Chương 258: Day Two Hundred And Fifty-Six

Dear Diary, At some point I really need to start thinking about the consequences of my actions. Like, not 'how they affect other people', either, but 'how much that's going to hurt'. Seriously. Like, I kinda get why I do it. I'm just some chick from Camden, why the fuck wouldn't I go hard against all odds to save the fuckin' world? It's not like I've got a lot to lose. Except... I do, now. I have for a little bit, really. A couple months, at least.

Hell, half a year if I'm just counting my oddly shaped little nuclear family. But somehow it hasn't really sunk in. Or maybe whatever part of me is supposed to, y'know, worry about that shit? Got shot off when I got Isekai'd. Or maybe just kind of died of starvation some time before that, what with my pre-Isekai existence being Less Than Awesome. The really messed up part? For a kid from Camden, I had it not all that bad. Yeah, orphaned. Which sucks, I get it.

But my mom cared about me, even if I didn't get it at the time. My dad was gone from way back, but that combined with my mom not really replacing him meant I didn't get molested the way some of my friends did. Yeah, she died, but like I've mentioned she dumped everything she earned into an insurance policy so I had money to live on; definitely enough to keep me housed, fed, and clothed until I graduated High School.

Okay, maybe a pretty shitty version of housed, fed, and clothed, but that had at least as much to do with my own depressed refusal to do housework than any lack of money. I think about some of my friends back there and wonder what happened to them. How many of my friends wound up having kids before they graduated. How many had kids and dropped out. How many of the guys I knew followed the path of least resistance and started dealing, how many of the girls wound up turning tricks. Or, y'know, the other way around.

A couple of my ostensibly male classmates back at Eastside made for unbelievably hot chicks. Not fair, really, because I absolutely would have wanted that Hot Chick status, and I even had the right plumbing and a half decent rack, but back then I had no idea how to do shit like makeup, or accessorizing, or all those little things that come together to turn off the brains of anybody attracted to people of the feminine persuasion. I could kill all their asses at Call of Duty though. Especially the zombies ones.

Shit, did I miss my whole fuckin' calling when I started cutting ROTC? Yes, in case you're wondering, I am only now realizing that the one gift I absolutely brought over with me that's all me is my propensity for, as duBois can attest to, is 'wrecking people's shit'. But then, I never claimed to not be a dumbass. So last night was pretty cool. Dinner and a show, although not really in that order.

And, y'know, I couldn't really feed myself without hurting, but I had two hotties and a cutie-pie who were eager to put stuff in my mouth. Good god I can't seem to talk about them without entendres. Not even sure if they're single, double, triple, or quadruple with a scoop of whipped cream. I have long since stopped counting. Love you too, Boss. Anyhow, the traditional Phileo New Years feast isn't exactly what I'd expected. I mean, it's right around the beginning of spring, right? Maybe? Fuck if I...

wait, no, it's the Equinox, so it's definitely Spring. So, y'know, I'm expecting Easter Ham, or some other kind of 'roasted section of large mammal', with potatoes and veg and all that other good shit. What I got? Stew. Pot pies. Some really good bread pudding, which is not normally something I'd nom with wild abandon. Some odd meaty bits in 'aspic', which looks like jello, moves like jello, tastes... not like jello.

I mean, yeah, savory, which matched the meaty bits, and I could tell that whatever the fuck it was, it was the best possible presentation of it, what with, y'know, the Academy Maids being immortal handmaidens of the God of Getting Your Eat On who'd spent the last four hundred years practicing nothing but cooking, cleaning, and sewing. After my first bite, which I managed to not spit out despite the salty surprise, I asked, "the fuck? Isn't jello supposed to be sweet? I mean, this isn't bad, exactly. But..."

Saffron giggled a little at my confusion, spooning up another bite with a big meaty bit in it.

"Fruit preserves, certainly, but by now most of that's already been eaten. Besides, I thought I was the one with the sweet tooth?"

"Well, yeah, and trust me, I'm eternally grateful for the intersection of your sweet tooth and whatever freak occurrence set my natural flavor to 'pie', but I'm just not used to jelly and savory being, y'know, used to describe something." She chuckled as she fed me another bite. Stupid weird, what with the jelly tasting more like broth than, y'know, jelly, and the meat being suspiciously chewy.

After a bit more looking, I realized that a lot of what Marie had brought back in her cart qualified as 'shit you make when you've run out of ingredients'.

"Wait. This is all, like, leftovers, isn't it?" Saffron shook her head and said, "no?" Meanwhile Marie nodded and said, "maybe."

"Oh, hell, don't get me wrong. Our little Menace has the right idea. It tastes good, so stop asking questions and eat. Right Menace?" Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. She looked up from where she'd taken our distraction as an opportunity to nom a whole meat pie without even taking it out of the bottom shelf of Marie's cart.

"Mmmhmmm!" She had the manners to keep her mouth shut while nomming instead of talking with her mouth full. Instead she gave me a one handed thumbs up while darting into her room with the pie, Marie in hot pursuit. With the two of them, especially the Menace, in the other room, Saffron took the opportunity to ask, "How are you feeling, love?" I grinned at her, waggling my eyebrows.

"Oh, way better than when I woke up. Endorphins are a hell of a drug." She giggled at that.

"I am intimately familiar with the phenomenon, as you bore witness to, Goof."

"Kinda wish you could do that until I fell back to sleep. Might help with, y'know, the recovery, now that I've gotten some food into me." The Grin made an appearance.

