Dear Diary,

Finally got some info on one of the bigger missing pieces of my old world today in class. Nothing Earth shattering, but informative.

Same dream last night. Chillin' like a villain by the lakeside, psychedelic tadpoles making my bits all tingly while I stared at the stars. False dawn painted the sky, and I woke up.

Saffron and Isnomi were already up. Saffron sat at the desk, Isnomi nomming happily in her lap. I sat there watching, enjoying the moment of peace and quiet. I noticed the chamber pot sitting on the desk, so I got up to find a place to put it away. As I reached for it, Isnomi detached and squawked at me. "Na! Ma! Na!"

I stopped and looked at Saffron, who shrugged. "She insisted I put it up there."

By now Isnomi had wriggled free of her mom's arms and clambered onto the desk. She slapped the lid and looked at me expectantly. I shrugged, thinking, fuck it, why not? and pulled the lid free. It'd been emptied and cleaned recently. Isnomi tugged at her diaper and looked at me again. Just going with it, I reached down and undid the origami, letting the clean diaper fall away from her. She tried to clamber onto the pot, but after the second time she almost tipped it over on herself I reached out and picked her up. She fussed, slapping at me, until I held her over the pot, her knees hooked over one edge. She grabbed the sides, but I kept my hands under her arms to support her. She looked me right in the eye and unloaded into the pot. Then she threw her hands above her head and babbled, "Da!"

I looked at Saffron. "What do you think, love?"

She just stared at the menace. Her mental progress is frighteningly rapid.

She is your daughter.

That particular comment hit home. Saffron swelled up with pride, practically preening as she did so. She forced a firm look onto her face, looked our daughter in the eye, and said, "One week. Seven days, no dirty diapers at all, you use the pot at least once a day. I won't have you giving yourself some kind of blockage."

Isnomi looked at her, confused. "Sa, ba?"

Saffron held up her fists and started raising fingers. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven." She held up the seven fingers just inside Isnomi's reach and repeated, "seven."

The menace folded her pudgy little arms and pouted.

"Seven." Saffron repeated mercilessly.

The rug rat looked up at me, pleading. "Mama?"

I flicked the side of the pot. "Today counts as one, if you can get through it without messing your diaper."

She sighed, pouted more, and held her hands up to me. I hefted her up over my shoulder, dangling her there by the ankles until I could get a clean cloth to wipe her down before laying her down to re-diaper her.

Right around then Marie came in. Isnomi's face lit up. "Ma, ba, ca!"

Of course Marie responded by forcibly trading me our clean laundry in exchange for the menace, who responded to Marie's rumbling face-rubbing by grabbing Marie's ears and rubbing her own little chubby cheeks against Marie's. I handed the clothing off to Saffron, who'd dressed while I changed Isnomi, and went to the armoire to get dressed myself. I left my jacket unbuttoned and wandered over to Saffron, who'd been holding the pile of clean clothes while I dressed in front of the armoire. "Please?"

She shook her head, but set the laundry on the desk and started doing my buttons up from the top down. "I do not understand why you cannot do this yourself."

My face warmed a little as I realized the truth. "I can. You've seen me do it."

She stopped, her hands still on the buttons. "So why am I doing it again?"

I looked at the floor. "I like it when you do it. It's like a hug that lasts all day long. Until I take my jacket off, anyhow."

I barely heard her breath a squeaky little, "oh." Her hands returned to buttoning, but instead of her normal 'get this done as quickly and efficiently as possible' routine, she buttoned each one carefully, caressing it as she did. When the final button sat just so, she wrapped her arms around me and whispered, "Goof" into my chest.

"Love you too, Kitten."

She pulled back just far enough to look at me and said, "I see it now, you're just into cradle robbing."

I mocked outrage and said, "hey, you're the mature one. Says so on our Statuses and everything."

She shook her head and solemnly said, "yes, but you're older. By almost a full year."

I put on my best Look of Despair and mock cried out, "oh, no, that means I have to be the Boring One!"

She snuggled into me again, chuckling. "Never that, love." She pulled away and pushed me toward the door. "Go on, save me some eggs, I have to put the laundry away."

I sauntered to the door, in no big hurry to beat Saffron to breakfast, leaving the room just in time to see Marie turn the corner with her Isnomi hood ornament slapping the cart and shrieking, "ca! Ca! Ca! Fa! Fa! Fafa!"

