AC 206 I’ve decided, after careful thought, to keep a record in this file of my birth, childhood, and the like.  Why?  I honestly do not know, but I feel as though I should write it or type it somewhere so it will last into eternity. I am at the present time, seventeen years of age, and located on the planet of Chi.  I do not know if that is the true name of the planet for our commanders will tell us naught, yet I feel that it has been kept close to the actual name.  At the time of my birth I had three older sisters, 5, 12, and 23, and four brothers, 2, 5, 15, and 19.  I also had a mother of age 25, who in actuality was the mistress of my father, a regal man of 45 and father to all my siblings.  Many grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins lived in our house with us, for even though we were a large family our house was larger than all of us combined. New Orleans was and still is a majestic place to spend a young childhood.  Filled with history galore, trees that seem to touch the heavens, and superstitions from the days of colonization, its tapestry has much to offer to an inquisitive young child.  I personally loved the Mardi Gras parades and the pounding drums of the festivities, as well as the unbroken silence one could find in the uncultivated swampland.  By the age of nine months I was able to speak, if it could be called speech, and walk, many a time frightening my dear mother with my wanderings.  At three I was a wild, swamp child if ever there was one, spending hours disappearing from all adult sight and wandering through the damp land, only to return home covered in mud and carrying a fist full of wildflowers for Momma to say I was sorry.  This wild nature was what saved me from the fate that killed every blood relative I had, but I get ahead of myself. When I turned five I had fully taken control of my surroundings, adults completely convinced that I could do no harm to myself and so let to wander freely, coming and going as I pleased.  In this respect I learned many tricks that would have shamed my mother had she been a ‘proper’ lady, but she was the mistress to my father and a swamp child herself, only recently having been ‘civilized’.  I adored my mother with all my heart, always taking care to tell her that I loved her once a day, whether or not I ate with the family.  In this way we kept our strong bond, occasionally going for picnics in the swamp in coves my mother had discovered as a child.  These were the best days of my childhood, full of freedom and love and an amazing sense of power to do whatever I desired to do in life.  Yet these times never last, it is a proven fact in history that once someone reaches pure bliss the world shatters into millions of pieces, hurling them into darkness.  That tale, though, I shall leave for another time, for why ruin the bliss I have created with the echoes of terror? Until I write again, I am forever, Mystic Fyrlance