Dear Diary,

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."

- Khalil Gibran

No idea who this dude is, but I read that quote and couldn't help but laugh a little bit. I mean, seriously, if strength comes from scars, no fuckin' wonder I'm up in 'bench press a loaded pickup truck' range.

I worry about them sometimes. Yeah, the acupuncture and massage dull the pain a lot. Sometimes even enough that it lets go entirely. I've never been exactly shy about being horny on main, but even back in the world of Eastside some of that was because those blissful endorphin drenched moments after were the few times when I didn't feel that constant PTSD hypervigilant tension. Here and now I think I might even have begun to process some of that trauma, not to mention some of the shit that's happened since I got here, but now I've got physical trauma to deal with. So those moments are the few where either I'm pain free, or it's pain I've chosen rather than pain life has inflicted on me. I couldn't tell you why that makes it better, but it does. It seems like it does.

I think Saffron and Marie doing the acupuncture thing on me have brought it into more focus. Because while yeah, while I've definitely put my personal acupuncture therapists in sexy sexy clothing, thus far there hasn't been anything a sane rational person would identify as 'having sex'. I mean, I might, because apparently my body responds to a complete cessation of all ongoing pain as a subtle sign that we must be fucking now, and I dunno, neopuritans and prudes might because there are mostly naked people in a room together, so they must be having sex. But one of those is my body being stupid, albeit in a fun way, and the other is other people being stupid in a very not fun way. So I'm not gonna agree with either of them and just say that the acupuncture is the first time short of full body Soul realignment that I've managed to escape the constant low level pain from my scars.

But... that's not what really worries me, I don't think. If PTSD is a kind of scar of the mind, mine are starting to heal. Maybe that will make my mind stronger in the long run. Not the damage, because trauma making someone stronger is bullshit, but the healing. And obviously I've got all kinds of scars all over my body, and I can list on the complete lack of fingers on my vag the human sized people I'm absolutely sure are stronger than me. But... I worry about scars on my Soul. People in my Mana Shaping classes have talked now and then about how having and being able to direct a lot of Mana are each signs that a Soul is strong, and I've held and Shaped enough Mana to light up the sky in fuckin' Phileo from New Amsterdam. I can't help but wonder how fuckin' scarred up must my Soul be to have that kind of power.

So yeah, yesterday at lunch Saffron reminded me about Intermediate Heroics, so we sauntered in and helped out. I sat with Larry and helped him power through some Mineral Bonding, because while he got the basic idea of how I did things even faster than Lachlan, apparently Lachlan has more in the way of raw power than his brother, so we were having to do what amounted to Mana Shaping wind sprints to get his Endurance up. I top him off, he Mineral Bonds until he's about to pass out, rinse and repeat until I have to slice his target apart and we start over again.

Meanwhile Saffron was working with Bonnie. Well, mostly observing Bonnie Shaping and keeping her from pushing too hard, what with her currently doing enough work for any four normal people just growing a kid in her belly. Turns out our Bonita is pretty fuckin' good at Shaping in general, and especially good with Water and Earth, so her Create Waters and Mineral Bonds are already solid, but her Air and Fire are a little lacking, so she's got to either overpower those, which isn't something Saffron's gonna let her do, or finesse them, which is absolutely what Saffron is trying to teach her to do.

Got home in the evening to discover Marie made tacos. Not just tacos, but apparently she'd decided to do flour tortillas along with the corn ones, and so we got some burritos too. All kinds of options on the buffet, because that's how she decided to serve it. Kinda wish she'd done that last week with more of the refugees here. While Lancaster House itself is a big chunk of people, and obviously the center of Lancaster culture, giving people concrete evidence that corn is not just for feeding cattle might have been a good idea. Eh, maybe we'll be able to gather people together for some kind of holiday and serve corn shit then. Tacos. Corncakes. Popcorn. Corn chips! I gotta get Marie to make corn chips! Either the super greasy kind or the tortilla chip kind, either one is just an addiction waiting to happen, and once you're addicted to nomming corn chips, you can't exactly say corn's inedible. Other stuff too, like, I dunno... corn on the cob? Fritters? Are corn fritters a thing? I think they're a thing.

At the end of the day we all just snuggled in to sleep. I half suspected Saffron and Marie had decided to do the one on, one off thing until one of them popped the three of us over there. No acupuncture. Okay, no acupuncture needles; now that Marie's been reminded and realized I'm game for her to work her clawed wiles on, she takes great delight in poking me when some part of me gets too tense when, y'know, tension isn't required or desired. Really, just spent an hour or two in slow, lazy bonding time.

Mimic dreamt of dumplings, beans, and ramen.

This morning everything wound up relatively uneventful. Daya wanted to play rather than listen today, so I took the time to make sure she understood Maze wouldn't be repeating today's reading. She looked pouty, but nodded. I didn't think much about it, just split myself off to Calverton, to the Academy office, to the construction site and two of me in Lancaster House.

