Chương 84: Day Eighty-Three

Dear Diary, I never expected that my Swiss cheese memory would bite me in the ass quite this hard. So this morning started out okay. Saffron and I finished up fixing the front door and the Men's Dormitory Filtration Ward in the afternoon. Last night before bed Marie showed up for bath time. Isnomi loved it, and Marie even brought a kettle of lukewarm water for the crotch goblin to get a Marie-bath of her very own.

Like, platonic bath time for all of us, because Isnomi was there and awake, but still, utterly adorable watching Marie wash a little who had to be smaller than her hands when you included her freaky-long fingers and claws. Marie had the evening after that off, so we all kinda bundled up on the floor with some blankets under us and one on top of us, one big cuddle puddle until one at a time, we dropped off to sleep.

I mean, I'm guessing Marie fell asleep, she was purring enough to send gentle, soothing vibrations through all of us. She woke me when she stood up to get dressed. She shrugged down at me and said, "Work." I nodded and pulled her into a hug once she'd finished dressing, before she left with her cart in tow. I settled down and watched Isnomi and Saffron sleep until the little one startled herself awake with an epic fart. She started crying, so I gently pulled her from Saffron and started the process of changing her.

That's how I knew it was a fart, because I got her diaper open there was nary a turd to be seen. Of course she corrected that just as I went to fold things closed again. I finished changing her, then sat there playing with her until Saffron said, "you really never tire of playing with her, do you?" I shrugged.

"She'll only be this little for so long, and once she's talking it's gonna be 'why this, why that, why everything', so I'm enjoying this bit while it lasts." Saffron got up, scooped Isnomi up, and set to feeding her, kicking the blankets toward me as she did. I got the hint and shoveled our blankets back on the bed where they belonged. She looked at me and asked, "won't that wind up being a bit of a chore at bedtime tonight?" I shook my head.

"That's for future Tabitha to deal with. Right now I'm going to turn the light up and get dressed."

"Thanks for the warning," Saffron said as she closed her eyes and shaded Isnomi's eyes with her hand. I turned the light on, and Isnomi detached long enough to say, "ba! Ba!" before returning to her breakfast.

"I think she wants to play peek-a-boo with you, Saff." She pushed herself upright and went to sit on the disheveled bed, devilish smile creeping across her face as she did so.

"You realize I'm keeping track, and you will get your well deserved comeuppance on some unspecified future date, right?" The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I pulled my shirt on and said, "hey, that means you're down for another date, right? Sweet!" She laughed at me, switched Isnomi around for evenness purposes, and played peek-a-boo with her until I finished dressing.

Of course that left her with the results of milk-mouth baby giggles all down her front, but I sacrificed one of Isnomi's clean diapers to wipe away the evidence before she handed the little one over for me to play with while she fixed me up and got herself dressed. Breakfast featured The Return Of Spicy Eggs, now with a few different kinds of chopped up peppers, onions, and I think maybe carrots in. We'd left Isnomi with Grandma for the day already, so she didn't get to try the new eggs. Ultimate Sadness.

Still, the eggs tasted better than they had before, so overall not a bad thing. I told Marie as much when she came by with another tray, and she just smiled and mussed my hair. The rest of the ROTC squad, even Angel, looked at me like I'd grown another head after she did that, but Saffron took it in stride, and if they wanted to know, they could ask. We bolted for the Practice Yard when the Barbie Brigade stood up; I was eager to get some exercise that didn't involve somebody getting kidnapped or dying.

When we'd all gotten into formation up in the yard, duBois set the whole class to running laps, but snagged me with a hand and a throat clear before I could sprint off to join them. Once everyone had made it to the 'track', he looked at me and said, "decent work on the front door, Diaz. But I think you forgot something?" I looked up at him, and after a moment I remembered.

"Oh, shit. I'm so sorry, I completely forgot." He rolled his eyes at me, "I kinda figured." He handed me a clipboard with a whole stack of papers on it, along with one of those glass Mana pens.

"So the rest of the class is going to focus on Endurance training while you fill these out."

"Is it okay if I fill them out in English?" He got a low key horrified look on his face, then said, "you know, I forgot you were in Remedial Celtic for that." Then he shrugged.

"I'll have to have Sister Cheryl give it a look see, but yeah, there's no rule about what language the forms have to be filled out in." After a pause, he asked, "are you going to have any trouble reading them?"

"Nah, I can read okay. It's just writing where I've got some kind of mental block."

"Probably the English stealing away all your ability to write anything else," he muttered while walking away to oversee the class. So that's why Saffron wound up dancing with duBois before lunch, and Lancaster wound up dancing with him afterward. Mostly Waltzing, because duBois told us we'd be learning the 'Venetian Waltz' next week, although they did a little Tango as well. Still no music, although the folks Tangoing really had some percussion going on between the claps and stomps.

I realized why duBois had mixed things up with different people dancing different dances just as the after-lunch dancing drew to a close, so I raised my hand to ask him, "are you having different people doing different dances because there are gonna be other rhythmic things happening on the battlefield?" He looked down at me and growled, "you're not wrong, but are you done with that paperwork yet?"

I wound up having to take it back to my room, where Saffron helped me finish it before we both dropped into bed, exhausted. I think I now fully appreciate Phileo City's defense against internal Holy Wars, as well as duBois' hatred of doing paperwork.