Page 19: Well, if I can only hold Zoe back, I have caught her up. We have had a mixed time recently. Zoe has had other calls on her time which worked in my favour because she could not train!

How do I catch a shadow? How do I persuade Zoe that she should train with me always? We have contrasting but comparable skills and abilities, she can get us into areas that I may not enter on my own and I can heal her even in battle where she may not be able so we make a good team. We will achieve great things together. I must practice my powers of persuasion.

I have had to promise Zoe that I wll never ask her again to bond with me. So she wears my ring on that condition. I told her that I would agree but that if she ever changed her mind, she would have to ask me! She laughed and said she could manage that. So, if we are ever to be bonded, I must be cunning and patient. I know that, no matter where I hide this journal, Zoe will find it so I say this to you my minx.

I love you more than life itself and I always will, for all time. Should you ever ask me to bond with you I will give your request due consideration for at least the count of five before saying yes. So be warned.

Page 18: We have received so much loving support from friends and family. we are blessed indeed. And now we have each other. Zoe is a stubborn woman and will not yield easily. After all this turmoil in our lives she wants to be sure of me and I want to be sure of me too. She will not bond with me. Ever says she, yet say I. But she will wear my ring. And does.

I cannot ask for more, not just yet. I know I have to prove myself, not only to my friends but to Zoe and to myself. I am sure of my feelings but I understand. I am not a patient man but where Zoe is concerned I will wait until the mountains crumble into dust and count my time well spent.

Now I have to train and train hard to catch my beloved minx.

Page 17: My heart is heavy indeed. SoJo has left. She said nothing, just sent me a final note saying how upset she was and then .... it seems she has gone. I wish it could have been another way but it was not to be. This is something I must live with. The responsibility is mine and mine alone. I've not told Zoe yet, she is resting. I'll tell her tomorrow though the minx will probably find my journal and know sooner than that. I shall sleep badly tonight.

Page 16: I never knew what joy it is to train with someone you love. The pain of the last few days is with us still and SoJo is suffering so much my heart aches for her but what else can I do? We must all move on with our lives and I know that someone as wonderful as SoJo will find another love, someone who deserves her and will treat her far better than I.

SoJo has been in the lands far more these last few days than in the many weeks before. I don't know why she should be able to be here so much now when all we do is argue about what has happened. I have shown her this journal, tried to explain, told her I have to follow my heart but she is hurting so much and I can do nothing more for her. Am I so fickle? I thought to myself that if SoJo had spent so much time with me before, then she would now be a bonded cleric and perhaps Zoe would be heart broken and in tears. And how long could that have lasted? How much more pain would have been caused? I still don't really understand myself. I have read and re-read this journal and I marvel at the extent to which I fooled myself. How could I have let this happen?

I wrote so much of my love for SoJo and that was real, very real. Yet I never mentioned the heartache of my love for Zoe and the pain I felt when we parted and that was just as real. I did say that SoJo had healed my wounds from the past and I truly thought that was so. Until Zoe came back into my life. What a shock that was. The more I read and see what I left out, the more I doubt my ability to be honest with myself. I have tried to be brutally honest now and look at what I have created. So much pain around me and within me. I must never allow this to happen again. I must always be honest and open with myself and those I love. Never again will I cause pain like this. Never.

The first time I trained with Zoe was in the wall, a place I had previously feared when training alone. Then Zoe and I went through and kept seeing each other as we travelled those dark and perilous tunnels. The joy of turning a corner and seeing the one you love battling with a zombie or shadow scourge and just knowing that she will win! Watching her fight, so quick, so graceful, so savage! I almost felt sorry for the monsters. Almost. And then, the most wondrous and joyous part of all. When she stands before me, bloody and sweaty, grinning up at me with such confidence and love in her eyes. I reach out and lay my hands upon her, calling upon the gods for healing and the tears form in my eyes as my love grows strong and well beneath my touch. I am filled with awe. I am truly blessed and humbled.

