Chương 1073: Day One Thousand And Seventy-One

Dear Diary, Y'know, while I call my weekly talk sessions with Dad and whichever other family members want to sit in therapy, and they sure as shit normally wind up pretty therapeutic, it's not really therapy. I mean, I'm not even talking Real Therapy™ here, I'm talking about none of them being trained therapists combined with none of them being an unbiased viewpoint. I know that's kind of key to actual therapy, and I know my family are never really gonna have an unbiased viewpoint on me.

Shit, nobody in the Alliance is gonna be an unbiased viewpoint. Nobody outside the Alliance, either, because even if I wander further afield than Atlantis, Europa, or north Africa, where I've met some locals and made an impression, the Alliance is, at present, something of a World Power. Shit, my existence in the Mortal Realm would make that true, as would the existence of the Black Dragon.

The fact that Saffron has built the Alliance military up into something that can punch in the same weight class when they coordinate and push themselves is proof positive that she hasn't been sitting on her laurels. It's also the third piece of that triangle, which is what you need for some kind of stability. If they take any one of the corners down, even temporarily, the other two can hold long enough to repair, revive, recuperate, or replace the third.

I mean, I really hope I'm never the one getting replaced, but it does take some of the load off my mind that I could be. Yes, it also makes some small part of me scream in terror because I'm convinced that I will be, but the fact that I can more or less objectively observe that part of me, acknowledge its existence, and choose to treat its panic as unjustified is, I think, a sign I've made progress.

Which tells me that despite those family talk sessions not being actual therapy with a licensed, unbiased therapist, they are still helping. Or they're making me feel like something I'm doing is helping, while some other mechanism at work is causing the progress, which is kind of a downer thought, so I'm gonna set it aside as a possibility, but not one I'm gonna emotionally invest in. If I keep telling myself I've got control over my emotions, maybe it'll happen.

In the meanwhile, taking some degree of control over the actions I take in response to the emotions that hit me is an achievable goal that I think I can measure. Okay, I can measure it when I'm on the slow glide into or slow recovery from a depressive crash, which is the best I'm gonna get, I think. Weird. I say 'crash', but yesterday... Okay, the past two days since the Maenad Rescue Raid haven't really been a 'crash'.

Yeah, there was a sudden influx of fatigue, which would be explicable by 'two high stakes high powered conflicts in two days', but there was also a sort of diffusion of emotional response, which... I guess it could be the results of all that exertion, not to mention the high stress activities followed by the eustress of back to back successes. Shit, back to back successes with fewer casualties and fatalities than the entire Liberation of Calverton, which is pretty fuckin' impressive, even for a small unit action.

Then again, the Liberation of Calverton probably set some multiversal records for that shit, what with the fatalities being 'two' both of which were more back line misadventure than enemy action. So yeah, the past couple have been copacetic.

After introducing the new Maenads to the fam, confirming that Arachne wasn't gonna try to snatch Aoibh and run off or snap and stab somebody, settling the other two into rooms bracketing Sarah and D, then experiencing Penthesilea's rough and ready gratitude, emphasis on 'rough', which she reminded me is in no way a complaint, I spent yesterday vibing.

Karen told me she had some profs in from one of the Universities to cover Saffron and my classes for the day, so I just hung around chatting with the new arrivals while we all sunbathed on the roof while the kids ran around in the Courtyard with Arachne. She seemed okay playing with all the girls, although the smaller and less Divine ones were the only ones she seemed to drop her guard fully with. Okay, chatting with Iphigenia mostly, with Penthesilea chiming in with smart assed comments now and then. Weird.

Iphigenia is the first 'chatty' Maenad I've met, but her vocal abilities aren't really any better than any other Maenad. Marie can speak easier and more clearly than she can. But Iphigenia just, I dunno, lines her words up and cranks them out as fast as she can, which winds up sounding a little like one of those jank-assed old Vocaloid voices, only sort of guttural and animalistic rather than tinny and artificial.

