Caine has returned, and he is alive.  I was worried for awhile.  I
mean, I would have felt extremely guilty should something have happened to
him - though, if he doesn't know of my blunder already, I won't be running
to tell him.  It's good that he's back, though other people are still in
danger.

	When the shit hits the fan... jeez.

	Like I said, Caine is back, and Benedict has been released from
Dara's magics... but Gramble has been overthrown, and he and Flora are
prisoners in their own kingdom.  What's more, they're to be executed. 
Some guy named Zane has declared himself king, and there's a general
feeling of unrest about the castle.  It makes sense, I guess.  Zane does
not like Amber.  He's bound to try to invade - they all do, eventually. 
But, before that happens, we hope to have Gramble and Flora safely out of
there... which will probably prompt Zane to attack sooner.  Any way you
look at it, we lose.  It'll work out some how, it always does.  I just
hope it works out with us beating them back in their corner.  I'm sick of
being messed with; you'd think that they could come up with more
productive uses of their time.  We did get a pretty large group of
refugees - aunts, their husbands, and some staff.  "Anyone with Amber
sympathies," I heard said.

	The upshot is that I did get my body back, though not with out a
bit of arguing.  I'm sitting out in Ivan's boat, waiting for something to
do - it didn't feel right going back to the castle; it would have confused
Vivienne, and I didn't want to be returned to my true form until I knew
what happened to Caine - Tamaryn shows up and asks me if I want to be
Felix.  What was I going to say?  No?  I was surrounded by pirates, out in
the harbor during some extremely severe storms, and anxious to get off of
the ship.  She really didn't have to ask.  Though, she did decide that she
like Lady Reyne's creative piercings - she didn't want to fix them.  Damn
Faerie blood.  A sane woman wouldn't have played such games with me.  I
got angry, she fixed it, and left.  It wasn't quite the welcome home that
I had envisioned... though that one, too, did involve Tamaryn shifting me
back... it was just a lot more... genial.  I'm sure I must have confused
the first mate - Jesus goes down into the captain's quarters with a
beautiful woman, the woman comes out, furious, followed by Felix, who then
tells him to hold down the ship.  Poor man.  Hope his therapy isn't overly
expensive.

	Have I mentioned lately how great it is to be me?  Being Jesus
sucked.  He's too tall.

	Ahab made a public announcement about Flora and Gramble.  He is
getting a posse together to go and rescue them.  He wants everyone who can
to go.  That's gonna leave the castle awful bare.  I'm sure he's taken
precautions.  He's the king, after all.  He has to be responsible. 
Tamaryn and I did make up, though.  Looking back on it, it kind of looks
like I made a commitment.  It all went by so fast.  Maybe it's time?  It's
not like I don't like her.  It's not like we don't enjoy each other's
company - intimately and otherwise.  I just hope this isn't a marriage
thing - not right away, at least.  It's not that I'm uncomfortable with
her - I'm over that, now.  I'm sure I'd be having the same reaction, no
matter the woman.  We'll just take it day by day, it's all anyone can do. 
Maybe marriage won't be so bad.  If we do get married, we're going to have
to elope, because I don't think that I can find anyone harmless to be my
best man.  The past couple of bachelor parties that I've been to have been
a lot of fun to be a guest at... but just thinking of Foster and the
morning after... and his little problem... well... I think the decision
has been made for me.

	Woah.  Slow down there, Felix.  You just agreed "to be more than
friends" and already you've gotten married, had more kids, fallen out of
love, tried to get divorced, taken lovers because the king wouldn't let
you get divorced, and grown old and bitter...  Talk about a racing mind.

	Slow.

	Go slow.