I am still overcome, thinking of those moments. My heart races, my eyes fill with tears of joy, I see her face in my mind's eye and feel again the immense joy I felt then. All else pales into insignificance beside that.

The second time I trained with Zoe was in the Ogre village. I went searching for her and found the remains of a crimson ogre. I knew she was near and turned a corner to find her standing there, as if waiting for me. To hold her in my arms and wipe the sweat from her face surrounded by ogres and not have a care for anything else in the land ... How could I have almost let this go? I joked with her, saying go and get hurt again so I can heal you and she laughed. "Ok" she said, and ran off. "Zoe! Wait!" I ran after her and helped her deal with another ogre and then she came and stood before me again, tall and straight, confident and loving. She grinned at me and waited, lifting one eyebrow quizically as if to say "What are you waiting for?"

My joy overwhelms me. I would that all could know this partnership, this total trust in each other, this wondrous bliss of sharing everything in life. My heart overflows and I am lost for words.

Page 15: My head hurts. Those who know me, know I never drink but I was so deep in despair at the pain I have caused that I slipped away to Cerbies and tried some ale. It was truly awful but I drank it all the same.

Then I got a message from SoJo. She was back and wanted to see me. I couldn't face her and yet how could I not face her? She deserved that, at least. I admit I had some trouble getting to the hill with the rose bushes. It seemed that things had been moved around and I couldn't see them clearly. I must have been ill with something but I was feeling a little better when I reached the hill. SoJo wasn't there though I searched through the bushes.

I was sitting on the ground when I saw her boots. I wasn't sure it was her because I'd met another girl who looked just like her some weeks before and I'd scared the poor thing half to death. But it was SoJo and she was upset. We were both upset and though we talked I don't think we resolved anything at all.

I told her how sorry I was and how Zoe and I had finally realised we had to follow our hearts. I even showed her this journal which hopefully makes more sense than I was making. We both cried and then, she left. In the middle of talking she just left. I don't know where I am with her now, how she is, what she's thinking. I felt awful.

Dob contacted me and asked how I was and I told him. I said I loathed myself and would leave the POV if that was what it took to make things better for my brothers and sisters. He was strict with me and I needed that. perhaps I was feeling sorry for myself, I don't know. I know I was missing Zoe. She was going to be with me when we met SoJo but she was resting and SoJo just appeared and insisted on meeting right away.

Dob said that he's heard enough talk of us leaving the guild, that we are all bigger than that. He said that SoJo may never forgive me but she will get over it in time and I hope he was right. I've tried to do what I could but how could it possibly be enough? Dob said that he would stand by Zoe and I, that he may not always agree with us but that he is our brother and sits in judgement of no-one.

My heart is aching for SoJo but I can do no more for her. Again I have to wait to see what she will do. I cannot help but dislike myself but then I look at Zoe and realise how lucky I am to be given this second chance. I will not throw this away.

Page 14: I don't know what would have happened if Syrus hadn't asked Zoe to go to Ethucan with him. I'd heard of the place but never been there. It's supposed to be a romantic holiday spot and when Zoe said yes I wanted to scream no! My heart stopped as she ran to the Continental Doorway and as they left the tears streamed down my face. I was blind with rage and shame and fear, shaking with the realisation that my stupidity may have lost me the only one I could ever truly love.

Zoe brought me a gift back from Ethucan. A matching bracelet to her own. She asked to meet me so she could give it to me and I couldn't take it without speaking. We sat and talked for ages. She said she had always loved me, right from the start and she knew I had to grow, to mature before I could love her too. We cried together, clinging to each other, knowing that no matter how hard it was, we would never part again. Zoe said she would leave the POV rather than cause pain and I told her that I would leave if she left. I will never make that mistake again. Where Zoe goes, Oscar goes. Always and for ever.

