Cordelia, Diary 7

 Okay, I don't get to kill him. I'm sorry, and I'm glad. If grandfather'd still been alive I really would have had to kill him; I wouldn't have been able to live with myself otherwise. I'm just not sure I would have liked doing it. I probably would have gotten sick. Of course, this morning (or early afternoon, whenever it is that I woke up), I probably would have attacked him without even thinking about it. I don't know if I would have succeeded, but I'd have tried. I fought when I was twelve, and that's about where I was when I woke up.

 Sophie's going to give me a lot of trouble over this business with Russell and his family. She doesn't understand how dangerous it is out there, not just in Evara. She may have a better grasp than I do of how dangerous it is here, but... It's a choice of evils, and I think that bringing them to Amber is the lesser. Fostering them may be possible; I don't know enough about Amber. I doubt that fostering them in an environment that wouldn't be horribly alien would be at all possible outside of the nobility, however, and I suspect that that would be worse than keeping them near me in the castle. Sophie thinks I don't comprehend power games. I do. I just know that it's the things you try hardest to hide that are the most dangerous to you.

 I find myself with the urge to call Merlin "papa." That's what Mama always called him when she showed me his picture. I don't feel comfortable with it now, but the memories are very close. I very much appreciate his giving me Mama's trump. I hated letting it go for framing. I keep thinking that it won't come back to me. But I really wanted to display it well. Now that I remember... Well, I guess I want to give her honor for what she managed to do. I don't understand her choices, but I have no idea what happened that made her make them. I think I would have acted differently, but, then again, I think I'm tougher than she was. I know how bad things can be and when an attempt to get out can't really make things worse.

 I don't think Sophie really understands what she's saying when she talks about putting myself back into my past experiences to make sure that they're mine. Drugs and blood and pain and voices in my head... Those experiences aren't really mine in a certain profound way because they were orchestrated to destroy me. Being "in" them again is likely to be more damaging than helpful. I have to think about the victim of those monsters as being someone else, not me. I'm Cordelia; that was... someone else.

 I wonder how much Sophie knows about the smell and taste of her own blood...

 I do wonder if I'll ever be strong enough to go back and fix what's wrong in Evara, to smash the labs that create the slaves, to change things so that there are no slaves. That's for later. At least with this ambition I have some ideas as to how it could be possible. That's a great improvement over the years I spent longing for freedom with no idea of how it could be achieved.

 I do need to meet more of my relatives. I'm going to be dealing with them for a long time to come. I don't mind being part of the wall if I get to observe what's going on, but I'm currently part of the wall in an obscure area that gives me no view of anything helpful. Perhaps I could suggest to Merlin that some sort of family gathering to welcome the newcomers, there are, after all, six of us if one includes Jared's mother, might be appropriate. Sophie'd probably call that dangerous, but I think it makes good sense. We need to know who's playing here before we can even get an idea of who the "enemy" factions are.

 Perhaps Merlin can also suggest a way that I can find time to make the Trumps I'm going to need. It seems pretty essential to me that I make as many as possible to have at least one of each of the people I'm dealing with. That would give me a way to get an idea of what's going on with other people, and I still haven't had a chance to try out my idea for tarot reading with Trump. I think it will work; it's just hard to do it with only three cards, well, four if you count the one of me.



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