I find myself grateful for the dog. He's a delight, and training him has proven to be a most welcome distraction from everything else going on - the trick parties, the interloping gods, the fear of true loss.

I still see no pattern in how people are able to leave this place. I assume it's because they prove uninteresting to Pheme, though I still can't possibly know the criteria for that. Perhaps I never will. I would like to know what should happen to Bay Star and the mabari if I'm ever sent home. Will someone take care of them? What about Ylva, should Hawke ever be returned to where we both belong?

The danger in building anything like a life here seems to be the potential to abandon it, just as I've abandoned my home.

I don't enjoy feeling so uncertain. Perhaps that is part of what makes me entertaining to her. My pain.

Commander C. Rutherford