Chương 536: Day Five Hundred And Thirty-Four

Dear Diary, With the whole tryna be a better person thing, along with following through on shit I intend or intended to do, I think I need to start paying things back. Not in any kind of grudge or debt or transactional way, more along the lines of I've gotten a lot of help since I wound up isekaied here, so I ought to go help others. Seriously, I haven't really done that since I got here. Like, yeah, I've helped a lot of people, I guess, but it's been incidental.

I saved the Army because I went on a rampage when I thought Oliver had killed Saffron. I Cured the Plague because I didn't want my family dying of curable illness. I fixed Lancaster's familial dysfunction because it pissed me off. I fixed Norfolk because it was in the way, and that shit also pissed me off. I Liberated Calverton... well, honestly, I didn't Liberate Calverton, except in the CEO kind of way. I mostly just pointed and said, 'go that way, very carefully', and other people did the work.

But it wasn't out of some idea of 'helping people' or 'paying it forward', more along the lines of, well, communicable diseases pissing me off. But along the way there, I did help a bunch of people. It turns out I kind of enjoyed it. Like, it gives me warm tingly feelings somewhere north of the crotch region, which is unusual for me to say the least.

I dunno for certain that it was me helping, or them being all appreciative, or maybe some really oblique Worship hitting me, but I made a connection between 'helping people' and 'I like this', so I'm gonna see about paying it forward when there's not some kind of crisis on the line, as well as confirming that it is, in fact, helping people that I enjoy.

Since I signed up for classes, today was gonna be my last official 'day off', although I didn't have a specific class any day except Tuesday and Thursday, and since I guess as a Hero In Waiting I was just auditing the classes, those weren't hard attendance requirements, but I still wanted to start getting back into a more school day schedule. With that in mind I headed to bed a little early yesterday. Not, like, super early or anything. I wasn't gonna pass up the evening soak in the Bath, after all.

I did want an early start, so at dinner I grabbed one of Marie's meat pies, and no that's not innuendo, and now I want it to be but can't figure out how to make it funny and or sexy, but I nommed it, then plead sore scars and traipsed off to the showers and thence to the bath. Wait, I guess nomming Marie's pie is an innuendo. Which I didn't do, because she'd stayed down mostly in the kitchen. Her kitchen, at this point, since neither Saffron nor I are really culinarily inclined.

I think she'd started letting some of the women assist though, which could only be a good thing, since Marie tends to rub off on people, and Marie rubbing off in the kitchen is now something I'm going to steal her away to do at some point. Yeah, I think all that dopamine must have started wearing off or something. Anyhow, as I settled into the steaming hot water of the Bath, boots hit the floor near the doorway.

Rolling over onto my stomach to look, vaguely hoping that Marie had picked up on my horny thoughts about her and hauled one of her creepy sexy still wet from last night bodies up here for some alone time before the kids finished dinner. Or Saffron letting me test out her flotation devices in a Bath big enough to be a pool. Neither of these were the case. Not even Siobhan testing out whether the hot water would make her more faint prone. Instead, Cailyn Crow stood in the doorway.

"Good Evening, Champion. I hope I'm not intruding?" I shrugged.

"Nah. But call me Tabitha. I get enough people blowing smoke up my ass on the regular, I don't need family doing it too." She raised one eyebrow.

"Family?"

"You're my daughter's big sister. There's probably some hyper specific genealogical term for it, but I'm not that kind of geek, so... family, yeah." She nodded.

"Ostensibly, I'm here to see my sister, but between the two of us, I simply could not resist trying your bath once Mother described it to me." I nodded to the room behind her.

"Cubbies for clothes in there, clean off in the shower beforehand." When she gave me a quizzical look about that, I explained, "this thing is already gonna be a bitch to clean. If we have people start getting in while they're all dirty, it's gonna get nasty that much faster."

