Chương 1007: Day One Thousand And Five

Dear Diary, All the shit going down with Siobhan's way bigger than a bean babby has gotten me thinking. Specifically about the only Domain I really can fully enjoy without the slightest twinge of guilt, Children. Seriously, Passion and Ecstasy are endless sources of dopamine and serotonin surges, but even I realize that some of my time spent doing mutual partner pleasing might be more palliative than curative.

Don't get me wrong, when the passage of time and natural processes will heal whatever's wrong, and all that's needed is resources, rest, and relaxation? Palliative shit is the bomb. That's the whole reason THC was good for so many things back in the day; human bodies can heal a shit ton of stuff if they're not constantly awash in cortisol. Not constantly in pain, anxious, or otherwise exhausted yet unable to sleep. Something that shuts off the pain and stress lets the body do its job to make things right.

But no amount of booze, weed, or orgasms will make a broken leg heal straight if it hasn't been set properly. Fuck, if enough THC and alcohol have been applied, the sex might fuck shit up worse without the broke legged bitch even feeling it. No, that was not me. I never broke my leg. I had a pinkie finger that never worked quite right, though. Anyhow, between people doing dumb shit chasing Ecstasy and following their Passion, I can see where both of those have their down sides.

Then again, I might be able to see those entirely because of all that Puritanical bullshit I got shoved into me growing up. Some part of me will always look at an orgasm and be willing to hear somebody's reason why it's not right. Why it's 'actually harmful' to exchange dopamine release with a willing partner.

Okay, if I'm looking at an orgasm, I'm probably not having one of my own just then, and I'm also probably involved with the orgasm delivery, and other people's orgasms are just fine, which really tells me everything I need to know about how much that Puritanical guilt is fucking with me. At any rate, none of that applies to 'Children'. Saffron said it back on the day I ate Lyssa after turning her into an obscene bitchducken.

My biggest source of guilt about all the shit I've potentially done wrong, the thought that I'm Changing the world around me and the people in it, justified with two words.

'Children live'. Fuck, I hadn't really thought about it before then, what 'my perfect paradise' meant. I mean, I learned about it back in the day, in Environmental Science class of all places. We talked about shit like modern medicine and infant mortality rates and population growth. Apparently even back in the day humanity was only like a century away from fifty percent infant mortality. Here and now, they didn't even think that was a thing that could stop happening.

Like, I think Kitten told me once that the Dan, who pretty much qualified as the rich and powerful here and now, lost one kid in three. Which sounds so much better than half if you're used to kids dying in job lots, but for me, where even in the hood where kids died from preventable illnesses like 'drive by' and 'angry cop', that death rate was closer to three or four percent.

Yeah, a lot more died in their twenties and thirties, either to those same things or because when a prison rents you out as labor you don't live as long, but still the infant death rate wasn't in double digits. Children live. Yeah, I can totally get behind that. Not just that, but everything else I've tried to do. Getting them in out of the cold, getting them as much education as they can handle.

And by 'can handle', I'm not making any kind of judgement about some kids being naturally 'smarter' or 'more capable' or any other bullshit. Yeah, some are, but my point is that some smart kids can only deal with a couple days of classroom a week, and some average kids just love the whole environment. So, as much education as they can handle.

Food in the same amounts, because if kids being little butterballs is maybe not super healthy, I'd rather have them be overall chubby than have that bloated starvation belly with stick skinny limbs going on. Overall, I think maybe I'm... Holy shit. I just realized. I'm tryna be the bitch I needed in my own life. Mama. Mentor. Matriarch of a Pantheon whose whole fuckin' theme is making the world a better place for kids... And maybe encouraging them to do the same for their kids.

I think at some point back in the day people lost the plot on that. Not all of them. But there's, like, whole assed memes about helicopter parents, participation trophy parents, all those adults who tried to relive their own lives through their kids. Trying to make the kids' lives about them. Which is, by my estimation, just fuckin' backwards. Yeah, I know I've thought about my kids being extensions of me into the future.

But that's, like, in a generational family kind of way, and does not give me any right to control them. All I can... No, no, I gotta be honest, I could do all kinds of fucked up shit, but all I have the right to do is nurture them, maybe teach them right from wrong, encourage them to do good, and set them loose on the world with every confidence that if they crash and burn, I will be there to put out the fires, pick them up, and help them clean up the inevitable mess around the crater.

Speaking of, I think I need to get back to my own personal parents, and by that I'm talking about Loki and Sigyn. If you wish to visit before Sunday, you're welcome to do so, Daughter. Thanks, Dad, but I really do want to keep up my training schedule. The kids at the school are coming along really well with me there every couple days, and working with the Cadets is giving me a little bit of a workout too. Really? I nodded without thinking about how he couldn't see me. Intent matters, I think.

