Diary of a Teenaged Mimic

Dear Diary,

So, the past two days have been a ’learning experience’. Thing is? I gotta hand it to the Academy, while none of it’s been fun, I’ve yet to hit anything that even gave me pause as to whether I could do it. Whether I wanted to? Whether I should? Whether I’m really the right woman for the job? Oh, hell to the yeah on all that. But Can I? Absolutely.

So after seeing proto-Crocodile-Hunter Miles safe back in his office, I remembered I’d left a Pesce, I presumed Joseph, hanging at the loading docks. Hoping like hell he’d gotten trapped in the lockdown and didn’t just think I’d been avoiding him, I jogged down to the basement, and after a little bit of spinning in a circle and a lot of making puppy dog eyes at Saffron, who’d followed me, found the backside of the school and the ’loading docks’. I got there just as the massive solid chunk of stone outside the wagon-sized doors went away. I saw it happen, but I still couldn’t tell if it dropped into the ground, rose up above the doors, or just fuckin’ disintegrated. There one moment, gone the next, and I’ve got no idea how, which bugged me way more than I wanted to admit, especially since I had to be on my best Grown Up High Priestess behavior.

Joseph Pesce stood there between two cartloads of fish, the top of the carts level with the floor we stood on. I got why they called them ’docks’ now; the raised areas you could step right onto the cart from three sides looked kinda like a berth. I’d love to be all smooth and talk about yellowtail tuna and tilapia and, I dunno, haddock? But that would require me to know thing fuckin’ one about fish. Fish is fish. Mince it, shape it, bread it, fry it, and you’ve got fish sticks. Get a vaguely Asian dude with scary knife skills and some rice and you’ve got sushi. Mix it with a little oil and mustard and, uh, mayo? I think? I’m not sure on mayo, because I am, as I’ve noted, Not White, but I think it goes in tuna salad, which makes a decent hoagie that’s too far from the source to recognize if it’s fucked up. Yes, the only aspect of fish I am aware of is how it can be nommed. Is there anything surprising whatsoever about this?

Anyway, Joseph saw me and his face lit up. He hurried over, and I managed to catch him before he dropped to his knees and started kowtowing or some shit. ”Joseph! Good to see you, man!” I pulled him into a quick bro hug, then pushed him back far enough, my hands on his shoulders, that I could look him over. He looked good, for the value of ’good’ that meant ’stinks of sweat and fish, wearing ragged clothes that barely ensured decency, with residual bits of blood and scale scattered across him and obviously ground into the clothes he had on’. But he had a satisfied smile on his face, and while he slumped a little, the slump conveyed a hard working dude at the end of a hard day’s work, not somebody beaten into the ground by bullshit.

”High Priestess, I...”

I interrupted him with a raised hand. ”Call me Tabitha.”

He pulled back just a little, scandalized. ”I... I couldn’t!”

I rolled my eyes, just a little, before saying, ”Yeah, okay, but I’m a big girl with a functioning spine and legs. I don’t need you blowing smoke up my ass to inflate me.”

Saffron cut in with, ”trust me, my wife has an inflated enough opinion of herself as it is.”

He got a look in his eyes that took me a second to parse. ”It’s an honor to meet the wife of our High Priestess.” He followed that up with a little bow, but I caught the little eye-flickers of a dude who had no problem with Sapphic chicks, because he figured they might, at some point, need a penis, and if he played his cards right he might get tapped. Fuck it, if he stays polite I’m fine with him filing us away in his spank bank. Not like I’ve asked permission of everybody I thought about while flicking the bean, so it’s all good, right?

”Yeah, unless it’s some kinda formal shit we’re dealing with, Cadet Diaz is fine.” I shrugged, my Big Girl Panties chafing a little as I added, ”Priestess Diaz is okay as well, if you gotta go that way.”

He nodded. ”I wanted to thank you for helping us, and apologize that I think our next shipment might be delayed, and pass on some information?”

My brow furrowed a little, but I tried to keep it curious, not upset. ”Somebody giving you shit?”

