Wow, it's been a while since I've written in this thing. Uh. Last thing I put down to words, was months ago. There's really too damn much to fill in the blanks, kiddos, and since you're my journal and I already bloody well know what I've been doing, really, is there a point?

And that would be me, talking like you can understand. Fantastic, like I need more reason to doubt my own mental stability.


And so we continued to argue. To go back and forth over things we’d said, things we’d thought about. Did we have the right to decide what happened to the Yenti? Could we let that thing growing under the ice out? And my own thought, that I never voiced, couldn’t bring myself to voice; if the Yenti died, would this thing stall out? Yes, it lived off the spirits, but if it’s goal was to destroy the Yenti, would the death of the Yenti stop it?

In the end, though, it all kept circling around to destroy the tower, save Darcrow’s friend. And there was no other way any of us could think of to do it.

Once it was decided- after round after round of arguing and discussing and growling at one another- the only remaining question was how do we pull it off?

It was a big bloody funnel of spirit energy. Couldn’t exactly chop it in half with one of my daggers.


Cue more circular discussion. We had a big damn dragon, which would probably be the conduit we needed, and Ann wasn’t asking. I wasn’t asking; I’d given up my chances and rights at that just- what, days ago now? Was that really how short a time it had been, just days? Weeks, at the most?

Damn, but it felt longer then that.

Anyway, we had a potential conduit but apparently not one we were allowed or going to persue. We had my stone, I pointed out; and the only thing I could really think of to do was set it in the funnel of energy and overload it.

But the overloading part was the problem. There was the amulet, but it wasn’t enough alone- and we pure and simple did not have another source of power.

We were stuck.

Darcrow took off to see if he could make the amulet into something workable at the lay lines we’d come in here from while Ann and I poked around the tower itself, discussing the wards amongst each other and hovering on the edge of going back to the center of the city. That wasn’t something any of us thought was a good idea, exactly, but we were running short on any, at that moment.

Made me damn glad Darcrow- at least, I think that’s his name; you could also conceivably go with tall, dark, mysterious, and sexy-what, I’m not allowed to admire?- came back when he did. With surprised victory, he told us the amulet worked better then he’d expected, but that by itself, it still wouldn’t be enough; we needed a conduit from amulet to stone, something to focus and amplify and aim the power.

It was the Crow who finally asked the question we'd been dancing around like a pair of idiots.

"Why doesn't someone just ask Su Rin?"

Well. That's us feeling like morons. Awkward silence descended amongst the ranks, and the dragon in question moved up to Ann, settled himself in. Waiting, patiently, quietly, and the impression of a solider waiting for orders was a tad unsettling. Especially when the solider in question was a flaming dragon.

"I've already made mine." the Crow said quietly, head ducked, a quiet, somber expression on his face. Ann looked between him and the dragon and then, in a voice I'd rarely ever heard from her, she spoke, quiet and commanding.

"Su Rin, as an heir of Na'bu'del-" And here she went and faltered, lost it like dropping a mask she'd been holding up to her face, and I saw it all fall apart before it did. Normally, here is where I might have stepped in, taken up the mantel and done this for her; but I couldn't. Not anymore.

To my surprise, the thought didn't make my heart twist in my chest the way I expected. My choice hadn't been easy, and I hadn't made it lightly, but I realized in that moment that I wouldn't undo it. Man in Black be damned; Lady be damned- it wasn't a mistake.

I'd not only eliminated a huge handicap, but I'd taken a step I needed to. If I meant what I'd decided nights ago, after Darcrow had spoken to me, then I had to be through about this. If I was going to be true to my own inner choice, then I had to eradicate everything I had been. For real, this time.

On my own, not because some people got together and decided to do it for me by- apparently flimsily- wiping out who I'd been. Whether I'd been a part of it or not; I wasn't going to erase it, I was going to choose. And the girl who had been royalty wasn't me, any more then the girl who'd been a monster.

Which just begged the question- what are you turning into, then, Semie? Who the hell are you?

Hell of a question.

"Will you be the conduit for breaking the magic?" Ann went on, turning it into a meak little question, and Darcrow groaned and lowered his head to his palm. She whirled on him, bristling and defensive as a little cat, demanding to know what it was she'd done wrong even as Su Rin spoke, one, rumbling word.

"No."

You can't ask, Ann. I thought, grimacing. Even I grasp that. Come on, just pretend he's me and have a ball.








-discussion of events

-meyonne gives me his amulet

-dream

-finding the barbaians/ meyonne takes his amulet back

-to the glacier

-holy shit mother fucker what have we let loose on the world

-clash of the titans

-BATTLE

-resolution

-going to meet Jhudora