Diary of a Teenaged Mimic

Dear Diary,

Y’know, most of my time here I’ve spent either in classes, learning stuff, or prepping for or dealing with one kind of crisis or another. Kinda nice to be doing something that feels like building something for a change.

I mean, really abstract kind of ’building stuff’, but abstract stuff is the stuff that has any chance of staying. Real stuff? Constant maintenance, always falling apart, huge mess. Still worth doing, but... without the abstract stuff like ideas, ideals, goals? People forget about keeping the real stuff maintained.

I dunno, maybe I’ve just taken one too many knocks on the head lately and haven’t gotten a chance to recover. Or maybe I’m feeling good because I’ve had a couple days doing nothing much but Saffron and watching our kid playing. Which is way more nerve wracking than it sounds. The watching Isnomi part. Not that the other part isn’t exciting, but it’s an entirely nice kind of exciting. Unlike watching our little maniac see exactly how steep of a dive she can pull out from. Although I suppose as a future parent of a teenage daredevil, I guess her being a ’pulling out’ expert is probably a good thing.

I never really understood the parents who were all, ’oh, no, my baby is a baby and will be a baby forever and never do anything that babies aren’t supposed to do’. Look, I got a little hellspawn just like me, and that means she’s gonna get into some shit. Ain’t nothin’ gonna stop her short of locking her in a box and throwing away the key. I think by now everybody knows exactly where I stand on that particular idea thankyouverymuch. So I can either shove my head up my own ass, which sounds both painful in a not fun way, as well as unpleasant in a visual and olfactory kind of way. Okay, apparently the shit I don’t have doesn’t stink because I don’t have it, and I fart pumpkin spice for some unknown reason, but you get my point. So I gotta face facts; my little bundle of joy is literally an unholy little ball of terror, and there is absolutely no sign that her teenaged years are gonna be any better than now. So with all other options being dumb, I gotta just accept her as a little menace and let her know I accept her as an ever-growing menace, and just hope that she trusts that acceptance to let her be her and that when I say ’oh, that shit is way less fun than it looks, poor investment of time’, I’m not blowing smoke up her ass, I’m giving her the yelp review on her planned antics. Or if I say ’oh, hell, if you go there, take protective equipment and plan your getaway route carefully’, she packs body armor, condoms, and a fast car. Horse. Ship. Whatever, you get my point.

So yeah, of course I told my one and only guy who has declared me his Patron that I’ll go see his dad with him tomorrow. I mean, I know intellectually that he’s asking me because I’m his ride. I’m cool with that even, since he’s not asking me to drive him to pick up smokes from the local head shop, or some other random stupid thing he could do on his own. He and I both know that we need to get back on the whole ’ending the Lancaster Territories Plague’ and ’stopping Calverton’s inevitable revenge invasion’ at some point in the near future. Yeah, Calverton’s probably gonna need a day or three to get their shit un-wrecked, because it sounds like the toxic waste formerly known as Lancasters did some serious damage, but unfortunately Snow Charlie and the Seven Dipshits didn’t go in and do a ’we have wrecked your shit the bare minimum for you to know we can do this at any time, we’ll be waiting politely over there when you want to discuss terms for a cease fire’. Instead, they did a ’we’re gonna use your scrotum as a speed bag, shit on your dining room table, and then fuck any hole that doesn’t move fast enough, but never push the ’fear vs. willingness to talk’ ratio over to ’yeah, let’s chat as soon as I find my left foot and my earlobes’ territory.

I mean, shit, ’first strike that leaves the enemy hoping you never make a second one’? I’d be an absolute douchebag hypocrite if I said that wasn’t my goddamned go-to maneuver. Okay sometimes I’ll go with ’describing the first strike in loving detail until you don’t even want that’, but still, I get the whole fucking ’incentivizing de-escalation’ thing. Because war is a goddamned extension of diplomacy by violent means and shit, not a game where you try to score more points. Yes, I have read some von Clausewitz. ROTC book reports, old fuckin’ library, old as shit books, way too much time on my hands, remember?

