Chương 1025: Day One Thousand And Twenty-Three

Dear Diary, Y'know, there's got to be a happy medium. Which makes me want to teach somebody Scrying then pump them full of dopamine and serotonin forever, because while everybody says puns are the lowest form of humor, they are a form of humor, and they usually require some degree of literacy or fluency to get, which means they're significantly more advanced than slapstick, which does not.

Yeah, I'm not in the greatest of mental shape at the moment, and it's because while the fam helped me pull my head out of my ass regarding my self image yesterday, there's some problems with that. First of all, a more accurate statement would be 'helped me start attempting to pull my head out of my ass'. Every time they try, my head swells, and that shit was stuck up in my duodenum to begin with, which means there's lots of swearing, agony and tears before any actual movement occurs.

I want to feel better about myself, I think I deserve to feel better about myself, but every time one of them points out some way I am not in fact a piece of runny dogshit splattered across the street and running into the gutter, I wind up feeling guilty about being arrogant and shit. At that point I usually get a little bit pissed at myself, which is kinda counterproductive when it comes to improving my self-image, because I start swearing about my own stubborn streak, and the ladies generally don't like that.

Also, hating myself because I refuse to stop thinking about myself as a bad person isn't any better than hating myself because I'm a bad person. Okay, I don't think it's healthier. Maybe it is. Maybe I need to talk to them about that next time, because this time was mostly them saying nice things about me, reminding me of good things I'd done, then not letting me explain them away as selfish or random or some other form of 'I didn't do them to be a Good Person™'.

Yeah, that's not what I heard therapy's supposed to be like, but fuck it, not like any of us have been trained to do this shit, and I think maybe it started to work a little bit. Of course, now there's the problem that my whole refurbished upgraded cereal box Moral Compass is apparently connected to my ears like some kind of metaphoric earring, and it snagged on my metaphoric rectum before I could get my head entirely out of my ass regarding my own worth.

No, seriously, while I would like to have a more accurate measure of my self-worth, my biggest fear is that somehow I'll wind up as arrogant as all the other Divine fuckers here and now. Shit, no, I'm worried I'll be more arrogant than they are. Because their arrogance seems to be directly proportional to their power level, and at the end of the day while I might have some difficulty focusing every bit of my power on small tasks, the fact remains that I am significantly more powerful than anybody I've met so far.

Okay, I'm not sure about Hades. I'm pretty sure I'm more powerful than he is, but I'm not sure about the 'significantly' part. Could I beat him? Oh, fuck yes. Could I beat him without serious effort? I'm not sure. Could I beat him without doing major collateral damage, to the tune of 'Greece' and 'Jackville', when I pick up the latter to hit him with it, and wind up flattening the latter along with everybody in both.

Which is not something I want to do, which would be part of why I'm not super eager to lead some kind of pogrom against Olympus or Sparta. Pretty sure that at some point in the near future, I'll wind up facing Spartans again anyhow, this time on their home turf, but I don't know a lot about it, because up until the very last moment I'm pretty sure I'm intended to be a distraction. Which is why I haven't been talking about it a lot, even to myself, because I don't want to fuck that shit up.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. So today was kinda boring, really. After yesterdays' session, we all stepped home to find the kids had helped make all kinds of little finger foods. Meatballs, raviolis, cheese sticks, breadsticks, veggie sticks, all of it deep fried and served with all kinds of dipping sauces. When I say 'all kinds', I'm pretty sure we had more flavors of dipping sauce than we have kids, which is now a number approaching a score.

Seriously, if I include little D, who is now toddling around bigger than Daya and Davey, even if he's maybe less mature than my girls, we're at eighteen kids in the household. That's three kids per parent figure, even if we include Sarah. Shit, I was gonna make some comment about breastfeeding, but at present we have one kid per nipple. Which is probably too many, but fuck if I know. Also none of them are nursing, which means we'll have sixteen nipples per nursing kid when Siobhan decants.

Tallulah and Saffron aren't currently lactating. Okay, neither are Marie, Sarah, and I, but with the three of us it's kind of an on-demand thing. Pretty sure the Maenad's lactate on the spot, and I can Mimic lactating Saffron. I guess I could also Mimic a Maenad, or even Mimic Siobhan when she starts breastfeeding. Just to be clear, at some point over the past week or so the Hormone Fairy hit Siobhan.

Not like she owed that bitch money or anything, just enough to go from 'oh, hey, nice perky tits' to 'oh, damn, those look achy'. Which she complained about after dinner when we hit the Bath. Fortunately the heat of the water helps with that, which I wasn't sure it would. That intrigued me, so I asked.

"Hey, Kitten?" Without opening her eyes where she laid on top of me, the back of her head against my breasts, Siobhan in the same position on top of her, she murmured, "Hmm?"

"Did you put one of those painkiller whammies on the tub? Like on the pillows in the Infirmary?"

"Mmm... No." She didn't sound upset to be talking about this, but she also didn't sound super active at the moment. I knew she'd been pushing herself, not to get stuff done, but so that her schedule was so full nobody would notice the little extra shit she'd been doing.

"Oh. Huh. Kinda thought the painkilling portion of the heat had gotten stronger. Must have just been those few days without hot water." She chuckled a little.

"It's not the same Enchantment, and I didn't emplace it." That threw me a little.

"Uh, okay, who did it? When did they do it?" She smiled, a mixture of pride and nerdy appreciation for quality unique Shaping.

"Hailee and Maze did most of the design and work, and I assisted them with emplacing it while I restored the Wards that keep the water clean." She made a little moue.

"Well, cleaner than it otherwise would be. Perhaps I ought add some kind of Cure Spell into the mix."

"Not right now, though." She smiled and snuggled in, still without opening her eyes.

"No. Not right now."

"So proud of our girls."

"As am I, love. As am I." We kinda fell asleep right there. Dreamt of all my ladies sleeping in my Maw, all curled around tentacles using them like body pillows. Spent the day doing what I consider 'light duty', recovering from yesterday. Had the Cadets do a distance run, then calisthenics, then weightlifting, then the obstacle course. After lunch, had them doing the same in the reverse order. None of them fell out. I guess I'm proud of them, too. Also spent the day Co-Located in a couple places.

One of me watching over Siobhan, not out of any kind of fear of her being attacked, but so I could bring her water and light snacks. One of me helping with dinner. One of me wandering through the Homestead playing with the kids, about half of whom had moved outdoors to play in the sun. One of me with Saffron and one with Tallulah, just watching over them while they did their Head of State things. One of me Scrying on my old world, because I'd run out of novels, and I wanted some new stuff to read.

Didn't actually read anything, because I wanted to be able to focus on that when I did. Or at least mostly focus on it. In case I haven't mentioned it, boring days are highly underrated.