But we still had to tell Syrus and SoJo. I realised with guilt that I hadn't heard from SoJo for over a week and I hadn't even noticed. I had been so taken up with what was happening in my life I hadn't noticed her absence. My shame overwhelmed me but Zoe and Syrus had to be sorted. We decided to tell Dobroc, our guild leader and he met us. His advice was that there should be no more pretense and that we must be honest with our brothers and sisters. We assured him that we would be, that we had only just realised our own feelings and that we had to sort things out immediately. We agreed that we would both speak to Syrus.

The agony of that wait! The tortured hours we spent, talking of what we would say and do, of how we would try our best to not hurt Syrus and the guild. Finally Syrus awoke and Zoe sent him a note, saying that we would like to speak with him. We sat holding hands, tense and worried, waiting for his reply. Syrus said that he understood, that if we wanted to be together he would not stand in our way. He was so gracious, we read his note with mouths agape, scarcely believing what we saw. And then he started to tell the guild that he had broken with Zoe. We looked at each other with tears in our eyes and I couldn't let him do that.

I told our brothers and sisters that Syrus was not the guilty party, that the blame was all mine and of course Zoe said it was all her fault. But I know whose fault it was. I never imagined for one moment that my foolish and immature actions could possibly cause such pain and suffering. Our brothers and sisters were shocked but forgiving. I think the worst thing for them was our deception but that was actually the least thing as far as we were concerned. We had done what we thought was right and it was only that very day that we realised how things had changed. We spoke to Dob immediately and then to Syrus as soon as we could. The deception was of ourselves, not of our brothers and sisters.

And then, when all appeared to be settling down, I heard from SoJo. Her letter pierced my heart. She was on her way back and asking me to arrange our bonding. I looked at Zoe in agony and she said it was my responsibility but she would be there for me. I wrote and rewrote my reply to SoJo and finally, I sent it. I have not heard from her yet. I don't know how she will react. I just want this to be over but I have to wait for SoJo now. At least I have Zoe's love to support me.

This has been so hard and possibly the hardest part is yet to come. I can only wait.

Page 13: My mind is in a turmoil and I can't think clearly. I've turned, again, to my journal in the hope that I can make sense of what has happened, of what is happening. I'm overjoyed and miserable, I'm torn in two yet I know exactly what I want. I'm going to hurt someone no matter what I do. May the gods help me to find a way.

It's time to be brutally honest with myself. I have to face up to my actions, unpleasant though I find that prospect. I am in trouble. I have been foolish beyond belief and now I am to pay the cost. And not just me. So many others will suffer for my stupidity. I can't bear it.

.....

Things are moving so fast I can't keep up with them here. Part of what I feared has been overcome with amazing speed but worse is now to come. I have to write to SoJo. I can't. I must.

.....

I have written to SoJo. Now I must wait and while I wait, perhaps I can make some sense of things? Where do I start?

I had only been in Dundee a short while when I met Zoe. My thinking was still corrupted by my former life but I was starting to change. I fell for Zoe within seconds of meeting her. I had never met anyone like her. Wild and free, a powerful woman child, giggling with glee one moment and a mature wise woman the next, smiling intoxicatingly at me. She had such a zest for life that everything became a wonder around her. I was besotted, bewildered, trapped in a moment, totally captivated. And I let her go. No, I pushed her away. I couldn't cope with her, she was too much of everything for me as I was then. I was such a fool.

I said we should be friends if we met but pretend there had been nothing else between us. How could I have been so blind, so utterly stupid?

I suffered her loss but my foolish pride would not let me look for her. I didn't see her again for quite some time. I woke in the night calling for her, reaching out to her but found myself alone. Gradually it seemed like a bad dream. A dream that troubled me less as time went by. And such time! The POV, becoming a cleric and then meeting SoJo. I thought everything had worked out and I was so happy. SoJo reminded me in so many ways of Zoe and yet she was so different. Different enough that I didn't see Zoe in her until much later. I wrote of SoJo and of my confusion and my love but I never said a word about Zoe.

