Chương 329: Day Three Hundred And Twenty-Seven

Dear Diary, Only a few more days until the Norfolk troops and ships are ready; probably a good idea for me to get my shit together. Yesterday after teasing Sister Siobhan until she toppled over from blood rushing everywhere but her brain, I kinda wanted to relent and let her go back to the Infirmary, but she got stubborn and refused.

"It's okay, Sister. Saffron and I can fix the worst of whatever these guys get up to. Worst case, we'll stabilize them and bring them down to you." I reached a hand down to help her up. She pouted up at me as I lifted her to her feet.

"No. This is my duty, to see to the health and welfare of the Academy's Cadets. I won't let a little teasing stop me from that." I just lifted an eyebrow.

"Or a lot of teasing." I turned back to watch the sparring Cadets.

"Two words is a lot?" She shot me a prim look.

"The right two words, yes." I lowered my voice and resisted the urge to snuggle Saffron under my arm. We were still keeping an eye on the rest of the Cadets, after all.

"You know you're not under any obligation, right?"

"Didn't I just say..."

"I didn't mean that." I think my favorite thing about Siobhan had to be how easily she blushed.

"Oh. Why would 'obligation' even be something I considered?"

"I mean, why else would you?" She blushed more. So cute.

"Because I find your passion for everything endlessly fascinating."

"You seem a little scared though." She nodded.

"Oh, I am. Terrified, really. I've never done anything of the sort, and I'm deeply worried that I'll disappoint you." I chuckled a little.

"Nah. It's not that hard. I mean, it's not even like I'm a guy and you're gonna have to work with equipment you haven't before, right?" She went quiet. Like, quieter than normal. After a little, I glanced over and saw she'd gotten even redder. We stood there like that for a while, watching the Cadets work out not just how to work with the holds I'd shown them, but the pressure points and other shit that flowed naturally for each of them, which is what I'd hoped would happen.

I mean, yeah, me taking a sex manual and deriving fighting techniques from it is natural for me, but I'm just that kind of freak. Everybody needs to learn what works for them, y'know? Which isn't all that different from sex, if you think about it. I'm not sure at what point a lonely clue wandered into my brain, but I looked over at her and the clue blossomed into suspicion.

"Wait... wait, wait, wait." I couldn't really believe it, but I kept my voice low enough that with the assorted grunts and cussing coming from the sparring nobody'd hear anything.

"You mean you've never?" The Sister shot me a look of irritation, frustration, and exasperation that practically defined the sentiment, 'duh'. Before I could even come up with a response to something so alien to my brain, Saffron broke down laughing. Okay, she didn't 'break down', but she snickered, then snorted, then let out a real bark of laughter before getting herself under control.

"The fuck, Kitten? I mean, I'm at a loss, because... why? But you shouldn't be laughing at her." She chuckled again before saying, "oh, no. I'm not laughing at her. Not specifically. I'm laughing at both of you. Apologies, Sister. You, at least, have an excuse."

"Nani the fuck?" It took Saffron a second to get her giggling under control, because her laughter had totally degenerated into giggles.

"You'd best be done with Calverton by Summer Solstice then." I rolled my eyes.

"I'd intended to at least get it to the point where it's down to clean up. But why?"

"Because I'm quite certain if we lock the pair of you in a room on the Solstice, it'll clearly be the Equinox before either of you gets up the nerve to do anything." Then she broke down in giggles again. Quiet ones, that didn't do much more than some subtle jiggle physics I only knew about because I knew the truth of the magnificent mammaries hiding under her jacket. Before I could reply, before I could really do more than splutter, Marie chimed in from behind with, "Spring."

At which point the Saffron practicing submission holds in the Love Shack lost her shit laughing.

"Hey!" She got her Love Shack self under control long enough to look around the room and say, "I'll miss not being able to use this place until Spring. But needs must." I'd never actually seen Marie laughing that hard before. I just hung my head, sat there on the edge of the bed with my head in my hands.

"Oh, god. I'm a Useless Lesbian, aren't I?" At which point Saffron pulled my chin up and around and kissed me. No, love. You're far from useless. You've just shown yourself to be as hesitant with new partners as you are decisive on the battlefield. I pulled away, our foreheads pressed against one another.

"Yeah. Useless Lesbian." She huffed out her annoyance.

"If you keep saying that?"

"Yeah?"

"I will be forced to demonstrate the wide variety of uses you can be put to until you admit to being a very useful 'Lesbian'." She fake glowered at me, which left me only one recourse.

