Diary of a Teenaged Mimic

Dear Diary,

If I’m narrating a Diary to myself, does that make me the Main Character? And if I am, can I still have Main Character syndrome?

So I woke up this morning surrounded by my weird little family. I mean, I guess the ’me and Saffron and Isnomi’ part isn’t weird if you get past the ’Isnomi has two moms’ part of it, which everybody here seems to take in stride. The ’and our upright Siberian Tiger Maid and Concubine’ part is, I think, weird even for here and now. Weird or not, I gradually drifted awake with Saffron’s face inches from mine, Isnomi curled up in between us, and Marie curled across our feet, her breath warm on the small of my back, her tail curled up around Saffron. I have no idea how long I lay there, but eventually somebody knocked on the door.

The second time they knocked, I realized it couldn’t be either of the people who normally knock on my door in the morning, so I slowly, carefully disentangled myself from the warm little pile, careful not to wake anybody as I did. By the time I got myself upright, the others all started stirring. More than a little bit cranky, I wandered over to the door, closed my eyes to keep from getting blinded by the hallway lights, pulled the door open and said, ”all right, all right, I’m here, what’s the big rush?”

”I’ve no idea, really, but when I saw someone knocking on your door with a missive, I thought I’d pop down early for our outing today.” Loki stood there in the corridor in his Lyman disguise. The others went from ’lazily taking their time waking up’ to ’there’s a guy looking at us all starkers on the floor’ in like zero seconds. I shook my head, pulled Lyman in the door and closed it.

I then spun him to face the door as I turned to look at the other three. ”It’s okay. Well, okay-ish. Saffron, Marie, meet Loki. Loki, Saffron and Marie.”

Saffron, who’d managed to get upright with a fussing Isnomi in her arms, sighed, set the rug rat down on our blanket-nest, and turned to the armoire to fish out some clothes. She deadpanned, ”you have your Patron deity as your personal tutor for written Celtic. Of course you do.” I could hear the exasperation and affection in her voice, but I’m pretty sure anyone less well acquainted with her wouldn’t.

The man himself replied, ”if you’d been working with her for the past two months, you’d realize just how insufficient to the task even my Divine powers are.”

I’d have said something, but he’s basically right. I cracked the wax Academy seal on the paper and opened it up to see what message somebody’d sent at oh dark in the morning. Meanwhile Saffron, shirt and pants on but not yet properly fastened, knelt before Loki and said, ”you and your Champion saved my daughter. You have my eternal gratitude.”

He smiled and held a hand down to help her up. ”And yet, I am not your Patron.”

She smiled up at him, still nearly a head shorter even though Loki’s Lyman disguise wasn’t exactly tall. ”I found another who suits me better for that, but I won’t forget to make offerings at your temple,” here she paused and mock-glared at me, ”as soon as someone gets around to telling me where that is.”

Loki straight up laughed at that, a whole body thing that eventually had him leaning on my desk while I watched Saffron and Marie dressing. It took me a moment, what with it still being too fuckin’ early to be awake and Loki in his Lyman disguise, but as Marie moved for the door I remembered what day it was. ”Marie?”

She put her arms around me and said, ”Work.” in the tone of voice that let me know she’d rather stay, but had obligations. I hugged her back and said, ”we really might need an Escort today.” I waved the paper Lyman delivered. ”I got the list of bystanders who got injured during our rescue mission. I’m supposed to visit them and make things right. Honestly, I’m not even sure how to find some of these addresses.”

Marie smiled down at me, a smile I’d seen plenty of times on Saffron’s face before she proclaimed me the goofiest of goofs. ”After.”

”After what?”

”Breakfast.”

”How long is that gonna be? Is it even time for breakfast yet?”

Loki laughed at that. ”We simply must get her some kind of timepiece, ought we not?”

Saffron looked at him, some measure of deference still keeping her gaze from quite meeting his, and replied, ”I’m sure she’d lose it before the day was out, but we can try.”

”Hey! No fair double teaming me!” I squawked.

