Chương 1002: Day One Thousand

Dear Diary, Fuck. Fucking shitball fucking Murphy. Fucking crack fiend Fates. Fucking personable cute Norns who make me reconsider turning all of the above into a single set of matryoshka dolls via repeated complete rectal insertion. I didn't even set off any fuckin' flags by mentioning the fucking recurring theme of my life here, hoping that the fucking trend was just me imagining shit. Marie Pesce. The Tabithas Lands. Anundr's Dragon's victims. The drydock in Calverton. Lucas Lancaster. Grandmother's Village.

Twice, once to plague and bear, once to fire and dragon. Loviatar. Lyssa. Yeah, I can notice a fuckin'... Fuck, it's not even a trend, it's a fuckin' pattern. Worse, it's not even a pattern of 'some jackass threatens kids'. Nope, it's 'kids are in danger near me'. Except that's not right either. Yeah, Anundr and the Plague at Grandmother's Village are tangentially related to me, and Loviatar and Lyssa were deliberately attacking my kids, not unlike Diana learned not to do.

Fuck, that's why even now I'm not sure if it's a pattern or just fuckin' confirmation bias and shit. Isnomi doesn't fit the pattern, nor do the other kids I saved in Lancaster. Shit, I saved kids at the New Year's Revel this year, and I'm pretty sure even the crumbled walls of the Temple of Storms were tall enough for them not to get traumatized by how I did it.

Shit, getting shot full of arrows is traumatizing, but at this point I'm not sure if some poor kid got shot, they're gonna feel more or less traumatized if the shooter spontaneously combusts as his armor melts, then undergoes spontaneous deconstruction into sloppy meat chunks. To hear Saffron tell it, not to mention Dad, that's part and parcel of why I'm a Goddess of Children.

Protector, Defender, Avenger, and as they've said, when there is an avenger around ready to do some avenging, there's likely to be maybe a little less need for that. Fuck, I guess there's something positive to be said about me if the one thing that will focus me enough to channel one point six percent of Shaggy's full power is kids being in danger. Or worse, hurt. So yesterday I ran yet another new group of Cadets around.

Most of the Newark Cadets are kinda nondescript at this point, even more so than the Yards and Phileo Cadets, but one stood out. Cadet Citron.

'Chip' Citron. Clearly a relative, he looked kinda like Vickerson and Hildegarde's beau, but I didn't want to start any 'favoritism' shit this early by mentioning it. I figure I'd ask OG Citron next time I saw one of them. Then again, for all I know it's something like Lands in Lancaster, where any cadet branches get the Citron name. Maybe I'll ask Ophelia about that. Wait, no, she's a bitch. I'll ask Ora next time I see her.

Or I'll just forget because I shouldn't have been super surprised by my Soul turning into a seive, what with my Memory already doing a pretty fuckin' good impression of a sifter. I know I've been trying to be kinder with myself, not to mention other people, but some shit deserves to be scraped off my shoe and flushed down the toilet. At any rate, got home and very carefully did not mention my whole worry about the millennial anniversary of my arrival portending danger to kids somewhere.

Spent some time showing the new kids the kitchen. Well, for a value of 'showing the new kids the kitchen' that meant Marie and I making simple sandwiches for dinner with a whole fuckin' kitchen full of adorable sous chefs. Heh.

'Simple' sandwiches. Toasted, fresh baked bread, although those loaves were brought back from the Academy by Murder Mittens. I toasted a couple with Mana Blades, but most of them we did the old fashioned way in the oven. Interesting side note, when she saw me doing my insta-toast maneuver, Davey said, "may I try?" My sphincters clenched at the idea of one of my girls tryna make a Mana Blade, but then, she was the one who just rolled with getting merked by her sister.

I took myself in hand, nodded, and said, "carefully, though." When I nodded, she'd turned and started to dash off. I didn't get it, although I appreciated her slowing to a quick, determined walk when she heard me say 'carefully'. A minute later she was back with her little Mana Dagger in hand. I'd totally forgotten Tallulah gave her that.

"Okay. Be really careful. You saw how I held the bread up?"

"Yes, Mama." I held a loaf up and carefully slid a short Mana Blade through it, a slice dropping off onto the cutting board, nicely browned.

"That's because with a Mana Blade the blade does the cutting; you don't need to saw or push against the cutting board. Also, I'm pretty sure a Mana Blade would cut the cutting board, and that would make Mommy sad." From across the kitchen, Marie chimed in with a sorrowful, "It Would." Davey nodded solemly, picked up a loaf, and carefully sliced through it with her little Blade. I tensed up a little when she did, as the slice fell off the loaf onto the counter. Where it lay there completely untoasted.

