Spring is the minstrel's greatest inspiration, when the furtive indoor fucking of winter gives way to the exuberant outdoor fucking of May. And frankly, Dinadan has spent far too much of the last winter contemplating the many kinds of fucking that his best friend has done in the loft where Dinadan makes his bed (and indeed, the bed where Dinadan makes his bed, which is frankly not something he has any desire to contemplate).

He hasn't outstayed his welcome--rather, his welcome has outstayed him. If he stays any longer in the cottage on the hill, Sunny will start to think that he's going to stay forever. Dinadan knows babies. The older she gets, the more she'll remember, and the less she'll forgive. Better to have her get used to Uncle Dindin as someone she visits, who comes by now and then with armloads of presents and new songs and tremendously inappropriate jokes for her to repeat at the supper table.

He's scouted out a nice room with a balcony and a view of the lake shore, in case he needs to play something tragic while gazing across the grounds at the place that was once home. It's a trope, all right? It's a striking trope, and Dinadan's weak to those. String enough striking tropes together, wrap them in pretty enough words, and you hardly even need a story.

Because this is the story: Dinadan is packing his few belongings, saying his until-next-we-meets, and moving from the cottage to the mansion.