Endurance.exe has stopped working.

For those suffering from long Covid, you have my heartfelt sympathies.

I think I'm fortunate to have recovered as quickly as I have, though it has been a struggle to get my endurance pedals turning again, and my ears are still muffled. I'd like to be able to hear again, thank you very much.

Admittedly, last week, I farted around on the couch like a lazy sack of potatoes, unable to pull my concentration together well enough to accomplish much outside of doom scrolling on Reddit, a habit I always prided myself on avoiding until then. I have neither reviewed the end of my productivity journal nor begun my next one because of the sheer amount of mental energy it required of me. All week I could feel my muscles atrophying, but even walking up and down the stairs to the basement to do laundry winded me. Man, reflecting on it now is just depressing.

Come Saturday the 20th, I decided I was going to transcribe our Pathfinder session from the past week in a single day, and I did. Thankfully, it was a shorter session, so there wasn't as much to transcribe as usual, only roundabouts of 11,300 words. Still, I consider it a sizable accomplishment given my lack of activity and a step closer to recovery.

The following days proved more difficult. Mornings were great, as I would work on one major task until lunch. I wrote one day, finally worked out the next, and then the afternoons hit, and suddenly I was wading through a molasses pool of lethargy again.

I was moving slower than I wanted. I wasn't working as hard as I wanted. I wasn't finishing this catch-up mountain of tasks as quickly as I wanted. I'm not accomplishing enough. I'm not producing results often enough. I'm not—

In general, everything takes longer than you want it to, and even longer when you're sick or recovering from an illness. It can be enough to make one froth at the mouth.

(One upside to the past couple weeks: my fiancé and I have been re-watching Avatar the Last Airbender.)

There is hope though! By continuing to push my endurance, I cleared a hump, and yesterday, I not only managed to write in the morning, but I also dredged up the tenacity to work out. And not just any workout. Lower body, which anybody who's followed my posts thus far would know that I am not a fan. I use the word tenacity precisely because motivation was not on my side.

For both workouts this week, I've had to regress my weights some, but to make up for that, I increased the reps where I could. I'm definitely feeling it today.

Then, finally, today, the greatest accomplishment of the week, the payoff of consistent effort, the result of showing up to work every day even when I couldn't be trusted to not try hammering a square peg into a triangular hole:

Year 5, Day 40
Wealday the 26th of Uros: Early Morning 

Dath Caeleth Dultok Vandurai 

I’ll be honest with you, Valen, I sincerely believed that name to be dead to me until the day I ended Maryn with my own hands and could finally put “Efiál” behind me. “Cael” wasn’t the right person for the job; they were not ‘good enough,’ so I discarded their lighthearted innocence in favor of becoming someone more serious and calculating. In doing so, I committed spiritual Sekhana, except instead of drinking tea brewed with lethal herbs, I lashed them—myself—with the same barbed words I’d received from Professor Wysaqirelle. 

Yes, the man who has Sent to me nearly every morning for the last few months to chat, the man who pulled in every favor he could to help us save Shipton, the man who brews me exotic tea and gives awkward hugs is the same man who once took pleasure in calling me a bothersome failure who did not belong at the esteemed College of Arcane Studies. 

I say this not so much as an accusation as I do as an acknowledgment and acceptance of the horrible man who was once Professor Taegan Wysaqirelle. It would be disingenuous of me to deny the role he played in my self-destruction, just as it would be equally arrogant and misguided of me to ignore his pivotal involvement in my healing. It would also be negligent and irresponsible of me to dismiss my own positive influence on him, despite my natural inclination to express humility and deflect responsibility back onto his shoulders for enacting such change, and I would be lying if I denied the pain I also caused him. 

He and I have traveled long, painful roads to arrive at this point, and I tell you about it now, Valen, because I have already exposed all of my scars, scars from the wounds he himself inflicted, for his examination. We would not be who we are without the other. 

Professor Taegan Wysaqirelle accepted a position at the College of Arcane Studies in its younger days because he was promised the opportunity and funds to develop his research in exchange for using his reputation and prestige to raise student admission and to educate future generations of Arcanists as a well-established practitioner of the Arcane arts. Although he had no prior experience teaching, he believed it would be easy. The position was ultimately a means to an end, and even though he taught generously in the beginning, he eventually projected his own growing cynicism and shortcomings onto his students, punishing them in greater numbers for perceived laziness or disinterest. Fewer and fewer of his students graduated year after year, and the funding promised him by the school diminished. He encased himself in his jaded bitterness and perpetuated this nasty cycle of cruelty. 