He shrugged, waggled one hand, and said, ”not exactly? More that we noticed a few more Amsterdam boats further south than they’d normally be, and at least one of them wasn’t a proper fishing boat at all.”

I didn’t bother to ask him how he knew the difference between a fishing boat and ’not a fishing boat’. I can tell you the difference between a delinquent and a narc dressed as a delinquent, but fuck if I could tell you how. ”Yeah. Amsterdam’s got a bug up their ass about something. That’s what the lockdown was about, the Headmaster giving us all our marching orders. If you’re not feeling safe out fishing while shit’s going down, we’re looking for Volunteers. Standard Guard pay, unless you’ve got combat experience?” He shook his head the tiniest amount. ”I don’t know what the fuck ’standard Guard pay’ is, but it’s gotta be better than starving, right?”

He’d drooped way away from ’happy, confident’ as I spoke, but when I finished he nodded. ”You’ve got the right of it. Not a fisherman out there who hasn’t fought at least one other guy who thought stealing fish would be easier than catching them, but nothing the Powers would call ’combat experience’.” He sighed a little, then looked at me hopefully. ”Unless we’ll be crewing some new warships? Still not pleased to be fighting, but at least I know my way around a ship.”

Inspiration struck. ”Oh. Oh, shit. Okay, Joe? Stay right here, don’t go anywhere, and don’t unload these just yet.” He nodded, obviously confused, but equally obviously not going to question his High Priestess. That threw some flutters down south, having somebody just do what I said without having to argue them into it, but I had no time. I grabbed Saffron and towed her along behind me. ”We gotta find Hero Castro.”

Saffron nodded. ”She’s been working out of the Guard office since the Marshall left.” We both double timed it up to the Guard office, only to find it standing open, a small line of people outside, Castro sitting at a cramped little desk in a cramped little office, a Senior Cadet standing there getting orders before he dashed out and the next guy in line went in. We got in line and Saffron took my hand to quietly ask, ”what are you thinking, Goof?”

I smiled down at her choice of name, a balm after that chafing ’High Priestess’ shit. ”Okay, I got a couple ideas. I was just gonna throw ’em at the wall and see what sticks...”

She smiled back up, ”but that might not be the best way to present them. They are?”

”Okay, first one is seeing if we’re going to be building any new warships, or pulling any out of mothballs down at the shipyard.”

”I’d ask how you know about the shipyard, but...”

I grinned at a memory. ”Not the biggest one in the country, but the most badass, just south of where the temples are here. Built the biggest almost-legal battleship in history, eighteen inches bigger than her sisters, filled to the brim with over-the-horizon fuck you in a variety of calibers.” I shot her a mental image of the New Jersey, and she almost hid her shudder. I’m married to an ammosexual, but you know what? I’m surprisingly okay with it. ”Anyway, I figure if we can mass produce some big brothers for Vulcan, we can teach the Oranges whose ocean it is.”

She mouthed the words, ’mass produced’, but I shook my head as the next guy left the Guard office and we moved forward. ”No time right now, but I think that one’s gonna blow your mind, grind your gears, or prolly both. Anyway, second thought was that the front is probably closer to some spot a ways north along the Delaware, so Castro could save some time and boot leather by loading the relief column up in Joe’s boat.”

She shook her head, but not in a completely negatory way. ”One fishing boat is unlikely to hold the entire relief column, but there are more fishing boats on the waterfront, most of whom would prefer to haul cargo than try to fish while trying to avoid ’Damn pirates.”

”Ooh, I see what you did there. is that you or?” at her quick, smiling headshake, I continued with, ”okay, my third idea is more long-term; an army marches on its stomach, and if we control the Delaware, that gives us a way shorter unsecured supply line than the ’Damn Army. That’s so... I love it, even if it isn’t a Saffron original.”

”I know, right? Let me introduce things, and you can elaborate on anything that needs it?” When I nodded, she asked, ”how do you know all this? We haven’t studied it in class. I’m not even sure there is a class, although I saw there is a higher level course about logistics, but I’m pretty sure you haven’t taken that one.”

