Chương 1060: Day One Thousand And Fifty-Eight

Dear Diary, Even if yesterday's therapy session was kind of a bust as a therapy session, I still wound up feeling more stable and grounded than I have in a while. I guess there's not much more grounded that dirty diapers. Also Aoibh is... Okay, I was gonna say something cliche like she's adorable, which isn't entirely untrue, even if her coloration is maybe a little freaky.

But then I live in a world where if somebody did a full on Magical Girl transformation and wound up with pink hair and blue skin, I'd maybe be surprised at the choreography, but not at the existence of blue skin or pink hair. No, there haven't been too many people with colors outside that found in nature, but when people say that, they're really selling nature short. Birds of paradise, parrots, tropical fish. Shit, cuttlefish.

Cuttlefish all by themselves can do so many colors that mantis shrimp with twelve different color receptors are all 'damn, man, that's a lot of colors'. Yeah, I know, it doesn't work like that. Nothing disappointed me quite as much as learning that mantis shrimp don't see the world in rainbow squared.

Of course, while the tiny part of me that I'm still stunned wasn't stillborn was disappointed by the lack of pretty colors, the bloodthirsty side of me that really should have spent a little time in the Corp or some shit like that was thrilled to discover that those little fuckers punch so hard physics itself is left saying 'what the fuck was that'. Punching so hard it generates light on impact and shit. Cavitation bubbles. No, I don't remember what those are. But it's a cool word. Cavitation bubbles.

Okay, it's a phrase, but the word cavitation is the cool part. At any rate, while she's cute, she's also a little disturbing, which means she fits right in at Casa De Aetos-Diaz. The Homestead's core competency seems to be collecting kids who are cute, yet disturbing. I guess we've gotten most of the naturally occurring ones in our area, so we had to start making our own. At any rate, while Aoibh is cute and all, that's not what left me feeling so stable.

It's also not really the shit, although hearing her drop that load the moment Siobhan stepped away really did help me reconnect. I guess reconnect is the right word, maybe, although... It's more like it made me feel like me, rather than a tentacle tip pretending to be me. At any rate, the thing about Aoibh that made me feel stable and grounded is actually her hunger. I mean, it's not creepy or unnatural or anything; she's a baby, an infant, pretty much a newborn, so all she's gonna do is eat, sleep, and shit.

Okay, there's probably some piss in there too, but eat, sleep, excrete is her whole thing now. But, and I don't know how to explain this, when I nursed the kits, and even before that Isnomi, there was always an undercurrent of, I dunno, mischief? Okay, with Isnomi it was usually mischief. With Isadora it was... Not fatigue, but that feeling I get when I'm ready to go to sleep, all you need to do is lie down and close my eyes. But Aoibh? Just hunger. Just 'must nom now'.

She noms, she noms hard, and when she runs out of nom power, she falls asleep. The entire process of excretion doesn't even touch her consciousness. Occasionally the anti-nom end does its thing, but it does not impact her nom at all. I dunno, maybe the kits were like this during that first day or two. I'm not sure. But by a week in they were already rooching and shit, where Aoibh only moves in any way whatsoever when she's awake and there isn't a nipple in her mouth.

Not that she's capable of self-locomotion or anything, but if she's awake and there's not a nipple, her pudgy infant hands are waving around, her mouth is alternating between trying to latch onto something and making the General Baby Fault. For the non-parents, that's the undifferentiated 'something is wrong' cry that all babies start with. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

So after spending yesterday in Dad's cave nursing Aoibh, I was feeling pretty good, but also not wanting to stop. So after saying my farewells to Mom and Dad, I stepped us all back to the Homestead, then hopped up to the bedroom, where I lay down and settled Aoibh in to nurse some more. A few moments later I had Siobhan lying on her side facing me, one eyebrow arched.

"What do you think you're doing with my daughter?"

"Oh, she's not our daughter anymore?" She just snorted.

"Okay, what are you doing with our daughter?"

"Nursing her?" She leaned over and kissed my forehead. Aoibh didn't notice or didn't care, she just kept up Maximum Suction.

"That much is obvious. Saffron is right, you really are a Goof. Why?" I sighed, which shifted my tits a bit. Amusingly, Aoibh didn't fuss, because her latch on never unlatched. Single minded tot already.

"I... It feels right, somehow? Like I think I feel better about myself while I'm doing this?" She just leaned in and head bunted me, holding our heads together as we watched our daughter nurse.

"I... I think I can understand why."

"You feel it too?" She smiled and shook her head.

"Not the same way. I'm a Healer. I've focused on that my entire life. The closest I've come to harming someone is an Amputation Spell, which is a surgical procedure. From what I'm given to understand, even Hippocrates accepted that particular need."

"Okay. I love that about you, but it matters why?" She stroked my hair, then reached down and did the same to Aoibh.

"Much of what you've done, many of the most public things, the things that have impacted your self image, have been breathtakingly violent. I recall some Cadets telling me about the blood curdling threats you made against Laurence Lancaster when the two of you remained at odds. They were the kinds of things that no one really takes seriously, because no one has the power to do them." It was all I could do to quietly whisper, "I do." She nodded.

"You do. And some of what you've done has been like that. So violent and bloody as to be absurd, yet you've forced your will on reality, forced your enemies to experience suffering not dreamed of in Tartarus' worst nightmares." I wanted to shrink away, but I had a tiny, hungry anchor holding me in place.

"Yeah. I'm a nightmare." She shook her head.

"No, Tabitha. You are not." She paused.

"The stuff of dreams, perhaps. My first encounter was literally in the land of the gods, with not just one but three beings of Divine power and Skill focused on suffusing my very Soul with Ecstasy. A literal wet dream come true." I snorted, started to say something, but she interrupted me.

"Life with you has been dreamlike, Tabitha. Dreams are not always good. They are also not limited by the bounds of the Mortal Realm." That kinda shut me up for a moment; we lay there listening to Aoibh's determined suckling until Siobhan said, "to any who do you no ill? You are often a walking dream. Strange. Fey," she glanced down at Aoibh, although I'm not sure she meant to, or meant me to see, "sometimes in a literal sense. But to those you love you can be as wonderful as only dreams can.

And to those who perniciously insist on being your enemies? You are indeed a living nightmare, a Terror beyond the bounds of Mortality or sanity." It took a while to digest that. Finally, me being me, I whispered out the worst takeaway I could.

"I wish I could turn them, convince them to do better. To be better." She kissed me.

"Laurence Lancaster." She kissed me again.

"Lemonkyenin." She kissed me again, long, gentle, but with the faintest hint of hunger.

"Diana. Oh my Goddess of Redemption." I snickered.

"Too bad I snagged Aoibh here, I'm guessing."

"Why?" I winced a little.

"Sorry. Thought you maybe wanted, um..."

"Oh, absolutely. As does Saffron when I'm thoroughly done with both of you." I glanced down at Aoibh, who'd started a little bit of a flutter that I'd come to recognize as her changing gears from 'eat' to 'sleep'.

"What about her?" That's when a wall of fuzz snuggled up behind me and Murder Mittens whispered, "Mine Next." Yeah, amnesiac or not, I definitely hit the nail on the head talking about which Domains of mine I like the most. Children and Ecstasy are my top two, and the past couple days have been full of both. I might even have been vaguely nice to the Cadets today. I mean, I barely had them run a half marathon in total between the warm up and cool down runs, and in between I let them waltz.

Okay, I taught them waltzing with the aid of my teaching assistant, the Ladies' Dormitory Infirmary Healer. Yeah, every woman in that house can Mimic, and it seems like all of us like nursing Aoibh.