Cammie was the second spectral minion that Len had picked up over the course of her adventures. There was some grand game going on there that she had only the slightest ideas about and hadn't had the time to seriously research yet but would undoubtedly creep up on her soon enough if she let it. Whereas Pitch's service had been a mostly mutual agreement between the two of them, Cammie had been an outright subjugation that had been a bit more forceful. The word that the psychotic nymph liked to throw around was 'slavery' and Len hated her a bit for it, but it was also a bit difficult to deny that it was more appropriate than it should be. Sure, the creature had been trying to kill her and sure the alternative had been to wipe her out of existence, but the state of affairs still left a bad taste in her mouth. Fortunately, Cammie didn't seem terribly put out by her state of being, for all that she was an excellent pouter.

"What can I do ya for, boss?" she asked, peppy as ever.

Len stared at her flatly. The chipper attitude that Cammie was able to put on was somehow infinitely more irritating than anything Pitch had to offer this early in the morning. It wasn't anything big, but a psychotic child who wasn't really a child and would look much more appropriate wielding a chainsaw than the lollipop she'd manifested out of the ether was just too much for the beleaguered Dark Elf at the moment.

"Good lord, Cammie, could you dial it back to maybe a twelve? I'm not up for this right now."

The sprite cocked an eyebrow, shrugged, and then plopped herself down on the bed next to Kes. As Cammie was largely a figment inside Len's head, this did little to interrupt the girl's sleep but still managed to unsettle Len a bit. Seeing things that didn't interact in the expected way with the world around them was always a less than grand experience for her.

"So, did you see any of my grand expedition to Earth or am I just losing it here?"

"Sorry, boss. No clue what you're talking about. On the bright side: that probably means it happened. Even if you were imagining it, we'd have probably seen glimpses of it. One of the many neat things about sharing your headspace, and all that. What do you think it means?"

"Well, sounds like my replacement is in some serious shit. Whole different batch of genre staples she's dealing with and it doesn't look like there's a damn thing I can do about it right now. Guess I'll just get to see what happens if she screws up again."

"That's not very reassuring, you know?"

"Wasn't meant to be. Anyway, I wanted you to try and get in touch with your brother?"

Cammie's circumstances were somewhat more unique than Pitch's. Whereas he'd been alone in making a pact with Len, Cammie had actually had a second with her that had possessed another poor soul. They'd utterly destroyed that man and had tried their level best to do the same to Len. The fight had gone so poorly that the original Lenore had been pulled into the mindscape to lend a much needed assist at a desperate moment. As part of the spoils of victory, she'd taken Cammie's sibling with her and Cammie had been left behind. It wasn't a terribly well thought out plan, but Len had hoped that it would allow some communication between the two worlds, but she hadn't really had time to test the thory.

"I've tried a couple of times already, doesn't seem to work."

"Well try harder, then. I need to know more about what's going on over there. Waiting for her to die again seems like a less than grand strategy all around."

"Oh, sure thing boss, let me just work up a magical communication gizmo that allows me to span untold space, time, and realities to chat with the asshole that tried to destroy me last time we saw each other."

"That'd be great, thanks. I'm going back to bed."

Cammie managed an objecting expression before Len waved her away. There's was an odd dynamic and it helped that the bond they shared made it perfectly clear that the creature wasn't all that put out, just mildly irritated at having her workload expanded. The situation wasn't ideal, but it was what Len had to work with so she was making do. For the time being, she just wanted sleep. As she collapsed into the bed she spent more time than she cared to think about lamenting the fact that she hadn't been able to bring that bed back from Earth. Sure, it had had a bit of blood pooling on one side, but that would've probably washed out, right?

* * * * *

Waking once more to the aches and pains of a substandard mattress, Len proceeded with the routine stretches required to bring her back to the status of functioning sapient. Kes had already headed off for school for the day, having gotten used to Len's reluctance to rise in the early morning. The shades were off attending to the various spying operations Len had been using them for and she was free and clear to stumble down to the modest kitchen to get some of the precious chakkar. Sure, the caffeine-rich drink had been rather bad for her when consumed in excessive quantities, but a single drink wouldn't drive her to paranoid delusions again, and lack of good rest might very well do that if she didn't get *something* to start her day off right.

