Dear Diary,

If my run with Bill wasn't enough yesterday, as I lay there choking down my whimper so Trease wouldn't hear it, Headmaster Miles came in shortly after I collapsed. To her credit, Trease shut the fuck up when she noticed Miles walk into the room.

With a size me boot print right in the middle of his shirt.

"Cadet Diaz. Return to your quarters."

I rolled over so I could shove myself to my feet with my right arm. I didn't want to chance doing anything with the left one. It hurt way too much. Before I'd gotten any further than my knees, Sister Siobhan interrupted, one hand on my left shoulder forcing me to grind my teeth together to avoid screaming, her other hand under my right armpit lifting me to my feet. "No, Headmaster." She led me to the bed next to Bill's; I lay on my right side, deliberately avoiding the pillow, despite that forcing me to look at everyone else in the room. I curled around my arm, heard a tooth crack when I jostled it wrong.

To his credit, Miles just stood there, waiting for Sister Siobhan to explain. To her detriment, Trease started screaming the moment Sister Siobhan said, 'no'.

"You're bewitched by this Bag trash, Siobhan!" Her eyes narrowed, "or are you in league with her."

Sister Siobhan just stood there and took Trease's abuse until Headmaster Miles' quiet voice cut through her tirade. "Trease. Return to your room."

She spun to face him. "This little Bag trollop attacked me!"

He just stared at her, his face expressing disappointment more than anything. She spun to me, hissed, "there will be a reckoning!" and stormed out of the Infirmary.

Miles walked over to a casual conversational distance from Siobhan, who knelt between me and Bill, gently holding him back from rising with one hand while staring at me. At a guess, Assessing me. Whatever she saw, she winced. He looked at Bill, nodded, then looked at me and quietly said, "I'm afraid she's right, Cadet Diaz. There will be a formal inquiry... tomorrow morning?" He looked at Sister Siobhan when he said that.

Before she could say anything, I ground out, "Not tomorrow."

He frowned at me, and guilt nibbled at me, almost but not quite drowned under the agony from my arm, my shoulder, my... heart? I think that's what hurt. "Sister Siobhan, will she be mentally capable of attending an inquiry tomorrow?"

"Frankly, I'm amazed she's conscious right now. But if she wakes normally tomorrow, she might be able to attend an inquiry." Her tone said she wasn't certain about me waking up, let alone being able to attend my court martial. 'Inquiry' was just a fancy word for kicking my ass to the curb.

Fuckit. I shook my head. "Can't. Patron. Devotions."

Miles turned from the Sister to me. "I'm afraid you don't have the authority to override my decision on this, Cadet."

I do. But on this occasion I shall not.

I couldn't take any more. I shifted enough to put my head on the pillow and pretended to fall asleep. I don't know if they bought it or not, but they left me alone. By the time the enchantment took hold, I'd soaked the pillow with my Basic Bitch flavored tears.

Pain followed me into my nightmare, cut so deep I felt it even dead in my box.

I dreamt of voices. Anger. Arrogance. Disdain. Chains rattled. Screams of rage surrounded me. I fell, tumbling, until I hit the bottom of the river.

I lay there, forever dying in a box. Forever dead with a sliver of light mocking me from above.

I woke when Sister Siobhan shifted my head from the pillow. The edges of a shriek of pain escaped before I clamped my jaw shut. If anything, my hand, my arm, my shoulder hurt worse than they had the day before. I twisted myself into a sitting position, ignoring the screaming agony shifting my arm caused. I looked up at the Sister, and saw Marie standing behind her, cart laden with a tray that covered the top of it.

"How are you feeling, Tabitha?" Sister Siobhan's kind question forced a single sob, one I ruthlessly cut off before more could follow. Not 'Cadet Diaz'. Just 'Tabitha'. When the fuck had I bought into their entire exploiter bullshittery so much that the lack of that stupid title could hurt more than my fucking arm. I am, as anyone who has known me any length of time can tell you, the stupidest fucking bitch on the planet. Fuck, the stupidest bitch on two planets.

"Are you hungry?"

I shook my head, and my stomach took that as a sign it should growl loud enough to be heard in Camden. Like, my world Camden, even. Unprompted, Marie lifted the big tray off of her cart and set it beside me. She lifted the big domed lid off to reveal a mound of scrambled spicy eggs nearly falling off the edges of the tray, with a hollow in the middle filled with jalapeno scrapple. The smell hit me, and my traitorous hands grabbed at the steaming food, stuffing it into my mouth as fast as I could swallow.

Both of my hands.