Chuckling at that sight, I meandered down the hall. Saffron caught up to me right as I left the dorm, surprisingly unperturbed by catching me before I could get to the Dining Hall and save her any eggs. I mean, we still got plenty, but she's usually a bit more irked if I somehow fail to live up to her inflated expectations. I mean, obviously inflated; she expects me to follow instructions, which to be honest for her I might, because apparently it gives her the urge to ride my face like a bicycle seat, but she also expects me to remember instructions. For, like, longer than it took her to say them. Half the time I can't even remember what I wanted to do by the time I get around to doing it.

So today in G and C we continued the Apennine Peninsula, finally getting to the Big Dog of the peninsula. Almost literally in this world, as the City had no 'eagle' imagery. Instead, their whole thing was wolves. Where the Romans had legions, every soldier a cog in a military machine, the Remans had 'wolf packs'; groups of soldiers, scouts, hunters, or Heroes who all considered each other peers.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Doc DeLeon kicked it all off with a story. "Three thousand years ago, King Numitor of Alba Longa was deposed by his brother, Amulius. To keep Numitor from contesting his reign, Amulius killed Numitor's sons and forced Numitor's daughter Rhea Silvia to swear vows as a Vestal Virgin. While she tended the sacred flame, a God saw her devotion to her duty and her anger at the way Amulius had spent her father's wealth and power on self-aggrandizement. He was so taken by her wrath and steadfastness that he came to her in the night and lay with her."

Saffron raised her hand. "Which God?"

Doc DeLeon nodded, "there's more than a little dispute about that, actually. Some say it was Mercury, since he most frequently visited the sacred flames and watched over Hestia's Vestal Virgins. Some say Jupiter, because of course they do. There is even a strong faction of scholars, mostly from the Etruscan portion of the peninsula, who believe Bellona sired Rhea Silvia's children, although there is no evidence of Bellona siring children with mortal women elsewhere. It is my contention that the Etruscans mostly prefer Bellona to my personal preference, Mars, as they would naturally prefer their own war god."

I raised my hand and asked, "Why the... never mind, dumb question."

"No, no, there are no dumb questions, only unasked ones."

Despite his complete lack of subtlety, somehow I still heard Lancaster stage whispering, "only dumb people," over the second half of Doc's statement.

"I was gonna ask why the Reman names, but.. duh. Reme."

Doc stood there, mouth half open, before rubbing his forehead a moment before chuckling and saying, "as usual, you have arrived at a correct conclusion, somehow, despite all logic and reason. That was, indeed, a stupid question, but please, I'd still rather you ask. Who knows if one of your classmates had the same question, but never had your sudden moment of insight."

"You mean someone with more stupid than me?"

He laughed and just waved me away, returning to his story. "At any rate, Cadet Diaz' surprising ability to be correct aside, Mars sired twin boys on Rhea. Amulius feared the vengeance of the unknown God, but wanted the boys out of the picture, so he had Rhea imprisoned and her sons cast into the Tiber River. The servant assigned to the task took pity on the boys, dropping the basket she carried them with into the river instead of throwing the boys in separately. The boat floated down the river, eventually catching up in some reeds, where the boys were found and adopted by a she-wolf. When they were but boys, the she-wolf, known simply as Lupa, led them to raid a flock of sheep. The shepherd, Faustulus Larentia, injured Lupa defending his sheep, and would have killed her, but the boys stood in the way, refusing to let him."

"What kind of man is stopped by two boys?" interrupted Lancaster.

Doc DeLeon grabbed the pointer he used on the map and brought it down on Lancaster's desk three times, punctuating his next words. "Sons. Of. Ares." When Lancaster nodded, he continued, "Faustus lured the boys back to his home, where they and his wife tended Lupa until she recovered. To this day, the shepherds of Reme often ally with local wolf packs to defend their flocks from lions and other predators. There are even stories of packs returning lost sheep to shepherds, although I find that dubious."

Rosen raised his hand and asked, "why would the wolves help guard the sheep?"

Before Doc DeLeon could answer, Bill chimed in with, "for a cut of the mutton."

"Exactly!" replied DeLeon. "At any rate, Faustus and his wife adopted the boys, and Lupa lived near, sometimes making her den in the house when winters were harsh. When the boys had just grown to manhood, they ran afoul of shepherds from Alba Longa. They quarreled, and the boys killed one of the shepherds. A week later, soldiers of Alba Longa arrived at the house of Faustus while the boys had the sheep in the fields. They slew Faustus and raped his wife, then set their house afire. The boys saw the smoke and ran back. Remus harried the soldiers while his brother Romulus rescued their 'stepmother', though he was burned badly while doing so. Together, the sons of Ares fought the soldiers until they broke and ran, but not before one wounded Romulus mortally. Holding his dying brother in his arms, Remus' howls of grief summoned not only Lupa, but all of her children, and their children, and their children. Together with Remus, they raced to Alba Longa, overtaking and slaying the remaining soldiers, but that did not slake Remus' blood lust for revenge in the slightest. They continued on to Alba Longa, fell upon the city, and slew all who stood against them, eventually butchering their way to Amulius' throne room, where Remus and Lupa and her children tore him limb from limb."

As Doc DeLeon paused, Lancaster breathed out a single word, "righteous." For once I found myself agreeing with the little shit.

"In the throne room they found Rhea Silvia, chained to the altar of Hestia, which Amulius had moved to his throne room to 'demonstrate his devotion to Hestia'. Some say he'd used his niece as his own personal concubine, but I personally doubt that Hestia or Hermes would have allowed that to stand. At any rate, Remus would have slain her, as he did to any who did not flee his wrath fast enough, but Lupa intervened, smelling her adopted sons' scent on their birth mother. His rage quelled for an instant, Remus recognized his mother, 'rent her chains asunder', then used the eternal flame she'd tended to burn Alba Longa to the ground, returning home with her. He buried his father and brother on Palatine Hill, where their house had stood, and built a new house for his birth mother and stepmother, who was now with child, atop nearby Aventine Hill. That house became the center of the City of Reme, initially populated by local shepherds who had heard the tale of Remus' alliance with the wolves to avenge Faustus, an old shepherd they respected, as well as refugees from Alba Longa, who were welcomed so long as they foreswore any allegiance to the destroyed city and became one of the 'Pack', as Remus first called it."

Through the latter half of the morning and the early part of the afternoon, mostly instigated by Lancaster, Doc DeLeon reviewed historical battles demonstrating the 'pack' tactics the Remans used. I say 'instigated by Lancaster', because any time Doc seemed ready to move on to some other part of Reman culture, Lancaster asked for more examples, but pretty much everybody else in the class got fuckin' riveted by that first story, myself included. Doc went with it, sketching out map after map on the board at the front of the room, drawing in the Reman's opponents and maneuvers. Maybe an hour after lunch something clicked.

"Holy shit. It's..."

"Yes, Cadet Diaz?"

I shook my head, bullshitting frantically. "Army ants. They move like that," I finished lamely.

Doc DeLeon muttered something like, 'if you say so. Anyway,' and returned to his lecture.

What were you actually thinking, love?

Blitzkrieg.

She went silent a moment, then replied, lightning war?

In response I sent her every video image I could remember about tanks charging to, around, and through the gaps between fortresses and formations, blowing the living shit out of anything that stood and fought, and organically congregating at enemy weak points while leaving a few of their number to keep the enemy strong points occupied long enough for their own concentrated forces to roll the enemy up from the rear.

I didn't notice until the end of the class, but Saffron kind of dropped out of the class discussion after that.

I tried to say something about it, but she hushed me and remained quiet through dinner. Eventually, when we settled Isnomi down in her cradle for the night, I put my arms around her, nudged her chin up until she looked me in the eyes, and quietly said, "I'm sorry if something I said or did or showed you upset you, love. I didn't mean to."

Her lips quirked up into a crooked grin and she replied, "You didn't. Not really. I just," she paused, searching for words, or more likely choosing which ones to use, "had a lot to think about. If you really want to make it up to me, though?"

I smiled down at her. "Absolutely."

I went to scoop her up, but she pushed me away, laughing quietly, and said, "so wear your new nightgown tonight. Just for me."

When I shot her a 'what the fuck, Saffron?' look while she padded over to the bed and primly sat on the edge, leering at me while I stood there naked, she nodded toward the armoire.

I opened it only to find, hanging right next to The Dress, a frilly maid's apron.

I swear, my Kitten can be such a dork sometimes.