Chương 1125: Day One Thousand One Hundred And Twenty-Three

Dear Diary, Yeah, I remember back in the day racism and prejudice weren't so much some big looming things I thought about as much as something ubiquitous, like air or poverty. Shit, that poverty was sort of part of it; yeah, there were places where folks didn't make much more money than they could in Camden, but those places always seemed to have lower costs for food, shelter, pretty much everything. Okay, that's not quite true. Shelter was cheap in Camden, if somebody was willing to live in a condemned building.

It started getting spendy if they lived in one that should have been condemned but wasn't. Basically, if some asshole living in the burbs or in a high rise in Philly could charge rent for it, that shit cost half a full time job. I mean, if you cut all the corners possible and the landlord was willing to take payment in kind for part of it. Otherwise it wound up way, way more than that. Yeah, some folks owned their own places, but that wasn't all that common. The same goes for food, kinda.

Cheap G food from the bodega was always technically edible and nominally nutritious. It had calories, which was enough to keep people upright and working. Because at the end of the day, that's all anybody cared about, if we could keep working. Yeah, I definitely get wrapped up in my own head when I think about those days.

But I did have a point, that while here and now folks have their own prejudices, and the Dan and Aesir definitely had some de facto racism going on, even with Phileo's official stance against it, between me wrecking that shit at every turn and Saffron coming along behind, picking up the pieces, and putting them back together in ways that helped everybody so much that the dipshits whose whole thing was lording it over others shut up about it, because they didn't wanna meet the business end of a Mana Blade or an angry mob.

Okay, that wasn't really my point. Which I did have. I promise. The subject just, as I previously noted, fucks with me. I guess my point is that here and now I've gotten removed enough from it, both by us making it socially unacceptable and by us being rich and powerful, that I'm surprised by it when I see it. I can go hours, days, maybe even weeks without seeing some blatant evidence of blatant, unthinking prejudice, so when I do it shocks me. I half think that I must be mishearing or some shit like that.

Fuck, I wonder if this is what unmelanated folks in the burbs felt like.

Y'know, just going through every day without anybody doing anything blatantly prejudiced, maybe having their little biases or shit, the kind of thing somebody could clock as microaggressions, but generally thinking that racism and prejudice had been relegated to the past and the boonies, and then some asshole with a big assed Confederate battle flag flying from the bed of his jacked up pickup truck parks that shit across four parking spots then drops the N word yelling at some not even Black folks for parking in the next spot over.

The first response isn't anger. I mean, shit, yeah, I'm me, and I have all that fuckin' unresolved trauma from living in an environment like that for so long, so anger came real fuckin' fast, but the first response, for me and I think for those folks, was disbelief. I mean, I am rich and powerful. So's Saffron. So's Tallulah. Shit, Swanson started out as a Jarl and now he's an Admiral, so it's not like he is or ever was one of the downtrodden masses.

I think that's part of why my reaction wasn't 'gut Redbeard, deal with consequences later'. Well, that and my by now constant awareness that I've got to do better than the rich and powerful people I've cowered from in the past. Be better than them. Out of spite if nothing else. So yesterday after I took Redbeard and Tallulah to visit her greatmother and express their opinion of her in no uncertain terms, we returned to the Black Dragon.

They did the whole 'you, no you, age before beauty' thing at the door to the conference room, which left Anne and John looking back and forth between Redbeard and I, like I'd replaced him with Folger's Crystals or something. After a few pleasantries, Saffron smiled a sly little smile and said, "Redbeard, could you assure your fellow Captains that we have not bewitched you, replaced you, nor done any other mischief to you?"

He jerked a little, like he'd not felt the weight of their stares, then glanced first at John, then Anne, before shrugging.

"She's clearly not a pawn of the Bitch Queen. Nor is her Goddess. He did that little head turn, pretend spit thing when he mentioned The Morrigan, then tried to pretend he didn't want to do it again when he mentioned me.

"You guys got a problem with Deities?" Anne opened her mouth, but shut it again when John held out a hand. Red just sorta calmly fumed and nodded to John, who said, "the Thames Pirates haven't had a Pantheon deign to Patronize us. Oh, we have a few Shrines, even a Temple to the Mor that nobody actually acknowledges is there, but most of the Deities who will have anything to do with us are outcasts from their own."

"You've got a Temple to the Mor?" Yeah, my Kitten is maybe a little bit of a zealot. He just shrugged.

"Aye, but it's not a patch on the ones down in the Med. The ones to the Greeks, that is. Also, it's officially anathema to the Dan Gods, so nobody will admit that it's there, but after hearing that you're at odds with... No, that you've overcome The Morrigan herself, it doesn't seem like you're fond of them yourself." Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. I shrugged.

"Comes with being Mor." They all blinked and looked at me. With that exaggerated twitchiness that some people get when they're trying not to lose their shit, Anne asked, "pardon, could you say that again?"

"I've got nothing specific against the Dan Gods, just so we're clear. Canta's a bro, helped my Darling Siobhan keep her little Aoibh. Also, not to put too much a point on it, Siobhan vouches for him."

"Siobhan?" she slipped in, like she wanted to stay in the conversation.

"Our other Concubine. Cute little thing. Archmage, Healer, Sister of the Academy, ho... Yeah, sorry, I get a little worked up." Saffron chuckled.

"I don't seem to remember you getting that worked up describing me."