I cut off a shriek, first as my arm moved on its own, then as the heat of the food burned through to my palms. Faster than I could follow, Marie grabbed both of my wrists, pinning them in one of her freaky long fingered hands, then using her other hand to shovel food into my mouth with one of the ubiquitous spoons. This one Marie sized, which made it more of a serving spoon, but fuckit. I might not get more spicy eggs any time soon. My mouth, my throat, my stomach burned, both from spices and from the heat of the eggs, and I couldn't bring myself to care or stop gulping them down as fast as I could. Marie's grip on my injured wrist sent fire and lightning racing from my hand to my shoulder and back; I'd have screamed had my mouth not been continually full of eggs.

Instead I wallowed in the pain, embracing it. I deserved it, and my sweet Marie delivered agony in the quantity I craved. My eyes watered from spices, and I gobbled every bit she spooned into me until she'd scraped the last bit of everything from the tray, leaving nothing but spice-flecked grease. I snorted to clear my running nose, and she took that opportunity to reach back to her cart, pulling open the side to reveal half a dozen loaves of dark bread and a few pitchers of water. I wanted the water, needed it to fan the flames on my tongue, my throat, my gut, but Marie grabbed a loaf and split in half with her claws, hefting it and wiping it around the tray to sop up the greasy remnants. She held it out to me, and I lunged at it, tearing away the spicy grease soaked bread in hunks, swallowing it as quickly as I could. After two loaves the tray shone clean, and swallowing the heel of the bread tore at my dry throat. Marie hefted a pitcher and poured the contents down my throat. My mouth burned from leftover spices, but the cascade soothed my throat like a balm.

I tried to stop drinking, but Marie was as merciless as I deserved, dumping water into me as fast as I gulped it down. She reached into the bottom shelf of her cart and hefted out another tray that filled the entire shelf. She set it atop the other, removing the cover to reveal a mound of sausages that spilled off onto the bed. She held one out to me, and I nearly took her fingertips off. Wherever they'd found this sausage, it finally had enough spice in it to be worth enjoying.

I refused, gulping down each one whole as Marie practically yeeted them into my mouth one at a time. I snapped them out of the air like a dog. What did the shame of eating like an animal, being fed like a baby, matter to me? My own lover, conspicuous by her absence, acknowledged that I had no shame, and she liked me. More fool her.

When the last sausage disappeared down my greedy gullet, the tray swam in grease. Marie returned to feeding me hunk after hunk of grease-soaked bread, the spices once again tearing at my throat. When she pulled the last loaf from her cart, before she could tear it apart, I said, "No."

She froze, turning to look me square in the eye. I glanced at my hands, and she released me. My right hand flopped to my lap, a little numb from where she'd gripped it so long. I forced my left arm to move, self-hating fury overwhelming the pain. I picked up the loaf, transferred it to my other hand to hold it over the tray and the last puddles of grease. I pushed a Mana Blade from my left index finger.

I tried to push a Mana Blade from my left index finger. Nothing happened.

I tried again. Still nothing.

I cudgeled my stupid brain back to Doc DeLeon's first lesson from Special Needs Mana Shaping. I closed my eyes and listened to my heartbeat. It thumped along as if the world hadn't ended. I felt the flow of my blood from my chest to my extremities and back, even my stupid useless pain-filled left hand. I felt for the Mana inside me, tried to trace its flow through my body. From my heart through my extremities and back.

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Except my fucking stupid, useless, pain éclair of a left arm.

I focused on the mana flowing in me, through every part of me except my useless fucking left arm. The arm that's supposed to fucking be closer to my heart, closer to my center of Mana, easier to do Mana things with. I followed the flow with my mind, round and round the rest of me, positively surging through all of me except the one place I wanted it.

With every bit of will in me augmented by raging self-hatred, I shoved my Mana into my left arm, forcing it to flow like it was supposed to.

I'd only thought my left arm hurt before. I heard Sister Siobhan say, "don't!" before my scream drowned out every sound in the room.

Mana spilled back into me, repelled by my left arm. I screamed in pain and frustration and rage. If I wanted to drag a fucking useless appendage around I'd go take fucking Rocky up on his goddamned fucking offer. Inch by screaming, agonizing inch, I forced my Mana into my shoulder, down to suffuse my biceps and triceps and even my fucking bone in fire and lightning and acid. Water leaked from my eyes when my Mana hit my elbow. I felt it blow itself to fragments, but the pain from my hand didn't decrease, so I shoved my Mana past my elbow and into my forearm. My throat hoarse from screaming, I bore down, acidic lava shattering my radius and ulna as I shoved Mana into my hand. Into my finger. Out of my finger.

