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I swear, if it were not for the craftsman ship and accessibility of the Artisan's Path, I would avoid it altogether. It seems, as of late, that I meet with nothing but trouble when I venture through there. Granted, there are any number of beautiful things to lure me there once again, and though I complain about the crowds and unfortunate occurrences that befall me there, I know I will always return.

I do not.. enjoy the idea of complaining, but I feel the need to vent a bit, and instead of submitting Liu to my whining, I'll just get everything out here, in writing.

I met a young man today in the artisan's Path. He was polite enough, and rather helpful, but I do wish the circumstances of the meeting would have been different. The crowds were awful, jostling everywhere, and the poor boy knocked into me, scattering my money everywhere. I was perfectly willing to simply leave the coins that had landed on the ground, but Jianyu, that's his name, picked them up and returned them to me.

I probably don't have to say I was less then thrilled to be touching them again, and sought out clean water immediately after, much to Jianyu's confusion. He didn't ask, though I could tell he wanted to. It's not the first time someone has been curious about my obsessive cleanliness, and seemed reluctant to comment. I'm not sure why, I think I would question an odd habit if I observed it. Though I'm not sure if that's socially acceptable, considering my severe lack of anything resembling healthy social skills.

I realize now that simply hoping for predictable behavior to respond to is no longer acceptable, I really do need to educate myself on the proper way to interact with people. Before the academy I hardly saw any reason, but now that I am surrounded by people, and forced to communicate and interact with them, I find myself a constant bundle of nervous and awkwardness, and I find I'm either pushing people away more then I already did, or blundering through conversations by the seat of my skirts. I do not like these feelings of confusion and carelessness, I'm not used to them, and they infuriate me.

I have always been a very calm and collected young woman. Polite and well spoken, but it's far easier to maintain such social standards when dealing with nobility and personons of high standing within the community. Their very presence demand respect, but there is a wall there already, and it makes pleasentries managable. My peers? There are no such walls, no usual rules of conduct. It's a hard thing to get used to. I have never before had to really worry about the sort of opinion I left on those I met, but as of late I can't help thinking I've done a less then acceptable job of presenting myself.

[word count: 503]

I am torn.

My desire to attend the academy has been a long time coming. Finally an institution where study and intelligence are key. A place where I should feel at home and at ease, happy. This is how it should be, how I assumed it would be. This is not how it is. Do not get me wrong, those aspects are certainly present, but it is not how I had imagined it.

My classes are fine, I am delighted to find direction in my studies and the challenges set forth by my instructors through class and homework. Liu is a wonderful adviser, and a good tutor, but his expertise lies in music and classical knowledge, and not in combat and soul magic, and it is those skills I will need in the future as a priest of the Noble Retainer. It is wishful thinking to believe I will never see the harsh reality of a battle field, and naive to assume I will never have to fight. Battle is unpredictable and tricky, and there is no telling what may happen. It is imperative that that learn and remember what is being taught to me, my life may very well depend on it.

That is a little off topic,though. True it is important to be prepared, but I have strayed from the purpose of this journal entry. It seems petty to me, childish, but the real reason to record my thoughts in this instance is purely to recant my distaste for the other aspects of the academy. I am not, by nature, a social creature, and it seems that the academy is exploding with social activity. All around me there are bonds forming and breaking, people laughing and using the proximity the school provides as a place to mingle, and not as the institution for learning that it is meant to be. How are we to study when there is talking, laughing, shouting all around us? It is not the healthy environment for study that I had hoped it would be.

I am torn, my previous perceptions of the academy do not match the reality I have come to know, and it is frustrating. I continue to attend though, I know the lessons I'm to learn there are of great importance, and my discomfort with being surrounded by so many bodies jostling me, approaching me, conversing with me, is not enough to dissuade my thirst for knowledge. I must endure, and I must adapt.

Perhaps one of my guardians can provide a measure of comfort, some words of wisedom. True, their well meaning teachings have not been the best thus far in preparing me for life outside the gardens and ponds of the family estate, but perhaps that is my own fault. Perhaps they tried to steer me right, but I stubbornly refused to acknowledge their teachings and they gave up. I simply don't know, and I'm not sure I should ask. If I have sabotaged my own social growth, I woner how I would handle that.

