Sungold blew impatiently and began to dig a hole with one foot. She booted his elbow with her toe and he stopped, but after a moment he lowered his head and blew again, harder, and she could feel him shifting his weight, considering if she might let him dig just a small hole.

I found that the only way I could control this sorrow was not to think of [it] at all, which was almost as painful as the loss itself.

Perhaps it is a human thing, to look upon such beauty and fail to encompass it.

Laughter went on and on, like sunlight and stone, even if the human beings who laughed did not.

I've always been fascinated by the grassroots folktale level of a culture, and as a storyteller, I have to follow what seems to be leading me on.

One day" she told them, "when you have retired, you will go to live with a family who will love you for your beauty and nothing more, and if you're very lucky there will be children, and the children will pet you and pet you and pet you. Ossin has a list, I think, of such children; he sends his hunting-staff out during the months they are not needed for that work, to look for them, and add names to the list." The fleethounds stared back at her with their enormous dark liquid eyes, and believed every word.

What was new was the fact that, despite my heart doing its fight-or-flight, help-we're-prey-and-HEY-STUPID-THAT'S-A-VAMPIRE number, I was glad to see him. Ridiculous but true. Scary but true.