Chương 132: Day One Hundred And Thirty-One

Dear Diary, I really miss Fridays. I mean, it's not like the Council voted and made the week six days long or some kinda crazy shit like that. But before Lancaster showed up and he started us training like absolute madmen, for a few blissful weeks Friday was a day of intense fun learning followed by intense fun rewards for learning. I looked forward to Fridays. Yeah, wouldn't that be a hell of a villain backstory.

'Why did you Fall to the Dark Side?'

'I got big mad because New Amsterdam denied me educational nookie.' On the one hand, sounds about the right pettiness level for here and now. On the other hand, I've been trying to be less petty than the general Deific level of petty. Maybe I could sell it as 'they stole away the love of my wife'? Yeah, that sounds way less petty. Complete sophistry, and leaning heavy on that whole making a synonym out of love and lust thing, but still less petty than 'I wanna get laid'.

Of course, the fact that all of these arguments are ones I'm having with myself means sophistry probably won't work. Heh. Maybe I can convince Saffron to convince me. Shit, no, she'd do it without even thinking about the larger moral consequences. She straight up told me that. When the fuck did I sign on to be the moral compass? I'm not even competent to be the moral compass of me, let alone anybody else. Anyhow, pretty normal night.

Vibing by the lakeside all night, trying to ignore the increasing itchiness by focusing on the psychedelic mini-tadpoles crawling around underneath and nuzzling at me. Woke up to our little songbird crooning at her brother. Different song than yesterday, and Saffron didn't recognize this one. Maybe she made it up? To be honest, 'where did she get those song lyrics from' falls way below 'will she and her brothers rampage through Phileo' on my personal list of worries.

When she saw me watching and finished, I held up two fingers. She squealed a little and ran her little hand over Vulcan's stock, two long, gentle strokes, like you'd pet a wildcat that happened to settle down in your lap. Then she tiptoe ran over to the bed.

"Mama, ma!" I got it right away this time, Mimicked Saffron, and fed the menace her first breakfast of the day. Yeah, it completely weirds me out, but it's not without its warm fuzzy component. Besides that, if she winds up itty bitty, I sure as fuck ain't gonna let it be from malnutrition. After about ten minutes, Saffron woke up enough to scoop her away and do some mommy-baby feeding time her own self.

Isnomi squirmed a little at the handoff, but Saffron declared, "I do not believe you are anywhere near full, and they are full enough to hurt." I shifted back to me and got up to get dressed.

"You know they're going to keep getting swole until you stop nursing, right?"

"Which I will have to do once we deploy, so forgive me for taking advantage of this tiny morsel of parent child intimacy while I can." I pulled The Dress on, then sat on the edge of the bed to work my feet into her boots.

"You're gonna wind up with aching feet from marching and aching tits from not nursing all at once, y'know."

"And I will be in an excellent position to shoot someone without fear of legal reprisal or moral qualms." I nodded.

"Fair point." I scooped Isnomi up, set her on the desk and started dressing her. I expected Saffron to go put her uniform on, but she stood, I got the anti-tingles for a second, and she stood there clothed in glowing midnight.

"What's the occasion?"

"Sadly, instead of being able to say 'tempting you to ignore training today in favor of engaging in frenzied ritual copulation', I'm forced to remind you that we have a Council meeting to get to."

"Oh, shit! Fuck! For a second I thought that was yesterday and I forgot about it." She shook her head, then walked over and helped me finish dressing our little mascot.

"Some of the Guilds and Heroes pushed for rescheduling. I would have let you know otherwise."

"You still forgot about Monday, though." She nodded, "Sorry about that. I was focused on the Council Meeting. Drove it completely out of my head."

"Fair. Let's go get some breakfast and drop the Menace off with Marie or Grandma?" The menace in question grabbed at both of us and clung.

"Na! Ma! Mama! Ahnama ga Mama Ma!" I shook my head, "Sorry, kiddo. Momma and Mom need to focus on what we're doing. You're too cute; if we bring you along we'll be paying too much attention to your cuteness to get our jobs done." She pouted, then put her arms up. I scooped her up, put my other arm around Saffron, and we all headed for breakfast. Decent food today, but the spicy eggs are getting thinner on the ground. When I asked, Bill chimed in.

"The field rations use eggs." I crinkled up my nose.

"Don't they go bad?" He chuckled and shook his head.

"Not when they're baked long enough to dry out. Without the eggs you get hardtack, and you can't eat that without something to soften it." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"I know there are recipes for shit that'll last that don't have eggs in." He shrugged.

"If you know any of them, feel free to share. Mom and Dad tell me they'd both rather have hardtack than ration egg biscuits, but..." He shrugged and popped another sausage in his mouth.

"How are we getting sausage then? Like, dry sausage is super-good for rations." He nodded, "yeah, and that's most of the rest of the rations. But these are breakfast sausages, not pepperoni or salami. If you dried these, they'd turn too hard to eat." I shrugged my own self.

"Fair point. I'm gonna stop complaining and just enjoy sausage fest." Bill nearly choked everybody at the table when he responded, "huh. I didn't think you two would be interested in one of those." So Marie apparently had Marie things occupying her today, so after leaving Breakfast early we dropped Isnomi off at the Infirmary with Grandma, then at Saffron's insistence I got us down to City Hall with a single step. Overall? Super boring day. Couple highlights, though.

