Dear Diary,

Just once I'd like something good without some immediate price, or aftereffects, or random bullshit coming along to spoil the afterglow.

I know, I know, I'm bitching when people are literally dying. Of course, I've been there, done that, burned the tee shirt, and didn't even bother to check in on Facebook, but still, I got better. Hell, when I think about it, 'got better' is something of an understatement. Back home I was kinda cute, yeah, in that 'my depression is chronic, but my ass is iconic' kind of way, but here? Here I get to be a literal fuckin' superhero, and while my body isn't as comfortably padded as the one back there, it's pretty fuckin' baller. Instead of a couple unreliable booty call numbers and one relative who never failed to let me know what a burden I was, I've got a wife, a lover, and a kid who all know about and adore each other. Also me, apparently, which I understand intellectually, but actually getting it? Yeah, just does not compute.

So last night as I got ready for bed I had a sudden rush of brains to the head. Saffron had come for dinner along with Marie and Isnomi, and the menace was playing some kind of pounce game in the living room of the suite with Marie while Saffron and I just lay in the bed snuggled up. I buried my face in her hair and asked, "you gonna be Co-Locating tomorrow?"

She nodded. "I thought that much was obvious," she murmured back as we watched as the pair in the other room flashed past the door, Isnomi running for all she was worth with Marie in hot pursuit.

"Don't you have to, like, do thinky things as Imperator?"

She shrugged. "Standing there looking impatient doesn't take all that much in the way of attention. Also, if they really do need me they won't be surprised that I'm in a foul mood."

I chuckled and snuggled her to me. Kind of funny, thinking about how in my old body, which had way more padding, I'd never really had someone use me as a pillow. Here and now? If Isnomi wasn't wormed in between us, Saffron and I both pretty much used each other as body pillows. "Think I might see if Larry can handle all the thinky stuff here while I get my party on with you back at the Academy."

"Goof?" She sounded a little like she might be heading to a 'really, Diaz?' moment, so I modulated my reply with appropriate contrition.

"Yes, Kitten?"

"You are aware that this will be her first birthday party. It is extremely unlikely that there will be liquor and shenanigans involved. Cake and paper hats will most likely be the most festive things around."

I shrugged. "Yeah, I get that. But she won't stay awake for twenty four hours straight. Some light canoodling might be possible, right?"

"Tabitha..." A playful warning note crept into her voice.

I put on my best 'speculative' look, staring at the ceiling and saying, "y'know, I really ought to make sure I can Co-Locate at that distance and keep one of me vaguely coherent. Mind helping me out?"

I stepped us both to our cell at the Academy, splitting myself as I did. Saffron did the same in reverse, and one of each of us lay there idly watching Marie and the menace playing chase and pounce, while the other ones worked on improving Saffron's Canoodling skill.

My plan was not well thought out. Mimic dreams interrupted the best part, and that left me waking up all cranky-like. It didn't help that Saffron giggled at me all through getting dressed. Right before I Co-Located down to the dining room so the four of us could go hit the Academy? She hopped up and threw her arms around my neck, then pulled her mouth right up next to my ear. "Poor Tabitha. Falling asleep just then must have been terrible for you."

I rolled me eyes and murmured back, "can't imagine you enjoyed it any more than me."

As Marie finished getting the menace all dolled up, not just in her uniform, but with her little tiara and cummerbund too, she breathed into my ear, "I didn't fall asleep just then." She pulled back and gave me that awful Grin of Panty Destruction and said, "I slept so well last night though."

"Oh, that's just mean."

She raised one eyebrow the tiniest bit. "Did you want me to stop?"

"Oh, fuck no."

She nodded, her face filled with fake solemnity. "Correct. This will be a one-year-old's birthday party. No fucking at all."

I shook my head. "Mean, mean, mean."

She giggled up at me as she took my hand in one of hers, while Marie took hold of her other one. "You love it."

I smiled at her. "Yeah, I know. Kinda mean of you to go on about it though."

She just singsonged, "that makes it even better!"

