Journal 3: 13 Network, 643

13th Network, 643

A dating without cause for error, this time. A small thing.

We have arrived at Koschei, and spent our first day there. A curious place, with a curious people. Before we came, I followed up on my plan from the previous evening, to address the Realmbridge situation. Maviri proved a more capable and most importantly more unrelenting assistant then did Vessia, before. The ship is all but stripped bare, save that furniture which I have decided would best be kept aboard. The luggage is stowed near my workshop, and so is one of the alchemy kits. The space looks so different, feel so different now. The walls are the same, the floors the same wood, but it feels emptier than I have ever known it. This is not the ship in which I idled away the last year of my comprehensible existence.

And that's a good thing, isn't it? To move forward, to staunch that wound, to allow myself to see the space as something other than what it has been. That was the goal of all this, and it might even be working, though for now I feel mostly a great sense of emptiness at the sight of it.

But I think it helped, a little. Taking the lessons of yesterday and applying them to today, as we ever must. I was able to be civil with Bej, even joke a bit. I was able to speak with her about my hopes, to a limited degree. Hopes that, it turns out, have been met and more. I'm writing this in the corner of the cabin of the small ship we were able to rent here, bizarre and alien though the shape of it is, but warm and soothing the experience. My nose is filled with the briny tang of the ocean, and I can feel a little bit of salt still in my fur, and I feel grounded in a way that I have not since ... since I lost my anchor.

I watch Rile lie sprawled across one side of the bed, snoring quietly, one leg hanging off the side for ventilation. So full of warmth, so full of life. It never ceases to astound me, looking at her, that she can be so carefree with all she has struggled through. I need to tell her, in the morning, how terribly impressed I am that she has done so much with the lot she was given.

On the other side of the bed, I see Dythea, breathing softly. If she is making a noise, it is drowned out in the susurrus of the waves. The calm she exhibits, sleeping or waking, is so much to me. The strength to keep going, after all she has suffered, all that she was put through in that desolate place, to come out strong and capable and eager to step out into the world. She exemplifies all the will and the fortitude that I saw often find myself lacking. She is a great oak to which I cling, to find my legs, and I do not have the words for the grace she carries.

Between them, a little hollow, to which I will retire in a few moments. Life has been a series of ups and downs, flood tide and ebb, and I was so afraid that the current would pull me under. But I have these rocks to cling too, I have my sea legs back, and I think, if I can let myself, I will be able to find the wind again.

This process is not finished. There is much to come, and I do not doubt I will reach for you again, little journal. But for tonight at least, I will set you aside, and I think that I will be able to rest.