A reminder to me of how lucky I am.
Saturday, October 4
Two Feet
Still no dream of my ghost-girl. Odds are I was dreaming the last days of her life up until she died.
Kaoren could see I was down, but worked with my mood rather than trying to change it. I wish I could be as perceptive about him in return. I didn’t even realise he’d been injured in training until I saw this huge black bruise on his back. The padding covering one of those swinging booms in the Sight training course had come loose when he jumped on it, and that had delayed his jump long enough for another boom to hit him in the back. He said minor injuries were to be expected, and shrugged it off.
Since his Sights make it almost impossible for me to hide that not knowing dismayed me, I just accepted that he would know that I was feeling bad about not even realising, and distracted myself giving him foot rubs while reading him another installation of my diary. I made it all the way up to Unara Rotation, and then he fell asleep and I could let myself freak out.
That boom could just as easily have hit him in the head.
Sunday, October 5
Bruised
Kaoren’s shoulder was so stiff and sore this morning, he took himself off to medical. Nothing’s broken, just unhappy muscles, and the medicking has helping it along tremendously. By the time he was feeling better, I was stiff and sore and bruised instead, as Mara continues to push my training (including, sadly, dodging and learning how to fall down in clever ways). I am quite fit now, but not a fan of throwing myself on the ground.
Sen had a marvellous time investigating our injuries and playing doctor by applying the green goop the medics give for bruises. We finished our current book at bedtime, and I told Ys it was her turn to pick the next story, and she told me straight away. I think she’s been looking forward to it, and for a minute I had to blink at how pleased I was and how much I want her to accept me. In return I asked her if she’d take Sen through her sleep visualisation exercise, and I think that pleased Ys a lot. One thing I can’t let myself forget is that Ys and Rye raised Sen, and it upsets them immensely to be in any way sidelined from her life. Ys had obviously paid a great deal of attention to the exercises, and was very calm and measured taking Sen through her favourite.
I was careful not to push it by complimenting Ys overmuch, and I think the simple nod passed her suspicion barriers well enough.
I’m turning into Kaoren.
Monday, October 6
Price of Together
I dreamed of my ghost-girl! She was dazed and non-responsive, but at least didn’t seem injured. She was again sitting on the roof of a building, and with Tsur Selkie in mind I made sure to get good long looks in every direction. Then, conscious that last time I’d tried to do anything in this kind of dream it had immediately woken me up, I very cautiously tried to project my voice so she could hear, but I’m not sure if I managed it or not, only that I woke up feeling rather tired and dizzy.
Since I was still feeling rather tired and dizzy after breakfast was done, Kaoren took me off to medical, where I promptly fell back to sleep and dreamed of my ghost-girl again (still sitting on the roof). Kaoren had warned it was probably best not to try attempting communication again, and though I was tempted, the energy level it seems liable to take might be beyond me unless I was asleep in the Ena or something.
I’m scheduled for another experiment tomorrow, and I’m going to ask if I can try manifesting just the girl, rather than the place she’s in. It’s not something I’ve tried before – too afraid of making permanent Ionoth which roam free attacking Setari – but I think it’s worth a shot.
I guess she really is a ghost though, since she’s still there after being speared. I asked Kaoren today whether what Earth people calls ghosts would count as Ionoth. It seems different to me. He’s not entirely certain. Tarens do have stories about ghosts, but they’re considered a version of Ionoth – memories of people.
Preliminary scripts for the first few episodes of the next season of The Hidden War have shown up. It’s very interesting seeing what they’re doing to reform Lastier to make the idea of him having a romance with me more believable. During the end of the last season they kept him pretty full of himself, and delightfully sarcastic, especially during the Arenrhon exploration, but emphasised the professionalism, and made sure that I acted entertained by his cleverer remarks. And showed how completely his squad trusted him. They haven’t put in any hint of obvious romance though, but just an underlying sense that there could potentially be something there.
The first episode will be an extra-long episode, starting with my log up to passing out in that bathroom, switching to the search for me, and then the rest of my log and then the discovery of my arrow and my rescue. Lastier stays supremely professional throughout, until news finally arrives of the arrow, and then they keep showing his reaction to things – the news that they’re in range of me, that I’m critically injured, and then they get to me. And just for a moment his face shows how shaken he is, and he closes his eyes and struggles to put back a mask of cool evaluation. By the time people start watching my log and are being horrified about the Cruzatch he’s enough the usual Lastier to snark about my fighting ability.
Amazingly (but perhaps fortunately) the kids hadn’t discovered The Hidden War before Kaoren and I started discussing it over breakfast (although Sen’s been watching that Setari Song Star show). Ys and Rye immediately looked for and found the first episode about me (neatly demonstrating how far they’ve advanced in their ability to use the interface, not to mention read/use the text-to-voice function). The Hidden War is classified the equivalent of PG for under-thirties, so we had to give permission for Sen to see it, and we watched it together instead of our usual after-dinner game. Ys wanted to know exactly what was true and what wasn’t, and Rye was primarily caught up by the fact that Se-Ahn Surat looks nothing like me – and the discovery that both my eyes used to be the same colour. His reaction to Lastier was pretty much on par with Fourth Squad’s.
It was a good opportunity to talk them through the problems caused by our notoriety, the impact that would have on them, and the fact that there was sure to be scripts in the future involving them. That was something we couldn’t prevent entirely, but Kaoren told them that it was their decision as to whether anything true about them was known, or if it was all left to scriptwriters to fabricate. I’d already made clear in my initial feedback that I wanted the kids kept out of the show as much as possible. Ys and Rye had already read quite a few news articles discussing the fact that Kaoren and I had expanded our family, but were of course less than impressed with the idea that there would be actors pretending to be them, and that a lot of people would believe that how they behaved on the show was what they were really like.