"You're so awesome you leave me speechless. Also, you tend to fill my mouth after like three words." She snickered, looked at the Captains, and asked, "can you blame me?" Anne, who'd gotten progressively more tense, "Can we get back to the part where you're," she took a deep breath, then half whispered, "Mor?" I paused, thinking, checking my Memory for my previous conversations with the Captains three. After a few seconds I shook my head and said, "y'know, I was sure I mentioned it, but I guess maybe I didn't?

Yeah, I'm Mimic." Red looked, I dunno, like that didn't make him happy, but he was fully willing to remain civil and unhappy if it gave him a chance to face kick The Morrigan again. Anne sorta froze, a weird half shattered smile on her face. John just guffawed.

"Oh, please. All know that Mimic was thrown into the sea from Mag Tuired long, long ago." I nodded.

"Yep. Well, not really. Dude did not know his own strength. Threw me all the way across the Atlantic. Landed in the Delaware, right next to Camden Yards. My Kraken watched over me until a couple years back. Almost three exactly at this point. When I died and broke out of the box."

"Died?" He sort of laughed, sort of choked out.

"It didn't stick." He snerked, shook his head, and guffawed again.

"I'm not one to taunt the Gods themselves, but I appreciate it when someone does it with such panache." I sighed. Tugged on the emergency coring tentacles. A few moments later, Mom showed up.

"Daughter?"

"Yeah, Ma. Can you tell these three who you are?" At that point Anne choked out a single word.

"Domnu." Mom, who'd looked a little put out at being summoned up just to be my Real ID, faked a snort and said, "but that one already knows." The temperature of the room got a lot cooler.

"And could you tell them who I am?"

"My daughter, Mimic, who is known to the Mortals of her acquaintance as Tabitha Diaz."

"Thanks Ma." I almost turned away, then had a thought.

"Hey, how'd you get here from M-Space with all the Cold Iron?"

"You think the Primordial of Privation is constrained by a lack of anything? Even Mana itself?"

"Fair point. Thanks again, Ma."

"De nada." She raised an eyebrow, I nodded, and she was gone. That's about when Anne slumped forward onto the table, out like a light. One we woke her up with some smelling salts, fortified her with some hot coffee and leftover pastries from breakfast, and convinced her that no, I wasn't going to consume or otherwise end reality today, Red looked at Tallulah.

"So why did you come to the negotiations again?" She nodded. Somehow I recognized it as a gesture of respect from one leader to another.

"It has been made known to me that the traditions of Rich Man's Port are... Antiquated. While acquisition and keeping of knowledge and Skills is something Sidhe excel at," she paused, sighed, then admitted, "penning democratically acceptable social contracts is not something House Crow has had much experience with at all. I personally have none." After another pause, she nodded.

"I would like to request your assistance, as experts in writing Articles of Agreement, in writing such a contract, one that all those who abide within my demesnes in Rich Man's Port will find acceptable." All three of them blinked at each other, then turned back. Anne and John managed to restrain themselves, but Red barked out a laugh. Calmly, T.

Red's next words got Tallulah to relax a little when he said, "you do need our help, if you think you can write Articles of Agreement, ones that your people will agree to and follow, in a vacuum." He raised one hand, palm down, waving, "no offense intended, Overlord. Also, I wouldn't be unwilling to help, given that understanding." He looked to John and Anne, who shrugged and nodded, respectively.

"Thank you, Redbeard. May I call you Heyreddin?" He smiled, nodded graciously, and answered, "if I may call you Tallulah?"

"Of course, Captain." So we spent the rest of the day going over what the Alliance in general and Rich Man's Port in the person of Tallulah specifically wanted from the Pirates we'd more or less captured. I mean, nobody'd boarded anybody or slapped anyone in irons, but our ships were faster, bigger, better armed and armored. Shit, a good portion of the Legion was here too, which meant we even had a huge edge in any boarding action.

The huge difference being that the ships here were basically ninety nine-percent of the Alliance Navy's combat power, where the flotilla was just that; a flotilla of three small Pirate 'fleets'. Not that we'd actually, y'know, let them know that.

But by the end of the day we'd settled on those four things, in no particular order: helping Tallulah with the Rich Man's Port constitution, acting as envoys to the rest of the Pirates, guarding our merchant shipping, and acting as privateers preying on any 'unfriendly' ships. Went home, got dinner. Pasta, although no shapes I remembered. Weird skinny cones with little bits sticking out. Not sure what that's all about, but they did kinda hold sauce okay.

I used to be a big marinara girl back in Camden, but I'm coming to appreciate garlic butter sauces and pesto here and now. Maybe it's the different taste buds, maybe it's growing up, maybe it's just Marie being better with those than with tomato sauces. Any way she serves it, I'mma eat it though. Soaked away the stresses in the Bath. Fell asleep there, too. Got a bit of a shock when I woke floating just above the bottom, with Aisling looking down at me, eyes wide and staring. I lunged upward, scooping her with me.

"Aisling!" Only to have her blink at me, as frightened as I'd been a moment before.

"... yes?" I hugged her to me.

"I thought you'd drowned." Smart assed Maze scooted over to me just then and said, "she can't drown any more than I can, Papa."

"... Mama..." Yeah, couldn't stay mad at anyone after hearing that. Hell, that one word carried me through the entire day. Which was spent listening to Saffron and Tallulah hammer out the details of the contract with the Captains. Not the contract that might become the new constitution of Rich Man's Part. No, that would be way, way too easy. This was the contract to arrange for them to help with that contract. I would cry, but that might give them the wrong impression.

So I sat there trying to look like I was paying attention while fantasizing about riding Saffron's face like I stole it. Good girl.