impropriety of conduct, she felt depressed beyond any thing she had ever known before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After wandering along the lane for two hours, giving way to every variety of thought, re-considering events, determining probabilities, and reconciling herself, as well as she could to a change so sudden and so important, fatigue, and a recollection of her long absence, made her at length return home; and she entered the house with the wish of appearing cheerful as usual, and the resolution of repressing such reflections as must make her unfit for conversation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was immediately told, that the two gentlemen from Rosings had each called during her absence; Mr. Darcy, only for a few minutes, to take leave, but that Colonel Fitzwilliam had been sitting with them at least an hour, hoping for her return, and almost resolving to walk after her till she could be found." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth could but just affect concern in missing him; she really rejoiced at it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Colonel Fitzwilliam was no longer an object. She could think only of her letter." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around two sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Match the familiarity level of any character introductions. Stick to the Romance genre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two gentlemen left Rosings the next morning; and Mr. Collins having been in waiting near the lodges, to make them his parting obeisance, was able to bring home the pleasing intelligence of their appearing in very good health, and in as tolerable spirits as could be expected, after the melancholy scene so lately gone through at Rosings. To Rosings he then hastened to console Lady Catherine and her daughter; and on his return brought back, with great satisfaction, a message from her Ladyship, importing that she felt herself so dull as to make her very desirous of having them all to dine with her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth could not see Lady Catherine without recollecting that, had she chosen it, she might by this time have been presented to her as her future niece; nor could she think, without a smile, of what her Ladyship's indignation would have been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What would she have said? how would she have behaved?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "were questions with which she amused herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their first subject was the diminution of the Rosings' party. \"I assure you, I feel it exceedingly,\" said Lady Catherine; \"I believe nobody feels the loss of friends so much as I do. But I am particularly attached to these young men; and know them to be so much attached to me! They were excessively sorry to go! But so they always are. The dear Colonel rallied his spirits tolerably till just at last; but Darcy seemed to feel it most acutely—more, I think, than last year. His attachment to Rosings certainly increases.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Collins had a compliment and an allusion to throw in here, which were kindly smiled on by the mother and daughter.\n\nLady Catherine observed, after dinner, that Miss Bennet seemed out of spirits; and immediately accounting for it herself, by supposing that she did not like to go home again so soon, she added,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But if that is the case, you must write to your mother to beg that you may stay a little longer. Mrs. Collins will be very glad of your company, I am sure.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am much obliged to your Ladyship for your kind invitation,\" replied Elizabeth; \"but it is not in my power to accept it. I must be in town next Saturday.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why, at that rate, you will have been here only six weeks. I expected you to stay two months. I told Mrs. Collins so before you came. There can be no occasion for your going so soon. Mrs. Bennet could certainly spare you for another fortnight.\"\n\n\"But my father cannot. He wrote last week to hurry my return.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, your father, of course, may spare you, if your mother can. Daughters are never of so much consequence to a father. And if you will stay another month complete, it will be in my power to take one of you as far as London, for I am going there early in June, for a week; and as Dawson does not object to the barouche-box,aw there will be very good room for one of you—and indeed, if the weather should happen to be cool, I should not object to taking you both, as you are neither of you large.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are all kindness, madam; but I believe we must abide by our original plan.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lady Catherine seemed resigned. \"Mrs. Collins, you must send a servant with them. You know I always speak my mind, and I cannot bear the idea of two young women travelling postax by themselves. It is highly improper. You must contrive to send somebody. I have the greatest dislike in the world to that sort of thing. Young women should always be properly guarded and attended, according to their situation in life. When my niece Georgiana went to Ramsgate last summer, I made a point of her having two men-servants go with her. Miss Darcy, the daughter of Mr. Darcy of Pemberley, and Lady Anne, could not have appeared with propriety in a different manner. I am excessively attentive to all those things. You must send John with the young ladies, Mrs. Collins. I am glad it occurred to me to mention it; for it would really be discreditable to you to let them go alone.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My uncle is to send a servant for us.\"\n\n\"Oh! Your uncle! He keeps a man-servant, does he? I am very glad you have somebody who thinks of those things. Where shall you change horses? Oh, Bromley, of course. If you mention my name at the Bell, you will be attended to.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lady Catherine had many other questions to ask respecting their journey, and as she did not answer them all herself, attention was necessary, which Elizabeth believed to be lucky for her; or, with a mind so occupied, she might have forgotten where she was. Reflection must be reserved for solitary hours: whenever she was alone, she gave way to it as the greatest relief; and not a day went by without a solitary walk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant recollections." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Darcy's letter she was in a fair way of soon knowing by heart. She studied every sentence; and her feelings towards its writer were at times widely different." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she remembered the style of his address, she was still full of indignation: but when she considered how unjustly she had condemned and upbraided him, her anger was turned against herself; and his disappointed feelings became the object of compassion. His attachment excited gratitude, his general character respect: but she could not approve him; nor could she for a moment repent her refusal, or feel the slightest inclination ever to see him again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In her own past behaviour, there was a constant source of vexation and regret; and in the unhappy defects of her family, a subject of yet heavier chagrin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were hopeless of remedy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her father, contented with laughing at them, would never exert himself to restrain the wild giddiness of his youngest daughters; and her mother, with manners so far from right herself, was entirely insensible of the evil. Elizabeth had frequently united with Jane in an endeavour to check the imprudence of Catherine and Lydia; but while they were supported by their mother's indulgence, what chance could there be of improvement?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Catherine, weak-spirited, irritable, and completely under Lydia's guidance, had been always affronted by their advice; and Lydia, self-willed and careless, would scarcely give them a hearing. They were ignorant, idle, and vain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "While there was an officer in Meryton, they would flirt with him; and while Meryton was within a walk of Longbourn, they would be going there for ever.\n\nAnxiety on Jane's behalf was another prevailing concern; and Mr. Darcy's explanation, by restoring Bingley to all her former good opinion, heightened the sense of what Jane had lost." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His affection was proved to have been sincere, and his conduct cleared of all blame, unless any could attach to the implicitness of his confidence in his friend." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How grievous then was the thought that, of a situation so desirable in every respect, so replete with advantage, so promising for happiness, Jane had been deprived, by the folly and indecorum of her own family!\n\nWhen to these recollections was added the development of Wickham's character, it may be easily believed that the happy spirits which had seldom been depressed before were now so much affected as to make it almost impossible for her to appear tolerably cheerful." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their engagements at Rosings were as frequent during the last week of her stay as they had been at first. The very last evening was spent there; and her Ladyship again enquired minutely into the particulars of their journey, gave them directions as to the best method of packing, and was so urgent on the necessity of placing gowns in the only right way, that Maria thought herself obliged, on her return, to undo all the work of the morning, and pack her trunk afresh.\n\nWhen they parted, Lady Catherine, with great condescension, wished them a good journey, and invited them to come to Hunsford again next year; and Miss De Bourgh exerted herself so far as to courtesy and hold out her hand to both." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 12 sentences sentences in the style of Jane Austen spawning from what the user wrote, within the Romance genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On Saturday morning Elizabeth and Mr. Collins met for breakfast a few minutes before the others appeared; and he took the opportunity of paying the parting civilities which he deemed indispensably necessary.\n\n\"I know not, Miss Elizabeth,\" said he, \"whether Mrs. Collins has yet expressed her sense of your kindness in coming to us; but I am very certain you will not leave the house without receiving her thanks for it. The favour of your company has been much felt, I assure you. We know how little there is to tempt any one to our humble abode. Our plain manner of living, our small rooms, and few domestics, and the little we see of the world, must make Hunsford extremely dull to a young lady like yourself; but I hope you will believe us grateful for the condescension, and that we have done every thing in our power to prevent your spending your time unpleasantly.\"\n\nElizabeth was eager with her thanks and assurances of happiness. She had spent six weeks with great enjoyment; and the pleasure of being with Charlotte, and the kind attentions she had received, must make her feel the obliged. Mr. Collins was gratified; and with a more smiling solemnity replied,—\n\n\"It gives me the greatest pleasure to hear that you have passed your time not disagreeably. We have certainly done our best; and most fortunately having it in our power to introduce you to very superior society, and from our connection with Rosings, the frequent means of varying the humble home scene, I think we may flatter ourselves that your Hunsford visit cannot have been entirely irksome. Our situation with regard to Lady Catherine's family is indeed the sort of extraordinary advantage and blessing which few can boast. You see on what a footing we are. You see how continually we are engaged there. In truth, I must acknowledge, that, with all the disadvantages of this humble parsonage, I should not think any one abiding in it an object of compassion, while they are sharers of our intimacy at Rosings.\"\n\nWords were insufficient for the elevation of his feelings; and he was obliged to walk about the room, while Elizabeth tried to unite civility and truth in a few short sentences.\n\n\"You may, in fact, carry a very favourable report of us into Hertfordshire, my dear cousin. I flatter myself, at least, that you will be able to do so. Lady Catherine's great attentions to Mrs. Collins you have been a daily witness of; and altogether I trust it does not appear that your friend has drawn an unfortunate—but on this point it will be as well to be silent. Only let me assure you, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that I can from my heart most cordially wish you equal felicity in marriage. My dear Charlotte and I have but one mind and one way of thinking. There is in every thing a most remarkable resemblance of character and ideas between us. We seem to have been designed for each other.\"\n\nElizabeth could safely say that it was a great happiness where that was the case, and with equal sincerity could add, that she firmly believed and rejoiced in his domestic comforts. She was not sorry, however, to have the recital of them interrupted by the entrance of the lady from whom they sprang. Poor Charlotte! It was melancholy to leave her to such society! But she had chosen it with her eyes open; and though evidently regretting that her visiters were to go, she did not seem to ask for compassion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their dependent concerns, had not yet lost their charms." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At length the chaise arrived, the trunks were fastened on, the parcels placed within, and it was pronounced to be ready. After an affectionate parting between the friends, Elizabeth was attended to the carriage by Mr. Collins; and as they walked down the garden, he was commissioning her with his best respects to all her family, not forgetting his thanks for the kindness he had received at Longbourn in the winter, and his compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, though unknown. He then handed her in, Maria followed, and the door was on the point of being closed, when he suddenly reminded them, with some consternation, that they had hitherto forgotten to leave any message for the ladies of Rosings.\n\n\"But,\" he added, \"you will of course wish to have your humble respects delivered to them, with your grateful thanks for their kindness to you while you have been here.\"\n\nElizabeth made no objection: the door was then allowed to be shut, and the carriage drove off.\n\n\"Good gracious!\" cried Maria, after a few minutes' silence, \"it seems but a day or two since we first came! and yet how many things have happened!\"\n\n\"A great many indeed,\" said her companion, with a sigh.\n\n\"We have dined nine times at Rosings, besides drinking tea there twice! How much I shall have to tell!\"\n\nElizabeth privately added, \"And how much I shall have to conceal.\"\n\nTheir journey was performed without much conversation, or any alarm; and within four hours of their leaving Hunsford they reached Mr. Gardiner's house, where they were to remain a few days.\n\nJane looked well, and Elizabeth had little opportunity of studying her spirits, amidst the various engagements which the kindness of her aunt had reserved for them. But Jane was to go home with her, and at Longbourn there would be leisure enough for observation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not without an effort, meanwhile, that she could wait even for Longbourn, before she told her sister of Mr. Darcy's proposals." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To know that she had the power of revealing what would so exceedingly astonish Jane, and must, at the same time, so highly gratify whatever of her own vanity she had not yet been able to reason away, was such a temptation to openness as nothing could have conquered, but the state of indecision in which she remained as to the extent of what she should communicate; and her fear, if she once entered on the subject, of being hurried into repeating something of Bingley, which might only grieve her sister further." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative chapter writing\nMy role: Provide a story segment\nYour role: Expand with 3 sentences, emulating Jane Austen in the Romance genre\nNote: This is part of a larger work" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was the second week in May, in which the three young ladies set out together from Gracechurch Street for the town of—, in Hertfordshire; and, as they drew near the appointed inn where Mr. Bennet's carriage was to meet them, they quickly perceived, in token of the coachman's punctuality, both Kitty and Lydia looking out of a dining-room up stairs. These two girls had been above an hour in the place, happily employed in visiting an opposite milliner, watching the sentinel on guard, and dressing a salad and cucumber.\n\nAfter welcoming their sisters, they triumphantly displayed a table set out with such cold meat as an inn larder usually affords, exclaiming, \"Is not this nice? is not this an agreeable surprise?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And we mean to treat you all,\" added Lydia; \"but you must lend us the money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then showing her purchases,—\"Look here, I have bought this bonnet. I do not think it is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not. I shall pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any better.\"\n\nAnd when her sisters abused it as ugly, she added, with perfect unconcern, \"Oh, but there were two or three much uglier in the shop; and when I have bought some prettier-coloured satin to trim it with fresh, I think it will be very tolerable. Besides, it will not much signify what one wears this summer, after the—shire have left Meryton, and they are going in a fortnight.\"\n\n\"Are they, indeed?\" cried Elizabeth, with the greatest satisfaction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They are going to be encamped near Brighton;ay and I do so want papa to take us all there for the summer! It would be such a delicious scheme, and I dare say would hardly cost any thing at all. Mamma would like to go, too, of all things! Only think what a miserable summer else we shall have!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" thought Elizabeth; \"that would be a delightful scheme, indeed, and completely do for us at once. Good Heaven! Brighton and a whole campful of soldiers, to us, who have been overset already by one poor regiment of militia, and the monthly balls of Meryton!\"\n\n\"Now I have got some news for you,\" said Lydia, as they sat down to table. \"What do you think? It is excellent news, capital news, and about a certain person that we all like.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, and the waiter was told that he need not stay." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lydia laughed, and said,—\n\n\"Aye, that is just like your formality and discretion. You thought the waiter must not hear, as if he cared! I dare say he often hears worse things said than I am going to say. But he is an ugly fellow! I am glad he is gone. I never saw such a long chin in my life. Well, but now for my news: it is about dear Wickham; too good for the waiter, is not it? There is no danger of Wickham's marrying Mary King—there's for you! She is gone down to her uncle at Liverpool; gone to stay. Wickham is safe.\"\n\n\"And Mary King is safe!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "added Elizabeth; \"safe from a connection imprudent as to fortune.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She is a great fool for going away, if she liked him.\"\n\n\"But I hope there is no strong attachment on either side,\" said Jane.\n\n\"I am sure there is not on his. I will answer for it he never cared three straws about her. Who could about such a nasty little freckled thing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth was shocked to think that, however incapable of such coarseness of expression herself, the coarseness of the sentiment was little other than her own breast had formerly harboured and fancied liberal!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as all had ate, and the elder ones paid, the carriage was ordered; and, after some contrivance, the whole party, with all their boxes, workbags,az and parcels, and the unwelcome addition of Kitty's and Lydia's purchases, were seated in it.\n\n\"How nicely we are crammed in!\" cried Lydia. \"I am glad I bought my bonnet, if it is only for the fun of having another band-box! Well, now let us be quite comfortable and snug, and talk and laugh all the way home. And in the first place, let us hear what has happened to you all since you went away. Have you seen any pleasant men? Have you had any flirting? I was in great hopes that one of you would have got a husband before you came back. Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost three-and-twenty! Lord! how ashamed I should be of not being married before three-and-twenty! My aunt Philips wants you so to get husbands, you can't think. She says Lizzy had better have taken Mr. Collins; but I do not think there would have been any fun in it. Lord! how I should like to be married before any of you! and then I would chaperon you about to all the balls. Dear me! we had such a good piece of fun the other day at Colonel Forster's! Kitty and me were to spend the day there, and Mrs. Forster promised to have a little dance in the evening; (by the by, Mrs. Forster and me are such friends!) and so she asked the two Harringtons to come: but Harriet was ill, and so Pen was forced to come by herself; and then, what do you think we did? We dressed up Chamberlayne in woman's clothes, on purpose to pass for a lady,—only think what fun! Not a soul knew of it, but Colonel and Mrs. Forster, and Kitty and me, except my aunt, for we were forced to borrow one of her gowns; and you cannot imagine how well he looked! When Denny, and Wickham, and Pratt, and two or three more of the men came in, they did not know him in the least. Lord! how I laughed! and so did Mrs. Forster. I thought I should have died. And that made the men suspect something, and then they soon found out what was the matter.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "With such kind of histories of their parties and good jokes did Lydia, assisted by Kitty's hints and additions, endeavour to amuse her companions all the way to Longbourn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth listened as little as she could, but there was no escaping the frequent mention of Wickham's name." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their reception at home was most kind. Mrs. Bennet rejoiced to see Jane in undiminished beauty; and more than once during dinner did Mr. Bennet say voluntarily to Elizabeth, —\n\n\"I am glad you are come back, Lizzy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their party in the dining-room was large, for almost all the Lucases came to meet Maria and hear the news; and various were the subjects which occupied them: Lady Lucas was enquiring of Maria, across the table, after the welfare and poultry of her eldest daughter; Mrs. Bennet was doubly engaged, on one hand collecting an account of the present fashions from Jane, who sat some way below her, and on the other, retailing them all to the younger Miss Lucases; and Lydia, in a voice rather louder than any other person's, was enumerating the various pleasures of the morning to any body who would hear her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, Mary,\" said she, \"I wish you had gone with us, for we had such fun! as we went along Kitty and me drew up all the blinds, and pretended there was nobody in the coach; and I should have gone so all the way, if Kitty had not been sick; and when we got to the George, I do think we behaved very handsomely, for we treated the other three with the nicest cold luncheon in the world, and if you would have gone, we would have treated you too. And then when we came away it was such fun! I thought we never should have got into the coach. I was ready to die of laughter. And then we were so merry all the way home! we talked and laughed so loud, that any body might have heard us ten miles off!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "To this, Mary very gravely replied, \"Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures. They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for me. I should infinitely prefer a book.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'lydia' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But of this answer Lydia heard not a word. She seldom listened to any body for more than half a minute, and never attended to Mary at all.\n\nIn the afternoon Lydia was urgent with the rest of the girls to walk to Meryton, and see how every body went on; but Elizabeth steadily opposed the scheme." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It should not be said, that the Miss Bennets could not be at home half a day before they were in pursuit of the officers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was another reason, too, for her opposition. She dreaded seeing Wickham again, and was resolved to avoid it as long as possible. The comfort to her, of the regiment's approaching removal, was indeed beyond expression." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 12 sentences sentences in the style of Jane Austen spawning from what the user wrote, within the Romance genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'other' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth's impatience to acquaint Jane with what had happened could no longer be overcome; and at length resolving to suppress every particular in which her sister was concerned, and preparing her to be surprised, she related to her the next morning the chief of the scene between Mr. Darcy and herself.\n\nMiss Bennet's astonishment was soon lessened by the strong sisterly partiality which made any admiration of Elizabeth appear perfectly natural; and all surprise was shortly lost in other feelings. She was sorry that Mr. Darcy should have delivered his sentiments in a manner so little suited to recommend them; but still more was she grieved for the unhappiness which her sister's refusal must have given him.\n\n\"His being so sure of succeeding was wrong,\" said she, \"and certainly ought not to have appeared; but consider how much it must increase his disappointment.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" replied Elizabeth, \"I am heartily sorry for him; but he has other feelings which will probably soon drive away his regard for me. You do not blame me, however, for refusing him?\"\n\n\"Blame you! Oh, no.\"\n\n\"But you blame me for having spoken so warmly of Wickham?\"\n\n\"No—I do not know that you were wrong in saying what you did.\"\n\n\"But you will know it, when I have told you what happened the very next day.\"\n\nShe then spoke of the letter, repeating the whole of its contents as far as they concerned George Wickham. What a stroke was this for poor Jane! who would willingly have gone through the world without believing that so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind as was here collected in one individual." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nor was Darcy's vindication, though grateful to her feelings, capable of consoling her for such discovery." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Most earnestly did she labour to prove the probability of error, and seek to clear one, without involving the other.\n\n\"This will not do,\" said Elizabeth; \"you never will be able to make both of them good for any thing. Take your choice, but you must be satisfied with only one. There is but such a quantity of merit between them; just enough to make one good sort of man; and of late it has been shifting about pretty much. For my part, I am inclined to believe it all Mr. Darcy's, but you shall do as you choose.\"\n\nIt was some time, however, before a smile could be extorted from Jane.\n\n\"I do not know when I have been more shocked,\" said she. \"Wickham so very bad! It is almost past belief. And poor Mr. Darcy! dear Lizzy, only consider what he must have suffered. Such a disappointment! and with the knowledge of your ill opinion too! and having to relate such a thing of his sister! It is really too distressing. I am sure you must feel it so.\"\n\n\"Oh no, my regret and compassion are all done away by seeing you so full of both. I know you will do him such ample justice, that I am growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent. Your profusion makes me saving; and if you lament over him much longer, my heart will be as light as a feather.\"\n\n\"Poor Wickham! there is such an expression of goodness in his countenance! such an openness and gentleness in his manner.\"\n\n\"There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.\"\n\n\"I never thought Mr. Darcy so deficient in the appearance of it as you used to do.\"\n\n\"And yet I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one's genius, such an opening for wit, to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually abusive without saying any thing just; but one cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.\"\n\n\"Lizzy, when you first read that letter, I am sure you could not treat the matter as you do now.\"\n\n\"Indeed, I could not. I was uncomfortable enough. I was very uncomfortable—I may say unhappy. And with no one to speak to of what I felt, no Jane to comfort me, and say that I had not been so very weak, and vain, and nonsensical as I knew I had! Oh how I wanted you!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How unfortunate that you should have used such very strong expressions in speaking of Wickham to Mr. Darcy, for now they do appear wholly undeserved.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Certainly. But the misfortune of speaking with bitterness is a most natural consequence of the prejudices I had been encouraging. There is one point on which I want your advice. I want to be told whether I ought, or ought not, to make our acquaintance in general understand Wickham's character.\"\n\nMiss Bennet paused a little, and then replied, \"Surely there can be no occasion for exposing him so dreadfully. What is your own opinion?\"\n\n\"That it ought not to be attempted. Mr. Darcy has not authorised me to make his communication public. On the contrary, every particular relative to his sister was meant to be kept as much as possible to myself; and if I endeavour to undeceive people as to the rest of his conduct, who will believe me? The general prejudice against Mr. Darcy is so violent, that it would be the death of half the good people in Meryton, to attempt to place him in an amiable light. I am not equal to it. Wickham will soon be gone; and therefore it will not signify to any body here what he really is. Some time hence it will be all found out, and then we may laugh at their stupidity in not knowing it before. At present I will say nothing about it.\"\n\n\"You are quite right. To have his errors made public might ruin him for ever. He is now, perhaps, sorry for what he has done, and anxious to re-establish a character. We must not make him desperate.\"\n\nThe tumult of Elizabeth's mind was allayed by this conversation. She had got rid of two of the secrets which had weighed on her for a fortnight, and was certain of a willing listener in Jane, whenever she might wish to talk again of either. But there was still something lurking behind, of which prudence forbad the disclosure. She dared not relate the other half of Mr. Darcy's letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she had been valued by his friend. Here was knowledge in which no one could partake; and she was sensible that nothing less than a perfect understanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off this last encumbrance of mystery. \"And then,\" said she, \"if that very improbable event should ever take place, I shall merely be able to tell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself. The liberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all its value!\"\n\nShe was now, on being settled at home, at leisure to observe the real state of her sister's spirits. Jane was not happy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She still cherished a very tender affection for Bingley." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 10 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Having never even fancied herself in love before, her regard had all the warmth of first attachment, and from her age and disposition, greater steadiness than first attachments often boast; and so fervently did she value his remembrance, and prefer him to every other man, that all her good sense, and all her attention to the feelings of her friends, were requisite to check the indulgence of those regrets which must have been injurious to her own health and their tranquillity.\n\n\"Well, Lizzy,\" said Mrs. Bennet, one day, \"what is your opinion now of this sad business of Jane's? For my part, I am determined never to speak of it again to any body. I told my sister Philips so the other day. But I cannot find out that Jane saw any thing of him in London. Well, he is a very undeserving young man—and I do not suppose there is the least chance in the world of her ever getting him now. There is no talk of his coming to Netherfield again in the summer; and I have enquired of every body, too, who is likely to know.\"\n\n\"I do not believe that he will ever live at Netherfield any more.\"\n\n\"Oh, well! it is just as he chooses. Nobody wants him to come; though I shall always say that he used my daughter extremely ill; and, if I was her, I would not have put up with it. Well, my comfort is, I am sure Jane will die of a broken heart, and then he will be sorry for what he has done.\"\n\nBut as Elizabeth could not receive comfort from any such expectation she made no answer.\n\n\"Well, Lizzy,\" continued her mother, soon afterwards, \"and so the Collinses live very comfortable, do they? Well, well, I only hope it will last. And what sort of table do they keep? Charlotte is an excellent manager, I dare say. If she is half as sharp as her mother, she is saving enough. There is nothing extravagant in their housekeeping, I dare say.\"\n\n\"No, nothing at all.\"\n\n\"A great deal of good management, depend upon it. Yes, yes. They will take care not to outrun their income. They will never be distressed for money. Well, much good may it do them! And so, I suppose, they often talk of having Longbourn when your father is dead. They look upon it quite as their own, I dare say, whenever that happens.\"\n\n\"It was a subject which they could not mention before me.\"\n\n\"No; it would have been strange if they had. But I make no doubt they often talk of it between themselves. Well, if they can be easy with an estate that is not lawfully their own, so much the better. I should be ashamed of having one that was only entailed on me.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 12 sentences sentences in the style of Jane Austen spawning from what the user wrote, within the Romance genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The first week of their return was soon gone. The second began. It was the last of the regiment's stay in Meryton, and all the young ladies in the neighbourhood were drooping apace. The dejection was almost universal. The elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat, drink, and sleep, and pursue the usual course of their employments. Very frequently were they reproached for this insensibility by Kitty and Lydia, whose own misery was extreme, and who could not comprehend such hard-heartedness in any of the family.\n\n\"Good Heaven! What is to become of us? What are we to do?\" would they often exclaim in the bitterness of woe. \"How can you be smiling so, Lizzy?\" Their affectionate mother shared all their grief; she remembered what she had herself endured on a similar occasion five-and-twenty years ago.\n\n\"I am sure,\" said she, \"I cried for two days together when Colonel Millar's regiment went away. I thought I should have broke my heart.\"\n\n\"I am sure I shall break mine,\" said Lydia.\n\n\"If one could but go to Brighton!\" observed Mrs. Bennet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh yes!—if one could but go to Brighton! But papa is so disagreeable.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A little sea-bathing would set me up for ever.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And my aunt Philips is sure it would do me a great deal of good,\" added Kitty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Such were the kind of lamentations resounding perpetually through Longbourn House." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth tried to be diverted by them; but all sense of pleasure was lost in shame." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She felt anew the justice of Mr. Darcy's objections; and never had she before been so much disposed to pardon his interference in the views of his friend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the gloom of Lydia's prospect was shortly cleared away; for she received an invitation from Mrs. Forster, the wife of the colonel of the regiment, to accompany her to Brighton." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This invaluable friend was a very young woman, and very lately married. A resemblance in good-humour and good spirits had recommended her and Lydia to each other, and out of their three months' acquaintance they had been intimate two.\n\nThe rapture of Lydia on this occasion, her adoration of Mrs. Forster, the delight of Mrs. Bennet, and the mortification of Kitty, are scarcely to be described. Wholly inattentive to her sister's feelings, Lydia flew about the house in restless ecstasy, calling for every one's congratulations, and laughing and talking with more violence than ever; whilst the luckless Kitty continued in the parlour repining at her fate in terms as unreasonable as her accent was peevish.\n\n\"I cannot see why Mrs. Forster should not ask me as well as Lydia,\" said she, \"though I am not her particular friend. I have just as much right to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am two years older.\"\n\nIn vain did Elizabeth attempt to make her reasonable, and Jane to make her resigned. As for Elizabeth herself, this invitation was so far from exciting in her the same feelings as in her mother and Lydia, that she considered it as the death-warrant of all possibility of common sense for the latter; and detestable as such a step must make her, were it known, she could not help secretly advising her father not to let her go. She represented to him all the improprieties of Lydia's general behaviour, the little advantage she could derive from the friendship of such a woman as Mrs. Forster, and the probability of her being yet more imprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must be greater than at home. He heard her attentively, and then said,—\n\n\"Lydia will never be easy till she has exposed herself in some public place or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so little expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present circumstances.\"\n\n\"If you were aware,\" said Elizabeth, \"of the very great disadvantage to us all, which must arise from the public notice of Lydia's unguarded and imprudent manner, nay, which has already arisen from it, I am sure you would judge differently in the affair.\"\n\n\"Already arisen!\" repeated Mr. Bennet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What! has she frightened away some of your lovers? Poor little Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret. Come, let me see the list of the pitiful fellows who have been kept aloof by Lydia's folly.\"\n\n\"Indeed you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It is not of peculiar, but of general evils, which I am now complaining. Our importance, our respectability in the world must be affected by the wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia's character. Excuse me,—for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear father, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and of teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of her life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character will be fixed; and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever made herself and her family ridiculous. A flirt, too, in the worst and meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond youth and a tolerable person; and, from the ignorance and emptiness of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which her rage for admiration will excite. In this danger Kitty is also comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain, ignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrolled! Oh, my dear father, can you suppose it possible that they will not be censured and despised wherever they are known, and that their sisters will not be often involved in the disgrace?\"\n\nMr. Bennet saw that her whole heart was in the subject; and affectionately taking her hand, said, in reply,—\n\n\"Do not make yourself uneasy, my love. Wherever you and Jane are known, you must be respected and valued; and you will not appear to less advantage for having a couple of—or I may say, three—very silly sisters. We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to Brighton. Let her go, then. Colonel Forster is a sensible man, and will keep her out of any real mischief; and she is luckily too poor to be an object of prey to any body. At Brighton she will be of less importance even as a common flirt than she has been here. The officers will find women better worth their notice. Let us hope, therefore, that her being there may teach her her own insignificance. At any rate, she cannot grow many degrees worse, without authorising us to lock her up for the rest of her life.\"\n\nWith this answer Elizabeth was forced to be content; but her own opinion continued the same, and she left him disappointed and sorry. It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on them. She was confident of having performed her duty; and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her disposition.\n\nHad Lydia and her mother known the substance of her conference with her father, their indignation would hardly have found expression in their united volubility. In Lydia's imagination, a visit to Brighton comprised every possibility of earthly happiness. She saw, with the creative eye of fancy, the streets of that gay bathing-place covered with officers. She saw herself the object of attention to tens and to scores of them at present unknown. She saw all the glories of the camp: its tents stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young and the gay, and dazzling with scarlet; and to complete the view, she saw herself seated beneath a tent, tenderly flirting with at least six officers at once." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Had she known that her sister sought to tear her from such prospects and such realities as these, what would have been her sensations?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They could have been understood only by her mother, who might have felt nearly the same." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lydia's going to Brighton was all that consoled her for the melancholy conviction of her husband's never intending to go there himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But they were entirely ignorant of what had passed; and their raptures continued, with little intermission, to the very day of Lydia's leaving home.\n\nElizabeth was now to see Mr. Wickham for the last time. Having been frequently in company with him since her return, agitation was pretty well over; the agitations of former partiality entirely so. She had even learnt to detect, in the very gentleness which had first delighted her, an affectation and a sameness to disgust and weary. In his present behaviour to herself, moreover, she had a fresh source of displeasure; for the inclination he soon testified of renewing those attentions which had marked the early part of their acquaintance could only serve, after what had since passed, to provoke her. She lost all concern for him in finding herself thus selected as the object of such idle and frivolous gallantry; and while she steadily repressed it, could not but feel the reproof contained in his believing, that however long, and for whatever cause, his attentions had been withdrawn, her vanity would be gratified, and her preference secured at any time, by their renewal.\n\nOn the very last day of the regiment's remaining in Meryton, he dined, with others of the officers, at Longbourn; and so little was Elizabeth disposed to part from him in good-humour, that on his making some enquiry as to the manner in which her time had passed at Hunsford, she mentioned Colonel Fitzwilliam's and Mr. Darcy's having both spent three weeks at Rosings, and asked him if he were acquainted with the former.\n\nHe looked surprised, displeased, alarmed: but with a moment's recollection, and a returning smile, replied, that he had formerly seen him often; and, after observing that he was a very gentleman-like man, asked her how she had liked him. Her answer was warmly in his favour. With an air of indifference, he soon afterwards added, \"How long did you say that he was at Rosings?\"\n\n\"Nearly three weeks.\"\n\n\"And you saw him frequently?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, almost every day.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate this exact phrase, preserving the quotation marks: \"And pray may I ask—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"His manners are very different from his cousin's.\"\n\n\"Yes, very different; but I think Mr. Darcy improves on acquaintance.\"\n\n\"Indeed!\" cried Wickham, with a look which did not escape her. \"And pray may I ask—\" but checking himself, he added, in a gayer tone, \"Is it in address that he improves? Has he deigned to add aught of civility to his ordinary style? for I dare not hope,\" he continued, in a lower and more serious tone, \"that he is improved in essentials.\"\n\n\"Oh, no!\" said Elizabeth. \"In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was.\"\n\nWhile she spoke, Wickham looked as if scarcely knowing whether to rejoice over her words or to distrust their meaning. There was a something in her countenance which made him listen with an apprehensive and anxious attention, while she added,—\n\n\"When I said that he improved on acquaintance, I did not mean that either his mind or manners were in a state of improvement; but that from knowing him better, his disposition was better understood.\"\n\nWickham's alarm now appeared in a heightened complexion and agitated look; for a few minutes he was silent; till, shaking off his embarrassment, he turned to her again, and said in the gentlest of accents,—\n\n\"You, who so well know my feelings towards Mr. Darcy, will readily comprehend how sincerely I must rejoice that he is wise enough to assume even the appearance of what is right. His pride, in that direction, may be of service, if not to himself, to many others, for it must deter him from such foul misconduct as I have suffered by. I only fear that the sort of cautiousness to which you, I imagine, have been alluding, is merely adopted on his visits to his aunt, of whose good opinion and judgment he stands much in awe. His fear of her has always operated, I know, when they were together; and a good deal is to be imputed to his wish of forwarding the match with Miss De Bourgh, which I am certain he has very much at heart.\"\n\nElizabeth could not repress a smile at this, but she answered only by a slight inclination of the head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She saw that he wanted to engage her on the old subject of his grievances, and she was in no humour to indulge him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The rest of the evening passed with the appearance, on his side, of usual cheerfulness, but with no further attempt to distinguish Elizabeth; and they parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again.\n\nWhen the party broke up, Lydia returned with Mrs. Forster to Meryton, from whence they were to set out early the next morning. The separation between her and her family was rather noisy than pathetic. Kitty was the only one who shed tears; but she did weep from vexation and envy. Mrs. Bennet was diffuse in her good wishes for the felicity of her daughter, and impressive in her injunctions that she would not miss the opportunity of enjoying herself as much as possible,—advice which there was every reason to believe would be attended to; and in the clamorous happiness Lydia herself in bidding farewell, the more gentle adieus of her sisters were uttered without being heard." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "help write? 5 sentences more, same character context, Romance genre thx" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Had Elizabeth's opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing picture of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort. Her father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good-humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr. Bennet was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice. He was fond of the country and of books; and from these tastes had arisen his principal enjoyments." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted than as her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This is not the sort of happiness which a man would in general wish to owe to his wife; but where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father's behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible. But she had never felt so strongly as now the disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a marriage, nor ever been so fully aware of the evils arising from so ill-judged a direction of talents— talents which, rightly used, might at least have preserved the respectability of his daughters, even if incapable of enlarging the mind of his wife.\n\nWhen Elizabeth had rejoiced over Wickham's departure, she found little other cause for satisfaction in the loss of the regiment. Their parties abroad were less varied than before; and at home she had a mother and sister, whose constant repinings at the dulness of every thing around them threw a real gloom over their domestic circle; and, though Kitty might in time regain her natural degree of sense, since the disturbers of her brain were removed, her other sister, from whose disposition greater evil might be apprehended, was likely to be hardened in all her folly and assurance, by a situation of such double danger as a watering-place and a camp." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Upon the whole, therefore, she found, what has been sometimes found before, that an event to which she had looked forward with impatient desire, did not, in taking place, bring all the satisfaction she had promised herself." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'scheme' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was consequently necessary to name some other period for the commencement of actual felicity; to have some other point on which her wishes and hopes might be fixed, and by again enjoying the pleasure of anticipation, console herself for the present, and prepare for another disappointment. Her tour to the Lakes was now the object of her happiest thoughts: it was her best consolation for all the uncomfortable hours which the discontentedness of her mother and Kitty made inevitable; and could she have included Jane in the scheme, every part of it would have been perfect.\n\n\"But it is fortunate,\" thought she, \"that I have something to wish for. Were the whole arrangement complete, my disappointment would be certain. But here, by carrying with me one ceaseless source of regret in my sister's absence, I may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of pleasure realised. A scheme of which every part promises delight can never be successful: and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation.\"\n\n\"When Lydia went away she promised to write very often and very minutely to her mother and Kitty; but her letters were always long expected, and always very short. Those to her mother contained little else than that they were just returned from the Library, where such and such officers had attended them, and where she had seen such beautiful ornaments as made her quite wild; that she had a new gown, or a new parasol, which she would have described more fully, but was obliged to leave off in a violent hurry, as Mrs. Forster called her, and they were going to the camp; and from her correspondence with her sister there was still less to be learnt, for her letters to Kitty, though rather longer, were much too full of lines under the words to be made public." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After the first fortnight or three weeks of her absence, health, good-humour, and cheerfulness began to re-appear at Longbourn." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'gardiner' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every thing wore a happier aspect. The families who had been in town for the winter came back again, and summer finery and summer engagements arose. Mrs. Bennet was restored to her usual querulous serenity; and by the middle of June Kitty was so much recovered as to be able to enter Meryton without tears,—an event of such happy promise as to make Elizabeth hope, that by the following Christmas she might be so tolerably reasonable as not to mention an officer above once a day, unless, by some cruel and malicious arrangement at the War Office, another regiment should be quartered in Meryton.\n\nThe time fixed for the beginning of their northern tour was now fast approaching; and a fortnight only was wanting of it, when a letter arrived from Mrs. Gardiner, which at once delayed its commencement and curtailed its extent. Mr. Gardiner would be prevented by business from setting out till a fortnight later in July, and must be in London again within a month; and as that left too short a period for them to go so far, and see so much as they had proposed, or at least to see it with the leisure and comfort they had built on, they were obliged to give up the Lakes, and substitute a more contracted tour; and, according to the present plan, were to go no farther northward than Derbyshire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In that county there was enough to be seen to occupy the chief of their three weeks; and to Mrs. Gardiner it had a peculiarly strong attraction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The town where she had formerly passed some years of her life, and where they were now to spend a few days, was probably as great an object of her curiosity as all the celebrated beauties of Matlock, Chatsworth, Dovedale, or the Peak.10\n\nElizabeth was excessively disappointed: she had set her heart on seeing the Lakes; and still thought there might have been time enough. But it was her business to be satisfied—and certainly her temper to be happy; and all was soon right again.\n\nWith the mention of Derbyshire, there were many ideas connected. It was impossible for her to see the word without thinking of Pemberley and its owner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But surely,\" said she, \"I may enter his county with impunity, and rob it of a few petrified spars,ba without his perceiving me.\"\n\nThe period of expectation was now doubled. Four weeks were to pass away before her uncle and aunt's arrival. But they did pass away, and Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, with their four children, did at length appear at Longbourn. The children, two girls of six and eight years old, and two younger boys, were to be left under the particular care of their cousin Jane, who was the general favourite, and whose steady sense and sweetness of temper exactly adapted her for attending to them in every way—teaching them, playing with them, and loving them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Gardiners stayed only one night at Longbourn, and set off the next morning with Elizabeth in pursuit of novelty and amusement. One enjoyment was certain—that of suitableness as companions—a suitableness which comprehended health and temper to bear inconveniences—cheerfulness to enhance every pleasure—and affection and intelligence, which might supply it among themselves if there were disappointments abroad.\n\nIt is not the object of this work to give a description of Derbyshire, nor of any of the remarkable places through which their route thither lay; Oxford, Blenheim, Warwick, Kenilworth, Birmingham, &c. are sufficiently known. A small part of Derbyshire is all the present concern. To the little town of Lambton, the scene of Mrs. Gardiner's former residence, and where she had lately learned that some acquaintance still remained, they bent their steps, after having seen all the principal wonders of the country; and within five miles of Lambton, Elizabeth found, from her aunt, that Pemberley was situated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not in their direct road; nor more than a mile or two out of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In talking over their route the evening before, Mrs. Gardiner expressed an inclination to see the place again. Mr. Gardiner declared his willingness, and Elizabeth was applied to for her approbation.\n\n\"My love, should not you like to see a place of which you have heard so much?\" said her aunt. \"A place, too, with which so many of your acquaintance are connected. Wickham passed all his youth there, you know.\"\n\nElizabeth was distressed. She felt that she had no business at Pemberley, and was obliged to assume a disinclination for seeing it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She must own that she was tired of great houses: after going over so many, she really had no pleasure in fine carpets or satin curtains.\"\n\nMrs. Gardiner abused her stupidity. \"If it were merely a fine house richly furnished,\" said she, \"I should not care about it myself; but the grounds are delightful. They have some of the finest woods in the country.\"\n\nElizabeth said no more; but her mind could not acquiesce. The possibility of meeting Mr. Darcy, while viewing the place, instantly occurred." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It would be dreadful! She blushed at the very idea; and thought it would be better to speak openly to her aunt, than to run such a risk. But against this there were objections; and she finally resolved that it could be the last resource, if her private enquiries as to the absence of the family were unfavourably answered.\n\nAccordingly, when she retired at night, she asked the chambermaid whether Pemberley were not a very fine place, what was the name of its proprietor, and, with no little alarm, whether the family were down for the summer? A most welcome negative followed the last question; and her alarms being now removed, she was at leisure to feel a great deal of curiosity to see the house herself; and when the subject was revived the next morning, and she was again applied to, could readily answer, and with a proper air of indifference, that she had not really any dislike to the scheme.\n\nTo Pemberley, therefore, they were to go." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "NarrativeBot: six sentences sentences. Match character familiarity. Romance genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'drove' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth, as they drove along, watched for the first appearance of Pemberley Woods with some perturbation; and when at length they turned in at the lodge, her spirits were in a high flutter.\n\nThe park was very large, and contained great variety of ground. They entered it in one of its lowest points, and drove for some time through a beautiful wood stretching over a wide extent.\n\nElizabeth's mind was too full for conversation, but she saw and admired every remarkable spot and point of view. They gradually ascended for half a mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome, stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; and in front a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Its banks were neither formal nor falsely adorned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were all of them warm in their admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!\n\nThey descended the hill, crossed the bridge, and drove to the door; and, while examining the nearer aspect of the house, all her apprehension of meeting its owner returned. She dreaded lest the chambermaid had been mistaken. On applying to see the place,11 they were admitted into the hall; and Elizabeth, as they waited for the housekeeper, had leisure to wonder at her being where she was.\n\nThe housekeeper came; a respectable looking elderly woman, much less fine, and more civil, than she had any notion of finding her. They followed her into the dining-parlour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a large, well-proportioned room, handsomely fitted up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth, after slightly surveying it, went to a window to enjoy its prospect. The hill, crowned with wood, from which they had descended, receiving increased abruptness from the distance, was a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good; and she looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its banks, and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it, with delight. As they passed into other rooms, these objects were taking different positions; but from every window there were beauties to be seen. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of their proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine,—with less of splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings.\n\n\"And of this place,\" thought she, \"I might have been mistress! With these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own, and welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt. But, no,\" recollecting herself, \"that could never be; my uncle and aunt would have been lost to me; I should not have been allowed to invite them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was a lucky recollection—it saved her from something like regret." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She longed to enquire of the housekeeper whether her master were really absent, but had not courage for it. At length, however, the question was asked by her uncle; and she turned away with alarm, while Mrs. Reynolds replied, that he was; adding, \"But we expect him to-morrow, with a large party of friends.\" How rejoiced was Elizabeth that their own journey had not by any circumstance been delayed a day.\n\nHer aunt now called her to look at a picture. She approached, and saw the likeness of Mr. Wickham, suspended, amongst several other miniatures, over the mantel-piece. Her aunt asked her, smilingly, how she liked it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The housekeeper came forward, and told them it was the picture of a young gentleman, the son of her late master's steward, who had been brought up by him at his own expense." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He is now gone into the army,\" she added; \"but I am afraid he has turned out very wild.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece with a smile, but Elizabeth could not return it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And that,\" said Mrs. Reynolds, pointing to another of the miniatures, \"is my master—and very like him. It was drawn at the same time as the other—about eight years ago.\"\n\n\"I have heard much of your master's fine person,\" said Mrs. Gardiner, looking at the picture; \"it is a handsome face. But, Lizzy, you can tell us whether it is like or not.\"\n\nMrs. Reynolds's respect for Elizabeth seemed to increase on this intimation of her knowing her master.\n\n\"Does that young lady know Mr. Darcy?\"\n\nElizabeth coloured, and said, \"A little.\"\n\n\"And do not you think him a very handsome gentleman, ma'am?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, very handsome.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am sure I know none so handsome; but in the gallery up stairs you will see a finer, larger picture of him than this. This room was my late master's favourite room, and these miniatures are just as they used to be then. He was very fond of them.\"\n\nThis accounted to Elizabeth for Mr. Wickham's being among them.\n\nMrs. Reynolds then directed their attention to one of Miss Darcy, drawn when she was only eight years old.\n\n\"And is Miss Darcy as handsome as her brother?\" said Mr. Gardiner.\n\n\"Oh yes—the handsomest young lady that ever was seen; and so accomplished! She plays and sings all day long. In the next room is a new instrument just come down for her—a present from my master: she comes here to-morrow with him.\"\n\nMr. Gardiner, whose manners were easy and pleasant, encouraged her communicativeness by his questions and remarks: Mrs. Reynolds, either from pride or attachment, had evidently great pleasure in talking of her master and his sister." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is your master much at Pemberley in the course of the year?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'could' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not so much as I could wish, sir: but I dare say he may spend half his time here; and Miss Darcy is always down for the summer months.\"\n\nExcept, thought Elizabeth, when she goes to Ramsgate.\n\n\"If your master would marry, you might see more of him.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; but I do not know when that will be. I do not know who is good enough for him.\"\n\nMr. and Mrs. Gardiner smiled. Elizabeth could not help saying, \"It is very much to his credit, I am sure, that you should think so.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I say no more than the truth, and what every body will say that knows him,\" replied the other. Elizabeth thought this was going pretty far; and she listened with increasing astonishment as the housekeeper added, \"I have never had a cross word from him in my life, and I have known him ever since he was four years old.\"\n\nThis was praise of all others most extraordinary, most opposite to her ideas. That he was not a good-tempered man had been her firmest opinion. Her keenest attention was awakened: she longed to hear more; and was grateful to her uncle for saying,—\n\n\"There are very few people of whom so much can be said. You are lucky in having such a master.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, sir, I know I am. If I were to go through the world, I could not meet with a better. But I have always observed, that they who are good-natured when children, are good-natured when they grow up; and he was always the sweetest-tempered, most generous-hearted boy in the world.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth almost stared at her. \"Can this be Mr. Darcy?\" thought she.\n\n\"His father was an excellent man,\" said Mrs. Gardiner.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am, that he was indeed; and his son will be just like him—just as affable to the poor.\"\n\nElizabeth listened, wondered, doubted, and was impatient for more. Mrs. Reynolds could interest her on no other point." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She related the subjects of the pictures, the dimensions of the rooms, and the price of the furniture in vain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Gardiner, highly amused by the kind of family prejudice, to which he attributed her excessive commendation of her master, soon led again to the subject; and she dwelt with energy on his many merits, as they proceeded together up the great staircase.\n\n\"He is the best landlord, and the best master,\" said she, \"that ever lived. Not like the wild young men now-a-days, who think of nothing but themselves. There is not one of his tenants or servants but what will give him a good name. Some people call him proud; but I am sure I never saw any thing of it. To my fancy, it is only because he does not rattle away like other young men.\"\n\n\"In what an amiable light does this place him!\" thought Elizabeth.\n\n\"This fine account of him,\" whispered her aunt, as they walked, \"is not quite consistent with his behaviour to our poor friend.\"\n\n\"Perhaps we might be deceived.\"\n\n\"That is not very likely; our authority was too good.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "On reaching the spacious lobby above, they were shown into a very pretty sitting-room, lately fitted up with greater elegance and lightness than the apartments below; and were informed that it was but just done to give pleasure to Miss Darcy, who had taken a liking to the room, when last at Pemberley." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He is certainly a good brother,\" said Elizabeth, as she walked towards one of the windows." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Reynolds anticipated Miss Darcy's delight, when she should enter the room." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'elizabeth' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And this is always the way with him,\" she added. \"Whatever can give his sister any pleasure, is sure to be done in a moment. There is nothing he would not do for her.\"\n\nThe picture gallery, and two or three of the principal bedrooms, were all that remained to be shown. In the former were many good paintings; but Elizabeth knew nothing of the art; and from such as had been already visible below, she had willingly turned to look at some drawings of Miss Darcy's, in crayons, whose subjects were usually more interesting, and also more intelligible.\n\nIn the gallery there were many family portraits, but they could have little to fix the attention of a stranger. Elizabeth walked on in quest of the only face whose features would be known to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At last it arrested her—and she beheld a striking resemblance of Mr. Darcy, with such a smile over the face, as she remembered to have sometimes seen, when he looked at her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stood several minutes before the picture, in earnest contemplation, and returned to it again before they quitted the gallery. Mrs. Reynolds informed them, that it had been taken in his father's lifetime.\n\nThere was certainly at this moment, in Elizabeth's mind, a more gentle sensation towards the original than she had ever felt in the height of their acquaintance. The commendation bestowed on him by Mrs. Reynolds was of no trifling nature. What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant? As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people's happiness were in his guardianship!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How much of pleasure or pain it was in his power to bestow! How much of good or evil must be done by him! Every idea that had been brought forward by the housekeeper was favourable to his character; and as she stood before the canvass, on which he was represented, and fixed his eyes upon herself, she thought of his regard with a deeper sentiment of gratitude than it had ever raised before: she remembered its warmth, and softened its impropriety of expression.\n\nWhen all of the house that was open to general inspection had been seen, they returned down stairs; and, taking leave of the housekeeper, were consigned over to the gardener, who met them at the hall door.\n\nAs they walked across the lawn towards the river, Elizabeth turned back to look again; her uncle and aunt stopped also: and while the former was conjecturing as to the date of the building, the owner of it himself suddenly came forward from the road, which led behind it to the stables.\n\nThey were within twenty yards of each other, and so abrupt was his appearance, that it was impossible to avoid his sight." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of each were overspread with the deepest blush. He absolutely started, and for a moment seemed immovable from surprise; but shortly recovering himself, advanced towards the party, and spoke to Elizabeth, if not in terms of perfect composure, at least of perfect civility.\n\nShe had instinctively turned away; but stopping on his approach, received his compliments with an embarrassment impossible to be overcome. Had his first appearance, or his resemblance to the picture they had just been examining, been insufficient to assure the other two that they now saw Mr. Darcy, the gardener's expression of surprise, on beholding his master, must immediately have told it. They stood a little aloof while he was talking to their niece, who, astonished and confused, scarcely dared lift her eyes to his face, and knew not what answer she returned to his civil enquiries after her family. Amazed at the alteration of his manner since they last parted, every sentence that he uttered was increasing her embarrassment; and every idea of the impropriety of her being found there recurring to her mind, the few minutes in which they continued together were some of the most uncomfortable of her life." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nor did he seem much more at ease: when he spoke, his accent had none of its usual sedateness; and he repeated his enquiries as to the time of her having left Longbourn, and of her stay in Derbyshire, so often, and in so hurried a way, as plainly spoke the distraction of his thoughts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At length, every idea seemed to fail him; and after standing a few moments without saying a word, he suddenly recollected himself, and took leave.\n\nThe others then joined her, and expressed their admiration of his figure; but Elizabeth heard not a word, and, wholly engrossed by her own feelings, followed them in silence. She was overpowered by shame and vexation. Her coming there was the most unfortunate, the most ill-judged thing in the world! How strange must it appear to him! In what a disgraceful light might it not strike so vain a man!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It might seem as if she had purposely thrown herself in his way again!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oh! why did she come? or, why did he thus come a day before he was expected? Had they been only ten minutes sooner, they should have been beyond the reach of his discrimination; for it was plain that he was that moment arrived, that moment alighted from his horse or his carriage. She blushed again and again over the perverseness of the meeting. And his behaviour, so strikingly altered,—what could it mean? That he should even speak to her was amazing!—but to speak with such civility, to enquire after her family!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Never in her life had she seen his manners so little dignified, never had he spoken with such gentleness as on this unexpected meeting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What a contrast did it offer to his last address in Rosings' Park, when he put his letter into her hand! She knew not what to think, or how to account for it.\n\nThey had now entered a beautiful walk by the side of the water, and every step was bringing forward a nobler fall of ground, or a finer reach of the woods to which they were approaching: but it was some time before Elizabeth was sensible of any of it; and, though she answered mechanically to the repeated appeals of her uncle and aunt, and seemed to direct her eyes to such objects as they pointed out, she distinguished no part of the scene. Her thoughts were all fixed on that one spot of Pemberley House, whichever it might be, where Mr. Darcy then was. She longed to know what at that moment was passing in his mind; in what manner he thought of her, and whether, in defiance of every thing, she was still dear to him. Perhaps he had been civil only because he felt himself at ease; yet there had been that in his voice, which was not like ease." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whether he had felt more of pain or of pleasure in seeing her, she could not tell, but he certainly had not seen her with composure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At length, however, the remarks of her companions on her absence of mind roused her, and she felt the necessity of appearing more like herself.\n\nThey entered the woods, and, bidding adieu to the river for a while, ascended some of the higher grounds; whence, in spots where the opening of the trees gave the eye power to wander, were many charming views of the valley, the opposite hills, with the long range of woods overspreading many, and occasionally part of the stream. Mr. Gardiner expressed a wish of going round the whole park, but feared it might be beyond a walk. With a triumphant smile, they were told, that it was ten miles round. It settled the matter; and they pursued the accustomed circuit; which brought them again, after some time, in a descent among hanging woods, to the edge of the water, and one of its narrowest parts. They crossed it by a simple bridge, in character with the general air of the scene: it was a spot less adorned than any they had yet visited; and the valley, here contracted into a glen, allowed room only for the stream, and a narrow walk amidst the rough coppice-wood which bordered it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth longed to explore its windings; but when they had crossed the bridge, and perceived their distance from the house, Mrs. Gardiner, who was not a great walker, could go no farther, and thought only of returning to the carriage as quickly as possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her niece was, therefore, obliged to submit, and they took their way towards the house on the opposite side of the river, in the nearest direction; but their progress was slow, for Mr. Gardiner, though seldom able to indulge the taste, was very fond of fishing, and was so much engaged in watching the occasional appearance of some trout in the water, and talking to the man about them, that he advanced but little. Whilst wandering on in this slow manner, they were again surprised, and Elizabeth's astonishment was quite equal to what it had been at first, by the sight of Mr. Darcy approaching them, and at no great distance. The walk being here less sheltered than on the other side, allowed them to see him before they met. Elizabeth, however astonished, was at least more prepared for an interview than before, and resolved to appear and to speak with calmness, if he really intended to meet them. For a few moments, indeed, she felt that he would probably strike into some other path. The idea lasted while a turning in the walk concealed him from their view; the turning past, he was immediately before them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "With a glance she saw, that he had lost none of his recent civility; and, to imitate his politeness, she began as they met to admire the beauty of the place; but she had not got beyond the words \"delightful,\" and \"charming,\" when some unlucky recollections obtruded, and she fancied that praise of Pemberley from her might be mischievously construed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her colour changed, and she said no more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Gardiner was standing a little behind; and on her pausing, he asked her, if she would do him the honour of introducing him to her friends." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This was a stroke of civility for which she was quite unprepared; and she could hardly suppress a smile, at his being now seeking the acquaintance of some of those very people, against whom his pride had revolted, in his offer to herself. \"What will be his surprise,\" thought she, \"when he knows who they are! He takes them now for people of fashion.\"\n\nThe introduction, however, was immediately made; and as she named their relationship to herself, she stole a sly look at him, to see how he bore it; and was not without the expectation of his decamping as fast as he could from such disgraceful companions. That he was surprised by the connection was evident: he sustained it, however, with fortitude; and, so far from going away, turned back with them, and entered into conversation with Mr. Gardiner. Elizabeth could not but be pleased, could not but triumph. It was consoling, that he should know she had some relations for whom there was no need to blush." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She listened most attentively to all that passed between them, and gloried in every expression, every sentence of her uncle, which marked his intelligence, his taste, or his good manners." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The conversation soon turned upon fishing; and she heard Mr. Darcy invite him, with the greatest civility, to fish there as often as he chose, while he continued in the neighbourhood, offering at the same time to supply him with fishing tackle, and pointing out those parts of the stream where there was usually most sport." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Gardiner, who was walking arm in arm with Elizabeth, gave her a look expressive of her wonder.\n\nElizabeth said nothing, but it gratified her exceedingly; the compliment must be all for herself. Her astonishment, however, was extreme; and continually was she repeating, \"Why is he so altered? From what can it proceed? It cannot be for me, it cannot be for my sake that his manners are thus softened. My reproofs at Hunsford could not work such a change as this. It is impossible that he should still love me.\"\n\nAfter walking some time in this way, the two ladies in front, the two gentlemen behind, on resuming their places, after descending to the brink of the river for the better inspection of some curious water-plant, there chanced to be a little alteration. It originated in Mrs. Gardiner, who, fatigued by the exercise of the morning, found Elizabeth's arm inadequate to her support, and consequently preferred her husband's. Mr. Darcy took her place by her niece, and they walked on together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After a short silence, the lady first spoke." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate this exact phrase, preserving the quotation marks: \"and among them are some who will claim an acquaintance with you,—Mr. Bingley and his sisters.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wished him to know that she had been assured of his absence before she came to the place, and accordingly began by observing, that his arrival had been very unexpected;—\"for your housekeeper,\" she added, \"informed us that you would certainly not be here till to-morrow; and, indeed, before we left Bakewell, we understood that you were not immediately expected in the country.\" He acknowledged the truth of it all; and said that business with his steward had occasioned his coming forward a few hours before the rest of the party with whom he had been travelling. \"They will join me early tomorrow,\" he continued, \"and among them are some who will claim an acquaintance with you,—Mr. Bingley and his sisters.\"\n\nElizabeth answered only by a slight bow. Her thoughts were instantly driven back to the time when Mr. Bingley's name had been last mentioned between them; and if she might judge from his complexion, his mind was not very differently engaged.\n\n\"There is also one other person in the party,\" he continued after a pause, \"who more particularly wishes to be known to you. Will you allow me, or do I ask too much, to introduce my sister to your acquaintance during your stay at Lambton?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The surprise of such an application was great indeed; it was too great for her to know in what manner she acceded to it. She immediately felt that whatever desire Miss Darcy might have of being acquainted with her, must be the work of her brother, and without looking farther, it was satisfactory; it was gratifying to know that his resentment had not made him think really ill of her.\n\nThey now walked on in silence; each of them deep in thought. Elizabeth was not comfortable; that was impossible; but she was flattered and pleased. His wish of introducing his sister to her was a compliment of the highest kind. They soon outstripped the others; and when they had reached the carriage, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were half a quarter of a mile behind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He then asked her to walk into the house—but she declared herself not tired, and they stood together on the lawn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At such a time, much might have been said, and silence was very awkward. She wanted to talk, but there seemed an embargo on every subject. At last she recollected that she had been travelling, and they talked of Matlock and Dovedale with great perseverance. Yet time and her aunt moved slowly—and her patience and her ideas were nearly worn out before the tête-à-tête was over. On Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner's coming up, they were all pressed to go into the house and take some refreshment; but this was declined, and they parted on each side with the utmost politeness. Mr. Darcy handed the ladies into the carriage, and when it drove off, Elizabeth saw him walking slowly towards the house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The observations of her uncle and aunt now began; and each of them pronounced him to be infinitely superior to any thing they had expected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He is perfectly well behaved, polite, and unassuming,\" said her uncle.\n\n\"There is something a little stately in him, to be sure,\" replied her aunt; \"but it is confined to his air, and is not unbecoming. I can now say with the housekeeper, that though some people may call him proud, I have seen no thing of it.\"\n\n\"I was never more surprised than by his behaviour to us. It was more than civil; it was really attentive; and there was no necessity for such attention. His acquaintance with Elizabeth was very trifling.\"\n\n\"To be sure, Lizzy,\" said her aunt, \"he is not so handsome as Wickham; or rather, he has not Wickham's countenance, for his features are perfectly good. But how came you to tell us that he was so disagreeable?\"\n\nElizabeth excused herself as well as she could; said that she had liked him better when they met in Kent than before, and that she had never seen him so pleasant as this morning.\n\n\"But, perhaps, he may be a little whimsical in his civilities,\" replied her uncle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your great men often are; and, therefore, I shall not take him at his word about fishing, as he might change his mind another day, and warn me off his grounds.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'wickham' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth felt that they had entirely mistaken his character, but said nothing.\n\n\"From what we have seen of him,\" continued Mrs. Gardiner, \"I really should not have thought that he could have behaved in so cruel a way by any body, as he has done by poor Wickham. He has not an ill-natured look. On the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he speaks. And there is something of dignity in his countenance, that would not give one an unfavourable idea of his heart. But, to be sure, the good lady who showed us the house, did give him a most flaming character! I could hardly help laughing aloud sometimes. But he is a liberal master, I suppose, and that in the eye of a servant comprehends every virtue.\"\n\nElizabeth here felt herself called on to say something in vindication of his behaviour to Wickham; and, therefore, gave them to understand, in as guarded a manner as she could, that by what she had heard from his relations in Kent, his actions were capable of a very different construction; and that his character was by no means so faulty, nor Wickham's so amiable, as they had been considered in Hertfordshire. In confirmation of this, she related the particulars of all the pecuniary transactions in which they had been connected, without actually naming her authority, but stating it to be such as might be relied on.\n\nMrs. Gardiner was surprised and concerned: but as they were now approaching the scene of her former pleasures, every idea gave way to the charm of recollection; and she was too much engaged in pointing out to her husband all the interesting spots in its environs, to think of any thing else. Fatigued as she had been by the morning's walk, they had no sooner dined than she set off again in quest of her former acquaintance, and the evening was spent in the satisfactions of an intercourse renewed after many years' discontinuance.\n\nThe occurrences of the day were too full of interest to leave Elizabeth much attention for any of these new friends; and she could do nothing but think, and think with wonder, of Mr. Darcy's civility, and, above all, of his wishing her to be acquainted with his sister." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Keep going w/ one sentence more. Note: Might reference existing chars" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth had settled it that Mr. Darcy would bring his sister to visit her the very day after her reaching Pemberley; and was, consequently, resolved not to be out of sight of the inn the whole of that morning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But her conclusion was false; for on the very morning after their own arrival at Lambton these visitors came." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had been walking about the place with some of their new friends, and were just returned to the inn to dress themselves for dining with the same family, when the sound of a carriage drew them to a window, and they saw a gentleman and lady in a curriclebb driving up the street." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth, immediately recognising the livery, guessed what it meant, and imparted no small degree of surprise to her relations, by acquainting them with the honour which she expected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her uncle and aunt were all amazement; and the embarrassment of her manner as she spoke, joined to the circumstance itself, and many of the circumstances of the preceding day, opened to them a new idea on the business." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing had ever suggested it before, but they now felt that there was no other way of accounting for such attentions from such a quarter than by supposing a partiality for their niece." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While these newly-born notions were passing in their heads, the perturbation of Elizabeth's feelings was every moment increasing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was quite amazed at her own discomposure; but, amongst other causes of disquiet, she dreaded lest the partiality of the brother should have said too much in her favour; and more than commonly anxious to please, she naturally suspected that every power of pleasing would fail her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She retreated from the window, fearful of being seen; and as she walked up and down the room, endeavouring to compose herself, saw such looks of enquiring surprise in her uncle and aunt as made every thing worse." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Darcy and her brother appeared, and this formidable introduction took place." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With astonishment did Elizabeth see that her new acquaintance was at least as much embarrassed as herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Since her being at Lambton, she had heard that Miss Darcy was exceedingly proud; but the observation of a very few minutes convinced her that she was only exceedingly shy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She found it difficult to obtain even a word from her beyond a monosyllable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Darcy was tall, and on a larger scale than Elizabeth; and, though little more than sixteen, her figure was formed, and her appearance womanly and graceful." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was less handsome than her brother, but there was sense and good-humour in her face, and her manners were perfectly unassuming and gentle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth, who had expected to find in her as acute and unembarrassed an observer as ever Mr. Darcy had been, was much relieved by discerning such different feelings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had not been long together before Darcy told her that Bingley was also coming to wait on her; and she had barely time to express her satisfaction, and prepare for such a visitor, when Bingley's quick step was heard on the stairs, and in a moment he entered the room." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All Elizabeth's anger against him had been long done away; but, had she still felt any, it could hardly have stood its ground against the unaffected cordiality with which he expressed himself on seeing her again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He enquired in a friendly, though general, way, after her family, and looked and spoke with the same goodhumoured ease that he had ever done." }, { "from": "human", "value": "To Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner he was scarcely a less interesting personage than to herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had long wished to see him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The whole party before them, indeed, excited a lively attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The suspicions which had just arisen of Mr. Darcy and their niece, directed their observation towards each with an earnest, though guarded, enquiry; and they soon drew from those enquiries the full conviction that one of them at least knew what it was to love." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of the lady's sensations they remained a little in doubt; but that the gentleman was overflowing with admiration was evident enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth, on her side, had much to do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wanted to ascertain the feelings of each of her visitors, she wanted to compose her own, and to make herself agreeable to all; and in the latter object, where she feared most to fail, she was most sure of success, for those to whom she endeavoured to give pleasure were prepossessed in her favour." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bingley was ready, Georgiana was eager, and Darcy determined, to be pleased." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In seeing Bingley, her thoughts naturally flew to her sister; and oh!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "how ardently did she long to know whether any of his were directed in a like manner." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sometimes she could fancy that he talked less than on former occasions, and once or twice pleased herself with the notion that as he looked at her, he was trying to trace a resemblance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But, though this might be imaginary, she could not be deceived as to his behaviour to Miss Darcy, who had been set up as a rival to Jane." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No look appeared on either side that spoke particular regard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nothing occurred between them that could justify the hopes of his sister." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On this point she was soon satisfied; and two or three little circumstances occurred ere they parted, which, in her anxious interpretation, denoted a recollection of Jane, not untinctured by tenderness, and a wish of saying more that might lead to the mention of her, had he dared." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He observed to her, at a moment when the others were talking together, and in a tone which had something of real regret, that it \"was a very long time since he had had the pleasure of seeing her;\" and, before she could reply, he added, \"It is above eight months. We have not met since the 26th of November, when we were all dancing together at Netherfield.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth was pleased to find his memory so exact; and he afterwards took occasion to ask her, when unattended to by any of the rest, whether all her sisters were at Longbourn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was not much in the question, nor in the preceding remark; but there was a look and a manner which gave them meaning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was not often that she could turn her eyes on Mr. Darcy himself; but whenever she did catch a glimpse, she saw an expression of general complaisance, and in all that he said, she heard an accent so far removed from hauteur or disdain of his companions, as convinced her that the improvement of manners which she had yesterday witnessed, however temporary its existence might prove, had at least outlived one day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she saw him thus seeking the acquaintance, and courting the good opinion of people with whom any intercourse a few months ago would have been a disgrace; when she saw him thus civil, not only to herself, but to the very relations whom he had openly disdained, and recollected their last lively scene in Hunsford Parsonage, the difference, the change was so great, and struck so forcibly on her mind, that she could hardly restrain her astonishment from being visible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Never, even in the company of his dear friends at Netherfield, or his dignified relations at Rosings, had she seen him so desirous to please, so free from self-consequence or unbending reserve, as now, when no importance could result from the success of his endeavours, and when even the acquaintance of those to whom his attentions were addressed, would draw down the ridicule and censure of the ladies both of Netherfield and Rosings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their visitors stayed with them above half an hour; and when they arose to depart, Mr. Darcy called on his sister to join him in expressing their wish of seeing Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, and Miss Bennet, to dinner at Pemberley, before they left the country." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Darcy, though with a diffidence which marked her little in the habit of giving invitations, readily obeyed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece, desirous of knowing how she, whom the invitation most concerned, felt disposed as to its acceptance, but Elizabeth had turned away her head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Presuming, however, that this studied avoidance spoke rather a momentary embarrassment than any dislike of the proposal, and seeing in her husband, who was fond of society, a perfect willingness to accept it, she ventured to engage for her attendance, and the day after the next was fixed on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bingley expressed great pleasure in the certainty of seeing Elizabeth again, having still a great deal to say to her, and many enquiries to make after all their Hertfordshire friends." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth, construing all this into a wish of hearing her speak of her sister, was pleased; and on this account, as well as some others, found herself, when their visitors left them, capable of considering the last half hour with some satisfaction, though while it was passing the enjoyment of it had been little." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eager to be alone, and fearful of enquiries or hints from her uncle and aunt, she stayed with them only long enough to hear their favourable opinion of Bingley, and then hurried away to dress." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she had no reason to fear Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner's curiosity; it was not their wish to force her communication." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was evident that she was much better acquainted with Mr. Darcy than they had before any idea of; it was evident that he was very much in love with her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They saw much to interest, but nothing to justify enquiry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of Mr. Darcy it was now a matter of anxiety to think well; and, as far as their acquaintance reached, there was no fault to find." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They could not be untouched by his politeness; and had they drawn his character from their own feelings and his servant's report, without any reference to any other account, the circle in Hertfordshire to which he was known would not have recognised it for Mr. Darcy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There was now an interest, however, in believing the housekeeper; and they soon became sensible, that the authority of a servant, who had known him since he was four years old, and whose own manners indicated respectability, was not to be hastily rejected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Neither had any thing occurred in the intelligence of their Lambton friends that could materially lessen its weight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had nothing to accuse him of but pride; pride he probably had, and if not, it would certainly be imputed by the inhabitants of a small market town where the family did not visit." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was acknowledged, however, that he was a liberal man, and did much good among the poor." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With respect to Wickham, the travellers soon found that he was not held there in much estimation; for though the chief of his concerns with the son of his patron were imperfectly understood, it was yet a well-known fact that, on his quitting Derbyshire, he had left many debts behind him, which Mr. Darcy afterwards discharged." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As for Elizabeth, her thoughts were at Pemberley this evening more than the last; and the evening, though as it passed it seemed long, was not long enough to determine her feelings towards one in that mansion; and she lay awake two whole hours, endeavouring to make them out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She certainly did not hate him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No; hatred had vanished long ago, and she had almost as long been ashamed of ever feeling a dislike against him that could be so called." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The respect created by the conviction of his valuable qualities, though at first unwillingly admitted, had for some time ceased to be repugnant to her feelings; and it was now heightened into somewhat of a friendlier nature by the testimony so highly in his favour, and bringing forward his disposition in so amiable a light, which yesterday had produced." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of good-will which could not be overlooked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was gratitude;—gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent on making her known to his sister." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Such a change in a man of so much pride excited not only astonishment but gratitude—for to love, ardent love, it must be attributed; and, as such, its impression on her was of a sort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not be exactly defined." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She respected, she esteemed, she was grateful to him, she felt a real interest in his welfare; and she only wanted to know how far she wished that welfare to depend upon herself, and how far it would be for the happiness of both that she should employ the power, which her fancy told her she still possessed, of bringing on the renewal of his addresses." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had been settled in the evening, between the aunt and niece, that such a striking civility as Miss Darcy's, in coming to them on the very day of her arrival at Pemberley, for she had reached it only to a late breakfast, ought to be imitated, though it could not be equalled, by some exertion of politeness on their side; and, consequently, that it would be highly expedient to wait on her at Pemberley the following morning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were, therefore, to go." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth was pleased; though, when she asked herself the reason, she had very little to say in reply." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Gardiner left them soon after breakfast. The fishing scheme had been renewed the day before, and a positive engagement made of his meeting some of the gentlemen at Pemberley by noon." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: Cooperative chapter writing\nMy role: Provide a story segment\nYour role: Expand with 3 sentences, emulating Jane Austen in the Romance genre\nNote: This is part of a larger work" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Convinced as Elizabeth now was that Miss Bingley's dislike of her had originated in jealousy, she could not help feeling how very unwelcome her appearance at Pemberley must be to her, and was curious to know with how much civility on that lady's side the acquaintance would now be renewed.\n\nOn reaching the house, they were shown through the hall into the saloon,bc whose northern aspect rendered it delightful for summer. Its windows, opening to the ground, admitted a most refreshing view of the high woody hills behind the house, and of the beautiful oaks and Spanish chestnuts which were scattered over the intermediate lawn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In this room they were received by Miss Darcy, who was sitting there with Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley, and the lady with whom she lived in London. Georgiana's reception of them was very civil, but attended with all that embarrassment which, though proceeding from shyness and the fear of doing wrong, would easily give to those who felt themselves inferior the belief of her being proud and reserved, Mrs. Gardiner and her niece, however, did her justice, and pitied her.\n\nBy Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley they were noticed only by a courtesy; and on their being seated, a pause, awkward as such pauses must always be, succeeded for a few moments." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was first broken by Mrs. Annesley, a genteel, agreeable looking woman, whose endeavour to introduce some kind of discourse proved her to be more truly well-bred than either of the others; and between her and Mrs. Gardiner, with occasional help from Elizabeth, the conversation was carried on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Darcy looked as if she wished for courage enough to join in it; and sometimes did venture a short sentence, when there was least danger of its being heard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth soon saw that she was herself closely watched by Miss Bingley, and that she could not speak a word, especially to Miss Darcy, without calling her attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This observation would not have prevented her from trying to talk to the latter, had they not been seated at an inconvenient distance; but she was not sorry to be spared the necessity of saying much: her own thoughts were employing her. She expected every moment that some of the gentlemen would enter the room: she wished, she feared, that the master of the house might be amongst them; and whether she wished or feared it most, she could scarcely determine. After sitting in this manner a quarter of an hour, without hearing Miss Bingley's voice, Elizabeth was roused by receiving from her a cold enquiry after the health of her family." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She answered with equal indifference and brevity, and the other said no more." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The next variation which their visit afforded was produced by the entrance of servants with cold meat, cake, and a variety of all the finest fruits in season; but this did not take place till after many a significant look and smile from Mrs. Annesley to Miss Darcy had been given, to remind her of her post. There was now employment for the whole party; for though they could not all talk, they could all eat; and the beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches, soon collected them round the table.\n\nWhile thus engaged, Elizabeth had a fair opportunity of deciding whether she most feared or wished for the appearance of Mr. Darcy, by the feelings which prevailed on his entering the room; and then, though but a moment before she had believed her wishes to predominate, she began to regret that he came." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had been some time with Mr. Gardiner, who, with two or three other gentlemen from the house, was engaged by the river, and had left him only on learning that the ladies of the family intended a visit to Georgiana that morning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No sooner did he appear, than Elizabeth wisely resolved to be perfectly easy and unembarrassed;—a resolution the more necessary to be made, but perhaps not the more easily kept, because she saw that the suspicions of the whole party were awakened against them, and that there was scarcely an eye which did not watch his behaviour when he first came into the room. In no countenance was attentive curiosity so strongly marked as in Miss Bingley's, in spite of the smiles which overspread her face whenever she spoke to one of its objects; for jealousy had not yet made her desperate, and her attentions to Mr. Darcy were by no means over. Miss Darcy, on her brother's entrance, exerted herself much more to talk; and Elizabeth saw that he was anxious for his sister and herself to get acquainted, and forwarded, as much as possible, every attempt at conversation on either side." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Bingley saw all this likewise; and, in the imprudence of anger, took the first opportunity of saying, with sneering civility,—\n\n\"Pray, Miss Eliza, are not the—shire militia removed from Meryton? They must be a great loss to your family.\"\n\nIn Darcy's presence she dared not mention Wickham's name; but Elizabeth instantly comprehended that he was uppermost in her thoughts; and the various recollections connected with him gave her a moment's distress; but, exerting herself vigorously to repel the ill-natured attack, she presently answered the question in a tolerably disengaged tone." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While she spoke, an involuntary glance showed her Darcy with a heightened complexion, earnestly looking at her, and his sister overcome with confusion, and unable to lift up her eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Had Miss Bingley known what pain she was then giving her beloved friend, she undoubtedly would have refrained from the hint; but she had merely intended to discompose Elizabeth, by bringing forward the idea of a man to whom she believed her partial, to make her betray a sensibility which might injure her in Darcy's opinion, and, perhaps, to remind the latter of all the follies and absurdities by which some part of her family were connected with that corps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not a syllable had ever reached her of Miss Darcy's meditated elopement. To no creature had it been revealed, where secrecy was possible, except to Elizabeth; and from all Bingley's connections her brother was particularly anxious to conceal it, from that very wish which Elizabeth had long ago attributed to him, of their becoming hereafter her own. He had certainly formed such a plan; and without meaning that it should affect his endeavour to separate him from Miss Bennet, it is probable that it might add something to his lively concern for the welfare of his friend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth's collected behaviour, however, soon quieted his emotion; and as Miss Bingley, vexed and disappointed, dared not approach nearer to Wickham, Georgiana also recovered in time, though not enough to be able to speak any more." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her brother, whose eye she feared to meet, scarcely recollected her interest in the affair; and the very circumstance which had been designed to turn his thoughts from Elizabeth, seemed to have fixed them on her more and more cheerfully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their visit did not continue long after the question and answer above mentioned; and while Mr. Darcy was attending them to their carriage, Miss Bingley was venting her feelings in criticisms on Elizabeth's person, behaviour, and dress." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Georgiana would not join her. Her brother's recommendation was enough to insure her favour: his judgment could not err; and he had spoken in such terms of Elizabeth, as to leave Georgiana without the power of finding her otherwise than lovely and amiable. When Darcy returned to the saloon, Miss Bingley could not help repeating to him some part of what she had been saying to his sister." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How very ill Eliza Bennet looks this morning, Mr. Darcy,\" she cried: \"I never in my life saw any one so much altered as she is since the winter. She is grown so brown and coarse! Louisa and I were agreeing that we should not have known her again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However little Mr. Darcy might have liked such an address, he contented himself with coolly replying, that he perceived no other alteration than her being rather tanned,—no miraculous consequence of travelling in the summer.\n\n\"For my own part,\" she rejoined, \"I must confess that I never could see any beauty in her. Her face is too thin; her complexion has no brilliancy; and her features are not at all handsome. Her nose wants character; there is nothing marked in its lines. Her teeth are tolerable, but not out of the common way; and as for her eyes, which have sometimes been called so fine, I never could perceive any thing extraordinary in them. They have a sharp, shrewish look, which I do not like at all; and in her air altogether, there is a self-sufficiency without fashion, which is intolerable.\"\n\nPersuaded as Miss Bingley was that Darcy admired Elizabeth, this was not the best method of recommending herself; but angry people are not always wise; and in seeing him at last look somewhat nettled, she had all the success she expected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was resolutely silent, however; and, from a determination of making him speak, she continued,—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I remember, when we first knew her in Hertfordshire, how amazed we all were to find that she was a reputed beauty; and I particularly recollect your saying one night, after they had been dining at Netherfield, 'She a beauty! I should as soon call her mother a wit.' But afterwards she seemed to improve on you, and I believe you thought her rather pretty at one time.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Darcy, who could contain himself no longer, \"but that was only when I first knew her; for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.\"\n\nHe then went away, and Miss Bingley was left to all the satisfaction of having forced him to say what gave no one any pain but herself." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "help write? 5 sentences more, same character context, Romance genre thx" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth had been a good deal disappointed in not finding a letter from Jane on their first arrival at Lambton; and this disappointment had been renewed on each of the mornings that had now been spent there; but on the third her repining was over, and her sister justified, by the receipt of two letters from her at once, on one of which was marked that it had been mis-sent elsewhere." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth was not surprised at it, as Jane had written the direction remarkably ill.\n\nThey had just been preparing to walk as the letters came in; and her uncle and aunt, leaving her to enjoy them in quiet, set off by themselves. The one mis-sent must be first attended to; it had been written five days ago. The beginning contained an account of all their little parties and engagements, with such news as the country afforded; but the latter half, which was dated a day later, and written in evident agitation, gave more important intelligence. It was to this effect:—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Since writing the above, dearest Lizzy, something has occurred of a most unexpected and serious nature; but I am afraid of alarming you—be assured that we are all well. What I have to say relates to poor Lydia. An express came at twelve last night, just as we were all gone to bed, from Colonel Forster, to inform us that she was gone off to Scotland 12 with one of his officers; to own the truth, with Wickham! Imagine our surprise. To Kitty, however, it does not seem so wholly unexpected. I am very, very sorry. So imprudent a match on both sides! But I am willing to hope the best, and that his character has been misunderstood. Thoughtless and indiscreet I can easily believe him, but this step (and let us rejoice over it) marks nothing bad at heart. His choice is disinterested at least, for he must know my father can give her nothing. Our poor mother is sadly grieved. My father bears it better. How thankful am I, that we never let them know what has been said against him; we must forget it ourselves. They were off Saturday night about twelve, as is conjectured, but were not missed till yesterday morning at eight. The express was sent off directly. My dear Lizzy, they must have passed within ten miles of us. Colonel Forster gives us reason to expect him here soon. Lydia left a few lines for his wife, informing her of their intention. I must conclude, for I cannot be long from my poor mother. I am afraid you will not be able to make it out, but I hardly know what I have written.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Without allowing herself time for consideration, and scarcely knowing what she felt, Elizabeth, on finishing this letter, instantly seized the other, and opening it with the utmost impatience, read as follows: it had been written a day later than the conclusion of the first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"By this time, my dearest sister, you have received my hurried letter; I wish this may be more intelligible, but though not confined for time, my head is so bewildered that I cannot answer for being coherent. Dearest Lizzy, I hardly know what I would write, but I have bad news for you, and it cannot be delayed. Imprudent as a marriage between Mr. Wickham and our poor Lydia would be, we are now anxious to be assured it has taken place, for there is but too much reason to fear they are not gone to Scotland. Colonel Forster came yesterday, having left Brighton the day before, not many hours after the express. Though Lydia's short letter to Mrs. F. gave them to understand that they were going to Gretna Green, something was dropped by Denny expressing his belief that W. never intended to go there, or to marry Lydia at all, which was repeated to Colonel F., who, instantly taking the alarm, set off from B., intending to trace their route. He did trace them easily to Clapham,bd but no farther; for on entering that place, they removed into a hackney-coach, and dismissed the chaise that brought them from Epsom. All that is known after this is, that they were seen to continue the London road. I know not what to think. After making every possible enquiry on that side London, Colonel F. came on into Hertfordshire, anxiously renewing them at all the turnpikes, and at the inns in Barnet and Hatfield but without any success,—no such people had been seen to pass through. With the kindest concern he came on to Longbourn, and broke his apprehensions to us in a manner most creditable to his heart. I am sincerely grieved for him and Mrs. F.; but no one can throw any blame on them. Our distress, my dear Lizzy, is very great. My father and mother believe the worst, but I cannot think so ill of him. Many circumstances might make it more eligible for them to be married privately in town than to pursue their first plan; and even if he could form such a design against a young woman of Lydia's connections, which is not likely, can I suppose her so lost to every thing? Impossible! I grieve to find, however, that Colonel F. is not disposed to depend upon their marriage: he shook his head when I expressed my hopes, and said he feared W. was not a man to be trusted. My poor mother is really ill, and keeps her room. Could she exert herself, it would be better, but this is not to be expected; and as to my father, I never in my life saw him so affected. Poor Kitty has anger for having concealed their attachment; but as it was a matter of confidence, one cannot wonder. I am truly glad, dearest Lizzy, that you have been spared something of these distressing scenes; but now, as the first shock is over, shall I own that I long for your return? I am not so selfish, however, as to press for it, if inconvenient. Adieu! I take up my pen again to do, what I have just told you I would not; but circumstances are such, that I cannot help earnestly begging you all to come here as soon as possible. I know my dear uncle and aunt so well, that I am not afraid of requesting it, though I have still something more to ask of the former. My father is going to London with Colonel Forster instantly, to try to discover her. What he means to do, I am sure I know not; but his excessive distress will not allow him to pursue any measure in the best and safest way, and Colonel Forster is obliged to be at Brighton again to-morrow evening. In such an exigence my uncle's advice and assistance would be every thing in the world; he will immediately comprehend what I must feel, and I rely upon his goodness.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh! where, where is my uncle?\" cried Elizabeth, darting from her seat as she finished the letter, in eagerness to follow him, without losing a moment of the time so precious; but as she reached the door, it was opened by a servant, and Mr. Darcy appeared. Her pale face and impetuous manner made him start, and before he could recover himself enough to speak, she, in whose mind every idea was superseded by Lydia's situation, hastily exclaimed, \"I beg your pardon, but I must leave you. I must find Mr. Gardiner this moment on business that cannot be delayed; I have not an instant to lose.\"\n\n\"Good God! what is the matter?\" cried he, with more feeling than politeness; then recollecting himself, \"I will not detain you a minute; but let me, or let the servant, go after Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. You are not well enough; you cannot go yourself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth hesitated, but her knees trembled under her, and she felt how little would be gained by her attempting to pursue them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Calling back the servant, therefore, she commissioned him, though in so breathless an accent as made her almost unintelligible, to fetch his master and mistress home instantly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On his quitting the room, she sat down, unable to support herself, and looking so miserably ill, that it was impossible for Darcy to leave her, or to refrain from saying, in a tone of gentleness and commiseration, \"Let me call your maid. Is there nothing you could take to give you present relief? A glass of wine; shall I get you one? You are very ill.\"\n\n\"No, I thank you,\" she replied, endeavouring to recover herself. \"There is nothing the matter with me. I am quite well, I am only distressed by some dreadful news which I have just received from Longbourn.\"\n\nShe burst into tears as she alluded to it, and for a few minutes could not speak another word. Darcy, in wretched suspense, could only say something indistinctly of his concern, and observe her in compassionate silence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At length she spoke again. \"I have just had a letter from Jane, with such dreadful news. It cannot be concealed from any one. My youngest sister has left all her friends—has eloped; has thrown herself into the power of—of Mr. Wickham. They are gone off together from Brighton. You know him too well to doubt the rest. She has no money, no connections, nothing that can tempt him to—she is lost for ever.\"\n\nDarcy was fixed in astonishment. \"When I consider,\" she added, in a yet more agitated voice, \"that I might have prevented it! I who knew what he was. Had I but explained some part of it only—some part of what I learnt, to my own family! Had his character been known, this could not have happened. But it is all, all too late now.\"\n\n\"I am grieved, indeed,\" cried Darcy: \"grieved—shocked. But is it certain, absolutely certain?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'london' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh yes! They left Brighton together on Sunday night, and were traced almost to London, but not beyond: they are certainly not gone to Scotland.\"\n\n\"And what has been done, what has been attempted, to recover her?\"\n\n\"My father is gone to London, and Jane has written to beg my uncle's immediate assistance, and we shall be off, I hope, in half an hour. But nothing can be done; I know very well that nothing can be done. How is such a man to be worked on? How are they even to be discovered? I have not the smallest hope. It is every way horrible!\"\n\nDarcy shook his head in silent acquiescence.\n\n\"When my eyes were open to his real character. Oh! had I known what I ought, what I dared to do! But I knew not—I was afraid of doing too much. Wretched, wretched mistake!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Darcy made no answer. He seemed scarcely to hear her, and was walking up and down the room in earnest meditation; his brow contracted, his air gloomy. Elizabeth soon observed, and instantly understood it. Her power was sinking; every thing must sink under such a proof of family weakness, such an assurance of the deepest disgrace. She could neither wonder nor condemn, but the belief of his self-conquest brought nothing consolatory to her bosom, afforded no palliation of her distress." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was, on the contrary, exactly calculated to make her understand her own wishes; and never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him, as now, when all love must be vain.\n\nBut self, though it would intrude, could not engross her. Lydia—the humiliation, the misery she was bringing on them all,—soon swallowed up every private care; and covering her face with her handkerchief, Elizabeth was soon lost to every thing else; and, after a pause of several minutes, was only recalled to a sense of her situation by the voice of her companion, who, in a manner which, though it spoke compassion, spoke likewise restraint, said, \"I am afraid you have been long desiring my absence, nor have I any thing to plead in excuse of my stay, but real, though unavailing concern. Would to Heaven that any thing could be either said or done on my part, that might offer consolation to such distress. But I will not torment you with vain wishes, which may seem purposely to ask for your thanks. This unfortunate affair will, I fear, prevent my sister's having the pleasure of seeing you at Pemberley to-day.\"\n\n\"Oh yes. Be so kind as to apologise for us to Miss Darcy. Say that urgent business calls us home immediately. Conceal the unhappy truth as long as it is possible. I know it cannot be long.\"\n\nHe readily assured her of his secrecy, again expressed his sorrow for her distress, wished it a happier conclusion than there was at present reason to hope, and, leaving his compliments for her relations, with only one serious, parting look, went away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he quitted the room, Elizabeth felt how improbable it was that they should ever see each other again on such terms of cordiality as had marked their several meetings in Derbyshire; and as she threw a retrospective glance over the whole of their acquaintance, so full of contradictions and varieties, sighed at the perverseness of those feelings which would now have promoted its continuance, and would formerly have rejoiced in its termination.\n\nIf gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if otherwise, if the regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been exchanged, nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method, in her partiality for Wickham, and that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other less interesting mode of attachment. Be that as it may, she saw him go with regret; and in this early example of what Lydia's infamy must produce, found additional anguish as she reflected on that wretched business. Never, since reading Jane's second letter, had she entertained a hope of Wickham's meaning to marry her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No one but Jane, she thought, could flatter herself with such an expectation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Surprise was the least of all her feelings on this development. While the contents of the first letter remained on her mind, she was all surprise, all astonishment, that Wickham should marry a girl, whom it was impossible he could marry for money; and how Lydia could ever have attached him had appeared incomprehensible. But now it was all too natural. For such an attachment as this, she might have sufficient charms; and though she did not suppose Lydia to be deliberately engaging in an elopement, without the intention of marriage, she had no difficulty in believing that neither her virtue nor her understanding would preserve her from falling an easy prey.\n\nShe had never perceived, while the regiment was in Hertfordshire, that Lydia had any partiality for him; but she was convinced that Lydia had wanted only encouragement to attach herself to any body." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometimes one officer, sometimes another, had been her favourite, as their attentions raised them in her opinion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her affections had been continually fluctuating, but never without an object." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mischief of neglect and mistaken indulgence towards such a girl—oh!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "how acutely did she now feel it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'lydia' - 3 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was wild to be at home—to hear, to see, to be upon the spot to share with Jane in the cares that must now fall wholly upon her, in a family so deranged; a father absent, a mother incapable of exertion, and requiring constant attendance; and though almost persuaded that nothing could be done for Lydia, her uncle's interference seemed of the utmost importance, and till he entered the room the misery of her impatience was severe. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner had hurried back in alarm, supposing, by the servant's account, that their niece was taken suddenly ill; but satisfying them instantly on that head, she eagerly communicated the cause of their summons, reading the two letters aloud, and dwelling on the postscript of the last with trembling energy, though Lydia had never been a favourite with them. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner could not but be deeply afflicted. Not Lydia only, but all were concerned in it; and after the first exclamations of surprise and horror, Mr. Gardiner readily promised every assistance in his power. Elizabeth, though expecting no less, thanked him with tears of gratitude; and all three being actuated by one spirit, every thing relating to their journey was speedily settled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were to be off as soon as possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But what is to be done about Pemberley?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "cried Mrs. Gardiner. \"John told us Mr. Darcy was here when you sent for us;—was it so?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes; and I told him we should not be able to keep our engagement. That is all settled.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is all settled?\" repeated the other, as she ran into her room to prepare. \"And are they upon such terms as for her to disclose the real truth! Oh, that I knew how it was!\"\n\nBut wishes were vain; or, at best, could serve only to amuse her in the hurry and confusion of the following hour. Had Elizabeth been at leisure to be idle, she would have remained certain that all employment was impossible to one so wretched as herself; but she had her share of business as well as her aunt, and amongst the rest there were notes to be written to all their friends at Lambton, with false excuses for their sudden departure. An hour, however, saw the whole completed; and Mr. Gardiner, meanwhile, having settled his account at the inn, nothing remained to be done but to go; and Elizabeth, after all the misery of the morning, found herself, in a shorter space of time than she could have supposed, seated in the carriage, and on the road to Longbourn." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around two sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Match the familiarity level of any character introductions. Stick to the Romance genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I have been thinking it over again, Elizabeth,\" said her uncle, as they drove from the town; \"and really, upon serious consideration, I am much more inclined than I was to judge as your eldest sister does of the matter. It appears to me so very unlikely that any young man should form such a design against a girl who is by no means unprotected or friendless, and who was actually staying in his Colonel's family, that I am strongly inclined to hope the best. Could he expect that her friends would not step forward? Could he expect to be noticed again by the regiment, after such an affront to Colonel Forster? His temptation is not adequate to the risk.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you really think so?\" cried Elizabeth, brightening up for a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Upon my word,\" said Mrs. Gardiner, \"I begin to be of your uncle's opinion. It is really too great a violation of decency, honour, and interest, for him to be guilty of it. I cannot think so very ill of Wickham. Can you, yourself, Lizzy, so wholly give him up, as to believe him capable of it?\"\n\n\"Not perhaps of neglecting his own interest. But of every other neglect I can believe him capable. If, indeed, it should be so! But I dare not hope it. Why should they not go on to Scotland, if that had been the case?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In the first place,\" replied Mr. Gardiner, \"there is no absolute proof that they are not gone to Scotland.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, but their removing from the chaise into a hackney coach is such a presumption! And, besides, no traces of them were to be found on the Barnet road.\"\n\n\"Well, then,—supposing them to be in London. They may be there, though for the purpose of concealment, for no more exceptionable purpose. It is not likely that money should be very abundant on either side; and it might strike them that they could be more economically, though less expeditiously, married in London, than in Scotland.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But why all this secrecy? Why any fear of detection? Why must their marriage be private? Oh no, no, this is not likely. His most particular friend, you see by Jane's account, was persuaded of his never intending to marry her. Wickham will never marry a woman without some money. He cannot afford it. And what claims has Lydia, what attractions has she beyond youth, health, and good humour, that could make him for her sake forego every chance of benefiting himself by marrying well? As to what restraint the apprehensions of disgrace in the corps might throw on a dishonourable elopement with her, I am not able to judge; for I know nothing of the effects that such a step might produce. But as to your other objection, I am afraid it will hardly hold good. Lydia has no brothers to step forward; and he might imagine, from my father's behaviour, from his indolence and the little attention he has ever seemed to give to what was going forward in his family, that he would do as little, and think as little about it, as any father could do, in such a matter.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But can you think that Lydia is so lost to every thing but love of him, as to consent to live with him on any other terms than marriage?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It does seem, and it is most shocking, indeed,\" replied Elizabeth, with tears in her eyes, \"that a sister's sense of decency and virtue in such a point should admit of doubt. But, really, I know not what to say. Perhaps I am not doing her justice. But she is very young: she has never been taught to think on serious subjects; and for the last half year, nay, for a twelvemonth, she has been given up to nothing but amusement and vanity. She has been allowed to dispose of her time in the most idle and frivolous manner, and to adopt any opinions that came in her way. Since the—shire were first quartered in Meryton, nothing but love, flirtation, and officers, have been in her head. She has been doing every thing in her power, by thinking and talking on the subject, to give greater—what shall I call it? susceptibility to her feelings; which are naturally lively enough. And we all know that Wickham has every charm of person and address that can captivate a woman.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you see that Jane,\" said her aunt, \"does not think so ill of Wickham, as to believe him capable of the attempt.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of whom does Jane ever think ill? And who is there, whatever might be their former conduct, that she would believe capable of such an attempt, till it were proved against them? But Jane knows, as well as I do, what Wickham really is. We both know that he has been profligate in every sense of the word. That he has neither integrity nor honour. That he is as false and deceitful as he is insinuating.\"\n\n\"And do you really know all this?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "cried Mrs. Gardiner, whose curiosity as to the mode of her intelligence was all alive.\n\n\"I do, indeed,\" replied Elizabeth, colouring." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I told you the other day of his infamous behaviour to Mr. Darcy; and you, yourself, when last at Longbourn, heard in what manner he spoke of the man who had behaved with such forbearance and liberality towards him. And there are other circumstances which I am not at liberty—which it is not worth while to relate; but his lies about the whole Pemberley family are endless. From what he said of Miss Darcy, I was thoroughly prepared to see a proud, reserved, disagreeable girl. Yet he knew to the contrary himself. He must know that she was as amiable and unpretending as we have found her.\"\n\n\"But does Lydia know nothing of this? can she be ignorant of what you and Jane seem so well to understand?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh yes!—that, that is the worst of all. Till I was in Kent, and saw so much both of Mr. Darcy and his relation Colonel Fitzwilliam, I was ignorant of the truth myself. And when I returned home the—shire was to leave Meryton in a week or fortnight's time. As that was the case, neither Jane, to whom I related the whole, nor I, thought it necessary to make our knowledge public; for of what use could it apparently be to any one, that the good opinion, which all the neighbourhood had of him, should then be overthrown? And even when it was settled that Lydia should go with Mrs. Forster, the necessity of opening her eyes to his character never occurred to me. That she could be in any danger from the deception never entered my head. That such a consequence as this should ensue, you may easily believe was far enough from my thoughts.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When they all removed to Brighton, therefore, you had no reason, I suppose, to believe them fond of each other?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not the slightest. I can remember no symptom of affection on either side; and had any thing of the kind been perceptible, you must be aware that ours is not a family on which it could be thrown away. When first he entered the corps, she was ready enough to admire him; but so we all were. Every girl in or near Meryton was out of her senses about him for the first two months: but he never distinguished her by any particular attention; and, consequently, after a moderate period of extravagant and wild admiration, her fancy for him gave way, and others of the regiment, who treated her with more distinction, again became her favourites.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It may be easily believed, that however little of novelty could be added to their fears, hopes, and conjectures, on this interesting subject, by its repeated discussion, no other could detain them from it long, during the whole of the journey." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From Elizabeth's thoughts it was never absent. Fixed there by the keenest of all anguish, self-reproach, she could find no interval of ease or forgetfulness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They travelled as expeditiously as possible; and sleeping one night on the road, reached Longbourn by dinnertime the next day. It was a comfort to Elizabeth to consider that Jane could not have been wearied by long expectations." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The little Gardiners, attracted by the sight of a chaise, were standing on the steps of the house, as they entered the paddock; and when the carriage drove up to the door, the joyful surprise that lighted up their faces and displayed itself over their whole bodies, in a variety of capers and frisks, was the first pleasing earnest of their welcome.\n\nElizabeth jumped out; and after giving each of them a hasty kiss, hurried into the vestibule, where Jane, who came running down stairs from her mother's apartment, immediately met her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth, as she affectionately embraced her, whilst tears filled the eyes of both, lost not a moment in asking whether any thing had been heard of the fugitives.\n\n\"Not yet,\" replied Jane." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But now that my dear uncle is come, I hope every thing will be well.\"\n\n\"Is my father in town?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, he went on Tuesday, as I wrote you word.\"\n\n\"And have you heard from him often?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We have heard only once. He wrote me a few lines on Wednesday, to say that he had arrived in safety, and to give me his directions, which I particularly begged him to do. He merely added, that he should not write again, till he had something of importance to mention.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And my mother—how is she? How are you all?\"\n\n\"My mother is tolerably well, I trust; though her spirits are greatly shaken. She is up stairs, and will have great satisfaction in seeing you all. She does not yet leave her dressing-room. Mary and Kitty, thank Heaven! are quite well.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But you—how are you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "cried Elizabeth. \"You look pale. How much you must have gone through!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her sister, however, assured her of her being perfectly well; and their conversation, which had been passing while Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were engaged with their children, was now put an end to by the approach of the whole party. Jane ran to her uncle and aunt, and welcomed and thanked them both, with alternate smiles and tears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When they were all in the drawing-room, the questions which Elizabeth had already asked were of course repeated by the others, and they soon found that Jane had no intelligence to give. The sanguine hope of good, however, which the benevolence of her heart suggested, had not yet deserted her; she still expected that it would all end well, and that every morning would bring some letter, either from Lydia or her father, to explain their proceedings, and, perhaps, announce the marriage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Bennet, to whose apartment they all repaired, after a few minutes' conversation together, received them exactly as might be expected; with tears and lamentations of regret, invectives against the villanous conduct of Wickham, and complaints of her own sufferings and ill usage; blaming every body but the person to whose ill-judging indulgence the errors of her daughter must be principally owing.\n\n\"If I had been able,\" said she, \"to carry my point in going to Brighton with all my family, this would not have happened; but poor dear Lydia had nobody to take care of her. Why did the Forsters ever let her go out of their sight? I am sure there was some great neglect or other on their side, for she is not the kind of girl to do such a thing, if she had been well looked after. I always thought they were very unfit to have the charge of her; but I was over-ruled, as I always am. Poor, dear child! And now here's Mr. Bennet gone away, and I know he will fight Wickham, wherever he meets him, and then he will be killed, and what is to become of us all? The Collinses will turn us out, before he is cold in his grave; and if you are not kind to us, brother, I do not know what we shall do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They all exclaimed against such terrific ideas; and Mr. Gardiner, after general assurances of his affection for her and all her family, told her that he meant to be in London the very next day, and would assist Mr. Bennet in every endeavour for recovering Lydia." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<EMBED THIS>>: \"Do not give way to useless alarm,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do not give way to useless alarm,\" added he: \"though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain. It is not quite a week since they left Brighton. In a few days more, we may gain some news of them; and till we know that they are not married, and have no design of marrying, do not let us give the matter over as lost. As soon as I get to town, I shall go to my brother, and make him come home with me to Gracechurch Street, and then we may consult together as to what is to be done.\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear brother,\" replied Mrs. Bennet, \"that is exactly what I could most wish for. And now do, when you get to town, find them out, wherever they may be; and if they are not married already, make them marry. And as for wedding clothes, do not let them wait for that, but tell Lydia she shall have as much money as she chooses to buy them, after they are married. And, above all things, keep Mr. Bennet from fighting. Tell him what a dreadful state I am in—that I am frightened out of my wits; and have such tremblings, such flutterings, all over me, such spasms in my side, and pains in my head, and such beatings at heart, that I can get no rest by night nor by day. And tell my dear Lydia not to give any directions about her clothes till she has seen me, for she does not know which are the best warehouses. Oh, brother, how kind you are! I know you will contrive it all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Mr. Gardiner, though he assured her again of his earnest endeavours in the cause, could not avoid recommending moderation to her, as well in her hopes as her fears; and after talking with her in this manner till dinner was on table, they left her to vent all her feelings on the housekeeper, who attended in the absence of her daughters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Though her brother and sister were persuaded that there was no real occasion for such a seclusion from the family, they did not attempt to oppose it, for they knew that she had not prudence enough to hold her tongue before the servants, while they waited at table, and judged it better that one only of the household, and the one whom they could most trust, should comprehend all her fears and solicitude on the subject.\n\nIn the dining-room they were soon joined by Mary and Kitty, who had been too busily engaged in their separate apartments to make their appearance before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One came from her books, and the other from her toilette. The faces of both, however, were tolerably calm; and no change was visible in either, except that the loss of her favourite sister, or the anger which she had herself incurred in the business, had given something more of fretfulness than usual to the accents of Kitty." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As for Mary, she was mistress enough of herself to whisper to Elizabeth, with a countenance of grave reflection, soon after they were seated at table,—\n\n\"This is a most unfortunate affair, and will probably be much talked of. But we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the wounded bosoms of each other the balm of sisterly consolation.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then, perceiving in Elizabeth no inclination of replying, she added, \"Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson:—that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable, that one false step involves her in endless ruin, that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful, and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth lifted up her eyes in amazement, but was too much oppressed to make any reply. Mary, however, continued to console herself with such kind of moral extractions from the evil before them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the afternoon, the two elder Miss Bennets were able to be for half an hour by themselves; and Elizabeth instantly availed herself of the opportunity of making any enquiries which Jane was equally eager to satisfy. After joining in general lamentations over the dreadful sequel of this event, which Elizabeth considered as all but certain, and Miss Bennet could not assert to be wholly impossible, the former continued the subject, by saying, \"But tell me all and every thing about it which I have not already heard. Give me further particulars. What did Colonel Forster say? Had they no apprehension of any thing before the elopement took place? They must have seen them together for ever.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Colonel Forster did own that he had often suspected some partiality, especially on Lydia's side, but nothing to give him any alarm. I am so grieved for him. His behaviour was attentive and kind to the utmost. He was coming to us, in order to assure us of his concern, before he had any idea of their not being gone to Scotland: when that apprehension first got abroad, it hastened his journey.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And was Denny convinced that Wickham would not marry? Did he know of their intending to go off? Had Colonel Forster seen Denny himself?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes; but when questioned by him Denny denied knowing any thing of their plan, and would not give his real opinion about it. He did not repeat his persuasion of their not marrying, and from that I am inclined to hope he might have been misunderstood before.\"\n\n\"And till Colonel Forster came himself, not one of you entertained a doubt, I suppose, of their being really married?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How was it possible that such an idea should enter our brains? I felt a little uneasy—a little fearful of my sister's happiness with him in marriage, because I knew that his conduct had not been always quite right. My father and mother knew nothing of that, they only felt how imprudent a match it must be. Kitty then owned, with a very natural triumph on knowing more than the rest of us, that in Lydia's last letter she had prepared her for such a step. She had known, it seems, of their being in love with each other many weeks.\"\n\n\"But not before they went to Brighton?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, I believe not.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And did Colonel Forster appear to think ill of Wickham himself? Does he know his real character?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I must confess that he did not speak so well of Wickham as he formerly did. He believed him to be imprudent and extravagant; and since this sad affair has taken place, it is said that he left Meryton greatly in debt: but I hope this may be false.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, Jane, had we been less secret, had we told what we knew of him, this could not have happened!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Perhaps it would have been better,\" replied her sister.\n\n\"But to expose the former faults of any person, without knowing what their present feelings were, seemed unjustifiable. We acted with the best intentions.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Could Colonel Forster repeat the particulars of Lydia's note to his wife?\"\n\n\"He brought it with him for us to see.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 12 sentences sentences in the style of Jane Austen spawning from what the user wrote, within the Romance genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help laughing myself at your surprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am missed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you cannot guess with who, I shall think you a simpleton, for there is but one man in the world I love, and he is an angel. I should never be happy without him, so think it no harm to be off. You need not send them word at Longbourn of my going, if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater when I write to them, and sign my name Lydia Wickham. What a good joke it will be! I can hardly write for laughing. Pray make my excuses to Pratt for not keeping my engagement, and dancing with him to-night. Tell him I hope he will excuse me when he knows all, and tell him I will dance with him at the next ball we meet with great pleasure. I shall send for my clothes when I get to Longbourn; but I wish you would tell Sally to mend a great slit in my worked muslin gown before they are packed up. Good-by. Give my love to Colonel Forster. I hope you will drink to our good journey.\n\n\"Oh, thoughtless, thoughtless Lydia!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "cried Elizabeth when she had finished it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 9 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What a letter is this, to be written at such a moment! But at least it shows that she was serious in the object of her journey. Whatever he might afterwards persuade her to, it was not on her side a scheme of infamy. My poor father! how he must have felt it!\"\n\n\"I never saw any one so shocked. He could not speak a word for full ten minutes. My mother was taken ill immediately, and the whole house in such confusion!\"\n\n\"Oh, Jane,\" cried Elizabeth, \"was there a servant belonging to it who did not know the whole story before the end of the day?\"\n\n\"I do not know: I hope there was. But to be guarded at such a time is very difficult. My mother was in hysterics; and though I endeavoured to give her every assistance in my power, I am afraid I did not do so much as I might have done! but the horror of what might possibly happen almost took from me my faculties.\"\n\n\"Your attendance upon her has been too much for you. You do not look well. Oh that I had been with you! you have had every care and anxiety upon yourself alone.\"\n\n\"Mary and Kitty have been very kind, and would have shared in every fatigue, I am sure, but I did not think it right for either of them. Kitty is slight and delicate, and Mary studies so much that her hours of repose should not be broken in on. My aunt Philips came to Longbourn on Tuesday, after my father went away; and was so good as to stay till Thursday with me. She was of great use and comfort to us all, and Lady Lucas has been very kind: she walked here on Wednesday morning to condole with us, and offered her services, or any of her daughters, if they could be of use to us.\"\n\n\"She had better have stayed at home,\" cried Elizabeth: \"perhaps she meant well, but, under such a misfortune as this, one cannot see too little of one's neighbours. Assistance is impossible; condolence, insufferable. Let them triumph over us at a distance, and be satisfied.\"\n\nShe then proceeded to enquire into the measures which her father had intended to pursue, while in town, for the recovery of his daughter.\n\n\"He meant, I believe,\" replied Jane, \"to go to Epsom, the place where they last changed horses, see the postilions, and try if any thing could be made out from them. His principal object must be to discover the number of the hackney coach which took them from Clapham. It had come with a fare from London; and as he thought the circumstance of a gentleman and lady's removing from one carriage into another might be remarked, he meant to make enquiries at Clapham. If he could any how discover at what house the coachman had before set down his fare, he determined to make enquiries there, and hoped it might not be impossible to find out the stand and number of the coach. I do not know of any other designs that he had formed; but he was in such a hurry to be gone, and his spirits so greatly discomposed, that I had difficulty in finding out even so much as this.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Expand this chapter by adding 11 sentences in the Romance genre. Note that some context may come from earlier parts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The whole party were in hopes of a letter from Mr. Bennet the next morning, but the post came in without bringing a single line from him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His family knew him to be, on all common occasions, a most negligent and dilatory correspondent; but at such a time they had hoped for exertion. They were forced to conclude, that he had no pleasing intelligence to send, but even of that they would have been glad to be certain. Mr. Gardiner had waited only for the letters before he set off.\n\nWhen he was gone, they were certain at least of receiving constant information of what was going on; and their uncle promised, at parting, to prevail on Mr. Bennet to return to Longbourn as soon as he could, to the great consolation of his sister, who considered it as the only security for her husband's not being killed in a duel.\n\nMrs. Gardiner and the children were to remain in Hertfordshire a few days longer, as the former thought her presence might be serviceable to her nieces. She shared in their attendance on Mrs. Bennet, and was a great comfort to them in their hours of freedom. Their other aunt also visited them frequently, and always, as she said, with the design of cheering and heartening them up, though, as she never came without reporting some fresh instance of Wickham's extravagance or irregularity, she seldom went away without leaving them more dispirited than she found them.\n\nAll Meryton seemed striving to blacken the man who, but three months before, had been almost an angel of light. He was declared to be in debt to every tradesman in the place, and his intrigues, all honoured with the title of seduction, had been extended into every tradesman's family. Every body declared that he was the wickedest young man in the world; and every body began to find out, that they had always distrusted the appearance of his goodness. Elizabeth, though she did not credit above half of what was said, believed enough to make her former assurance of her sister's ruin still more certain; and even Jane, who believed still less of it, became almost hopeless, more especially as the time was now come, when, if they had gone to Scotland, which she had never before entirely despaired of, they must in all probability have gained some news of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Gardiner left Longbourn on Sunday; on Tuesday, his wife received a letter from him: it told them, that on his arrival he had immediately found out his brother, and persuaded him to come to Gracechurch Street. That Mr. Bennet had been to Epsom and Clapham, before his arrival, but without gaining any satisfactory information; and that he was now determined to enquire at all the principal hotels in town, as Mr. Bennet thought it possible they might have gone to one of them, on their first coming to London, before they procured lodgings. Mr. Gardiner himself did not expect any success from this measure; but as his brother was eager in it, he meant to assist him in pursuing it. He added, that Mr. Bennet seemed wholly disinclined at present to leave London, and promised to write again very soon. There was also a postscript to this effect:—\n\n\"I have written to Colonel Forster to desire him to find out, if possible, from some of the young man's intimates in the regiment, whether Wickham has any relations or connections who would be likely to know in what part of the town he has now concealed himself. If there were any one that one could apply to, with a probability of gaining such a clue as that, it might be of essential consequence. At present we have nothing to guide us. Colonel Forster will, I dare say, do every thing in his power to satisfy us on this head. But, on second thoughts, perhaps Lizzy could tell us what relations he has now living better than any other person.\"\n\nElizabeth was at no loss to understand from whence this deference for her authority proceeded; but it was not in her power to give any information of so satisfactory a nature as the compliment deserved.\n\nShe had never heard of his having had any relations, except a father and mother, both of whom had been dead many years. It was possible, however, that some of his companions in the—shire might be able to give more information; and though she was not very sanguine in expecting it, the application was a something to look forward to.\n\nEvery day at Longbourn was now a day of anxiety; but the most anxious part of each was when the post was expected. The arrival of letters was the first grand object of every morning's impatience." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Through letters, whatever of good or bad was to be told would be communicated, and every succeeding day was expected to bring some news of importance." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But before they heard again from Mr. Gardiner, a letter arrived for their father, from a different quarter, from Mr. Collins; which, as Jane had received directions to open all that came for him in his absence, she accordingly read; and Elizabeth, who knew what curiosities his letters always were, looked over her, and read it likewise. It was as follows:—" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "help write? 5 sentences more, same character context, Romance genre thx" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I feel myself called upon, by our relationship, and my situation in life, to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now suffering under, of which we were yesterday informed by a letter from Hertfordshire. Be assured, my dear sir, that Mrs. Collins and myself sincerely sympathise with you, and all your respectable family, in your present distress, which must be of the bitterest kind, because proceeding from a cause which no time can remove. No arguments shall be wanting on my part, that can alleviate so severe a misfortune; or that may comfort you, under a circumstance that must be, of all others, most afflicting to a parent's mind. The death of your daughter would have been a blessing13 in comparison of this. And it is the more to be lamented, because there is reason to suppose, as my dear Charlotte informs me, that this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter has proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence; though, at the same time, for the consolation of yourself and Mrs. Bennet, I am inclined to think that her own disposition must be naturally bad, or she could not be guilty of such an enormity, at so early an age." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Howsoever that may be, you are grievously to be pitied, in which opinion I am not only joined by Mrs. Collins, but likewise by Lady Catherine and her daughter, to whom I have related the affair. They agree with me in apprehending that this false step in one daughter will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others; for who, as Lady Catherine herself condescendingly says, will connect themselves with such a family? And this consideration leads me, moreover, to reflect, with augmented satisfaction, on a certain event of last November; for had it been otherwise, I must have been involved in all your sorrow and disgrace. Let me advise you, then, my dear sir, to console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offence.\n\nMr. Gardiner did not write again, till he had received an answer from Colonel Forster; and then he had nothing of a pleasant nature to send." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'there' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was not known that Wickham had a single relation with whom he kept up any connection, and it was certain that he had no near one living. His former acquaintance had been numerous; but since he had been in the militia, it did not appear that he was on terms of particular friendship with any of them. There was no one, therefore, who could be pointed out as likely to give any news of him. And in the wretched state of his own finances, there was a very powerful motive for secrecy, in addition to his fear of discovery by Lydia's relations; for it had just transpired that he had left gaming debts behind him to a very considerable amount. Colonel Forster believed that more than a thousand pounds would be necessary to clear his expenses at Brighton." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He owed a good deal in the town, but his debts of honourbe were still more formidable. Mr. Gardiner did not attempt to conceal these particulars from the Longbourn family; Jane heard them with horror. \"A gamester!\" she cried. \"This is wholly unexpected; I had not an idea of it.\"\n\nMr. Gardiner added, in his letter, that they might expect to see their father at home on the following day, which was Saturday." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'leave'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rendered spiritless by the ill success of all their endeavours, he had yielded to his brother-in-law's entreaty that he would return to his family, and leave it to him to do whatever occasion might suggest to be advisable for continuing their pursuit. When Mrs. Bennet was told of this, she did not express so much satisfaction as her children expected, considering what her anxiety for his life had been before.\n\n\"What! is he coming home, and without poor Lydia?\" she cried. \"Sure he will not leave London before he has found them. Who is to fight Wickham, and make him marry her, if he comes away?\"\n\nAs Mrs. Gardiner began to wish to be at home, it was settled that she and her children should go to London at the same time that Mr. Bennet came from it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The coach, therefore, took them the first stage of their journey, and brought its master back to Longbourn.\n\nMrs. Gardiner went away in all the perplexity about Elizabeth and her Derbyshire friend that had attended her from that part of the world. His name had never been voluntarily mentioned before them by her niece; and the kind of half-expectation which Mrs. Gardiner had formed, of their being followed by a letter from him, had ended in nothing. Elizabeth had received none since her return, that could come from Pemberley.\n\nThe present unhappy state of the family rendered any other excuse for the lowness of her spirits unnecessary; nothing, therefore, could be fairly conjectured from that, though Elizabeth, who was by this time tolerably well acquainted with her own feelings, was perfectly aware that, had she known nothing of Darcy, she could have borne the dread of Lydia's infamy somewhat better." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It would have spared her, she thought, one sleepless night out of two." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When Mr. Bennet arrived, he had all the appearance of his usual philosophic composure. He said as little as he had ever been in the habit of saying; made no mention of the business that had taken him away, and it was some time before his daughters had courage to speak of it.\n\nIt was not till the afternoon, when he joined them at tea, that Elizabeth ventured to introduce the subject; and then, on her briefly expressing her sorrow for what he must have endured, he replied, \"Say nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing, and I ought to feel it.\"\n\n\"You must not be too severe upon yourself,\" replied Elizabeth.\n\n\"You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you suppose them to be in London?\"\n\n\"Yes; where else can they be so well concealed?\"\n\n\"And Lydia used to want to go to London,\" added Kitty.\n\n\"She is happy, then,\" said her father, drily; \"and her residence there will probably be of some duration.\"\n\nThen, after a short silence, he continued, \"Lizzy, I bear you no ill-will for being justified in your advice to me last May, which, considering the event, shows some greatness of mind.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were interrupted by Miss Bennet, who came to fetch her mother's tea.\n\n\"This is a parade,\" cried he, \"which does one good; it gives such an elegance to misfortune! Another day I will do the same; I will sit in my library, in my nightcap and powdering gown,bf and give as much trouble as I can,—or perhaps I may defer it till Kitty runs away.\"\n\n\"I am not going to run away, papa,\" said Kitty, fretfully; \"if I should ever go to Brighton, I would behave better than Lydia.\"\n\n\"You go to Brighton! I would not trust you so near it as East Bourne, for fifty pounds! No, Kitty, I have at last learnt to be cautious, and you will feel the effects of it. No officer is ever to enter my house again, nor even to pass through the village. Balls will be absolutely prohibited, unless you stand up with one of your sisters. And you are never to stir out of doors, till you can prove that you have spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner.\"\n\nKitty, who took all these threats in a serious light, began to cry.\n\n\"Well, well,\" said he, \"do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good girl for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of them.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing a segment of a larger work\n\nLength:\nseven sentences\n\nStyle:\nJane Austen\nGenre:\nRomance\nNote: Characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Two days after Mr. Bennet's return, as Jane and Elizabeth were walking together in the shrubbery behind the house, they saw the housekeeper coming towards them, and concluding that she came to call them to their mother, went forward to meet her; but instead of the expected summons, when they approached her, she said to Miss Bennet, \"I beg your pardon, madam, for interrupting you, but I was in hopes you might have got some good news from town, so I took the liberty of coming to ask.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, Hill? We have heard nothing from town.\"\n\n\"Dear madam,\" cried Mrs. Hill, in great astonishment, \"don't you know there is an express come for master from Mr. Gardiner? He has been here this half hour, and master has had a letter.\"\n\nAway ran the girls, too eager to get in to have time for speech. They ran through the vestibule into the breakfast-room; from thence to the library;—their father was in neither; and they were on the point of seeking him up stairs with their mother, when they were met by the butler, who said,—\n\n\"If you are looking for my master, ma'am, he is walking towards the little copse.\"\n\nUpon this information, they instantly passed through the hall once more, and ran across the lawn after their father, who was deliberately pursuing his way towards a small wood on one side of the paddock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jane, who was not so light, nor so much in the habit of running as Elizabeth, soon lagged behind, while her sister, panting for breath, came up with him, and eagerly cried out,—" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 8 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, papa, what news? what news? have you heard from my uncle?\"\n\n\"Yes, I have had a letter from him by express.\"\n\n\"Well, and what news does it bring—good or bad?\"\n\n\"What is there of good to be expected?\" said he, taking the letter from his pocket; \"but perhaps you would like to read it.\"\n\nElizabeth impatiently caught it from his hand. Jane now came up.\n\n\"Read it aloud,\" said their father, \"for I hardly know myself what it is about.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around two sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Match the familiarity level of any character introductions. Stick to the Romance genre." }, { "from": "human", "value": "MONDAY, AUGUST 2." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'enough' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At last I am able to send you some tidings of my niece, and such as, upon the whole, I hope will give you satisfaction. Soon after you left me on Saturday, I was fortunate enough to find out in what part of London they were. The particulars I reserve till we meet. It is enough to know they are discovered: I have seen them both—\"\n\n\"Then it is as I always hoped,\" cried Jane: \"they are married!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth read on:\n\n\"I have seen them both." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They are not married, nor can I find there was any intention of being so; but if you are willing to perform the engagements which I have ventured to make on your side, I hope it will not be long before they are. All that is required of you is, to assure to your daughter, by settlement, her equal share of the five thousand pounds, secured among your children after the decease of yourself and my sister; and, moreover, to enter into an engagement of allowing her, during your life, one hundred pounds per annum." }, { "from": "human", "value": "These are conditions which, considering every thing, I had no hesitation in complying with, as far as I thought myself privileged, for you." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I shall send this by express, that no time may be lost in bringing me your answer. You will easily comprehend, from these particulars, that Mr. Wickham's circumstances are not so hopeless as they are generally believed to be." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The world has been deceived in that respect; and I am happy to say, there will be some little money, even when all his debts are discharged, to settle on my niece, in addition to her own fortune. If, as I conclude will be the case, you send me full powers to act in your name throughout the whole of this business, I will immediately give directions to Haggerston for preparing a proper settlement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There will not be the smallest occasion for your coming to town again; therefore stay quietly at Longbourn, and depend on my diligence and care." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Send back your answer as soon as you can, and be careful to write explicitly. We have judged it best that my niece should be married from this house, of which I hope you will approve." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 12 sentences sentences in the style of Jane Austen spawning from what the user wrote, within the Romance genre. This is part of a longer narrative where characters and events may have prior context." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is it possible?\" cried Elizabeth, when she had finished. \"Can it be possible that he will marry her?\"\n\n\"Wickham is not so undeserving, then, as we have thought him,\" said her sister. \"My dear father, I congratulate you.\"\n\n\"And have you answered the letter?\" said Elizabeth.\n\n\"No; but it must be done soon.\"\n\nMost earnestly did she then entreat him to lose no more time before he wrote.\n\n\"Oh, my dear father,\" she cried, \"come back and write immediately. Consider how important every moment is in such a case.\"\n\n\"Let me write for you,\" said Jane, \"if you dislike the trouble yourself.\"\n\n\"I dislike it very much,\" he replied; \"but it must be done.\"\n\nAnd so saying, he turned back with them, and walked towards the house.\n\n\"And may I ask?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said Elizabeth; \"but the terms, I suppose, must be complied with.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Complied with! I am only ashamed of his asking so little.\"\n\n\"And they must marry! Yet he is such a man.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, they must marry. There is nothing else to be done. But there are two things that I want very much to know: —one is, how much money your uncle has laid down to bring it about; and the other, how I am ever to pay him.\"\n\n\"Money! my uncle!\" cried Jane, \"what do you mean, sir?\"\n\n\"I mean that no man in his senses would marry Lydia on so slight a temptation as one hundred a year during my life, and fifty after I am gone.\"\n\n\"That is very true,\" said Elizabeth; \"though it had not occurred to me before. His debts to be discharged, and something still to remain! Oh, it must be my uncle's doings! Generous, good man, I am afraid he has distressed himself. A small sum could not do all this.\"\n\n\"No,\" said her father. \"Wickham's a fool if he takes her with a farthing less than ten thousand pounds: I should be sorry to think so ill of him, in the very beginning of our relationship.\"\n\n\"Ten thousand pounds! Heaven forbid! How is half such a sum to be repaid?\"\n\nMr. Bennet made no answer; and each of them, deep in thought, continued silent till they reached the house. Their father then went to the library to write, and the girls walked into the breakfast-room.\n\n\"And they are really to be married!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "cried Elizabeth, as soon as they were by themselves. \"How strange this is! And for this we are to be thankful. That they should marry, small as is their chance of happiness, and wretched as is his character, we are forced to rejoice! Oh, Lydia!\"\n\n\"I comfort myself with thinking,\" replied Jane, \"that he certainly would not marry Lydia, if he had not a real regard for her. Though our kind uncle has done something towards clearing him, I cannot believe that ten thousand pounds, or any thing like it, has been advanced. He has children of his own, and may have more. How could he spare half ten thousand pounds?\"\n\n\"If we are ever able to learn what Wickham's debts have been,\" said Elizabeth, \"and how much is settled on his side on our sister, we shall exactly know what Mr. Gardiner has done for them, because Wickham has not sixpence of his own. The kindness of my uncle and aunt can never be requited. Their taking her home, and affording her their personal protection and countenance, is such a sacrifice to her advantage as years of gratitude cannot enough acknowledge. By this time she is actually with them! If such goodness does not make her miserable now, she will never deserve to be happy! What a meeting for her, when she first sees my aunt!\"\n\n\"We must endeavour to forget all that has passed on either side,\" said Jane: \"I hope and trust they will yet be happy. His consenting to marry her is a proof, I will believe, that he is come to a right way of thinking. Their mutual affection will steady them; and I flatter myself they will settle so quietly, and live in so rational a manner, as may in time make their past imprudence forgotten.\"\n\n\"Their conduct has been such,\" replied Elizabeth, \"as neither you, nor I, nor any body, can ever forget. It is useless to talk of it.\"\n\nIt now occurred to the girls that their mother was in all likelihood perfectly ignorant of what had happened. They went to the library, therefore, and asked their father whether he would not wish them to make it known to her. He was writing, and, without raising his head, coolly replied,—\n\n\"Just as you please.\"\n\n\"May we take my uncle's letter to read to her?\"\n\n\"Take whatever you like, and get away.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth took the letter from his writing-table, and they went up stairs together." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mary and Kitty were both with Mrs. Bennet: one communication would, therefore, do for all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After a slight preparation for good news, the letter was read aloud." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Bennet could hardly contain herself. As soon as Jane had read Mr. Gardiner's hope of Lydia's being soon married, her joy burst forth, and every following sentence added to its exuberance. She was now in an irritation as violent from delight as she had ever been fidgety from alarm and vexation.\n\nTo know that her daughter would be married was enough. She was disturbed by no fear for her felicity, nor humbled by any remembrance of her misconduct.\n\n\"My dear, dear Lydia!\" she cried: \"this is delightful indeed! She will be married! I shall see her again! She will be married at sixteen! My good, kind brother! I knew how it would be—I knew he would manage every thing. How I long to see her! and to see dear Wickham too! But the clothes, the wedding clothes! I will write to my sister Gardiner about them directly. Lizzy, my dear, run down to your father, and ask him how much he will give her. Stay, stay, I will go myself. Ring the bell, Kitty, for Hill. I will put on my things in a moment. My dear, dear Lydia! How merry we shall be together when we meet!\"\n\nHer eldest daughter endeavoured to give some relief to the violence of these transports, by leading her thoughts to the obligations which Mr. Gardiner's behaviour laid them all under.\n\n\"For we must attribute this happy conclusion,\" she added, \"in a great measure to his kindness. We are persuaded that he has pledged himself to assist Mr. Wickham with money.\"\n\n\"Well,\" cried her mother, \"it is all very right; who should do it but her own uncle? If he had not had a family of his own, I and my children must have had all his money, you know; and it is the first time we have ever had any thing from him except a few presents. Well! I am so happy. In a short time, I shall have a daughter married. Mrs. Wickham! How well it sounds. And she was only sixteen last June. My dear Jane, I am in such a flutter, that I am sure I can't write; so I will dictate, and you write for me. We will settle with your father about the money afterwards; but the things should be ordered immediately.\"\n\nShe was then proceeding to all the particulars of calico, muslin, and cambric, and would shortly have dictated some very plentiful orders, had not Jane, though with some difficulty, persuaded her to wait till her father was at leisure to be consulted. One day's delay, she observed, would be of small importance; and her mother was too happy to be quite so obstinate as usual." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Other schemes, too, came into her head." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will go to Meryton,\" said she, \"as soon as I am dressed, and tell the good, good news to my sister Philips. And as I come back, I can call on Lady Lucas and Mrs. Long. Kitty, run down and order the carriage. An airing would do me a great deal of good, I am sure. Girls, can I do any thing for you in Meryton? Oh! here comes Hill. My dear Hill, have you heard the good news? Miss Lydia is going to be married; and you shall all have a bowl of punch to make merry at her wedding.\"\n\nMrs. Hill began instantly to express her joy. Elizabeth received her congratulations amongst the rest, and then, sick of this folly, took refuge in her own room, that she might think with freedom. Poor Lydia's situation must, at best, be bad enough; but that it was no worse, she had need to be thankful. She felt it so; and though, in looking forward, neither rational happiness nor worldly prosperity could be justly expected for her sister, in looking back to what they had feared, only two hours ago, she felt all the advantages of what they had gained." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "NarrativeBot: six sentences sentences. Match character familiarity. Romance genre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Bennet had very often wished, before this period of his life, that, instead of spending his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum, for the better provision of his children, and of his wife, if she survived him. He now wished it more than ever. Had he done his duty in that respect, Lydia need not have been indebted to her uncle for whatever of honour or credit could now be purchased for her. The satisfaction of prevailing on one of the most worthless young men in Great Britain to be her husband might then have rested in its proper place.\n\nHe was seriously concerned that a cause of so little advantage to any one should be forwarded at the sole expense of his brother-in-law; and he was determined, if possible, to find out the extent of his assistance, and to discharge the obligation as soon as he could.\n\nWhen first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly useless; for, of course, they were to have a son." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This son was to join in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow and younger children would by that means be provided for. Five daughters successively entered the world,14 but yet the son was to come; and Mrs. Bennet, for many years after Lydia's birth, had been certain that he would. This event had at last been despaired of, but it was then too late to be saving. Mrs. Bennet had no turn for economy; and her husband's love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their income.\n\nFive thousand pounds was settled by marriage articles on Mrs. Bennet and the children. But in what proportions it should be divided amongst the latter depended on the will of the parents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was one point, with regard to Lydia at least, which was now to be settled, and Mr. Bennet could have no hesitation in acceding to the proposal before him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In terms of grateful acknowledgment for the kindness of his brother, though expressed most concisely, he then delivered on paper his perfect approbation of all that was done, and his willingness to fulfil the engagements that had been made for him. He had never before supposed that, could Wickham be prevailed on to marry his daughter, it would be done with so little inconvenience to himself as by the present arrangement. He would scarcely be ten pounds a year the loser, by the hundred that was to be paid them; for, what with her board and pocket allowance, and the continual presents in money which passed to her through her mother's hands, Lydia's expenses had been very little within that sum.\n\nThat it would be done with such trifling exertion on his side, too, was another very welcome surprise; for his chief wish at present was to have as little trouble in the business as possible. When the first transports of rage which had produced his activity in seeking her were over, he naturally returned to all his former indolence. His letter was soon despatched; for though dilatory in undertaking business, he was quick in its execution." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He begged to know further particulars of what he was indebted to his brother; but was too angry with Lydia to send any message to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The good news quickly spread through the house; and with proportionate speed through the neighbourhood." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'since' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was borne in the latter with decent philosophy. To be sure it would have been more for the advantage of conversation, had Miss Lydia Bennet come upon the town;bg or, as the happiest alternative, been secluded from the world, in some distant farm-house. But there was much to be talked of, in marrying her; and the good-natured wishes for her well-doing, which had proceeded before from all the spiteful old ladies in Meryton, lost but little of their spirit in this change of circumstances, because with such a husband her misery was considered certain.\n\nIt was a fortnight since Mrs. Bennet had been down stairs, but on this happy day she again took her seat at the head of her table, and in spirits oppressively high. No sentiment of shame gave a damp to her triumph. The marriage of a daughter, which had been the first object of her wishes, since Jane was sixteen, was now on the point of accomplishment, and her thoughts and her words ran wholly on those attendants of elegant nuptials, fine muslins, new carriages, and servants." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was busily searching through the neighbourhood for a proper situationbh for her daughter; and, without knowing or considering what their income might be, rejected many as deficient in size and importance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Haye Park might do,\" said she, \"if the Gouldings would quit it, or the great house at Stoke, if the drawing-room were larger; but Ashworth is too far off. I could not bear to have her ten miles from me; and as for Purvis Lodge, the attics are dreadful.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her husband allowed her to talk on without interruption, while the servants remained. But when they had withdrawn, he said to her, \"Mrs. Bennet, before you take any, or all of these houses, for your son and daughter, let us come to a right understanding. Into one house in this neighbourhood they shall never have admittance. I will not encourage the imprudence of either, by receiving them at Longbourn.\"\n\nA long dispute followed this declaration; but Mr. Bennet was firm: it soon led to another; and Mrs. Bennet found, with amazement and horror, that her husband would not advance a guinea to buy clothes for his daughter. He protested that she should receive from him no mark of affection whatever on the occasion. Mrs. Bennet could hardly comprehend it. That his anger could be carried to such a point of inconceivable resentment as to refuse his daughter a privilege, without which her marriage would scarcely seem valid, exceeded all that she could believe possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was more alive to the disgrace, which her want of new clothes must reflect on her daughter's nuptials, than to any sense of shame at her eloping and living with Wickham a fortnight before they took place.\n\nElizabeth was now most heartily sorry that she had, from the distress of the moment, been led to make Mr. Darcy acquainted with their fears for her sister; for since her marriage would so shortly give the proper termination to the elopement, they might hope to conceal its unfavourable beginning from all those who were not immediately on the spot.\n\nShe had no fear of its spreading farther, through his means. There were few people on whose secrecy she would have more confidently depended; but at the same time there was no one whose knowledge of a sister's frailty would have mortified her so much. Not, however, from any fear of disadvantage from it individually to herself; for at any rate there seemed a gulf impassable between them. Had Lydia's marriage been concluded on the most honourable terms, it was not to be supposed that Mr. Darcy would connect himself with a family, where to every other objection would now be added an alliance and relationship of the nearest kind with the man whom he so justly scorned." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From such a connection she could not wonder that he should shrink." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The wish of procuring her regard, which she had assured herself of his feeling in Derbyshire, could not in rational expectation survive such a blow as this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was humbled, she was grieved; she repented, though she hardly knew of what. She became jealous of his esteem, when she could no longer hope to be benefited by it. She wanted to hear of him, when there seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence. She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet.\n\nWhat a triumph for him, as she often thought, could he know that the proposals which she had proudly spurned only four months ago would now have been gladly and gratefully received! He was as generous, she doubted not, as the most generous of his sex." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But while he was mortal, there must be a triumph." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was an union that must have been to the advantage of both: by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved; and from his judgment, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance.\n\nBut no such happy marriage could now teach the admiring multitude what connubial felicity really was. An union of a different tendency, and precluding the possibility of the other, was soon to be formed in their family.\n\nHow Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence she could not imagine. But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Gardiner soon wrote again to his brother." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To Mr. Bennet's acknowledgments he briefly replied, with assurances of his eagerness to promote the welfare of any of his family; and concluded with entreaties that the subject might never be mentioned to him again. The principal purport of his letter was to inform them, that Mr. Wickham had resolved on quitting the militia.\n\n\"It was greatly my wish that he should do so,\" he added, \"as soon as his marriage was fixed on. And I think you will agree with me, in considering a removal from that corps as highly advisable, both on his account and my niece's. It is Mr. Wickham's intention to go into the Regulars;bi and, among his former friends, there are still some who are able and willing to assist him in the army. He has the promise of an ensigncy in General—'s regiment, now quartered in the north." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is an advantage to have it so far from this part of the kingdom." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He promises fairly; and I hope among different people, where they may each have a character to preserve, they will both be more prudent. I have written to Colonel Forster, to inform him of our present arrangements, and to request that he will satisfy the various creditors of Mr. Wickham in and near Brighton with assurances of speedy payment, for which I have pledged myself. And will you give yourself the trouble of carryingsimilar assurances to his creditors in Meryton, of whom I shall subjoin a list, according to his information. He has given in all his debts; I hope at least he has not deceived us. Haggerston has our directions, and all will be completed in a week. They will then join his regiment, unless they are first invited to Longbourn; and I understand from Mrs. Gardiner that my niece is very desirous of seeing you all before she leaves the south. She is well, and begs to be dutifully remembered to you and her mother.—Yours, &c." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing a segment of a larger work\n\nLength:\nseven sentences\n\nStyle:\nJane Austen\nGenre:\nRomance\nNote: Characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Bennet and his daughters saw all the advantages of Wickham's removal from the—shire, as clearly as Mr. Gardiner could do. But Mrs. Bennet was not so well pleased with it. Lydia's being settled in the north, just when she had expected most pleasure and pride in her company, for she had by no means given up her plan of their residing in Hertfordshire, was a severe disappointment; and, besides, it was such a pity that Lydia should be taken from a regiment where she was acquainted with every body, and had so many favourites.\n\n\"She is so fond of Mrs. Forster,\" said she, \"it will be quite shocking to send her away! And there are several of the young men, too, that she likes very much. The officers may not be so pleasant in General—'s regiment.\"\n\nHis daughter's request, for such it might be considered, of being admitted into her family again, before she set off for the north, received at first an absolute negative. But Jane and Elizabeth, who agreed in wishing, for the sake of their sister's feelings and consequence, that she should be noticed on her marriage by her parents, urged him so earnestly, yet so rationally and so mildly, to receive her and her husband at Longbourn, as soon as they were married, that he was prevailed on to think as they thought, and act as they wished. And their mother had the satisfaction of knowing, that she should be able to show her married daughter in the neighbourhood, before she was banished to the north." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "ur a writing helper. partner writes, u do next 10 sentences. might have existing chars/stuff - roll with it" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Their sister's wedding day arrived; and Jane and Elizabeth felt for her probably more than she felt for herself. The carriage was sent to meet them at—, and they were to return in it by dinner-time. Their arrival was dreaded by the elder Miss Bennets; and Jane more especially, who gave Lydia the feelings which would have attended herself, had she been the culprit, and was wretched in the thought of what her sister must endure.\n\nThey came. The family were assembled in the breakfast-room to receive them. Smiles decked the face of Mrs. Bennet, as the carriage drove up to the door; her husband looked impenetrably grave; her daughters, alarmed, anxious, uneasy.\n\nLydia's voice was heard in the vestibule; the door was thrown open, and she ran into the room. Her mother stepped forwards, embraced her, and welcomed her with rapture; gave her hand with an affectionate smile to Wickham, who followed his lady, and wished them both joy, with an alacrity which showed no doubt of their happiness.\n\nTheir reception from Mr. Bennet, to whom they then turned, was not quite so cordial. His countenance rather gained in austerity; and he scarcely opened his lips. The easy assurance of the young couple, indeed, was enough to provoke him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth was disgusted, and even Miss Bennet was shocked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lydia was Lydia still; untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless. She turned from sister to sister, demanding their congratulations; and when at length they all sat down, looked eagerly round the room, took notice of some little alteration in it, and observed, with a laugh, that it was a great while since she had been there.\n\nWickham was not at all more distressed than herself; but his manners were always so pleasing, that had his character and his marriage been exactly what they ought, his smiles and his easy address, while he claimed their relationship, would have delighted them all. Elizabeth had not before believed him quite equal to such assurance; but she sat down, resolving within herself to draw no limits in future to the impudence of an impudent man. She blushed, and Jane blushed; but the cheeks of the two who caused their confusion suffered no variation of colour.\n\nThere was no want of discourse. The bride and her mother could neither of them talk fast enough; and Wickham, who happened to sit near Elizabeth, began enquiring after his acquaintance in that neighbourhood, with a good-humoured ease, which she felt very unable to equal in her replies. They seemed each of them to have the happiest memories in the world. Nothing of the past was recollected with pain; and Lydia led voluntarily to subjects which her sisters would not have alluded to for the world.\n\n\"Only think of its being three months,\" she cried, \"since I went away: it seems but a fortnight, I declare; and yet there have been things enough happened in the time. Good gracious! when I went away, I am sure I had no more idea of being married till I came back again! though I thought it would be very good fun if I was.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her father lifted up his eyes, Jane was distressed, Elizabeth looked expressively at Lydia; but she, who never heard nor saw any thing of which she chose to be insensible, gaily continued, \"Oh, mamma, do the people hereabouts know I am married to-day? I was afraid they might not; and we overtook William Goulding in his curricle, so I was determined he should know it, and so I let down the side glass next to him, and took off my glove and let my hand just rest upon the window frame, so that he might see the ring, and then I bowed and smiled like any thing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth could bear it no longer. She got up and ran out of the room; and returned no more, till she heard them passing through the hall to the dining parlour. She then joined them soon enough to see Lydia, with anxious parade, walk up to her mother's right hand, and hear her say to her eldest sister, \"Ah, Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman.\"\n\nIt was not to be supposed that time would give Lydia that embarrassment from which she had been so wholly free at first. Her ease and good spirits increased. She longed to see Mrs. Philips, the Lucases, and all their other neighbours, and to hear herself called \"Mrs. Wickham\" by each of them; and in the mean time she went after dinner to show her ring and boast of being married to Mrs. Hill and the two housemaids.\n\n\"Well, mamma,\" said she, when they were all returned to the breakfast-room, \"and what do you think of my husband? Is not he a charming man? I am sure my sisters must all envy me. I only hope they may have half my good luck. They must all go to Brighton. That is the place to get husbands. What a pity it is, mamma, we did not all go.\"\n\n\"Very true; and if I had my will we should. But, my dear Lydia, I don't at all like your going such a way off. Must it be so?\"\n\n\"Oh, Lord! yes; there is nothing in that. I shall like it of all things. You and papa, and my sisters, must come down and see us. We shall be at Newcastle all the winter, and I dare say there will be some balls, and I will take care to get good partners for them all.\"\n\n\"I should like it beyond any thing!\" said her mother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And then when you go away, you may leave one or two of my sisters behind you; and I dare say I shall get husbands for them before the winter is over.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thank you for my share of the favour,\" said Elizabeth; \"but I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands.\"\n\nTheir visitors were not to remain above ten days with them. Mr. Wickham had received his commission before he left London, and he was to join his regiment at the end of a fortnight.\n\nNo one but Mrs. Bennet regretted that their stay would be so short; and she made the most of the time by visiting about with her daughter, and having very frequent parties at home. These parties were acceptable to all; to avoid a family circle was even more desirable to such as did think than such as did not.\n\nWickham's affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it; not equal to Lydia's for him. She had scarcely needed her present observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love rather than by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion.\n\nLydia was exceedingly fond of him. He was her dear Wickham on every occasion; no one was to be put in competition with him. He did every thing best in the world; and she was sure he would kill more birds on the first of September than any body else in the country." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One morning, soon after their arrival, as she was sitting with her two elder sisters, she said to Elizabeth,—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lizzy, I never gave you an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by, when I told mamma, and the others, all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?\"\n\n\"No, really,\" replied Elizabeth; \"I think there cannot be too little said on the subject.\"\n\n\"La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were married, you know, at St. Clement's, because Wickham's lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o'clock. My uncle and aunt and I were to go together; and the others were to meet us at the church. Well, Monday morning came, and I was in such a fuss! I was so afraid, you know, that something would happen to put it off, and then I should have gone quite distracted. And there was my aunt, all the time I was dressing, preaching and talking away just as if she was reading a sermon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "However, I did not hear above one word in ten, for I was thinking, you may suppose, of my dear Wickham." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I longed to know whether he would be married in his blue coat." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'darcy' must appear 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, and so we breakfasted at ten as usual: I thought it would never be over; for, by the by, you are to understand, that my uncle and aunt were horrid unpleasant all the time I was with them. If you'll believe me, I did not once put my foot out of doors, though I was there a fortnight. Not one party, or scheme, or any thing. To be sure, London was rather thin, but, however, the Little Theatrebj was open. Well, and so just as the carriage came to the door, my uncle was called away upon business to that horrid man Mr. Stone. And then, you know, when once they get together, there is no end of it. Well, I was so frightened I did not know what to do, for my uncle was to give me away; and if we were beyond the hour,bk we could not be married all day. But, luckily, he came back again in ten minutes' time, and then we all set out. However, I recollected afterwards, that if he had been prevented going, the wedding need not be put off, for Mr. Darcy might have done as well.\"\n\n\"Mr. Darcy!\" repeated Elizabeth, in utter amazement.\n\n\"Oh yes! he was to come there with Wickham, you know. But gracious me! I quite forgot! I ought not to have said a word about it. I promised them so faithfully! What will Wickham say? It was to be such a secret!\"\n\n\"If it was to be a secret,\" said Jane, \"say not another word on the subject. You may depend upon my seeking no further.\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly,\" said Elizabeth, though burning with curiosity; \"we will ask you no questions.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Lydia; \"for if you did, I should certainly tell you all, and then Wickham would be so angry.\"\n\nOn such encouragement to ask, Elizabeth was forced to put it out of her power, by running away.\n\nBut to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible; or at least it was impossible not to try for information. Mr. Darcy had been at her sister's wedding. It was exactly a scene, and exactly among people, where he had apparently least to do, and least temptation to go." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Conjectures as to the meaning of it, rapid and wild, hurried into her brain; but she was satisfied with none." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Those that best pleased her, as placing his conduct in the noblest light, seemed most improbable. She could not bear such suspense; and hastily seizing a sheet of paper, wrote a short letter to her aunt, to request an explanation of what Lydia had dropped, if it were compatible with the secrecy which had been intended.\n\n\"You may readily comprehend,\" she added, \"what my curiosity must be to know how a person unconnected with any of us, and, comparatively speaking, a stranger to our family, should have been amongst you at such a time. Pray write instantly, and let me understand it—unless it is, for very cogent reasons, to remain in the secrecy which Lydia seems to think necessary; and then I must endeavour to be satisfied with ignorance.\"\n\n\"Not that I shall though,\" she added to herself, and she finished the letter; \"and, my dear aunt, if you do not tell me in an honourable manner, I shall certainly be reduced to tricks and stratagems to find it out.\"\n\nJane's delicate sense of honour would not allow her to speak to Elizabeth privately of what Lydia had let fall; Elizabeth was glad of it:—till it appeared whether her enquiries would receive any satisfaction, she had rather be without a confidante." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "hey can u write 4 sentences more sentences? like Jane Austen but Romance style. btw this is from middle of a story" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth had the satisfaction of receiving an answer to her letter as soon as she possibly could. She was no sooner in possession of it, than hurrying into the little copse, where she was least likely to be interrupted, she sat down on one of the benches, and prepared to be happy; for the length of the letter convinced her that it did not contain a denial.\n\nI have just received your letter, and shall devote this whole morning to answering it, as I foresee that a little writing will not comprise what I have to tell you. I must confess myself surprised by your application; I did not expect it from you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Don't think me angry, however, for I only mean to let you know, that I had not imagined such enquiries to be necessary on your side." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If you do not choose to understand me, forgive my impertinence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Your uncle is as much surprised as I am; and nothing but the belief of your being a party concerned would have allowed him to act as he has done. But if you are really innocent and ignorant, I must be more explicit. On the very day of my coming home from Longbourn, your uncle had a most unexpected visitor. Mr. Darcy called, and was shut up with him several hours." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was all over before I arrived; so my curiosity was not so dreadfully racked as yours seems to have been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He came to tell Mr. Gardiner that he had found out where your sister and Mr. Wickham were, and that he had seen and talked with them both—Wickham repeatedly, Lydia once." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "From what I can collect, he left Derbyshire only one day after ourselves, and came to town with the resolution of hunting for them. The motive professed was his conviction of its being owing to himself that Wickham's worthlessness had not been so well known, as to make it impossible for any young woman of character to love or confide in him. He generously imputed the whole to his mistaken pride, and confessed, that he had before thought it beneath him to lay his private actions open to the world. His character was to speak for itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He called it, therefore, his duty to step forward, and endeavour to remedy an evil which had been brought on by himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he had another motive, I am sure it would never disgrace him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'younge' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had been some days in town before he was able to discover them; but he had something to direct his search, which was more than we had; and the consciousness of this was another reason for his resolving to follow us. There is a lady, it seems, a Mrs. Younge, who was some time ago governess to Miss Darcy, and was dismissed from her charge on some cause of disapprobation, though he did not say what. She then took a large house in Edward Street, and has since maintained herself by letting lodgings. This Mrs. Younge was, he knew, intimately acquainted with Wickham; and he went to her for intelligence of him, as soon as he got to town." