Dear Diary,

Every now and then, typically when I probably shouldn't be, I think about nuts and bolts level stuff of being Isekaied. Some of it's weird, but I just gotta shrug and say 'magic'. Other shit is more laws of nature, or physics, or history or something, and those start baking my noodle when I'm not careful.

In this case, I'm talking about language. I have no idea if 'Standardized Celtic' is anything like Irish or Welsh or any of the other sort of related languages spoken by nominally Celtic people back where I'm from. I didn't speak any of them, I knew English and enough Spanish to get myself in trouble and maybe get back out again without doing shady shit. Same goes for Greek; I've got no idea if I yoinked some Greek speaker from my old world here if they'd be able to chat with Saffron or not. Okay, obviously they would be able to, because Blend, because my Kitten does that shit too, but my point is I'm not sure how close they are.

But English, on the other hand, is apparently close enough here and now to Modern English that Maze can read Pratchett and get the jokes and everything. Now, some of that may be her being a kid and adapting to the written English she's reading. But Karen seemed just fine with the Romance novels, too. Which means that here-and-now English is close enough to be mutually understandable, which is just fuckin' weird. As noted earlier, noodle baked.

But that's just the start of what I've been pondering. My old Honors English Four teacher... why is everybody laughing? Of course I got into Honors English; the standards at my old school dipped abysmally low at times, and I can avoid reading a book in front of me if and only if it's held closed by somebody's naughty bits. Seriously, not even food's gonna do it, because I can read and eat. If I'm fuckin' and I pick up a book, trust me, you have long since lost my attention. Just enjoy yourself and take the pity orgasm and let me read.

At any rate, my English teacher mentioned something once about language affecting the way we think. Like, part of the beauty of a hideous evolved pidgin mess like English is how much flexibility and nuance a fluent speaker is capable of. Just word choice can totally change the connotation, even if the denotation of two sentences is functionally identical. For anyone still not convinced, consider 'forgive me, father, I have sinned', and 'sorry, daddy, I been bad' comin' out the mouth of a chica in a Catholic school uniform. Now you're pickin' up what I'm putting down. Thing is, that's actually a problem when it comes to scientific academic shit, because science is tryna pin things down, and using English to do that can be like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree with nails made out of Nutella. But there's shit I can say in English, no problem, that I can't really even think in Spanish. Maybe that's 'cause I'm not fluent enough, but the concept is still solid. Like, constructed languages like Esperanto and Mandarin are gonna have a hard time expressing thoughts their creators never thought to include words for.

Now, takin' that a setp further, if I throw Blend into the mix, how is that affecting things. Like, okay, for me I had language already, but what about Isnomi? She's learning new words every day, but how does she think about them? Does she think in some kind of ur-language, then let Blend translate into mouth noises the rest of us can understand, does she think in Celtic, or does she not even think, just emotes and lets Blend turn it into words? Seriously, I'm pretty sure she's thinking, but the thought of what language she's thinking in is kinda messing with me.

Then there's the fatass elephant in every room. If what I've been told is true, Domnu locked Mimic in a box while the universe was barely quarks and shit. She stayed in that box pretty much until the moment the Keeper pried one of her Dark Fatassness' tentacles out. Which means for most of eternity, she's had no language whatsoever. The universe is a couple billion years old at this point, if I remember my science class shit right, and when you're talking billions of years, one year with people making mouth noises is nothing. How the fuck does Darth Tentacle think without language?

I mean, I've heard of people with no inner monologue, but that's not real, right? That just makes no damn sense. Shit, I've got multiple inner dialogues going at any given time, a couple standup routines, and that one bitch who won't stop screaming. One voice would be great. But none... that just doesn't make sense. Every time I hear that line, 'she hears voices', I have to bite my lip to avoid replying, 'yeah, it's called thinking, asshole'. Because you know they'd then talk about my thinking asshole for the rest of the day.

Speaking of the end of the day, at the end of the day yesterday my Cadets and I spotted smoke and headed toward it. Shortly after the sun went down, we came out from the edge of the trees into a clearing. If there hadn't been some areas which had obviously been cleared off and then snowed back over, I would have thought it a natural clearing full of low hillocks. Of course, all of us were more than a little cold and icy, what with some light snow and rain coming down as we ran through the day combining with the sub zero temperatures to make things cold as fuck. I think the only reason I'd been so capable of dealing with the cold last year while Curing Lancaster was because I'd spent a few months with no heat in my room. My Bath must have been making me soft, because I absolutely wanted to get in out of thee snow and cold and shit.

"Hallo the house! Anybody home? Closer said to come visit?"

I hadn't done one of duBois paver shaking parade ground shouts, just hollered a bit, so I really hoped the shaking at the end of one of those hillocks wasn't some kind of mini-avalanche. A moment later the outline of a door shoved through the snow at the end of the little hill, and Closer looked out to where I stood shouting. I don't think he meant for me to hear him mutter, "fuckin' Silk." But he smiled and waved us forward, calling out, "Tabitha Diaz! You made it here! Come in, come in!"

