Day 245

It has been long since I have documented my observations here among the barbarians. It was nearly a hundred days ago when the Matriarch of my line required the special ritual on her shattered kneecap. In those hundred days, the Halls of Learning closed for the summer and opened again just a few days ago. My Elders in the nearby settlements now number three. The Distant Elder has moved closer, now living just next to the river down the valley from our settlement. The Behemoth has found a new home up north. I have been cleaning the Injured Elder's settlement and preparing it for new ownership.

In five days, my partner and I will be leaving the barbarians behind and travelling to my Elder's old settlement to complete the last of the debridement. Then a few days later a the Smudgers will come to burn sage and remove the last traces of previous occupation so that new settlers can move in.

The barbarians have been well this past hundred days, though there have been more trials and tribulations than I would like to admit. The weather has frequently been brutally hot, which has made for some fiery tempers here in the settlement.

Particularly the middle barbarian. He seems to be much more susceptible to the vagaries of weather than the other two barbarians. I have found him to occasionally be the more compassionate of the barbarians as well. I think much of his difficulty and volatility comes from his inability to adequately express his emotional needs.

The Eldest barbarian has become much more emotional in the past hundred days, he insists that he is unhappy, but cannot express what is making him unhappy or how one could potentially cheer him up. He continues to eat less than the littlest barbarian and remains gangly and scrawny. I worry for his health, but I have been told than he is a healthy weight for a barbarian of his age.

The littlest barbarian has begun communicating in earnest, though still mostly without true words. She primarily uses grunts and gestures. I believe it will be at least a dozen years before she can adequately express herself given my experiences with the older pair of barbarians.

My settlement has been mostly healthy these hundred days, just as busy as an ant in summer. Now that the Halls of Learning have reopened and my Matriarchal Elder has settled down near the river, I should find myself more able to properly record my observations.

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