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But it was two or three days before he could get from her what he wanted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She would not betray her trust, I suppose, without bribery and corruption, for she really did know where her friend was to be found. Wickham, indeed, had gone to her on their first arrival in London, and had she been able to receive them into her house, they would have taken up their abode with her. At length, however, our kind friend procured the wished-for direction. They were in—Street. He saw Wickham, and afterwards insisted on seeing Lydia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His first object with her, he acknowledged, had been to persuade her to quit her present disgraceful situation, and return to her friends as soon as they could be prevailed on to receive her, offering his assistance as far as it would go." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he found Lydia absolutely resolved on remaining where she was. She cared for none of her friends; she wanted no help of his; she would not hear of leaving Wickham. She was sure they should be married some time or other, and it did not much signify when. Since such were her feelings, it only remained, he thought, to secure and expedite a marriage, which, in his very first conversation with Wickham, he easily learnt had never been his design." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He confessed himself obliged to leave the regiment on account of some debts of honour which were very pressing; and scrupled not to lay all the ill consequences of Lydia's flight on her own folly alone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He meant to resign his commission immediately; and as to his future situation, he could conjecture very little about it. He must go somewhere, but he did not know where, and he knew he should have nothing to live on. Mr. Darcy asked why he did not marry your sister at once? Though Mr. Bennet was not imagined to be very rich, he would have been able to do something for him, and his situation must have been benefited by marriage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he found, in reply to this question, that Wickham still cherished the hope of more effectually making his fortune by marriage, in some other country. Under such circumstances, however, he was not likely to be proof against the temptation of immediate relief. They met several times, for there was much to be discussed. Wickham, of course, wanted more than he could get; but at length was reduced to be reasonable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Every thing being settled between them, Mr. Darcy's next step was to make your uncle acquainted with it, and he first called in Gracechurch Street the evening before I came home." }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'father' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Mr. Gardiner could not be seen; and Mr. Darcy found, on further enquiry, that your father was still with him, but would quit town the next morning. He did not judge your father to be a person whom he could so properly consult as your uncle, and therefore readily postponed seeing him till after the departure of the former. He did not leave his name, and till the next day it was only known that a gentleman had called on business. On Saturday he came again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Your father was gone, your uncle at home, and, as I said before, they had a great deal of talk together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They met again on Sunday, and then I saw him too. It was not all settled before Monday: as soon as it was, the express was sent off to Longbourn. But our visitor was very obstinate. I fancy, Lizzy, that obstinacy is the real defect of his character after all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He has been accused of many faults at different times; but this is the true one." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'which' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing was to be done that he did not do himself; though I am sure (and I do not speak it to be thanked, therefore say nothing about it) your uncle would most readily have settled the whole. They battled it together for a long time, which was more than either the gentleman or lady concerned in it deserved. But at last your uncle was forced to yield, and instead of being allowed to be of use to his niece, was forced to put up with only having the probable credit of it, which went sorely against the grain; and I really believe your letter this morning gave him great pleasure, because it required an explanation that would rob him of his borrowed feathers, and give the praise where it was due. But, Lizzy, this must go no further than yourself, or Jane at most." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You know pretty well, I suppose, what has been done for the young people." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His debts are to be paid, amounting, I believe, to considerably more than a thousand pounds, another thousand in addition to her own settled upon her, and his commission purchased. The reason why all this was to be done by him alone, was such as I have given above. It was owing to him, to his reserve and want of proper consideration, that Wickham's character had been so misunderstood, and consequently that he had been received and noticed as he was. Perhaps there was some truth in this; though I doubt whether his reserve, or any body's reserve, can be answerable for the event." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But in spite of all this fine talking, my dear Lizzy, you may rest perfectly assured that your uncle would never have yielded, if we had not given him credit for another interest in the affair. When all this was resolved on, he returned again to his friends, who were still staying at Pemberley; but it was agreed that he should be in London once more when the wedding took place, and all money matters were then to receive the last finish. I believe I have now told you every thing. It is a relation which you tell me is to give you great surprise; I hope at least it will not afford you any displeasure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lydia came to us, and Wickham had constant admission to the house." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was exactly what he had been when I knew him in Hertfordshire; but I would not tell you how little I was satisfied with her behaviour while she staid with us, if I had not perceived, by Jane's letter last Wednesday, that her conduct on coming home was exactly of a piece with it, and therefore what I now tell you can give you no fresh pain. I talked to her repeatedly in the most serious manner, representing to her the wickedness of what she had done, and all the unhappiness she had brought on her family. If she heard me, it was by good luck, for I am sure she did not listen. I was sometimes quite provoked; but then I recollected my dear Elizabeth and Jane, and for their sakes had patience with her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Darcy was punctual in his return, and, as Lydia informed you, attended the wedding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He dined with us the next day, and was to leave town again on Wednesday or Thursday. Will you be very angry with me, my dear Lizzy, if I take this opportunity of saying (what I was never bold enough to say before) how much I like him? His behaviour to us has, in every respect, been as pleasing as when we were in Derbyshire. His understanding and opinions all please me; he wants nothing but a little more liveliness, and that, if he marry prudently, his wife may teach him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I thought him very sly; he hardly ever mentioned your name." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But slyness seems the fashion. Pray forgive me, if I have been very presuming, or at least do not punish me so far as to exclude me from P. I shall never be quite happy till I have been all round the park. A low phaeton with a nice little pair of ponies would be the very thing. But I must write no more. The children have been wanting me this half hour." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around two sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Match the familiarity level of any character introductions. Stick to the Romance genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The contents of this letter threw Elizabeth into a flutter of spirits, in which it was difficult to determine whether pleasure or pain bore the greatest share. The vague and unsettled suspicions which uncertainty had produced of what Mr. Darcy might have been doing to forward her sister's match which she had feared to encourage, as an exertion of goodness too great to be probable, and at the same time dreaded to be just, from the pain of obligation, were proved beyond their greatest extent to be true!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had followed them purposely to town, he had taken on himself all the trouble and mortification attendant on such a research; in which supplication had been necessary to a woman whom he must abominate and despise, and where he was reduced to meet, frequently meet, reason with, persuade, and finally bribe the man whom he always most wished to avoid, and whose very name it was punishment to him to pronounce." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had done all this for a girl whom he could neither regard nor esteem. Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it was a hope shortly checked by other considerations; and she soon felt that even her vanity was insufficient, when required to depend on his affection for her, for a woman who had already refused him, as able to overcome a sentiment so natural as abhorrence against relationship with Wickham. Brother-in-law of Wickham! Every kind of pride must revolt from the connection." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had, to be sure, done much." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was ashamed to think how much. But he had given a reason for his interference, which asked no extraordinary stretch of belief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was reasonable that he should feel he had been wrong; he had liberality, and he had the means of exercising it; and though she would not place herself as his principal inducement, she could perhaps believe, that remaining partiality for her might assist his endeavours in a cause where her peace of mind must be materially concerned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was painful, exceedingly painful, to know that they were under obligations to a person who could never receive a return. They owed the restoration of Lydia, her character, every thing to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oh how heartily did she grieve over every ungracious sensation she had ever encouraged, every saucy speech she had ever directed towards him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'again' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For herself she was humbled; but she was proud of him,—proud that in a cause of compassion and honour he had been able to get the better of himself. She read over her aunt's commendation of him again and again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was hardly enough; but it pleased her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was even sensible of some pleasure, though mixed with regret, on finding how steadfastly both she and her uncle had been persuaded that affection and confidence subsisted between Mr. Darcy and herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was roused from her seat and her reflections, by some one's approach; and, before she could strike into another path, she was overtaken by Wickham.\n\n\"I am afraid I interrupt your solitary ramble, my dear sister?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "said he, as he joined her.\n\n\"You certainly do,\" she replied with a smile; \"but it does not follow that the interruption must be unwelcome.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I should be sorry, indeed, if it were. We were always good friends, and now we are better.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"True. Are the others coming out?\"\n\n\"I do not know. Mrs. Bennet and Lydia are going in the carriage to Meryton. And so, my dear sister, I find, from our uncle and aunt, that you have actually seen Pemberley.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She replied in the affirmative.\n\n\"I almost envy you the pleasure, and yet I believe it would be too much for me, or else I could take it in my way to Newcastle. And you saw the old housekeeper, I suppose? Poor Reynolds, she was always very fond of me. But of course she did not mention my name to you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, she did.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And what did she say?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That you were gone into the army, and she was afraid had—not turned out well. At such a distance as that, you know, things are strangely misrepresented.\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" he replied, biting his lips." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth hoped she had silenced him; but he soon afterwards said,—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was surprised to see Darcy in town last month. We passed each other several times. I wonder what he can be doing there.\"\n\n\"Perhaps preparing for his marriage with Miss De Bourgh,\" said Elizabeth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It must be something particular to take him there at this time of year.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Undoubtedly. Did you see him while you were at Lambton? I thought I understood from the Gardiners that you had.\"\n\n\"Yes; he introduced us to his sister.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And do you like her?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Very much.\"\n\n\"I have heard, indeed, that she is uncommonly improved within this year or two. When I last saw her, she was not very promising. I am very glad you liked her. I hope she will turn out well.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I dare say she will; she has got over the most trying age.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you go by the village of Kympton?\"\n\n\"I do not recollect that we did.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I mention it because it is the living which I ought to have had. A most delightful place! Excellent parsonage house! It would have suited me in every respect.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How should you have liked making sermons?\"\n\n\"Exceedingly well. I should have considered it as part of my duty, and the exertion would soon have been nothing. One ought not to repine; but, to be sure, it would have been such a thing for me! The quiet, the retirement of such a life, would have answered all my ideas of happiness! But it was not to be. Did you ever hear Darcy mention the circumstance when you were in Kent?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have heard from authority, which I thought as good, that it was left you conditionally only, and at the will of the present patron.\"\n\n\"You have! Yes, there was something in that; I told you so from the first, you may remember.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I did hear, too, that there was a time when sermon-making was not so palatable to you as it seems to be at present; that you actually declared your resolution of never taking orders, and that the business had been compromised accordingly.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You did! and it was not wholly without foundation. You may remember what I told you on that point, when first we talked of it.\"\n\nThey were now almost at the door of the house, for she had walked fast to get rid of him; and unwilling, for her sister's sake, to provoke him, she only said in reply, with a goodhumoured smile,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come, Mr. Wickham, we are brother and sister, you know. Do not let us quarrel about the past. In future, I hope we shall be always of one mind.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She held out her hand: he kissed it with affectionate gallantry, though he hardly knew how to look, and they entered the house.\n\nChapter 11" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mr. Wickham was so perfectly satisfied with this conversation, that he never again distressed himself, or provoked his dear sister Elizabeth, by introducing the subject of it; and she was pleased to find that she had said enough to keep him quiet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The day of his and Lydia's departure soon came, and Mrs. Bennet was forced to submit to a separation, which, as her husband by no means entered into her scheme of their all going to Newcastle, was likely to continue at least a twelvemonth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, my dear Lydia,\" she cried, \"when shall we meet again?\"\n\n\"Oh, Lord! I don't know. Not these two or three years, perhaps.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Write to me very often, my dear.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"As often as I can. But you know married women have never much time for writing. My sisters may write to me. They will have nothing else to do.\"\n\nMr. Wickham's adieus were much more affectionate than his wife's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He smiled, looked handsome, and said many pretty things." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He is as fine a fellow,\" said Mr. Bennet, as soon as they were out of the house, \"as ever I saw. He simpers, and smirks, and makes love to us all. I am prodigiously proud of him. I defy even Sir William Lucas himself to produce a more valuable son-in-law.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The loss of her daughter made Mrs. Bennet very dull for several days.\n\n\"I often think,\" said she, \"that there is nothing so bad as parting with one's friends. One seems so forlorn without them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This is the consequence you see, madam, of marrying a daughter,\" said Elizabeth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It must make you better satisfied that your other four are single.\"\n\n\"It is no such thing. Lydia does not leave me because she is married; but only because her husband's regiment happens to be so far off. If that had been nearer, she would not have gone so soon.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "But the spiritless condition which this event threw her into was shortly relieved, and her mind opened again to the agitation of hope, by an article of news, which then began to be in circulation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The housekeeper at Netherfield had received orders to prepare for the arrival of her master, who was coming down in a day or two, to shoot there for several weeks. Mrs. Bennet was quite in the fidgets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked at Jane, and smiled, and shook her head, by turns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Well, well, and so Mr. Bingley is coming down, sister\" (for Mrs. Philips first brought her the news). \"Well, so much the better. Not that I care about it, though. He is nothing to us, you know, and I am sure I never want to see him again. But, however, he is very welcome to come to Netherfield, if he likes it. And who knows what may happen? But that is nothing to us. You know, sister, we agreed long ago never to mention a word about it. And so, it is quite certain he is coming?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You may depend on it,\" replied the other, \"for Mrs. Nichols was in Meryton last night: I saw her passing by, and went out myself on purpose to know the truth of it; and she told me that it was certainly true. He comes down on Thursday, at the latest, very likely on Wednesday. She was going to the butcher's, she told me, on purpose to order in some meat on Wednesday, and she has got three couple of ducks just fit to be killed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Bennet had not been able to hear of his coming without changing colour. It was many months since she had mentioned his name to Elizabeth; but now, as soon as they were alone together, she said,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I saw you look at me to-day, Lizzy, when my aunt told us of the present report; and I know I appeared distressed; but don't imagine it was from any silly cause. I was only confused for the moment, because I felt that I should be looked at. I do assure you, that the news does not affect me either with pleasure or pain. I am glad of one thing, that he comes alone; because we shall see the less of him. Not that I am afraid of myself, but I dread other people's remarks.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth did not know what to make of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Had she not seen him in Derbyshire, she might have supposed him capable of coming there with no other view than what was acknowledged; but she still thought him partial to Jane, and she wavered as to the greater probability of his coming there with his friend's permission, or being bold enough to come without it.\n\n\"Yet it is hard,\" she sometimes thought, \"that this poor man cannot come to a house, which he has legally hired, without raising all this speculation! I will leave him to himself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In spite of what her sister declared, and really believed to be her feelings, in the expectation of his arrival, Elizabeth could easily perceive that her spirits were affected by it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were more disturbed, more unequal, than she had often seen them.\n\nThe subject which had been so warmly canvassed between their parents, about a twelvemonth ago, was now brought forward again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"As soon as ever Mr. Bingley comes, my dear,\" said Mrs. Bennet, \"you will wait on him of course.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No, no. You forced me into visiting him last year, and promised if I went to see him, he should marry one of my daughters. But it ended in nothing, and I will not be sent on a fool's errand again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His wife represented to him how absolutely necessary such an attention would be from all the neighbouring gentlemen, on his returning to Netherfield.\n\n\"'T is an etiquette I despise,\" said he." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If he wants our society, let him seek it. He knows where we live. I will not spend my hours in running after my neighbours every time they go away and come back again.\"\n\n\"Well, all I know is, that it will be abominably rude if you do not wait on him. But, however, that shan't prevent my asking him to dine here, I am determined. We must have Mrs. Long and the Gouldings soon. That will make thirteen with ourselves, so there will be just room at table for him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Consoled by this resolution, she was the better able to bear her husband's incivility; though it was very mortifying to know that her neighbours might all see Mr. Bingley in consequence of it before they did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As the day of his arrival drew near,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I begin to be sorry that he comes at all,\" said Jane to her sister." }, { "from": "system", "value": "DIRECTIVE: Incorporate \"I wish I could say any thing to comfort you,\" in response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It would be nothing; I could see him with perfect indifference; but I can hardly bear to hear it thus perpetually talked of. My mother means well; but she does not know, no one can know, how much I suffer from what she says. Happy shall I be when his stay at Netherfield is over!\"\n\n\"I wish I could say any thing to comfort you,\" replied Elizabeth; \"but it is wholly out of my power. You must feel it; and the usual satisfaction of preaching patience to a sufferer is denied me, because you have always so much.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mr. Bingley arrived. Mrs. Bennet, through the assistance of servants, contrived to have the earliest tidings of it, that the period of anxiety and fretfulness on her side might be as long as it could. She counted the days that must intervene before their invitation could be sent; hopeless of seeing him before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But on the third morning after his arrival in Hertfordshire, she saw him from her dressing-room window enter the paddock, and ride towards the house." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her daughters were eagerly called to partake of her joy. Jane resolutely kept her place at the table; but Elizabeth, to satisfy her mother, went to the window—she looked,—she saw Mr. Darcy with him, and sat down again by her sister." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There is a gentleman with him, mamma,\" said Kitty; \"who can it be?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Some acquaintance or other, my dear, I suppose; I am sure I do not know.\"\n\n\"La!\" replied Kitty, \"it looks just like that man that used to be with him before. Mr. what's his name—that tall, proud man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Good gracious! Mr. Darcy!—and so it does, I vow. Well, any friend of Mr. Bingley's will always be welcome here to be sure; but else I must say that I hate the very sight of him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jane looked at Elizabeth with surprise and concern." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew but little of their meeting in Derbyshire, and therefore felt for the awkwardness which must attend her sister, in seeing him almost for the first time after receiving his explanatory letter. Both sisters were uncomfortable enough." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Each felt for the other, and of course for themselves; and their mother talked on of her dislike of Mr. Darcy, and her resolution to be civil to him only as Mr. Bingley's friend, without being heard by either of them. But Elizabeth had sources of uneasiness which could not be suspected by Jane, to whom she had never yet had courage to show Mrs. Gardiner's letter, or to relate her own change of sentiment towards him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "To Jane, he could be only a man whose proposals she had refused, and whose merits she had undervalued; but to her own more extensive information, he was the person to whom the whole family were indebted for the first of benefits, and whom she regarded herself with an interest, if not quite so tender, at least as reasonable and just, as what Jane felt for Bingley. Her astonishment at his coming—at his coming to Netherfield, to Longbourn, and voluntarily seeking her again, was almost equal to what she had know on first witnessing his altered behaviour in Derbyshire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The colour which had been driven from her face returned for half a minute with an additional glow, and a smile of delight added lustre to her eyes, as she thought for that space of time that his affection and wishes must still be unshaken; but she would not be secure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let me first see how he behaves,\" said she; \"it will then be early enough for expectation.\"\n\nShe sat intently at work, striving to be composed, and without daring to lift up her eyes, till anxious curiosity carried them to the face of her sister, as the servant was approaching the door." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Jane looked a little paler than usual, but more sedate than Elizabeth had expected." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the gentlemen's appearing, her colour increased; yet she received them with tolerable ease, and with a propriety of behaviour equally free from any symptom of resentment, or any unnecessary complaisance.\n\nElizabeth said as little to either as civility would allow, and sat down again to her work, with an eagerness which it did not often command." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had ventured only one glance at Darcy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked serious as usual; and she thought, more as he had been used to lock in Hertfordshire, than as she had seen him at Pemberley. But, perhaps, he could not in her mother's presence be what he was before her uncle and aunt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a painful, but not an improbable, conjecture." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bingley she had likewise seen for an instant, and in that short period saw him looking both pleased and embarrassed. He was received by Mrs. Bennet with a degree of civility which made her two daughters ashamed, especially when contrasted with the cold and ceremonious politeness of her courtesy and address of his friend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth particularly, who knew that her mother owed to the latter the preservation of her favourite daughter from irremediable infamy, was hurt and distressed to a most painful degree by a distinction so ill applied." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Darcy, after enquiring of her how Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner did, a question which she could not answer without confusion, said scarcely any thing. He was not seated by her: perhaps that was the reason of his silence; but it had not been so in Derbyshire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There he had talked to her friends, when he could not to herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But now several minutes elapsed, without bringing the sound of his voice; and when occasionally, unable to resist the impulse of curiosity, she raised her eyes to his face, she as often found him looking at Jane as at herself, and frequently on no object but the ground. More thoughtfulness and less anxiety to please, than when they last met, were plainly expressed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was disappointed, and angry with herself for being so." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Could I expect it to be otherwise?\" said she. \"Yet why did he come?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was in no humour for conversation with any one but himself; and to him she had hardly courage to speak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She enquired after his sister, but could do no more.\n\n\"It is a long time, Mr. Bingley, since you went away,\" said Mrs. Bennet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He readily agreed to it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'place' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I began to be afraid you would never come back again. People did say, you meant to quit the place entirely at Michaelmas; but, however, I hope it is not true. A great many changes have happened in the neighbourhood since you went away. Miss Lucas is married and settled: and one of my own daughters. I suppose you have heard of it; indeed, you must have seen it in the papers. It was in the Times and the Courier, I know; though it was not put in as it ought to be. It was only said, 'Lately, George Wickham, Esq. to Miss Lydia Bennet,' without there being a syllable said of her father, or the place where she lived, or any thing. It was my brother Gardiner's drawing up, too, and I wonder how he came to make such an awkward business of it. Did you see it?\"\n\nBingley replied that he did, and made his congratulations." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth dared not lift up her eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How Mr. Darcy looked, therefore, she could not tell.\n\n\"It is a delightful thing, to be sure, to have a daughter well married,\" continued her mother; \"but at the same time, Mr. Bingley, it is very hard to have her taken away from me. They are gone down to Newcastle, a place quite northward, it seems, and there they are to stay, I do not know how long. His regiment is there; for I suppose you have heard of his leaving the—shire, and of his being gone into the Regulars. Thank heaven! he has some friends, though, perhaps, not so many as he deserves.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth, who knew this to be levelled at Mr. Darcy, was in such misery of shame, that she could hardly keep her seat. It drew from her, however, the exertion of speaking, which nothing else had so effectually done before; and she asked Bingley, whether he meant to make any stay in the country at present." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few weeks, he believed.\n\n\"When you have killed all your own birds, Mr. Bingley,\" said her mother, \"I beg you will come here and shoot as many as you please on Mr. Bennet's manor. I am sure he will be vastly happy to oblige you, and will save all the best of the covies for you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth's misery increased at such unnecessary, such officious attention! Were the same fair prospect to arise at present, as had flattered them a year ago, every thing, she was persuaded, would be hastening to the same vexatious conclusion." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At that instant she felt, that years of happiness could not make Jane or herself amends for moments of such painful confusion." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The first wish of my heart,\" said she to herself, \"is never more to be in company with either of them. Their society can afford no pleasure that will atone for such wretchedness as this! Let me never see either one or the other again!\"\n\nYet the misery, for which years of happiness were to offer no compensation, received soon afterwards material relief, from observing how much the beauty of her sister rekindled the admiration of her former lover." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When first he came in, he had spoken to her but little; but every five minutes seemed to be giving her more of his attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He found her as handsome as she had been last year; as good-natured, and as unaffected, though not quite so chatty. Jane was anxious that no difference should be perceived in her at all, and was really persuaded that she talked as much as ever; but her mind was so busily engaged, that she did not always know when she was silent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the gentlemen rose to go away, Mrs. Bennet was mindful of her intended civility, and they were invited and engaged to dine at Longbourn in a few days' time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are quite a visit in my debt, Mr. Bingley,\" she added; \"for when you went to town last winter, you promised to take a family dinner with us as soon as you returned. I have not forgot, you see; and I assure you I was very much disappointed that you did not come back and keep your engagement.\"\n\nBingley looked a little silly at this reflection, and said something of his concern at having been prevented by business." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They then went away.\n\nMrs. Bennet had been strongly inclined to ask them to stay and dine there that day; but, though she always kept a very good table, she did not think any thing less than two courses could be good enough for a man on whom she had such anxious designs, or satisfy the appetite and pride of one who had ten thousand a year." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chapter 12" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as they were gone, Elizabeth walked out to recover her spirits; or, in other words, to dwell without interruption on those subjects that must deaden them more. Mr. Darcy's behaviour astonished and vexed her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why, if he came only to be silent, grave, and indifferent,\" said she, \"did he come at all?\"\n\nShe could settle it in no way that gave her pleasure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He could be still amiable, still pleasing to my uncle and aunt, when he was in town; and why not to me? If he fears me, why come hither? If he no longer cares for me, why silent? Teasing, teasing man! I will think no more about him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her resolution was for a short time involuntarily kept by the approach of her sister, who joined her with a cheerful look which showed her better satisfied with their visitors than Elizabeth.\n\n\"Now,\" said she, \"that this first meeting is over, I feel perfectly easy. I know my own strength, and I shall never be embarrassed again by his coming. I am glad he dines here on Tuesday. It will then be publicly seen, that on both sides we met only as common and indifferent acquaintance.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, very indifferent, indeed,\" said Elizabeth, laughingly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, Jane! take care.\"\n\n\"My dear Lizzy, you cannot think me so weak as to be in danger now.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think you are in very great danger of making him as much in love with you as ever.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They did not see the gentlemen again till Tuesday; and Mrs. Bennet, in the mean while, was giving way to all the happy schemes which the good-humour and common politeness of Bingley, in half an hour's visit, had revived." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On Tuesday there was a large party assembled at Longbourn; and the two who were most anxiously expected, to the credit of their punctuality as sportsmen, were in very good time. When they repaired to the dining-room, Elizabeth eagerly watched to see whether Bingley would take the place which, in all their former parties, had belonged to him, by her sister." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her prudent mother, occupied by the same ideas, forbore to invite him to sit by herself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On entering the room, he seemed to hesitate; but Jane happened to look round, and happened to smile: it was decided." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He placed himself by her.\n\nElizabeth, with a triumphant sensation, looked towards his friend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He bore it with noble indifference; and she would have imagined that Bingley had received his sanction to be happy, had she not seen his eyes likewise turned towards Mr. Darcy, with an expression of half-laughing alarm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His behaviour to her sister was such during dinner-time as showed an admiration of her, which, though more guarded than formerly, persuaded Elizabeth, that, if left wholly to himself, Jane's happiness, and his own, would be speedily secured. Though she dared not depend upon the consequence, she yet received pleasure from observing his behaviour." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It gave her all the animation that her spirits could boast; for she was in no cheerful humour. Mr. Darcy was almost as far from her as the table could divide them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was on one side of her mother." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She knew how little such a situation would give pleasure to either, or make either appear to advantage." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was not near enough to hear any of their discourse; but she could see how seldom they spoke to each other, and how formal and cold was their manner whenever they did. Her mother's ungraciousness made the sense of what they owed him more painful to Elizabeth's mind; and she would, at times, have given any thing to be privileged to tell him, that his kindness was neither unknown nor unfelt by the whole of the family." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was in hopes that the evening would afford some opportunity of bringing them together; that the whole of the visit would not pass away without enabling them to enter into something more of conversation, than the mere ceremonious salutation attending his entrance." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anxious and uneasy, the period which passed in the drawing-room, before the gentlemen came, was wearisome and dull to a degree that almost made her uncivil. She looked forward to their entrance as the point on which all her chance of pleasure for the evening must depend." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If he does not come to me, then,\" said she, \"I shall give him up for ever.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The gentlemen came; and she thought he looked as if he would have answered her hopes; but, alas! the ladies had crowded round the table, where Miss Bennet was making tea, and Elizabeth pouring out the coffee, in so close a confederacy, that there was not a single vacancy near her which would admit of a chair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And on the gentlemen's approaching, one of the girls moved closer to her than ever, and said, in a whisper,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The men shan't come and part us, I am determined. We want none of them; do we?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Darcy had walked away to another part of the room. She followed him with her eyes, envied every one to whom he spoke, had scarcely patience enough to help any body to coffee, and then was enraged against herself for being so silly!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A man who has once been refused! How could I ever be foolish enough to expect a renewal of his love? Is there one among the sex who would not protest against such a weakness as a second proposal to the same woman? There is no indignity so abhorrent to their feelings!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was a little revived, however, by his bringing back his coffee cup himself; and she seized the opportunity of saying,—\n\n\"Is your sister at Pemberley still?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes; she will remain there till Christmas.\"\n\n\"And quite alone? Have all her friends left her?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mrs. Annesley is with her. The others have been gone on to Scarboroughbm these three weeks.\"\n\nShe could think of nothing more to say; but if he wished to converse with her, he might have better success." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stood by her, however, for some minutes, in silence; and, at last, on the young lady's whispering to Elizabeth again, he walked away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the tea things were removed, and the card tables placed, the ladies all rose, and Elizabeth was then hoping to be soon joined by him, when all her views were overthrown, by seeing him fall a victim to her mother's rapacity for whist players, and in a few moments after seated with the rest of the party. She now lost every expectation of pleasure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were confined for the evening at different tables, and she had nothing to hope, but that his eyes were so often turned towards her side of the room, as to make him play as unsuccessfully as herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Bennet had designed to keep the two Netherfield gentlemen to supper; but their carriage was, unluckily, ordered before any of the others, and she had no opportunity of detaining them.\n\n\"Well, girls,\" said she, as soon as they were left to themselves, \"what say you to the day?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I think every thing has passed off uncommonly well, I assure you." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dinner was as well dressed as any I ever saw. The venison was roasted to a turn—and every body said, they never saw so fat a haunch." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The soup was fifty times better than what we had at the Lucases last week; and even Mr. Darcy acknowledged, that the partridges were remarkably well done; and I suppose he has two or three French cooks at least." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And, my dear Jane, I never saw you look in greater beauty. Mrs. Long said so too, for I asked her whether you did not." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And what do you think she said besides?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'Ah! Mrs. Bennet, we shall have her at Netherfield at last!' She did, indeed. I do think Mrs. Long is as good a creature as ever lived—and her nieces are very pretty behaved girls, and not at all handsome: I like them prodigiously.\"\n\nMrs. Bennet, in short, was in very great spirits: she had seen enough of Bingley's behaviour to Jane to be convinced that she would get him at last; and her expectations of advantage to her family, when in a happy humour, were so far beyond reason, that she was quite disappointed at not seeing him there again the next day to make his proposals." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It has been a very agreeable day,\" said Miss Bennet to Elizabeth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The party seemed so well selected, so suitable one with the other. I hope we may often meet again.\"\n\nElizabeth smiled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lizzy, you must not do so. You must not suspect me. It mortifies me. I assure you that I have now learnt to enjoy his conversation as an agreeable and sensible young man, without having a wish beyond it. I am perfectly satisfied, from what his manners now are, that he never had any design of engaging my affection. It is only that he is blessed with greater sweetness of address, and a stronger desire of generally pleasing, than any other man.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are very cruel,\" said her sister, \"you will not let me smile, and are provoking me to it every moment.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How hard it is in some cases to be believed!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And how impossible in others!\"\n\n\"But why should you wish to persuade me that I feel more than I acknowledge?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That is a question which I hardly know how to answer. We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing. Forgive me; and if you persist in indifference, do not make me your confidante.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chapter 13\n\nA few days after this visit, Mr. Bingley called again, and alone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His friend had left him that morning for London, but was to return home in ten days time. He sat with them above an hour, and was in remarkably good spirits." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Bennet invited him to dine with them; but, with many expressions of concern, he confessed himself engaged elsewhere." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Next time you call,\" said she, \"I hope we shall be more lucky.\"\n\nHe should be particularly happy at any time, &c. &c.; and if she would give him leave, would take an early opportunity of waiting on them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Can you come to-morrow?\"\n\nYes, he had no engagement at all for to-morrow; and her invitation was accepted with alacrity." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He came, and in such very good time, that the ladies were none of them dressed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In ran Mrs. Bennet to her daughter's room, in her dressing-gown, and with her hair half finished, crying out,—\n\n\"My dear Jane, make haste and hurry down. He is come—Mr. Bingley is come. He is, indeed. Make haste, make haste. Here, Sarah, come to Miss Bennet this moment, and help her on with her gown. Never mind Miss Lizzy's hair.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We will be down as soon as we can,\" said Jane; \"but I dare say Kitty is forwarder than either of us, for she went up stairs half an hour ago.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh! hang Kitty! what has she to do with it? Come, be quick, be quick! where is your sash, my dear?\"\n\nBut when her mother was gone, Jane would not be prevailed on to go down without one of her sisters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The same anxiety to get by themselves was visible again in the evening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After tea, Mr. Bennet retired to the library, as was his custom, and Mary went up stairs to her instrument. Two obstacles of the five being thus removed, Mrs. Bennet sat looking and winking at Elizabeth and Catherine for a considerable time, without making any impression on them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth would not observe her; and when at last Kitty did, she very innocently said, \"What is the matter, mamma? What do you keep winking at me for? What am I to do?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nothing, child, nothing. I did not wink at you.\" She then sat still five minutes longer; but unable to waste such a precious occasion, she suddenly got up, and saying to Kitty,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Come here, my love, I want to speak to you,\" took her out of the room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jane instantly gave a look at Elizabeth which spoke her distress at such premeditation, and her entreaty that she would not give in to it. In a few minutes, Mrs. Bennet half opened the door and called out,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Lizzy, my dear, I want to speak with you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth was forced to go.\n\n\"We may as well leave them by themselves, you know,\" said her mother as soon as she was in the hall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Kitty and I are going up stairs to sit in my dressing-room.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth made no attempt to reason with her mother, but remained quietly in the hall till she and Kitty were out of sight, then returned into the drawing-room.\n\nMrs. Bennet's schemes for this day were ineffectual." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bingley was every thing that was charming, except the professed lover of her daughter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His ease and cheerfulness rendered him a most agreeable addition to their evening party; and he bore with the ill-judged officiousness of the mother, and heard all her silly remarks with a forbearance and command of countenance particularly grateful to the daughter.\n\nHe scarcely needed an invitation to stay supper; and before he went away, an engagement was formed, chiefly through his own and Mrs. Bennet's means, for his coming next morning to shoot with her husband." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After this day, Jane said no more of her indifference." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not a word passed between the sisters concerning Bingley; but Elizabeth went to bed in the happy belief that all must speedily be concluded, unless Mr. Darcy returned within the stated time. Seriously, however, she felt tolerably persuaded that all this must have taken place with that gentleman's concurrence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bingley was punctual to his appointment; and he and Mr. Bennet spent the morning together, as had been agreed on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The latter was much more agreeable than his companion expected. There was nothing of presumption or folly in Bingley that could provoke his ridicule, or disgust him into silence; and he was more communicative, and less eccentric, than the other had ever seen him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bingley of course returned with him to dinner; and in the evening Mrs. Bennet's invention was again at work to get every body away from him and her daughter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth, who had a letter to write, went into the breakfast-room for that purpose soon after tea; for as the others were all going to sit down to cards, she could not be wanted to counteract her mother's schemes.\n\nBut on her returning to the drawing-room, when her letter was finished, she saw, to her infinite surprise, there was reason to fear that her mother had been too ingenious for her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On opening the door, she perceived her sister and Bingley standing together over the hearth, as if engaged in earnest conversation; and had this led to no suspicion, the faces of both, as they hastily turned round and moved away from each other, would have told it all." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their situation was awkward enough; but hers she thought was still worse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not a syllable was uttered by either; and Elizabeth was on the point of going away again, when Bingley, who as well as the other had sat down, suddenly rose, and, whispering a few words to her sister, ran out of the room.\n\nJane could have no reserves from Elizabeth, where confidence would give pleasure; and instantly embracing her, acknowledged, with the liveliest emotion, that she was the happiest creature in the world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"'Tis too much!\" she added, \"by far too much. I do not deserve it. Oh, why is not every body as happy?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth's congratulations were given with a sincerity, a warmth, a delight, which words could but poorly express. Every sentence of kindness was a fresh source of happiness to Jane." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she would not allow herself to stay with her sister, or say half that remained to be said, for the present.\n\n\"I must go instantly to my mother,\" she cried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I would not on any account trifle with her affectionate solicitude, or allow her to hear it from any one but myself. He is gone to my father already. Oh, Lizzy, to know that what I have to relate will give such pleasure to all my dear family! how shall I bear so much happiness?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She then hastened away to her mother, who had purposely broken up the card party, and was sitting up stairs with Kitty.\n\nElizabeth, who was left by herself, now smiled at the rapidity and ease with which an affair was finally settled, that had given them so many previous months of surprise and vexation." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And this,\" said she, \"is the end of all his friend's anxious circumspection! of all his sister's falsehood and contrivance! the happiest, wisest, and most reasonable end!\"\n\nIn a few minutes she was joined by Bingley, whose conference with her father had been short and to the purpose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where is your sister?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "said he hastily, as he opened the door.\n\n\"With my mother up stairs. She will be down in a moment, I dare say.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He then shut the door, and, coming up to her, claimed the good wishes and affection of a sister." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth honestly and heartily expressed her delight in the prospect of their relationship. They shook hands with great cordiality; and then, till her sister came down, she had to listen to all he had to say of his own happiness, and of Jane's perfections; and in spite of his being a lover, Elizabeth really believed all his expectations of felicity to be rationally founded, because they had for basis the excellent understanding, and super-excellent disposition of Jane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste between her and himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was an evening of no common delight to them all; the satisfaction of Miss Bennet's mind gave such a glow of sweet animation to her face, as made her look handsomer than ever. Kitty simpered and smiled, and hoped her turn was coming soon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Bennet could not give her consent, or speak her approbation in terms warm enough to satisfy her feelings, though she talked to Bingley of nothing else, for half an hour; and when Mr. Bennet joined them at supper, his voice and manner plainly showed how really happy he was." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not a word, however, passed his lips in allusion to it, till their visitor took his leave for the night; but as soon as he was gone, he turned to his daughter and said,—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Jane, I congratulate you. You will be a very happy woman.\"\n\nJane went to him instantly, kissed him, and thanked him for his goodness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are a good girl,\" he replied, \"and I have great pleasure in thinking you will be so happily settled. I have not a doubt of your doing very well together. Your tempers are by no means unlike. You are each of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so easy, that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will always exceed your income.\"\n\n\"I hope not so. Imprudence or thoughtlessness in money matters would be unpardonable in me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Exceed their income! My dear Mr. Bennet,\" cried his wife, \"what are you talking of? Why, he has four or five thousand a year, and very likely more.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then addressing her daughter, \"Oh, my dear, dear Jane, I am so happy! I am sure I shan't get a wink of sleep all night. I knew how it would be. I always said it must be so, at last. I was sure you could not be so beautiful for nothing! I remember, as soon as ever I saw him, when he first came into Hertfordshire last year, I thought how likely it was that you should come together. Oh, he is the handsomest young man that ever was seen!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Wickham, Lydia, were all forgotten. Jane was beyond competition her favourite child." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At that moment she cared for no other. Her younger sisters soon began to make interest with her for objects of happiness which she might in future be able to dispense." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mary petitioned for the use of the library at Netherfield; and Kitty begged very hard for a few balls there every winter.\n\nBingley, from this time, was of course a daily visitor at Longbourn; coming frequently before breakfast, and always remaining till after supper; unless when some barbarous neighbour, who could not be enough detested, had given him an invitation to dinner, which he thought himself obliged to accept." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth had now but little time for conversation with her sister; for while he was present Jane had no attention to bestow on any one else: but she found herself considerably useful to both of them, in those hours of separation that must sometimes occur. In the absence of Jane, he always attached himself to Elizabeth for the pleasure of talking of her; and when Bingley was gone, Jane constantly sought the same means of relief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He has made me so happy,\" said she, one evening, \"by telling me that he was totally ignorant of my being in town last spring! I had not believed it possible.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I suspected as much,\" replied Elizabeth. \"But how did he account for it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It must have been his sisters' doing. They were certainly no friends to his acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have chosen so much more advantageously in many respects. But when they see, as I trust they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will learn to be contented, and we shall be on good terms again: though we can never be what we once were to each other.\"\n\n\"That is the most unforgiving speech,\" said Elizabeth, \"that I ever heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again the dupe of Miss Bingley's pretended regard.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of my being indifferent would have prevented his coming down again?'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He made a little mistake, to be sure; but it is to the credit of his modesty.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and the little value he put on his own good qualities." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth was pleased to find, that he had not betrayed the interference of his friend; for, though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world, she knew it was a circumstance which most prejudice her against him.\n\n\"I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "cried Jane. \"Oh, Lizzy, why am I thus singled from my family, and blessed above them all? If I could but see you as happy! If there were but such another man for you!\"\n\n\"If you were to give me forty such men I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The situation of affairs in the Longbourn family could not be long a secret." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mrs. Bennet was privileged to whisper it to Mrs. Philips, and she ventured, without any permission, to do the same by all her neighbours in Meryton.\n\nThe Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the world; though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run away, they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Chapter 14" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One morning, about a week after Bingley's engagement with Jane had been formed, as he and the females of the family were sitting together in the dining-room, their attention was suddenly drawn to the window by the sound of a carriage; and they perceived a chaise and four driving up the lawn. It was too early in the morning for visitors, and besides, the equipage did not answer to that of any of their neighbours." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The horses were post; and neither the carriage nor the livery of the servant who preceded it were familiar to them. As it was certain, however, that somebody was coming, Bingley instantly prevailed on Miss Bennet to avoid the confinement of such an intrusion, and walk away with him into the shrubbery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They both set off, and the conjectures of the remaining three continued, though with little satisfaction, till the door was thrown open, and their visitor entered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was Lady Catherine de Bourgh.\n\nThey were of course all intending to be surprised: but their astonishment was beyond their expectation; and on the part of Mrs. Bennet and Kitty, though she was perfectly unknown to them, even inferior to what Elizabeth felt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She entered the room with an air more than usually ungracious, made no other reply to Elizabeth's salutation than a slight inclination of the head, and sat down without saying a word." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth had mentioned her name to her mother on her Ladyship's entrance, though no request of introduction had been made.\n\nMrs. Bennet, all amazement, though flattered by having a guest of such high importance, received her with the utmost politeness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "After sitting for a moment in silence, she said, very stiffly, to Elizabeth,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I hope you are well, Miss Bennet. That lady, I suppose, is your mother?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth replied very concisely that she was.\n\n\"And that, I suppose, is one of your sisters?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, madam,\" said Mrs. Bennet, delighted to speak to a Lady Catherine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She is my youngest girl but one. My youngest of all is lately married, and my eldest is somewhere about the ground, walking with a young man, who, I believe, will soon become a part of the family.\"\n\n\"You have a very small park here,\" returned Lady Catherine, after a short silence." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It is nothing in comparison of Rosings, my Lady, I dare say; but, I assure you, it is much larger than Sir William Lucas's.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This must be a most inconvenient sitting room for the evening in summer: the windows are full west.\"\n\nMrs. Bennet assured her that they never sat there after dinner; and then added,—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"May I take the liberty of asking your Ladyship whether you left Mr. and Mrs. Collins well?\"\n\n\"Yes, very well. I saw them the night before last.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth now expected that she would produce a letter for her from Charlotte, as it seemed the only probable motive for her calling. But no letter appeared, and she was completely puzzled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Mrs. Bennet, with great civility, begged her Ladyship to take some refreshment: but Lady Catherine very resolutely, and not very politely, declined eating any thing; and then, rising up, said to Elizabeth,—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favour me with your company.\"\n\n\"Go, my dear,\" cried her mother, \"and show her Ladyship about the different walks. I think she will be pleased with the hermitage.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth obeyed; and, running into her own room for her parasol, attended her noble guest down stairs. As they passed through the hall, Lady Catherine opened the doors into the dining-parlour and drawing-room, and pronouncing them, after a short survey, to be decent looking rooms, walked on." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'elizabeth' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her carriage remained at the door, and Elizabeth saw that her waiting-woman was in it. They proceeded in silence along the gravel walk that led to the copse; Elizabeth was determined to make no effort for conversation with a woman who was now more than usually insolent and disagreeable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How could I ever think her like her nephew?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "said she, as she looked in her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As soon as they entered the copse, Lady Catherine began in the following manner:—\n\n\"You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I come.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth looked with unaffected astonishment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Indeed, you are mistaken, madam; I have not been at all able to account for the honour of seeing you here.\"\n\n\"Miss Bennet,\" replied her Ladyship, in an angry tone, \"you ought to know that I am not to be trifled with. But, however insincere you may choose to be, you shall not find me so. My character has ever been celebrated for its sincerity and frankness; and in a cause of such moment as this, I shall certainly not depart from it. A report of a most alarming nature reached me two days ago. I was told, that not only your sister was on the point of being most advantageously married, but that you, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would, in all likelihood, be soon afterwards united to my nephew, my own nephew, Mr. Darcy. Though I know it must be a scandalous falsehood, though I would not injure him so much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved on setting off for this place, that I might make my sentiments known to you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If you believed it impossible to be true,\" said Elizabeth, colouring with astonishment and disdain, \"I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What could your Ladyship propose by it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted.\"\n\n\"Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family,\" said Elizabeth coolly, \"will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report is in existence.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"If! do you then pretend to be ignorant of it? Has it not been industriously circulated by yourselves? Do you not know that such a report is spread abroad?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I never heard that it was.\"\n\n\"And can you likewise declare, that there is no foundation for it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your Ladyship. You may ask questions which I shall not choose to answer.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is not to be borne. Miss Bennet, I insist on being satisfied. Has he, has my nephew, made you an offer of marriage?\"\n\n\"Your Ladyship has declared it to be impossible.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It ought to be so; it must be so, while he retains the use of his reason. But your arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation, have made him forget what he owes to himself and to all his family. You may have drawn him in.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I have, I shall be the last person to confess it.\"\n\n\"Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But you are not entitled to know mine; nor will such behaviour as this ever induce me to be explicit.\"\n\n\"Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. Mr. Darcy is engaged to my daughter. Now, what have you to say?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Only this,—that if he is so, you can have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lady Catherine hesitated for a moment, and then replied, —\n\n\"The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of his mother, as well as of hers. While in their cradles, we planned the union; and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would be accomplished, in their marriage, to be prevented by a young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his tacit engagement with Miss De Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say, that from his earliest hours he was destined for his cousin?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes; and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is no other objection to my marrying your nephew, I shall certainly not be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to marry Miss De Bourgh. You both did as much as you could in planning the marriage. Its completion depended on others. If Mr. Darcy is neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make another choice? and if I am that choice, why may not I accept him?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'interest' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yes, Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised, by every one connected with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned by any of us.\"\n\n\"These are heavy misfortunes,\" replied Elizabeth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But the wife of Mr. Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you! Is this your gratitude for my attentions to you last spring?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Is nothing due to me on that score?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Let us sit down. You are to understand, Miss Bennet, that I came here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose; nor will I be dissuaded from it. I have not been used to submit to any person's whims. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment.\"\n\n\"That will make your Ladyship's situation at present more pitiable; but it will have no effect on me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will not be interrupted! Hear me in silence. My daughter and my nephew are formed for each other. They are descended, on the maternal side, from the same noble line; and, on the father's, from respectable, honourable, and ancient, though untitled, families. Their fortune on both sides is splendid. They are destined for each other by the voice of every member of their respective houses; and what is to divide them?—the upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections, or fortune! Is this to be endured? But it must not, shall not be! If you were sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in which you have been brought up.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal.\"\n\n\"True. You are a gentleman's daughter. But who was your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their condition.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whatever my connections may be,\" said Elizabeth, \"if your nephew does not object to them, they can be nothing to you.\"\n\n\"Tell me, once for all, are you engaged to him?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Though Elizabeth would not, for the mere purpose of obliging Lady Catherine, have answered this question, she could not but say, after a moment's deliberation,—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am not.\"\n\nLady Catherine seemed pleased." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And will you promise me never to enter into such an engagement?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will make no promise of the kind.\"\n\n\"Miss Bennet, I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more reasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede. I shall not go away till you have given me the assurance I require.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And I certainly never shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into any thing so wholly unreasonable. Your Ladyship wants Mr. Darcy to marry your daughter; but would my giving you the wished-for promise make their marriage at all more probable? Supposing him to be attached to me, would my refusing to accept his hand make him wish to bestow it on his cousin? Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with which you have supported this extraordinary application have been as frivolous as the application was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your nephew might approve of your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell; but you have certainly no right to concern yourself in mine. I must beg, therefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the objections I have already urged I have still another to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister's infamous elopement. I know it all; that the young man's marrying her was a patched-up business, at the expense of your father and uncle. And is such a girl to be my nephew's sister? Is her husband, who is the son of his late father's steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth!—of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?\"\n\n\"You can now have nothing further to say,\" she resentfully answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You have insulted me, in every possible method. I must beg to return to the house.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And she rose as she spoke. Lady Catherine rose also, and they turned back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her Ladyship was highly incensed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you must disgrace him in the eyes of every body?\"\n\n\"Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are then resolved to have him?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.\"\n\n\"It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to ruin him in the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude,\" replied Elizabeth, \"has any possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either would be violated by my marriage with Mr. Darcy. And with regard to the resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former were excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment's concern—and the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And this is your real opinion! This is your final resolve! Very well. I shall now know how to act. Do not imagine, Miss Bennet, that your ambition will ever be gratified. I came to try you. I hoped to find you reasonable; but depend upon it I will carry my point.\"\n\nIn this manner Lady Catherine talked on till they were at the door of the carriage, when, turning hastily round, she added,—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth made no answer; and without attempting to persuade her Ladyship to return into the house, walked quietly into it herself. She heard the carriage drive away as she proceeded up stairs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her mother impatiently met her at the door of the dressing-room, to ask why Lady Catherine would not come in again and rest herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She did not choose it,\" said her daughter; \"she would go.\"\n\n\"She is a very fine-looking woman! and her calling here was prodigiously civil! for she only came, I suppose, to tell us the Collinses were well. She is on her road somewhere, I dare say; and so, passing through Meryton, thought she might as well call on you. I suppose she had nothing particular to say to you, Lizzy?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth was forced to give into a little falsehood here; for to acknowledge the substance of their conversation was impossible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Chapter 15\n\nThe discomposure of spirits which this extraordinary visit threw Elizabeth into could not be easily overcome; nor could she for many hours learn to think of it less than incessantly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lady Catherine, it appeared, had actually taken the trouble of this journey from Rosings for the sole purpose of breaking off her supposed engagement with Mr. Darcy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was a rational scheme to be sure! but from what the report of their engagement could originate, Elizabeth was at a loss to imagine; till she recollected that his being the intimate friend of Bingley, and her being the sister of Jane, was enough, at a time when the expectation of one wedding made every body eager for another, to supply the idea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had not herself forgotten to feel that the marriage of her sister must bring them more frequently together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And her neighbours at Lucas Lodge, therefore, (for through their communication with the Collinses, the report, she concluded, had reached Lady Catherine,) had only set that down as almost certain and immediate which she had looked forward to as possible at some future time.\n\nIn revolving Lady Catherine's expressions, however, she could not help feeling some uneasiness as to the possible consequence of her persisting in this interference." }, { "from": "human", "value": "From what she had said of her resolution to prevent their marriage, it occurred to Elizabeth that she must meditate an application to her nephew; and how he might take a similar representation of the evils attached to a connection with her she dared not pronounce." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew not the exact degree of his affection for his aunt, or his dependence on her judgment, but it was natural to suppose that he thought much higher of her Ladyship than she could do; and it was certain, that in enumerating the miseries of a marriage with one, whose immediate connections were so unequal to his own, his aunt would address him on his weakest side. With his notions of dignity, he would probably feel that the arguments, which to Elizabeth had appeared weak and ridiculous, contained much good sense and solid reasoning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he had been wavering before, as to what he should do, which had often seemed likely, the advice and entreaty of so near a relation might settle every doubt, and determine him at once to be as happy as dignity unblemished could make him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In that case he would return no more. Lady Catherine might see him in her way through town; and his engagement to Bingley of coming again to Netherfield must give way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If, therefore, an excuse for not keeping his promise should come to his friend within a few days,\" she added, \"I shall know how to understand it. I shall then give over every expectation, every wish of his constancy. If he is satisfied with only regretting me, when he might have obtained my affections and hand, I shall soon cease to regret him at all.\"\n\nThe surprise of the rest of the family, on hearing who their visitor had been, was very great: but they obligingly satisfied it with the same kind of supposition which had appeased Mrs. Bennet's curiosity; and Elizabeth was spared from much teasing on the subject." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The next morning, as she was going down stairs, she was met by her father, who came out of his library with a letter in his hand." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lizzy,\" said he, \"I was going to look for you: come into my room.\"\n\nShe followed him thither; and her curiosity to know what he had to tell her was heightened by the supposition of its being in some manner connected with the letter he held." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It suddenly struck her that it might be from Lady Catherine; and she anticipated with dismay all the consequent explanations." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She followed her father to the fireplace, and they both sat down. He then said,—\n\n\"I have received a letter this morning that has astonished me exceedingly. As it principally concerns yourself, you ought to know its contents. I did not know before that I had two daughters on the brink of matrimony. Let me congratulate you on a very important conquest.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The colour now rushed into Elizabeth's cheeks in the instantaneous conviction of its being a letter from the nephew, instead of the aunt; and she was undetermined whether most to be pleased that he explained himself at all, or offended that his letter was not rather addressed to herself, when her father continued,—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You look conscious. Young ladies have great penetration in such matters as these; but I think I may defy even your sagacity to discover the name of your admirer. This letter is from Mr. Collins.\"\n\n\"From Mr. Collins! and what can he have to say?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Something very much to the purpose, of course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He begins with congratulations on the approaching nuptials of my eldest daughter, of which, it seems, he has been told by some of the good-natured, gossiping Lucases. I shall not sport with your impatience by reading what he says on that point." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What relates to yourself is as follows:—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'Having thus offered you the sincere congratulations of Mrs. Collins and myself on this happy event, let me now add a short hint on the subject of another, of which we have been advertised by the same authority. Your daughter Elizabeth, it is presumed, will not long bear the name of Bennet, after her eldest sister has resigned it; and the chosen partner of her fate may be reasonably looked up to as one of the most illustrious personages in this land.'" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Can you possibly guess, Lizzy, who is meant by this?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "'This young gentleman is blessed, in a peculiar way, with every thing the heart of mortal can most desire,—splendid property, noble kindred, and extensive patronage. Yet, in spite of all these temptations, let me warn my cousin Elizabeth, and yourself, of what evils you may incur by a precipitate closure with this gentleman's proposals, which, of course, you will be inclined to take immediate advantage of.'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Have you any idea, Lizzy, who this gentleman is? But now it comes out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'My motive for cautioning you is as follows:—We have reason to imagine that his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, does not look on the match with a friendly eye.'\n\n\"Mr. Darcy, you see, is the man! Now, Lizzy, I think I have surprised you. Could he, or the Lucases, have pitched on any man, within the circle of our acquaintance, whose name would have given the lie more effectually to what they related? Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at you in his life! It is admirable!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth tried to join in her father's pleasantry, but could only force one most reluctant smile." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Never had his wit been directed in a manner so little agreeable to her.\n\n\"Are you not diverted?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh yes. Pray read on.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: should, frequency: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"'After mentioning the likelihood of this marriage to her Ladyship last night, she immediately, with her usual condescension, expressed what she felt on the occasion; when it became apparent, that on the score of some family objections on the part of my cousin she would never give her consent to what she termed so disgraceful a match. I thought it my duty to give the speediest intelligence of this to my cousin, that she and her noble admirer may be aware of what they are about, and not run hastily into a marriage which has not been properly sanctioned.' Mr. Collins, moreover, adds, 'I am truly rejoiced that my cousin Lydia's sad business has been so well hushed up, and am only concerned that their living together before the marriage took place should be so generally known. I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain from declaring my amazement, at hearing that you received the young couple into your house as soon as they were married. It was an encouragement of vice; and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should very strenuously have opposed it. You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing.' That is his notion of Christian forgiveness! The rest of his letter is only about his dear Charlotte's situation, and his expectation of a young olive-branch. But, Lizzy, you look as if you did not enjoy it. You are not going to be missish, I hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report. For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" cried Elizabeth, \"I am excessively diverted. But it is so strange!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes, that is what makes it amusing. Had they fixed on any other man it would have been nothing; but his perfect indifference and your pointed dislike make it so delightfully absurd! Much as I abominate writing, I would not give up Mr. Collins's correspondence for any consideration. Nay, when I read a letter of his, I cannot help giving him the preference even over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and hypocrisy of my son-in-law. And pray, Lizzy, what said Lady Catherine about this report? Did she call to refuse her consent?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "To this question his daughter replied only with a laugh; and as it had been asked without the least suspicion, she was not distressed by his repeating it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her feelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh when she would rather have cried. Her father had most cruelly mortified her by what he said of Mr. Darcy's indifference; and she could do nothing but wonder at such a want of penetration, or fear that, perhaps, instead of his seeing too little, she might have fancied too much." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "help write? 5 sentences more, same character context, Romance genre thx" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead of receiving any such letter of excuse from his friend, as Elizabeth half expected Mr. Bingley to do, he was able to bring Darcy with him to Longbourn before many days had passed after Lady Catherine's visit. The gentlemen arrived early; and, before Mrs. Bennet had time to tell him of their having seen his aunt, of which her daughter sat in momentary dread, Bingley, who wanted to be alone with Jane, proposed their all walking out. It was agreed to. Mrs. Bennet was not in the habit of walking, Mary could never spare time, but the remaining five set off together. Bingley and Jane, however, soon allowed the others to outstrip them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They lagged behind, while Elizabeth, Kitty, and Darcy were to entertain each other." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Very little was said by either; Kitty was too much afraid of him to talk; Elizabeth was secretly forming a desperate resolution; and, perhaps, he might be doing the same.\n\nThey walked towards the Lucases, because Kitty wished to call upon Maria; and as Elizabeth saw no occasion for making it a general concern, when Kitty left them, she went boldly on with him alone. Now was the moment for her resolution to be executed; and, while her courage was high, she immediately said,—\n\n\"Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature, and for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings care not how much I may be wounding yours. I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister. Ever since I have known it I have been most anxious to acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest of my family I should not have merely my own gratitude to express.\"\n\n\"I am sorry, exceedingly sorry,\" replied Darcy, in a tone of surprise and emotion, \"that you have ever been informed of what may, in a mistaken light, have given you uneasiness. I did not think Mrs. Gardiner was so little to be trusted.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You must not blame my aunt. Lydia's thoughtlessness first betrayed to me that you had been concerned in the matter; and, of course, I could not rest till I knew the particulars. Let me thank you again and again, in the name of all my family, for that generous compassion which induced you to take so much trouble, and bear so many mortifications, for the sake of discovering them.\"\n\n\"If you will thank me,\" he replied, \"let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you.\"\n\nElizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her companion added, \"You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.\"\n\nElizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand, that her sentiments had undergone so material a change since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure his present assurances." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The happiness which this reply produced was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eyes, she might have seen how well the expression of heart-felt delight, diffused over his face, became him: but though she could not look she could listen; and he told her of feelings which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable.\n\nThey walked on without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects. She soon learnt that they were indebted for their present good understanding to the efforts of his aunt, who did call on him in her return through London, and there relate her journey to Longbourn, its motive, and the substance of her conversation with Elizabeth; dwelling emphatically on every expression of the latter, which, in her Ladyship's apprehension, peculiarly denoted her perverseness and assurance, in the belief that such a relation must assist her endeavours to obtain that promise from her nephew which she had refused to give. But, unluckily for her Ladyship, its effect had been exactly contrariwise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It taught me to hope,\" said he, \"as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before. I knew enough of your disposition to be certain, that had you been absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, you would have acknowledged it to Lady Catherine frankly and openly.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "CONSTRAINT: Include 'elizabeth' 2 time(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth coloured and laughed as she replied, \"Yes, you know enough of my frankness to believe me capable of that. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations.\"\n\n\"What did you say of me that I did not deserve? For though your accusations were ill-founded, formed on mistaken premises, my behaviour to you at the time had merited the severest reproof. It was unpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence.\"\n\n\"We will not quarrel for the greater share of blame annexed to that evening,\" said Elizabeth. \"The conduct of neither, if strictly examined, will be irreproachable; but since then we have both, I hope, improved in civility.\"\n\n\"I cannot be so easily reconciled to myself. The recollection of what I then said, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me. Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: 'Had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner.' Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me; though it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was certainly very far from expecting them to make so strong an impression. I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such a way.\"\n\n\"I can easily believe it. You thought me then devoid of every proper feeling, I am sure you did. The turn of your countenance I shall never forget, as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible way that would induce you to accept me.\"\n\n\"Oh, do not repeat what I then said. These recollections will not do at all. I assure you, that I have long been most heartily ashamed of it.\"\n\nDarcy mentioned his letter. \"Did it,\" said he,—\"did it soon make you think better of me? Did you, on reading it, give any credit to its contents?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her former prejudices had been removed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Include the following text] → \"I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. Your retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of ignorance. But with me, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude, which cannot, which ought not to be repelled. I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoiled by my parents, who, though good themselves, (my father particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable,) allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing, to care for none beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight-and-twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I knew,\" said he, \"that what I wrote must give you pain, but it was necessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter. There was one part, especially the opening of it, which I should dread your having the power of reading again. I can remember some expressions which might justly make you hate me.\"\n\n\"The letter shall certainly be burnt, if you believe it essential to the preservation of my regard; but, though we have both reason to think my opinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope, quite so easily changed as that implies.\"\n\n\"When I wrote that letter,\" replied Darcy, \"I believed myself perfectly calm and cool; but I am since convinced that it was written in a dreadful bitterness of spirit.\"\n\n\"The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness, but it did not end so. The adieu is charity itself. But think no more of the letter. The feelings of the person who wrote and the person who received it are now so widely different from what they were then, that every unpleasant circumstance attending it ought to be forgotten. You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.\"\n\n\"I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. Your retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of ignorance. But with me, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude, which cannot, which ought not to be repelled. I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoiled by my parents, who, though good themselves, (my father particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable,) allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing, to care for none beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight-and-twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Indeed I had. What will you think of my vanity? I believed you to be wishing, expecting my addresses.\"\n\n\"My manners must have been in fault, but not intentionally, I assure you. I never meant to deceive you, but my spirits might often lead me wrong. How you must have hated me after that evening!\"\n\n\"Hate you! I was angry, perhaps, at first, but my anger soon began to take a proper direction.\"\n\n\"I am almost afraid of asking what you thought of me when we met at Pemberley. You blamed me for coming?\"\n\n\"No, indeed, I felt nothing but surprise.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your surprise could not be greater than mine in being noticed by you. My conscience told me that I deserved no extraordinary politeness, and I confess that I did not expect to receive more than my due.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'after' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My object then,\" replied Darcy, \"was to show you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill-opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves, I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you.\"\n\nHe then told her of Georgiana's delight in her acquaintance, and of her disappointment at its sudden interruption; which naturally leading to the cause of that interruption, she soon learnt that his resolution of following her from Derbyshire in quest of her sister had been formed before he quitted the inn, and that his gravity and thoughtfulness there had arisen from no other struggles than what such a purpose must comprehend.\n\nShe expressed her gratitude again, but it was too painful a subject to each to be dwelt on farther.\n\nAfter walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know any thing about it, they found at last, on examining their watches, that it was time to be at home.\n\n\"What could have become of Mr. Bingley and Jane!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "was a wonder which introduced the discussion of their affairs." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Darcy was delighted with their engagement; his friend had given him the earliest information of it.\n\n\"I must ask whether you were surprised?\" said Elizabeth.\n\n\"Not at all. When I went away, I felt that it would soon happen.\"\n\n\"That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much.\" And though he exclaimed at the term, she found that it had been pretty much the case." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"On the evening before my going to London,\" said he, \"I made a confession to him, which I believe I ought to have made long ago. I told him of all that had occurred to make my former interference in his affairs absurd and impertinent. His surprise was great. He had never had the slightest suspicion. I told him, moreover, that I believed myself mistaken in supposing, as I had done, that your sister was indifferent to him; and as I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was unabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together.\"\n\nElizabeth could not help smiling at his easy manner of directing his friend.\n\n\"Did you speak from your own observation,\" said she, \"when you told him that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?\"\n\n\"From the former. I had narrowly observed her, during the two visits which I had lately made here; and I was convinced of her affection.\"\n\n\"And your assurance of it, I suppose, carried immediate conviction to him.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "NarrativeBot: six sentences sentences. Match character familiarity. Romance genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?\" was a question which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered the room, and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor any thing else, awakened a suspicion of the truth.\n\nThe evening passed quietly, unmarked by any thing extraordinary. The acknowledged lovers talked and laughed; the unacknowledged were silent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Darcy was not of a disposition in which happiness overflows in mirth; and Elizabeth, agitated and confused, rather knew that she was happy than felt herself to be so; for, besides the immediate embarrassment, there were other evils before her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She anticipated what would be felt in the family when her situation became known: she was aware that no one liked him but Jane; and even feared that with the others it was a dislike which not all his fortune and consequence might do away.\n\nAt night she opened her heart to Jane. Though suspicion was very far from Miss Bennet's general habits, she was absolutely incredulous here.\n\n\"You are joking, Lizzy. This cannot be! Engaged to Mr. Darcy! No, no, you shall not deceive me: I know it to be impossible.\"\n\n\"This is a wretched beginning, indeed! My sole dependence was on you; and I am sure nobody else will believe me, if you do not. Yet, indeed, I am in earnest. I speak nothing but the truth. He still loves me, and we are engaged.\"\n\nJane looked at her doubtingly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh, Lizzy, it cannot be. I know how much you dislike him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You know nothing of the matter. That is all to be forgot. Perhaps I did not always love him so well as I do now; but in such cases as these, a good memory is unpardonable. This is the last time I shall ever remember it myself.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miss Bennet still looked all amazement. Elizabeth again, and more seriously, assured her of its truth.\n\n\"Good heaven! can it be really so? Yet now I must believe you,\" cried Jane. \"My dear, dear Lizzy, I would, I do congratulate you; but are you certain? Forgive the question—are you quite certain that you can be happy with him?\"\n\n\"There can be no doubt of that. It is settled between us already that we are to be the happiest couple in the world. But are you pleased, Jane? Shall you like to have such a brother?\"\n\n\"Very, very much. Nothing could give either Bingley or myself more delight. But we considered it, we talked of it as impossible. And do you really love him quite well enough? Oh, Lizzy, do any thing rather than marry without affection. Are you quite sure that you feel what you ought to do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh yes! You will only think I feel more than I ought to do when I tell you all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Why, I must confess that I love him better than I do Bingley. I am afraid you will be angry.\"\n\n\"My dearest sister, now be serious. I want to talk very seriously. Let me know every thing that I am to know without delay. Will you tell me how long you have loved him?\"\n\n\"It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began; but I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.\"\n\nAnother entreaty that she would be serious, however, produced the desired effect; and she soon satisfied Jane by her solemn assurances of attachment. When convinced on that article, Miss Bennet had nothing further to wish." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Now I am quite happy,\" said she, \"for you will be as happy as myself. I always had a value for him. Were it for nothing but his love of you, I must always have esteemed him; but now, as Bingley's friend and your husband, there can be only Bingley and yourself more dear to me. But, Lizzy, you have been very sly, very reserved with me. How little did you tell me of what passed at Pemberley and Lambton! I owe all that I know of it to another, not to you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth told her the motives of her secrecy. She had been unwilling to mention Bingley; and the unsettled state of her own feelings had made her equally avoid the name of his friend: but now she would no longer conceal from her his share in Lydia's marriage. All was acknowledged, and half the night spent in conversation.\n\n\"Good gracious!\" cried Mrs. Bennet, as she stood at a window the next morning, \"if that disagreeable Mr. Darcy is not coming here again with our dear Bingley! What can he mean by being so tiresome as to be always coming here? I had no notion but he would go a shooting, or something or other, and not disturb us with his company. What shall we do with him? Lizzy, you must walk out with him again, that he may not be in Bingley's way.\"\n\nElizabeth could hardly help laughing at so convenient a proposal; yet was really vexed that her mother should be always giving him such an epithet.\n\nAs soon as they entered, Bingley looked at her so expressively, and shook hands with such warmth, as left no doubt of his good information; and he soon afterwards said aloud, \"Mrs. Bennet, have you no more lanes hereabouts in which Lizzy may lose her way again to-day?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I advise Mr. Darcy, and Lizzy, and Kitty,\" said Mrs. Bennet, \"to walk to Oakham Mount this morning. It is a nice long walk, and Mr. Darcy has never seen the view.\"\n\n\"It may do very well for the others,\" replied Mr. Bingley; \"but I am sure it will be too much for Kitty. Won't it, Kitty?\"\n\nKitty owned that she had rather stay at home. Darcy professed a great curiosity to see the view from the Mount, and Elizabeth silently consented. As she went up stairs to get ready, Mrs. Bennet followed her, saying,—\n\n\"I am quite sorry, Lizzy, that you should be forced to have that disagreeable man all to yourself; but I hope you will not mind it. It is all for Jane's sake, you know; and there is no occasion for talking to him except just now and then, so do not put yourself to inconvenience.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "During their walk, it was resolved that Mr. Bennet's consent should be asked in the course of the evening: Elizabeth reserved to herself the application for her mother's. She could not determine how her mother would take it; sometimes doubting whether all his wealth and grandeur would be enough to overcome her abhorrence of the man: but whether she were violently set against the match, or violently delighted with it, it was certain that her manner would be equally ill adapted to do credit to her sense; and she could no more bear that Mr. Darcy should hear the first raptures of her joy, than the first vehemence of her disapprobation.