Yeah, I put more effort into doing everything just so with lifting, with running, with everything, and I think that takes more than just throwing myself around the track or yoinking weights just to show I can. Well then. We look forward to your visit. Y'know, you could come visit us, too. He chuckled into my brain, the sound warm like cookies. Perhaps we shall. Thanks, Dad. You're the best. I know. Yesterday I worked with the Cadets from the Yards.

Kinda interesting, seeing the difference between the different groups of Cadets. The Phileo Cadets have all the Phileo traditions behind them, and if they've got a little bit of what I think of as 'rich kid syndrome', by which I mean they have comparatively less grit than the kids from the Yards, they're also the cream of the crop, they know that, and they train like that. Like they know if they slack, they're not 'living up to their potential'. So I can push them.

Maybe have to push them, especially in the sense of pushing some grit into them. Then there are the Cadets from the Yards, who are fuckin' Grit Elementals. Yeah, some of them are from 'richer' families, but when 'richer' means you don't miss meals, even if some of them are maybe less healthy or tasty than the perfect nutritional offerings delivered to the rich kids from Phileo, that means the 'poorer' Cadets are absolute hood rats in all the best ways.

I don't gotta worry so much about driving them too hard, but I do gotta both make them realize that they really are capable of just as much great shit as their counterparts across the river and make sure none of them are doing what Vickerson did at first. Y'know, that whole 'holding back to a reasonable pace' thing that is absolutely needed for, like, Volunteers and other enlisted folks who want to do their duty, earn a paycheck, then go back to being a butcher or baker or dildo maker or whatever.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Yeah, I dunno what candlestick makers do once candles aren't really in use much, but that seems like a no brainer, really. Sex sells, toys sell, so sex toys are never gonna go out of style. Even if a thousand years later archaeologists call them 'ritual artifacts'. Oh. Oh, fuck. My Revels are rituals. If I, or more likely one of my faithful, brings a toy or toys, they are legit ritual artifacts used in a religious ritual.

Which, now that I think of it, is something I have no problems with and even kinda sorta want to officially bless them or something. Anyhow, so I've got the cream and the grit, but then there's the kids from Newark. The ones who weren't from a City that had bent the knee but was still a kind of lesser sibling, but from one that had slipped into New Amsterdam's ravenous maw and was in the process of being digested like the other boroughs had.

I can see it when I look at them, that kind of ingrained belief that somehow they're less than. Even fuckin' Citron, although in his case it's almost like he's pissed that he's at the Newark Academy rather than the New Amsterdam one. Fuck it, just another thing I need to deal with tomorrow. Got home from a day running around and immediately wound up mobbed by kids.

"Mama! Upstairs! Siobhan's back!" Other than having put away the Hell of Teeth, Menace didn't sound upset, just eager to get me to welcome Darling back from her time away. I could have stepped straight to the bedroom, but the kids all mulled around me, moving me first through the kitchen, where one of them pressed a stromboli into my hands, and then up the Bore into our family quarters.

Stopped right there in the hallway for a minute, pondering the fact that before the introduction of the new boy, our house had, effectively, 'Ladies' Quarters'. I chuckled as the kids teamed up to try to push me back into motion. Then laughed a bit as, at Menace's instigation, Isadora picked me up and carried me down the hall. My kit is less than a year old and she's bigger than me. Shit, I think Isadora's bigger than Marie. She's also definitely heavier than Marie.

No 'skin and bone and lean muscle' for my cowgirl. I think that overall she's got more muscle mass than an average cow by this point. Might be an idea to pair her with Lindsey on the slaughtering runs, because if anybody's gonna be able to hold an unwilling meat animal while its slaughtered, it's gonna be her. Okay, she's the most likely one of my daughters to do so. I sure as shit could, but then I'd terrify the poor thing. Then again, Isadora might too.

She doesn't flex it very much, but I think at this point she's gonna have more muscle than D did at his height. Got to the bed as the smaller girls pulled the curtain aside. Canta sat on the edge of the bed, looking maybe a little stiff but holding Siobhan's hand. Hailee lay next to her, a living body pillow in olive brown tones. Saffron sat across from Canta, her hand on Siobhan's hip.

"Hey, guys. What's the word?" Canta looked up at me, and I swear he looked kinda scared to speak until Siobhan gently squeezed his hand.

"I have done what can be done. Siobhan's child ought be born healthy in both Body and Soul." He paused, clearly working up the nerve to continue.

"Although..." At that point his nerve ran out. Poor dude probably thought I was the 'kill the messenger' type. Fuck, he probably thought I was the 'murderfuck the messenger until their Mind broke, then force sanity into their brain hole just so they'd realize they were being eaten' type. Wasn't sure how to really rectify that, so I shrugged and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, I'm sure you did all you could. All anybody could. I'm not gonna be mad at you because you could only fix so much of what my rough and ready field Healing fucked up."

