Dear Diary,

It's strange sometimes how quickly something can become a new normal.

Yesterday's Law and Custom class wound up being pretty chill, despite Sister Cheryl looking like she wanted to kill somebody over her missing book. I mean, for a quantity of 'wanted to kill somebody' that was like, two steps from being 'cute anime pout'. She was absolutely serious about limiting the extra credit to shit other than 'Law and Custom of Phileo' until she got her thirtieth copy back. Feeling a little bad that shit I'd done without thinking about it was biting everybody else in the butt, I wandered over to her once the lecture portion was over and she'd handed out handwritten copies of the syllabus, which included a full list of our assignments as well as a range of extra credit points for found or copied books on Laws and Customs of any Alliance Cities.

"Hey, Sister?"

She turned to me, the pout melting into the smile I remembered from my Remedial Celtic class. "Yes, Tabitha? How can I help you?"

"Um... I still kinda need to practice my written Celtic."

She nodded, but shrugged at the same time. "You've passed the written portion of Remedial Celtic, but your desire to achieve more than the bare minimum is admirable."

I felt a blush roll across my face. Oddly enough I couldn't tell if it was really embarrassment about being praised, about my dumb shit splattering on my classmates, or just my Blend making me look a little more innocent. "Yeah, thanks, Sister. But I was thinking about trying to hunt down that missing book, but then I realized that I could practice my written Celtic by making a new handwritten copy?"

She frowned. "I couldn't give you extra credit for it. I meant what I said."

I shook my head, "oh, I get that. And I think I'm gonna need all the extra credit I can get for this class. But if I did that, could any extra copies after replacing the missing one count?"

She thought about it for a second before tilting her head and saying, "honestly, I'm not sure if the missing one is handwritten or printed, only that Archivist Auriemma's last inventory showed thirty copies, and now there are only twenty-nine." She sighed. "I suppose I'm being a little draconian about insisting that the missing copy be returned. For all I know, Auriemma had it with her that day at the Aquarium, and it's now sitting at the bottom of the river. Whatever's left of it, that is; I don't think she would have taken one of the reference copies with her."

"Reference copies?"

She nodded. "For books where we know they'll be used by many students every season, we've had at least one copy enchanted to resist anything likely to happen to it. As such they're generally fireproof, waterproof, acid proof, and highly resistant to impact or bleaching. They're also much harder to tear."

I nodded my understanding. "That's really cool! I kinda wish I had more of a knack for enchanting things; maybe I could turn some more of the good copies into reference copies for you."

She blinked at me. "I hadn't even thought about that, but I would definitely argue that doing so for any of our books on the Laws or Customs of Alliance Cities ought deserve some extra credit as well."

"So, um... if I make that copy to replace the missing one, everybody'll be able to get extra credit for making copies of it again?"

She didn't even hesitate this time. "Certainly. That seems more than fair. And, should the missing copy somehow turn up after that, I'll make sure you get credit for making that replacement copy."

"Thanks, Sister." I paused, then asked, "you guys are planning on exporting the extra copies to the other Cities, aren't you?"

She smiled at me. "So clever. Doctor DeLeon's idea, but once we've a full class set of each work, we definitely plan to. We just need to find a Library in each City likely to be incorporated into their own Heroic training programs."

"I thought they all had Academies?"

She shrugged. "New Amsterdam does, but it's hardly a patch on our own. Newark doesn't, but I've heard rumors they might start one very closely modeled on ours. Camden Yards..." She lowered her voice. "this is still something of a secret, but you are sleeping with the Imperator, after all. Inter-City Councilwoman Driver has already approached Headmaster Miles about training Heroes specifically for Camden Yards."

I nodded, pretending I'd heard that before. Not like my Kitten would have kept it secret from me, but we had so much high priority shit going on for so long there were plenty of mundane details I'm sure we hadn't shared. "Are they gonna be trained different or something?"

Sister Cheryl shook her head. "Not fundamentally, no. In fact, Law and Custom is probably the only course that will be meaningfully different for them. Where Phileo Heroes will be required to take Law and Custom focused on Phileo, Camden Yards Heroes will be required to take one focused on Camden Yards. Both curriculums will require an additional City's Laws and Customs be studied, and I expect many, if not all, to focus on Phileo, what with us being right across the river. Oh, and apparently they'd have different uniforms."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Really?"

She nodded. "Blue jackets instead of red ones. Identical otherwise, of course."

I nodded, then said, "That's really cool to hear. If you don't mind, I'm gonna go see if there's a copy of Law and Custom of Phileo I can use to start copying?"

"Before you do, come here." She led me back behind the front desk and pulled out a stack of paper and one of the ubiquitous Mana Pens. "There you go, since you're so eager to get started. On behalf of your fellows who might need the extra credit, not to mention the students who will use your copy in the future, I thank you."

"Ah, de nada, Sister. Just doing my part." Really, just fixing my screw up, but she didn't need to know that.