So yeah. When Bonnie and her Clydesdale came up to me asking for a ride and some backup for talking to the strongest sphincter muscles in the tri-state area? What else could I say?

”You got it, Larry. What time did you want to leave?”

He looked kind of like he’d expected to have to say more, or explain something, or I dunno, fill out forms in triplicate. Instead he looked like he’d lost the script for like two seconds, until Bonnie giggled, he smiled at the sound and said, ”what time do you recommend, Commander?”

I looked over my shoulder to where Saffron was reading one of the four books we’d found in the suite, some kind of manual for raising sheep, I think, because it was too fuckin’ boring for even me to read, and called out, ”hey Kitten, does the General normally eat breakfast with you guys?”

She closed the book with one finger inside to mark her place, looked up and said, ”no, love. He normally eats with the troops while Mrs. Driver, George, and I are eating Drivers’ takeout. They have incredibly good little thin pancake things filled with some kind of cream that stays put instead of leaking out. No idea how they do it.”

I smiled fondly at my love waxing not poetic about sweets, because it was absolutely her sort of guilty pleasure, and I had no idea why she would be guilty. Yeah, maybe some time in her late twenties her metabolism would slow down and she’d get round like a beach ball, but my old body wasn’t anybody’s idea of ’svelte’, and I’d still have done me, so I don’t see why I’d have a problem with that, so long as she kept smiling and saying ’yes, lets see how many prudes we can give aneurisms’. I was curious about one thing though. ”What about the mornings you’ve eaten here with us?”

She went into full on Saffron trying to avoid admitting to her sweet tooth mode, eyes roaming around the room before finally realizing she had nowhere to run and no emergency to point at, what with Isnomi in bed by now with Marie curled up on the floor next to her, because she hadn’t been in the mood for an exhausted threesome. ”I have to get Mrs. Driver there for breakfast with George, so I Co-Locate to get her there on time.”

”Oh, okay. Here I thought you’d been nomming down Lancaster House waffles and Drivers’ whipped cream crepes.” Dude, you think I don’t know from food? There is a reason my trunk had junk back in Camden.

I swear she looked like some kind of rodent, like a squirrel or something, trying to figure out exactly where to hide her nut so she could run away before the local cat ate her. Which was even funnier to me than normal what with, ah, yeah. Still Co-Located, doing things that would be illegal in some neopuritan states. After a couple moments she sighed and said, ”Yeah. Kinda. Always.”

I smiled at her, because she was so fuckin’ cute when she got all flustered, and it didn’t really happen all that often. Only when I cornered her about her sweet tooth, mostly. ”Like, every time you stay here for breakfast always?” She opened her book and hid behind it. ”Kitten?” She muttered something, and I called over, ”what was that? I didn’t hear you?” I mean, the room wasn’t like, palatial, but it was like four times the size of our cell, and she was more than halfway across the room.

”I...” mutter mutter mutter.

”Okay, sweetie, I’m not mad or anything, but if you’re gonna be all shy about it, that’s okay.” She gets so cute annoyed when I act all mature and understanding and shit about her wanting to nom all the sweets.

She put the book face down in her lap and said, ”I said I... sneak into the Ladies’ Quarters. Down in the kitchens. Sometimes. A lot. For waffles.”

I couldn’t help it. I didn’t laugh out loud, but I was positively shaking with silent laughter when I said, ”oh, man, every time you don’t stay for breakfast?”

She looked down at her lap, sighed, and said, ”no. All those times and sometimes when I do.” When a snerked laugh snuck out of me she glared at me. ”They’re really good waffles!”

I turned back to the couple outside our door, only to find Bonnie’s arms draped over his shoulders, with her mouth up by his ear like she was whispering something to him. I suspect that while she put on a good show and pulled away just a touch the moment I looked, she was in fact not whispering at all, because my boy Larry’s eyes were fuckin’ crossed. Life may have been really shitty to me and mine a couple days ago, but right now it felt like we’d gotten all the balancing karma dumped over our heads in one lump sum.