I stepped us all to our cell at the Academy, Co-Locating to the dining room at Lancaster House as I did. "You just gotta be right all the time, and be smug about it, don't you?"

As we left our cell headed in the general direction of the Dining Hall, she jumped up so I could carry her not unlike Marie carried Isnomi, although Isnomi's legs were nowhere near long enough to lock her ankles above Marie's opposite hip. She leaned into my ear and murmured another singsong of, "that makes it even wet... I mean better!"

"You, my Kitten, are in rare form today." I couldn't really reciprocate her teasing, what with my brain melting to slag as she no doubt intended, but I did put an arm around underneath her and took a firm hold of her ass. Just to keep her from falling. Really. My other hand's fingers interlaced with Marie's, and for just a little while, the length of our walk to the Dining Hall, all was right with the world.

Back at Lancaster House, I'd sat down to a big old waffle breakfast. In between fresh servings coming out of the kitchen, I leaned forward to see past Bonnie where she'd taken up residence at Larry's left hand and asked, "Larry, do you mind taking the lead today? I'm kinda juggling a couple things in my head, and don't want to wind up having a bad case of the dumb right when it's time to make some decision or another."

He looked a little confused, but just shrugged and said, "of course, Commander."

Back at the Academy, when we hit the Dining Hall a hush spread outward from us. Kinda weird what with us both being in our Academy uniforms rather than our Clergy dresses, but when I really looked around I realized that the Hall had maybe a quarter of the vaguely teenaged Freshman and regular Cadets I expected, and none of the older 'waiting for a slot' Senior Cadets. The high table stood equally denuded, with only Marshall duBois, Headmaster Miles, Doc DeLeon, and Sister Trease at the table.

Just as I realized how few people the room had, every Maid in the room, Marie included, turned to us and said, "happy birthday!" Like, all at the same time. Super creepy, and also pretty fuckin' loud. Not as loud as I knew they could be, but then their goal wasn't to make everyone in the room leak from ears, eyes, and bladder either. Two of the 'happy birthday's had come from behind us, where a pair of Maids wheeled in a cart that barely fit through the double doors what with the ginormous cake sitting on top of it. Not unlike mine from last year, they'd put a straight up six inch long, inch wide candle on the top of it. The top of the top tier, anyhow, because the thing had four goddamned tiers. The bottom had black icing, the second white, the third red, and the fourth gray. Academy colors. I really shouldn't have expected anything else, but, I mean, goddammit I didn't expect a cake at all, let alone a land mass disguised as confectionary.

I got the fairly unique pleasure of eating waffles at Lancaster House while nomming birthday cake at the Academy. Double breakfast for the win! Something tickled at my brain about that, but nothing bad. Just a vague thought that I'd missed a trick somewhere. Wasn't gonna let it bug me, though; I sat across from Saffron, both of us smiling when we realized we'd split up to sit this way out of habit. For Isnomi's part, Jon the handyman carried in a little miniature chair and table, both Isnomi-sized, and set them on the table not quite between Saffron and I. Some deeply buried part of me balked at the thought of putting a table on top of the table, but the menace had run around atop the table barefoot before, so I wasn't gonna say anything. Mostly because my mouth was anticipating being full of cake.

Once the menace sat enthroned in her little chair, Marie slid the top section of the cake off and set it on the mini-table in front of the menace. She looked at it, then at Saffron, then at me, her eyes wide. "Go on, Menace. Make a wish and blow out the candle!"

Her eyes got even bigger, she looked at the candle and said, "I wanna fye!" then puffed out her cheeks and blew.

Unfortunately, as noted this was an actual intended-for-lighting-purposes candle, and despite her precociousness, Isnomi was, in fact, exactly one year old. A one year old doesn't generally have the bellows to put out a candle like that reliably, so while it spluttered, it didn't go out. She looked at me again and I said, "go on, try again!"

She closed her eyes, mouthed the word, "fye!" then took in a super deep breath and blew. The candle, stalwart in its duty to provide light to its section of the already well lit room, fluttered and spluttered, but refused to go out. Her mouth scrunched up and her brows drew down. I tried to think of something I could say to keep this from spoiling her mood, but instead of tears, she closed her eyes again, then shouted, "FYE!" at the top of her lungs, then blew the rest of her breath at the candle.

