Chương 421: Day Four Hundred And Nineteen

Dear Diary, YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME? - Terry Pratchett, Hogfather Funny, I'm reading those self-help books off and on when I've got a minute, trying to tap the wisdom of the ages and shit, and here I find this banger when I stop that for a day and grab up one of the Pratchett novels I scored with the Black Dragon. It's another one like the Bruce Lee quote about Truth being dynamic.

Just because every bit of evidence in the world says 'Shit Pyramid is the Ultimate Expression of Deityhood', like it's some kind of God Crab or something, doesn't mean that's where I have to go. It doesn't mean that it's the only way. I can believe something is right and good and real, even if there's no evidence for it. Fuck, according to STP I have to believe it, because if I don't? It's not going to become. Shit, I can literally will things into existence. Want it, visualize it, have it.

Yeah, it takes some effort, some Mana, some information, and some force of will, but I can do literal fuckin' magic. Pretty sure... no, wait, absolutely sure I can do literal fucking magic too. So yeah, all those things I want to have happen, I need to believe in them, believe that they can and will happen in order to make them happen, in order for them to become. But there's a danger to that, too. I've seen it.

Whether it's the neo-hippie woo 'Visualization' or the neopuritan 'Prosperity Doctrine', there's a recurring human idea that if you believe in something hard enough, it comes true. That if you don't believe hard enough, it won't. That if your dream didn't come true, it wasn't the economic hole you started in or the disability you were born with or the assholes who vandalized your shop because you were different or any of the other bullshit that can fall under the category of bad fuckin' luck.

It was you not 'believing hard enough'. Or not being 'worthy' for some other bullshit reason. And what comes next is that anybody with wealth, or power, or fame is just better than everybody else. Superior. More worthy. No matter what asinine toxic bullshit they pull, it's okay, because they're 'Good'. They must be, because how else could they have gotten so much wealth, power, and fame? I wanna say the difference is 'hard work' or some other quantifiable thing I can say 'yeah, that's the True Way'. But...

Bruce Lee. There is no 'True Way'. You can believe in unassisted flight all you want, work your ass off in the gym, but if you step off the edge of a building, you're gonna plummet, not pull a Neo.

You can believe your little shop is gonna pay your bills and make people happy, and work your ass off every day stocking the shelves, running the register, doing everything you can, and still have the whole place burn down, and it doesn't matter if it was from a junkie's carelessly discarded butt or a hate filled firebomb, you still lose. But ain't shit gonna happen if you just sit there and whine.

So last night after the revelation that I am, in fact, squarely on Team Himbo, despite being a proud carrier of two X chromosomes, a factory issue vagina, and the inherent ability to scare H. P. Lovecraft shitless, I requested and received sweet, sweet oblivion courtesy of my beloved wifies' bestest Skills. Yes, I know her Mana Shaping is higher, but she has yet to use that one to knock me unconscious in a way I'm aware of. Frankly, if she used it somehow last night?

I'm putting it on the record right now that I'm down for that. Mimic dreamt of chibi Chefs and an ever tightening cordon of Kraken in the waters of Calverton. Woke up in the morning rested and de-stress-ted. Yeah, not my finest, fuck off, I felt good. Scars weren't even hurting that much.

When Menace came through as our first customer of the day, I pulled her into my 'office', which is a weird way to think of a tented over towel, but it's not like I've got another office somewhere, and said, "Isnomi, can you do me a favor today after breakfast?" She nodded solemnly, and I said, "I need you to get every kid in Lancaster House to join us in the boy's club." At her furrowed brow, I explained, "the big room upstairs with all the sofas and little tables."

"Oh. Ah-tay!"

"Can you do that for me? I need to be sure we get all of them. Their parents can come if they want. But I need to talk to them about what happened yesterday, and what we're gonna do to keep anybody from getting too dead to play any more." She rolled her eyes a little at that last bit, and I wondered exactly how fast this little mini-bitch was maturing, and whether I'd need to have the fuckin' condom talk before she was in fuckin' pre-school, but that was a challenge for another day.