Then Zoe joined the POV. I was so thrilled to see her. My heart filled with joy and I wanted to hold her, to spin her around and lose myself in her embrace. And then it was that I realised what I had done. She was still the same enchanting creature that had captured my heart but I had changed enormously. More sure of myself and my place in the land. More confident in my abilities. More secure in the love of my guild brothers and sisters. And yes, the love of SoJo. And here was Zoe, looking impudently at me as if to say "Well Oscar, what do you do now?" And I didn't know.

To my shame, I had set the terms of our agreement and Zoe stuck to them. To the letter. I still don't know if she knew I was in the POV when she joined or whether the gods were moving us to their liking. But Zoe treated me as a friend, a brother and like a sister she started to tease me. She wanted to be a rogue and she would leap out of the shadows at me, yelling and disappearing as quickly as she appeared. She teased me unceasingly and I was angry with her. I felt she was taking unfair advantage of our agreement and picking on me as the target of her tricks and teasing. I didn't know how to react and in desperation I chose to be the grumpy older brother being bothered by his little sister.

And then I found I was enjoying her attention. I started to join in, to tease her back. I found she hated gooey things so I continually threatened to fill her pack with zombie heads. Messy, gooey zombie heads. Of course, I never did. When she became a rogue I bought her some lock picks as a gift and had a terrible time actually giving them to her. We had put ourselves in such a relationship that we were reluctant to meet and actually give and accept a gift. I was caught in a web of my own making and my heart was breaking. But I was promised to SoJo so what could I do?

I am an honourable man. I live my life believing that others are also honourable and treating them as such. I firmly believe that people will respond if you treat them with warmth, compassion and trust. I had to honour my arrangements with SoJo. But she had increasingly been missing from my life. I don't know where she was but so often a few days would go by without my seeing her or hearing from her and then she would appear, full of love and affection, stay for a marc or so and then go again. It was driving me mad. I couldn't arrange for her to become a cleric or for our bonding. I couldn't sit with her long enough to discuss anything. And Zoe was there, an irritating enchanting nuisance, entangling me in her presence, trapping me in layer after layer of teasing attention.

I had to show Zoe that I cared but how could I do that without breaking my self-imposed agreement? I bought her a friendship ring and she was thrilled. She put it on and smiled at me and my heart broke. I left her to her training with tears in my eyes.

Page 12: Something has happened to SoJo. I don't know what but I have not heard from her in over a week. I am trying not to panic. Everyone I've asked has said the same thing. They've not seen her, not heard from her. I don't understand. Last time I saw her it was for less than half a marc. She kissed me and ran. I've not seen her since. I can't write any more now.

Page 11: I talked to Fe and the answer she gave me was short, to the point and not what I expected. She caused me to think more deeply about me, about my past and about how that affects my present. So I have decided to write down my thoughts and I hope that an answer will come to me. I think I know what that answer will be but I am a logical man and I must go through this process to prove it to myself.

I need to go back in time, back to my childhood. I lost my mother when I was nine. She died giving birth to Matthew, my brother. I lost my father a year later. I know I've already recorded this but I need to bring it all together now. Rogard and Marget took us both in and couldn't have been nicer but they were not our parents. They loved us I suppose but I did not love them. I am grateful to them but I think my heart went into a dark place when father died. They nurtured my body but not my emotions. I realise, looking back, how difficult it was for them, how difficult I was. I worked hard in the forge but my heart was not in it. I left after eight or nine years, I must have been nineteen I think.

I wandered the land around my home village, returning to see Matthew and take back money for his upkeep for several years. Then I got the opportunity to join a lord's guard and became a soldier, a man paid to kill. And I did. For years I worked for him, doing whatever was needful, not thinking about the cost, growing daily more armoured against affection. Then I left him and joined a mercenary force. Still a man paid to kill but now paid much more and killing with much less reason. The shell around my heart was solid. No-one offered friendship, no-one offered affection unless it was paid for. No-one cared what became of me and I, I cared less than anyone else.