While reaching one little hand out lighting fast and pinching the top of the candle.

I swear, if I hadn't been watching, even to the extent that some of the Cadets had been paying more attention to incoming cake than to the girl of the hour, I might have missed it. The little bugger had some fast fuckin' hands. Way faster than me or Saffron. I blame Marie, inasmuch as I 'blamed' anyone for my daughter having hands to make a pickpocket weep.

The candle out, Marie whipped a chef's knife out of some pocket and proceeded to quarter the cake, dropping one quarter each in front of Saffron and I, putting another quarter in front of a menace who eyed the cake like she wanted to measure it with a micrometer just to make sure hers wasn't smaller than anyone else's. Then she took the last quarter and delicately sliced the icing off and spread it on Isnomi's slice before nomming the cake itself in one big bite. Upon receiving double frosting, the menace dug in with gusto. I tried mine, and my eyes watered at how absolutely perfect they'd gotten it. Light and dark marbled cake, with the light a faint vanilla, and the dark a rich coffee flavor.

It struck me just then that of all the things I'd straight up forgotten about Camden? Chocolate stood out as one that early on I thought I'd miss, but by now the only reason it came to mind was the dark part of the marbling being coffee flavored rather than chocolate.

If I was a little more fastidious about licking my fingers clean and getting all the cake in my mouth rather than spread around my general face region, between her having double frosting and me having a bigger mouth, I was on track to finish my cake before the menace. She looked at me when I had like two bites left, and I swear to fuckin' god her mouth split open in an absolutely too wide grin and she chucked the entire rest of her cake into her mouth all in one go. Then, while I stared with my last two bites of cake halfway into my mouth, she ran a tongue that did not belong in a one-year-old's mouth over her entire face, disappearing the frosting and cake that had coated her with one big swipe. Then she looked pointedly at my last bites of cake and opened her mouth.

Screw it, I was eating waffles at the same time. I pulled my cake out of my mouth without biting it and tossed it at her. She snapped it out of the air. "What do we say, Menace?"

"Good Cake!"

I gave her a look, as did Saffron. "What else, my girl?"

"Tank you for cake, Mama! Tank you for cake, Mawa!" Then she hopped up onto her little table and, arms raised, shouted out, "Tank you for cake, Maynith!"

As one, the Maids turned to her, curtsied, then went back about their business.

Back at Lancaster House, Larry pushed his chair back and said, "thank you, gentlemen, and my thanks to the Ladies cooking." Then he turned to me and said, "Commander, might we adjourn to the map room?"

I shrugged and stepped the five of us down there. One at a time, because I just didn't feel like negotiating 'everyone holding hands' when somebody in the middle of the group had no hand to hold. Fucking Dragon. When we arrived, Larry began pacing along the roads; it took two short steps to go from any given intersection to another. "The continued absence of my cousins leaves me far from sanguine. Lachlan?"

"What do you need, Buddy?"

"Are you feeling up to running up the north road, then making it to the farms to the east and west of there?"

Lachlan paused a moment in thought, or whatever passed for thought in Lachlan-land, then said, "I think so, but I don't think I can make it further than that before tonight."

"Commander, can we pick him up if he's at a known location?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

He turned to Lachlan. "I need your opinion, brother. Would our cousins be likely to return from the west or the east if they do not come from the south?"

Lachlan tilted his head, then shook it. "The river gets kinda rough to the east. If they've got to veer, they're gonna veer west."

Larry nodded. "So be it. I'll want you to head north, then west, then south, paying special attention to the edges of the roadways."

"They'll probably be trying to avoid leaving tracks, Buddy."

"I'm aware of that, brother, but my hope is that if Calverton forces are in hot pursuit of them, if nothing else we'll notice the Calverton tracks."

Raven looked up. "what should the two of us do?"

