OK. Ready or not, here I come.

bluefrosty27, North knows one version of his story. I'm not sure he knows the whole thing, or he may have forgotten it. That's one of the things I have to find out.

CHAPTER TEN: Formulating a Plan

This is huge. To me. But I'll try to keep it short for you. First of all, if I accept the book-canon as my own, a lot might change. I was worrying about losing my memories of my sister. I was having a hard time trying to figure out how to keep them, but then Eren reminded me of something.

"Look, the power of magic in your world comes from belief, right?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"So, as long as you believe you had a sister that you saved from drowning, you won't lose those memories. It will stay true."

It was a really simple concept... so simple I totally missed it. He was completely right and I cheered up a lot. Sometimes things seem much more complicated than they are.

The next huge thing to me is a spoiler, so skip to the next paragraph if you don't want any book-spoilers. My original name. It was Nightlight. That might sound silly to you (it's OK, it did to me at first, too), but it kind of makes sense. After all, when kids are scared of the Boogeyman, they plug in a nightlight and suddenly he doesn't seem so scary anymore. So, it follows that Nightlight would be the one who could stand up to Pitch.

Sorry, but the next huge thing is another book-spoiler. Skip to the next paragraph again if you don't want it. This one is about Pitch: he had a daughter. I woke up early again and read part of Bunny's book without the others and I was reading about how the Fearlings tricked Pitch into thinking his daughter was trapped with them... that's how they got to him. I woke Eren up and I was crying and he asked what was wrong, so I told him. There wasn't anything he could do, of course. Just, you know... all the "There, there, it's OK" stuff. It's not really OK, but I'll figure it out eventually.

Last night, I made the mistake of watching a fan video about how Jamie and I might be related. I thought it was an idiotic idea, but they made some good points. He really does bear a resemblance to my sister. It's really weird to think about, but it might be true. I think they're wrong about my sister being called "Flee," though. I don't remember her name. But I don't think that was it.

Anyway, I had a weird little breakdown. It had already been a long day when we went to see a play with a friend of Mairead's. After the excitement of that, we had a message from the second job—someone asking a question that two other people had already asked. Why don't these people communicate with each other? We answered them, saying we already told two other people. They were not informed, apparently. We can't even tell which person is talking in these texts, as various superiors use the same phone to send them. It was frustrating. So we had the day job stress, the play excitement, my stress over learning about my alternate history, and then that little thing.

It was too much for Mairead's emotions to handle. I wasn't used to anything like this mix of feelings and whatnot, so I was the one that ended up taking the brunt of it. The others were pretty calm, though Eren did seem effected, too.

Levi told me, "Come here." And repeated it when I merely looked at him skeptically.

I was surprised when he hugged me, and more surprised when his uncharacteristic show of empathy brought tears to my eyes.

"It's OK," he told me.

As if taking that for permission, the tears spilled over. I shed a good three or four, actually. I don't cry. I mean, I'm not a crier. Before I came here, getting misty-eyed over Jamie's belief in me was the closest I had come for a hundred years. And now I'm just a mess! I'm glad Eren is sympathetic; I gather he cries from time to time and gets mad at himself for it. But Levi pretty much never cries. Still, he doesn't ridicule me for it.

Don't get me wrong—I don't think it's bad to cry. I probably shouldn't feel embarrassed about it. But Mairead does, and Eren does, and it's just never been... I've never felt like it was quite acceptable, somehow. I think that's a shame, because we need to cry. After I did, I felt a little better right away. It's a healthy release. Probably would have done me good to cry a bit over the years, even just out of frustration because no one could see me.

I apologized for cracking under the strain (a lot of it being Mairead's strain, not mine) and said, "Sometimes it just feels like I can't handle it..."

"Sometimes we can't," Levi said simply.

After I stopped, he acted like nothing happened, and I think his attitude on crying is that sometimes it's necessary... but also that there's no need to sit around talking about it afterward. Pretend it didn't happen. I don't know if that's best, but for the moment I appreciate it. It minimizes my embarrassment.

Eren comforted me, too, by the way. He kind of patted my shoulder and stuff. He was close to crying as well, so that also made me feel better, since I wasn't the only one making a scene. He's been a very good friend to me.

The other day I asked Eren if he's always been this warm and supportive, and he laughed and said, "Heck, no!" I gather that back in his own world he was kind of rash and not very quick to make friends. Here, he seems to welcome everyone with open arms and make friends easily. Rash in a new and pleasant way, you might say.

I'm glad that he is the way he is. I definitely need a friend right now, and he and Levi have been very nice to me.

/'*

I know what to do. Not entirely because I finished Bunny's book. But talking things out with Eren (he's gotten to be a very good sounding board), I've decided that I need to do this a little at a time. And having lived in this world, sharing Mairead's memories, I have an idea of how I can bring my "alternate universes" together without blowing everything up.

See, if I try, I can look back into Mairead's memories. That's because I'm a figment of her imagination, and as long as she doesn't block me from seeing anything, I can see what she does. I still know very well that I wasn't the one doing the things she did, but I can see it from her perspective.

Now, if necessary, I think the other Guardians and I can take what we learn from this book series and get the benefit of the experience without having our memories completely altered. Some things will probably still get changed, but I think I can keep it under control. I'm planning to present this plan to North tonight.

I haven't decided whether or not to take Tooth with me. And I may want to visit Jamie first. I need to take a good look at him and see if he really looks that much like my sister. It's been bugging me.

The weather here has been getting colder, but unfortunately I can't get it to snow. Of course I've been reading a lot, so I haven't been trying my hardest, but Eren is convinced that I can't influence things like that on Mairead's plane. Maybe on ours.

And speaking of snow, Eren mentioned that Mairead has a snow machine. It only makes fake snow, but... SNOW MACHINE. I've been wanting to mess with it, but so far haven't gotten to it. Again, lots of reading. And we're just busy.

Like today, we're expected to hang out with two different groups of friends. I don't know most of them, and almost none of them know I exist. So... I'll just have to find fun in it somehow.

Speaking of finding the fun in things—and looking at Mairead's memories—there's a movie called Life Is Beautiful. It's in Italian with English subtitles, but so worth it. I find I'm a lot like the main character. Whenever he's afraid or oppressed, he finds a way to have fun. I have to warn you though, it's very grim and bittersweet. Fun will keep your spirits up, but it can't protect you from everything.

OK, back on topic. Tonight I go back. In the meantime it's hanging out with people I don't really know and trying to snatch a few lines from Tooth's book. So glad I got it out at the same time! Definitely a good call. I just realized there's a separate series, beginning with a book about the Man in the Moon... so it's a good thing I've decided I can take action before I finish the series.

I think my next chapter will have more happening in it, and I certainly hope it's good stuff. You know, like North not declaring war on the Pitch-child. That would be good.

I hope you've enjoyed this so far. I'll try to get more up tomorrow, but as I've said, we're very busy here. Soon. Feel free to comment or question. ~Jack