And none at all has ridden at the king's side since Aerinha, goddess of honor and flame, first taught men to forge their blades. You'd think Aerinha would have had better sense.

But the uproar this caused was nothing compared with the uproar when Katronia noticed [Rosie] had also cut her eyelashes. Various negotiations (including, finally, such desperate measures as "supposing you ever want to eat again") eventually produced the grudging promise that, in return for Katronia keeping her hair cut short, she would leave her eyelashes alone.

...My friend, there are some things that I cannot tell you. Some I will tell you in time; some, others will tell you; some you may never know, or you may be the first to find the answers.

The weak grey light that serves as harbinger of red and golden dawn faintly lit my window. I fumbled for a candle, found and lit it, and by its little light saw that the rose floating in the bowl was dying. It had already lost most of its petals, which floated on the water like tiny, un-seaworthy boats, deserted for safer craft. "Dear God," I said. "I must go back at once.

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.

And none at all has ridden at the king's side since Aerinha, goddess of honor and flame, first taught men to forge their blades. You'd think Aerinha would have had better sense.

...and again she wished for Sherwood, and the dappled roof of leaves that never weighed upon her. She pulled her scarf closer around her and thought, I would rather live in a hut in the woods; a hut like the one of my first memories, with a clean-swept dirt floor, and a brown-eyed boy watching me from behind his mother's skirts as I watched him from behind mine.