Chương 1015: Day One Thousand And Thirteen

Dear Diary, Sometimes I think about might have beens. Like, yeah, obviously I've thought now and then about what my life would have been like if some dude whose rifle had a higher caliber than his penis hadn't shot me in the head. I can't say that my here and now life is a downgrade in any meaningful way.

Yeah, my trunk lacks junk, but I have four different flavors of MILF on tap, one of whom has one of the finest badonkadonks I've ever seen, and definitely the finest one I've ever laid hands on, and I'm definitely including my own from back in the day. Thing is, while I can see now that my most likely career path back in the day was 'working single mom', with all the lack of glamor and progress that implies when the job I'd be working would be a succession of multiple minimum wage grinds.

Yeah, some folks from the hood made it out, either detached themselves from the crab bucket or pulled all their associated crabs with them, but on the whole those folks were the exception, not the rule. It wasn't ever anything controllable, either. Yeah, most of the people who made it out worked their asses off. But all the ones who didn't worked just as hard. I'd watched, time and again, as the ones who failed weren't stopped by lack of effort, or 'motivation', or anything else except bad luck.

Getting sick at just the wrong time. Getting pregnant while working a job where they'd fire you the moment you showed. Transportation failure, whether that meant a car dying, the price of taxis going up, or one poor chica I knew whose monthly rail card died twice a month, three months running.

You get a discount for paying for a month's worth of rides all at once, but when the card demagnetizes and the transit authority gives zero fucks about that, so you gotta buy a new one, that's all that savings wiped out, and when it happens again and again and you buy a special fuckin' lanyard from the transit authority just to make sure it's not something in your purse killing it, but it keeps happening, that shit can take you straight from 'comfortably padded bank account, thinking about renting a cheap place in the burbs' to 'I wish I still had broadband so I could start an OF to make rent'.

So back there, my most likely best result was a kid or two in a decent apartment. Here and now I'm part of a polycule that includes two heads of state and two literal Deities. I don't think there's any real comparison there. But there's no video games here. No internet. I'd say 'no global economy', but there's barely a fuckin' economy that I've been able to see. Yeah, some folks getting rich, but again, the ultimate tech for them to buy is 'flameless lighting' and 'flush toilets'.

Shit, they have literal magical Healing, and their infant mortality rate didn't start dropping until I showed up. I'm still not fuckin' sure if or how I'm responsible for that shit, but I'm not gonna complain. Yeah, if kids are in trouble in my line of sight, I make sure that whatever's endangering them isn't. Isn't endangering them, isn't in my line of sight, isn't a coherent, cohesive 'thing' in any sense of the word. Healing, Vengeance, Protection, whatever it takes, I'm there to do it.

But I don't really get how that's turned into 'reduced infant mortality'. Honestly, it's probably something Saffron's done. At most, I maybe inspired it, or made some kind of offhand comment that she turned into an Alliance policy. I guess if it's some kind of large scale Shaping, I might be providing the Mana to my Clergy, but that's kinda like hitting the lottery, then giving a bunch of dedicated social workers debit cards connected to my bank account.

Yeah, I'm sort of facilitating shit, but I really don't feel like I deserve a lot of the credit. I'm getting it, I know, but I don't feel like I deserve as much of it as I get. Came home last night to find Marie and Saffron giving Anna and Devorah babysitting instructions. I dispensed hugs and admonitions to stay out of trouble to our horde, then stepped over to Saffron.

"What's up, Kitten?" I murmured. She nodded to Anna and Devorah, who called the kids into the kitchen, because apparently Marie had left dinner half done. Okay, not 'half done', but she'd baked and sliced the bread, roasted and sliced the meat, sliced up the cheese, and sliced up the veggies. Then left it all for the kids to make sandwiches, which was an excellent way for them to bleed off some of the energy they always had after a school day.

"We'll be accompanying you tonight." I smiled.

"Okay. Uh," I looked around, realizing that Siobhan had gone with Anna, Devorah, and the kids.

"Why not Darling?" Saffron took my hand and stepped us all to the Altar in the Temple of Love. They arrived decked out in their white Holy Garb, then moved around to join the rest of my High Clergy, with the exception of Orla and Karen. She's not yet completed her Trials. I really hope she doesn't wind up feeling some kinda way about that. Only that it gives her yet another reason to look forward to the arrival of our little one. Eyes front.