"It didn't work?" I drew my Mana Blade in, then picked up her slice. The cut had that utterly smooth look that required a stupidly sharp blade, but it wasn't even warm to the touch. Also, no crunch, just normal bread softness.

"Huh. I guess my Mana Blades have more heat to them than Tallulah's." At that point Ria called out, "Mother told me yours are remarkably less efficient than ours because of that."

"I guess so." Then what she'd said registered.

"Wait, 'ours'? You know how to make a Mana Blade?" My little Sidhe girl nodded solemnly.

"I cannot maintain it for long but I know the basic Shape." Made me a lot less worried about somebody jumping my kids to have another of them armed, but like I'd mentioned, a minority of the kids put in danger had been threatened by attacks. Also, one of my daughters knew how to make the most dangerous Shape I knew of, which was not a calming thought in general. I took myself in hand again, took a deep breath and let it out, then turned back to Davey.

"Well, I guess you can't instantly toast them, but your slices are smoother than mine. So I guess you could slice them up with your Blade, then we can toast them in the oven?" The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Okay, Mama!" I might have spent more than most of my attention carefully watching Davey slicing bread until we had enough, but... Fuck it, sue me, I was on edge. She got through the whole process without a single slip up, then proceeded to put the Blade away and take it back to stash it in her room. I almost asked her to keep it on her, just in case, but then I realized that 'supernaturally sharp blade' and 'hoard of school aged kids' was like, a recipe for exactly what I was trying to prevent.

I tried very hard to ignore the fact that there were seventeen kids in a fully stocked kitchen, with all the dangerous objects and substances that implied. So, along with the fresh toasted bread, we made a hearty homemade mayonnaise, which a couple of the kids and Saffron all liked, mustard, and I'm talking about the brownish paste not the yellow goop, and even some ketchup. Catsup? I don't know which we made, technically, because I don't know the difference, and Marie said it rather than spelling it.

For fillings we sliced up a couple different kinds of cheese, a couple heads of lettuce, some leaves that Marie identified as spinach, which surprised me because they weren't, y'know, slightly slimy and stringy and covered in vinegar. Dunno why people put vinegar on spinach, it's pretty good without. Also, sliced up bear, sliced up beef, sliced up pork, sliced up chicken, some egg salad, and some...

Not tuna salad, because we don't have tuna, but Marie managed to show us all how to make something a lot like that out of the fish we had. After dinner we all trooped up to the Bath, where the new kids had finally started drifting toward the Bath games the other girls had played since basically day one.

Along with me joining in for a round of 'Kaiju Mama', which thankfully my kids wound up insulated enough from the Kaiju attacks that they could still enjoy, I slapped that 'no drowning' boon on the new kids, because that was absolutely the last thing I needed, drowned kids due to overenthusiastic Bath games. Eventually they all wound up tired out, but before I could scoop them all up and cart them down to bed, Saffron slipped her hands around my waist, laying her head against my back.

"You're very tense, love." Still didn't want to say anything out loud, because some superstitious part of me thought that if I didn't say anything, it would wind up just being another stupid confirmation bias thing. Besides, if there was a pattern to be seen, she'd have seen it.

"Love?" I shook myself a little, then scooped her up and around in front of me.

"Just, I dunno. Worried. About stuff. The kids, really." She chuckled.

"As you always are, I think." She ran a finger down one of my scars, the one on my shoulder from the high capacity round at the Crow townhouse.

"Do they ache tonight?" I realized right then that whether it was the ache making me tense or the tension making them ache, they did.

"Yeah. Yeah, kinda."

"Well then." She reached into me, through me, and pulled me and all the kids I'd scooped tentacles around over to where the Mom Collective floated. Really hoped that neither Hailee nor Isadora would wind up officially joining that group any time soon, because fuck me but Isadora was nearly as tall as Marie at this point. Like, if I saw somebody her size walking down the street, I'd be like 'that is a whole assed adult Human Adjacent Being' and shit. On the one hand, I am too young to be too old for this shit.

On the other hand? I am definitely too old for this shit. I am also too young to be Mama to a grown assed Maenad. Fortunately, I think even if the kits wound up mentally anywhere near as mature as their bodies looked, I did not have to worry about any sane person tryna make Isadora do anything she didn't want to, because she had that lanky 'still growing' look.

