Ship Log: 2
9th of Autumn, 1st half Solar Day, 50th year of Homura

Days are getting colder and colder.



Not that I enjoy heat, unlike a lot of the other girls back at Yuiren, I would become easily uncomfortable being in the scorching heat of summer.

But I do miss the warm yet breezy spring days by the thicket next to the lake.

And I am missing it even more now that it is getting colder and colder and colder...

I've never known it to be so cold in the world before.

I knew how it would feel like to be chilly, but this kind of cold creeps into my bones and stays there, it's deep and it makes my whole self and my stomach shudder.

But I'm getting used to the boat.

Though it's cold, I try to move around to keep myself busy.

Father introduced me to the crew on the ship. The helmsman; Hiroshi... he's a sort of a serious faced old man, but when father introduced me to him, he smiled and said that I must be a brave girl to leave the firenation and all my friends there behind. When I answered and told him that I'm not very brave, but that I would try to be, he smiled even wider and patted my head.

There are a couple other soldiers who are assigned under Father's ship on their way to Fort Shu Wei in the south pole, as part of the crew. Most of them are men around my father's age, but some of them are much younger...maybe around a little more than Narita's age; teenagers and new recruits that have recently been assigned to their first duties there as well.

I'm the only kid there, and the only girl.
The men of the crew are nice to me, they call me "Lt. Ryohei's Little One" saying that I don't have to be so shy and quiet.
I suppose they're kind, but I don't trust them.

Father says once we get to the Fort, the base will have some other children, families of the soldiers stationed, and I will be make new friends.

I suppose I would like to have new friends, but sometimes...I just like being alone.

Sometimes when I'm alone on the ship, I don't know why, I sneak around down under the hull, I'll explore the rooms and poke around when no one is looking (even if I probably shouldn't and father probably wouldn't like it if he knew) and hide in the small dark crannies of the storage areas and sleep there inside the empty wooden crates, small and safe. Even if I do have a hearth in my little quarters where its warmer, I know its weird, but I like the smell and feeling of being with myself down there in those dark places in the hull...with a deep, musky but familiar smell.

It turns out (something that the helmsan had told me, that the wood used to build the crates in the storage area are made from the trees of the Yiinan Forests. Those same trees that I would grow around back at my old home.

It reminded me of how...I ...used to do that sometimes back home...in Aizuru. Since I was little. One time back then, Peng-peng and Satomi had been looking for me and then found me asleep under the roots of one of the trees in the thicket...they found my secret hiding place. They woke me up, pulling me out and laughing and asked me "Ohhh boy, Rei?!?! We were looking all over for you! What in the world are you doing down there? Hunting for bugs? You're sooo strange! Why are you doing that Rei?"

I came up from underneath, and said "I don't know." I laughed along with them, but deep inside, I felt...very bad...and embarrassed, and I also felt that they intruded into a part of myself that was very close to me ... a place where I didn't like people to bother me at all...and it became very hard to find a better hiding place there in the thicket.

Maybe I am strange.

Father also says we are nearing Fort Shu Wei, and will reach it in but a couple weeks.

Speaking of Father, I realized I have come to enjoy talking and being with him.

He tells me great sea stories that he has heard from the local natives, and his travels in the Southern Tundra, and what things he has seen.

Sometimes he would eagerly ask of how I have been when Grandmother was alive, and my friends I have made, how my training had been, since he's missed years of me since he's been away.

At first I didn't like to talk about it, but after a while, I began feeling better about speaking of the past. Though it still makes me sad.

Yet I was very afraid of dissappointing father when I told him that I haven't been practicing my sets very well and that I'm quite poor at my bending, perhaps even one of the worst pupils over at Yuiren, even though he himself excelled at these required bending exercises when he was around my age.

But instead of being dissappointed, father smiled and instead brought me up on deck one night and began to teach me some moves on maintaining concentration, focus and agility. It was embarrassing, and it reminded me how bad I was at it, but after a while, his kind words and encouragement helped me to stop being so self conscious, and I felt better about practicing the bending sets...

It wasn't AT ALL like how Master Yuiren would drill, repeat, sternly shout and bark at us and point out each mistake we would make.

Afterwards, Father even told me how he noticed that though I need work and practice with focus and planning more strategic positions, he was "amazed" at how long I am able to keep a flame going, not in a burst but in sustained movement.

He laughed and said softly that I probably inherited it from mother's side of the family.

I love listening to him, I feel peaceful when we speak and it's...almost as if he had never left.
Almost