I shrugged. ”I mean, I might have, kinda sorta. The parts of ROTC about ’here’s how to recognize whose dick to polish hardest’ never really appealed, but I got pretty good at D&C,” at her quizzical look, I explained, ”Drill and Ceremony. Marching around in circles and shit, but coordinated circles rather than shitty ones. D&C practice got us outside and feels kinda good, like being in a crew that has your back. But sometimes when we had a spare day, or somebody realized that our DIs were as human as anybody and loved talking about cool shit, we’d talk about actual war shit, and logistics always popped up. Sort of the boring end of fighting, I guess? But it popped up all the goddamned time, and I might be stupid but I’m not dumb as a mouth breathing box of rocks stupid. I’m not gonna confuse my curling iron for my vibrator a second time.” I smiled in memory. Of the DIs’ stories about actual war shit, not the Incident Which Shall Not Be Repeated. Ow. Marie notwithstanding, still not into pain. ”Heh. I still remember the guys all sitting there looking at the DI with the kind of attention they’d normally pay to a masturbating supermodel, then trying to argue about how big their man parts were. Always got bored with that part of the conversation.”

”Of course you did, Goof.” She turned to me and tossed on a serious look almost good enough to fool me before she said, ”why would you need bother with such a contest? I assure you, your metaphoric dick is just barely on the orgasmic side of painfully large.”

My collapse into laughter got interrupted by Castro calling out, ”okay, Big Dick Magee and wife, what do you need?”

Saffron and I stepped forward, her taking the lead, me standing just behind her left shoulder, dropping into Parade Rest in the wingman position. ”Tabitha discovered some possibly pertinent intelligence regarding enemy movements, and had some strategically viable recommendations.”

Castro’s eyebrow shot up. ”Tabitha did?”

Saffron loosened up just long enough to blurt out, ”I know, right?” before she straightened back up and reported, ”a fisherman who just arrived back from the coast with a delivery of fish for the Academy reports there are a larger than normal number of New Amsterdam fishing boats pushing down the coast, and some of them are only disguised as fishing boats.”

Castro took a deep breath, then blew it out. ”Fuck. Good to know. We don’t really have an Admiral at the moment, and my gut tells me Hero Lancaster is the wrong man for that job, but we’ll have to get enough warships in the water to keep the Delaware in our hands, at least.”

I interrupted with, ”maybe a chain across the narrowest part of the river?”

She blinked, then chewed at her lip a little as she said, ”that would be laughably expensive, although the war fighter in me thinks it would be equally effective. Was that one of your ideas?”

Saffron and I shook our heads. ”Uh, no, just thought of it.”

Castro barked out a laugh. ”Marshall duBois is right about you.”

”How so?”

She looked me right in the eye and said, ”he told me, and I quote, ’that crazy bitch has the best instincts for how to wreck somebody’s shit that I have ever fucking seen’.” When we both stood there a little slack jawed, she said, ”more alcohol than anyone but a graduate of duBois’ training could survive drinking might have been involved. But ’in vino veritas’.”

”Pfft. What does that even mean?”

”Again I quote the man himself, ’drunk fuckers can’t lie for shit’.” All three of us chuckled, and she looked back at Saffron. ”Thank you for the information, but you had suggestions? My less civilized instincts await with bated breath Tabitha’s next suggestion for delivering hurt unto our enemies.”

”Surprisingly, ma’am, they’re logistical insights.”

”Oh, this I have to hear.”

”First, regarding your relief column, Phileo City has many small fishing ships that can navigate a meaningful distance north on the Delaware. Those ships currently can’t safely fish, so we could employ them to transport the column north, delivering the relief to a point closer to the Marshall’s location faster and with less exertion on the part of the troops in the column.”

Castro looked doubtful. ”Not sure if it’d be faster. I’ll have to double check who can do what and who’s ready, but we might be faster overland. Also, none of our Volunteers are qualified Marines.”

I shook my head and cut in, ”Ma’am, I’m not talking about an amphibious assault or naval melees. Just delivering the troops like cargo. You don’t need to be a Marine to do that. A potato can do that. I mean, yeah, the potato’s probably smarter, but you get my point.”

