Daisy in the Fringe

Dear Momma,

You won’t never guess where I’m writing this from, so don’t even try. I’m way up in space, in a ship and all. It ain’t nothing like I expected – you can hardly feel it move or anything. That’s pretty normal – this is the second ship I’ve been in, so you can see that I’m becoming a real expert, and you couldn’t feel the other one move either.

I’d tell you why I’m here, but it’s a secret, and the people who own the ship don’t want me to tell no one about it. But they said I could write to let you know that I’m okay. And to send you a whole bunch of money that I got – they promised they’d bring it to you, so let me know if they don’t. (I can’t say how I got the money – that’s part of the secret. But I promise I ain’t done nothing to make you ashamed of me.)

And you would never guess what else I’ve been up to. I’m a guard now! Turns out that I’m pretty good with a shotgun and a pistol, and so they let me be one of the guards, which pays a lot more than cook. (But not as much as the secret stuff that I’m doing now.)

Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I’m okay, and Dusty is okay, and we’re both being good. And I miss you lots, and say hi to Tonio, and Suzanne, and Lucilla, and Mr and Mrs Hawkins, and Pater Phillip, and everyone else. I’ll try to write again when I can, and maybe get back there soon to see you and all.

Love,

Daisy

P.S. Dusty said she’s got lots of money too, but that she figures she better hold onto it just to be safe. And she says to tell you that she’s married a legate, and won her own moon in a card game, which she likes owning except for the army of trained killer lizards that are now out to get her scalp and all. But that’s all lies, so don’t you worry about her anyway.

Dear Diary,

Things just took a real strange turn. And I gotta be careful about what I write here, because I never know whose going to read this next.

It seems like the folks at the temple were real worried about Oracle girl and the guys who are after her. So as soon as we explained what’s what, they called this big ship down into the temple courtyard and hurried us all on board. Before I knew what was going on, we was way up in the sky. Up in space, if you can believe it, on this ship called the Minerva or something like that.

There was a big to-do, including a bunch of Inquisitors. I was kind of nervous around the Inkies, but they only seem interested in the Oracle girl. They wanted to know everything we knew about her, and so they told us that they’d pay us to write it all down. I just handed them this diary, though now I’m thinking that maybe that was a bad idea. Anyway, they took it away for a few minutes and then brought it back. I don’t think they had time to read the whole thing, so everything is probably all right.

When they came back, they gave us all swabs to swab our lips with. I remembered a doctor doing that once, and that it was some special test to see if we were sick. Anyway, it didn’t hurt, not neither time.

So here we are now, way up in space. They still haven’t given us our reward for bringing the Oracle girl to them, and they haven’t paid us for writing up what we knew. But they said they could send money to Momma, so as soon as I get paid, I’m going to give it to them to send to her. I better write her a note, to let her know that everything is okay. I guess they can probably give that note to Momma when they send along the money.

Dear Diary,

Captain Olo and his crew got us to where we had to bring the Oracle girl. Only problem was that he could only drop us off at the airport, and the temple was way off in the middle of the town. And the town looked like a pretty rough place, where we could be attacked any time even if crazies with magical tracking devices weren’t looking for us, which they are. Plus, it was night, and things are always more dangerous at night. So we all figured that we were in for a big dust-up.

We started off into town, but Hank got it into his head to get into a big noisy argument with some shop keeper. I couldn’t figure the sense of that, seeing as we needed to get right to the temple. I figured that the best thing to do was to be as quiet as we could and sneak right through without nobody noticing us. That ain’t Hank’s way, though, so he was just as noisy as noisy can be.

But the way I figured it, that could be a good thing. You see, I figured that as long as Hank was making such a big noise, and was surrounded by so many of us, anyone who was looking to attack us would be real distracted and go right after him. So while Hank was arguing, I grabbed ahold of that Oracle girl and slipped into a dark alley to see if I couldn’t get her safe and sound to the temple.

We sneaked through town by back alleys and side streets, and it seemed to be working as I hoped. There were some strange people out, but they didn’t pay us no mind. I even saw this big car with a couple of minotaurs guarding it, but they just kept on going by. I ain’t never seen no minotaur before. Bull heads don’t look quite right on man’s bodies – I figure they should keep them on bulls where they belong.

I was kind of worried at leaving Dusty behind. But I figured that she could take care of herself. It turned out that I didn’t need to worry nohow – soon as I was gone, Hank decided to get all sneaky. I couldn’t figure out the why of that – I mean, the whole point was for them to get in a big fight while I snuck the Oracle girl to the temple. Instead, he made a big noise when we was with him, then got quiet after we left.

Anyway, we got to the temple all right and found the others had gotten there too. We’re inside now – Dusty and Hank and Mr Dutch are telling the people here all about our journey and how they met this vampire girl in the streets or something, but I’m just sitting here filling out this here entry.

Dear Diary,

I’m about as excited as I’ve ever been about anything. Captain Olo let me fly the ship! I did really well too – I flew it for near an hour, and he didn’t do anything but watch me do it.

It wasn’t anything like I expected. I thought it would be kind of like riding a wagon going real fast over a hill, with butterflies in my tummy all swooping around. But it wasn’t anything like that. You couldn’t hardly feel the ship moving at all. Even when I looped the loop and flew upside down and stuff, it felt like we was sitting still on level ground.

Captain Olo said that had something to do with the counter gravity stuff that made the ship fly. I don’t know anything about that. All I know is that I flew that ship, and I can fly her again anytime if I want.  Woohoo!

P.S. Oh, we fought a battle against these ships that were trying to stop us. But Captain Olo wouldn’t let me fly the ship during the battle – he figured that it would be extra difficult and dangerous and all. So the battle wasn’t really all that exciting. Not to me, anyway.