Day One Thousand One Hundred And Ninety-Two

Dear Diary,

I am...

Okay, right at the moment I am a lot of things. I am not talking about my daily personal and professional obligations either in this case. I'm talking purely about my emotional state, which I think I could best describe as 'tumultuous'.

I am furious, but I'm trying not to be, because I know my rage, my wrath, is not to be trifled with. Even by me.

I am ashamed, and I don't think I really should be, because blaming the victim of a con job is still victim blaming.

I am... Amused, because even if something bad might have happened, nothing did, and as a Trickster I think I can appreciate a good con. Especially one that is, objectively, kinda funny.

So yeah, today's been a weird day.

Yesterday near the end of the day Tallulah tagged me and let me know she'd arrived in here and now Ireland.

Did you want me with you?

She sighed into my head. I'm torn.

How so?

I felt her thinking about it while I stepped everybody home and started in on dinner. Can you come back for dinner?

That caught her, and a moment later I felt her Co-Locate. "This will likely be a little strange."

I brought out the assorted stuff I'd been working on. All of it was food that worked better with bread that had gone just a little stale. Okay, not all of it, but some of it was stuff I suspected might be better with slightly stale bread.

The first thing was French toast, or 'fried custard' as they called it here and now. The slight extra stiffness of the two day old bread wound up letting the custard soak into the bread without it falling apart, and wound up with a really nice fluffy inside with a crispy sweet outside. Ten out of ten, all my girls would nom again. Even the new ones, who have apparently decided to trust their sisters when it comes to foodstuffs, because they've gone from looking at anything but raw meat with all the side eye to snagging some of whatever their sisters put on their plate and nomming it without the slightest hesitation.

That really hit home with the next thing, which was a Caesar salad with some extra crunchy croutons. Lots of croutons. Which, as noted, really work better with stale bread. Same kinda reason, too, because where chopped up bread gets weird when you soak it in butter, oil, herbs, and spices, which means when you toast the fuck out of it to croutonize it the edges get weird. Like, unpleasantly smooshed and shit. But if it's got that little bit of stiffness to start, it doesn't turn into goop, so it doesn't bake into concrete. So weird that letting it be a little stiffer to start before you lube it up winds up with it being less stiff in a pleasant way later. Which was now something I wanted to try next time we had the boys over.

At any rate, our Troll girls actually seemed to enjoy the salad, although that might have been the crunch and the chicken, not sure. I'd made it with sliced up fried tendies rather than grilled chicken, because fuck not frying the chicken. Siobhan seemed like the chicken had a little too much pepper in the breading, but she enjoyed the salad and croutons. I mean, she still at the tendies, but she was staring pointedly below my waist the entire time.

The paninis weren't bad, but I'm not sure if they were better or worse. I'd dunked the bread in oil and butter to give it more of a crust, more crunch, almost like the croutons, and it didn't not work, but I'm not sure if it made the sandwiches better or worse. The bread brought more texture and flavor to the sandwich than normal, but it maybe overwhelmed the fillings, especially the milder ones like Ria's eggy grilled cheese.

Everything else was variations on 'pate on bread, toasted'. I remember something from a local Chinese takeout called 'shrimp toast' that was like that, and I'd been trying to figure out how to make that happen, and when I tried to Scry to figure it out, I got all kinds of recipes about pate on toast, and nothing on shrimp toast, so... Experimenting.

None of it came out awful, which was better than the first time I tried. I had to eat all of those or die forever of shame. But the added firmness of the couple day old bread worked wonders.

At any rate, as I delivered dinner with Marie bringing out the soup and dessert, a hearty fish stew and a grape pie respectively, I Co-Located one of me over near my long tall Sidhe Lady and asked, "what's up?" She looked at me, confused, as she nibbled at her salad. "Why is it gonna be strange?"

She nodded. "Because I, like you, have only the one Mind. Which means I am eating dinner twice, and in the other location I am a guest. Fortunately at a fairly large gathering."

"Oh, shit, will you being here fuck something up?"

She shrugged. "Possibly, but it will likely impose additional difficulties on anyone attempting to ensnare me in some way." At that point she took a bite of the salad with one of the better croutons, and she smiled while crunching it. After swallowing, she said, "that's lovely." Then she sighed. "Far better than the fare at Sun's Harbor."

"Ouch. Well, I guess you can at least tell them that you enjoyed dinner?" She froze, then smiled at me. Then reached out, clutched my collar, and pulled me in to kiss me. When she let me up for air I asked, "not that I'm complaining, but what was that for?"

The smile stayed on her face. "From what I've observed, not to mention what the Imperator has confirmed, you prefer that method of positive feedback." When I just kinda stared, she chuckled and said, "I hadn't actually thought of using this that way. You have my gratitude."

I spent the meal mostly focused on the fish soup and the dessert, because I'd already tried the stuff I made. I also watched Tallulah kinda carefully, because even if she was insanely durable because of the System Spell protecting her, I wasn't sure exactly how it would interact with Fae shenanigans. Dealing with an enchanted Overlord who couldn't be stopped by physical means or disenchanted with Cold Iron without hurting her would really suck.

Which is why, when Tallulah stiffened up, kind of like somebody smelling a noxious fart, I thought, be right back, collapsed to one of me, pushed my Blend up to where I didn't think anybody would realize I was there, and stepped to her side in, apparently, Sun's Harbor.

I'm right behind you, T, I thought as I took in the room. It honestly reminded me most of the Overlord's Keep, only... Cheap?

No, cheap was the wrong word. There's a special kind of beat up that I remember seeing in some documentaries, in some old British shows. The moment I realized that, while some dude stood in the doorway doing an ornate bow with all kinds of flourishes, a bunch of things fell into place.

The Overlord's Court was obviously based on a place like this, but with accommodations made for both Mortal petitioners and, equally importantly, maintenance done by people on Mortal schedules. This place reminded me of what I always thought the Ramkin estate looked like. The kind of super expensive, super old, super poorly maintained place that you could only have if you'd been super rich, super influential, so nobody could call you poor when the money ran out and shit started to go downhill.

Then again, it's possible they just hadn't done maintenance for ninety five years, because once a century was 'often enough'.

The dude, at least I think it was a dude, because Sidhe tend to slender, effeminate builds, finished his big, fancy bow that had everyone looking his way, then announced, "Lords and Ladies! May I have your attention?"

The next thing I knew, I was staring at the setting sun through the vision slits in Battle Conn aboard the Black Dragon, an annoyingly familiar helmet on my head.