Diary of a Teenaged Mimic

Dear Diary,

Yeah, yesterday really messed with my head a little.

Weird thing, I'm not being either dismissive or exaggerating there. I'm a little messed with. Not horribly fucked up and calling it 'a little bit', not totally copacetic and trying to be edgy. I'm a little messed with.

That said, I think it helps talking things through here, to myself, getting my head on straight before talking with anyone else about shit.

Even when Dad and my ladies are listening sometimes, as evidenced by their infrequent, yet undeniable interruptions.

So yeah, the idea that some dude is a rapist is not a big shock. That shit happens. I've heard it happens the other way too, but I can't speak to that. It's abhorrent, but it's not freakish tentacles from beyond strange. I'm angry at the dude, but, and this is part of the strangeness, I don't want to slice him into little bits or throw him to the Swamp Dragons or anything like that. I... I kinda want Justice, not Vengeance. Which is why I'm really glad Larry called me in, and that the Drivers were willing to take over the case.

I mean, I hope they were. Saffron got them up, either from the dinner table, or maybe out of bed, to come take custody of former Holder Landau.

I think part of it is the dude's, I dunno, complete utter incomprehension that 'Wife' does not equal 'property'. I'm also not thrilled with what the answer is when I ask myself why he would think that.

Because the reason is because until I rolled through Lancaster, pulled Larry's head out of his ass with Bonnie's help, and kicked the progressive changes to Lancaster off with Larry's help, he was right. Like, at least in a legal sense. Which means while he was definitely some kind of asshole, he was obviously old enough to have grown up with that idea.

Worse, I think, is what he said about the Bag and Dan thing. I used to read back in the day that the biggest fear of any entrenched oppressor is that if the tables were turned, the oppressed would do the exact same thing to them. Thing is, from what I remember reading about history, they're not entirely wrong. Yeah, I've read the hippy dippy shit about how if you go back far enough things were sunshine and rainbows and shit, but... I saw videos of isolated tribes living the lives they'd lead for thousands of years, like out in the Amazon and shit.

They're utterly at the whim of famines, plagues, and even wars with the next tribe over. Death is a constant brutal companion, and if they think of Death as 'compassionate', it's because they're living a life that's inherently hard, painful, and above all short.

It's even worse for the kids.

My point here is that most of the history I've read boils down to each successive conqueror taking turns lording it over everybody else.

Adding another layer to shit pyramid.

Yeah, been a while since I thought about that. But I really never thought about the fact that some of the folks down at the bottom aren't gonna be saying 'oh, hey, the pyramid is gone, that's great', because they're too busy tryna build a little pyramid of their own, because the whole fuckin' paradigm is an endless vista of shit pyramids.

Kinda going around in circles, and I don't know why.

Okay, yeah, I do. Because while I think the dude deserved some consequences, and definitely needed to literally learn some lessons about right and wrong, I don't think he deserves being thrown into a woodchipper, because from his perspective he was just taking his turn.

Like, I'm not gonna allow that shit, but...

Shit.

Redemption. Yeah, I gotta make sure that asshole isn't in a position to fuck with the Agency of anybody else, but I also gotta give him a chance to Redeem himself, or I'm the biggest fuckin' hypocrite in the world.

Okay, maybe not. That would probably be Odin, acting all high and mighty while being buddy buddy with Zeus. But still.

So yeah, like I said, this shit has had me going in circles a little bit thinking about it, but at the end of the day I don't think I could have done better than I did.

Of course, it did explain why when I hopped home after dropping Landau and Hero Andre Lancaster off with the Drivers, I absolutely took a few hours just lying with my head on Saffron's chest, vibing.

After a while, Saffron asked, "are you well?"

I shrugged. "I will be. This might have set off a bit of a spiral, but nothing terrible." I felt her tense. "No tossing Landau in a pit, Kitten."

She arched an eyebrow. "What if he chooses to forego Redemption?"

I shrugged. "Okay, yeah, if he doubles down on how it's his turn to be a rapist, I guess the Obols can use him for tanning materials or whatever, but..." I stopped. "Due process."

"Hmm?"

"I'm sure we've talked about this before. But the whole point of having a process and going through it is so somebody can't just point and say 'that person is bad, toss them in the pit."

She shrugged. "There were seven women in the room all corroborating Bronwen's testimony."

I nodded, enjoying the feel of her against me. "Yeah. Yeah, there were. I don't doubt he's guilty. I don't doubt he needs some consequences. But I think... I think I might be both too close and too far away to really decide what those are? Or to say what he'd have to do to Redeem himself?"

