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Dear Journal,

Today I decided it was time for me to take Kerryn shopping. One outfit isn't near enough for her to have, and then there is the deal of her apron thing. I'm not sure how to clean it - I'm sure that it can't go in the washer and dryer but I'm not sure how to handclean it. Plus, I need to get her an outfit for tomorrow. Tomorrow is newyears, the beginning of the year of the Rooster, and I'd like to share that with Kerryn.

I took my camera and we went out, but stopped almost immediately when we came across a flower shop. Kerr announced to me that she wanted to learn how to grow flowers like the ones she saw in the window. It's scarey someone who looks like me wanting to garden. I hate gardens, they're so dirty and have bugs in them. The only reason I can stand the foilage that Izzy requires is that Izzy requires them and they don't have bugs in them. Anyways I took some pictures of her in her outfits, here they are.



~Bri.

Bri had made it farther into the shop this trip around, taking the steps up to the second floor one by one as she watched her daughter bound up the steps in leaps and bounds.

"I hope Yeste' is here.. or maybe Kami.." Kerryn said as she finally took her first step onto the surface of the second level floor. Eyes darting around, her smile fell. It was just her and Bri there.

Following her daughter up the stairs, Bri's eyes swept the room, coming to the same conclusion Kerryn did. "Maybe someone will show up soon for you to play with?" She hoped so, Kerryn spent too much time alone.

Indeed there was someone moving towards the high building. "I don't want to go !" The young boy shouted angrily and tried to push his mother away, who almost dragged him trough the doors.

"It's necessary, Ronin. Not everyone is bad." She sighed and as she didn't pay attention for one single minute the boy had disappeared quickly. His wooden shoes made clagging sounds on the strange stairs and his blue eyes stared at the people, who had already been on the 2nd floot, in shock.

"What are you...doing here ?!"

Bri looked over her shoulder at the boy, this was one for Kerryn to handle. Maybe she could make friends with him? Although, his current disposition might make it a little hard for her. Wandering off towards the kitchen to investigate the other rooms, Bri left Kerryn to talk to the boy.

Turning on her heel Kerryn turned to face Ronin. A sour look taking hold of her features when she noticed that it wasn't one of the people she was waiting for, although her head already knew that from the difference in the voice.

"I could ask you the same thing." She told him tartly, crossing her hands over her leather apron. "What're you doing here?" It was a bit of an absurb question considering she didn't exactly know where 'here' was other than up the stairs.

"I am..." The boy heard the sounds on the stairs and his mother's voice. Only one chance for surviving was given...hiding ! "Please don't say anything." He pleaded, which was unusual for him and dashed off to bury himself in the shadows behind the couch.

"Ronin ? Where are you ?" Lena shouted and was a little bit astonished as she noticed the unknown girl in front of her. "Sorry to disturb you." She smiled. "Have you seen a young boy, as tall as you ? In red Japanese clothing..."

Kerryn blinked at the flurry of events, looking over her shoulder as the boy ran off to hide behind the couch and then snapped her head quickly forward as Lena came up the stairs.

'Ronin.' She thought to herself, 'That's his name.'

"No." Kerryn told the woman with a smile, wanting to tell her, 'Yes, and he's hiding behind the couch.' but he asked her not to. Trying to adopt the illusion of thought, Kerryn looked around, "Are you sure he came up here..? I've been standing here the whole time, and no one was up here when I showed up." That part, at least, was true.

Ronin closed his eyes and stroked his dagger slowly, while he listened to the words. O please don't say anything...

She didn't. This seemed to be a pretty new feeling and he had almost left his hiding place to see a prove for what he had just heard. Perhaps she was...no, people are stupid.

Lena instead shrugged. "Thanks, I'm sure he went here. Probably somewhere..." She turned to one of the other rooms trying to find her naughty son.

Kerryn watched her go, making sure she was well out of sight before turning to face the couch with a raised eyebrow.

"Care to explain why I just lied for you?" She couldn't help but sound a little disgusted in herself, she just lied for a boy, and one that didn't even seem worth the effort. Walking over she flopped herself down on the couch, just incase he wanted to stay hidden, they could still talk like that.

The young Simulacra noticed the movement on the couch and was quite confident with his current position. "Thanks."

Ronin was polite after all, although some people didn't earn this effort. But this girl did, somehow.

"She's trying to get me in contact with other people...desperately. She doesn't understand that I already have a friend, since birth."

For a moment he was uncertain but slowly moved the shining dagger upwards so she could take a glance. "My name is Ronin and this is dagger."

Kerryn looked at the dagger before chuckling softly. "You to realize you are in contact with other people. I am an 'other person'." She looked around the room for a moment before commenting, "Nice dagger. I'm Kerryn."

She didn't know what to say to him, it wasn't exactly easy talking to someone you aren't supposed to know is there, and you can't see.

