Chương 105: Day One Hundred And Four

Dear Diary, Y'know, when shit comes back to bite me in the ass, I expect teeth. Fangs, even. Pain, blood loss, maybe some screaming. I do not expect a vaguely creepy visit from the analinguist. Y'know what I'm saying? Somehow without actually doing anything I'd managed to wipe The Grin of Panty Destruction off of Saffron's face and replace it with the mother of all 'what the fuck, Diaz?' looks.

"Uh... I dunno? What did I do?" Saffron took a deep breath. I fully expected flames to billow out of her mouth, but she snipped out, "that is precisely what I just asked you. Explain, oh beloved pain in my ass."

"Explain what?" She shook her head, clearly finding my stupidity difficult to believe.

"Inspect her."

"Uh, okay." Yeah, I should have thought of that. I extruded an Inspect pointed at the Menace, who Marie still had doing repetitions of 'So Big!' NAME Isnomi Aetos RACE Hybrid HYBRID Bag (18. 275%) / Human (50%) / Mor (25%) / Olympian (6. 725) AGE Child (0) ATTRIBUTES STRENGTH 0 AGILITY 0 ENDURANCE 2 REASON 3 MEMORY 3 PERSONALITY 3 AFFINITIES Air (6. 25%) / Earth (18. 75%) / Water (28. 125%) PATRON Undeclared SKILLS None RACIAL SKILLS BALANCE 1 (+) BLEND 1 PREDATE 1 SCENT 1"Well. Fuck. Did not expect that."

I leaned on my Blend, pushing it out to cover the whole room. Just in case, I shot a thought to Loki, uh, Boss? Dealing with an emergency delicate situation. Could you? Consider your privacy assured, High Priestess mine.

"What did you expect? How did this happen?" I shrugged.

"Maybe whatshisname was Zeus in disguise?" Saffron threw her arms in the air. If we'd had a convenient table, I'm sure she would have flipped it at this point.

"Olympian I could deal with, although I'd really prefer not to be on Hera's bad side. But Mor? Mor? Fucking MOR?" By this point she paced back and forth through the room, ranting. I caught the gleam of unshed tears lurking in her eyes.

"I'm pretty sure I would have noticed if he was an incarnation of terror! You! YOU being Mor is obvious in retrospect. You're obviously a menace." She paused, hysterical laughter lurking under the confused, angry, frustration in her voice, "It's the fucking, isn't it? Without ever manifesting a dick, you somehow retroactively un-and-re-fucked me and made my baby a fucking MOR!"

I don't know exactly when it happened, but at some point during the rant she'd slipped a roach-tipped umbrella up my butt, and her final anguished shriek extended the thing, firmly shoving a bug straight up my ass.

"HEY!" My shout, which had more genuine anger than I thought it would, shocked her into silence and stillness.

"For somebody who knows exactly what it's like to have people thinking you're a piece of shit just because you popped out of a Bag vagina back in the day, you're getting awful high and mighty about rubbing my face in the fact that according to the 'race' slot on my Inspect, I happen to be a Mor! A Mor who maimed a Goddess and destroyed a bitch's soul to save that adorable fucking little menace of ours, I'll remind you." The tears from earlier flowed, ignored, from the corners of her eyes.

"Oh my... My Goddess, I... Wait, you what?"

"The fucking bitch deserved it for sacrificing our daughter to fucking Artemis." Saffron's eyes widened, tears still spilling out, forgotten.

"You... You Revived her?"

"You'd rather I fucking didn't?" Her head shook convulsively.

"No! I... You took the High Priestess's Soul to do so?"

"Kinda fucking thought you knew all this." She nodded to Marie, who'd scooped up a squirming Isnomi, trying to distract her from fighting parents, I guess. Gotta do something nice for her for that.

"She wouldn't let me enter the temple until she'd dealt with the guards. Someone told her to watch over me, after all."

"Yeah. I fucking did. And yeah, I fucking tore her soul out and burned it to fix what she'd fucked up." I glowered at her, although there was more than enough to spread around to anybody else who wanted to fucking argue with me, "I would fucking do it again. For her. For you. For her," I nodded to Marie, who blinked at me, nearly losing her grip on the menace. I shrugged.

"Maybe for Loki, I dunno. But for you three? Nobody better fucking test me, or they will fucking find out." She stumbled toward me, tears still flowing. Her arms went around me as she said, "but... Destroying a Soul, doing so forcibly, without Consent. That's... Monstrous." My arms went around her, and I lay my cheek against her hair.