Then, I came along. Bright-eyed, bushy tailed, eager to learn and still so comically uneducated about day-to-day life. He and I were like a surplus of salt and water, but was there enough water to dissolve the salt, or would it settle at the bottom like sediment no matter how much you stirred? 

The evaporation was so subtle, Valen, that I hardly noticed, because I was too busy stirring. 

Professor Wysaqirelle condemned me before he ever knew me. As an innate spellcaster, I was the epitome of talented but lazy. It did not matter that my casting Tradition fell under Occult magic instead of Arcane. From the first day of class, Professor Wysaqirelle scorned me. I was already behind on lessons and was expected to close the gap in knowledge myself, but I already knew from experience that, without a teacher, not only did most advanced concepts soar over my head but there was a high probability that I would Zone as a result of focusing too hard, not that I felt comfortable confiding as such in him.

For the first handful of months, I visited Professor Wysaqirelle’s office frequently—every day—in my hopes to receive private instruction and show my enthusiasm for learning. I thought he was the perfect teacher because he demonstrated unparalleled mastery of the subject matter within the book during class, and I thought that if he would just sit down with me and walk me through the foundational theories and formulae, I could learn. And I did learn, Valen. I repeatedly learned how much of a nuisance and failure I was. 

“I have better things to do with my precious time than waste it entertaining you.” 

“Perhaps if you would spend more time studying than gallivanting around Zhilta and throwing parties at The Big Gentleman, you would amount to more than just another failure. But then again, you’re a natural, aren’t you?” 

“Go ahead, keep squandering your time with frivolities. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll proceed to the next grade in a couple hundred years.” 

“If you will not put forth the effort to learn even the basic principles of magic on your own, then why should I waste what little time and energy I have to teaching you?” 

It was a neverending onslaught. I am ashamed to admit that my visits eventually lessened and then ceased altogether. In that way, he won. 

In class, he administered quizzes, tests, or exams weekly, and I scored the lowest marks on each and every one dedicated to the construction of spells and the accompanying theorems. He took such pleasure in returning those scores to us, because whenever he stopped in front of me, he would take a moment or two to humiliate me in front of my classmates by tearing apart my doodled answers. Watching those small gifts destroyed before my eyes was far more mortifying than the supposed embarrassment I was supposed to feel for my ineptitude, but I kept each and every one of them and reassembled them best I could with adhesive to remind myself that they were a reflection of Professor Wysaqirelle’s inner torment. His treatment of me was not personal. 

Plus, he couldn’t be all bad, because there were a few rare occasions, such as when we planned a beach trip to the Zhiltan Bay, where the only homework he assigned was studying, usually with the promise of a quiz the next class. Also, on the rare occasion I did perform well, which was during combat lessons or on exams revolving around historical facts, he praised me, though it was usually through a backhanded compliment. “Well, it would seem you’re capable of some learning after all. Now if only you would take casting half as seriously.” All in all, I was never good enough to meet his standards. 

I tried to include him in some way whenever my friends and I planned an excursion. I collected small souvenirs to give him: seashells from the beach, pastries from the bakery, teas from the various shops around Zhilta. I wanted to share these memories with him through those small keepsakes so that he would remember our class long after we were gone. I was trying to chip away at him with kindness, all the while blind to the cruelty that was chipping away at me. 

The months passed. Multiple times a week I was punished for disrupting class or acting out of line by asking him questions, innocent from my perspective, though I can see how he or anybody else could misconstrue them. It frustrated him incessantly that I saw his punishments as opportunities to grow and learn. Being forced to clean the classroom and the post-meal rush in the cafeteria and our floor of the dormitory was his way of teaching the responsibility of caring for one’s belongings. Mucking out the raven cages, replacing their bedding, and feeding them was his way of teaching me how to care after those that did so much for me (I by far sent the most letters). Running down and up the stairs to the College or around the bridges was his way of teaching me to care about my physical well-being. 

Ja, no wonder he hated me. 

