Dear Diary,

Today wound up being a little more involved than I thought, but only because Saffron must be rubbing off on me, making me use the gray goo between my ears.

Woke up this morning with Saffron snuggled between Marie and I, all of us in a bit of a tangled warm pile on the bed. I watched both of them sleep for a bit, luxuriating in the sensations; the warmth of Saffron's skin against my chest and Marie's fur against my limbs, the sound of Marie's gentle purr and Saffron's quiet snoring, the smells of both of them, from the faint scent of the sea almost overwhelmed by Marie's fur, the faint musky smell of Saffron's sweat, even my own pumpkin spice sweat echoed back at me from both of them where we'd wound up getting sweaty after Marie cleaned us all up.

As I lay there, I remembered something I'd thought about the day before, and pinged my Patron.

Yes, Tabitha?

Do you mind if we start a little late today? I asked. I want to see the maintenance guys here about something I want to see if they can make.

Are you certain you wouldn't prefer to speak with the Smith about it? If it can be made, he can make it.

Since what I'm thinking about is a weapon, absolutely not.

Fair point. Contact me when you are ready to leave.

When he asked me about the Smith, I'd shaken my head, and Marie's eyes popped open, her nose flaring just the slightest bit. "Marie, can you introduce me to the guys who make the practice weapons today?"

She nodded, then oozed out of bed with that catlike fluidity she showed whenever she let her guard down. I carefully levered myself over Saffron without jostling her, dressing beside Marie as she did the same. As I finished, Saffron startled me by asking, "Can you see in the dark as well, Marie?"

"Warmth."

"You can see heat?" She nodded, and I followed up with a slightly envious, "That's so cool. I wish I had thermal vision. That and an invisibility spell and I could go all Predator on bad guys. Okay, I'd probably want his plasma gun too."

Saffron just let out a chuckling sigh. "You realize both of us can see in the dark, right?"

"Yeah, but think about how cool it would be to be able to tell the difference between, y'know, a person and a chair, because the person's warm."

Saffron facepalmed, then looked at Marie, "She's going to Just Happen to the furniture at some point, isn't she?"

Before I got my mouth open to defend myself, Marie deadpanned, "Yes." I couldn't help it, I broke down laughing, pulling Marie into a hug once I got my jacket buttons done.

Saffron got up and sauntered over to the two of us, feigning alarm as she said, "Look out, Marie! She might try to sit on you when she confuses you for a chair!"

"Oh, hush, you. Get dressed. We've got a busy day ahead of us."

"Yes, ma'am!" she spoiled her already sloppy salute by giggling at me as she walked over to the armoire.

While she got dressed in a set of half decent civvy clothes, I surrendered to Marie's ministrations as she fixed my various sartorial screwups. By the time Saffron got herself ready to go I was too. We all headed to the back steps, following Marie's lead as she went down all the way to the basement, then guided us to the section of the basement under the Men's dormitory. Oddly enough, the Filtration Ward didn't extend this far. At least the ones protecting the Men from being ravaged by the inhabitants of the Ladies' dorm didn't extend this far. As we stepped through a doorway into an obvious workroom, forge heat engulfed me.

Saffron said, "A Filtration Ward set to keep the heat in. Interesting."

"Why don't they just put it on the furnace?"

She shook her head. "Because then the heat would be stripped off of whatever they put in the forge to heat it."

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"So why didn't we get frozen when we stepped in?"

Saffron blinked at that, then stared at the doorway a bit before saying, "interesting. It doesn't filter heat in living things."

"Cool. I'd hate to freeze when I stepped out. So why don't they just put the Ward around the forge and set it to not filter heat in non-living things?"

She turned from the door slowly, then just shook her head while looking at me. "Just when you've got me convinced that you really are as idiotic as you claim, you come along and drop an insight like that."

I just chuckled and looked at Marie. "Who here is best with, like, good steel. The kind of things in the ballista gearboxes?"

Marie nodded to a guy wearing a smith's apron over a jumpsuit, simply saying, "Jon." The guy looked over at us, and Marie nodded to me. He hefted the hunk of metal he'd been working on back into the forge to heat, then walked over to us.

"What did you need, Miss?" His words might have been respectful, but by his tone he clearly wondered why we'd interrupted his busy day.

I looked at him and said, "Can you make a bow out of steel? Like straight up steel grip, limbs, and string?"

Credit where it's due, he thought about it a second before asking, "steel string?"