I waded forward, the Cadets following behind me in a line, and we filed into the... well, it wasn't really a hill, not from the inside. The door opened inward, although somehow the snow just outside the door had been shoved back maybe an inch. My immediate guess was some kind of Shaping, but then it might have just been some cool engineering on the door. If Closer didn't open the door quite all the way, I totally understood, what with that much snow just outside waiting to topple in. I did my best to pull some of it back so I could step over it without getting too much inside. After a quick handclasp, he pulled me through the door and into a little entryway mud room, separated from whatever lay beyond by a wooden wall surrounding a doorway covered over by what looked like a leather curtain.

I dusted my pants off, then kinda shook myself to get the worst of the snow off. Looking around the little room, I realized that four people could fit in here if they were cozy. "Uh, should I take my shoes off, or what?"

Closer turned from where he'd been helping Mackenzie into the room, sighed, and said, "would be nice, but..." I think I surprised him when I straight up banished my boots and jacket, which ditched most of the snowiest parts. It really wasn't a big deal, because between the layer of snow and the lack of wind, the room had to be a solid twenty degrees warmer than outside. It might even be above freezing. I pulled my tinker pack off normally, holding it out and saying, "Marie packed this for me, so I'm not sure what all's in here, but I'd love to share."

He nodded toward the curtain. "Go on in." Then he called out a little louder, "the folks we met came visiting."

As I stepped to the curtain, I said, "the others might need a spot to put their boots and jackets; dunno if they know that little wardrobe trick."

He nodded, and I stepped into the next room. It reminded me a little of the longhouses in Norfolk, although not nearly so big. Three women and two kids sat around a little open firepit thing. Okay, that sounds way more primitive than it really was; it looked a little like what you'd see in some kinda upscale house, with a sofa around a central fireplace with the flue hanging down from above. Only here the flue wasn't. Like, there was obviously a flue, the little smoke that rose from the burning coals rose toward a central opening in the roof. I guess they'd made it from Mana or something, which shouldn't have surprised me, but it did.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

While I nodded to the women and kids, not to mention stepping to the side to stop blocking the door, I took in the rest of the room. Definitely a conversation pit in the middle of the floor. The rest of the room tickled at my brain until I realized it looked a lot like Marie's Kitchen and Conrad's Workroom. This wasn't really a 'lounging space' so much as a 'working space'. When I'd come in, the all five of them had been humming some kind of tune while they did what looked like some kind of needlework, but the two younger women stopped while the older one, who looked to be of an age with Grandma Aetos, kept humming and working at something. I realized pretty quick that she wasn't sewing anything; she was putting a leather grip on a knife.

"Welcome to our home, traveler. Call me Finch." The slightly older looking of the two younger women, who had that slightly squishy look that told me she might be the mom of the two kids, did not sound perfectly welcoming, but then I'm not sure I would be if somebody barged in on me after dark.

"I'm Tabitha. Thanks for having us. Did you guys eat yet?" At their nods, I set my pack down and rifled through it until I found what I was looking for. "Did you have dessert?" They all five looked at me, doing a simultaneous head tilt that I found hilarious and adorable. "My fiancée made pie. I'd love to share it with you guys, if you've got room?"

I pulled the pie out and held it out toward them. Grandma reached out a hand and waved me over as the scent of pumpkin pie spices filled the room. Just this once, it wasn't my BO, either. Not entirely, anyhow. "Smells good. Pumpkin?"

I smiled. "I think so. I'm kinda hopeless in the kitchen. She's been teaching me, but I can just about avoid burning water."

That got a laugh out of her, and she waved for me to sit and pulled out a knife that looked a lot more used than the one she'd been working on. "Call me Grandmother." She looked around the room, and I got a sense that she wasn't just looking around the room, but looking around all the other little hills I'd assumed were other houses. "Everyone else does."

By the time Closer followed the last of the Cadets in, the room was a little crowded, but Grandmother, Finch, her daughters Dandelion and Sunflower, and her sister Sparrow all had slices of Marie's pie in hand. I'd made sure to save a decent slice for Closer, and only taken a token slice for myself, but that left like two slices to split between all six Cadets. Brown begged off, O'Brien chose the path of not pissing me off when I shot him a look after he made like he was gonna scarf up a whole slice to himself and split it with Aetos.

Turns out Finch's problem wasn't with me. Then again, her problem really wasn't with Mackenzie or Ryan either, even though she gave them both stink eye when they introduced themselves. The source of her animosity made himself clear when Silk stuck his head past the curtain.

"What's this! Our..."

"Out." Finch cut him off.

"But I..."

"Should be on watch. Out."

He managed a pitiful look, even with that absolute gorgeous Chad face of his. "So cold..."

"OUT!" With her tone going from longsuffering annoyance to something closer to genuine anger, Silk bolted. "And don't forget to close the door again!"

The Cadets chatted with Closer and the women while I watched Grandmother finish the knife hilt she'd been working on. I wasn't a knife snob or anything, but the blade looked nice, and the patterns she'd worked into the leather handle were both beautiful and looked like they'd serve the same function as those little bumps you'd see on rubber knife handles. Then again, as noted, not a knife girl. They might have been shit for that, and the piece was just for show. Looked pretty though.

