Chapter Text
Keefe Sencen's Journal
First day in the Forbidden Cities. No, not even that much. First half a day in the Forbidden cities. Four hours and counting. I still have ink stained on the side of my hand from the letter I left Foster Sophie. I’ve spent most of the day writing and rewriting phrases in my head, wishing I could go back and change things. Change everything. Not embrace the change and all that, but I guess that’s too much to ask now. Exile, I’d go back to before I was summoned into existence like the little science project I am and kick Cassius in the nuts if I were given the chance. Although then I don’t know how I would have existed to do that, but that’s beside the point. I’d figure out a way. Well, to be completely fair, I’d tell Dex to go figure it out but I’d trust him implicitly, which is basically the same thing.
It’s a shame I fucked over his entire family before I left. I know I should try to tell myself that it’s just a matter of time, that Rex was always going to be talentless, but now Dex gets to lie to everybody about what could be one of the biggest aspects of Lex’s life. Ah, elvin culture. Such a fair and just system with no flaws whatsoever. Whatever Gisela’s plans are with me, I doubt that particular bombshell was one of them, but it’s something I’ll never forgive her or myself for. I can’t let her promote me from a pawn to a rook, although that's probably already happened. Maybe I’m supposed to be a knight stuck in a 3x3 board, but I’ve found another dimension. I’ve found a way to escape this game.
Stars, look at this nerd using a chess metaphor unironically. I don’t know if that or the fact that I feel the need to justify myself to a piece of paper is worse. I just know I played (read: lost) a game of chess in some park today, and it was a surprisingly entertaining ten minutes of my life. It’s not like I had anything better to do. Or have anything better to do tomorrow. Or ever. It’s equal parts liberating and daunting that this could be the rest of my existence for thousands of years, or at least as long as the human authorities don’t figure out that I’m here.
New life goal acquired: be the cranky old man in the park, a menace to society on a microcosmic scale. Just ever so slightly a burden to everyone’s existence. It’s not like I can do a whole lot to contribute to society with my lack of any valid identification or access to a birth fund. You can add that to the list of things I should have asked Dex about before I left, but no, I didn’t think through anything. I’m incapable of making rational decisions. Whatever. It’s still for the best. I’ll figure it out.
And now I’m here, rambling my thoughts into a diary, of all things. I guess I don’t know why I felt the need to bring a notebook with me from the Forbidden Cities, let alone document my experiences, but it feels…surprisingly unfeeling. Not in the numb way I know is ever approaching on my horizon—I can feel the humans walking down the street blocks away without even trying—but right now, I’m in that perfect sweet spot of just using enough brain power to keep me from going off on three tangents simultaneously but not so much that I actually have to try, because there isn’t a faster way to get me to stop doing something than to make it require effort. I am nothing if not obscenely stubborn when it comes to being minimally productive, even if these last few hundred words are a testament to the opposite phenomenon.
I’m going to give this three days, max before I completely give up on this endeavour. Until then, I shall see thee to-morrow.