"I mean, like, braided steel wires. Those would be stronger than a straight up wire, right?"

He thought about it a little more, then asked, "who could draw that? You?"

I smiled and shook my head, then pointed to Saffron. "Her."

She looked at me and said, "and now we're back to the idiocy."

"Oh ye of little faith." I turned back to Jon and said, "Okay, you know the, uh, 'stock' part of the personal ballistae?" At his nod I said, "Okay, so make one of those out of steel as well, then attach the steel bow to it, and make a crank like you've got for the torsion ropes on the ballistae, and use that to draw it?"

He stared at me, a spark of mixed shock and curiosity lighting in his eyes. Before he could reply, Saffron said, "that's what you meant. Crossbow."

I nodded, and he shrugged and said, "maybe?"

I turned to Saffron and asked, "can you stay here and help work out how it ought to work? I'm kind of guessing on how it's supposed to work, but if you can kinda see what I'm getting at?"

"Oh, yes." A grin crept onto her face, an evil twin to her panty-obliterating one, but with a lot more of Marie's predatory nature to it. She turned to Jon and asked, "if I stay here and help you out while you work on it, can you show me how to make it?"

Jon looked a little frantic, but when he looked at Marie and she nodded to him, he shrugged and said, "I can, miss."

"Great! I've got to go do Devotional stuff today; will you be okay, Saffron?"

I'm not sure, she thought at me, does this count as an act of Devotion?

I grinned and thought back, absolutely.

"Sure. Can you take care of Isnomi for me today? It's not really a baby-safe area down here."

I froze, my mouth hanging open. "Uh..." Boss? Can Isnomi tag along today?

Sigyn says she would love to meet your goddaughter, but what of the serpent?

I'm sure I can convince him to behave himself.

So be it. Are you ready?

I shook my head, I need to get changed.

Call me when you are prepared.

I gave Saffron a quick peck on the cheek, said, "thanks, Marie!" and gave her a quick hug before heading out. After a quick change and a visit to the Infirmary to collect Isnomi, change her, and grab some spare diapers and cloths, I thought, ready, Boss, and reached out a hand. An invisible hand grasped mine, I stepped through the Infirmary door, and stood in Loki's cavern. Before I did anything else beyond saying, "hello, Loki! Hello, Sigyn!", I walked over to Mister Slither and cleared my throat. He slid down off of the roof of the cave, eyeing Isnomi where she rode on my right hip as he did. I slid a Mana Blade the size of my arm out of the back of my left wrist and said, "this is my daughter Isnomi. If any harm comes to her in this cave, I will see how many interesting ways I can kill you and Revive you." I had his attention, but he looked less than terrified of that option. "I'm thinking I'll start out with a kind of reverse ouroboros, where I see how far I can jam your head up your cloaca before you suffocate. Hell, that's an idea, I'll do that, Mineral bond your head inside your own ass, and then keep reviving you until I get bored and cut a hole for you to breathe out of. Sound good to you?"

Not only did Mister Slither wander off to the far end of the room alone, Loki choked out, "are you sure you're not related to the Smith somehow?"

I shrugged as Sigyn said, "oh, hush, you," then set her bowl down in a corner, got a huge goofy smile on her face and reached out to me, asking, "may I hold her?"

Isnomi wound up being the focus of all three of us for the rest of the day. I even cut the rocks anchoring Loki's arms to the floor out of the floor with my big 'ol Mana Blade, letting him sit up, whereupon Isnomi decided he was the best jungle gym ever, clambering around him and nearly scaring all of us to death when she leapt from his shoulder toward Sigyn. Before I left, I Mineral Bonded Loki's arm anchors back to the floor, with maybe an inch more leeway than they'd had before.

As I packed up Isnomi's dirty diapers and cloths, nodding to Mister Slither to resume his post after I left, I heard Sigyn murmur the weirdest thing to Loki.

"That is the oddest thing I've ever done in the pursuit of Victory."

I grabbed Loki's invisible hand, stepped forward, and stepped back into our room, where Saffron waited with a really cranky look on her face, one that mostly disappeared when I handed Isnomi over and she started feeding her.

Apparently she'd gotten distracted and didn't pump while I had Isnomi. On the other hand, another drawing hung on the wall next to our wedding picture; a sketch of something clearly not a ballista despite superficial resemblances. While soot and charcoal covered Saffron's hands up to the elbows, she smiled that same dangerous grin when she saw me looking at the picture. "Jon says it should be ready by next Sunday."