Once again, thanks to Bytemite and gilovetodance.

The entries remain cryptic and unordered as usual. Questions, comments, guesses welcome. Have at it.

[Joss is boss, River is not mine, etc. ad nauseum, ad infinitum...] _________________________________________________

ENTRY #????

Do you know what I’ve done? I’ve gone so much farther than the other subjects, as usual. Ha. Great things to be expected, a great and terrible grace. Of course. Everyone knows it from the time they’re two: “a badly painted tiger looks like a dog; a badly carved swan looks like a duck”. I hoped so badly that one day I’d cease to be an ugly duckling, but now, now the power is still hidden behind the portrait-eyes. I can’t figure out who’s in charge of this circus. And they’ve clipped my wings—-I’m no longer allowed out of this room, this cell, except my visits to Mathias and Slawn.

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ENTRY #????

Ode to Hypnos

Sleep’s warm fingers on my neck A gentle weight on thighs, shoulders, back Head indented in the pillow A little rest.

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ENTRY #???? I was supposed to be the mouse. Little mouse, sorting through the crumbs—disarming, unnoticed, unbegrudged. And tap into the--taproot. Great tree strangling the stars, and twisted roots rotting away at the core. I just touch the leaves, the twigs from which my steel cocoon hangs. The same paths over and over again. Like repeating sine, cosine, tangent. Hours.

My wingspan was immense—could soar for hours and not get tired.

I thought I was the albatross, so much higher, remote, alone. Vast archangel wings, and nothing between me and sky. Now I know what I am. Regardless of Mathias, I will make my own epitaph.

I am the spanner. I make things not go smooth in the works—important things, things much larger than me. More important than me. I am payment, the girl in white by night who drifts and is tied down, still flapping, still screaming. Ripping out her feathers to make that mattress where they will cut it out. You can always tell a princess—she’s all in white so the dragon can pick her out among the bones. The white hart is bloodless because it’s drained dry, it grants you wishes if you catch it. But the joke is {the one they haven’t understood is}, you can’t catch it. I chase it down dark hallways in my dreams at night, over and over the checkerboard floor, but it knows I’m coming, and springs away, the tiny hooves making an impossible clatter, like Christmas come again on the roof. The floor gleams, even though I thought I saw blood.

It’s funny—I repeat their words, dribble like a baby. Desperate, I ask, ‘cut it out, cut it out!’ and you don’t listen. I’ve interrupted the conversation at the wrong juncture again this time. Always interrupting, little curious River and now I get my comeuppance. I can’t go like a little lamb—it’s not in my nature. But I’m the tool, the instrument of combat, the forbidden war-pipes that will rally their soldiers from foreign planets and rise to the occasion and the rule that will last for a thousand years. I flatter them too much. A thousand years ago we lived on Earth-That-Was. Away from this place.

I inspire fear in foolish mortals under the shadow of an indigo sun. Ha. Caliban, and he was a monster, has a more eloquent tongue than anything I can muster with this broken jaw. Wired shut. Stick the pins in, over and over—- then ask me what I want, bending the rules of your theoretical voodoo.

What I want I cannot have so why are you bothering? Is it entertaining to hear the question when you already know the answer? I can hear everything—it whirls like electrons spinning uncertainly around a nucleus, but those electrons are slowly coalescing. I know you slept with her. I also know who knows—-I think. Is that funny? One of the aides plays games with me—it’s difficult to know which tile he’ll put down. But he allows me to play, because he has no idea what else is going on. So shortsighted, when I am the one locked in the cell, not tall enough for the window.

It doesn’t matter that he can block me, thwarting the only thing I call myself anymore, playing a stupid game with symbolic plastic tiles. He’s got orders for termination—-soon. That’s because he knows. But he doesn’t know what he knows. So this made it particularly funny when I asked for leaves and he brought me autumn ones.

But he’s doomed anyway. It wasn’t entirely an empty gesture. Chivalry lives.

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