I must have been away from Matthew for five or six years when something happened that cracked that shell around my heart. A young recruit joined us, tall and strong, full of confidence. He reminded me of Matthew. Nial would have been about his age, eighteen or so and I made friends with him, treated him as a brother,looked after him in his first fights. I could feel myself growing. For the first time in ages, I worried about someone else. It felt strange but, somehow right. Then we were sent on a long expedition to join a war far away that paid well but had nothing else to recommend it. The fighting was bloody. We were successful but not without loss. I shed the first tears for years when Nial died, clinging to me and begging me not to let him go, not to leave him. I realised I'd had enough. I had to get back to Matthew, make sure he was all right. I had to get back to me. The shell had cracked enough for me to see that I didn't like what I had become.

I managed to get a berth on a ship heading back towards my home state. I just wanted to get back to what, to who I used to be. I've recorded the storm in unknown waters, the wreck in unknown lands and my arrival here, in Valorn. What I have to do now is try to make sense of what has happened since.

Those who first met me here must have wondered about me. I was hard, unsmiling, distrustful. I put on a face of good humour but I was lost. I didn't want to be here, I didn't even know where I was. I couldn't believe it when people, absolute strangers, started offering me help. I had already seen how attractive everyone was. The women were all beautiful, I remember thinking that any one of them could have made a fortune where I had just come from. And then I felt ashamed of myself. I was confused, unsure and I turned to what I do best. I killed. Only rats and things in the sewers at first but it felt comfortable. I could cope with that, the killing. But as I 'trained', as the people here referred to it, as I gained in ability and experience, people started to congratulate me. Strangers offered me help, a beautiful woman came from nowhere and gave me healing potions, then just left with a smile! I was baffled, looking for the catch, suspicious.

A rogue patted me down, grinning as she did. I would have killed her only days before but I couldn't move, I just watched her in amazement. Then she gave me something! I was totally baffled. I couldn't understand this place, these people. A rogue giving something away with a smile to a perfect stranger? This was an alien land, a place beyond my imagining and I wasn't coping with it at all. The women walked the streets, not as street walkers but as if it were their right. They were powerful. They were warriors, clerics, enchanters and yes, rogues. But it took me a long time to accept. I still find myself wanting to defend the women here, as if they were all helpless creatures looking only for ... well, they are not. I have never seen such powerful women and I still don't deal very well with them.

Let me give an example to make this point clear to myself. Fe is one of the most helpful and affectionate people I have ever met. She is tiny, barely five feet tall. I could pick her up with one hand. I could throw her across a room without even trying. And yet ... I faced a green guardian and I smile to think of my foolishness. It barely noticed me, swatted me across the desert and straight to a Life Monument. Hmmm, there is another subject for study. There is no 'heroic death' here in Valorn. The gods don't seem to like losing their people and just send them back, no matter how foolish they may have been. But back to Fe. She came and enchanted all my armour, my weapons, I blessed myself and still I could not get my strength up to deal with one blow from this guardian. So Fe hit it. I gasped and started to spring forward to defend her, pointless though it would have been. This tiny beautiful woman drove that guardian back until it was nearly on its knees! I looked on in disbelief. Then she turned to me and said, "You kill it" and smiled. In a daze I went up to it and hit it. I woke up back at the LM. Even with it in such a weakened state I could not harm it. And Fe had reduced it to that state. A woman who would have been on offer to any man with enough coin in the lands I recently left had overcome a creature that could chew me up and spit me out when it was at the point of death!

But to return to my musing. I was still new in the lands and trying to cope with it all. I was determined to become a mighty warrior. It was all I had ever known and I was good at it. Then I met, really met my first cleric. I had seen them before but I seemed destined to be befriended by enchanters and rogues. I hardly saw any warriors at first and I realise now they were all out defending the lands, busy while I played at soldier boy. This cleric talked to me, explained some things, introduced me to other people, showed me a part of myself I had not known. I watched him in action and met other clerics. I started to think more clearly about where I was, who I was and, perhaps more importantly, what I was.

