#incongruities

“Berries are always best off the branch,” Aunt B said. She wore a bright yellow dress with a white paisley design on it, sunglasses, and a straw hat. Keira wore a sundress with a light brown bodice and a wide skirt made of strips of light turquoise, white and brown fabric. It came up to her knees and made her look five years younger. The two of them appeared to be on vacation, while I, with my sexy bruised face, big boots, jeans and sword, looked like I had a camp of bandits to destroy.

A cannibal vampire. The two words didn’t even go together. What’s next, zombie pirate Viking ghosts?

The red light throbbed in time to her own pulse; she panted in a rhythm begun by its fluctuations; the sweat that ran into her eyes was red, and it burned. And now she had something else to worry about, for where she had touched the tender skin of her throat with her surka-sticky fingers when she had pulled at the thong that held the dragon’s stone pouch, it burned too. But its throb had nothing to do with the tower. It throbbed angrily and self-consciously, and her mind was was distracted enough to think, This is typical. On my way to gods know what unspeakable doom, and I break out in a rash.

Avoid gossip, and you will be gossiped about; confront gossip(ers), and you will be talked about