What? It was an Army ROTC program. I got shit to throw for days.

Castro nodded. ”That makes a lot more sense. I’m still not sure if it’s faster though.”

Saffron cut in with, ”that does lead into our next suggestion though. Instead of sending supplies over the Franklin and overland, so long as we control the Delaware we can use our fishing fleet to transport materials to the closest point along the Delaware to the front. Our supply line would be shorter, faster, and almost directly behind our combat forces instead of strung out to the south.”

Castro looked at me like I’d grown another head, and she wasn’t grossed or pissed, but trying to figure out whether it had just as much fuckery as the old one. ”I’m definitely relaying these to the Marshall. Including their source. Next?”

Saffron nodded and said, ”Cadet Diaz and I are unaware of Phileo City’s current naval status, but she and I have recently developed a new weapon which she assures me can be scaled up to,” she paused, a catch in her voice when she finished, ”naval or siege weapon scale.”

Castro got a weird look, close kin to ’what the fuck, Diaz?’, but somehow positive. Like, less, ’why did you make me think that with my own brain’, and more ’fuck me up, chaos cleric’. Weird sensation, that someone would, y’know, value the part of me that inevitably caused most of my worst bullshit.

”I’d like a demonstration of this weapon between now and dawn tomorrow.” Saffron nodded. I don’t know if Castro knew her well enough to spot the signs, but my Kitten for one looked forward to the ’demonstration’. ”how fast can we make them?”

Saffron sighed, ”the original took a week of work from myself and Jon the Smith.”

Castro shook her head, sighing, ”I’ll still want to see, if only to see for myself your wife’s penchant for new and terrifying ways to deliver hurt to people in desperate need of it, but unless this war drags on too long, they probably won’t see action. Definitely not with the relief column.”

”Wait a minute.” Both of them turned to me, and I sucked up my sudden embarrassment to ask, ”you and Jon had to figure out how to turn my wacky-assed idea into an actual weapon, right?” At Saffron’s nod, I continued, ”and the paint job looks cool as shit, but all it really needs is something to keep it from rusting, right?” She nodded again, and now Castro shot me a considering look. ”Okay, so we just grab up every smith we can lay hands on and set up a production line.” Saffron tried to interrupt, but before I could check myself I rolled over her with, ”We might not get more than a handful done before morning, but that’d be a hell of an edge; I’ll bet we put one of those bad boys in duBois’ hands and any enemy commander in line of sight is gonna wind up with a serious headache. Briefly.”

I’d been looking at Saffron as I explained, hoping she’d be able to translate into ’normal, sane Celtic’, but Castro’s comment dragged my gaze to her. ”Cadet Diaz, what is a ’production line.”

Oh, shit.

Saffron raised one eyebrow, trotting out a new Grin, this one clearly intended to convey, ’I wish I’d brought popcorn’. Oh, shit indeed. I want to hear this as well, Goof. Out with it.

I’m pretty sure Saffron is Pavloving me with that phrase, because your girl’s hindbrain-to-crotch hotline started blaring out, ’obey. obey. obey.’ ”Okay, so which can a smith make faster; ten different things, or ten identical things?”

Saffron shrugged, but Castro said, ”I took an elective with the smiths. I’m nowhere near an expert, but I’d bet a round of beers on the smith making ten of the same thing. You get a rhythm going.”

I nodded. ”Yeah, exactly. Now what about a smith who just does nothing but make that same thing, as fast as he can do it just right, over and over and over again?” At Castro’s nod of agreement, I continued, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Saffron frowning, her eyes disconnected from her brain, which had just raced ahead of all us mere mortals.

Fuck it, you know what I mean. Also, weird time to discover that my wife has Resting Bitch Face. Happy making too, since I saw it so rarely, which even I know means I make her happy enough to smile.

”Okay, so you get each smith making just one kind of part, then you have a bunch of dudes just putting them together. Like, even better if you can do the same thing, like where one guy puts the gearbox together, one guy mounts the bow, and they’re all just handing it to the next guy.”

