It is Thanksgiving. The purposes of the occasion are to be grateful and to eat lots of food with family. And those preparing the meal are generally working on a large enough scale to need help with th preparations iand the dishes.

Altogether making it the best holiday made up by Americans ever. (The amount of business requiring assistance is the icing on the cake. Reflecting on all that gratitude and not being able to do anything but sit back and consume would almost be a problem.)

It's a wonderful day. There is Clark. There is the rest of the Family all at once. The food is delicious, and he's just so blessed, and everything is beautiful.

And when the afternoon turns into evening, and everything winds down, and things come up, Guillame eventually kisses Des good night and heads out in to certain parts of the Nexus.
Because having seen everyone else that he loves today, he'd like to make it a complete set.

"Good evening, Chissok. I have been doing a lot of eating today with people I care for, and I wanted to make sure you have not been starving yourself again."

Sometimes it weirds Lois out.

There's no surprise in the fact that he takes caring for the dog seriously, and is quite meticulous about it. (No feeding her anything potentially unhealthy; no taking her into the Nexus where she could get so lost; regular walks; everything clean; instantly blocking her from anywhere she isn't supposed to go). Or that he's successfully trying to get her very well-trained.

It's his voice. Oh, playing with her it's just the normal baritone-giggles and such.  But it's only when he's giving the dog a stern, firm '<b>No</b>,' that she realizes she normally only hears The Kid's voice with radio-announcer calm, worried fear, or extreme how-can-I-help-please eagerness. Because for Guillame, Authority is always for someone else. Particularly in the presence of the Family.

There's nothing <i>wrong</i> with his voice when he's feeling in charge of a situation, certainly. But it still weirds her out a little.

It's not fear, the coldness in his stomach. Guillame knows, knows absolutely, that what has happened couldn't possibly be enough to do someone as amazing as Maks permanent damage. It's sadness and anger and disgust because Maks should never be hurt at all. It just isn't right.


"Maks, are you okay?" He says, on both levels, as he rapidly shoves away -- as carefully as he can -- everything that's fell down around him when Maks fell.

I am going to call her Haydee. She looks like a cavalier spaniel, for the most part, but not entirely, which is just as well, because purebreds are often unhealthy.

She is perfect. They are far too good, but that is nothing new.

The difficulty with the phrase "unconditional love" is the implication that they do not deserve it. More than deserve it.

The bleeding's not much. Guillame barely notices it, really. He's sitting clutching his head for a moment. The pain and the panic and the taste of tears and vomit and the fact that he's weak and worthless all contribute to his feeling wretched, but not as much as that mind.

It's not the worst thing he's ever had in his mind. Not at all.

But knowing that doesn't really make the harsh echoes much easier to deal with. It isn't as if he wants to divert his focus to the memory of the worse ones.

He's not in the best position to handle strangers right now, so he's staying away from people, keeping his powers clamped down....giving the echoes an environment of horrible, eerie silence to fester in. If he tried to explain it, he might say something about the sound of claws etching into polished stone, after a fashion, and the sound of rushing blood.

But he doesn't want to explain it. He wants it gone. He wants to hear something happy, from someone healthy. The right sort of person, whom he can just listen to wholeheartedly.

All he wants is a good, trusted.....clean mind to drown it all out.
And Guillame's standards are selective, so the possibilities are few. He tries to pull himself together enough to get to one.

I am well. Things have been rather quiet for quite some time.

This week is the Feast of St. Helena -- for those who do not know, she was the mother of the Emperor Constantine and is the patron saint of archaeologists and empresses. Marie always liked her, despite being neither of these things. An abbey Northeast of Paris had a lot of her relics.
And it so happens that some of her relics have been brought over from France and lent to a museum not very far from here.

I think I shall go. I miss Marie I am feeling nostalgic.

I'm afraid of upload sites. I'm just not good with them. But I was interested in joining the playlist fun some people are having, so:

Most of it's reasonably self-evident regarding heavily modified religious fanaticism, perfectionism, and some....adoration issues.

It starts off with bits from his IC favorites: Mozart's Requiem, Handel's Messiah, and Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet, wait, sorry, this isn't Bill and Ted Bach's Cello Suite No.1 . But the latter half is a little less within his personal approval.

Mozart's 'Dies Irae
Handel's 'And he shall purify'
Bach's 'Prelude'.
George Harrison's 'My Sweet Lord'
The Raconteur's 'Broken Boy Soldier' ['Child and man, and child again']
TMBG's 'She's an Angel' [Because there had to be one about angels]
The Killers 'Can You Read My Mind'
Stephen Sondheim's 'Being Alive' [No, really, go ahead; let him be used. Just don't leave him alone]
Jonatha Brooks's 'I'll Try' [For several reasons]

Des contacted her attorney today. Lois discovered this and was very upset. It is rare to see her frightened.

They wished to talk completely privately this evening. If anyone would like to reach me, I shall be about in the Nexus for the duration of the evening.

Simply to state it: Smug, blasphemous little men from perverse little worlds should learn some manners.

Des has a headache. So I fixed dinner according to her instructions -- I think that I am getting the hang of it -- and cheered her up a little with an account of vague fortunetelling in the Nexus.

Everything has been fairly quiet in the city lately, but I sometimes feel inexplicably worried about something.