From sodapop@maniac.us.itd.umich.eduTue Jan 17 16:59:14 1995
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1994 20:04:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Wendi Strang-Frost <sodapop@maniac.us.itd.umich.edu>
To: merrie's amber <shadows@umich.edu>
Subject: Diary


	As I stand and contemplate my father's Trump I find it actually 
hard to concentrate on it.  So much has happened so recently.  I've known 
Laughter for less than two months and we are to wed in two weeks.  That 
is not what truly bothers me, however.  Having Cymnea's blood on my hands 
bothers me, especially since she was Laughter's great grandmother.  Her 
death makes Laughter, as sole female heir, head of House Halybard, or 
what's left of it.  Roland, Laughter's half brother through Mandor told 
us this just moments before.
	Laughter and I had sat for a while at the Primal Pattern after 
the rest of our relatives had departed.  Brand was recently dead, Cymnea 
having killed him to ride the power surge to the Primal Pattern.  She 
intened to destroy it.  Handy of Sandr and Ulysses to have provided her 
the means in Oberon.  They've paid a hundred times over for that by now.  
I don't suspect Sandr to handle Brand's death well.  He handles nothing well.
	We arrived at the Primal Pattern in mass.  I don't at this moment 
in time remember who got us there.  Most likely Fiona.  We arrived to 
find Cymnea slitting Oberon's throat.  I reacted instinctively.  I have 
always carried a cross bow since Jubal attacked me and I did not hesitate 
to use it, not that it was to Oberon's benefit.  I would have made a 
lousy Muskateer.  My only consolation was that the gout of flame that 
Cymnea erupted into consumed Oberon's blood along with it.  The Primal 
Pattern stands unharmed.
	I didn't really notice how Oberon was removed from the center, or 
when he was pronounced dead.  My mind's eye kept tracking the quarrel as 
it flew, and the hideous eruption when it landed.  A second person born 
of reality has died by my hand.
	And the consequences continue to unfold.  Laughter quickly 
brought me back to my senses, or not.  I proposed to her before we left 
for Foil and she accepted.  I don't know whether she was more surprised 
that I had asked or I that she had accepted.  The morning after there are 
no regrets.  Not even when the reason for Roland's visit was revealed.  
He had come to warn Laughter of Cymnea's tendency toward infanticide and 
to say that Mandor had arranged a marriage for her to House Hendrake.  To 
the younger brother of the man I killed.  He seemed to think that since 
Laughter was already spoken for, that Beauty would do.  It took a long 
time for Laughter to convince him that this was not necessarily the 
case.  I hope he is now convinced.  Beauty has enough to deal with at the 
age of fourteen without marriage to a total stranger added to the top of 
it.  I hope Ulysses can find it in himself to do the right thing, as I 
now am by trumping my father to tell him of my impending marriage.  As I 
stare at the card I can't help but be aware of the notion of being 
thirteen all over again and wanting so desperately to please him; to be 
noticed by him.  I think I shall shortly have his full attention.