In joining him (it is easy enough to go mostly unnoticed), toward the darkening hours, Gwenaëlle's skirts spread out in another circle around her, one knee bent against the floor and one stretched enough that toes emerge very slightly from beneath; Small Yngvi, thusly scolded, mostly retreats to where he is like to be unnoticed until she tries to move, amongst the notebooks set aside and puddled fabric.

“I don't know what the point would have been if I weren't,” she says, matter of fact.

It's a history of herself as much as the anchor-shard, unintentional and unavoidable. The earliest, terse entries are doggedly detailed but terse and grudging in a way that doesn't stand out, initially, until he has later writings to contrast them against. There had been less outside stimuli of great note — less opportunity for the anchor-shard to be called upon for its purpose. Years had passed before she had had cause to comment on closing a rift, or using one of the abilities that she'd had from a surprisingly early time to do anything other than practise. The shield had come first, and the blast, later.

One entry, in Kingsway of the first year, says only: Takes too long to respond. Useless. and the next neatly dated record comes months later, without elaboration. The meticulous records don't much vary in those early months, when the anchor-shard was little more than a shackle — speaking of routine visits to an elven mage (S.) to receive pain relief that eventually stops, though she never speaks of the pain itself easing, in time. It is that same meticulousness that requires she make a periodic note: no change.

“I try to keep them secure, though. For obvious reasons.”