"I know. I just do not fucking care. I don't think, 'don't murder my loved ones, or I will eat your soul to undo it' is a step too far for an Incarnation of Terror." I shrugged.

"Fuck. Maybe it is. I don't know. I also don't fucking care." She squeezed her face into my breast, wiping tears and maybe a little snot all over my front before pushing away just far enough to whisper, "neither do I." In a slightly more normal voice, she followed that up with a wry, "I am such a dumb bitch." I pushed her head back with a single finger on her forehead, just far enough to flick her in the forehead before saying, "that's my line. You, on the other hand, are the smartest woman I know.

I am prepared to stake money on you being the smartest woman on the planet." She snorted again, this time without the blubbering snot.

"Says the woman with the infinite coin purse. I, on the other hand, somehow missed that being besotted with terror means I will, on occasion, wind up terrified."

"Still a little pissed about the Mor comments." She dropped out of my arms, going to one knee in front of me, "I am sorry about that. I humbly beg for your forgiveness, my beloved, my Goddess. What might I do to make amends?" Me being me, the phrase, "uh, while you're down there?" slipped out of my mouth. She barked out a laugh at that, then looked up at me, worry clear in her eyes, "unless you're serious?" I rolled my eyes at her, yoinking her back to her feet and pulling her into my arms.

"I'm a horndog, not a pervert. Isnomi's watching." I paused, a free floating clue somehow hitting me instead of Saffron.

"That in mind, what the fuck does being a quarter Mor mean for her milestones?" If a little panic showed in her eyes, she throttled it fast enough to reply immediately.

"I have no idea." She held up one hand.

"I will, of course, continue my research of the Mor, now specifically focused on how being part Mor affects childhood progress." She blinked.

"Actually, that's useful in several ways."

"And you've lost me. Unless you think I'm too stupid to follow the bouncing ball, could you maybe enhance my cluefulness? Gotta tell you, now you've got me a little worried about her." She looked up at me, then glanced at Marie, "I trust your discretion, Marie, but you're aware this is, technically, family business?" Marie looked a little hurt, a little resigned.

"Leave?"

"NO!" Saffron's shout would have echoed in a less padded room.

"Marie, you must be channeling the Goof. You. Are. Family. No questions. Got it?" Hurt and resignation vanished.

"Yes!"

"I just wanted to be sure you knew not to repeat any of this to anyone else." Marie nodded, and Saffron turned back to me.

"What do you know of the Mor?"

"Uh... I'm one. They're Gods." I cudgeled my brain, then shrugged.

"Yeah, that's about it." She sucked in a big lungful of air, blew it out, and said, "so my work is definitely cut out for me. Normally I'd be glad at you knowing so little; working with tabula rasa at least has the advantage of a lack of mistaken preconceptions, but half of what you know is wrong in ways that will definitely confuse the issue." I shook my head, snorted, and scooped her into a princess carry, nuzzling her neck and saying, "yeah, so I'm not just ignorant, I'm extra special stupid ignorant.

What else is new?" I flopped onto the bed, nodding to Marie to loose the menace on the room. She stepped over the baby fence and started playing some kind of feline pounce game with the little one, who abandoned her Mom-questing to play with her Godmother. Saffron sat up in my lap, sighing and squaring her shoulders as she did.

"So. Let's start from the beginning. The Mor are not Gods. The Mor are Primordials." I nodded.

"Okay. Wait, what about half-Mor and shit?"

"You know what a Primordial is?" I snorted out a little laugh at that, "I better, because I are one. No, seriously though, Loki told me a little, but why don't you hit me with what you know. I kinda think he feeds me stuff at a normal, reasonable pace, but 'Isnomi might be in trouble' is not time for 'normal and reasonable'." If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

She put one hand on my cheek, burning cluttered thoughts of carnal overload into my brain as she said, "you have made your opinion on that more than clear through your actions, love. Terrifying or not, I love you for that as much as anything else." She lowered her hand, shook her head a little as if clearing a slate, and continued.

"At any rate, a Primordial is an anthropomorphized personification of some force of nature. Sometimes those things have physical manifestations already, like glaciers and Ymir, or the sun and Elatha. Other times, they embody more conceptual or privative things, like Drought and Gann, or Darkness and Domnu." Her hand twitched a little at that, and in a sudden fit of understanding I asked, "why don't you make that whole 'sign versus evil' when you talk about them?" She smiled up at me, "two reasons.

First, it would be rude to do so to my in-laws before even meeting them. Second, I doubt you'd show them any more mercy than you did Artemis' High Priestess should they harm me."

