Change.

Everything changes.  Change must come from within.  One person can change the world.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Keep the change.

Okay, the last one doesn’t really fit in.

Change is what led me to the River.  The world changed and made me wonder about changing my place in it.  I saw the world around me changing in ways I didn’t like, and not in ways I did.  My efforts to preserve humanity weren’t enough.  At best I could fight a holding action, and lose a little more with each engagement.  I’m still trying to change that.  There are a lot of good people in the world, all wrapped up in their own affairs.  If they could act in concert – if WE could act in concert – we’d be so much more powerful than we are individually.  But that will take a long time.  Years.  Maybe my whole life.  In the meantime, I can try to build a better world, a little bit at a time.

Continue reading Xian Li’s Journal #2 →

A gift arrived in the mail today from Delia, this book. It’s really cool, hand-bound with hand-slit pages, so they’re all uneven on the edges, and a water colored cover. (Appropriate, no?) Inside was a note written in her hyper-neat handwriting that said “You are on a journey, Red Feather. Keep a record of your travels.”

That’s what we in the apprentice business call a clear instruction. It’s one that makes me a little nervous, since a lot of what I do is stuff that Sleepers don’t need to know about, and that could be used as evidence in a criminal trial.

But usually, Delia gets what she wants, and I am on a journey, and I should start talking about it at the beginning. I’ve never been able to explain exactly why I’m doing this – abandoning goals I’ve had for my whole life and changing who I am at the core.

Continue reading Xian Li’s Journal #1 →