She just lifted her were-they-ever-pudgy hands up to my cheeks and said, "ah gad dis, Mama." I smiled, gave her a kiss on the forehead and a hug, and said, "I know you do. So proud of you, Menace." After that everything went more or less smoothly. Maze said she'd help keep kids together while Menace rounded them up, Anna gave me an update on the planned outing, Devorah tried to finagle me into copping a feel, Chloe decided to spill tea about Lachlan. Or brag. Or something.

I got a quiet giggly yelp review of the man's skills, which seemed... oddly attentive? Weird, but not bad, I guess. When we had everybody together, which meant not just the kids we'd bathed, but the younger refugee girls, a few kids who stood out from their peers due to clean, mostly neat clothes and several fewer layers of grime as kids who'd stayed the night at some point recently, and the rest who weren't, like, filthy or anything, but clearly didn't bathe first thing in the morning every morning.

I leaned down and waved Menace over.

"Is this all of them?"

"Yus!" I ruffled her hair and gave her a little boost back toward her posse. Then I leaned my ass against the arm of one of the big chairs, so I was still tall enough they could all see me, but I didn't look quite so loomy.

"Okay, everybody. Does everyone know what happened yesterday with Liam and Daya? On the steps?" Daya buried her face in Marie's skirt, but I wasn't really worried about her doing dumb shit any time soon. Liam sat in front of his father, who'd settled down on the floor right behind the posse. So weird seeing him there nodding along like the rest. A couple of the kids looked a little lost, so I said, "raise your hand if you don't know." I put mine in the air as an example of what I meant.

At least two of the kids raised their hands, and a few others looked like they wanted to, so I gave them the quick explanation.

"Daya got shoved through the balusters. If Liam and I hadn't been there, she would have gotten hurt. Probably would have died. Liam might have as well." I paused.

"Any questions?" One kid raised his hand and when I pointed at him, asked, "who shoved her?" I shook my head.

"I don't know, and honestly I don't care. Nobody was angry, nobody was being mean, everybody was just excited for lunch and rushing down the steps. It was an accident. Shit happens." I looked at him until he nodded.

"Okay, so the reason I called you all over here is because we're going to be making some changes and putting some rules in place. Who noticed the new mesh through the balustrades?" I nodded toward the railing, and a couple kids looked, while most of them nodded and raised their hands.

"Okay, that's one of the first big changes. Any place somebody could accidentally fall and hurt themselves where we can put something in place to make that not happen? We're gonna put something there to make that not happen. The railings will get that mesh. The furniture is going to get some padding, so if somebody trips and hits their head they're more likely to need some healing than a coffin." I hated to keep harping on the death thing, but these kids were mostly five or six years old.

From what Saffron said they'd already lost friends, maybe family. I needed them to understand that shit didn't need to happen.

"So..." Marie looked at me, so I shut up and nodded at her.

"Rugs." She tapped her toe on the floor, and instead of the expected tap of the floor, I just heard a muffled thump.

"Okay, so we'll also be putting down rugs, so if somebody faceplants, again, Healer instead of Undertaker. So everybody gets it, there is absolutely no reason any of you kids, or any of your little siblings if you wind up with them, need to wind up dead. Or even hurt real bad. We've got enough Healing in the House that nobody should stay hurt. With me so far?" Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Some of them looked skeptical, but all of them nodded.

"We're gonna need your help though. if somebody's hurt, bring them to an adult, and have them bring them to one of us. If they're hurt real bad, get them to us fast. By 'us', I mean anybody who can Heal. Me. Saffron. Anybody in a Hero or Cadet uniform, like Lachlan... Hero Lancaster is wearing right now." My favorite Himbo raised his hand and waved around the room.

"That includes Bonnie and Larry. Heir and Heir Consort Lancaster." One of the moms who'd come along shot her hand up at that. When I nodded, she blurted out, "surely you wouldn't have us disturb the Lord or Lady!"

"She absolutely would." Bonnie entered the discussion from just inside the Heir's suite. Everyone turned to look at her, and she continued.