"Ah. I'll be a moment then." She stepped out, then stepped back in a few moments later. What with her being my daughter's sibling, I rolled over, lay back, and closed my eyes. Yeah, part of that was to give her some privacy, but mostly its because ogling my daughter's sister seemed weird. Then again, we weren't blood related, and if the hot water did unto her as it did unto spaghetti, neither she nor Tallulah were unattractive. Just straighter than Karen.

Who was flexible enough to enjoy some time with Marie, not to mention the most recent all-hands-on-me High Clergy team building exercise, but I didn't think Tallulah or Cailyn really swung that way. She certainly didn't have any hesitation about following the house rules, nor about stepping into the Bath nude. I glanced over, at least in part to keep an eye on her to make sure she didn't fall and kill herself or some shit, because Reviving a Sidhe is a major pain in the ass. A little less muscular than Tallulah.

A little darker, both skin and hair. Looking at her hair I got the oddest thought that all the redheads I knew here and now were straight, or mostly straight anyhow.

"Like what you see?" I realized right then that I'd kinda disconnected from what I'd been staring at, and wound up actually staring rather than glancing or watching.

"Uh, sorry. Looked at first to make sure you didn't fall or something, then kinda got distracted thinking about something else." She laughed as she slid under the water, then emerged with her hair dripping.

"No worries, Tabitha. I've spent enough time in the Grand Council chambers to know you wouldn't want to ruin your reputation for respecting the Agency and Consent of others. Looking harms no one." Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

"Hey, I really don't give two shits about reputation. That shit just happens." I snorted, trying not to straight up laugh about that.

"Just Happened. Anyway, no, I'm serious about the Agency and Consent thing. Those are important. My biggest fuck ups have been when I inadvertently violated somebody else's." If she looked surprised at my vehemence for a moment, she hid it quickly.

"Good to know," she said as she closed her eyes and lay back, not unlike I'd been doing when she arrived. I followed her lead and lay back and enjoyed the heat on my scars.

"Cailyn? Cailyn!" I lazily rolled over at Ria's first tentative question, then smiled as she bolted for the bath. I didn't think, I just snagged her under the arms with a gentle shadowy tentacle.

"Nope. Sorry, kiddo. Get showered first. She did, after all." Ria looked like she was almost about to little kid grump a moment, but then surrendered with a quiet, "okay, Mama." I looked over to Cailyn as I scooted Ria back to where Saffron waited to help her shower down.

"Yeah, she started calling me that since the Revive. I don't mind one little bit, really." Her head twitched, like she wanted to shake it.

"You're... you're really her." I leaned my chin on my folded arms and settled in to watch my Kitten at work.

"Yeah. I guess I am."

"You're supposed to be this great terrifying thing." I might have smirked. Didn't bother looking to see if she'd noticed.

"You have looked over in M-Space? Underhill?" She snorted.

"Where you've... what, stolen some grain? Broken our threshold?" She got real quiet.

"Saved my sister."

"Yeah. Guess I did just that. Couple times, if you wanna look at it that way. She's a kid. She's my kid. It's what I do."

"And I'm supposed to be terrified at that?" I sucked at my teeth a moment, speaking low enough the kids showering couldn't hear me.

"I dunno. You gonna hurt kids? Or rape somebody? Or enslave them?" I had very mixed emotions when she said, "a certain councilman from Newark might convince me to do that last."

"You be nice to George. He's good people." She snorted.

"I swear to you now, Tabitha, my intentions toward him may not be innocent, but I do not intend him harm." She chuckled a little.

"Quite the opposite, really." I smiled and shrugged.

"Hey, so long as you're open and honest with him, have at. Just be gentle. He's a nice guy, but I don't know how experienced he is." With that our girl talk ended, or at least got a lot less intense, because Ria had finally rinsed off, and wound up half tackling her sister back into the water. Me, I just lay there until Maze and Lindsey joined me, at which point Maze and I talked about what she'd read from The Silmarillion. Because of course she decided to read them in chronological order.

Got to bed early, like I said. Dreamt of my ladies sitting around gossiping, dangling their feet in the Maw like a pool in a secluded grotto. Woke to Ria nestled between Cailyn and I, Marie and Siobhan behind her, Saffron behind me, and kids jigsaw puzzled in around us like one of those parquet floors. Enjoyed watching them all wake up, one at a time, each one waking the next, intentionally or not, like sleepy dominoes.

