Chương 169: Day One Hundred And Sixty Seven

Dear Diary, Just once I'd like to be wrong about something bad happening. I mean, there are a couple of those things that hadn't been nearly as bad as I thought. Marie, for example. But just because they turn out less bad that I thought they would, or even turning out well, again, Marie is a great example, they still happen. Heh.

'Happening'. Okay, I'll tell my inner twelve year old to stop adding things to my Diary. Yeah, we both know that's not happening. No matter what else is. So Saffron and I stumbled down to catch an abbreviated dinner in the Dining Hall. Like half an hour after we'd sat down, the Maids sort of congregated around our table, scooping up trays the moment we emptied them, not replacing them, and generally staring at us impatiently. Which, when you're talking about a dozen anthropomorphized Siberian tigers?

Does not make for a welcoming dining experience. On the one hand, both of us had eaten near to bursting the day before at Yule. Okay, Saffron had, and while I'm never actually 'full', my revelation about the gargantuan dimensions of my posterior region made me want to cut back a little. Yeah, I complained about the lack of junk in my trunk, but this wasn't a reasonable amount of junk. This was the accumulated junk of a dynasty of hoarders stretching back to the dawn of recorded history.

Anyway, we finished off all the leftovers, then thanked the Maids and stumbled back to our room. Literally, one stumble and we flopped onto our bed.

"You wanna, Kitten?"

"Apologies, love, but I am exhausted far beyond any reasonable level of tiredness that should accrue from a day of doing nothing but talking." She flopped over, tried to help me undress, and wound up getting one of my shoulders free of The Dress, then fell asleep with her head on my boob. I remember people saying love makes you stupid. Apparently that also covers making you think someone snoring and drooling on your tit is the most adorable thing ever.

Although that may be part of the 'mom' package, since Isnomi had done that more than once as well, and I thought she was adorable doing it as well. I stroked her hair until I fell asleep right there, both our legs dangling over the side of the bed. Some time later, I half-woke to Marie slipping The Dress the rest of the way off, then scooching me around to lie entirely on the bed. Saffron already lay there, naked under the sheets. I snuggled up to her and let Marie throw another blanket over us both.

When I snuggled up to her, Saffron half turned and reciprocated. I don't really remember anything after that. Slept through the night. Normal dream, although I'd stretched out along the lakeside now. It was kinda weird; the water near the edge felt a little chilly, even what with me being fuzzy at the moment, but when I yawned and stretched a bit, there seemed to be a warmer current somewhere just a little offshore.

I wasn't about to go swimming, though, because I could see snow on the rocks, and I'm not one of those insane people who goes skinny dipping in February. I paddled in the water just a little, though, because I didn't want to leave my adoring psychedelic tadpole legions alone. Woke up feeling kinda good, just lying with Saffron in my arms and listening to her cute little snores. I peeked over to see Marie and Isnomi curled up together on the floor. Probably didn't want to wake the two exhausted people, I guessed.

After a little bit, Saffron and Marie both stirred.

"S'it time ah wake uh ye?" Saffron muttered.

"By the way Marie's stirring, probably."

"Mmm, thass nice." She snuggled into me more, showing no signs of getting up any time soon. I sighed and did the insta-clothing thing for both of us. She squeaked, and I knew exactly why, as our dresses and boots had been hanging under the altar overnight, and had chilled to room temperature.

"Y'know, I might wind up regretting this as my choice of clerical garb."

"Despite the fact that I can't take advantage of it right now, I'm not likely to in this lifetime."

"I mean, now, yeah, but what about in twenty or thirty years when I start to sag. These," I tugged at one of the bits of fabric that covered my tatas.

"don't really provide anything in the way of support." She just shook her head.

"Leave it to you to forget the whole 'immortality' part of being a Goddess." I lay there, mouth hanging open as I thought about the ramifications about that.

"Damn. That sucks." She cocked her head in the middle of pulling out a uniform for the menace.

"Why?"

"You. You're not immortal. The prospect of an eternity without you? Not super attractive to me." She shook her head, walked over and pulled me up until I sat on the edge of the bed, then pulled my head into her chest, embracing me.

"So you're saying you won't be claiming the soul of your High Priestess when she shuffles off this mortal coil?" You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. My brain just refused to process the information.

"I can do that?" She shrugged.

"Any Deity of sufficient power can claim a piece of Metaphoric Space. Souls eventually wind up there, and psychopomps deliver them to the appropriate afterlife."

"What's a psychopomp?" She chuckled, "a Deity charged with escorting souls to their final destination. Thanatos is probably the most famous, but every Pantheon worth mentioning has at least one." I nodded, "okay, new items on the to do list; claim a bit of M-Space and hire a psychopomp." Saffron chuckled, then pulled me up for a kiss before turning to Marie, who handed a grumbly menace to me. We got her dressed, and I asked, "you think we should bring her with today?"

"I don't see why not. It's still a little dangerous, but I think the other Council Members can live with their lives being in a little danger."

