Day 56,
Morning thought: Vernon wears glasses. This implies that that there’s someone in the Village capable of fairly fine glasswork. Maybe getting a microscope made isn’t totally out of the realm of possibility.
Given that James didn’t say anything about the floating island trip on the way into the Village today, I’m guessing that Cass still hasn’t told him about it. Perhaps once we hear back more from Vernon about acquiring supplies we’ll tell him then. It’s skipping ahead a bit chronologically, but I did hear from him briefly today to confirm that even if he is able, it definitely won’t be ready by tonight. Just as well because I remembered this morning that today was when I’d promised to do a telling at a get-together between a villager and his friends from the outskirts. And by remembered, I mean I ran into him in the market while looking for a hooded cloak that could be… useful if Maiko ever gets up the courage to or finds the necessity for visiting the Village, and he asked me what story I’d be entertaining them with tonight. Seeing as I’d pretty much forgotten about it, I told him it was going to be a surprise.
And that’s why Cass and I spent the day going through story books trying to find a story that would be a good fit for a group of people we didn’t know the tastes of, in addition to me running a couple synopses by her of potential stories I knew that weren’t in the archive. I went through one or two with her as a practice audience, and she pointed out that I was a lot more nervous than usual. I think the fact that I forgot about a commitment threw me off. Put on counterproductive extra pressure to try to be perfect to make up for it even though the audience won’t ever know I forgot anyway. Just need to calm down. Which is why I’m writing now before I head out. The journal writing’s been good at calming me and clearing my head.
Ultimately, we settled on a small handful of potential stories and I’ll pick one or two out after having some time to assess my audience. Cass won’t be joining me. The get-together is later in the evening than when she normally goes to spend the night with Norman and Marva anyway, and more importantly, if the guests are all going to be adults, I don’t know how much is going to be appropriate to have a twelve-year-old along for.
A shame though, I’d been hoping to at least go out to Siren Overlook tonight to verify my estimates of the floating island’s schedule, but I doubt I’ll be able to make it in time. Also, it sounds like the cloak is more of a rainy season item so I wasn’t able to find one at the market today, but since I had been asking about it, someone said he’d be able to get me one next market day.