[word count: 511]

Why is it that I am required to share space with foul, brutish, unhygienic individuals? There should be a law prohibiting lunarians from going about in such a sorry state. Their very presence insults me, assaults my senses. I suppose it could be said that I am a lady of delicate and rather judgmental senses, but is it not my right? Am I not deserving of going through my day with out being bombarded by filth and contamination? It is unfair I tell you.

Just today I had an encounter with just such an individual. The stench from him alone was enough to bring water to my eyes, and I had to fight the natural inclination to gag.

As if that weren't enough to form solid judgment against him, he demanded I do his homework. For a class that I am not even enrolled in, I might add. I cannot possibly be expected to know the required answers for the courses attended by those leaning to be fighters. There are shared classes, yes. But this was not one of them. He threatened me, and when conflicting logic was shoved back in his face he grew frustrated with me.

Eventually I felt sorry for the peon, and offered to help. Help alone was not what he was after though, and when I insisted to him that I could not do the entire thing myself he tore it out of my hands and stomped off. It was a very interesting meeting, but not one I would ever hope to repeat. In fact, I do hope not to see him again. I do not think I would be able to stand his attitude or odder a second time.

It is no great secret that when it comes to forming bonds I am slow, if at all willing. I do not make fast friends, nor do I have many, it is just not something that peeks high on my priority list. I have never had use of such things in the past, my spiritual guardians and companions did more then fill the void left by my parents. I did not need bonds with pulse, I did not seek them out, frankly, I did not really want them. I have done fine with only the guidance of my spectral friends, and there was no logical reason to change things. The only bonds I have ever sought are ones with my parents, specifically my mother. She at least attempts to connect, where father does not.

I have found though, since my start at the academy, that I may be forming semblances of bonds. I wouldn't go so far as to call them true friendships, but there is something there. It is truly hard for me to explain though.

Harder still to explain are my feelings towards a certain Huang Fu. I did not expect to feel anything pleasant towards him considering the initial means of our meeting. It is because of him that my ankle is bandaged and I walk with a noticeable limp, having only just given up the crutch I had needed for the first few days. I am injured do to his carelessness, and yet I have nothing but fond thoughts for him. Thoughts beyond the sort of friendships I harbor for Liu or Rong. They are my guardians, my friends, but this feels different, strange.

I have a longing to spend more time with him that I have never before felt for another person. It is an foreign, almost unsettling sort of feeling, but one that I think I enjoy. It is unusual for me to have any form of desire to seek out another's company for something so simple as merely a light conversation or just the their very presence.

I've expressed these thoughts with Rong, and she had little to say on the subject. Instead she laughed at me and mumbled something about my getting older. I am tempted to press Liu on the mater, but he does not share the same fondness of Huang Fu as I do, and would be little help. He would simply repeat that I should stay away from him, and I do not plan on heading that suggestion. It will be one of the few times I go against Liu's advice on something. I am not happy about it, but I just cannot listen to his warnings this time around. Doesn't he see how potentially happy I could be with Huang-Fu? He worries, I know that, but sometimes he worries for naught. I know he wants what's best for me, but isn't my happiness among the many important priorieties to think about?

[word count: 501]

A kiss. A simple kiss beneath a gentle rain of cherry blossom petals. It was... not exactly what I had expected. That is not to say it wasn't amazing, it was, but I am left feeling a niggling sense of disappointment. I suppose it would be prudent to mention that this was my first kiss, my first experiences with anything so intimate as romance. Hell, this is the first time I've ever connected with another living lunarian so completely. It is a terrifying, exhilarating thing. I will return to the kiss, rest assured, but I must first explain, even if only to myself, the true depth of my feelings and this conflicting, confusing thing known as affection, attachment.

Never before have I been both so utterly out of my depth and excited for the unknown. It completely contradicts my usual nature. I am drawn to him, like a moth seeks the warmth and glow of an open flame. Left craving his touch, his company, when I have never before felt so strongly for anyone, not even my parents. It's scary, unnerving, and though confused, conflicted, and terrified, I cannot turn away. How is it that I, one with such a stubborn thirst for knowledge, continues to subject myself to things I know nothing about, have never before had experience with. It goes beyond logic, and yet here I am. Even now, aware of the flames licking at my fragile wings, I can't get him out of my mind. I want to see him, want to be in his company, his arms. Consumed by him, his flame. Even if that flame means death. There is no logic to it, and yet it is true.

