Dear Diary,

On the one hand, I'm really glad I have people looking out for my well being, since I seem to have developed a penchant for attempted self-destruction. I mean, in the pursuit of the greater good, but still. Thing is, every time I do something like that, I wind up getting a day off. Which, y'know, I don't really get otherwise. Which might be feeding that penchant, y'know?

On a related note, apparently that whole 'Heroes never get a day off, just down time to recuperate from injuries that make them unable to Hero properly' thing does not stop me wanting that particular Title any less. Which leaves me really confused as to why I'd give Saffron the Imperator role. Seriously, everybody expected me to take it, but then I didn't.

Okay, I know it's because of the whole 'immortal tyrant bad' thing, but the whole reason I didn't just say 'fuck it all' and sail to PR to see if it's still Taino, or if somebody else has screwed with them, and spend my life eating mangos on the beach? Power. The idea I'd be rich and powerful just made my nethers tingle, and that's it. Right?

Last night's Mimic dreams were back to playing that stones game. Maybe it's Hiroko? Like, they just straight up named the kid after the game he was playing? Wouldn't put it past an Anime doing something like that.

Anywho, after spending the first part of the night trying out bathtub canoodling with Saffron, and the second half snuggled in the bed with her, I woke up surrounded by Saffron, Marie, and an uncountable number of toddler-and-up little kids. Uncountable because they'd piled up around the three adults in the bed, pinning me in place. It felt kinda nice, really. Maybe all I'd needed for a good night's sleep back in Camden was a weighted blanket?

Nah, sirens, gunfire, and a mattress older than me probably would have kept me up anyway. Not, like, those were nightly occurrences, at least the first two. I'd still been sleeping on my mom's old bed back then. After she died I couldn't sleep at all except there, and it just kinda became a habit.

So after laying there for a while, Saffron woke up. I couldn't move my body enough to count kids without waking them, but I could turn my head enough to watch the Saffron boot up sequence. So adorable as she sniffed at the air before opening her eyes. Then she scrunched up her nose and said, "did someone fail to get to the chamber pot in time?"

"Wasn't me. I promise. Isnomi?"

Without opening her eyes she said. "Not me. Isnomi Big Gih now."

I scooted back, suddenly less concerned about waking someone and more concerned about toddler pee dripping on me. "Okay, who had an accident overnight?" When nobody responded, I said, "I'm not mad, I just wanna know who needs to clean up. Two hands went up. "Were both of you wearing diapers?"

They nodded, and Saffron said, "thank Goddess for small favors. Okay, everyone. Out of bed and into the bath room." When a couple of them looked confused, she pointed to the bathroom door. She turned to where Marie lay on the far side of me. "Can you arrange for new bedding, please?"

"Yes." Marie rolled out of bed and, after giving herself a good sniff and frowning, pulled on her maid's uniform and headed out into the living room. I looked down to where Isnomi'd decided to chivvy the herd of kids into the bathroom.

I planted a kiss on Saffron's forehead, then sighed. "I'd kinda hoped for one last romp before I had to head back to work, but..."

She shot me a lopsided smile. "I agree with you. That smell is rather a turn off, even if we weren't surrounded by children."

So instead, we wriggled our way out of the bed, trying to avoid any suspiciously damp spots. I led Saffron into the bathroom, where the kids had already started the tub filling, and were trying to start the fire to warm it up. Saffron reacted faster than I did, intervening before any of the kids lit themselves on fire. "Thank you so much for helping, children, but fire is dangerous."

"I know how to light fires!" one of the little ones complained.

While Saffron got the fire going, I walked over and crouched down in front of the little fire starter. "What's your name, kid?"

"Liam! Liam Lancaster!" That kind of explained it, I guessed.

Still, if Larry, Lachlan, and Leonard could learn, so could this kid. "That's great, Liam. Were you going to use Mana to start the fire?"

Constipated kumquat look. The water, I tell you. "No. My tutor says I must learn to channel Mana reliably before I can learn to shape it."

"Aw, that sucks." Liam's eyes got a little wide, like he'd expected me to tell him off for impatience or something. "Wanna know a secret?" When his head bobbled, I stage-whispered, "I had problems channeling Mana too." I nodded as not only his eyes go wide, but a lot of the other kids' did as well. "It takes some practice to get it right. If you don't do it right? Shaping doesn't even work right. You could try to shape a fire bolt and wind up shaping a warm breeze, or blowing yourself up, or, I dunno, healing the thing you're trying to firebolt."

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"Really?"

I nodded. "Really. I mean, it's never happened to me yet, because I learned to channel sorta properly before I tried shaping." A few days before, but he didn't need to know that. "But I read that bit about making the wrong shape in my textbook. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to risk Fire Bolting someone you want to Heal. Right?"

I dunno who he'd thought about healing, but he got real serious looking and said, "No. No I wouldn't."

"Good on you, then. Just keep at it. Practice as much as your tutor says you can."

He looked mulish again, asking, "why not practice as much as I can?"

I ran my index finger over some of my scars. "You see these?"

"Yeah?"