"No, Tabitha." At first I thought Saffron had interrupted, but to my surprise those firm words had come from Siobhan.

"You did not fuck anything up. Any harm done was done by that Spartan." She paused.

"Speaking of which, what happened to him?" Took me a second, mostly because I'd been so pissed.

"I gave most of him, everything that I hadn't ripped off to neutralize him, to Conrad." Siobhan looked torn, part of her horrified at me for handing anyone over to The Weyland Smith, another part horrified at herself for the deep and abiding satisfaction I felt radiating from her. Meanwhile Saffron just said, "good." When Siobhan turned to her, she added, "anyone who would attack a child deserves no more mercy than our son will give him, and anyone who attacks our child I cannot find any sympathy for."

Siobhan looked down at her belly as she pulled Saffron and Canta's hands back to it.

"I... Forgive me, Lord."

"Whatever for?" Credit to him, he didn't sound like had any idea why she'd apologized.

"I... I cannot forgive him. I feel satisfaction at his inevitable violation." I saw it then, in Canta's eyes, why he loved Siobhan so much. I kinda felt the same way. I mean, I loved her as a partner, and I think he thought of her way more like a daughter, but I realized right then that this old Dan dude who, if the stories were to be believed, learned how to be a God at the feet of the Norse Gods, which meant he started out a mortal, never quite lived up to his own code.

Not like I can blame the bastard, I've fucked up plenty. But where he'd tried and failed, his daughter in spirit, his favored High Priestess, had managed to embody what he preached. I squeezed his shoulder ever so gently. When he turned toward me, I said, "y'know, at one point you were worried about what your Patriarch would think if he found out." He nodded.

"I still am." I smiled.

"Yeah. Well. We don't exactly have a God of Healing here in the Alliance Pantheon. If you wanted the job." I ignored how both Siobhan and Saffron shot me disbelieving looks. Yeah, technically, but I'm kinda shitty at it. Says the Goddess who Healed the Undead. Meh. That was just me being too dumb to know better. Siobhan looked over my shoulder.

"Isadora?"

"Yes?"

"Smack Mama in the back of the head for me, please." Yeah, my daughter is not weak. Were I less sturdy, they might have found my eyeballs in Saffron's cleavage. In the literal 'popped out of the sockets' sense, not in the normal 'where they gravitate when I've got nothing else to look at' sense.

"Ow! Hey!"

"Sorry, Mama." Saffron spoke before I could.

"You're fine, Isadora. You are an obedient daughter who helps Sister Siobhan when she needs something she's neither tall enough to reach or strong enough to lift." I took a deep breath.

"Yeah. Yeah, you are." I turned around and hugged her, pulled her around and let her sit down on the bed within reach of Siobhan.

"Anyhow, our little family comedy aside, the invitation's open." Canta stood there for a while. Then he sighed, deflating as he did. With a rueful chuckle, he said, "I wish that I had done all I could out of gratitude for you taking my favorite under your protection, rather than for fear of your reprisal. Still, I did all I could." Then he looked up at me.

"Leaving a Pantheon and joining another is no simple thing. I... I do not think I can. Forgive me." I pulled him into a hug, which seemed to surprise him.

"Hey, dude, nothing to forgive. I wasn't tryna claim you or steal you or seduce you or something. Although, y'know, like I said way back when, if that's what I gotta do to make Darling happy, I'll take one for the team." While he spluttered, I waggled my eyebrows, then said, "but seriously, offer's open if you change your mind. Or, y'know, if your boss gets angry and is gonna hurt you, you let me know. Or just join Team Alliance. We protect our own. So, Y'know, offer's open."

He looked like he wanted to laugh, cry, and maybe vomit all at once. Fortunately he went with the 'laugh' option.

"Which offer?" Yeah, I may be more mature than I was on arrival, but that is not a high bar. I might have slid back and forth against him as I gave him another hug.

"Whichever one. Siobhan's judgement's way better than mine. Well, I trust it more. So, y'know, whichever."

"Tabitha!" Siobhan half squeaked, half laughed.

"Yes, Darling?" So fun watching her blush and not pass out.

"Lord Canta is... He is..." I smiled and said, "like a father to you?" She nodded, blushing, and with him right up against me I felt his face warm.

"Oh, okay, so that would make him like, a father-in-law to me? Sorta? Only not in-law, since we're not actually married? Wait, would that make it incest or not?" While everybody stared open mouthed at my bullshit, I tilted my head in mock thought.

"I mean, it doesn't really matter, I guess. Okay, making Siobhan happy matters more than anything that stupid. Right?" I felt kinda bad for him, so I stopped my stream of bullshit and let him step back a little, at which point his ass flopped back onto the bed. Right about then Isnomi stepped up behind him, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "ith ohtay, Canda. Mama thiwwy, bud theeth nythe anyway."