I went to bed last night happier than I’ve been in a long time. It’s easy to ignore how lonely you are when you hardly see anyone else. Nothing to compare it to, after all.

But last night so many friends showed up, even falling from the sky! Strange to see how much they’ve changed alongside all the ways they’ve stayed the same.

I told Thrall’tukk once, that if I had my way, I would stay at home, be a tailor, and never fight again.  He didn’t believe me, and I’m starting to believe he was right.  I am certainly at home more now that I have been in recent days, but I find there are times when I just have to, move.

Pand is kind enough to check in on Leiral those short times I’m gone, and I’m terrified that she’ll wake up when I’m away.  I believe she’d forgive me, she understands the need to go, but I don’t think I’d ever forgive myself.

I just can’t seem to help it.

Note to self: if Hakkajin suggest going out to get drunk, it is a really ,really bad idea.  I feel terrible, and I look it, too.  If Leiral had woken up—

But that was the whole problem in the first place, wasn’t it?

It struck me, how ridiculous it is that I never really considered a situation like this.  I mean, my friends go off and I worry, I worry a lot, but I always expect them to come back okay.  Hurt, damaged, but always back safe and mostly sound.

Even death isn’t something I fear anymore.  We’re more than passing acquaintances, after all, and I know that it isn’t as final as people seem to think, not ever.  It’s frightening, and not much fun, but, well…

I don’t think I’ve ever really camped before.  Maybe one night here or there while traveling somewhere new, but never staying in the open, without even a tent or a hut, deliberately for days in a row.  I suppose that would explain how I got sick from doing so.  Feralas is beautiful, but it’s humid, and I spent far too much time sitting near the waterfall.

Poor Leiral, we go on vacation, and this is the way I end it.  I’d feel a little better about having to drag us home if I hadn’t started feeling better yesterday, and then decided I was up to going to Un’Goro.  Not one of my smarter decisions.  And here Hakkajin thought it was Chibi who would get sick there.

(( New to being posted, older chronologically ))

Leiral asked me to sleep with her. She was having nightmares too, after our trip. Thoughts of her brother, as I am having. Unlike me, she does not know if her brother is alive or dead. Her fear speaks through her dreams.

I didn't sleep well last night. It was so hard to let myself drop off. The bed was empty... so empty. I didn't realize how used to having him there I'd become. My back was cold, no matter how I wrapped myself in the blankets.

She had hesitated, when Leiral had suggested carving her name and stick-form into the tree. She had tried to explain the reason, but had failed. The words were awkward and fleeting, the feelings confusing and consuming.

She settled on, well, being unsettled. Within herself, as herself, and Leiral has said she could understand it, which was reassuring, because she herself could not.

We broke.

I can understand her not believing me. I never allowed myself to be taken in by her mask of blameless innocence. I saw the thoughtless pain she caused, and I set myself in an antagonistic position against it. My dislike was not hidden, so I can understand that she would distrust my views.

Leiral knew, saw it coming.

I didn't know him well enough. I believed the lies he told himself, and us.

We're two and two and one again, and I've been the one and it's awful.

Every option I see before us causes pain to one of us.

Love is a curse we cast upon ourselves.

We're broken, all of us.

When it comes to an object (a vase, a gem, a weapon) you can smash a number, line them up and say "Yes, this one is more broken than that."

When it comes to people, there is no more or less broken, there are just different ways of shattering.  Different ways to deal with it.  To get along, we must realise that the differences in our pain do not make one's any more or less important that another's.  I cannot judge anyone else by my scale, nor can they judge me by theirs.

(( Wanted to post this last Thursday, but I forgot it at work and didn't want to re-write it :P )) 

Tabaqui thought I was a virgin.  It wasn't an accurate assessment, but I can see why she thought so.  She also seemed to think that just having a living, female, body again would make me want sex automatically, which also wasn't accurate.

The truth is, I've never really cared about it one way or the other.  It was enjoyable, certainly, but it's not exactly a requirement for intimacy, or well, for anything else.  Before it was just, a language.  A shared method of communicating what was thought and felt when there was no other way.  Even when I got a handle on the odd mercenary's cant, I really didn't have to words to express how I felt, and that just worked better.

And really, whether I ever have it again, I honestly don't care. 

(( A note of explaination: I had to post this, even though I am not caught up to this point in the story just yet... what happens when a Non-RPer encounters two RPers who continue to play along long past the point of reason? Read and see! All of the text from "Sephrroth" is rendered exactly as he typed it, with nothing removed or corrected. The only thing that we changed was to refuse to allow him to godmode us into being bitten, having our blood sucked, or being "punchis" the face, but instead redirected everything he did to the stairs. Enjoy! We certainly did! ))

Leiral and I were just shopping, really. We'd had a... well, a rather shocking, unpleasant experience earlier. Not so much as experience as... the thing we witnessed. We were browsing in a lighting goods shop when we heard this strangly thick voice behind us. It was as if someone were talking through a mouthful of phlegm, or maybe marbles.

"its the popo" it said.

I sat, alone in the rented hut, staring out at the rare and welcome Durotar rain. My mind, my thoughts had been, of late, plagued, or perhaps blessed, by a singular entity.

Um, there's a bear.
Yes, there is.
So, does anyone know the bear?
I don't know the bear.

A mask is painted upon our skin, for the world to see
We weave sweet lies with veiled eyes,
And whisper to all, "This is me."

I was trying to make a joke.  Maybe I'm unpracticed at it.  But really, except for the rare Hallow's End treat, or the witch's illusion, it does seem to be makes things I get turned into.  I'm willing to be even the frog is, though I'm usually too busy hopping around to check.

Maybe Leiral missed the "turned into" part of that.  I'm a woman now, yes, but I always was.

My mother, the human one, always said that Ladies shouldn't fish (along with many other things they apparently shouldn't do.)  If I did get my hands on any gear, and she caught me, then it earned a rap over my knuckles with her wand.  Trying to practice casting, for so long I could still feel those blows, and it made my progress difficult.

I no longer get that, but my angle is all wrong, arms weaker, and my hands need gloves unless I want to spend a night healing broken blisters.  It's worth it to re-learn, though.  There's something peaceful to the repetitive motion.  Cast, wait, reel, catch a fish or not, start again.  It's soothing, and I've need that lately.

(( Originally posted February 7, 2007 @ the Eternal Path forums ))

He’s always been taller than me, but it used to be that I was smaller than all of them. Our little group, and me the little one. Now he towers over us all, the little group has changed, the people are different, and I’m not that much smaller.

He’s always talked in words I don’t understand, but they were understood by everyone but me. Troll tongue with no one to understand my guttered response. Now he asks us to talk in ways he can understand, and I hear everything with understanding.

So why am I still the odd one out?

(( Originally posted February 3, 2007 @ RealmPortal ))

I'm unnatural.

Got it, thanks. Did she have to point it out to an entire Inn of people, including a couple of psychotic druids? I'm not sure anyone else heard, but still.

Does she think the truth doesn't hurt?

I'm not stupid, and it's pretty obvious.