Chương 97: Day Ninety-Six

Dear Diary, I love Saffron. That's still kinda weird for me to say it right out like that, sure, but I do. That said? She may be the scariest fucker I have ever met, hands down, and I'm not sure whether I should worry about how much that grinds every gear I've got or not. Okay, so this morning went off without a hitch, really. Isnomi woke us up, because apparently while she has no fear at all, she wants someone watching her daredevil morning antics.

Actually, now that I think about it, I don't know that for certain. For all I know, she practices this crazy shit before ever waking us up, then comes and gets us once her show is ready. Shit, she's Saffron's kid. That's absolutely what she's doing, and short of tying her up at night we're not going to be able to stop her, because for all her glorious virtues, my beloved is a heavier sleeper than I am.

Anyway, her performance this morning included showing us we needed a more complex knot on the armoire, because she pulled herself up, grabbed one of the dangling ropes of the bow knot, dropped her legs out from under her and Tarzaned her way across the front of the armoire, landing on the other side giggle-squealing as the door to the armoire swung open. Doesn't matter how soon we've got this menace potty trained, I'm gonna have to clean up my pants after her antics at some point, I'm sure of it.

Okay, once we had her fed, changed, and off on her day's adventures atop Marie's cart, I dressed myself, correctly in all particulars, because while I may be a trash human being and thirty-two flavors of stupid, I can manage to avoid being a complete idiot when advanced planning Saffron canoodling is on the line. Meanwhile Saffron and I chatted about other knots to use, or whether we ought to just birth control the shit out of the inside of the armoire.

By the time I'd gotten ready to go, she still hadn't decided, so I scooped her up, kissed her as thoroughly as possible given the limitations of time and keeping my uniform Just So, told her I trusted her judgement and to let me know what she decided, and got myself to breakfast. MOAR PORK. All the pork products. Even more pork byproducts.

Mostly byproducts, although I saw plenty of actual ham and bacon heading toward the Barbie Brigade, but couldn't bring myself to get bent out of shape about it, because the Maids kept the jalapeno scrapple coming despite my best efforts to depopulate the porcine population of the Delaware Valley. Even Angel got in on the betting this time, although she still hadn't stopped making that sign against evil every time I sat down at the table. She'd got progressively more subtle about it, but she hadn't stopped.

I couldn't really blame her. I did julienne her arms, cut them off, and flame broil her. Don't know what I'd do if somebody I liked did that to me, but I'm pretty sure I'd be way less copacetic about it than Angel seemed to be. So I picked up Lyman outside Remedial Celtic, and after a couple quick questions he called Sister Cheryl over.

"I think we've had a bit of a breakthrough with Tabitha's written Celtic." She smiled and nodded.

"Really? That's wonderful!" She turned to me.

"Do you have anything you can show me?" I nodded, took a deep breath, and wrote while she watched me. I managed to write, 'My name is Tabitha Diaz.', 'My wife's name is Saffron Aetos.', 'My daughter's name is Isnomi Aetos.', and 'My Patron's name is Loki Laufeyson.' Loki gave me a bit of a look at that last one, but Sister Cheryl just gushed.

"Oh, my stars! After months of practice with so little to show, you learned those in just this past week?" she asked. I shrank a little, "I really didn't practice much this week. I learned all this last Friday." If anything she got even gushier.

"That's wonderful!" She looked to Lyman and said, "I'm so glad the two of you patched up whatever had come between you, and I do not need to know the specifics, only that you believe she'll be able to keep up this rate of progress?" Lyman turned to me and asked, "what do you think, can you keep it up?" I shot him a crooked grin and replied, "heck, I might even speed up with the right motivation." Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

If Sister Cheryl blushed a little at that, I didn't comment.

"Well then. Whatever the two of you did last week, you've my blessing to keep at it, however you're managing it. Thank you so much, Lyman, and I am so proud of you, Tabitha!" I grinned ear to ear and said, "thanks!" and she turned away to help the new kids in Remedial Celtic while Lyman gathered up my primer, some scrap paper, and a couple pens. He walked me back to my room. Once we got out of earshot off the classroom, Loki chuckled, a long, lasting thing that got loud enough to echo down the hall a little.

"Had not your daughter utterly won over my wife earlier this week, I would warn you against letting anyone think we might be amorously involved. Now? I shudder to think what you women have planned for me." I smirked at him.