"You won't mind splitting your people up between a couple of the other houses? None of us have that many extra beds."

I shrugged. "I'd like to keep 'em in pairs." When she tilted her head, I realized how it could be taken and explained. "It keeps their stupidest impulses in check if somebody they know is watching them."

She laughed at that, and nodded. "Although that pair," she nodded first to Ryan, then to Mackenzie, "apparently push each other to being stupider."

I chuckled. "Yeah, but can you blame them? He's very pretty."

She nodded. "His father was too."

Something clicked. "Silk's your son?"

Her grin got wider, and when she met my gaze it seemed like the years dropped away from her face. I absolutely saw the resemblance when that happened, and my mouth may have been hanging open when she said, "Grandson."

Tabitha, are you about to Just Happen to the village's Grandmother?

Oh, no! She's hot! I dunno if she got the reference, but she laughed at my joke anyhow.

Grandmother blinked and the years were back, but like one of those magic eye things, once seen it couldn't be unseen. "Chosen tells me you're married to spirits?"

I chuckled. "Nah. I mean, Marie might qualify, sorta, but I wouldn't call her that. But Saffron's no more a spirit than you or I."

She smiled, but an oddly serious one. "Aren't we all, though, just a little, those of us with gifts?"

"Huh. Never thought of it that way. Y'know, I half think she'd love to talk to you."

Now Grandmother's smile got a little more natural. "She should come visit some time."

I rubbed at my head. "Thanks for the invite, but if she comes, Marie's definitely gonna show, and that means the kids are gonna want to come, and that means Siobhan will tag along. It'll be a whole thing."

She shrugged. "In this weather traveling is unwise, especially for children, but come spring?"

"Oh, it's not the weather, really. Or the travel. But you guys are having to split up our little group, and my ladies would be three more even before we take the kids into account, and even if they're little, there are seven of them."

Finch heard that and barked out, "seven?" She waved a hand at my abs like she wanted to slap them. "Seven, and you have those?"

I laughed. "Oh, no. One's Saffron's, five are Marie's adoptees, and one's a Foster from Lady Crow." They got real still when I mentioned that name. "Ah, shit. You guys don't have any bad blood with Rich Man's Port or Lady Tallulah Crow, do you?"

The other two looked to Grandmother, who said, "with this Lady Crow, none that I know of. With the ones who live in 'Rich Man's Port', we've had troubles in the past. More than the ones from 'Lancaster' or 'Calverton'."

I frowned. "Can't change the past, but going forward if any of them give you any trouble, please send word. We'll come collect our people and deal with them."

"Your?"

I shrugged. "As of a month ago, maybe? Although I'm not sure it's official yet. But yeah, Lady Crow is mine, so her people are my responsibility, so if they're giving you problems, me or one of mine will be along to knock some sense into them and fix whatever they've fucked up." I knew I was kinda maybe blurring some lines there, but something told me this was an occasion for personal trust, not big diplomacy.

"You'd take our word over theirs?"

I shrugged and laughed. "Oh, please. You guys don't strike me as the type to lure some stupid sailor this far inland just to accuse him of doing dumb shit. If they've gotten this far away from Rich Man's Port, either they're running from something or they're out here to try something, and either way they need to respect the folks who live here."

She just looked at me for a few moments, then nodded again. "If the travelling isn't an issue... Your spirit wife, Marie?" I shrugged and nodded. "She can bring the others?"

I smiled. "She and Saffron and Siobhan could bring the kids. Heck, I could go get them if I wasn't duty bound to watch over my Cadets here."

"So perhaps they can come visit tomorrow night."

I frowned. "We really don't want to impose on your hospitality too much. Besides, we're really supposed to keep moving."

She shook her head. "But you won't. Not tomorrow."

"Why not?"

She leaned in and whispered, "because you are not as much of a fool as you let others think."

With that, she started prodding the women and Closer to get the Cadets to where they'd be bedding down. Split the Cadets up according to their watch preferences, and it turned out that while it wasn't a super comfortable route for O'Brien, none of them had to go back in the snow. All of the houses were connected by tunnels between their storage cellars. Slept like a baby. A big hungry baby dreaming of ladies made of food, especially a certain angel food cake Sidhe lady who put in a far happier appearance than she had previously. Slept all bundled up with Grandmother's family. No moves were put on anyone by anyone, which I'm not sure if I'm happy about or not.

Turns out we did spend the entire day at the village, and none of us went outside. They even let Silk back inside, because the weather had turned from 'cold snow flurries' to 'Ymir's uncontrollable dandruff'. An absolute shitstorm of mostly snow, with some frozen rain and hail mixed in for good measure. We earned some goodwill when one of the roofs started to crack under the meteorological assault. O'Brien straight up grabbed the roof beam and held that shit in place until I got there, at which point I helped him push it back into the proper shape, then Mineral Bonded the shit out of the beam until it decided to stop fucking around and cracking.

It didn't slow down until the sun was slipping behind the horizon. I stepped outside to make sure none of the buildings looked like the roofs had started to sag or something, not to mention checking the weather.

That's when I saw a very familiar Rabbit sitting in the small clear space in the middle of all the little hills.