I saw the importance they all placed on helping people and defending this way of life. My eyes began to open as I looked around me and saw a very different way of being. I saw a cleric heal someone, just by laying their hands on them and I thought suddenly "I want to do that!" I don't know where that thought came from but I suddenly knew that I wanted to be a cleric, not a warrior. As I worked at improving my skills and advancing towards the point when I could choose a profession, I felt my heart growing lighter. I felt myself accepting this strange world as my own but I still had no close companions, no real friends, no love. Everyone was wonderful to me, affectionate, helpful but I was still holding back, still standing behind my battlements, keeping people at a distance. I didn't even know it. I think I developed a bit of hero worship for Dobroc. He helped me, talked to me, invited me to join his guild. I wasn't sure what that meant and he explained it to me, introduced me to some of the members, Anya, Peppa, Sarai. He changed my life.

I decided I wanted to be a cleric and I asked Dob if he would sponsor me. It all happened so quickly. Suddenly I was a cleric and a member of the POV. They welcomed me as a long-lost brother. They all just swamped me in love. I had never known anything like it. Ever. They liked me, they loved me and they told me so. I went to sleep crying with such unknown feelings flooding through me. It took a long time before I felt comfortable with it. The shell was cracked in a hundred places but it was still there, still 'protecting' me. And then I met SoJo. With a few well-placed kicks and thumps she broke that shell apart and threw it away. If I start talking about my love I will never finish this so ... she is my life but a new life, a life I never imagined, a life so dear to me now and so alien to the life I had before.

Let me read through this now, slowly and calmly.

I think I begin to understand. I have a need to understand what happens around me, what happens to me. I need to know. There is so much that happens here that I cannot understand. Magic! Gods answering prayer. Healing. Magic. Totally beyond my experience, my knowledge, my understanding. I have to just accept that it is so. I have seen a goddess. Talked to a goddess. She has talked to me. My mouth still falls open when I think of that first time I saw Miranda and spoke with her. She called me a romantic cleric and I shudder to think of my first reaction. Now, I accept the title proudly. A title bestowed by a goddess on me. Me! Hmmm, I digress.

I have to accept the women here as they are, not as I see them with my old eyes, immersed in my old knowledge and beliefs. I have to accept them ... I was going to say as equals but that is a falsehood. So many of them are clearly my superior in knowledge, understanding, abilities. This is so hard. This does not diminish me. I am not in competition with anyone. I must glory in their accomplishments, share in their pride and joy, give of myself without counting the cost or looking for reward. Jealousy has no place here and must be banished.

I must throw off my old ways of thinking. I vowed as a cleric to do all in my power to protect the lands and the people. I vowed as a member of the POV to do all in my power to support and protect my fellow guild members as well. My guild family has become just that. They are my brothers and sisters and I would die for them. My heart has been recreated, first by them and then, unforgettably, by SoJo. I am a new man and I must learn to be that new man. I must love without holding back, fight with honour, care with compassion, live with truth. I cannot say all this to those I love. I can barely say it here, in the privacy of my journal. But I must learn not only to say it but to believe it and to live it.

The answers I am looking for? I think I can sum them all up in one simple statement. Now I have to accept that statement and live the life it brings, return the love I am given and give the love that others deserve. I must cast off the shameful thinking of my old life and embrace the joyful thinking of my new life.

And the statement? "I am worthy to be loved and to love in return". So simple and yet so very hard to live. That is my new task. To put the past aside. To accept and live the new life I have been given with all of my heart.

Page 10: It seems that Dob, Pep and I are competing for the title "The Happiest man in Valorn". We have officially agreed a three-way tie but I suspect that we all privately think that the title is our own. I know that, as I sit here in this quiet corner of the inn with SoJo's head pillowed safely on my thigh and the sound of my quill scratching on this paper and SoJo's gentle breathing the only sounds I can hear, there cannot be a man happier than I in all the lands. I look down at her beautiful face and see her lips twitch in a smile and I just know she is dreaming of me while I keep guard over her sleep. I can feel tears in my eyes and I don't want to make a mess of this journal ...