Castro looked at me, shot a confused look at Saffron, whose mind had left us behind to go play in Saffron Brain Land, which I figured the rest of us would barely understand her explanation of, let alone keeping up with her, then shoved herself to her feet and said, ”that might work. Maybe. Until I leave, I’ve got just enough authority to get your crazy scheme started, but I need to know if it’s worth it. I’ll be needing that demonstration now.”

”Damn.”

”What?”

”Usually people just call them ’antics’. Must be my day, getting upgraded to ’scheme’.” Then another thought hit me, and my brain went into overdrive. ”Shit.”

”Problem?’

”We tested it in the back yard, but I’m guessing the lockdown was for security?” At her nod I continued, ”we can’t put last week back in the box, but I don’t want to test it outside the Academy.”

She shrugged, ”not a problem. I’ll commandeer the Practice Yard.”

”Yeah. About that. You’ll take responsibility for any damage to the Yard, right?”

Ten minutes later we stood in the Yard, a group of Cadets I’d only seen in passing gathered as an audience while, as Saffron displayed her hitherto unknown exhibitionist streak when she reverently unboxed Vulcan with Hero Castro watching, I stacked up a line of target dummies. The closest stood one paver from the wall on one of the short sides of the Yard, and I’d stacked the rest up assholes to elbows all the way to the wall, with a few more bunched up around the one with its back to the wall. When I raced over to Saffron, who stood one paver shy of the far end of the Yard, I waved the onlookers back to stand behind the line Saffron knelt on.

Castro looked at me curiously. ”Are you worried that much about Cadet Aetos’ aim?”

I shook my head, smiling. ”Nope. Ricochets.”

”Ricochets.”

”Ma’am? I’m gonna be providing Saff with a firing platform just to put me between her and the target.” I raised my voice a little bit. ”All due respect, but any chucklefucks who need to see so bad they’re gonna stand around here spectating instead of going down to the Dining Hall deserve what they get.”

Castro chuckled. ”I’m sure they could just shelter in the sheds.”

I took a knee in front of Saffron, snorting as I said, ”shelter. Yeah. Keep thinkin’ that.”

Castro shot me a skeptical look, but Saffron took over the demonstration at that point. ”At this point Vulcan is almost fully disarmed. I’ve strung him, but as you can see there’s no tension on the cord. He could be stored this way if needs must. But to demonstrate the full loading time,” she started pumping, only instead of the reverential, almost seductive attitude she’d had last week, this time she pumped him like a porn star getting paid by the money shot. Maybe ten seconds later at the outside, she held him out toward Castro. ”He’s now cocked,” she slid the little catch that held the cocking lever in place, ”locked,” she spun, and I bowed forward, my head practically in her crotch, my arms loosely around her waist with one hand surreptitiously charging a Stabilize as she knelt, her elbow braced on my back, ”and those dummies are fucked.”

She squeezed the trigger, and ammosexual or not, Saffron, Vulcan, and I experienced simultaneous release as his thrum vibrated the paver beneath us through us. I didn’t hear it, though, because the Yard suddenly filled with a series of shattering crunches, an assortment of screams of fear and pain, and a single huge cracking noise. I could tell by feel that Saffron’s worst consequence was a desperate need for new panties, so before anything else, obeying some mysterious post-coital instinct I twisted around and whispered, ”show off,” before licking Vulcan’s enameled butt. A quick peck at Saffron’s cheek before I stood and raced down the line of Cadets, dropping my first Stabilize into a woman lying on the ground with her eyes closed and a really awful ragged tear across her face. The only other major injury I had to Stabilize and Heal Injury a dude, both after yanking a foot long splinter out of his chest.

After that I sauntered back to Castro, glancing down range to take in the shattered wreckage of dummies in a claymore-like blast pattern pointing toward a shattered impact crater that glowed faintly blue in the center. When I stepped up to where she stood behind Saffron, who knelt in front of Vulcan’s case packing him away, Castro looked up at me from the yard long ragged-tipped spear she clutched in one hand and breathed out, ”Ogma’s puckered asshole.” Then she giggled like a schoolgirl and followed that up with, ”so, we’re gonna need more smiths.”

