PARADISA LOST

[Spoken as faint jazz music is heard in the background.]

So the ballroom is already should anyone like to come. There's music and food and any are welcome. I'm not the very best at setting these up or announcing it, but like I said, stop by, please.

ooc: log post

So I mentioned a thirties night in my last journal entry. I'm thinking December 12th. In the ballroom. Just hors d'oeuvres, dancing, that sort of thing. I'm not the best at this sort of thing, but anyone is welcome.

Also does anyone else celebrate Hanukkah? My family wasn't the most religious or anything, but I was just wondering.

[She's taking a break today from building. Violet has been thinking a lot lately, and she feels she needs to get this off her chest, see what others have to say.]

I've been thinking a lot lately about the nature of good and evil. Things always seem so black and white. If you kill someone, you've killed them. They're gone. It's a bad thing. But then there's accidental or when you're defending yourself -- or war.

So an act, presumably bad, is now not. But if you've committed these things, what does that make you? What if people you thought were noble?

Perhaps it's just circumstances. You do what you have to do. Greater good? But is that just an excuse we tell ourselves to live with what we've done. It makes me wonder what the point is. It can't all just be we live, we suffer, we die.

I'd hope to be a good person. I'd hope to be like my parents, but I'm not perfect, and neither were they. But then knowing that, knowing what they've done, does that change my view? Can I really judge? I don't know.

I feel like I once knew these answers, and now I don't.

[There's a soft sigh. She woke up without the blood that day. And with her memory.]

The blood is gone. But I know why it was there, now.

Also it seems I've missed my seventeenth birthday. It isn't the first time. I'm not in any sort of mood to celebrate though. I'll be in the library at the castle if anyone needs me.

ooc: feel free to bother her in the library.

[Violet was about to write something. But the blood on her hands was dripping onto the pages. Only it wasn't. There was no actual blood on her hands so when the droplets hit the pages they vanished. And it was freaking her out. So this is a very panicked sounding Violet.]

So... ugh... I know people are dealing with the housing and castle and things, but... is it possible that the castle could still make you see things?

I've washed my hands about half a dozen times, and the blood just won't come off. I-- I don't know whose it is. I don't know what to do.

[In the lobby, Violet's strung up a 'Happy Birthday' sign (in Ancient Greek) and she's got a cake and putenesca sauce with noodles. Next to the table is a large wrapped present. Like really large. At least four feet in height and width.

Once done, she took out her journal to announce the impromptu party.]

So Percy Jackson's birthday was on Thursday. There's a small party in the lobby if anyone wants to come down. I made enough pasta and there's a cake.

ooc: feel free to tag around. party style, whatevs.

[Since Violet and Percy had the great idea of chariot races, she figured it would be a good idea to see about interest. She's currently in her room when she pulls out her journal.]

Catagorizing things to do, I'd wish to learn a new hobby or acquire a new skill. Though my writing seems off at the moment.

[She blinks... this is a code. She's writing in a cipher and she can't help it. Let's try this again, this time she speaks. She voices out each letter.]

BT ET ND UM GT CU KH CD NP TR DI TU DI RV CQ ER... GT RU RU CU OF EO CH CQ HB PD TN

ooc: the second code is called Playfair Cipher. The keyword is Chariot. To decode: http://www.simonsingh.net/The_Black_Chamber/playfaircipher.htm.