From the Diary of Alys Kaah (SR45)

Caveat: Events as portrayed in this entry might or might not entirely coincide with reality.  Except the part about Mr. Boodles being very formal, because he totally is. ~Editor

Dear Diary,

A lot of strange things have happened to me lately. Now I have all these thoughts in my head and I'm not used to that. If I wanted to think I'd have become a wizard like mom wanted.

Anyway. After we kicked some serious stone giant butt the other day, I woke the next morning with a tingly-buzzing in my head that tells me Mr. Boodles has gotten stronger and wants to show off his new powers. I summoned him from his far-off realm of Pohk Ybal and wow! He has wings now! That is TOTALLY AWESOME! None of the other owlbears I've ever met have been able to fly! I'm so proud of him. :D

So I went to see my friends, and I was all "HAY YOU GUYZ COME SEE DIS IZ AWSUM!!" and when they were all looking I was like TA-DA and Mr. Boodles was all "O HAI THAR" and they were all "wut?"

I was soooo depressed because they couldn't see how awesome and smart and special Mr. Boodles is. He's the smartest, strongest, most specialist and loyal owlbear in the whole world, and now he can FLY, and they didn't care. They = poopieheads. >:(

Good thing Mr. Boodles is all dapper and confident, because he said "Pip pip, stiff upper lip and all, old bean! Don't let the rabble grind you down, as they say. I fret not one whit their derision, and neither should you!" and I felt all better. I <3 Mr. B!

So like, we decided to go somewhere, I forget exactly, some kinda old place with lots of stones and something crazy, I dunno. It sounded boring until they mentioned near-certain death and then I was like "Yeah baby!" So we went to the place, and everyone else was lame because their horses rode on the ground. Mr. Boodles flew above them proudly and was awesome.

We were flying, and flying, and flying... and then I heard "Beg pardon, old chum, but might that be a Dyre Tyger lurking like a ruffian in the tall grass, waiting to thuggishly ambush our compatriots?" Mr. Boodles is always so formal.

"Quite so," I said in his language, because that's a secret bond we share. "Let us go forth and roust the cad forthwith. Yoiks and away! Tally-ho!" and we were all zoooooooom! and charged the sucker. I gave it a good poking with my pokey-stick (Dame Yasha insists it's a lance... silly knight) and Mr. Boodles pounced on it! Bite! Claw! Claw!

The other party members did some stuff too.

Then that nasty old tiger took some swipes at Mr. Boodles, and would have hurt him real bad if I didn't do that thing where I take the ouchies instead. I love Mr. B but I'm tougher than he is (don't tell him I said that though, it'd hurt his feelings!) And then the nice lady (Sue Cowbell or something? Humans have weird names) ran up and made my ouchies go bye-bye.

I know Thorngrim is gonna say that he killed the tiger with his heat rays, but don't you believe him! I TOTALLY killed it by jumping out of the saddle, leaping upon it and cutting its head off with my two-handed whacking thing. I had the creepy wizard guy preserve the head and I'm gonna turn it into a fancy shield for parades and stuff. Maybe put some snacks in its skull for the next time I get stuck at court and things get all formal and boring.

Snacks are cool. Maybe I'll use cheese. Then I can be all "Hey, you want some cheese?" and they'd be "What kind of cheese" and I'd be "HEAD CHEESE!" AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAAHAHH

Then we traveled some more and we found the stones and Thorny Grimface was all cranky and weird. I tried to explain that the magic tasted like when you put strawberry jam on your toast, and you take a bite and it's just slightly off? Like, not so bad that you spit it out because you're all hungry and stuff because it's breakfast, but enough that you go "ewww" but keep eating? Like that. Anyway, he was all cranky and wouldn't answer my questions, even though I was polite the entire time. He even turned invisible and ignored me! So I was all, "Fine, be that way, I'll take your shift so you can get a full night's rest and not be so dang cranky in the morning."

Also because I thought he might be possessed and try to kill us all in the night. But he didn't. Which is good.