When I tracked down my Kitten, she'd managed to grab a copy of Law and Custom for us to share for the day. With that in hand, she led me up to the top floor of the Library where there were small private rooms to work in. She led me by the hand into one of those, pushed the door closed behind us, and unless I totally misread her gesture, Mineral Bonded it shut. "Okay, Goof. Off with the Blend."

I lifted an eyebrow. "Not exactly what I expected when you led me to a private room and locked the doors, but what the hell, I'm game." I dropped my Blend and my hands went fuzzy and mostly black. Thin lines of white covered my hands. "Holy shit, I did a number on myself, didn't I?"

She just rolled her eyes, set the copy of Law and Custom on the table, and flipped it open to the first page. "Yes, you did, Goof. Now, start copying."

I frowned, but sat down and got to work. "Why am I dropping my Blend to do this again?"

Her hands massaged my shoulders, taking a lot of the pain away as I started writing. "Because I doubt Sister Cheryl would give you credit for a copy written partially in English."

"Fair point."

I spent the rest of the day copying the book line by painstaking line. I think I learned almost as much as I used to in one of our old Friday sessions.

By dinner time I'd barely gotten halfway through the book, although I'd begun speeding up once I got most of the vocabulary in the book down. I mean, gotten it down in written Celtic, that is. I pushed my Blend back up, Saffron Mana Bladed the door free and we stepped out of the private study room to find Sister Cheryl sitting at the central desk on this floor. She tilted her head and tried to hide her smile as she said, "should I ask if that room will require more than the typical amount of cleaning, ladies?"

I laughed. "Nah, I just needed a quiet space to copy stuff down. I'm still not what I'd call proficient. And you know me, any distraction and I'm gonna flake out."

"I'm surprised your partner doesn't count as a distraction."

I pouted. "If I don't concentrate, she stops distracting me."

That got both of them laughing. We put the original copy of Law and Custom back on the shelf on our way out, then headed to our room for the night.

Mimic dreamt of trying to vibe and stargaze while ignoring the stench in the southerly regions. Vibe? Check. Stars? Gazed. Stench? Persistently unignored.

Woke to the menace shaking our shoulders. "Ma! Mama! Up! Cwass time!"

"What's got into you, my Girl?"

"Cwass! Docdur Theccardi!"

Should I be worried that she's found her first little crush, or glad that he's so obviously into guys?

Perhaps being glad that he seems trustworthy might be appropriate as well.

Fair point, fair point. Welp, off we go.

After watching the menace set speed records for eating, not to mention declaring us done with like half an hour to go before class time, I decided I was just gonna take my little win where I found it and let Saffron step the three of us up to class. We got settled in and chatted about whether we liked fish cakes or pancakes more, eventually settling on Lancaster House waffles as the dark horse winner by a nose. Right about then the profs showed up, and the menace scrambled out of her seat and tiptoe-sprinted over to Doc Zeccardi, saying, "up! Up!"

He glanced to us, and at Saffron's subtle nod, he squatted down and said, "What do we say when we're asking someone for something?"

"Up... now?"

Zeccardi and I laughed, but Saffron frowned and said, "I know I have taught you better manners than that, my girl."

The menace rolled her eyes at her mom, then turned back to Doc Zeccardi and said, "Up, pwease?"

With that he reached out and she jumped up into his arms. He proceeded to handle his part of the class discussion with a menace on his hip for the rest of the morning.

When Marie arrived with lunch, I realized I'd decided. We're really fuckin' lucky.

How so, Goof?

Because with him treating her like this, she sure as shit won't put up with bullshit from guys treating her badly.

She looked up at me as the menace dragged Doctors Zeccardi and Glass back to our section of the classroom to eat lunch with her. Were you really worried about someone abusing her? After she handled Conrad so handily?

I smiled down and kissed her forehead. Physically? Not in the slightest. Emotionally? There she's still just a kid, Kitten.

The wisdom of my Goddess is indeed boundless.

You just like my linguistic skills.

Those are indeed a pleasant side benefit.

Most of the afternoon was spent listening to a three way discussion between the Hero in class, Doc Zeccardi, and Sister Siobhan about triage and trauma Healing. Mostly I secretly watched the menace's head swiveling back and forth tracking Doc Zeccardi as he walked back and forth while he spoke. Honestly, I'm pretty sure she was just fascinated by him as a kind of grandfather figure more than anything else, but it was still cute to watch her as she sat in my lap, totally absorbed by the back and forth. She still fell asleep before dinner, and when Saffron stepped us back to our rooms, I felt good enough to carry her to bed and tuck her in.

Unfortunately, my brilliant linguistic skills aside, my beautiful wife stuck to her guns regarding your girl Tabitha and shenanigans. Gave me some solid fuckin' motivation to get that copy done or find a way to sneak our stolen copy back into the library though.

Not sure whether the very blatant demonstration that Marie was under no such restrictions helped or hindered my motivation, but it certainly underscored her point.