Dear Diary,

Y'know, it's been a while since I had to deal with a complete stranger. I've met new people, sure. Tallulah and Ria, for example. But I had, like, information on Tallulah, and even a little on Ria, before we met them. I also had some general information on Rich Man's Port from my classes, not to mention Karen going down and doing the initial introduction thing. So yeah, I haven't really met anyone cold in a normal social situation since, like, fuck, I'm not sure I've ever really done that here and now. There's always been some kind of thing I could fall back on.

My status as a Cadet. My status as High Priestess. My status as Champion. My status as Patron Goddess. At least one of those kind of applied to every situation that I've been in, even if they haven't always been exactly positive things in cases like Norfolk. Although even there, that status bought me a little bit of something. Like, they might not have known what the Alliance was, but they knew what a 'Champion' was, and 'Champion' had some weight to it.

But out here in the middle of nowhere, I'm pretty sure that the folks know just about jack and shit about the Alliance. I'll be a little surprised if they know about Phileo City. I could see them knowing Lancaster, what with Lancaster being the westernmost major Europan settlement. Of course, given the state I found Lancaster in, I'm really not sure that's gonna be a point in my favor. Hopefully if the Lancasters have pissed off the locals that much, they'll give me a chance to talk to them before they try to express their displeasure with me being here with sharp pointy bits.

So when I saw that thin stream of smoke heading skyward, I stepped down to the middle of my Senior Cadets and said, "campfire that way." They all looked at me, and I pointed. "I'll take point this time."

"You sure?" asked O'Brien.

"Yeah, this is supposed to be a friendly recon. If that gets fucked up, I'll be the one to do the fucking."

I jogged away from them, trying to ignore the insufficiently stifled laughter. Screw it, if we were all in a good mood, that might help with first impressions. Given my lack of general woods skills combined with the hilly terrain, it took us near an hour to get to where we saw the flickering firelight. The moment I spotted the little campfire, nestled into a gap in what looked like an almost natural little copse of trees and brush, I waved the rest down to a walk. I got to maybe twenty feet away from the fire and still hadn't seen anyone, so I called out, "Anybody home?"

I managed to keep myself surprisingly still as a voice from my left said, "this isn't a home, just a camp. Who are you?"

I slowly raised my hands, palms outward, and said, "I'm Tabitha Diaz. Who are you?"

"You can call me Little Panther. So, Tabitha Diaz, are you and your friends human?"

I snorted. "Hell of a question to ask. We're all Human. Human-Adjacent, at least. Human enough to see a campfire and want to say hello and meet the neighbors like polite people would do."

I definitely heard the creak of wood and sinew that a bow made as you drew it. Or let the pressure off. Really hoping I wouldn't need to get in a fight, I looked over to see a pair of feet dangling from the brush. Looking further up I spotted the dude's eyes, but not much else. He had some solid natural camouflage going on; not just colors, because even in the dusk with wireframe vision the branches and leaves stuck to him obscured him. "Humans don't generally run around at night."

He dropped to the ground, his bow no longer drawn, but still in his hand. He was just about my height, and even in the wan light of the fire I could tell his hair was dark and braided. "Yeah, well. It wasn't quite dark when we spotted the smoke from your fire."

At that point he looked over to the fire, then shook his head. "Fuckin' silk, man."

I chuckled. "Wasn't supposed to start the fire quite so soon?"

He shook his head. "He wasn't supposed to use wood that would smoke so much."

I nodded. "Yeah, I'd complain about rookie mistakes, but I'm not all that great in terms of woodcraft. I can just about keep going on a straight line eight times out of ten. Nine if it's daytime and I can see the sun." I realized just then that I could tell where the sun had gone down, and where it would come up, all without looking.

Little Panther sighed. "I suppose it'd be rude to tell you to go away?"

"Hey, hey, hey, this is your campsite. Part of what we're out here doing is trying to touch base with whoever lives around here. Just, y'know, say hi, see if there's anything we can do to help you out, make sure nobody from our neck of the woods has come out here and shown their ass, that kind of thing."

He shook his head. "Well. I suppose you're not as likely to try and fuck our women the way the last ones did."

I mirrored his head shaking. "Skinny guys, blonde, moved with the kind of swagger that told you they were constantly thinking with their dicks?"

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He snorted. "That matches the description. You know them?"

"There were like half a dozen of those assholes, and I didn't really have time to get to know any of them personally. Which I consider a gift from the Fates, frankly."

"Were?"

I nodded. "they stuck their dicks in one too many places they weren't wanted. We executed them."

His eyes got a little big. "You and your friends here?"

I shook my head. "Nah. Just me and my buddy Larry. He's back at home today. These guys are Senior Cadets. Heroes in training."

Little Panther shook his head and chuckled as he moved over to the fire, taking one hand off his bow as he did. Waving me toward the fire, he said, "strange, thinking that Heroes are something you can make."

I shrugged. "Yeah, well. It's a title. We teach them everything somebody who might need to rescue somebody might need to know, and I guess teach them when to use it, and then hope."

When I stepped into the light, he blinked. "You've got scars."

