So my left nipple is pierced through with a 12 gauge slave and ball ring. It wasn't that painful and doesn't ache much now. No bruising, barely any surface bleeding, and not much else to do. I'm enjoying it thoroughly and will definitely get the other one done at next payday. I have to have that one tweaked though, since the scaring makes it look different.

I also finished healing from the lighter scar on my lower back. And my fingernails are finally clean after a serious soak, scrub, scalding hot bath, and some files and needles to fix the stained skin. Long story. Anyway I spent the day doing chores, cleaning, remade the bed, relaxed a great deal, drank water, and ate relatively simply. It was comforting and a good restful day. Now I'm going to go to bed after a pleasant afternoon. Also mailed a lot of letters.

Too bad I can't show anyone how my left breast looks now.

Are thoroughly delicious. I ate the last of the ones I bought on Saturday. And it was so hard to not eat them all the day I got them. So now I'm well fed and pleased, playing wow, after it had been down for an entire day.

I got my stuff I had to do done, colored a couple submissions with crayons and was able to soften up the look with iPhoto, which is useful enough sometimes and am watching Top Gear. Room's dusted, boots polished, showered and dressed comfortably, and I have water to drink. All is well really, and I even wrote in my journal and updated my calender's appointments. Now to read the rest of Gone With The Wind without dying of absolute hatred.

So the dreadful thing about going to bed early and waking up early is that on weekends it's bloody impossible to get to bed and STAY asleep past 8 am.

So I'm wide awake after maybe 5 hours of sleep tops and ready to go to the galley, get some deliciously free coffee, and an orange, water, and bread with a bit of meat and cheese, and then start my day. While I wait for my friend to wake up so we can go cuddle like big kids. Cuddles are what keep me sane here in this sterile world of no touching or hugging or kisses on cheeks.

I'm so used to a world of open intimacy where people can do all those things, even kiss on the lips and nobody thinks it's strange at all.

So here I am in therapy and treatment, drank some coffee, ate a horrible breakfast made better by the free coffee and preserved plums.

Been writing a lot lately, or scribbling madly anyway. Not sure where I'm going with all of it but I enjoy where I am right now. Warm room, well disregarding the overactive Air Conditioning, warm blankets and freshly cleaned clothes and laundry. Watching TV and feeling rather pleasant given the circumstances. I'm also given to daydreaming and thinking again, which is good. I'd rather forgotten the pleasure of my daydreams.

So Yote and I might get married within the next year. Hopefully around Chinese New Year, since it's a very auspicious time. Either way he and I want a simple time together and to spend within our means. We're both close to paying back our debts and we could both use the benefits of being bound legally.

That being said, it appears to be a good time for people who offer commissions, and I figure my mate will be pleased with the outcome when he's involved. I'll be home for Christmas, I hope. And by then the brands on my back will have healed and my scars won't be so bad.

So I've heard from various furry friends that in all honesty out of the thousands or so that go to Yaoi Con, about 10 of them are actual furries. That being said, I think there is usually a plethora of good art related to it, and a few of my good friends in fur suits, actively living out their fursonas. I'll probably be in the ears as I work security and the volunteer desk. Of course when I'm doing line control I'll probably have my handy dandy riding crop, mostly for keeping unruly sorts in line.

Nothing like a feral bunny that says, "Get in an orderly queue please or risk being swatted in various painful places by the smiling friendly helpful bunny in a very very nice business suit."

About fifteen years after the Penultimate War, wherein a lot of people died for no good reason other than to slay a moderately irritated Aspect of Immortality in the form of an enormous Blood Dragon, the world changed a good deal more than the Seers had foresaw. But as this is the normal state of things for Seers, mostly wrong, accidentally right, nobody lost much sleep over it, except the Seers of course. Life went on as usual. The selkies, harpies, and sphinxes continued their endless but relatively bloodless feuding. The dragourets, lagomorphs, and humans opened up new and highly lucrative trading opportunities. And the world’s magic became at best unstable, and at worse, impossible to control without iron wards at every door, and master summoners in every small town.

Nightmares came alive and stalked their prey, skin changers walked the earth seeking pretty much anything that had a skin to be skinned. And the professions of mercenary and bodyguard became highly valued, with premiums on ability, ruthlessness, and lack of morality. As expected, a lot of people decided to capitalize on the resulting confusion. Major cities fractured into factional infighting, and the capitals of the various provinces, once owing allegiance to a Phalanx of Mages became nothing more than their own little fiefdoms, complete with rulers who were replaced as fast as the night stalkers could eat their eyes. In short, slaying a god, had turned out to be an even worse idea than worshipping him by bathing in the blood of virgins.