"Damn straight I wouldn't."

"There you are then. So Primordials are incarnations of forces of nature, and Mor are Primordials."

"All of them?"

"All of them."

"What about half-Mor?"

"That's where things get odd. Despite the Mor and the deific Dan interbreeding, none of the resultant offspring are listed as 'half-Mor' or even 'half-Dan'. In the cases where they were listed as Dan, they faced prejudice and were forced to 'prove themselves', but none of them were called 'Mor'; the closest is the Dan death-goddess, Morrigan, who even with 'Mor' in her name is listed as Dan."

"Okay, but weren't we just talking about that whole, 'racists gonna racist' thing?" She nodded.

"A fair point, and one of the ones that makes it even harder to get good information on the Mor, since the only reason I can research them so thoroughly is that they are traditionally the only meaningful enemies of the Dan. As you might imagine, our local leadership has accumulated a substantial body of literature regarding the Dan."

"Okay. So Primordials embody forces of nature, and Mor are all Primordials."

"Correct so far. Now, while most Pantheons have Primordials," I interrupted, "most?"

"Most. The Dan, for instance, have no Primordials."

"Morrigan?"

"Is a Goddess of Death, not the incarnation of Primordial Death. One important difference is that while killing a God might disperse the source of their power, returning it to an associated Primordial or simply dissipating it until and unless they are returned to life, killing a Primordial does not affect their power source, and they will almost certainly spontaneously reconstitute. Sometimes without memory of the event, but more often with both memory and the intent to avenge themselves."

I opened my mouth, and she paused long enough for me to ask, "so what happens if I kill a Primordial?" She shuddered a little.

"What do you mean?"

"Loki tells me that if Mimic kills a God, she takes their power." Saffron's eyes got really big at that.

"If what he says is correct? I suspect you would take on the mantle of that Primordial in addition to your own. Which is a terrifying thought which stands out from the sea of terrifying thoughts I've thought today."

"Uh, so what's my thing?" She took a deep breath.

"may I continue?" That didn't fill me with confidence, but what the hell. I said, "sure."

"At any rate, along with Mor being Primordials, they specifically embody things which terrify humans on an instinctual or existential level."

"Wait, all of them?" She nodded.

"Didn't you say one of them is the sun?"

"A giant ball of fire which hovers out of reach, capable of literally burning you to death, not quickly like fire, but slowly, almost as if it is baking you?" I nodded.

"Okay, I can see that. I suppose it being fuckin' huge as shit doesn't help either." She opened her mouth, then shook her head.

"Not the time. Anyhow, that does bring me to one of the ways the Mor vary; while those who embody forces which could be considered 'protectively' terrifying are generally seen as 'darkly beautiful', which is a backhanded Dan compliment if I've ever heard one, the rest are all seen as ugly, even deformed." A random thought popped into my head. I know, right, who'd have guessed?

"Y'know, it sounds almost like the Dan and the Mor are one Pantheon, and they just call the Primordials 'Mor' and the others 'Dan'." Saffron blinked up at me.

"I... Had never thought of that." She sighed.

"More things to research." A tiny grin snuck onto her face.

"Who am I trying to kid. It's probably my second favorite activity."

"Second favorite?" Her grin transformed into That Grin, and the sheets might have got just a little damp.

"Oh. Yeah." She leaned in and whispered, "a secret between lovers. You're not the biggest fan of our new Friday routine. That would be me." When a throaty laugh escaped me, she continued trying to force knowledge about my asshole relatives into my head.

"Even if they are a single Pantheon, they are a Pantheon divided, what with their ancient rivalries. Although the Dan do not have a proper 'Patriarch', and Domnu is the Matriarch of the Mor, so you may well be right on that."

"So, while I'm a big fan of you and bush beating, are you gonna stop long enough to tell me what my thing is?" She sighed and looked down. That coincidentally pointed her eyes at my tits, which yanked a smile onto her face.

"I'll... I'm..." She shook her head again.

"How many Mor do you know of?"

"Uh, two? Three?" My sphincter tightened as I realized something, "Four, and number four is really fucking with my head at the moment. You told me about Balor whose jawns is Death, and Sengann whose jawns is Disease, and you just mentioned Domnu the Dommy Mommy whose jawns is Darkness, and I have no idea how I know he's Mor or a him, which is freaking me out a little, but Elatha who's the Sun."

"Interesting." She placed a hand on my chest, clearly requesting patience, so I sat on my burning desire to know more as it intensified, kept my mouth shut and listened.

