( Just picture us at sixteen. )

Was he to be found out here by the lakeside, sans shoes, trailing his feet in the water, while the weather was ostentatiously warm? Not once. Now, however, the leaves are turning, the evening breeze is downright chilly, and here he is, courting pneumonia.

[/sock]Open post, you know the drill. :D[sock]

One of the advantages of having Percy for a neighbor is the garden overflow.

Of course, there are also drawbacks.

For instance, it's not entirely unusual for the Orkney household to be woken by a stream of soprano curses -- but ordinarily they issue from upstairs.

"I'll kill him," Gawain says.

He's still white-faced and shaky from the shock of it; his voice wavers. His eyes don't: wild and mad and deadly as the hawk they sometimes call him. I've seen him like this a scant few times. I still don't recognize him.

( All I can answer is, 'Do that.' )

I was terrified of the sea when I was small, do you know? Maybe there was something in what they say about the boats; more likely it was common sense manifesting early. It isn't to take lightly, after all, especially when it has you surrounded. I grew out of it, you learn to stand up to things, but then ( Read more... )

It's light out long enough, now, that Alice can just make the house before dark. In the gathering dusk, the windows are bright. The door stands slightly open, and from within there are the sounds of a good-natured argument.

Click boxes. You know you want to. Or just tell me what you really think.

( edit: for future reference. ha )

Here's for girdleforakiss. What were they thinking?

Here's for russet_goddess for her entertainment. ("I do not like you or your brother", eh?)

And here's for onlyachild.

It's a couple of days later, after the glow of one reconciliation has faded, that there's a subdued scratch at the (still crooked, rough-painted) door.

--in the grey dawn, curled up by the banked fire in the big room of the mostly-restored cottage, half under a blanket--

--tensed even in sleep, tucked in on himself, jaw clenched, as though his dreams might attack him--

--not tearstained. No. Which is perhaps for the worse.

(It was not a good night.)