Dear Diary,

My continued frustration as trying not to be the Bad Guy winds up with me nibbled to death by ducks is damaging my calm. On the other hand, if being the Good Guy is how I've managed to score not one but two hotties and a kid who isn't a Total Disaster, I guess it's worth it.

Still gonna make duck jerky if I can catch the motherfuckers at it though.

So, due to getting in ridiculously late and not being That Bitch, not only wound up with crackers and jerky for dinner, but had to spend the night sharing a tent with Larry Lancaster. The really fucked up thing about it? Despite the fact that six months ago I'd have seen that as one of the many available Chinese Hells, (Jack Burton, David Lo Pan, aunties, VCRs, bored kid, yada yada), the bad part about it? What with both of us having the Jotnar refusal to share our heat with the surrounding atmosphere, I'm pretty sure our tent was room temperature all night, for a value of 'room temperature' that equaled 'middle of high plateau winter'. Also known as 'cold enough to freeze a witches tit' or 'cold asf', depending on your generation.

Y'know, I kinda wonder about that. Are kids from the economically challenged parts of the world more in tune with more generations of pop culture because of the whole 'outdated media collections' thing? Doubly irrelevant between it not really mattering back there, as well as being not a thing in the here and now, but that's just how your girl Tabitha's mind do.

So we didn't even bother waking Angel and Bill last night. Got up this morning when Angel came around and straight up ripped our tent off of us, shouting, "wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey!" Followed by getting all flushed and saying, "oh, shit, sorry, Commander. Really, didn't realize you two were..." She petered off, obviously suffering from a case of brain running in too many directions for the mouth to follow.

I had no such problems; my brain might run wherever the fuck it wants, but I sure as shit didn't have enough neurons activated to go more than one direction at a time. "No problem, Angel. We arrived late last night, didn't want to wake you guys up."

I reached up and she yoinked me upright, then did the same for a slightly less chipper Lancaster. I think right about then the fact that we both had our uniforms on more or less correctly finally impacted on her brain, because she stopped stuttering and said, "any chance either of you could help us with the triaged cases? Bill and I got all the critical condition folks taken care of over the past two days, but that left us with no Mana for the rest of them."

"Tell you what; you get them lined up so they can come past me for Cures and Heals; meanwhile Lancaster can go over the updates to the plan with Bill."

She nodded, but frowned, "some of the non-critical cases still aren't in very good shape. Not sure how well they'll handle waiting in line."

Larry stepped in saying, "get Bill and I a number, and we'll send that many Volunteers over to you to help keep them upright until Commander Diaz works her magic on them."

My mouth worked a little while I tried to get past the fact that he meant that last little bit literally. Yeah, I've been living in a world where literal magic existed, and yeah, I can do some kinds of it really fuckin' well, basically anything that responded well to brute force approaches, but the idea that I could 'work my magic' on someone? And that not being a euphemism for conning them out of their money or into my pants? Does not compute.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

So I set up in the middle of the farmstead courtyard, right between the two ubiquitous outbuildings. Suppose everybody trying to copy Lancaster House had its perks and benefits. In this case I could set up between them with all the sick folks in one, and clean clothes and personal cleaning supplies in the other. I mean, it started out crowded standing room only in the 'waiting room', but that kept everybody warm at least. Stank personified, but warm. Out in the courtyard, the breeze kept the stank out of my nose, even if it did chill 'witches tit' down to 'too fucking cold to think of witty sayings'. Starting with the ones who needed to be straight up carried to me, I proceeded to do my Cure and Heal schtick, letting them vomit to their lungs' content, dropping extra Heals on the ones who broke shit clearing their lungs up. After not too long, half of the courtyard no longer had a thin coating of ice and thinner coating of snow and sand atop it. Instead, it steamed with every color of the puke-bow.

I absolutely did not need to know how many colors snot and vomit come in. Didn't want to know, either. If there was a way to describe not wanting to know about something? That's how I would refer to the rainbow of colors spread around one side of the courtyard. Don't have any idea why I decided to skip lunch and just power through until everybody on the farm was healed, but for whatever reason it seemed like the thing to do.

Maybe an hour after lunch would have started, Bill wandered out to talk with me. "Sorry to leave so much of this for you, Diaz."

He sounded almost defensive about it, so I asked, "so, what did you wind up using your Mana on then?"

He got real quiet, but didn't look away when he said, "it took a whole shit pot of Mana to keep the kids alive long enough to, y'know, keep them alive."

I turned to the next person in line, who didn't look great, but I'd gotten past all the ones who needed someone to help them walk. "Just a moment." I turned back to Bill and pulled him into a hug. "You do not apologize for that. Ever. Not fucking once. If someone tells you that you should? You let me know. I'll kick the living shit out of them."

He chuckled. "Yeah, not gonna tell you who tells me that the most, because I sure as hell don't want you kicking the shit out of me."

I nodded, pulled away from him, and slapped him on the shoulder. "Shit, I get that. Just don't beat yourself up about it too much. That's my job."

We both laughed, then I turned back to the line of people to be healed, and he went over to the 'clean house' to collect Volunteers and get them working according to our new plan. One of the bennies of magical healing, I guess. If you haven't fucked up your soul by using too much mana, or splitting yourself into a couple thousand copies, or Reviving people without proper preparation or knowhow, when you get hit with magical healing you're ready to go as soon as you clean yourself up, maybe get a decent meal into you.

Okay, I know that's not really the case, but we didn't really have the manpower to let anybody who didn't absolutely need it convalesce. Made me feel bad about checking out for a day after I saved those kids down south. At least until I reminded myself of my conversation with Bill.

So from mid-afternoon until maybe an hour before dinner Larry and I worked with Angel and Bill to get things moving in the right direction, then I stepped us back to Lancaster House. As I filled the kettles to warm up bath water for the tub, I tagged Saffron.

Kitten?

Yes, Goof?

Any chance you can join me at Lancaster House tonight?

Certainly. With or without our Maid and Menace?

Bring them along. I could really use the reassurance they're okay.

A few minutes later, the three of them appeared in the room with me. Isnomi immediately hollered out, "baftime!"

Nice having a bathtub big enough to fit all three of us. Hell, if we squished in, we could probably fit Marie as well, but as noted a while back, she's kind of water-averse. Makes me wonder how she stays clean, because she definitely does. Dust baths? Sand baths? Licking herself all over?

I realized right then that if that's the case? I absolutely should not become a Maenad. I'd never leave my room.

What? I'm trying to be honest with myself now. I've been told that's the mature thing to do.

Even when the honest fact about myself is that I have little to no resistance to anything that would tempt a thirteen-year-old.