My brother is in the hospital with a badly broken leg and has been since last night. He was working at a nearby Boy Scout ranch, helping a bunch of other boys move a 300 lb. log off a trailer when one of the other boys found himself stuck in a dangerous spot. In the process of helping this other boy, he and the other scouts had to drop the log and jump off the trailer, but the log hit Elessar in the back just as he was kneeling to hop down, and the added weight twisted his leg underneath him. So he ended up with broken ankle bones, a broken growth plate and tibia, and a fractured fibula. They took him in for surgery this afternoon and managed to pin everything in place, and it looks as though he'll be all right, but it's been a rather anxious day, to say the least.

I don't ever really forget how much I love my brother and sisters, but something like this brings home how much hope I hold in them, how much I want to see them grow up and find joy and show everyone how remarkable I know they are. And in something like this, it seems almost dangerous to hope---as though the strength of one's hope can only be balanced by its shattering. Not exactly an optimistic attitude, I suppose, but then we did just discover I'm Mixolydian Mode.

On that note, shall we move on to today's quizzes? Sev has sheets of black parchment just for the occasion and even managed to mix up a batch of glow-in-the-dark ink with which to write. Of course, it's invisible in regular light, so we'll see how well he did....

( ::whoosh of candle-killing wind:: )

.........................