Ladric and Jacobis had grown up in the same village, and their memories weren’t so awful that they couldn’t remember the time before the war, but because they had come of age roughly around the time the management of wild magic had become a lucrative business, it was their job of choice. And as extremely adaptive hunters/body guards/magic users they weren’t exactly starved for employment options. Both had their specialties, and weaknesses. One could say they complimented each other’s skills, but that might be pushing it. Ladric appeared to have no difficulty bending metal and rock to his whims, which wasn’t surprising considering his family all had the ability, and were in fact the most skilled blacksmiths in his fiefdom. Unsurprisingly, he wielded one long-blade, a variety of throwing knives, whose trajectory he didn’t have much trouble manipulating, and a relic from the first war. As far as weapony went, Jacobis preferred long-range longbows almost exclusively, and due to his own inheritance, was also a skilled shadow weaver. Some would say that it was a miracle his heart wasn’t warped by the magic he chose to employ. But others that really knew him could see that he was just too indifferent to the touch of it to actually be tainted. Of course those others were pretty much just Ladric, as their parents had stopped paying attention to their lives once it became clear they wouldn’t involve settling down with a nice girl.

I suppose you could say their lives took a turn for the exciting after they met Irell. But the lives they led up to that point were what one could call relatively straightforward. Take job from frightened yeoman, slay demon, nightstalker, or whichever ugly was creeping them out. Fleece yeoman for gold in payment for services rendered. Clean and polish weapons. Drink at next town’s tavern and decide if beer would be better cold or not. Search for next job and hope it doesn’t involve in-laws.

Finally they reached a smaller city-state that had recently been brought under a sort of iron control by a very, very motivated warlock. In exchange for all the women he wanted, to behead, the city was warded very carefully, and all he asked for in return were the daughters of the townsfolk. Of course by the time Ladric and Jabcobis had arrived the warlock had been ripped limb from limb by someone and the bounty posters were plastered across every wall and street corner. Apparently there was a faction of discontents within the city who thought that their daughter’s virginities were a small price to pay for peace in their lifetime. And the man who gave them the details on the bounty was almost less helpful than the poster that depicted someone with a shroud over their head. He stood leaning against the edge of the fence, his hands playing nervously with the halter line of his horse. Ladric gave him a sharp look, masked behind a haze of smoke from his cigarette.

“So do you have any other information on the mark besides the fact that the individual was under 6 feet and thin?”
“I uh…know that she was headed north, and her horse was black.” His fingers were now fraying the edges of the rope.
“How do you know it was a she?” Behind him, Jacobis shifted on his horse, impatient to finish up the pointless conversation. Ladric continued to glare at the man who had posted the bounty, whose mumbled response didn’t speak well of his honesty.

“Well, um, she could’ve…it could’ve been a shorter man…But nobody knows anything for sure. It might’ve just been a construct that looked like a girl, or a succubus or even maybe-…” With that fount of useless information, the two sampled the local beer, found it tasteless and weak, and then set a course for the next town that may or may not have been the hideaway of a very lucrative mark. The trip took longer than they’d planned. At least two days actually. Jacobis would’ve complained, but the look on Ladric’s face was talking loud enough for both of them, and was pretty validating, now that he thought about it. Part of their discomfort was the fact that they were pretty sure they’d left what was predominantly human territory and entered the borderlands between their species and the lagomorphs. While the trade between the two peoples had made many a merchant rich, the societal mores and customs were slightly less contemporary. Humans and Lagomorphs as a rule, kept to themselves. But as Ladric and Jacobis were about to find, rules were meant to be bent.

Well, now this is embarrassing. I can't remember if it was this year's FurCon in San Jose I went to or the one before. That's depressing.

Anyway I remember describing attending the event to some friends at a Fur Meet, or is it Meat? later on and I realized that I was obliged to further clarify what I was wearing. I attended on Saturday for a few hours but didn't stay too long as my friend with me was feeling physically ill for normal biological reasons and I was starting to get a headache from low blood sugar.

Here is a real [if slightly edited for memory's sake] conversation I had with a friend who I shall refer to as Er.

Me: "So did you go to Fur Con this past year?"

Er: "Sure did, didn't see you there though."

Me: "Ah I was in a suit."

Er: "Oh cool! Which animal?"

Me: "Ah...business...suit. Not a fur suit. Light khaki colored, full circle skirt, one button blazer?"

Er: "Oh, right. Actual straight suit."

Me: "Yeah...sorry."

And in retrospect I'm glad I didn't spring for the fur suit wearing, as the temperature was not what I'd call moderate, but still pretty nice overall. I got to buy a lot of pretty artwork, some of it by artist friends, and some by people I'd never seen before. You have no idea how hard it is to find art of lagomorph girls whose ears just flop down naturally. Or you probably do, just ...yeah. I also saw a bunch of old friends who seem to go to every convention in NorCal, sometimes for no good reason besides boredom.

Either way I'd probably go again, if I wasn't about to ship out. But what the hey, I can say I've done it.

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