By morning they’d only finished three, and when we tested them they didn’t hit nearly as hard as Vulcan. I mean, they still shattered the living fuck out of a couple target dummies per shot, and the one missed shot wound up burying itself about an inch into the wall of the Yard. Weirdest thing is when we pulled out Vulcan to compare them, to see if we’d done something wrong, or if the stars had changed alignment or some shit? Not only did he put another starburst in the Yard wall, all his little siblings managed reasonable approximations of the same. Still not up to his sheer terrifying down range destruction, but any man portable weapon that can accurately hammer a steel spike four inches into magically reinforced slabs of stone pretty much qualifies as a ’sufficiently effective weapon’.

At the end of that test, Castro looked at Saffron and said, ”I’m sorry to do this, but I think we’ll need your Vulcan to come along with the relief column.” While I hid my reaction to the thought the inevitable result of duBois armed with Vulcan, Saffron nodded, choked down a sob, hugged Vulcan to herself once, then held him out to Hero Castro. She reached out to take him with an appropriate fucking amount of reverential awe.

And tugged Saffron off her feet. Apparently Vulcan had an opinion on his deployment. Even when she opened her hands completely, he stuck to her palms. When Castro let go and Saffron packed him away in his case, then tried to hand her the case? Same fuckin’ thing. Right about then my chuckles started, and when Saffron set the case down, only for Hero Castro to look like Tony Stark trying to pick up Mjolnir when she tried to lift the case? I lost it. I fell to the ground, rolling around as I cackled with undisguised glee.

”This situation is not funny, Cadet.”

I looked up at Hero Castro, squinting at her through the tiny gap between my thumb and index finger. ”Lil’ bit funny.”

She sighed, rolled her eyes, and grinned a grin I remembered from so many of the vets back in Camden when they had to deal with getting second best, because in the military that’s way better than getting the lowest bidder shit they usually had to deal with. ”Okay. Maybe it’s a little funny.” She looked back at Saffron. ”I’m sorry.”

”Why are you apologizing to me? It’s my weapon that’s misbehaving. Not a phrase I ever thought I’d say.”

That got a real chuckle out of Castro, and she explained, ”no, I’m apologizing because I absolutely shouldn’t be hoping this turns into a war bad enough we need to pull non-Senior Cadets onto the field. Because I would dearly love to see the look on the Oranges’ faces when Vulcan fires at them.”

”If I didn’t have a wife and child, I would not only volunteer, I would insist on accompanying you.”

Castro closed her eyes and nodded. ”Fucking Oranges are still gonna get a hell of a surprise when we get the first shipment of these to the front.” She paused a moment, then got a funny look on her face when she said, ”wait, do I remember correctly that these can be scaled up for use as siege or shipborne weapons?”

I immediately forgave my sexy little High Priestess when she channeled the Racoon God of Ammosexuals and growled, ”oh. Yeah.”

We staggered back to our room after seeing the relief column march off toward the bridge, Hero Castro with a leather case slung over her shoulder that obviously had gotten Loki’s blessing in his guise of ’God of Lies’, what with it somehow looking ’innocuous’.

You realize as my High Priestess, it is within your purview to gift my Blessings and Boons as you see fit?

Oh, shit, boss. Shit’s gone down. I sniffed. I hate to ask, but could you give me like half an hour to get a bath? I’ve been crazy busy since yesterday morning, and haven’t slept yet, and I smell like you’d expect.

Only in the non-negotiable case that you bring your delightful child along with you.

”Loki wants Isnomi along today.”

From behind me, maybe eight feet in the air, I heard, ”lama! Lama!”, then spun to catch the incoming airborne menace.

Marie towed her cart along behind her, tub perched atop it. I looked up at her, catching myself before I hugged her and covered her in ’eau de rank Diaz’. ”I love you, Marie.” I turned to Saffron. ”Mind if I go first? Oh, and did you want to come along?”