It all came to a head though around the half-year mark when he finally discovered how to hit me where it hurt most. Honestly, I’m surprised it took him that long. “Professor, why do you always express so much disdain for the other Traditions?” I asked him, which led to a 10-minute long back and forth during class, at the end of which he declared that, since so much class time was dedicated to pointless discussion, there would be an exam over the material that actually mattered on Fireday. It was already Wealday. Udei in particular was furious with me and refused to talk to me again until the following week. From then on, any time I disrupted class, he would punish all of us. Everything that happened to them was my fault. He’d found my weakness. 

I didn’t know what to do, Valen. I’d never encountered somebody so determined to quash others. None of my tactics to reach him worked. Meanwhile, I still hadn’t even managed to cast any Arcane magic, and that, too, was beginning to weigh on me. Six months in, surely I could cast even a cantrip by now? Was I really that hopeless? Would I never successfully give Nim her own body? It certainly began to seem futile. Believe it or not, I was trying to make progress in my studies through study parties and whatever other means I could, but the block was always there. 

It was a Starday, my day for private lessons with Professor Wysaqirelle on the bridge. I arrived at my lesson, but no matter how many times I said the incantations or practiced the form for casting Ray of Frost, nothing happened, not even the slightest glow of runes. 

“You’ve been studying nonstop, haven’t you?” 
“Surely you’re not giving up already?” 
“You could always go and study some more.” 
“Ah, thought you had it that time.” 

I snapped. 

“Enough!” I shouted and, desperate to be understood, clamped onto his wrist. I weaponized my ability against him, showed him memory upon memory of my youth and learning to become me again. While he was still reeling from the flood of memories, I seized my opportunity to give him a piece of my mind. 

“I have lost enough time, Professor, and I do not intend to lose any more, for although I have no talent in the Arcane, that is precisely why I am here: to learn. So that one day I can combine my talents as an Occult sorcerer with my knowledge as an Arcanist to give Nim the body she deserves because she is my sister, and she does not deserve to live her life as a shadow, but your methods are not working, Professor. 

“Congratulations! You win! You have learned how to make me tick like all other students before me. I hope the results of your selfish social experimentation satisfy you, but if you would actually put forth the same time and effort toward us, your students, as you do your research, then maybe you’d learn that we are not the same students you taught 100, 200, 400 years ago. We may look similar. We may act similarly. And some of us may come from similar circumstances, but we are not the same. 

“Somewhere deep in that jaded, prickly thornbush you call a heart is a man of integrity and compassion, and I implore you, I beg of you, find him. And dare to try again. For although you may believe that we are lazy, or that we are incompetent, or that we are the ones incapable of living up to your impossibly high standards, the truth of the matter is, Professor Wysaqirelle, you— you! —are the one who gave up first!” 

Oh how deafening that stretch of silence was. I don’t know if it was his glance toward Nim writhing in the shadows behind me or my own cooling temper, but I jolted back to the present as though splashed with ice water, mortified by my actions, and I ran. I had to leave. I had to escape. Gods, what had I done? Yelling at a teacher? Spilling everything about my circumstances to a man more than eager to weaponize others’ traumas? I couldn’t stay. So, I ran back to my room and was scrambling to pack my belongings when there came a knock upon the door. 

In my panicked flurry of fight or flight, I Locked the door, to which Professor Wysaqirelle said, “Cael, you know I could enter if I really wanted to.” 

I didn’t care. Some primitive part of my brain was screaming at me to flee, and had he forced entry instead of imploring me to visit his office before doing anything rash, I very well may have, but he left me alone, and that was the necessary dial he needed to turn to dowse my panic. Don’t misunderstand me though, I was still terrified. I thought I was in for the lecture of a lifetime and a harsher punishment than any I’d received thus far. I feared that maybe he would drag me back to Shadow Ezada and Maryn just to be rid of a pest. 

However, and perhaps I was too naive and trusting, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to believe in him. So, I crept toward his office, which was shut, and hesitantly rapped on the door. He bid me enter, and I did, shutting the door quietly behind me and shrinking into the chair across from his desk. I couldn’t look at him. As a matter of fact, I tried my hardest to dissociate so that I would not fall victim to another tantrum. 

“You have my sincerest apologies.” 

Too stunned to speak, I just gawped at him as he admitted to pushing us hard and that there were times he could be calloused and wasn’t putting our best interests first. Two more times he apologized, though they were accompanied by justifications to protect his pride. He pushed me because I was so close to casting. He pushed the others because they’d persevered as long as they had. It didn’t matter. My respect for him grew exponentially that day. 