"One of the things I did to get them was channeling too much Mana too fast. For a while I couldn't even Shape anything too hard. I still don't know if I can shape as much as I could before I injured myself." Kinda funny, Liam had more or less shoved his way to the front of the bath line, but with him focused on me a gaggle of kids had snuck past into the warm water, where Saffron had slipped in with them and knelt there directing the gradual transmutation of dirty kids into clean ones.

"What did you do to hurt yourself like that?"

I rolled my eyes a little and tried to distract him. "I just told you, I Shaped too much Mana too fast."

Unfortunately, little Liam was at least as stubborn as his... dad? Brothers? Uncle? Kin. kin worked. "No, I mean why were you shaping that much Mana?"

Fortunately, my Kitten could multitask and came riding to the rescue. "She defeated two armies by herself."

Little Liam looked a little impressed, even. "She's been in two battles?"

"No, just the one, really."

That drew a frown out of him. "She fought against both armies in a single battle?"

Saffron took a moment to lift the latest clean kid out of the tub and point them at the pile of towels we'd pulled out of one of the armoires. Then she said, "it's possible to have more than two armies in a battle. On this occasion, there would have been four. The Grand Army of Phileo City and Newark..."

"I know that one! Uncle Laurence told me my grandfather is leading it!"

Saffron just nodded as she helped the next kid get clean. "He was. Technically he still is, I guess, but for now he's mostly doing Council work. But he wouldn't even be doing that had Tabitha," she nodded to me, "not warned me of New Amsterdam's treachery in time. She then went on to destroy the army that came out from behind Newark's walls, as well as defeating the army they'd sent to Camden Yards."

He got a booger look and said, "but they're miles and miles apart? How could she be at both battles?"

I Co-Located behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, "like this."

His eyes got real big as he twisted his head back and forth, trying to see both of me at the same time. I obliged him by scooting towards myself, ignoring the inevitable feedback. "Could you teach me how to do that? Is it an illusion or something?"

I poked him in both shoulders, Co-Locating another of myself behind him to poke him in the backs of his shoulders as well. "Not an illusion." Then I stepped back into myself and said, "I don't mind teaching you, eventually, but..."

Saffron chimed in. "She showed me how to do it, but I only can because I've practiced my basic Mana control enough that I can do it efficiently."

He looked back at me and asked, "if I get good enough at my shaping, can you teach me how to do that?"

I smiled at him. "I can try. I'm not the world's best teacher, but I promise I'll give it my best shot, if I can."

He frowned. "If you can?"

Saffron fielded the question. "Tabitha has almost made a habit out of hurting herself so badly she can't shape Mana at all until she heals."

"I didn't think you even could heal stuff like that. My Mana Shaping Tutor says you can't."

I shrugged. "I'm just really good at it. But even now, like a month or two after the battle, I'm still not up to where I was before it. You just gotta get good, scrub."

When he heard that, he turned back to the tub, where Saffron had all the remaining kids washing themselves. He practically cannonballed into the tub, then grabbed a loofa looking sponge and started scrubbing at himself. "I'm gonna get good and scrubbed!"

Mature woman that I am, I kept myself from laughing on the outside. "Still gotta learn the Mana Shaping, but getting and staying clean can't hurt."

Right about then Marie arrived with a bundle of assorted clothing for the guests at Isnomi's impromptu sleepover. We got them all dried off and dressed, with Liam making obvious envious looks at Isnomi's uniform. I decided to head an incipient rebellion off at the pass. "Not without your uncle's permission, kiddo."

Apparently he'd gotten his daily doses of feudal indoctrination, at least, so he just hung his head and said, "okay."

I didn't want to ruin his whole day, so I said, "I'll talk to him first, just to make sure he's not totally against it."

"Thank you, Tabitha!"

The kids joined us at breakfast, as did some really appreciative looking mothers. What with kids staying in their mothers' rooms, apparently until puberty hit, I can totally get why. A full night's sleep without any concerns beyond 'will my kids be okay' is a hell of a bribe. Even there, they'd apparently seen Marie's way with kids, and guessed correctly that anybody trying to hurt kids in her general vicinity would wind up short some limbs. We got bacon and eggs with our waffles today. Solid breakfast.

Over the course of the day I managed to get in touch with Angel, Bill, Fred, and Linus to let them know how we'd managed to pay at least a cursory visit to all the Lancaster farmsteads, then Translocated them and their units to the two bridge villages with orders to clear the roads between them and Lancaster House. Other than that, I just dropped a single Sergeant-led unit at each of the abandoned farms with orders to gather up any useful supplies, including livestock, and make their way back to Lancaster House. They weren't going to clear the roads entirely, but then those farmsteads didn't really need roads at this point.

For the rest of the day? I practiced my scrying, checking the signal flags Saffron had apparently ordered. Green for 'everything's fine', Yellow for 'we need something', and Red for 'Plague outbreak, Calverton Attack, or other Immediate Urgent Danger'. I mean, I could have just Translocated there, which I did for the last few of the day, but I needed to get out of the habit of brute forcing my Scrying through the Mortal World. By the end of the day, I'd done my Scrying the right way at least half the time.

Who knew doing something the right way could be so much easier?