March 3rd, 2987
Weather: blah
Mood: alright
Music: Manfred Mann – Doo-wah-Diddy
Dear diary, it has been 32 days since my last confession.
I had a hell of a time on the self-discovery trip or whatever it was called. What does that word even mean, 'hell?' Bonnie told me what hell was, once. Sounded boring, whatever it was. Like, some kinda made-up Nightosphere, I think. All the demons looked like little dudes with horns and red suits and they all poked you with pitchforks forever or some shit like that, IIRC.
I'd look gewd in a red suit, to be honest. But pitchforks? That's just dumb. Demons use axes and swords, period.
Well, I was flying around out in the forest, north of the Slime Kingdom. The sun was going down exactly like it was in that village that one time, and I felt good about myself. Things were going right. I guess I'd managed to clear my head a little. I was strumming some three-note chords on my bass, tuned up real high. G-B minor-G-something. It was a good riff. I need to write a song that goes like that...
And who should show up but Leaf, that huntress wizard that I met at Shelby's party about a year ago. She was running across the branches up in the canopy-basic conjuring, nothing special-and she thought for the moment that I didn't see her.
So I acted like I hadn't noticed, and used my special sight-the "looking-all-
around-at-once" one. So I saw her circling around, preparing to swoop in and... do something. I don't know what. I kept going the way I was going, so she had to close her circle quicker than she thought. She followed me west for about an hour, both of us essentially hovering, but she at least tried to look like she was running from branch to branch-Iunno, maybe it's easier for her
mentally to act like she's making really big jumps instead of actually flying. I took to flight like a natural when I killed that little vamp dude, so I wouldn't know. Finally, I got her to lose sight of me for just a few seconds, when she had to go around this big tree that was sticking up from the canopy.
I immediately doubled back at top speed and flew up above the canopy behind her. (Let me tell you: being bad-ass is easy. Seeming to other people like you're bad-ass? It's a load of work.) So I came up behind her silent as the grave and I went "boo."
She screamed, of course. Flying thing with black hair and a killing light in its eyes coming towards you? You'd scream too.
Next, she threatened me with some kinda magical dagger, only, halfway through
doing that, she realizes that she knows me and that I'm laughing my butt off. So after she calmed down, we walked a while. I say we walked-I floated, she rode her animal summons, this really nasty-looking zombie elk that was way past its expiration date. But it's the same idea-little miniature journey to nowhere together.
Funny thing about Leaf is, she's such a nice person on the inside. See, I have to act nice because I know I'm not, on the inside. I could just start drinking people's blood or worse at any moment if I didn't follow a hard set of rules. Leaf is almost the opposite-some people don't really have any aggression on the inside. They get trampled all over as kids, and they learn to show a tough face after a while. It's like that with her...
Well, I spilled everything, and not, like, in a cool way. I told her about Bonnie- turns out everyone fancies her, not just me - I told her about still feeling like a kid - and I told her I hadn't slept in six months. No, literally, I spilled stuff to her that I don't even tell you, diary. So, haha, by the way: I have acute insomnia! Sorry I didn't tell you before!
I barely know that girl, and I definitely don't like her that much. I mean, I can feel bad because she presents this whole false face to the world, and still wish she would just kiss somebody and open up. It's not like...
Oh my Glob, this sounds terrible- I was about to say "it's not like she has real problems, like me." Which isn't fair to either of us, honestly.
But like I was saying, I'm a real hot mess. Just, on impulse, I decide to spill my guts to this girl I barely know. I didn't know at the time why she listened to the whole thing. Looking back it's fairly obvious that she's got a thing for me, but I didn't notice at the time. It's not like she'd admit it- she gave me that whole "hard meat" speech where she misquotes "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse, and I didn't realize at the time she was talking about me. Glob, such commitment issues!
So we came to a little place out in the forest where she was making camp that week. It had a magical tent, instant well, invisible campfire-the works. It was in this little cove or clearing that, judging by the way the ground dipped in the middle and formed a circular ridge at the edge of the clearing, must have been a bomb crater. Sure enough, we got to the center and there it was: unexploded ordnance: my favorite kind. I think it was the same class of nuke that I saw falling towards Atlanta circa 1990... Well, you know what's on that spot now. Grod, I remember... my mother was screaming, Dad was muttering something terrible probably, and I just stared at the little dot falling towards the city. Then came the green clouds...
...I wonder if that memory's real. I was six then and I'm over a thousand now... either way I'm like a paper that's been rubbed out and written over just a few too many times. I can see it when I close my eyes, but I can also see Bonnie naked with her hair done up in a big bow, and I'm sure that's never happened.
We talked until roughly midnight. She sat on the H-Bomb, and I just kinda floated nearby. She told me a little about her life, too-I'm not guessing when I say she was trampled on as a kid-and in passing, she mentioned going to college.
Now, I'd heard of college. It was this legendary place where the intellectuals of the old world would gather, supposedly. It was kind of like a school? I guess? But it was also where people of a certain age would go to grow up? Maybe I'm mixing two different things. At any rate, I'd heard the legends, and it always seemed like a nice place.
But she told me about college in the present tense.
"Yeah, I kinda dropped out or just really, uh, left. It was like, ten years ago."
"Wait, what? Where?"
"Way up near Magic City in the mountains. It's called the Heroic Lyceum. So I was telling you about this one time with these two dudes and a hammock..."
I listened, but barely heard after that. Look, I get onto Bonnie about obsessing over the past, but there were good things in the past that were worth bringing back. College, for example. That word just does something to me. I know why now: It was where people went to mature, or at least, that's what Simon always said. Not that Simon was ever mature...
Hell, sign me up.
Hell, sign me up, I thought, and praps I was onto something.
I got in last night. I hadn't discovered myself yet, but it's a work in progress, I think.