I turned, settling onto my throne and dropping my Blend as my two missing Clergy walked up to the Altar, Aphrodite between them. Despite the lack of anything resembling chains, their hands on her elbows totally made it clear that this was a perp walk. Kinda scary: much like the rest of the Olympians I'd met, she towered over even Orla. I had to look up at her as she got within a couple steps of the Altar. Then she sank to her knees.

"Goddess." I almost said, 'call me Tabitha', but Karen, who'd swapped places with Saffron, spoke before I could.

"Tabitha is your superior in all respects. Address her as 'Lady', or 'Matriarch' when you do." Aphrodite bristled.

"And yet you do not do me that same courtesy." Karen nodded.

"Lady, you are here to begin addressing the many offenses you perpetrated against the people of Phileo, of the Alliance, of the Mortal Realm." Wait, we're having a trial tonight? While Karen called a list of names, and folks started drifting up toward the Altar, Saffron thought, this is more of an initial hearing, love. We're hoping that seeing her humbled before you will encourage those who feared her wrath to come forward.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Okay, fair. So I just gotta sit here looking intimidating? Look however you like, love. Simply prevent her from lashing out, should she attempt to do so. I nodded, then listened to the first woman to make it to the Altar. I didn't recognize her at all, like she'd never been to a Revel since I started hosting them.

She looked almost nauseous, glancing back and forth between Aphrodite and I, like she wanted to run, wanted to hide, wanted to puke up her dinner and die, but still she stood there. After a few moments, I quietly whispered to her.

"You're safe. Anything unpleasant she does to you I'll heal and do the same thing twice over to her." Yeah, that did not apply the enhanced calm I'd hoped it would. She shook her head, turned to face Aphrodite squarely, then dropped to her knees.

"My Lady." Aphrodite's brow furrowed.

"You would claim me as Patron, yet accuse me of wrongdoing?" I reached out, laying a steadying tentacle on the woman's shoulder.

"Yeah, that's how we roll around here. If I fuck up, I expect my people to call me on it, and I try to make it right."

"That is... Blasphemous."

"Yeah. This is... My fuckin' Temple. Are we gonna have a problem?" She bowed her head, then sighed. When she opened her eyes and looked at the woman, she'd adopted a look of concern. Dunno if it was fake or not, really.

"Valeria. The Lady of the Temple is correct. This is her house now, and I but a guest. What would you accuse me of?" I realized right then that she hadn't entirely been looking at me and Aphrodite. She also seemed painfully aware of the edge of the dais, the long slope down to the base of the seating. We'd lowered it a bit, padded it a lot more, but it still might be rough for somebody with acrophobia.

"You... You shoved me."

"Pardon?"

"When... When you finished with me, when I no longer pleased you, you expelled me from the dais." Aphrodite frowned.

"I dismissed you after your Worship was done? What of it?"

"No, my Lady. Not that. You did not bid me leave. Well, you did, but that is not my complaint. When you bid me leave, and I turned to go, you," she paused, glancing over to the edge of the dais, and I felt her shudders.

"You shoved me. I fell. I broke."

"You seem fine now, though?" Valeria shook her head.

"I spent all my savings, hoping to be worthy to return to your Altar again. But I cannot... I cannot... The dais is too high." Fuck. Some kind of trauma induced acrophobia, at a wild assed guess. Aphrodite looked at her Worshipper, and I meant that in the 'Worshipping her right then and there, even as she talked about how the bitch had done her dirty' sense, and said, "what would you have of me, then?" I only heard her whisper because of my tentacle, still gently holding her upright.

"An... An apology, my Lady?"

"What? I cannot hear you, Valeria. Speak up." Valeria blinked, then looked up into Aphrodite's eyes.

"I would have an apology, my Lady. If I did not displease you on that night, I did not deserve this punishment, to be forever afraid at your Altar, to be unable to work in the rigging of my family's boat." Well, shit, that would explain how she afforded Healing, but couldn't afford to go see Doc Glass or somebody like him. Savings gone, and no way to work to earn more. That really sucked. Meanwhile Aphrodite reared back. Her hand twitched. I growled.

"You would have me tolerate this impertinence?" I sucked at my teeth, then leaned forward to look Aphrodite right in the eye.

