Dear Diary:

Sometimes I just have to think when it all starts to close in on me. Running helps, but sometimes it just isn't enough. This world is so strange, the people are so different. I miss my parents so much.

Sometimes I just have to think. I'm glad the Lightwalker left his mirror in his old house. I visit it sometimes. The fire and light renew me.

I need that sometimes. A lot sometimes.

Especially after I talked with Marie about her childhood. Where her people came from, children died, even more than were I was born. Now her past is magically tangled, but both of her pasts had a mother who never loved her. Her sibs had died (with the one mother) or her mother did not value female children (strange to me, from Minos where everyone knows a female child is more valuable than a male one). She had no mother love in either past and no memories of a father in any of her realities.

Her only friend had been her brother/cousin. No one else considered her human or important. I'm so glad I never had to live in such a world, but oh, it made me miss my mother. I held that in as I listened. I was glad I visited, even if I had missed Ari. Marie had really needed someone to listen to her.

Marie likes the Rukh, the only person she feels really values a mere human girl, lost and out of time. Marie doesn't realize it, but she idolizes the Rukh as the mother she never got to have. We talked until she was sleepy and I got her a cup of warm milk from the kitchen at the school she is at. After we talked, I think she liked me. But the sadness was so hard and so deep, I just had to get away after Marie drifted off to sleep. It wasn't the visit I had expected to make to Ari's school, and it left my mind in a turmoil instead of calmed.

Sometimes I just need to think. There is so much pain, and loneliness and strangeness in this world, even with those who are my new sept and friends. Oh, that I could do more than just listen or that I had more for myself than just my thoughts.

Did have something funny happen. Ducks dropped by. His dad has been pulled into whatever is going on in the war that the Lightwalker is involved in. Apparently he leads the Teotihua. I'd always thought of them as pretty evil and unnatural creatures, though Ducks insists that they are just pre-human, sorcerously crossbred lizard insects, the sentient remnants from creatures who walked the earth hundreds of millions of years ago.

Anyway, Ducks won't be with us for Christmas. "The" Hetari's realm is an important flank and she won't trust the leadership of her troops to anyone else while she goes to a diplomatic conference.

I managed not to yawn. I'm sure it is important, and he seems really stressed, but I haven't seen him for so long and I was tired. Realized I just don't care that much about him any more. I mean, he is Ari's brother, and she is turning into a good friend, even at long distance, and he is nice to look at, but he just isn't on my mind anymore.

Hope he has a good trip. Wonder what he told his lawacore. That's the funny part, I don't think she will be as understanding about his spending Christmas with an hetari, even if she is "The Hetari" (which is a title, not a profession, for the oligarch of her city state at the rift nexus). Me, I hope it works out well, I'd like to see my guardian again.

Well, I've got a run with Wolfie, so I'll write more later.