When Isnomi finished her boot up sequence, so adorably like her mom's, I murmured, "you ready to go visit your brother today, Menace?" She looked grumpy for half a second, then got a mischievous expression and said, "yeth!" I rolled my eyes.

"No bullying him. You know the rules."

"Juth a widdew bid?" I scooped her over to me, then proceeded to tickle her into submission.

"No bullying means no bullying, you incorrigible scamp, you." Marie helped both of us get dressed in our Academy uniforms, which is when I discovered that those rounded wooden walls that turned our bedroom from a square into a circle hid little closets. And by 'little', we're talking croissant shapes fifteen feet on a side and ten feet deep. Two of them held clothes, another had a little sewing area, a third had a bed and a toilet. For when somebody was sick, I guess. Useful to know about, at least.

First I hopped over to our Academy office suite. Saffron looked up from her coding windows and smiled.

"Hello love. Seeing to Ria's spearhead?"

"Yep. Coding again?"

"It is my second favorite hobby, after all."

"Whad da fiwth one?" Saffron's ability to face tank questions like that never stopped amazing me. She looked Isnomi right in the eye and said, "your Mama." Okay, look, I had to send Menace in to Conrad alone, because there was no way I was gonna walk into his Workshop laughing my ass off like that. Especially when both of them were staring at me like I'd lost my fuckin' mind. I guessed 'your mama' jokes weren't as big a thing in the here and now as they were back where I'm from.

Of course, once she went into the Workshop, Saffron 'walked me to the door' of the suite. Yes, she expressed very quickly yet thoroughly that coding is her second favorite hobby before shooing me out the door with a slap on the ass and a cheery, "have a nice day, love!" Wandered down to the Headmaster's office, knocked, and at his oddly weary, "come in," opened the door and stepped in. I felt a little bad, because while he wasn't haggard, he looked a little foxed around the edges.

Like he'd been doing just a little too much for just a little too long.

"Hey, Headmaster Miles. You okay?" He smiled.

"Just a little tired. All the Cadets. But... The end is nigh."

"Huh?" He laughed.

"Nothing bad; The other Academies are set to open after the turn of the year. So I've but one more Season of this overwork, and then things will be back to... well, not normal, since things have been shaken up a bit, but far closer to what I'd become accustomed to prior to your arrival." I nodded.

"I came down today 'cause I was looking to maybe help out. Sounds like you need it." I watched the clockwork Soul hiccough.

"Are... Are you suggesting assisting with administration?" I raised my hands, a horrified look on my face.

"Oh, hell no. I wound up in charge in Norfolk and on the Calverton Campaign, but oh, hell to the no. I was thinking maybe teaching a class or something?" He paused, and I watched as that clockwork Soul spun back up to speed, then raced way past what I'd be able to follow. After like a minute, though, he shook his head and smiled.

"You know, if you could see your way clear to teaching Basic Physical Training or Basic Combat Training, that would... Well, suffice to say I could shuffle things around to free up one of the more, ah, detail oriented staff to assist me with my duties." I laughed.

"No worries, Headmaster. I totally get why you don't want me doing that. But... You mind if I take the Basic Physical Training? I'm really not sure I'm up to teaching actual sparring techniques to Cadets who might or might not have any real skill yet, but I think I can handle 'run in circles, climb that rope, lift that weight, jump over that hurdle' without killing any of them."

"That would be lovely."

"And, y'know, if I do, I can always Revive them." I kept a straight face until he started to look nervous, then laughed.

"Joking, joking. I mean, I will if I have to, but I think I can handle basic PT without any casualties."

"Thank you, Champion. I'll inform the Marshall; your first class will be this Saturnday." I nodded.

"See you at breakfast Saturday then!" I felt pretty good walking back up to the suite, and even better when I realized I could spend the rest of the day playing booster seat for Saffron while she worked.