It always distressed me that Beauty had little or no desire to
pick up a sword and learn to defend herself; this was why I was so
thrilled that she agreed to some lessons from Foster.  However, I'd rather
she had some facility with a weapon that could afford her some protection
from a vampire.

	Such is life.

	Beauty is enamored of a vampire.  But why is the vampire enamored
of Beauty?  No one could be more inappropriate for this gracious and
lovely child, who was blessed by twelve Faeries at her christening (never
mind what was on the mind of the thirteenth, since I broke his magic). 
She is shy and retiring, gentle, and not at all like me (or her real
mother).  She is everything that Caitt ever wanted in a child, fulfilled
in the form of a grandchild.  It distressed me, and I thought she was too
soft for this world, and I think it still.  Knowing my daughter, she loves
him for the man Shard was, and the man he still is -- the aura of
sensuality that accompanies the vampire is helpful for her attraction, but
not essential to it.

	Damn Chameleon for stealing her from me.  If I had had those five
years that she spent with Caitt, I could have overseen her growth, made
sure that she was courted carefully, and knew the perils of first love
before she dove into it headfirst with a vampire.

	I cannot deny that she is a gracious and charming young woman, and
that her soft heart is a pleasant thing to those of us who have had too
much of dangerously generous grandfathers, disgusting Hasrhanian slave
traders, ruthless and all-powerful parents, and the spectrum of twisted
love and fear from Driscoll and his Shadows.  There isn't really a
peaceful place in the universe, except in the gardens of Foil with her and
my foster mother.

	It's not as if I don't understand the kind of blindness she is
currently suffering from.  I, too, passed an idyllic childhood under
Caitt's watchful but not particularly knowing eye, and I was hurt and
terrorized by the events of the war -- all of them, including the bit with
Cal.  It's not as if I think I can spare her from all pain, or ever
thought I could, but I had always hoped that I could help her foresee the
pain and avoid the worst of the pitfalls, so that when she came out the
other side of the strife, she would still be a gracious and gentle
creature -- merely a little wiser.  There's a reason I don't go too often
to the groves and worship with the trees.  I regret too many of the things
I have done.

	What has brought about this line of thinking: the mood I was in
the other night, where I desired to sow mayhem and death, was a mood that
has not come upon me since the war, and I was reminded of all that I have
become.  It is not always a pleasant thing to look in the mirror.