Dear Diary,

Kinda weird how I wound up here because I was cutting school, and now I'm going out of my way to learn new stuff. Then again, most of what I'm learning here is stuff I want to know, not stuff somebody else thinks I'll need to know.

So apparently standing around in the cold isn't really enough of a workout to help me sleep, even with the walking back and forth part of it. It took me forever to get to sleep, but being cuddled in with Marie and Isnomi kept me from giving in to the intrusive self-destructive thoughts.

Same dream as normal last night; that one tadpole that chose to leave the dampness seems to be chasing all the itchy away from itself. Of course some of it seems to have slopped around the edges. Weird.

Woke up to Isnomi staring into my eyes from about two inches away, one hand on each of my ears. "Mama! Pay! Pay!"

I blinked myself awake, "You want me to do what now?"

"Ma fah! Ma Ahnama fah!" She spread her arms out and made flapping motions. The wave of cold air that hit when she did that woke me entirely up immediately. I looked over to where Marie had barely finished dressing.

"Heads up!" I tossed the menace to Marie, who spun her around in one hand a couple times before yeeting her back to me. We spent a few minutes doing that before Marie caught her and set her on top of her cart to be dressed.

"Na! Ma fah!"

"Sorry, kiddo. We've both got to get to work. If Marie says you've behaved today, we can play some more tonight, okay?" She flopped onto her butt, arms folded and lip out, but didn't say anything else while Marie dressed her in her little uniform. I pulled my own on, and felt some kinda way when I noticed Marie could dress Isnomi faster than I could dress myself. Worse, all her buttons and ties were done properly. Not like I can't dress myself, but I'd like to think I'm quicker than an uncooperative toddler.

I picked up the coat Lancaster had... given me? Loaned me? I wasn't sure if he'd want it back or not once the weather wasn't so brutally cold, but for now I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Marie took one look at it and shuddered, holding out one hand to me. I handed her the coat, and she gave it a once over, even sniffing at it. I'm pretty sure she didn't taste it, but I can't be absolutely certain. When she folded it up and put it behind Isnomi on the cart, I said, "you know I'm gonna need that once I'm done eating breakfast, right?"

She just looked at me like I'd suddenly donned the mantle of Captain Obvious, and said, "Yes."

After a quick hug and kiss goodbye, Marie and Menace trundled off for a day of carting and Marie things, and I headed for the Dining Hall. Weird thing; I got there before it opened. Like, how the hell am I getting up early and not getting all pissy about it? At any rate, I was at the head of the line when the doors opened, and went with my 'eat enough calories to keep myself warm until hell freezes over' strategy again, since it worked so well yesterday. Anyone attempting to convince me that my eating habits are somehow unrelated to my secondhand fur coat can keep that negativity to themselves, thank you very much.

I was getting a little worried about missing that fur coat when the Dining Hall closed down, but when I walked out to the Entrance, Marie and Menace waited there for me. Marie put the coat on me, and the menace helped me button it up. As I ought to expect by now, the threadbare patches and other minor weathering were gone like they'd never existed. We had another round of hugs and kisses, and we went our separate ways to do our duties for the day.

Speaking of duties, I kinda had two conflicting ones.

Hey Boss?

Yes, Tabitha?

I have guard duty on the walls today. How do you want me to handle this?

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

"It's been a while since I visited you rather than the other way around, hasn't it?"

I tried to act like his sudden appearance hadn't just made me jump out of both my own skin and the skins of all the cute fuzzy animals who had died to make my toasty warm coat. "Hey, Lyman." I said without turning to face him. The wind was presently blowing from that direction, and the hat that came with the coat offered like, no protection on my face, so I was turtled down into the coat as much as I could be. Yeah, up on the walls it would be windier and I wouldn't be able to scrunch like this, but that was a problem for later Tabitha. Right now Tabitha wanted nothing so much as to get out of the cold, or at least hide from it as much as she could.

"Hey, Boss. Everything good with you and the missus?"