Yes, I know karma doesn’t work like that. No, I’m not going to take it back, because I am, right at this moment, exactly That Bitch.

Anyhow, when I caught something approaching awareness of something other than Bonnie’s mouth in his eyes, I said, ”okay, Larry. Be ready to go before breakfast.”

Larry’s pretty quick to recover, but Bonnie...

Look, I saw a lot of shit go down back in Camden. Bad shit. Shit that, while it didn’t really hold a candle to the sheer savagery and shittyness of the bastards Lancaster, was definitely in the same category of violation. While everybody’s different, most of the people who had that shit happen reacted one of two ways. Either they got super gun shy, to the point where if they wanted to get busy they had to be drunk, high, or both, or they went the other way, turning into complete hose-beasts. Maybe they were trying to take back their agency in the thing, maybe they were chasing the happy brain chemicals, I dunno. But it seemed like our Bonnie had decided that she was gonna rub Larry all over her until she couldn’t smell his asshole cousins on her or something. I’m sure as shit not gonna judge; as long as they were happy and didn’t hurt themselves or anybody else? My entire opinion on the matter came down to ’fuck it, if it works for you, I’m behind you one hundred percent’.

Yeah, Bonnie was not helping Larry’s ability to function as a coherent adult homo sapiens at the moment. It took him a moment to put together the sentence. ”You don’t want to stay for the waffles?”

I grinned over his shoulder at Bonnie and hoped she could hit the ball if I pitched it underhand and slow. ”Oh, hey, Larry, don’t get me wrong. Your waffles are great. Saffron and I love them. But...” I did a one handed finger gun at Bonnie.

She picked up what I was laying down perfectly, because much like myself, she was way less stupid than she sold herself as. Or maybe we just had compatible stupidity. Whatever. She pulled his chin around to her with one pitch black pointer finger and the moment his gaze met hers, said, ”I’ve had your waffles. Don’t you wanna try my crepes?”

Holy. Fuckballs. That shit wasn’t even aimed at me and I was caught in the area of effect. Then again, I’m pretty sure if Saffron or I had, y’know, spoken to any other human beings for the first couple hours after we were married we would have seemed just as high voltage, prone to ignition kind of hot. Larry didn’t even look at me, just said, ”Okay. Yeah. Meet you here before breakfast. Got it, Commander.” By the time he got that final ’Commander’ out he had her over his shoulder and was carrying her toward the suite opposite ours, which as far as I knew was empty. In fact, I think it counted as the ’nearest empty room with a bed’, which was almost as funny as watching Bonnie, grinning like an idiot as Larry carried her off feet first so she dangled with her waist on his shoulder and her butt in the air next to his head, waving ’bye bye’ at me while mouthing the words. I managed to get the door shut before I started laughing, and stumbled over to sit next to where Saffron had pulled her feet up on the sofa.

”We really ought to be getting to bed if we’re getting up early.”

Saffron put her book down with a sigh, laying it on a nearby coffee table. ”Love?”

”Yeah, Kitten?”

”Why do you tease me so about loving sweets so much?”

I turned to her, unable to do anything but smile. ”I’m sorry, Kitten. I really don’t mean to? But you’re so cute, and I love watching you eat. Especially dessert.”

”Especially dessert?”

I nodded. ”You get the cutest looks on your face. This kind of little kid blissful when you don’t know I’m looking, then guilty, but not enough to stop, just enough to start nomming as hard as you can when you realize I’m watching you. It is fucking adorable.”

”I thought I was adorably fuckable?”

”Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re both and you know it.”

”So, you like watching me eat?”

Yeah, things went kinda ’only two people who are both in two places at the same time can really get that particular flavor of kinky’ after that. Right before we both fell asleep, I called out, ”hey, Marie?” When she raised her head to look at us, I continued, ”we’re gonna sleep at Lancaster House tonight. You wanna bring the menace along?”