Larry looked at the cousins and after a moment nodded at the piles of apples and yams and said, "if you could work together to create a plan to bring all of the farmsteads into the Wings, as well as updating the map with whatever information we've given you regarding survivors at each location, that would be very useful."

They both nodded. Neither of them was really what you'd call military minded, but they both had family background and experience with the logistical end of things. I kinda wondered why either of them had joined the Academy. Other than, y'know, the whole instant wealth and power upon graduation. Pretty solid reason there, even if Raven would rather be drawing and Bonnie... I have no idea what she'd rather be doing, but sure as shit she'd rather be doing it with both hands.

Larry looked at me and said, "if you would, Commander, the eastern farmstead awaits us." I shrugged, put a hand on his shoulder, and stepped us there. We ran south.

Back at the Academy, we'd been making much over Isnomi, including folks from other tables getting into the 'throw cake at Isnomi' act. Given that these were all Cadets, all the cake made it to her general vicinity, and she had a ball catching each one, downing it in a gulp, then hollering, "Tank you! Ta dah!"

Of course, while I tried to make sure that I stayed in position to catch her if one of her diving cake chomps sent her over the edge of the table, Saffron thought to me, you look a little overwhelmed.

It's my first time throwing a birthday party for somebody.

Really? I thought you had a sister?

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Older sister. I was the baby. So I want it all to go right.

Poor Goof. So overwhelmed. Your poor Goof brain struggling to keep everything just so.

I sighed, is it that obvious?

Oh, no. But I think this will make it so.

Then my magnificent bitch of a wife started replaying the bits of last night I'd missed. Full spectrum, right into my overloaded brain. Hell of a thing to juggle on top of running on sometimes slick road and trying to be sure I'd catch Isnomi if she fell. Not that she'd hurt herself. She'd probably eat the floor or something.

Saffron just smirked at me and mouthed the words, 'that makes it even better'.

Then, and here I knew Saffron had planned it because she was the only one in the Dining Hall who didn't have all their alarm bells go off at once, Conrad stepped through the doors. As the Cadets looked around like they'd just felt a cold breeze to the nethers, and every eye at the high table tracked him, he walked over to Isnomi and said, "Happy Birthday, sister dearest. I've a surprise or two for you."

For her part, the little menace just looked at both his hands, then met his gaze and asked, "whewe?"

He held out one perfectly manicured hand, which meant his original issue one, not the replacement, and said, "if you come with me, I'll show you."

Of course she, with a complete lack of the vaguely paranoid rigidity of the Marshall, leapt off the table and landed at his side, one hand grabbing his. I realized right then that for all his presence and uncanny valley posing, he was actually a little shorter than me. Weird thing to notice. Definitely a sign my brain was nearing complete overload.

As I stepped to follow them, Saffron took my hand and walked beside me, completely unbothered by the incredibly distracting sensory input she kept sending to me. As we followed, she whispered up to me. "If you can manage it, I need... some help with a few things back in our room."

Okay. Just a second Co-Location. Three of me total. Nothing to worry about, two of them just had to follow along and not faceplant. With the third alone in our cell with Saffron. With my next step, I split myself again and found myself staring down at a wickedly Grinning Saffron. I moved toward her, but she stopped me with one finger on my lips. "We've got to hurry."

"Okay, fair, so why are you stopping me again?" I reached for my jacket buttons, and she grabbed my hand and laughed as she said, "we've got to get all this," she waved her hand like she meant everything in the room. "In there," she waved a hand to the armoire, where the door to The Smith's workshop stood open. "Before lunchtime."

"You put those images in my head, which are still there and thank you very much for that, then you bring me here alone in a room with you for me to move furniture?" Those last two words came out in a tortured whine, and her Grin got even bigger, both in the room and where she dangled from my arm as we followed Conrad and Isnomi up the steps.

"Not the furniture. Just everything else."

"Oh, yeah, that's way better." At the same time, I started yoinking every loose item I could and tossing them into the Workshop. I turned to see her pulling her jacket off and throwing it through the door, followed by her shirt, leaving her with nothing above the waist except for her shift. I just looked at her, arms full of blankets, and whimpered.