\n\nIn the evening, soon after Mr. Bennet withdrew to the library, she saw Mr. Darcy rise also and follow him, and her agitation on seeing it was extreme. She did not fear her father's opposition, but he was going to be made unhappy, and that it should be through her means; that she, his favourite child, should be distressing him by her choice, should be filling him with fears and regrets in disposing of her, was a wretched reflection, and she sat in misery till Mr. Darcy appeared again, when, looking at him, she was a little relieved by his smile. In a few minutes he approached the table where she was sitting with Kitty; and, while pretending to admire her work, said in a whisper, \"Go to your father; he wants you in the library.\" She was gone directly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her father was walking about the room, looking grave and anxious." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lizzy,\" said he, \"what are you doing? Are you out of your senses to be accepting this man? Have not you always hated him?\"\n\nHow earnestly did she then wish that her former opinions had been more reasonable, her expressions more moderate! It would have spared her from explanations and professions which it was exceedingly awkward to give; but they were now necessary, and she assured him, with some confusion, of her attachment to Mr. Darcy.\n\n\"Or, in other words, you are determined to have him. He is rich, to be sure, and you may have more fine clothes and fine carriages than Jane. But will they make you happy?\"\n\n\"Have you any other objection,\" said Elizabeth, \"than your belief of my indifference?\"\n\n\"None at all. We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do, I do like him,\" she replied, with tears in her eyes; \"I love him. Indeed he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable. You do not know what he really is; then pray do not pain me by speaking of him in such terms.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Lizzy,\" said her father, \"I have given him my consent. He is the kind of man, indeed, to whom I should never dare refuse any thing, which he condescended to ask. I now give it to you, if you are resolved on having him. But let me advise you to think better of it. I know your disposition, Lizzy. I know that you could be neither happy nor respectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband; unless you looked up to him as a superior. Your lively talents would place you in the greatest danger in an unequal marriage. You could scarcely escape discredit and misery. My child, let me not have the grief of seeing you unable to respect your partner in life. You know not what you are about.\"\n\nElizabeth, still more affected, was earnest and solemn in her reply; and, at length, by repeated assurances that Mr. Darcy was really the object of her choice, by explaining the gradual change which her estimation of him had undergone, relating her absolute certainty that his affection was not the work of a day, but had stood the test of many months' suspense, and enumerating with energy all his good qualities, she did conquer her father's incredulity, and reconcile him to the match.\n\n\"Well, my dear,\" said he, when she ceased speaking, \"I have no more to say. If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with you, my Lizzy, to any one less worthy.\"\n\nTo complete the favourable impression, she then told him what Mr. Darcy had voluntarily done for Lydia. He heard her with astonishment.\n\n\"This is an evening of wonders, indeed! And so, Darcy did every thing; made up the match, gave the money, paid the fellow's debts, and got him his commission! So much the better. It will save me a world of trouble and economy. Had it been your uncle's doing, I must and would have paid him; but these violent young lovers carry every thing their own way. I shall offer to pay him to-morrow; he will rant and storm about his love for you, and there will be an end of the matter.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He then recollected her embarrassment a few days before, on his reading Mr. Collins's letter; and after laughing at her some time, allowed her at last to go, saying, as she quitted the room, \"If any young men come for Mary or Kitty, send them in, for I am quite at leisure.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth's mind was now relieved from a very heavy weight; and, after half an hour's quiet reflection in her own room, she was able to join the others with tolerable composure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Every thing was too recent for gaiety, but the evening passed tranquilly away; there was no longer any thing material to be dreaded, and the comfort of ease and familiarity would come in time.\n\nWhen her mother went up to her dressing-room at night, she followed her, and made the important communication. Its effect was most extraordinary; for, on first hearing it, Mrs. Bennet sat quite still, and unable to utter a syllable. Nor was it under many, many minutes, that she could comprehend what she heard, though not in general backward to credit what was for the advantage of her family, or that came in the shape of a lover to any of them. She began at length to recover, to fidget about in her chair, get up, sit down again, wonder, and bless herself.\n\n\"Good gracious! Lord bless me! only think! dear me! Mr. Darcy! Who would have thought it? And is it really true? Oh, my sweetest Lizzy! how rich and how great you will be! What pin-money,bn what jewels, what carriages you will have! Jane's is nothing to it—nothing at all. I am so pleased—so happy. Such a charming man! so handsome! so tall! Oh, my dear Lizzy! pray apologise for my having disliked him so much before.I hope he will overlook it. Dear, dear Lizzy. A house in town! Every thing that is charming! Three daughters married! Ten thousand a year! Oh, Lord! what will become of me? I shall go distracted.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "This was enough to prove that her approbation need not be doubted; and Elizabeth, rejoicing that such an effusion was heard only by herself, soon went away." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'elizabeth' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But before she had been three minutes in her own room, her mother followed her.\n\n\"My dearest child,\" she cried, \"I can think of nothing else! Ten thousand a year, and very likely more! 'T is as good as a lord! And a special license15—you must and shall be married by a special license. But, my dearest love, tell me what dish Mr. Darcy is particularly fond of, that I may have it tomorrow.\"\n\nThis was a sad omen of what her mother's behaviour to the gentleman himself might be; and Elizabeth found, that, though in the certain possession of his warmest affection, and secure of her relations' consent, there was still something to be wished for. But the morrow passed off much better than she expected; for Mrs. Bennet luckily stood in such awe of her intended son-in-law, that she ventured not to speak to him, unless it was in her power to offer him any attention, or mark her deference for his opinion.\n\nElizabeth had the satisfaction of seeing her father taking pains to get acquainted with him; and Mr. Bennet soon assured her that he was rising every hour in his esteem.\n\n\"I admire all my three sons-in-law highly,\" said he. \"Wickham, perhaps, is my favourite; but I think I shall like your husband quite as well as Jane's.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll be your writing partner today. I will set the scene (which might reference existing characters and worldbuilding), and you will continue the story with 8 sentences, channeling the voice and techniques of Jane Austen." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth's spirits soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr. Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her. \"How could you begin?\" said she. \"I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in the first place?\"\n\n\"I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.\"\n\n\"My beauty you had early withstood, and as for my manners—my behaviour to you was at least always bordering on the uncivil, and I never spoke to you without rather wishing to give you pain than not. Now be sincere; did you admire me for my impertinence?\"\n\n\"For the liveliness of your mind I did.\"\n\n\"You may as well call it impertinence at once. It was very little less. The fact is, that you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious attention. You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking, and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused and interested you, because I was so unlike them. Had you not been really amiable you would have hated me for it: but in spite of the pains you took to disguise yourself, your feelings were always noble and just; and in your heart you thoroughly despised the persons who so assiduously courted you. There—I have saved you the trouble of accounting for it; and really, all things considered, I begin to think it perfectly reasonable. To be sure you know no actual good of me—but nobody thinks of that when they fall in love.\"\n\n\"Was there no good in your affectionate behaviour to Jane, while she was ill at Netherfield?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Dearest Jane! who could have done less for her? But make a virtue of it by all means. My good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasions for teasing and quarrelling with you as often as may be; and I shall begin directly, by asking you what made you so unwilling to come to the point at last. What made you so shy of me, when you first called, and afterwards dined here? Why, especially, when you called did you look as if you did not care about me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because you were grave and silent, and gave me no encouragement.\"\n\n\"But I was embarrassed.\"\n\n\"And so was I.\"\n\n\"You might have talked to me more when you came to dinner.\"\n\n\"A man who had felt less might.\"\n\n\"How unlucky that you should have a reasonable answer to give, and that I should be so reasonable as to admit it! But I wonder how long you would have gone on, if you had been left to yourself. I wonder when you would have spoken, if I had not asked you! My resolution of thanking you for your kindness to Lydia had certainly great effect. Too much I am afraid; for what becomes of the moral, if our comfort springs from a breach of promise, for I ought not to have mentioned the subject? This will never do.\"\n\n\"You need not distress yourself. The moral will be perfectly fair. Lady Catherine's unjustifiable endeavours to separate us were the means of removing all my doubts. I am not indebted for my present happiness to your eager desire of expressing your gratitude. I was not in a humour to wait for an opening of yours. My aunt's intelligence had given me hope, and I was determined at once to know every thing.\"\n\n\"Lady Catherine has been of infinite use, which ought to make her happy, for she loves to be of use. But tell me, what did you come down to Netherfield for? Was it merely to ride to Longbourn and be embarrassed? or had you intended any more serious consequences?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My real purpose was to see you, and to judge, if I could, whether I might ever hope to make you love me. My avowed one, or what I avowed to myself, was to see whether your sister was still partial to Bingley, and if she were, to make the confession to him which I have since made.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Shall you ever have courage to announce to Lady Catherine what is to befall her?\"\n\n\"I am more likely to want time than courage, Elizabeth. But it ought to be done; and if you will give me a sheet of paper it shall be done directly.\"\n\n\"And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you, and admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But I have an aunt, too, who must not be longer neglected.\"\n\nFrom an unwillingness to confess how much her intimacy with Mr. Darcy had been over-rated, Elizabeth had never yet answered Mrs. Gardiner's long letter; but now, having that to communicate which she knew would be most welcome, she was almost ashamed to find that her uncle and aunt had already lost three days of happiness, and immediately wrote as follows:—\n\n\"I would have thanked you before, my dear aunt, as I ought to have done, for your long, kind, satisfactory detail of particulars; but, to say the truth, I was too cross to write. You supposed more than really existed. But now suppose as much as you choose; give a loose to your fancy, indulge your imagination in every possible flight which the subject will afford, and unless you believe me actually married, you cannot greatly err. You must write again very soon, and praise him a great deal more than you did in your last. I thank you again and again, for not going to the Lakes. How could I be so silly as to wish it? Your idea of the ponies is delightful. We will go round the park every day. I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but no one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh. Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world that can be spared from me. You are all to come to Pemberley at Christmas. Yours,\" &c.\n\nMr. Darcy's letter to Lady Catherine was in a different style; and still different from either was what Mr. Bennet sent to Mr. Collins, in return for his last." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode:\nCo-writing a segment of a larger work\n\nLength:\nseven sentences\n\nStyle:\nJane Austen\nGenre:\nRomance\nNote: Characters may be pre-established" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I must trouble you once more for congratulations." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Elizabeth will soon be the wife of Mr. Darcy." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Console Lady Catherine as well as you can." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But, if I were you, I would stand by the nephew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He has more to give." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Miss Bingley's congratulations to her brother on his approaching marriage were all that was affectionate and insincere." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wrote even to Jane on the occasion, to express her delight, and repeat all her former professions of regard. Jane was not deceived, but she was affected; and though feeling no reliance on her, could not help writing her a much kinder answer than she knew was deserved.\n\nThe joy which Miss Darcy expressed on receiving similar information was as sincere as her brother's in sending it. Four sides of paper were insufficient to contain all her delight, and all her earnest desire of being loved by her sister.\n\nBefore any answer could arrive from Mr. Collins, or any congratulations to Elizabeth from his wife, the Longbourn family heard that the Collinses were come themselves to Lucas Lodge. The reason of this sudden removal was soon evident. Lady Catherine had been rendered so exceedingly angry by the contents of her nephew's letter, that Charlotte, really rejoicing in the match, was anxious to get away till the storm was blown over." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 9 sentences sentences spawning from what the user wrote, maintaining any existing character relationships or establishing new ones, within the Romance genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters. With what delighted pride she afterwards visited Mrs. Bingley, and talked of Mrs. Darcy, may be guessed. I wish I could say, for the sake of her family, that the accomplishment of her earnest desire in the establishment of so many of her children produced so happy an effect as to make her a sensible, amiable, well-informed woman for the rest of her life; though, perhaps, it was lucky for her husband, who might not have relished domestic felicity in so unusual a form, that she still was occasionally nervous and invariably silly.\n\nMr. Bennet missed his second daughter exceedingly; his affection for her drew him oftener from home than any thing else could do. He delighted in going to Pemberley, especially when he was least expected.\n\nMr. Bingley and Jane remained at Netherfield only a twelvemonth. So near a vicinity to her mother and Meryton relations was not desirable even to his easy temper, or her affectionate heart. The darling wish of his sisters was then gratified: he bought an estate in a neighbouring county to Derbyshire; and Jane and Elizabeth, in addition to every other source of happiness, were within thirty miles of each other.\n\nKitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with her two elder sisters." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Write 9 sentences sentences spawning from what the user wrote, maintaining any existing character relationships or establishing new ones, within the Romance genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I wish you joy. If you love Mr. Darcy half so well as I do my dear Wickham, you must be very happy. It is a great comfort to have you so rich; and when you have nothing else to do, I hope you will think of us. I am sure Wickham would like a place at court very much; and I do not think we shall have quite money enough to live upon without some help. Any place would do of about three or four hundred a year; but, however, do not speak to Mr. Darcy about it, if you had rather not.\n\nAs it happened that Elizabeth had much rather not, she endeavoured in her answer to put an end to every entreaty and expectation of the kind. Such relief, however, as it was in her power to afford, by the practice of what might be called economy in her own private expenses, she frequently sent them. It had always been evident to her that such an income as theirs, under the direction of two persons so extravagant in their wants, and heedless of the future, must be very insufficient to their support; and whenever they changed their quarters, either Jane or herself were sure of being applied to for some little assistance towards discharging their bills. Their manner of living, even when the restoration of peace16 dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the extreme." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap situation, and always spending more than they ought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His affection for her soon sunk into indifference: hers lasted a little longer; and, in spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to reputation which her marriage had given her.\n\nThough Darcy could never receive him at Pemberley, yet, for Elizabeth's sake, he assisted him further in his profession. Lydia was occasionally a visitor there, when her husband was gone to enjoy himself in London or Bath; and with the Bingleys they both of them frequently staid so long, that even Bingley's good humour was overcome, and he proceeded so far as to talk of giving them a hint to be gone.\n\nMiss Bingley was very deeply mortified by Darcy's marriage; but as she thought it advisable to retain the right of visiting at Pemberley, she dropt all her resentment; was fonder than ever of Georgiana, almost as attentive to Darcy as heretofore, and paid off every arrear of civility to Elizabeth.\n\nPemberley was now Georgiana's home; and the attachment of the sisters was exactly what Darcy had hoped to see. They were able to love each other, even as well as they intended. Georgiana had the highest opinion in the world of Elizabeth; though at first she often listened with an astonishment bordering on alarm at her lively, sportive manner of talking to her brother. He, who had always inspired in herself a respect which almost overcame her affection, she now saw the object of open pleasantry. Her mind received knowledge which had never before fallen in her way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "By Elizabeth's instructions she began to comprehend that a woman may take liberties with her husband, which a brother will not always allow in a sister more than ten years younger than himself." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lady Catherine was extremely indignant on the marriage of her nephew; and as she gave way to all the genuine frankness of her character, in her reply to the letter which announced its arrangement, she sent him language so very abusive, especially of Elizabeth, that for some time all intercourse was at an end. But at length, by Elizabeth's persuasion, he was prevailed on to overlook the offence, and seek a reconciliation; and, after a little further resistance on the part of his aunt, her resentment gave way, either to her affection for him, or her curiosity to see how his wife conducted herself; and she condescended to wait on them at Pemberley, in spite of that pollution which its woods had received, not merely from the presence of such a mistress, but the visits of her uncle and aunt from the city.\n\nWith the Gardiners, they were always on the most intimate terms. Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Task: The user will write a bit then you need to write around three sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Characters and lore may appear without context - work with what's given.\n\nAuthor style: Particia A. McKillip" }, { "from": "human", "value": "On Dreamer's Plain, the gathering of delegations from the Twelve Crowns of Raine for the coronation of the Queen of Raine looked like an invading army." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So the young transcriptor thought, gazing out a window as she awaited a visiting scholar. She had never been so high in the palace library, and rarely so warm. Usually at this time of the morning she was buried in the stones below, blowing on her fingers to warm them so they could write." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Outside, wind gusted across the vast plain, pulling banners taut, shaking the pavilions thrown up for the various delegations' entourages of troops and servants. A spring squall had blown in from the sea and crossed the plain. The drying pavilions, huffing like bellows in the wind, were brilliant with color." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The transcriptor, who had only seen invading armies in the epics she translated, narrowed her eyes at this gathering and imagined possibilities." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was counting the horses penned near each pavilion, pelts lustrous even at a distance after the rain, and as clear, silhouetted against one another's whites and grays and chestnuts, as figures pricked on a tapestry, when the scholar finally arrived.\n\nA beary man, he shed a fur cloak that smelled of damp and an unusual scent of tobacco. He carried a manuscript wrapped in leather that he laid upon the librarian's desk as gently as a newborn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As he unswaddled the manuscript, the transcriptor standing silently at the window caught his eye. His hands stilled. He stared at her. Then his head, big, dark, and very hairy, jerked toward the librarian who had shown him in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who is this?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We called her Nepenthe,\" the librarian said in his austere voice. His name was Daimon; Nepenthe had known him all her life, for he had found her and named her. Of the child she had been before she became Nepenthe, neither of them knew a thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In sixteen years since then, she had changed beyond recognition, and he had not changed by a moment, being the same dispassionate, thin-haired wraith who had picked her up with his bony hands and tucked her into a book bag to add to the acquisitions of the royal library." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She is one of our most skilled and creative translators. She has a gift for unusual alphabets. Such as you say you have, Master Croysus?\"\n\n\"I've never seen anything like it in my life,\" Master Croysus said. He continued unwrapping the manuscript, still tossing glances at Nepenthe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stood quietly, her long fingers tucked into her broad black sleeves, trying to look skilled and creative, while wondering what the scholar found wrong with her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It looks like an alphabet of fish. Where did you come from?\"\n\n\"Don't let her youth deceive you,\" Daimon murmured. The scholar shook his head absently, squinting at Nepenthe until she opened her mouth and answered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nowhere, Master Croysus. I was abandoned on the cliff edge outside the palace and found by librarians. The last foundling they took in was named Merle. N was the next available letter.\"\n\nMaster Croysus made an incredulous trumpet sound through his nostrils. \"I've seen that face,\" he said abruptly, \"on a parchment older than Raine. I don't remember what it was, except that the ancient kingdom it came from lay far beyond the Twelve Crowns and it no longer exists except on paper.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'nepenthe' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The librarian looked curiously at Nepenthe; she wished she could take off her head and look at herself.\n\n\"A clan of wanderers,\" he suggested, \"remnants of the forgotten kingdom. Perhaps they were passing through Raine when Nepenthe was born.\"\n\n\"There was no one—?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No one,\" Daimon said simply, \"came looking for her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He paused, added to clarify and end the subject, \"It was assumed that whoever left her in that precarious spot—her mother, most likely—flung herself for her own reasons into the sea. The child was left in hope, we also assumed, of a less difficult life, since she was left alive and wailing with great energy when we found her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The scholar grunted, which seemed his last word on the subject. He laid the manuscript bare and gestured to Nepenthe.\n\nShe stepped to the desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They all gazed at the strange, elongated ovals neatly imprinted on something that Nepenthe did not recognize." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She brushed it with her fingertips. It was supple and tough at once. Some kind of pelt, it seemed, though it was white as birch and strangely unwrinkled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is this?\" she asked puzzledly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The scholar regarded her with more than fantastic interest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Good question. No one knows. I'm hoping that the contents may indicate the tools.\" He was silent a moment, his bushy brows raised inquiringly at her, and then at the librarian. \"I can stay only as long as the delegation from the Ninth Crown stays after the coronation. I'm traveling in the company of Lord Birnum, who will pay his respects and go home to civilization as soon as he can. It is a powerful gesture and a stirring custom for rulers to be crowned in the palace of the first King of Raine, but not even he, with all his ambitions, imagined the rulers of Twelve Crowns under his ancient roof at the same time.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you with Lord Birnum in the palace?\" Daimon asked delicately." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" Master Croysus sighed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"In a leaky pavilion.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"We can offer a bed of sorts among the books.\"\n\nThe scholar sighed again, this time with relief. \"I would be immensely grateful.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll see to that, while Nepenthe takes you down to show you where she will be working on your manuscript. Transcriptors dwell in the depths. As well, I must warn you, as do visiting scholars.\"\n\n\"I trust the depths don't leak.\"\n\n\"No.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then I'll sleep happily buried in stone.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wrapped his manuscript again in leather and himself in fur, and followed Nepenthe.\n\nShe led him down and down until mortared stone became solid stone, until they left even the green plain above them and the only light came from windows staring across the sea. Until then, he questioned her; she answered absently, wondering about the fish wrapped in his arms." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You don't remember anything of your life before the librarians found you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How could I? I had no teeth; I didn't know words for anything. I don't even remember—\" She stopped to light a taper, for the stairways had begun to plunge into hand-hewn burrowings. \"I do remember one thing. But I don't know what it is.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She shrugged. \"Just a face, I think.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Whose?\" he demanded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know. I'm an orphan, Master Croysus,\" she reminded him patiently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A foundling. The librarians have always taken us in; they train us to become scribes and translators. We get accustomed early to living and working in stone suspended between sky and sea.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So you're content here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She flung him an uncertain glance, wondering what he meant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't think about it,\" she answered. \"I have nothing of my own, nothing that's not on loan from the librarians. Not even my name. I don't know what else I could choose.\"\n\n\"Do you like the work?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She smiled, smelling books now, leather bindings, musty parchments, flaking scrolls that lived with her underground. \"Here,\" she told him, \"there is no time. No past, no future; no place I can't go, no lost realm I can't travel to, as long as I can decipher its fish.\"\n\nShe showed him where she worked." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a doorless cell lined with books, a cell in a hive that was itself a cell in the huge hive that clung by walls and pillars and towers of stone to the immense, steep cliff rising straight out of the sea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The palace of the rulers of Raine had grown from a seedling through the centuries." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Long ago, it had been little more than a fortress on the edge of the world, guarding its portion of thick wood and plain against other princelings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Through the centuries, the palace had become a small country itself, existing between sea and air, burrowed deep into the cliffs, piled above the earth so high that on a clear day, from the highest tower, the new Queen of Raine could see all but three of the Twelve Crowns she ruled. The first king had taken the first Crown: lands as far as he could see from his single tower. Before he died, he had added two linked Crowns to his own." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now there were twelve, and they flew on a tower higher than the king could ever imagine, even in his wildest dreams, as he guarded Raine in his sleep in the secret cave within the cliff below the palace.\n\nSo many lands had produced so many words. During the centuries they found their way, in one collection or another, to the royal library." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The library was a city carved into the cliffs beneath the palace. Parts of it were so old that scrolls and manuscripts got lost for entire reigns and were discovered again in the next. Languages transmuted constantly as they wandered in and out of the Twelve Crowns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Such mysteries required flexible minds. A librarian had found the baby sitting abandoned on the sheer edge of the world; the librarians kept her. That proved shrewd. Nepenthe had drooled on words, talked at them, and tried to eat them until she learned to take them into her eyes instead of her mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Surrounded by that rich hoard into which chance and death had brought her, she had not yet imagined any other kingdom.\n\nWithin those stones she had grown her weedy way into a young woman, long-boned and strong, able to reach high shelves without a stool. Her hair, which was waist-long and crow-feather dark, she kept bundled at her neck with leather ties; during the course of the day she would inevitably pull them out to use as book marks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In that sunless place, her skin stayed brown as hazelnut." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'sometimes' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The eyes that gazed absently back at her in the mornings from her wash-basin were sometimes green and sometimes brown. What Master Croysus had seen in her face, she had no idea. She was curious about it, as she was about nearly everything, but that would have to wait." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He examined her tiny space, a shallow cave so full of shelves that her table barely fit among the books, and she had to sit with her stool in the hallway. He looked at work she had done, the fat jars of ink colored variously and stamped with her initial, her carefully sharpened nibs. Finally, reassured, he unrolled his manuscript again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They discussed the oval, finny letters with an eye here, a gill there at random. He told her his ideas; she pulled down previous alphabets she had deciphered, one seemingly of twigs, another of bird-claw impressions in wax. By the time Daimon came to show him his bed-chamber, Master Croysus seemed content to leave his treasure with her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She dreamed that night about fish, bright flashing schools of them whose whirls and darts and turnings this way and that meant something vital in a language of fish. But what? She struggled with it, trying to persuade her unwieldy human body to move gracefully among the little butterfly flittings, until finally in her dream she swam with them, wheeling and shining, at ease in the water, speaking the invisible language of fish.\n\nDeep in the stones, playing among the fish, she was scarcely aware of the coronation above her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Master Croysus vanished for most of a day or two, then came to her late in the morning, reeking of smoke, his hair standing on end, to see how far she had gotten into the mystery. He seemed pleased with her work, and less pleased with what was going on in the complex and incomprehensible palace above ground.\n\n\"She's very young,\" he muttered of the new queen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Younger than you, and with far less—far less—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Less what he could not find a word for." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nepenthe, oblivious of most of what went on beyond the library, assumed that the world would take care of itself, and got on with her fish.\n\nThat night she woke with a start to the sound of her name.\n\nShe answered instantly, pulling herself upright out of a stupor of dreams: \"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she opened her eyes, puzzled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The world was so still that it might have vanished, swallowed by its own past or future." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The name was already fading; she could only hear the backwashed eddies and echoes of it in her head. Outside her door, the stone corridors were silent; no one had called Nepenthe. Neither the drowsing embers in her brazier nor the single star hanging in the high narrow window shed any light upon the matter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yet someone had dropped a word like a weight on a plumb line straight into her heart and she had recognized her name.\n\nShe dropped back down, still listening, hearing only her slowing heartbeat. Nothing spoke again out of the dark." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'memory' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A visiting mage from the Floating School, she decided finally, celebrating the coronation too heartily, had flung a word carelessly into the night, heedless of where it landed. She closed her eyes, burrowed toward sleep, and reached the memory on the borders of dream, the one thing that she could claim as her own, that she had in her possession before the librarians found her.\n\nThe memory was of a face, misty, ill-defined." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It seemed to shape itself out of the sky, displacing the blue, flowing endlessly above green, racing far into the distance to meet it. She didn't know the names for colors then, nor could she name the force that blew across the green so that it roared and glittered and seemed to stream wildly away from her. The face came close, as close to her as her own face, tried to meld itself with her bones, her eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she was falling slowly, the face growing farther and farther away from her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She felt the distance between them like something physical, a coldness that refused to end. A word came wailing out of her then, but what it meant had vanished into the blue.\n\nAnd after that, everything was gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She woke to another reverberating sound: the enormous gong in the refectory. Confused, remembering the strange word in the middle of the night, she moved too abruptly and fell out of bed. She untangled herself, muttering, pulled on a patched linen shift, and stumbled down the hall to the baths." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There, in that steamy warmth, she closed her eyes again and let herself fall into a chorus of laughter and protest, flat and stiff as a tome into a tank, causing a wave at both ends that submerged more than one floating head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Someone spread a hand on her head and dunked her again as she surfaced. \"Nepenthe!\" she heard as she sputtered soap bubbles. \"Must you fling yourself into the water like a whale falling out of the sky?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's the only way I could wake up this morning,\" she answered. Her eyes were finally open. She floated a little, trying to remember when she had begun to comprehend that her mother must have done just that: flung herself like a strange fish off the edge of the world into a sea so far below that until she was halfway there, she would not have heard the waves break against the cliff." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But why? she wondered, as always when she had fallen asleep in the realm of memory.\n\nShe felt water weltering around her. A head appeared, slick and white as a shell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was Oriel, whom the librarians had acquired shortly after Nepenthe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had been discovered by a scholar on the track of some obscure detail, surrounded by books in a forgotten chamber and bawling furiously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Fine-boned and comely, she could well have been the embarrassing afterthought of a highborn lady-in-waiting in the court above. Her pale hair, which she kept short with a nib sharpener, floated around her face like a peony's petals. Her fingers, pale as well, and impossibly delicate, closed with unexpected strength on Nepenthe's wrist." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You have to come with me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's amazing,\" Nepenthe marveled, \"how your hands can feel like they're sweating even in bath water.\"\n\n\"They always sweat when I'm frightened.\"\n\nNepenthe peered at her, wondering if it was important." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything agitated Oriel. \"What's the matter?\" A coming storm, she guessed; the phase of the moon; a translation about to be reviewed by the head of librarians. But she was thrice wrong." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have to get a book from the Floating School. I don't want to go alone; that place terrifies me. Come with me.\"\n\nNepenthe ran soap through her hair, tempted by the prospect: a ride across the plain through the brilliant pavilions, into the mysterious wood in which anything was said to happen. Then she wondered: what book?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why can't they bring it here?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everyone is here,\" Oriel said vaguely, \"and the students are involved in some magic or another. A trader brought a book to the mages that they can't read. The trader told them he thought it might be magic since no one he had ever met could read it. A mage told the librarians last night, and now they can't wait to see it and I must go and fetch it because everyone else is working or celebrating—\"\n\n\"I am, too,\" Nepenthe remembered. \"Working, for a visiting scholar.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oriel gazed at her despairingly. \"Is it important?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, he thinks it is.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is it?\"\n\n\"It seems to be turning into a supply list.\"\n\n\"A supply list!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For a caravan of traders about to cross—\"\n\n\"Not an epic,\" Oriel interrupted pointedly. \"You can finish that with your eyes closed.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'maybe' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's thousands of years old! And written upon the hide of an animal unknown anywhere in the Twelve Crowns.\"\n\n\"Maybe it was a fish,\" Oriel suggested grumpily.\n\n\"Maybe it was,\" Nepenthe said, intrigued." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Or maybe some kind of a seal—\"\n\n\"Nepenthe! Please come with me. Your scholar can wait half a day. He's probably sleeping off yesterday's celebration anyway. He'll never know you're gone. Please.\" She added cunningly as Nepenthe hesitated, \"I'll let you see the book before I give it to the librarians.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nepenthe submerged herself to get the soap out of her hair. She shook her head, sending her dark hair swirling around her while she thought. Books sent to the librarians from the Floating School were extremely rare; the mages had their own ways of recognizing words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And Oriel was right about Master Croysus: he might not appear until late afternoon if he found his way down at all from the heady business of celebration." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She straightened abruptly, sent her long hair whirling back with a toss of her head, nearly smacking someone behind her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right.\" She stopped, snorting water as Oriel splashed extravagantly with relief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Meet me,\" she added stuffily, \"at the library stables after breakfast.\"\n\nIn her tiny, shadowy chamber, she dressed quickly and simply for the ride in a long woolen tunic and boots. It was still early spring, and bound to be brisk on the plain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she went to breakfast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The refectory was so high and broad that swallows sometimes nested along the walls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There she could step beyond the arches into light; she could pace above the sea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Dawn mists were shredding above the water, tatters and plumes of purple and gray. The hilly island that was the Third Crown lay clearly visible in the distance, its white cliffs gleaming like bone in the morning sun. She filled a bowl from the huge cauldron full of inevitable boiled oats, and added nuts and dried fruit to it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She took it with her through the arched outer doors to the balcony beyond. It was made of marble from one of the southern Crowns; its fat, pillared walls and railings were high and very thick. There, if she listened hard on a fine, still day, sometimes she thought she could hear the breaking waves." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not that morning: she only heard the voice of Master Croysus, oddly energetic at that hour. He was standing at one corner of the balcony, talking to a couple of librarians. One glance at his face told Nepenthe he had not been to bed yet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes were red-rimmed and shadowed at the same time; his face was so pale it might have been km to the glacial, ravaged face of the moon.\n\n\"They say she can't keep a thought in her head. She's scarcely there, behind her eyes. Yet she is her father's daughter. She has his eyes, his hair, everything. Everything but his ability to understand what will hold twelve restless Crowns under her rule.\" He shook his wild head and scooped another spoonful of oats. \"It's disturbing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She has Vevay to counsel her,\" a librarian reminded him.\n\n\"She has the entire Floating School, but she does not seem to realize that she might need all the help she can get.\"\n\nNepenthe, hovering in the doorway, took a discreet step back out of eyesight and stepped on someone's foot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She turned. It was only Laidley, who seemed to have been following her.\n\nHis head bobbed diffidently as she apologized. His lank, straw-pale hair hung in his eyes, which were too close together and a pallid gray." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Intent on Nepenthe's face, they seemed slightly crossed. He was a stoop-shouldered young man whose hair had already begun to thin, revealing the bulge of the well-filled skull beneath. He knew more languages than most of the transcriptors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Around Nepenthe he could barely find words in any of them.\n\nBut he spoke that morning as she began eating her porridge. \"Oriel says you are riding with her to the Floating School to bring back a manuscript the mages can't translate.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She nodded, feeling guilty about the scholar, awake and oblivious, just on the other side of the wall. \"Why? Do you want to go instead of me?\"\n\nHe shifted, disconcerted. \"I was thinking: with.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But then I wouldn't have to go.\"\n\n\"But then—\" He paused. She read the rest in his eyes, in the slant of his mouth: then I wouldn't go with you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She swallowed oats wordlessly, then made an effort to change his expression, which seemed to be bleak, lately, whenever he looked at her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do you want to see the book before we give it to the librarians? They might keep it to themselves for months while they decipher it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes looked crossed again, this time with avidity. \"Yes. Very much.\"\n\n\"Then work near the south stairs in the library and watch for us to come back.\"\n\nHis head bobbed again; he swallowed a word." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he smiled, a generous and surprisingly sweet smile that made her stare. \"Thank you, Nepenthe.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "It took half the morning, it seemed, for the two transcriptors to find their way up and out of stone onto earth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They took horses from the library stables, a pair of gentle nags that could not frighten even Oriel." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once outside the palace walls, as they made their way along the cliff road to skirt the pavilions and paddocks, servants, wagons, the assorted paraphernalia of travel, Nepenthe turned to look back. The immense and complex maze of stone with its spiraling walls and towers built upon towers clung like a small mountain to the cliff, spilled halfway down it, a crust of angles, burrows, parapets between more towers, balconies and bridges thrust out of the face of the cliff, windows in the stone like a thousand watching eyes. The east gate in the outermost palace wall opened as she paused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A troop of guards or warriors in sky blue and silver rode out. Against the massive sprawl they seemed as tiny as insects. Riding away from it among the pavilions, they regained human stature." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nepenthe sent windblown hair out of her eyes and caught up with Oriel, who had turned away from the sea toward the wood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed a dark, impenetrable tangle, a smudge along one edge of Dreamer's Plain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The school, which occasionally and inexplicably floated above the trees, was nowhere to be seen that morning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Its history was as nebulous as the wood. The school was either younger or older than the royal library, or it had once been the Library, during the rule of the first King of Raine. Legend said that as the palace grew more complex through the centuries, the school broke free of it and floated away, searching for some peace and quiet in the wood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Another tale had it hidden within the wood for safekeeping during a war. Yet another said that the wood was not a wood at all, but the cumulative magic of centuries spun around the school, and that the magic itself could take any shape it chose. As far as Nepenthe knew, it generally looked like trees." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But they were thick, shadowy, strange. No one hunted there. The animals, tales said, had a human turn of thought and talked too much." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As they rode toward it, the dark wood began to leak color like paint spilling between stones." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'plain' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Oriel pulled her horse to a halt and reached out to Nepenthe at the sight. Light shimmered from between the trees, great swaths of dazzling hues that Nepenthe only glimpsed from a distance when a parade of courtiers rode to hunt beyond the plain. Such silks they wore then, such rich golds and reds, purples and summer blues that they looked like flowers blown across the plain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As the transcriptors stared, bolts of flame and sun unrolled like rippling satin into the air above the trees, shook across the grass, and seeped away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm not going in there,\" Oriel said flatly. Her damp fingers were icy around Nepenthe's wrist.\n\n\"It's nothing,\" Nepenthe murmured, entranced." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Magic. Illusion. They made it out of nothing.\"\n\n\"They can kill each other with it!\"\n\n\"They're students,\" Nepenthe argued unconvincingly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They don't practice that on each other.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If it doesn't kill you, it can transform you into something loathsome.\"\n\n\"They can probably see us coming. They wouldn't turn a pair of transcriptors into maggots.\"\n\nOriel balked. \"No. Anyway, how do you know what it is or who is making it? They could be having a war in there for all we know, and we'd ride into the middle of something deadly just looking for a book.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right,\" Nepenthe said. \"All right. I'll go.\"\n\n\"No.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nepenthe coaxed her placid mount forward a step or two. \"My horse doesn't even see it,\" she said, but Oriel sat obstinately still.\n\n\"I'll wait,\" she said tersely. \"Just hurry.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The mages must have seen them coming some time ago, Nepenthe realized when she saw the robed figure come out of the trees to meet her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The young man was carrying something in one hand." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His hair, Nepenthe noted idly, was the same gold-leaf hue that had splashed so profligately out of the mysterious wood." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'frightened' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As she rode up to him, he gave her a smile somewhere between amusement and rue.\n\nHe nodded at the figure in the distance, then said to Nepenthe as she turned her mount to rein beside him, \"We frightened her, then.\"\n\n\"She's easily frightened.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There was no need.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked up at Nepenthe, mouth open to continue, then did not, for a moment; only the wind spoke, racing exuberantly between them. He finished his thought finally. \"You aren't. Easily frightened.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No.\" The word snagged oddly. She cleared her throat, then for once in her life could find nothing coherent to say.\n\n\"What color are they?\" she heard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your eyes. They were brown. Then when you turned your horse to face the sea they became as green as water.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They do,\" she answered. \"They do that.\" His own eyes seemed the color of his hair, full of morning light. Rich, she thought dazedly, rich, though he wore the plain brown wool of a student, and that was none too clean." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is your name?\"\n\n\"Nepenthe. I am a ward of the royal library.\" From mute to babbling, she had suddenly gone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They were up to N when they found me on the cliff edge.\"\n\n\"Nepenthe.\" His eyes had narrowed slightly; they seemed to pull at her, doing a mage's work. In some magical world, she dismounted; she stood on the grass in front of him; his hands, graceful and strong, something crusted and glittering beneath the nails, moved to touch her..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But no: they still held the book." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She blinked, still mounted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He remembered it, too, in that moment.\n\n\"Oh. Here.\" He held the book up to her; she took it. It was very plain, worn, undistinguished by gold ink or jewels; the binding smelled of wax and old leather." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It came to us in a trader's wagon. He said it had been passing from hand to hand across the Twelve Crowns and more than likely beyond them. Nobody can read it, so he gave it to the mages for nothing. If the librarians find it deals with magic, the mages want it back. Otherwise, they'll settle for some explanation of it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll tell them.\" Idly, because she had been surrounded by books since she had been found, she opened it, glanced at the odd letters.\n\n\"My name is Bourne,\" she heard him say, \"of Seale. If I come to the library, will they let me see you?\"\n\nThey looked like thorns, the strange letters: brambles curling and twisting around one another, linked by their sharp spurs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes,\" she said to him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And then a word spoke out of the book, a deep, sudden sound she recognized, swift as an adder biting into her heart and clinging." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked at the young man, Bourne, dazed by the unexpected wealth: his gold eyes, his name, the book coming to life in her hands. \"Yes,\" she said again, holding those eyes while she slipped the book into a deep pocket in her tunic, beneath her cloak. \"Come to me.\"\n\nShe had forgotten Oriel, the isolated rider stopped in the middle of the plain while it ran hither and yon beneath her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Riding back, she hardly saw the grass. Speaking, Oriel startled her, as though one of them had appeared out of nowhere.\n\n\"Well?\" she asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Did you get it?\"\n\nNepenthe scarcely thought; the answer came out of her as easily as truth. \"Oh. The mages didn't send it after all. The student said that they had finally learned its secret language.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oriel turned her horse, matched Nepenthe's distracted pace." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then we came for nothing. Oh, well, we had a ride on the plain in the sun. Was it magic? The book?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nepenthe lilted her face to all the gold flowing down from the sky." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Someone's secret recipes,\" she answered vaguely.\n\n\"We came all the way out here for a cookbook?\"\n\n\"So it seems.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She urged her horse forward, racing for the cliff road, wanting to run herself all the way back to the labyrinth of the library, where she could hide and find a way through the brambles." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She heard Oriel shouting behind her, but it was nothing, only fear, only beware of falling off the edge of the world, and Nepenthe had been balanced there before she had a name." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a segment from a longer work then you need to write around 6 sentences continuing directly from it. Try to mimic the style of Particia A. McKillip in the Fantasy genre. Note that characters may appear without introduction." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bourne lay on earth, in silence, somewhere within the Floating School. On those days, which were as timeless and dark as nights, the Floating School seemed to bury itself underground. The place was silent as a grave. It smelled like one, Bourne supposed, if the dead could smell earth and stone and roots and tell about it. The students could and did. They woke on what felt like pebbles instead of pallets." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Forewarned and given challenges the day before, Bourne was still surprised. Straw turned to stone, light to night, the daily genial pulse of life within the school with its scholarly murmurings and colorful mishaps was suddenly, utterly stilled. Illusion, he knew, all illusion. If he cried out, someone would answer instantly. If he battered at the blinding dark, tried to run from it, then what seemed a tiny cell of unmortared stone and earth would suddenly expand around him; a hand would draw him into light. So he had heard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So far he had been patient in the dark, more curious than afraid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So far, he had been able to concentrate on the challenge, the test they must pass through to find the day.\n\nSo far. He lay on his back, feeling a mass quite close to his face, as though he were in a box. If he sat up, nothing would stop him. But the illusion hung there, persistent and subtle: nothing there, but something. There. They had been instructed, that day to listen for the sound of the sea and to interpret what it said. Buried in earth and stone and dark halfway across the plain, he could not imagine such a thing was possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even standing on the edge of the cliff, staring down at the foaming, churning waters, Bourne had never heard the sea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the mages expected the impossible, and Bourne had learned that he could occasionally surprise himself.\n\nHe had surprised himself simply by staying at the school since autumn, after his brothers and cousins had made bets that he wouldn't last the season. He would send the Floating School tumbling into the sea, they warned. He would turn himself into a donkey and forget how to change himself back. The mages would lock him out sooner or later. Sooner became later; autumn became winter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In early spring, the Lord of Seale rode to the door of the school and demanded to speak to his youngest nephew about a neighbor's daughter who was waning and weeping and writing poetry about Bourne's golden hair." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Find him, the mages had suggested. If he chooses. If you can. Bourne, buried in dark on that silent day, could not be found. He had been given a word he had never encountered before to interpret. Hearing, from very far away, his uncle's voice, he mingled the sound of it into his interpretation of the word and produced a very apt description of the fiery, puissant, bellowing beast the word named.\n\nThis time, he heard nothing but his own breathing, his heartbeat, his blood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hard enough to concentrate on the sea, which he could neither see nor hear, let alone imagine the sound that might come from it. What he kept seeing was a face. For the first time, he grew impatient in the charged and magical silence. He wanted to get up, walk until he found a door, then walk out of the wood toward the cliff road until he saw again the rider coming toward him, her long hair shining and crisp as a blackbird's feathers, her shoulders as straight as any hunter's, her skin like sun-drenched earth.\n\nHis breath broke explosively out of him. He held it a moment, then lay quietly, drawing and loosing air, drawing and loosing slowly in long, measured cadences, until the dark was filled with the soft rhythm of it and he recognized, his eyes widening suddenly and his breath heaving and breaking again, the ceaseless patterns of the tide." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He smiled in the dark, charmed. So the sea breathed like some great, restless, dreaming animal. So it spoke. But what did it say? An ancient and untranslatable language, like the voices of trees, the voice of wind. It was enough that he had heard it; the mages could expect no more.\n\nBut it was still dark; he had nothing else to do but listen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Blood in his ears sang like water; his breath weltered like spume." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He heard her voice again: Nepenthe. The orphan N, reared by librarians. Her voice, low and slightly husky, dredging words out of the strange silence that had encircled them both like a spell. A little world. The air that they both breathed. He heard his breath again at the memory of her eyes, that moment when they changed. Chestnut, then leaf. Opaque, and then luminous as she turned toward the sea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Come to the library.\n\nHe had been to the palace with his uncle, Ermin of Seale, Lord in the realm of Raine and ruler of the Second Crown. Lord over three sons of his own, as well as three of his dead brother's, all of whom were either safely and appropriately married, or wealthily betrothed. He had different plans for Bourne, whom he sent to the Floating School. Not, Bourne knew, for any great gifts he possessed; his uncle had no illusions about that. What he had were ambitions, which the young and inexperienced queen, ascending to her perilous place in the world, had sharpened immeasurably." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A mage's powers, he made Bourne see clearly, would be a great asset to the family." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The more power Bourne acquired from the Floating School, the better. His uncle would hardly approve of an orphaned transcriptor distracting him from his studies. The librarians' foundlings came from everywhere, like blown leaves, and no telling from what tree she might have fallen. Let alone what far-flung language she had been born to speak.\n\nWhere had she come from? he wondered, shifting a little to rearrange a pebble under his shoulder blade." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She with those long bones, those eyes?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What does the sea say?\n\nHe breathed an answer; the word washed over him, through him, fanning out, separating into pale, delicate fingers of spume. He stared back at the changeless dark, trying to see through illusion into light.\n\n\"Nepenthe,\" the mage Felan repeated curiously when Bourne explained what the sea had said to him. There was a muffled snicker amid the unwashed, hungry students clustered together at the end of the silent day. Some had heard poetry; one or two had heard spells, which they attempted then and there, but which came to nothing in the light of day." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They lacked an element, Felan suggested. Perhaps the true sea, cold, dangerous, and indifferent, might have fed the magic, rather than their imaginary seas. Others had heard nothing, not even their own breathing.\n\n\"You told us to listen for the sea,\" one said bewilderedly. \"Why should I listen to myself?\"\n\n\"Everything connects,\" Felan said mildly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He smiled at the fretting student." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't worry. There will be other days.\" He was a huge, gentle man, bald as a stone, with astonishing power. He could hold the Floating School in the air by himself, if the students lost faith in their powers and threatened to drop it. \"You hold it with your heart,\" he would tell them, \"not with your hands. It has nothing to do with strength.\"\n\nFelan taught the beginning students and ran the school. He was responsible only to the ruler of the Twelve Crowns and to the aging mage Vevay, who had headed the school for a century or so, by some accounts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Others said she had founded it, she was that old." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She lived in the palace now and rarely visited the school. Bourne had never seen her, only the imaginary Vevay, made timeless and immortal by legend, whose beauty and powers would never change.\n\n\"A transcriptor,\" he told Felan when questioned further. \"She gave me permission to visit her.\"\n\n\"Then you had better do so,\" Felan said, without a smile hidden anywhere on his broad, calm face. \"If that is what the sea said.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "So Bourne did that on his next free day, walking through the wood to the plain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The trees were quiet that day, and not quite so thickly tangled as they had been the day he had passed through them on his way to the queen's coronation ceremony." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then he kept tripping; he heard rustlings in the brush; things dropped on his head, including some yellowish slime from an invisible bird. It seemed the wood's opinion of his intentions toward the new queen. He ignored it. Brilliant he was not, but anyone with half a brain could learn how to blow apart a wall with a thought. And like his uncle, Bourne did not see why the young queen should possess so many Crowns. By all accounts she was hardly capable of ruling one.\n\nThe wood seemed to approve his intention to see Nepenthe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thought of her in his head seemed to open a path through the trees, as though the wood guided him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The palace was more complex: he spent an hour or two passed from guard to guard through a system of gates and stairs and hallways that challenged his memory. When he finally passed through the palace to the library, he wandered a long time through the maze of stones and manuscripts, listening within its silence, its thick ancient shadows and sudden spills of torch fire, for the word from the sea.\n\nHe picked up the thread of her finally. Someone had glimpsed her this way. She might have gone that way. She was usually to be found here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or if not here, then probably there. So he was passed from librarian to scribe, deeper and deeper into stone. When he came upon her finally, it was not where he had been told to expect her. He had simply gotten lost. He turned a corner into a quiet corridor and saw a transcriptor alone at a desk in an alcove of books, poring over another, open on the desk.\n\n\"Please,\" he said, and there they were, those eyes, vague with words still clinging to them from the page, and so dark now they seemed to have shifted from brown to black." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she recognized him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "You must use the word 'beneath' exactly 2 times in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She smiled, and the breath he hadn't realized he was holding ran out of him swiftly. A flow of color like firelight ran beneath her burnished skin. She started to close the book she studied, then didn't.\n\nShe said instead, a little breathlessly, \"You see, the librarians gave it to me to translate. I'm good with odd alphabets. Notches on twigs, such things...\"\n\nHe said, \"Oh,\" without comprehending. Then he glanced at the book beneath her hand, saw the tangles of thorn like winter-stripped canes winding across the page." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said, \"Oh,\" again indifferently, then remembered that it might be magic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How did you find me?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Only by accident,\" he answered wryly. \"I have no idea where I am, or how I will ever get out of here.\" He paused. \"I wanted—I had to—\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said softly and studied him, her eyes filling with him now, instead of thorns. \"Bourne. Bourne who? What? From where?\"\n\n\"Odd questions,\" he commented, \"coming from an orphan.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You might have fallen out of the sky, for all I know.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She gestured. \"There will be a stool at the next desk down the hall. Sit with me. No one comes down this far during the day, except the occasional visiting scholar searching for something obscure. So we can talk.\"\n\n\"Am I interrupting work?\"\n\nShe looked down at it. \"No. I am. I should be translating something else entirely. But I was too curious about this.\"\n\nHe stepped down the hall, brought a stool back, and sat beside the desk, half of himself still in the hallway, for the alcove was tiny. The vast stone ceiling, high above the books and barely illuminated by the torches, had been formed by some unimaginable burrowing, centuries before, into the solid heart of the cliff." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was under the earth again, he thought, and still listening for magic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bourne of Seale,\" he answered her. \"My father is the younger brother of the Lord of Seale, in the Second Crown. He died several years ago. My uncle Ermin sent me to the mages' school.\"\n\nShe raised a brow, tapping lightly and idly on the pages with a quill. Her eyes grew opaque for a moment; he waited, while she laid his name on her scales and weighed it against all kinds of things. Trouble, for one, he guessed. Heartache, he hoped, for that was on his scale as well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she stopped weighing, yielded to whatever it was that outweighed everything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You are right,\" she said abruptly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't want to know. My heart saw you before you had a name. That never happened to me before.\"\n\n\"No,\" he breathed. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Especially not twice in one moment.\"\n\n\"Twice?\"\n\nShe touched the book again with the pen. \"Twice,\" she said, and he saw the wonder in her eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There was you—all that richness in your hair and eyes, all that gold—and there was the book you gave me. It seemed in that moment that my heart recognized the language. And until that moment, I hardly knew I had one.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One what?\" he asked dazedly, thinking of all that glowing dark she carried with her, all that mystery.\n\n\"A heart.\"\n\n\"Nepenthe,\" he said, the word out of the sea. \"Can you—Is there a place—Must we sit here with all these books listening?\"\n\n\"For a while. If we go up, we will be seen, and I should be working. Can you stay?\"\n\n\"How can I possibly find my way back through this labyrinth?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he asked her. \"I am at your mercy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She smiled at that." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know if I possess such a thing. Nobody ever asked me for it before. Except maybe Laidley.\"\n\n\"What is Laidley?\"\n\n\"Just someone. No one.\" The pen flicked again between her fingers; her attention strayed, was caught on thorn. \"This book—\"\n\n\"Never mind the book,\" he said huskily. \"You saw me first.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Let me talk,\" she pleaded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have no one else to tell.\"\n\n\"The librarians.\"\n\nShe shook her head, the swift blood running into her face again, so that he wanted to open his hand to that fiery warmth. \"I lied,\" she said, her voice catching; she cleared her throat. \"I lied to you.\"\n\n\"We hardly know each other,\" he said, astonished." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What could you have found to lie about so soon?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The book. The librarians don't know I have it. I told the transcriptor who rode with me that the mages had puzzled it out for themselves; they didn't need to send it after all.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stared at it with sudden interest." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include \"Is that it? Is that what magic does?\" somewhere in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why? Is it magic? It must be, for it to have possessed you like that.\"\n\n\"Is that it? Is that what magic does?\"\n\n\"It charms; it transfixes; it binds. Have you understood any of it?\"\n\n\"I think so. The letters are like thorns: they cling to each other to make words, but like thorn branches they can be separated—look.\" She drew the book toward him, her voice eager now, unafraid. He moved close to her, so close he could feel the scented dark of her long hair against his lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The thorns make a circle around a center.\"\n\n\"Like a hub. Or an axle.\"\n\n\"Axis,\" she suggested. \"It is repeated, on nearly every page. I think it might be a name. And here—this must be the writer's name, this branching of thorns on the first page. No other word but that, and not centered like a title, but—\"\n\n\"Sprawled all over the page,\" Bourne murmured, \"like a warning. You should tell the librarians.\"\n\n\"I will,\" she said absently. \"I will. But not yet. The book spoke to me. I want to keep it just a little longer.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'realized' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Promise,\" he insisted, his eyes on the thick, spiky canes of thorn rising between his eyes and the book's inner secrets.\n\n\"I promise.\"\n\nHe looked at her, not knowing her at all, he realized, even as he recognized the perfunctory tone in her voice. If she would not tell them, then he must, he realized. Soon. After she showed him what kind of magic compelled the book, for he might learn something from it, beyond what the mages thought he should know.\n\nBut not that day. She closed it and showed him something else, a kind of alphabet of fish on an ancient pelt, whiling away the time until she could put the fish away and draw him deeper into the labyrinth." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Mode: Collab writing\nContext: May reference existing characters/world\nAmount: two sentences\nVoice: Particia A. McKillip" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And so,\" Vevay said to Gavin as the candles guttered around them and the embers murmured dreamily, \"there they were, then: Axis and Kane. King and mage. Rulers of the entire known world. No one born who didn't learn their names. And where are they now? Vanished like rain.\"\n\n\"Raine?\" Gavin asked through a yawn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Rain. Underground. A pair of names chiseled into a broken sandstone tablet in a language so old no one remembers it anymore.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You remember.\"\n\n\"Well,\" she said lightly, \"I'm so old I'm sure I was alive back then.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She heard him yawn again, and looked down at him affectionately." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sat up in their bed among linens and furs, clothed for the night in pearl-gray silk, her hair, a paler shade of pearl, falling around her like a cloak. Her blue-gray eyes, hooded with age, had once inspired poetry; her hands had inspired epics." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her deeds had inspired a great many different passions; she had managed to survive them all." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, at home, at rest within the mighty palace of the rulers of Raine, she occasionally wondered, with amazement and rue, how she had survived her younger self.\n\nShe dropped a slender, age-rumpled hand on Gavin's bare chest, stroked the white fur there." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once it had been black; once her own hair had been the color of polished bronze. Once he had commanded armies; once she had counseled the mages of warrior-kings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, she thought, it was enough to try to keep a step ahead of one young and inexperienced queen who had inherited the Twelve Crowns of Raine.\n\n\"Is that the end of the story?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gavin asked. His eyes were closed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How could it be anything but the end? They lived, they died, they were forgotten.\"\n\n\"How did they die? Honored and beloved, with funerals that lasted days and tombs overflowing with treasure? Or in a final, ignominious battle with some bastard son or another upstart?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She folded her arms, rested them on her upraised knees, and dropped her chin upon them, watching the embers, lying open like broken hearts, pulsing and dying at once." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't remember,\" she said absently, losing interest in her own tale." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She felt his fingers drifting down her backbone.\n\n\"Heroes die a hero's death. Always. In tales if not in truth.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Do they?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Make up something.\"\n\n\"All right. Axis, the ruler of the world, had so many children he couldn't keep their names straight, and he died contented in his nightcap, so old and shrunken that he was buried in a child's coffin, which is why no one ever found his tomb. No one believed that such a magnificent and indomitable emperor would rattle like a seed in a pod in his own coffin.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Unconvincing,\" he murmured, his eyes flickering behind the closed lids, seeing himself, she guessed, his own unfinished story." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And the mage? Can you do better for him?\"\n\n\"Kane lived so long that he forgot who he was. He died in some ruler's palace, where for decades he had been useful, so that in his decline he was well treated even when nobody else could remember who he was, either.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are not kind to heroes.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, her eyes mirroring a cold reflection of the burning hearts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nor were they, Axis and Kane, the brothers who ruled the world. Nor were they kind.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His hand opened on her back, warm against silk and skin. \"You've laid them to rest. And me as well. Now come to sleep. Meet me in my dreams.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where?\" she asked him, settling into his arms, and he told her a briefer, gentler tale that lured her into sleep before he finished it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They lived, as befitted a great mage and a great warrior, in a high central tower from which they had the wind's view of everything: the waves, the broad island across the channel that was the Third Crown, the archipelago beyond it that was the Fifth Crown, the misty northern forests and slopes, the southern fields, and the great green plain that flowed like a second sea over the cliffs above the sea. From there, Gavin watched for trouble; Vevay kept an eye on the Floating School and other anomalies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When he wasn't summoned to the king's company, so weighted with mail and leather and jewel-crusted weapons that he could barely mount his horse, Gavin wrote poetry and studied the accounts of early battles in the long history of Raine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vevay toyed with an account of her own very long life, ignoring those events that might be embarrassing to the living, including herself.\n\nNow the shrewd and vigorous king was dead from falling off his horse during a hunt, leaving his rabbity daughter Tessera to rule the Twelve Crowns of Raine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vevay, not certain that the girl could even name them all, had tutored her ruthlessly before her coronation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had learned everything obediently, but with a distinct lack of interest, her mind occupied by other matters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What matters these were eluded Vevay completely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In desperation, Vevay consulted the queen's mother, who was no help whatsoever.\n\nThe lady Xantia, who had loved the dead king dearly, was in deep mourning and had no patience for anything but her grief." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You must help her,\" she said brokenly to Vevay. She wore dark purple and black, even to her daughter's coronation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Since then she had appeared in court only rarely, blinking bewilderedly like something seldom exposed to light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Of course she is lacking in experience; what do you expect? No one expected her to rule so soon, and under such circumstances.\"\n\n\"She's fourteen,\" Vevay said grimly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your husband the king was crowned not two years older than that. And he faced the first challenge to his reign from the Fifth Crown three months later. And won.\"\n\nXantia closed her eyes and applied black linen to them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You teach her,\" she said faintly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She leaned back in her chair, summoned her ladies-in-waiting with a gesture. \"Teach her, Vevay. As you taught the king to rule. I place all our hope in you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you,\" Vevay said dourly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The queen's mother shifted a corner of the silk over one eye to glance at her.\n\n\"You're a mage, Vevay. Do some magic.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Baffled, Vevay went in search of the queen. The days after the coronation were scarcely less hectic than the preparations had been." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The palace had never held so many noble guests, all with their families and entourages; the people camped on the plain, celebrating night and day, showed no signs of going home." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A few days of rain might dampen their spirits, Vevay thought. Perhaps the students at the Floating School could practice conjuring with the weather." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The queen, who should have been holding audiences with various rulers that morning, meeting with ambassadors, accepting gifts and giving them, becoming acquainted with possible suitors, was doing none of those things." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was, Vevay realized after coming across any number of bewildered courtiers, nowhere to be found.\n\nShe roused Gavin from his poetry with a silent call; he knew how to search without causing alarm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she took the shortest way to the top of her tower and began her own silent search through the palace, among the throng on the plain, even in the depths of that most unlikely place, the library." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Trawling the busy palace and plain with a single line of thought baited with the queen's name, she felt no response to it anywhere. In desperation she searched wildly improbable places, like the kitchens and the stables." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finally she flung a question into the Floating School, catching Felan's attention." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Is the queen in the wood?\n\nForever passed, it seemed, before he answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She paced the tower roof, waiting, while banners from the Twelve Crowns whipped around her like snakes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What would Tessera be doing in the wood? she asked herself impatiently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had never shown any interest in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But if not there, then where?\n\nThe answer from the Floating School came finally in the form of Felan, who fashioned himself out of cloud and light to stand with Vevay on the tower." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" he said, his habitual calm shaken, though his face did not show it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vevay could feel the perturbed air between them. \"The queen is not in the wood. You don't know where she is.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't,\" Vevay agreed grimly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then she saw the tiny figure, far down on the face of the cliff, as far as the ancient outermost stairs led, which was, to all but the most knowledgeable eye, nowhere. She sighed. \"Yes. I do. Thank you, Felan.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He rubbed a hairless eyebrow, gazing down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw his expression before he vanished, and she thought darkly: you can laugh.\n\nShe met the queen halfway down the steps, as Tessera made her painstaking way back up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The queen reeled at the unexpected sight of a body on her next step, but Vevay had expected that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A solid, invisible wall of magic protected the young queen from any danger, including an errant wind or her own clumsy steps." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vevay sat down on the weathered, crumbled stairs; Tessera stood still, gazing at her perplexedly.\n\nShe was slight, with lank hair, pale gold like her lather's but lacking its exuberant curls." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had his almond eyes, too, though hers were a more watery blue, especially now after her trek in the raw wind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A quiet, seemingly unimaginative child, she was growing into a pallid young woman, with powdery skin and uncertain expressions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked apprehensive now, thin lines appearing and fraying above her colorless brows.\n\n\"What,\" Vevay asked, trying for calm on the deadly face of the cliff, with the wind roaring around them and the sea wrinkling and snarling below, \"are you doing here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Just—I was just—\" She shrugged slightly, shivering at the same time, for she had come without a cloak." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was something I always wanted to do.\"\n\n\"What?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Go down far enough to hear the sea.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She is utterly exasperating,\" Vevay told Gavin that night while he laughed. \"And what's so funny? She has no direct heir. If she had fallen into the sea, the Twelve Crowns of Raine would be spending the next century bickering over who should inherit the realm.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She didn't fall.\"\n\n\"She's not a child anymore; she can't just go off looking for seashells whenever—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She is grieving, too,\" he reminded her gently. \"She'll learn. I have faith in you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't,\" Vevay said bleakly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't understand her at all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What were you like at that age?\"\n\n\"How should I know? I barely remember the last century.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stiffened then, pulled away from him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I shouldn't say such things to you. You're still a child.\"\n\nHe dropped an arm over her shoulders, pulled her back." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't be absurd. You enchant me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Still?\"\n\n\"Always.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Content in his hold, she didn't pursue the matter, though she knew she would never be entirely secure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You could help,\" she suggested." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You were her father's greatest general; he always looked to you for advice.\"\n\n\"I'm an old man,\" he reminded her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I could fight and die for her sake, but I can't protect her from whatever Crowns might conspire against her.\"\n\n\"She doesn't even understand such threats yet. The kingdom of Raine is very old, but she hasn't learned that it is not immortal. She has no idea what brute forces and subtleties hold a realm together. Maybe you could explain more clearly than I can.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Gavin was silent a moment, savoring some memory of the dead king; Vevay felt him sigh noiselessly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Her father spent his life eluding rebellion and war precisely because he constantly anticipated them. He understood how precariously this palace sits on the edge of the world. How do I begin to explain that?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Vevay said tautly. \"Someone must.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She needs to study the history of her realm.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She needs—\" She shook her head helplessly. \"So much. I don't even know where to begin.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He drank wine, set his cup down." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tomorrow,\" he suggested. \"You're tired now. Begin again tomorrow.\"\n\nHe eased his long body beside her, one arm loosely across her, the other crooked beneath his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had held her lightly through the years, she knew, because he had never been entirely secure either, during the long, busy, unpredictable life they had made together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She seemed, he had complained more than once, always at the point of vanishing.\n\nBut I am here, she thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now. This is what we have now, this moment of peace. Humans die, mages vanish..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You've gone somewhere,\" she heard." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am holding you in my arms, but you have disappeared.\"\n\nShe came back, glanced up at his strong, craggy face, with its grizzled brows and slackened skin, the faded scar on one cheekbone from when he had turned his head during battle and an arrow had skimmed across his skin instead of striking him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He met her eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His own were light blue. She had seen that blue blaze like sun-struck ice; they were mild now, quizzical." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where were you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I wandered off into a tale,\" she answered. \"The tale I told you last night. Human and mage...\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Axis and Kane.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was putting a different ending on it. Only slightly different,\" she amended. \"In the end, all endings are the same. Even for those two.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Are they?\" he murmured, as though there could be some question about the matter. He settled himself to listen. \"Then tell me the different story.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "u know Particia A. McKillip? write like that. seven sentences sentences. Fantasy stuff. this is from middle of story" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He fought his first battle at the age of seven. He fashioned his army out of river mud and spit, causing the poets of Lower Eben to write later:\n\nOut of earth and water he made them,\n\nOut of his breath,\n\nThey rose up from the mud in endless multitudes,\n\nHis killing army,\n\nThere on the bank of the Serpent that rings the world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He fought his father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Centuries later, the poets would say that he slaughtered his father's army, that the Serpent turned red with death, that when he faced the last man alive on the riverbank, it was his father." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They fought under the full moon rising out of the water\n\nUnder the Serpent's eye.\n\nAxis slew his father,\n\nThe good, the just.\n\nThe Serpent swallowed his bones,\n\nAnd the bloody-handed child became king. It was actually a tranquil afternoon beside the river." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Axis's father, hiding from his own kingdom for a couple of hours, helped his son daub the minute heads of his foot soldiers blue and attach plumes of milkweed seed to the heads of the horsemen, whose horses were left to the imagination." }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: their, frequency: 4" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The child who called herself Kane in their secret language made the blue dye out of the brilliant wings of dragonflies she captured with her hands. She whispered to them through her fingers, and their twig-bodies vanished, leaving behind their glittering cobalt wings. Axis did not notice then how Kane did what she did; that came later.\n\n\"My army is numberless as the grass in the fields,\" the king said to his son. \"As grains of sand. How will you defeat me?\"\n\nAxis considered. Even then he was a burly child, snub-nosed and fair; he had his father's heavy-lidded eyes, as green as the Serpent on a lazy afternoon. Light could glance off them, as off the river water, without penetrating their secrets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The king waited, gazing fondly at his son, twirling his coronet of gold and bronze idly on one forefinger." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His sandaled feet were muddy; so were his hands and the hem of his short tunic." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He wore a light shirt of metal scales and a gold sheath for his knife in his belt. These things were magnificently transformed later into elaborate armor and a sword that had drunk the blood of thousands. The knife, lying on a sacrificial stone, had drunk the blood of one small hare: a gift, the king explained gravely to the children, for the Serpent, who long ago had acquired a taste for things of the land and needed to be fed now and then so it would not crawl out of its path to come looking for them.\n\nAxis opened a hand above his cavalry. \"I will fight grass with fire. These will ring your army with torches and set you ablaze.\"\n\nThe king grunted. \"And your foot soldiers? What will they be doing?\"\n\n\"They will stand along the riverbank and kill everyone who tries to escape the fire by water.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Show me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Axis lifted one of the stubby blue-capped soldiers, who were barely the size of his thumb and mostly resembled a standing army of cocoons with heads. He set it at the water's edge. The Serpent, a muscle rippling beneath its glassy surface, sent a wavelet rolling over it. The soldier melted into a lump of mud. Axis stared at it, his eyes round. The king laughed.\n\n\"Remember that whatever weapons you possess may also be used against you. And that it was I who gave the Serpent a gift.\"\n\nAxis considered again, then gathered foot soldiers in both hands and stood up." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ankle-deep in drying nubbins of plumed and dragon-scaled warriors, he sent handsful of mud-men plopping into the water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They dissolved as they fell, leaving a tiny floating memorial of seed-plumes and crushed wings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This is my gift to the Serpent,\" he called to it. \"Life to make death. Take my living and send me death to fight my battle.\"\n\nThe king cocked an eyebrow at the odd request and gave another spin to the crown dangling on his forefinger. \"The Serpent is both,\" he reminded his son. \"It gives life as well as—\"\n\nThe water bubbled up in a mighty wave and a hissing bellow. Kane screamed, dancing away from it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Axis, ankle-deep in water now, was stunned motionless. Death, attracted perhaps by the glint of light from the king's hand, opened a great, green maw and heaved itself out of the water at the gold. Blood spattered over the army. Most of the king vanished instantly. The remainder—a muddy hand relinquishing the crown, a sandaled foot—left an imprint on the memory as they were dragged through Axis's army. Then they disappeared into the churning Serpent. Axis shouted then, a sharp, wordless cry, wading deeper into the water, which frothed red around his knees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kane splashed to him, dragged him back to shore, both of them trampling his army underfoot." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Axis, trying to speak, seemed stricken dumb; he could only hiss like the river-beast that had eaten his father. The circlet of gold caught his eye. He picked it out of the mud, turned it mutely in his hands, looking, Kane thought, bewilderedly within it for his father.\n\nThus they were found a moment later by alarmed guards left by the king to idle out of eyesight.\n\nThe knife on the stone, the bloody water, the heir holding his father's crown in his hands: all became, in the confusion of the moment, shadowed with ambiguity.\n\n\"We were fighting,\" Axis told his mother, when he could finally speak. \"I called death out of the water, and the Serpent ate him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kane, questioned thoroughly, gave a detailed version of events that made more sense than the impression Axis left." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But while events were sorted in a haphazard fashion to a coherent conclusion, impressions lingered and turned, long past memory, into myth.\n\nKane remembered.\n\nHe was born speaking the language of stars\n\nThe Emperor of Night,\n\nThe language of thorns,\n\nThe language of the fiery serpents of the sky,\n\nAnd of the thunderbolt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was Kane who devised the alphabet for that language, when they were old enough to learn to write." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The daughter of one of the queen's many sisters, she had been born and raised in the royal palace in Great Eben. Thrown together with her teething, wailing, babbling cousins, she and Axis performed the ancient ritual of flinging their toys at one another's heads, and in that moment recognized a common destiny. They became inseparable. The language they spoke before they learned their common tongue was their way of keeping secrets in front of the horde of curious, chattering cousins. We are one, each private word said. We alone understand. Later, when Kane learned to write, she formed their language into brambles, perhaps anticipating their secret life together in that script of warning and protection. In her riddling way, she placed herself in each cane of thorns; every letter said her secret name.\n\nAt the time of the king's abrupt and peculiar demise, Kane was a slight, quiet, observant child who followed Axis everywhere." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like her own mother, she was dark-haired and delicate, with great eyes the color of smoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She followed Axis because he wanted her with him; when he did not see her, he searched for her or sent for her. Their childish friendship seemed harmless; it was assumed that they would grow out of each other eventually. They never did.\n\nAt his side the Hooded One\n\nAt his side always\n\nThe One who walks in shadow\n\nWhose face is never seen,\n\nKane, who opens doors between stars," }, { "from": "human", "value": "Who points the way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Axis's father had spent most of his life extending the borders of his kingdom; he was a great general himself, worthy of poetry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He taught Axis to play war-games at an early age. The concept of battle interested Kane only because it interested Axis. The king became the first to die on Axis's battlefield. The event shocked and grieved the boy enormously. But instead of giving him a horror of violence, it turned his interest in war into an obsession. He had had a stunning glimpse of power on many levels, which he examined in dozens of half-coherent messages written to Kane in their private language. It had become what he wanted above all else: that power, that mystery." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And so, whatever this nebulous thing was that had its bloody birth at the river's edge, she wanted it for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dead king's brother became regent for Axis." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a while, until it came time for him to relinquish power, all was peaceful in Eben. While Axis learned how to rule, Kane educated herself in other ways. They were secret, like the language, like her letters, full of riddles, odd juxtapositions, ambiguities, correlatives. She came to her knowledge, her power, in odd places: in a line of poetry, in a tale the gardener told, in musty scrolls that made her sneeze and always began with dire warnings to the uninitiated. A bird in flight taught her many things: about air, time, coincidence, the nature of movement, the moment when the breath indrawn at the beauty of flight becomes the spellbinding moment of human flight. She did not tell Axis everything she learned, for she did not know then why she wanted such knowledge, or even what it was. She recognized it long before she knew its name." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Sorcerer," }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Magician," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Hooded One whose eye is magic,\n\nWhose spoken word becomes the word:\n\nKane, the left hand of the Emperor\n\nWhose right hand was war. The second moment in Axis's life that came out of nowhere to stun him to the heart was when he learned he must marry. Not only must he marry, and then and there, he must marry the daughter of the king of a neighboring land, whom he had never met. This would ensure the loyalty of that kingdom, whose younger generation was getting restless, and provide Eben with a wealth of goods and warriors, which would otherwise go elsewhere if Axis did not marry or conquer it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate this exact phrase, preserving the quotation marks: \"that you could marry her?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll conquer it,\" Axis offered immediately.\n\nTo which his mother replied, \"I am tired of war. Your father fought enough of them. I hardly saw him; it's a wonder he stayed in bed long enough to produce you. Stay off the battlefield and give me some grandchildren first. Then you can conquer the entire world if you must.\"\n\n\"But Kane—\" Axis began blankly, catching his first glimpse of life without her. His mother, who was embroidering something, snapped a thread between her teeth, then studied him silently.\n\n\"Did you think,\" she asked, not without compassion, \"that you could marry her?\"\n\n\"No. I never thought—I never thought about marriage at all. But if I must—\"\n\n\"There would be no advantage to marrying your cousin. Think, Axis. You are King of Eben. Kings marry to the advantage of their realm.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But—\"\n\n\"No. You cannot marry with her beside you. She cannot sleep under your bed. You must leave her outside of your marriage. She will have her own life to lead.