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She wasn't in the mood to cook anything elaborate so she just started frying up some eggs while waiting for the water to boil for her drink. A nice thing about this world and the house sled that she'd managed to acquire was that magic was used to perform a number of mundane tasks that were close enough to what she was used to with electrical appliances that she was able to get by without too much of a loss in convenience. For instance, the stove operated via a magic stone infused with pyrotechnic energies. Fundamentally, it operated entirely different than anything she'd used in her previous life, relying on bizarre balances of etheric energies that she'd probably never wrap her head around but at the end of the day it was still a nob that she turned to the desired level to get a given amount of heat transferring into the pans she was cooking with.

All in all, it made for a relatively hassle-free morning as she tried to acclimate herself to the world again. It was strange just how much getting sucked back into her own world, even for a few minutes, had been for her. She'd thought she was comfortable with her life at the moment. Sure, it was a constant parade of nightmares and disaster but it was HER parade of nightmares and disaster, dammit. Seeing her home destroyed. Seeing the body that had been hers dead. It was a lot to process to say the least. It was the sort of thing that really made her wish she had access to a licensed mental health professional even though no conversation about what was going on in her head these days could possibly end well. Finally, she just sighed and grabbed her eggs. If she'd had more forethought, she'd have done up some toast as well but these are not things that occur to one while pondering the meaning of life, the universe, and all the other bullshit that stacks up when getting pulled in countless different directions by a reality that seems absolutely dedicated to fucking with you.

"Ah, there you are," said Keris' brusque voice from behind her. Len was rather proud of herself for not jumping.

"Hi Kerry, how are you doing this fine morning? Care for some chakkar? Maybe something stronger? You can't possibly be meaning to burden me with work so early in the morning before I've even had a proper breaking of my fast, can you?"

Keris was an odd case. Charity case was probably more accurate. Like more people than Len cared to admit, she'd tried to get Len killed when they'd first met. Not directly, of course, she wasn't that kind of villain. No, she'd just been lined up to sell Len to someone who DID intend to kill her. Claymar, the other Orc commander who'd been sent to claim the territory of the Kelvach, had been working swiftly to take the clan down and had made arrangements to remove potential threats to his plans quite efficiently. Len doubted that the plan had initially included murdering her in the street, but Claymar seemed an adaptive sort. He'd used Keris' greed and desperation to blackmail her into leading Len into a trap, one Len had avoided easily because the woman wasn't actually very good at that sort of thing.

The traditional route the story was supposed to take from there was that Len would humiliate, shame, and ultimately either kill or cast out the vile woman who'd put her in harms way but she'd instead taken pity on her and offered her the prestigious position of secretary to the Head. It had ended with the usual shock and horror from the sort of people that liked clean solutions and bodies to their problems but Len wasn't the sort to waste good manpower and so far at least that had proven to be a good decision. Of course, Keris also took her job seriously, not least because she was clinging to it as a lifeline and she needed it to go well for her own sake. This meant that she often harangued Len as she was trying to take it easy, a definite problem that Len would've loved to correct except for the unpleasant detail that it was exactly what she'd hired the woman to do.

"You realize that every moment you spend idling the day away is a minute that fifteen other tasks pile up, don't you? Just because you managed to get a few of the processes handled by the lower ranks doesn't mean that you get to sit around all day."

"Look, I get it. Very important things. Still, I had a bad night and need to take things a bit slow, got it?"

"You can't possibly have had another assassin strike, can you?"

For a moment, Keris' face was tinged with concern. It was Len's own fault for having been a bit too subtle in her handling of the last round of assassins and leaving far too many wondering how much she was hiding from them. Still, it was a touch heartwarming to see the worried look. Probably not a healthy thing to be pleased at seein, but Len was in a bit of an odd mood this morning.

"Nah, nothing like that. Don't worry about it. Look, you wouldn't believe it if I told you so let's just leave it at me needing to take a bit of extra time getting started this morning, okay?"

"If you say so..." Keris trailed off, clearly not satisfied with that answer but also understanding that she wouldn't be getting more of one at the moment.

"Excellent, well, let me whip up a bit more food for you, then."

"That's more than all right, Lenore, I ate breakfast at the appropriate time, not at the crack of midday."

"You're just going to spoil all my fun, aren't you? Seriously, why so grump?"

"I am 'grump' because you have nearly a hundred of the Banished at your doorstep and you have been dawdling rather than preparing."

"A hundred? Hot damn, that's fantastic! Let's go see them right away."

"You might want to put something more presentable on before doing that."

Len glanced down at the loosely tied bed robe she'd been wearing and had to acknowledge that the reforming villainess had a point.