I reached up and ran my finger along one of the visible ones on my face, the one that came way too close to my eye for me to feel comfortable about it. "Yeah. Been in a few fights."

"Did you win?"

"Wouldn't be standing here if I didn't."

"Fair. How many of you are there?""

"Six plus me. Mind if they come forward?"

He nodded. "I'd feel a lot better if they did, actually."

I didn't miss the fact that from where he stood, we were lit by the fire and he wasn't, not really. A little backlit, a little side lit, but between his camo and the lighting, he could definitely disappear into the gloom fast. "Ladies and gentlemen, c'mon forward, our new friend Little Panther would like to see your pretty faces."

One by one my Cadets drifted out of the darkness into the light. When all of us stood there, Little Panther snorted a little again. "You aren't really worried about being seen, are you?"

I shrugged. "Most of the work we do is on farms and in Cities. Out here in the woods our best bet is being friendly to anything friendly and being meaner than anything mean. You mind if we set up camp?"

"Might as well. You have any food with you?"

I snorted. "Just some fruit we found in the orchard back that way. I assume your people set that up?" Then I had a thought. "Just a second, though." Mittens, can you bring me some of that bear jerky? Enough for ten people?

It was more than a second later, but not all that much. I felt her arrive. I didn't see him move, nor did I really see her response, but the pack she'd brought along dangled from one claw while the other held the arrow he'd fired. I leapt between them as he knocked another, shouting, "whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Just my fiance delivering us some food." As he froze, I turned around, took the satchel and arrow both from her, and hopped up to give her a kiss. "Thanks, Mittens!"

"Welcome," she grumbled out before stepping back home.

I took a step closer to the fire, just close enough to feel the warmth of it, and held Little Panther's arrow out to him. "You dropped this."

He reached out and took it. "What..." I think he might have seen my face tighten up a little at that. "Who was that?"

I flopped down on my ass, pulling my legs into a tailor's seat to look through the bag she'd brought. "My fiancé."

"She is... not Human."

I shrugged, pulled out a hunk of jerky that looked big enough for two. "Human-adjacent. Also literally inhumanly good at cooking. We killed a big assed Dire Bear maybe a month or so ago, and she turned most of it into jerky. We couldn't eat it fast enough otherwise." I ripped the big chunk into to halves and held them out to him. "Want some?"

He shook his head, then sighed, slumped, and stepped forward to take one. "If your woman can catch an arrow in flight, and you're still willing to be friendly? I'd be an idiot not to reciprocate."

It turned out the sudden bit of shouting had woken his two buddies, both of whom were in that little copse of trees, which was not so much a copse of trees as an artificially created little bower; off the ground, sheltered from the snow, generally not a bad place to hole up during the storm. Not that it had really stormed so much as just dumped white shit on us. His buddy who made the fire turned out to be named 'Black Cornsilk' and when he sat up and made his way out of the bower I absolutely was willing to forgive any amount of poor fire making skills. Six four at least, the kind of chiseled features you expected to see in Hollywood leading men, and a black braid that dangled down to mid-thigh.

Ladies? Are you seeing this?

A few moments later, Saffron muttered into my brain. I am. Very nice. Very late. Was sleeping.

Sorry, Kitten. Didn't want you to miss it.

Very thoughtful. Going back to sleep now.

What if something Just Happens?

You can show me in the morning. Hell, see if he'll come back for a visit. But for now, I am sleeping. Good night, love.

I laughed as I replied, Good night, love.

The third member of the group we'd come across looked like a relative of Silk, but more 'oh, yeah, I see the resemblance' than another woodsy thirst trap. As I finished talking to Saffron, 'Door Closer', or just Closer as Little Panther called him, said, "you speak with spirits?"

I thought about that for a second, then shrugged. "Ones that'll talk, yeah. But that was my wife."

Panther perked up at that. "The... tiger-woman?"

I shook my head. "Nah. That's Marie. I was talking with Saffron."

"Two wives?" I nodded in answer to Silk's question. "And you're a woman?" I nodded again, and he sighed. "Three, and me without even one. No justice in this world."

Fuck it. We ball. "We live about a day's run that way. If you're ever feeling, uh, lonely."

Closer laughed. "Oh, please. He has no problem with bedding them. It's keeping one that evades him. If he weren't such a lazy fuck, he'd have had a dozen proposals on his looks alone."

I laughed and shook my head. "Oh. Well. Yeah, we're full up on spouses at the moment. But, y'know, the invitation's open if you ever want to stop by for a visit."

He got a speculative look. "Are both your wives tiger-women?"

"Nah. Just Marie. Saffron's an absolute short stack," I held my hand up right below tit level, then made the nigh-universal 'curvy woman' gesture with my hands. Silk definitely looked interested at that. By that point everybody'd gotten a solid dinner of jerky, and my Cadets had a little Filtration Ward based shelter set up. "I think we'd best be getting to bed if we're gonna be up in time to get anything done tomorrow though."

Panther nodded, then headed for the bower. "Your watch, Silk." He lowered his voice, but not so much that I couldn't hear him. "And please, if you absolutely must get your dick wet, wait until Closer's watch, please?"