Chương 185: Day One Hundred And Eighty-Three

Dear Diary, I always knew Mondays sucked. My new life seemed like that had changed, especially with Loki turning out so chill. I guess Murphy noticed when I cockslapped his dog or some shit. So last night Grandma swung past after Bath Time and picked up Isnomi for a sleepover. Hijinks ensued. Marie may never be the same. Who am I kidding? Four odd centuries of Maiding aside, she's probably forgotten more than Saffron and I will ever know.

She still seemed a little surprised with the two of us pouncing on her though. We got to sleep later than normal, but definitely slept well after all the exercise. More dreams of chilling by the lakeside, although for the second night running no chibi hibachi chef Saffron. Maybe I need to try afternoon naps more often. Woke up to Grandma pounding on the door. Well, not really 'pounding', more 'knocking forcefully' before opening it and walking in.

I guess that even no-chill Grandma had both things she'd rather not walk in on and an upper limit for menace shenanigans. After ascertaining that all three of us were more or less awake and aware, she dropped a baggy-eyed Isnomi on the bed and left, probably headed to get some sleep herself. I crawled out of bed, pushed myself up the wall and snagged boots for myself and Saffron before collapsing face forward onto the bed again.

"More sleep." Saffron wriggled around until we lay face to stomach.

"More to do."

"Please?" She shook her head, which did interesting things to my belly, but said, "Council. Cures. Loki."

"Fuck." She smiled and made content Saffron noises.

"Did that."

"More?" She nipped at me, then pushed herself upright.

"Could you help me on with my boots, dear?" I rolled around until I knelt before her and, with many groans of complaint attempting to hide my far too blatant admiration of her general upper thigh region, managed to get her stockings on. Of course that's when the menace managed to crawl across Saffron's lap looking for additional noms. Saffron said, "Marie, could you be a dear and take care of Isnomi today?" I shook my head as I lined up Saffron's foot with her boot.

"I was gonna take her to see Sigyn today." All three of us looked at Isnomi, who paused a moment, her itty bitty brain obviously overwhelmed choosing between nursing, carting, and Sigyn. As I imagined steam coming out of her ears, I gave in and said, "Marie, could you bring her to me after breakfast?" She nodded and said, "Yes." I looked at Isnomi and said, "you've got until Marie finishes dressing, or I get Mom's boots on, whichever comes first."

I swear her eyes got twice as big, and the only reason she didn't cheer was that she couldn't with a mouthful of Mom nomming. Marie managed to finish dressing just before I got Saffron's other boot settled in place. I might not have been as quick as I could have been, because while I want to avoid being a villain? I know my weaknesses, and one of them is definitely Saffron's thighs. Just gotta hope nobody with vested interest in me being a Bad Guy figures out how to use that, I guess.

Marie held out her arms, and Saffron dislodged Isnomi, gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, and said, "okay, my girl, off you go." Marie leaned over for a quick kiss from Saffron, then plonked Isnomi on her cart and left for a few hours of doing Marie things. I stood up, then sat my butt down on the World's Least Comfortable Chair. I might have been pouting a little. I definitely crossed my arms over my chest. Saffron grabbed my boots and asked, "did you want me to help you put these on?"

I grumped out, "yeah, okay." At that point I realized I was being slightly less mature than the menace, and worse, being incredibly stupid about it.

"Sorry, Kitten. Yes, please and thank you!" She knelt in front of me and slipped my foot into the boot, then worked it gradually up my leg.

"What's wrong?" she asked, although her hand slipped a moment later as my heel slipped into the heel of the boot. She lost her grip on the boot and her hand wound up landing right between my legs. Very distracting.

"It's stupid." When she raised one eyebrow and patted me just a little before moving her hand to start with the other boot, I explained, "you got kisses good bye and I didn't." She smiled up at me as she worked the other boot past my knee.

"That's because they're going to be seeing you in an hour or so. I'll be leaving straight from here, so I won't see them until tonight at the earliest." I slipped my hands down to grip the chair, because not only was it silly to keep grumping over not getting doubled up goodbye kisses, without stockings my boots were a little harder to get on and off than hers.