"Useless Lesbian." So, uh, yeah, duBois pre-lunch lecture about not knocking the Healer out fell on mostly deaf ears. I did feel a little guilty, so I walked her back down to the Infirmary after the four of us had eaten, before class started back up again. I'd been a little worried about folks waiting there for her, but it turns out when there's not any kind of illness going around, most of the Infirmary cases are, in fact, generated in the Practice Yard. So we had a minute before I had to get back.

"Look, Sister, I get it if you're not interested any more." She blinked.

"Why would you think that? I mean, I was thinking the same thing, but in reverse. But of course I still want to. I think. But that has nothing to do with you." Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"So why the hesitation, if it's not me?" She shrugged.

"I think it's what I want, but I have no idea." I stood there for a little bit, more confused than ever.

"How do you not know?" She threw her hands up in the air, "because I've never done anything like that before!" That reminded me of her admission in the Practice Yard.

"Wait, right. Wait, like, really nothing?" She just stared at me.

"Not even any experimentation alone in your room when you were, like, eight years old and shit started tingling when your cute friends got sweaty enough for you to smell them?" She mouthed the word, 'eight?' then said, "eight years old? Precocious, weren't you?" Before I could reply she shook her head and said, "wait, no, don't Bag mature faster?" Then her eyes got real big and she blushed for an entirely different reason.

"Oh, Canta, no, I didn't mean it like that."

"Like what?" She threw her hands in the air.

"I was a sheltered child. I think you are the first Bag I ever spoke to. Frankly I don't know what's offensive and what's not!" I shook my head, stepped up to her, and laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Sister, that's like the last thing you need to worry about. Do you treat Bag different?"

"Not that I'm aware of!"

"Do you try to be fair and shit?" Her shoulder trembled a little under my hand.

"Yes!" I pulled her in and hugged her.

"Then for now? You're fine. I'll let you know if you do or say something that offends me, okay?" She nodded, suddenly still and silent.

"Although you'd be better off asking Saffron or maybe Grandma Aetos about local Dan bullshit." When she made a quizzical noise, I said, "I didn't actually grow up in Camden Yards. A bit further away. Far enough that there were whole different racist dynamics going on." She made another little noise into my chest. Meanwhile I'd realized what I'd done and thought about it a second. I hadn't pulled her to me with any kind of smexy times intent.

I'd seen her working herself up into some kind of hysterical self-flagellant frenzy, and interrupted with a gesture of comfort. Totally why I'd done that. I'd do the same thing for Angel, or Bonnie, or Raven. I tried really hard not to think about how many times I'd entertained idle thoughts about shenanigans with them. Okay, not Raven. I'm not that masochistic. I stepped back, holding her shoulders. She might have left her hands on my chest a little longer than could be explained by needing comfort.

'Comfort', maybe, but not comfort.

"You okay? I gotta get back to class."

"Yes. On one condition." I opened my mouth, paused a moment, then said, "I was gonna say 'name it', but then I figured you might ask for something we'd need to lock the door for, but screw it, I'm really not a rules kinda girl anyhow. What condition?" She backed up to her desk, propping her ass on the edge of it, bracing herself with her hands.

"You don't want to wait for the Summer Solstice now?" I laughed.

"Well, shit, everything I said still applies, but trust me, I've done way shadier shit. Since that conversation, even. Although I really do have to get back to class at the moment." She chuckled, and it had a definite fuzzy edge to it that I normally associated with Saffron in a mood or Marie being, y'know, Marie.

"Can't you be in two places at once?" I rolled my eyes.

"Well, yeah." I stepped back to the Practice Yard, because class had, in fact, started back up, and it wasn't fair for Saffron to be the only one on duty to fix injuries.

"But, y'know, I might be a dumbass, a standards challenged dumbass even, but it's come to my attention that when it comes to, ah, intimate activities, I've actually got some standards to maintain."

"Uh..." I laughed just a little.

"I don't want to be distracted the first time." She raised a brow, trying for an arch look.

"But the second time distraction would be fine? For that matter you're so certain there will be a second time?" I thought about exactly how many uses Saffron and Marie were putting me to right at that moment and let that seep into my smile.

"Sister, I've got a Wife and a Concubine, and to hear them tell it, I'm the least thirsty among the three of us." That got the blush I'd been looking for without realizing it.

"Oh. Oh... I was going to ask you not to question my... commitment to our... assignation?"

"Let's call it a date?" She blushed even more.

