Chương 264: Day Two Hundred And Sixty-Two

Dear Diary, Does everyone go through the whole, 'why are they looking at me like an authority figure' thing? I'm such a fuckin' mess. Thinking about being rich and powerful? A literal turn on. Actually being in a position of authority, where people are looking to me for answers? Weirds me out like nothing ever has. Maybe 'cause I'm the only one who knows exactly how often I'm making shit up as I go along?

So yesterday after Strategy and Tactics let out, which was later than normal for a class, and way later than normal for a class mostly attended by Senior Cadets, Saffron and I stumbled home escorted by Marie and the menace, since Marie had clued everyone in to it being 'end of day' by arriving with dinner. Apparently one reason the Dining Hall isn't filled completely every day is because Senior Cadets wind up staying in class through meal times.

Which is cool, I guess, having Maids bring us our meals, and I suppose in some ways it's even cooler that Marie herself brings us our meals most times, which explains a lot of what her daily Marie things included. Of course, we didn't get served whole trays of food; instead she brought in one covered plate per person, and if I wasn't getting the same quantity of eats as when I hit the Dining Hall, the quality more than made up for it. Not only that, but apparently each of us got our own special whatever.

I mean, some of the Senior Cadets got the same thing, like I saw a few with some kind of individual sized chicken pot pie, and another couple had what smelled like French onion soup. A couple folks had different fish dishes; one had what looked like breaded, fried fish filets, another had some kind of grilled fish, and Saffron got, like, a whole steamed fish with the skin still on. I'd seen that on cooking shows, but didn't know people actually ate that until I saw Saffron doing so.

She didn't really eat the skin, or at least not much that I could tell, but she folded it back and the inside of the thing smelled heavenly. As for me, I got a whole fuckin' overloaded plate of shrimp and veggie tempura, with some sushi along one side.

When Saffron saw a couple others giving me some side eye about shit literally falling off the side of my plate when I opened it, and a bit more when Marie stayed and fed me stuff bite by bite, my awesome wife just announced, without singling anyone out, "Cadet Diaz is presently near-paralyzed as a result of her actions on the Equinox. While we expect her to make a full recovery, at present she can't very well feed herself, and she needs to eat quite a bit to heal."

That put paid to any of them getting a real bug up their asses about me getting fed, but it did kinda derail the class discussion even more than dinner did, since they started asking about what I'd done, then about how I'd done it.

She spun them a yarn that started by reminding them that I'm the High Priestess of Loki, and explaining that as such I can bestow any Boon Loki could, and then going off on a tangent about Loki being the son of the source of all Jotnar, Ymir himself, who obviously as the Primordial of Ice was really fuckin' big. Like, the overall volume of a here-and-now glacier, which were apparently way fuckin' bigger than back in my old world where we'd accidentally melted most of that shit.

The Marshall dismissed class after that, noting that another aspect of Logistics was keeping track of your troops' Endurance and never pushing them to failure unless that made the difference between winning and losing. He also kinda implied that if you had to push your troops to failure to win, somebody had fucked up somewhere, and if you're the one in charge, that means all fuck ups are ultimately your responsibility.

I guess he kinda realized that even with all of us having the kind of Endurance that comes with duBois Physical Training, we still needed to get a full night's sleep every night to keep ourselves in tip top shape. Or, y'know, to recover from being a legendary dumbass. Marie left the menace with us and headed back to the basement to do more Marie things, and Saffron stepped the three of us back to our room.

"Did you want to try walking to class tomorrow, love?" I thought about it a second, then replied, Yeah, I'd like to, but I'll have to make the call when we wake up. No saying I'll actually be able to. Yeah, my jaw still ached too much to move, really. Saffron undressed me, having the menace take each article of clothing to the dirty clothes pile one at a time.

I figure she could have just yeeted them there, what with me lying over the foot of the bed close to the adjoining door, and her basically standing almost in the door in sight of the dirty clothes pile, but she wanted Isnomi to feel like she was doing something important rather than being ignored. By the time she finished, Marie came through the door with her tub atop her cart.