Saffron, who’d managed to get her shirt and pants all just so, pulled her jacket on while saying, ”That’s not something I ever expected to hear you say.” She put just the right amount of leer into her expression. I tried not to laugh, Loki had no such compunctions. He pulled my chair out and sat down, laughing so hard he doubled over at one point. Marie tousled my hair and left to go get her own breakfast, I guessed. I scooped up Isnomi and, in the middle of her expected reaction, handed her to Loki. ”Can you keep her amused while I get dressed?”

Credit where it’s due, he got her giggling by making some really stupid faces at her while I went to the armoire. I reached for a uniform, but halfway there Saffron intercepted me. ”You’re doing High Priestess things today, love.”

I winced. ”Yeah, but I kinda hoped they wouldn’t recognize me, that I could just get in, fix shit up, and leave.”

She sighed, and I heard her voice in the back of my head, not unlike Loki’s, does he know of your unusual origins?

I’m not sure, I thought back.

Not sure of what? Loki replied immediately.

Yeah, I’m dim sometimes, but I can recognize an untenable situation pretty fucking quickly. Survival skills and all that. Yes, I have them, I just ignore them a lot. But not this time. ”Loki?”

”Yes, Tabitha?” He managed to lounge in the World’s Least Ergonomic Chair, his back against my desk with his arms spread out across the top of it behind him, while Isnomi stood with one foot on each of his thighs, playing with the collar of his shirt.

I took a deep breath, mentally putting my ducks in a row before opening my mouth. Yes, that’s something I can do as well. I just don’t very often. ”I’m not from around here.”

He just nodded. ”I’d suspected as much.”

I cocked my head. ”Why didn’t you say anything?”

He shrugged, the expression expansive given his pose. ”You’re aware of my... Unique position. More than anyone else save perhaps my beloved wife. Yet, you have not used that position nor your knowledge of it against me. If I can trust you with that, I can trust you to tell me your secrets in your own time.”

I couldn’t help it, I smiled at him. ”Thanks, Boss. But I think it’s time to tell you this one.”

”Go on.”

Saffron gave me a quick encouraging hug before kneeling down and helping me get my formal wear boots on. ”I’m not from this world. I grew up in Camden, New Jersey, United States of America. I died in the aquarium there and woke up in the aquarium here, almost exactly two weeks before you met me.”

He frowned a little, but a thoughtful frown, not an angry one. ”I thank you for your trust, Tabitha. I suspect you are incorrect in some fundamental aspect of your story, but I thank you for trusting me with it.”

I blinked a little when he said I didn’t even know how I got here. ”Seriously, Boss, that’s what happened.” Saffron moved around behind me and reached one hand between my legs to get the grip she needed to yank my other boot on fully.

”As I said, I trust you told me the story as you experienced it, but it is not possible. I am,” he paused, as if searching for the words to encapsulate the idea he wanted to convey. I just stood there gawking at the thought that he really believed I would be able to understand something he had trouble explaining. ”I am aware of the existence of other worlds, and not just those which are branches of our own Yggdrasil. I can see into some of them, even create things here in this world that I see in others. You no doubt remember my culinary blessings?”

”Uh...” Yep, he’d lost me. I mean, not until the bit about culinary blessings, but try as I might my brain drew a blank when it came to Loki and cooking. Saffron pulled The Dress onto me, fixing the fabric where it went around my neck until my appearance satisfied her. Right then I realized what our little rug rat was doing, and couldn’t help but squeal at the cuteness of it. ”Saffron, look what Isnomi’s doing.”

That got everyone in the room looking at Isnomi, including Loki, who had to cross his eyes to look at her, since she was just inches away from his chin. It took Saffron a second, but then she squeaked a little herself and swooped over to reclaim the precocious little crotch goblin. ”Aren’t you just the cleverest little girl, straightening Lyman’s collar for him. You know it’s supposed to be folded over, and it isn’t, so you were fixing it, weren’t you?” She must have caught wind of Isnomi’s earlier contribution to her diaper at that point, because she lay her down and started changing her.

