Chương 1084: Day One Thousand And Eighty-Two

Dear Diary, Y'know, I spend a lot of time outdoors here and now, so I don't really think about the effects of laying out in the sun for days on end. On the one hand, we had Filtration Ward based SPF, so even Siobhan didn't burn, not really, but on the other hand I spent the better part of thirty hours over the last three days just lazing about in the sun. Even with my here and now complexion, my base tan from spending so much time outdoors so often, especially while teaching, kept me from burning too bad.

At all, really, although some of that might be my unholy high Endurance. Thing is, that much Endurance means I seem to adapt to my environs pretty quick comparatively, and in this case that means my skin feels stretched a little tight, and I'm sorta parched. Also, entirely different thing, but all the flag images Kitten put in my head are ringing some... No, not alarm bells. But I'm recognizing them from somewhere.

My rational brain wants to say that I'm thinking about the Camden Yards Flag Raven drew for our recruiting station and extrapolating from there, but my gut keeps shouting at me that I recognize them from somewhere else. No idea where, although to be fair they're all super simple. The 'complex' ones are paired chevrons on white, the 'simple' ones are single stripes on white. Shit, I might have seen them in some shitty web game at some point.

Gotta say that I'm not only tickled that Tallulah is apparently making what amounts to the 'official battle flag' of Rich Man's Port a nod to sailors and whores. Just in case anybody gets the wrong idea from all my bitching about being called one, I've got nothing against them. Shit, I'd be a hypocrite if I was, since apparently one particularly hardworking boy-whore is funding most of my Temples' activities. Shit, maybe I should suggest putting some kind of something on the Alliance flag in honor of my boy Cherry.

I mean, not anything overt or embarrassing, but something that he and I and anybody in the know will know is a nod to how much he's helped people who need it by helping people who don't need it, but can afford it. Kinda glad whatever happy coincidence happened that hooked him up with Giselle.

He's savvy enough to make sure nobody takes advantage of her, but nice enough he won't do so himself, and she's the kind of sweet, hardworking, unfortunately dimwitted woman who will make sure he doesn't hurt himself, or that if he does there will be somebody there to take care of him. At any rate, after watching the kids from our new chairs all day, the five of us had soaked up a third day of sun. If we were of the House of El, we'd be topped up and ready to rumble.

Instead of, y'know, being part of the House of Aetos, which just left us topped once the kids were in bed. Got up in the morning, rousted the kids out, which took remarkably little rousting all told, and after fortifying everybody with waffles, sausage, eggs, and scrapple, took them all to school. What with the new Season, we've got a new bunch of tots attending. New kids, ones who don't even know their numbers yet, not really. Okay, that's not fair. They're not stupid, and they're not even really all that young.

One of them might be pre-K, but they're bright and attentive. What they don't know is digits. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I have apparently done something without realizing it, by the way. I introduced Arabic numerals to the Alliance. I also made the concept of Zero as both a digit and a value basic grade school knowledge. I'm sure it'll be fine. No harm done.

No way this could have massive impact on the development of mathematics by taking us from 'algebra is wizard tier knowledge' to 'school kids learn calculus' in one generation. Yeah, we might be getting some complaints about IP and shit from Athens. Not sure. Meh, fuck it, if Thebes hasn't complained about our Magical Girls, Athens can suck it if our school kids can debate their Magi and win on the subject of mathematics. But yeah, the new kids knew how to count okay, but most of them were using letters as numbers.

I mean, I think so. I can drop my Blend and see what's written there now, and my Greek and Celtic aren't abysmal, even if I can't think in them, not really, but each kid in the class was using either Celtic or Greek letters as numbers. Took me a minute to realize that the Greek letters were, in fact, Greek letters, not digits as I think of them. I mean, I read once where Hebrew was like that, where they used letters as numbers, and that was a basis of Numerology and that, what's it called, Kabballah.

That was a hyperfixation that lasted about eight hours back in grade three, so don't take anything I say about that with any kind of confidence. So yeah, I taught them Arabic numerals, because when I don't think about it I write in them. Weirdest unintended consequence of the day happened when I dropped my Blend to check the new kids' scribbles.

I guess the rest of the class had seen me in the Temple often enough that some part of them realized that yeah, I was in fact the Goddess Tabitha Diaz, not to mention Mimic. Which meant when I got fuzzy those kids might have looked twice, but they weren't struck dumb by some kind of misplaced mystic woo. The new kids, on the other hand, reacted with utter flabbergasted awe. Maybe even a little Worship. That little one I mentioned earlier, an itty bitty Dan looking girl named Aisling, came up and tugged on my pants.

I crouched down, careful not to bump her, and asked, "What did you need, Aisling?" She mouthed something, and I couldn't really hear her.

"It's okay, I'm not upset, but I can't tell what you're saying. I want to help, though, so can you repeat that please?" Just barely on the edge of hearing she whispered, "are you... Goddess?" Lowering my voice, because I was worried I'd startled her, I nodded and replied, "yes I am."

"... Children?" I gave her my best encouraging mom smile and said, "yep, that's me, Goddess of Children." I'm not sure why, but something about her just... Relaxed. No, make that everything about her. Before that she'd been quiet and still, almost like a hunted hare. The moment I said that, every part of her just sagged. Not exactly in relief, but in the way that someone who hasn't been safe in way too long let go when they finally realized they were safe. Okay, every part of her except her hand.

I taught a chunk of the rest of the day with her literally clinging to the material on the hip of my pants. She only let go when I picked her up and taught with her on my hip, not unlike Doc Z had done with Isnomi so long ago in Advanced Healing Studies. Yeah, I know, I gotta look into why she's like that. Karen probably knows, and if not she can help me find out. I'm a little high profile, and for all I know it's some completely mundane little kid thing. But for today?

It felt really good to have a kid, a complete stranger, look at me and think, 'friend shaped'.