He had the intention to jump up and shout at the unknown girl, trying to tell her that he's not stupid and that he knows that he's talking.
But somehow Ronin just realized what she had meant and felt embarassed. Ouch, stupid sentence...

If he was already doing what Lena wanted, he could come out of his hiding place anyway. AND she had said that dagger was alright. Sounded...good ?

So he slowly revealed himself and moved his hand trough his brown unsteady hair, before sitting down on the couch far away from the girl. She had an interesting pendant. "What's this ?"

"What's what?" She asked him, she was far from a mindreader and she didn't want to have to put out the effort to make a stab in the dark about what he was speaking of.

She shifted on the couch to turn and face Ronin, who was at the opposite end of the couch, adjusting her belt and apron so they didn't bunch and become uncomfortable. She held the silence, green eyes flashing as she watched Ronin, not sure if she even wanted to have a conversation with him. He seemed ok, he had a dagger like Yeste'.. maybe he'd be ok, but he was a guy and that was already one strike against him.

Ronin blinked and called himself not precise enough for saying another sentence, which didn't fit. People were far too complicated and he felt the urge to run away, but Lena would find him and he had to be strong. The girl had saved him, his honour forbid the boy to go.

"Your..pedant." He pointed at it, without coming to close. "It's pretty. What is it for ?" Jewely without a purpose seemed senseless to him. Lena had this necklace from this shop...perhaps it was something like he was.

Kerryn registered the question, "Oh, it is the item I came from. Well, the key is anyways, Bri said before I showed up it didn't have a chain."

She thought about Yeste's dagger once more and asked, "Did you come from your dagger like Yeste' did?" The conversation was strained on her part, not having much to say to him, but he was better than sitting around by herself.

She didn't ask too much, which was good. He wasn't the great talker. As she lead the conversation to dagger he seemed to be content, but shook his head. "No, I came from a pale blue teapot with yellow flowers. It's in my room now."

His mind slowly worked as he recalled the informations she had just given. "Yeste has a dagger, too ? He has to be pretty cool !"

"Yeste' is female." Kerryn informed Ronin, "And she is going to let me join her training and teach me how to use a staff." Well, Sao was going to teaching them, but she didn't feel the need to include that.

A key.. A dagger.. A teapot. Hmm, it was amazing the objects they came from. She couldn't help but wonder what the next person she met would come fromt, or what Sarria or Kami came from. She didn't have a chance to ask them the last time she saw them.

"Oh."

It was one of those disappointed 'Oh's. A girl ? With a dagger ? This sounded very very unlikely, but he had to accept it. Right now he hadn't met any girls who seemed not stupid.

Indeed it was nice to hear that he wasn't the only one with a strange origin. So Ronin decided to feel not too disturbed. "Do you...have many friends here ?" His hands were playing with dagger and he had almost cut some cloth out of the couch, before he reminded himself that it wouldn't be nice to do so.

Kerryn's eyebrow raised again at the disappointed sounding sound Ronin made. As to the question about having many friends she shook her head, "No. Just Yeste'. She's the only one I'd consider a friend anyways."

A moment passed, and she was about to ask him 'What about you?' but her better judgement caught her. She already knew the answer. "I take it from the fact that your mom was trying to get you to interact with other people that you don't know many people or have many friends?" She winced slightly at how blunt her words sounded even to her own ears.

So they had the equal amount of friends. He had dagger...
As he listened to her words, Ronin felt a little bit strange because of two aspects. First of all nobody had called the Lena his mom before and second she seemed pretty intelligent and reasonable.

Ronin wanted to say something unfair too, but he sensed that she didn't mean it in a bad way. Not really. "Just..." Should he repeat himself by talker about dagger ?

"No. You're the first Simu I'm talking to beside Elijah and the...mom...said he's grown now. So no one I know." He shrugged.

"Elijah?" Kerryn questioned, "Thats a new name.." She murmured, storing it in the back of her mind with the rest of the names she had picked up through conversations with others.

"Simu?" She had never heard that word used in connection with her, and it was fairly obvious that she didn't know what he ment. Her vocabulary seemed to go downhill as she found herself asking one word questions.

"Lena said that's something like our lastname which means that we're all coming from items. It makes us...family ?" He pronounced the last word with disgust as his mother's voice disturbed the conversation.

"RONIN ! There you are, I told you to..." She blinked as she noticed what she had done and grinned. "I'm sorry darling, we need to go home now. It's late and your siblings are waiting for us."

The woman reached for her son's hand. "You're...ok." Ronin whispered and waved at Kerynn as they both left quickly. Lena had totally forgotten about Nobu, his brother, who still needed her help with some Jedi homework.

Kerryn waved to Ronin, "You're ok, too.. for a guy anyways." She told him as they left, lifting a hand in a wave.