She tilted her head in thought, then said, ”No,” and settled back down to sleep.

I managed to wake up more or less ’on time’, for a value of ’on time’ that had me hearing Larry’s first knock on the door. I blinked a couple times, called out, ”be right there!” then rolled out of bed, Saffron over one shoulder because that really had looked like fun, zapping us into uniform as I strode toward the door. By the time I got there, the silky feel of Glowing Midnight flowed around my hands and up against my head, and much like The Dress, it was cut all the way up the side, so her position was maybe a little bit less than polite. I set her on her feet, took her hand in mine, and pulled open the door. Bonnie and Larry stood outside, hand in hand, fingers intertwined. ”You guys ready to go?” When they nodded, I reached out, laid my hand on Larry’s shoulder, and stepped us into Drivers’. Inside, because it had snowed overnight, and I did not want Saffron freezing any of her good bits off.

The moment we arrived, Bonnie yoinked Larry away, towing him behind the counter and through the door to the kitchen, where she called out, ”good morning, Mrs. Driver! Mr. Driver, could you make two extra orders of cream filled crepes for us to take today?”

I heard the low rumble of Papa Driver’s response to her. Not, like, enough to know exactly what he’d said, but it had kind of a ’sure’ tone to it. A moment later, Mama Driver’s voice echoed out from the kitchen. ”Bonnie, what are you... oh, sweet Dionysus what happened to...” what came after that was not replicable by human lungs or vocal cords. Just a high pitched squeal like a freight train desperately hitting the breaks, accompanied by someone stomping so heavily and rapidly that the floor kind of vibrated.

We left with not only double helpings of cream crepes for all of us, but a whole chocolate cake that Mama Driver scooped up in passing. Saffron took Mama Driver by her free hand, since Bonnie and Larry were carrying a squad’s worth of Drivers’ paper wrapped goodies. I laid a hand on Larry’s shoulder and looked at Saffron, who stepped us all to what I assumed would be the command tent.

Apparently at some point in the recent past the command tent had been replaced by a building. Still pretty basic, a pretty plain barn of a building, but with way less room than you’d expect from a barn. Nicer windows, too. They shed the morning light onto a table that ran the length of the open space of the building, which was one large room. I say ’the open space’ because like half of this two story, barn sized building? Which, despite the decent furniture and nice windows, had a straight up dirt floor? Yeah, that was taken up by a very familiar hunk of stone.

”Whoa. Definitely symbolic. Sends a pretty baller message.”

Saffron just looked up at me as the others stared. ”Really?”

”Oh, yeah. Totally ’you dropped this house sized rock on me, and now I’m in charge, do not forget that’. Real slapping it on the table and not bothering to measure because yours is biggest kinda stuff.”

While Bonnie and Larry wavered between looking scandalized at that image and vaguely embarrassed that we knew they both knew exactly what we were talking about because we knew about their recent shenanigans, even though they’d kept them in private and neither one was, like, that loud, Mama Driver got a speculative look that had your girl Tabitha really trying not to clamp my knees together in denial of even the speculation that seven foot bull schlong would ever enter any orifice on my body, because that would just be crass. And she still had the chocolate cake, and that might make her not give me my piece. Which would mean I wouldn’t get special bonus Saffron points for feeding her most of it.

Saffron just smiled up at me and said, ”that is absolutely the takeaway I intended. Thank you.”

After that Saffron lined us all up along the side of the table and organized the distribution of breakfast crepes and cake, including a place set for George. He got there just as most of us were about half done with our crepes, because I knew there was no fuckin’ way she would hit ’pause’ on either those crepes or that cake afterward, and as always in high powered diplomatic social situations? The Big Dog makes the rules, and my sweet little Kitten was absolutely the biggest dog at the table, and acted like it.