Saffron decided to take advantage of the cooler morning to get some digging done in the hill at the end of our little valley. It turns out that hill wasn't actually the border of our land. Instead, our 'stead' ran 'as far as could be seen from the top of the hill on a clear day'. Which was some outright medieval bullshit, but given that medieval was an upgrade compared to some of the shit elsewhere in the world, I wasn't going to complain. I think Larry might do once he realizes Saffron intends to build a fuckin' tower on top of that hill.

Of course, she couldn't exactly remove the hill entirely, and she wanted to connect all of our buildings via underground passages because apparently winter snows got real bad around here, wherever exactly here was. Those two things combined meant we wouldn't exactly be building the Tower of Babel or some shit, but I figured we'd get at least a bit of height with her plan of drilling a hole down to below ground level of the valley, then digging a tunnel in from the valley to connect it, then lining the whole fuckin' thing with stone, giving the tower a kind of cylindrical foundation. I'm not an engineer or anything, but with her making as much of everything out of single pieces of stone as she could, I figured it wouldn't just, I dunno, fall apart or drive itself into the ground or anything.

Of course we started by digging straight down. For about the first six feet or so all three of us just dug, but at that point we'd each eaten at least one shovelful of dirt, so I decided that the two of them could fill up one of the barrows we had, at which point I'd lift it out and haul the dirt over to where we could scatter it around the outer base of the hill.

"Why do you get to be the one out of the hole?" Carruthers groused as Lachlan boosted me out.

I grinned down as he handed up the first barrow and said, "I thought you guys were all about being in holes?" When they both took a few seconds, then started laughing, I called down, "I'll take my turn in the barrel tomorrow."

I'm pretty sure they didn't get the joke, but they kept laughing and shoveling. By the time the sun was as close to directly overhead as it got this time of year, all three of us had stripped our sweat soaked jackets and shirts off. Little weird volleying the appreciative glances back and forth, but screw it, ain't nobody out here but the five of us, and they've all seen them before. Kinda funny getting to look at both of them from above, what with me being like a head shorter than either of the big guys, but not in a bad way. Of course at one point when I caught both of them more or less motionless, staring, as I hefted the barrow over my head, I set it down and did a couple bodybuilder poses. Carruthers slipped off the shovel he'd been leaning against. Then I leaned back and spread my arms a little, more stretching my back than anything, but keeping eye contact, and Lachlan choked on his own spit.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Kinda fun being able to get that reaction out of guys and know it's not just, 'oh, her tits are out', but 'holy shit, she's ripped'.

Right about then, back at Lancaster House, one of the staff rang the lunch time bell. The kids, who'd been playing tag in the boy's club, heard that and charged for the steps. It had been a while since I thought about babyproofing. Our one year old has a fuckin' hang glider. That ship has sailed. I'd never really thought about babyproofing fuckin' Lancaster House.

As the horde of kids rounded the corner onto the steps, somehow Daya wound up on the outside. I didn't see who bumped into her. I barely saw her slim little kid body slide right between the balusters. But Liam did.

That brave little bastard didn't fuckin' hesitate. He threw himself over the railing even as I stepped to the floor below.

At the construction site I pointed at the floor of the hole we'd been digging and screamed, "LACHLAN! AIR SHIELD!"

In midair Liam grabbed Daya by the arm and heaved her toward me. I stepped down another floor, caught her and rolled, my arms wrapped around her, and rolled through the kids' table chairs and into the side of the table itself.

I leapt from the construction site to midair in the Lancaster House foyer. I twisted as I fell, using the motion to Translocate beneath him. I grabbed him and twisted again, throwing us back to the construction site, plummeting toward the pit. Another twist and I put us right above it. Right before we hit the pit we slowed, the telltale cushion of an Air Shield catching us, sliding us toward the side of the opening. A moment later, the Shield itself collapsed, and after dropping a few feet I landed in Lachlan's arms.

"Liam? Liam!" Lachlan almost threw me to my feet, grabbing Liam away from me and holding his kid by the shoulders, pretty much dangling him at arms length before pulling him into a panicked hug. "What happened?"

I held up one finger, bent over and panting a little, trying to control my spiking adrenaline. "Stairway. Fell."

Lachlan looked at Liam, his expression thunderous. "What did I tell you about playing near the..."

"NO!" I must have barked pretty fuckin' loud, because Carruthers stumbled backward, and Lachlan looked up, his fury transferring itself to me. "Daya. Fell off. Accident. He jumped after. Saved her."

Lachlan's eyes got even wider, but every bit of anger fell away. He dropped to his knees, his arms still around his son. "Kiddo. Liam." He paused, shook his head just a little, took a breath. "Son. I'm sorry I yelled. I'm so proud of you." Then he pulled him into what must have been a crushing hug, but from what I could see of his face, Liam was positively glowing.

A moment later Marie and Saffron looked in over the edge of the pit. "Tabitha! What happened?"

"Daya fell through the balusters on the steps. Liam jumped after and tossed her back to me. I managed to catch him before he hit the foyer floor, but it was too fuckin' close." I turned to Lachlan just as the me disguised as Maze rolled Daya and I up next to Saffron. "Hey, can you let Saffron check him out, just to make sure he's okay?"