I was kinda bummed because I asked Dame Yasha if she wanted to snuggle again like she did last time and she laughed and said no. I don't know why she said no... I liked being the little spoon and she was very warm. I like cuddling! Is not liking to cuddle a human thing or a cavalier thing?

So after sour strawberry-jam breakfast we went to the place with the stones and Grimmy did a thing and there was a flash of light and I was like, "ooh, pretty colors @_@" and then we were on a giant snowball and the sky was all weird and there was another ball made of grass going whoosh-whoosh-whoosh between us and another ball, but that was dark and hot.

So I was like, duh, clearly the spell went wrong and we're inside my head now, because I think about whooshy balls in a delicate sky all the time. Also, we're on a bright cold thing and apparently want to go to a dark hot thing, and that's clearly symbolic of me being torn between two opposing and irreconcilable viewpoints. I mean, hello! Obvious. I told everyone about this and they all just laughed and thorn-butt was mean and I don't like him. So I decide to prove it by moving the grass ball with my mind, because it's my mind and what I say goes.

So then this weird ape with 4 arms shows up -- clearly symbolic of my inability to prepare, because four-armed is forewarned -- and butt-thorn was like "If this is your mind then make him go fast" and I was "You got it chief!" and Hasted the ape, because, you know, that's just awesome. I dunno why everyone got so annoyed at me. And then I noticed that Bluebell and Dame Yasha aren't with us, and I was all sad. :(

Anyway, preparAPE gets a bit touchy so I have Mr. Boodles rise up on his rear legs and he says "Fie upon thee, scurvy rotter!" and the preparAPE pounds its chest and attacks. Well, one quick poke/bite/claw session later, preparAPE is dead, proving once again that my skill at improvisation is better than any amount of preparation, and I don't care WHAT you say, mother, I'm never going to be a wizard when I grow up!

Then there is some leaping and a big cold scary thing comes by and whacks creepy Xin into space and then does the same with Whippy-Trippy guy, and Mr. Boodles and I gotta go save their sorry butts because, OH YEAH, MR. BOODLES CAN FLY, BIZATCHES.
Bigedy-BAM!

So I save them and put them on the spinny grassy ball and then there's this big ugly iron thing on the hot ball with a big sword and I'm like, "If that sword is a phallic symbol then maybe it represents my fear of impregnation," which totally makes sense because that's why I ran away from home in the first place. I'm too young to get married and have babies! I'm an adventurer!

And then I wonder, "If the iron thing is my fear of penises, what does big cold thing represent? Probably my innocence or something, because it's white. But then why is my innocence hurting my friends?" And that's when I realized that the whole purpose of this dreamquest is for me to come to terms with my sexuality. I have to destroy my innocence so I can grow up and be a real adult and do meaningful adult things, so I fly and charge and it shattered! Woo! There was this totally awesome moment where Mr. Boodles flew through the shattering shards of the thing, and it was all slow-motion and epic, and then we did a victory bank to attack the iron penis.

We flew at the thing, but neither my pokey-stick nor Mr. B's weapons could hurt it! And then it took a swing at me and I was really scared! And then the other guys threw acid at it and it started to melt but then it stuck its hand into some lava and I was "Oh, that's totally me being afraid of penises" and then we threw more acid at it and it died.

I don't know what the acid symbolizes. ????

So then we left and Dame Yasha was on the ground with cleric lady! YAY! I was happy to see them. Very happy! Especially Dame Yasha. And then I realized that since she wasn't in my head, I was the only one with a pokey-stick... which I used to poke the monsters... which is kinda what a penis does.

So like... does this mean I wish my "lance" was a penis? And that I want to poke Dame Yasha with it? I really enjoyed jousting with her and knocking her off her horse last week. She was lying on the ground, all hot and bothered, gasping for breath....

Am I a lesbian, Diary? Or do I just want to poke dame Yasha with my pokey-stick again? Or do I wish I had a REAL "pokey stick"?

Life is confusing. :(
 
[Written by Erin Pallette of Lurking Rhythmically]