Saffron chuckled sadly, ”of course, love. Your Patron awaits you.” She shook her head. ”Unfortunately, after I get my own bath I would be derelict in my duty and forgetting my people if I didn’t go visit the Yards with news about the Volunteering opportunity.”

”Shit. Yeah, you’re right,” when Marie closed the door behind us, I continued, ”see if you can hitch a ride to the Yards with Pesce?” Saffron must be rubbing off on me, or the smart ideas are overflowing her brain into mine or something, because another inspiration hit just then. I turned to Marie and asked, ”can you make hats?” She nodded, shrugging at the same time, as if to say she wasn’t a Hat Witch, but she could knock something together. Or get one of the other Maids to do it, or something. I took a minute while I stripped down for my bath to describe a tricorn hat and the ship’s wheel symbol for Navy Quartermasters. ”Can you get that to him when it’s done, Kitten?”

Saffron looked up at me from where she’d been helping Isnomi engage with the chamber pot, ”to be sure, love, but why me?”

I grinned at her and explained, ”because I want you to let him know that Cadet Diaz, the High Priestess of Loki, and Loki’s Councilwoman have dubbed him Phileo City’s Commodore in Charge of Supply Transport. Ought to give him a big enough hammer to make sure nobody with more dick than brain starts sandbagging or some shit.”

”I begin to understand your Patron’s love of mischief. Consider it done, my love.”

With that I collapsed into a full on PG-13 Marie Bath Experience; she even wrapped The Dress and her boots around me before Saffron handed me Isnomi and stole a quick kiss.

Ready, Boss. I gripped his invisible hand and stepped into his cave.

Mister Slither slid down the wall without prompting, and Sigyn let out a Repressed Baby Fever squeal as she set her bowl aside and charged over to me, catching Isnomi in midair when the Menace flying-squirrel leapt at her. As my daughter refueled Sigyn’s desperately depleted cute-reservoir, I did my best not to trudge as I walked over to Loki. Midway there I saw Mister Slither looking at cooing Sigyn and Isnomi, who’d started holding forth in baby-babble. Not, like, hungrily or any shit like that. But I got the impression he really wanted in on the whole ’wholesome affection thing’. Weird thing for a reptile to want, but fuck it. I closed with him and held up a hand, empty palm outward, when he started to retreat.

He looked at me curiously. I waved at his ridiculously large fangs. ”Can you even put those away?” Moving like somebody trying to flex a joint they’d held way too still for way too long, he folded them back along the top of his jaw, fully closing his mouth for the first time since I’d first seen him. The poison stopped flowing, and I nodded to him. ”Just remember our previous, ’fuck around, spend eternity begging me to stop finding out’ agreement, got it?” Fucker nodded, then slithered off toward the other two. Before I got fully turned around and staggered over to Loki’s side, Menace was riding her new serpent steed in circles around Sigyn.

”Hey, Boss.” I leaned down to unhook his chain, then popped out a Mana Blade just big enough to slice off the stalagmites his son’s solidified intestines bound him to.

He sat up slowly, chains clinking down, moving as carefully as any recovering invalid I’d ever seen. ”I must apologize to you, Tabitha Diaz.”

I dropped to sit down next to him, and without thinking about it half toppled over to lean against him. ”Why? Dafuq you do?”

You know that ’cool side of the pillow’ feel? Loki’s side hit that perfectly, except it didn’t warm up as I leaned against it. ”It is more what I could not do, my Champion.”

”Huh?” Yeah, just Too Much Stuff, Too Little Sleep. I think I’d last slept Friday Night, and they had been... Very Active Nights.

He smiled down at me, then did something that would have had my sphincter clenching had the past couple nights not drained me completely of available fucks. He put his arm around me and pulled me to him, bracing himself with his other arm as he leaned back, stretching a little as he did so. ”I contacted all who would deign to speak with me, and more who would not, and the information I could gather is surprising in its sparsity, especially on a topic which has caused so many of my Divine peers so much unadmitted terror over the millennia.”