Still, she's comprehensible, even if I gotta pay attention and ignore her weird emphasis and pronunciation sometimes. One bit of the conversation stuck out. At one point where things had gone silent for a bit, like conversations do, we'd been watching the kids out in the courtyard. She turned to me with the oddest look on her face and said, "I, have, A, quesTION, but, I, don't, WANT, to, OFfend." I shook my head and smiled at her.

"I'm pretty hard to offend. Even if you do, we'll talk it out, I'm not gonna go off from you asking questions, so long as they're sincere." She got a strange look at that caveat, but nodded.

"Your KITS?" Marie's claw interlaced with my hand, and we both nodded.

"How?" For a moment I considered fucking around with her and explaining the birds and the bees in excruciating detail, but not only did I realize that no Maenad ever created could possibly not know about those, but I really didn't want to step in the way of any possible recovery related anything. So I Shapeshifted into boy mode.

"Like this." She froze, and I heard a weird whine-growl from Penthesilea, something I'd never really heard from Marie. Not an 'imminent danger' sound, but an 'that is an unpleasant and surprising sensation' sound. Iphigenia slow blinked, then carefully asked, "which is YOU?" I shrugged.

"I mean, I identify as a woman, and I'm not as fluid as my Dad, but that doesn't mean I'm not fluid." I switched back to what I thought of as 'normal'.

"I'm most comfortable like this." Then back to boy mode.

"But I can do this when it's needed."

"Or Fun." Marie chimed in. I chuckled.

"Okay, yeah, or when it's fun." Then I realized something, and put a little extra warmth into my smile just to reassure them both.

"But Siobhan's super not fond of it. Not completely incapable of ignoring it, or we wouldn't have little Aoibh, but barring some kind of need or emergency," I dropped back to girl mode, "she prefers this."

"Vlickies?" Marie nudged me mentally, and I wordlessly gave her permission for whatever, because while we had an angle to see the kids, I was pretty sure they couldn't see us from the neck down. Definitely nothing below the shoulders. She pulled me into girl mode plus, and said, "Prefers This." That took me by surprise.

"Really?" She nodded.

"Huh. Have you then?"

"Ew." Yeah, I laughed at that, even though that got me a booger look from all three of them. Of course, at that point Siobhan, who'd been nursing Aoibh and looked to be half asleep, said, "before I spent a year nauseous and a week in pain, I might not have had the courage to say this, but I do enjoy that, yes." I dropped back to normal girl mode and said, "so no more of this?" She chuckled.

"I didn't say that. Nor that either is my favorite."

"Then what..." My mouth stopped working as she hit me with a vision of herself, airtight with tentacles, right at the moment of climax, at which point they all retracted and dropped her. I managed to wheeze my way back to sanity just in time to hear her sweetly say, "you did ask."

"Yeah. Um. Yeah. Don't postpartum women need some time after before, y'know, activity?" She chuckled, and holy shit hearing that not at all innocent chuckle from Siobhan's innocent soprano was distracting.

"You seemed willing to allow it the other night." Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. As it did so often when I wasn't really on secure footing mentally, my banter mode activated.

"Aoibh didn't pop out of your mouth." Yeah, apparently pregnancy and childbirth had removed any and all traces of innocent hesitation from our Darling.

"I didn't shit her out, either."

"Yeah, you said that was too spicy by itself."

"I also didn't say I wanted either of those alone, did I?" I was really glad the kids were downstairs, and Aoibh was clearly not yet verbal.

"You didn't say anything, just shot me that mental image. Thank you for that, by the way. I don't self-service much any more, but that's definitely going in the queue to think about when next I do." She did blush just a little at that, but then again it might have been the sun finally putting some color on her skin.

"But I wanted you to see it in person."

"Didn't we just mention that whole 'let the vajayjay heal time' a few moments ago?" She huffed for a moment, then said, "the most common recovery time recommended by University doctors is four to six weeks. It's only been three, but I'm... Gah. Please?"

"I dunno."

"If I convince you I'm recovered?" That caught me. I mean, not just her asking, but the facts that she was clearly jonesing hard, and also annoyed that she couldn't have something she wanted. Which, given how much of her life she'd gone without specifically so others could have, left me wavering.