"The word is 'Domain', possibly 'Portfolio' for deities with more complex Domains, although I would love to know why you use 'jawns'. Is that something bubbling up from your Mor heritage?" I laughed.

"Nah, that shit's pure old world Philly. Although to hear people talk about my old Philly, the Mor living there would surprise no one. We are the fuck around and find out town." She nodded as if to say, 'okay', then continued.

"So, from my research, the Mor and their domains are as follows: First the eldest, Domnu of Darkness, Matriarch of the Mor. Next is Indech of Chaos, her eldest child, who some say created the Dan in opposition to their mother. Third is Elatha of the Sun, child of Indech, who lay with Danu, mother of the Dan, and fathered Dan children on her. Fourth is Delbáeth of Fire, child of Elatha, who wounded Domnu by being born. Fifth is Balor of Death, son of Domnu, who quenched Delbáeth's first flame to protect his mother.

Sixth are Gann of Drought, and his brother Sengann of Blight, twin sons of Elatha, who ruled as kings those mortals who would later become the Dan and the Bag, until the children of Danu defeated them at the battle of Mag Tuired." She went silent. I waited. Eventually I ran out of patience first, because duh.

"Did you forget something?"

"The only reference to Mimic I have found thus far is in tomes listed as 'anathematized'. The Academy has two of them, both written by Ogma himself." I cut in with, "who's Ogma?"

"Dan god of Literature. The most likely reason the Dan did not destroy those two tomes is because they can't. I suspect that's why they're chained up. One of them seemed to have picked its own lock at some point even."

"Uh..." She just looked up at me, spoiling her 'really, Diaz' look by laughing.

"I should have known. No way I could have, but I should have. At any rate, the only reference to Mimic is in those two tomes, specifically their account of the Battle of Mag Tuired. You remember the story Marshall duBois told us?"

"Yeah, not likely to forget it, since it's why I nearly pissed myself the first time I made Status work."

"That is the only reference I have found to Mimic, and I have been searching. In some ways I'm lucky as a High Priestess, because I can just ask my Goddess her opinion on things, and if I mistakenly offend her, she's tremendously susceptible to bribery with carnal delights. It's like a child and candy, really. Worse, I've known children who couldn't be bribed with candy. As you might put it, I were one. My Goddess, on the other hand? She falls for it every time."

I'd been keeping my mouth shut, but it slipped out, I swear.

"Y'know, I think I might take offense to that." She shot back, "I'll be sure to make it up to you with extra creative sexual debauchery tomorrow night," which shut me up right then, an absolute slam dunk of proving her point.

"Okay, so what's my Domain?" She shook her head, a few frustrated tears leaking out.

"I. Do. Not. Know. The only way I know you are Mor at all is that your Status says so when you turn Blend off. You are turning Blend all the way off, right?"

"Yep. I mean, not right now, but if I'm fuzzy, Blend is off." Marie looked up at that, her face painted with so much curiosity I sighed and said, "fuck it. Loki's got lookout," and turned my Blend off. Her tongue darted out and licked her lips a little, but I almost didn't notice that, disturbing as its implications were, because the menace? She saw me all fuzzy, smiled super big, stuck her hands up in the air, and crowed, "dahda!"

Then she turned just as fuzzy as I was, although hers wasn't pitch black, but a sort of super dark charcoal gray. Worse? Worse-ish, anyhow? She still had her mouth open from crowing, and while her itty bitty bottom incisors were still itty bitty baby bottom incisors? All four of her fuckin' canine teeth were full on interlocking canine teeth, the kind of shit you'd see in a vampire flick.

Saffron must be made of sterner stuff than me, because if I'd seen the mouth that reliably nommed my nips sprouting those, I might have checked out right there. She just hummed a little and said, "well, if anything I'm slightly less afraid of her being kidnapped again. Someone getting in reach of her mouth deserves whatever they get."

"Don't you stick your tits in her mouth?"

"I am trying not to freak out about that, because Dining Hall browsing aside, she's not anywhere near weaned yet." Saffron twisted out of my lap, walked over to Isnomi, picked her up to look her straight in the eye, and said, "Isnomi, no biting mommy. Understand?" She nodded.

"Na ba ma."

"If you do, no more nursing for you." Her scary grin went away, her eyes suddenly serious as she shook her head and repeated, "na ba ma," then nodded.

"Yeah, she's definitely my kid." Saffron turned to me, one eyebrow raised.

