Dear Diary,

Weird what makes things feel like 'home'.

Another vivid dream last night; started when I dropped off to sleep.

I lay staring at the stars again. My side itched a little, so I wiggled around, trying to scratch it without actually reaching over, moving away from whatever'd tickled me, or maybe even squishing whatever'd poked at me flat enough to stop with the itchy poking. It didn't settle, but I just couldn't fucking be bothered to pay any more attention to it, so I just kinda ignored it, hoping it would go away. I lay on a hillside; not quite at the top, because a low, rocky outcropping blocked my view to the West, where I'd watched the sun set. To the East, where I lazily awaited the sunrise, I splashed at the shallow edge of a lake. I felt things moving in the water, but like, fucking minnow sized whatevers that I couldn't be assed to do shit about. Now and again something barely felt oozed underneath me, but every time whatever it was did, it felt really nice. I worried a little about it being some relative of those itty bitty hallucinogenic frogs. Hallucinogenic frog tadpoles, maybe? Did hallucinogenic frogs do the hallucinogen thing as tadpoles? Whatever, I couldn't bring myself to care, because it felt really nice. Like, I really hoped the little slimy things weren't some kind of people, or I'd be talking to Saffron about just happening going on. As I sat there vibing, enjoying the feel of funky tadpoles caressing the bits of me in the water, false sunrise painted the sky to the East.

I woke up. Kinda suddenly. Because a tiny human had just punched me square in the tit.

Isnomi looked up at me, cranky as fuck. I couldn't tell whether the rug rat was precocious or I was just that good at inspiring That Look, because her exasperated expression clearly said, "what the fuck, mom?" Then she lowered her mouth onto my nipple and sucked. Miracle of miracles, that clue went directly to the sorely underutilized Clue Processing Center in my brain. I reached down to scoop her up, getting another slap to the tit as she flailed about, grumpily expressing her desire for breakfast. I reached out, just managing to snag the edge of the mashed pumpkin bowl from last night. I'd remembered right, semi-congealed pumpkin mush filled the bottom third of it. I ran my finger through it and stuck it in Isnomi's mouth to silence the General Baby Fault.

She clearly wasn't happy about getting cold pumpkin mush instead of warm milk, but my daughter is definitely my daughter, lack of genetic connection notwithstanding. She wasn't about to spit out food just because she wanted different food. I kept sticking pumpkin mush coated digits into her tiny maw, and she kept gumming them clean. I mean, I guess I could have woken up Saffron and gotten her to feed the tyke, or roused Marie to figure out what she'd fed our tiny adventurer while she rolled around the Academy on Marie's Cart of Awesome Baby Conveyance, but it turns out I kinda liked feeding her.

Dealing with the top end is way less shitty than dealing with the bottom, even if she's cranky about it.

By the time I scraped the last of the mush from the bottom of the bowl, we'd settled into a pattern. I scooped up another fingerful of mush while she did her dead level best to co-locate her mouth and my nipple, because apparently she didn't quite understand that my tits are lactose-free. I juggled her back into the crook of my arm and stuck a mush-coated finger in her mouth, and she grabbed my hand with her chubby baby fingers while she gummed her way around my finger, getting every bit of pumpkin mush before letting go. Hell, she'd gnawed enough I figured she'd exfoliated my pointer finger pretty good by that point as well.

Then the little grumpy proto-bitch bit me!

Not, like, gummed me. Honestly, I don't think I felt it happen. I felt it as her tongue pushed baby drool into the wound and she clamped down with her itty bitty jaws again. I tried to keep from yelling, but even with my jaw clenched a little bit of a squeak got out. She pulled back, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open looking as surprised as I was, the teeny tiny stupidly sharp point of one baby canine tooth just poking out of her upper gum. She giggled as I yanked my finger out of her mouth, staring at the pinpoint of blood welling from a pinprick on the back of my finger before putting it in my own mouth to try and clean it off.

I know, I know, but it's not like I can infect myself with my own oral flora, right?

