Chương 1061: Day One Thousand And Fifty-Nine

Dear Diary, I've realized something unpleasant, which is unusual. No, really, that's the unusual part right there. It's unpleasant, not atrocious, upsetting, nauseating, or any other kind of adjective used to describe something that prompts the response of 'kill it, kill it with fire'. Let's face it, most of the things I've discovered about the here and now have been far worse than 'unpleasant'.

Okay, most of the bad things, because I've sure as shit discovered plenty of things, in the sense that any given noun is a thing, that are far better than simply 'pleasant'. Love. Motherhood. Progress. Accomplishment. That's all looking at the abstract stuff, because then there's any given example of Marie's cooking, or just about every example of every intimate encounter with one of my ladies.

I kinda hesitate, when speaking of the ladies themselves, to refer to them as 'things', but they're each and every one way more than 'pleasant'. Also, I didn't so much 'realize' or 'discover' them as they Just Happened to me. No, seriously, every single one of them, which is something I've realized. Yes, even Siobhan, because she definitely qualifies as the first one to Just Happen to me here, because I'm not talking about romps in the hay, or any other form of physical intimacy.

I got shot in the head, went through some weird dream sequence stuff, and woke up with Sister Siobhan Darling tending to me. I think the rizz I threw at her was way closer to honest truth than I realized back when I told her that if when everything is said and done, the world is a better place in my passing, it's because she tipped that first pebble in just the right direction.

At any rate, all those things are way more than 'pleasant', just like most of my discoveries of the negative variety have been far less than 'pleasant'. On the other hand, this one can also be laid at the feet of the Deities of here and now. I've mentioned once or twice how I need to figure out how this Deity thing works. The mechanics behind Divine Woo, as it were.

Whether it's 'building an Afterlife', 'empowering my Worshippers', or I dunno, 'influencing people in my physical proximity', I want to know the technical specs. How it happens, why it happens, and what I can do to make it happen the way I want it to happen. Honestly that's been one of my big problems, something that I think has made me feel unworthy of being a Deity, unworthy of Worship, unworthy of my Clergy, because I don't know any of that. Not really.

My Skills are either passive things, things I stole and don't really understand, or things that I kind of 'will' to happen and they do. Nothing I can really describe as a sequence of events that I set off by taking some discrete action. Okay, I've learned quite a bit about Close Quarters Combat since I stole those first couple ranks from duBois, but in general my point stands. Actually, a better example of a Skill where I know the details of how it works is Kitchen Witchery.

Honestly I'm kinda surprised that's a single Skill, because it encompasses a bunch of different things. Knife skills is part of it, both knowing what knife to use, how and when to cut, slice, and chop to get the texture or size I want. Flavor profiles and how to generate them is another big chunk, like knowing how different herbs will affect the taste of something, not to mention how the basics of savory, sweet, sour, salty, and bitter go together.

Texture manipulation is a surprising amount of cooking, too; knowing what to do to make something crispy, crunchy, smooth, chewy, or any other texture I think would work with the taste is huge. Being able to combine them, like having a flaky, crispy crust around the filling of a soft, gooey pie is unbelievably important. Okay, I can believe it, because I love me some pie. At any rate, I understand Kitchen Witchery. I kinda understand Close Quarters Combat.

I don't really understand the mechanics of Strong Arm and Swift Foot, but I know how to train them both effectively, not to mention how to make them go. I cannot say the same about my Divine Skills. Not really. Okay, Scrying... But Scrying isn't even a Divine Skill, it's Mortal Magic that replicates Odin's Divine Woo. Which makes me think that it's not even that Divine shit can't be studied and understood.

Shit, even Revive, which Siobhan confirmed was originally more Divine Woo, has been replicated and turned into a Shape that can, in theory, be powered by Mortal Mana. Shit, I'm pretty sure that's Doc Glass' life's work, tryna get the Mana cost of that down to where a Network of Mortal Mages could make it happen. Wouldn't that be a hell of a world, where magical Healing got so good that people only died of, like, old age.

Just gotta make sure that it's something everybody has access to, not just the wealthy and powerful. That reminds me, I gotta make sure the Clergy know that I don't want Heals to be a rich people thing. More like food at Drivers'; if you need it, you get it. Payment based on ability to pay, not Healing based on ability to pay.

At any rate, I keep wandering away from my main point here, which is that I want to learn how all this Divine Woo works, but I can't, because nobody fuckin' knows, because the people with the most Divine Woo have about as much interest in the Scientific Method as they do in being aggressively sounded by my biggest Mana Blade. Okay, no, Zeus is a freak of epic proportion, he's probably more interested in that than he is in actually learning shit.

Way more interested in me searing his urethra than he is in letting Mortals learn shit. Which is why my realization, that I can't learn what I want to learn by asking somebody and listening politely, because the Deities in power haven't encouraged people to study that kind off shit, is unpleasant. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Fuck, maybe I can encourage the Universities to study Deific Woo more.

Of course, that would require some Deities to volunteer to Woo at them. Or require me to do so, which I have no real moral objection to, but I've got shit to do, and that sounds really boring. Not that I wouldn't take a turn or two, but eight hours a day, three hundred sixty five days a year is just too much. I'd lose my shit. So after running the Cadets ragged, teaching them to Waltz, then running them ragged again, I stepped home to pizza night.

I really do think pizza night is improved by the inclusion of a wider variety of pies, especially when it comes to sauces. Not everybody likes tomato on everything. Same goes for garlic, or cream, or whatever, and with us close on two dozen mouths in the nuclear family, most of them attached to growing bodies, pretty much everything that's not outright nasty is gone get et, as Grandma might have said. Also, we had visitors.

