I am in Chelyabinsk. I don't like it here. It is an industrial city, and too close to contamination zones. It makes me feel ill just being here, on the street. It would have taken me less time to get here, but for the marshy area in the southeast that I had to pass through. It was relatively pleasant there. Sadly, to get to Yekaterinburg I am going to have to go through the most contaminated area on the planet, the prospect of which I am not enjoying. Being as intune with nature as I am, I feel that the suffering in that area will be great.
I could always take a train through the area and clear it in a day, but somehow that wouldn't sit right. For too long have I been working to have this sort of thing prevented, and although I failed, I have yet to actually witness what I was trying to stop firsthand. The Hodanje never come here. They stay further north, with the Even and Evenk and Sami, and sometimes further east, with the Chukchi.
People here look at me strangely. It is winter, and I am apparently a homeless child, with nothing but what is on my back and my horse. Aulim is doing very well, by the way. He takes to traveling perfectly. I will probably have to give him up though, either in Irkutsk or Jakutsk, in exchange for reindeer and Yakut horses. Yakutia would be too cold for him, especially considering it is winter. Still, it makes begging for food easy - as long as I do not get thrown in the orphanage. Trying to get out of that without causing major damage would be difficult.
I had not realized how much it hurt being away from this place, not here exactly, but this harsh, harsh steppe, hot in summer and freezing in winter. Siberia suits me perfectly, although I simply cannot wait to get to the taiga. I miss the forest oh so much. I miss herding with the Hodanje, traveling around all the different tribes for new bloodstock for the reindeer lines.
I miss being left at the complex and having tales I have heard a million times before -- perhaps invented myself -- while I sat next to the fire with the other young children. Back then I was simply biding my time, waiting for the right moment. No one was any wiser. Oh, of course, most of these memories are from when I was very young, one or two at the most, and I was not expected to understand them. I was put in a cot upon a reindeer and led around. My mama knew something was off about me though, perhaps I was too obvious with my fixation of the ravens, or the way I cried when I saw something that I didn't like even when it had nothing to do with me.
By the time I had the ravens take me, she feared me as something else. Aksinya, who visited from time to time without Rylie, noticed it as well. She knew from the beginning, I think, that we were the twins. She just never knew what would happen next...
I saw a pretty girl today. In the old days, I might have ravaged her, and potentially eaten her, but I felt no such need today. I really have taken a turn. Perhaps, I shall not give up on my goal. Perhaps I will find a way to help those suffering from radiation disease, and prevent it happening again. Perhaps it will be in a different manner than I had planned, but I still intend to do it.
In the end, it doesn't really matter. I have the power to change it today, I know I can. Afterall, Rylie, only the dark god Varn can undo his own handiwork, and I've already undone some of it. I've just got to regain my confidence, and rethink things. But I have a long journey still ahead of me, and more than enough time to think.
Come to think of it, I still need a new inhaler... I wonder if I begged at a pharmacy I might get given one?
I shall leave Chelyabinsk tomorrow for Yekaterinburg, and then I will be much closer to my goal.
Brodie Asturias Community Member 
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