"How?"

"If I manage to meet whatever goals you set for me on Monday?" I pursed my lips.

"I'm going to set them high." With a sigh, she nodded and said, "I understand. That's fair. Will you let me know beforehand what they are?"

"I mean, I wouldn't move the goalposts on you, but yeah, I can see where you might want to know, where it might get you to push yourself more." I pondered, and when she opened her mouth, said, "but if you hurt yourself, or wind up hurt, we're gonna reconsider this whole deal." She sighed again.

"Again, that's fair." Then a grin spread across her face.

"But that means if I do?" I shot back an animated image of what she'd sent me, with the Maw as backdrop.

"Sure, Darling. You've done all the Big Work, you deserve all the Big Prizes." At that point Penthesilea asked, "what?" I was at a loss until Marie both explained her sister's confusion and dispelled it with a single word.

"Tentacles." Iphigenia cut in with, "is IT like this ALL the time aROUND here?" Saffron stole Marie's discussion ending tone without opening her eyes. Then again, the roof was full of girl kissers, and she rolled over to give the mountains some sun before saying, "Delightfully So." I thought about what I wanted to talk about with the fam for the rest of the afternoon and all through Dinner, which was at the Homestead this week to avoid any potential disruption of the new arrivals.

Penthesilea kept sending little comments, gestures, and looks my way hinting at a desire to know more about tentacles, but thankfully Marie intervened about halfway through dinner with a single, gentle yet firm, "Be Patient." Didn't have the time or energy to explain why I had to stifle my laughter when she muttered, "I hate waiting." Maenad after my own heart, that, and she seemed to take my merriment as mutual anticipation of tentacle adventures.

At any rate, I definitely wanted to talk through which of my crashes were akin to old school sugar rush crashes, which ones were chronic depression related, whether that meant running out of feel good neurotransmitters due to too long feeling good or my fuckin' endocrine system just fuckin' with me for no good goddamned reason, and which ones might be maybe due to me trying to run too much of the rest of me with my one and only Mind.

I kinda want to talk with them about my childhood trauma, and whether my lack of traditional childhood was the cause, consequence, or just happened to run parallel to it. Also maybe whether or not it's the cause of my chronic depression, a frequent trigger, or some combination thereof. I... I want to talk about whether there's any neural activity in the rest of me, but I... I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet.

The same goes for wanting to talk about what I really am, and whether it's helping me or not to spend most of my time Blended away from being that. I mean, my Mind is Human Adjacent. My fully un-Blended body is... Well, it's not. It's less Human Adjacent than Kraken are. So maybe my more or less constant Blending is just Species Affirming Care. I dunno. But I know I'm not ready to talk about that yet. I definitely want them to weigh in on whether my plan was a good one, and whether I did the right thing.

Maybe I want a performance review on my part of the Maenad Rescue too. Then again, that's not so much cut-rate therapy as it is an after-action report, so maybe I can beg off teaching one day this week, or maybe Co-Locate, and sit down with Saffron and Karen and, I dunno, Lancaster and duBois maybe, and talk that out. Maybe kinda sorta want to discuss whether they think the Emergency Coring Tentacles are better, worse, or neutral compared to locking Mom in a box. Also whether I ought to take them out.

So weird, to have Memory that, when it's not actively misbehaving, will let me remember what I thought about each and every day this week. At any rate, once dinner was done, things got odd. While we hit the Bath for a pre-sleepover shower and soak, the younger kids, kits included, expressed that they wanted to head to Grandma and Grandpa's place.

That meant Arachne definitely wanted to tag along, right up until I sidled up to her, tried to ignore her shying away from me, and quietly said, "you know they're talking about my adopted Mom and Dad, right?" Her eyes narrowed.

"So?" I sighed.

"That would be Sigyn and Loki. The Norse Deities." Yeah, I'd finally put the pieces together that while like a small but clearly extant percentage of Maenads, she was not completely copacetic with men, unlike most of the others she was deathly afraid, not to mention completely untrusting of Deities. Menace totally threw her for a loop, what with obviously being physically a Small Child, yet also being a Primordial Deity. She managed to screw her courage up, nod, and say, "protect." I nodded.