She shook her head, grabbed up a double armload of uniforms and yeeted them through the doorway. "What? I'm going to get sweaty." I whimpered again, and again with the singsong she trilled, "that makes it even better."

"The payoff for this better fuckin' be worth it." I muttered as I tossed the double armload of blankets through the door.

She grabbed me by my collar, towed me down to her eye level, freezing me in place with a finger on my lips, which she ran across them as she whispered, "have I ever disappointed you?"

"Life likes to fuck with me." I growled.

The Grin had to be some kind of superpower. Hell, she probably had a Grinning skill by now. "So do I," she whispered before going back to her singsong of, "that makes it even better!"

I may have been less than gentle with the remainder of our assorted stuff. Okay, I set Vulcan's case and Mister Kraken atop Isnomi's toddler bed and carried both carefully through the doorway and set them down gently inside the Workshop, since the menace didn't deserve to have her special day ruined at the end by lack of a bed. Aforementioned lack of gentleness was in part due to me trying to do three different things at once, and that's not to mention the fourth thing of trying to ignore the absolutely non-ignorable sensory feed Saffron kept looping through my brain.

Slippery road? Okay, I can deal. DuBois over-training for the win. Beast of many fluffy burdens? More sweaty and annoying than anything, although I just pulled my jacket off, since as usual I had nothing under my shirt. Okay, after thinking about that I stripped out of my shirt, too, because if I had to deal with sensory overload loop, she could deal with the girls getting some time in the air. As well as getting a little sweaty what with all the warm stuff we were moving.

Watching as Conrad, The-fucking-Smith of legend, sociopathic Mor Primordial of Scaring the Living Fuck out of Everyone, led Isnomi out onto the roof? Yeah, that had everything that could tighten up tightening. Painfully. What the fuck are we doing up here?

I have no idea, other than this is where his gift to her... is... Oh, sweet Goddess we will never get her back inside.

I'd been looking down at Saffron, and now I followed her gaze. I didn't really need to, as the menace had let out a squeal so loud and piercing that I think I heard it down in our goddamned soundproofed cell and scampered ahead of her 'brother'. Fuck it, he really didn't deserve scare quotes after this. A Mana Blade enema long enough to adjust his crown chakra? Maybe. But a good brother knows exactly what his sister wants. She got to it first, and fumbled with the buckles until he caught up to her and carefully, patiently showed her how to buckle herself in.

To a fucking hang glider.

To be as fair as possible to him, he held her back long enough to talk her through how to handle the thing. Meanwhile she gave him the most 'I got this' look I have ever seen on another being; living, dead, real or imaginary. Eventually he said, "are you ready?"

I am not fucking ready in the slightest.

You know he won't put her in danger, Goof.

You say that like you almost believe it.

Of course I do. Could I spare the attention to keep that going if I didn't?

A hysterical little laugh slipped out of all of me. Lancaster looked over, but I just waved him on and kept running. Conrad looked at me and smiled that creepy too-big smile, which was nothing next to the absolute maniacal grin on the menace's face as she screamed out, "weddy!" He stepped back and pulled away a tie down, at which point she charged for the edge of the roof and leapt off without the slightest hesitation, screaming "FYE!" as she did. She dropped a couple feet as Saffron and I rushed after, then caught an updraft from the Practice Yard and soared up into the sky.

Uh, Boss?

Yes, Tabitha?

Could you maybe keep an eye on Isnomi today?

It was my understanding that you were attending her birthday party today?

I am. We are. I meant scrying. Or something. Conrad gave her a goddamned hang glider.

"This we absolutely must..." Lyman trailed off as Sigyn grabbed his arm with a lot more intensity than Saffron held onto mine. For her part, Isnomi had caught the updraft and rode it right up into those glimmers that ran above the Academy. The moment she dipped into them, the glider itself fluoresced, and Isnomi's voice echoed oddly as she screamed out, "FYE!" exultantly.