I embrace these feelings of affection, attachment, despite my doubts, my fears, and I can only hope this blind leap does not lead to disaster. Ancestors guide me, for I am truly out of my depth.

As for the Kiss. A scene stolen from the pages of some grand romance. The sun sparkled in a brilliantly blue sky, the heat of it kept at by by a steady breeze that cooled the skin. We walked through between the twisted bodies of cherry trees in full bloom with a carpet of soft pink petals beneath out feet. It was picturesque, absolutely beautiful. A lull in the conversation had slowed our pace to a stop, and the few petals that had clung to our clothing and hair were quickly joined by hundreds more. A gentle rain of dancing pink. I thought I would choke on my own pulse, my heart felt as though it'd jumped into my throat. Fluttering impossibly as his hand brushed my shoulder, my hair.

It was forward of me, but in that moment I simply could not help myself. I kissed him, and the taste of his lips still lingers on my mouth. It was amazing, and yet.. And yet an awkwardness followed that neither of us knew how to fix. Is that normal? That awkward silence, that knotted feeling of unease? I don't know, I hope it is, for I fear the alternative. The prospect of my feelings, unrequited.. I don't know if I could bare it. I've experienced love before, the love of a parent, an adviser. This feels similar, but not the same. I just don't know.

I'm meeting him a again in a few days time. Beneath the glittering stars that light the streets of the city. I hope, I pray that this foreboding holds no ground, that the awkwardness and unease will fade. Perhaps I can summon the nerve to ask of his feelings for me. Not knowing is exhausting.


[word count: 620]

This naivety must end, it is a liability. Unbiased kindness is not enough to let a person walk through encounters unscathed, the macabre blossom of a multicolored bruises that decorate my body are testament to that. I thought perhaps if I didn't instigate the legion, they would leave me alone, at least until I have graduated and made myself more of a threat to them. I am sorely mistaken, and these injures will serve as a painful remind of that fact long after they've healed and faded away. I cannot afford to view everyone as equals, it will get me hurt.

There have been battles in the past, scuffles and brawls, but none have been trigger for so petty a reason as allegiance. Loyalty itself is not petty, do not get me wrong, but to hurt another based only on whom they follow is madness. My former duels have been tamer things. No less violent, to be sure, but less savage, less vicious. One in defense and retaliation towards one that had harmed me, and one over a irreconcilable differences in opinion come to blows. The later perhaps is a trivial matter, but that matter does not ring in my head like this one. Does not leave me feeling betrayed and outraged.

It begins with an act of kindness. Which inspires a second act of kindness. The young I previous wrote about, Zhongxain, had payed me a kindness. Both in the teapot he left in my hands and the offensive tactics he unknowingly provided to me. I was raised to be polite, to repay kindness and show my gratitude. In this case, not a duty, but something I had wanted to do. I considered him acquaintance, perhaps even friend, and I thought I would surprise him by returning his teapot and thanking him for his kindness. I did find him, after hours of wandering the city streets, and I did thank him, but that is where all pleasantries ceased.

He asked me where I had walked from, and I told him the mountains. Specifically the part of the mountains which lie within the grand properties of the high nobles. That is where all pretense of friendship ended, for he asked me to leave, spoke ill of my loyalties and dared blame the Noble Retainer for the woes of our country. Even then, I could have forgive it, for not all nobles know any better then what they had been taught. Uneducated, uninformed, clueless. I held no hate for the single members of the legion, and I would not have lost a potential friend over so silly a reason. But it was not I that snapped, not I that struck the first blow.

The shoulder aches where the teapot shattered against my flesh. My hands are bruised where he struck me with the broom stick. My temple throbs from the blow that knocked me unconscious. I don't know if he meant to kill me, but I do know that what fueled that rage, that brutality, was blind hate. I had done nothing to him, spoke no ill will, offered no hurt, and yet I was attacked, beaten, and left in the street like garbage.

I held no previous ill will towards the legion, but I cannot say that now. I have been wronged, I have been hurt, and I can't shake this bitterness or hard resolve. It was a harsh lesson, but one I cannot, will not, ignore.

I will learn from this. Every twinge of pain, every throb, every unbearable headache only drills the lesson in further. I cannot simply move through my city blissfully unaware. Anyone of the passing citizens could be legion, could hold that blind hate towards nobles, towards me. And I hope never to be caught so unaware again. It was unexpected before, and perhaps that is why I lost, but no more.


[word count: 651]