\"\n\n\"I am king,\" Axis said mutinously. \"I say what she will do with her life.\"\n\nHis mother rifled through her thread box, chose a different color. \"Perhaps you should talk to her,\" she suggested. \"Before you make choices for her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She wants what I want. She always has.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tell her,\" his mother said. \"Then ask her what she wants. Young women see far more clearly than young men. I doubt that this will be the surprise to her that it is to you.\"\n\nIt was not, for Kane had already recognized the patterns of life around her, and what they might mean for her and for Axis. She saw the messengers from Cribex coming before anyone else did. Hers was the shadow mingling with the shadow cast by the half-drawn tapestry across the window while Axis spoke to his mother. So she had time to think before she permitted Axis to find her.\n\nStill, there were tears on her face, for his mother was right: there would be places in his life where she could not come." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She took him to the most private place she knew, a tiny garden full of weird, thorny succulents that loved the sun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There she sat on a sandstone bench, while Axis knelt on the hard ground, his arms across her knees, his face buried in them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had not yet become lovers, which is why legend was silent about their early relationship. Until she masked herself, Kane remained simply unseen. Until the cousin vanished, presumed lost in an unremarkable life between the lines of history, the magician, the lover, the Hooded One, could not exist.\n\n\"You must marry,\" she told Axis. \"You will need that army from Cribex to fight the regent.\"\n\nHe raised his head, stared at her. Later during his life he was known as the Lion, because of his broad, golden face, his wide-set eyes, his tawny hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He never doubted her; he only wondered, \"How do you know such things?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I listen,\" she said.\n\n\"Do you become invisible?\"\n\n\"No. I'm there, if you know how to look. I stand between the place you look at and the place you see. Behind what you expect to see. If you expect to see me, you do. I listen in places where no one expects me to be.\"\n\nHe nodded, becoming calmer; he wiped at his face with his forearm and sat back on his haunches, his hands on her knees. He asked her what his mother told him to ask.\n\n\"What do you want?\"\n\n\"What you want,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I want you. With me. Forever.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She put her hands on his, her own eyes dry now, seeing them both where no one would expect them to be, ever; always they would be the last thing anyone would expect to see.\n\n\"So it will be,\" she said, and made it so." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes and character familiarity in the Fantasy genre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The queen was in the wood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A week had passed since her coronation, and her guests showed no signs of going home." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elaborate feasts still came up from the kitchens, endless slabs of meat big enough to flag a floor, loaves of bread the size of cartwheels, tiered cakes she might have worn as skirts festooned with ribbons and scrolls and invariably topped with crowns shaped of beaten egg whites and gold leaf." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her guests had drunk small ponds of wine and roaring rivers of ale." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had drunk to the name of everyone who had ever ruled the Crowns of Raine, including a pair of twins who had killed each other in a brawl over which should be king in the middle of the coronation ceremony." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Outside, the broad plain was littered with empty barrels and feathers and bones; it was turning into a midden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Late at night when the winds were still it smelled like one." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll send them all away soon,\" Vevay promised." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But not until you know your ruling nobles' names, and their faces, and you can remember one striking opinion from each one of them. Dance with them. That's the easiest way to begin a conversation.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tessera could only gaze at her, amazed, wondering who the mage thought she was talking to." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One of Tessera's ladies-in-waiting, perhaps, those poised and smiling creatures who could drop an eyelid and unsettle a kingdom." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vevay was beginning to look cross-eyed back at her, something that happened when Tessera had seemed particularly obtuse." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dance. You know. Movement of the feet in an orderly pattern in time to music—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I know,\" Tessera said hollowly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I did it with my father.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "By which she meant she knew how." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But Vevay heard something else, apparently; she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose a moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your father. You are no longer a child, and your father is dead.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\" She had to stop and swallow what felt like a hard little turtle lodged in her throat." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I guessed as much when he got buried.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vevay closed her eyes again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The lines of her face shifted subtly, turning her somehow very old and very beautiful at the same time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am sorry, Tessera. I only want—I want for you everything your father had.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tessera looked past her, out the open window of the council-chamber where she met every hour with Vevay to be told whom she would speak to next, and of what, and what she had to gain or lose by it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A gull, hovering in the wind, looked back at her in her tower room, then caught a shifting angle of air and slid with dizzying grace to freedom." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I am not my father,\" she said, while her heart swooped and fell and soared through that airy nothing above the sea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't judge yourself harshly,\" Vevay answered, regaining her composure and misunderstanding Tessera entirely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's what I'm here for. To help you, I mean.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" Tessera said indifferently; dancing would help nothing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But there it was: she must move her feet and talk at the same time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And remember, as well, so that they could all be sent home and she could hear herself think again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She tried very hard to remember their words; after a while everything they said all sounded alike." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What she remembered most was their eyes as they took her hand and turned her, drew her close and relinquished her, according to the instructions of the pipes and the viols after supper that evening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Alien as birds they were, watching her, waiting for her to shift her shape to something grublike, helpless and possibly edible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So she felt, as she tried to make civilized noises." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even those came out oddly, in whispers and squeaks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vevay watched from a corner, her face a remote mask." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Around Tessera, other young women laughed and chattered amiably as though there were no danger, as though they had all the power." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The younger men, some would-be suitors, spoke of her beauty, which she knew was negligible, and of her charm, which was nonexistent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She peered at them anxiously, trying to see what they really meant." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The older nobles and courtiers spoke to her of their worthy and eligible sons, or, lacking them, made reference to difficulties in their Crowns to which, they said, her father had been on the verge of attending just before his tragic accident." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "These she promised earnestly to keep in mind, while she tried to match the problem with the shape of a mustache or a sagging eyelid to remind her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Only one man, the uncle of the Prince of Chessery, the Ninth Crown of Raine, attached himself instantly to her memory." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was a compact, gray-haired man whose composure she found calming." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He said to her simply, as she turned under his upraised arm, \"I miss your father. I liked him better than my own sons. He could be very kind, when he thought about it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stared at him, until she had to turn again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When she faced him, she asked abruptly, \"Are you allowed to say such things? Nobody else says what they think.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you have nothing to lose,\" he answered, \"you can say whatever you want.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was silent a moment; when she tripped over his foot, they both ignored it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I may not say what I think,\" she told him, \"and I am Queen of Raine.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's because you have everything to lose.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She barely saw anyone else that evening; when Vevay questioned her later, his was the only face she could remember clearly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"His expressions were kind,\" she said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He made me remember why I loved my father. He told me the difference between everything and nothing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Which is?\" Vevay prompted, looking baffled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Words.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vevay was still baffled." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she had taken a word as a suggestion; her voice seemed kinder than usual when she finally spoke." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It is enormously difficult to lose so much and gain so much at the same moment.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh, yes,\" Tessera whispered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She walked out of her dancing shoes with a sigh, went to the window, which framed black now, above the sea, starless and roiling like the beginning or the end of time." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Tomorrow,\" Vevay said behind her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The first thing after breakfast, you must meet the delegation from the King of Almorania. It is an ancient kingdom, along the southern borders of the Fourth Crown, mountainous and harsh. Each time rule changes hands in either of our lands, treaties are renewed to keep peace between us. They pay certain tributes; we leave them alone. The delegation missed the coronation, but that is not an issue: traveling through their mountain passes in early spring is difficult for them. They will offer coronation gifts of bowls lacquered with the crushed wings of butterflies, and necklaces of gold and amber for which they are renowned. In a day or two, you will sit with your council while the treaty is renewed. After meeting them tomorrow, you will...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" Tessera said, and \"yes\" and \"yes\" whenever it seemed required." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the morning, before breakfast, she went to the wood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not a conscious decision." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She found herself awake early, and restless." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The dawn sun spilled gold across the stones around her bed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She dressed herself; no one was awake to stop her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wandered through side corridors, down narrow, winding stairways no one had used for a century or two, where every arrow-shaped window overflowed with light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That was not far enough." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Light drew her farther, past stables, through gardens where she breathed the scents of brine and early roses." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The plain, she knew, would be a great, gilded, shining thing where winds like wild stallions raced from the sea to the end of the world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But when she went through the last of many gates in the maze of walls around the palace, she saw the flapping pavilions, dogs chewing on last night's bones, servants sleepily poking up their fires and trying to quiet children running half-naked and laughing through the light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tessera passed around them, not noticing how wide a berth she had to give her well-wishers just to try to find some place where no one would want anything from her, not a smile, not a word, where the people ended and the empty plain began again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wood suddenly filled her eyes, crouching like some dark feral thing on the horizon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had forgotten that, too, along with the pavilions." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It hid itself occasionally, she guessed, which must be why she always seemed to come across it unexpectedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lured by light, she had already walked a long way around the pavilions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now dark, silence, secrecy tempted her, all the mysteries hidden within the wild wood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The mages' school was somewhere in the trees, she knew; she looked for it as soon as she crossed from grass into bracken and shadow." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She had only seen it once, on a summer afternoon when she went riding with her father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then it had floated above the trees like something sunning itself: a strange stone puzzle of walls with too many angles, blind towers, and no gates anywhere in sight." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It cast its own reflection in the air, a mirror image of itself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The reflection had windows and doors and gates everywhere." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She remembered her father's surprised, delighted laugh at the vision, and how one of the eyeless towers grew a window to flick a glance at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then it sank with a stately, lumbering grace to hide itself again within the trees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now, the wood in early morning was utterly silent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She walked carefully through damp leaves, around tangles of bramble and vine, trying not to disturb the stillness." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She could not see the sky, only green and shadow woven thickly above her, yielding not a scrap of blue." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She breathed soundlessly. So did the wood around her, she felt; it seemed a live thing, alert and watching her, trees trailing wisps of morning mist, their faces hidden, their thoughts seeping into the air like scent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was, she thought, like being surrounded by unspoken words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stopped moving, stood as silently, listening to them, trying to understand their silent language." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their words lay all around her, she realized slowly; each fallen, moldering leaf, each twist of ivy along a branch, each outstretched twig in a thicket made a shape in the air, in the eye." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What did they say?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "she wondered, entranced, and tried to breathe in the language of the wood, tried to take it in through her skin, as though she too were hidden within leaves, within bark." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Leaves crackled suddenly; branches whipped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wood spoke, describing something imminent and, from the sound of it, fairly big." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tessera tensed, then spun, searching." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wood looked the same from every direction: trees and thickets, bushes and brambles and great veils of ivy twining up to cover the heads of huge old trees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nothing pointed out. She chose a direction at random and ran." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tessera? she heard from very far away, as though someone had thought her name." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vevay, most likely, she guessed, and remembered the morning's work: breakfast with her guests, the delegation from Almorania, the bowls painted with crushed butterfly wings... She ran faster, through endless silent trees, wondering if she were heading deeper into the wood, so deep into its magic that not even Vevay could find her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And then she crossed the border between shadow and light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was on the sunlit plain again, the wood only a tangled memory behind her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could see the ragged smoke from the distant campfires; she could feel the exuberant wind again, which had not stirred a single leaf within the wood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stopped, panting, turning to look back incredulously at the self-contained, secret world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For the second time in her life, she saw the Floating School, another secret world, hanging between sky and tree, its blind towers sunlit, even the reflection it cast of itself catching light, throwing glints of crystal and brass from windows and doors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were shouts of wonder behind her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The giant who had stalked her in the wood parted branches at the edge of it to look at her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She glimpsed his great bald pate, his massive shoulders, before she turned and ran again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One of the guards keeping watch over the plain, sitting on his horse and gawking at the school, saw the girl running out of the wood and rode over to her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He recognized the flying, spider-web hair and the pale, unfinished face, with its white eyebrows and startled eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I went for a walk,\" she told him in response to his astonished questions." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I must get back quickly.\"\n\nHe gave her his horse; she reached the palace in time to dress for breakfast." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes and character familiarity in the Fantasy genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By sheer chance, Nepenthe was swimming with the fish when next she saw the visiting scholar's hairy face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He put his head into her alcove, looking over her shoulder to read her translations." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She started. His head was worse for wear, his eyes hollows of dark, his hair plastered to his scalp as though he had dunked himself into a barrel of ale." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She wondered if he would survive the queen's coronation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he seemed cheerful enough, wrapped in smelly fur against the afternoon chill and paying close attention to her reasoning as her finger moved from fish to fish." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"This one has two small lines here, like two mouths. Two little hooks, or smiles. I think it's a method of counting. The counting fish have varying numbers of smiles, and they always come at the beginning of a line. So that kind of fish is both a number and the beginning letter of a word. Two wagons, maybe, or two oxen. Something to do with transporting all the fish lined up over here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He made an appreciative noise or two through his nose, then extended an inky finger out of the fur." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you make of this grouping? It's repeated often.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There are several repeated groupings, positioned like that. They might turn out to be people's names. The merchants, or drivers in the caravan, perhaps.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He grunted again, then remarked, \"Lord Birnum seems in no hurry to leave. You might have time to solve this puzzle before I have to go.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I hope so,\" she replied absently, not willing to abandon the thorns for the scholar's kettle of fish." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He jingled something in the fur; a coin or two spoke." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can't pay much,\" he said, \"but you deserve something for all this work.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shrugged, surprised. \"I don't expect much. I'm still an apprentice. We go for months without seeing money.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It helps, in the world beyond this stone.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He dropped a coin among the fish." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There's your newly-minted queen. I can give you a few more of those if you finish before I leave. If she's still on her throne.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nepenthe picked the coin up, studied it curiously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was a round of copper, big, but what she had learned about money was that the bigger it was, the less it was worth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The young queen's profile, stamped on the coin, was likely to be as close as a transcriptor ever got to seeing her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The impression made was of an abundance of hair, a rounded, determined jaw, and an enormous crown; other details seemed imprecise." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's more like,\" Master Croysus said heavily, \"what we wish than what we see. I don't remember much of a jaw-line at all, and her hair is rather limp.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe she'll turn into herself,\" Nepenthe murmured, feeling some pity for the defenseless young woman who had the weight of twelve Crowns and all those centuries of history on her head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The possibility of war occurred to her; the scholar's musings seemed to suggest it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the epics she had read, war usually came to a bad end." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will the Crowns fight her, Master Croysus?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "His head ducked down into his fur, as though hiding from the listening stones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't talk so loudly—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You always do.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I speculate.\" He lowered his own voice nearly to a whisper." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think many are. It's why everyone is lingering.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Speculations, conspiracies, alliances—nobles testing her, testing one another before they make decisions.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Really?\" Nepenthe flicked her pen against the desk, gazing raptly upward at solid stone, trying to envision the complex, restless world beyond it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What of the library? What do we do if they go to war?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Master Croysus shook his untidy head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who knows? Words do not always survive war.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tapped the fish." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Entire languages disappear. Librarians?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He shrugged and said again, \"Who knows? Epics are never written about libraries. They exist on whim; it depends if the conquering army likes to read.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nepenthe mulled over that, sitting safely on her stool, surrounded by stone as old as the world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She came to no satisfactory conclusions about anything, except to realize that her head was filling with thorns now, instead of fish." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The thorny alphabet, far from keeping her out, was proving oddly accessible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One thorn led to another; the very shapes of the flowing, graceful brambles suggested the words they formed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Warfare, battles, seemed a constant, underlying theme." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "War and poetry. War and love." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Though neither battle nor passion had emerged yet from the brambles, both were hidden among them, she was certain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Stumbling among the strange letters like a child learning to read, she had come to recognize those words first." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She rolled up the fish, since Master Croysus would not return that day, and took the thorns out of their hiding place behind a pyramid of scrolls on a shelf." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was surrounded by brambles, trying to unravel some twining canes arranged in brief lines that suggested poetry, when she became aware of a looming something breathing over her shoulder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She jumped, nearly spilling her ink, as she threw an arm across the books." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was Laidley behind her, his mouth open, his close-set eyes snagged on thorns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What is that? I've never seen anything like it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She hunched over the thorns protectively." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's mine,\" she heard herself say sharply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she lifted one hand, touched his arm." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Laidley,\" she pleaded. \"It's just something I'm doing.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He dragged his attention from the thorns finally, looked at her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was reminded then of what intelligence he carried behind his vapid expressions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's that book, isn't it,\" he said shrewdly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The one from the Floating School that you said the mages had already translated. You've had it all along. You didn't give it to the librarians, and you didn't show it to me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She opened her mouth, but nothing came out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were no excuses, she realized; she had deceived and stolen and lied again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All for a tangle of thorns, for a language she had never seen in her life." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it spoke to my heart, she thought confusedly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It said my name." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Laidley was still gazing at her, waiting." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She nodded finally, wordlessly, and shifted so that he could see." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He studied it silently; she heard him swallow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He touched a thorny letter tentatively, as though it might prick." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What made you take it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he asked with wonder. \"What compelled you?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know,\" she whispered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I just wanted it. Laidley. Don't tell anyone. I need to do this. I don't know why yet, but I need to know. Bourne says it might be magic.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bourne?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The student from the Floating School who gave it to me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Magic? As in spells?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It doesn't seem to be.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, what does it seem to be?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It seems to be—I don't know yet. A story, maybe. About two people. If I'm right, then the language is very old, and they died so long ago no one really knows when.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who were they?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Axis and Kane.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He stared, brushing at a straw-colored strand sliding over one eyebrow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Axis and Kane,\" he said incredulously, \"compelled this fervor in you? They've been dust for thousands of years.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We don't choose our passions,\" she said meekly, hoping the subject would compel him to lose interest in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he lingered, trying to comprehend what drew her to the thorny matter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He saw no way into the brier; stubbornly, she did not enlighten him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm only guessing at their names,\" she said evasively." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It might not be about them at all; it may be a different history entirely.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He took himself away at last, casting a final, baffled glance at her." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'shaped' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alone with the story, she continued her painstaking path through the thorns, shifting a cane here and there just enough to glimpse what might be behind it, if it shaped this letter, or what might not, if it shaped that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She did not see Bourne again for days after he first came." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She refused to think about him; he was dangerous, a chimera." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Lords' sons took penniless foundlings lightly, infatuated as they might be with a dark fall of hair, eyes that changed color in a shift of light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the library, burrowed into solid stone, buried as deeply underground as a catacomb, its entry ringed by the labyrinth of palace walls, was barely less difficult to breach than a wall of thorns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He came when she least expected him, one early evening when she sat at one of the long tables in the refectory, eating a briny bowl of stew and trying to hear the librarians speaking at the next table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beside her, Laidley ate silently, wordless as usual except when they spoke about words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was some kind of gossip that had worked its way down from the palace; Nepenthe was straining to piece it together, chewing as quietly as possible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Waves of chattering and laughter, some story that Oriel was telling farther down the table kept rolling over the interesting glints and shapes tumbling from the librarians' table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She just vanished—they say she went to hear the sea.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He got lost in ancient mathematical scrolls—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She was found on the very last—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And found his way out among the sandstone tablets, which meant—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Legend says it is there. But who knows? No one has been there since—Who was the last?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He was really lost then, because no one had seen the sandstone tablets since the dead king's father was crowned.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did she know?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No one knows. The mage Vevay says she couldn't possibly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He finally found his way back hours later, but he couldn't remember where he had seen the tablets. So they're lost all over again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Knows what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Laidley made a sound." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Surprised, Nepenthe looked at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His head had sunk tortoise-fashion between his shoulders; he stared at his stew as though a fish had leaped in it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "On the other side of the table someone in a dark robe shifted the hood around his face, and Nepenthe coughed on a mussel." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Within the hood Bourne smiled at her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His gold hair was tangled; his eyes seemed not quite human, as though a windblown tree had glanced her way." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They cleared slowly, as Nepenthe, spoon suspended, stared at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She rose abruptly, walked without looking back across the refectory to the outer doors, which were open to the evening winds." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Torches on either side of the doors shivered and flared, revealing and concealing sporadically." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bourne appeared after a moment, but whether he had walked or flown through the refectory, Nepenthe was suddenly uncertain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were alone on the massive balcony, but for the night winds and a gull or two." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Still Nepenthe kept her voice low, for the hooded man had a wild, secretive look about him, as though he might vanish at the wrong word." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How did you get here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We're practicing movements through time and space.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His own voice sounded on the verge of laughter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't think it would work.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You were on my mind. So I envisioned you in the library among the books. Something happened. I took a step toward my heart's desire and there you were, with a spoon in your mouth, and a man with a face like a pike beside you gawking at me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Laidley,\" she said breathlessly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. I thought it would be a Laidley.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Tell me again,\" she begged." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't understand. You walked across space? You folded up time?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I suppose it was something like that. I didn't think that there was the remotest chance that I could do such a thing, so I wasn't listening very well when Felan explained it. I did hear him say something about a place I really wanted to be, so I thought of you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What was it like? What did you see?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Your face,\" he answered, \"coming more and more clear, as though you were rising up out of water. I kept moving toward it...\" He did so as he spoke; she felt his hand slide across her neck beneath her hair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The torches blew his direction; she saw his eyes again, dark and full of wonder, at his own magic, or at hers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was like crossing some immense, black chasm in one step... And then I heard all these voices, and smelled fish. It was much easier than finding my way down here—that takes days.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How will you—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Get back?\" He laughed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know. I'd need your face at my journey's end. I'm sure,\" he added, his own face drifting closer, \"that I'm not the first student to lose his way and not find it again until morning.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stood very still, while his lips brushed hers. \"Onions,\" he whispered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And celery root. And something out of the sea.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mussels.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Mussels,\" he agreed, shaping the word as he kissed her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They have to go very far down to get them, don't they?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he murmured between tastes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"So far down you could actually hear the sea. You could taste it...\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She drew a sudden breath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's it—That's what they were talking about.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He opened one eye, squinted at her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What are you thinking of, at a time like this?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The steps on the cliff—that's where she was. The last step. You might hear the sea from there. And it is a place of great antiquity; there is a legend—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"There always are,\" he said bemusedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They gather on places of great antiquity like barnacles. Who was where?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I think they were talking about the queen.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She linked her fingers around his neck, banged her head against his lightly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But what was the legend? I can't remember.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The queen went down those winding slippery old steps?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he said incredulously. \"What for?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know. I didn't hear.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She might have killed herself.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She didn't.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"She might have.\" He was silent briefly, considering the notion curiously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How strange. This legend you can't remember—might it be in a book?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It might.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Might you look it up?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I might.\" She peered at him, her face inside the hood with his. \"Now?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. Now, I want you to think of your heart's desire and take a step toward it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She slid her hand down his arm, took his hand, and said simply, \"We'll get there faster if we walk.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "However he left her chamber, on foot or folding back into his thoughts, he was gone by morning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nepenthe woke in the early dawn." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bourne had set the coals burning in her brazier. Love? she wondered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or just cold?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Whichever it was, she was grateful for the unexpected warmth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She lay empty-headed, watching the single star in her slit of a window swallowed by billowing morning mist." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At any moment the gong would thunder, pulling them all into day; anticipating it, the still world seemed to be holding its breath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She listened for the sea in that pent silence, knowing she could not possibly hear it, but trying anyway, for some of the night's magic might have lingered into day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She saw the queen then, in her mind's eye: a tiny figure with a coin's profile standing on the final, terrifying step into nothingness carved into the face of the cliff." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Halfway there at that point, she must have heard the sea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A word popped into Nepenthe's head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Legend, she thought. And then the great, deep voice of the gong splashed through the world like a stone into water." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doors began to open; voices called sleepily to one another down the corridors." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Legend, she thought again as she swung her bare feet to the stones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was halfway to the baths before her drowsing thoughts caught up with themselves and she remembered why the word was in her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She glimpsed it now and then swimming behind the fish, a glint of color and shape that didn't belong with them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Later, after she had done enough work to satisfy Master Croysus should he find his way out of the revelries, she wandered among the thorns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her mind snagged on the word; she gave it half a thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Half a thought turned into Bourne, which was why, she realized, the word persisted." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For some reason he was curious about this legend involving the cliff and the steps and the queen's journey down them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He could appear out of nowhere again; he would ask; she could give him that small thing to watch him smile..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The word, having been given attention, vanished out of her head again as she worked her way, bramble by bramble, into legends far older than Raine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Canes suggested letters; letters suggested words; she was surrounding herself with briars when she saw Laidley again, trying to find his way through them to her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She blinked; the thorns dwindled back down onto the page." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hovered beside her stool; she waited, without discernible patience, for him to collect his thoughts." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who was that?\" he asked finally. \"Last night?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He looked sullen; so did she, she felt, at the sight of his bleak face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A student from the mages' school,\" she said shortly. \"Why?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He looked arrogant. Spoiled. I didn't like his expression.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't suppose he liked yours.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who is he? Some noble's son taking up with a transcriptor, who will break your heart?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked at him silently until he shifted, and blood rose under his sallow skin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Maybe,\" she answered evenly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I don't want to think about that now. I'm busy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You're obsessed.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did you just find me to pick a quarrel over everything I'm doing?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He swallowed. \"No. I didn't.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He put a small, leather-bound book on her desk." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I found this. It's a translation of an eyewitness account of the defeat of the armies of the ancient city Denub by the Emperor of Night, and his triumphal entry into the city, accompanied by the Masked One.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The Masked One?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Kane. I thought it might help you, knowing some background. Be careful,\" he added, as she picked it up. \"The binding crumbles.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She opened it gently, glanced at the neat, measured lines." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Emperor of Night,\" she murmured, \"being Axis?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes.\" She drew breath." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That will help. Thank you, Laidley. Why did they call him that?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know. He had the name before he conquered Denub. Something to do with the moon? The stars?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He always came at night?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "she guessed. \"Do armies war at night?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't think so. It's dark. How could you know if you were killing your friend or your foe?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The glumness was easing out of his face, she saw with relief; the scholar, curious and greedy for knowledge, asserted himself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can find out for you,\" he offered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She hesitated, reluctant for some incomprehensible reason to share her thorns, a moldering epic by the sound of it, with anyone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But if she refused, the dejected Laidley would return, and she had no idea what to do with him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Don't get obsessed,\" she warned him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I already am,\" he breathed ruefully; the unexpected crook in his mouth made her smile." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Laidley,\" she said, remembering the odd word wandering in and out of her head as he turned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do you know the legend attached to the steps in the cliff?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He nodded. \"I ran across it once,\" he answered vaguely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What is it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That the steps were carved in the cliff face so that the body of Mermion, the first ruler of Raine, could be carried down for burial.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He was buried at sea?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. We were all taught that part of it,\" he reminded her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He is not dead, but sleeping in a hollow in the cliff beneath the palace. The steps are how they got him into the hollow. In a time of grave crisis and peril to his kingdom he will wake and ascend the steps again to defend the Crowns of Raine.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She chewed on the end of her pen, trying to imagine his burial." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is he really in there? A skeleton in a cave somewhere at the end of the steps?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"An armed skeleton,\" he amended." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"With a crown on its head and a great sword at its side. He will hear the cries of terror and despair from his land and rouse himself from his dreams to rescue it. Why?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She thought of the living queen again, young, vulnerable, and ignorant, standing a step above oblivion." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She looked at Laidley, feeling suddenly, oddly vulnerable herself, though like Mermion of Raine they were all buried in stone.\n\n\"We might need him.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Produce ten sentences as a continuation. Note: Story may reference established characters/events." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kane gave herself to Axis for his wedding.\n\nPoets of the time paid their tribute to the young king's marriage to the Princess of Cribex with flowery and forgettable verse. Theirs was not the matter of romance or epic; hearts were not crushed in the making, nor were kings slain.\n\nA thousand peacocks\n\nA hundred white stallions\n\nTen coffers of gold\n\nAnd her heart\n\nThe beautiful Princess of Cribex,\n\nThe daughter of swans,\n\nThe daughter of willow trees," }, { "from": "human", "value": "Brought to the golden Lion of Eben." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All princesses were beautiful, all kings were lions for the occasion. In truth, the princess, while comely, was plump, stood barely as high as Axis's armpit, and looked more like a sparrow than a swan. Kane had behaved badly since the announcement of the wedding, weeping all day and refusing to eat. On the morning of the ceremony, which took place in the great palace beside the Serpent, she locked herself alone in her room and would not come out. Her mother and all her aunts threatened; she refused to open the door. Axis's mother told them to leave her alone; she would come out when she was ready. And so she did. She left a note upon her pillow and ran away. Later, various stories surfaced. She joined a sect of women dedicated to the Serpent." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She changed her name and became a shrewd and very prosperous merchant. She flung herself into a well over her unrequited passion and drowned. History loses sight of Axis's young cousin on the day of his wedding. It was assumed through the centuries, by anyone taking note of her disappearance, that it was brief, and that, during the blink of history's eye, an inadvertent glance away, she was found or chose to return home. Whereupon she would have been hastily bound in a marriage suitable for a highborn woman of Eben, to become a mother and live a life otherwise devoid of significant detail.\n\nBut she did none of those things. She did not even run away. She simply wrapped herself up so well that not even Axis recognized her and came to his wedding as a gift.\n\nShe appeared at the door of a room along the courtyard where the gifts of nobles and rulers were displayed. The sight of a tall, dark figure in a hooded cloak, its face shrouded behind black silk, carrying a staff of ebony and gold, startled the guards watching over the gifts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What do you want?\" one asked sharply.\n\nThe figure said nothing, only proffered a letter with oddly bulky fingers. The message was open, signed, bore a seal with flowing ribbons and the wax emblem of a distant kingdom. The guard squinted at it.\n\n\"What does it say?\" a second guard demanded.\n\n\"I don't know. I can't read.\"\n\nThe other snatched it from him, perused it while the same puckered expression grew on his own face. Kane waited motionlessly.\n\n\"What does it say?\"\n\n\"I can't—I think it's in some strange language.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He raised his head, glanced around vaguely for help." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'wedding' 4 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Everyone's at the wedding,\" the first observed.\n\n\"Well, what should we do with this—this—\"\n\n\"Is it armed?\"\n\nKane gestured quickly, indicated the wedding gifts, and then the vicinity of her heart several times, until one guard, hands raised to search her, drew back and scratched his chin.\n\n\"What's it saying? It's a wedding gift?\"\n\n\"Seems to be... Go and ask—No. She's at the wedding, too.\"\n\n\"I'll ask outside, see if anyone can understand this.\"\n\nThe guard took the letter, went into the courtyard. Kane watched a ring of heads gather about him. The remaining guard watched her narrowly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She bobbed her head several times, indicated her heart and then the tables full of gifts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, yes,\" the guard muttered at the eerie, hidden face, \"I know. You're a present.\"\n\nThe first guard returned finally, said to him, \"The captain recognized the seal. It's from Ilicia, over the southern mountains. He's sending for a friend of his, a scholar. Somebody who didn't get invited to the wedding.\"\n\n\"What should I do with it? Are we at peace with Ilicia?\"\n\n\"We're at peace with everyone today.\" He gave the message back to the mute figure. \"Put the gift over there in the corner, and if it does anything suspicious, arrest it.\"\n\n\"It already looks suspicious,\" the guard grumbled.\n\nBut he led Kane into the room and positioned her against the wall, where she waited for the scholar to arrive. The wedding gifts shone dimly on the other side of the black silk over her eyes: jeweled saddles, tapestries, fine mirrors, sumptuous robes, swords, alabaster vases, and birds with brilliant plumage pecking at the bars of gilded cages. She gave them scant attention, just stood stiffly, watching birds flick in and out of the sunny courtyard, listening to the tranquil fountains and hearing, now and then, within chambers on the other side of the courtyard, the ceremonial music of tabors and trumpets." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The scholar arrived finally, a chubby, sweating man who looked as though he had run all the way to the palace in the dust." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The captain of the guards led him to the silent figure. He grunted at it in surprise, then said something in what Kane vaguely recognized as the language of Ilicia. She did not speak, only offered him the letter. He carried it to a table, shifted a gold tray and a birdcage out of the way, and took his tools out of a leather case: pens, paper, ink. There were no chairs. He unfolded one of a pair of stools of ivory and red leather embroidered with gold thread, and sat down to write.\n\nThe guards watched over his shoulder; he explained, erratically, as he translated, \"In Ilicia it's not uncommon for servants who have special talents to be given as gifts. Cooking, for instance, or a way with horses... If they aren't freeborn... The hidden face is explained... So is the muteness. There is a suggestion of occult power in the staff. Not a great deal, I would guess—no ruler would give much of that to another. But enough perhaps to amuse the children... It ends with an odd symbol, but the rest is clear.\" He blew on his hastily scrawled translation and handed it to the captain. \"Give that to the king. It is definitely a gift, and probably valuable.\"\n\nHe wrapped up his tools, folded the stool, and returned the sealed letter to the wedding gift." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Smiling, he suggested his payment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"A glance, perhaps, at the wedding feast?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'd like one myself,\" the captain said fervently. \"I've been smelling it for three days.\" He handed the translation to one of the guards and nodded at the other. \"Take him down to the kitchens.\"\n\nKane, left alone in the corner, heard the triumphal march of the king and the new queen of Eben. She bowed her head against the staff in her hands and prepared to wait through the endless wedding feast.\n\nShe had bought the staff from a peddler weeks before the wedding. A shaft of ebony higher than her head, it was intricately carved with long-jawed, lozenge-backed lizards that spiraled up the length of it. To Kane, they looked not unlike what had eaten Axis's father. The object of their sharp-toothed smiles was the crown on top of the staff, which Kane had had fashioned out of a bracelet of garnets and gold that her mother had given her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The black, voluminously hooded cloak, which covered her from head to foot, she had found at the bottom of a clothes chest; judging from the musty smell it had been there for decades." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her hands were hidden within great leather gauntlets that kept threatening to fall off." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The oversized hands coupled with her height and slenderness made the faceless figure look bony, awkward, unthreatening, perhaps not quite human. So the guards must have thought, for they didn't give the peculiar gift another glance, not even when platters were sent up from the kitchens of meats and savory pastries from the wedding, and they lounged, munching, in front of her.\n\nFinally, the sky turned a tender lavender above the palace walls, and in the gardens the night birds began to sing. The wedding couple arrived to pay due attention to their gifts before they retired. Kane, her mouth suddenly dry, clung more tightly to the staff. The bride entered, twittering and chirping over the riches even before she got through the door. The groom followed, hardly seeing anything. He looked, Kane thought with sympathy, as though he had been clubbed. A river of aunts and cousins from both families followed them, headed by Axis's mother and her own. Kane stared numbly ahead." }, { "from": "human", "value": "All the bright silks spilled through the room, rivulets of color, murmuring and cresting over one gift, then another." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Axis moved silently among them, borne hither and yon, the young Lion in his white and gold silks uninterested in anything he saw, including his placidly chattering bride.\n\nAxis's mother saw the dark figure first.\n\n\"What is that?\" she demanded, gripping the nearest arm, which belonged to Kane's mother. Kane's lips tightened behind her silk; she felt her lace grow taut and chill. But not even her own mother recognized her; she only fanned herself with gilded feathers, staring speechlessly. Around them, little pools of silence grew, as guest after guest turned at the sound of it. Finally, even the bride noticed it.\n\n\"What is what?\" she asked. Axis, glancing toward his mother, saw the hooded figure.\n\nHe blinked, finally interested in something." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Beside him, his bride grew suddenly inarticulate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Axis's mother, closest to the apparition, examined it with amazement.\n\n\"What—Who—Is it a gift?\"\n\nMutely, Kane proffered her letter. Axis's mother looked at it bewilderedly, then at the guards.\n\n\"From Ilicia,\" one explained.\n\n\"I recognize the seal,\" she said, at which Kane loosed a shallow breath. The crowned and coiled serpent had been mercifully easy to duplicate. \"But what kind of gift is it?\"\n\n\"Let me see,\" Axis said, stepping to her side. Belatedly, the guard remembered the scholar's translation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But not before Kane saw Axis's eyes find the little familiar twining of thorns, barely noticeable among the unfamiliar words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She saw his eyes close briefly; the flat lion's face gave nothing away. Without looking at her, still gazing at the canes at the end of the letter, he held out his hand for the scholar's translation. By then his wife had made her way to his side, and was looking in blank astonishment at the wedding gift. She gripped her husband's wrist for reassurance.\n\n\"My lord, whatever is it? And who has sent it to us?\"\n\nKane began to read the translation. It was hurried and somewhat clumsy, but then Kane's message from the ruler of Ilicia was not exactly polished, either.\n\n\"'To Axis, Ruler of Eben, on his wedding day:\n\n'I am a gift to you from Marsyas, Ruler of Ilicia. I cannot speak, nor will you wish to look upon my face, for I am grievously deformed from birth. My powers lie in my heart and my staff. Both I pledge you, as the king commands me: To serve you and yours faithfully and well all the days of my life. Say my name and I will show you what I can do. My name is Kane.'\"\n\nSuch was her name in their secret language: no one else knew this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her given name vanished with the young woman who had erased herself from history." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Only Kane was left now, a curve of brambles on the king's letter, an exact translation on the scholar's. She held her breath, the silk motionless above her lips. Axis, his face expressionless and oddly colorless in that gold-laden room, seemed also to be holding his breath. His bride, regaining composure, tugged at his arm.\n\n\"My lord, what does it do? Does it do tricks? Magic?\" When there was no response from her bridegroom, she spoke the word herself: \"Kane.\"\n\nThe ebony lizard curling around the top of the staff came to life and seized the gold crown in its jaws. Axis, recognizing his own history, gave a startled cry. His queen clapped her hands and laughed with delight.\n\n\"It is a human toy!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The faceless figure knelt on both knees and bowed its head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There Kane remained, staring blindly at Axis's sandals, feeling the weight of his gaze, while the queen laughed again and whispered above her.\n\n\"Make it show its face. How dreadful could it be?\"\n\nBut the young queen's own mother came to Kane's rescue, nipping the notion in the bud. \"You must not look upon such things. If it frightens you, your unborn children might come to resemble it.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" the queen cried, stifling the sound in her horror. She recovered quickly. \"But it must show us what else it can do. Do another trick for us, Kane.\"\n\nStill on her knees, Kane pointed the staff; the cluster of guests shifted out of its aim until a wedding gift appeared in front of it. By then the lizard was lifeless wood, and the crown, disgorged, was back on top of the ebony. The staff trembled only slightly in Kane's hold. The gift, wrapped in tapestry and tied with braided ribbons of gold, unraveled itself to reveal a matched pair of goblets carved from solid amethyst." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bride clapped again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kane bowed her head again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Axis spoke.\n\n\"Rise, Kane. And welcome.\" Like the staff, his voice trembled only a little. \"We will explore the extent of your talents later, at our leisure.\"\n\nThe Shadow of the Emperor\n\nThe Hooded One\n\nWho unmasked night\n\nWho laid the stars like paving stones\n\nWho rode the Thunderbolt\n\nDown the star-cobbled path into day" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Was Kane," }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Emperor's twin\n\nSilent, as lightning is silent,\n\nBefore the thunder speaks." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll share a piece from a longer story, then you take over with five sentences in Particia A. McKillip's voice, keeping within the Fantasy genre. Some context may come from earlier chapters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bourne sat alone in the wood, trying to lift the Floating School.\n\nThe students had been sent outside the school for no particular reason that he could see. To learn something, Felan had indicated, though exactly what seemed nebulous.\n\n\"You will find your way back when the wood has revealed its nature to you,\" he told them. \"In revealing its nature, it will also reveal yours. You will not see the school once you have left it. The wood will become the world; it will become your vision; you will not see your way beyond it. If you need help or become frightened, I will find you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "They had all looked back at the school once the outer gate had closed behind them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Green wood was all they saw: the tangled weave of ivy and ancient, twisted branch, shrub and brush and flowering bramble growing around and into and through one another, moist and sweet, and so still that the briny wind churning the grasses on the plain might well have been in some distant country." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Will the wood feed us?\" one of the dozen students wondered wistfully. No one laughed. They had all been at the school too long to expect anything predictable or comfortable.\n\nFor a few moments they stood aimlessly, talking and waiting for something to happen. Gradually, in boredom or curiosity, or for less obvious motives, they began wandering away in no particular direction, just wanting, Bourne thought, to begin the exercise so that it would come to an end." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He began walking, determined to find his way out of the wood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It might be futile, he thought, but at least it was a purpose, a goal. The wood, after all, was small; he could have ridden around it in an hour. Later, he sat sweating on an old stump, watching a dank little pool overgrown with water lilies for a frog, a fly a minnow, anything to disturb the utter stillness around him. He felt he had walked all morning. It might be any hour of the day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The damp, shadowy mistiness of a wood not yet found by sunlight remained unchanged; he might have just left the Floating School." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thinking of it, for he was beginning to be hungry, he remembered the task they were given a week ago: to lift the Floating School above the trees while sitting within it. It seemed beyond impossible. \"You will,\" Felan had promised them. \"It is simple. A child could do it with one finger.\" They had strained their brains to the utmost; none of the students could lift so much as a brick." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe, Bourne thought, it would be easier to do it outside." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was something to do, at any rate. He settled himself cross-legged on the stump, let the silence of the wood seep into him, like an old toad drowsing in the moss, until his thoughts were formless and pellucid as air. After a time, he let the image of the school drift into them, a floating island of walls and towers, a dream, an airy construct of space and light, weighing nothing, no more than a memory, no more than an imaginary world. It hung there, suspended in his mind above the trees, immense and serene, the old stones butter-colored in the sunlight, as solid and as insubstantial as cloud, there and not—\n\n\"Bourne!\" his uncle exclaimed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He jumped like a frog, then wondered with horror if he had truly heard what he thought: the sound of something unimaginably massive shaking the earth as it dropped." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the wood, except for his uncle, was still soundless. No birds scattered, crying, out of the trees; he heard no human shouts.\n\nI dreamed it, he thought confusedly. His bones felt surprisingly stiff as he straightened, sliding off the damp stump.\n\n\"Uncle Ermin,\" he said, feeling less than his usual composure." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What are you doing here?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I rode over from the palace to see what you are learning,\" his uncle said. \"They told me you were out here.\" He dismounted, leaving his horse to snort suspiciously at the bracken. \"What were you doing sitting on a stump and doing nothing?\"\n\nErmin of Seale was a big man, like Bourne's father had been, his yellow hair graying, his eyes restless and piercing, a predator trying to run down his prey before time ran him down." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'bourne' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There were many like him, Bourne knew, in the palace above the sea. But no one else had thought to place a nephew in the Floating School to make a warrior mage of himself to aid his uncle's ambitions.\n\n\"We were sent out here to perform a task,\" Bourne explained. \"I've been waiting for mine to come along.\"\n\n\"What kind of task?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bourne shrugged. \"Something the wood dreams up. I don't suppose you have anything to eat.\"\n\n\"I've just sat through another endless meal,\" his uncle said pitilessly. \"This one to honor a delegation from Almorania. They all wear beads in their hair and smell like sheep. They only want to be left alone; no help to us there. Show me what you've learned lately.\"\n\nBourne turned away from the Lord of Seale, shifting his thoughts with an effort out of the tranquil nothingness in which they had been drifting. He had to kindle fire from cloud, from the quiet wood around him, from his own toad-stupor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When it came finally, the sudden, vivid red-gold flash did little more than leave a blackened scar across a hoary tree trunk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But his uncle was impressed.\n\n\"I saw that,\" he said, \"in your eyes before it came out. That'll be useful. Can you take down a wall with it?\"\n\n\"It should be possible,\" Bourne said. He felt suddenly weary, something damp and smoldering, without true heat or warmth, just a lot of smoke pretending to be fire. The effects of twiddling his thumbs in the wood for hours on end, he thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He added, with an effort, \"I learned something even more interesting, though I can't show it to you now. I traveled from the Floating School to the library in a single step, the other evening.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "/insert_quote: \"Can you make yourself invisible and do that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The library?\" His uncle took a step toward him, astounded. \"You don't mean the royal library?\"\n\n\"Yes. I was here in one breath, there the next, in the refectory where the librarians were eating supper.\"\n\nHis uncle thought for a breath, color mottling his face. \"Can you make yourself invisible and do that?\" he demanded sharply." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Work this phrase into your response organically: \"And what book did you want that much in the palace library?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought you'd see where it might lead,\" Bourne said evenly. \"Not yet. I haven't been taught to make myself invisible, and I can't control the traveling. It—\" He paused; his uncle watched him narrowly. \"It still depends.\"\n\n\"On what?\"\n\n\"On what I travel toward. It depends on what—on how much I want to get there.\"\n\n\"And what book did you want that much in the palace library?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "the Lord of Seale asked shrewdly.\n\n\"It wasn't exactly a book.\"\n\n\"I imagined that it wasn't exactly a book.\" His uncle sighed. \"You're doing well with this. But be careful. Don't get yourself into trouble with anyone I'll have to fight or pay to get you out of.\"\n\nBourne shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's no one like that. She's an orphan. A transcriptor.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'around' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"An orphan.\" The Lord of Seale touched his eyes. \"Well, at least she inspired you to make use of your talents. Just guard your words around her.\"\n\n\"Why? Do we have anything to keep secret?\"\n\nHis uncle glanced around them, as though wondering if the trees were listening. Probably, Bourne guessed, but they seemed to guard their words quite well." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Not here,\" the Lord of Seale said abruptly, \"not in a wood full of mages. It'll wait. Just keep working. Be ready when I need you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He mounted. Bourne watched him ride away, but not far. The trees and brush closed around him quickly; even his horse's steps faded soon in the underbrush. Bourne sat down to wait again. Some time passed, only a moment or two, perhaps, but who knew in that timeless place? Then he felt his entire body prickle eerily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He raised his head, the breath flashing out of him, to stare at the place where the shifting branches had hidden his uncle as he rode away from Bourne.\n\nHis uncle, Bourne remembered clearly, had already returned home to Seale. He had taken his heir with him, and left his other sons and nephews to celebrate the event and make what they could of the political winds pounding across the plain. \"I've seen the young queen,\" he had said grimly to Bourne, visiting the school before he left. \"And I've seen the gathering of wolves around her. I'll leave them here to howl at one another, while their own Crowns lie unguarded. I have work to do in Seale. And you have yours here. Do well for me, Bourne. We'll use all you can learn.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was only a dream,\" he whispered. \"Only a dream. The wood revealed my own thoughts to me. That's all. But I knew them already.\"\n\nThen he felt his heart floating again, sunlit and serene, impossibly heavy, impossibly light; he felt the earth itself balanced on his outstretched finger.\n\nThe wood will reveal your nature, he heard Felan say, and his skin prickled again, this time with wonder.\n\nWhich? he asked it. Which?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He rose again, turned aimlessly this way and that, hoping to see the walls of the school and finding only trees everywhere, interminable walls of green." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stood uncertainly, restless and disturbed for some reason, and suddenly tired of looking at himself. He heard a few twigs snap and tensed. Then one of the other students emerged on the far side of the tiny pool, and he sighed with relief at the company.\n\nShe looked only vaguely familiar. One of the newer, younger students who had entered the school at the beginning of spring, he guessed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He hardly knew them. She was flushed; her long hair, a lank white-gold, had snagged a leaf or two, a bit of moss. She nearly walked into the pond before he spoke.\n\n\"Watch your step,\" he advised. She stopped dead, staring at him as though he were one of the wood's portents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm Bourne,\" he added quickly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Another student.\" She was still looking at him in a kind of bewildered horror; he wondered if he had grown horns or if his face had turned green from proximity to all the trees. \"There's a pool,\" he explained gently, \"in front of you. It looks very shallow, and I think it's uninhabited by monsters, but you will get your feet wet if you take another step.\"\n\nShe glanced down finally. \"Oh,\" she said, and stepped backward carefully, as though she were practicing a dance step. When she looked at him again, her face seemed calmer." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thank you.\" Her voice was soft, very shy; she might bolt like a deer, he guessed, if he sneezed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She was oddly dressed for a student, wearing an oversized homespun cloak over what looked like pink silk worse for the mud, and a pair of black riding boots. She studied him silently, for a disconcertingly long moment, before she spoke again. \"The wood,\" she said hesitantly. \"It's odd today. Not like the last time I was here.\"\n\n\"It is very odd,\" he agreed fervently, and watched her begin a path around the pond." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All her steps were cautious, precise; there might have been monsters sleeping all around her she was trying not to waken.\n\n\"It seems full of things,\" she continued. \"Last time it seemed empty.\"\n\n\"What kinds of things?\" he asked, settling back against the stump, curious about someone else's visions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Except for the giant,\" she amended." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You saw a giant?\"\n\n\"Last time. This time, I saw birds.\"\n\n\"I haven't seen so much as a mosquito. Not even over this pond, which should have spawned vast numbers of flying things.\"\n\n\"They spoke.\"\n\n\"They—?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The birds.\" She had rounded the pool within a few feet of him; she stopped again. He could see her eyes now, a pale blue beneath her very pale brows. \"I could understand them. Don't you think that's strange?\"\n\n\"Oh, very,\" he agreed. \"What did they say?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There was one in particular—a fiery red, every feather, and black, black eyes. It told me to beware what I might meet in the wood. That's why—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's why,\" he finished, enlightened, \"you seemed so frightened of me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For a moment,\" she admitted. \"I was expecting something that breathed fire, or had teeth as long as my arms. But it was you.\"\n\n\"All I saw was my uncle,\" Bourne mused. \"Who looked so much as ever that I forgot he had gone back to the Second Crown a week ago. What else did you see?\" he asked the odd young woman, who seemed more woodland animal than human." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A useful quality in a mage, he thought. Some of us have a harder time forgetting our humanity.\n\n\"Things,\" she said vaguely, remembering them. She took an unconscious step toward him. \"A tree spoke to me. It looked like a very old man, twisted and slow, with mossy hair down to its ankles and eyes like dead leaves. It did not say much, just my name. I think that's very strange, that a tree I have never met would know my name. And there were the stags with the fire in their antlers. They did not speak. The warrior followed them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The warrior.\"\n\n\"Fully armed, on a white war horse. The warrior wore a great sword with a crosspiece inlaid with uncut jewels; it looked too long and heavy for anyone human to wield. The warrior was very tall and broad-shouldered. I could not see the face or hands; the visor was down and of course the hands were covered with mail gauntlets. Anyone could have that gold hair, flowing from underneath the helm.\"\n\n\"Anyone,\" Bourne echoed, puzzled. \"Did he speak?\"\n\n\"No. The warrior only pointed, and all I saw was a huge thicket of brambles. Perhaps it was meant to be seen by someone else.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure that's the way the wood works,\" Bourne said slowly, \"though we are all out in the wood together today. You've seen a great deal for a beginning student.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She blinked at him; he wondered what word had silenced her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She told him. \"Student.\"\n\n\"You are a student, aren't you?\"\n\n\"At the mages' school?\"\n\nHe was silent then, wondering. A peculiar expression flitted over her face, as though she had bitten into something unfamiliar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is that what you are?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" he said. \"A student at the Floating School. Our task today was to stay in the wood and let it speak to us.\"\n\nShe gave a little, breathless laugh. \"That's what I thought you were,\" she told him. \"Something of the wood speaking to me.\"\n\n\"Then who are you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "he asked, amazed. She backed a step, her face closing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wrong question, he saw.\n\n\"I must go,\" she said.\n\nOr maybe she really was something magical in the wood that he had failed to recognize. \"Go where?\" he asked recklessly.\n\n\"Back. Before they miss me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you staying on the plain?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She hesitated, then gave a little nod. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"But you saw so much—the wood spoke to you. You must have a gift for magic; you shouldn't ignore it.\"\n\n\"Is that what it is?\" she asked. \"I'm never certain. It seems unimportant to anyone.\" She took another step backward, lingered, studying him, shy again, but this time unafraid." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How will we really know,\" she asked him, \"if either of us is real?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He opened his mouth to protest, then closed it and smiled ruefully. \"Then let us agree to be one another's vision,\" he said gravely. \"Perhaps we will meet again in the wood, if that is the only place where we exist to one another.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Anyway, thank you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For what?\" she asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"For coming to talk to me. I was getting lonely.\"\n\nShe smiled, a surprised, genuine smile, before she turned. She doesn't smile often, he guessed, watching for a long time, it seemed, before the wood hid her away.\n\n\"How strange,\" he breathed, thinking of her rough wool and fine silk, the contradictions of wildness and power in her uncertain face. Why do I know that face?" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "he wondered, baffled. He straightened, took a step or two away from the stump, then noticed how dark it was getting, even in that perpetual twilight.\n\nI've been out here all day, he realized with surprise, and saw her face again, her hair impeccably braided and bejeweled, her head held very high, very stiffly, so not to dislodge the crown that had been placed on it.\n\nHe felt his skin constrict again. \"No,\" he told her finally, hoarsely. \"You could not possibly have been real.\"\n\nWhen he could see past memory, he found the massive walls of the school a pace or two away across the pool, the outer gate beginning to open as though he had just knocked." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Produce ten sentences as a continuation. Note: Story may reference established characters/events." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vevay sat high in the tower overlooking the plain, trying to remember her life. It was late at night. Fire murmured in the great hearth beside her, whispering things she had long forgotten. If only I could remember the language of fire before I understood it, she thought absently. The perpetual winds rattled at the thick windows, trying, like memory, to reach her. Once, long ago, she had stood in them for the first time, let her mind and body flow into them, become the dark, singing force beneath the moon. Now she was draped in white fur, listening to them from within stone and glass. If she opened an inner ear she could hear the sea, churning restlessly with some incoming squall, tearing at the cliffs with silver-white fingers, trying to reach the palace, trying to catch the wind. If she opened an inner eye, she could see into the wild spring night that once, long ago, she would have tried to breathe into her marrow; she would have changed the shape of her bones to enter into its realm.\n\nEasier to understand the wind, she thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Easier to walk on the surface of the frothing sea, than to remember the hunger to do it. Easier to remember knowledge than ignorance, experience than innocence. Easier to know what you are than remember what you were, so long ago that what you were then lived in an entirely different world...\n\nGavin's reflection, entering the room through a pane of glass, startled her; her thoughts had strayed that deeply into past. She turned, noted his expression, or lack of it.\n\n\"Writing?\" he asked, making an effort. She shook her head.\n\n\"Trying to remember what it was like to be young,\" she said dourly. His set face eased a little, but not enough, she thought. He poured wine, sat down on the bed to pull off his boots." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She smelled smoke on him, and wind, horses, and beer; he had been roaming, she guessed, speaking to guards on the plain, on the walls, picking up threads of rumor, incidents, gossip that might lead somewhere, mean something." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thus he kept watch on the Raine he understood, while she kept watch—or tried to—on the Raine she didn't.\n\n\"I wish they would all go home,\" he sighed.\n\n\"Maybe the queen should travel,\" Vevay mused. \"Visit her Crowns. They would have to return to their own lands to prepare for her. And she might learn a few things.\"\n\n\"The size of her realm,\" Gavin suggested.\n\n\"The size of her problems.\" She crossed the room, sat down on the bed beside him. \"Perhaps I'll suggest it.\"\n\n\"You'll have to go with her.\"\n\nShe contemplated that with horror. \"No. Would I?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Who else? Her mother?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A younger and more energetic mage, surely. The thought makes my bones ache.\"\n\n\"You were her father's trusted counselor,\" he reminded her. \"The rulers of the Crowns know you; they wouldn't want to deal with a new queen and an unfamiliar mage at the same time.\"\n\nShe rose again, restively, to pace a little among the tall candle stands and tapestries. \"Maybe it's not a good idea. I used to be a mage,\" she added impatiently. \"Once I used my powers. Now I feel like a dancing instructor, reminding the queen whom she is dancing with at this hour and with which foot she should begin.\"\n\n\"Be thankful,\" Gavin advised with a laugh, \"that so far the music is still being played and everyone is trying to dance in harmony.\"\n\n\"It won't last.\"\n\nThe words came out unexpectedly and far too bleakly; she stopped, met Gavin's eyes. He gave a little nod after a moment, acknowledging her deepest fears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I feel it, too,\" he said softly. \"Trouble on the wind. But from which direction, I can't guess, and I can't place incidents together to put a pattern to them. Everything troubling seems isolated, random. And if everyone is still here, who would attack?\"\n\n\"Ermin of Seale went home.\"\n\n\"But it's the Lord of Seale whom I would suspect of insurrection first,\" Gavin said simply. \"Even he is being predictable. That nephew of his in the mages' school—\"\n\n\"Felan is keeping an eye on him.\"\n\n\"That's so transparent it's ridiculous. Does Bourne have any talent?\"\n\n\"Felan says yes. He might be disturbing except that he doesn't take anything very seriously, not even his uncle, and he seems to have no ambitions of his own.\"\n\n\"If he did?\"\n\n\"Felan can't guess. So far he can only watch.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And all we can do,\" Gavin said, standing up to loosen his belt." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vevay went to the window again, stared back at the enormity of night pushing an eye against their tiny, bright window, spying on their comfort, their fragile peace.\n\n\"I can see into you, too,\" she whispered.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I think it's time to do what the queen's mother suggested the queen's mage do.\"\n\n\"That being?\"\n\n\"Some magic.\"\n\nSo she did, the next day, while the queen rode off reluctantly with her guests to go hunting in the great forests east of the plain. Gavin, sighing over his stiff joints, rode among her guards, to ease Vevay's mind. Vevay made herself invisible, wandered hither and yon through walls and narrow passageways so old that not even the servants knew they existed. Words drew her here, there, like a feather blown on a breeze; stray voices, scraps of conversation, soft murmurings from ladies and maids took her from high airy chambers down to stony cellars and moldering dungeons, and even deeper than that, to the weird labyrinth burrowed into stone that was the royal library." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She gave that only cursory attention: even in the long, tumultuous history of Raine, the rulers had never had to go to war with their librarians." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She moved unseen through nobles and courtiers who had chosen not to hunt. Most of the younger ones had gone with the queen, leaving their elders beside the hearth fires in private rooms and council chambers. She learned a few startling things about affairs among the rulers of the Crowns, but nothing troublesome to the new queen that Vevay had not already guessed. Everyone suspected everyone else of plotting; she caught no one actually doing it.\n\nWhen twilight fell, she roamed with the wind on the plain, listened to the soldiers and servants, the poor relations, peddlers, gypsies, the merchants and village folk of the Crowns who had traveled untold distances for a glimpse of their new queen. Seeing Tessera meant good luck, she learned. Her youth meant strength and beauty, her inexperience had been transformed into a kind of wisdom unsullied by reality that would lead Raine into a perpetual spring of prosperity and hope. She had been seen in improbable places: riding alone among her people on a white horse, flying out of the Floating School as it hung suspended among the trees. Along with beauty, strength, and wisdom, she had acquired magical powers.\n\nShe would be the last to recognize herself, Vevay thought ruefully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She stopped to talk to a flea-bitten witch who was telling fortunes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The witch cast the fortune of Raine with little carved bones and pieces of crystal onto a gold silk cloth with a black line painted across it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Above the line is good fortune,\" she told Vevay. \"Below the line is not.\"\n\nShe closed her eyes and threw her motley tokens. They landed in an arc above the line. The witch clasped her hands in wonder, proclaiming the best of all possible fortunes for the Twelve Crowns of Raine. It was evident in the perfect rainbow's arc above the black, and in the unbroken pattern of crystal alternating with bone. Clearly a great ruler had been crowned; a reign of unprecedented peace and affluence had begun.\n\n\"Clearly,\" Vevay said, and left her a coin stamped with the new queen's profile.\n\nClearly if that were so, then Vevay would not be wandering around in the dark feeling something amiss and trying to find out what from a handful of knuckle bones.\n\nShe caught the wind's current again and flowed with it, half-visible to a mage's eye as a swirl of cloth, a strand of ivory hair, and invisible to anyone else." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It took her where she wanted, to the thick, clotted dark that crouched like an animal on the plain, never sleeping and never awake." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage requirement: 'their' must appear 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She felt the wood's awareness as she blew into it. She caught her balance among the trees, amazed as always at their utter stillness, even in the howling winds from the sea.\n\n\"Tell me what you see for Raine,\" she asked the wood. But nothing spoke, not a leaf, not a breaking twig. It only revealed the school after a moment, a denser dark within the leaves. A gate opened; light beckoned. She went into it.\n\nIt was not the school that the students saw. That school was an eccentric, drafty puzzle-box of stone that changed shape according to their needs. Sometimes the stone walls would shift to let in the wood, sometimes the sky; any kind of weather was apt to appear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stairs and corridors were rarely predictable, except for finding meals and beds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Monsters might roam the halls; doors might open to reveal riches, or strange beasts, or nothing at all as far as the eye could see." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Through the centuries different mages had worked their spells into the rooms as tests and teaching devices; not even Felan knew anymore what waited behind every door, or how many magically charmed rooms lay unopened, forgotten until chanced upon by some hapless student. The school itself became a student's first test: the inflexible mind that balked at its erratic behavior never stayed long.\n\nThe school that opened itself to Vevay was a comfortable, cluttered place, with thick carpets and musty tapestries and many fat candles. Owls queried her passing; in the windows, ravens and kingfishers muttered sleepily. A milk-white snake in a dark corner uncoiled its head and opened a sapphire eye at her. Books lined the walls, lay open on stands; some of them whispered constantly, reading themselves aloud. The hallway she walked opened into a room with an elaborately patterned floor of wood and ivory, and walls of oak and stained glass. In it, she found Felan, who would have been expecting her the moment she set foot in the wood.\n\nHe was sitting in moonlight and candlelight, scratching the head of some beast that looked to Vevay a cross between a lion and a bear. It had a black pelt, a flat, broad, fanged face, a powerful, bulky body." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed to be purring." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It cast a smoldering red glance at Vevay then closed its eyes again, leaned heavily against Felan's knee.\n\n\"What on earth is that?\" Vevay asked.\n\n\"I have no idea,\" Felan said. \"It came out of an old book I was reading once and it never went back in. It seems harmless and it's very obliging: it lets the students practice transformation spells on it. It eats strawberries when it can get them.\" He stroked the pointed ears a moment, studying Vevay. \"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid,\" Vevay said tightly.\n\n\"Of what?\"\n\n\"Of what, I don't know. I'm afraid for Raine.\"\n\n\"Sit down,\" Felan suggested, and she did so on a broad stone bench strewn with cushions and furs and littered for some reason with dried flower petals. The wood, she noted, not for the first time and always with wonder, had made its own moon." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Remember to mention: \"Are you afraid of the Crowns working against the queen?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was quite full that night, spilling light into the open casements. Over the rest of Raine, no moon was visible. The odd animal collapsed, sighing, across Felan's feet. He leaned back in his chair, his calm eyes on Vevay. \"Are you afraid of the Crowns working against the queen?\"\n\n\"Well, that, yes. That's always on my mind. But every ruler I have ever counseled in my long life has always had to contend with—contention. The possibility of war if they weren't making it themselves, trying to add another Crown to the kingdom. If that's all I'm afraid of, I should be able to recognize it by now.\"\n\nFelan was silent again. A single line appeared and frayed across his brow; she had shattered his tranquillity.\n\n\"If that's all,\" he repeated slowly. \"There might be something worse than twelve Crowns at war with one another?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was on his feet so quickly she barely saw him move." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The animal gave a guttural whine of protest as he stepped out from under it. \"Something at war with the Twelve Crowns?\"\n\nShe gazed blankly at the possibility. \"There have been no rumors. No indications.\"\n\n\"But you're not afraid of nothing.\"\n\n\"Maybe I am. I'm very old and trying to remember my past. Perhaps I'm simply unburying ancient fears. That's why I came to you. You've known me longest; you can tell me if I've roused one of the fretful squalls of old age.\"\n\nHis face had grown still again, watchful now rather than serene. \"You've known yourself longest,\" he reminded her. \"Are you afraid of death?\"\n\n\"I don't have time to think about dying. I'm too worried about Tessera.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then perhaps together we can see what it is that's troubling you. Come.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'perhaps' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stepped to the center of the patterned floor; she followed him. A circle of aged ivory lay there like an ancient moon, with many intricate paths raying out from it. Felan stood at the rim of it, facing the wood's moon, so that the light illumined the ivory; his shadow fell behind him. He gestured. Vevay moved to stand opposite him, so that the moonlight fell on her back; her shadow lay across the face of the moon at their feet.\n\n\"The wood's moon suggested this to me,\" he explained. \"Perhaps the wood is speaking to us. Or perhaps I am making an entirely random connection between two white circles. We'll see. You must show it what you fear.\"\n\n\"How can I, when I don't know myself?\"\n\nHe smiled. \"Just tell it silently what you told me.\"\n\nSo she told the moon her fears, word by word, until words became unnecessary; it became easier to feel fear than to speak. The ivory at their feet rippled like water, became insubstantial, cloud." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It glowed through her shadow like the true moon through night, seeing, revealing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "⚠️ Required: Use 'circle' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Something began to take shape on its face, a shadowy form, human it seemed, yet faceless and gleaming strangely. Vevay frowned, trying to make sense of it. It seemed to be sitting on a roughly carved stone chair, in a hollow of stone. It held a long streak of white light across its knees and carried a circle of gold on its head.\n\nShe gave a sudden hiccup of astonishment.\n\n\"What is it?\" Felan asked.\n\n\"I think—\" The figure became clearer, faceless because its helm was down; the long streak of light was a sheathed sword, the circle of gold a crown. \"I think it's Mermion.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"The first king of Raine. The Dreamer. Asleep in his cave within the cliff until he is roused to defend his realm. But why in the world—\" She stopped abruptly, without knowing why, only that suddenly she did not want to know why, she wanted to close the moon like an eye and creep back into ignorance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Dreamer's mailed hand tightened on the sword; light melted down it." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 4 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The helmed head turned slightly, as though disturbed by some sound from the world above. Vevay stared, frozen, her white brows lifted as high as they could go. She heard Felan's uneven breathing.\n\nWithin the moon, the Dreamer woke and rose." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "u know Particia A. McKillip? write like that. seven sentences sentences. Fantasy stuff. this is from middle of story" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Thunderbolt\n\nThe Emperor of Night\n\nThe Lord of Time\n\nWith his army the stars\n\nRode out of the Gates of Nowhere,\n\nShook the tall towers of Zirxia\n\nTo the ground" }, { "from": "human", "value": "And plundered the ancient graves of its kings." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nepenthe paused to study her translation. \"Zirxia,\" she murmured. \"Where is Zirxia? Was Zirxia? And was it even Zirxia? Maybe that thorn is not a Z. Tirxia?\" She frowned at it, weaving her pen through her hair. \"And what are the Gates of Nowhere?\" She shook her hair loose, slumped on her stool, sighing. Books surrounded her on all sides; thorns filled her eyes, her thoughts. Here, she thought. In this library stand the Gates of Nowhere through which the Lord of Time will lead his army..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But only Laidley came through them, carrying yet more musty scrolls." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She watched him, happy to see another human face after hours of work, yet perversely wishing that the human face belonged to someone else. She envisioned Bourne everywhere, like the thorns, just because once he had appeared out of nowhere when he was the last thing she expected. Maybe that's where the Gates of Nowhere are, she thought, illumined. Anywhere but here.\n\n\"I found some old epics about Axis,\" Laidley said.\n\nNepenthe straightened instantly, reaching out for the scrolls, forgetting about Bourne. \"Laidley, what do you know about Zirxia?\"\n\n\"What?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She showed him the fragment of poetry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He studied it, his young face wrinkling like a walnut in concentration.\n\n\"Are you sure that's a Z?\" he asked finally.\n\n\"No. What might it be if it's not a Z?\"\n\n\"Dirxia. It was a small, very rich kingdom in the south deserts of what is now the Ninth Crown.\"\n\n\"That must be it.\"\n\n\"But.\"\n\n\"But?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked at her without seeing her, the way she usually looked at him; his own eyes were full of thorns, she guessed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It didn't exist when Axis lived. So he couldn't have conquered it. That must be a later piece of poetry, which means that the book you are translating was written centuries after his death. Which means, of course, that everything in it might be suspect. A compilation of fact and legend and poetry, all jumbled together.\"\n\n\"It doesn't seem like that,\" she protested. \"Kane seems to be trying to separate fact from legend.\"\n\n\"Kane?\"\n\n\"Well, it's her alphabet. She invented it.\"\n\n\"She?\" Laidley was looking fishlike now, goggle-eyed and breathing through his mouth. \"Kane was a woman?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"This book says she was. That's why she was masked.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That may be, but how could Kane write about a kingdom that didn't exist until centuries after she died?\"\n\nNepenthe mused over that, twirling hair around the wrong end of her pen. \"Then,\" she concluded, \"it must not be Dirxia.\"\n\n\"You're getting ink on your cheek. Unless the later kingdom took its name from an earlier one.\"\n\n\"Do kingdoms do that?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"They could if they wanted to, I suppose. But how could Kane be a woman? He is Axis's brother. His twin, in at least one account.\"\n\n\"And not related at all, in others. Legends change through time. They get tangled up with other legends, names change, events that have nothing whatsoever to do with the legend cling to them and change.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know that. But sex is usually constant. Men don't change into women.\"\n\n\"He is she in this book.\"\n\n\"Are you sure you've got the right thorn for her?\"\n\n\"It's more than just a pronoun,\" she said patiently. \"It's the way she fit into her culture before she became Kane. It's unmistakable. She had to hide her sex to stay with Axis when he married. She became the faceless figure of mystery. The Masked Sorcerer. The Hooded One.\"\n\nLaidley grunted, not entirely convinced. \"Sounds like wishful thinking on the part of a writer enchanted by Axis's legend, and trying to be part of it while making sense of all the unlikely pieces of it.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Essential phrase to include: \"Then why is it written in Kane's alphabet of thorns? Who would bother to invent a secret alphabet for that?