"'No more Saffron titties' as a consequence would pretty much kill any chance I was gonna do something too." She laughed and walked back over to me. Right before she sat down next to me, Marie nearly scared the crap out of me, because a seven foot humanoid tiger sneaking up to you will fucking do that. She knelt on the floor in front of me and rubbed her cheek against the outside of my thigh, purring all the while.

Saffron just reached out with one hand and interlaced her fingers through one of Marie's hands, then leaned into me.

"We do know one thing about Isnomi's progress, I suppose."

"What's that, Saffie-kins?" After nipping at my earlobe hard enough she might as well have pierced it, Saffron continued.

"Along with its many other features, Blend accelerates learning. Between that and her Mor blood, I suppose my fear that her rapid development meant she'd die of old age before me is more or less gone." I nodded, then reached down to pull Marie up so I could run my cheek against hers, then turned to Saffron and asked, said, "is that it then?"

"I'm afraid so. I'll keep researching." I nodded and said, "it's been a while since I really had Loki teach me anything on a Monday. Nothing serious, anyway. I'll ask him about it. But if that's it," I looked Marie in the eye and said, "sorry, sweetie, but I gotta put the fur away." I pushed my Blend back up to normal, then looked at my fuzzy daughter.

"Put the fuzzy away, Isnomi." She folded her arms across her fuzzy little chest.

"Not one adultish person in this room has any desire to clean poop out of your fur. Put it away." She grumped and huffed and remained obstinately fuzzy.

"Fine. No cart for fuzzy Isnomi." She turned her hurt, betrayed look to Marie, who shook her head and said, "No." The menace blubbered a little and turned to Saffron, who said, "don't look at me. I agree with them. No cart or breastfeeding for fuzzy fanged Isnomi." She re-folded her arms, stuck her bottom lip out, all her fuzz disappeared, and she noisily filled her diaper.

"And that's seven more days." Her mostly fangless mouth dropped open at Saffron's pronouncement and she cried, "Ma!" then turned to me and said, "Mama?" I looked down at her and said, "sorry, kid. you knew the rules. Seven days, starting tomorrow. Unless you'd rather just stay in diapers for now?" She sniffled a little and looked up at her court of last resort.

"Mawa?" Marie just intoned, "Seven." Isnomi started bawling, so I went and scooped her up, carried her to the desk, and changed her while she cried. Once I had her cleaned up, I slid the light shut, carried her back to her mom, and plonked her open mouth onto a tit, which cut her crying off like a switch. We all curled up around her on the bed. You gotta be strict with kids sometimes, but you don't gotta be mean about it.

As I lay there listening to suckling baby noises fade into itty bitty baby snores, I thought as loud as I could, Boss? All done now. Thank you! His reply came slower than I'd normally expect, but he didn't make me go all four year old trying to get mom's attention again. Think nothing of it, Tabitha Diaz, my most good and faithful devotee. Oh yeah, Boss? Yes, Tabitha? Saffron's been doing some research and hit a dead end.

Since I haven't really thought of anything new for a while lesson-wise, could you maybe help out? Our deal is for me to teach you, not her. Not that I'm entirely unwilling to be convinced, but there are ways of going about these things, you know. Could you maybe teach me what she needs to learn, so I can teach her? His quiet chuckle nonetheless echoed through the back of my head. While that is far less clever than you might aspire to, it is still clever enough for me to allow it. Certainly, Tabitha.

What did you wish to learn about? I took a deep breath and, trying for my best 'this is just an innocent request on behalf of the bedpartner who melts my brain with hot sexy times', thought, she wants to know everything you can find out about Mimic. He went quiet for a bit, just long enough for worry to start nibbling its way out from where I'd stashed it somewhere deep inside.

I would say 'unexpected', or 'unusual', or some other expression that I find your request strange, but I am supposed to be a God of Cleverness, and expecting any form of normalcy from you would be downright stupid. Thank you for warning me; I will need to consult with others, and possibly bring them to visit with us on Monday. As the pent-up tension in me dissipated, I thought, Thanks Boss. You're the best. I know. Good night, Tabitha. Good night, Boss.

In the morning Marie took Isnomi for the day, promising to deliver her to Grandma for the night. DuBois still hadn't returned, so we had Lachlan again, who pretty much just let us do our own thing so long as we didn't slack, which we didn't. I mean, Saffron and I didn't. I still wanna graduate as quick as I can manage it, and I'm not sure Saffron is really capable of 'slacking'. Honestly, I don't remember many details.

Something, something, something, visions of Saffron's plans for our evening erasing everything else out of my head. With prejudice.