Still, sucking on a paper cut to try and keep it from stinging might be a bad habit, but it's still a habit. One I regretted the moment the mix of pumpkin mush, baby drool, and a pinpoint of fire from the heart of the sun hit my tongue. Three different kinds of 'get that out of my mouth' all at once. I considered it a personal triumph that I didn't yell, especially didn't yell at the little gremlin that caused it, but apparently I didn't keep my face neutral. She looked up at me, blinked, and lost her shit laughing.

Literally on that last. My one reliable baby-related talent making itself known once again.

As I finished changing Isnomi on the hard, smooth, easy-to-clean surface of the desk, Saffron murmured, "You're so cute when you're domestic." I shot her an annoyed look, and she stretched as The Grin slid across her face. "Oh, don't be that way. We'll have to ask Marie if she can leave a spare apron next time she takes Isnomi for the day."

I opened my mouth to reply, only to get sniped by Marie's satisfied, "Yes."

The women in my life gang up on me. Incoherent thoughts about Patronage tumbled through my head. Aren't I supposed to be the one in charge?

Tell me about it.

I don't know why, but Loki's wry commiseration struck me as so absurd it was all I could do to make sure the dirty diaper stayed on the desk and Isnomi didn't as I collapsed to the padded floor laughing. Thoughts of how blatantly insane my life had gotten mixed with the fact that I now lived in a padded room, leaving me cackling so hard I couldn't speak. Isnomi interspersing baby giggles with shouting "Ma! Ma! Ba! Ba!" and slapping my tits like you'd do to a malfunctioning vending machine didn't help either. Saffron managed to avoid rolling off the bed, but couldn't help but curl up laughing at the pair of us, and even Marie had snorts slipping through her 'I am in complete control of my actions at all times' face as she got her work clothes on.

Eventually I managed to calm down enough to pounce on Isnomi, raspberry her belly until she started hiccupping from giggle overload, then scoop her up, scuttle over to the bed, roll Saffron more or less onto her back, and plonk Isnomi down on a tit so I could get dressed.

Surprised the little menace didn't give me a thumbs up or something.

Once I'd gotten dressed, doing my best to get things Just So instead of making Saffron dress me, no matter how much I enjoyed it, I took Isnomi from Saffron so she could get dressed. After letting out a massive belch for such a tiny body when I did a little post-nursing-burping, she toddle-crawl-wrestled her way around to standing on my thighs while she 'fixed' my collar. By the time Saffron was Just So, I most definitely Wasn't, so I got to have Saffron fix me up anyhow, while Isnomi rode my hip until Marie snatched her away for a day of Cart Surfing. Saffron and I stood in the door, arms around each other, watching Marie strut away while our little adventuress urged her rattling steed forward with slaps and cries of "Ca! Ca! Ca!"

"Did you see that, Saff?"

She looked up at me, one eyebrow up, half frowning. "See what?"

"She's got her first tooth!"

Saffron's frown deepened a little, "what are you on about? I didn't notice anything, and I've been checking her incisors regularly. The bottoms are due soon."

I shook my head. "Top canine. Her left." I held up my finger with it's tiny blood splotch.

Saffron frowned, pushing me out of our door and under the hall light on the wall next to it, squinting at the itty bitty wound. Finally one side of her mouth rose in an amused half-smile. She pulled my finger closer. "Aww. Poor baby. Mama will kiss it better." She proceeded to do so, although before her lips left my finger she ran her tongue across the wound. I twitched a little at the unexpected sensation, and she straight up sucked my whole finger into her mouth. As I may have noted once long ago, my Saffron has an impressively skillful tongue. I leaned my head back onto the wall, trying to be good. Just as I decided to fuck that idea and show up to class never, Saffron pulled the door shut and spun me around to face the hallway, her arm firmly clamped around mine. "Time for breakfast, let's go!"

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

As she led me down the hallway, prim and proper in every way, she quietly said, "that's what you get for calling me that when we're both already dressed and have class all day."

"Aww, Saffie-kins, weren't you the one who showed me just how fun anticipation can be on Friday?"

She looked up at me, batted her lashes and said, "we'll definitely find out about that."

