Contact

Isla's notebook:

I've been noting the continued existence of the strange energy causing odd occurrences around my home. It seems a mysterious entity is, in fact, trying to contact me. Which is very inconvenient, as it means I'll eventually have to acknowledge it just to make it stop bothering me. Oddly, I'm not dreading this as much as I usually would and am in fact oddly intrigued by its presence...I haven't felt this level of intrigue for anything but fairies and forests before.

I can't make contact just yet, because I have further research to do, and I have an obligation to fulfill as I do it. The demon that lends me all my extra strength is choosing right now to cash in on our deal. Shumei is okay, really, not half as bad as most of the demons out there. It's just that I never know when she'll show up and demand to watch anime with me. At least I can do it while I stir cauldrons and sort samples.

She's very distracting, though, because she gets really into her anime, bouncing on my couch and becoming very shrill at the intense parts. She'll yell the lines along with the characters and whack me to make sure I'm paying attention. I think she's fond of me, and she's not bad company if you ignore the whacking and the occasional shrieking of favorite lines. Being in a demon deal is never really a good thing, but since I had to pick one, I'm glad it was her.

Just going to take a break so that I can re-fortify with enchanted water.

All right, I'm back, here to record the contact that just took place between myself and the unknown entity that has been so insistently trying to get my attention. She said she wanted to do it in a much slower, more subtle way - I remarked that her definition of subtlety seems quite different from mine - but some Magical Girl named 'Platinum' had throw everything off track and so she felt the urge to reach out to me directly. She felt I might be in danger and she thinks she might be able to save me. I have no idea why she feels such a protective urge toward me or why she wants to save me, but let me start at the beginning.

It all began when I passed a mirror and was quite startled at what was staring back in at me - a shimmering, misty, tentacled entity with multiple eyes blinking arrhythmically from within various points in the fog. The eyes were what got to me the most - they were all shapes and colors, some bulging out from the fog and others peering at me, glowing from within the fog's murky depths. I thought of all the eyes I could not see and shuddered.

The being identfied herself as Wanderer. She didn't explain what she was or where she'd come from, and I'd never seen any entity like her before. Every so often one of the eyes would extend from her being, trailed by a thick tentacle of mist, and vanish far past the borders of the mirror, and then her top part would seem to nod. She didn't tell me what she was seeing, only resumed conversation as normal. I couldn't tell where she was speaking from, but she had quite a lovely voice, which is what put me at ease even if the face of her horrifying, though in a way hauntingly beautiful, outward appearance.

She explained that she's been keeping an eye on the general state of the universe and that she approves of my goal to preserve the more beautiful and complex places where nature works its most underappreciated systems. She wants the fairies saved, but saving them directly would be too big an interference. Too big for what, she didn't say, but she did tell me that helping indirectly was within the parameters of what she could allow herself to do, especially given that I'd already begun 'the change' undertaken by this Platinum.

I said I'd like to meet Platinum and she said that to do so, I'd have to make a very difficult and possibly dangerous choice that might change who I am at my core. Who I am? I have never thought of myself in terms other than that of a Magical Girl and a crusader for the fairies...although I suppose that's not true. I identify as a nature-lover, delight in my own cleverness, and mourn leaves that have died because I learned that the trees would miss them. I wonder if Wanderer is right and there is something the matter with me? But if it's wrong, then why do I have the urge to keep exploring these feelings?

Enough! Feelings will come second to fulfilling my goal, I told Wanderer, and she said sadly - (well, she sounded sad, though it's hard to read the expression of a swaying, swirling fog entity made of countless mismatched eyes that blink independently of one another. (I'm getting creeped out again just writing this, to be perfectly honest. Which feels kind of mean, but that creature is truly haunting and uncanny.) Anyway, she said sadly that my presence would likely not linger long in this world once I had filled my concept.

What does that mean? I'd never thought about what would come after fulfilling my concept...my entire life has always revolved around that one thing. After is a concept I can't quite wrap my mind around, and I'm not sure I should try, though somehow I feel too intrigued to stop. But it interferes too much with my focus on my mission in life, and it makes me have feelings I'm really not accustomed to. When I mentioned that, Wanderer said she had an assignment for me. I had to go and get back to Shumei, who had become very impatient and was yelling that I was missing the best parts of the anime. I could just hear the pressure building up inside her, and when she gets agitated she'll often literally bounce off the walls. She's so excitable; it would be cute if it didn't threaten to destroy my research.

Wanderer asked me to identify when I first started feeling different, how I acted on it, and how that affected my actions and feelings after that. She wants to know if there might be anything I came into contact with that could have done it. She sounded troubled, revealing that, though she had thought she was all-seeing, there might be things that even her eyes had missed. I chose to refrain from commenting on her eyes, and after planning to meet again soon, I returned to Shumei.

The most important takeaway from all this is that Wanderer said she wants to help me save the forests and ensure a safe return of the fairy population! She could even lend me some strength so that I wouldn't depend on Shumei anymore...I don't know about that, though, trying to get out of a demon deal can be kind of dangerous, but Wanderer says that just by being a bit of an anomaly, I'm already in a lot of danger.

I wonder if I should let her help me? But I guess I already know I will. Anything to save the fairies.

End