Short, weird, fun!

“That’s… not just any love token,” Hogar said, hesitating.

“I know,” she said, closing her hand over the pendant and holding it to her heart. “It’s a Ffallan eternity symbol. Given to the one you want to spend your life with.”

“Given as a marriage proposal,” he corrected gently. “I didn’t know – I wouldn’t have put you in this position, if I had known. It was just supposed to be a surprise present.”

“Anthea!”

I startled out of the world that Bayou Moon had woven around me and hunched my shoulders guiltily. I knew I was reading past my bed-time, and that I would likely regret it in the morning.

“You do know it’s past midnight, don’t you?”

Ooops… I had thought it was 11, tops. Still, the interruption was a timely one. I put the book down reluctantly and went to bed, glad it wasn’t time to get up yet.

Still sick, and definitely finding it makes it more difficult to be creative. There’s always *something* to write about as long as I sit down and get started, though. And while I’d love to be writing amazing, moving, brilliant fiction, *something* is enough.

Heat. The moist touch of steam condensing inside my nostrils as I inhale, almost too hot for comfort. Warmth, penetrating through my hands and soothing the chill in my joints.

A sip… too hot still. Tip of the tongue burned, but only barely – I knew it was probably too hot. I rub my tongue against the roof of my mouth until the pain fades, then blow gently across the top of the cup and try another sip of tea.

I rounded the corner and walked into a cacophony of… it hardly does the noise justice to call it a cacophony of cheeps, but what else would you call it? Hundreds, maybe a thousand or more tiny birds gathered in the trees of that one little alleyway, cheeping their little feathered heads off.