"And I absolutely agree with her. Larry and I aren't the healers that Tabitha and Saffron are. I think even Lachlan is better at that than we are, but," she sighed, then continued just a little quieter, "we can Heal enough to keep someone alive long enough to get them to someone who can do better." She paused again, and then, very much the Lady of the House, said, "Understand, that is what I, the Heir-Consort, expect you to do. I don't care what we're doing, interrupt us.

The books are only important because they help keep people alive. Same with the whole war. So if someone is hurt? Even more so, hurt badly enough to maim or kill them? Get them to us. We will do whatever we can, whatever we need to, to fix things."

"We will." echoed Larry, who stepped up behind her and put his hands around her. If that brought a little more attention to her belly, maybe that would get the point across to moms in a way they could understand. More eyes watching kids meant more eyes watching her kids. Not that I thought Bonnie thought that way, but the moms of Lancaster House probably thought she did.

"Okay, everybody got that?" When I got nods all around, even if some of them were tentative, I said, "So along with bringing us hurt people, or letting us know about them if they're hurt too bad to move, if any of you notice something where someone could get hurt? You come tell one of us. Tell an adult. Tell one of the maids, one of the butlers, tell Marie or Oscar or somebody, so we can work together to find some way to fix it.

Or even just make it a little less dangerous, because we've got some really good Healers. Do any of you guys remember Angel? Cadet Mac Conno? Woman about so tall?" I held my hand out.

"Really strong?" That got a round of nods.

"Okay, last Fall Equinox? She got her arms cut off, and the Academy Infirmary put them back on." Saffron raised an eyebrow. The Infirmary, love? She was in the Infirmary. And Sister Siobhan and Doc DeLeon are pretty damn good at what they do. And Doc Z is in residence two days a week at least. You don't need to convince me, love. So humble. I shrugged. Meh. So deserving of rewards. Oh, yeah. That's me. Totally humble. I am the humblest. I have trophies for humility. You do? Yeah. Back in my room. Wanna come look?

She grinned at me, her eyes fluttering half shut. One of those two things, certainly. While Saffron and I flirted silently, the rest of the audience gasped and muttered in horror and surprise; they'd seen Angel, and her arms certainly worked better than anybody except maybe Lachlan and Carruthers. Okay, maybe me at this point, but I'd gotten a lot buffer since the Expedition to Lancaster House.

"So. Get us to the hurt people. Help us find problems so we can fix them before somebody gets hurt. And finally... the stairs." Everybody kind of leaned forward at this point.

"The stairs are the stairs. There's not any way I can think of to really make them 'safe' without also making them kinda useless. So we're gonna have to have a rule, one that the adults mostly follow already. No running on the stairs. No playing around on the stairs or railings. If you can reach a railing and you have a hand free, you put one hand on the railing, and you walk, even if you're not on the steps yet. I might not be here next time somebody yeets themselves over the railing, and that's a long, long fall.

You won't just wind up dead, you'll have time to get really scared while you're falling. Not a good way to go." Like you wouldn't fix that too. I absolutely fucking would, and I absolutely do not want them going through that. So many rewards. I tried not to let thinking too much about that show on my face as I said, "Okay, what do you do if somebody's hurt?"

"Tewwa 'dult!"

"That's right, Isnomi. Now, c'mon, everybody, what do you do if somebody's hurt?" This time most of the kids joined in on the chorus of 'tell an adult'. If some of them got a little shouty, I gave no fucks about that.

"C'mon, everybody! What do you if somebody's hurt?" This time even a few of the moms got involved, and I swear I heard Lachlan join in.

"Good! Now, what do you do if you see something that might hurt somebody?" Liam raised his hand, and when I pointed to him he called out, "tell the staff!" I tilted my head, but nodded and said, "they're probably the ones who know how to fix it best, you're right, but don't be afraid to tell any of the other adults. I mean any of us. We'd rather get interrupted by that than by one of you getting hurt. So, everybody, what do you do if you see something that might hurt somebody?"

I lifted a hand to my ear with a smile, and got a rousing round of 'tell' followed by a total mishmash of 'somebody', 'an adult', and 'the staff'. Honestly, I wasn't sure who really could fix things, and spreading the word around about something could help in its own right, so I called that a win and moved on.

"Okay, what's the rule on the stairs?"

