OK, let's go over the day thus far: I shapeshifted into various
different people.  Again.  Someone tried to kill me.  Again.  There was a
disturbance in Shadow.  Again.  We fought Mara.  Again.  Colin and I had
to merge and use Pattern energy to fight the Orb and close some vortices. 
Again.  Sensing a Pattern?  I sure as hell am.  And I'm getting tired of
it.  At least we got the goddamn Orb away from Mara this time, and she
shouldn't be troubling us again.  Way to go, Rasa!  No more rising from
the dead for that bitch.

	Which still leaves me several bastards to deal with.  Take Paris,
for example.  The farther away, the better.  We ought to just leave him
and Sean in that place they get stuck in when they fight.  It would solve
a lot of my problems.  Unfortunately, Alastair isn't likely to go along
with this, Sean being a member of his little cabal and all.  I know both
of them have been behind attacks on me.  Attacks Grandfather would never
have allowed to happen.  Of course, Grandfather had a lot more power than
I do.  This just bites.

	At least Suhuy's potion seems to be working, so I feel more like
me again, even if I don't look like me.  He still hasn't found a damn
cure, though.  Hell, instead he says that the fucking thing is contagious
to other shapeshifters.  At least he had a serum that would prevent those
who were exposed to it from becoming symptomatic.  I gave it all to Rasa. 
She is my friend, after all.  The only other shapeshifter I know of is
Paris, and I certainly wasn't going to short Rasa to save his ass!  In his
case, losing his personality to someone else's can only help.  Although I
shudder at the thought of two Sean's walking around.  Or two Alastairs. 
Or, God forbid, two Farads.  The world can't even bear the ego of one of
them.  It might be kind of funny to have two Colins walking around,
though, so long as I ain't one of them.

	So where do things stand right now?  Well, we have one dead,
formerly resurrected bitch.  One formerly dead resurrected bastard.  One
Orb, currently in possession of Dmitri, who almost dumped half of Chaos on
us with it.  One Jewel, currently in possession of the Regent, until she
loses it again.  One sane, shapeshifting assassin.  One lost, paranoid,
insane shapeshifter, currently affected by the mysterious shapeshifting
disease.  One dead- tired Regent, currently affected by the mysterious
shapeshifting disease.  One dead-tired Chancellor, always affected by the
"I want to get laid" disease.  One annoying, arrogant, back-stabbing Trump
artist.  One annoying, formerly amnesiac sorcerer.  One obnoxious head of
intelligence.  One semi-clueless son of Gerard.  And one young couple
going on vacation.  I think they've got the right idea.  Right now, I'm
badly in need of a vacation, myself.