After the first few minutes of pants-wetting terror as the menace soared upward until she was barely a speck in the sky, she dove back down like a stooping hawk, only to pull up right as she hit the ley line, whooping with joy the whole time, screaming, "MA! MAMA! I FYE! I! FYE!" as she raced over our heads. Just out of reach. Of course. Does it make me a bad mom that at that point my brain just shut down and lost itself in Saffron's apparently unconscious repetition of the previous night's solo activities? I mean I still walked over to Conrad, Saffron in tow, and said, "Son?"

"Yes, Mother?"

"Please tell me that she's perfectly safe."

"She is as safe as I can possibly make her, Mother."

"Thank you, Son. That is a very... thoughtful gift."

He smiled at me, just a bit too wide and toothy as always. "Thank you, Mother. I so hoped she'd like it."

Down in the room, Saffron and I managed to get everything but the few items of furniture that had come with the room separated from the walls, floor, and furniture where we'd bonded things, and stuffed it all through the doorway into the Workshop. Our final load held our custom altar shelves and all their contents, including Glowing Midnight and The Dress. I stood there, sweat dripping despite my lack of upper body attire, with Saffron grinning at me and saying, no singsong this time, "oh, that definitely makes it even better," as she slid the door shut.

Up on the roof, she looked at Conrad and said, "son, we're ready."

He looked at her and smiled, just as creepy as ever, yet this smile seemed much more natural, as if he weren't doing it on purpose. "Of course."

Whatever part of me could just barely see the ley lines above our heads? Heard a weird rhythmic scraping sound, like someone grinding the universe's own gears. Standing in the Workshop, the sound surrounded us, suffused us, rattled something deeper than our bones.

Then it stopped, and Saffron slid the door open. Natural daylight shone in through the window in front of us, and more filtered in through the door to our left. Saffron grabbed up an armload of padding and bedding and said, "come on, we've got to get everything set up before dinner is over!"

I stepped through the door, still holding all our shrine stuff, into one of the two-room upper-floor Academy suites. "Really?" I asked, maybe a touch of wonder in my voice.

"It turns out that Headmaster Miles feels the prestige of housing the Imperator of the Inter-City Council, two High Priestesses, and two Champions is worth the cost of one of the nicer suites." As she tossed our bedding onto the clearly double sized bed, she didn't even need the words as she hummed the tune of 'that makes it even better'.

You think my very own Magnificent Bitch of a wife slowed down her abuse of my poor overloaded brain in the slightest? You must be thinking of someone with mercy, or some other undesirable traits.

So while one of me ran along behind Larry, scanning the snowbanks on both sides for any signs of disturbance, and another watched our little daredevil zooming around the sky, a third me tried to match Conrad's matchless work in setting our stuff up in our new rooms. We actually wound up moving furniture; the armoire, the desk, and our shrine went in the inner room with Isnomi's toddler bed, and our bed came out into the outer room. Marie's floor bed went right in the middle of the inner room, since there wasn't room for it and our double bed in the same room. Of course, we now had room for a certain Maenad in our bed along with the two of us, so it worked out; she could sleep in whichever spot she felt the need for as she liked. If somebody needed to get to Isnomi so badly they tried to get to her at night, they could fucking come through all four of us. Five if Vulcan got involved from where he sat in his case next to Isnomi's bed.

And yes, the armoire with its door to The Smith's Workshop stood right next to the connecting door, with Isnomi's bed as far as possible from any entrances to the room. I don't care that she fuckin' taunts gravity itself to fuck with her, the Equinox left me with a deep and abiding need to keep her safe. At least while she slept.

Of course, duBois still had classes in the Practice Yard, but by midway through the morning, he'd mostly given up on them doing anything except running laps while staring upward at the shrieking maniac flying overhead every few minutes.

Eventually she glided down to where we stood, face flushed, and swung herself up into a stall about three feet above my head. I thanked all those sessions of squadball for the reactions that let me catch a bigger, but relatively slow moving projectile. A gust of wind tugged at me, but wasn't enough to pull all three of us around, since Saffron's arms had locked around my waist when Isnomi first went up, and hadn't let go since. As we held her steady, Lyman stepped up and undid her buckles and straps. Sigyn grabbed the glider itself by the handle, and I think the wind decided it had better things to do and fucked off to Lancaster House for the day.