“Can I trust you?” I blurted, needing the reassurance since I’d just poured my heart out to him. 

“You can,” he answered, the most serious I’d ever seen or heard him. “You can trust me, Cael. You are one of my students after all, and despite what you’ve told me today, I do care very deeply for my students.” 

He had yet to support any of those claims with his actions, but I still trusted him. 

“However,” he said, “I have a reputation to maintain at the very least. The hardass Professor Wysaqirelle, but…” 

“Well then, I hope you will not mind if I continue to chip away at that and call you ‘Professor Wyse’ instead.” 

He did not like that. 

“No. But baby steps. We’ll get you casting spells first.” 

It was too late though. My mind was already set. 

For the next couple of months, his relationship with my classmates and I improved greatly. He disliked my new nickname for him, and my classmates were aghast the first time I used it in front of them, but he tolerated it, much to my elation. Plans for the Cultural Festival were going well; everything was starting to finally look up. Yet the damage was already done and was waiting for the hammer fall: your kidnapping. 

I don’t remember much from that time. I had to read the memories of a ring that Professor Wyse lent me to experience even a minutia of my behavior during that time. I confided in no one. I became obsessed with casting, to succeed at something. Nothing else mattered. No one else mattered, not even myself. I ate less. I slept less, and when I did sleep, nightmares plagued my dreams, most of them involving you. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if I was awake or asleep. Everything became a haze, and in those moments of clarity, I said awful, awful things, parroting Professor Wysaqirelle’s deprecating words: 

“What’s the point? I’m only good at failing.” 
“I’m wasting time.” 
“I do not belong here.” 
“It’s all my fault.” 
“I’m not good enough.” 

Desperate to become strong in as short a time as possible, I pushed my mind and body to their limits, blind to my classmates and friends, deaf to Professor Wyse’s pleas to seek help. It was during one particularly bad day where I stood trying to cast on the bridge for hours, until the world itself dissolved around me. I awoke in the infirmary, too weak to move, but that didn’t prevent me from trying but failing to study. I fell unconscious again. 

During this time, Valen, Professor Wyse reached out to his friend and my sword instructor, Master Nuqhuth, for advice. He set aside his own ambitions in his attempts to reach me, and Master Nuqhuth wasn’t easy on him either. 

“I’m just not used to dealing with this. How do I get through to them? There has to be something that I can do to help.” 

“This is very unlike you, Taegan,” Master Nuqhuth replied. “Why do you care?” 

He almost returned to his office then and there following that jab but tempered his irritability with a sigh and repeated, “There must be something I can do to help.” 

Meanwhile, I grew increasingly angry with him. The morning after I’d passed out on the bridge, I stumbled to my private lesson only for him to refuse to teach me. It would be “irresponsible” and “negligent” of him to push a student who had already overexerted themselves. I was livid. Here I was, finally doing what he wanted of me, and he was telling me to rest?! How dare he? It was so unfair. I needed to be able to cast; I needed his guidance more than ever, and he rejected me. 

“Because it would be a waste of time,” I snarled. 

It took him a moment to respond. “No. Not a waste of time.” 

He said that, and yet he still teleported away, which I only realized at that moment he hadn’t done since I first started spiraling. He used to do so to one-up all of us, to show us how inadequate we were. I was unaware of how much I actually relied on him walking back to his office, how much it meant to me, and so, when he teleported away, it dredged up all those feelings of inadequacy and failure. Well fine. If he wouldn’t teach me, then rather than rest like he’d instructed, I’d trudge to the Zhiltan Bay for a lesson with Master Nuqhuth. 

If only the meditation practice brought me peace. Instead, it agitated me further because I tasted success, and it scared me. I stood in my own way and ran from the first real chance I had of breaking this self-sabotaging cycle. I used fear to justify my unraveling. 

Sunday evening I was trying to study in my room but couldn’t concentrate because I was hearing my own accusations taking on your voice in the back of my mind. “You left me!” “You abandoned me!” The walls were closing in on me, making it difficult to breathe. Dizzy from suffocation, I grabbed my weapon and staggered up to the bridge for fresh air. I moved through the forms of my kata, but I made them violent, thrust all of my self-loathing and anguish and hopelessness into the movements, lashing out with whips made of shadow once, twice, thrice. I went for a fourth casting, and something inside of me tore. 

