Why are these Valdyans so, so, so incredibly ARROGANT!?!?!? Yes, yes, I know. I come from a pretty weird place. I wouldn’t go home if you gave me a pound of first-rate pearls. I know I was born here, in this country, and I’ve seen the King and met the Queen. But why are they always so sure their way is the right way? Answer me that, Anshen! I mean, why didn’t the King have himself crowned Emperor of the City after he’d conquered our City? I’m all for women being boss, but leaving your sister and her wife to play queens to some Iss-Peranian lounge lizard, and not even honouring the City by becoming its Emperor after conquering it, that’s almost, well scratch that, that’s kind of insulting, isn’t it? As if the first and foremost City of the world is just another place where people live, fuck, bear children and die.

It’s the City, dammit.

And nobody seems to understand what that means…

And in the meantime, here I am, preparing sweets, pastry filling and feeding my apprentice and my — what should I call him? He lives here, helps out a bit, has his own job, gets pissed at me for no reason that I can see, and, well.

Meh, I guess I’m being stupid again. It just isn’t that easy, being a Sithi in Valdyas, a Sithi born in Valdyas. I know the language, I know bits and pieces of the customs of these barbarians, but every time I feel like I’m secure, I just know I’m going to get weirded out again. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells all the time, trying not to crack a single one of them, and then, I get cracked upon time and over again!

Oh well. We were looking into that weird ship in the harbour, there was this ship that came in, and we wanted to take a look. So we tried to, or at least, this was Aldan’s thing, he tried to project his mind as far as the ship and nearly got there, but there were people of the Nameless on board and he had to go back.

I thought of a simple, legal, offical, helpful way to have that ship inspected instead, and asked Ram’s Dad to take care of that. After all, that’s what a Harbour Master and Customs Officer does, isn’t it? So that was set in train, but we haven’t heard back again. But we will!

And, of course, the Feast of Anshen was coming. So weird! Having a Feast of Anshen without a single adherent of the Nameless around to run amuck! It’s like… I’m not going to tell you what it’s like, but I do feel it’s kind of indecent. It’s just kind of wrong.

The Feast itself was quite awesome! There was so much food (and we brought not just sweets, but also a huge kettle of savoury fish soup) and drink, and there was a fire, and there was dancing and singing and more… And all I did was sit next to the fire and pray and fast, because dancing and drinking and kissing — all of that felt wrong.

I don’t know anymore. Who I am, what I am, where I am, what I should be, who I should be…