Thus began a day long battle of teasing and innuendo. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Afternoon Combat Training started with the two of us doing some really less than optimal wrestling before Larry ruined it by complaining about the "Bag bitches in heat".

I challenged him to a sparring match. He refused. Then Saffron challenged him. He refused her, too. Lachlan, who showed up to fill in for Marshall duBois again, told him to pick one of us or run laps for the day. I think he was a little aghast that his little brother hadn't just lost to us, but lost bad enough that he couldn't help but telegraph his fear at facing either of us again. Larry decided I was the scarier of the two of us, so he chose Saffron.

The match was, put simply, very not pretty. Larry managed to wrangle getting 'no shaping' onto the ROE in exchange for adding 'no weapons', which Saffron hadn't asked for, but whatever. Larry the Loser Lancaster might be an asshole and sort of short for a guy, but he still had a full head of height on Saffron, and I realized watching them that he had way more limb-to-body than Saffron, giving him an enormous reach advantage. He's stronger and not meaningfully slower than her, too.

She mostly stayed out of his reach, goading him into doing stupid stuff like his lunging charge at me from our first bout. He leaned on his reach and strength advantage, landing a couple shots to her face and half a dozen body shots, at least three right to the chest. Even if Lancaster didn't get why she reacted so strongly, I winced in unison each time. For her part, every time he stuck something out, she did her dead level best to cut it off. He lunged into a hard right jab to her face, and even though she ducked to the side he still managed a glancing blow to her right cheek and the side of her head. She brought her arms up and stepped forward as he pulled back, managing to catch his arm and twist it around so his elbow pointed to the sky. He scrabbled at the back of her neck and pulled her head forward, ramming his forehead into her face, her nose breaking with a crunch and splatter of blood. She swayed back, then tumbled forward, never letting go of his wrist, twisting his arm further until she managed to wrap one leg around it and flex, hard. Everyone in the courtyard heard his elbow pop as it bent the wrong way. He screamed and grabbed at her, getting a handful of pants and jacket just as she slammed her other foot straight into his crotch, hard.

Credit where it's due, he didn't waste that tiny window between testicular impact and total systemic pain overload. He lifted her up over his head, leapt, and twisted to drive her headfirst into the stone.

She never quite hit. As her forehead approached the stone, they slowed, almost like somebody trying to push through a Filtration Ward, until they both kinda came to a halt and Lachlan grabbed each of them by the seat of the pants and pulled them apart.

I stepped forward and took Saffron from him; he gave me some side-eye for stepping into the ring, but handed her over. Before I even spun her back upright I pumped some Mana into a Heal Injury and poured it into her. Still blinking bright gold when I set her on her feet, she blew a mix of blood and snot out of each nostril, scuffing the still slightly glowing mix with her boot until it blended into the stone.

Lachlan stepped over to me, Larry still dangling, swearing and scrabbling to get free. "Settle down, little brother. The fight's over. I'm calling it in your favor." Larry gave up most of his struggling as Lachlan muttered, "even though I probably shouldn't." He looked at me and said, "you can Shape Heal Injury?"

I shrugged, "seemed like a good idea, what with what happened on the Equinox and all." He held Larry out toward me, still dangling him by the seat of his pants. For his part, Larry refused to look at me. I laid a hand on his back and dumped a bunch of Mana into a Heal Injury. After the subsequent light show, Lachlan hefted him onto his feet, then turned back to me.

"What happened on the Equinox anyhow? I heard from some folks down at the temples that night that some woman in a scandalous red dress and a Maid from the Academy attacked the Moon Temple. Killed a couple people, stole a sacrifice, scared the shit out of pretty much everyone in the Temple."

I pulled Saffron over to me, the memory of my rage and terror at losing Isnomi that night unpleasant at the best of times. I needed to feel her next to me, tucked under my arm. "You don't know?"

Lachlan shrugged and chuckled a little. "I wasn't there; those of us in the city spent the Equinox at our townhouse across the Schuylkill."

"Ooh. Swanky." What can I say, the reminder that even with our little slice of Academy heaven, we still lived like peasants compared to the high and mighty Lancasters made me snarky.