"Yeah, that's why I said it's stupid." The Grin slipped across her face, and she said, "no, Goof. Making a fuss about it would be stupid, but wanting? That's not stupid at all. Also, thanks for moving your hands." I smiled down at her.

"Yeah, I really got to get some stockings, don't I?" The Grin amped up as my heel slipped into the heel of the boot and her hand 'slipped' again.

"I was referring to how much it improved the view." Yeah, I might have been a little late to breakfast. Fuck it, Worth. Also, that fucking chair might have left bruises, but it didn't so much as creak at our combined weight. Credit where it's due. The ROTC crew shot me a few appreciative stares as I walked in wearing The Dress. As I sat down Angel said, "I can't believe Saffron let you out of the room looking like that."

"I'll have you know this is clerical garb. Holy. Righteous, even." She snorted and threw a loaf of bread at me.

"Yeah, not what I meant and you know it." I stuck my lower lip out, imitating a pout I couldn't quite get behind.

"She's got work with the council today." For all her continued amusement, Angel still wound up sounding sympathetic when she said, "aw, that really sucks. But if anybody could walk away from you wearing that, it's Saffron." At that point Bill chimed in, saying, "Wait, doesn't she have Devotional duties today?" I let a grin stretch slowly across my face, because I sure as fuck wasn't able to stop it.

"Oh, she's definitely taken care of those." I swear Angel coughed so hard eggs came out her nose. Bill just let out a low whistle and said, "really? Her Goddess counts romping with you as Devotional duties?"

"What can I say?" I shrugged.

"Must be the results of me leading such a virtuous life." That got me pelted with an absolute volley of loaves from around the table. Okay, Bonnie threw the heel of a loaf kinda halfheartedly before leaning her chin on one hand, sighing as she scooped up another spoonful of eggs equally halfheartedly. I caught her eye and said, "what's wrong?" She smiled bittersweetly and said, "nothing, really. Just kinda torn between being happy for you two and maybe just a little envious." I snorted.

"Not like you're an old maid, Bonnie. You'll find somebody." She shook her head, but cut off what she'd intended to say, her mouth working a little before she settled on, "not with constantly being on one life and death mission or another."

"You never know. You might just find somebody where you least expect it!" She smiled that melancholy smile again and said, "no. No, I really don't think so. But thanks." She giggled at that point.

"At least you're open enough I can get some vicarious romantic thrills regularly." I struck a pose, the back of my hand against my forehead, and decried, "alas, my private life has been reduced to pornography for the other Cadets!" That got a laugh out of her. She scrounged up another loaf of bread just to throw it at me.

"I said romance, you, you, you... reprobate!" I shot her my best confused look and said, "yeah, wasn't that what I was talking about?" She laughed and rolled her eyes, and I turned to Bill.

"Hey, Bill. I need you to fill out the paperwork for the Cadets and Volunteer Units we'll be taking with us out to Lancaster House and get them to Marshall duBois before the end of the day." At his raised eyebrow I plucked at the shoulder strap of The Dress and said, "Saffron's may be done, but I still have Devotional Duties today."

"What about mine?" His question might have been serious, if he hadn't nearly been laughing when he said it, stuffing another big hunk of bread in his mouth.

"Are you really gonna spend the whole day fasting and praying today?" He shook his head, "nah. You're right. Who have we got?"

"Everybody at this table, plus Carruthers, Rider, Rosen, and Larry Lancaster. For Units, we've got our pick of up to twenty; get as many veteran heavy ones as you can." He nodded, then turned to his plate with the look of somebody intending to clear it as quickly as possible. I looked around the table.

"Raven, Fred, Bonnie, can you three give him a hand? He does have to do his Devotional stuff after all." All three nodded, and Raven sighed, turned to Bill and said, "just tell me what I need to write where." When I shot her a quizzical look, she said, "do you really think anyone at the table right now has better handwriting than me?" When everybody else nodded in agreement, I nodded agreement and turned back to shoveling in my own caloric intake for the day.

