Chương 537: Day Five Hundred And Thirty-Five

Dear Diary, Y'know, I know I said I want to give back, to pay it forward, to help others like I was helped. It's true, it really is. No questions. I want to do that shit, and I know helping others gives me the warm fuzzy feelings inside. So why am I so fuckin' terrified now that I've volunteered to be a teacher at the Academy? Like, seriously, I'm basically alumni there. A proud Phileo City Heroic Academy graduate and everything.

I mean, yeah, I'm technically a 'Hero-in-waiting' until Inspect shows me as a fully fledged Adult, but it's not like anybody expects me to pass any more classes. I guess if I really fucked up somehow over the next however long it takes, they might rescind that. Maybe.

Given the state of affairs when I arrived, with a Goddess whose primary Boon to her High Priestess was Aura of Sexual Assault wound up labelled as the 'Goddess of Love', I'm thinking I'd have to do some really serious shit to get more than a shrug and an 'oh, well, I guess she's just like the others'. Which, by the way, is something I'm low key terrified of more or less constantly. Seriously, it's like Her Dark Fatassness wants me to just climb on top of the pile and shit on everybody else.

Like nobody realizes that it is well within the grasp of Humanity and Humanity-Adjacent folks to clean all this shit up and have a standard of living at least approaching what I grew up with. Fuck, better than that, really, because yeah, there won't be an internet or video games or television, but there will be Actual Fucking Magic.

Even if Magic in the here and now is a little less 'wave a wand, get stuff' and a little more 'know the Shape, form your Mana into that Shape, stuff happens', with a side order of 'ask a God, they do the hard work for you', it's still fucking Magic. Between me and my partners, three of us can literally Cure the sick and Heal the injured with an effort of will. Even if we're too late, Reviving the dead is an option. Even if we're too late for that, there is a legit afterlife. Multiple ones.

People who've lived long enough and practiced hard enough wind up with Skills that let them do shit like Marie's stitch witchery. Which, to be clear, I'm not sure how many people get that good, but even like, normal human lifespans ought to get somebody good enough to make some seriously nice shit. All that's true, and yet somehow when I got here they had quality of life shitty to the degree that 'homeless orphan' wasn't even worth doing more than filling in a line on my Academy paperwork.

Like, it wasn't 'oh, shit, how did that get fucked up like that', but just 'oh, hey, I guess that's why you chose the Goddess of the Hunt, so you could catch more rats to eat'. Shit, Saffron actually told me that's why she chose Diana, I think. Not in so many words, but pretty much 'yeah, I picked Diana just in case I couldn't find work to feed my kid'. So yeah, I worry about fucking up so bad I wind up stalling the whole 'climb up out of the sewers of the past into a bright new future'.

Which leads me back to worrying about fucking up the whole 'teaching phys ed so Headmaster Miles can get a break'. Got back to the Homestead in time for dinner, which was, uh, I can't remember the name of it. I know it's something they had back where I'm from, where you take a really good cut of steak and kinda broil it, then cover it in, like, a not-steak mash of herbs and veg and, uh, mushrooms, I think, then put the whole thing in pastry.

Like, the only way you could up the difficulty level on this shit is somehow include chocolate, spun sugar, and bread. Although I think pastry counts for that last one. Marie nailed it, of course. I'm not sure what cut of meat it was, or if she managed some kitchen witchery to improve some other cuts enough to work with the recipe, or what, but she laid those all the way down the center of the table. The kids ranged from a quarter slice for Ria all the way up to a full slice for Alex and Menace.

Didn't want to spoil it by saying anything, but definitely felt proud of Menace for actually chewing and tasting. Because holy hell that shit was good. I had two slices, and I'm pretty sure Siobhan of all people did as well. Tallulah showed up for dinner, with Cailyn gone. She only ate half a slice of the steak pastry, but then I'm pretty sure she and hers all kinda go light on the meat.

Once everybody got themselves pleasantly full, I headed up to the Bath; Menace, Tallulah, and Ria followed with me, the rest kinda hanging around digesting for a bit. Tallulah and I helped Ria and Isnomi shower, then settled in to soak while the kids swam around.

"So... Cailyn filling in for you back in Rich Man's Port?" Tallulah nodded.

"You planning on Ria doing the same someday?" She shook her head.

"I don't think she has the temperament to enjoy it. Cailyn does."

"So what's Ria gonna do?" She shrugged.

"That's for her to decide, really, but since you ask, I think she'd enjoy being a Hero. Should she find it to her liking, she might even prove to follow in your footsteps and return to Rich Man's Port and teach others."

"You planning on building an Academy?"

"I'm not sure. We're a much smaller City than Calverton or Norfolk. We haven't the resources to support a hundred Heroes, I don't think. Not Phileo style ones." If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I nodded my understanding.

"Nobody says you have to. Maybe a smaller Academy, or... Huh, there's a thought."

"What's that?"

"Well, all the big Atlantean Cities have ships, and while some of them are combat ships, none of the Cities have what I'd think of as a real Navy. Nothing that would wind up building something like the Black Dragon any time soon anyhow." Tallulah barked out a laugh.

"You're a mistress of understatement." I chuckled along with her.