She nodded. "Phileo has the concept of due process, and Leonard has done an excellent job of winning the rest of the Grand Councilors over to it."

"Really?" She nodded. "Huh. Kind of surprsiing."

"Not as surprising as his staunchest ally regarding that."

I thought about it. Kept circling back. Eventually looked at her and said, "no."

"Yes."

"Ophelia?"

"Indeed."

"Fuckin' Ophelia Orange is on the side of Due Process?"

"She is."

I sat with that for a while. Eventually I couldn't help myself. "Why?"

Saffron rolled out one of her weapons grade chuckles in response, eventually whispering, "you, love."

"Huh?"

She Grinned at me. "It is my firm belief that she thinks Due Process is a defense against being tortured to death and dropped into your Maw."

Yeah, that hit kinda hard. "Oh. Oh, shit. I'm the monster."

She shrugged. "Did any of the children shy away from you today?"

"You mean the Jotnar or the Trolls?"

She smiled. "Did you really think of them like that?"

I shrugged. "Gotta tailor the teaching to the students, and the Troll kids can't count to five on one hand."

"Would you expect that of a Human child with four fingers?"

"No?"

She just nodded, said, "just so." Then kissed me.

I mean, on the one hand, conversation ending gambit. On the other hand, it worked, and it also helped with the spiral.

Went to the Academy a little tired, but I think if I took any of my weird mood and frustration out on the Cadets, I did it in a productive way.

After class I came home, got everybody eating, and snuggled up to Saffron to say, "I'm gonna check on Larry, k?"

She kissed my cheek and replied, "don't be too late."

I stepped over to Lancaster House to find Larry and Bonnie presiding over dinner. I mean, as much as they do, because those two are still pretty much focused on one another like they were newlyweds. Not like my partners and I are any different, really.

"Commander! What a pleasant surprise!"

I waved him back down from where he'd started to stand. "Just checking..." I glanced down the table to where Liam sat at the foot of the table; I think I'd interrupted whatever he'd been talking with his Lancaster House playmates about. Did me a world of good to see a mix of colors and shapes among his little posse. "How things went yesterday after I left?"

He nodded, and if he kept things a little sanitized, I understood perfectly when he said, "surprisingly well. The men of the Homestead were clearly glad to see Holder Landau go. I've set Beatrice up as interim Holder, and at her request moved two of the men back here to Lancaster House."

"Did they?"

He shook his head. "No, simply that she felt they may have been... Less likely to accept her authority as Holder."

I sighed. "Okay. Keep an eye on her?"

"Of course, Commander."

Bonnie, who'd been taking our conversation as an opportunity to enjoy some Lancaster House Waffles and fried chicken tenders, smiled and said, "thank you for helping Larry, Commander."

I realized right then, and shot him a wry grin. "Worried about overdoing it?" He nodded. "Yeah. Me too. Which is why I handed him over to the Drivers."

He nodded. "I wouldn't have thought of that." Then he smiled self deprecatingly. "Mostly because of the travel time, which is less of an issue, but I keep forgetting."

I shrugged. "Hey, things are Changing. Hopefully for the better, but it takes time to adjust sometimes."

He smiled, nodded, and took Bonnie's matte black hand in his. "Changing for the better indeed."

I said my farewells, hopped to the kitchen and stole some waffles and cream, hopped back to the Homestead and fed them to my Kitten.

Yeah, got rewarded for that after dinner. Dreamt of all my ladies critiquing Saffron's technique while she looked smug.

Today I got some unpleasant surprises, but of a completely different nature. Not really 'better', but 'less horrifying'.

Specifically that the kids in Norfolk are used to getting rained on and maybe a little cold during class, because the whole school is outside. They seemed really impressed when I Warded the area of the beach we'd used as a classroom. Of course, way more than half the kids by mass were Jotnar, and almost all of them were some kind of Norse, whether Aesir or Vanir or Dwarf, all of whom seem at least a little cold resistant by how they'd been more impressed by me stopping the rain than warming things up.

Also unpleasantly surprised by Norfolk's math classes using sand pits and shells to teach math. Like, I get it, Jotnar sized slates are hard to come by, but doing math on a primitive etch-a-sketch just isn't in it.

Ah, well. Small problems, fixable by application of economic power. Weird but kinda nice that maybe I can be the one to fix that kind of thing.