Oh. So this is Mud's diary. I see. What a pleasant distraction. I'm glad Logan picked it up.
I've never owned a diary before. I never saw much point. The whole practice seems patently juvenile. I would rather fill out reports, or essays, or the forms for a dance tournament. I'm quite a good dancer, you know.
Dancing didn't help me when the soldiers came. Dancing is only good for dodging. And dance contests. I suppose it could have been handy if the soldiers had seen me... but they didn't. They never do. No one ever sees me. And that's the way I like it! I like not being seen.
It's a ninja thing.
The soldiers came with pikes and clubs. They came with swords, and spears, and axes and cannons and armour and steel and sass. They came, and they found Mud and my father and mother and the rest of the crew, and they arrested them all. Our resolve was weak and our resistance feeble, and so everyone I know has been arrested.
Well. Except my brother. And his lesbian girlfriend.
Perhaps I should not simply define her as a lesbian. I run the risk of stereotyping her. I do not like to stereotype people.
Except Mud. It's fun to stereotype Mud.
I wish I could have done something to stop the soldiers. And, I suppose, I really could have. They were stronger; I am skilled. Skill beats brute force every time. But to do so would be to flaunt justice, and I am nothing if not an adherent of justice. We broke the local law; we pay the local price. It is simple.
Though that does not mean I will allow myelf to be captured. That would be silly. Who would save our friends if I were to be captured? Logan? Poor, pitiable brother, he wouldn't know where to begin. Not a clue. He is proactive without aim, exhuberant without goal, nonsense without end. No, it had to be me. I will save them all; it is my calling.
Even Mud. Stereotype or not, I'll save Mud. I like him. He's an idiot. Is it wrong to like an idiot? Or am I doing him a civic service? Do I deserve a medal? Perhaps. Oh, I hope it is mauve.
The only one left behind was mother. Mother, poor be-treed mother, captive of a venomous hunk of wood. They did not know how to remove her from our rolling home. I gave them an hour to puzzle their way through her extraction, holding Logan back all the while, before descending on the soldiers. One hour is all the time I permit for foreign justice. Once that time is up, our justice furls its sails and tramps all others.
The soldiers are not dead. Such is the capacity of my mercy. I will not cause a death that is not first deserved, and these three men and two women did not deserve death. But they did deserve a cudgel to the brainpan each, and that is what they got. Their bruises shall delight the eye come Monday.
Mother will remain behind. We have supplied her with all the food and water and entertainment and toiletries she shall need for an extended stay on foreign soil. I am confident she will endure. She is, as Mud's wife puts it, one tough bitch. When we return with our weasely father
(though not too weasely!)
she will be as steadfast as ever. I know these things.
We pack up, now, in preparation for following the force that took our friends. The gypsies that evaded capture will show us the way to the capital. They believe we can reach Rodentia by sunfall tomorrow; I believe they are correct. The sloth has cleared the way for us, after all, and wagon toads are ever so swift.
I licked a wagon toad this night. The gypsies own several.
My gods, it was full of stars.
Sincerely, and with the greatest flourish,
Celine the Magnificent
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