Hello again! Today I roasted a turtle pretending to be an island!

The sneaky bugger waited until we swung in close. To try and snag some of the delicious looking fruits in the half dozen trees on its shell. Before it's massive craggy maw shot out of the water and tried to crush our boat.

Good thing we had tinglewood, no? It couldn't crush us, so it started thrashing its head about. Trying to bludgeon us to death with our own ship I guess. Didn't work. We got some bruises, sure, but he got a fireball to the face. So I think we were the winner there.

As a bonus, the fruits really were delicious, and went really well together with braised island turtle.

Lena has been practicing making plays. When she was still being forced to serve the Shoto she was brought to a few plays as some kind of status symbol. Julius made sure to sear any weird old men who tried anything, funny. But, despite being forced to attend, and the greasy smell of quick fried fool, Lena loved the plays.

So she has been making figures of water and ice that drift alongside the ship, and she has them act out what she can remember from the plays. The stage is a sheet of ice, and Onica makes what costumes wouldn't look right as ice or water. Like I said, Onica is very good with needles.

Lena provides the background music with her special murder flute, which is much less murdery since we got back together. Normally I get to play the bad guy, since Julius isn't really good at the subtle stuff, like making detaild people and objects out of fire. You want a natural disaster though? He's your bunny.

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So he does some of the effects, and lighting. And Fen does the rest. You want an ominous storm to brew at just the right moment? Perhaps a lightning strike to really add some menace to a villains monologue? He's got you covered.

So far we've been mostly messing around, and my evil henchmen have a bad habit of killing their boss to please Lena's heroine. But its loads of fun, and a great way to both hone our powers and spend time together.

So we made a few plays The Princess Attacks, When Dragons Come to Tea, A Madmans World , and Taking the Loot to name a few. It was great fun, and though the stories were half baked, the motives were unknown, and logic was completely ignored. They were the greatest plays I have ever seen.

Not that I recall ever seeing any plays before them, mind you, but I'm sure they are truly heads and shoulders above the rest. I especially liked it when my dragon character in the tea story ran off and lived happily ever after with the sentient scone. 

I guess I'm just a romantic like that.

I did get in trouble for going off script, but it just felt right!

The plays were interrupted by meals, random Iceni navy attacks, and bathroom breaks. And the turtle, of course. As I was heading to my hammock to write down todays events I noticed Lena was already squirreled away in her own hammock. And she was frantically scribbling in a journal of her own!

I'm so proud!

A quick peak over her shoulder showed a series of plays in progress, and a vast collection of fluffy and slimy critter doodles filling in the margins. Thats all I saw before she noticed me, and slammed her journal shut. "Private." She muttered, her face flushing red as strawberries. 

Fair enough, private is private. So I left her to it. As I was walking away she hailed me, and when I turned to look at her she sheepishly raised her journal a tad. "Now Mr. Book can have a friend." She is just the sweetest thing!

Anyway, that was our day, a merry time indeed! And judgng from the increasing number of Iceni navy ships we've been leaving wrecked in our wake. I'd say we are getting close to their capital.

Fun days ahead!

Goodnight.