They washed me down first; mostly Marie holding me in place or moving me, since she could do so without any real effort, which meant she could be super gentle about it. Meanwhile Saffron and Isnomi grabbed up sponge and washcloth and made sure I got scrubbed down really well before Saffron upended a couple kettles of steaming water over me to rinse me down. Y'know, I never really thought about the fact that Saffron and I don't really hide ourselves from Isnomi.

Yeah, she's one, and one year olds really don't have a thing about nakedness yet, but she's also way more advanced than that in the noggin. Hey, Kitten? When do you think we should start, y'know, worrying about Isnomi seeing us naked? Whyever would we worry about that? I mean, it's a private thing, right? Yes, but she's family. Are you uncomfortable with her seeing you naked? I thought about that for a bit while Saffron washed Isnomi and Marie combed out my hair. Not really?

More that I think at some point it should be weird, even if I'm not weirded out by it? Do parents hide their bodies from their children where you're from? Yeah, most of them. Do you think we should? I thought about that for a while, especially about how many young women, hell, young men as well, had body image issues. Honestly? Probably not. Unless she feels some kind of way about it. Which I guess we just gotta watch out for, since asking her about it would just put the idea in her head.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Well then, I'll keep a close eye on her, just in case. Thanks, Kitten. Thank you for mentioning it to me, love. I would never have thought of it had you not mentioned it, and we might have upset her unintentionally. Isnomi being Isnomi, she was full on chatty with Saffron while getting washed, and then right after being toweled off she just kinda slumped over asleep.

Warm water, warm towel, warm Mom, I can totally see why, but it still made me smile. It made me smile for entirely different reasons when Marie left me sitting in the chair and went through the whole extended bath routine with Saffron. When they were done and she was dried off, they carried me to bed and put me to sleep. I could get used to being terrain, I think? Meh, probably not, normally I can't sit still long enough for it to count. Mimic dreamt of something that smelled bad down to the south.

Not sure what the fuck's up with that. When I woke up, I still felt stiff, and shit hurt when I moved it, but it 'hurt when I moved', not 'hurt so bad that I had to force myself to breathe'. So I got to turn my head enough to watch Saffron wake up. Probably my favorite thing to do in the morning, and yes I'm including Saffron and Marie. Not like we could anyway, what with the menace having crawled in with us and cuddled up between us under the blankets.

After waking up and me greeting her with a far more active kiss than the day previously, she said, "Marie?"

"Yes?"

"Could you please bring up breakfast for us?"

"Yes." She got herself dressed and left before I even managed to rooch myself down to the foot of the bed. Saffron and Isnomi teamed up to dress me, and I managed to sort of return the favor by tying Saffron's shirt for her. She called it good exercise. I called it nice to be able to do for others when I couldn't do for myself. Marie got back just as we finished dressing, and we all sat down for breakfast.

I managed to get about half of mine in me before I called an audible and had Marie feed me the rest of my eggs and scrapple. Still, while my hands ached a bit, it felt like a good exercise ache once I'd finished breakfast, not like I'd reinjured myself. With breakfast done, Marie left with the menace in tow, and Saffron gave me my cane and put herself under my other shoulder.

Apparently Advanced Mana Shaping is not just in a top floor classroom, it's held in a room just below the lookout posts on the top level of the Academy's towers. What with us having top floor dorm rooms, after walking to the dorm entrance we just had to hit the stairs and go up two flights to get to the classroom. Enough walking that my legs hit that same level of exercise ache, but other than wincing a little when I had to bend my knees to sit down, nothing I couldn't handle.

Neat thing about the classroom; it had windows in the inner wall, letting us look out over the Practice Yard, and not-very-coincidentally showing us we sat on the same level as the Ley Lines. We only had like twelve other people in class with us. Apparently while it's a requirement, it's also one where they kept the class sizes smaller. Shortly after the last of the Senior Cadets arrived, Doc Roberts walked into class looking a bit winded.

"Good Morning, and welcome to Advanced Mana Shaping." One of the Senior Cadets raised their hand. When Doc Roberts nodded, she asked, "why are there so many of us in this section?" That kinda floored me; so far the only classes smaller than sixteen that I'd seen were the Remedial classes, which made me think this was small. Apparently yet unsurprisingly I was wrong.