"No wunning!" shouted the Menace. Right after that Liam hollered, "hold the rail!" As I was about to ask everybody to repeat that, I saw Daya raise her hand. I pointed at her and saw her lips move, but the kids were still excited, and I couldn't hear her.

"What was that, sweetie?" Despite the carpeting, I felt the floor rumble a little. I'm not sure whether it came from Marie, Menace, or both of them, but everybody shut right the fuck up. In the silence I heard Daya whisper, "watch for little ones." I pointed at her and nodded.

"YES! That's exactly what I mean about calling things out. It doesn't matter if you're going slow and holding the rail if somebody bigger than you knocks you down. It doesn't matter if they were too. So keep your eyes open for others, especially the ones littler than you." As I saw nods starting, I said, "So, what are the stair rules?" I held up one finger and got a chorus of 'no running'. As that died down, I raised another finger and got 'hold the rail'.

My third finger got a chorus that was a little disjointed, but most of them said something like 'watch for littles', so I called it a win, because I didn't want to lean too heavy on Menace and Marie testing the kids' bladder control to keep the meeting going.

"Okay. That's all I needed to tell you guys. Thanks for listening, and try to remember everything, okay?" They all agreed, and Menace led the kids on an absolute berserker charge that had all the adults chuckling as it turned into a very polite, excessively slow march down the steps to the foyer. I heaved a sigh.

"Welp. Time to get to work." Saffron held up a hand, and I enjoyed how she deliberately let me pull her right up against me.

"I suppose so." Maze had run off with the other kids, so I Blended and ghosted one of me along behind them as they played tag and some kind of skipping game that got them all ejected to the courtyard when they tried to draw on the floor with some chalk the kids scrounged up.

Marie and I hopped to the mast, and for the first time in days I took up the watch, leaning back against Marie, who leaned against the mast proper with her arms wrapped around me, doing her dead level best to make every part of me other than my binoc hand and my eyes go utterly limp. All three of us towed Lachlan and Carruthers off to the work site, and if we lost some time to Lachlan and I talking about Liam's heroism while we dug, screw it, we had a roof down at Lancaster House if it snowed before we finished.

Finally, Saffron and I hopped to her office and she settled in to coding. I thought about reading, but couldn't really get in the right mood after having to run the meeting this morning.

"So much work to do," Saffron muttered at one point not long before lunch time.

"Yeah. I wish I could help you more." She chuckled, and I enjoyed what that did to her ass on my lap.

"Not really what's bothering me. I enjoy doing everything I do."

"Uh... okay? Is the problem anything I can help with?" She sighed, giggled, and confessed, "Oh, definitely."

"Okay?"

"Screw it." She flung her hands across her coding windows, leapt out of the chair, pulled me up by my shirt, then walked me backward until I backed through the adjoining door with a crunch. At that point she just threw me onto the bed.

"I'd rather be rewarding my Hero." Late in the day, sweaty and satisfied, I lay there chuckling.

"So many rewards. I think I'm gonna get addicted. Gonna have to go do more Heroic things."

"Oh, but we haven't finished with the Rewards you're owed yet." I pulled back just a little.

"What you talkin' about?" She shook her head.

"That reaction makes it seem like you don't even want them."

"Oh! I want them. I really want them. Wanting rewards is what I do best!" She rolled her eyes.

"So you will be accepting them, then?" A little bit of guilt tried to worm its way in, and I said, "oh, no. Definitely accepting them. Would be rude not to. I'm a polite fuckin' bitch, ask anybody. Way too polite to refuse rewards." She laughed.

"Okay then. Best get you ready then." I looked down my own front.

"Uh... mostly ready already?" She chuckled, Grinned, and shook her head the tiniest bit.

"Why am I suddenly afraid I've just leapt into the briar patch? What do you have planned?" She gave me an absolute 'butter wouldn't melt in her mouth' look and said, "me? Nothing. Well, not much. But..."

"But?"

"Lachlan owes you a Reward." I don't know whether to keep my mouth shut or not any more. I'm fucked if I do and fucked if I don't. Yeah, I know. World's tiniest violin.