"Who says we can't?" I looked at the door to Isnomi's room, which doubled as Saffron's office during the day, and she laughed.

"Are you done eating then?"

"Yeah I think so." She stepped over to me, lifted me from where I sat on the chair, and with the help of her and my cane I made it the three steps back to the bed. She used the sheets to slide me over, then pulled the blankets over top me. When she had me more or less centered, she climbed under the covers and snuggled up beside me. By that point the Menace had returned to ravage the remains of Marie's cart.

I watched, sore and tired but entirely unsleepy, as Marie pretended to defend her cart, letting Isnomi get to things a bit at a time until the little one's stomach bulged out a little bit, like one of those starving kids on late night TV commercials. At that point she kinda flopped over, and Marie closed up the cart and scooped her up.

"So, do you want to start the new year in your Big Girl Bed, my girl?" When she nodded, Marie delivered her to bed, tucking her in. She stared at us, a happy little smile on her face, as she slowly drifted off. Saffron nuzzled into my side and said, "see? Now... where was I? Oh, yes." She slipped into that incredible damn singsong again, "now you get what you asked for." Before I'd even quite stilled, she sing-songed, "I'll do this 'til you sleep, dear."

Yeah, I have no idea how long she kept that up, because I absolutely fell asleep somewhere in there. Hell of a fuckin' lullaby, lemme tell you. Mimic dreamt of growing. Which really shouldn't be a surprise, what with my antics on the first day of New Year's. But not, y'know, getting taller. Instead she dreamt of growing outward.

She flowed over all those mossy rocks to the west, slid more of herself into the lake to the east, and stretched further north and south than she had, resting much of herself against the rocks she'd used to scratch herself when Oliver had his clerical pals giving her the itchies. Some part of me wanted to figure that out when I woke up, but most of me? Just wanted to stop hurting. Because yeah, I woke up hurting. I sighed, tried to stretch, hell, tried to move a little bit, which my body took as stretching.

Stretching I was not in any way prepared for.

"Ow." I'd apparently slept until after Saffron woke up.

"Do you need more rest, love?" I nodded.

"Yeah. Sorry." She flicked me on the forehead with her finger.

"Do not apologize, my love. Ever. Not for this." She stopped, moved around to sit on my lap and pull my face into her chest.

"Do you know how many people lived in Calverton before the plague hit them?" I shrugged.

"Nope." Her voice quiet, so she wouldn't wake the Menace or the Maenad still snoring in the other room, she said, "the ten thousand odd souls who made it to shelter in Lancaster were the only living souls surviving from a city that boasted over one hundred thousand living within its walls." She took a deep breath.

"New Amsterdam, if you include the outer districts, which they do, harbors over a million people. Had you not done what you did? Nine in ten of them would have died. Perhaps more, as the refugees from Calverton were still dying before you Cured them."

"I..." I trailed off, trying to put what I wanted to say into words.

"You. Yes, you. You saved over a million from Sengann and Apollo. I could only wish you had caught them before they fled."

"Uh... about that." She froze, turning to look at me, something violent and visceral lurking in her eyes.

"Yes, beloved Mimic mine?"

"Yeah. I might have caught Sengann fucking around in M-Space before I did my whole mega-Cure thing." At the time I'd been pissed, but now that I thought about it? I felt kind of like I'd killed a gerbil. Or a kitten. Okay, a rabid gerbil or kitten, but still, nothing I could be proud of. Just something that had needed to be done at the time.

"Caught him?" I looked away, sheepish.

"I... Cured him." Her breathing had gotten maybe a little heavy.

"What did that do to him?" I shrugged.

"Not sure. I squished him after that. Not much left of him. Maybe some ashes or shit." I swear my Kitten's eyes crossed after that.

"Oh, that you could have visited such a fate upon the architect of the plague rather than the Primordial opportunist."

"Uh..." Her breathing was way more than a little bit heavy at that point.

"Do tell. Please, love?" I nodded toward the chair, where she'd hung my new cane on one of the rungs by its handle. Her eyes got really big.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I left him with Conrad and instructions to Cure and Heal anybody I missed. He dove for M-Space the first chance he got." She nodded, eyes wide.

"Conrad tells me Mimic didn't leave much of him; pretty much just enough to make that." She laced her fingers through mine, her other hand doing the same with the back of my hand.

"My beloved Goof, I insist you tell me if anything I do hurts you in the slightest, for I would not have your traditional Hero's reward marred by the slightest harm to you."

"Hero? Pfft. I'm no Hero. Just a Goofball with a hammer. Just the Imperator's Attack Dog." Her brows lowered, and her voice got really husky as she pulled my hand into the suspiciously humid space under the covers.

"We have today off. Did you want to sleep more?" I sighed and looked at the window, where the tiniest bits of light made it through the curtains.

"Yeah, kinda."

"Remember how I put you to sleep last night?" My gaze snapped back to hers, only to find her eyes closed, her teeth dragging across her bottom lip.

"Not about to fuckin' forget that any time soon." She opened her eyes, and her demure, downturned gaze did not in any way match what her hands were making mine do.

"Oh, it is my hope and intent that by the time you're fully healed they will all blur into an utterly enjoyable convalescence, my love."

"Uh..." She looked up at me through her lashes, The Grin in full effect as she proved herself fully capable of mashing more than one endorphin button at a time.

"It's time to go to sleep now."