Chương 29: Day Twenty-Nine

Dear Diary, After yesterday's multiple headband fiasco, we tried switching things up in the afternoon, each of us braiding two headbands together and wearing them like that. It kinda worked, but by then everyone else copied us, so we didn't have much of an advantage. We did pretty good though by going with our 'two Healer, two Caster strategy, but each of us having a Tank headband as well.

Angel and I focused on coordinating our shots; if she hit them first, I could take them out entirely, and if she missed, I usually got them while they recovered from the dodge. It didn't work as well as I'd hoped, but it didn't not work, so I wasn't all that upset. Not upset, but definitely hot, tired, and sweaty. I stumbled to my room after dinner, stripping down the moment I stepped into my room. No more than a few seconds later, Marie knocked on my door.

For those of you wondering how I can tell the difference between Marie and Saffron knocking, I wish I could tell you I had some kind of super-secret Mimic-sense that told me who was outside my door, but the truth is a lot simpler. Marie has got to be at least seven feet tall. If Saffron is five foot in heels I'd be a little surprised. I guess either one could fool me, although Saffron would probably need a ladder. Anyhow, I let Marie in and, once she had the tub on the floor, more or less collapsed into it.

The first kettle of water poured over me, a balm on my aching muscles and not much else. I don't know if she spent more time massaging my back than normal, or if I just slept through most of the scrubbing parts. She'd stepped up her already impressive soap game; she kept the honey, but added something else that tickled my nose as she scrubbed my mop of hair. It took me a while to identify, something I blame on the Dining Hall and maybe my new nose not having smelled it before. Some kind of pepper. Spicy soap.

Capsaicin. While Marie worked over my scalp I mustered together the words and willpower to force a coherent sentence out of my mouth.

"Where'd you get peppers?" Okay, not much of a sentence, but coherent and to the point. Her fingers slowed, and I swear her response sounded almost bashful, as if my question scared her.

"Camden." After a bit she asked, "Bad?" Her slowed fingers never quite stopped, and my brain wanted nothing so much as to shut down for a few hours, but I forced out, "No. S'good. Oughta be inna food." Whatever she managed to pull out of that, she returned to her scrubbing, although again I'm not sure whether her scrubbing to massaging ratio remained constant. I am sure her massage hit me harder today than it had in the past.

Despite the faint tingling in my scalp where she gently ran her claws against it, I spent the rest of the bath half snoozing, barely registering when she leaned me back and started in on my front. Between the warmth, the massage, and my exhaustion, I didn't really wake up until Marie lifted me bodily from the tub and set me on my chair so she could comb out my hair. I don't really remember anything after that. I woke the next morning atop my pile of blankets, wearing nothing but my birthday suit.

Well, my new birthday suit, my old one having gone missing that day at the aquarium. That prompted a question that niggled at me until I woke up, wondering if my age counted from my new birthday or my old one. That question nibbled at me while I got dressed, balled up my dirty things, dunked them down the laundry chute, and headed for breakfast in the Dining Hall.

It took up so much of my attention I didn't even notice the crunch of the door opening, and completely didn't wonder at all about going to sleep during my bath and waking up naked in my bed. None of the ROTC crew showed for breakfast, and some of the goblincore Cadets had migrated over in our absence. I didn't so much as look at them as I took my normal spot, but they spread out and gave me room. At a guess, each table could seat twenty Cadets if they were friendly and careful with their elbows.

The gobbo table normally held about that many, where most of the other tables had between ten and fifteen. The Cadets around me backed away a little further when I started my normal breakfast routine, cramming food in as fast as I could swallow it. I swear to god they looked like they were afraid I would mistake them for food. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. When Marie came by our table and set a tray directly in front of me with a shrug and a muttered, "Improvised."

they all scooted back a little more, although that might have been from the pungent aromas coming from the tray; it held shredded meat in a thick sauce that oozed down over the meat as I watched. With everyone else looking at the tray like it might bite them, I pulled it closer and shoveled some on to a slice of bread, then nommed down as much as I could in a single bite. My eyes watered a little, and my scalp beaded with sweat, but oh, the heavenly taste of something with a kick made it all worthwhile.

Lest I be misconstrued, the Dining Hall food regularly got top marks on the Diaz scale of food rating, for what it was. Which was six eff food, but really well done. Salt, garlic, onion, butter, sugar, maybe even the tiniest bit of black pepper or mustard on the meat, but for the most part, the stuff hit the table spice free. So, yeah, good, awesome even, but a little bit dull.

This stuff, which I inexpertly guessed was pulled pork absolutely drenched in some kind of spicy barbeque sauce, wasn't just six eff spicy, it was good spicy. On seeing me eating the stuff and not dying or turning into any more of a rampaging beast, the Cadets next to me made motions to try some.

While I wanted to put the fear of Diaz into them for trying to steal my food, I realized that the stuff was on one of the communal platters, despite my commandeering it for my own, so I nodded permission, since any moment my mouth was empty enough to talk I stuffed more pulled pork into it.

By the time I'd cleaned the platter, maybe a quarter of it found its way around the table, with some of the gobbo kids taking one bite, wincing, and guzzling water, while others chewed at it more thoughtfully and finished what their peers didn't. One kid even seemed to like it, although he may have been making up for the fact he was the smallest of the lot of them, trying to show how tough he was.

When the Dining Hall closed down, I headed for the street, letting the guards know I'd be heading to my usual South Street, South Ninth Market meetup as I left. Loki met me as I left the park again; I had a couple questions for him today, and decided to get into them before we got into the smaller streets with more people.

"If you shapeshift when you Blend, do you change age categories?" Credit where it's due, he thought about that for a dozen steps before replying.

"Not unless it needs to for me to Blend in. It would be weird for one of a bunch of little kids to have an Adult running around with them, after all."

"But is it, like, a superficial visual change, or would your Status change too?"

"You know, I've never checked my Status while Blending? I mean, those of the Deific persuasion tend not to at any rate; the exponential nature of the numbers means we're all within a few points of one another, and those numbers are well above most Mortals in any case. But my educated guess is that it would, since I would need to Blend to anyone Inspecting the crowd of tots I'm hiding in." I thought about that a bit before asking, "Can you change shape other than Blending?"

He smirked while replying, "I didn't Blend my way into being a mare, you know." That confused me for a moment until I remembered Sleipnir's parentage, at which point I snorted out a laugh.

"Does your Status screen change then?"

"Again, not something I'd thought to check, but I doubt it does unless I'm specifically doing so."

"Huh. How do you go about shapeshifting, anyhow?" He grinned at me.

"Oh, so you're trying to steal all your Patrons secrets now?" I grinned right back.

"You know it!" That had both of us laughing for a good half block, mostly ignoring the few passerby.

"Seriously, though, whether using a Spell or some kind of Skill, it usually involves changing my self-image, at which point my actual self changes to match."

"Huh. That's not the way..." I trailed off.

"Hmm?"

"That's not the way I thought it would work." He looked at me, one eyebrow raised.

"Really?"

"I mean, as much as I thought about how shapeshifting would work, I didn't think about it working like that at all. Truly." He smiled again.

"Are you trying to lie to your Patron now?" What the hell, it worked before.

"You know it!" We laughed a lot today. I have no idea why both of us found me saying 'You know it!' so funny, but we did. Also, Loki managed to not only bring me a cheese steak for lunch, he scored us tandoori chicken for dinner. In case I don't say it enough, my Patron is Best Patron.