I doubt Loki would ever deliberately starve me, but sometimes we both lose track of time. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Speaking of time, when shall I expect you? As soon as I'm done breakfast, the menace and I will be there, Boss. He sounded oddly discomfited when he replied, I look forward to it.

After breakfast and leftover cleanup duty, Marie delivered Isnomi, the menace and I collected goodbye hugs and kisses from our Maenad Maid, and I stepped over to Loki's. The moment Isnomi saw Sigyn, she crowed out, "SIGGY!" and did a flying squirrel leap straight over to her. She reminded me more than a little of fuzzy memories I had of my own grandmother before she passed. Not really surprising, since Sigyn absolutely radiated Big Grandma Energy whenever Isnomi was in the room.

With Sigyn carrying Isnomi off to play with Mister Slither, I walked over to where Loki sat at the end of his bed, his chair set up under his butt, one elbow on the table from Yule. He waved me to my own chair, which sat just to his right. I hopped up into my chair and said, "hey, Boss. What can I do for you today?" He smiled, glanced at the trio being loudly goofy at the other end of the cave, and then looked back to me. His melancholy reminded me a little of Bonita earlier.

"Something troubling you, Boss? Just point me at it and I'll make it go away." That got a little more of a real smile from him. He sighed and said, "I've little for you to do today, but there are a few things I might do for you. I am, after all, your mentor as well as your Deity, am I not?" I shrugged.

"Sure. I can't think of anything I'm needing at the moment, though."

"You've been aching when you use Mana, especially when you Translocate or Co-Locate, have you not?" I thought about my step here, and replied, "Co-Locating's worse than Translocating. And I've gotten that back to the point where I really didn't notice much of a twinge getting myself and Menace here today." He sighed and said, "and yet, you did still notice a 'twinge'." I shrugged.

"Yeah. I overdid it. I'm still healing. I've just got to take it easy for a while." He shook his head.

"I'm afraid it might be slightly more serious than that. Are you familiar with the mortal idea of 'throwing your back out'?"

"Yeah?"

"So, are you aware that one of the major problems with that injury is that the unnatural positions you put yourself in can cause further damage, including self-perpetuating damage?" I thumped my head down on my arms.

"Shit." His huge, cool hand came down across my back, covering both my shoulders.

"It's not insurmountable. Part of what I hope to accomplish today is setting you on the path to true healing of those injuries you've taken. In addition, there are a few pieces of information regarding your Divine status which you may find useful, perhaps even critical at some point in the future." I looked up at him through the curtain of my hair.

"Tell me I'm not dying or some other bullshit like that?" He smiled down at me, his chilled hand massaging my back in a way that somehow combined zero sex with fantastically soothing sensuality. Weird.

"We are all, Gods included, born dying, are we not? The biggest difference given to those of us touched with Divinity?" He paused until I pushed myself just a little more upright, then leaned down to stage whisper, "we can do something about it." When I smiled, he sat back upright and continued.

"Now, before I do anything, I'll need to see what we're working with. I'll need you to drop your Blend, as well as Translocating and Co-Locating a few times while I observe." I pushed myself upright, and might have had more than a little whine in my voice when I said, "can't you just, y'know, God it back right?" He worked his mouth a moment before smiling and saying, "I could, but if I 'God it back right'? It wouldn't be right. It would be another layer of compensation on top of your existing injuries.

A crutch, rather than a poultice." He shook his head.

"If we had but moments? I could and most certainly would, if that were the only way for you to survive. But at the moment, we are not quite that pressed for time, so we will be doing this by far more mundane methods." I snickered a little at that.

"Fixing my soul by mundane methods? I dunno, Boss. Sounds a little sus to me." He responded to my snicker with a snort of his own.

"Well, what would you call observing you unclad in anything disruptive, then using my vast ill-gotten knowledge to apply simple pressures to your form which will then allow you to heal correctly?"

"Ill gotten knowledge? Isn't that Odin's whole gig?" He shook his head, adopting a spot on 'holier than thou' expression.

