Hey Diary,

  Traveling through all the little towns is… kinda sad now. Yeah, they’re rebuilding, but two months ago, everything was just built. There was no sense of loss to anything.

  I’m glad we don't have to stay in any of the towns for very long. I like it when everyone is happy. Right now, not many people are super thrilled with life.

  But hey, at least the earthquakes are down to less than one a day. We spent last night in Chicken, and the priestess there said Goddess Bonnie says earthquake frequency is going to seriously drop off now. There wasn't any today, and yesterday’s was just a tiny one, so it looks like she was right.

  Not that she’d be wrong. Either of them. And they wouldn't lie or anything. Sorry for implying that.

  Anyway, it’s a good thing magic exists, so it doesn't take very long to rebuild houses. I can't imagine how long everything would take without it. Probably years.

  Color Choosing Day is in two months. I wonder if kits will be pressured into choosing brown earth magic to help rebuild. I hope not. Magic color is a very personal thing, and no one should be pressured into choosing something they don't feel a connection with already.

  Oh! I asked Echo if it was true, about changelings being able to switch magic colors. I asked because I’ve only ever seen her with white ice magic, but if she had blue water magic, she could have helped Maeve and Luke with the tsunami maybe.

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  She said that yes, changelings can change color whenever they want, but each color has its own level. They have a choosing ceremony like we do, where they decide what their “primary” color will be. That color has a bonus to how fast it levels up. The others all level up significantly slower. So while she’s over Level 100 with ice magic, if she changes to water magic, she’ll be at Level 5. She also said that, so far, no changeling has managed to have a dual specialty, like me.

  Me and Maki; he’s got two colors now, too.

  So yeah, I’m glad I’m a neko. Even though I was kinda stunted with choosing two colors, I won't ever have to worry about my level dropping to basically zero. I think that would physically hurt.

  In other news, our passenger was a very polite man. So that was good. He was very… passionate about geology. He talked for hours about which rocks are best for houses, and how earth magic is the absolute best for many practical reasons, least of which is the reconstruction of houses.

  I pointed out that most houses are, y’no, made of wood. He doesn't like wood houses. There are dozens of reasons why wood is an inferior building material. The biggest of those reasons is, no one can shape wood with magic.

  Wood comes from trees, which are alive. Life magic, and its theoretical subtype of necromancy, don't exist. So no one can do magic on wood.

  …Runes don’t count in his opinion.

  I will admit, I didn't pay attention to a lot of what he said. When people get to rambling, the important parts are the first sentence and the last sentence. I know it’s rude to not pay attention, but Trusty and True have been acting like they’re the most important horses in the history of horses lately, so I had to pay attention to them. The passenger wasn't as important as keeping them walking.

  I should ask Maeve what his name was. In case we ever meet again.

  Nah, we probably won't.

  Signing off,