It seems a bit foolish to write down my thoughts now that I have returned and have so many others with whom I can speak. Even Aloisius is available to me, though I doubt that would accomplish much good. Better to talk to myself. I find myself in an interesting place. I do have plans, plots one might say, and goals, with a modest outcome in mind: the gradual betterment of the lives of the people of Myrken Wood. Nothing grand, nothing drastic, small early steps that might reap later benefits. I now admit to myself that there are time-based limitations to what can be accomplished. Others take this as defeatism or pessimism or some sort of great self-sacrifice but it is a simple math equation refracted through the lens of history. There is nothing arcane about it. If all goes well, I could live for perhaps another fifty years. What has any man accomplished in that time? Moderate advances. Great destruction. I could build a foundation for something that will outlast me and I intend to do that now.
It is a freeing notion, that I do not have to fix all of the problems of the world, of my race and people and province, in a few scant years, or even, yes, a lifetime. It does not mean I should do nothing and it does not mean I will do nothing. I appreciate the value of every day now. I will not rush and I will not panic and I will carefully weigh the cost at every juncture.
Immediately, however, I fall to distraction. A letter from Petronela regarding her sister, from Gloria which shall lead to other conversation, the others you'd expect upon my return.
Finn and Catch are not distraction. They were necessities. They feel like distraction, however, which is strange since the former shall be part of what I intend and the latter is primal to everything here. They don't feel like the work though. In the first, it was a combination of a reverie and a fete and something far more concerning. For the latter, it was a swishing torrent, tide moving in and out, with revelations and true connection and a rift that may not be bridged in my lifetime. On the nexus the two, I did not at all get accomplished what I need to. It's maddening for all of Catch's secrets to be laid so bare, so obvious, to realize how close I was in some senses and how absolutely wrong I was in others. So much comes into focus now.
How will we break the cycle when he doesn't trust me? Am I wrong to see it as a cycle? That speaks of fate and inevitability and something Natural that denies chance and choice. He loathes solitude, grows close to others. Either through animal cunning or measured reason, he allows his power to be used. The use fosters exponential growth which leads to a rising pressure and ultimately destruction. Maybe it's not a cycle at all but instead a pattern of repeated stimuli and overwhelming power. Is that truly any different. Part of the problem is time itself. He might restrain, in either his reasoned or addled state for a time. Others around him might as well, but over the span of a hundred years? All it takes is one moment of weakness from either side and
Burnie was familiar enough with the feeling of being watched by now that he suspected that he was no longer alone. He had no idea how long he had not been alone and more than that, he knew well that if his feathered companion had wanted to obscure his presence longer, he could have. This awareness was as much about politeness as anything and that was a difficult admission, one of many as of late. Still, it was with a tight smile that he looked up and glanced around the room.