"Yes. Let's. So, my condition is that you stop questioning my commitment to our date." I chuckled a little at that.

"Date it is. Barring some bizarre shit coming up, because that's never happened before, as soon as the semester is done?"

"I look for... I look forward to it!" I smiled, shot her a quick salute, and collapsed into the me in the Practice Yard.

"Sorry, Kitten."

"For what?" I shrugged.

"You know, chatting with the Sister." She reached out, took my hand, and Co-Located the two of us to our bedroom, where she plonked us both down butt first onto the edge of the bed.

"Stop doing that."

"Doing what?" She leaned against me.

"Saying you're sorry for doing something I've already said doesn't hurt me." I shook my head, slowly, trying to fight my disbelief.

"How can it not?" She took a deep breath.

"If Hilde had been older, and secure in herself, would you have been jealous?"

"Well, yeah?" I thought about it.

"Maybe? No? I'm not sure."

"Would you have been hurt?" I knew the answer to that one.

"Nah. She's totally hot. I think envy might be a better word." She snorted.

"Like I wouldn't share. Like I wouldn't have to; she was hanging all over you, if you'll recall."

"I still don't get that." She tilted her head and twisted around to look at me.

"Really? Do you doubt my taste?" I sighed.

"Yeah, pretty constantly."

"Marie's?" I snorted.

"Yeah, her too."

"All the women and men I've seen casting surreptitious glances your way when you're wearing The Dress? Especially when you've decided that two pieces of silk are far too many?" I snorted.

"Yeah, right. Okay, maybe I get some stares when I'm really blatant about it. But..." Her fingers over my mouth shut me right up. She swung her leg over to plant her butt on my knees, put a hand on either of my temples, and stared into my eyes. Then the images began. Most of them just flashes, almost all of them folks I didn't recognize, just people in Phileo, in the Yards, at the Academy, in the camp outside Newark, at Lancaster House, even folks in the crowd on Johnson's Green.

I'm not sure how much time we lost like that, but by the time we finished, the sky outside our window was black. We'd kind of finished class on automatic, and apparently that whole 'compilation of fools falling for Tabitha's thirst trap' wasn't something Saffron needed to pay all that much attention to. She just smiled at me.

"See?"

"Are you sure you're not jealous, Kitten? I don't want to hurt you. I really, really, really don't." She put her arms around me.

"Love, I think I finally understand Mrs. Driver." That took a minute, but when I got it I said, "wait, really?" She nodded.

"Absolutely."

"What happened to 'mine, mine, mine'?" She sank her teeth gently into my earlobe for a moment or two, tugging at me just enough to let me know in no uncertain terms that she was, in fact, being gentle.

"You are mine, love, but I've discovered I am not jealous. You are so wonderful I want to share you as... a way of bragging, I think. Like having guests at our mansion, or showing off our works of art, or sharing meals prepared by our magnificent mutual Maenad Maid Marie." I snorted again.

"You make me sound like I'm the fun one." She just smiled at me.

"C'mon. You've got Skills. Multiple."

"And yet, without you even Mimicking them, I find your attentions more pleasant than my own."

"Yeah, how would you..." I stopped.

"Really?"

"I am a sane, rational woman. Of course I would compare and contrast. What made you think I wouldn't?" I shook my head.

"I... probably coming from a world riddled with prudes, honestly." Right about then Marie stepped through the adjoining door to the sounds of Menace snores, and from both that her and one that had Translocated silently in behind us said, "Duh." As Marie closed the door behind her, Saffron put on an obviously fake grumpy face and said, "well, that's no good. I can't show you off properly if you're going to have these prudish impulses all the time." She paused, serious a moment.

"Unless you want to be? Prudish?"

"Oh, hell no."

"Good. Well then, we'll have to get rid of those then. Agreed?" Before I could reply, Marie said, "Agreed."

"Do I get a say?"

"You just had one. So no." I couldn't help it, I collapsed to the bed, laughing. A long, languorous laughter filled time later, we all snuggled in to sleep. Mimic dreamt of Marie and her Sous Chefs tempting me away from the shit pyramid with endless shrimp. I spent Friday in the Practice Yard again, this time deliberately working on Swift Foot and Strong Arm. No Skill up, but this time by the end of the day I wasn't blocking the doors, because both of me running managed to run up the wall over the door each lap.

I wondered exactly how fast I might wind up when I actually managed to get Swift Foot skilled up. I mean, I wondered that until I remembered that I am, in fact, a dumbass Juvenile who cannot get Skills.