I dropped into my seat, not dead on my feet but pleasantly winded, only to spot Ria hovering next to Adrienne, who'd leaned in to get a better look at Aoibh.

"Hey there! What brings you to Casa de Aetos?" That's Casa de Aetos-Diaz, Goof. Adrienne just smirked at me.

"I couldn't very well not come see my newest sister, could I?"

"She's Fae, just like us!" Ria exclaimed. She got really excited when Adrienne was around, and tonight was no exception.

"Right Maze?" Maze smiled indulgently. Kinda funny, normally she wound up pulling the normally reserved Ria into things, but when Adrienne got involved, their roles reversed.

"Not exactly like us. You two are Sidhe. I'm Kelpie. She's... Something new?" That's when Tallulah commented.

"She is something very like Sidhe, though, I think." Before I could even poke her, my long tall Sidhe lady realized and added, "not that being Sidhe is better or worse. Only that like us, her Soul is tied intimately with her Body." Nice save. Thank you. I heaved myself out of my seat and wandered over to where Jack sat surrounded by my four musical kits, reading one of Garde's poems. I waited until he finished up, then said, "Hey Jack, how goes it?"

He nodded to Garde, handing her notebook back to her with a sincere, "that's lovely," then turned to me, standing as he did so and extending a hand.

"Normally the guest comes to the Lord of the Manor..." I grabbed his hand, squeezed, then pulled him into a hug.

"Yeah, well. Barring Shapeshifting or Mimicry, I don't have the right plumbing to be a Lord. Also, you've got a good voice for reading Garde's stuff." He returned the hug. When he pulled away, he simply said, "thank you."

"So... No gumbo as a gift for the new mom?" He tilted his head a little.

"She enjoys gumbo?" I laughed.

"Yeah, she's been on a bit of a tear lately. Couldn't eat for like a year, I think she's making up for lost time." He chuckled as well.

"I've had Springs like that. I could make some tomorrow, if you don't mind us staying the night?" I nodded.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure Ria would love for Adrienne to stay longer." When he looked like he felt some kinda way about the way I phrased that, I laughed and said, "yeah, you're both welcome here any time, Jack. You're family." He just shook his head. Slowly, in a kind of wondering disbelief rather than disagreement.

"To think, after so long alone." He went quiet a bit, then shook himself.

"Well, not like we're likely to have any of our own."

"Does she want that? Do you want that?" He laughed, then stopped suddenly.

"My first impulse was to think you're joking, my second that you've some wisdom to impart about Children, but... You both could and would facilitate such things, wouldn't you?" I shrugged.

"If you wanted? I mean both of you, and adopting wasn't gonna scratch that itch? Like I said, you're family. I managed to impregnate a Maenad and a femboy, I'm pretty sure me or mine can come up with some way to make it happen." He just glanced around at the kits, who'd been alternating between quietly talking about the poem Jack had read, the music they thought would go with it, and listening to the two of us shoot the shit. Then he looked back to me.

"I don't know if I could be a good father. I don't know if she wants to be a mother. But somehow knowing that the option is there should we want or need it? Takes a huge weight off my Soul that I knew naught of before you mentioned it." I pulled him into another hug.

"No worries... Son in law." That got another laugh out of him, after which we got really lucky when Sarah, Devorah, and D showed up to share in the pizza bounty. Mostly because Devorah brought some really nice ale, which Jack and I sat down and savored while we watched Adrienne and Devorah coo over Aoibh. After dinner we all trooped up to the Bath for a soak, then settled in to bed in the Bedroom.

I'm not sure how she convinced him, but Jack joined us, albeit wearing pajama bottoms instead of going starkers the way most of us did. If he felt some kinda way about our musical kits settling in around him, he hid it well. Dreamt of the ladies yeeting each other at Siobhan, who caught them with her mouth before getting piledriven into my Maw. Weird, but insane dream logic is normal in Mimic Dreams.

Because they're still fuckin' Dreams, even if I know how to step into them, even if I know the semi-physical location they're taking place. Yeah, I ought to add 'how M-Space works' to my list of shit I'd like to learn that nobody fuckin... I can't believe I thought that with my own brain while using the term that my own fuckin' adopted son came up for regarding the place in question. Maybe I ought to ask him about all this shit at some point.

Of course, then he might do a massive nerdly infodump, and I'm doing my best to avoid anything resembling incest here. Even if I did kinda threaten him with it at one point. At any rate, woke up, gathered the kids, and managed to convince them all to come to school with me for the day. Even Ria, who I for sure thought would stay home to visit more with Adrienne.

I guess maybe she figured that if she went to school, she'd had a stronger argument for Adrienne staying over for another night if she spent a day away or something. A couple of the kits are in Math class now. Isadora and Hailee. Weird, having them in class, especially Isadora, what with her more or less having to sit tailor fashion behind one of the desks and still looking too big for it.

Still, none of the other kids made fun of her or anything, and she seemed to be super into helping distribute the slates and chalk the kids used for practice. Of course life or the Fates or Murphy or whoever couldn't just let me have a day of wins without at least one off note. As I had the kids cleaning up the classroom at the end of the day, prepping to head home, Karen stuck her head into the room.

"Goddess?" I sighed, because usually when I was teaching, if Karen wanted to say something in person to me about the school, she'd call me Tabitha, or Instructor Diaz, or something similar.

"Yeah, Karen? What did you need?" She sighed.

"Not me, I'm afraid. Our guest wishes to speak with you."