Me, myself and I...

I had to update my picture on pilot license. Honestly, it was about a time, my old picture was so outdated. Photographer took some additional pictures for my personal use too. I am pretty happy how they turned out.

So here are they... me, myself and I

Does anyone in Gradient really know him...

Bel broke up with Theron. She still loves him, but I think she did the correct thing. She wasn’t feeling well in that relationship. I wonder how Theron is doing. Did he love Isobel or was it just convenient to have lover. He has always been the distant perfect guy, polite director that is good in everything he does. Never lets anyone close, until Bel… except in the end he didn’t let her that close either. Does he have hart, does he have feelings, does he have any really close friends to whom he would talk? He hides his feelings really well. He has to have someone he trusts. It would be really horrible life, not to trust anyone, never let anyone close… like Veren.

This makes me think. WhoTheron really is? What is his back ground? Does he have some dark secrets in his past? Does anyone in Gradient really know him?

This week has been better…

Not so many people feel like familiar strangers. It helped to go drink with Bel and Anuko even the drinking part got little bit out hand. Looks like Isobel has also been putting up the mask of bright face and smile and now the mask were taken off, at least for a while. It felt more genuine. For a change Anuko is the one being strong and feeling well.

Flying has been coming back for me; I don’t feel so rusty and out of place anymore. My ships and fittings still are out of date. The preference for ship types what FCs want for fleets has changed during my absence so I need to update them and I hate planning fittings. Other than updating my ships I have almost caught up with the various tasks that have been waiting my comeback. In general, this week has been better.

I just put up bright face and smile...

Sheesh during the time I was away from space they did some interface updates and tests with my pod and managed to mess all my settings. Christ what a work to get them on level I feel comfortable flying. I really waited to get back to space flying. I waited to be one with the ship. But now that I am finally back I feel weird. I’m rusty and out of date; I am not sure would I trust myself on flying combat, not to mention fleet commanding.

Corp is full of familiar strangers. I am sure it’s not them but me. I don’t know how to be with the others after getting used to being just with my thoughts and putting up bright face to mom and Adrianelle. I put up cheerful and bright face to people in corp. too despite that I am not so cheerful. It’s great that Adrianelle is better but it still can be just weeks and she is back on state where she was fighting for her life. I still need to decide what to do with the clan Lougherne. Try to get to know them, really know them, and not just let them talk pretty to a pilot.

Others don’t deserve my negative and dark mood. I should be happy for Adrianelle, happy for finding out long lost relatives, happy to be back in space, but somehow the happiness just isn’t there. So I just put up bright face and smile.

Yes mother...

”Nelle you need to get back to your own life, not live mine. It was a different thing when I had days left, possibly only weeks. Now things have changed. The new medicine gives me weeks, months, possibly even years if we are lucky. I simply won't let you just sit by my bed. I would be very bad mother if I would do that. Besides now that they gave me normal life back even if for temporary I will take everything out of it that I can. You have your life, friends, certain significant others, duties in Republic. You need to get back there.”

But, but, but... yes mother.

They did it!

They did it, they fucking did it! They found a new combination that neutralizes the poison the virus creates. It's not a cure and the pace the virus changes it wont help for long ... but they did it... You have some weeks even months time if we are lucky. You could travel again, do things you said you still would love to do... They did it!

I hope you got something out of this...

Dear Jarvis and Emily,

I tried to think what to tell you about myself. You are grandparents to me even you never had chance to see what kind of kid I was, never be part of important nor everyday moments of my life. My mother found her old diaries and she told couple of stories from there from my childhood she had wrote down. Maybe these would have been things you would have heard as I grow if we would have known each other’s back then. Here is first of them which still felt meaningful to me and I think it describes something how I still see the world.

My parents (or more accurately the Intaki couple who adopted me but who are and always will be my parents were researchers) were doing type of research that was needed to in space. So I have lived most of my childhood on small and quiet research stations. When I was under 5 years old I had nanny to take care of me and one other kid during the days when our parents were working. There weren’t that many small children on the small research colony where we lived at the time. New couple was moving to station and they had a same aged girl who was supposed to join our little daycare group under our nanny. Few days before Natasha joined our group our nanny told us old children story from the area she was from.

