If it's ka it'll come like a wind, and your plans will stand before it no more than a barn before a cyclone

At the end of her life she was aware of heat but not pain. She had time to consider his eyes, eyes of that blue which is the color of the sky at first light of the morning. She had time to think of him on the Drop, riding Rusher flat out with his black hair flying back from his temples and his neckerchief rippling; to see him laughing with an ease and freedom he would never find again in the long life which stretched out for him beyond hers, and it was his laughter she took with her as she went out, fleeing the light and heat in to the silkly, consoling dark, calling to him over and over as she went, calling bird and bear and hare and fish.

She was not an unkind woman, despite a lifetime of being gently dried out on the stove of education, but she was conscientious and a stickler for propriety and thought she knew how this sort of thing should go and was vaguely annoyed that it wasn't going.

Tim and Raine are coming in.""Are they insane?""Apparently.

How could I explain why I'd acted that way? How could I explain how scary it was, to find out that I needed her so much? Was I supposed to tell her how she'd changed everything? Like how U hadn't even realized how bad I felt until she'd made it better, just by looking at me. Like how I thought she was awesome, bad-ass ninja, and what I hated was the fact that I knew I couldn't protect her, when that's all I wanted to do. How could I explain, without sounding like a complete asshole, that I was so afraid of losing her I pushed her away? I couldn't.

"Crazy," he muttered softly, "how much I need you."Crazy, how something like that can feel like a kick in the chest, can hurt that much, can suck all the air right out of your body for a moment. And at the same time, settle over you, around you, so soft and warm and sweet, that you think nothing can ever be as good as this one m

You know, you guys have been dancing around each other for so long you could cut the sexual tension with a knife. It's a wonder you didn't rip each other's clothes off the minute you got over yourselves and got together.""For crissakes, Heather.

Just think of a safe location.""Are there tennis balls in the soup?""Come on, be serious.""A pear camping highway fire mask," he said, more intensely.My heart rate, which had finally started slowing, sped up again.