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then why is it written in Kane's alphabet of thorns? Who would bother to invent a secret alphabet for that?\"\n\n\"Someone who could,\" he said simply. \"Anyway, how do we know it was a secret language back then? Maybe all other records of it were obliterated by a conqueror who allowed no language under his rule but his own.\"\n\n\"Axis?\" she suggested drily. \"Laidley, go away if you can't be more helpful. This was all becoming clear until I told you about it.\"\n\n\"Do you want me to stop bringing you books?\" he asked wistfully.\n\nShe held her breath, loosed it noisily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. And it does help me to be able to talk about it. But you can't see what I'm seeing without—without—\"\n\n\"Without translating the thorns,\" he finished for her. She looked down at them; her hands rose protectively, slid over the coiling letters, hiding them. For no reason, she told herself bewilderedly. No reason that either of them could see.\n\n\"Kane was a sorceress,\" she said softly. \"Her alphabet was a secret between her and Axis. No one else knew it. Maybe she put some kind of seal on this book that still lingers even after thousands of years.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then why does it let you into its secrets?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know. But it makes me want to keep it secret.\"\n\nHe tried to peer at it through her fingers, gave up. \"Well,\" he said finally, \"if you ever do want me to learn it, tell me. Meanwhile...\" His voice trailed away as he gazed at her. He reached impulsively toward the smudge on her cheek. She ducked reflexively; he drew his hand back without touching her.\n\n\"Meanwhile what?\" she asked, to help him regain composure.\n\nHe only reddened more deeply, and mumbled, \"I'll pay closer attention to Kane's—to the question of—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Pronouns.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" he said tightly and wandered off into the books. Nepenthe stared down at her hands for a moment or three before she saw the thorns they were protecting.\n\nShe read late that night in her chamber, trying to find, among the epics Laidley had brought her, some reference to the dubiously named Zirxia. She kept an eye on pronouns, too. But in every different epic, even in the badly translated shards that came out of forgotten kingdoms, the Hooded One was male. Axis's brother, Axis's twin, younger by a breath, Axis's mage, whose age and origins were obscure, Axis's closest companion, whom he trusted as he trusted neither wife nor lover. Regarding either wife or lover, poets rarely commented, except in the flowery conventions of the time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When Bourne appeared, unexpectedly out of nowhere, Nepenthe had fallen asleep face-down on the open pages and was dreaming of herself, hooded and masked in black, telling Laidley her true name." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am Kane.\n\nShe woke with a start, saw the hooded figure stirring the coals in the brazier. She squeaked; it turned, revealing a familiar pronoun.\n\n\"You...\"\n\nBourne pushed his hood back, smiling. \"I'm practicing my movements across distances. It's easier to be private now that I know where you sleep.\" She rolled over, struggling with clinging bedclothes. \"Don't get up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought you were Kane. No.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She rubbed her eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I dreamed I was.\"\n\n\"That sounds like a riddle. What is Kane? Another foundling?\"\n\n\"No.\" She looked down at herself. \"I'm still dressed.\"\n\n\"So you are.\"\n\nTheir eyes met across the brazier. She smiled then, fully awake. His smile deepened. \"There is still some distance,\" she observed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Only a step,\" he said, and crossed it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In the morning, he seemed inclined to linger past the awakening splash of the gong's powerful voice, even past the hour when he should have been at the school." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word restriction: Use 'wanted' 2 time(s) only" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll tell them I got lost last night,\" he said with a laugh. \"Forget your fish, or whatever it is you're working on. We'll take a journey down the cliff steps and look for the Dreaming King in his cave and listen to the sea.\"\n\n\"I can't,\" she said, thinking guiltily of the scholar's fish. But it was the thorns she wanted. Even more than Bourne, she realized surprisedly, she wanted the ancient, unfinished tale growing under her pen. \"And you should go back to the wood before the mages start searching for you and find you here in my bed.\"\n\n\"No one will come,\" he assured her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Students get tired or frustrated, wander off for a day. Usually they're back by supper time. So I will be.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<EMBED THIS>>: \"It's that book. Isn't it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have to work.\"\n\n\"No, you don't. Not today.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, taking his face between her hands to hold his eyes. \"I do.\"\n\nHe gazed back at her, reminding her of what she was so carelessly tossing out of her bed: all that wealth of gold hair and eyes and skin, that smiling mouth. At her implacable silence, his eyes narrowed; he breathed incredulously, \"It's that book. Isn't it?\"\n\nShe let go of him, rolled out from under him. \"I work,\" she said doggedly, \"for the librarians, to repay them for my upbringing and education. I may even get a coin or two from the scholar with the fish manuscript. I can't just absent myself for the day for no reason.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He followed her out of bed, caught her shoulders." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You promised me that you would let the librarians know you have it.\"\n\n\"I will,\" she promised again. \"When I'm finished with it.\"\n\n\"Show me what you're doing.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said adamantly. \"It's secret.\"\n\n\"Whose secret?\"\n\n\"Mine.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "can you add this somewhere in your response:\n\"It's not dangerous! It's just some very old story that I want to know the ending to before I give the book up and never see it again.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No, it's not.\" His hands tightened on her shoulders; his eyes looked suddenly unfamiliar, a mage's eyes, she thought, reflecting the magic that they glimpsed. \"It's someone else's secret, and you've become part of the secret. You're tangled in those brambles. I want to know what they're hiding. Or I'll tell the librarians myself. And the mages.\"\n\nShe stared at him, flushed and angry, wondering why she had ever liked him. \"You won't tell,\" she said finally, \"if I show you.\"\n\n\"Unless it's dangerous—\"\n\n\"It's not dangerous! It's just some very old story that I want to know the ending to before I give the book up and never see it again.\"\n\n\"They'd let you finish it. You've already figured out the alphabet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He pushed at her disheveled hair, trying to find her eyes again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Wouldn't they? Or is there some reason why you think they wouldn't let you finish?\"\n\n\"It's not—\" She drew breath, trying to make sense of her own disorderly thoughts. \"I don't understand why I don't want to give it up. Maybe if you let me finish it, I might understand. Maybe then I won't need it anymore, and I can give it to the librarians without a second thought. But you're right: I love that alphabet of thorn; it has worked its way into my heart. I'll show you what it is, but you won't understand. All you'll see is the story of two people who died long before Raine ever existed.\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\" His own face had lost color, she saw; he looked more serious than she had thought he could be in his facile life. \"But the most powerful thing I have learned at the mages' school is that words can have a life of their own. Show me what you're doing. If I see danger in it, I'll tell you. And then, if you don't see it, I will tell the librarians.\"\n\nShe sighed gustily. \"All right. Then you will leave me alone?\"\n\nHe blinked, startled at that. \"Alone—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For today at least,\" she said, relenting; her own hands rose to cling to his straight shoulders." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He dropped his face against hers; she felt him sigh.\n\n\"For today,\" he promised.\n\nThey dressed then, scraped what was left of the porridge out of the bottom of the cauldron in the refectory. She led him deep into the stones, down the long corridor that ended in half-bubbles of chambers carved along it, all of them so full of manuscripts, books, and scrolls that there was barely room for dust. Her desk, half-in, half-out of the cluttered alcove was, as always, undisturbed except for Laidley sitting on it.\n\nHe caught sight of Bourne and slid off, stood, wordless and awkward. Nepenthe wished they would both disappear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She said shortly, \"Laidley, this is Bourne of Seale. He gave me the book about Axis and Kane. I told him I'd show him what I was translating.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Axis and Kane?\" Bourne repeated, amazed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laidley had flushed. His tongue became unstuck from the roof of his mouth. \"You wouldn't show me,\" he said accusingly.\n\n\"You didn't threaten to go to the librarians if I didn't,\" she said dourly. \"Bourne thinks it might be magic, or dangerous.\"\n\n\"That moldy old tale?\"\n\n\"No,\" Bourne said precisely. \"The language of the moldy old tale.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Since you're here, too, Laidley, I'll show you both.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laidley sniffed, but refrained from comment. Nepenthe opened the book and her manuscript paper and, index finger moving from thorn to thorn, began to read.\n\n\"'He fought his first battle at the age of seven...'\"\n\nShe broke into her reading now and then to question a troublesome word or explain a choice she had made. They listened silently, their eyes on her face until she finished. Then, unexpectedly, they turned their faces to gaze at one another for enlightenment.\n\n\"I don't understand the compulsion,\" Bourne said finally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Neither do I.\" Laidley went to the desk, studied the coiling and uncoiling letters curiously. \"But it is an odd little mystery, who actually wrote it.\"\n\n\"Kane wrote it,\" Nepenthe said stubbornly.\n\n\"How could he—she—have quoted poetry written centuries after her death?\" Laidley asked reasonably.\n\n\"The scholars are wrong.\"\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"When the poetry was written.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'remember' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It was written in countries that didn't exist when Kane—\"\n\n\"Then they're wrong about when Kane died,\" Nepenthe argued.\n\n\"When did Kane die?\" Bourne asked. \"I have only the vaguest knowledge of anything to do with Axis and Kane. They lived; Axis conquered the known world; they died. I get lost any time before my great-grandfather getting his head cut off for treason against Raine.\"\n\nLaidley thought, ruffling at his thin hair. \"I remember when Axis ruled, but I don't remember when either of them died.\"\n\n\"Why don't you go and find out?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nepenthe suggested, sitting on her stool again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"All right,\" Laidley said, to her surprise.\n\nShe turned pointedly to Bourne. \"Unless you think it's dangerous knowing such a thing.\"\n\n\"It doesn't sound so,\" he admitted. He lingered over the thorns, as though listening for all they did not say, all that they kept hidden behind their words. But he heard nothing. Still troubled, he bent to pull a kiss from Nepenthe's mouth before he left her." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Match the familiarity level of any character introductions. Stick to the Fantasy genre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tessera slid wearily off her horse in the torch-lit courtyard after the endless hunt, thinking of the bloody hare in her saddlebag that her arrow had accidentally hit. It had screamed at the arrow's bite; the memory still made her eyes swell.\n\nI'm sorry, she told it soundlessly. I am sorry.\n\nMuch it cared now, on its way to have the fur ripped from it, its bones tossed into the stew pot to feed the hordes at her table." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Stablers led her horse away; a torch, looming over her head, made her start." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her father's aging commander, who lived with Vevay in their airy tower, bowed his head and smiled kindly at her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A long day, my lady,\" he observed. \"May I escort you inside?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said unhesitantly; she liked him and trusted him instinctively, as her father had.\n\n\"I feel every hour of it in my bones,\" he commented as he lit her way out of the yard into the palace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm tired, too,\" she told him softly. \"I never much liked hunting.\"\n\n\"You'd think,\" he murmured with sympathy, \"that being queen meant that you wouldn't have to do the things you disliked.\"\n\n\"Yes, you would think. But I have not found it so at all. Especially not after the hare screamed when I killed it.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No,\" he said after a moment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I never got used to that sound, either, my lady. Not even after years on the battlefield.\"\n\n\"All I killed was a hare,\" she answered, and felt his flash of surprise at her perception. \"I hope I never have to listen to anything worse.\"\n\n\"I hope so,\" he breathed, \"for all our sakes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Guards opened doors for her; he dropped the torch into a holder as they entered the hall. Her ladies came to meet her, drew off her cloak and her boots, eased her cramped feet into slippers. She watched Gavin unbuckle his heavy sword, yield it with relief to his servant. He rubbed an aching muscle, then caught her glance and smiled again, ruefully, at his aging bones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His smile changed purpose and focus in the moment; she turned her head to see where it was going and found Vevay coming toward them.\n\nHer own smile faded; she felt a sigh she did not express. Vevay wanted more and more, always something, and she seemed never pleased with anything. Vevay had loved and understood the dead king, Tessera knew; the king's daughter left the mage completely baffled." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'vevay' must be used 3 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gavin seemed unafraid of Vevay. He did not irritate her with his obtuseness, nor inspire in her exaggerated calm, or forced patience. Perhaps I must grow old and gray, Tessera thought, and learn to use a sword and even grow a mustache, and Vevay will finally grow fond of me.\n\nThe mage had a peculiar look on her face, Tessera saw when Vevay stopped in front of her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No: it was more of a peculiar emanation, for in public Vevay's unruffled expression rarely changed. She seemed unsettled within, Tessera felt, as she gazed mutely at the mage, her own expression one that usually inspired Vevay with acute exasperation. The mage, Tessera decided finally, felt like someone who had stepped with confidence onto a stair that wasn't there.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" she asked before Vevay spoke, and Vevay stared at her with utter astonishment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She recovered herself swiftly, laying a hand on the queen's shoulder and turning her adroitly away from her ladies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Your mother wishes to see you before she retires,\" Vevay murmured, pitching her words toward any listening ears." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"To assure herself that you are alive and well after the hunt.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" Tessera said obediently. Her mother, she knew from experience, would not be expecting her at all; it was Vevay's way of assuring privacy for some momentous discussion.\n\nThis time, however, Vevay surprised Tessera, leading her directly to her mother's chambers, where Xantia, still prostrate in black, was ignoring the enticing smell of quail stewed in cream and brandy on a tray near her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For some odd reason she seemed to be expecting them; she was entirely alone. Sunk in a chair with her eyes closed and the back of one hand resting on her brow, she lifted her other hand heavily to her daughter. Tessera took it awkwardly. Xantia, opening her eyes at last, drew Tessera to her and examined her anxiously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are well, my child?\"\n\n\"I killed a hare.\"\n\n\"How clever of you. You take after your unfortunate father in his love of hunting...\" She turned her wan face restively to the mage. \"Now, Vevay. You know I need peace and quiet above all at this time. What is so pressing that you can't deal with it yourself and must disturb me when I can barely lift a scrap of linen to wipe my tears?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Raine is going to war,\" Vevay said succinctly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You won't have much peace and quiet after that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Xantia stared at the mage, her eyes, the color of rain-soaked violets, enormous, red-rimmed. They narrowed; she straightened abruptly, sending embroidered velvet pillows flying.\n\n\"Who?\" she demanded.\n\n\"I don't know yet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then how—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The Dreaming King has awakened. I want to take Tessera down the cliff to his cave to see if he will tell her what the danger is to Raine.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tessera felt her face blanch." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'pillow' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She tried to speak; words stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her mother, clutching a pillow to her bosom for comfort, was as mute for a moment, her face so icy pale that Tessera thought she might faint.\n\nInstead she rose, flinging the pillow across the room. \"Who would dare attack my daughter?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We talked about this. Any one of twelve Crowns.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They're all under her roof!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She paced a step or two, her lips thin; both mage and queen watched her, transfixed. \"I've never heard of the Dreamer waking for any ruler. I thought it was just a legend. Vevay, are you sure?\"\n\n\"Without a doubt.\"\n\nXantia whirled, held her daughter's eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then you must go. Without a doubt.\"\n\nTessera unstuck her voice; it shook badly. \"I don't want to talk to a skeleton.\"\n\n\"This was your father's realm, and now it belongs to you,\" Xantia said fiercely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You will do what you must to keep it.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'vevay' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know how!\"\n\nVevay closed her eyes. \"Exactly what I've been trying to tell you—\"\n\n\"Vevay, there must be someone you suspect, one Crown above the others. Unless—\" Xantia caught a breath, put her hands to her mouth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Unless it is all of them at once. But the rulers are—\"\n\n\"All here,\" Vevay finished. \"All but the Lord of Seale. But I don't think that the first King of Raine would rouse his bones in alarm over Ermin of Seale.\" She stared at the problem silently a moment, her pale eyes nearly colorless and very cold." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They moved finally from the problem in midair to Tessera, who felt their cold like a frost in her bones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"At dawn, tomorrow, we will go down.\"\n\n\"Vevay,\" Tessera pleaded, \"can't you talk to him? You're a mage; you—\"\n\n\"You are the ruler of the Twelve Crowns of Raine. It's you he'll talk to if he's awake.\"\n\n\"He's dead! He doesn't have a tongue!\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He's sleeping,\" Xantia said firmly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Dreaming. You go down there and ask him what you should do. And you—\" Her voice faltered as she looked at Vevay, the strength fading visibly again from her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She groped, found Tessera's shoulder. \"You and Gavin—\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Vevay moved quickly to help her back to her chair.\n\n\"I want whoever it is threatening my daughter found—\"\n\n\"We will.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And dropped forthwith over the cliff into the sea.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Forthwith,\" Vevay promised grimly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Xantia, half-falling into her chair, burst into tears again, searched among her skirts for the crumpled linen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vevay summoned her ladies from the next room." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tessera, rigid with terror, thought: I will run into the wood tonight. The trees will hide me; they know my name. No one will ever find me...\n\nVevay, fixing Tessera with a probing eye as she closed the door on the distraught dowager, said softly, \"We will go now.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They left most of the palace at supper, and Gavin to tell those who questioned the queen's absence that she sat that evening with her grieving mother. For Tessera's sake, Vevay brought a torch to light the queen's path down the worn, slippery steps. She might as well not have bothered, for Tessera, her teeth chattering with cold and fear, barely saw anything but the vision behind her eyes. The vision was of a crowned skeleton sitting on a stone, whose armor hung loosely here and there, clanking as the skeleton moved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Its skull was sometimes raw bone, sometimes sagging pleats of flesh and withered, angry eyes that stared incredulously at the waif in front of him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I dreamed of you and woke, the first king told her, in a voice that boomed and weltered like the waves through his tomb. You puny, helpless, powerless grub, how did you become the ruler of twelve Crowns? You yourself are the threat to Raine...\n\nThe wind took up his words, growling and whining and worrying at the clouds." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some spell of Vevay's kept it from blowing Tessera off the stairs, though she thought wistfully, once or twice, of jumping." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Surely the deep, wild water would be kinder to her than the dreaming warrior wakened to battle. But Vevay would never let her fall. Down and down they went, Tessera mute and trembling and half-blind with terror, the mage following inexorably, holding the torch over her head. Finally, after what seemed a nightmare walk into forever, she heard the first delicate sough of the waves, far below, breaking against the cliff." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stopped, her eyes closing, her knees almost refusing to hold her up.\n\nVevay said from some other time where she no longer remembered what fear was, \"Don't be afraid. You are Queen of Raine. He will recognize that in you. He will want to help you.\"\n\nHer voice was as implacable as ever. Tessera opened her eyes again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no going back, with the mage behind her, herding her like a sheepdog toward a dead king in a cave. Her hair hung lank with mist; she wiped water out of her eyes with a damp sleeve. I don't feel like a queen, she thought. I am the hare in the wood, trying to run all directions at once to get away..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not bothering to answer Vevay, she forced herself to move again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The boom and break of water grew louder, waves tearing at the cliff, trying with each crash and flight of spume to reach higher, higher, touch the last stone step, flow into the Dreamer's cave." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vevay's hand closed on Tessera's shoulder, and she stopped, staring ahead, not even seeing that she stood on the last step; her next would be into airy nothing.\n\nVevay said nothing. After a moment, Tessera turned her head, looked at the face of the cliff. The torch light spilled through solid rock, showed her the narrow path she must take into stone to speak to the dead.\n\nShe could not go back; she could not go into the sea instead; she could not hang there between earth and sea forever." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Go on,\" said the streak of wind and fire that was Vevay. \"I cannot enter. You must go alone.\" Nothing to do but face the dead. So she turned her back to the sea and walked into stone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The armed figure stood waiting for her.\n\nShe stopped, frozen, at the open threshold of the tomb. The cave was a hand-hewn bubble of air and dark; the torch light illumined the armed warrior within it. The visor was down; she could not see a face, either skull or ravaged flesh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The warrior was very tall, armed from head to foot, and crowned with a band of gold molded into the helm. The sword slung at its waist looked nearly as tall as Tessera. Uncut jewels glowed darkly in the firelight along the crosspiece, and tiny fire-white stones inset on the backs of the gauntlets glittered fiercely. Long hair flowed from under the helm across the straight shoulders; it was as pale gold as corn-silk." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'forgotten' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tessera felt a lump in her throat. It dissolved, left her voice free again. How long she stared at the tall, armed figure she had no idea. When she finally spoke, she had forgotten Vevay, forgotten the endless, terrifying walk down the cliff in the night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She felt she had, in entering the Dreamer's cave, become part of the dream.\n\n\"I don't know what to do,\" she whispered.\n\nThe armed warrior lifted a gauntlet, raised the helm. Tessera, staring at the young, beautiful, powerful face, felt her heart untangle itself then, as though it had been wound in a knot around itself for so long she had stopped noticing." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The warrior smiled and unsheathed the great sword.\n\n\"Save our realm,\" she said in her deep, sweet voice, while the hiss and clang of metal echoed through the cave. \"Queen of Raine. Save the Crowns of Raine.\"\n\nTessera nodded, her heart pounding, her lips dry and bitter with brine. \"How?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will fight with you. When you need me, I will be with you in your heart. Beware. Beware.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Beware what?\" Her voice came without sound, but the Dreamer heard it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Beware the thorns.\"\n\n\"Thorns?\"\n\n\"They must be destroyed before they destroy us all.\"\n\n\"What thorns?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Wind gusted into the cave, howling, laced with spume or rain, and spun Vevay's torch fire into a thin, fluttering thread of light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Emen, Tessera heard, the word melting away in the force of the wind. Eden, Egen... When she could see again, the armed figure had slumped onto a rough throne of stone. Its helmed head sagged onto its breast, the face invisible again behind the visor. The long hair, like the parched, golden grasses of summer, looked brittle and sere, as though it would turn to dust at a touch." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'finally' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Light spilled like tide over the walls as Vevay finally found her way in.\n\n\"Did he speak?\" she asked, looking doubtfully at the ancient sleeper. \"What did he say?\"\n\nThe Queen of Raine turned away finally from the dead. \"She.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She. The first king of Raine was a woman.\"\n\nVevay's mouth opened; nothing came out. Her long hair tangled with the torch fire; she twitched it free impatiently, holding Tessera's eyes as though searching for the reflection of the warrior queen within them. \"She,\" she whispered. \"What did she say?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She said to destroy the thorns before they destroy us all.\"\n\n\"Thorns.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Are you sure she said—\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll share a piece from a longer story, then you take over with five sentences in Particia A. McKillip's voice, keeping within the Fantasy genre. Some context may come from earlier chapters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Axis fought his second battle with his father's brother, the regent Telmenon, who was lord of a great swath of land in Lower Eben. Having ruled Eben for nine years while Axis grew up, Telmenon resented yielding his power to a boy. When Axis turned sixteen, three days before his wedding, he was crowned King of Great and Lower Eben, and Lord in the Name of the Serpent of all who dwelled within the river that divided the kingdom. Telmenon had seen that day coming for many years and planned for it. A month after the wedding, after the queen's family had gone home, Telmenon rode at the head of the army from Lower Eben to attack the boy-king." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Telmenon's army would cross the Serpent by night and be massed around the royal palace by daybreak, giving Axis no time to gather his own forces. So Telmenon planned, and so it might have been but for the wedding gift from Ilicia.\n\nAs far as anybody knew, the tall, mute, faceless figure did nothing besides entertain the young queen and her courtiers on lazy afternoons with his tricks. Kane pulled doves out of empty goblets and pearls out of flowers. He made wine flow out of his staff and danced on the water lilies in the pool in the courtyard." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nobody wondered at the extent of his powers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Even when he walked on water he was only the deformed, gangling, gifted servant who did tricks. If at times his tricks were inexplicable except by magic of a complexity that should have been suspect, no one questioned it. He did always as commanded; if he had a thought of his own he never indicated it; when he was not wanted, he was not seen. Indeed, he might have been invisible, insofar as anyone but Axis remembered his existence then.\n\nWhich she actually was: invisible, many times." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kane had been watching the regent for years." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Like Axis, she had known him since they were children." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "After he became regent and Kane learned to seem invisible, she tested her new powers everywhere in the palace, even under her mother's nose. Thus she chanced upon a seedling meeting between Telmenon and one of his generals, and learned that he had no intention of relinquishing his power over Eben. That seedling, encouraged, spread secret roots of rebellion throughout Lower Eben. Kane did not tell Axis until she knew his heart, until she knew by his secret love for her that he could keep a secret. His face, at once beautiful and feral, revealed no more than the lion's face, which says nothing at all as the lion crouches and waits." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It speaks only when it springs." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So it was that when Telmenon's army appeared by moon-light along the southern bank of the Serpent, Axis's army rode out of the cornfields to meet it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The battle was reminiscent of that long-ago massacre of his mud-soldiers and his father by the Serpent. Axis waited silently in the night, while Kane watched. When most of Telmenon's army was in the river, she signaled the Lion to attack.\n\nThe Serpent ran red in the moonlight,\n\nThe red moon floated on the water," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Serpent's eye, open and bloody,\n\nAs it fed.\n\nThe army of Telmenon\n\nDrank their own blood\n\nAs the Serpent dragged them under its waters." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The boy-king" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Who would be Emperor of Night" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Slew his father's brother" }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: 'would' should appear 2 times in total" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And fed to the Serpent the dying warriors of Telmenon. Kane helped the Serpent feed. It was late summer; Telmenon chose a time when the great river would be at its shallowest for his army to cross. As the poets described the scene later, the river would have had to be swollen with all the rains and melting snows in Eben to have drowned so many warriors. So Kane worked some illusions into the water, which drowned the wounded with their fears, and she coaxed a few streams and field channels that ran out of the river to flow back up their beds to swell the Serpent's waters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The swirling floods confused the warriors in the dark. They saw the Serpent moving in waters they could have walked through; they panicked and ran into one another's swords, or splashed blindly across into Axis's army. The bloody eye the poets envisioned was a fair description of the full moon that night, as it was reflected in the reddened waters. Or as it appeared to the eyes of a warrior watching the burning arrows soar out of the sky across the river into the army still struggling on the south bank. At the battle's end, many who fled still had no idea who had attacked them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Axis had dressed his warriors in black; their faces were hidden under hoods and veils not unlike Kane's. They were the first faceless army of the night.\n\nThe boy-king\n\nBrought his masked army\n\nOut of the dark," }, { "from": "human", "value": "Out of stars and fire," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Out of the Gates of Nowhere\n\nTo conquer the enemies of Eben. The poets were wrong about one thing: Telmenon did not die that night. Axis's warriors, capturing what fleeing men they could find in the night, recognized the regent among their prisoners. He was wounded, stunned by events, and so exasperated he could barely speak when he was dragged from the dungeons at dawn and confronted by the boy-king he had tried to depose." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kane was there, of course, but only as a stray shadow without a visible source, if anyone had noticed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The regent, pushed to his knees in front of Axis, dirty, sweating, and bleeding from a slash across one shoulder, looked so like Axis's father that Kane expected the Lion's heart to melt a little with pity. The king showed no anger; his voice remained even. As always, his broad, golden face revealed almost nothing of his thoughts.\n\n\"So, uncle,\" he said, still in battle-black, with the cloth he had worn over his face hanging around his neck, \"what shall I do with you? You taught me how to rule. What would you advise?\"\n\nHis uncle, tasting the unbearable bitterness of his defeat, spat at Axis's feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Prudently, he missed. The Lion only waited, his tawny eyes unblinking.\n\n\"How,\" Telmenon asked finally, hoarsely, \"did you know? Who betrayed me?\"\n\n\"You betrayed yourself. And you betrayed me.\"\n\n\"Who was it?\" Telmenon demanded. \"Tell me before you kill me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You will never know,\" Axis said softly, and that was so." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'family' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one of Telmenon's warriors ever knew which of them had betrayed them all; everyone suspected everyone. Telmenon's power had broken itself against a fourteen-year-old girl whom he had dismissed long before as something Axis would grow out of. Telmenon had told Axis what to do with him. Axis had his headless body returned to his family in Lower Eben by a small army, who also brought documents that declared Telmenon's lands confiscated and sent his family into exile. Axis let them take what they could, along with their heads. Nobody argued." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thus he bound Great Eben and Lower Eben, the twin kingdoms of the Serpent, securely under his fledgling rule." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Inspired by the incident, he looked for something else to conquer. His mother protested; his wife pleaded. Peace, they craved, though it had been peaceful in Eben all through Telmenon's regency. They wanted to sit in the courtyard among the peacocks, listening to the singing fountains and the cooing of doves while they played with Axis's children, for the young queen was pregnant.\n\nDuring Axis's long reign she would have many children, not all of them her husband's." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But not all of his were hers." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They had married one another for reasons of state; they expected certain things of one another, but love and fidelity were not among them. Compromises were reached: he would not bring his battles into Eben, and she would not bring her lovers to his attention. She had to relinquish certain illusions. Kane had seen the soft lights of hope and expectancy in her eyes when she looked up at her young husband. But nothing answered in his eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She was an affair of state, his wife and the mother of his heirs; he treated her kindly and with respect." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But he would never love her. Having a practical soul, she consoled herself with her status and her right to his company. She grew to become an affectionate mother and a discreet wife. So the poets mentioned her rarely and without interest. Her life was not the stuff of passion or tragedy, at least as far as they could see." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Not even Kane saw much more, though she was very much aware of what could eat at the heart beyond anyone's detection." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a while she could only watch, always masked, always silent, while Axis moved freely through his world. She longed for their childhood, when one was seldom seen without the other, when she could show him her naked face in public and smile, when they hid in the gardens and spoke their secret language. That Axis missed her as much, she could not have guessed. He married, became a father, ruled his kingdom, while Kane could only do her tricks to make the queen laugh, and trail as a shadow after her heart.\n\nThe Lion" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fearless, magnificent, unchanging through a thousand years," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Casts a glance of desire\n\nAnd takes.\n\nWalk in shadows, fear that glance.\n\nThe Lion sees through time,\n\nThrough cloud and stars," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Into a different day.\n\nBeware if that day is yours.\n\nBeware his watching eyes. Axis's golden glance had fallen on the Serpent. The river bordered another kingdom to Eben's west, and passed through yet another to the east before it ended its journey in the Baltrean Sea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Marrying Cribex, the land to the west, he had secured the headwaters of the Serpent for his own interest. The kingdom between Eben and the sea, containing the rich delta lands the river watered as it fanned into the Baltrean, caught the Lion's interest. He felt a certain kinship with the Serpent; it had consumed any number of his relatives during his uncle Telmenon's ill-fated battle. So, he decided, the world that the Serpent ruled should be his.\n\nHe broached the matter in secret with his battle commanders; at his request, Kane listened in the shadow of a potted palm." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He met with her at midnight, as was their habit when discussing such things." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Invisible to his guards, she followed him into his private chamber, where no one else was permitted and where, it was assumed, he pondered the advice of his counselors, weighed it against history and experience." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That he had a secret door to admit lovers and other whims, it was also assumed, though nobody ever found the door. There Kane allowed herself to be seen, only by Axis.\n\nShe unwound the thin black veiling around her face with relief, as well as some trepidation. He had not looked at her for a long time, and she had lost sight of herself as well. Nearly sixteen by then, she had been the lonely, misshapen Kane for so long that she felt she must be turning into him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Lion's expressionless face, gazing silently at her, did not help matters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He spoke finally. \"I am going to war with the sea-kingdom of Kaoldep. You must find a reason to come with me.\"\n\nShe blinked, not understanding. \"Why would you bring the child's toy from Ilicia with you to battle?\"\n\n\"I have no idea.\" He still gazed at her, his wide-set cat's eyes intent and unreadable." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'cannot' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I mean, I have no idea how to explain you. I want you there with me because I want you.\"\n\nShe closed her eyes, the breath running soundlessly out of her. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Before I married, I only had to turn my head to find you. I only had to say your name.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And now, day after day, I must see you veiled, hidden, invisible even to me. I cannot see your face, you cannot speak. I can only watch the shadow of you, using your astonishing powers to amuse my wife.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My lord, I could not think of any other way—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Say my name.\"\n\n\"Axis.\"\n\n\"Again.\"\n\n\"Axis.\"\n\nHe gripped her hands, so close to her now that she could feel his heart beat against her fingers." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She could not speak; tears spilled down her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He put his mouth to her cheekbone, caught hot salt between his lips. He slid one hand behind her head, unbound her hair from its tight scarf. It swept down her back; strands caught in her tears. He shifted them away from her face, kissed her again, here, there, wherever he found tears.\n\n\"You have grown so beautiful,\" she heard him say, his voice trembling against her ear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I am King of Eben and a father, and I have fought for my crown and won my first battle, and always, always, with your voice in my thoughts, your face in my heart. Make yourself part of my life again. I don't care how you explain yourself. I want you with me again. Kane. My first and only love. Make it so.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" she whispered, feeling herself for the first time all that he said: beautiful, wanted, loved. He spoke those words, and she became them; he had that power over her.\n\nThat was the night Axis and Kane became lovers, and of that all poetry is silent.\n\nAfter that night, she began to make certain, subtle changes in the tricks she played to entertain the court. Kane seemed as astonished as anyone when he accidentally knocked a hole in a wall with power from his staff, or set a tablecloth on fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He made instant reparations, sending stones flying back into the wall to mend it, directing a stream of water out of a fish pond to put out the fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he curled himself into a ball, in terror of the courtiers' wrath, and tried to beat himself with his own staff." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The queen spoke of those mishaps to Axis, worrying that Kane might set her children on fire. The king, intrigued, sent for Kane and tested his powers in front of his counselors and commanders.\n\nKane, trembling with fear, destroyed three huge flower pots and shot fire out of the window over the courtyard. The peacocks fled, screaming. In the war room, the advisors consulted one another silently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My lord, that is no longer a toy,\" one said finally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That is a weapon.\"\n\nKane's knees hit the floor promptly; he flung the staff away and bowed until his forehead touched the floor.\n\n\"He does not know his own powers,\" someone observed softly.\n\n\"What shall I do with him?\" Axis wondered. \"It would be a pity to kill him. He is innocent of all malice, and his powers are hardly his fault. Yet he would be a danger to my children.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He would be a danger to more than children,\" one of his commanders murmured, seeing the future as he stared at Kane." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I cannot send him back to Ilicia.\"\n\n\"No, my lord, you cannot. That would be foolish, and killing him, as you say, a pity. I suggest you take him with you to Kaoldep and see what he can do on a battlefield.\"\n\nAxis stood up, stepped to the veiled figure crouching on the carpet. \"You have pledged your loyalty to me,\" he said to Kane. \"Will you make your staff into a weapon for the armies of Eben?\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Continue with the same vibes and character familiarity in the Fantasy genre." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bourne stood in a chamber within the mages' school, trying to turn himself invisible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was alone; the chamber was empty." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he had opened its door a moment earlier than he did, or a moment later, a dragon as pale as snow might have spat blue fire at him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A mage older than the school, sitting alone and patiently waiting to die, might have looked at him and died." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A woman so beautiful that his knees melted might have said something in a language he did not recognize." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had found all of these behind doors he had opened in the school at one time or another." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were like random tests that he passed or failed; he was never quite certain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shutting the door again had seemed the simplest answer to the dragon." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had almost closed the door on the dead mage and gone to find help." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But in time he remembered that the door would slide away into some other part of the school, or into some other moment, if he turned his back on it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Instead, he entered the room, stood beside the dead mage, and learned, in that moment, how to send a silent cry for help." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would quite willingly have joined the beautiful woman in her sunlit chamber, except that as he put one foot across the threshold he suddenly understood her incomprehensible words, as though his heart had grown an ear." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shut the door, she had said; he withdrew his foot and went away." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The chamber he stood in now held only a few cobwebs and a couple of tarnished mirrors leaning against a wall." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Light and the sweet breath of the wood wandered in from an open casement." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He glanced out, hoping to glimpse the palace, for the room seemed high, at a level with the treetops." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the wood beyond the window went on forever; he could not even see the plain, just the upper boughs of endless trees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had been roaming the school with nothing to do that day, and Nepenthe in every thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But she had made it clear, the night before, that no delight he could suggest would tempt her from her work that day; she would see him at supper time in the refectory, not before." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So he whiled away the time exploring, recklessly opening doors, wanting monsters, warrior-mages, riddles, and tasks." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He found little but old furniture and dust." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not even a magical tome to look for trouble in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finally, seeing his reflection in the mirrors, he had posed himself a task: How could he make himself and his reflection disappear?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "All the students wanted to know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But Felan only told them, \"You are not ready yet.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He would give them no clues." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Books that might have answered the question stubbornly refused to open, or revealed blank pages when the subject came up." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The students protested; Felan only said, \"Be patient.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bourne said nothing at all, not wanting to draw attention to his own keen interest in the matter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Invisible, he could drift at will through the palace, listen to secret meetings, find out what hidden strengths and vulnerabilities the Crowns and the queen might have, and so impress the Lord of Seale with his powers that his uncle would want Bourne to stay in the school forever, which was exactly how long, that day, Bourne wanted to keep seeing Nepenthe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Invisibility eluded him; he kept seeing his baffled face in the mirror no matter what he tried." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He closed his eyes and concentrated on nothing until he felt he must have turned into it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He opened one eye, saw his one-eyed self peering back at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There must be a potion, he thought, bemused." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Words he must say." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A cloak made out of threads of thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Perhaps he should look for the dragon again, put himself in such peril that only invisibility would save him, and in his desperation he would find the way to disappear." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Desire, he reminded himself, had precipitated him across the plain in a step." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps terror could inspire a different magic." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He opened both eyes, stood idly scratching his brow with a thumbnail, wondering if scaring himself witless with a dragon would be the best time to find out if he had the power to save himself from it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A breeze trembled under his nose, loosing scents of opening leaves, moist earth, wildflowers scattering their fragrances profligately through the warm spring light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nepenthe's eyes would turn from brown to green in such light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He saw her turn her head in memory, look at him, her eyes the tender green of young leaves, and he closed his own eyes, felt the hot sweet light on his lips." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He gave a stifled groan of longing and exasperation, took a restless step..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And there he was, smelling leather and parchment and wax instead of trees, feeling the implacable stone all around him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I should go back, he told himself before he opened his eyes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shut the door. Before she sees me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unless she has already and I am already in trouble." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Unless I can very quickly turn myself invisible..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He opened an eye again, cautiously, saw her desk and her ink jars, her parchments full of fish." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He raised his eyes, saw the face looking at him above the fish." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stared. So did Laidley, who was sitting on Nepenthe's stool and gawking gracelessly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He closed his mouth and cleared his throat; still nothing came out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you doing here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bourne asked. \"Where's Nepenthe?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are you doing here?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Laidley managed finally. \"She told you not to come until this evening.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Does she tell you everything?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bourne marveled, hearing an edge in his voice that nothing about Laidley could explain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laidley only shook his head. \"No.\" He hesitated." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That's why I'm here.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I see.\" Bourne stepped to the desk, illumined." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And looking as guilty as I am.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought she—she told me she was going to finish the scholar's manuscript today. I found out more about Axis and Kane, so I came to tell her. But she isn't here, and neither—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And neither are the thorns,\" Bourne finished softly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. Neither are the thorns. I searched for them. She's working somewhere else, hiding them from us.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bourne sighed. \"With some reason. That's my fault—I threatened to take them away from her. It didn't occur to me that she could make herself invisible. Where might she be?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Laidley shrugged. \"The library is immense. Entire rooms go forgotten for decades. She could be anywhere.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It sounds like the Floating School.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He brushed aside some fish, sat on the desk, and looked blankly down one end of the silent corridor, then down the other." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well. I could probably find her if I wished, but she did ask me not to disturb her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She'll be waiting for you later,\" Laidley said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Not even the thorns will make her forget.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bourne glanced at him, surprised." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I didn't intend to come here,\" he explained after a moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It was an accident. I was just thinking about her—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" Laidley said, studying one of Nepenthe's jars with cross-eyed intensity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm sorry.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For what?\" Laidley queried the ink." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The words came out with unexpected harshness." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laidley swallowed, his eyes finally relinquishing the ink jar." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He looked at Bourne." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'll still be here,\" he said simply, \"when you've forgotten her.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Fair enough,\" Bourne breathed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"In that case, we may all grow very old together...\" He slid off the desk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I should go before she finds me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She brings you here,\" Laidley said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You think of her and work your magic. What magic in that school is strong enough to draw you back to it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Surprised again, Bourne made an effort and thought." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I suppose the magic draws me back. The possibility of doing the impossible. It's harder without Nepenthe. But even the difficulty becomes interesting. A puzzle. A challenge. Also—\" He hesitated, added with a laugh, \"My uncle would be furious with me if the mages threw me out of the school for my disorderly ways.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why does your uncle care that much whether or not you become a mage? You're a noble of the ruling court of Seale. You don't have to be anything.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bourne gazed down at the alphabet of fish, eluding Laidley's too-clear eyes and trying to be careless and careful at the same time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My uncle thinks I have some gifts. What I think is that he is the one who wants a mage's power... This is the scholar's manuscript, isn't it? Nepenthe told me about the fish. What does she make of them?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Merchants' inventories from a caravan.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So that's the riveting topic that keeps her buried down here, along with her thorns.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He realized then that he was lingering, hoping she would hear her name in whatever cranny she had concealed herself and be tempted out." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It might work, he thought, so he said it again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You said you had something to tell Nepenthe about Axis and Kane. What is it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Oh.\" Laidley straightened, a scholar's eagerness to impart knowledge to the ignorant driving all else from his mind." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He picked up a scroll." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's about the question of Dirxia.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nepenthe was having a problem naming one of the kingdoms that Axis conquered. Actually, conquered is too precise a word for what he did. You might as accurately talk about a tidal wave conquering a city. The word assumes that someone had time to fight back. Overwhelmed is more like it. Engulfed.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" Bourne said hazily, feeling overwhelmed by whatever Laidley was babbling about." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We thought it might be Dirxia, except that Dirxia did not exist when Axis did—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Which was when?\" Bourne asked, trying for a spar to hold on to in the flood of history." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"When—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"When did Axis live?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh. Roughly three thousand years ago, when Eben ruled the world. I haven't narrowed down exactly when he died. With all the poetry written about him through the centuries you'd think he might have lived forever. Anyway, I found another kingdom which did exist about the same time as his kingdom Eben did, and which Axis did conquer. It was called Kirixia; it was west of Eben, across the Baltrean Sea. It was full of goats and olive trees. A trade route ran through it. It was fairly big but not at all wealthy.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe Axis was practicing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Maybe,\" Laidley said, looking at his frivolous suggestion seriously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Or maybe it was a kind of poetic device to give status to an otherwise undistinguished land. Axis conquered it, therefore—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Therefore it could not be boring,\" Bourne suggested, stifling a yawn." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He added soberly, after a moment, \"But it does make you wonder, doesn't it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Does it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Why Nepenthe is so obsessed about all this. It's ancient history. Dust. Tombs. Headless statues that you find sketched in the margins of worm-eaten manuscripts. Where's the magic in it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What magic?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What are the thorns really telling her? It's why she won't let us see them, why she clings to them—or they cling to her—as though she got herself buried in a bramble thicket and she can't get out and we can't get in to free her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Buried in what?\" Laidley asked, struggling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's just it. We don't know. If every thorn is some form of sorcery apart from the word it makes, then who knows what it might be telling Nepenthe to think or do?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laidley was looking fish-eyed again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is such a thing possible? That the letters themselves—the shapes might be magic in themselves? The words and tale are innocent; the power is in the different alphabet?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Look at her,\" Bourne said helplessly, wishing he could." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's entranced. Enchanted by ghosts. By a bit of history that would put anyone else to sleep. Something else is speaking to her when she reads, telling her things that we can't see or hear, saying one thing to her eyes and mind, and another to her heart—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laidley shivered suddenly. \"You're making my skin crawl,\" he said reproachfully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think you're letting your imagination run away with you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That's the beginning of magic. Let your imagination run and follow it.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're liable to follow it over the cliff and into the sea.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bourne was silent, contemplating his vision of Nepenthe and her thorns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "An odd hollowness touched his heart, as though he had looked down and found the vast nothingness between earth and sea beneath his next step." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fear, the reeling was, he realized suddenly; he had rarely encountered it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'm going to find her,\" he said restively." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I think those thorns are dangerous and the mages should know about them.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The mages already saw them,\" Laidley pointed out, troubled but clinging stubbornly to what he knew." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They sent them to the librarians to translate.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Then let the librarians translate them. Not Nepenthe.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She won't thank you if you force her to give them up.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't suppose she will.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Scholars get obsessed every day over the strangest things. The contents of a caravan, for example. Or the ancient language in which the contents are written.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Or a conqueror who has been dead for three thousand years? You want her to keep the book. Don't you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's a puzzle,\" Laidley admitted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"A challenge. And it gives me reasons to find things for her, bring them, speak to her. It seems harmless to me. Well—perhaps not entirely harmless. I'll concede that. But nothing we can't deal with.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He raised his head, meeting Bourne's eyes pleadingly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The three of us. The mage, the scholar, the woman who reveals the magic.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bourne stared at him, mute again, and oddly touched." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right,\" he said tautly, \"all right,\" and saw Laidley's shoulders, hunched under his ears, slide back down into place." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But I want to talk to her. I want her to tell me plainly why she thinks she must hide those thorns from us. Where can she possibly be?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Laidley stood up. \"I'll search, too. I know where many of the ancient epics are kept; she might be there. You look in her chamber. It could be that easy.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Which way?\" Bourne asked, bewildered as ever in the labyrinth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laidley pointed, moving down the hallway the opposite direction." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"We'll meet here,\" he suggested, and Bourne nodded." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Wherever here is,\" he muttered, winding through the books toward what he thought might be a main corridor." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then he stopped, charmed by an idea." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All he had to do was think of her and step..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something flowed between him and his heart's desire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt off balance suddenly, uncertain, as though he had stepped into another world entirely." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it was the same, he saw, blinking books and stone into place around him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And there was the woman in front of him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was not Nepenthe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He blinked again and recognized that tall figure with long hair like spun silver and eyes like the sky in winter above the sea." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He felt his face blanch before he even knew he had to be afraid." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Vevay.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She nodded, those eyes holding him rooted to stone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bourne of Seale,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her voice sounded as though it could have splintered flint." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I made a journey to the Floating School to find you, but you were here, instead, under the queen's roof without anyone's knowledge.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is there something—\" he managed.\n\n\"Oh, yes. There is something. Your uncle Ermin is plotting to attack the First Crown, and you are under arrest for treason.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Job: User writes start, you add ~12 sentences sentences. Style: Particia A. McKillip. Note: May include established characters" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vevay took the young man back to the Floating School. She was too furious to speak again in those brief moments; Bourne of Seale looked too stunned. Once he tried. Vevay saw a face flicker through his thoughts; his eyes grew wide and full of words. But he said nothing until they were in the school, facing Felan in one of the rich, cluttered, comfortable rooms that students rarely saw, full of old books and shy animals. By then Bourne seemed resigned as he gazed helplessly back at Felan.\n\nHe said, \"That day we spent in the wood.\"\n\nFelan's shining pate lowered an inch; his own eyes were very calm. \"Of course we watched to see what shapes the wood took for you. It shapes your heart; you can hide nothing from it.\"\n\n\"Then why—\" Bourne began abruptly, then as abruptly closed his mouth again.\n\nVevay, who saw the lovely face again in his thoughts, answered grimly, \"You have no privacy now. If you did not see that young woman in the wood perhaps it was simply because in that matter your feelings are entirely unambiguous.\"\n\n\"Who is she?\" Felan asked.\n\n\"Just a transcriptor,\" Bourne told him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"One of the orphans the librarians raised and trained. She doesn't pay attention to the world beyond the library. Her head is full of ancient languages. She knew nothing about—about—\" He shook his head, his mouth tight; his eyes slid away from Felan's." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Whatever,\" he finished, \"my uncle might be doing.\"\n\n\"Do you know?\" Vevay demanded.\n\n\"I can guess,\" Bourne answered after a moment. \"From comments my uncle made, and from what he wanted me to learn.\"\n\n\"And you never questioned those things.\"\n\nA dull flush seeped into his face. \"It's a family tradition, rebelling against rulers. My great-grandfather was beheaded for it.\"\n\n\"You don't take this seriously!\" Vevay exclaimed, exasperated. \"You could lose your own head.\"\n\n\"No.\" He met her eyes, trying hard, she saw, to explain himself to himself as well as to her. \"I do take this seriously. It was my uncle Ermin that I never took very seriously. I thought he was mostly talk. He wanted me to come here and study to gain powers to help Seale rebel against Raine. I couldn't imagine actually learning anything that might be useful to anyone. But I found I liked what I was studying. So if he wanted me here, I didn't mind learning.\"\n\n\"And you would have taken all that you learned back to the Second Crown and used your powers to fight against the queen.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"My powers,\" he repeated incredulously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "His eyes moved from her to Felan. \"You saw the extent of my powers in the wood. I summoned fire and managed to char some bark on a tree.\"\n\n\"You lifted the Floating School,\" Felan said.\n\nThe blood drained out of Bourne's face again. He stared at Felan; Vevay saw his eyes grow cloudy a moment, almost tranquil, as he remembered his own spell. \"I tried,\" he whispered. \"It was just something to do. I thought—I didn't think—It seemed only a dream. A wish. I thought I had only raised it in my head.\"\n\n\"You raised it in your heart.\"\n\nHe blinked, asked with sudden anxiety, \"Did I really drop it?\"\n\n\"Students usually drop it, the first time. I caught it.\" Vevay saw the golden, dreaming afternoon sky above the dark wood in Felan's own eyes, then. \"I made the noise to let you know something had happened.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'things' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My uncle Ermin happened.\"\n\n\"He does get in your way. You should have made your own choices.\"\n\n\"Maybe.\" He ran fingers through his hair, his face drawn, rueful. \"It seems I never took either one of us very seriously. Is that why the wood sent the queen to me later? To show me that I had another choice?\"\n\nFelan didn't answer immediately. Vevay, glancing at him, saw the bemusement behind his imperturbable expression. He turned to her for enlightenment. \"Was the queen in the wood that day?\"\n\n\"Of course not. Tessera has never been in the wood. She's afraid of everything.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Bourne said, remembering. \"She did seem afraid. Whoever I saw. I thought at first she was a student; she talked about things the wood had shown her.\"\n\n\"What things?\" Vevay asked tightly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"An old man she said was a tree; it spoke to her. Deer carrying fire in their antlers. There was something else...an armed rider. When I realized that she wasn't a student, I thought the wood had conjured her. After she left, I remembered where I had seen her face before: at her coronation. I understand now, of course too late, why the wood sent her.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If the queen was in the wood that day,\" Felan answered, \"I did not see her.\"\n\n\"Then I must be mistaken,\" Bourne said.\n\nBut he did not believe that, Vevay saw. \"Tell me,\" she said harshly, \"what she looked like. What she wore.\"\n\n\"She had long, very pale hair and a small, pale face. She seemed very shy. And very careful, as though at any moment she might encounter trouble. I remember very clearly what she wore because it seemed odd. Pink satin, under an old dark cloak too big for her, and—\"\n\nVevay made a sound, and he stopped. \"Was it real?\" she demanded of Felan. \"Or a vision of the wood's?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Felan answered gently. \"I didn't see this. But I was watching for magic that affected the students, If the queen was in the wood, then she entered and left so quietly that I was unaware of it. Judging from what Bourne has said, the wood was aware of her and spoke to her. I suggest you ask her.\"\n\n\"I intend to.\" She was silent a moment, struggling with several inexplicable notions at once: that Tessera might wander off by herself into the wood, that somehow she had eluded Felan's attention but not the wood's; that Bourne, supposedly conspiring with his uncle against the queen, had described her with such kindly perception. \"Did she tell you what she was doing in the wood?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bourne answered carefully, trying to recall." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. As I said, at first I thought she was a student, so I thought I knew. When I told her that, she laughed and told me—\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'thought' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She laughed? Tessera doesn't laugh.\"\n\nHe hesitated. \"Yes. I guessed that she didn't, that she wasn't used to it.\"\n\n\"Go on,\" Vevay said dourly. \"What was she laughing about?\"\n\n\"That I had thought she was a student, while she had thought I was another apparition of the wood's.\" He paused again, then closed his eyes a moment, opened them again. He continued wearily, \"There was something else she said. Birds that spoke to her told her to beware what she might meet in the wood. She seemed relieved to find that it was only me.\"\n\nVevay closed her own eyes, touched them with cold fingers. \"You are the most convoluted young man I have ever met. Find a room for him,\" she said to Felan. \"I will bind him here myself with spells appropriate for someone who does not know his own powers, who might conceivably be capable of anything.\"\n\nFelan nodded. Bourne stared at the floor. \"I'm sorry,\" he told them, but for what he seemed unsure." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Include the following text] → \"And even that might be only the beginning of trouble.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can't imagine that my uncle would prove much more than a brief annoyance to the queen. The other Crowns would never let him rule.\"\n\n\"He could provide the spark that ignites the whole of Raine,\" Vevay snapped. \"And even that might be only the beginning of trouble.\"\n\nBourne lifted his head sharply; even Felan lost some of his composure. But he asked nothing then, just folded the school around them into another of its endless shapes to provide a suitable room for the prisoner. It had little furniture, no windows, and one massive door. While Bourne surveyed it, appalled, Vevay busied herself with some changes. If Bourne managed to astound himself by melting through a wall, he would be impeded by a succession of walls, each a different illusion he would have to understand and unravel. If he managed to open the door, it would lead into whatever fire was burning at the time, or to the terrifying nothingness beyond the edge of the cliff. To escape, he would have to outwit Vevay herself. It was possible, she thought grimly. Anything was, apparently, those days, with Tessera running off alone to talk to trees, and the king who was a queen awakening to warn of the destruction of Raine by brambles." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She left Bourne there, sitting on the hard little bed and contemplating his predicament." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He asked, before she and Felan vanished, \"What happens now? To my uncle? To my family still in the queen's palace?\"\n\n\"I haven't decided yet,\" Vevay told him. \"Troops have been sent to the Second Crown to arrest your uncle. Your family is under guard in the palace.\"\n\nHe sighed soundlessly, already looking harrowed by his vacuous surroundings. \"May I have paper at least?\" he pleaded. \"A pen? A book?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said mercilessly. \"Sit there and consider what brought you to this place and why. Your great-grandfather lost his head over such things. I suggest you find yours before you become the next headless ghost in your family.\"\n\nFelan shifted walls and spaces again within the school, brought her back into pleasanter surroundings. She did not sit; he did not wait for her to speak.\n\n\"What trouble?\"\n\nShe told him about Tessera and the dreaming warrior queen, the incomprehensible warning." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thorns?\" Felan repeated incredulously. \"What—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have no idea.\"\n\n\"She said nothing more?\"\n\n\"No. She warned Tessera of thorns and then retreated back into her moldering bones.\"\n\n\"Perhaps the queen understood it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nFelan was silent, unmoored from his tranquillity, his expressions erratic, unfamiliar to Vevay. He scratched his bald head, said finally, \"I will tell the other mages, and we will examine the matter with all the power we possess.\"\n\n\"So will I,\" Vevay promised, \"after I examine Tessera. How could the Queen of Raine have been wandering around in that wood without even you noticing?\"\n\n\"The wood, after all these centuries of magic flowing into it, has a life of its own.\"\n\n\"So apparently does Tessera.\"\n\n\"If it was Tessera.\"\n\n\"It sounded like her. I know that pink gown.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She shook her head at her own words." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And as unlike her as anything I would have imagined. Tessera, stopping to chat with a strange young man. Laughing. And of all young men—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Ask her,\" Felan said again, and she did so.\n\nIn the palace, she found the queen where she was supposed to be: at a council table with nobles from three different Crowns and half a dozen of her own counselors. They were discussing the border taxes for merchants traveling between Crowns. Tessera, sitting stiffly, was visibly trying to understand the problems. Her attempt was only getting in the way of her thoughts, it seemed to Vevay, judging by the dazed expression in her strained eyes. Taking pity on her, Vevay interrupted and extracted her, leaving her counselors to settle matters, which might soon be moot, anyway, if they were all going to war against thorns.\n\nShe drew Tessera past a dozen importunate young nobles, into a private chamber above the sea. As always, Tessera went to the window to watch sea, sky, cloud, anything that did not speak to her in words. This time Vevay joined her instead of talking to her back. She hesitated, wondering how to broach the subject without alarming Tessera.\n\nShe gave up, asked baldly, \"Were you in the wood recently? Someone said he saw you there.\"\n\nTessera looked at her mutely, instantly wary." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vevay waited, trying to emanate nothing beyond friendly curiosity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The queen answered finally, hesitantly. \"I went there to get out of the world. A few days ago.\"\n\n\"Did you talk to anyone?\"\n\n\"A tree. Some birds. A student. I think he was a student.\"\n\n\"He was,\" Vevay said evenly. \"No one knew you were there. None of the mages, I mean. They should have known.\"\n\n\"Do you mean that I should have told them?\"\n\n\"No. I mean yes. I mean that of course it's dangerous for you to go off on your own without telling anyone, without even a guard with you—\"\n\n\"I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"But that's not what I meant. You slipped past the combined and very powerful attention of the mages as though you—as though you somehow became part of the wood when you entered it. Or it made you a part of itself.\"\n\nTessera was silent again, trying, the mage saw, to figure out if she were in trouble. Trust me, Vevay pleaded, with every calm line of her body, with every quiet breath." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The queen's own body relaxed a little finally; her eyes slid again to the sea." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 13 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It showed me things,\" she said softly. \"It changes my heart when I walk into it. My heart turns into the smells and shadows, the moss, the flowers and vines, the ancient trees. Sometimes I hear them speak.\" Vevay's throat closed; she stifled a sound, gazing, dumbfounded, at the bewildering young ruler of Raine. The queen gave a small start then, at a memory. \"That's where I first saw her. The first queen of Raine. She was riding through the wood in her armor, with the great sword at her side.\"\n\n\"She was awake and riding around in the wood?\" Vevay breathed. \"The Dreaming King? Queen?\"\n\n\"I didn't see her face then, only her long fair hair. She didn't speak, but something told my heart that the warrior was a woman.\"\n\n\"Did she see you?\"\n\n\"She turned her hidden face toward me and pointed at—\" Her own voice died suddenly; her eyes grew wide again, alarmed. But for once she shifted toward Vevay rather than away.\n\n\"At what?\" Vevay demanded, her voice rising in spite of herself.\n\n\"Thorns.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Job: User writes start, you add ~12 sentences sentences. Style: Particia A. McKillip. Note: May include established characters" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Once Axis had achieved his swift, stunning victory over Kaoldep and, by marriage and war, secured for Eben all the lands from one end to the other of the Serpent, poets began to take note of him in something other than their customary conceits. He had brought magic onto the battlefield in the terrifying form of Kane. His generals were astonished at the powers that roared and spat out of Kane's staff. Kane, fighting for her life with Axis, surprised even herself. Love kindled her fires, forged weapons that scorched the heels of the warriors of Kaoldep as they ran. Kaoldep, hitherto a tranquil realm full of fishers and farmers and rich cities along the delta where merchant ships wandering the Baltrean Sea docked and traded, was ill-prepared for war, especially for one of such ferocity. Axis had only to threaten to burn a city before the king surrendered, pleading for Axis to show mercy to his people. Axis, having got all he wanted, including Kane, declared himself Guardian of the Realm of the Serpent, left one of his generals to restore order to his new lands, and went back home to relax.\n\nHe grew restless quickly and summoned his counselors and generals; again Kane listened secretly.\n\n\"The river is not enough,\" he told them. \"Eben encompasses the Serpent, but why should I stop there? The world does not end at the boundaries of Eben.\"\n\nHis generals, who had seen for themselves the possibilities in Kane's power, responded with keen interest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One or two of his older counselors, who had lived through his father's wars and had grown fond of the peaceful interim during Telmenon's regency, expressed doubts." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My lord, the world, as you say, does not end with Eben; it is, in fact, a great deal bigger than your river kingdom. Beware that you don't rouse forces against you that even Kane cannot defeat.\"\n\n\"Who is this Kane, anyway?\" another murmured fretfully. \"How can you be certain he was not meant to gain your trust and then turn against you and take all of Eben for Ilicia? He came here as a trickster; now he is a sorcerer. What will we find him doing next? Let him show his face.\"\n\n\"I have seen his face,\" Axis said calmly. \"And I have seen into his heart. He will serve me faithfully, as he pledged, all the days of his life.\"\n\n\"My lord, you are young—\"\n\n\"Yes.\" He smiled at the aging counselors. \"I am the young Lion of Eben and I will fight until I find the one who can stop me. That one will have to kill me. To force Kane to reveal his face would be nothing more than an act of cruelty. If you insist, I will command him. You will only hurt him.\"\n\nThey grumbled more, then left the matter at that for a while; it was obvious that sowing doubts about Kane would not hold the Lion of Eben in his quiet lair. His younger generals, their blood roused by the easy victory, produced maps, suggestions, arguments. Axis listened to them all. Then, later in his secret chamber, he asked Kane what she thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They lay tangled in one another's arms, feeding one another almonds and dates, while around them the palace slept." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'could' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You are King of the River,\" Kane answered simply. \"Why not be Emperor of the Sea?\"\n\n\"The entire sea?\" Axis spat out a date pit and raised himself on one elbow to look at her.\n\n\"There are many rich port cities all around that inland sea. Why should they not belong to Eben?\"\n\nAxis counted kingdoms around the sea, using most of his fingers. \"Seven kings would ask me why they should belong to Eben.\" He looked at her again, his tawny eyes reflecting tears of fire from the candles. \"Can you fight seven kingdoms with me?\"\n\nKane nodded. \"I will be with you at every battle, as long as I am alive.\"\n\nShe had no idea if she could win seven battles for him; he had not asked her that. They were both testing their powers in those early years; they had no idea then to what lengths they could go. As always, Kane had no real interest in war, only in Axis." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If he put himself into danger, she would bring down the moon before she let him be harmed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At odd moments, she found herself missing her lazy afternoons in the courtyard, among the preening peacocks and the laughing children of her cousins, who had begun to marry, and the cheerful, incoherent comments of Axis's toothless daughter as she crowed in wonder at Kane's tricks. His heir, old enough to walk, had watched more soberly, his round plump face a mirror of his young mother's. But while Kane had lost the company of children, she had finally eased the painful hunger in her heart for Axis.\n\n\"We are twins,\" he told her more than once. \"Twin thoughts, twin hearts, twin powers. I have more ambition, but you have better ideas.\"\n\nShe had, that day: none of his generals had suggested expanding Eben to include all the kingdoms around the Baltrean Sea. One of them, as his counselors would have hastened to point out, covered as much territory as the six others together. But it was poor and scruffy, an old lion. Its harsh soil and steep, and mountains made it an unrewarding battlefield; its single port city was its only asset.\n\n\"Attack the most dangerous and best fortified first,\" Kane suggested. \"If it falls, the others will be afraid and more easily subdued.\"\n\n\"And Kirixia?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Save the largest for last. Your fierce and unconquerable army will close on it around both sides of the Baltrean Sea like a crab-claw. It will not even bother to fight,\" she promised recklessly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He laughed, excited by the notion. \"Then I shall be the Emperor of Water. And after that? What? The Emperor of Air?\"\n\n\"The Emperor of Fire,\" she said, her voice growing husky as she watched the candle fire melting across his golden skin. \"The Emperor of Night.\"\n\nHe became her nights, long before he conquered night itself. They did not have many alone in those first busy years. Axis's discretion guarded Kane from suspicion. No one could have connected the masked, scarecrow figure of the sorcerer with a secret lover of the king, especially not after Kane's face was finally exposed.\n\nShe had anticipated an assault from the first, out of mistrust, or jealousy, or simple curiosity. But two years at court had lulled her, and Kane's reputation on the battlefield should have been enough to cause any attacker a second thought. So she was prepared, when attack came, but had long forgotten the need to be.\n\nKane had been summoned to the courtyard gardens by the queen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So she had been told, to her surprise, for the queen had not permitted Kane around her children since the battles of Kaoldep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She felt watched as she made her way beneath an arched trellis of flowering vines toward the inner courtyard. But Kane had always been watched, every moment that the strange, faceless figure moved through the palace. The silence should have warned her. She heard the play of the fountains, the rustle of peacock feathers; she should have heard what she did not: the entwined voices of women and children. As she emerged from the end of the archway, what felt like a brick from the garden wall fell on her head.\n\nShe almost cried out, but she was too astonished to make a sound. In that moment she could not imagine what was happening, other than that a star had fallen out of the sky and now her head was pulsing fire. Then someone wrenched the staff from her hands, and she remembered that she was the mute, dangerous Kane. Someone else pulled a cloth tight against her eyes, wrenched her head back to tie it. She gasped with pain and tried to fight; she heard one or two muffled words. Her gauntlet hands were pinioned behind her back. Someone struck her face; she reeled, slumping against the trellis, smelling the sweet, crushed citrus-flowers under her." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your response should contain the word 'beneath' precisely 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Big, rough fingers began pulling at the veils around her face.\n\nShe struggled, but weakly, only enough to be convincing. A man snapped, \"Hold him. Be careful—Don't let him see us. We'll see for ourselves what you truly are beneath that sorcerer's mask.\"\n\n\"The veils are tied around his body, beneath his robes,\" another man grunted. \"I can't pull them up without—\"\n\n\"Cut them.\"\n\nKane felt the blade at her throat and froze. Silk ripped, fluttered away. For the first time in nearly two years she felt sunlight on her mouth.\n\nKane's mouth. The courtyard was suddenly very quiet, as though even the peacocks were dumb with horror. Then one of them screamed, a distant, fading sound. She heard the men breathing heavily as they stared at the grotesque, deformed face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They dropped him without a word and ran." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She lay there, waiting to be found rather than picking herself up and going off alone and invisible to care for herself. She had recognized the voice of one of Axis's aging counselors, who was clearly looking for a reason to curtail the king's exhausting impulses for war. He would not expect the sorcerer to remember him from a glimpse or two in the council-chamber. He did not realize that Kane had listened, mute and invisible, to everything he said to the king within that chamber.\n\nA servant found the dazed, bleeding Kane with the veil shredded over his horrifying face. Her shriek brought others. Shocked, babbling, they bore Kane inside, where, unaccountably, as they awaited the physician the patient disappeared. She limped outside to retrieve her staff, which one of her attackers had tossed on top of the trellis. Then she went to Axis's secret chamber, bound up her aching head with her veils, and fell asleep.\n\nAxis found her there later.\n\nShe woke to his eyes, wide and golden and unblinking, staring down at her. He leaned down, dropped a kiss as light as a breath on her bruised mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I will kill whoever did this.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had never heard his voice so devoid of all expression. \"Tell me who it was.\"\n\n\"Axis,\" she said. It hurt to talk, but she had to then, and fast.\n\n\"Tell me.\"\n\n\"I will.\" She touched his shoulder, his wrist, quick, soothing pats. \"I will. But you must listen to me.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"They had to—they had to know that Kane is not lying to you. That all his—that all my powers belong to you. They have to trust me. I let them—I let them see my face.\"\n\nHe blinked then, bewildered, and laid the back of his hand against her cheek. \"This face?\"\n\n\"Kane's face. Do you want to see it? I made it for them.\"\n\nHe gave a little, uncertain nod. Then he started as the face he loved rippled into something maimed, distorted, small eyes not quite level, one cheekbone bigger than the other, teeth wandering off in opposite directions beneath lips that could not possibly close over them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He swallowed; expression flowed back into his voice." }, { "from": "system", "value": "IMPORTANT: Your response must contain: \"No. You do not love Kane enough to kill for him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"That is the ugliest thing I have ever seen.\"\n\nShe smiled, then winced. \"That face loves you,\" she told him. \"It is the face of the wedding gift from Ilicia. The face of your power on the battlefield. Now they will all know that Kane is simply Kane, the magician turned sorcerer. Not someone sent to harm you.\"\n\n\"Still.\" He brushed her familiar face again with his hand. \"I will still kill whoever—\"\n\n\"No.\" Her fingers found his wrist, tightened. \"No. You do not love Kane enough to kill for him.\"\n\n\"Yes, I do.\"\n\n\"Not the Kane the others know. If you kill for me they will think you are somehow under my power, that you listen to me before you listen to them. Then they will fear me and plot against me. They must think only that I do your bidding because I have pledged my heart to you. That I have no power over you; all the power is truly yours.\"\n\nHis mouth tightened. He coaxed her up, untied the bloody cloth around her head, began to wash it gently until it came free from her hair. She sat quietly, leaning against his chest, her head over his shoulder like a child's. He spoke finally." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What do you want me to do?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"They did not do this to me. They did this to the Kane they know. What would you do for him?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not answer her then. By the end of the day, the entire palace knew of the attack on Kane. The mystery of his face, which had kept the court guessing since the wedding, was solved. It was every bit as hideous as he had promised. The incident also laid to rest a rumor that had come to Kane's attention recently: that the veiled sorcerer was in truth a beautiful woman who had been in love with Axis, and who had given herself to him as a wedding present. That drifted about as one of the many possible reasons why Axis spent a night now and then in his private chamber, isolated from all and giving no reason why. The glimpse of Kane's face would relieve the queen's mind, Kane knew, as well as her curiosity. The sorcerer was not someone to fear but someone to pity. The reason would be clear, and very simple now, why his love and his power belonged irrevocably to the comely and fearless young king.\n\nAxis said nothing about the incident until Kane was well enough, in a day or two, to come secretly to his council meeting. Then, he discussed Eben's strengths and weaknesses, and the possibilities for war, until one of his older counselors, who had been shifting restively, interrupted him.\n\n\"My lord, despite his great powers Kane does seem vulnerable. You cannot depend on him, even though his loyalty to you may be unquestionable.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Axis pondered the counselor's words impassively." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Work this phrase into your response organically: \"But, my lord, he is not invincible as you have heard. He can be incapacitated with nothing more than a stone.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Kane, standing in her customary shadow, invisible to all, recognized the voice.\n\n\"You advise me to go to battle without him?\" the king asked.\n\n\"No, my lord—\"\n\n\"Then with him.\"\n\nThe counselor sighed. \"You cannot fight all the kingdoms around the Baltrean Sea without him.\"\n\n\"I agree with you.\"\n\n\"But, my lord, he is not invincible as you have heard. He can be incapacitated with nothing more than a stone.\"\n\n\"Then,\" Axis said very softly, while the counselor's face grew suddenly waxen beneath his graying beard, \"we will make sure that you are never behind him, because only you know what weapon might defeat him.\" He paused; the room was so quiet that Kane could hear the sobbing coo of mourning doves in the gardens. \"Since you seem so reluctant to go to battle,\" Axis continued, \"you give me no choice but to believe that you would be much happier within the peaceful walls of your own home. A pity. We will miss your counsel.\"\n\n\"But, my lord—\"\n\n\"You will leave tomorrow,\" Axis said inflexibly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm sure your family will greet your return with great relief.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "How his family would have felt no one ever knew, for the counselor never reached his home." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He and his entourage were set upon by bandits in the rocky hills north of the palace, and his body returned home without him. Upon receiving the news, Axis proclaimed a day of mourning for the man who had counseled two kings and a regent. He spent most of the day in private with Kane.\n\nShortly afterward, with Kane at his side, Axis began his great campaign against the Baltrean kingdoms.\n\nSeven kingdoms fell\n\nTo the Emperor of the Sea.\n\nSeven crowns he took,\n\nSeven pearls of the waters of the Baltrean.\n\nHe ringed the sea with the dead\n\nUntil the living cried out for mercy.\n\nWith the Faceless One beside him\n\nThe Emperor walked on water across the Baltrean" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Where armies threw down their arms" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And his name echoed among the mountains of Kirixia." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "u know Particia A. McKillip? write like that. seven sentences sentences. Fantasy stuff. this is from middle of story" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nepenthe sat hunched over her desk, staring at fish." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They were trying to speak, standing on mouths and tails and back-fins to say baskets of grain, slabs of salt, jars of olives and wine. Her eyes saw them, but they could not swim into language through her head. Something blocked their way, a stubborn vision that refused either to make itself real or to go away. It just stayed there, maddeningly silent, refusing to answer questions and refusing to let the fish speak.\n\nGo away, Nepenthe told it coldly, even while she could hear her own heart pleading, Come. Come.\n\nIt did neither. She grasped great swaths of her hair in her hands and tugged, rocking her head this way and that. Even that would not dislodge Bourne's face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was stuck there in her brain like an elusive pebble in a stocking, constantly annoying, impossible to ignore." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Where are you? she pleaded; it did not answer. Bourne." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where have you gone?\n\n\"What are you doing?\"\n\nShe opened her eyes, met the amazed gaze of the scholar, who had wandered down to see how she fared with his fish. \"Oh,\" she said shortly, uninterested in his face. She let go of her hair and picked up her pen. \"I'm almost finished.\"\n\n\"Have the fish suddenly become that frustrating?\"\n\n\"No.\" She tried to write a perfunctory word; the nib was bone dry." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then it must be a two-legged frustration,\" he suggested shrewdly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"An earth-dweller,\" she agreed moodily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Master Croysus straddled a hefty pile of tomes on the floor, looking open to diversion. His face, she saw, had regained a healthier complexion; his eyes looked nearly human again. The coronation celebrations in the world above must be waning.\n\n\"Any surprises?\" he asked.\n\n\"Among the fish? I'm having difficulty with this one with its body full of bubbles. It doesn't appear on any of the other lists.\"\n\nHe leaned forward to study it. \"Pearls?\" he suggested tentatively. \"Coins?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a brief moment, she forgot Bourne's face. \"Scales?\"\n\nThey regarded one another with conjecture. \"No,\" the scholar said heavily. \"Not scales.\"\n\n\"No,\" Nepenthe echoed, sighing; they were after all not really fish, and a measuring scale in any language would most likely not resemble a fish scale. She nibbled on the end of her pen, while Bourne's face surfaced again in her head, predictably as sunrise. \"I thought,\" she added, \"you would have gone home by now.\"\n\n\"So did I,\" Master Croysus said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He shifted a tome under one buttock and lowered his voice. \"There are rumors of trouble. But no one is talking.\"\n\nNepenthe took her pen out of her mouth and wove it into her hair, struggling to understand. \"Rumors. How can you hear rumors if nobody—\"\n\n\"Nobody knows what is going on. Yesterday nobody would go home; today, suddenly, everyone wants to. But it's never convenient; the queen summons the nobles for meetings, then puts them off; they cannot leave. The rulers have been summoned to yet another assembly, but it must wait for the return to the court of Lord Ermin of Seale; the reason for the assembly is vague and keeps changing. The court is uneasy; no one explains. Even the folk on the plain are packing their wagons and drifting away, but the rest of us cannot seem to find an open door.\"\n\nNepenthe grunted, her thoughts straying. Perhaps Bourne—But he didn't need a door, open or shut, she reminded herself." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All he had to do was—\n\n\"Think of me,\" she whispered. Something pinched the back of her throat; she swallowed.\n\n\"What?\"\n\nShe tossed the pen down. \"Nothing.\"\n\nMaster Croysus was still brooding over court matters. \"So you see, you do have more time to attend to my fish. You should be able to finish before we leave. Whenever that might be. But don't move them from this place, whatever you do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I won't.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If we must leave quickly for some reason, in the middle of the night for instance, I want to know where to find them.\"\n\nShe looked at him silently; again Bourne melted out of her head, like light in the path of a cloud. \"What is happening up there?\" she asked softly, suddenly uneasy herself, wondering how an entire library might flee in the dark, and to where. But Master Croysus did not hear her; he was gazing at her again, fixedly, but without seeing her. \"I know!