Once upon a time there was a village. Village was set on very beautiful and rich area. South to the village laid a green and blue river and rich fields and meadows and to north a big forest full of animals. But the village was very agriculture oriented; they never went to the forest. All the children were taught to be afraid of getting lost to the forest and taught to avoid it. People in the village were tall and red haired. One day a black haired older man Steafin and his son Andre arrived to the village. They were half nomads used to live from hunting and gathering of fruits of forests. They were tired of traveling and were looking new home. They politely asked would the villagers be disturbed if they would stay on the area and hunt in the forest. Villagers told them they never go to the forest and warned them that it is dangerous and proposed that it would lot better to them to settle down to a farm. Strangers laughed to them and said that ok if no one is disturbed from them hunting they settle down to the area.

Black haired strangers found the forest to be perfect rich hunting area for them and they decided to make the forest their new home. Occasionally they made trips to the village. Steafin and Andre were first dark haired people the villagers had ever seen and their way of life to live and hunt in the forest scared them. At the best they were considered weird but some even thought they were somehow evil like the forest to be able to live there. So when Steafin and Andre came to the village they were treated as suspicious people. Villagers traded food for their furs but socializing with them was not seen too good idea. But despite this over the years Andre and a village girl Ciri fall in love. Ciri’s father was against their relationship Ciri had strong will and she didn’t listen her father.

Then came a strange year and another and another... Winters were really long and summers dry, the crops were bad and for the first time villager’s experienced real hunger. Steafin and Andre were still doing well, forest still offered lot of animals to hunt and plants to gather even if it was dry year. Andre didn’t want to see Ciri to see hunger and brought food to their family and tried to convince her father that forest is actually great source of food and not so dangerous they think. Eventually Ciri’s father decided that maybe just maybe Steafin and Andre made sense and decided to overcome his fear and asked Steafin and Andre to take him and his son and Ciri to the forest and teach them. With the help of Steafin and Andre they overcame their fear and started to see forest as a great resource. They felt silly for thinking Steafin and Andre weird and even possibly evil. They asked would Steafin and Andre teach also other villagers if there would be an interested in group. Andre was really happy that Ciri’s father finally started to see him as a man he was and talked his father to participate even he was bitter for the villagers how they had treated them for years. Ciri’s father and brother managed to convince a group of young folks try to learn to hunt. This group became familiar with the forest and brought game to the village. Eventually the group became larger and villagers learned to use the rich resource they had right next to the village. Even hard years continued the village didn’t see hunger anymore when they now used full extent of their natural resources around the village and not just half of it. They also understood that the black haired men Steafin and Andre are just different and not weird or evil and that different can be good. They swore that never again they wouldn’t consider different evil but equal and a possibility to learn new skills.

Andre and Ciri married on next year and settled to live at the village from were Andre did his hunting trips to the forest. They got several children, Andre and Steafin taught them the ways of forest and Ciri and her father taught them the basics farming and let them select which felt best career for them. When Steafin became too old to wander in forest he settled down to village too and started to appreciate the benefits of living in one place and not needing to move all the time and understand better the good sides of the agricultural life on one place.

Mom told me that it was first time when I started to think are there other kind of environments and people in the world than just small research colonies. When they came home from work I had wanted to tell them to the story and started to ask what all kinds of people lived in the world and what they do for their living. They had considered me tremendously amusing but answered my questions the best they were able to. Then couple of days later the new kid Natasha joined our daycare group. She was different, she was first brown skinned person we had ever met and she suffered from some condition that made one of legs grow somehow wrong and it wasn’t possible to fix via surgery she had to grow a bit more. We didn’t know what to think of her, she was different. But our nanny made us think about the story and that meeting new people is a possibility learn new things and she asked whether Natasha could tell what kind of games she know and teach us a new game. It was tremendously fun for us and in the process we accepted her as she was. Of course I was eager to tell all this for my parents too when they came home from work. My mother wrote the incident down because she was proud that I had learned to accept people as they are and learn from them even if they first seem little different to me. I guess that still describes one of the basic attitudes I try to follow in my life.

Huh this became pretty long letter, but I hope you got something out of this.

Br, Carinelle