The Lone Ranger of vampires. Did that make me Tonto?

He looked at her rather as a man looks at a problem that he would very much prefer to do without. She supposed it was a distinction of a sort to be a harassment to a king.

I smiled. "I understand now. But It doesn't matter and you needn't apologize. They have been very kind to me too. Even if we did differ a little about suitable dresses." He considered me a moment, a mischievous light creeping into his eyes, and said: "Was THAT the dress - that night you wouldn't come out of your room?" I grinned and nodded, and we both laughed.

Yes, I am letting my own experience color my answer, which is what experience is for.

The story is always better than your ability to write it. My belief about this is that if you ever get to the point that you think you've done a story justice, you're in the wrong business.

What you describe is how it happens to everyone: magic does slide through you, and disappear, and come back later looking like something else. And I'm sorry to tell you this, but where your magic lives will always be a great dark space with scraps you fumble for. You must learn to sniff them out in the dark.

My capacity for invention is flash hot stark, I thought. Sucker sunshade. Disembodied radar-reconnaissance. Not to mention Bitter Chocolate Death and Killer Zebras. Pity about the rest of me.