The moments that got you

Hutch wrote:When Protector Benjamin and his fmaily went to Dine with Allison and Alfred Harrington in Echoes of Honor, and Allison got to meet thier youngest child..

My name is Allison," she said. "What's your name?"

The girl looked gravely at the offered hand for several seconds, then back at Allison's face.

"Honor," she said after a moment. Her Grayson accent softened the name, but she spoke clearly and distinctly. "Honor Mayhew".

Wham. Gotten.

Oh, Lord. That moment. Right in the heart, that one.

There's Sorrow Singer "she's the only surviving memory singer of Black Rock Clan"
"<The People know how to deal with those who would slay us,>her implacable fingers said with iron determination <We know how to deal with those who would slay those we love.Do not forget how Death Fang's Bane and Climbs Quickly first met. They fought and they bled, and each almost died for the other. Now it is our turn, and we wish you to go to Soul of Steel and Truth Seeker. Tell them the People-all the People of this entire world- know who would protect them and who would slay them. We know how you and your clan have always loved and protected and shielded us from harm, Dances on Clouds. But the time has come for that to change, and we do not choose to be kittens forever. If you would guard us, then we will guard you, and if we die as Far Climber did, as Climbs Quickly almost did, as Laughs Brightly has almost died for you and you for him, then we will die. But we will not hide. We will not be children. If you will fight for all this world, for all of us , then we will fight for you.>"

I find the whole consversation between Sorrow Singer and Honor so moving.Sorrow Singer is so sad, so determined and so fierce. The passage comes from A Rising Thunder
I have quoted part of it.

Honor of the Queen, with Corvoiser's dinner with Yanakov. That moment humanized the Graysons and turned them from cartoon villains into people.

From MoH:

And they damned well gave him the right flagship, too, she reflected, remembering how tears had prickled at the backs of her eyes when she first saw the name HMS Alistair McKeon listed in the Admiralty dispatch announcing CruDiv 96.1's assignment to Tenth Fleet. She didn't know what the ship's original name had been supposed to be, but she understood exactly why she'd been renamed after the Battle of Manticore.

And why Tremaine had chosen her as his flagship.

Don't worry, Mike. I cried a little too.

"Behold, I will make you a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and beat them small, and make the hills like chaff," her mind recited the old, old words coldly as the wreckage began to spread on her tactical plot.
"You shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them."
But all she said aloud was, "Target destroyed, Ma'am."

Abigail Hearns.
Such a Princess she is.

I'd marry her myself, but I'm not worthy.

Field of Dishonor, Chapter 16, Honor's first admittance to the Conclave of Steadholders.

This moment lacked the vengefulness of New Tuscany. Instead, there was a balanced, singing tension at [Michelle's] core. A sense of something almost but not quite like detachment. A poised, cat-like something, she realized, that she'd seen more than once in Honor Alexander-Harrington but never expected to experience herself.

God, I refuse to turn into another Honor! The thought sent a ripple of amusement through her, a flicker of welcome warmth. Lord knows I love her, and we all need her, but I flat out refuse to grow up that much!

She shook her head, unaware of the way her staff was looking at her, or the way her sudden smile swept across her flag deck like a calming breeze.

...I just have a lot of feelings about Michelle Henke.

roseandheather wrote:

This moment lacked the vengefulness of New Tuscany. Instead, there was a balanced, singing tension at [Michelle's] core. A sense of something almost but not quite like detachment. A poised, cat-like something, she realized, that she'd seen more than once in Honor Alexander-Harrington but never expected to experience herself.

God, I refuse to turn into another Honor! The thought sent a ripple of amusement through her, a flicker of welcome warmth. Lord knows I love her, and we all need her, but I flat out refuse to grow up that much!

She shook her head, unaware of the way her staff was looking at her, or the way her sudden smile swept across her flag deck like a calming breeze.

...I just have a lot of feelings about Michelle Henke.

Michelle Henke has a primal way of sucking you into the vortex which is hers.

I often split a belly thinking about her and Honor as roommates and how she must have gotten plenty of laughs at Honor's expense.

I say again, I'd love to have been a fly in their powder room.
The twits must have been twiteriffic, all the way to that first visit to Mount Royal Palace.

[Dame Estelle] was alone in a dark room, groping for shadows, and none of it made any sense. Not any sense at all.

She rose from her chair and walked to her office’s huge window, staring unseeingly out over the Government Compound’s low wall at the monotonous Medusan countryside.

…She closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against the tough, plastic window, and gritted her teeth in pain.

~Dame Estelle Matsuko, On Basilisk Station

AKA the moment I forever and always fell in love with her. Just... oh, sweetheart.

A lot of people here don't care for At All Costs, but I've found it had a lot of personal scenes between people I cared about that I still like to go back a touch:

I mean, this (which could also go in the one-liners thread):

"Yes," Emily said softly. "Honor, will you marry Hamish and me?"

And the birth of Honor's son, and this particular scene:

"This is my son," she said to them all, her eyes locked with the man who had been her personal armsman for so many years, "Raoul Alfred Alistair Alexander-Harrington. Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone, heir of heart and life, of power and title. I declare him before you all, as my witnesses and God's."

"He is your son," Austen Clinkscales replied, bowing deeply. "So witness we all."

"This is my son," she repeated more softly, speaking only to LaFollet, "and I name you guardian and protector. I give his life into your keeping. Fail not in this trust."

LaFollet looked back at her, then dropped to one knee, resting his hand lightly on the blanket-wrapped baby, and met her eyes unflinchingly.

"I recognize him," he said, his voice soft yet clear as he spoke the ancient formula, "and I know him. I take his life into my keeping, flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone. Before God, Maker and Tester of us all; before His Son, Who died to intercede for us all; and before the Holy Comforter, I will stand before him in the Test of life and at his back in battle. I will protect and guard his life with my own. His honor is my honor, his heritage is mine to guard, and I will fail not in this trust, though it cost me my life."

Which is immediately followed by 5-6 pages on the baptism rite, which I've found the most boring thing the MWW has ever written (YMMV).