i sent messages to morran and rakela and her commander asking them to do what they can to keep folks from making some bad mistakes
i've done what i can
i also wrote a letter to warn the queen that the winter wolves are here and then i sealed it and sent it to dad with a note asking him to get it to her
now this is an unsettling trend
i know i can't do everything but i've been swept up into so much that i can't not do
at least i can ask others to help
it took a few hours at morgrave university to figure out and provide what the arcane congress needed to finalize the paper
they mentioned that they consider my work to be high quality so that's a confidence booster
also it seems my word choices have led to an update of some sylvan-to-common translation guide?
anyhow the paper's status was "provisional-accepted" as of two days ago and should be fully accepted within a couple days so that's a relief
the really unsettling part of yesterday was at an art gallery
forged war veteran "mattock 19" took up art as therapy and it turned out to be a good fit
her installation "cost of repairs" involved several recovered "repair tickets" describing what combat injuries needed fixing so those forged could return to the fight
alongside these were detailed illustrations of what those injuries would look like on a variety of grown bodies
where do i even start?
the detatched language in the tickets was regrettable but not much of a surprise by now
the illustrations themselves had a visceral impact because people should never inflict those sorts of wounds on each other and that's what made it hard to look at
the fact that most people here have to see the same wounds on bodies like theirs to begin to sympathize with what the forged went through? that's the point of the work and mattock delivered it flawlessly
one of my academy mentors was an intense pegasus named "brushsmoke"
he once said to the class "if they look away your work is powerful but if they can't look away then congratulations – it's art!"
this was art
i told medya about it but also that she probably doesn't need to go see it ... i still can't get the images out of my head and that's plenty for both of us
anyhow bell and i will definitely be at the meet-and-greet mattock's holding in two days
today i visited krayg to thank him for the reedpaste
apparently he heard a couple friends talk about sharing a waterpipe with a unicorn and gryphon and figured us for reed lovers which is accurate
i asked but he didn't know anything more about the tender so i didn't even bother about the brand on the pot
afterward i told the others and they figure krayg may expect that i now owe him a favor?
he'll be disappointed
i appreciate the gift but i won't play that game
in between all this i worked on medya's gauntlets
each of them has more components than the total of my front legs but i was able to craft both sides at the same time so the build went quickly
even so i worry about the design itself
i don't normally doubt my work this much but i feel like i'm missing something and i don't know what
the only thing for it is to keep at it and have faith – forward it is!