Professor Wyse was in his office grading papers when he heard the sharp sound of magic cracking through the air. As soon as the second spell fired, he was on his feet, teleporting to my location on the bridge, and discovered me already crumpled, blood streaming from my nose. The guardians transported me to the infirmary, and he followed them. 

He sat in the room with me until I began to stir in the wee hours of the morning. He refused to leave. When he ordered me to look at him, Valen, I was so scared. I couldn’t. How could I bear to see the disappointment or admonishment in his expression? I had embarrassed him not once but twice now. But he waited, his chair at my bedside. In my own time, I was able to lift my head, and I saw not anger or frustration or scorn but a sort of sad patience. 

“I didn’t come here to scold you. I came here to give you somebody to talk to.” 

Yet I couldn’t, not in the infirmary room. The walls were too close. I still couldn’t breathe. I needed somewhere open, someplace without walls. The bridge, the beach, anywhere was better than inside this makeshift prison. 

Professor Wyse teleported us to a very special place, a place with no visible walls per my request, just open sky and air, and it was there, in his demi-plane, that I broke and flooded him with all of my grievances, all of which he listened to without judgment. 

“I wanted to chase after you this morning. I think it was this morning. What time is it, Professor?” 

“Sometime in the middle of the night, probably around one or two in the morning.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Sorry for what?” 

“It’s late. You had to come to the College again because of a student who cannot hold it together. I still can’t do hardly anything right. I have been having so many nightmares, Professor. At first it was just once a week. And then it became twice every week, and now it’s once every other day or so, and all I can hear is the voice of my partner screaming and the cackling of that creature. And he—and my partner keeps asking why I left him and keeps accusing me of leaving him, and it’s not a voice against which I can argue because it is true. I have been awake for four years now, and a quarter of that time has been away from him. I left him. Twice. Once to come study here initially, the second time I left him to his fate instead of going to Ezada. It should have been me, Professor. He doesn’t deserve it. I don't know what he’s going through, but whatever it is, he doesn’t deserve it. Meanwhile, I am here, unable to cast, unable to meditate, unable to run up that gods-be-damned cliffside, unable to focus. I know I am unraveling. I know I am not taking care of myself, but I do not know what else to do, because nothing is good enough.” 

It was the first time he ever made me tea. He used the set I gave him after our altercation. 

Morning, day, or the dead of night, I could go to his office to confide in him. He told me I could visit him for an hour every day, and it would not detract from his research. ”Any time,” he said, and it was to become his mantra for the remainder of my time at the College. Any time. If there was ever a moment to condemn him of hypocrisy, it would have been then. It would have been wrong. 

Professor Wyse humbled himself and stepped into the role of empathizer to atone for his mistakes, to do right by me, even though up until then I had lambasted him with my own share of snide remarks: 

“What do you know of failure?” 

“If you’re not going to actually teach me anything useful, then I’m going to make better use of my time and study.” 

“Had you actually taught me seriously from the beginning, maybe I could have cast by now!”  

I had thought I said all that and more only in my dreams, but having re-experienced some of those hazy memories…. Gods, I was horrible to him, Valen. Whether or not my unraveling was a byproduct of his treatment, it did not excuse my behavior. Yet instead of blame me, he shouldered the fault himself and persisted until he finally got through to me. 

For an hour and a half, we talked, and as the conversation began to wind down with the approaching dawn, I took a risk. 

“May…may I make one selfish request?” 

“Yes.” 

“I haven’t had a hug since everything happened. May I have a hug, please?” 

Without a word, he held out his arms and gave me my first real hug since everything fell apart. 

After that night, I began to piece myself back together. With Professor Wyse’s blessing, I skipped Moonday’s class to catch up on some much needed sleep, and I visited him frequently—every day—to share a mug of tea and conversation. I still felt guilty for taking up so much of his time, but it was balanced by the joy and warmth I felt during every visit. He even told me, “It’s good to see you,” and that warmed my heart. 

Re-engaging with my surroundings had its drawbacks, however. I’d blocked everything out for so long that I was oblivious to the rumors spreading about Professor Wyse and me. Echoes of not belonging, jabs at Professor Wyse for going overboard again. Imagine my shock hearing such nasty comments, all from Professor Graizir’s students, Professor Wyse’s rival. He’s an unsavory individual as well, Valen. I was ready to give him a piece of my mind, but when I told Professor Wyse as such, he implored me to reconsider. I was stubborn and hellbent on confronting him. I would have, too, had Professor Wyse not bowed his head and said, “You can feel free to do what you think is necessary.” 