I mean, yeah, she didn’t get a vote unless the others couldn’t agree, and her only real ’command’ was joint forces of the Inter-City Council, and she was absolutely the physically littlest one in the room with no exception, but on the other hand to the best of anyone else’s knowledge she had straight up no-sold the big fuckin’ hunk of stone when it was dropped on her head, with her only response being planting her boots through Newark’s City Walls and calling me to heel.

Shit. I was the Imperator’s Attack Dog.

Fuck it, she knew just where to pet me and gave me all the best treats.

Woof.

So we all ate breakfast together, George lagging a little behind, until he finished up just as I was finishing feeding Saffron most of my cake. While we dicked around with food, Bonnie told Mama Driver stories about Larry teaching her how to use a sword, and saving her from Dragon Fire, and all other shit that, I mean, yeah, might have happened, but I’d been way too busy with other shit to pay fuck all attention to her and Larry’s budding romance. Okay, that’s not entirely completely true, but it was more along the lines of ’oh, hey, cool, guess he’s not into hand jobs’ than ’oh my god, so sweet and wholesome and yet good god do they have so much unresolved sexual tension’.

Yeah. Way, way, way less of that now, at any rate. Good for them. Neither one’s my thing; she’s just way too diabetes-inducing for me, and he’s... well... Look, some part of me will always look at him and see Laurence Lancaster, record holding micropenis owner and guaranteed emetic or your money back, okay? I’m really happy for him, and maybe even an extra really or two for her, but there is absolutely no envy on my part for either of them.

So, into our post-breakfast sugar rush bliss strode the man we’d come to see, the current world’s record holder for speed and quantity of matter collapsed by his rectum, General Leonard Lancaster himself. When he saw the extra three inhabitants of the, I guess it was the command center now, instead of the command tent? He just strode right up like he’d been the one to call us here, turned to me and said, ”Commander Diaz. What’s the situation at Lancaster House?”

Screw it. He wanted to play that game, I could fuckin’ play that game. Maybe. Fuck it. ”Well, sir, there’s some good news and some bad news. Starting with the good news, I think we’ve begun to hit the western edges of the plague spread. I’m not certain, mind you, because we’re still pushing our southern perimeter west, but our northwestern perimeter had only one infected person, unlike some of the eastern farmsteads, which were more or less completely depopulated. That’s the first bit of bad news, that at least two farms are a complete write-off until Lancaster House and its farmsteads can back down from a war footing and get the Volunteers back to work doing their civilian jobs. Folks might need some kind of incentive to go back to those farms, too, but that’s really gonna be more Larry’s job than mine. Or maybe yours, I guess. Anyway, that’s another bit of bad news; we’re not gonna be able to back down off that war footing any time soon, because the former collective Heroes Lancaster, yourself excluded, chose to ignore my recommendation that they perform a reconnaissance mission to determine the current state of Calverton City and its forces, instead choosing to rape and pillage their way from the western bridge across the Susquehanna down to Calverton, destroy a force sent to stop them, then rape and pillage their way to the southern bridge across the Susquehanna, then upon returning to Lancaster lands sneak their way back to Lancaster House, whereupon at the first instance where no men were there to stop them, decided to rape and pillage at Lancaster House as well.”

I think Lenny’s eyebrows were gonna hit the back of his neck by that point, so I decided to give him a summary wrap up. ”So, we’re in good shape regarding the Plague, what with putting up an expanding quarantine cordon and getting some local Healers trained to spot and Cure the Plague, we’ve got some decent combat Veterans after killing the wyvern pack and Ice Dragon that were terrorizing the eastern portion of Lancaster lands, but we’re going to have to face Calverton in the field and convince them that their best course of action is to negotiate a peace settlement, maybe with some reparations for our exceptionally loose cannons.”

He just stared at me for like a full ten count. I’m pretty sure everybody else was staring too, but I didn’t give a shit about them at the time, just Lord Lenny Lockjaw. At the end of that, his first words were, ”that is a significantly more... colorful report than I am used to hearing from you, Cadet Diaz.”