I opened my eyes to see a glowing smudge at my fingertip.

No.

I forced my Mana back in, then extruded a snapping, hissing wire from my fingertip, then slowly, carefully, painfully, screaming with every inch of movement, I forced the blade through the bread. Thin, crispy slices.

Moving the bread would have been easier. Thick slices would have been easier. I craved the pain, deserved it for being such a stupid bitch and trusting anything like a system. I even cut the heel I held the bread by into wafer thin slices, mad laughter replacing my pain when my Mana blade passed through my fingers with nothing more painful than some burns that looked like I'd laid my fingers across a grill.

I let my Mana Blade disperse and slowly and deliberately picked up the soppingest piece of toast and crammed it into my mouth. Wet crunches filled the room, crunches like the locks, crunches like the gender net, crunches like Bill's head. Using both hands, I grabbed at the greasy toast chips and shoved them into my mouth, cramming my mouth full, crunching them into a slurry before swallowing them and cramming in more. Water leaked from my eyes, but I didn't stop until the tray lay bare.

Marie handed me a pitcher of water, and I chugged the whole thing down in one long go. Then another, and then I dumped the final one over my head.

Sister Siobhan stared at me, her eyes glistening, one hand over her mouth. Probably to keep her from vomiting, at a guess.

Marie left the room, and I moved to stand. The Sister stepped to me, bringing one hand down on my right shoulder. I jerked away, and her hand landed on my left shoulder instead. I hissed, and I think she winced more than I did.

"Dear Canta." She whispered. "That... how can you do that? Doesn't that hurt?"

"Kinda fucking excruciating. Now, if we're done here, I gotta get to my fuckin' expulsion."

"Your... no, it's just an inquiry."

I barked out something not entirely unlike a laugh at that. "Oh, please. We both know Trease is going to finally get her wish at this fuckin' kangaroo court. Don't fuckin' blow smoke up my ass about it."

She shook her head, obviously deeply in denial. "Headmaster Miles wouldn't..."

"Wouldn't what? I fucking stomped on him. I left a fucking boot print on his chest. That's not something he's likely to forgive and forget."

She opened her mouth to reply, but got interrupted by Rider coming in the door. "Sister, the Headmaster needs you in his office."

I slapped my hands on my knees, cracking my teeth keeping my shriek of pain to a whimper. "Let's get this shit over with."

I stood up, staggered to the door, Rider giving me a weird look before following Sister Siobhan out of the room. I got as far as the door before Marie blocked my path with her cart, a tub riding atop it. She more or less pushed me back into the room, closing the door behind her.

She had a point, I might as well go to my doom looking my best. Just too bad I didn't have any fancy medals or rank insignia to rip off when they were done with me. I supposed they'd have to settle for my nametag.

She set the tub down, pulled a new uniform and new boots out and set them on the Sister's desk, then started undressing me. She started with my boots; she more or less peeled them off of me in strips, they looked like they'd been shredded and lit on fire. Then she pulled off my pants, and I got a good look at the punctures, burns, and ragged tears all down the back of the thighs and covering the calves and shins. I yanked the tie of my panties, and they dropped away, sodden with sweat and more than a little blood. I checked just to be sure, but it wasn't mine. It still skeeved me. Marie took hold of my jacket, working with painstaking precision to slip it from my right arm bit by bit without jostling my left.

I was sick of all the goddamned pussyfooting around. I yanked myself away from her and looked up into her startled face. "Look, do what you have," I winced, interrupting myself, and tried again, "do whatever you need," another hiss of pain as I tried to use my hands to express what I meant. With a sigh, I dropped my hands to my sides and said, "Do whatever the fuck you want. Just get. Me. Clean. Understood?"

She lifted one eyebrow, elegantly asking if I was sure without a single word. I glared at her and barked out, "Did I fucking stutter?"

She nodded, then stepped over to Sister Siobhan's desk, picked up her chair, stepped to the door, and jammed it under the door handle so hard I thought the handle or the chair would break. She turned back to me and swayed back over to me, reminding me of nothing so much as a slithering snake. Her hands moving faster than any snake's strike, she ripped my jacket off of me one ragged hunk of fabric at a time, each one jostling my arm, sending another wave of agony through me. Whimpers escaped me as she moved on to my shirt; it practically fell off in two big chunks the moment she yanked at it. She pulled the right half all at one go, but she licked her lips and fangs as she pulled the left one halfway, where it bound up until she ripped it clean off. She nearly took my arm with it with that, and a barking scream of pain escaped me.