"Bri?" Kerryn called, looking around for her. "I want to go now too."

"Alright." Bri called, from an unknown position, comming into the room moments later. "Come on." She smiled at her daughter and headed towards the stairs, heading down and out of the building with Kerryn in tow.

Dear Journal,

Bri says today is Valentines day, although she doesn't seem very happy about it. Infact, she spent the day on the phone AGAIN! Calling up more places to see if she could get an interview, although eventually she did get someone who was looking for someone and she went out to attend an interview. She told me that that was when she sat down and talked to the person that would become her boss if they liked her. I guess that is good, she was getting a little restless with nothing to do all day. When she got home she was squealing and insisting that we had to celebrate, although I thought she ment for Valentines day she quickly corrected me, She had gotten a part time job! So, she goes to work tomorrow. That means I get to stay home alone tomorrow evening which I'm looking forward to because that means I can play with Izzy and finally pot the plants Bri bought me. I haven't been able to because she keeps getting in the way.

~Kerryn

Dear Journal,

I came home from work today, (Yes! I finally found a part time job.) and I found Kerryn out on the balcony sleeping. It seems that she finally got around to potting one of her plants, Orchids I gather since that is the breed of flower shown on the package of seeds that was opened.

It was cute, the way she had wrapped herself around the pot as if she was trying to guard it or keep it warm, but I wish I could have helped her do it. I keep getting in the way since I no nothing about gardening and I hate it even more than manual labour. The zen gardens I have around the house are easy, you water them every once and a while and they're fine, I've never potted a plant or anything so I think this is something Kerryn will have to learn on her own if I can't find someone to help her learn. Maybe another Simu (Kerryn said a boy like her called them Simus) knows how to plant flowers or maybe I can find a gardening program that goes during the hours I work so she can get some information and I don't have to leave her alone.

I'll have to check that out sometime soon.

~Bri

Dear Diary,

Today Bri took me to the children's playground in Durem.. well it was more like a park. But, anyways it's all the same. There were a lot of children there, but they all seemed to be so much younger than I was, so I didn't play with them. Instead I tried to figure out which flowers were which in the flower boxes. Even if the children were my age I don't think I would have played with them though, I keep wondering if they'd ask me about where I came from and that worried me. What would I say? People like me, Simus, understand when I say I came from a key.. but people like Bri? What would they think. I don't think I want to find out.

So, I tried to get Bri to take me home but she didn't want to, she wanted me to play. Instead, I sat down by the pond with an elderly couple. The lady asked me if I wanted to feed the ducks and gave me some crushed bread crumbs. I held them out to the ducks instead of scattering them around like the woman and her husband were doing, and one even came right up to me and took it from my hands! But, I got an odd feeling, like there were too many people around and they were watching me. It was like a thousand spiders crawling over my body and hummingbirds were in my stomache. Bri took me home when I asked her this time. I'm happy to be home, home is quiet.

~Kerryn

Bri took me out to tea at Emme and Ray's house. Apparently Emme asked Bri to bring me over for tea a couple days ago an she never really told me. That wasn't nice of her, but I liked being over there. But, something really weird happened.

When I introduced myself to Ray, we shook hands, right? When we did, though, I got the strangest feeling ever. Like everything in my body went haywire and my brain was trying to rewire itself. Like I already knew him although I knew I didn't. And, then we went outside because Bri and Emme were blabbling back and forth so me and Ray made a run for it, going out into his back yard to feed his koi, they're little fishes. They're cute. But then we started talking and he told me about a secret glade around the shop, and I suddenly asked, well, almost demanded that he tell me a story about them. I don't know where that came from, it was quite unsettling, and I can't say I was completely disappointed when Bri came to get me so we could go home. I didn't want to leave, but I didn't want to do anything else I didn't expect me to do, and I wanted to think about what this all ment. He told me that I may be the simu that will like the glade the most? Why is that? And why do I feel that I could trust him with anything?

~Kerryn

Plant watch - Day Two.

The blanket seemed to work, the pot wasn't cold, and the soil seemed to be less likely to freeze if it got cold, and it was even a little moist. This might be a problem, I need to figure out if it is moist because I watered it too much last night, or if it rained, or if it is because the blanket heated it enough that when frost started to form it melted.

I think getting a heat lamp might be in order. Tonight I won't give the plant so much water so I can see and possibly cross off the idea of giving it too much water as a problem. I don't want to find out I've been drowning my orchids. That would suck. Big time.

Notes on the plants:

Soil was moist this morning, the sprouts look less wilted.. I think that is the right word. So, I'm hopeful that I can turn the problems around, buying a heat lamp might turn out to be the best idea though. Just incase there is something wrong with the blanket idea, I'll get Bri to buy me a heat lamp, because if there is something wrong, I'll want to put the orchid on the heat lamp right away.


~Kerryn.