Chương 1147: Day One Thousand One Hundred And Forty-Five

Dear Diary, So weird. I know I'm the Primordial incarnation of Change. I get that I'm ADHD as fuck. I even accept that I am unexpectedly ambitious and maternal. But I never really expected to be one of those people who is never satisfied. Okay, 'never satisfied' is probably not the right way to describe it. I read enough online novels to realize that 'addicted to progression' isn't the right idea either.

But I think I'm beginning to realize that every time I manage to hit some personal breakpoint, some moment where I recognize that either by improving my Body or Mind, learning or developing some new Shape or Skill, learning some new coping mechanism to deal with my trauma or neurodivergent issues, or hell even just healing some trauma to the point where it's no longer crippling me, I go through the same cycle. First I struggle, then I hit some breakpoint, then I have that moment of satori, and then...

I forget how to breathe. I mean, not literally. I need to breathe to talk to anybody but my High Clergy, and I sure as shit ain't gonna stop talking. I'm referring to an old bit from a kung fu flick I watched, where dude's sensei is like 'first, you must learn to breathe, then you must forget to breathe'. Like, not failing to do so, but doing it the right way without thinking about it. Internalizing it, making it habit, whatever you want to call it, the thing I did becomes just part of everyday life.

I play bodyguard and exert a kind of calm threatening aura that makes people choose something other than violence, and surprisingly also gets them to act in good faith. I lead groups of people, whether it's students or Cadets or even Soldiers or Sailors or Heroes. I clean, I cook, I mother my kids. All of that is just stuff I do without thinking about it, and lately I'm doing it without nearly as much wallowing in traumatized, depressed agony.

Might help that I'm getting little bits of Worship to counteract my aching scars. Not sure there. But here's the thing, every time I fix something to the point where it's no longer an issue, I find something new to chase after. A new goal. Typically it's been the next problem we have to deal with or the next trauma I need to heal from, but lately I've been kinda fixated on my Advanced Mana Shaping project. Not my Mana Blades, those technically count, but I want to...

Shit, I want to do better, I want to take things further than I have in the past. Kinda wild, really. I don't think I ever did that in school. If I passed a class I passed. I didn't go back and ask the teacher to let me redo the most difficult assignment of the class on a higher difficulty level. Guess I'm growing up. Speaking of leading groups of people, I wound up doing that most of the day yesterday, not to mention a chunk of today.

Okay, yesterday afternoon I was teaching kids, and today I taught my Cadets the basics of wrecking somebody's shit up close and personal. I even stopped by the Headmaster's office at the Camden Yards Academy, because I'd thought of something I wanted to add to the curriculum. Plus, of course, helping our new mercenaries disarm our new potential recruits without anybody on either side getting hurt. That started yesterday, because unlike the initial flotilla we'd captured, this batch had no Captains.

Not 'the ships came at us without leadership', but apparently they'd had like one Captain per ship, and when those Captains led them into the teeth of the Alliance Navy and our mercenaries, they straight up voted their former Captains out of office. Which meant that none of them technically had a Captain, even the two launches and one ship where the former Captain's few faithful followers tried to 'put down the mutiny' with force.

Yeah, I now viscerally understand why first responders don't want to get involved in domestic disputes. I wound up getting stabbed four times, and while I feel bad, I left the one ship to its own devices after holding them all still and reading them the riot act for a few minutes. Its own devices meaning we'd be recrewing that ship from the launches.

I'm not gonna lie, I feel like that was a failure on my part, but any group of people so determined to kill one another that they stab me when I'm tryna talk them down I'm not gonna beat myself up over saving. At any rate, we had to coordinate boarding, taking stock of the ship, her cargo, and her crew for each of those ships. Then, the part that took forever, we had to find the Articles of Agreement for each ship, then figure out some way for them to elect a leader to do collective bargaining.

I think the only thing that kept me going was the thought of Marie made dinner. Turned out to be a surprise, since Marie got Tallulah to Co-Locate and make us something like I'd expect from the Overlord's keep, only in portion sizes more suitable to our growing girls. Not my thing, but Aisling and Ria both enjoyed it, and our kits loved the meat pate.

Soaked until my scars became a faint dull ache that I could pretty much ignore, then fell asleep and watched my ladies play with little model ships floating in my Maw. Not sure what they made them out of, but they were kinda crunchy, even after floating around all night. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Today I went back to all of my assorted jobs, and the ladies returned to theirs.

Which, for at least a few of them, was aboard the Tentacles, including a new one that sailed up to help disarm the new recruits. The Conquering, commanded by one Furtim Cauda, crewed primarily by Trolls. While she had the cannon deck of the newer and refit Tentacles, instead of cannon or ship-mounted siege crossbows she had catapults on the fore and aft decks. Okay, not catapults. Trebuchets.

While I fully understand the difference, I didn't understand why they'd chosen that until the Conquering got in range of one of the launches where the discussions about who was Captain got heated. When you've got a crew of Trolls, 'boarding range' and 'trebuchet range' are apparently the same thing.

