Chương 1031: Day One Thousand And Twenty-Nine

Dear Diary, I definitely have a shit ton of abandonment issues, and I'm not sure I've ever really addressed them. I've gotten a lot of experiences here and now that have maybe made them less painful, less of an 'everyone I have ever known has left me' kind of thing, sure. I'm married, and I've done Really Dumb Shit™, and she hasn't left me. Neither of them have, nor has Siobhan or Tallulah, and they're not even bound by Holy Bedlock.

Given how few close connections I had back in the day, I think I could genuinely say that more than half of my close personal connections haven't left me. I'm pretty sure by the time Grandma Aetos died, I was ready to maybe begin unpacking some of the shit that happened when I was younger, because I didn't feel like she'd abandoned me, or us. Yeah, I felt loss. Grief. But I didn't feel like she'd just up and left for no good reason.

Seriously, I'm pretty sure about the 'less than half' and that's even if I don't include the kids. Which I really shouldn't, they're not supposed to stay once they're grown. Which gives me weird pending empty nest feels about the kits, because holy fuck those little felines have grown fast as fuck.

At any rate, back in the day I had my mom, of course, my dad, who left when he was just a moustache against the ceiling, my sister, who checked out even if she didn't actually die, and my man made of red flags, but hot enough I didn't care on again off again boyfriend. I think I've hit the point where I can look back and call him that rather than 'fuck buddy' or some other derogatory term.

Yeah, he was a shitty assed boyfriend, and I mean that in the metaphoric quality descriptor sense, not the literal physical sense, thank God. Would that I could express my displeasure with your former beau, Daughter. Nah. I mean, I appreciate the thought, but honestly I was as bad a girlfriend as he was a boyfriend. I think I had some jealousy issues because his ex was a literal fashion runway model. I would still like to have a word with him if I could, because while I may be biased, I am still your father.

Thanks, Dad. You're the best. I know. At any rate, that's four people. Yeah, four very important people in terms of my personal emotional landscape, but still only four people. Meanwhile I've got two Wives and two Concubines, which as a Math teacher I can confidently state is a total of four very important people, none of whom have left me.

Shit, I've got four more who actively sought me out in order to have a close personal religious relationship with me; Karen, Madeline, Orla, and Furtim all went through Trials to get that fuckin' Gown, and none of them have ever shown the slightest hint that they want to leave. Again, as a semi-professional Mathematician here and now, I state with confidence both that four plus four equals eight, and that eight is greater than four.

Once I got home from teaching Math class while maybe being a little bit achy in some spots yesterday, I brought everybody home to a big gnocchi dinner. Marie and I had gone with rich creamy sauces; even our red sauce had enough meat in it to really qualify as a 'gravy'. I didn't really ask her why until the kids were mostly done with dinner.

"Sleepover tonight."

"Really?" She nodded.

"Did you set that up?" She shook her head.

"Yunya." I kinda had to help the kids with their showers, because the meal had definitely put them in sleep mode. I let them all soak a little while I pulled Saffron over to me.

"Is this going to be a weekly thing now?" She snuggled in to me.

"Did you mind?" I thought about that for a little bit.

"Y'know what? I think it's probably good for them to get more time with the 'rents. Just in case we ever need to leave them there for a bit, because all of us are focused on something else." Her eyebrow shot up.

"With five of us, you think that's likely?" I shrugged.

"When Darling decants, she's gonna be taking the Trials, right?" Saffron looked over to Siobhan, who floated snuggled against Marie.

"I intend to, yes." I looked back to Saffron.

"That means she's getting a Tentacle, right?" Siobhan snorted.

"Of course not, I..."

"The Sneaking awaits her captain at her berth in Newark. Somewhat impatiently, I might add."

"But... I'm not... How can I be a ship captain? I'm not certain I can even sail without being seasick!" Saffron just chuckled.

"You've never gotten seasick aboard the Black Dragon. You'll be fine." Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"But I'm not... I'm not militant, like the rest of you." Saffron shrugged.

"No, but you are a High Priestess of Mimic, and will be a High Priestess of Tabitha Diaz. You, like the rest of us, will be intimately connected together in situations where coordination over long distances is an incalculable asset. Even if all you do is relay the Admiralty's orders and boost your crew's morale, that would be more than enough reason to put you in that position. Also, the Sneaking is aptly named, she's our stealthiest Tentacle yet. Hopefully even if we need you for combat, it won't be a fair one."

Siobhan pouted, and I reached over and touched her arm.

"Reconsidering?"

"No. Just annoyed that I hadn't thought of all of that first." Saffron rolled off of me and wrapped Siobhan in an embrace.

"Don't worry, Darling. You'll be fine. I'm sure yours will be the healthiest crew of any of our capital ships." I pulled myself over into the gradually accreting lady island.

"Y'know, it's almost like you're ignoring the normal position of 'captain'." Saffron nodded.

"Absolutely."

"Why?" She paused, clearly trying to come up with an explanation that wouldn't tax our pasta debuffed brains.

