Dear Diary,

It's really weird going from a class where I got bumped up a year and wound up helping a Senior Cadet to a Remedial class that I'm taking for the second time.

So this morning I woke up to Saffron sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall, half asleep while Isnomi had breakfast. Little rugrat apparently didn't want to eat lying down, according to Saff. Once she finished, Saffron kinda collapsed back onto the bed, and I put Isnomi on the floor so I could get dressed.

Then picked her back up, because a moment after I lifted her, before I managed to quite set her down, she noisily filled her diaper.

Why? Why do kids in diapers give me shit?

At any rate I got her cleaned up and changed, then rolled Saffron over and plonked Isnomi down between Saffron and the wall while I got dressed. By the time I finished, she'd crawled over to Saffron and leaned against her, arms out in the 'pick me up' gesture.

"Aw, you know you're cute, don't you? And you just emptied yourself out, so I can safely pick you up now without getting a load of shit for my troubles, can't I?"

She replied with "Ma! Ma! Ma!" and that just melted away all my annoyance at her enstankifying my life.

But when I bent down to pick her up, she batted my hands away and grabbed at my arms. When I knelt next to the bed and leaned in toward her, she grabbed my collar with her pudgy little baby hands and spent like five minutes fiddling with it before patting my lapels, then leaning in and kissing me on the cheek. Wet, sloppy baby kiss, and I'm pretty sure she left me looking like an eighties reject with my collar in no way looking the way I thought it should.

Of course when I caught Saffron smiling at me, she reached out, sleepily saying, "C'mere. I'll fix it."

I pulled away, doing my best 'shocked at the suggestion' voice. "After our daughter has gone to all that trouble to get it just so? Never!" She grabbed my collar and pulled me down for a much less wet, far sloppier kiss, as Isnomi laughed and clapped her hands. When she finally let me go, I said, "Do you want me to get Marie to bring some food up?"

She shook her head. "I'll be down once I'm dressed. Go ahead and take her and head down if you like."

I shrugged. "I mean, I want me some breakfast, but I'm not gonna miss this view for all the spicy eggs in the world." I picked Isnomi up, sat down on the edge of the bed, and sat her down in my lap. Saffron rolled her eyes at me and got up, turning the lights on before stepping to the armoire and putting her uniform on. "Wait, don't you have today off? Why the uniform?"

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She smiled at me, "I have Independent Study today, and while I'll be keeping Isnomi with me, I do have to work with a couple instructors for a bit this morning."

"What about this afternoon?"

She grinned at me, "Oh, I've got plans for this afternoon, don't you worry."

I'd never been simultaneously turned on and low key terrified by someone as often as I'd been by Saffron. When you consider the third adult in our little family, that's really saying something.

So we all got down to breakfast about halfway through, and the others at the table took turns tossing little wads of bread to Isnomi as she crawled around the table taste testing stuff. Apparently her favorite is the sausages, although she doesn't so much 'eat' them as nom at one end until the casing splits, then suck the contents out. Part of me worried about the random stuff they throw into sausages, but then for her next trick she grabbed a baby-fistful of jalapeno scrapple and proceeded to nom it. If she ate scrapple without complaint, no way would sausage filling bother her.

I got to Remedial Celtic on time, then spent the day working with Lyman to memorize common words. I figured I had about a twenty word written Celtic vocabulary at this point. At this rate I only needed another hundred semesters of this to get to the point where I could sound fluent when writing a letter.

"Why in the name of God am I so stupid?"

Loki tilted his head and pitched his voice too low for Sister Cheryl. "I have nothing to do with any stupidity you perceive in yourself. Also, while you have troubles concentrating, you certainly don't seem stupid to me. Unwise? Perhaps. Insane? Probably. Stubborn? Definitely. But stupid? I would hardly have a stupid woman for my Champion."

"Then why am I having such trouble learning something as simple as writing a language I already speak?"

Loki in his Lyman disguise froze, staring at me with his mouth half open for a moment before standing, pulling me to my feet with a gentle hand on my elbow. "Sister Cheryl?"

"Yes, Assistant Instructor Lyman?"

"May I take Cadet Diaz on a quick walk? I think I've got an idea how to help her with her written Celtic."

She stared at us for a bit, clearly trying to figure out exactly what Lyman intended, before waving a hand and saying, "Go ahead, but if it doesn't work I expect you back here after lunch to make up her class time."

"Thank you, Sister," Lyman said with a short bow. He then pulled me out of the classroom and, eventually, down to my Dorm room.

"How is it that you can walk through the Filtration Ward without a problem?" I asked as we approached my room.

He just grinned at me and said, "For shame, asking me what's in my pants when you know I'm happily married."

When we got to my room he knocked, then scooted through the door with me when Saffron answered, one arm full of Isnomi.

"What are you doing home so early, love?"

"No idea. Ask him." I waved a hand at Loki.

For his part, he looked at Saffron and said, "if you would be so kind as to teach this one some written Celtic?"

Saffron looked back and forth between us and said, "of course I'll try, but why me, and why now?"

"Now, because this is her time dedicated to learning written Celtic. You, because she trusts you rather more than me, I think." He turned to me and nodded. "I do hope at some point you come to a point where you don't feel the need to keep secrets from me, but for now, I'll ensure you two your privacy, at least until dinner tonight. Good luck, and turn off your Blend." With that he disappeared.

I really don't know which is the worst part of the whole deal. That my best Skill is what's been keeping me from learning written Celtic, that Loki realized it before Saffron or I did, or that I doubled my written vocabulary in one afternoon.