I didn’t miss my sudden apparent demotion from ’Commander’ to ’Cadet’, but fuck it, Cadet Diaz had a lot more time to fuck around with her wife and play with her kid and maid. I shrugged. ”You asked for a SitRep, and I didn’t want to waste your time with a blow-by-blow of every body we buried or how many buckets of vomit we had to clean up. Also, I’m pretty confident that if I fucked anything up this time, it was due to information beyond my ability to acquire, rather than poor decision making on my part.”

”Well. That is, indeed, different. Clarify for me the word ’former’ in relation to the Heroes of Lancaster House?”

I shook my head just a little, not enough to seem defiant, just enough to let him know he wasn’t getting that info quite yet. ”If you don’t mind, sir, Freshman Cadet Lancaster came today to speak with you about some things related to that, and I’d hate to waste your time by more than one of us telling you the same thing.”

General Lancaster blinked once, slowly, then swiveled his gaze to target Larry like some kind of human laser turret. I took a quick glance around as Larry, never letting go of Bonnie’s matte black right hand with his left, stepped right up in front of his father. Not into his personal space, and not really into confrontational distance, but definitely into the range where the General could not misinterpret who Larry was talking to. Or who was standing at his left hand.

”Good Morning, Father. It’s good to see you well.” As big poppa Lancaster opened his mouth, by his furrowed brow meaning to tear into Larry, Larry straight up verbally steamrolled him with, ”upon my arrival at Lancaster House, Heir Lachlan Lancaster, who lay upon his deathbed, declared me Heir to House Lancaster. Very shortly thereafter, when Commander Diaz arrived, she cleared up Master Lancaster’s medical issues. As he did not request the return of his position, and in fact seemed in need of recuperative time, I retained the title and performed or delegated my duties as seemed appropriate at the time. Primarily I worked beside the Commander in the task you assigned her, as the former Heroes Lancaster, and I am getting to that in a moment, only nominally acknowledged the Commander’s authority, eventually, as noted, going completely rogue and starting a war with Calverton by actions which besmirched the Lancaster name, at the very least.”

He paused for a breath, just long enough for Lenny to open his mouth, then drove forward again. Go you fucking madman go. ”Upon their return to Lancaster House, they raped and murdered Cadet Bonita Obol and assaulted Cadet Raven Aetos, both of the Expeditionary Force, while all other Cadets and Master Lancaster were occupied with the efforts to defeat the Plague gripping our lands. As Heir, upon returning and becoming aware of their crimes, it was my duty to dispense Justice. I executed them.”

If Larry’d had a microphone, I don’t think he would have dropped it right then. Just lowered it to his side like a goddamned gunfighter looking at the other guy and saying, ’your shot. bitch’.

General Leonard Lancaster? Blinked. ”You did what?”

”Pardon me, father. Perhaps you should see a Healer about your hearing, because I’m certain I spoke clearly. I. Executed. Them.”

Lenny’s face hardened back up, his gaze tracking from Larry, to me, then back. ”You did so? Or Cadet Diaz did so? Or you did so with her assistance?”

Larry shrugged, tilted his head as if considering, then straightened up. Every motion was so overdone it was absolutely clear he was doing it on purpose. ”Commander Diaz assisted with my investigation, as I did not wish to visit retribution on any persons innocent of such a heinous crime. Alistair Lancaster had already admitted his guilt at the scene of the crime, so I had already executed him. Upon Commander Diaz confirming that all remaining former Heroes Lancaster were, indeed, guilty of that crime, I executed all but Charles formerly Lancaster, who fled when the executions started. Commander Diaz captured and restrained him until I had fulfilled my duties as Heir with the rest, at which point she assisted with his execution.”

”Assisted how?”

”She held him up so I could cut his head in half without damaging Lancaster House’s flooring.”