If he noticed my snark, he didn't bother to acknowledge it. Instead he shrugged again and said, "it's nothing next to a proper Equinox at Lancaster House, but with father at Lancaster House, I'm expected to lead things at the townhouse."

"Sounds rough."

"It's what you do as the Lancaster everyone expects to be next Head of House." He tossed his head and shrugged. "What about you, though. Were you there?"

I smiled, a tight, thin lipped thing. "Yeah. Saw the whole thing."

That got his attention. "Really? Do tell!" He stopped himself, holding up a hand, "unless you've been sworn to secrecy. I heard something about the High Priestess of Mani swearing Mani and Diana's congregations to secrecy."

That got a real smile. "Don't you think it's weird that Mani's High Priestess wound up wrangling Artemis' followers?"

That got me a weird look, followed by a quick glance around like he expected Consequences from On High. Once he realized I wouldn't soon be a smudge on the pavers, he said, "that did seem a little odd. Do you have any information on that?"

That real smile slid into an absolute predator grin when I said, "do I ever. The former High Priestess of Artemis came down with a serious case of Dead after kidnapping the Champion of Loki's daughter, who happens to be the Goddaughter of one of the Academy's Maids."

Well done, Champion. Just enough truth that he might eventually convince himself of any number of lies.

Lachlan let out a low whistle. "That does explain the Maid. I didn't even know Loki had a Champion. Honestly, most people think he's dead."

"Not you, though?"

He shrugged again, that offhand acknowledgement that of course he had special access to some information. "My father's the High Priest of Wotan in Phileo City. According to him, Loki remains bound."

Good info to have. I figured I might as well throw him a bone in exchange. "Yeah, he's alive, and The Dress is his Champion's holy attire."

He nodded, a firm acknowledgement that Things Were As They Should Be. Then totally ruined it by saying, "good to know one of our Dan Gods taught that Bag Goddess her place in the scheme of things."

Fuck it. I leaned in as if sharing a big secret, and whispered, "don't tell anybody, but I've got it on good authority that Loki's High Priestess is at the Academy." I hugged Saffron to me, just to feel her there.

Lachlan may be many things, but immune to someone playing to his preconceptions isn't one of them. He did that fucking self-satisfied nod again and declaimed, "good to know that the Bag are finally coming to their senses about which Gods ought have their Devotion."

I felt Saffron tense against me, but when I glanced down saw nothing but a demure lowering of her eyes as she said, "we certainly do now."

Champion?

Yes, Loki?

You'll protect me if she decides the world would be a better place without me, right?

I couldn't help it. I started laughing, nuzzling Saffron's hair a little before saying, "My Saffie-kins knows far better than me who deserves what. She'll make all the right decisions."

Loki thought, that statement does not leave me completely sanguine, at me.

Saffron's voice interwove in my head with his. I absolutely know who deserves to be reminded of what my name is and isn't.

I replied to both of them, quieting Loki with the same thought that confused Saffron. Frankly I think she deals with confusion better than he does, because by the end of my thought, her confusion melted into amusement. It's okay, Loki. Saffron knows you're family. The worst she'll do is go all Mom Voice on you if you're naughty.

The only reply from him was a gradually quieting splutter. Saffron and I went back to the wrestling we'd been practicing before, this time with Lachlan standing near enough to keep Larry from being uncivil. Of course, no Lancaster could watch two Bag hotties wrestling without leering, but fuckit, if I ever have to throw down with him, might as well let him think wrestling with me is a good move.

After Dinner we headed back to our room, only to find Marie there with her bath implements, sans Isnomi. Before we could even ask, she looked at us and said, "Grandma."

Really, I should have known not to get into any kind of competition with Saffron where brains could be applied. She won our little anticipation contest, hands down. While I floated on the bed in post bath bliss, she looked me right in the eye and said, "Marie, have your way with me."

Really mean with me in no condition to do a damn thing about it.

Fuck. I think I'm getting almost as smug about my sex life as the Lancasters are about, y'know, everything.

Oh, no! Anyway...