First, while I'd never been in City Hall back in Philly, while the exterior and the statue of Billy Penn at the top looked pretty similar, I really don't think the center of City Hall was one big amphitheater style room with a see through domed ceiling. Kinda weird as fuck to be able to look up and see Willy's ass hovering above us, but between the distance and the old-timey tights? Not really a huge distraction once I got past giggling about it.

I got a little bit of a shock when I realized how much security the place had. Not, like, in a 'so much security' sense, either. We got to the Council chamber before anybody except some big beefy dudes holding spots open on the lowest row of seats; Saffron told me they'd be filled by Guild leaders once they arrived. Other than that? Nada, security-wise.

I mean, once I thought about it I realized why; other than the Guild Leaders, everybody on the Council was probably gonna be either a Hero, a High Priestess, or both. I still kinda thought we ought to have somebody guarding the place to keep the 'Damn assholes from, like, setting up us the bomb, but who the fuck am I to tell people how to run a government? Oh. Wait. Yeah, apparently some of the governmental traditions carried over from Europa are pretty fuckin weird. At least they seem that way to me.

When I moved to find us a seat, Saffron pulled me over to a big-assed lectern standing in the middle of the clear round area in the center of the seating. A big dude stood next to it, looking like he'd block our way. Saffron looked him right in the eye and said, "move." When light and sound decided to re-enter the discussion, he'd backed the fuck off. Not surprising, really. In the here and now, 'big tough guy' stood way lower than 'chick with direct hotline to world-altering Powers'.

I stepped over to him and quietly asked, "you gonna be okay?" He shook his head and said, "dunno what you're talking about. My boss told me to be here before daybreak, but you were here when I got here." Saffron's reason for rushing and choosing to stand instead of picking out a nice seat? Apparently, as fucked up as this is? Whatever Councilperson gets to 'the Register' first is the one who gets to call the shots.

Like an hour later when actual Councilpersons started trickling in, led by none other than Lancaster Senior? An absolute booger look flashed across his face when he saw Saffron standing there, but other than that he just nodded and tapped at where his hat would be, as if to say, 'point to you'. Like an hour or two of 'calling the roll' came next. Every time somebody new came in Saffron would go back to the first un-confirmed name in the list of Councilpersons and start going through the names again.

Quite a few of the people in the seats, especially the ones down in the front row, looked like they wanted to up and leave, or at least say something, but every time one of them stirred, Lancaster shot them a look and they sat the fuck back down. Eventually though, even he got bored and stood up.

"Councilperson Aetos, I move to convene this meeting of the Phileo City Council." She nodded, "all in favor?" Hands shot up around the room, and she tallied them up.

"All opposed?" One of the Guild dudes raised his hand, and some chick wearing the same robes as Artemis' former High Priestess did as well, but Saffron just announced, "Two opposed. Far more than two in favor. This Council is hereby Convened. The Council has been Convened to discuss matters related to the potential war between Phileo City and Camden Yards, and New Amsterdam and Newark.

As such, before any other issues, as the Grand Army of Phileo City and Camden Yards has been assembling and training for over a week without a formally declared leader, our first order of business will be to appoint a Grand General to lead said army. As he is both our combined Cities' finest General, and has already stepped into the role in an informal manner, I nominate Hero Leonard Lancaster."

Mostly positive muttering echoed around the chamber, but Lenny stood up and replied, "I am honored by the nomination, and should the Council so decree, will of course fill the role of Grand General to the best of my abilities. However, I would be remiss in my duties as Councilman for both the clergy of Wotan and the Heroes' Guild if I did not nominate the Marshall of Phileo City." That started a whole fucking long, boring list of speeches as every fuckin' Councilperson in the room had to get their two cents in.

One of the older, fatter Guild types nominated Hero Velazquez, who'd hadn't yet returned from the field, and an old skinny dude in the third row up, who wore some kind of clerical robes, nominated retired Hero McCrae. But pretty much everybody else was for Lancaster or the Marshall. It wound up really fuckin' close; Saffron had to go through the Register calling out names one at a time and keeping the count as she did. It wound up with our two votes breaking what had been a tie.

I kinda wanted to vote for the Marshall, but I followed Saffron's quiet direction and voted for Lenny. After we managed to pull that off, I kinda lost interest, as every goddamn person in the room seemed to have some kind of fuckin weird 'war related but not really' axe to fuckin' grind, and talked about it at length. Eventually, as the sky above us painted itself the colors of sunset, Saffron interrupted the latest speech.

"Council of Phileo City and Camden Yards." The old dude who'd been speaking looked like he'd just been force-fed a grapefruit flavored suppository, as light and sound died when Saffron spoke.

"The hour grows late. The Speaker moves to end this meeting and reconvene the Council to continue these discussions Wotansday next. All in favor?" The Clergy and Guild dudes felt some kinda way about it, but the Heroes in the upper tiers, unsurprisingly, had better shit to do than sit and hear fat old dudes talk all night. With the meeting officially ended, she turned to me, put a hand on my shoulder, sighed, and said, "love? I would dearly like to be home right now." Fuck it.

I might not be the best Councilwoman the City's ever seen, but as a hack? I fuckin' rock. Home again, home again, jiggety-fuckin'-jig. Worst part of it? Neither one of us had anything left to do anything but hang up our dresses and fall into bed, exhausted. I want my Fridays back, dammit.