Loki smiled down at them, but I saw the hurt there. ”You okay, Boss?”

He shook his head as he turned to look at me. ”Of all my children, only Hel is alive and unbound. I... I envy you.”

”Yeah, well. Gimme a few to get my act together, and we’ll see about springing them.”

That got both of them staring at me. Hell, even Isnomi stared at me, but I kinda figured she was copying her mom and Loki. He chuckled and said, ”you would set off Ragnarok with so little provocation?”

I shrugged. I’m not normally the hesitant sort, and The Dress really brought out my decisive side. ”The way I see it, your kids got shafted. They’re imprisoned for shit they haven’t even done yet. If I’m gonna free you, who actually did the thing he got imprisoned for, I might as well free them too, y’know?”

That got me the unrivaled view of seeing Loki completely nonplussed. ”You’re going to what?”

I smiled at him, reaching out a hand to help him out of my chair. ”You don’t think I’d let a friend stay locked up like that, do you?”

He shook his head, the tiniest of motions, as he reached out to take my hand. ”To think, in the days before my imprisonment, I would have devised some fiendish comeuppance for a Mortal with the audacity to consider themselves my ’friend’. Yet now, in my humbled state, it is because you consider me a friend that you intend to not only free me, but my children.” He stood, and as if it was the most natural thing in the world, pulled me into an embrace. Like, bro-hug embrace, not passionate kisses or that kind of crap. Good thing, I don’t want to get on Sigyn’s bad side.

”Shall we be off about our errands for the day, then?” he asked.

”Whoa, what about breakfast?”

”I think you misunderstood your Maenad friend’s intent; I believe she left to go assist with serving breakfast, or perhaps cleaning up. By this point I doubt you’ll be able to eat your fill.”

”Not like that exists,” interjected Saffron.

”Fair point, but never fear. I shall provide a repast fit for a king once we’re on our way.” With that, he opened the door and waved us through. Marie met us at the door, and I told the Guard I might be back late, but I’d take Marie as an escort to be safe.

I’m glad I did. Even with Marie, Saffron, and Loki himself guiding us to the addresses on the list, it still took us the better part of the day to work our way through the names on the list. We didn’t even stop for meals, although I can’t complain there. Top shelf, steaming hot cheese steaks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Well, for the three of us, at least. Isnomi got milk. Lucky little rug rat. Between Saffron and Lyman flanking me and Marie bringing up the rear, I didn’t get so much as a single perv trying to cop a feel, even wearing The Dress into some really shady corners of town.

By the time we’d worked our way through the entire list, the sun had long since gone down. The last address had been a boat that looked semi-permanently moored to the docks at the waterfront, and there had been six people with distinctive flame-grilled stripes across their front there. By the time I finished healing them I desperately wanted a shower and a good night’s sleep, but the two uninjured folks there really appreciated the healing, not to mention the single gold coin I fished out of my purse for each of them. Apparently they’d already been to see the new High Priestess of Diana, who told them they should ’wear the marks with pride’ or some bullshit.

Throughout the day, I only had one guy, some well dressed bastard with a butler, who wanted more than the gold coin I handed everybody. Hell, he didn’t even need healing; at a guess he’d already paid someone for it. Loki pulled a fuckin’ gold bar out of his pouch, dropped it right there on the floor, where it left a dent, and we left while rich boy was still trying to find someone who could lift the fucker. Including the six from the boat, I wound up getting a couple dozen spontaneous converts to the worship of Loki. It’s almost like if you give poor people money and medical care, they’ll appreciate it or something. I mean, I get it, I do, but I still couldn’t believe Artemis’ lackeys hadn’t even healed their own followers.

The four of us stumbled back up South Street, vaguely headed toward the Academy, Saffron and I halfheartedly nomming another round of cheese steaks, when a heavy dude leaning against a storefront pushed himself upright, looked right past me and said, ”Hello, Marie. It’s been a while.”