Day 53,

Dinner last night was nice.  Well, the food itself maybe not so much as we all learned that Vernon shouldn’t cook and talk at the same time or else things get burnt.  But the company and conversation was a welcome change of pace given that I spend most of my days and nights alone.

Most of the night was given over to long meandering conversation, casually drifting from topic to topic with no real goal or motive.  Just sharing opinions and anecdotes and reminiscing on common experiences until late into the night.  Truth be told, it was mostly Lin and Vernon talking with me occasionally chiming in.  And that suits me well enough.  For the most part anyway.  I’ll confess this was the first time I ever really felt like I was missing something with my lack of a past.  It wasn’t so much that I regretted the lack of memories in and of itself, but that I had so little to share with others.  At least the stories I remember often enough had versions in the archive that Lin (and less often Vernon) had read that made for points of connection and shared experience to talk about.  Maybe I didn’t have childhood memories of attending equinox festivals, but we’d all heard a version of the story of the man trapped away from home for years before finally being able to set off on a journey home to wife and child, facing spirits and gods on the way.

Most of the things we talked about would take all day to properly recount here, as interesting as it might be to get into Vernon’s growing up with shepherd parents, his aversion to slugs, or Lin’s experiences going out with fishers to collect medicinal ingredients from the reef.  There were a couple of conversations though that are more relevant to the future than the past.

For one thing, I let slip my suspicions that there might be books missing from the archive.  This was met with some skepticism if for no other reason that neither of them could imagine a motive for anyone to remove them, and as Vernon pointed out, it would be scandalous if that were the case.  Nevertheless, Lin offered to come by sometime to help examine and see if there was anything she remembered from the old archivist’s tenure that was missing.

The other thing was I brought up the plan to try to catch a ride on the floating island.  To my surprise, they were both interested in joining, especially after retelling Pat’s story about Priscilla.  Although Vernon wasn’t quite as sure he’d be able to get away from his responsibilities for two weeks, he offered to at least help with getting supplies for the expedition together.  He doubted he’d be able to do so in time for the next island docking in a couple of days, but perhaps by the next one.  This was a welcome, if surprising offer indeed, and I probably thanked him enough times to make it awkward.  The actual logistics of getting two weeks’ worth of food and water onto the island in a several minute time window practically at dawn is a problem for another day though.

Gentleman that he is, Vernon walked both of us home (well, to the library for me) once it got late enough that all three of us were starting to yawn.

As for today, it’s been pretty slow and uneventful.  I’ve mostly been compiling a list of what appear to be references to other books or events that I can’t find sources on to show Lin later.

Back home for the night.  It’s kind of funny.  I’ve somehow fallen into a habit of checking all the rooms for something the sprite might have changed or left behind while I was gone.