Gently Ponsonby knew it was cold, that there was snow on the ground, and that a regular picnic blanket wasn't going to do much to keep her bottom from getting wet. So she had brought a wooden folding chair with her to the park, with the fabric seat and back, and had set that up under a nice tree.

One that she hoped wouldn't dumb snow on her.

She reclined under the tree with a small book in her hands, bound in a faded leather with a red band hanging down from the page she had marked. Along its spine read 'Shakespeare' and the cover held a relief in the leather of a ship wrecked against rocks. Inside was one of her favorite Shakespeare plays, one she read quite frequently, Twelfth Night.

She was taking the day easy, not tinkering with anything, not thinking things over. Her active mind could be tiring, and sometimes, once every few weeks or so, she liked to take a quiet day just to read and calm everything in her head into one simple, serene focus.

Reading plays, any plays, helped her in this way. Shakespeare not least of all.