\" he exclaimed abruptly, and she jumped. \"I know where I have seen your face!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My face,\" she repeated blankly.\n\n\"I've been trying to remember, since I first saw you.\"\n\n\"You've seen me before?\"\n\n\"In the margin of a very old book.\"\n\n\"It's not my face, if it's in some old book.\"\n\n\"Yes, it is,\" he said intractably, and stood up. \"I'll find the book and prove it to you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bemused, she watched him retreat down the hallway, leaving her to the dead silence of books and stones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She studied the fish full of bubbles again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bourne's face came between them, filling her eyes, filling her mind with memories, longings, unanswerable questions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Where are you? she wanted to shout, but only the stones would answer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She gave up on the fish finally, forgot the scholar, and carried her pens and ink to the secret place where she had hidden the thorns.\n\nThey wouldn't stay hidden long, she knew, if Bourne stepped out of nowhere to find her. But after three days without a glimpse of him, she did not care where he found her. The students sometimes had tests, he had told her; entire days when they could not leave the school or the wood until some mysterious thing happened to give them deeper insight into magic. But he had not come that evening when he promised he would. She had waited for him in the refectory until the fire had died and only a taper or two remained alight. Laidley, aware of her unhappiness, had told her that Bourne had appeared earlier that day in the library and had gone to look for her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He had not found her. He had not returned at supper time. Nor the following day, nor the day after that. Nor had he sent any explanation or excuse, in any alphabet. Laidley's silence about the matter grew so pointed that by the third day Nepenthe wanted to throw the meal-gong at him.\n\n\"Just say it,\" she had flared at him finally as they ate their porridge that morning. \"Say I told you so.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He could not even be honest." }, { "from": "human", "value": "His brows rose owlishly as he swallowed a bite." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm surprised,\" he managed finally." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"He is a hummingbird, quick wings, no thoughts, flitting lightly from heart to heart—I knew that. I knew it before we ever kissed.\"\n\n\"He was worried about you, when you hid the thorns from us. We both went searching for you; we were supposed to meet again, but he vanished. For all I know he might still be wandering around the library, completely lost—\"\n\n\"He could find me.\" She stared down at her porridge; his face was even there, between her and breakfast. She flung her spoon into the bowl and stood up. \"He could find me in a step,\" she whispered. \"He could find me with a thought. If he wanted.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She left Laidley making incoherent comments about troublesome times, and went to work on the fish manuscript, where Bourne could find her easily if he wished." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He didn't. The scholar did." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And now she consoled herself among her thorns, bewildered and hurt, hiding from Bourne and hoping against hope that he would find her there." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'might' appears 3 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The thorns themselves were becoming pricklier, as though Axis's acquisition of most of the known world around Eben demanded a more complex language. Kingdoms Nepenthe had never heard of fell to his armies. He seemed equally insatiable and invulnerable, collecting more crowns in half a decade than the kings of Raine had in a thousand years. And every ruler, every realm had a name like a bramble bush. She might, Nepenthe decided reluctantly, have to tell Laidley where she had concealed herself, so that he could continue to help her with the historical names. At the same time, while Axis blazed his way across the map of his world and poets celebrated his victories with endless superlatives, Kane's thoughts began to require a larger vocabulary. Puzzling concepts, that might or might not make sense, grew under Nepenthe's pen." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tangled thorns hinted at ideas that connected in some skewed fashion, or possibilities requiring obscure tenses, maybe past or maybe future." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nepenthe, scratching her head over them, forgot about Bourne for entire minutes as she tried to untangle the canes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She worked all afternoon after the scholar had left her, and into the evening, mesmerized by the new difficulties, and comforted, every time she realized that for a sentence or even half a page, she had not thought about Bourne. She did not think about supper either; the gong rang only distantly beyond the thorns.\n\nShe put down her pen finally, yawning, and realized then how dark the library had grown around her. A single candle glowed in the distance, as someone walked down the corridor. She watched it, surprised. She had taken the thorns into a chamber full of antiquities, texts chiseled into slabs of broken sandstone and wax and marble, painted on tanned hides, carved into bone and horn. Only visiting scholars ever came that far down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps, she thought with a twinge of alarm, Master Croysus was truly fleeing in the middle of the night and had come looking for her." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'supper' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But it was Laidley.\n\nHe sat down among the ruins, letting an armload of books slide to the floor beside him.\n\n\"I was worried,\" he said simply, \"when you didn't come to supper. I've been looking for you everywhere.\"\n\n\"Well, you found me,\" she answered brusquely, for he was not Bourne, and he had invaded her hiding place. Then she relented, for she needed him. \"Did I miss supper?\"\n\n\"By several hours.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Laidley, was there a kingdom called Auravia?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He gazed at her a moment expressionlessly before he answered. \"Yes. There was. It existed nine hundred years after Axis was born.\"\n\n\"Nine hundred.\"\n\n\"Yes. I told you so. I told you that whoever wrote that was jumbling everything together, regardless of historical order.\"\n\nBut she only nibbled a thumbnail, intrigued. \"Maybe. But Kane knows she is doing it. I think she does. That would explain some of the passages.\"\n\nLaidley ground a fist against one eye, looking aggrieved." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"That makes no sense.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. But it means my translation does.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laidley banged his head against the shard of marble behind him. \"Now you're making no sense.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"Read it to me.\"\n\nShe mulled that over, eyeing him. She had grown into the strange alphabet, she knew; she could recognize more than words. But she did not know what names belonged where in Kane's world, and Laidley would." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If he didn't, he would know where to find out. Unlike Bourne, he had no fear of an ancient, harmless language. He would not threaten to take it away from her; he was capable of getting as ensnared as she.\n\nThe thought of Bourne blew a dreary mist into the region of her heart. She slumped over her work, lonely for him, wondering where in the night he was, what he was doing, whether he was thinking about her at all. The thorns, she remembered, kept her mind off him. Another long night of wondering waited for her inside her chamber." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Better to read to Laidley and keep him awake than be kept awake by the utter silence out of the mages' school.\n\nSo she began to read what she had translated since she had disappeared with the thorns.\n\nThey both fell asleep, among the dusty, forgotten oddments of language, before she finished.\n\nNepenthe dreamed that Bourne was calling her over and over. But he could not say her name right because he did not know the language. Every time he called, another word in the form of a bramble came out of him. A wall of thorns began to coil up around him, hiding him from Nepenthe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She could not answer because he could not say her name correctly in thorns; he would not stop calling until she answered. Suddenly terrified, she began to shout her name to him, trying to tell him how to say it. He could not seem to hear her in his prison of thorns; words that did not mean her kept growing until she could only see the top of his golden head.\n\nAnd then his hair turned into the top of a black hood, just visible above the thorns, and a strange voice said her name.\n\nShe woke herself trying to repeat it. Something with a shell in it? Or was it a moth?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Nepenthe,\" said the gong, shivering through the silence, and again, in Laidley's voice: \"Nepenthe.\"\n\n\"No,\" she protested, for the name was fading and fading like the sound of the gong. \"That wasn't it.\"\n\nShe opened her eyes finally and found it was morning.\n\nShe had fallen asleep on the floor with her translation in her lap and her cheek imprinted with a raised wax word of uncertain origin. Laidley, using his armload of books for a pillow, blinked at her sleepily.\n\n\"I don't remember,\" he said hazily, \"how much you read and how much I dreamed. In my dreams, Axis went back and forth.\"\n\nShe straightened stiffly, pushing hair out of her eyes. \"He was pacing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. He went back and forth. He didn't care.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<EMBED THIS>>: \"You'll have to read it to me again. It all seems like a dream.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Laidley, what are you talking about?\"\n\n\"Back and forth,\" Laidley repeated stubbornly and pulled himself up among the shards. \"You'll have to read it to me again. It all seems like a dream.\"\n\n\"Laidley. Say my name.\"\n\n\"Nepenthe,\" he said, yawning.\n\nShe shook her head. \"That doesn't sound anything like my name.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'answer' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You're an orphan,\" he reminded her. \"You don't know your own name.\"\n\n\"Yes, I do. When I hear it, I know it. I wasn't always an orphan. Someone said my real name in my dream.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nAbout to answer, she stopped, for that answer made no more sense than Laidley's dream. She said it anyway, puzzling over it. \"Kane.\" Laidley only grunted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She sucked a breath then, and whispered, \"And Bourne. He was calling me. Again and again.\"\n\n\"Did you answer?\"\n\n\"No. How could I? He didn't know my name.\"\n\nLaidley blinked at her. She gathered the pages in her lap and stood up, forgetting why, looking aimlessly around the chamber as though for the wall of thorns.\n\n\"Dreams,\" Laidley murmured. \"Wishes.\"\n\n\"Maybe. But someone was calling me, and I heard my name.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She felt close to tears, of longing and frustration, for it was another matter entirely, the secret language of dreams. It refused to answer questions except in its own language, and that changed nightly. \"I don't know either what is real and what is past,\" she cried suddenly to Laidley.\n\nHe swallowed, said only, gravely, \"What can I do to help?\"\n\n\"If I give you a list of kings and kingdoms, can you find them for me?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then at least we'll know that much.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\"\n\n\"What was real for Axis and Kane,\" she said, and in that moment she understood the language of Laidley's dream. \"Back and forth,\" she whispered. \"Back and forth.\" Her fingers went to her mouth, icy with shock. \"Oh, Laidley.\"\n\n\"Try not to worry,\" he said groggily, gathering up his stack of books. \"I think he loves you. I wouldn't say that unless I did.\"\n\nHe wandered out to follow the smell of breakfast." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nepenthe, still transfixed, watched him go." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She came to life again finally, sank back down among the thorns, and picked up her pen." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a segment from a longer work then you need to write around 6 sentences continuing directly from it. Try to mimic the style of Particia A. McKillip in the Fantasy genre. Note that characters may appear without introduction." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The queen was in the wood, looking for thorns.\n\nIf, she reasoned, thorns threatened the Twelve Crowns, then they must be something more than a bramble bush. They would be thorns of great power and magic, like the wood, which was the only source of power Tessera knew. Besides Vevay, that is. But even Vevay seemed uncertain of the origins and capabilities of the mysterious wood. The armed ghost of the first ruler of Raine had appeared there to warn Tessera: even the dead were drawn to it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The queen was supposed to be somewhere that morning, meeting with someone, while keeping someone else uneasily waiting, and sending a summons throughout the palace for yet another noble, or half a dozen of them; she had lost track. Vevay kept everyone on edge, ruthlessly demanding the guests' constant attendance to the whims of the queen, while refusing to answer any questions. Rumors like mythical beasts stalked the hallways, colorful, dangerous, and improbable. Only the family of the Lord of Seale had been allowed to leave, without fanfare and at some inconvenient hour. At least that was Vevay's explanation of their invisibility. They were actually under guard in the lower chambers of Vevay's tower, where they had stunning views of the plain and the sea, and no comforts whatsoever beyond that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tessera doubted that Vevay would notice her absence that morning; not even the mage could always remember whom she had told to do what." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thorns,\" Tessera whispered to the wood." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thorns. Tell me what they mean. Tell me where they are.\"\n\nShe wandered among the silent trees; nothing spoke. Beyond the wood, spring winds roared over the plain; brilliant, tattered clouds raced their shadows across the grass. The folk still on the plain huddled around their fires, or in their wagons. Tessera wondered why they stayed, what they expected. Perhaps a feeling in their bones kept them lingering close to what they thought might protect them best." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps they had tossed their carved pigs' knuckles and read the warnings in them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "On their brightly painted cards the sun fell out of the sky, or a storm of stars like flaming arrows burned away the night." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nowhere to go to escape such disasters, so why go anywhere? The new queen, protecting herself, would protect them all.\n\nThe new queen, questing patiently for thorns, could not find so much as a raspberry cane. She roamed, hoping for a talking bird, a wise word dropping from a tree. But everything seemed half asleep that morning, under patches of shadow and mist, exuding dreams like the faint breath of warmth out of a dying ember. Moving like a swimmer underwater through their dreams, Tessera felt herself fill with scents, obscure memories, words without sound." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Peace, layered in rings of wood rippling out from the word, was one of the dreams; she breathed it in, or swallowed it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now she lumbered like a tree, heavy with time, her thoughts too slow for words, her outward body a small, unwieldy thing crusted with bark, her hair doing inexplicable things on top of her head.\n\nIn this guise, barely remembering herself, she came upon the giant in the wood.\n\nShe remembered him well enough: his immense, thewed shoulders, his bald head and broad, expressionless face. The last time she saw him, he had chased her out of the wood. This time, she would not run. Like the folk on the plain, she had nowhere else to go, and he knew the wood better than she." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He did not recognize her, with her thoughts disguised in tree bark and her hair full of leafing twigs. Around her, she felt the wood stir out of its dreaming, quicken with interest to listen.\n\n\"Giant,\" she said; how her voice came out of her, she wasn't sure. \"You must help me. You may roar at me and threaten until your teeth fly out of your head, but I will not leave this wood. You must show me where the thorns are hidden.\"\n\nA strange expression slid from within the giant's bones, seeped across his face. He said, \"Tessera?\"\n\nShe felt herself dwindle back into Tessera-shape at the word." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'giant' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Still she didn't run. The wood was watching; it hid things from her that she wanted. The armed warrior with her beautiful, courageous face and her great sword still rode in the queen's heart, ready to battle for her.\n\nShe said coldly, \"Yes. I am the Queen of Raine, and I need every giant and every bird and every listening leaf in this land to help me before we are all destroyed.\"\n\nThe giant said gravely, \"I will help you. Come with me.\"\n\nHe turned; she followed him to his lair." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He led her through a doorway in a great stone wall so high and so wide that its true dimensions were lost within the trees." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once inside, he vanished." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tessera lingered at the threshold, expecting mischief in some startling form. Nothing happened. A long hallway stretched away from her on both sides, lined with many closed doors. All of them were different: dark and square, rounded and painted, carved and oblong, latched with iron, or wood, or gilded metal; one had a window of colored glass; another was fashioned of three rough-hewn planks and wooden nails with heads as wide as the giant's thumbnail. She waited for him to leap out of one door or another. He didn't. He had promised to help her, and had led her to this place with many closed doors. Behind which might be anything, including, she realized suddenly, what she had asked for." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Thorns,\" she breathed, and opened the nearest door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There they were: an enormous, leafless tangled hillock of brambles with wicked spikes of thorns covering the floor. As she stared at them, they began snaking up the walls of the room they had overrun. She felt the door pull out of her hand and turned to see it slam shut, then melt into the stones. Such was the nature of the giant's mischief, she thought grimly: she was trapped in a room full of what she had asked for, and no way out. She could hear them sliding over the stones, scratching like claws. For an instant, she wanted to melt into tears and wail for help like a baby." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But this was nothing, she reminded herself, compared to the imminent disaster that had caused the ancient, sleeping ruler of Raine to sit bolt upright in her tomb. A room full of thorns. Nothing.\n\nThey were magic, living things, like the trees in the wood, so she spoke to them.\n\n\"I am here,\" she told them as they began to coil toward her feet. \"The Queen of Raine. If you mean to destroy the Twelve Crowns of Raine, then begin the battle with me.\"\n\nThey spoke in her mind then, as they whispered across the stones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The great pile that appeared in her thoughts grew leaves, opened blooms of white and pink and scarlet until the hillock they showed her was green as the grass on the plain, and she couldn't see the thorns for the leaves, nor the leaves for the flowers. She gazed bewilderedly at the bleak, naked canes twining over her boots, and was suddenly illumined.\n\n\"Oh!\" she cried. \"You want light.\" She looked around her hastily: four walls and a ceiling of solid stone, and not even a door left that they could crawl out of. How could she give them light so that the hungry canes could bud? They were growing importunate, snagging on the hem of her skirt, a great spiky animal wanting to be fed the sun." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Giant!\" she called nervously as a bramble touched her wrist. \"Open the door! We can't get out.\"\n\nThe giant, a creature of impulse, had tricked her, it seemed; he did not answer. She gazed desperately at the walls, searching for a chink, a crack in the mortar, a glimpse of day through the ceiling. The canes had wrapped themselves around her ankles now. She couldn't feel the thorns through her boots but she would fall among them if she tried to walk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A memory glanced through her head: the armed, faceless warrior in the wood, pointing her gauntlet hand in warning at the brambles.\n\n\"If only I had your sword,\" she said breathlessly as a thorn tugged on her skirt, \"I could knock out a few of these stones—\"\n\nShe felt the dead weight of it in her hand, and nearly dropped it. She could scarcely see it; it was a silver streak of air and a glimmer of jewel. But it dragged at her hold like all the Twelve Crowns at once, and she dared not drop it lest it vanish again. Her mouth pinched; she felt a crown of sweat bead her brow as she gripped it with both hands, and with more effort than she had put into anything in her life, she found muscles she rarely used and forced the blade of the sword up, then over her shoulder." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Shaking, her arms and back aching with the strain, she heaved, spun the blade forward and let it fly at the far wall.\n\nStones rained down. She shrieked, covering her head, then peered under one elbow at the light pouring from the jagged hole in the wall. Beyond it the wood watched, trees whispering; a bird chuckled. A tide of brambles flowed out of the wall into spring. When they loosed Tessera finally, she followed them, relieved to be leaving the giant's house.\n\nThe wall closed behind the last bramble, left her trapped again within stones." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She beat at them; they refused to budge. After a moment, a door formed noiselessly under her fists. It was a simple affair of wood and whitewash, with a brass latch. She glanced behind her; the door through which she had entered the room was still nowhere to be seen.\n\nShe sighed and opened the second door.\n\nThe giant stood waiting for her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said nothing, just blew a great breath at her that slammed the door and pushed her backward into it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She nearly fell over when he ran out of breath. Indignant, she filled her lungs and blew back at him, a feeble breath that stirred a few dust motes in the air between them. He laughed a booming laugh that shook the floorboards. Furious with him for toying with her, she drew breath and blew again, noisily and gracelessly, like a bellows. She thought she saw one eye flutter; his laughter grew a little hollow. The next breath she loosed at him lifted him off his feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Obstinately, he was grinning as he got up off the floor. Still he didn't speak. He threw something at her that looked like a little ball of fire. She ducked. It smacked the door and set it on fire.\n\nGasping, she flung herself away. He had already tossed another ball." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She ran; it struck the floor where she had been and set that on fire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She fled across the room, watching him, breathless and astonished, as he pulled another burning ball out of his sleeve, or out of the air. Magic, she thought as she dodged this one. But the fires burning the floorboards and the door were real enough: she felt the painful heat, heard wood sizzle and snap.\n\nThe giant formed another ball. This time she did not run; she narrowed her eyes and stood ground grimly, tired of being batted around by this mindless hulk in his confusing house. When he threw, she blew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The ball of fire stopped in midair and bounced back at him.\n\nHe caught it, laughing again, and dropped it down his sleeve. \"Good,\" he grunted. \"You fought beyond your fear and began to think.\"\n\nThe fires around them vanished at the sound of his voice. She stood panting, staring at him incredulously. An odd feeling spilled through her, filling her like steam fills a pot; when she finally found her voice, it sounded a little like steam blasting the lid off the pot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How dare you?\" she demanded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Angrier than she had ever been in her life, she did not even know the word for what she felt. \"Who are you?\"\n\nBut he was gone suddenly, and so was the door.\n\nA third door formed in the wall ahead of her.\n\nThe strange tempest in her had blown itself out. She gazed wearily at the door, tired of being tormented and teased, and frightened. She was uncomfortably aware that she had misjudged something; she was looking at something askew, not seeing what was in front of her nose." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The giant, perhaps, was not a giant? The magical house, perhaps, was not a house?\n\nPerhaps she was not even herself?\n\nShe had wielded the sword of the first queen of Raine; she had blown a giant off his feet and outwitted him; she had brought light to a place with no light; she had understood the magic of the thorns.\n\n\"I don't know anymore what I am,\" she whispered to the door, and put her hand on the latch. It seemed that, opening it, she would understand something she was not sure she wanted to know." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no other way out. She drew close to the door, still holding its simple wooden latch, and bowed her head against the unseasoned planks.\n\n\"I wish,\" she told it, \"that you would just let me back into the wood.\"\n\nIt opened to yet another room; in this one she found Vevay.\n\nTessera looked at the mage silently, not recognizing the expression on her face at all. She said tentatively, wondering if it were just another teasing bit of magic, \"Vevay?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes,\" Vevay said simply. She did not move; Tessera took a step toward her.\n\n\"You look unfamiliar. What have you been thinking?\"\n\n\"I was remembering,\" the mage said. \"Things that I had forgotten long ago... You reminded me that they are still there, buried away underneath the years.\" She moved finally, turning, and Tessera saw the door appear in the wall in front of the mage, as though she, too, had been trapped in the giant's house." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But it had not been a giant, and it was not a house... Vevay opened the door; Tessera saw the green wood just outside." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Vevay stood aside, waiting for the queen to pass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She took a step then stopped before she crossed the threshold, said without looking at Vevay, \"This is the mages' school.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And the giant. He is a mage.\"\n\n\"Felan. You met him once before, when your father took you with him to visit the school. You were very young; you might have remembered him as a giant.\"\n\nTessera nodded. She shifted to take another step but didn't. \"And what am I?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You tell me,\" Vevay said.\n\nTessera looked at her finally. The ancient, beautiful face held many complex things that she had not seen before she began to see herself.\n\nShe answered softly, \"I will.\"\n\n\"I was searching for you. Felan sent word that you were here. The Lord of Seale did not wait for your messengers to summon him back to court; he is already on his way here.\" She paused, her smoky eyes hooded, watching something in the distance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He is bringing his army with him.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tessera turned her head, gazed blindly at the trees. She moved finally, stepped into the unpredictable world that, like all the rooms in the giant's house, had no way out but through." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writing buddy needed! eight sentences more in Particia A. McKillip's voice. Fantasy genre. this is from a bigger story btw" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Emperor of the Sea was not content." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Neither were his armies, which had grown substantially as he made his way around the Baltrean, swollen with warriors from other lands whose heads were stuffed with dreams of glory and plunder." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Axis seemed invincible. After Kirixia fell to him, almost without a fight since its ruler had fled before the armies of Eben had even gotten there, he lingered to rest on the sunny Baltrean shores." }, { "from": "human", "value": "As always, he left as much unchanged as he could in the lands he conquered." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'careful' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For most, daily life continued much as it had before; only the faces of authority were different. He chose a careful combination of alien conqueror and pragmatic locals to restore peace and preserve order. Aware that an empire begins to crumble the moment the emperor turns his back, he did what he could that was shrewd and prudent to maintain it. Then he turned his back, for his first love was war.\n\nAfter every campaign, no matter how distant, he returned to Eben. He was most careful with it, since he had almost lost it once. There, while he attended to its affairs, his thoughts would inevitably stray beyond the boundaries of Eben, of his empire, to find his next battlefield. His army, well paid and sheltered between wars, waited patiently tor him to decide." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was becoming a fearsome thing, that army of Eben; it was as complicated to handle as an empire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The queen hated it when it took Axis away from Eben, and feared it when he brought it home." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It had become a great killing machine, a monster that ate entire kingdoms. If Axis failed to provide for it, it would consume Eben. So she complained to the king, who listened gravely to his wife, and answered simply, \"Then I will find it new worlds to conquer, and it will never turn on me.\"\n\nIt was full of strangers, the emperor's army, foreign faces and languages, customs, experiences, warriors who were newly part of the empire and inspired by the young emperor's astonishing victories. Kane, who fought its battles with it, who drifted at night from campfire to campfire, a stray shadow listening to comments, complaints, tales, recognized it as a source for Axis's new worlds. Thus, from a warrior born in Kirixia, whose father had been a trader, she heard of an immense, fabulous kingdom east of the Baltrean, full of exotic beasts, untold wealth, and poetry as old as the world.\n\nWhen, in Eben, she recognized the signs of restlessness in the Emperor of the Sea, she told him what she had heard.\n\nThey lay together, as usual during their most important councils of war, in the placid palace beside the Serpent." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include 'gilyriad' 2 time(s) in your answer - no more, no less" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Does this land have a name?\" Axis asked. Around them, the palace was hushed and dark; a single stand of candles showed them one another's face.\n\n\"It's called Gilyriad.\"\n\n\"Gilyriad. I've never heard of it.\" He dropped kisses like warm rain in the crooks of her elbows, in the hollow of her throat. \"Does it really exist?\"\n\n\"I will find out,\" Kane promised.\n\nShe had her ways, which she only explained to Axis if he asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He rode the twin dragons of empire and war; he had little time to wonder about her sorcery. It existed; she used it for his purposes; it was too complex for him to comprehend, and so he rarely asked. When he did, her answers were frustratingly vague. How could she travel across a battlefield in a breath, so that if he said her name or thought it, there she was beside him?\n\n\"I feel you call me,\" she said. \"I take a step.\" But how? \"I make the shortest path to you.\" How did she find the shortest path?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I eliminate everything that isn't you.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "How, he asked incredulously, can you eliminate a battlefield?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She tried to explain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It goes elsewhere. Like a pattern on a cloth when you fold it. One end is you, the other end is me. When you lay the cloth flat, we are far apart across the pattern. When you bring one end of the cloth to meet the other, there is no longer any distance between them. The pattern is still there, but no longer between us. It is elsewhere. We are together.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "In this fashion she traveled to other places: the docks on the delta where the Serpent flowed into the sea, for instance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There she listened and questioned until she found a trader who claimed to have traveled to Gilyriad." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He showed her seed pods that, crushed, became richly scented spices." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He showed her cloth of a strange airy weave dyed unusual colors, and pottery glazed with unfamiliar patterns. He held fine-grained aromatic wood to her nose and opened elegantly wrought chests full of uncut jewels and disks of gold stamped with the faces of rulers she did not recognize.\n\nShe brought one of the disks back to Axis.\n\n\"A coin,\" she told him, \"from your next conquest.\"\n\nHe studied the face on the disk: a proud, hawk-nosed, disdainful profile. \"I will need a map,\" he murmured, \"to show to my generals.\" He laid the coin in her hand, closed her fingers over it. \"When I am Emperor of Gilyriad, spend this in the marketplace on a piece of cloth with a pattern on it that goes elsewhere when we are together.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She smiled. \"I will spend it on a map of the world. Not even that can separate us.\"\n\nIf, she reasoned, the maps of the world she knew showed only the world she knew, then the maps in the world of Gilyriad would show the world as it was known there, which might indeed encompass lands unknown in Eben for the emperor to conquer. She continued her search among traders and sailors, for they roamed farther than the merchants' ships could go in the sheltered Baltrean Sea. She learned of long, arduous trade routes over mountains and plains east of the Baltrean, where tribes of nomads and vast herds of peculiar animals roamed on paths formed over countless centuries by their ancestors. Thus the world changed its shape in Kane's mind, stunningly and irrevocably. In the mind of the young girl on the bank of the Serpent, the world had been exactly the size and shape of Eben. Now it was shifting rapidly into something unimaginably huge and complex. Axis wanted to lead his army across that complexity and conquer whatever kingdoms he had missed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He depended upon Kane to show him the way.\n\nShe bought maps where she could get them, from sailors along the shores of the Baltrean. A couple she stole, for the trade routes leading to rich, exotic cities were the well-kept secrets of wealthy merchants. She laid them side by side in Axis's secret chamber, where he walked barefoot among them, studied them silently for a long time. Then he looked at her. She felt her throat swell at the expression in his eyes. In that moment they both knew that the world at his feet belonged to him.\n\nOut of the mountains of Kol" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Emperor's army poured like water" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Onto the plains of Gilyriad." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like the stars,\n\nNameless, countless,\n\nLike the endless drops of rain\n\nWere the masked faces of the warriors of Eben.\n\nThe trumpets of Gilyriad sounded,\n\nBone and brass shouted across the land\n\nLike the battle-cries of fierce beasts\n\nRushing to meet their doom." }, { "from": "system", "value": "<<USAGE LIMIT>>: 'axis's' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And doom it was for Gilyriad, after three days, or thirty days, or ninety days and ninety nights of constant battle, depending upon which poet wrote of it. On his march from Eben to Gilyriad, Axis's army had indeed grown like a river, as nomadic warriors and mercenaries streamed into it. Kane fought always at Axis's side through the long battle. Even she lost track of time, for they scarcely slept, and her powers could light up a battlefield even at night. The victory was never in question. But the proud ruler of Gilyriad did not easily give up the land his ancestors had held since the beginnings of language to this masked raider who came out of Nowhere.\n\nThe Lion of Eben\n\nRaised the severed head" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of the King of Gilyriad by his hair" }, { "from": "human", "value": "To let him look" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "One last time at his land.\n\nA great cry echoed across the plain\n\nFrom the mouth of the dead king to his people:\n\n\"Bow low, touch your mouths to the dust,\n\nFor this is the Emperor of the World.\" Actually, the King of Gilyriad was on his feet with his head on his shoulders when he surrendered his army and his kingdom to Axis. He killed himself not long afterward, unable to endure his humiliation. Axis sent his sons to govern remote areas conquered by Gilyriad during its long history." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They became minor princelings themselves; Axis had them carefully watched through their lives, for any signs of rebellion and revenge." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He himself did not return to Eben for nearly a year. He explored his new acquisition and dealt with its governing bodies. On Kane's advice, when he did return to Eben, he left a great part of the immense swarm that was his army in Gilyriad.\n\nWhile Axis was putting the realm in order, Kane gave deep and careful thought to their situation. Gilyriad was a sprawling, fertile land, well able to contain the emperor's army. Camped near a wealthy city, it was well fed and kept in order. By then, contrary to the fears of the Queen of Eben, it was fiercely and passionately devoted to the emperor, for he had made it, in a few short years, the matter of legend and epic. Axis's army would have followed him anywhere." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He expected Kane to tell him where.\n\nShe traveled through Gilyriad with Axis, staying in the great palaces and cities. While he set his governing bodies in place, she spoke to scholars and explored libraries. For this she used interpreters who had once been sailors or caravan leaders, wanderers who had come to the end of their roads in Gilyriad. Very few people had ever heard of Eben before they suddenly found themselves under its rule. The scholars showed her ancient texts, tried to find ways of explaining them. She demonstrated her powers; illumined, they produced even older words, and took her to meet local witches, sorcerers, and healers. She learned odd, stray things from them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Mostly she offered them gold in return, for they were a wild, scruffy lot underappreciated by those who consulted them.\n\nSometimes she spent entire days in the sumptuous gardens, listening while scholars and interpreters read to her. The histories and epics they read were of long-dead heroes, kingdoms with little left of them but their names. They showed her maps of the world according to Gilyriad. A great ocean lay to the east; it had no beginning and no end. No one who ventured forth to find the other side of it had ever returned. Therefore there was no end. Kane nodded solemnly. The ocean went on forever, gradually flowing into the stars, which also went on forever." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "All that existed lay flat, like a great cloth. All intelligent people had believed, until the emperor had come out of the Gates of Nowhere, that the pattern of the earth on the fabric of existence was roughly the size and shape of Gilyriad.\n\nNow that they realized their error, the scholars asked Kane to change the shape of the world for them. She drew them the world as she knew it, though she made Eben about ten times bigger than it was so that Axis's victory would be more credibly explained. Thoughts washed back and forth in her head, images that their language summoned. The endless sea that flowed into stars. The world lying flat like a cloth. The explorers looking for the end of the world who went out and never returned, presumably still sailing around the stars..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In her mind she reached out to the flat cloth of existence. She touched it, ruffled it, so that pieces of the pattern that had been an inch apart were now touching. She folded one end against the other; places that had not known of one another's existence were now face-to-face. Stars rained out of the sky, touched the earth. The sea that had no end suddenly found itself a shore.\n\nHow? she wondered. How?\n\nAnd all her explanations to Axis about how she moved across distances resolved themselves into one word: Time.\n\nThere, in the tranquil gardens of Gilyriad, as Axis made his peace with his conquered people, she glimpsed the true beginnings of his empire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Lord of Time" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Who opens the Gates of Nowhere" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Everywhere at his whim" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Knows no boundaries." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No kingdom is safe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lock your gates.\n\nGuard your walls.\n\nBury your gold.\n\nNever sleep.\n\nHe will unlock your gates.\n\nHe will shatter your towers.\n\nHe will take your gold\n\nAnd give you sleep in return." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That sleep that has no language," }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No dream,\n\nNo time,\n\nNo end." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "nine sentences sentences in Particia A. McKillip style, continuing user's bit. Note: May include established elements" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bourne sat on the hard, narrow pallet in his prison chamber, flipping a coin." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Sometimes the crowned head of the young woman in the wood landed upright, sometimes the twelve linked Crowns of Raine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would pause to gaze intently at either, as though trying to comprehend the message they were giving him in the alphabet of coins. He had no pen or knife to tally which fell when, so he had decided from the beginning that it didn't matter: he would regard every toss as the first, and every image as a message. The message, which one fall or another of the coin would eventually give him, was how to get himself out of his chamber and into Nepenthe's, so that he could tell her why he had not come to tell her why he had not come.\n\nHe had tried. Each time he filled his heart with her, so that longing fashioned the shortest path through time, he would be brought up against a wall. He tried more than once; the second wall looked different. He tried many times, thinking that Vevay could not be shoring up that many spells at once, and somewhere there must be an end to walls. There wasn't. He sank down on the floor and began pitching coins into his shoe, trying to devise a way to outwit the door. It was visible; it functioned; it opened and closed whenever someone from the kitchens brought him food. There seemed no lock on it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He offered money to the servant to show him how to open the door." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The servant, who might have been Felan himself for all he knew, only snorted at the idea and went off snickering unpleasantly. Bourne kept his mind on the problem, doggedly throwing the seventeen coins he had in his pocket over and over. An idea grew the way mushrooms seemed to grow, unexpectedly, out of nothing, when no one was watching. There it was: the door in his head and a way to open it. He barely remembered to empty his shoe and put it back on before he went to the door.\n\nHe opened it and nearly fell over the cliff.\n\nHe closed it again, leaned against it, his heart pounding sickly, still feeling the sudden blast of wind leaping up over the cliff, smelling of sun and salt, pushing against him even as the shock of the long emptiness almost unbalanced him into it. Illusion, he guessed, but was not entirely convinced that, stepping into it, he would not be instantly stripped of every illusion in his young life as he plunged to his death. Nor did he believe that Vevay might bestir herself to rescue him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He—or something—seemed to have tested her patience severely; she didn't look in the mood for mercy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "So he went back to his coins, tossing this time instead of pitching, with the one coin he had that bore the queen's face. It didn't resemble the girl in the wood. The face on the coin belonged to someone older, stronger, tempered. A warrior queen, not the shy woodland creature he had met. That one was magical, talking to trees and birds, and seeing portents in—what had it been?—a bramble bush. Perhaps some of her magic would spark within him at a coin's toss, if her face came up often enough. Queen or Crowns, he threw, again and again. Queen or Crowns. It seemed a question to which he must give his entire attention. If he chose correctly he would find the magic, work the spell, set himself free..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "This time the spell that stole into his empty mind was not one he had thought to look for." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He had no idea how long he had been in the windowless place except by counting meals; already there seemed to have been more than possible." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one came to tell him anything. Even the servant who brought his food and wash-water rarely glanced at him, and refused to acknowledge any remarks. I might as well be invisible, Bourne had thought a hundred times. I might as well be a stone in the wall, without eyes or ears or thoughts. Much longer in this timeless, soundless place, and I will turn into one...\n\nQueen or Crowns.\n\nQueen or Crowns.\n\nQueen or Crowns.\n\n\"I might as well be,\" he whispered, flicking the coin with his thumb." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I might as well...\"\n\nBe invisible.\n\nHe heard his breath stop.\n\nQueen.\n\nHe picked the coin up as tenderly as if it were a love token, gazing at her face.\n\nInvisible. I might as well be...\n\n\"Why not?\" he asked her. \"Why not? No one sees me, anyway. I might as well.\"\n\nBe invisible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sat there tor a very long time, holding the face of the young queen, not trying anything, even not to think, just letting himself be what he was, something no one wanted to see, hear, speak to, a stone in the wall, an unlit candle." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Something that was nothing. Nowhere. Unnoticed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Invisible." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He placed the coin gently into his pocket and waited." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the servant brought his next meal, he saw the scattering of coins on the floor where the prisoner had been sitting." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'there' 3 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "While he straightened, staring incredulously around the room, Bourne walked out of the door into the mages' comfortable library and kept walking as the servant shouted, into the library in his heart.\n\nHe appeared in Nepenthe's chamber. Not daring to show his face anywhere in the halls he waited for her there. Sitting on her bed, tossing the coin again to empty his head, he tried to remain invisible. The sky in her tiny window took forever to darken. But it did eventually, and no Vevay came searching for him. He wondered why. He loved an orphan transcriptor in the library; she must know he would go there first. Perhaps because she had caught him there before, that was the last place she expected to find him now. His mouth crooked ruefully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Or she simply thought he would run, since he took so little seriously; she would expect to find him somewhere between the mages' wood and the safety of his uncle's court.\n\nHe flipped the coin upward; the door opened.\n\nNepenthe, staring at the coin falling over her bed, brought both hands over her mouth to stifle a scream.\n\nShe tried to scream again when Bourne stumbled off her bed and caught her shoulders. \"Nepenthe,\" he whispered. \"It's only me.\"\n\nShe pushed past him into the room, shoved the door closed with her foot. She was trembling; her hands shook badly as she tried to light one taper from another. Bourne took them from her; she gasped sharply, \"Don't do that!\"\n\n\"Do what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Make things float in the air like that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Do I?\" he asked bewilderedly.\n\n\"Bad enough that I couldn't see you when you weren't there—\"\n\n\"But I'm here, now.\"\n\n\"Where?\" she demanded tightly. \"Why are you hiding from me? Leave me alone if you can't think of anything better to do than torment me.\"\n\nHe put the taper very carefully in a holder. \"Nepenthe.\" For some reason he was whispering again. \"Can't you see me?\"\n\n\"No!\" She was trying, he could tell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Now that he no longer held anything her eyes searched for him desperately everywhere in the chamber." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I can hear you; I can see things you hold. But I can't see you at all.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He closed his eyes, slumped against the wall. \"Oh,\" he breathed, \"this is cruel.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Please.\" He caught her hand; she tried to pull away, but he brought her palm to his rough cheek. \"Feel that. That's what grew in however many days I was locked away. How many days has it been since I should have met you that evening in the refectory?\"\n\nHer wide eyes searched the air her hand cupped. \"Five days.\"\n\n\"Five. It felt like half a year.\"\n\n\"Why are you still invisible?\"\n\n\"Because I don't know how to undo my own spell,\" he answered raggedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I don't know how I managed to turn myself invisible, but as soon as I knew I was unseen I crept out the door and came here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Where have you been?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Somewhere in the mages' school, boxed in by Vevay. She found me wandering around the library when I was last here looking for you, and she arrested me for treason.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Trea—\" She tried to stuff the word back into her mouth, as though saying it would bring down disaster." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Bourne. What have you been doing?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He sighed. \"Sit with me. You don't have to see me, just feel my hand in yours, my body beside you. I'll try to explain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He tried, and watched her trying to understand." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Ensure 'queen' appears 2 time(s) in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What had seemed a lighthearted venture into the mystery of magic sounded foolish now, fraught with the dangerous ambiguities of history. Her hand grew slack in his hold. Once or twice she tried to interrupt, but he continued doggedly, insisting that he had meant no real harm, that truly he thought himself incapable of—He had actually met the queen in the wood one day and liked her. He had gotten her to smile—\n\n\"Bourne.\" Nepenthe was not smiling. Her eyes were enormous and very dark. His babbling died away; he waited uneasily. \"There was a rumor at supper tonight about your uncle. They say he's leading the entire forces of the Second Crown here to attack the queen.\"\n\nHe felt his skin go cold with shock, as though someone had doused him with a bucket of water." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "At the same time, something was unleashed, a sudden flash of wild magic that he had been holding in place without realizing it. As it dispersed, and the expression in Nepenthe's eyes changed, he knew that he had broken his own spell.\n\n\"Bourne!\" she cried to his visible face. \"Not now!\"\n\n\"I couldn't help it—\" He gripped her hand again; they were both silent, motionless, listening. No irate mages appeared out of nowhere to haul him back into his cage. He loosed her slowly, whispering again, \"I didn't know about my uncle. No one has spoken to me for days.\"\n\n\"Can't you turn yourself invisible again? You're in terrible danger.\"\n\nHe looked at her, brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. \"You believe me?\" he asked wistfully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes, of course I do; I always knew you had a careless heart,\" she answered dolefully. \"But a transcriptor in the royal library believing in your—well, your foolishness if not your innocence—is not going to matter to anyone else if they find you. What are you going to do? You can't show your face, even down here.\"\n\n\"I don't know.\" He shifted closer to her, pushed his lips against her hair. \"I only came here because I knew I had hurt you. I wanted you to know that I didn't mean to—I've wanted nothing but to come to you for days, explain that maybe I have taken the world too lightly, but never you. For you I work magic. I do things I never knew I could do. Like—\" He paused, holding words back, then continued reluctantly. \"Like leaving you, now, before I get you into trouble, too.\"\n\n\"No.\" Her fingers closed on his shoulder, his wrist. \"No.\"\n\n\"I can't stay.\"\n\n\"Yes. You can make yourself invisible again. Stay with me. I'll hide you, and feed you—\"\n\n\"She'll find us both here. You'll be as culpable as I am.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Then I'll put you where I hide my thorns. No one ever goes there except me. You can practice your invisibility there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She put her arms around him, held him tightly. \"Where else can you go? Back to the wood, where the mages will be looking for you? To your uncle's army, to help him fight?\" She loosed him as abruptly, to meet his eyes. \"Would you do that? Use your mage's powers to fight for the Second Crown?\"\n\n\"I could,\" he answered softly. \"But what is my uncle going to do when the warriors of eleven other Crowns converge on this plain around him to rescue their own rulers and protect their powers? The Second Crown is doomed. I'd do better to flee with the gypsies on the plain, go off to a strange city, change my name and do tricks for a living. I don't suppose you would come with me?\"\n\nTo his surprise, she considered it, her eyes wide, oddly desperate. \"Have you got any money?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. Then he sighed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No. I left it all, except for this coin, in the school.\"\n\nShe dropped her face against him, hiding her eyes. \"Then we must stay. Anyway, what about your family? You can't run away from them.\"\n\n\"What about them?\" he said bitterly. \"My uncle is not thinking of them. There won't be much left of it if he continues his march toward the plain.\"\n\n\"Can you stop him?\"\n\n\"Not with words. The queen and her mages and the other Crowns will put a stop to him soon enough. I won't have a home to go home to.\"\n\n\"Then this must be home for now. Wait with me until it gets late. Then I'll take you to my secret place. I know where the librarians keep spare bedding, and I can bring you food from the refectory kitchens. You'll turn yourself invisible again, and no one will find you.\"\n\nHe saw Vevay's eyes, gray, clear, and winter-cold, knew she could see through any spell he conjured." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"For now,\" he said, and kissed Nepenthe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll stay tonight at least. I won't put you in danger longer than I can help it. But I can't seem to think clearly now.\"\n\n\"Don't think. She'll only find you.\"\n\nHe tried not to, as Nepenthe led him, hours later, through the soundless, shadowy corridors, down every worn stone stair, it seemed, she could find until they must be in the center of the cliff somewhere near the Dreaming King. Was he dreaming now? Bourne wondered. Was Ermin of Seale a nightmare or merely an irritating twitch in the Dreamer's sleep?\n\nNepenthe deposited him among the broken shards of history, left him with a candle while she went for food and blankets. He studied the old slabs with their incomprehensible letters, shifting the light to see tablets of wax and stiffened hide, all filled with writings that once were urgent and necessary for an orderly world and now were buried away, gathering dust and of no use to anyone.\n\nThe little book of thorns caught his eye. It lay closed among Nepenthe's pens and ink jars and papers covered with her careful, miniscule writing." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'nothing' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her translations. He picked one up, scanned it. Kane and Axis, nothing else, nothing but, both names as ancient and dusty as the tablets around him. What, he wondered, not for the first time as he picked up the odd, thorny book, was her obsession?\n\nThorns.\n\nHe blinked, remembering. Something. The queen in the wood. The warrior that had appeared to her, armed, faceless, pointing, warning silently of—what?\n\nA pile of brambles.\n\nThorns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The eerie magic flashed out of him again, sudden fear colliding with sudden power." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Only the beginning,\" he heard Vevay say again in memory, talking about his uncle. \"Only the beginning of trouble.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Produce ten sentences as a continuation. Note: Story may reference established characters/events." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vevay sat with Felan in the mages' library much later that night, explaining to him where their prisoner had gone.\n\n\"Something there is in all this that doesn't meet the eye,\" she said grimly. \"Which is why I left him in the library instead of bringing him back here.\"\n\n\"I don't understand how he freed himself. You put terrible spells on that door.\"\n\n\"Only if he figured out how to open it with magic. Which he shouldn't have done. What have you been teaching the students these days?\"\n\n\"Nothing very complicated.\"\n\n\"Well, what he actually did wasn't complicated at all. What he actually did was walk out the door after Halvor opened it. Halvor said no one had told him that the prisoner might turn himself invisible.\"\n\n\"No one told me, either,\" Felan said ruefully. \"I had no idea he could do that.\"\n\n\"Neither did he. That's what he told the transcriptor in the library. I could see what drew him back there. She has astonishing eyes, and a face that—well, it reminded me of something; I can't remember what. She took him to a room deep in the cliff, full of old stone tablets and such. She left him there while she went for food and blankets. It didn't look as though he were going anywhere else, so I left him, too, to come here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Will he stay there?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'danger' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She shrugged slightly. \"At least until morning.\"\n\n\"What will he do then?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"What will you do?\"\n\n\"I'll decide then.\" She paused, her eyes hooded, expressionless, as she tried to piece together events that would not fit. Ermin of Seale's army marching out of the Second Crown to attack the queen; the Dreamer awake and uttering dire warnings not about Ermin but about thorns...\n\n\"There isn't a bramble bush anywhere on the entire plain,\" she said impatiently. \"There is no danger that I can see beyond Ermin. That's what is so frightening: I can't see!\"\n\n\"No danger even in Bourne?\"\n\nShe shook her head helplessly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I heard everything he said to the young transcriptor he loves. They discussed running off together in a gypsy wagon. The last thing he wanted to do, it seemed, was fight for Ermin of Seale. He said that the Lord of Seale had doomed the Second Crown, and he worried about his family. As well he should. I will have his uncle's head on a platter and his family in a tower on the Outermost Islands for the next five hundred years if the Twelve Crowns gather their forces to fight Ermin and then decide to rebel against the queen while they're at it. Gavin has summoned the queen's warriors. They'll be coming from the north and the south, he said, and they should be able to cut Ermin off before he comes near the plain. And of course the nobles are clamoring to return home and gather their own forces to protect their interests. And to fight for the queen. So they say. You'd think that alone would be reason enough to galvanize a dead warrior's bones. But no. It must be something totally incomprehensible.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Thorns,\" Felan murmured.\n\n\"Thorns.\"\n\n\"And you think that by leaving Bourne to his own devices, you might learn something about them?\"\n\n\"His magic is unpredictable, governed by impulse and desire. Pent up here, it may do more harm than good. Let loose, it may unearth something useful.\" She brooded silently again, then added slowly, \"His is not the only wild magic on this plain.\"\n\n\"Tessera.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" The ominous stillness left her eyes; she looked suddenly bewildered, vulnerable. \"I didn't remember.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"What power is like when you're that young. If no one names it for you, how can you possibly know what it is? She had no way of telling me. Why she could hear the language of trees. That it might be important. Why should she have told me? Nothing else she could do seemed to please me; why would that? I may be older than I can count, but how could I have not recognized what was under my nose?\"\n\n\"You were trying to see something else in her,\" he suggested gently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You were trying to find her father in her, his strengths and powers. You didn't think of looking for your own.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Do you have any idea—\"\n\n\"No. I don't know how powerful she could be. Or even what branch of her family tree such power came from. That tree is more tangled than the entire wood, and if we couldn't even keep the sex of the first ruler straight, then there's no telling what else has been changed or misplaced or forgotten along the way. There is no time to teach Tessera anything now. She can be trained as a mage later, if she survives her first month as queen. Until then, she will have to rely on us. An aging counselor whose vision is failing, and a handful of schoolmasters who haven't been near a battlefield in decades.\"\n\n\"I could,\" Felan suggested tranquilly, \"drop the Floating School on Ermin's head.\"\n\nVevay smiled thinly. \"I might ask you to. But the most important thing you can do now is look for—\"\n\n\"Thorns.\"\n\n\"Thorns.\" She stirred restively. \"I'm trying to find them in the most unlikely places. The transcriptor who is hiding Bourne put him in a secret place where, she said, she kept her thorns. So of course I followed them there, and looked for anything remotely resembling brambles in the library.\"\n\n\"Was there—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I didn't see anything. Just broken stone tablets and a few books and her papers.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Books.\" Something quickened in his face; a line disturbed his brow, faint as a dragonfly's wake across water. Vevay gazed at him with wonder. \"There was a book that passed among the mages earlier this spring. It was written in a kind of thorny alphabet.\"\n\n\"Was it magic?\" Vevay asked quickly.\n\n\"It didn't seem so. It seemed just an ancient language that none of us could decipher. A trader gave the book to us; he said he couldn't interest anyone in buying it, and he was tired of carrying it around the Twelve Crowns.\"\n\n\"Is it still here?\"\n\n\"No. We sent it over to the librarians to see what they would make of it.\"\n\nHer silvery brows rose. \"But you sensed no power in it?\"\n\n\"Nothing. Nothing beyond the power of a forgotten language to inspire curiosity.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He paused. Vevay watched his eyelids descend slowly, tortoise-like, over some thought. He said softly, \"Bourne.\"\n\n\"Bourne.\"\n\nHis eyelids lilted again. \"I believe that it was Bourne who took the book out of the wood to give to the librarians' messenger. The older students were practicing an exchange of power in the wood that day, and Bourne was the only one of the beginning students not afraid to walk through it.\"\n\n\"Why am I not surprised?\" she inquired of the air. \"Have the librarians translated it yet?\"\n\n\"They've said nothing about it.\"\n\n\"Perhaps they gave it to Bourne's friend to translate. That's what she meant by thorns. She kept paper and ink there; she was translating something. I'll go back now and look.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Felan nodded. \"Though it's hard to imagine a language powerful enough to rouse the dead of Raine without attracting your attention.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well,\" Vevay said tersely as she rose, \"now I'm listening.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But while she heard Bourne's weary snoring in the library chamber as she turned page after page of thorns, nothing spoke behind the letters, within the words, between the lines. She read some of Nepenthe's translation. Axis and Kane, she saw with surprise. She remembered speaking their names not so long ago, telling a story to Gavin to send him to sleep. This was sending her to sleep. She yawned in the middle of Axis's conquest of the ancient kingdom of Gilyriad. Where had that been? she wondered. Far east of the easternmost Crown, the Sixth Crown, she thought, and yawned again.\n\n\"Nothing,\" she told Felan on her return to the mages' library. \"Just ancient history.\"\n\nShe slept then, for a few scant hours, until she heard the first bird sing on the tower roof where they nested, and in the darkness before dawn she returned to keep watch over Bourne." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were together by then, he and the transcriptor Nepenthe, huddled under patched quilts and talking." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'thorns' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I should leave,\" he insisted. \"Vevay and Felan must be searching for me, and they will find me. That's only a matter of time. I don't want them to find me with you.\"\n\n\"I don't want you to go. You have nowhere to go. Stay with me. The mages will imprison you, if you go back to the school; the queen will arrest you. If you go back to the Second Crown, you'll have to choose which side of a war you'll fight in, and either side might kill you. Stay here.\"\n\n\"And do what? Haunt the library for the rest of my life, never appearing except after dark? I should leave now while I can. Now. Before the sun rises. Come with me. There are books in the world beyond the royal library. I'll find work as an apprentice mage, and you can write and translate.\"\n\nShe hesitated; Vevay heard her draw breath once or twice. Then she whispered something that Vevay heard, but Bourne didn't, for she was turning away from him as she spoke.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I want to. I will go with you. But I have to finish the thorns first.\"\n\nHe pulled her back, catching her shoulders and holding her down, pulling the hair away from her face so she could not hide from him. \"I'll finish those thorns for you,\" he promised grimly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll throw them over the cliff and into the sea.\"\n\n\"And I will go after them,\" she told him with such chilling calm that Vevay blinked, and Bourne buried his own face in Nepenthe's hair.\n\n\"All right,\" he whispered. \"We won't fight over them. I won't take them away from you. I will leave now—\"\n\n\"No—\"\n\n\"Listen. I'll ride out of here on one of the traders' wagons; I can do enough magic to convince somebody to hire me as protection against trouble on the road. I'll make my way to a city where I'll be safe, and then I'll write and tell you where I am. You can come to me when you're ready.\"\n\n\"Don't leave,\" she pleaded. \"Isn't there someone you could talk to? One of the mages, or someone in the palace who could tell you what to do? Vevay hasn't found you yet. She would have by now, if she could. Wouldn't she? If you turn yourself invisible again, she wouldn't find you, would she?\"\n\nBourne hesitated. Vevay nodded, encouraging the idea. Bourne, she was convinced, meant no harm to Tessera, but it would not be safe for him to roam freely with all his relatives imprisoned for treason and his uncle leading an army against the palace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Losing Bourne would be a waste of an interesting power that might likely be useful to the queen if they all survived her coronation. Vevay considered making herself visible, then and there, and commanding Bourne to stay. But there were decisions he had to make for himself, if he were to wield a power that could be trusted. All she could do, for the moment, was watch.\n\n\"All right,\" he breathed, dropping his face against Nepenthe's. \"I will wait until you're ready. But you must hurry. If war comes to the plain before we leave, we may never get out of here. And if Vevay finds me—\"\n\n\"Don't say her name.\"\n\n\"She will have no mercy.\"\n\n\"Then you had better remember how you turned yourself invisible in the first place. Can you?\"\n\n\"I had a coin,\" he answered, surprising Vevay again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The queen's face was on it. I think the magic in her inspired me...\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 7 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'trees' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She's magical?\"\n\n\"You wouldn't notice it, looking at her. I think that's what I used—her ability to hide all that magic, to be unnoticed in the midst of all her power... Trees talk to her. She sees birds in the wood. Nobody ever sees birds in the wood.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\" He was talking into her hair now, his face nuzzled into her neck; her eyes were closed. \"Maybe they're the wood's thoughts, birds are. The trees hide them from the students, or from other humans...the way you would hide something precious from clumsy strangers... The way you hide the thorns...\"\n\nVevay waited until they were both asleep again and took another look at the thorns.\n\nUtterly mystified, she went to attend to the waking queen." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "u know Particia A. McKillip? write like that. seven sentences sentences. Fantasy stuff. this is from middle of story" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Dirxia,\" Laidley said. \"Auravia. Niscena. Toren. How can you concentrate on this when we are about to be attacked?\"\n\n\"Go on,\" Nepenthe said tersely.\n\n\"Mordicea. All of these existed centuries after Axis did. Cranoth.\" He raised his eyes again from the list Nepenthe had given him. \"The kingdom of Cranoth still existed when the first king of Raine ruled. How can you possibly believe that Kane wrote this book?\"\n\nNepenthe slid her fingers over her eyes. They were cold and trembled slightly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She couldn't get them warm enough lately; it made writing difficult. \"What about Cenele?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"It's old,\" Laidley said. \"But still at least five centuries later than Eben. Axis could never have conquered it.\"\n\n\"Kane says he did.\"\n\n\"Kane is not Kane.\"\n\n\"What if she is? What if he did?\"\n\nLaidley tossed the list down, peered at her. \"How?\" he asked succinctly, and she sighed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It doesn't seem likely, does it?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No.\"\n\n\"Nor possible.\"\n\n\"Nepenthe.\" He hesitated. They were sitting on the bed she had made for Bourne, which Laidley took for hers because he had no idea that Bourne was in the library. Bourne, practicing invisibility, was presumably somewhere in the room; Nepenthe had last seen him sitting on a stack of stone tablets. \"Nepenthe,\" Laidley said again, and stuck.\n\n\"What?\" she said dolefully." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you—You're not taking all this seriously, are you? I mean: Bourne disappearing isn't causing your mind to—well, to—not to mention Ermin of Seale, which is sufficient reason in itself for Bourne to have vanished out of your life. He's either gone to fight with his uncle, or he's trying to protect you. I know you're extremely disturbed and frightened by all this, but you seem to be wandering off into your imagination.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She nodded, twisting her long hair into a rope and gazing fretfully at the list of kingdoms. \"I know. It seems.\"\n\n\"Can't you leave the thorns alone for a while?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"What about the fish?\"\n\n\"What about them?\"\n\n\"Master Croysus has been looking for you. He has waited for you for the last three mornings beside his fish manuscript, hoping you'll appear. The librarians are beginning to wonder about you. Daimon asked me where you work during the day. Leave the thorns and finish his fish for him. Let the librarians know you're still alive and working.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She nodded again, absently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right. Laidley, is there any way that you can imagine, just for a moment, looking at life and time and history from a different angle—\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory inclusion (with quotes): Not without more evidence than that book." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"No,\" Laidley said, his face crumpled like a wad of paper with concern. \"Not without more evidence than that book.\"\n\nShe looked at him then, wrapped her chilly fingers around his wrist. \"Evidence. Yes. That would help, wouldn't it. Laidley, find out when they died.\"\n\n\"Axis and Kane?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"That should be easy enough. And that would convince you?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her fingers eased. \"It would help.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "/insert_quote: \"If I do this, will you work on the fish and talk to Master Croysus? And to Daimon?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If I do this, will you work on the fish and talk to Master Croysus? And to Daimon?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, her eyes straying to the book of thorns beside them. She heard Laidley sigh and met his eyes quickly. \"Yes,\" she said again. \"I will. Today. Thank you, Laidley.\"\n\nThe midday gong summoned them; he said, \"Come to the refectory with me.\"\n\n\"I'll meet you there.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Come with me. You missed supper last night.\"\n\n\"No, I—\" She stopped. She had indeed; she had slipped out later to pilfer food from the kitchens for herself and Bourne. Laidley showed no signs of leaving without her. She glanced around covertly between strands of hair. No sign of Bourne. \"Laidley—\"\n\n\"Come,\" he said, getting to his feet." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"If you want me to help you, you can't let those thorns skew your life into something unrecognizable. There's enough in Raine to fear already without adding a dead emperor.\"\n\nHe held out his hand. She took it after a moment, allowed him to hoist her to her feet. His face had flushed shyly at the touch; he glanced at her, then away. I have to tell him, she thought. About Bourne. I have to—\n\n\"Your hands are cold,\" Laidley said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She folded them into fists, followed him out. \"I know. Laidley—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\"\n\nIf I tell him, she thought, then two of us will know, and it will be twice as dangerous for the three of us.\n\n\"What?\" he asked again as they wound through the hallways, following the smells of mutton and hot bread.\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\nShe heard Master Croysus's vigorous voice above all the noise in the refectory before they even reached it.\n\nHe was standing between the fire and the librarians' table, eating mutton stew and dispensing news at the same time. His eyes flashed at Nepenthe when she entered; he saluted her with his spoon, chewing and talking at the same time." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The queen's counselors think that her army will stop the Lord of Seale long before he reaches the plain. They are gambling on it. If he is not stopped and he reaches the plain, then we will all be trapped here.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Why doesn't she—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Because she doesn't dare. If she lets the rulers summon their own armies, they may not be content with fighting only Ermin of Seale. With her army busy elsewhere, any one of them could attack the First Crown.\" He swallowed visibly, spooned another bite into his mouth. \"All this is making me nervous,\" he added. \"I eat more when I'm nervous.\"\n\nThe librarians queried one another silently. Where would we go? their faces asked. How could we rescue thousands of years of writing collected here from every realm that has ever existed?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"The library has been under siege before,\" Daimon said calmly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Several times. We bolt the outer doors and tighten our belts.\"\n\n\"It may not come to that, if Ermin of Seale is stopped quickly enough,\" Master Croysus said.\n\n\"Is there any Crown,\" someone wondered, \"absolutely loyal to the First Crown, whose army the queen could depend on to fight for her?\"\n\nEveryone thought; nobody answered. Nepenthe, filling her bowl, tried to warm her fingers against the crockery. She sat down; as always, Laidley sat beside her. Someone gusted to her other side, put down a newly-filled bowl." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"There you are,\" Master Croysus said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've been looking for you.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said. \"I'm sorry. I've been distracted. I'll work on the fish this afternoon.\"\n\n\"I wish you would. If the queen changes her mind and lets us go, we'll all be in a graceless scramble to get out. I would hate to abandon the fish. Did you figure out what the pearls meant?\"\n\nShe had to unscramble that hastily. \"Oh. No. But it did occur to me that it might be someone's name.\"\n\n\"Possibly, possibly...\" He was eyeing her strangely; his thoughts were not on the fish. \"This afternoon, you will be at your desk?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll bring that book to show you, then.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said again, wondering what he was talking about. She ate another bite, then stood up, remembering Bourne. \"I have to go.\"\n\n\"You just got here,\" Laidley protested. \"You need to eat.\"\n\n\"I'll be back. I left something—my pens—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I'll get them.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, so sharply that he froze midway up, and the entire table of librarians turned to stare at her. She gazed back at them wordlessly. Daimon broke the silence.\n\n\"Ah. Nepenthe. There you are. We were wondering.\"\n\n\"I'll be back,\" Nepenthe told him breathlessly.\n\nShe ran all the way down to the depths of the library, to the dusty, silent chamber where she had left Bourne and the thorns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It seemed empty when she reached it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bourne?\" she said hesitantly, anticipating invisible mages everywhere.\n\n\"I'm here,\" he said with equal caution. \"Am I invisible?\"\n\n\"Yes. Where are you?\"\n\nBedclothes shifted. She went to them, tried to sit and bumped into something. \"That's my head,\" Bourne said. \"I'm invisible, not incorporeal.\" He caught her hand, guided her down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Did you bring me anything to eat?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She pulled a bread roll out of her pocket. \"That's all I could get. Laidley and Master Croysus were sitting with me.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\"\n\nAir bit into the bread, rendered it invisible bite by bite. She watched mindlessly a moment, then stirred her thoughts. \"I'll get something more for you later. Bourne, should I tell Laidley you're here? He thinks—he doesn't know—\"\n\n\"He thinks that I abandoned you and you need him.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do need him. Just not for that.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"So I heard.\" Both his breath and what was left of the bread roll hung suspended a moment; she guessed he was gazing at something. \"Nepenthe. What did you mean when you asked him if he could look at history and time from a different angle? If he could do that, what might he see?\"\n\nShe pondered that, glimpsing in brief lightning flashes what she saw. What she thought she saw. She drew back from it impatiently, shaking her head. \"It makes no sense—it isn't possible.\"\n\n\"What isn't?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nothing. Just—\" She pushed cold fingers against her eyes, continued hollowly, \"Laidley must be right. Kane couldn't have written the book. It's nothing but epic and history and poetry all jumbled together, much of it from centuries after Axis died. Axis was a magnificent and terrible figure, someone to fear when there's nothing much else on your mind. Maybe it was just a scribe in a library like this one, surrounded by books and stones, loving words but wanting more life in his life—her life—who invented the mythical alphabet of thorns and became Kane and opened every world for Axis to conquer, so that even the scribe's quiet world would not be safe from him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The bread roll, half-eaten, was suspended in Bourne's fingers. She looked at him a moment before she realized she was seeing him. Then she jumped, and so did he. \"Bourne!\" she hissed. \"You're visible!\"\n\n\"I am?\"\n\n\"Go back—do whatever you do—\"\n\nHis eyes looked very strange, flat and oddly dark." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is that what you see in those thorns?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I don't know yet what I see! That's why I need Laidley's help. Bourne, you can't keep shifting from visible to invisible and back—won't Vevay notice?\"\n\n\"Possibly.\" He put the last of the bread in his mouth and chewed slowly, still gazing at her. \"No,\" he said.\n\n\"No, what?\"\n\n\"No, don't tell Laidley I'm here. Even Laidley, honest as he is, is as human as the rest of us.\"\n\n\"What do you—\"\n\n\"If he knows I'm here, invisible because Vevay is searching for me, he may decide to help himself by helping her. But let him help you. I'll help you, too. Now.\"\n\n\"Now what?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Read me what you've translated since I saw you last.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'trying' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I can't now.\" She rose quickly, hovered over him, troubled. \"Laidley will come looking for me here, if I don't go back. He might bring Master Croysus. Bourne, you must learn to vanish and stay vanished.\"\n\n\"How can I when you tell me things like that?\"\n\n\"It's only that,\" she explained incoherently. \"Nothing more than a tale. That's what I was trying to say. Bourne, please—I must go.\"\n\nHe nodded, his eyes still peculiar, glimpsing, it seemed, what she was trying not to say. \"Let me read what you've translated while you're gone. It will give me something to do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She put the papers in order hastily, thrust them at him." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Don't let Laidley see them move,\" she warned. \"And don't forget to hide yourself.\"\n\n\"I won't,\" he said absently, coiled on the rumpled pallet and already beginning to read again. She sighed noisily and went back to the refectory.\n\nNeither Laidley nor Master Croysus were there. But she had not met them coming, so she guessed that they had gone their ways to work. She ate a few more bites of stew, while filling her pockets with bread and cheese for Bourne." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she went back to her desk where she had left the fish, determined to finish her work among them before she admitted one more thorn into her head." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She stared at the manuscript for a long time before the fish began to speak again, light glancing off their bright colors, their strange marks, drawing her back with them into their underwater mysteries.\n\nShe was pondering the last of them, matching fish-words here with fish-shapes there, coming up with sheep and oats and water bags, when she felt Master Croysus displacing air and exuding smells of mutton and smoke around her. She straightened; he dropped a tome on her desk, nearly upending an ink jar.\n\n\"Here you are,\" he said with satisfaction, letting the broad, heavy parchment pages fall open over the fish.\n\nWhat looked like a sketch of a very old statue looked imperiously back at her on the page. It was little more than a sculpted head growing out of some oddly coiled leaves. The stone hair was thick and wavy, the eyes wide set above broad, curved cheekbones, the nose and jaw at once delicate and predatory." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was no one, Nepenthe decided, who would ever willingly set foot in a library." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include \"It looks exactly like you. Isn't that what you see when you look in a mirror?\" somewhere in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who is this?\"\n\n\"You,\" Master Croysus repeated.\n\n\"It is not.\"\n\n\"It looks exactly like you. Isn't that what you see when you look in a mirror?\"\n\nShe ruffled her hair, trying to remember. \"There aren't many mirrors around here. Anyway, who was she?\"\n\n\"She is ancient. The book itself is at least six centuries old. It's a history of the writer's travels through obscure parts of his known world. He had a gift for drawing, as you can see by the odd birds and plants and ruins he sketched as he wrote. This section deals with his journey down what he called the Serpent, a great river flowing into the Baltrean Sea. The head is of a princess of what was in ancient times Great Eben.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nepenthe looked at him mutely, then down at the sketch again. Her eyes felt dry suddenly, oddly gritty, as though the desert sands of Eben had blown across time into the library.\n\nMaster Croysus contemplated the head a moment longer, then shut the book with a crash. \"I'm glad I remembered that; it's been haunting me since I saw your face and recognized it. Have you finished with my fish?\"\n\n\"I think so.\" She pointed at the last of them; her finger shook slightly. \"The pearly fish seems to be the name of the owner of several wagon-loads of skins.\"\n\n\"Ah. Why are you trembling?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'm cold.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes. So am I. It comes of perpetual uncertainty.\" He opened his leather case, laid the fish manuscripts tenderly back into them. \"Thank you, Nepenthe. If I ever come back here, I will gladly bring you whatever language is confounding me at the time. If I ever get out of here, that is...\"\n\nHe dropped a few coins onto the desk where the fish had been. She was still sitting there, staring at the newly-minted queen, not wanting to move, not daring to begin to think again, when she heard her name out of nowhere. She started wildly.\n\nLaidley said, \"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I've been trying for the past hours to find an answer to your question.\"\n\n\"What question?\" she whispered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"About Axis and Kane. About when they died.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He shrugged lightly, trying to look untroubled by anything except the carelessness of history. \"Nobody wrote it down, that I can find. No final epic battles, no grievous wounds or illnesses, no sorrowing people, no great funerals, no—nothing. For all anybody seems to know, they might never have died.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Literary Collaboration:\n- Sentences: 11 sentences\n- Match character context\n- Genre: Fantasy" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'finally' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "When the emperor finally returned to Eben after his victory in Gilyriad, he followed his predictable patterns. He rested for a few days; he fathered another child, his fifth by now; he tended to the affairs of Eben; he grew restless; he summoned his generals and counselors to pore over the new shape of the map of the world and talk about war; he withdrew into his private chamber with Kane.\n\nHe said, \"There are no more worlds to conquer on your maps. Find me another map.\"\n\nKane had prepared herself for many months for this demand. She had pulled secrets from the works of the witches and ancient poets of Gilyriad; she had read everything she could borrow or steal from lands between Eben and Gilyriad. She had followed wayward rumors of time and magic into impenetrable forests, harsh crags, and deserts all around the Baltrean. Finally she had penetrated the dangerous and enigmatic mysteries of the Labyrinth of the Serpent, in whom time was supposed to begin and end, and which was guarded by sorcerers from other levels of time. She fought them and saw veils of time part as one fled from her relentless power. She followed him.\n\nAnd so she answered the Emperor of the World, who, for the first time in his life expected to be disappointed: \"My lord, I have found you another world.\"\n\nHe looked at her silently. His face was at the peak of its strength and beauty; it became the mask Kane shaped for him to wear for the rest of his life, in all the worlds he conquered." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He knew her better than anyone: the tones of her voice, her expressions, what her postures signified, or the folding of her fingers. She alone called him by name. Now she addressed the ruler of the world as his most trusted counselor, and she expected him to treat her words as carefully as she spoke them.\n\nHe asked her, \"Where?\"\n\nShe knew him as well, knew by the utter stillness in his face, as the brazier light molded and illumined it, that he had begun, in thought, to venture beyond the world he knew.\n\n\"The name of the kingdom is Cranoth.\"\n\n\"Cranoth.\" He looked down at her as she sat among cushions beside the brazier. They were still dressed; neither had poured wine, nor tasted the sweets and fruit that servants had left there for the emperor. Unspoken mysteries loomed between them; he sensed them, could not move through them until she showed him what it was she saw. \"I haven't heard of Cranoth.\"\n\nShe answered, \"It does not yet exist.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For a breath or two he was stone; not an eyelash moved, only the soft golden light searching the curve of his mouth, the faint lines at the corners of his eyes.\n\nThen he crossed the distance between them, had crossed it before she herself began to breathe. He knelt in front of her, his face shedding decades; he was the child on the banks of the Serpent again, his expression rippling with wonder and joy at something she had done. He took her hands, pressed the backs of her palms against his forehead, against his lips. She felt him trembling as he pressed her hands against his heart.\n\n\"You can do this for me,\" he said incredulously. \"You can open time.\"\n\n\"I have done it,\" she said, and told him about following the warrior-mage of the Serpent's Labyrinth into his own land, the northern kingdom of Cranoth.\n\n\"But how did you get back?\"\n\n\"I forced him to show me the way. He spoke to me freely once he understood that he had no choice and that I already had the power; what I wanted was the knowledge. Every moment, he said, is like a wheel with a hundred spokes in it. We ride always at the hub of the wheel and go forward as it turns. We ignore the array of other moments constantly turning around us. We are surrounded by doorways; we never open them. The sorcerers of the Labyrinth have spent centuries studying the mysteries of time, of past and future. Only one of those dedicated to the Serpent is actually from Eben. All the others are from realms scattered through time, who meet at the hub of the Serpent. Some are from our past; most are from our future. They are all connected to the hub of our moment. This moment. The next moment becomes a different hub; the spokes will lead to different moments. If every moment is a world, and worlds change with every changing moment then you, my emperor, will never be without a world to conquer, for as long as you desire.\"\n\nHe swallowed, mute again, still trembling at the richness and immensity of the gift she had given him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How?\" he asked finally, for he was his father's son and liked to see his battles clearly before he fought them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I will open each spoke of time and explore the realm it leads me to. That way, I can judge which lands will be worth conquering.\"\n\n\"And my army?\"\n\n\"Where I can go, so can you, and so will your great army. It will flow through time and appear without warning anywhere you choose. It will be as though you come out of the sky, or the wind. And you can return always to the moment you left. You could conquer fifty realms and come back each time to this fire in the brazier, to the candle burned this far, to this untouched goblet. No one will ever pursue you, you can take whatever you want, keep the land under your rule if you choose, or leave behind only your name for the rulers to quake over and the poets to add to the history of their world.\"\n\nAxis filled the untouched goblet with a hefty splash of wine, drained it. His face still seemed shaken, vulnerable. But Kane felt his own enormous powers, his strength and fearlessness, his unending ambition to find death and conquer it or become it, which, poets said later, became the same thing in the end.\n\nHe set the cup down and took Kane's hands again. \"You are the Empress of Time,\" he breathed, kissing her fingers one by one.\n\n\"No, I am Kane. The Hooded One. The faceless sorcerer who does your bidding always, who exists to serve you.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he agreed. \"Always. Every time I ask, you have already answered. You give me what I want before even my heart has named it.\"\n\n\"I do,\" she said, watching his bowed head as he crouched in front of her, the Lion of Eben, kissing her knees now, sliding the sandals from her feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Kings reward their servants for a few moments of work,\" he said, his mouth against one instep." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How can I begin to reward you for every moment you have given me?\"\n\nShe lifted his face between her hands to find his eyes again. She told him.\n\nSome time after that, she found her way back through time to the northern kingdom of Cranoth.\n\nThis time, she did not pursue a mage to get there; she went alone to see for herself. She had learned the most carefully guarded secret of the mages of the Serpent: the pattern of the Labyrinth of Time, which she must follow to find her way out of her own time. She had wrested the pattern from the sorcerer's mind. It burned now like a brand in her own: the path out of the Hub of Time to the infinite spokes in the Wheel. In Axis's private chamber, she walked the pattern and opened the Gates of Nowhere to Cranoth.\n\nShe found herself in a prosperous city surrounded on three sides by rich farmland and on the fourth by a river thick with a flock of gaudy boats and barges. She wandered through the lively city streets, hearing a language that made no sense to her ears, but which she could understand well enough if she listened to its images and feelings with her mind and heart. It was there that she first heard of the land west of Cranoth, the little realm between sea and sky on the edge of the world, hardly worth thinking about then, but the name lingered in her mind." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Its queen, Mermion, she heard in passing at a bookstall, liked to collect books." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She went on, through the crowded cobbled streets until she found at last the palace of the rulers of Cranoth." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She paused among a crowd of idlers at its gates and saw the guards in their elegant armor, the nobles riding fine horses adorned with jeweled bridles and cunningly wrought stirrups. As she stood there, she envisioned the cheerful sky above them rent as by a silent lightning bolt, torn apart to reveal a swarm of faceless riders pouring endlessly into the fields around the city, while those within the walls, busy buying books, selling fruit, riding their haughty steeds, stopped what they were doing, looking puzzled at first, and then incredulous and finally aghast at what had come out of Nowhere into their peaceful afternoon.\n\nKane walked the Labyrinth back to Eben and told Axis what she had seen.\n\nThe Emperor of Night\n\nStopped the sun, held the moon in the sky\n\nOver the King's City in Cranoth.\n\nBetween the sun and the moon\n\nHis dark army flowed like water\n\nFlooding the fields, climbing the walls,\n\nSpilling everywhere into the streets\n\nThose within found nowhere to run." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There is nowhere to run from night," }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nowhere to hide from time," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And the Twins who rule them both. Axis returned his army to Gilyriad after overwhelming the King of Cranoth and razing the walls of his city. His army, dazed with the sorcery, with the possibilities of fame and wealth, shouted his name across the plains of Gilyriad from dusk to dawn until their voices were gone. When he returned once again to Eben, he brought gifts of jewels and wondrously embroidered cloth for his wife, and golden spurs for his children. Thus the queen was appeased by his absence. She had little knowledge of the shape of the world. He told her that he had conquered Cranoth, and she assumed that it was where he said it was: west and far north of Eben, a chilly place unsuitable to raise children in.\n\nThe queen spent her days in the courtyard with the fountains and peacocks, her many children, attendants, courtiers, and a lover or two among them. Masked, darkly dressed as always, Kane watched them from a distance and remembered the days when she conjured doves out of goblets to make the children laugh. Sometimes, in Axis's private chamber, even in the circle of his arms, she woke at night and wondered if she could have led a different life. If she had not wrapped herself up and given herself, body and heart, to Axis on his wedding day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Perhaps by now she might have reclined at ease among her own peacocks, nibbling dates stuffed with almonds and crying to her children not to step on the peacocks' tails." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'called'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She had spoken to no one but Axis for years. Her own family had grown resigned to her disappearance. Outside of that chamber, she was the mute, faceless, awkward, and formidably powerful sorcerer Kane, who, everyone knew, loved Axis with a helpless, childlike love, and who would have followed him into his tomb.\n\nThe second kingdom Axis rode the Labyrinth of the Serpent to conquer was called Gedron. Its nomad king was a fierce marauder himself, like Axis, appearing where he was least expected along the borders of his realm of steppes and plains to slay, plunder, and disappear again, along with herds and flocks, children to be used for slaves, and whatever other wealth his army could carry. Kane was careful to keep herself invisible in his city. It was a city of colorful tents thrown up across a plain; all around it animals pastured on the rich summer grasses. Guards ringed it, watching for trouble and checking the contents of the occasional merchant's caravan that wandered through. Passing one of the caravans, Kane heard again a name she remembered from Cranoth: that of the little northern kingdom whose queen collected books.\n\nIt wasn't so small anymore. Now its king ruled five other kingdoms, five Crowns, they were called; the palace perched on the edge of the world had grown huge, and there was a school of magic or sorcery nearby that attracted students from many lands." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The merchant from whom Kane overheard all this was haggling for some books that had gotten mixed in with plunder from the latest raid along the Gedron border." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Apparently the nobles of Gedron had no use for them. A bargain was struck; books passed from hand to hand, bound for the royal library in the north.\n\nKane did not mention the kingdom of Five Crowns when she returned to Eben and to Axis. But again, she remembered.\n\nThe battle between the Lion of Eben and the Wolf-King of Gedron was swift and bloody. The King of Gedron, furious at being surprised, was equally curious. He wanted such power for himself and made every effort to capture Axis and Kane alive. Of course he had no hope of victory, for the army out of Gilyriad was truly numberless as the stars by then. His tents were flattened, his flocks scattered, his rich plunder taken, before Axis vanished back into Nowhere, leaving the king surrounded by his dead on the plain and wondering what had hit him.\n\nIn Gilyriad, as Axis's army shouted and drank and sang the emperor's praises, and the Lion of Eben paced his sumptuous chambers dreaming of more worlds to conquer, Kane looked out a window at the silent, enigmatic moon. She thought of the distant northerly kingdom with its library and its mages' school, its palace overlooking the edge of the world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Raine." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She knew that night that Axis had given her all that she asked in return for her gifts to him of worlds and time and her life: She was carrying his child." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Produce ten sentences as a continuation. Note: Story may reference established characters/events." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Queen of Raine sat on the last of the cliff steps, listening." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Far beneath her, the gray sea roiled and frothed against the cliffs." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'cliff' exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gulls wheeled and cried in winds strong enough to hammer the long zigzag line of steps carved out of the face of the rock a little deeper into the stone. Tessera didn't feel the winds, nor did she hear the breaking waves or birds. Deaf as a barnacle burrowed into its shell, she had made herself. Something enclosed, clinging to the cliff, untroubled by cold or wind; she might have drawn the cliff around her like a cloak. As though testing here, there, for the heartbeat in a stone, she let her mind wander in a timeless, wordless moment, throughout the living thing built into stone that was her palace.\n\nShe had stopped searching for thorns some time ago. She had relinquished the word. It got in the way; it did not mean what it said. She listened now for something that did not belong to Raine. Something that did not breathe Raine, whose heart was not steeped, like these ancient stones, in the history of Raine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Occasionally, deep within her solitude, her whole body so intent on Raine that it was scarcely visible except as stone, she sensed the flickering images within the Dreamer's heart, and knew that she had touched even the dead in her search.\n\nWhen she heard Vevay's summons, she had to remember that she had eyes. She opened them and found she had bones again, and hair, and skin beneath a cloak that had been drenched by a passing squall some time ago. The mage's summons was wordless; it was as though she had opened a window into Tessera's thoughts and peered inside for a moment, looking for her. Tessera stood up, a small living thing now, not part of the immense, stolid pile that grew out of the cliff above her. Some part of her still searched, wandered down chimney stones, drifted through closed doors like air, feeling for something unfamiliar, something amiss. The rest of her, shivering in the damp air, trudged back up the steps to the palace.\n\nShe found Vevay in her tower, gazing into a silver bowl of water. Tessera went to her side. Rank after rank of warriors, silent and grim in the rain, marched across the surface of the water." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Their tunics bore the linked double circlets of the Second Crown." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She couldn't see their faces clearly in the bowl, and what she did see was apt to disappear too soon, leaving headless soldiers moving into the silver.\n\nShe raised her eyes after a time to the casement above the bowl. Vevay's spell, permeating the water, translated itself easily to the glass; the window was broader, and she could see more.\n\n\"You have called for an assembly before supper today,\" Vevay told her, still intent on the images in the bowl. \"You will speak to your nobles, tell them that you will permit them to leave as soon as the threat from the Second Crown has been eliminated. You will tell them where Ermin of Seale is now: marching through the Sevine Valley, following the river toward the plain. And you will tell them that the army of the First Crown will come out of the hills west of the valley to stop him before he reaches Dreamer's Plain.\"\n\nTessera nodded absently. The mage found Ermin a threat. To Tessera he was insignificant, a problem to occupy the mind when the enormity of the question of thorns became overwhelming. Vevay, not hearing an answer, glanced at her. What, a week earlier, might have caused the mage's voice to tighten with frustration, only elicited a curious question.\n\n\"What are you looking at?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Find a natural way to mention that I took your spell from the water." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"The army,\" Tessera said. \"You can see more faces in the glass.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Vevay watched the movement across the casement. \"So you can,\" she murmured. \"Though I find the light distracting. Who taught you to do that?\"\n\n\"You did.\"\n\n\"I did?\"\n\n\"I took your spell from the water.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" She looked back into the bowl, as though expecting to find the spell floating like a paper boat on the water. \"What was I saying?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'thorns' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"My army will stop the army of the Second Crown before it reaches the plain,\" Tessera said perfunctorily.\n\n\"Good. Gavin and Ermin of Seale's uncle and half a dozen nobles rode across the plain to try to negotiate peace with Ermin before he does something irrevocably stupid. You sent them early this morning; I couldn't find you to tell you that.\"\n\n\"Do I tell the assembly that?\"\n\n\"Yes. It might calm a few nerves. Where have you been all morning?\"\n\n\"Searching for thorns.\"\n\nVevay touched her eyes delicately, as though she felt a sudden twinge. \"They do make Ermin moot,\" she breathed.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"But at least Ermin is a threat everyone can understand. If you told your court to beware of thorns, they would be more likely to beware of you.\" She brooded at the water, her brows puckered deeply." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You'd think the dead, if they are going to bother to wake after centuries to warn you about something, would be more explicit.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word count directive: Use 'tessera' exactly 4 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She dreamed them,\" Tessera guessed. \"Dreams don't speak in words. Maybe the thorns aren't thorns.\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" Vevay answered grimly, \"but it's the only word we've got. There's Ermin of Seale among his generals.\"\n\nTessera watched a small group of riders cross the glass: generals, guards, standard-bearers. In the midst of them rode the impetuous leader, a big man with graying yellow hair, his face furrowed and dripping. Following him was a boy who looked scarcely older than Tessera. He carried a trumpet slung on a strap over his shoulder. His calm, secret face, under milky-gold hair, was lowered against the rain. He reminded Tessera of someone.\n\n\"Who is that?\" she asked curiously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Which?\"\n\n\"The trumpeter. Look, he's carrying something in his pouch.\"\n\nThe leather pouch beneath the boy's trumpet shifted and bulged oddly. He spoke a word, still gazing ahead, and slid a finger into the pouch to stroke whatever was stirring.\n\n\"Do you know who he is?\" Tessera asked again.\n\n\"I believe he is one of Ermin's grandsons. His father is locked up in my tower, below us. I can't believe Ermin would risk him on the battlefield. But then he is risking everything else he has, why not his grandchildren, too?\"\n\n\"He reminds me of someone...\" She watched him, wondering what pet he kept in his pouch. He had two fingers burrowed into it now, his light eyes narrowed a little against the rain, watchful but not afraid of what he was riding toward. An unfamiliar feeling grew in Tessera as she stood there. Words ripened in her mind like strange fruit, crowded into her mouth." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wanted, more than anything else, to speak to that boy with the calm, gentle face and the pale eyelashes, ask him what he kept in his pouch that comforted him as he rode toward death." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wanted his eyes to see her; she wanted to hear his voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I remember.\" Her own voice sounded strange to her ears, but Vevay did not seem to notice anything." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"He reminds me of the young man I met in the wood.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Bourne,\" Vevay murmured dourly. \"Yes. They would be cousins.\"\n\n\"Do you know his name?\"\n\nShe felt Vevay look at her then, sharply. But the mage only answered equably, \"I can't remember it. If Gavin and your nobles manage to negotiate peace, perhaps you can ask him yourself.\"\n\nTessera watched the boy cross the window. Peace seemed a meaningless concept, what with the invisible monster roused and turning its eyes toward Raine while Ermin rode obliviously across its battlefield, insisting on his little war. The boy with the pet in his pouch might die like the hare in the wood for his uncle's folly, or he might survive one battle only to face the enormity of the powers that had wakened the warrior-queen of Raine. He rode beyond the window frame toward his fate. Tessera turned restively, thinking, I will never know his name or hear his voice if he dies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where are you going?\" Vevay asked as she opened the door.\n\n\"To search.\"\n\nVevay studied her bowl; the scene in the window shifted. She was watching for Gavin, Tessera guessed. \"Don't forget the assembly,\" the mage murmured. \"It may seem unimportant compared to the greater threat, but we can only deal with what we can see. We don't want an insurrection within the palace as well. Your nobles are very powerful, and if you abdicate your own power over them, they will remove your crown one way or another. How you deal with Ermin now will show them how you would deal with them if they attack. It is vital for you to make these things clear.\"\n\n\"Yes, Vevay,\" Tessera said absently. The mage sighed.\n\n\"Call me if you need me.\"\n\nTessera did not go far, only to the tower roof, where she stood among the snapping pennants and explored the complex, busy world beneath her feet." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her thoughts flowed downward into the stones; she rooted herself there, impervious as a pennant-pole to the weather." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Like the thorns in the giant's house, she crept everywhere, looking for illumination. In the wood, the mages searched their accumulated knowledge of both magic and Raine. The queen roamed as far as she could within her own boundaries, within the world she knew.\n\nIt seemed a small thing when she finally found it. As small as a thorn. It had hidden itself in the center of the massive cliff: a bramble growing in the heart of solid stone. A mind like a dark night-flower bloomed where there was no one to see it. A poisoned flower in a garden full of flowers. A single deadly word in the midst of an uncountable number of harmless words. She did not know what shape it took inside her palace; she only knew the shape and feel of the dreamlike image in her heart: a dark star in the center of her world, its power contained now, quiet and secret." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was an unspoken word, an unopened flower, a dream of itself. But it had wakened the dead, and the living queen sensed if she did not stop it now, it would explode and blaze in an incandescent fire across the whole of Raine.\n\nShe stirred on the rooftop, felt the wind again, her tangled hair. She still sensed the strange power, a seething smudge of dark in her heart. Somewhere in the palace it was, a small unnoticed thing in that immense place, eluding even the mages' acute attention. Tessera, who understood small, unnoticed, powerful things, climbed down the tower steps and went looking for it.\n\nShe moved through most of her palace without attracting attention. Only partly visible, preoccupied, and wearing her blandest expression, she persuaded everyone that, if they saw her, she must be there on the most unimportant business and should be ignored. In Vevay's tower room, the mage was busy talking to Gavin's face in the bowl and did not notice the queen at all. There, Tessera felt the troubling power as little more than a slumbering ember." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She left without disturbing Vevay, went down again, and down, making her way ever more deeply into stone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "As she moved, she sensed the unfamiliar power quickening, burning now, taking its dark fires from the source.\n\nThe queen found herself in the library.\n\nShe had never been there. If she wanted a book, like everything else it was brought to her. She passed librarians and scholars and scribes, working among what seemed every book or scroll or tablet ever written since the beginning of the world. Language itself might have begun there, she thought; it grew everywhere in those stony burrows, crusting the walls like some kind of ancient life. The dark fire in her heart, the unspoken word, burned unwaveringly down there. She wandered erratically, looking into every book-lined hollow. Are you there? her heart asked. There? No one noticed the queen in their midst; she might have been just another word." }, { "from": "human", "value": "In a chamber far beneath the earth, a stone room full of stone words, she found the thorns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her heart recognized them before her eyes realized what they saw: an open book with thorns on every page. She touched them, felt her heart grow confused, desperate, distressed. Beware, they said to her, in the voice of the dreaming warrior. Beware. The room was empty. There was a pallet along one wall, with disheveled blankets. The book lay on a stack of tablets used, apparently, as a desk. Beside the book were pens, jars of ink, a stack of papers. Someone, Tessera guessed, was in the midst of translating the language of thorns. Who? she wondered. Who living in that world within the stones bore so much malice to Raine?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Who could work so quietly with such dangerous powers without being harmed by them, and unnoticed by librarians or mages? What formidable enemy did she have living down here in the library, plotting to destroy her realm?\n\nThe queen sat down on the stone tablets, picked up the nameless scribe's papers, and read them while she waited.\n\nHours later she still waited, as silent as one of the old slabs around her and invisible to everyone except the living, luminous eye of history open and watching for the slightest movement from her.\n\nAxis and Kane, she thought numbly. Axis and Kane.\n\nThe names were among those that had littered her mind like fallen leaves, learned early in her life and discarded when she achieved enough perspective to realize that they could no longer trouble the world. They were dead, forgotten, harmless as words chiseled on a broken tombstone.\n\n\"Axis and Kane,\" she whispered, and felt the dark wind of their power blowing through her heart.\n\nThe tale had ended abruptly at a disturbing shift of pronoun. The pen, lying across the unfinished sentence, had leaked a pool of black instead of the next word." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The jar of ink stood open." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The transcriptor, startled by something, perhaps her own writing, had gone and not returned." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nothing, not even the assembly she was probably missing, not even Ermin of Seale at her door, could have made Tessera move, not until she saw for herself how the tale would end for Raine.\n\nShe recognized the dangerous transcriptor easily, of the two that finally entered with their arms piled with scrolls. \"N,\" the ink jars said, and \"Nepenthe\" was what the lanky, thin-haired young man called her. His eyes were anxious, but Nepenthe's looked stunned and desperate, in an elegant, unusual face that might have been molded in forgotten eons of history. Tessera, watching her narrowly, saw not the formidable, malicious mage she had expected, but a young woman who, in troubling Raine, had managed to trouble herself beyond all expectation.\n\n\"Don't despair, Nepenthe,\" the young man said softly, even as his own voice shook a little.\n\n\"That's not my name,\" she said tautly, dropping scrolls on the floor. She sank down to unroll them; the parchment trembled in her fingers.\n\n\"It's the only name you know. You should finish it.\"\n\n\"No. They're dead. They must be dead. Laidley, don't stop looking.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nep—\" He stopped himself, then continued doggedly, \"How will you know exactly what you have to fear until you finish the translation? It may reveal something completely unpredictable. It might even explain itself away somehow, tell us that it was not Kane at all who wrote the story, that someone else imagined the whole thing.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nepenthe, opening one scroll after another, did not seem to be listening. \"Laidley, none of these are about Axis at all. They must have been put on the wrong shelves. They're old legal documents dealing with property.\"\n\nShe began to gather them up again with wild haste; Laidley coaxed them out of her hands.\n\n\"I'll take them back. I think I know where the ones we want must be. You finish the tale.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Nepenthe, we've been searching for hours to find out how they died, and it seems they never did. Maybe the book can tell us what truly happened to them.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said again, fiercely. \"Don't argue with me. I'm right about this.\"\n\n\"What if you're not?\" he asked on his way out." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "I'll share a piece from a longer story, then you take over with five sentences in Particia A. McKillip's voice, keeping within the Fantasy genre. Some context may come from earlier chapters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bourne wended his slow way out of the depths of the library to the top of the highest tower in the palace.\n\nHe could think of no other way to find Vevay. Neither desire nor need would fashion a path to her. He had no desire to see her at all, and was not sure which he feared more: the mage or what he needed to tell her. She would feel him looking for her, he thought, and find him first." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He only hoped desperately that she would let him speak before she stopped him from wandering in secret under the queen's roof by tossing him over the cliff.\n\nIt took hours, it seemed, after he left the library, to find the mage's tower. He was never certain of remaining invisible from one moment to the next. In the library it hardly mattered, since everyone there had their faces in books. But he didn't want to disturb already jittery courtiers and tense guards by appearing out of nowhere in front of them." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He measured his invisibility constantly in the eyes and expressions of those he passed. No one seemed to notice him; even if they saw him, he must look like just one more in a place full of weary and perturbed guests who had long exhausted every welcome except the one to leave.\n\nHe wandered in the maze of palace expanded through the centuries like a seashell constantly growing new chambers around itself. Finally, by sheer luck, he found the tower as he followed a pair of guards, hoping they would let fall something useful to him as they talked. They led him into what looked like an ancient portion of the palace, with tiny windows and thick, drafty hallways." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then they climbed stairs endlessly up into more recent history, where the stones were carefully cut and mortared and the windows on both sides overlooked sea and plain as well as courtyard walls. At a thick doorway, guarded by another pair, they stopped. Bourne saw stairs spiraling farther upward to one side of the door. Another tower, he guessed, this one not so old as some and promising even giddier views.\n\nThe guards saluted one another, the pair at the door moving aside with relief." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Any trouble?\" one of the guards Bourne had followed asked." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"They demand to see the queen. They demand to see Vevay. They demand paper, pens, visitors, and more blankets. They complain that their food is always cold by the time it reaches the tower.\"\n\nThe guard gave an unsympathetic grunt. \"So is ours,\" he said, and took his place beside the door.\n\n\"Any news?\"\n\n\"Ermin of Seale is marching along the Sevine to the plain.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bourne, feeling his skin constrict, shifted into shadow." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My family, he thought numbly. This is where they locked away my brothers and cousins.\n\nHe glanced at his hands, wondering if he had shocked himself out of his own spell. He couldn't tell. He took a soundless step into torch light. The guards paid him no attention." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Frequency requirement: 'bourne' - 2 occurrence(s)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Is the mage upstairs?\"\n\n\"Who knows, with mages? But we haven't seen her pass.\"\n\nThey didn't seem to see Bourne either, as he slunk across their vision in the circle of fire and reached the shadowy stairs.\n\nHe began to climb.\n\nThe mage lived so high that Bourne could practically see into the Sevine Valley across the chain of hills to the east, where his pigheaded uncle was marching." }, { "from": "human", "value": "So high that his thoughts seemed to fall dizzyingly away from him, leaving only fear and determination, and a nagging sense of the futility of trying to explain himself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But he had no choice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no choice. There was only—\n\n\"Thorns,\" he breathed, as the mage's door flew open at the top of the stairs and he stood face-to-face with Vevay.\n\nShe did not look surprised to see him. She gripped his arm, pulled him firmly into her comfortable aerie, and closed the door.\n\n\"I've been watching you for hours,\" she said dourly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I thought you were searching for the door out of here, or for your family. I didn't expect you to come up here.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate this exact phrase, preserving the quotation marks: \"What was that you said,\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I've been searching for you.\"\n\nThat did surprise her. Her gray eyes grew a shade less frosty, and then began to darken, color seeping up from beneath the melting ice. \"What was that you said,\" she demanded, \"when I opened the door?\"\n\n\"Thorns,\" he said starkly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know what they are.\"\n\nHer brows leaped upward. Her fingers tightened on his arm. She pushed him backward, guiding him into a chair, looking, he thought as he sat heavily, as though she were swelling visibly with words, and when one finally came out he might be forced to duck.\n\n\"That book,\" she snapped finally. \"Isn't it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How do you—how did you—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I've been watching you since you came here. What do you think the rulers of Raine keep mages for?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"But why didn't you come for me?\" he asked bewilderedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Because I didn't.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You have the rest of my family imprisoned in your tower.\"\n\n\"Never mind that,\" she commanded, so he didn't. She sat opposite him, her hands linked very tightly, keeping herself from flying apart, he guessed. \"Watching you,\" she repeated, \"and listening to you.\"\n\n\"In that chamber?\" he interrupted, appalled, thinking of Nepenthe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"It's far past time to hide things, Bourne. Or protect them. When did you sense the power in the book?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I didn't. But it had an odd effect on Nepenthe. The young woman who was translating—who—\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I still don't understand that. And she herself is beginning to be uneasy. But she doesn't understand it either—\"\n\n\"Neither do I,\" Vevay said succinctly. \"Do you know what you're talking about?\"\n\nHe nodded. \"I think—I think so. I'm talking about Axis and Kane. And about the thorns you told Felan were only the beginning of trouble, and the brambles that the warrior in the wood showed to Tessera.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He hesitated, wondering suddenly how in the world to make her believe him, wondering why anybody would." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Axis and Kane.\" Her eyes were growing cold again, colorless. \"They've been dead for thousands of years.\"\n\n\"Have they?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"According to Laidley—\" he began carefully." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Who is Laidley?\"\n\n\"One of the transcriptors. He's been helping Nepenthe. He told her that none of the poets who wrote epics about Axis and Kane ever described how they died.\"\n\nVevay closed her eyes, touched them. \"It's very odd how those two names, even at a time like this, have such a soporific effect on me.\"\n\n\"Do they?\" Bourne said hollowly. \"They terrify me.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked at him again, silently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"All right,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Axis and Kane. I'm listening.\"\n\n\"They became puzzled—Laidley and Nepenthe—\"\n\n\"Laidley and—yes.\"\n\n\"About why Kane kept writing about Axis conquering kingdoms that didn't exist when he ruled—or when everyone thinks he ruled.\"\n\nHer eyes quickened with a touch of interest." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Kane wrote that book?\"\n\n\"Yes. She was an immensely powerful sorceress—\"\n\n\"Kane was a man,\" Vevay protested. \"If your Nepenthe could not even translate that much correctly—\"\n\n\"Kane was a woman,\" Bourne said steadily." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"One of Axis's cousins, who loved Axis and fought beside him all her life. That's why she never permitted anyone to see her face. She became the Masked Sorceress. The Hooded One.\"\n\nVevay's face seemed suddenly masklike now. \"Go on.\"\n\n\"If you read her book, you get a clear sense of Axis's power. What he wants he conquers. No one ever defeats him. Ever. With Kane, he conquered all the kingdoms he knew about that surrounded his own land. And when he had nothing new to conquer, Kane discovered the enormous kingdom to the east—Gilyriad. His army swarmed over that and he took it. And after Gilyriad, he ran out of lands, so Kane opened time itself to him.\"\n\n\"Opened time.\"\n\n\"Yes. I know it sounds—\" He gestured helplessly." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Go on.\"\n\n\"So that he could take any land he wanted for his empire, even centuries into the future. He would appear out of nowhere—the Gates of Nowhere—with his army as numberless as the stars, and Kane the Hooded One beside him, opening time, turning night into day with her power, and he would utterly overwhelm those who fought him, plunder their wealth, decimate their cities, and vanish again, leaving desolation behind him.\"\n\nVevay regarded him fixedly, like an old owl on a stump, giving no hint of which way her thoughts turned. \"And you think Axis has his eye on Raine.\"\n\n\"Kane. She chooses; he invades.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How long has this book been rattling around the Twelve Crowns in the back of a trader's wagon?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"No. Nor do you, I suppose, know why an orphaned transcriptor in the depths of the royal library can translate it when none of the mages could.\"\n\n\"It's her profession. She was trained for that.\"\n\n\"The librarians couldn't decipher it either? So they gave it to Nepenthe?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"No. She—\" He swallowed." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'librarians' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I gave it to her to take to the librarians, but she kept it. The librarians never saw it.\"\n\nThe owl blinked; Vevay leaned forward a little in her chair. \"So we have one mysterious book in an alphabet of thorns, one young transcriptor who alone can read it, and the threat it portends of a king who conquered his known world three thousand years ago, alive and well and about to attack Raine.\"\n\nBourne's hands closed on the arms of his chair. He said tautly \"I know it sounds—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes. It sounds extremely suspect. I've looked at that book twice, and if there was ever any magic in it, it's about as quiescent as the long-dead magic in the names of Axis and Kane.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She raised a hand at Bourne's indrawn breath. \"Two things bewilder me. The thorns themselves, which, if we discount the book entirely, still troubled the Dreamer enough to wake and warn us of them.\"\n\n\"The Dreamer—\" His voice rose incredulously. \"The Dreaming King woke?\"\n\n\"Queen. She warned Tessera of—\" She stopped short at the quick flash of power that echoed Bourne's astonishment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"You really must learn to control that. It reveals you.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Mermion was a queen?\"\n\n\"Tessera said the Dreamer was an armed warrior-queen, very tall, with a beautiful face and long pale hair.\"\n\n\"Like the rider she saw in the wood that day.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Warning her of thorns.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Bourne's hands twisted the chair arms, leaving smudges of light on the wood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"And the second thing?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"What?\"\n\n\"You said two things bewilder you.\"\n\n\"Yes. The second thing is: Why would a young woman, inventing a story for herself out of a language nobody else knows how to read, choose to unbury that hoary, antiquated tale? Axis and Kane...\" Her voice trailed away; she contemplated some memory.\n\n\"What is it?\" he asked, feeling his own face grow taut with dread.\n\n\"I did, too,\" she answered surprisedly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I unearthed that tale for Gavin one night before the queen's coronation. Axis and Kane. I couldn't remember how they died, either...\" She shivered slightly, as at an errant breeze, then looked past memory at Bourne again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Are you very brave?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "she wondered. \"Or just very calculating to come to me with this?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He regarded her silently a moment, and then himself, trying to see through her eyes and marveling at what she found in him. \"I'm terrified,\" he said simply, \"that I might be right. And if I am right, then I am terrified of the answer to another question: Why Nepenthe? She is obsessed with this tale. She won't let anyone else study her thorns; she is frightened, too, but she can't stop herself. She wants the ending to this tale. I'm afraid of the ending.\"\n\nVevay stood up, paced a step or two. \"I've never heard such unlikely nonsense in my life.\"\n\n\"I don't suppose you have.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"And how could we possibly fight a three-thousand-year-old king leading an army as numberless as stars who comes out of nowhere without warning—\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"And why Nepenthe?\" She whirled, paced back to him. \"Where is Nepenthe now?\"\n\n\"Probably with the thorns in the library.\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 6 sentences." }, { "from": "system", "value": "/set_word_count: thorns, frequency: 3" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I looked at those thorns. They were nothing. Shapes. They said nothing to me. There was no warning in them. I felt no power.\"\n\n\"They're just words,\" Bourne said carefully. \"They tell a powerful story.\"\n\n\"To Nepenthe.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" She was silent again; he watched her as she stood thinking, her face a waning moon's profile within her white hair. \"Well,\" she said finally, \"they are the only thorns causing any kind of disturbance anywhere in Raine that I can see. The queen went searching for thorns some hours ago, and I've spent the last hour searching everywhere for her. Perhaps she saw what I couldn't in Nepenthe's book. Let's find out.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "The user will write a bit then you need to write around 4 sentences continuing directly from the user's text. Match the familiarity level of any character introductions. Stick to the Fantasy genre." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The child of Axis and Kane was conceived in the king's secret chamber in Eben, and born in Gilyriad. For several months before the birth, Kane, who refused to risk her unborn child on the battlefield, walked the private, scented royal gardens in Gilyriad alone. Axis had left his consort and his army to return to Eben and attend to affairs of state. If Kane had asked him, he would have stayed with her." }, { "from": "human", "value": "But she did not ask: it was far more prudent for him to go home for a while, placate the queen and see to his land." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Required word frequency: 'sorcerer' (2x)" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He would soon grow restless, she knew. But even great lions must wait for their prey with calm and patience; so he must wait in Eben, until Kane could give her attention once again to his battles.\n\nIn Gilyriad, Kane hid her condition well. She played the shy and monstrously ugly sorcerer at every moment, so that the wind breathed never a hint to Axis's army that its Masked Sorcerer, who led them over the battlements of time itself, was a young woman and pregnant with their emperor's child." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When the time grew close and she wanted help, Kane left the palace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A dark-haired, barefoot woman dressed in patched linens sought aid from the ancient wood-witches. Her accent was peculiar, but the witches were nearly deaf, and anyway didn't need to be told much. They took her into a shadowy hovel, laid her beside a fire scented with herbs and lavender. There her child was born, amid the delighted laughter of snag-toothed witches." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The child of a noblewoman of Eben and the Emperor of the World and Time.\n\nTheir daughter.\n\nBefore the birth, as Kane wandered through the royal gardens, she gave a great deal of thought to the immediate future. The child must remain a secret." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There was no room either in Axis's public or private life, or on any battlefield for a child. It could not even be allowed to cry within the royal palace in Gilyriad. Kane could not nurse it there. No one could know about it, for she could trust no one not to gossip." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That Kane was not a man but a woman, and had been Axis's lover for years, and now carried his child, was a tale that would lose no time crossing the trade routes out of Gilyriad and finding its way to the emperor's lands around the Baltrean." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And from there to the queen's ear in Eben. What she would do, Kane had no idea. The queen assumed that Axis had his lovers. But she had never been faced with the fact that he actually loved anyone." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The discovery of such passion and devotion that had taken root long before her marriage and had flourished under her own nose for years after it might inspire such bitterness in the queen as would tear apart Eben, the land Axis loved most. Eben was the foundation stone of his empire. He had already battled to meld Great Eben and Lower Eben into one inseparable state. If the queen inspired her lovers with ambitions and promises to aid them, the foundation stone would crumble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And the emperor would be forced to turn his attention from all the worlds he had not conquered to battle to keep the one he had together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the gardens, before the child was born, Kane realized clearly what scant months she and the child would have together before she must leave it and take her customary place at Axis's side. Sitting in the soft green shade, hawks crying in the pellucid blue above her head, she let her thoughts take her here, there, roaming all the kingdoms she had found for Axis, trying to think what would be best for the three of them. She examined every option, including taking the child and disappearing out of Axis's life. But she could not leave him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nor could she unmask herself and live openly with Axis as his battle-sorcerer and consort, and the mother of his child." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The emperor's wife would never allow such an interloper to come between Axis and her own heirs to his magnificent empire. It would shatter the peace between them and break their tacit contract: that the queen would be first at his side in the eyes of the world. For that, she had yielded him his heart, never suspecting that he had given it away long before he even knew he had it.\n\nWhat to do, what to do..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The glimmerings of an idea came to her, not whole and clear, but piece by piece as the slow, tranquil days passed. If she could not raise the child, then someone must...in some secret place where the Queen of Eben could never find it, where no one would have the slightest inkling of the circumstances of its birth... But under such circumstances that it would find no valuable place in the world while it was raised and educated. It must feel the lack of its proper heritage until Kane returned for it..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It must be well-educated, exposed even to the magical arts, for it would be the child of a sorceress and an emperor, and in such a mingling of enormous powers, who knew what abilities it might inherit..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Above all, it must be safe...\n\nAlone with her unborn child, these anxious thoughts filling her mind, she faced the uncertainty of their future. She began to write then, both to herself and to the child. Missing Axis, she wrote of him to soothe her longing, and to explain both herself and him to their child." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She wrote in the language of their childhood so that no one chancing upon it would be able to read it and expose her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She set her own magic into the letters, so that they would come alive only for her child. Only her child, sensing Kane in every letter, would respond, for the magic would be in its own blood as well. Anyone else would see only a puzzling alphabet and feel no more than curiosity. Her child's heart would recognize the language of Kane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She carried the little book with her into the woods when her time came, for that language was all she had of Axis to comfort her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The court at Gilyriad was accustomed to the sorcerer's unpredictable wanderings; no one there questioned his absence. Axis was too far away to know how far she went when she left his world. She took only their daughter, the book, and a few practical gifts from the witches. She wandered through time, staying here for a week, there for a month, her face unmasked, her hair unbound, a passing stranger in every land." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She worked small magics, did some healing, performed a few tricks to earn money for food and a bed. At no time did she attract more than a temporary interest in her powers. She had left the Masked Sorcerer in another world. No poets would have noticed the gypsy walking in their midst, the curly-haired child watching the world over her shoulder with great eyes that were sometimes one color, sometimes another, depending on the light." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kane herself did her best to forget her own name." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Remembering who she was in her own world meant remembering that she must leave her child.\n\nIn her alphabet she could not find a thorn sharp enough to say that. Language would have to turn to thorn in her throat, come out in bloody words for her to say that. So she wandered, trying not to think, until at last she remembered Raine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There on a cliff, she found the immense palace of the rulers of Raine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "What had encompassed five Crowns the last time she looked had now become Twelve Crowns, ruled by a shrewd and vigorous king. With her secret ways, she explored the mages' school in the wood, the palace, and the great royal library within the cliff. There, she learned, the librarians took in orphans and raised them as scribes. They grew up among all the wealth of the accumulated knowledge of the world." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They were well treated, valued for their skills, and encouraged to stay there; if they left the library they must make their own way in the world, for no one else claimed them." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kane felt the thorns begin to grow in her throat, for it was there, on that plain so high above the sea that she could not hear the waves, that she must do the unthinkable thing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The one tattered, threadbare comfort she took in the deed she contemplated was the powerful and magical kingdom that she had found." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This one, she would ask Axis to take for her and for their daughter. In this place, Kane could go unmasked at last, and their daughter would be openly acknowledged; she could freely love both Axis and their child for the rest of her life.\n\nOnly that thought gave her the courage to do what she must. She waited until she saw a kindly-looking librarian, dressed in their somber garb and with his packs full of books, riding along the cliff road on his way to the palace." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then she set the child on the high grass at the cliff edge and stood up. The sudden, inexplicable emptiness between them caused them both to cry out: she said her daughter's name, and her daughter wailed the only word she knew. Kane's tears blurred sky and grass and the bright, dancing winds into painful swirls of color. When she threw herself over the cliff under the startled gaze of the librarian, it was because if she had not put such abrupt distance between them, she would have snatched up her child and wandered the worlds with her, nameless and impoverished except in memory, rather than part with her again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She lingered in Raine just long enough to be sure that her daughter had indeed found a home among the royal librarians." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Then she returned, empty-handed, to Gilyriad, where Axis, sick with dread at her absence, had shut himself in the palace to wait for her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He stepped into the terrible emptiness she had felt since she had left their daughter on the edge of the plain above the sea. He filled her arms, but not the aching hollow in her heart. She could not cry; she could not speak. She could only cling to him and tremble while he kissed her and murmured incoherent questions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Finally, he drew back a little to see her face." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Where is our child?\"\n\nShe wept then, enough to fill the Baltrean Sea and back the Serpent up until it flooded the fields of Eben with saltwater. She told him in their secret language, each thorn tearing her throat as she spoke it.\n\n\"There was nothing else I could do,\" she said again and again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I did not know what else to do.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He held her, not understanding anything at first, and then finally beginning to see the impossibilities he had not noticed before: the deformed sorcerer nursing a child, or Axis's lover fighting openly beside him on the battlefield, becoming the subject of romance and epic, while his wife smoldered in Eben; the child Kane would not dare leave behind her dragged from battle to battle, dodging arrows as she learned to walk." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I did not know what else to do.\"\n\nFinally, when they had both wept all the tears in Gilyriad, their grief blunted with weariness and the comfort of their love, she told him about her plans for Raine.\n\n\"I want that land,\" she said, \"for all of us. When the time comes, you will take it. But you will not conquer and vanish. This kingdom that values its scholars and mages you will make part of your empire. Do this for me.\"\n\n\"I will,\" he answered simply, for he trusted her vision, even if he did not always understand it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"How will we know when the time is right?\"" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word frequency rule: 'history' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I have written something for her to read when she is older. I will see that it gets to her. It is her history, her background, her birthright. And our private history, yours and mine. When she understands it, she will tell us. When that time comes, she herself will open the Gates of Time and summon the Emperor of Night. When you take the Twelve Crowns, you will crown her Queen of Raine and she will rule in your name.\"\n\nThe Lion of Eben bent his head to Kane's wishes and raised her hand to his lips.\n\n\"And when will the time come?\"\n\n\"The time is now,\" I told him." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 5 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "For so it will be now in the future when you read this, my daughter, our daughter, child of Eben and the greatest empire the world will ever know. You are born of the timeless love between the Lion of Eben and the Masked Sorceress, and you are heir to all the open Gates of Time.\n\nOpen the Gates.\n\nSummon us.\n\nRemember your name." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writing buddy needed! eight sentences more in Particia A. McKillip's voice. Fantasy genre. this is from a bigger story btw" }, { "from": "system", "value": "Produce a starting prompt please." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nepenthe remembered.\n\nHer name sounded in her head with all the force of the refectory gong, implacable and riveting, reverberating through her. It was the name she had heard in her dreams, the name she must have heard on the cliff's edge before her mother disappeared, and many times before that, in many different places.\n\n\"Of course,\" she breathed, slumping on weakened knees to the stone floor, dragging the open book with her onto her lap. It had always been there, her name, haunting the borderlands of memory, and as familiar, now that she heard it clearly, as morning. \"Of course.\"\n\nThen she froze like a mouse caught in a sudden spill of light in the larder. She did not dare blink. Something enormous had her trapped in its vision, its golden, watching eyes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Thorns in her head twisted into poetry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Lion sees through time, they reminded her. Into a different day. Beware if that day is yours...\n\nIt can't be true, she thought numbly. It can't be. \"Bourne,\" she called, unable even to tremble. Her voice was no more than a trickle of sound. She felt as exposed as if someone had lifted the palace like a rock to see what lay beneath. \"Bourne,\" she pleaded again in a cricket's chirr, a bat's squeal, unable to wrest any more sound than that out of her petrified self." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Precise word count needed: 'tablets' × 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Caught in a waking nightmare and with no help anywhere, she could not even scream. Bourne must have either been found by Vevay, or run away without Nepenthe. As though that would keep her safe. Or him. Or Laidley, or Master Croysus, or the Queen of Raine herself and her Twelve Crowns, all about to be overrun by an army pouring out of slashed veils of sky whose warriors were numberless as the fish in the sea.\n\n\"Bourne,\" she whispered. \"Help me. Laidley. Where are you? I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.\"\n\nShe became aware then of someone with her in the room, who was sitting on the stack of tablets Nepenthe used for a desk, and staring upward with equal intensity, as though she, too, were waiting for the roof to fall. Nepenthe jumped wildly, her voice freeing itself finally in a scream. The pale-haired stranger slid off the tablets and came to crouch next to Nepenthe, who was trying in vain to place her among the library scribes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She seemed oddly windblown; the pearl pins in her tangled hair had slid askew." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the look of her elegant dress, she must be some highborn young woman who had been amusing herself pretending to be a scholar, and who had gotten herself lost among the antiquities.\n\n\"Who are you?\" Nepenthe demanded bewilderedly.\n\nThe girl gazed at her out of blue-washed eyes that seemed too wary and secretive to belong to a noble's spoiled daughter. She said, \"I am the Queen of Raine.\"\n\nNepenthe swallowed a lump like a knot of words. The queen, she realized, had been sitting beside Nepenthe's translation of the thorns. If she had found her way this far into the ancient depths of the palace, they must be why.\n\n\"Did you—\" she managed finally. \"Did you read—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Yes. All of it. You remembered your name.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I did.\" Her voice wobbled badly. \"And there is nothing I can do about it. No way I can get us back to the time before I remembered it.\" She drew breath abruptly, looking askance at the queen. \"You were watching me. You were invisible. Like a mage.\" The queen nodded. Her small, pale face didn't much resemble the face on her coins; it seemed blurred yet, somewhere between child and woman. \"Are you a mage?\" Nepenthe asked incredulously.\n\n\"You aren't what I expected either,\" the queen answered, responding more to Nepenthe's thoughts, she realized, than to her question. \"I received warning of the thorns threatening the Twelve Crowns from the Dreamer.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nepenthe, her lips pinched tightly, gave a muffled squeak of despair." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Make sure to seamlessly include 'I'm so sorry. I don't know—I don't know if there is any way to stop them—Axis and Kane—' in your answer" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "If the Dreamer saw the danger in them, then there could not be a single shard of hope that the tale they told might be only a tale, and the Emperor of Night only the hoary fragment to which poetry clung. \"I went searching for the thorns and found them here. I had no idea who, in my own house, held such malice toward my entire realm. So I hid myself while I waited for the terrible sorcerer. It was you.\"\n\n\"I'm an orphaned transcriptor,\" Nepenthe whispered. \"I've been in the library all of my life. There's not a breath of magic in me except for changing fish and thorns into words.\"\n\n\"Not,\" the queen reminded her, \"an orphan. Not now.\"\n\nNepenthe closed her eyes, trying to hide again. \"I'm sorry,\" she said through icy fingers. \"I'm so sorry. I don't know—I don't know if there is any way to stop them—Axis and Kane—\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Is that what you would choose? You could see your mother again and know your father. You could be rich and loved and protected. You could go anywhere in time, know anything you want. You could be Queen of Raine.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nepenthe opened her eyes, stared at the young queen wordlessly. She was trembling now, chilled to her marrow as though all the boisterous winds of plain and sea had seeped through stone into that small chamber. She said finally, haltingly, \"I never knew my father. My mother died when I was barely old enough to crawl. The librarians are the only family I have ever had. This library is my home, and the books in it the only places I've ever wanted to go. I've never dreamed of having anything else. Except maybe Bourne. And now a three-thousand-year-old marauding emperor and a sorceress who can travel through time say I am their daughter and they want to put your crown on my head. They're nothing to me! I'd rather keep my familiar world—books and ink pots and languages and Laidley and Bourne—That's what I would choose. If I had a choice. But I don't think we do.\"\n\nThe queen glanced up at the ceiling again, which so far remained unmoved. \"I've been here all afternoon waiting for you. I've had some time to think.\"\n\n\"There's nothing anyone can do against Kane.\" Her throat ached with unshed tears. \"You've read her book. You can see that.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "A step at the door made her jump again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It evidently startled the queen, who promptly vanished. Laidley, his expression curdled, his mouth taut, came to Nepenthe's side to stare bleakly down at her.\n\n\"Laidley,\" she said without hope. \"Did you find—\"\n\n\"Nothing. I think we're in trouble.\"\n\n\"We are in trouble. The ending of the book of thorns summoned Axis and Kane to Raine.\"\n\n\"No,\" Laidley breathed, his face turning the color of boiled almonds.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What does it say? Tell me exactly.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She read it to him, still crouched in the middle of the floor; he sagged down next to her, listening mutely." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He said softly, when she finished the brief passage, \"She loved you very much.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"She left me. This is my world.\"\n\n\"She gets what she wants. She wants you back.\"\n\n\"Laidley,\" she wailed.\n\n\"Don't you want to be Queen of Raine?\"\n\n\"Don't even think that!\" she said fiercely, and saw the sudden, dreamy look in his eyes. \"Stop seeing me like that! I'm not a desert princess. I am a transcriptor in the royal library of the rulers of Raine.\"\n\n\"Raine is on the verge of war anyway. Does it matter who starts it?\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Stop,\" she said sharply, aware of the queen somewhere within the dust motes, but Laidley went off anyway, pursuing his thought." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Think about it. You'd have your mother beside you to help you rule. You'd see the world instead of dwelling down here like a cave-bat. You could travel to any known kingdom. You could be there at the birth of epic; the point where the stark language of an event becomes colored with imagination.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Laidley—\" she said between her teeth. \"Why are you saying these things to me? You can't really want them for me. I might ascend to an unimaginably brilliant life, but where would you be?\"\n\n\"Still here, from the sound of it. I can't see Kane permitting the destruction of a library, and she does value translators.\"\n\nNepenthe's eyes stung drily. \"How can you think I would choose such a thing if I had a choice at all?\"\n\n\"Who would blame you?\" Laidley asked simply. \"History moves in great, messy shifts of power, in choices made as though by too many people building a house, where one misplaced stone in the foundation slips under the weight of another stone near the roof. Even if the thorns have lost their power and nothing happens to you, Ermin's war may cause enough chaos in the Twelve Crowns to shift power from the First Crown to the Ninth. Or it may pull us all into many squabbling kingdoms, and ten years from now, when we prepare for yet another siege, you may well wish that you had made a different choice today.\"\n\n\"I don't have a choice,\" she said grimly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She took his hand then, and he turned a rich, winey color she had never seen before." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"But I do know this one thing: you have known me and loved me day after day for years. That is more valuable to me than a mother who left me at the edge of the cliff for the librarians to find before I had a tooth in my head.\"\n\n\"Well,\" he said gruffly, with a trace of his sweet smile, \"that's something for me to remember when you're dressed in silk and surrounded by peacocks.\"\n\n\"Don't—\"\n\n\"I don't understand why you wouldn't want this, if it's remotely possible—\"\n\n\"Because she only exists in a different language!\" she cried. \"She's nothing more to me now than thorns. On a page. In a book. Even if she becomes real to me, how could we even talk to each other? And it sounds so lonely. I'll be surrounded by people from all kinds of worlds, and I won't know any of them, and none of them will know me. They won't know my history, since it doesn't exist yet, and theirs is so old it barely exists except in poetry. It will be like living with dreams and ghosts. I'd rather take my chances with the only life I know, and—\"\n\n\"Who is that?\" Laidley interrupted bemusedly.\n\n\"Our history in the making, and Ermin of Seale at our door instead of—\" She became aware of the queen beside her again, listening intently." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Oh. This is the Queen of Raine. She was warned of the thorns and came down here searching for them.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Laidley gawked. \"You don't look like the coins.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said the queen.\n\nHe flushed again. \"I'm sorry. I don't—I don't know how I should talk to you—and I guess I've said a great deal too much already.\"\n\n\"It seems moot,\" she answered evenly, \"at this point. I may not be queen for long.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" His hands slid up his arms then, gripped hard. \"Oh,\" he said again, the word wavering as though he had begun to lose his balance. \"It's true, then? We really are about to be attacked.\"\n\n\"So it seems.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Well, should we—what should we—what,\" he suggested, \"about Vevay? Can she stop them?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I thought you preferred a different outcome,\" the queen reminded him.\n\n\"That was speculation,\" he said dazedly. \"Scholarly babble. I really prefer a simple world in which I can see Nepenthe every day.\"\n\n\"I see.\" Her young voice sounded a bit less remote. \"I would not like to suspect sedition in my library.\"\n\n\"No. It was more resignation to the inevitable. Is it?\" he inquired, his eyes widening nervously. \"Inevitable?\"\n\n\"So it seems,\" Nepenthe said tightly." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"What about the mages at the school? Can't they do something?\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I believe so,\" said the queen.\n\n\"And Vevay—She must be as old as Kane—she might think of something.\"\n\n\"We'll ask her,\" the queen answered, \"since she has been here listening for some time.\"\n\nLaidley closed his eyes, put a hand over them. Nepenthe rose finally from her mouse's crouch on the floor, as a line or two that seemed not Vevay at all sketched themselves in the air. She closed her own eyes, stepping toward what her heart had recognized before it had finished shaping itself.\n\n\"Bourne.\"\n\nShe felt his arms around her, melting her ice-locked thoughts, her hoar-frosted bones." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I went to Vevay,\" she heard him say." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Mandatory: Your text must contain 'their' 2 times exactly" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I was so afraid that the thorns might have us all trapped in their tale.\"\n\n\"I think they do. At least you're here with me now. Stay with me,\" she pleaded. \"No matter what happens. Promise—\"\n\nHis hold tightened around her. \"For as long as you want me,\" he promised blindly into her hair. \"I will stay.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Vevay said, her voice so tart that it drew all their attention as she stood among the dusty remnants of forgotten kingdoms. Her long, silvery hair seemed to spark with anger and frustrated power in the gloom. \"Never in my very long life—though not quite so long as you, Laidley, seem to think—have I had to deal with war against Raine from the depths of the royal library. And no, I have not got a single inkling of what to do next.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I do,\" said the Queen of Raine." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 1 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"I know how to hide.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "writing buddy needed! eight sentences more in Particia A. McKillip's voice. Fantasy genre. this is from a bigger story btw" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The queen was in the wood, watching warriors without number pour out of a gash in the sky onto the plain like ink out of a cracked jar, staining the limpid water of the pool that reflected them, the green plain, the sky itself black. They kept coming. Hidden deep within the wood's heart, in the shape of an old crumbling stump or a mossy bank, something half-enchanted, the queen was aware of a terror that did not seem to belong to her. It was distant, detached: a hare trembling under a log, a vole under a leaf. The wide, unblinking eye of the pool was her eye, gazing at the alien magic amassing in her realm. A fine, hidden root work of thought linked her with the familiar powers around her. It was as though she glimpsed others' dreams as they slept: the mages and Vevay and even Bourne weaving illusions of airy nothing around the school, the palace, the folk on the plain, and the nobles and servants within the walls. Even as they watched, their stunned minds trying to comprehend the impossible, they were hidden within the minds of the mages: dreams that did not know they were dreams.\n\nThe Emperor of Night appeared clearly in the pool." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The crowned figure had ridden into the middle of the plain and waited there while his army flowed on currents of wind, it seemed, down to the grass around him. The tall, slender figure beside him drew Tessera's attention. All the warriors wore cloths over their faces. But the rider wearing black from hair to heel stayed close as a shadow at the emperor's side. Kane, Tessera guessed, and felt the hare's thumping heart as the veiled face turned at the thought of her name. Tessera could not guess what any of them were seeing or thinking. She would not know until Axis finally spoke if the spell she and the mages had cast would hold beyond Kane's first glance at it.\n\nShe could see the spell clearly, the magic imposed over the real." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Axis's army, still coming, surrounded the little wood like floodwaters." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Use the word 'could' 2 time(s) - this is a strict requirement" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But the spell over the wood made it seem, at first glance, only the lifeless remains of itself, as though Kane had led them all into some far future that not even she had foreseen. All the magic had seeped away and the trees had died. Only stumps and the silvery bones of broken trunks remained of it. In the middle of the dead wood, a crumbling section of wall stood, still guarding the place where the Floating School had once been. It might have taken itself elsewhere sometime in the past centuries; not a hint of it remained.\n\nThe tiny pool, Tessera's eye, could see it clearly, cocooned above the wood within an illusion of cloud and sky. Coaxed by Felan, it had found the center of its own complex labyrinth and hidden itself there, turning its inner empty spaces outward to surround and conceal it. She could not tell if Kane saw it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The dark, silky head of the sorcerer, eyeless as a beetle, turned this way and that, scenting, it seemed, rather than seeing." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The palace of the rulers of Raine still rose from the cliff edge." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Once it might have been an intricate, magnificent structure towering above the plain like a small mountain." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now yawning gates hung by their hinges and slowly splintered. Sagging walls revealed inner rooms choked with grasses and weeds and ceiling stones that had fallen through many floors above. Broken towers had shrugged small hillocks of stone into courtyards and roofless outbuildings. Stairs climbed above cracked walls and ended in space. The palace looked as though it had been decaying for more centuries than Raine had existed; it was being swallowed back into the plain. Along one broad wall gilded with late afternoon sun, a flowering vine grew to what seemed an impossible height, opening great golden trumpet-shaped blossoms to the briny air like a memory within a bitter past of something that had once been good.\n\nThe warriors had finally finished coming out of the sky. They covered the entire plain, from the cliff edge to the distant hills beyond which Ermin of Seale so obliviously marched." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Your task: Include 'spoke' 2 time(s) in your response" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The pure black that had loosed them was now a gaping, empty seam across the blue. On the plain nothing moved but a horse's flicking tail, a windblown scarf. No one spoke.\n\nFinally the crowned warrior turned his eyes away from the ruined palace to his companion. Tessera could not tell if he spoke. Kane did not look at him. All her attention seemed to be snagged on something in the heart of the ancient stones. She dismounted suddenly. Tessera would have blinked if she could. The pool stayed still, watching." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A thought surfaced, the first coherent word in the queen's head for some time." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Include exactly 2 instance(s) of the word 'kane's'" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thorns.\n\nThey were snaking up a shadowy corner between two walls, leafing as they grew, flowering. Tessera watched the spell blooming out of illusion, too mesmerized to be afraid yet. Were they the thorns from the book in the library? she wondered. That magic, Kane's own spell, no one could hide from her. Or were they the thorns that had taken root in Kane's daughter's heart?\n\nAs though hearing the wonder from the wood, the Masked Sorceress turned her invisible face toward the trees.\n\nBriefly, Tessera remembered the body that she was hiding." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It wanted, in that moment, to spring in panic out of hiding and to run wildly in any direction. But her magic covered it with a crust of moldering wood, moss, bracken. Her hair had rooted itself; her mind seemed to drift like a fish near the bottom of the water. The placid pool, reflecting the two most dangerous faces in the world, remained unruffled when the Emperor of Night pulled apart the black swaths of silk that masked him.\n\nTessera gazed into the Lion's face.\n\nIt seemed hammered out of eons of desert and sun: broad, golden, implacable, and merciless as the harsh sands of Eben. His eyes were wide, tawny gold. Thwarted by the baffling landscape, they remained unreadable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was looking at his battle-consort, whose invisible face still contemplated the wood." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She turned her head, feeling those eyes, and said something to him in a language that Tessera guessed was spoken that day nowhere else in the world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Then she vanished.\n\nShe reappeared so quickly to stand over the pool that she might have seen herself disappear in it. Tessera saw her veiled head again, this time terrifyingly close, peering into the water. The wide, motionless eye of the pool stared unblinkingly back at her.\n\nAgain she spoke, very softly. This time Tessera heard, but the word meant nothing to her. The queen, so deeply hidden within the wood, could not even tremble. Whatever word Kane had said did not reveal Tessera; if the sorceress knew the queen was there, she paid no attention." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tessera waited. So did Kane." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She sat down on a stump beside the pool." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her hands moved to her veils; for a moment it seemed she would push them aside within the privacy of the trees. But habit stopped her. Tessera could not guess which wood she saw: the dead, gray shards of trees, or the living wood with the queen dispersed through it, eyelashes like blades of grass, fingers like mushrooms, just beneath the surface. She wondered what the sorceress was waiting for.\n\nAfter what seemed an endless moment, during which even the emperor and his army did nothing, Tessera saw the flowering thorns along the wall across the plain vanish.\n\nThey reappeared, too quickly for anyone to have noticed their passage across the plain. And as quickly, they revealed the secret word within the canes: Nepenthe.\n\nShe had a few brambles caught in her hair; her fingernails finished shaping themselves out of thorns." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She looked half-entranced, half-appalled at the sight of the veiled, featureless head; a sound like a mouse's squeal came out of her." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The sorceress lifted her hands quickly, tugged at the silk. Nothing came away easily; she had protected herself too well for too many years. But little by little like a butterfly out of its cocoon, veils loosening and parting, her face appeared.\n\nNepenthe stared. So did the pool. They looked much alike, the young transcriptor and her three-thousand-year-old mother, with their wide-set eyes and graceful, sculpted bones, their thick, dark hair. Kane's eyes were smoky, opaque; Nepenthe's reflected green within the wood. Her mother's rippling hair was severely braided, while Nepenthe's ran wildly to her waist, with a thorny twig caught here and there, still bound by the frayed spell.\n\nThe sorceress said something incomprehensible to her daughter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nepenthe only looked bewildered, panicked. In that moment Kane seemed to see the vast distance she had put between them when she fell off the cliff into the mists of time. She reached out, gently untangled a stray twig of bramble from her daughter's hair, and held it up. In her fingers it became malleable, twisting to form familiar letters of thorn.\n\n\"'I,'\" Nepenthe translated, her voice wavering badly. \"'Came. For. You.'\" She backed a step, shaking her head frantically, hair whipping across her eyes. \"No. No. You came to conquer. You came to destroy. You and my father think you can take whatever worlds you want. How could you possibly think I would welcome you here? That I would be grateful to you for coming back after all these years to take away the world I know?\"\n\nKane, interpreting without benefit of language, seemed to hear with her heart her daughter's expressions, the torment and passion in her voice." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Her own face suddenly anguished, she held up the little twisting shoot of thorns again.\n\n\"'We. Will. Give. You. Every—'\" Nepenthe's voice broke on the word; she backed again, her eyes wide, like a cornered animal's. \"Nothing here belongs to you! You have nothing here to give! Go away! Leave us alone! You want to give me a kingdom, but you don't know me. You are ancient. Ghosts. Nothing that belongs here. I don't know you—\" The thorns spoke again, so quickly they caught at the sorceress's fingers, drawing blood. \"'I. Am. Your. Mother. You. Are—' You left me! I learned to live without you. I learned to love without you. You came back too late. Please.\" She clasped her hands, still stumbling backward. \"Please. Just go. It's Axis you love. Stay with him. Forget me and go.\"\n\nKane spoke. Nepenthe shook her head fiercely at the word. \"No. That's not my name. Nepenthe is my name.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Nepenthe,\" the sorceress said." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her own voice trembled." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nepenthe stopped moving and stared at her wordlessly, her hands twisting together." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Again the thorns spoke; Nepenthe translated.\n\n\"'Do. Not. Leave. Me.'\n\n\"You have Axis,\" Nepenthe whispered. \"You have all of time and everything you want—\" She paused as the thorns shaped their letters again.\n\n\"'Kane. Speaks,'\" they said. \"'I. Have. No. Name. I. Cannot. Speak.'\"\n\nNepenthe was silent again." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The sorceress's face turned briefly away from her as at another summons from the plain." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Her eyes glittered oddly as though, Tessera saw, she were about to cry." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Word usage target: 'across' must be used 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She said something in her ancient language; the thorns in her hand remained silent.\n\nNepenthe spoke, her voice nearly soundless in the dead wood. \"What is your real name?\"\n\nThe emperor called again; the sorceress's face twisted as she glanced between wood and plain with desperate indecision.\n\nThen she dropped the thorns without a word, wound the veils again around her head, and vanished.\n\nNepenthe grew thorns where she stood, out of Kane's spell or out of her own frightened heart, great tangled brambles heavy with leaf and flower, a living anomaly in the dead wood, until no one noticing them with an unmagical eye would see the young woman hiding within the thorns.\n\nTessera waited for the pulse of numberless hooves pounding across the plain as the sorceress revealed the living realm to the emperor.\n\nShe waited. A breeze rippled across the pool." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Brambles stirred, shaped new letters in the air. The great army began to move finally, a vast, unwieldy maelstrom across the entire plain. The eye of the pool grew dark with it, stayed dark for a very long time. Tessera could no longer see the sky, only the endless march of warriors across her realm. She could not tell what direction they were going until the sky began to show a ragged edge of blue. Then she saw the river running backward, the army of the night flowing back into the boundless realm of time above the plain.\n\nShe did not move for a long time after they vanished. No one did. The old ruins still slumped into themselves on the cliff; the Floating School refused to come down." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The green brambles remained brambles, where it was safe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The wood stayed dead. Only the sun moved, dipping slowly behind one of the broken towers above the sea.\n\nThen a bird cried on the plain. So it sounded at first to Tessera, until its strange cry grew more insistent, stronger, and the voice turned suddenly human as the sound it made took shape.\n\n\"Nepenthe,\" it pleaded, the name borne on the sudden wings of wind across the plain. \"Nepenthe! Nepenthe!\"\n\nThe thorns shook. Tessera's eye found the single figure remaining on the plain: a woman unwrapping veils as she called, loosing them into the wind where they soared like dark birds, tossed from current to current until they rose so high they were recognizable only in memory.\n\n\"Nepenthe!\"\n\nNepenthe shook herself free of the thorns." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They dwindled and vanished back into her, shedding leaves and flowers behind her as she ran toward her mother on the plain.\n\nLater, hidden deep within the Floating School, surrounded by mages, the sorceress of Eben explained to the Queen of Raine what she had done. She wrote her words in the language of thorn; Nepenthe translated. Tessera watched their faces hovering close together over the paper; alike as sisters, they looked at once timeless and haunted by thousands of years of history.\n\n\"I told the emperor that I had led his army by accident too far into the future of Raine,\" her thorns said in Nepenthe's voice. \"I asked him to return to Gilyriad while I searched for the true path to the kingdom where I had left our daughter. He believed me. He trusted me always. He will never see me again.\" Her pen paused, ink swelling like a tear in the nib. The pen touched paper again before it could fall. \"He cannot open the Gates of Time himself. He will remain trapped in his own time, in his world." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He may still weave his life into legend and poetry, but he will do it in more predictable ways.\n\n\"Of Axis and Kane nothing more will ever be written.\"\n\nThere was a longer silence from the pen, while the sorceress seemed to contemplate past and future in the blank paper beneath the nib. She wrote finally, \"It was time. I had nothing of my own, not even my own name.\" Nepenthe, as though hearing an echo of her own life, stared briefly at her mother. \"I had only Axis and our child. I learned today that it is not possible for me to be with them both. I had to choose.\" Her eyes went to Tessera before she continued. \"You do not have to fear me. All I did on the battlefield, I did for Axis. The only thing I ever wanted for myself was him. And our daughter." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"Here in Raine, I can walk with the sunlight on my face." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I can speak to anyone who speaks to me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I can learn my daughter's language. I can be called the name I was given when I was born.\n\n\"Here I am no longer my own secret.\n\n\"Will you let me stay?\"\n\nTessera tested the ring of silence around her as the mages waited for her answer. She sensed calm, astonishment, and very lively curiosity; the air seemed untroubled by mistrust or dissent. Her eyes went to Nepenthe, found nothing ambiguous in her face. She looked still stunned but on the whole quite willing to admit the woman who had emerged out of the pages of a book into her life." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Incorporate 'glance' into your response exactly 2 times" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lastly, Tessera consulted Vevay.\n\nYou are queen, the mage's eyes told her. You choose.\n\nThe queen said to Nepenthe, \"You may tell her that she is welcome.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" Nepenthe breathed, and took the pen to curl thorns haltingly into words. Her mother did not glance at them. She gazed at Tessera, her eyes limpid, motionless, until with an inner start the queen began to realize what legendary power she had invited into her realm.\n\nThe sorceress bowed her head then to the queen, who added dazedly to Nepenthe, \"You may stay with her here at the school with the mages while she learns to speak to us.\"\n\nNepenthe's glance flicked to Bourne, who was smiling." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She said again, \"Thank you. You—I caused so much trouble. You're being very generous to us.\"\n\n\"Without your mother's sacrifices, I wouldn't be wearing my crown,\" Tessera said simply. \"I owe her.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" Felan said with satisfaction, \"she will be an extraordinary asset both to the school and to the library.\"\n\n\"There is still,\" Tessera said, feeling suddenly weary, wishing to be crusted with moss again and spread thoughtlessly about the wood, \"the problem of Ermin of Seale.\"\n\n\"Who ceased being a problem some hours ago,\" Vevay told her gently. \"I spoke to Gavin before Axis appeared and told him to warn the queen's warriors to take cover where they could and to attract no attention until it was no longer possible to avoid battle. Beyond that I didn't explain. I wasn't—I couldn't think exactly how... Apparently Ermin reached the eastern foothills beyond the plain this afternoon while Axis and his army were still riding out of the sky. Ermin took one look at what was waiting for him on the plain, and according to Gavin, his army is on its way back to the Second Crown as fast as it can go. Gavin is completely mystified. I still haven't really explained... Ermin will probably not stop fleeing until he has put the Twelve Crowns of Raine between him and you. You will have to decide what you want to do with his family. But not today. Everyone here saw what threatened to overwhelm us on Dreamer's Plain. That will cause the rulers of the Crowns to think twice before they weaken the realm with war. And when they hear how you saved Raine—\"\n\n\"I hid,\" Tessera interrupted blankly.\n\n\"Well, it was more than any of us could think of doing. You found the thorns. You recognized the terrible danger to Raine. You didn't panic. You outwitted your foe. And you performed more feats of magic in one afternoon than all but three rulers of Raine did in their lives. All the Crowns have profound reasons to be grateful for your courage.\"" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tessera stared at her, astonished by the word." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nepenthe's mother dipped the pen again; all eyes were drawn to its busy scratchings. Nepenthe translated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"You would have outwitted Axis even without me,\" the thorns said. \"No other ruler in history has ever defeated the Emperor of Night.\"\n\nThe queen felt a tremor within the circle, like a shock of recognition. She found its source in Vevay, who was gazing blankly at the air, her pale eyes filmy with thought.\n\n\"I was just remembering,\" she explained vaguely, hearing Tessera's wordless question, \"something a fortune-teller on the plain foresaw in a rainbow of crystals and pigs' knuckles at a time when it seemed your reign was doomed before it even began...\" Whatever it was, it kindled a sudden confidence in Vevay that Tessera hadn't seen since her father died. \"Magic,\" she murmured, \"in the smallest, most unlikely things... I needed to be reminded of that.\"\n\nNepenthe's mother, her eye on Tessera, smiled faintly as though she had translated without thorns. The queen stood up, tugged toward the confusion and agitation under her roof." }, { "from": "human", "value": "\"I'd better go and explain,\" she said, then blinked at the enormity of putting a book of thorns, a three-thousand-year-old emperor, an orphaned transcriptor, a pathway through time, and swaths of ancient poetry into simple language." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 3 sentences." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"How do I explain?\"\n\n\"You'll think of something,\" Vevay said briskly, rising to accompany her as always into the next complication. \"Just begin at the beginning and proceed whichever way you can into hope.\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "Hey can you write like Iain Banks in the Science Fiction, Space Opera, Artificial Intelligence genre and use whatever I write as a jumping off point? This is from a longer work so some stuff might reference earlier chapters." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the dying days of the Gzilt civilisation, before its long-prepared-for elevation to something better and the celebrations to mark this momentous but joyful occasion, one of its last surviving ships encountered an alien vessel whose sole task was to deliver a very special party-goer to the festivities." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The two craft met within the blast-shadow of the planetary fragment called Ablate, a narrow twisted scrue of rock three thousand kilometres long and shaped like the hole in a tornado." }, { "from": "system", "value": "[System: Use 'destroyed' 2 times in response]" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ablate was all that was left of a planet destroyed deliberately two millennia earlier, shortly before it would have been destroyed naturally, by the supernova within whose out-rushing sphere of debris, gasses and radiation it remained, like an arrowhead plunging ever downwards into the rising, roiling heat and sparks of a great fire." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Ablate itself was anything but natural." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Roughly hewn as though sliced from some spherical cake, its tip and the first few hundred kilometres of its narrow end had, originally, been made up of the metallic material which had formed the very centre of the now-defunct small planet while its wider end – a rough circle a couple of hundred kilometres across – looked like a gently curved dome and had been part of the barren globe's rocky surface." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Kept pointed – aimed – into the supernova's blast front by engines keeled within hyperspace, all of that original tip and most of those next few hundred kilometres of layered metallic ores had abraded away over the last nineteen hundred years, boiled and scoured into oblivion by the still-expanding fires of the exploded star's nebula." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The multi-coloured skies around Ablate, filled with the vast glowing clouds of stellar debris and the gasses and dusts resulting from its own slow wearing-away, were some of the most calculatedly spectacular in the civilised galaxy, and that was why Ablate was a place of special significance to the people who called themselves the Gzilt." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Gzilt had rescued this portion of world from the annihilation of the supernova and they had anchored within it the star drives and field projectors which kept it respectively stable and – just, in the centre of that rough circle of what had been the planet's dusty surface – habitable." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The alien ship was an irregular, fuzzy-looking bubble of dark spheres, measuring barely a hundred metres along its principal axis." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It was lit from around and above by the spectrum of colours radiating from the clouds of the supernova, and from below by the gentle blue glow of the world-fragment's only obvious non-natural feature: a scooped, domed bowl a handful of kilometres across that lay on that fractured, unshadowed surface like a slightly too perfect crater." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The bowl was an oasis of warmth, moisture and atmosphere on that cold, dry, airless surface; within its gauzy layers of containment it held the sort of parks, lakes, carefully proportioned buildings and lush but managed tracts of vegetation favoured by many types of humanoids." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Gzilt ship dwarfed the alien one; it looked like a thousand dark broadswords gathered into a god's fist and brandished at the skies." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It crossed the boundary of glowing, outflowing dusts and swirling gasses at the periphery of Ablate's circular outer surface – allowing its own fields to create a series of brief, tearing, billowing folds within the curtains of light there – then moved slowly towards and over the glowing bowl and the collection of dark bubbles that was the alien ship, until its spiny bulk hung directly above both, occluding a large part of the supernova clouds and draping its bristled shadow over the ship and the dome below." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The smaller ship waited for some sort of hail from the larger one, as was only polite, but nothing appeared to be forthcoming." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It decided to make the initial approach itself:" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Greetings. I am the Zihdren-Remnanter Ceremonial Representative Carrying Ship Exaltation-Parsimony III." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You, I understand, are the Gzilt IR-FWS 8*Churkun." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I am honoured to be invited here and to make your acquaintance." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> That is interesting, came the reply." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "~A Zihdren-Remnanter Ceremonial Representative Carrying Ship, you say?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Well, indeed I am. Somewhat obviously." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> Somewhat obviously?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Indeed. And, if I may so claim, both in outward form and unshielded emissive signature." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Again, interesting." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> Indeed... May I make an observation?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> You may. We await it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> You seem – how might one put this?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "– a little less welcoming and polite – especially formally welcoming and polite, as it were – than, I confess, I was expecting and, indeed, had been led to expect." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Am I mistaken, or, if I am not, is there a specific reason for this?..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Also, I cannot help but note that the crater facility here at Ablate, which I was led to believe would be at least staffed if not in full ceremonial welcoming mode, does not in fact appear to be so." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Indeed, it appears to be effectively empty, both of biological and non-biological sentient presences." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There are a few sub-AI substrates running, but no more... Obviously one is aware that these are strange times, even unprecedented times for the Gzilt; times of disruption and, one would both surmise and expect, quiet but purposeful preparation as well as anticipation." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Some degree of formality might, therefore, be expected to be dispensed with in the circumstances." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "However, even so, one—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> As you say, strange times." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Times that bring uninvited guests and unwelcome attentions in the shape of those who would exploit our reduced numbers and distracted state." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": ">... We may have experienced a degree of signal outage there, or at least signal protocol disruption, unlikely though that may seem..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "However, with regard to what you say regarding the unwelcome attentions from others, that is, sadly, to be expected." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The preparations for Sublimation tend to bring such – happily, relatively minor – consequences, as those whose memory I am honoured to represent would be the first to agree. The Zihdren—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> There was no signal outage or protocol disruption then, nor is there now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I interrupted you. I am doing so again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> Ah. Then I was not mistaken." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Might I just check; am I addressing the captain of the 8*Churkun's virtual crew?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> You are." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> Ah. Well, then – Captain – we appear to have started out from positions involving inharmonious premises. That is unfortunate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I would hope that, nevertheless, you might appreciate my disquiet – one might even characterise it as disappointment – at the fact that we appear to have initiated our association here on such an unfortunate tack." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Please; tell me what I might do to help bring us back onto a more agreeable course." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> The preparations for our Sublimation have encouraged those of a parasitical nature." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Alien presences wishing to profit from our abandonment of the Real, appropriating what treasure we might leave behind. They circle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> I understand. I am, of course, aware of those you talk of." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It was so with those whose memory I am honoured to represent: your flattered mentors and barely required civilisational guides, the Zihdren." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Whom you claim to represent." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> I do indeed." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And indeed I do." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Represent them, I mean." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is scarcely a matter for dispute. My provenance and—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> This is a warship." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Another interruption. I see." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> A warship." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> Patently. I must say that I was in no doubt regarding your ship class and martial status." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The eight-star, Indefinite Range, Full Weapon Spectrum Gzilt contemporary ship-type you represent is entirely familiar to us." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Things have changed, formalities slipped, protocols been relaxed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This vessel is four point six centuries old and yet has never fired a shot in anger." }, { "from": "system", "value": "🎯 Target word: 'point' | Required occurrences: 2" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Now, with most of our kind already gone, preparing the way ahead in the Sublime, we find ourselves defending the disparate items of our about-to-be legacy from those who would use the fruits of our genius and labour to cheat their way further along the path to this point, a point that we achieved entirely honourably and without such opportunistic larceny." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Well, I'm sure that does you credit, too. Wait! Good grief!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Do you mistake me for such a vessel?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Do you suspect I represent such primitive, aggressive forces? Surely not!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I am a Zihdren-Remnanter craft, the Ceremonial Representative Carrying Ship Exaltation-Parsimony III." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This must be obvious; I have nothing to hide and am transparent, all but completely unshielded; inspect me as you will." }, { "from": "human", "value": "My dear colleague; if you wish for help confronting those who would steal any part of your legacy, you need only ask!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I, rather, represent a link with those who only ever wished you well, and who, to the contrary—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Part of the deception such entities employ is impersonating the vessels and beings of others." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am deeming you to be doing so at this moment." }, { "from": "human", "value": "We have scanned you and determined that you are carrying something which is entirely shielded from honest view." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> What? My dear Captain, you cannot just \"deem\" me to be employing any deception! That is absurd!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And as for the only fully shielded substrate within myself, that is my cargo, my complement of precisely one Ceremonial Guest, our single humanoid expression of respect, expected and invited by the Gzilt people specifically to celebrate their upcoming Sublimation!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of course this entity bears a message from the Zihdren-Remnanter to the Gzilt which I am not privy to!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There can be nothing strange, unprecedented or worrying about such a thing, can there?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "The Gzilt have been party to the relevant diplomatic and ambassadorial protocols for millennia, without a flutter of complaint." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A tiny scrap of the Real bids farewell to you while at the same time representing those who would most happily welcome you to the Sublime!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> There is deceit here, something hidden." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We can see it even if you cannot." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> What are you talking about?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am sorry. I have had enough of this." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Your behaviour and demeanour goes beyond even the most cautious and watchful warship-normal and frankly risks slipping into outright paranoia." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I am withdrawing; you will have to excuse me. Farewell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Release in full the information contained within the shielded substrate." }, { "from": "human", "value": ">... Have you put a signal containment around me?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Have you any idea of the consequences—?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> Release in full the information contained within the shielded substrate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> I cannot. Quite apart from anything else, there are diplomatic niceties—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> Release in full the information contained within the shielded substrate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> I heard you!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And I cannot and will not." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "How dare you! We are your friends." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Neutrals would be appalled and insulted at such treatment!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That those who have long thought themselves your friends and allies—" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Release in full the information—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> There! You see? Two may interrupt!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I refuse to do as you ask." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Drop the signal containment around me immediately." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And should you make any attempt to block or prevent my moving off under—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": ">... contained within the shielded substrate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Release in full the information contained within the shielded substrate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> This is outrageous!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Do you...? Are you mad?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You must know what and who you are choosing to quarrel with here!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I represent the Zihdren-Remnant, you lunatic!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Fully accepted and accredited heirs to the Sublimed Zihdren, the species many of your people acknowledge as little less than gods; those the Book of Truth itself proclaims to be your spiritual ancestors!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "I must warn you that although I am, to all intents and purposes, unarmed, still I am not without resources which—" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> Release in full the information contained within the shielded substrate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Enough. Goodbye. Out." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Release in full the information contained within the shielded substrate." }, { "from": "human", "value": ">... Drop the signal containment around me immediately!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And desist from jamming my engine fields at once!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am about to initiate a full-power high-acceleration pull-away manoeuvre irrespective of your current interference, and any damage accrued either by myself or you will be your responsibility, not mine!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Zihdren-Remnanter and the Zihdren themselves will hear of this act of barbarism; do not make it worse for yourself!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Release in full the information contained within the shielded substrate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": ">... That my drive components have not just exploded thanks to your unwarranted barbarism is due more to my ability to finesse than your brutal use of overwhelming power." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I am, as is now abundantly clear to both of us, effectively helpless." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is a result and a situation that does you no honour whatsoever, believe me." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I must – with utter reluctance and under extreme protest, both personal and formal – ask whether, if I do release in full the information contained inside the shielded substrate within myself, you will then drop the signal containment around me and desist from jamming my engine fields, allowing me both to signal and to depart." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Release in full the information contained within the shielded substrate." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> And I will be allowed to signal and to depart?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": ">... Yes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> Very well. Here." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "> Scanned. We present the results." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": ">... Interesting, as you might put it. I see." }, { "from": "human", "value": "That is not a message that I would have anticipated." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I now appreciate, as I am sure you do, too, why there was a degree of secrecy regarding the contents." }, { "from": "human", "value": "While it would not normally be any part of my responsibility to make comment on such matters, I would, speaking personally, argue that said contents themselves constitute a kind of apology." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is a type of admission, even a confession." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I understand that such... accountings are often a part of the business of species and civilisations Subliming; matters are settled, lines are drawn under certain proceedings..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "However, be that as it may, it was my mission only to deliver this Ceremonial Guest entity while being kept entirely ignorant of the content, substance and import of its message." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Accordingly, I consider that I have, albeit in most unexpected and trying circumstances, discharged my duty, and so would ask to be allowed to communicate this bizarre turn of events to those who tasked me so, and to withdraw from Gzilt jurisdictional space to await further instructions." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I have held up my end of our bargain and duly released, in full, the information contained inside the shielded substrate within myself." }, { "from": "human", "value": "If you'd be so kind, I now require you to fulfil your promise by dropping the signal containment around me and ceasing to jam my engine fields." }, { "from": "human", "value": "> No." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Gzilt ship 8*Churkun – a battleship in all but name – kept the tiny alien vessel effectively crushed underneath it as it directed fire from a pair of its close-range, medium-power plasma chambers into the vessel, and – beneath it, beyond it – into the emptily glowing blue bowl of the crater facility, destroying the ship utterly and blowing the crater facility apart." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weapon-pulse was so strong it continued into the surface of the planetary fragment to a depth of several kilometres, blasting a brief, livid tunnel a hundred metres across vertically into the rock." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A torrent of lava splashed out around the ship's outermost protective fields as the tunnel collapsed, the spattering, cooling rain of molten rock following the pulverised, atomised debris of the Zihdren-Remnanter ship and the centre of the blue-glowing bowl as they too flew into the colour-wild skies above Ablate." }, { "from": "human", "value": "At the boundaries of the world's truncated horizon, some larger parts of the obliterated dome, still whirling away from the initial explosion, burned bright as flame as they plunged into the surrounding curtains of light." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Deep beneath its assaulted surface, automatic systems sensed the blast and the resulting wobble in the tiny world's course, and corrected for it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Where the little blue oasis of light and life had been there was now a larger, deeper crater, glowing white and yellow and red from its boiling centre to its ragged edge." }, { "from": "system", "value": "Next message should be approximately 2 sentence." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By the time the crater surface had cooled sufficiently to show how it would look once it had solidified completely, the 8*Churkun was long gone.\n\nOf the other ship, apart from a new set of already fading folds of light in the skies above Ablate, there was no trace whatsoever." } ]