I was going to write of my experiences in the lands with a view to learning from those experiences by looking back on them in a calm and reflective manner. Yet the most I learn from my experiences with SoJo is that I love her to distraction. I am a calm person, steady in a fight, alert and aware of my surroundings and yet, when SoJo is present, I seem to lose all reason. When she is absent I can think of nothing else. I must try to understand.

Perhaps if I start at the beginning it will help me. I stretched out my legs here at the Dundee Inn and moments later SoJo fell over them and cried "Oi!", as she does. I am smiling at the memory yet I should have been concerned for her at the time. I didn't react that way. Perhaps it was the graceful way she stumbled over me, perhaps the way she spun around so quickly and shouted at me with that flash of humour in her eyes? We sat and talked and I understood her, despite her thick accent. How? I don't know, I just did. That meeting affected me deeply, more deeply than I thought at the time. I can see it now, looking back, but then I was just amused and intrigued. I did not know what lay in store for me.

I saw her again a few days later. She was going upstairs when I arrived at the inn. For some reason, I sat at the foot of the stairs and stretched out my legs again. I don't know what I was thinking, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. SoJo came down the stairs and she must have seen me, seen the trap I had laid for her. But she fell over my legs again. I wonder now, who laid the trap and who did the falling? And, does it really matter?

She has captured my heart, broken down all my defences, healed my wounds from the past and created a bright new future that I would never have dared even to imagine. How did she do that? This cool-headed reflection does not seem to be producing any answers at all, only more questions.

How did I find the courage to speak? I bought her a ring of hope and that seemed far too bold, but she accepted it and within a day or so I was bitterly regretting that I had not made it a promise ring. And she said she would have worn that! It all happened so fast and I was afraid that it was too fast. SoJo also had some fears but between us we overcame them. And now ...

Now I have asked Sojourner Dove to bond with me. How did I dare to do that? Oscar Twosword asks a beautiful woman to share his life, to bond with him? No-one at home would ever believe I could do such a thing. SoJo has changed my whole life around in such a short time. I used to be hopeless around women. I didn't understand them and I suppose I treated them as strangely-shaped men. That didn't go down too well. But SoJo has changed me beyond reason. Now some of my best friends are my sisters in the guild. They tease me and I pretend to be upset or angry but we all know it is a game and that I love them all dearly. Zoe, I am sure you will find this journal somehow and read it and you deserve to see the truth. Yes, I love you too Zoe Minx! And after yesterday, you'll probably show it to Ella as well so yes, Ella, you too. I love all of my sisters. And that is because of SoJo.

I am not the tongue-tied bumbling idiot around women that I may sometimes make out to be, although there is still some truth to that image. SoJo is in my thoughts so much, especially when she sleeps and I am alone, that I tend to babble. There, at last, is a learning point from all of this. Stop babbling! Try to control your tongue before it really gets you into trouble. I can never appear as Dob does, so confident and in control, nor as Peppa, so carefree and cheerful but perhaps I can be a little more in control around beautiful women. Do I feel threatened by them? Do they scare me? I don't know why that should be, after all SoJo is beautiful and I don't feel threatened or scared by her. So why do I babble so? I think I still don't really know how to treat a woman. I want them all to be my friend, I want to love and be loved by them. The gods know, I have had little enough love in my life over the last five or six years. Perhaps I let some of that show? Am I really that desperate for love?

So many questions and so few answers. I have read all of this again and again and I am no nearer understanding either myself or the women in my life. But I do know one thing. SoJo has agreed to bond with me. SoJo has agreed to bond with me! My happiness knows no bounds. She is my life. It really is that simple. But how did she do that?

I am beginning to think that cool, calm reflection is not going to produce the answers I need. Should I even be seeking to understand? Should I just accept this great good fortune and carry on with my new life? I don't know. Perhaps Fe could help me?