"Oh, no. The All-father sacrificed his eye and a lifetime to gain the wisdom he possesses. Me?" He grinned and laid one finger alongside his nose.

"I stole it all." I laughed, kind of as he intended me to, I think, then dropped my Blend. I was sitting opposite where I'd sat on Yule, and instead of stretching out behind me, a shadow stretched out in front of me, leaving me looking at a chunk of the room in wireframe-vision. The weirdest thing was seeing my own fuzzy nose in wireframe, yet still seeing the trio at the far end of the cave playing in full color.

Once I was sure my Blend was completely down, I looked at him, again seeing him in full color, and said, "okay, Boss. what do I do now?"

"Move the chairs back against the walls, please?" I did so, carrying them all out of the way one at a time. The whole 'everybody's chair is unique and made for them' is really cool, and handy when it comes to everybody being able to eat at the same table at the same time, but it meant carrying two at a time was a pain in the ass, and carrying more than two was right out.

While I carried the last one, Isnomi's high chair, to the side, he lifted the table like it was made out of Styrofoam and turned it so the long side faced him, then set it as far out as he could easily reach.

"Up on the table with you." I braced one hand on the table and jumped up onto it. As I straightened I realized what he was talking about with the whole 'moving oddly to compensate for injury' thing. I had to talk with somebody, maybe Sister Siobhan, maybe Doctor DeLeon, about my normal physical injuries, because a few things just felt not quite right. When I stood centered on the table, he waved me down to the end furthest from where my shadow entered the room.

When I got there he said, "now, as slowly as you can, Translocate to the far end of the table." I shrugged.

"Okay." I'd never tried Translocating 'slowly' before. Seemed kind of counter to the whole purpose of the thing. But I moved like I was trying to walk across a creaky floor without making too much noise, slowly shifting my weight from my back foot to my front. I felt myself shifting, actually saw my foot arrive at the other end of the table in wireframe milliseconds before my whole viewpoint shifted. That hurt, a combination of the ache of exercising an unused muscle and the slight spike of injury.

"How's that?" He sucked in two huge lungfuls of air, then blew them out in an equally huge sigh.

"Well, I wasn't wrong. Either about you doing yourself further mischief or, fortunately, about it being correctible. That said? You may wish to let your lovely wife know she may have to join us here when she finishes her work." I winced.

"That bad?" He nodded, but smiled softly.

"Worry not, Tabitha Diaz. Not only are you my chosen High Priestess, my chosen Champion, but you..." here he stumbled to a stop. His normal understated self control slipped, and his smile twisted. Not out of any kind of rancor, but out of some deep pain.

"You have claimed me and mine as family. Not out of desire to have me in your debt, or to pay some debt to me, but..." He stumbled to a stop again, and I saw the kind of light burning in his eyes that I usually noticed in folks who weren't too tightly wrapped. Then, before he spoke again, I realized something that shocked me as much as he seemed to be.

He wasn't unhinged; he was if anything completely grounded, entirely focused on a single fact that mattered more than everything else in the fuckin' universe right here and now.

"You called me kin, because to you, we are. It ill befits a hearth god to not respond in kind." His smile grew until it utterly eclipsed his normal slyness.

"Especially when I feel the same way, Tabitha Diaz. Tabitha Lokisdotter." Ah, shit. I couldn't leave my man hanging after that. I stepped over to his lap, one foot on either of his thighs, and wrapped my arms around him, my head against his chest. Okay, I wrapped my arms as far around him as I could. Man's still a fuckin' giant, after all. So I knew exactly how gentle he had to be when he wrapped his arms around me in turn, laying a cool cheek against the top of my head. Time is weird in Loki's place.

We stayed like that forever in just a few moments. Eventually he pulled back, hands on my shoulders, and said, "thank you, Tabitha Diaz. Now, shall we get back to your rehabilitation?"

"You got it, Boss." I stepped back to the table, all the twinges grumbling now that I knew what to pay attention to.

"Wait, shouldn't that be Dad?" He opened his mouth, but thought better of it. Couldn't leave it like that.

