The academic advisor says I need to take just one Forecasting class to fulfill that graduation requirement. I'm petitioning for a Card Counting extracurricular to be an accepted replacement. I know it lacks the Occultus spirit, but isn't it a way of predicting the future? The range is rather short, but the quick validation process is more satisfying than waiting for your enemy's grandson to fulfill your capstone project prophecy.

I'm not comfortable leering out at the futures like some temporal peeping tom. It's rude, and not often worth the trouble of the intrusion. How many times have we recorded a prediction onto scroll, stone, or Prophecy Chip (TM) only to reveal later that there was a fundamental mistranslation or assumption that derailed any attempts to respond to it! All that effort to prevent or prepare just... wasted!

The advisor tried reassuring me that I just need to pass, I don't need to make a grand revelation like the students in the Forecasting specialization track. But I don't want to make any revelations at all.

Weaving dark and light is a traditional craft in my hometown. I am not the first or the last with affinity for it. We have seen a number of mature women drown beneath it. I know three personally. Is it The Dweller? Is it the difficulty of balance eventually tipping a scale into an extreme? Is it some curse or decay waiting within us all, and I am already doomed to the same fate? Does something lurk in my blood, bubbling and churning with promise of destruction that I can never prevent? If I never look ahead, then I am Schrodinger's Cat of futures. I both thrive and languish until I arrive. The certainty of knowing isn't always a comfort, you know.

I don't want to read the future. I will count the cards. [Please sign my petition to the academic advisor on the line below]


X_______________________

Last night's dream featured many symbols. Plenty of portents available. Perhaps the one worth sharing was the rings.

I was chewing and realized something was in my mouth. I spat out rings, and black crumbling debris. The debris was from my old mood ring. It's a broken mood ring, it stays black no matter what you feel. Well, my jaws had crushed that ring into crumbles. The other rings were completely intact, shining silver against the countertop.

This would all be very significant and meaningful, if I hadn't agreed to dream swap with my friend for last night. Walking in another man's shoes? Bah! Try sleeping in another girl's dreams! That's how you glimpse a corner of the soul she isn't even aware of. I'll write down all these omens and categorize them neatly for her. I hope we can make some insights at lunch together. More importantly, I hope she's not wearing a mood ring.

She's hidden the bright shards I keep on the side table. I keep them there to brandish against the gloom when it starts to advance like a rising tide. I hear the sound of it moving, thickly and inevitably. A few jabs with a reliable shard is enough to protect yourself until the gloom recedes to its natural calm.

Where has she hidden them? I've checked my closet and backpack and drawers! The room is so dark maybe I missed them. My mind is so dark maybe I'm refusing to recognize them. I don't know how to fashion a new brightness myself. She's at the window with a bucket, I hear her pouring more into the room. Another attempt to drown me out.

Oh. Wait a minute. I always forget I can go out and get more bright shards! Or, at least let some gloom trickle out. I keep forgetting this room has a door. I better use it before it's too dark to find it. See? Escapism isn't always bad, if you know how to use it properly. If you can't make a brightness, you have to go out and find it naturally occurring. Tywysog says that.

There's a saying that "things look different in the morning". The phrase has variants -- sometimes "better in the morning", or "harsher" or "softer" or "clearer" or "worse" -- but all these just mean "different" from whichever angle. Different from how the light strikes the things you thought you saw the evening before.

The assignment over this week was to capture and preserve some light from each day. The bottles are all lined up on my desk. On Monday, I have to submit an analytical report on the light variations. That's why it looks different in the morning y'know. No two daylights shimmer the same.

Thursday has a murk to it that thickens if the bottle is agitated. Tuesday is so evasive that at first I thought I'd failed the isolation process. Friday... I'm still observing Friday. It's hard to decide what to make of it. Maybe I'll give up and do that part tomorrow.

After all, things look different in the morning.

Steep your tea to the 4am darkness. 2am is simply too bitter. 4am has a touch more hope to it, in the after taste. The tantalizing potential that the new day could be better.

Gossip is inevitable in schools, we're all stuck bouncing around in the same glass bowl. I found out one of the other students has been avoiding me because she's afraid of "necromancers".

Necromancers!

At the bottom of your ocean there are wiggling, thrashing, blooming things that are flourishing in darkness's womb. The top of a mountain is burning and shining with the bright lava that kills cities. Do not oversimplify. Light is not synonymous with life, and dark is a necessity of it. I am no necromancer. Please find a more interesting reason to fear me.

My problem is not differentiating light from dark. Seperation easy enough with the right grip. A well prepared sample will flake effortlessly like correctly cooked fish. No, my problem is the greys. Tywysog insists I must learn to work across greys, the bridges and borders between extremes. Absolutes are my strength and my struggle. The shattering light and the suffocating dark are the tools I over rely on, and there's a limit to their utility at such intensity.

Yet I'm clueless in the face of simmering shadow or precise illumination. My grades reflect it. I'm still trying. The Dweller has suggested I give up on dual programs and just pick one. I know better than to trust her though, as she has bias. Her face may be obscured but I swear I can hear the leering smile. Tutoring hours in the Self-Aware Library start soon. I'll try again.

I was trying to thread the light like Tywysog taught me last month, but I must have missed a step. It doesn't sparkle so much as blind. I either need to start from scratch or find a disposal site. Seeing as I can't see the loose end of the light anymore, it seems I'll have to go with the latter. Maybe there's a chandelier or a stained glass window I could tuck this behind?

Or maybe that's the key to fixing it! Glass is so kind as to bend light back into shape. I'm sure Tywysog has a stained glass somewhere. I'll go visit this weekend. For now, this is going under the bed with the other monstrosities. The Dweller can hiss all she wants, there are plenty of other places she could lurk.