I think we lost a couple more dudes to that intervention, but where some people will decide to stab little 'tall for a girl' me, ain't nobody with functioning senses is gonna try to stab a Troll that just got yeeted onto the deck from a few hundred yards away. At lunch I went to see Headmaster Obol of the Camden Yards Heroic Academy. He wasn't obsequious or anything, but he didn't have Headmaster Miles' sheer presence.

Then again, he had less than a year of being Headmaster, and Camden Yards had maybe two of being a sovereign City within the Alliance.

"What can I do for you, Champion?" I nodded to let him know that he'd guessed right about which hat I was wearing at the moment.

"I'd like to add something to my Combat Training class."

"And you came to ask me about it?" I shrugged.

"Yeah, well. I mean, technically I'm not even a Hero yet." We both chuckled at that.

"But no, I figure at the very worst I ought to tell you so that you can tell the Mana Shaping teachers." He frowned a little.

"Go on?"

"Yeah, one thing that took me a while to really integrate was combat casting. Shaping in the middle of a dustup." He frowned.

"Is that important?" Yeah, I managed to keep the disbelief off my face, both that he didn't know and that he was looking to me as an expert. Then again, when it came to combat, I kinda maybe was.

"Yes, sir. It most definitely is. I..." I shook my head, realizing that I wasn't dealing with a combatant. The Academy Headmasters were chosen to be people who could stand up to Heroes and tell them no out of the courage of their convictions, not because they could enforce a no with the strength of their arms.

"Champion?"

"Okay, look, We're teaching Heroes... Well, Cadets now, but today's Cadets are tomorrow's Heroes. We're teaching them to fight, we're teaching them to lead, we're teaching them to cast, but we don't ever really teach them to do all of those things together. Not in any kind of organized fashion." He looked thoughtful, muttering, "huh."

"Yeah, some of us learn it. Some of us pick it up. Some of us are just naturals at that shit."

"Like yourself?"

"Nah. I was thinking of Cadet Vickerson. Shit, Hero Vickerson now, I think. She's up in Newark now, but she started out as a Calverton Soldier, then trained at Phileo City Heroic Academy. She's probably one of the best combat commanders of the upcoming generation. Lenny Lancaster has taken her under his wing, now that his former protege isn't any more."

"What happened to them?"

"She got promoted over his head. She's his boss now." That caught him. Dude wasn't slow.

"So... You think you can teach what Hero Vickerson can do?" I shook my head.

"I mean, maybe? But I'm not sure I ever really picked that up as well as she did. I might bring her in for a few classes to show the Cadets what's up. But one thing I did learn, got taught, was how to combine Shaping and Fighting."

"The Marshall?" I shook my head.

"I mean, he probably would have, but he got pulled off to fight New Amsterdam, so my dad had to fill in for him regarding that part of my education."

"Your father... Lord Loki?" He looked a little green, like he'd just remembered that along with Champion, High Priestess, and Hero-In-Waiting, I was also a Deity.

"Yep. I mean, I think I picked up a couple tricks helping teach the Marshall's classes, and maybe refined others, but I can definitely teach our Cadets the 'fight while casting' part. Maybe, like I said, bring in Vickerson or Lenny Lancaster to help out with the 'lead while casting' part."

"Well... I certainly can't see where any of that would hurt the Cadets' progress. If you need my approval, you have it."

"Thanks, Headmaster. Can you let the Shaping and Strategy and Logistics teachers know, so if they want me to include or avoid something in particular, they can let me know?"

"Of course, Champion." So after making sure all the Cadets had the basics of Stabilize down, I had them start using that as a weapon while sparring. Like learning to fight with a particularly difficult to use taser, but... Good training, and at some point they might need to take down somebody without technically hurting them. Meanwhile once the new batch of Pirates were all talking with the Captains in one of the conference rooms aboard the Black Dragon, I scooped up Aisling.

"You wanna come with Mama to see the Norns again?"

"... okay..." When we arrived at the base of Yggdrasil, none of the Norns were in evidence. I stepped us to the Mortal Realm to check, then stepped back to M-Space, leaving one of me Co-Located in the Mortal realm. When I did that, I caught Verthandi looking a little sheepish, a little surprised. She held up one hand, pointer finger up, then turned back to stare at her tree. While I watched, she did a little, I dunno, bark pruning or something. Then kept doing it.

I stepped the two of us a little further away, looked at Aisling, and asked, "do you wanna sing?" She nodded. So I taught her a few playground songs. Baby Bumblebee. Miss Mary Mack. Maybe a couple tamer Jody calls. We sang. Nothing super loud, nothing super complex, just quiet simple songs. With orchestral accompaniment. Quiet orchestral accompaniment. I kinda got distracted, and only realized how much when the sun started to set and I looked up.

To see all three Norns sitting quietly, listening to my daughter and I sing.