"You want to come with, Marie?" She looked at me, and I swear she got the same look on her face I had at the end of the day yesterday.

"No." I laughed, "okay, okay, just offering." I scooped up our now dressed offspring, made sure everyone had the surgeon general's recommended dosage of hugs and kisses, then stepped Saffron, Isnomi, and I down to the Dining Hall.

"Ouch." I wasn't hurting as much as I had been when I woke up the day after the battle, but things definitely hadn't returned to full working order. The Maids opening the doors as we arrived gave us a bit of stink eye for avoiding the doors, but I figured we weren't actually early, just cutting the line a bit. Also, none of the other Freshman Cadets had to deal with a morning of politics. After eating at a steady pace for about an hour, Saffron sighed and said, "I think we need to get there early."

I nodded, crammed a final mouthful of food in, picked up Isnomi and tilted my head in a 'why' gesture.

"I've got to write up what I hope is the final document for the others to vote on today." She stood up, walked around the table, said, "let me, love," and stepped us to the strategy tent, where Lancaster sat reading through one of yesterday's drafts while he ate breakfast. I gave Saffron a peck on the cheek and said, "if you don't need me for now, I'm gonna take our little menace for a walk." She smiled and said, "be good for Momma, my girl."

Isnomi, who'd kinda curled up in a pre-sleeping pose, stuck one hand out to give Saffron a thumbs up, then snuggled back into me. Of course, when we got outside, after about five minutes of walking through and around the camp, one of the Camden Yards soldiers recognized her, and their unit started a cheer, which spread rapidly and followed us around the camp. She ate it up, clambering up to sit on my shoulders and wave to the crowds.

We must have spent like an hour just wandering through the camp leaving smiling soldiers in our wake. Eventually we had to return to the command tent. Or, really, I felt like we ought to. Technically I'd come along to be the growly heavy if Saffron needed someone to stop being obstinate, after all. When I bent over to go through the tent flaps with Isnomi on my shoulders, I found all of the intra-city Council there and talking already.

George, the Drivers, and even Lancaster all looked at Ophelia like they wanted to throttle her, and Saffron's cool façade looked like it might crack at any moment.

"What's up, people?" Everyone started to talk at once, the Drivers and George quieting almost instinctively after a couple words, and Saffron deferring to Lancaster, who just plain overrode Ophelia.

"Lady Orange has decided that some of the wording of our document of rules is ambiguous." Some part of my brain immediately threw up page after page of endless arguments about the fuckin' US Constitution, and I asked, "are they?" Lancaster shrugged and said, "I suppose that technically they are, but any fool can understand what's meant."

Nobody in the room except Saffron and maybe Isnomi knew about my Isekai nature, so I scrambled to try and come up with an explanation that didn't include, 'back in the two hundred fifty year old Constitutional Republic I'm originally from' as part of the argument. Eventually, after everybody looking at me started to fidget, the best I could come up with is, "one thing you can bet on is that the universe will never stop making foolisher fools.

Yeah, everybody in the room knows what you six mean, but what about down the road when somebody new takes over a seat? What about when, eventually, you all grow old and die, and your replacements grow old and die, and nobody who even knows one of you six personally is left alive?"

"You seem to think this document will still be in use then," mused Lancaster.

"I can tell you that it sure as shit won't if you leave anything ambiguous in it." He sighed, closed his eyes, and his lips moved. Before he opened them again, a look of surprise crossed his face.

"I have spoken with Odin with the thought of having him be an arbiter over any disputes of our intent in Tabitha's imagined future, and have been told in no uncertain terms that Tabitha, and by extension, Lady Orange, have the right of things in this case." Thus began an entire day of nitpicking every goddamned word of what I hoped would wind up a constitution for our new little four-city nation.

I mean, better we hash this shit out now, and do it right, than leave Isnomi, or her kids, or their kids, to do it after a century or two of habit, custom, and precedence accrued. But it was still torturous to watch. A couple times I used the excuse that Isnomi needed fresh air to take another half-hour stroll around the army, still getting cheered, but now having some soldiers come up and want to shake her hand, or even mine.

Okay, they might have used her as an excuse to shake my hand, because a lot of them had seen The Dress during the battle. Lancaster's whole 'get everyone to recognize it' scheme seemed to have worked, and now every soldier in the Grand Army realized that they'd all get to go home because of what I'd done. Half hour breaks notwithstanding, by sunset I'd gotten so bored I almost fell asleep standing up with Isnomi on my shoulders.

Saffron and Lancaster insisted we needed to get the damn document done today, since not even Ophelia wanted to change what they'd decided on before, so all they had to do was find completely unambiguous wording for everything. As I looked out of the tent flap toward the gates of Newark, listening to them hashing out who would sign the final document where, and in what order, I heard a sound that I'd been dreading without realizing it since the day before Yule. George Papadopoulos let out a wheezing, hacking cough.