• Mood: geeky
• Music: Kate Alexa, "Feel It Too."

Sometimes love will hit you with a chair to say hello.

We have successfully weathered both the release of A Red-Rose Chain and the start of a new year, complete with my birthday (it's my birthday!), which means you deserve a treat. And here it is:

A brand-new story about Patrick and Dianda's first meeting! "Heaps of Pearl" has been posted on the Toby Daye short fiction page. It is available in ePub, MOBI, and PDF formats, and is free for download. Please download rather than trying to read locally; my server will thank you. (It's at the bottom of the page; scroll down.)

This story is best read after The Winter Long if possible, as it contains relationship spoilers through that point in the series. It is a story about meetings, and mermaids, and the terrible strain of living up to expectations. It is narrated by Patrick, because he's less likely to punch people for funsies.

Cover graphics are by Tara O'Shea. All short story electronic conversion thus far has been done by scifantasy. As both of them are awesome, we applaud them now.

Go forth, read, and please feel free to use this as a discussion post, which means there may be spoilers in the comments. Tread carefully.

Enjoy.