I forget how much I love a storm, until one swings around unannounced by The Weather Channel. Sometimes, Mother Nature can keep a secret from Man's finest technology.

The skies are deep with shadows, the type that bring dark dragons and deathshades. The heavy clouds roil as they are whipped on high by the maelstrom's breath; the sea heaves with the pull of the moon and crashes on the sea stacks, sending foam and glistening droplets high into the air to be stolen away by the fierce wind.

Sleet pelted us off and on yesterday and the temperature plummeted to the high-thirties (quite cold for June). It looked like snow along the shore and upon the dark basalt of the largest sea stacks. The winds swept in from the southwest and whipped the firs and pines into a frenzy, even the ancient spruce danced a bit.

The light of the fire danced in the fireplace, sending embers racing upward to seek the storm, while I drew my feet up beneath my woolen throw and wrote the brutal scenes for the final battle at Cordelain's castle out in long hand. Tomorrow, perhaps I shall get them into the manuscript.

I do love a storm, and this one has been a beauty, dark and devilish.