Marie snatched Daya from me and held her close, purring, while Lachlan handed Liam up to Saffron. She took a deep breath and let it out before going through the motions of an Assess first with Liam, then with Daya.

As she did, Lachlan grabbed me by the arm and turned me toward him. Then he dropped to one knee before me. "Champion Diaz. Commander. Thank you. I... Thank you." After a few moments he looked up at me, a crooked smile on his face. "I don't even have anything to reward you with. Not even the Heir any more. But," he cocked his head, like he needed to slide all the blood in his brain to one spot to complete his thought. He nodded, solemn, and said, "you can cut the line any time you want."

The crash from the adrenaline spike, the relief as Saffron looked at me and nodded, confirming that both kids were okay, even if Daya was quietly sobbing into Marie's chest, and the absurdity of Lachlan's completely serious yet utterly himbo statement hit me all at once. All I could do was stand there laughing. I yanked him to his feet and pulled him into a hug so tight the air rushed out of his lungs and his ribs creaked a little. "Yeah, well. Your little man saved our little girl. I'd say we're even... if I didn't kinda wanna take you up on that offer." I waited until he opened his mouth and said, "after we're done babyproofing Lancaster House."

Lachlan gave me an utterly dumbfounded look, and Saffron laughed so hard she wound up stepping too close to the edge of the pit and tumbling ass over teakettle to land on her padded posterior. What with her being a Phileo Hero and all, I'm not sure she noticed. She sure as fuck never stopped laughing until I walked over, scooped her up, and glomped her into the hug with Daya and Marie.

That put paid to construction for the rest of the day, because after Saffron explained what 'babyproofing' meant, Lachlan was a Himbo on a Mission. We stepped all seven of us back to Lancaster House, where he immediately broke free to march straight up and into Larry's office, where he declared on no uncertain terms that the House needed babyproofing, immediately. That led to another round of explanations, at which point Bonnie immediately threw her substantial influence behind Plan: Babyproof Lancaster House. I don't really think Larry would have argued, but by that point he wouldn't have stood a chance even if he did. After spending the afternoon supervising the kids, who were now playing and eating exclusively on the ground floor for the time being, I stumbled upstairs to get everybody ready for bed.

Gotta hand it to Oscar and the Lancaster House staff. Not only were there planks tied in place to prevent a repetition of the earlier fall, on the topmost floor they'd been replaced by some really nice metal mesh that complemented the color of the wood railing and balusters nicely. Similarly any uncushioned furniture had towels, pillows, or blankets tied around it up to about kid-head-height.

There were a lot of thankful prayers that night. Some to Dionysus that I heard because they were muttered by the refugees. Maybe a couple to Artemis, what with her being a guardian of children; I think I heard a butler mentioning her name. A fucking shit ton to me, and I'm not even going to speculate on how I could fucking hear them, like somebody listening to too loud headphones across the room, well into us settling in in our pile on the floor.

I pulled Saffron and Marie along to the Love Shack, where I finally let go and lay there shaking while the other two took turns petting me and maybe letting go of their own suppressed panic. "I don't know. I feel some kinda way that it took one of our kids and one of Lachlan's nearly dying to get that shit done. I definitely feel like a fuckin' loser moron for not seeing it before. But at least it's done."

Saffron pulled me to her, and I definitely felt both like she was using me as a woobie and like I felt better for it. "None of us saw it, love." She barked out a laugh. "We've become so accustomed to the thought that our little daredevil is both smart and quick enough to be indestructible, not to mention her Divine nature, that we never thought how dangerous such a place could be to the other little ones."

I took a few deep breaths, eventually finding my center. "Yeah. Yeah. Scared the piss out of everybody, but at the end of the day everybody's safe. Okay, everybody's safe except the linen and the fancy bits in the house, but my considered opinion is fuck all that."

"Agreed." Marie handed down the final verdict on that particular line of thought.

"One thing gets to me, though."

Saffron didn't let me go, but she turned me a little so I could maybe speak a little more clearly. "What's that, love?"

"Lachlan. Just... I dunno, it makes me feel some kinda way that at the end of the day? His go to reward, the best thing he could think to give me? Was a ride on the Lachlan Express." Saffron chuckled, then started quietly laughing. "I mean, I'm not mad. He means well. I just think it's a little sad that he thinks that's the best thing he has to offer." That ramped up the laughter just a little bit, and Marie joined in. "What?"

"Two things," she wheezed out, doing her best to get her laughter under control. "First, from the rumors I've heard from our guests, it's anything but an 'express' trip." That got a snicker out of me as well, and then she said, "as for the other?" She turned my face up to her, and bent over to bunt her forehead against mine, leaving me in a pleasant little cave of Saffron face and Saffron cleavage. Then she whispered, "Sergeant Vickerson didn't seem to have any complaints."

Look, I've already admitted to being a dumbass. It took me a little bit of contemplation time in the Saffron cleavage cave before I got it. While both of them kept giggling.

"Fuck."