Kijji's Journal, Entry 3

I woke up screaming last night. Tell-tail ran into my tent to ask me what was wrong. “I had a horrible nightmare I was being eaten in my sleep!” I told him, leaping up and hugging him. He hugged me back, and I cried on his shoulder… but I could tell he was holding out this hope that I was Rydia back from the dead, and the part where I ate her was just a nightmare. I liked being hugged, so I waited a while to tell him the truth. That made him REALLY MAD.

“Serves you right if you did get eaten by demons of your own!” he snapped, pushing me back onto my bedroll. So rude! I mean sure, it *would* be poetic justice and stuff, there’s no denying that. But he was angry that I led him on, and that was his own fault -- he really should have known right away that I wasn’t Rydia. She never gave him the time of day.

Anyway, justice will have to wait, since it doesn’t look like you guys can actually eat me. I can remember what you were nibbling on, but that part of my mind is still there. Or maybe you just listened when I told you not to eat me?

I did find a bunch of empty spaces in my mind, but they just look like where my old journal used to be before the chromodon dispelled it. What a jerk! It’s going to take me *ages* to heal all the little missing bits, since I have to hammer-cast the heals. I’m not made out of cley! On the other hand, I’m on an ADVENTURE now, which means lots of boredom and days where nothing happens apparently. So I’m not often using the cley on anything else.

That’s getting a little ahead of myself, though. Although the next part is the part where I meet Tell-tail for the first time.

He pulled me out of the water, and destroyed the water in my lungs, and healed me, and then I didn’t have any excuse to still act like I was unconscious, so instead I acted like I was waking up half-drowned. Which was easy, because I was kind of weak from not breathing for so long. I knew his name was Tell-Tail, and he was an adventurer, or wanted to be an adventurer. Instead he was stuck in Starfall Village on the shore of Starfall lake and I was the most exciting thing that had happened to him since the village drove out the bonstable.

I mean, that was his memory. The village was nearby, and there was still a bonstable in it. Sneaky!

“What happened?” I asked, since he was looking at me like he didn’t know if I was an animal or a monster, and was starting to plan out how to train me as a pet. I *hate* being a pet.

“I saw you fall in the lake,” he said, “what was going on with the farmers? It looked like a torch-wielding mob!” He didn’t trust the herethroy – apparently they’d gone on a crusade against the norren that used to be in Starfall village, and chased away a couple of his friends.

“It was!” I said, nodding emphatically, “they said I was evil and that I had to die! Why are they so mean? I didn’t do anything to them!”

“Well, you’re safe now,” he said, picking me up and cradling me in his arms. I snuggled up against his bare chest – I’ve always had a thing for orren-fur, although I usually prefer to wear it! But mostly I was just playing along with the scenario he was building in his mind. Tell-tail thinks through his plans *really loudly*. I can see why the norren liked him.

So he picked up his clothes, and grabbed his big hide cloak to wrap around himself against the cold (which wasn’t affecting him anyway ‘cause he had a spell on, so it was really just to hide me from the other villagers) and took me back to the village, and smuggled me into the guest house. “Wait here,” he whispered, before running off, “I’ll see if I can get you some food.”

But he needn’t have bothered. Right there in the guest house, sleeping in the corner, was the herethroy I’d chased halfway across the lake.