That display of vulnerability and submission gave me pause. I had his feelings in the palms of my hands, and if I were to confront Professor Graizir, I would have simultaneously quashed the trust Professor Wyse and I had established. How could I remain angry seeing him like that? No, what he needed most was my compassion, not a scion of vengeance. 

“Would you like some tea, Professor?” 

Seeing how his expression softened, I knew I’d made the right choice. “Efiál, that’s my line.” 

I so badly wanted to help him feel better that I Zoned in front of him for the first time brewing him a pot of tea. It was the best tea either of us ever had. I was gone for thirty minutes, but he drew me back. 

“Does that happen often?” 

I had no choice but to finally confide in him my struggles with that state, my last source of weakness and shame, and once again he responded with care and comfort. To express my gratitude, I took matters into my own hands and, with the help of Udei and my other classmates, began spreading a new series of rumors to counter the negative ones. “Professor Wysaqirelle stayed awake all night to be there for his student.” I played my part in helping spread those rumors by performing the kata in the courtyard to show that, yes, I was beginning to recover. 

The very kata I used to abuse myself became the very medium by which I found balance…and cast Ray of Frost for the first time. 

It was early in the morning, pre-sunrise. I was out in the courtyard, the air slightly chilly as winter was giving way to spring. It was quiet, serene, and I reiterated the thought again and again, ‘Your sword is an extension of you. Abuse it and you abuse yourself.’ As I moved from one form to the next, I unwittingly combined the steps and blocks and swings with the somatic portions of casting Ray of Frost. Seeing the runes, I thought I was hallucinating at first, but as I uttered the necessary incantation and leaned further into the casting, a beam of ice screamed through the air, dispersing against the wall and crystalizing all of the dew drops in its wake. 

In an instant, I was banging on Professor Wyse’s door, much to his alarm, but through heavy breaths and tears I told him the same words of accomplishment I record here for you. “I cast. I finally cast.” 

I never would have been able to if not for his support and Udei’s tutelage. Because of him, I was beginning to see a flicker of light once more. I was finally beginning to heal, and since then, I’ve met so many wonderful people like Kosris, Jaz, Brod, Dayton, Marbin, and too many others to list, all of whom have supported me and glued the pieces back together. 

The scars I bear from the past year will never fade, and they may even sting from time to time, but I wear them proudly, because last night both Professor Wysaqirelle and I learned how to truly forgive, not just each other but ourselves. With true humility, he apologized for how he treated me, and I peeled him back layer by layer, recounting everything I just told you so he knew how fully aware I was of his abuse. 

“I forgive you,” I said, rummaging through my pack and placing before him all of the tests and quizzes he’d torn, bound together with a scroll. “Each and every one of these was a physical reflection to me of your inner turmoil. I’ve been waiting and hoping for the day that all of these and you could be Mended.” 

How I’m feeling: Exhausted. Fulfilled. Whole. I didn’t realize how much Professor Wyse and I needed to have that conversation. I showed him what he truly means to me with a performance similar to the ones I put on at The Greasy Bone and for the Lurros Family to help alleviate any of his remaining guilt. 

Worried about his trip to the Aran Region to confront Zreslon. I’m thankful he’s going with Master Nuqhuth, but the area sounds dangerous, even for someone of his caliber. If anyone can make a difference though, I think it’s him. 

Excited to finally be in the city of Themfaruhm! Valen, this place is amazing! Its infrastructure is laid out as several rings, with the Residential Sphere a veritable maze of streets and houses. The King’s palace sits in the center. There are magma flows, Valen! Water as well, but that’s not as impressive. The people seem rather cautious of us though. Xenophobic even. I’ll have to tell Yospip sometime that his plan to befriend the Dwarves may not work as intended unless their attitudes change. 

Nervous about meeting with the king tomorrow. He sounds stern and short-tempered, but I’m hopeful that maybe we can plant the seed necessary for him to reconsider allowing refugees into Themfaruhm. 

Days since last Zoning: 1

Honestly, the only reason I'm even posting today is because I'm riding the dopamine high from finishing this journal entry for Cael, which has taken me a month and a half to write, partially because I scrapped many of the hand-written pages I wrote last month. Otherwise, I would have been contented pushing it off for another week, but we all know how that goes, don't we?

This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: Mura