"Yeah, I know. But Phileo's starting to put out ships like the Questing Tentacle. Unless I miss my guess, the other big Cities are gonna build more like her, and I'm pretty sure Saffron's gonna scoop up the lion's share of those hulls for the Alliance fleet." She sighed.

"Yet another nail in Rich Man's Port's coffin, really."

"Doesn't have to be. Doesn't have to be anything like that."

"How do you mean?"

"The Questing Tentacle managed to navigate up to Rich Man's Port just fine." She snorted.

"This does not make me feel any happier."

"No, no, missing my point. Which I'm doing a shit job of making, really. Um... Okay, look, the other Cities have a lot of merchant vessels. Some of them big enough to fight with. Norfolk has a couple purpose built combat ships, but frankly, compared to the Tentacle they're kinda shit." I paused, and she waved for me to continue.

"Rich Man's Port... like, at least half of your people are sailors, shipwrights, or something else connected to, y'know, ships, right?" She nodded, confused but now slightly hopeful.

"More than half, really. Something like nine in ten of the Humans, not to mention at least half of the Fae."

"Okay. And all of them are pirates, right?"

"Privateers now, officially. Although I suspect some might just sail back to England and base there rather than bothering to be more careful about their targets." I waved that away, splashing a little water inadvertently as I did.

"Yeah, those aren't the smart ones. My point though is that your people know about ship to ship combat. Probably better than anybody else in the Alliance."

"We're technically not part of the Alliance yet..." I grinned at her.

"Do you wanna be?"

"There's that bit about having an Academy..."

"That's the best part. I cannot think of a single better place to have the Alliance's Naval Academy." She mouthed the words a bit, almost like trying to taste them to get a better feel for the idea.

"So... an Academy to train Alliance Sailors?" I nodded.

"Yeah. Well, the officers at least. Although just like we're starting to have a real full time Army with professional non-Heroic fighting men, we're definitely gonna need regular non-Heroic Sailors who don't go to pieces when bolts start flying."

"Have you spoken with the Imperator about this?" I shook my head.

"Nope. Just thought of it. You go ahead and suggest it to her." I paused.

"If, y'know, you're up for the idea." She smiled at me.

"I'll think on it." Then she frowned.

"Although... there is something I would ask of you?"

"Hey, I'm here to help. Whatcha need?"

"My daughter." I glanced to Ria, but she shook her head.

"Adrienne."

"I haven't heard good things, but go on."

"She's... I suspect most of that is due to the bad blood between she and I." Her brow furrowed.

"Which I now suspect was at least in part engineered by my son." She went quiet. After a bit I prompted her.

"Okay. So?" She shook her head.

"Apologies, Tabitha. But I would take it as a personal favor if you could, perhaps, find out what happened to her?" Right then Saffron slipped into the bath between us, snuggling me for a very happy moment before rolling onto her back and letting her flotation devices do their thing.

"That, Lady Crow, is something Tabitha might not be suited to, especially if Adrienne or someone aiding her is capable of defending her against Scrying." Tallulah sighed.

"She is. I taught her myself." Saffron nodded.

"Although the intelligence gathering network of the Alliance is somewhat new and somewhat disorganized, finding one missing heiress of one of the Alliance's prominent Houses might be an excellent way to hone their capabilities." When Tallulah kind of worked her mouth without responding, Saffron smiled, closed her eyes as she leaned her head back, and thought, so. Shall we speak of this Naval Academy idea of yours?

I'd kind of dropped out of the conversation, because not looking at somebody I was talking to when they were right there just struck me as a little weird without, like, a phone or something to look at, and I couldn't look at Tallulah or Saffron without Saffron's magnificence blotting out anything approaching rational thought. So I just lay there, head tilted slightly Saffronward, letting my brain get as blotted into pleasant nonfunction as my muscles were getting from the hot water.

Dreamt of Siobhan and Marie putting on erotic vignettes while Saffron, Tallulah, and Karen sat plotting while they shoved little dumpling and cake ships into my Maw. In the morning, while one of me played booster seat for Coding Saffron and another played in the snow with the kids, seeing who could build the biggest snowman, I Co-Located over to Dad's place and kinda... not trauma dumped, I don't think. Worry dumped? Yeah, worry dumped about teaching.

Time flowed oddly, as it always did, and we talked forever and a day about what he knew about teaching. Which was all, like, mentoring more than classroom, but still was more than I knew before. Of course, at the end of the day, he poked me in the brain with his final bit of advice.

"You know, you could go ask someone who's taught before, someone you learned from yourself."

"Yeah, but which of them has the time to spare to let me pick their brain? And which of them would actually want to do that, 'cause I don't want to monopolize somebody's time 'cause I'm the 'Champion of the Alliance' when my whole point was to give them less work, not more." He smiled at me.

"Well, at least one of your former professors, one who I'm told knows something of Co-Location himself, considers you his protégé, so I'm sure he'd be thrilled if you came to him for advice on teaching. And... well...."

"Yeah, I'm dumb. I totally didn't think about, like, him Co-Locating to answer questions while he growls at the Cadets. But who else?"

"I'm not certain how many questions would actually be answered, since she seems rather enamored of making you speechless while you do the same, but your Concubine can, in fact, Co-Locate with more facility than the Marshall." Have I mentioned how I'm a fuckin' idiot?