Where, by the way, we'd found a couple trails on the eastern side of the road, that continued onto the western side, but Lancaster said all the tracks were deer. Fuck if I know. Deer goes 'sizzle'.

Despite being decoupled from it, Isnomi refused to let go of her glider, even as she had one hand around my neck. Marie came out onto the roof and announced, "Party."

I looked at her. "This morning wasn't a party?"

She just shrugged. I looked at Isnomi and said, "Okay, Menace. Ground rules for your new toy." I waved my hand around at the bunch of us standing on the roof. "If you don't have at least one of us with you, no glider." When she looked mulish, I said, "every flier needs a ground crew. You need someone to help you buckle in and catch you when you land. The people on the roof here?" I waved my hand around again, and she nodded. "I trust them to keep you safe. Nobody else. Got it?"

Before she could reply, a hand touched my arm. I glanced over to see Conrad, his smile gone, his eyes wide. "Truly?"

I rolled my eyes and sighed. "Yes, son. Truly, I do."

Isnomi, for her part, seemed mollified that whoever she conned into it would be her ground crew, there to help her with her aerial shenanigans, not prevent them. "Okay then. Mom and Mommy and Conrad will put this away in our room, then we'll join you for the Party," I looked at Marie as I said, "down in the Dining Hall?"

Marie just nodded and held out her hands. I passed her the menace, and she headed for the door to the stairs. When they'd gone through the door, Sigyn let out the world's biggest sigh of relief and said, "that is, by far, the strangest thing I have ever done in pursuit of Victory. Also the most frightening. Also, also, you realize she will now ask the two of us to take her flying?"

I shrugged. "I meant it. I can't see either of you doing any less for her than we would." I winced, a little embarrassed. "Sorry I didn't ask first."

She walked over and pulled us both close. "Think nothing of it. You are, as noted, family. And as you have said, family does for family."

We shared a long hug of mutual relief, which ended with Conrad coughing politely and saying, "would the four of you like to review how to buckle her in, as well as how to store it safely?"

I swear, my wife is a sadist of the highest order. Because she fuckin' quizzed me about that shit until I got it right. I'll let you guess whether she ever let up on the fucking sensory loop in my head. Which, by the way, never quite got to the good part. Because she is, as noted, sadistic.

The two of us carried the hang glider down one floor to our new rooms while Lyman and Sigyn followed Conrad down the steps toward the Dining Hall. When we got to the room, both of me wound up having to hang the thing from a pair of hooks that somebody'd conveniently put in the ceiling. Before I could confirm that she had, indeed, planned this whole thing, the Saffrons in the room with me switched mes. Then both of them wandered over to the shirtless me and rubbed themselves against me. "I could just eat you up, Goofball."

"Hey, I ain't stoppin' you. We're pretty much done here. I figure at least two of us ought to get down to make sure that our daughter doesn't wind up with her first morning after hangover tomorrow."

"Hmm... good point." With that, the pair of her dragged topless me into the front room and tossed me onto the bed, then dragged fully dressed me out the door.

Gotta say, Larry was a good sport about me running on automatic all day. I spotted a few game trails broken through the snow that he didn't. Or, I called them out to him and he confirmed they were game trails. He might have seen them and just ignored them. Then again, when he asked me to jump to a new farmstead, we jumped, which is all he really needed me along for. Note to self: treasure competent subordinates only slightly less than sadistic wifey, because they mean more time focused on aforementioned sadist.

Also, while I had that sensory overload track looping in my head, aforementioned sadist sat me down in our chair and made me sit there watching while she confirmed the bed was, indeed, in all ways nicer than our old one. Which meant I totally missed the unmistakable additions to the high table. Specifically, D and Herbert showed up. We got to the Dining Hall near what should have been the end of lunch, but while the Headmaster had proved himself to be capable of staring down a God when justice was on the line, he apparently had far less interest in convincing D that the party started at noon and ended at sunset.