She shuddered, then pointed at the tub. I stepped in and sat, leaning forward over my knees, dangling my head between them. She poured scalding water over me, followed by spicy honeyed soap, then alternated between scrubbing, massaging, and raking her talons across my bare skin. I actually laughed the third time she did that, because between the burns on my right fingers doused in scalding water and the ongoing pain from my left arm every time she jostled it, I barely felt her claws. A growling chuckle escaped her at that, and she moved on to my hair, holding my head still with one hand clutching half of my hair just shy of pulling it out while she scrubbed the other half, still alternating massage and claws with the scrubbing.

She moved onto my arms, starting with the right. She leaned over me, turning my head to the right so she could see my face where she leaned over. She worked her pumice stone and cloth over my arm, eyes flickering faster than I could track between her work, my other arm, and my face. Her breath came in long, growling blasts that smelled of the sea. Her hands, big enough to wrap around my biceps twice over, kneaded my arms like bread from my shoulder all the way down to my hand, where she took her time scrubbing every finger, forcing whimpers when she doused my burned fingers in scalding water, scrubbed them first with her cloth, then her pumice stone, then working burning soap into every crevice of the damaged skin before dousing it with yet more scalding water.

Then she moved to my left arm, and the screaming started.

I might be the stupidest bitch on two planets. I might just be too dumb to give up when I should. But when I say I'mma do something? I do it. Fuck that quitting noise. If I say yes? Not changing to no midway through. This bitch doesn't play that shit.

Every deep tissue massaging grasp, every rake of her talons, every pass of the pumice stone, fuck even every soft scrubbing with her cloth drew another scream from me. She'd burst the dam holding them back, and I gave in and stopped even trying to keep them in. She ripped screams from my shoulder, from my upper arm, from my elbow, from my forearm, from my palm, and by the time she finished with each and every finger I'd screamed myself hoarse.

Then she moved to my front, and made me scream for entirely different reasons.

She did it all with her right hand, too. The other kept moving up and down my useless fucking arm, tearing alternating screams from fondling it.

I know what I fucking said when Saffron Stabilized me. But that's comparing a fucking paintball splotch to a goddamned daVinci.

She lifted me to my feet, one hand yanking me by my arm, the other between my legs lifting me up until she held me up above her head.

Fuckit, if she rips me in half, at least I won't have to deal with the fucking court martial.

She didn't, though. She lowered me gently to my feet, still standing in the tub, then one handed the remaining kettles over my head, one after another after another until I stood dripping, trembling, barely keeping to my feet, and that only because her other hand shifted from place to place, shoring me up just enough to keep me from collapsing.

She stretched my arms out until I T posed; I whimpered the entire time, and kept doing so as she stepped away.

Then her towel enveloped me like an avalanche of eiderdown, drying me with gentle rubs everywhere but my left arm, which she held still and patted dry, purring as I whimpered.

I realized then that the Infirmary wasn't soundproofed. I listened as someone beat on the door while Marie carried me to the nearest bed, set me down, and took her time combing out my hair.

By the time she finished, I heard the fucking indestructible chair cracking. She stood me next to the bath and, one item at a time, dressed me in the uniform she'd brought. I slipped into a Parade Rest, the agony from my arm oddly numb, drawing no more than a whimper when I laced my injured fingers together. Quickly and efficiently, she stowed her bath gear in her cart, finally proving me right by one handing the bath up onto the top of the cart while reaching out with the other to stabilize me when I wobbled a little.

Then she reached out and, between impacts on the outside of the door, yanked the chair free.

DuBois stood on the far side, one foot lifted to kick at the door again. He dropped it as he stared at me, working his mouth once before just saying, "Diaz?"

"Let's get this bullshit over with." With that, I marched out of the Infirmary, headed toward the Headmaster's office.

When I got there, the office itself surprised me. A modest desk, no bigger than my own, although his gleamed with polish and heavy gold fittings. The Headmaster himself sat in the chair behind the desk, the three other chairs occupied. Siobhan and DeLeon sat, leaving Trease standing. DuBois followed me in, leaving the office more than a little crowded. I dropped into Parade Rest facing the Headmaster as duBois pulled the door closed behind him.

"So," said Headmaster Miles, "are we ready to begin this Inquiry into yesterday's events?"

"Inquiry? I think not." Loki stood from where he'd lounged in the third chair, advancing until he loomed over the Headmaster, bracing his fingertips against the desk. "Yesterday's events require a full Court Martial." He paused just long enough for the Headmaster to open his mouth, and then his voice echoed through every head in the room.

I. Insist.