Credit where it’s due, Lenny did not flinch at that. He just swiveled his gaze over to me and asked, ”Cadet Diaz, is that correct?”

I scrunched up my nose in that ’well...’ kind of look, then said, ”I mean, I’d have said I ’neutralized Charlie non-lethally’ rather than ’captured him’. Oh, and we were gonna cut his head in half, but like three quarters of the way his spine kinda gave way and everything from the ears down just kinda ripped off and fell on the floor.” I blinked once, slowly, as I stared into Lenny’s eyes, then said, ”some real poor quality spine in that particular ex-Lancaster.”

Lenny really looked like he’d gotten thrown into the spin cycle and didn’t like it one little bit. Grasping at something to take back the conversational initiative, he said, ”You ’neutralized’ him.”

I smiled real big. ”Yeah. I like that word. Neutralize.”

Saffron deadpanned, ”she does. Fetishizes it, even.”

I never paused, because I loved the way it made Lenny’s eyes cross. If he thought calling me in to fuck with Larry was gonna work, I would totally take the time to fuck with him, especially when I had his boss in the room backing me up because of my linguistic skills and utter lack of inhibitions. ”It just rolls off the tongue. I neutralized the living shit out of his knees and elbows. You bend that shit a hundred eighty degrees sideways and it’s neutralized real good, in a permanent kind of way.”

”Be that as it may,” Larry jumped back into the conversation, and I shut the immediate fuck up, because I’m just cool like that. ”None of that is what I came here to speak with you about.” A short pause, just long enough for Lenny to get verbally steamrolled again. ”It has come to my attention as Heir that not only have our current policies drastically underutilized the talents and skills of nearly three quarters of the personnel under our direction, they have also placed clearly incompetent individuals in positions where their flawed decision making has not only negated the already marginal use of those three quarters, but also reduced or even damaged the productive capacity of the remaining quarter. As such, I will be changing those policies, effective immediately.”

I thought Larry was ready to let his old man talk, but the moment Lenny’s beetled brows pointed at his opening mouth, Larry cut in with, ”oh, yes, forgive me for not mentioning this earlier, but since last we spoke I have named my sword, had it re-forged after it was destroyed in battle, and subsequently renamed it.”

Watching General Lancaster’s face at that point was like watching somebody who had just navigated an out-of-control garbage truck over an icy lake, only to see that the docks were just high enough that their axles were about to get taken out with just enough force to flip all that garbage right on top of their head. After like ten solid seconds where his eyes should have been flashing blue screen of death ’does not compute’ messages, he said, in an almost in-control Lancaster voice, ”you named your sword? That is... good news. Its name?”

”I named it Dragonslayer after Commander Diaz borrowed it and used it to attack a Dragon from within its own mouth.”

Blink. Blink. ”Well. I suppose if it was used to slay a Dragon, that should be its name whether you used it or not, but that is significantly less impressive than had you done it.”

”I am well aware of that fact. The sword sustained significant damage in battle against the Dragon, and before I could have it repaired, it was shattered by the Valkyrie sent to collect Lachlan Lancaster’s soul. At that time Commander Diaz re-forged the sword into its current form, after which I used it to fend off the Valkyrie while Commander Diaz corrected Lachlan’s medical issues.” With that he kicked one foot onto his toes and angled his head the tiniest increment forward, doing the absolute shittiest ’taking a knee’ I could imagine, whipping out his sword and extending the blade as he did. ”Lord Lancaster, I present to you the newest named sword of Lancaster House, Slayer.”

Blink. Pause. Blink. ”You... fended off Odin’s Valkyrie?”

I couldn’t help it. ”Oh, yeah. He fended the living shit out of that Valkyrie. When he was done fending her she was spread all over the fucking bedroom. Total Jackson Pollock moment.”

Holy shit I was enjoying watching Lenny’s train of thought doing Tokyo Drift shit. He opened his mouth, and Larry, with a voice that positively screamed ’oh, this isn’t really important or anything, but just so you know’, said, ”as after that event it occurred to me that Commander Diaz has done far more for House Lancaster during recent events than I can remember Odin doing for the House, well, ever, I have sworn to her as my Patron.”