"While you're correct that Advanced Mana Shaping is normally a six person class, I couldn't bypass the opportunity to have as many of you as possible work with not just two High Priestesses, who can demonstrate and possibly even explain Divine Spellcasting should any of you want to replicate a Divine Shaping for your individual projects, but also with an Archmage, who can show you what it requires to reach pinnacles of Shaping even I have not managed to personally achieve."

The woman looked a little weirded out by that.

"I didn't know there were still any living Archmagi." Doc just nodded, then said, "as you'll learn in the general academic portion of this class, it is infrequent for there to be more than one Archmage in a generation, and often they are not lauded immediately everywhere in the world, as while they manage to create or sometimes improve a spell covering a wide enough portion of the world to be considered 'Global', it is not truly available worldwide.

My own generation, for example, has not produced an Archmage who has made themselves known to Phileo as of yet, and you are correct that the previous generation's Archmage died emplacing an improved version of 'Inspect' over most of eastern Atlantis." At that point Saffron snorted quietly and muttered, "if it's improved, I'm glad I never saw the earlier version."

The woman who'd been talking with Doc turned to face Saffron, and while she seemed to recognize her from the Moving Up ceremony, did not look at all awed or happy.

"Forgive me, Imperator, but who are you to judge an Archmage's life's work?" Doc Roberts cleared his throat, and when the Senior Cadet looked at him, he smiled and quietly said, "she would be the first Archmage of your generation, Cadet Smith.

Which means that while she still needs to put in her classroom time here for full credit for the course, she has already completed her Advanced Mana Shaping Project, and if Canta himself signed off on her Global Healing Divination Spell, I can't see where I could possibly give her a failing mark for it." Cadet Smith's eyes went a little wide at that, and she turned back to Saffron to say, "sincerest apologies, Archmage Aetos. I... I didn't realize."

Saffron just shrugged, because she's classy like that, and said, "No offense taken. It's not like the old version of Inspect would have shown you the title even if you had reason to cast it on me." That got everyone's attention. Words sliding from his mouth like he didn't want to say them aloud, Doc Roberts said, "old... version?" My Kitten just nodded regally.

"My new one isn't ready for release. Yet. But it does include both any titles a target may have, as well as the ability to determine what those titles mean in practical terms." At that point I managed to get my cane up in the air in lieu of raising myself.

"Yes, Cadet Diaz?"

"Hey Doc, what qualifies something as being eligible for an Advanced Mana Shaping Project?" He smiled at me and nodded.

"As I suspect you have guessed, the creation of a new Spell, although most Cadets recreate an existing Spell from scratch. That, in fact, would be why the Mana Shapes taught in Heroic Skills at the Academy are substantially better than the versions used by most of the world. Not every student project is an improvement over the older Spell, but with a dozen or more new versions being created every season? Some of them are bound to be, at which point we begin teaching the new version to new Cadets."

Apprehension and pain caused me to cut myself off as I asked, "Uh... does...?" He nodded again.

"Yes, Tabitha, your Mana Blade does, in fact, count as a completely new Spell. Given its obvious utility, you as well have finished your Advanced Mana Shaping Project to my satisfaction. I'd actually hoped you could show the rest of the class that as well as demonstrating Divine Spellcasting?" I shrugged.

"Sure, Doc. Might not be able to do much today, but once I'm back in shape I'd be glad to demonstrate."

"Excellent!" He then turned and started in on his first lecture, going into detail about what did and did not count as a 'new Spell'. Honestly? I kinda tuned out about a minute into it and just settled into the least uncomfortable position I could and let his enthusiasm wash over me like a pleasant breeze. On the one hand, that meant folks were gonna want me to explain how I did shit, and I didn't think they'd accept, 'no idea, I just did it'. On the other hand?

I'd already passed the practical part of the class, and at a guess that meant more than the rest of the thing put together. Everything was coming up Tabitha. Which, I realized as we wrapped up for the day as I watched the sun going down? Did not make me as sanguine about the future as it should.