"I've read a few books on military organization, selections provided by your father."

"Okay. Good to know." She just smirked at me.

"It is good that I know these things. In almost every case where there is some kind of 'dual command', typically because along with the normal command structure there are 'loyalty officers' who ostensibly answer to no one but the 'leader' of a nation, or perhaps to some religious leader, the structure winds up... Compromised." I nodded.

"Okay, yeah, but aren't the ladies both?" She nodded.

"Yes. Yes, they absolutely are. I am both one of their religious leaders, Karen being the other, and the military high commander. Now, the reason I placed them in our capital ships initially was because of the instantaneous, nigh implacable communication that provides, which means that unlike those 'loyalty officers' or 'chaplains' who held the purse strings in religious armies, they truly are directly in contact with 'high command' as it were.

That said, with the exception of Tallulah and Orla, none of us are really naval officers. Fortunately, all of us know that."

"Okay, so why are we Captains?"

"Because I didn't want that dual command structure, so I had to put us all in somewhere, and I didn't want the captains of our capital ships second guessing the communications from headquarters or from our Admirals, both of whom are experienced naval commanders."

"Swanson and... Pesce? Really?" She nodded.

"Oh, I suspect his combat tactics might be a little primitive, but they won't be stupid from a marine perspective. He's also in charge of the Navy's supply chain, so if he tells a capital ship, likely with a fleet following it, to move to a resupply point, I don't want them haring off thinking they've 'got enough supplies already'."

"Huh. Guess I got lucky." She shook her head.

"Not really. Oh, you didn't choose a complete knave or cretin, but he's grown into the role in part because of your confidence in him."

"Wow. Uh... Okay, so what about the ships that don't have an actual captain?"

"Each of our capital ships has both an 'Executive Officer' and a 'First Mate'. Redundant in most navies, but in our case the Executive Officer will be running the ship. Captain in all but name, except in the case of the Training and the Penetrating, where Tallulah and Orla are training prospective Captains for other vessels."

"Still feels like you're shoe horning them in." She shrugged.

"I am. In some cases we're figureheads. But we're figureheads who know to listen to our Executive Officers and Admirals regarding Naval issues. Besides, while we may be adjusting the rank structure away from traditional ones, we are maintaining one very important one."

"What's that?"

"Our Captains can quite literally say that they are beholden directly to the Divine."

"Huh?"

"They are the ship's Mistress after God." Okay, her deadpan delivery got me snorting, then laughing out loud. Not super loud, mind you, because the kids were mostly getting super sleepy. So I raised my voice a little.

"Who wants to go to a sleepover at Grandpa and Grandma's place?" Yeah, that got a wave of sleepy kids getting out of the tub and drying off. I helped with the toweling, and once we got all of them equipped and ready, stepped them over to Mom and Dad's place. I think Sigyn took some special glee in getting Loki to curl up on his side and let all the smaller girls, not to mention a few of the smaller kits curl up around her as she leaned her back against his front.

Dreamt of my ladies doing a kind of weird thing where most of them did a whole assed fancy dance production while two at a time floated at a tiny version of Saffron's planning table. Never the same two, never more than two, and not always including Saffron. Right as I felt myself waking, I yoinked them all down into the depths of my Maw. Saffron had a pout on her face as she booted up against my chest. When she finally looked up at me, she groused, "that was rude."

"Sorry. Wanted you waking up to be the very first thing I saw this morning."

"Goof. Such Goof. So my Goof." We played a little tonsil hockey until the kids called us 'silly', at which point Sigyn and Lyman took them all back to the Homestead. When all of my ladies found seats around Dad's table, he said, "so, Daughter. What would you speak of today." I took a deep breath.

"Yeah, I think I might know one of the reasons I maybe have such a shitty self image. I mean, not that there needs to be a reason. But..." They waited. Eventually Siobhan gently prodded, "go on. In your own time." I sighed.

"Yeah. Everybody leaves me." Saffron looked around the table, where even Tallulah had stayed today.

"i beg to differ." I smiled at that.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know, Kitten. I think that's maybe why I can talk about it. Because objectively, rationally, it's not true any more." I had to stop for a minute then, and it struck home how all of them just... Waited. Not checking out. Not focused on anything else, because I knew Marie's endless knitting was just her version of a fidget spinner. I kinda wished I had one of those, but if I had it I might start focusing on it instead of what I needed to say.

Finally I managed to force out, "you're the first ones who haven't left. The first ones who've made me feel like I might, maybe, possibly matter."

"Of course you matter, Mistress." I dunno why Tallulah's dry statement of fact hit me so hard, but it did. I got a little weepy. Then a lot weepy. Eventually I wound up with all of them clustered around me, Dad's arms around them all. Once I had my tears under control, I spent the day telling them about each of the folks who'd left me. What they meant to me. How it hurt when they left. Why I couldn't shake of those abandonments even now. I talked for seconds, for years, for hours, forever.

I even remembered to talk about how I'd even felt abandoned by myself when I got shot.