I have been given a journal.
It is the most beautiful object I have ever been allowed to own. Dark green leather with the Dawnscorn sigil pressed into the cover, and the paper inside is thick and smells like the library. Mother gave it to me last week and said only that I should write in it, which I have been trying to do ever since.
I have been sitting with it for three days trying to think of something worthy to write first.
Lothwyn filled the first six pages of hers with drawings of cats. I do not think she understood the assignment. I am choosing not to tell her this because she seemed very pleased with the cats.
I know, roughly, what I am supposed to want. I am a Dawnscorn, and Dawnscorns have always been present — at the right events, in the right rooms, knowing the right people, remembering everything. Father is like that. He knows everyone. He notices things. When we go to functions and I am bored or confused he always seems to know exactly what is happening and why, and somehow also exactly what will happen next. I find this remarkable and slightly alarming. I want to be like that. I want to understand things the way he does — not just the surface of them, but all the way down.
I also want to learn to do the embroidery properly. Mother says my stitching is inconsistent. I am... working on it.
The magnolias are blooming in the courtyard. Lothwyn has already climbed two of them.
I am going to write in this journal every season, or more if things happen. I am going to pay attention.
I think that is a worthy enough first page.
— Aevynareth