I'd once mentally joked about Isnomi carrying Lachlan around in a pocket like a purse dog, but holy shit if Isadora kept growing she'd be able to do that shit with Mr. Driver. I carefully set those thoughts aside and let Saffron arrange everybody around us. I think she did something to the Bath water as well, something that boosted the heat from its normal 'warm enough to encourage sleepies in kids who need rest to grow' up to 'sleep now, and maybe melt a little while doing so'.

Dreamt of my ladies stirring my Maw like a big old cauldron, with comically over-pregnant Siobhan in the middle like the lone potato in the soup pot. She looked adorably annoyed at being singled out, while also looking adorably adorable when my tentacles all focused on her, what with the others technically not being 'in' my Maw. Okay, yeah, lame excuse, but Siobhan had a smile on her face when she nuzzled me awake. A smile on her slightly more potato colored face.

Like, not super dark brown or anything, but normal Siobhan being pale as fuck meant that even the slightly ruddy, slightly toasted look she'd started rocking made her platinum blonde hair stand out that much more.

"Been getting some sun?" She smiled and nodded.

"I think it's helping with my nausea." Hailee, who hadn't really moved yet, quietly murmured, "it is."

"Welp. Guess we just gotta get used to toasted Ice Pop."

"Are you disappointed?" I smiled, shook my head, and nuzzled at her.

"Never, Darling. Just be careful, I don't want you getting burned."

"Saffron showed me how to make a Ward to prevent that." After hugs and kisses for everyone who wouldn't be at the Temple of Love today, which meant my ladies and Hailee, because all the other kids wanted to get their learn on, I scooped all the kids up and stepped us down to the sanctuary right next to the Altar, where the restaurant staff had all the kids eating breakfast. I might have surreptitiously taste tested everything just to make sure there wasn't gonna be some kind of food poisoning outbreak.

Yes, I trust my Clergy with my life. Yes, I trust them with my kids. No, I was not entirely rational at that point. So weird, feeling the tension keep creeping up inside me through breakfast, then, right before lunch, start draining out just like every other emotion I'd had. I mean, not pouring out the way shit had before Dad fixed my shit, but it still leaked out of me. Then, as I did more surreptitious testing of the kids' lunches, Siobhan, her mental voice tight with fear and pain, thought, Goddess!

I didn't think. I stepped to where she lay on a blanket atop the roof of East House. Hailee lay atop her. And a fucking Spartan knelt over them, his spear thrust through both of them.

"No." In the still, dark wireframe world, I grabbed the Spartan. My hands burning as I ripped his hands away from the spear, ripped his arms off his body, and shoved him away. Tried to shove him away, but the Cold Iron in his armor refused to move. I growled and shoved harder. A moment later, the Cold Iron disappeared.

"Daughter?"

"Get rid of that spear, Ma." It went. I lifted my kit away, Healing her as I did. Then I slammed a Divine Ward over my Darling.

"Ma?"

"Yes, Daughter?"

"Can you get rid of my inability to focus?" She hummed.

"What?"

"I am uncertain as to how I would remove that which does not exist." I stared at the tiny Soul in my Darling's belly, frozen as it fell apart.

"I... I..."

"The Undead in Calverton, Daughter." I did that. I held myself together through all of that. I put all those kids back together. I could do this. I reached in, Healed the tiny body in her belly, then, one tiny fragment at a time, I slipped that tiny Soul back together. There in that timeless space I slow rolled a Smite into her, gluing that fragmented Soul together, putting it back into its proper place. I slipped everything back together, Healing Siobhan's belly with Ameliorate Scars.

"Ma?"

"Yes, Daughter?"

"Guard my Concubine and my kit. I'll be right back." I stepped back into time. The fuckin' Spartan looked really surprised to see me, and kinda upset about his missing, ripped off hands. I grabbed him by the neck. He kicked me. smacked me with his bleeding forearms.

"I've killed your get and your slut, bitch!" Rage roared through me. Slipped out of me. I took a deep breath, holding him away from my Darling and my kit.

"Hailee?" Relief washed through me and out of me as she murmured, "yes, Mama?"

"Take care of Siobhan."

"Yes, Mama." The Spartan slapped me in the face with his stump, splashing blood in my eyes.

"You will not ignore me, bitch!" I ignored him. Stepped. Held him out and snapped both of his knees backwards. Dropped him as he thrashed and screamed profanity.

"I'm sorry about the floor, son. This asshole just stabbed two of your sisters and my Darling."

"Understood, Mother Dearest."