From merrie@umich.edu
Date: Sun, 9 Oct 1994 13:34:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Merrie Haskell <merrie@umich.edu>
To: thari@umich.edu
Cc: samolnar@umich.edu
Subject: Laughter's Diary 3

	Lady of the Trees forfend that your nose ever gets broken, 
Laughter, because you would doubtless look even worse than you do now.  
Well.  You wouldn't even be able to tell if you had circles under your 
eyes because of the bruises.  Very dramatic.  Almost as if you painted 
yourself up for battle... but not quite.  Yuck.  Stop looking in the 
mirror, and don't look down at that muck in the sink.  Just wring out the 
cloth and start on Beauty, who is fortunately, not very dirty.
	Well, Beauty, what has your mother to say for herself?  Not 
bloody much.  It was a stupid fight to get into, and it was, I guess, my 
fault.  I'm very lucky that I came out with only this damage.  And then 
I've got to explain all about it to this Julian person, who I've 
concluded to be the ruler of Arden, though he is my uncle.  Mother used 
to say it was his fault I ended up in Foil;  Mother doesn't like him very 
well, I'm afraid.
	All I really wanted to do was concentrate on this dream that 
keeps haunting me.  At first it scared me out of my wits, but now it just 
makes me mad.  Mind-numbingly over-the-edge-mad, in fact.  But the 
question is: why do they want me to believe that Riftvan would kill his 
own daughter?  When I know that he went to extreme amounts of trouble to 
keep his son alive?  Who wants Riftvan dead, and knows about me?  
Well...  probably the woman who brought him to me in the first place.  I 
certainly would like to talk to her for just a minute and ask her why she 
thinks I'm the one to do someone else's dirty work.  Does she think I 
have such an irrational fear of faeries?  Does she think the emotional 
nature of the dream would make me leap out of bed and strike Riftvan 
dead?  She does not know me very well.  She must be quite, quite stupid, 
spending so much effort on getting a person she doesn't know to kill her 
enemy, when she would have a much easier time of it just killing him 
herself, and, if need be, making it look like someone else did it.
	Most of all I hate her because she keeps disturbing my sleep and 
that's what sent me out into Arden in the middle of the night anyways.  
And that's where I met Shard and got onto the instant dislike thing, 
which led to a fight in which bad things happened, and now I've got to 
apologise to Julian, and probably even let Shard out of that tree.  Damn.