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Thirty-Fourth Waking.

I'm still tired. My right knee is not right.

I didn't mean for it to come out like that, but it did, and it's funny.

I mean I hurt my right knee. This waking.

Yester-waking was too windy and I was too tired to write.

I'm still too tired to write.

And I think to me, Then how come you're writing?

Then I suppose I am not too tired to write. Blasted, blessed log-lust.

There was a lot of wind last waking. It made it cold and it whistled in our ears. There was even a place where it cast dust into our eyes. Dust flying in the air. No more mud for us. We've had our fill.

Nothing happened but wind and thunder and lightning, and I was too tired. So I slept without writing. Oh, and a fire happened. We burned a lot of our wood. It's getting too steep, and there is nothing we can do with it. Nothing but burn it, and that is some comfort. We found a little hollow to shelter it from the wind. We were very warm while we slept.

But this waking I hurt my knee. It's so steep. The rocks, this mountain.

Sometimes I feel as if some cruel godling has placed us on an enchanted, never-ending path, here in our cloud. This would sure be easier if we could see further ahead.

Imagine climbing a tree, blind-folded. You're looking for the branch that has fruit at the end. Well how do you find it? You just feel out and move along the branches, and if you find nothing at the end of a branch, you turn back.

It's been like that a lot. We just can't see. Our paths are uncertain. We choose and we climb. And if the choice works, we choose again from there. And if the choice does not work, we go back down and choose a different way. These rocks are cruel. They won't let us through. Not easily.

I'm tired of rocks, and I'm tired of cloud, and I'm tired of thunder, and I'm tired of lightning. In fact I'm just tired.

Can you tell?

One of our choices didn't work this waking. There was a--it was like a hedge of stone. There was a way to get up on top and past it between two boulders. Or we thought there was. I climbed up and tried it, and then lightning struck up the slope. It was so close I could feel my ribs vibrate with the sound. I could see it through the cloud. It was very close--too close--it was blinding. There was whiteness and noise and shaking and shuddering all in a second and I thought I was going to die. But I didn't.

But I think now I understand what Dhalan meant when he said it made the air...what did he say? The air tingled? Let me look. No, he said it made the air crack. Strange. That is what it feels like.

But it scared me bad, and I fell back down to the slab below the two boulders. Greys broke part of my fall, but I landed crooked on my right foot, and my knee felt like it went inside itself. I screamed. Then we both fell down.

It hurt so bad. All I could say was "Pull it out! Pull it out!"

And Greys said, "What! What's the matter!"

And I said, "My knee! Pull it out!"

We sorted ourselves out on the ground, and we felt around both of my knees. The right one felt...lumpy in the wrong places to me. Greys said he didn't know anything about bones, or being able to tell if something were broken, or fixing or setting bones that are broken.

Then part of me went crazy and thought with bitter delight, Ah! So he is mortal after all!

I wished Captain Peralta were there. It just hurt. Captain Peralta could make healing spells. I only saw him do it once, but I knew he could make them.

But he wasn't there.

I told Greys it felt like my leg was stuck up inside itself, and to pull it out. Actually I think I yelled it at him. He just kept feeling around my knee like it would eventually tell him what to do. It hurt! Didn't he know that? Couldn't he hurry? But he said he didn't want to make it worse. But I didn't want to wait for caution. I yelled for him to hurry and pull it out.

He finally seemed to agree with me. He took my ankle, and I tried to hold on to the ground behind me, and we both pulled away from each other. It made my head spin, it hurt so bad. It felt like something inside going over a hill, but not quite able to reach the crest and fall down the other side, where it felt like it belonged. It hurt a lot, but it didn't come out.

I yelled to stop and Greys thought he'd broken my leg. But I told him to try again. He sat down on the ground with me, took my ankle again, braced one of his feet against my crotch and pulled.

For a second it felt as if my leg were being crushed under something very heavy. My head spun some more and I clenched my jaw. My teeth hurt from clenching them so hard. It just hurt so bad. Then whatever it was inside made it to the top of the hill and there was a pop, and my leg straightened out, and it felt like a prickling and a space inside, and it tingled. Then the pain stopped roaring and has been only growling ever since.

We went a little bit further around the side and found another way up past the hedge of rock. It hurt. It felt tender and...kind of crunchy when I walked on it. I couldn't put too much weight on it. But I'm not going to stop here. I want out of the thunder. It makes me mad. Which hurts more? My ears or my knee?

I try to tell myself that my leg is not swelling. Leg, are you swelling?

It's not answering me.

Now I have it close to the fire. Because we have a fire again. The wind wants to kill our fire and the thunder still laughs at us. The villains. I think they hate us. Well I hate them too.

But I'm tired now, so I am going to sleep.

Dear family, in case I die, finish my story. I love you.

Alexandro