Carabas

A woman's landing a griffon. People come to meet her, and as she talks to one of them she's going to her bag and attending to her armor, getting out gloves and a helmet that weren't practical to wear while she was riding. She's talking about the things that need doing, acknowledging that some of them might be impossible at a small outpost like this, without the easy access to resources you get in the cities. And there's an animal strapped to the back of the griffon, restrained to keep it from hurting itself during the ride, in need of medical attention. They're next to the stables, but the griffon's too large for that - once everything's unloaded, it curls up on the ground like a cat, beside a tall fence.

That woman and the man she'd been talking to are walking past me into a circle of armed enemies. Someone in the crowd says, "It is the corruption against the corruption." They sound surprised. I'm ostensibly on the crowd's side, but I arranged to bring these two here tonight, and I expect them to kill the man who leads this little group, currently sitting on a kind of throne. Although I say nothing, I see him watching me and I can tell he understands my intention - or more likely he's imagining some grand paranoid plan; but my plan here is very straightforward, just his death. I'm aware he and I are a minor nuisance for these people I've brought here, just something to be dealt with on their way to something else - I have a vague association with the moon - not at all the grand schemes he's been imagining.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm traveling through a city and taking the opportunity to meet with an old friend who was reassigned here recently, a promotion. She works in a form of law enforcement. She's talking about the changes on the island where we last saw each other, talking about the ongoing conflict there. She says the forest has been burned down, so they'll have no more place to hide. There's no more way to get past the patrols skating over the water - I have a mental image of a ring, a platform floating on the water, encircling the whole island, with the port itself as the only opening.

She describes all this as if they're good things. Time was, she'd be helping me get my people out of places like that. She's met the man who leads the people in that forest - his people aren't mine, but their situation is nearly identical. But I'm thinking, I shouldn't be surprised - the last time she helped me, something happened that frightened her. It's why she stopped working with me. My people weren't at fault, but I'm not surprised that she'd take that fear out on them. But listening to her now, talking as if my people should be locked up, it's like she's forgotten I'm one of them.