I'd forgotten that Phileo had been functionally back to something like normal for a couple weeks now. I'd also forgotten that while D agreed that hard drinks were inappropriate for one year olds whether it was their birthday or not, both D and Herbert thought of beer as a 'soft drink'. Fortunately Conrad managed to produce an Isnomi-scale stein, which held about a sippy cup of whatever went into it. Which, over the course of the following hours, included no more than one quarter-sized serving of beer. After tasting it, she glared at D like he'd tried to pull a trick on her. I'd had the stuff he gave her. Hoppy, nutty, pretty good beer. Still beer, and still way too bitter for any kid of any size. Which meant it wasn't my thing either.

Thing is? She glared at him, picked up her stein, and downed the whole thing in one long pull, then belched at him loud enough to silence the party for a three count until everyone, D included, broke down laughing.

The one glass of wine she got? She liked much better. I tried it, and frankly it tasted like grape juice. Concord grape, with that really wicked sourness to it, but other than the pucker factor from that? Really tasty.

Mini-Menace only got one cup of that, though. Of course, after eating for like four hours straight, with two mini-cups of lightly alcoholic snooze juice in her, our little one could barely keep her head up. After thanking D and the Maenads for the party, Saffron, Marie and I scooped up the woman of the hour, waved our good byes to the party goers, who would no doubt keep going until they all collapsed from exhaustion, since this was apparently the first time D had all of his Maenads back at a revel again, and stepped back to our bedroom.

Well, Isnomi's bedroom. Since this was the one with her bed in it now. She looked up at the glider with a sleepy smile, then peered around the room muzzily. "New?"

"New!" Saffron confirmed, taking her from me and laying her down in her toddler bed with Mister Kraken, gently teasing her jacket, slacks, and boots off. Meanwhile Marie looked at me, a weird kind of longing in her face.

"You want to party with D tonight?"

"Yes?"

I pulled her into a hug, which led into a kiss, and when I stepped back from her, we stood in the Dining Hall within a long step of D himself. "You have fun, Marie. Come join us if you like, or stay here. No judgement, we love you either, both, whatever and whenever and wherever." She pulled me into another kiss, then spun about in a crouch as she positively stalked toward the big man. "Have fun, sweetie." I whispered, stepping back to Isnomi's room as I did. I looked down at where she sprawled, Mister Kraken's legs sticking out from under her head where she'd used him as a pillow.

I discovered right around then that the Academy soundproofing did indeed cover our suite, and kept noises from each of our rooms in that room. I looked down at Saffron, an involuntary whine coming out of me. She looked over at the window, where the thinnest band of deep blue painted the top of the sky, even as stars showed up below that. "Tsk," she chided me. "I said today was a one year old's birthday party, and there would be no fucking at a one year old's birthday party."

As I managed to step her back into our room at the same time as I stepped Larry, Lachlan, and I back to the fortifications outside Lancaster House from the western farmstead where we'd met up with him, all without screwing up and winding anybody up in the wrong place, all four of my eyes in Phileo looked at the her standing there smugging at me as badly as Vulcan had ever done, while pointing at the even smugger her on the bed.

That's when, in that same singsong that she'd been humming 'that makes it even better' all fucking day long? Both of her sighed out, "the day here ends at sun-set."

I have, on many occasions, mentioned that I am not always the sharpest knife in the drawer. A few crayons short of a sixty four pack. A few bricks short of a load.

I, however, was quick enough on the uptake to catch on to her implication before she finished the word 'sunset'. As I tossed one of her back into the chair she'd left me in for the whole goddamned revel, both of me pounced on her, because I had vengeance to achieve, and nothing short of some kind of catastrophe was going to stay my hand. Hands. Mouths. Yeah, yeah, you get the picture, I'm sure.

That's when, as Larry, Lachlan, and I jogged onto the courtyard after a quick visual inspection of the fortifications, Raven stumbled out of the small door inset into the big one. One boot. No jacket. Blood running from a split lip. Shirt torn.

"MOTHER!" One lungful of air wasn't enough for the frustrated rage that burned in every fiber of my being. "FUCKER!"