"I'll protect you. Not that I think you'll need it. But I will. I don't know if I said that, or if you heard me, but I will. You're safe, Arachne. I'll keep telling you and showing you until you believe it. No, until you feel it." She'd gotten subtly more agitated the longer I spoke, but when I went quiet she just shook her head, nodded to the kids, and said, "them." I looked around and said, "yeah, I protect them too." I shrugged.

"Kinda my whole deal, in a lot of ways. Protecting people. Especially kids." She'd been shaking her head since I started, then said, "me." That took me a second. It had been a while since I started talking to Marie, and it seemed like she was way better at communicating than Arachne. But I sat there exchanging back scrubbing favors with Tallulah while I thought it through.

"You want to go along to protect the kids."

"Yes." I sighed. Maybe slumped a little. Not out of frustration, or even despair, really, although there was some of that. Mostly at the thought that somebody could be both so traumatized that they saw other people's grandparents as dangers to them because they were Deities, or because she was brave enough to force herself along even though those Deities terrified her. She slumped too, half turned away as if in defeat, but I stopped her by saying, "okay."

She didn't spin about happily or anything, but she did straighten up a little. Then nodded. So during the sleepover we had Iphigenia chatting with the girls as they introduced her to Grandma, Penthesilea lounging near Marie and I making quiet comments about the quality of Sigyn's ass, which we both of course agreed with as objective fact, and Arachne...

It wasn't 'standing watch', because that conjures an image of standing at attention like a guard, but she stayed close to Daya and Davey especially, but never left any of the girls alone for long, and politely exchanged greetings with both Mom and Dad, although with Dad it was pretty strained. Something about her being kitten sized compared to him, maybe.

I forcibly had to remind myself that being burritoed in blankets and put in Dad's lap to be held and petted until she purred was probably not a good thing for a woman who'd been held prisoner for long enough to traumatize her like this. No matter how adorable it would be. Made me kinda want to see if Murder Mittens would...

"No." At any rate, other than Penthesilea scandalizing Marie and I by asking if we'd hit that, then doubling down and asking if we minded if she shot her shot, the visit went well, winding up with everybody tucked in around Dad's bed sleeping. Okay, I'm pretty sure Arachne didn't sleep, but she did settle down and rest at least.

Also, I think we killed Penthesilea's granny banging girl boner by telling her that Mom and Dad were definitely a package deal, so unless she wanted to risk being the bottom half of a Siege Tower with Mom on top, or otherwise getting spitted on Dad's telephone pole, she really shouldn't go asking. The face she made definitely made it seem that way, anyhow. In the morning, Saffron took the kids back to the Homestead, leaving Tallulah, Marie, and Sigyn there.

Siobhan went home with the kids mostly because Arachne kept nervously glancing between Aoibh and Loki, like she thought he'd gobble her up like a popcorn baby nugget or something.

"Before we get started," Loki said, then scooped me up and set me on his table, holding his hands up in what I'd just realized was both his pre-Shaping and pre-Massage position.

"May I?"

"Huh. Hadn't thought of it." I willed my clothes away, then said, "go ahead." It turned out I'd hurt myself a bit. Nothing on the scale of dying, but some stuff that minor enough I hadn't even noticed it against the background of all my other aches and pains. Maybe an hour or so of Soul Massage later, not only did the new hurts kinda evaporate, some of those ongoing aches and pains dimmed a bit as well.

"Thanks, Dad."

"So," he asked as I sat down in my custom crafted chair, perversely enjoying ignoring everybody's pointed looks to maybe put some clothes on before we started the therapy session.

"What did you want to talk about today?" So we talked about crashes and spirals and childhood trauma. We talked a lot about my childhood, and while I'd told them stories about it before, I don't think... No, I know I hadn't been far enough along in my journey to pick those things apart. To really deconstruct what they'd done to me. Last time I talked with the fam about those things, I was telling funny stories. This time, I realized how true it is that humor is just a coping mechanism for trauma.