Dear Journal –

I haven’t kept a journal in quite some time. Since I was a girl.

Cedric came over yesterday. It was the first time I’d seen him in weeks. He was over to send well-wishes to Bob. It’s been about a year since his wife died. His wife was (is?) named Eliza. Apparently she was another convert of Straud’s but I never knew her personally.

I’ve been living with Bob for about six months now. He’s a good guy. The club promised him protection after the death of his wife. Cedric was here for a while, then they offered the space to me.

I’m disappointed that the fall weather is settling in. I started to look after Bob’s plants when he was away on set for days at a time. The garlic makes my eyes water. I don’t know if that’ll get better with time or what. I might ask him to tear it out. I really don’t know. I don’t want to be impetuous, imperious, overreaching, but it’s by far my least favorite weed in the garden.

There is a small portion of the garden that’s dedicated to some overgrown fruits. I thought Cedric was selling them before but now I’m not so sure. “Plasma fruit”, the guys call it. I think they had been planning on putting Makoa in my place, but hadn’t. Why?

By the look of the plants, they’re not a new addition. This building belongs to the Marscapones. Does this mean this plant is sanctioned by them?

I’ve been ill lately. I don’t know what from. I feel unease, pain, emptiness – in the pit of my stomach. It’s dizzy, it’s jittery. I don’t know if this is just something I have to learn to live with, or if it will decrease with time, or even… could it be medicine? Why else would the club have grown it?

I want to ask Straud but he’s been so busy lately. I don’t want to be a burden upon him. He is likely dealing with the AVAEL(le) problem. If I were to eat the fruit, wouldn’t he have told me? One of the concepts I’ve had to try to wrap my mind around is trust. Edward lives a life of necessary trust – he has to trust that I will feed him, walk him, love him. Perhaps it is my lot, too, to learn the essential trust. It is frightening, but of course it must be frightening to anyone who attempts this lesson. Children, too, trust their parents but they haven’t yet learned fear.

Cedric & Straud speak on a matter they haven’t yet involved me in. The Dream. Vincent has used the place-name, or at least I think it’s a related place-name: “Elysion”. Mandarc lurks in their conversations but it seems he’s not able to dream as the others do. I’ve thought of asking him but I’m honestly not very close to him and it might be a sore subject for him. But who else am I supposed to ask? Again, maybe this is a matter of trust and they will bring me into the fold when they feel I am ready. Looking to take on more than I can handle isn’t a good way to show my maturity.

I am hardly making it through as it is. I do not like to take in sustenance in my human form. It’s worse than not liking it; it’s nigh impossible for me. When I transform, I think on my childhood memories in order to release the fear. I don’t need to write it for my sake, but I will write it for yours – this is the mouse-hero of Redwall. I hear his voice of approval speak into my ear: “What are you but a mouse that has been given the gift of flight?” Straud has heard of the series but I don’t think he’s read more than the first one. I don’t fault him; that one is without a doubt the best. I yearned to become Matthias as he yearned to become Martin. “Think of yourself having completed the transformation”. He must think of me as completed my transformation too.

But I’ve become somewhat… addicted… to the shape. I drink until I am full, even to bursting, but as soon as I regain this clumsy facade, I feel the twinges of hunger. Twisting this way and that way – it’s disorienting. I suppose it’s always been a problem of mine; even on my best days wishing I could be somewhere else, be someone else. Now I have everything I could have ever hoped for and I still find things to complain about.

Do the others take the form of animals? Is this something they war with as well? It is an idle curiosity but I know even if they did have such struggles, it would not help me. I feel so tired all the time, I’m starting to think this is just something I will have to learn to live with. What – did I think eternal life would come without drawbacks? I suppose wisdom is what you have after you need it, but I certainly remember discerning the sadness in Straud’s eyes those years ago. By not trying to understand him, enough, perhaps I have just damned myself. By thinking him just… a further stage of evolution, I assumed him at another stage when it is simply that he is older than me and has been fighting, and certainly continues to fight, these issues for longer than I’ve been alive.

That was always one of my errors of judgement – assuming that others were different from me when they possessed many of the same fears but just differed from me in that they weren’t allowing battle-weariness to overcome their mind. I am young, I must be patient with myself as nothing good has come of my self-flagellation save a love of the whip. I can’t afford to lose myself to indulgences, no – not today, not ever.

When I was a girl, I relied too much on others. Who relied on me? Edward relies on me now. He accepted my metamorphosis with little complaint. Someday, it’ll be me here without him. He’s the last I have left of my younger days. But maybe it is for the better; he won’t have to see me turn to dust. I should never have taken him on – truly I was not well enough to care for another… but I must care for him because who else will? Bob helps me out by taking him out in the daylight hours but I cannot rest thinking that favor will last forever. No. Even Bob has his new girlfriend and who is to say how life will change for him?

– Roxxie