Love is a vicious, pointy, many-splendored thing.

[seanan_mcguire]

We have successfully weathered both the release of The Winter Long and the start of a new year, complete with my birthday, which means that you deserve a treat. And here it is:

A brand-new story about Tybalt, Toby, and their first real date. "No Sooner Met," 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.

This story is best read after Ashes of Honor if possible, since it is set very shortly after that book, and contains unavoidable spoilers for the series up to that point. It is a story about falling in love, and cats, and how to get a really good steak in San Francisco. It is narrated by Tybalt, because he's the romantic in this relationship.

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.

Comments

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

This might be only my problem, in which case I apologize for airing it here, but when I try to download this story in mobi, instead of a download I get a page full of unintelligible stuff. This is the second time this has happened, which confuses me because I've never had this problem before in downloading stories from your page.

Is it just me?

[kriatyrr.livejournal.com]

Did you try right-clicking and choosing to download? Sounds like your browser thinks it can open mobi files and tries to do it that way. I did not experience this problem, so it's probably just you.

[wenhaver.livejournal.com]

The download links still say "Forbid the Sea" (although they point to the right story).

Thank you for this! Just what I needed on a nasty, high of -4 degree day!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Fixed.

[grenacia.livejournal.com]

Yay! A romantic story of Toby and Tybalt is about the best unexpected treat you could give me today. I don't know if it will cure my "Wednesday blues" but it will at least give me something to look forward to later, and certainly should make me happy for the time I spend reading the story.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[reedrover]

Thank you! I enjoyed!

I love the bit about sending proclamations as wrist corsages. Funny!

P.S. - Thank you for giving us a story for your birthday. Happy belated!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[jessikast]

Awesome, thanks so much! :-DDD

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Very welcome.

[wildpear.livejournal.com]

“I don’t care that much about your intentions. I care about your results.”

Quentin, I love you. <3

This was gorgeous, I loved the interplay between the things Tybalt thinks and the things he says. Thank you for an awesome story! Also for this:

“The meal was delightful. Your sommelier should be congratulated for the wine
selections. The dessert was poisoned. Would you care to comment?”

Because what's an assassination attempt without a snarky rejoinder?

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Mind you, if someone (Toby) had actually been hurt, snark would have been quickly replaced with violence...

[handspinner.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Very welcome.

[cgbookcat1.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I enjoy Tybalt's narrative voice, and this story makes me feel warm and fuzzy on a day where the temperature outside is very low.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[sagaciouslu.livejournal.com]

Writers have birthdays? DAMN YOU! Damn you all. You're supposed to be timeless and eternal and never die so I can keep being entertained and amused by your wit and imagination.

AND I'm still pissed about Zelazny and Banks and Gemmell, et al., departing altogether too early without giving us more.

Start bathing in the blood of virgins, will ya...?

Thank you...

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I have a long, long run left in me, promise.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

He tries so hard.

[calico-reaction.livejournal.com]

Yay and thank you!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Very welcome!

[anne_d]

Oh, lovely. It's so nice to see Toby just being herself with someone she loves and trusts. Of course they had to kick butt on their date, of course they did. And Tybalt is, as always, adorable.

You gave me a big happy on a sad day. Thank you, Seanan, thank you.

[anne_d]

Also, the cover is perfect. Please convey my compliments to the artist.

[-dante-sparda-.livejournal.com]

This was an utter delight to read. I really liked getting to look through Tybalt's eyes and knowing his thoughts, and it was equally nice to see the two of them getting to relax a little bit without benefit of blood loss and fainting. Thank you, Seanan.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Very welcome.

[marooux13.livejournal.com]

IT WAS LOVELY!!!! I always love Tybalt and his old-world way of speaking or thinking in this case.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[tsgeisel.livejournal.com]

Of course it's narrated by Tybalt. Toby wouldn't know a romantic situation if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord, singing "Romantic situations are here again!"

(To paraphrase Sir Edmund Blackadder.)

[jenfullmoon.livejournal.com]

And then she's so delighted that someone tried to poison them!

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

Eeee!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Glee.

omgomgomg

[sami (from livejournal.com)]

SO I have not read the story you're linking too here but this is... a thing where I can say this so anyway

because of REASONS I had fallen behind in your books you see (the truly unfair thing: after I read Discount Armageddon and my first couple of Toby Daye books, I lent them to a friend's father; he liked them, and then he bought his own, and now he keeps buying them so he's been AHEAD OF ME it was awful), but yesterday my copies of Chimes at Midnight, The Winter Long, Midnight Blue-Light Special and Half-Off Ragnarok arrived, and I just finished reading Chimes at Midnight and The Winter Long and HOLY SHIT, basically.

I *totally* called it on Quentin, but asldkfjakldfja;akgsngaekwnav I had not even noticed the part about ... the missing person... and seriously I just read The Winter Long in one hit this morning and I have ADHD and I don't DO that kind of thing and basically, THAT WAS AWESOME and WHY AREN'T YOU MAGIC so you can have written all of the books already? or else WHY DID I HAVE TO FIND OUT THEY EXISTED A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO I have a *distinct fondness* for becoming fond of a book series after it's *already finished* anyway THESE BOOKS MADE ME INCOHERENT AND ALLCAPSY THIS IS ALL YOUR OWN FAULT SO SUFFER OKAY

Anyway, I really liked them, and while I regret the delay in getting to catch up in some ways it was kind of awesome being able to go straight from Chimes at Midnight to The Winter Long.

RE: omgomgomg

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Hee hee hee yay I am very glad you enjoyed.

[danceswithlife]

What an awesome story! Thanks for making it available to us. I think it will be one I re-read frequently.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Very welcome.

Squee!

[misti wolanski (from livejournal.com)]

A TYBALT SHORT!

*squeals while downloading, giggles and hops and reads entire paragraphs to roommate, and is ever so grateful for the freebie*

THANK YOU!

RE: Squee!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!

[naurwen.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much - and a happy belated birthday!
Thank you for treating *us* :)
It was a delightful read (of course I had to read straight away) and the cover is beautiful and perfect!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I am glad you liked it.

[laurenthemself]

This was delightful, and the perfect balance between romance and treachery.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[taldragon.livejournal.com]

this was a fantastic story, thank you so much (and hippy belated bathday).

I love that Quentin is more worried about Tybalt in Toby's care than vice versa, and that of course Tybalt would eat garlic for Toby :)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Let's be honest: Tybalt would eat garlic for no reason at all.

[melchar.livejournal.com]

Squee with a side of SQUEE and a heaping portion of *SQUEE!*

You are wonderful and adorable and make lovely eat-them-in-a-large-bite stories [and then more lovely, longer books]. Thank you for your delightful 'the first taste is free and then it is magical addiction' fiction. I love it and you a huge heaping amount!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

You are very welcome.

[kyttiekait.livejournal.com]

Yay for more Toby stories! This was adorable, and perfect, and thank you for all the lovely short stories you give us between all the wonderful full length things you write!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

You are very welcome.

[mac-arthur-park.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm almost finished with Ashes of Honor, so the timing is perfect for me. Thanks!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent!