Dear Diary,

Y'know, yet another thing that makes me feel like a villain? How the thing I like least about being the Imperator's attack dog is how boring the fuckin' meetings are.

Yeah, 'bored at meetings' isn't really villainous, but 'would rather be turning people into so much meat' kinda is, and after all, that's what an attack dog is for at the end of the day, right? Reminding people that the violent option is never far from the table, if it's even ever off of it?

So anyway the wind picked up as we went inside. I'm talking 'blow you sideways, hard to walk into it' levels of wind, too. The good part, if such a thing exists, is that coming from the west like it did, once we got within a hundred feet or so of Lancaster House the house itself and the hill it was built into blocked most of it. The bad part? That would be my brain reminding me that all the civilians the guy walking next to us was supposed to protect and serve and whatnot? They were mostly in pup tents, if they had any kind of shelter at all. Professional soldiers with decent supplies wouldn't have a problem. Little kids? Not so much.

I stepped from my position walking in the midst of General Hargreaves' Heroes to standing in front of the General, the Mayor of Calverton, my Kitten the Imperator, and Larry, who'd all begun discussing how they wanted to handle the peace talks or humanitarian aid negotiations or whatever. "Guys, I hate to be the one to rain on our happy parade, but we've got a fuckin' problem."

That did not go across nearly as well as I'd hoped. The Calverton Heroes and their General all tensed, hands dropping to rest on sword hilts. "What problem would that be, Commander?" Thank God for Larry covering for me.

"With this wind the wind chill has to be way below freezing, and there are women and kids and other people who aren't freezer safe in Northbridge without any real cover from the elements." I didn't get the response I'd hoped. Instead of a 'what are we waiting for, let's go', all the Calverton folks either slumped with a kind of exhausted resignation or got even more tense.

My Kitten, doll that she is, just nodded and said, "Heir Lancaster, could you see the Heroes to rooms inside Lancaster House and see that they've any creature comforts we can provide?"

"Of course, Imperator. Gentlemen?" Larry had half of the Heroes following him before the General even spoke up.

He sounded half suspicious, half confused when he asked, "what do you intend for the remaining... four of us to do?"

Saffron looked up at him, and through some kind of bizarre social alchemy, made him look like the worried one as he faced someone the size of one of his legs. Maybe. If she wore a puffy coat. "Am I correct in assuming that all the civilians there will recognize you and your authority as well as they do the Mayor?"

The General nodded slowly. "Yes?"

"Excellent." She paused, then called out, "Heir Lancaster?"

A few moments later he stood next to her again. "Yes, Imperator?"

"Would you be so kind as to carry the General's armor in to the rooms where he'll be quartered?"

The General did not like that one bit. "What exactly will I be wearing then?"

Saffron disappeared, then reappeared a second later with my big fuzzy coat in her arms. "I cannot Translocate you to Northbridge while you're wearing Cold Iron. Now, please hurry, even now your citizens are freezing to death."

Give him credit for that last mattering to him, at least. He had like two thirds of his armor off and the coat, which was ridiculously small on him but covered most of his torso, on in under a minute. "Gentlemen, please carry those inside. No need for Heir Lancaster to be my pack mule." Then he turned to Saffron. "Imperator?"

With a smile, a glance at me, and a nod toward the Mayor, she said, "Commander, could you take the Mayor?"

Moments later we stood in Northbridge's square. I stepped over to the emergency bell and started ringing that sucker for all it was worth. Within a couple minutes, the square was packed; some of it with people who had pitched their little tents and lean-tos right in the square itself, but most of them from the surrounding streets and buildings. A few of them looked pissed to be in the cold. All of them looked too exhausted to do anything about it.

The Mayor stepped up onto a little raised dais next to the bell, barely big enough for one guy to stand on, that put him head and shoulders above the crowd. "Good people of Calverton! I bring good tidings! The war is over! All that befell us came at the hands of High Priest Garland and some criminals he recruited from Lancaster Lands to incite us to attack Phileo, but his plot has been exposed."

Most of the crowd tried tor a cheer, but I could tell they really weren't caring too much about wars right now. One of them even called out, "be nicer if he was responsible for the weather and it'd warm up a little!"

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The Mayor chuckled at that and replied with, "I know not all of you have a place inside, and I know not all of those outside will live through the night. But our friends at Lancaster House have agreed to move those of you in danger to shelter!"

I winced, but before I could do anything Saffron stepped onto the little roof above the bell, and her voice filled the square with that neat effect she could get from the Message spell. I mean, I knew how to do it, maybe, but usually I just yelled. "We will transport as many as we can, but there are only two of us capable of doing so, and we can only take four people per trip, so please, allow your General and Mayor to organize you into groups of four, and please allow those most at risk, such as small children and the elderly, to be moved first!"

She stepped back down as the crowd did what crowds do and started muttering and talking over themselves, until General Hargreaves barked out, "I need eight children up here, now!"

It took a minute of shuffling, and all the kids were really tweenagers rather than really little kids, but I hoped that the really little kids were all inside buildings. Vain hope, I know, but still. The moment we had all eight, Saffron and I each had four join hands, and we stepped them both to Lancaster House. For a second I couldn't see her and damn near panicked.

I'm in the entryway, Goof. We can't afford a Translocation problem like the one that happened with Isnomi and her wolf friend.

How many are we bringing?

As many as we can.

And so we did. Four people at a time, starting with bigger kids. Before long women with really little kids were waiting for us when we stepped back, and we popped them over to Lancaster House as fast as we could. Some time around dawn we both neared our limits. I met Saffron's gaze, and she stepped over to me.

Stabilize, if you would, love?

I nodded, sweat dripping as I did, and tagged her with whatever I had left. She lost some of the baggage under her eyes immediately. She went to her knees right there in front of me, and I have no idea what or how she did it, but my whole goddamned body tingled, blasting my exhaustion away. "Holy shit, Kitten. What the hell was that?"

She held a hand up and I pulled her to her feet. Her arms went around me, and she whispered, "the power of faith, my love."

A moment later we stood in the Northbridge square again. We'd gotten all the kids out with that last trip, but we still had a lot of older folks to move, and now that I had my wind back, I hoped that maybe we could get everybody under a roof before we stopped. Before we took our next group, Saffron stepped over to where the Mayor stood; The General had been moving around directing traffic all night. "Lancaster House is near capacity, but there are farmsteads standing empty after the plague, and many others with room to take in some of your people. Could you begin putting one able-bodied person in each group? We can help them get fires lit on hearths, but they'll need to maintain them."

He just nodded; I'd noticed his voice starting to go as dawn approached, I guess he was saving it for later. We took one last trip full of teenagers to Lancaster House, and on the next trip each of us took three old folks and one younger person. We went to two of the empty farmsteads where Fred and Linus had managed to clear out and bury all the bodies. By the time we got the second batch there, they had wood on the hearth. It looked like a couple broken chairs, but wood's wood. I started to do my slowed-down Fire Bolt thing, only to be interrupted.

Allow me.

In less time than it took to blink, the wood went from a pile of defunct furniture to a cheery hearth fire. Thanks, Boss. You're the best.

I know.

And so Saffron and I kept going, four after four after four. One by one we filled up the empty farmsteads, Loki lighting the hearth fire in each and every one. I'd kinda forgot I was wearing The Dress, honestly, but I think I heard a couple muttered 'praise Loki's as some of the hearth fires lit. I guess somebody'd asked Saffron about the dresses. Or maybe the Mayor?

Thing about Shaping Mana; along with being physically exhausting if I do enough of it long enough? It's also mentally taxing; I kind of lose sight of anything else that might be going on around me. Not sure if it's like that for Saffron or not. At a guess, not? Because where I'm just too stupid and stubborn to stop and fall over dead the way I should, she's actually got the self-control and poise to remain vaguely mentally sharp after enough Shaping that I lost track of how many times we stopped to refuel. After that first time, we hopped to our room to do it. Folks might wind up getting suspicious if the High Priestess of Mimic was, y'know, worshipping her wife.

Totally her idea, and if we spent a few moments once every couple recharges just standing there holding one another, anybody with a complaint can get fucked.

I'd like to keep that level of fuckoff up, but... I can't. Right around dawn of the second night we hopped back to Northbridge to find the Mayor and General standing there alone.

"Is that everyone?" asked Saffron.

The Mayor bowed his head, too exhausted to speak. I realized that wasn't the only reason when the General quietly said, "everyone we got to in time."

"Fuck."

"Yeah." The General didn't sound accusatory or anything. Just tired.

Saffron took my hand, I grabbed the Mayor's unresisting hand, and Saffron laid her hand on the General's forearm. A moment later we stood in the fourth floor lounge of Lancaster House. People, mostly kids, lay curled up on the sofas, on the chairs, on most of the available floorspace. I smiled when I saw Marie and the menace right in the middle of the biggest batch of them. Tiptoeing carefully to make sure I didn't wake or step on any of the kids, I lay a hand on Marie's arm. Her eyes slid open, and I whispered, "which rooms will the General and the Mayor be staying in?"

Wordlessly she slid one arm free of the kids around her, lifted it straight up, and twisted her hand to point with two fingers, one at the door of each of the two innermost side suites. When I turned to them, they'd both started making their way to their rooms. I stepped back to Saffron, then stepped us both back to our suite here. Even there we had a bunch of moms with Isnomi-aged kids in our living room, but they'd left the bed for us.

Okay, there were a few kids that looked maybe elementary school aged snuggled under our blankets, but other than some squeaked complaints about how cold we were they didn't seem to mind when Saffron and I joined them and kinda passed right out.