"Wait, no, Father? Shit, that makes me sound like a Dickens character, and I'm way too street to not wind up dead in a Dickens novel. Poppa? Ugh. Even worse. Ooh, what about," I did my best slinky pose and purred out, "Daddy"?" From the other end of the cave, Sigyn laughed and called out, "if my husband is your father, I am your mother, and I am not averse to spanking you if you misbehave!" I switched my pose to her and purred out, "Ooh! Mommy Kinky."

When she chuckled, I put my palms on my cheeks and uwu'd out, "Step-Mommy! What are you doing, Step-Mommy?" That got her. She doubled over laughing, eventually just flopping onto the floor as Slither and Menace used her like a less-than-stable jungle gym.

"Enough, scamp. I did not lie about how long we are likely to spend putting you on the path to becoming... whole once more, Tabitha Diaz." I did not fail to notice his hesitation. I turned to him, setting aside my eGirl act for the moment.

"Speaking of names, don't you mean 'Mimic'?" He sighed, shook his head, and laced his fingers together.

"No. No I do not." I took a quick glance at my Status.

"Still says so on my Status sheet. If I'm not Mimic, who the fuck am I?" He shook his head, then said, "I'd hoped to teach you more, perhaps ease you into this more gently, but it appears you are too quick for me to deter forever." He looked up to gaze into my eyes.

"Do you trust me, Tabitha Diaz?" I paused just long enough to let him know I'd taken his question seriously.

"Absolutely."

"More than you trust your wife?" I held up my hands.

"Hey, hey, hey, let's not get crazy now." He smiled, "as it should be. But more than anyone else?" I thought about it.

"Maybe Marie. But yeah. Pretty much."

"Would you entrust your soul to either of them?"

"In a heartbeat." He paused for no longer than that.

"To me?" I took a deep breath.

"That's what I use to shape Mana, right? You're going to need to fuck around with that to fix me, yeah? So yeah, I guess I do, since I didn't even put up a token fight about you doing just that." What the fuck was it with melancholy smiles today? He spoke quietly, far too quiet to carry to the far end of the cavern.

"You, Tabitha Diaz, are of Mimic. Part of... her, I suppose I should say, since you are the only part which has claimed a gender. You are quite obviously the avatar she has chosen to see her will worked on the world. But," he held up one index finger, then pointed to the tip with the other one.

"Is this me?"

"I mean, yes and nooooh shit, I think I get it." I looked straight down the shadow connecting me to the wall.

"Wow. That's some deep, heavy shit to take in, Boss." I turned back to him.

"Do you mind Boss? It... just kinda seems right."

"As honored as I am to have you as a daughter, yes, 'Boss' does seem more natural now that you mention it."

"Thanks, Boss. You're the best." His mischievous smile returned.

"I know." I paused in thought for a bit, then asked, "so, I'm just a puppet or something?" He shook his head, "no. Far from it, really. I've read some of the works of your world regarding theories of thought, of consciousness. To her, you are an appendage. A finger, a limb, a way to work her will in the world. To you, she might be closest to your subconscious. That part of yourself that you are never truly disconnected from, but rarely fully connected to." A sudden realization struck.

"What about dreams?" He nodded.

"Dreams are often thought of as a connection between the subconscious and conscious minds. Not to mention being a connection to one's higher self, if such a thing exists. Which, in your case, it most certainly does." I snorted.

"higher self. High as fuckin' balls self, you mean." He just raised an eyebrow.

"Explain?" I shrugged.

"For, like, months now every night I dream about just chilling by a lakeside. All chill, no fucks given. Vaguely curious about the stars, absolutely nomming shrimp treats Saffron throws me without thinking about it, like a stoner do." He sighed, but it sounded more like relief than melancholy this time.

"So, no sense of direction? No connection to a vast consciousness giving you Mar..." here his eyes went wide and he snorted, barely holding back laughter.

"What?" He held up a hand for patience until he got his laughter under control enough to speak.

"Sorry. Just thinking about the absolute futility, even for the eldest of Primordials, in trying to give you, of all people, Marching Orders."