April 9,
Weather: decent
Mood: decent
Music: Yo La Tengo - Moby Octopad

Dear Diary,

I talked to Foxham and felt better.

I went to his office towards the end of his open office hours on Monday. In front of him, on his low, ugly desk, was a grease-stained white bath towel. He had dissasembled his typewriter on it, laying out the parts in a precise way, and now he was cleaning and oiling each one, turning it over in his oddly-shaped paws.

I asked for his advice. "I hope it isn't an imposition," I said.

"Ms. Abadeer, I am your advisor. It's part of my job to give you advice, and besides, um, I really don't mind."

So I told him what had happened. I told him how guilty I feel about Moon-in-trees dying, and about Billy, and about everything.

"Um, I'm going to tell you something," he said, as he took one of the hundred little metal fingers with stamps on the ends and rubbed a cloth over it, "and I hope you don't think I'm trying to minimize your situation. One time, long ago-I was just a child in fact; this was forty-two years ago-my family were walking through the forest, quiet as foxes are wont to be, and my father told us to stand still and be completely silent.

"Like a stubborn ass, I asked him why, and when he wouldn't tell me, I asked again, and again, four times. The wolves he'd been hearing showed up then and they... they massacred my parents and all but one of my sisters: my fault, from anyone's angle."

"I'm so sorry!" I said.

"That's all right. I've had a long time to grieve. But it was only about six years ago that I realized how long ago it'd been, and how young I'd been when it happened. I realized that I wasn't the same child who had gotten my family killed, not anymore."

I had to argue, of course. "I was born in Atlanta one thousand years ago and lost my innocence pretty soon after that," I said. "I wasn't a child when I got that man killed yesterday."

"I know how old you are, Ms. Abadeer. You were Hunson's first child with a human, weren't you?"

I didn't know how to take that question. What is it with my dad and these people? "...yeah. The only one that survived," I said.

"I thought so. Um..." and he leaned in across his desk to whisper, "ask me about him later, when we're not in my office. Thin walls, you know?"

"...okay?"

"Well, Ms. Abadeer," he said, "I shouldn't beat myself up too badly about what happened yesterday, if I were you. You're already a different person. Or did his death not teach you anything?"

"It taught me something," I said, "I don't know what."

"Then remember, he not busy being born is busy dying," he said. "Never stop learning hard lessons."

He looked with a tired expression at the typewriter parts meticulously arranged on the towel in front of him, little pieces closer to him and big pieces in another row. He grabbed the frame and started to fit other parts on to it with slow, precise motions.

"Um," he said. "You're earning your spurs tonight, is that right?"

"I dunno if it's right. It's true."

"Now, now, you've earned it. It's an important ceremony. I could arrange for your father to be there to see you, you know."

"I could too. I don't want him there, thanks."

"It was just a thought. How about me and Donovan?"

"...I'd like that," I said.

So I went to the garrison and cleaned my armor to within inches of its life. I traded in the leather inner boots for a pair with stiffer, newer leather around the heel. Spurs are miserable to wear if the shanks press through onto the sides of your foot.

I found out only five minutes before the investiture that Sue had reccomended that I be comissioned as a full Knight First Class, skipping Second Class entirely. Sue's so great.

The ceremony was on the indoor fencing pitch. There's not much to tell, really: you flip up one heel, Howell puts the spur on it, you flip up the other heel and he puts the spur on that one. Then Sir Howell gave a short speech, read my comission orders, and told me to kneel and asked me what I'd like to be "dubbed."

I thought for a moment, though very self-consciously, because literally everyone I know at the university was there, including two of my professors, and Death, surprisingly enough.

"'Sir Marceline,'" I said. I almost said "Sir Vetiver," but I'd never get used to it.

He tapped me on each shoulder with his sword, which thankfully wasn't on fire, saying "I dub you 'Sir Marceline, Knight First Class of the Fighting Order of the Heroic Lyceum.' Bear this title in honor and loyalty and you will receive in equal measure, great honor and loyalty."

"Hear, hear!" the other knights all shouted, some more enthusiastically than others. I didn't look for Sir Julian, but I'm sure he wasn't happy that I outranked him now.

"Rise," Sir Howell said. I did.

Afterwards, I changed out of my armor. Foxham found me as I left the garrison.

"Um, I was wondering if you'd like answers about a few things."

I didn't want to sound impolite, but boy did I want answers. I told him that.

"Well, look," he said, once we'd walked away into the quadrangle, "your father came here long ago trying to make a deal with the chancellor. I'm, um, really, really, really not supposed to know or tell you this, but rank has its privileges."

We passed under the thick canopy of the ancient sandalwood tree. "Charlie has been the chancellor since the fff-" he caught himself before saying something he knew he shouldn't. "...a long time, at any rate. He was dabbling in deeper forms of magic even than Sir Howell. Your father must have wanted his soul pretty badly because of it. So he came here long before my time, posing as a student named Martius Ossian, and the story goes that he offered the chancellor a deal: immortality, in exchange for soullessness."

"No deal," I said.

"No, I don't think so either. I understand that a being without a soul would lack any will to live. Is that correct?"

"For most people that's true. It's not fun, at any rate."

He looked at me funny for a moment. "Then, of course, came the famous Solstice Massacre. Your father left thirteen students soulless and two more dead when he left in the middle of his second semester. I don't know why."

Daaaad, I thought. "Does anyone know what happened between him and Charlie?"

"Probably. I don't."

But still, he's not telling me everything, I'm sure. He sometimes starts to talk like he knew my father, and he knows how to summon my father, but then he says that Dad only came here centuries ago, before his time. Still, I want to believe he's protecting me, because I can tell he feels responsible for me. I just wish he wouldn't.

I called up Dad later. He told me precisely jackshit about his rampage here, but I'm going to get to the bottom of it. Sir Howell thinks it was two centuries ago. He was surprisingly frank about the fact that he'd had an opium habit sometime since then, so I guess his memory is patchy. I told him I'd had a different habit once too, and he just chuckled and said "you live long enough, you'll eventually try it all, I guess." We shared a number of meaningful looks in the swirling patchouli silence of that office after that. I left feeling aged but not matured.

Band rehearsal went well that night. We managed to get through four songs, and I turned Sue on to Yo La Tengo. She seemed to connect with their music on a musical level almost instantly. I've only met five other people who really liked that band, and two of them were in The Sombreros with me, so I'm really glad to have met another.

Death is still adorable, LSP is still LSP, and I'm... not busy dying, I guess.

I've got to go, because it's getting light out and I have Doich 101 and History 101 this morning (and I still haven't got the hang of Tuesdays), but before I forget, we named the band "The Thieves." Death doesn't like it, but sucks to that.