"Afraid we'll conspire to steal away your virtue?" He laughed out loud at that, a surprisingly clean, pure thing given what I'd said. As the echoes of that died down, distant echoes of a distinctive squealing giggle chased them away. The Academy is not a small place, but neither Loki nor my daughter are afraid of making big noises, apparently. Shit, I'm not exactly quiet myself. Hell, that might be the scariest part about Saffron to anyone who isn't, y'know, me or Marie or Loki or Dionysus.

All the rest of us are big, noisy, in-your-face types. I mean, Marie's noises are apparently mostly subsonic, but just because a loud note is also a brown note doesn't make it quieter. With all that noise going on? Ain't nobody got bandwidth to notice quiet little Saffron even when she's not trying to be sneaky, and even knowing Loki's reputation as an assassin I'd still put my money on Saffron. As we got close to the room, he reached out and laid a hand on my arm, slowing to a stop as he did.

Weird thing, I felt his Blend wrap around both of us.

"In all seriousness, Tabitha? I am known for my plans, my plots, my schemes. I've fostered that reputation, possibly the only entirely true sentiment I've ever been the champion of. And yet..." We stood there in silence as I waited for him to finish his sentence. Eventually, his mouth slipped closed, and I nudged him with the side of my arm, saying, "and yet?" He sucked in a breath, let some of it out in a snorting laugh.

"And yet that day I met you? I had none. Every plan, every plot, every scheme, they'd all run their course. Oh, the prophecies of Ragnarok still lurk, but I would hardly claim 'I become enraged, break free of my bonds, break my children free, and we go on a murderous rampage through Asgard' is in any way a 'plan'. Honestly, it's barely a prophecy.

'The ones you chained and tortured will break free and seek vengeance' isn't so much fortunetelling as an inevitable sequence of events, really." He turned to face me.

"Tabitha Diaz, my Champion, my Priestess High Above All Others?"

"Yep. That's me!" I shot him my goofiest of self-deprecating grins.

"Indeed it is. On that day I met you I had next to nothing. All that I had I bet blindly on you." That shook me. Like you do, I snapped back, "oh, shit. Must have been pretty scary to check your cards and see a two of clubs and the instructions for Uno." That got him. As he laughed, he shook his head, waved his free hand.

"Oh, no. No, no, no, when I glanced at the table I'd placed the sum total of my divine fortune on zero, and the ball seemed set to bobble between five and ten. And yet..." I smirked at him, "And yet?"

"Here we are. My wife has declared her devotion. My share of the Glory you earned on the Equinox is enough to last me millennia, even had you not created the first others to claim my Patronage since before the founding of Phileo."

"I mean, winning the long odds seems your kinda thing, though." He tossed his head.

"Oh, sit me at a table with cards and I will certainly do so. The odds mean nothing when the other players see nothing save what you desire them to. But in this? I want you to know that thus far, my investment in you has reaped dividends beyond my wildest imaginings, and it stuns me to realize you've received something of mine I've not given to any in all my long, long life."

"Shit, I've got something of yours? Did you want it back? What is it?" I watched him force his face into some semblance of solemnity, fighting against my goofiness long enough to say, "my trust. Tabitha Diaz, my Champion, I lay this upon you. Should you survive my end, I ask only two things. Protect Sigyn. Avenge me." I kept my smile up, even as his words forced some serious sphincter clenching. No pressure or anything, right?

"Hell of a set of marching orders there, Boss." He shook his head.

"Not orders. Should I meet my end, I should no longer be in a position to demand aught of you. These would simply be my final wishes, and I have learned enough in my time of privation to know that I should humbly beg you to assure me you will grant them, and I do so now." Then the somehow-not-smarmy bastard went and bowed to me, a full on arms-outstretched, one leg back fancy thing. I couldn't leave my guy hanging there like that, and I've mentioned my deathly allergy to formality.

I stepped into him, pulling him up, pulling him into a full on, back slapping bro-hug, then pushed him back with my hands on his shoulders, just far enough to meet his gaze, and lowered my own Blend to about half mast as I said, all humor gone from my voice, "Boss, if somebody offs you? By the time I'm done the other Gods will shit themselves thinking about it." I grinned at him, and with my best Dominic Toretto impression said, "you're family."

And you've seen for yourself what I'm like when somebody hurts my family.