I shrugged. His arm had the same ’cool pillow’ feel as his side, and try as I might I’d started drifting a little. ”S’okay, Boss. What you got?”

”First I visited my mother Laufey. All she knew of Mimic is hearsay, but given the surprising amount of maternal pride she apparently feels, she told me what she knew without question or complaint. Before Laufey came to be, Ymir witnessed ’the birth of Domnu’s eldest daughter’. According to Laufey, Ymir says she, and mind this is hearsay, ’birthed her second child, Indech of Chaos, when she reached through time to steal Ymir’s bones and Laufey’s skin to seal her first child away’.”

”Fuckin’ bitch. Right up there in competition with DiscoMilf McBadTouch for Mom of the year, that one.”

”I’ll assume you refer to Domnu, not Laufey. At any rate, she could tell me no more than that. Next I spoke with Ogma, who had compiled the prophecies regarding Mimic. Apparently that prophecy the Dan fear?”

I cudgeled my brain, but Mr. Cool Side of the Pillow was draining my will to remain conscious by the second. ”Huh?”

”’’Mimic will cast them down from their high places.’ Apparently the full prophecy is ’Mimic will cast them all down from their high places’. It is Ogma’s considered opinion that the prophecy did not specifically refer to the Gods of the Dan. In fact, his opinion is that both prophecies regarding Mimic refer not to the Dan, or even the Dan and the Mor, but all Deities.”

”Bof?” I slurred.

”The one regarding ’casting down from high places’ and the other, which says ’Mimic will Pronounce and Deliver Justice Upon and Unto the Unjust’. Beyond the exact text of the prophecies and his opinions regarding them, his last tidbit of wisdom explains how he knows the exact prophecies. He was there when Odin made them.”

I crinkled my face up, trying to make brain make think, but barely managed to push out, ”Odin?”

”Nothing. He refuses to speak with me. I couldn’t even get an audience with him.”

”Fucker.”

Loki squeezed me gently and replied, ”indeed. I tried asking Domnu, who would not acknowledge me when I spoke to her. I also tried Nox and got the same treatment.”

”Nox?”

”She is also the Primordial of Darkness. Domnu and Nox are one, yet not.”

I squished one eye closed, hoping that would help. Nope. ”Huh?”

”Do not let it trouble you, Champion. Should you urgently require explanation, simply allow me to speak at length with your wife, and she will explain it to you in terms you are capable of understanding.”

That tracked. Proving my native tongue is, in fact, Lower Gruddian, I grunted out a simple, ”nngh,” accompanied by a nod of agreement.

”Given your obvious somnolence, I shall skip the list of fruitless searches. Before the final revelation, however, next Monday we will be visiting the Smith’s workshop.”

Not sleepy. Nope. Eyes open, full on flight-or-fight-or-freeze locking me motionless. From across the room, Isnomi let out a particularly aggressive shriek and pointed her mount in my general direction. ”Yeah. Got it. Be ready to deal with scary Mc Fuckface next Monday. I’m gonna ask Saffron to remind me, but any chance you could ping my brain Sunday night?”

He smiled down at me, making me suddenly regret not knowing my own dad. ”Of course, Tabitha. He is, of course, my final source of information.”

”You asked that scary motherfucker for me?”

”Of course. I would be a poor Patron indeed if I allowed fear to keep me from upholding my end of our bargain. After I agreed that you would model for him next week, He said only five things further before ignoring me utterly while prancing around his workshop giggling until I fled. Upon my Power I do not know which terrifies me most.”

I chuckled. ”Yeah. You’re terrified. You walked into the Smith’s workshop, and it’s something he said about a dead god that scares you?”

He looked down at me, the ever present humor draining from his face until I looked up at him, also completely sober. After ignoring Isnomi’s fruitless attempts to get Mister Slither to nom our ankles until she rode back to Sigyn, he finally spoke, his voice solemn and so controlled I realized he was using solemnity to hide his own fear.

”She has awakened. She has chosen her High Priestess. She has made a child. She waxes ever more wroth with the Divine. I await her return with bated breath and glee unhidden.”