"Did she displease you?" Aphrodite shrugged.

"I don't even remember her." I closed my eyes. Took a deep breath. Blew it out through my nose. Gently set Aphrodite back on her knees, where she heaved a huge breath.

"You ruined her life, made her think she was some kind of failure to you, and you don't even fuckin' remember her?" She scoffed.

"Like you remember the names of all you take here on your Altar."

"As a matter of fact, I do. Once in a while one of the ones who isn't up here a lot I gotta think about it a little, but yeah, I do. Because unlike the Deity I'm looking at, I am not a waste of fuckin' Worship." Holy fuckin' shit. I'd actually said that about myself. Guess it just took me seeing actual assholery to realize I wasn't staring at my colon most of the time.

"Forgive me." Wonder of wonders, she sounded like she meant it. Valeria gasped, then kinda crumbled forward until she'd gone into a full on weeping kowtow, one hand reaching out to almost touch the kneeling Goddess.

"Thank you, Goddess. Thank you. I forgive you, I forgive you, please, Goddess." Fuckin' hell. I don't know what was worse, that Aphrodite was doing classic abuser shit, or that it was a fuckin' improvement over her previous behavior. Then she nearly did another suicide by Deity as she said, "I wasn't speaking to..." A few moments later, standing between Valeria and Aphrodite, I leaned in and whispered in the Goddess' ear, just loud enough for her and her alone to hear me.

"Think very carefully about your next words." She whimpered.

"You remember Diana's nose?" She jerked her head back and forth.

"Yeah, it went missing for a while. I wonder what you'd look like without one? I guess we could put some mirrors in the oubliette for you. Or maybe I could deflate one of your tits. Give you an aneurysm like I did Odin, so your face looks all melted when you can't move it right." She whimpered something incoherent.

"Or," I whispered, "you could tell Valeria how sorry you are for punishing a faithful Worshipper who did nothing to anger you. Mistakes were made. Correct them."

"You would wax this wroth over one Mortal, not even one beholden to you?" At that point Saffron draped herself over my shoulders like a shawl and hissed out, "each and every one in the Alliance, which is yet another reason we love her so." She blinked away, and Aphrodite just blinked.

"End me." I leaned back.

"Dafuq?"

"You ought to end me."

"You'd rather die than apologize?" She shook her head.

"No. No, I do not wish to die. But you have shown me the source, the secret of your great strength. So I offer you this in recompense. Advice. Honestly given. You should end me." I blinked at that, then stepped back to my seat.

"Yeah, no, we're not gonna do that today. But you had something to say to Valeria?" She turned to her weeping, kneeling Worshipper, the very image of magnanimity.

"Of course, Valeria, I accept your forgiveness, and wish I had never harmed you." Yeah, not sure if she wished that because if she hadn't, I might not have taken her Temple and the vast bulk of her Worshippers here in Phileo. In the Alliance. In Atlantis. Or if she was genuinely contrite. Okay, yeah, I doubted that. But I'd work with what I could get. Through the night, one at a time, women and men came up to the Altar, accusing Aphrodite of... Honestly most of it was basic abuse. Not even like, sexual in nature.

Not even one of them accused her of violating their Agency. Just... Hurting them. Hurting them when they'd done everything in their power to please her. One by one they came up. One by one she apologized, even if I could tell the only reason why she did was fear of being disfigured and left in a mirrored oubliette. But her Worshippers either couldn't tell or didn't care. Each of them wept and asked her to take them back. Finally, near the end of the night, the trickle dropped down to none, and she looked at me.

"Lady?"

"Yeah?"

"May I see my High Priestess?" I looked at Karen, who thought, she is unwell. She has good days and bad ones, and this one has been bad. I sighed and shook my head.

"Sorry, Phro. She's not in any kind of shape to visit." She slumped.

"What have you done to her?" So weird, that she actually seemed to care about Alexandra, after showing that she didn't really give the slightest shit about her other Worshippers.

"Phro?"

"Yes, Lady?"

"You really... Think about what we just spent all night doing. You think I'm gonna hurt somebody just 'cause what, they used to be your sock puppet?" Bitch just shrugged and said, "I would." I got right up in her grill before I growled out, "I. Wouldn't."