He chuckled at that. "More than fine, thanks to a certain High Priestess."

"Good to hear."

"What of you and your wives?"

That last kinda prodded me, I don't know why. "Wife. Marie and I aren't married."

"And yet she sleeps with you whenever your mutual duties permit, cares for your child, and handles every other wifely duty one might imagine."

"Now I kinda feel guilty about that."

He sighed at me. Don't ask me how I knew it was 'at me', it just was. "Dearest Tabitha, did you force her into her current position?"

"No fair talking about positions when any reaction I have is just gonna freeze solid."

He laughed at that, then said, "and now who is evading the question?"

I thought about it for a second, but had to reply with an honest, "no. She kinda demanded it, really."

"So why feel guilty?"

That got me thinking for quite a while. Just before we got to the gate tower. As we climbed up the steps, I finally answered, "because she's clearly an equal partner in every way except that one."

"Hmm... so that little formality is important to you?"

As we passed Lancaster, who'd beat me to the wall somehow, he did a double take. "How is he not freezing up here?"

I finally turned to look at Lyman, who wore nothing more than the not-quite-uniform he wore when tutoring me. Before I could say anything, he replied, "lucky parentage."

Lancaster snorted, "so you're part Selkie?"

Lyman shook his head, "Jotnar."

Lancaster looked Lyman up and down, making it really obvious that Lyman wasn't all that much taller than Larry. "Jotnar? You?"

I'd kept walking as the two did their little verbal sparring thing, so the conversation ended with Lyman replying, "I'm much taller than I look," before we got out of range.

Once we reached my assigned portion of the wall, I said, "y'know, I think it actually might be important to me. I mean, I'm not going to force her or anything, but yeah, if she wanted it, I'd feel bad keeping it from her."

He reached out and put a hand on top of my head and ruffled my hair despite the hat. "Such a kind young woman, always trying to do the best she can for those around her. It makes me wonder if she's the same person I watched maim a Goddess and destroy a soul on the Equinox."

I winced a little. "You saw that?"

"I could hardly not."

I tromped along the cold stone of the wall. The only way to stay warm involved some kind of constant motion, so I moved. "I was pissed off."

"Clearly."

"She fucked with my family."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you hadn't married your darling Saffron then, had you?"

I blinked, then said, "technically? No, I hadn't. But that didn't matter. Isnomi was already one of my people. I'm not sure how to explain it."

"You need not explain yourself to me. I have no problems with what you did that night."

I looked at him, despite the blast of wind to the face I got. "You have no problem with me destroying a soul, or maiming a Goddess?"

He just smiled that naughty little boy smile he did so well. "Artemis' priestess had taken the soul of one of your people, without consent I might add. Your actions in taking hers were just. As for Artemis herself? She may not have broken the letter of the Pact, since she wore the body of her former Priestess, but she certainly broke the spirit of it. You gave her an object lesson in why that was a bad idea."

Just then Saffron thought at me, the Grand Army is advancing again. I'm going to be focused on trying to spot any more traps or ambushes, but I'll call for you if I need you.

Gotcha. Love you, Kitten.

Love you too, Goof.

"So, if we're cool at the moment, mind telling me how you aren't freezing your ass off in that?"

He laughed, "don't tell me I fooled you with that lie I told your watch partner?"

"I'm thinking it's more than just 'being Jotnar' that has you immune to cold."

He shrugged, "more or less. The further from the source of all Jotnar a person is, the more the cold might affect them."

"And you're the son of Ymir, who is literally a glacier, and Laufey, who tells cold to go fuck itself, she does what she wants."

That got him laughing hard enough he had to sit down on one of the wall's crenellations. "Oh, I absolutely must share that with her."

"Okay, so how do I get in on the anti-freeze situation before my nose freezes off?"

He stared at me for like thirty seconds, chuckling, before finally saying, "you've been translocating back and forth between my cavern, your Academy, and the Army for how long, and you still ask that question?"

What can I say? I'm a special kind of stupid at times.