Okay, that got some really uncomfortable stares pointed in my direction from everybody but Larry and Lenny. Okay, Bonita only really glanced at me before turning adoring eyes back to Larry, but everybody else was trying out for the Phileo Olympic ’synchronized WTF Diaz? looks’ team. I shrugged and kept my eyes on Big Poppa Lancaster, because his drifting train of thought had just started doing barrel rolls across the waste treatment plant. I cleared my throat just a little, and when Larry turned his head just far enough to look at me, said, ”right about now is when my Patron would probably say something like ’terribly well done, Tabitha Diaz’, so, um, yeah. Good fuckin’ job, Larry. I approve.” I shot him a thumbs up and saw the faintest of grins twitch the corners of his lips.

Right about then Lenny realized that his son had broken eye contact and wasn’t even looking at him at that point. In a voice that had more ’infuriated roar’ than ’command’ about it, he shouted, ”you foolish boy, Odin has been our family’s Patron for generations, and now you will bring his wrath upon us!” His hand shot back, swung at Larry...

Who caught it inches away from his head. Without turning away from me. Holding Lenny’s trembling hand, Larry’s swiveled his gaze back to his father. ”If he finds displeasure with my actions, he can send his Valkyries to inform me.” He retracted Slayer’s blade, inspected it for a moment, then hung it back on his belt. ”If he has any left.”

The sound of rustling paper whispered in my brain. I have taught you well, daughter. So proud of you.

I didn’t do shit, boss. This is all Larry.

Oh, Tabitha Diaz. So modest. Who is his Patron again?

Oh. Thanks Boss. You’re still the best.

I know.

Larry, who’d been holding his father’s hand in place, dropped it. ”Finally, as the first step toward correcting the policies of Lancaster House, Bonita Obol and I will be wed within the next two days.”

”When?” I’m not sure if General Lancaster was asking when the wedding was, or trying to mock Larry for not having a specific date and time, or, I dunno, spouting random words to try and get back in the conversation. At that point he seemed to realize he needed backup, and his eyes slipped closed, his mouth working. A moment later his hands shot up to his temples and he winced like somebody had just kicked his brain in the nuts.

”As soon as we have arranged for a venue and officiants.” Larry turned to me. ”Commander Diaz? I was hoping you could officiate, if possible.” Bonnie leaned in to whisper in his ear, and he blinked a bit, looking a lot like a less assholey version of his dad in that moment. ”My betrothed would also like High Priestess Aetos to co-officiate, if she could possibly?”

I turned to Saffron, and before I could say anything, she looked straight at General Lancaster and said, ”Commander Diaz and I would be honored. It is time and past time that High Priestess Diaz and I find our places in the temple district. Once we do, would the temple of Loki and Mimic be an acceptable venue?”

Holy. Shit. Lenny’s face still won the gold in ’what the fuck did I just hear’ for the day, but Bonnie, George, Mama Driver, and Ophelia, who had just wandered into the room with a ’why isn’t everyone looking at me’ booger look a moment before all four gave him a serious run for his money. Before any of them could respond, Larry said, ”absolutely, and thank you for offering, High Priestess.” Bonnie, still looking kind of shell shocked at whose High Priestess she’d just asked to co-officiate her wedding, whispered in Larry’s ear again. He turned to me and said, ”if we provide you with a modest guest list, could you please ensure that all the guests who otherwise would have travel issues can attend, my Patron?”

I grinned what I knew was an absolutely big goofy grin at him and replied, ”I would be delighted to.”

Holy shit, everything was coming up Tabitha, and I really hadn’t done shit to make it happen, just kinda smiled and waved as Larry fucking steamrolled everything while I cheered him on.

Now you know how I feel oh so very often since I met you, Tabitha Diaz.