Chương 1079: Day One Thousand And Seventy-Seven

Dear Diary, Yeah. Um... Wow. Okay, look, it's not my fault. What had happened was... Yeah, I know, and to be clear, other than a panicked second or three inside my head, that wasn't my response at all. I think that, as much as anything else, is a sign of how much I've changed and grown. The fact that I can see my own response as immature, possibly toxic, and above all hilariously inappropriate.

Also, while I don't think a whole lot about Cherry, which makes me feel some kinda way, I'm honestly not sure he wanted my kid in specific. Or, really, more to the point, he might have wanted our kid, but I don't think he wanted to move in and be a spouse or anything. Really weird for me, and when the kid pops out I'm gonna try to be there for her, but I really am not sure I'm gonna wind up being a great parent for her, entirely due to the ADHD 'out of sight, out of mind' thing.

Fortunately Cherry and Giselle seem solid and loving, even if neither of them seem like intellectual paragons or anything. I guess that might not be fair. Giselle might be dumb as a box of rocks, which is not intended as a denigration of her character or worth as a person, just quietly in my own head acknowledging that any of my kids could run mental circles around her, even the new adopted pair.

Cherry, on the other hand, might not be some kind of brain power paragon, but I think my estimation of him might suffer from living with not one, not two, but three women who can maintain complex geometric equations and their physical representations in their heads. But all that about Cherry means that I feel a little nervous about whether Furtim is gonna want me to co-parent her kids. Honestly, I'm not sure how Trolls parent their kids. I'm really hoping they don't, like, pit them against one another.

Shit, I need to make sure that doesn't happen. I'd rather have some baby trolls hanging around than have that happen. At any rate, the moment she said, "ours," I wound up having all that run through my head, which put a smile on my face at how much I've actually grown up and how, as noted, stupidly hilariously inappropriate my initial response was. I still wound up thinking at her, ours? with a definite sense of her and the surrounding Trolls.

She definitely tried to hide the tiniest bit of hurt when she thought back, ours, with some definite thoughts of her ordination night on this very Altar. I may not be perfect, but I know enough to fix shit when I fuck it up. I stepped forward, arms going around her waist, looking toward the eggs.

"Ours." I also plastered the biggest, sappiest look onto my face that I could, because I really was happy for her, not to mention for the Trolls, who for the first time in who the fuck knows how long had a future that didn't include a slowly but steadily declining number of Trolls. Okay, I guess I was a little happy for me, too, what with enjoying the momming process so much.

Although I tensed up a little when she put an arm around me and stepped me over to the Altar, guiding one of my hands to the biggest of the eggs. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Yours? I picked up her implication that time, and put her hand over mine with a tentacle.

"Ours." I wouldn't know how to care for them properly. Here, on my Altar, with my High Priestess, I know they are both safe and well cared for. Trust? That single wondering syllable told me all I needed to know.

"Yes." So cute. She tried to salute me, hug me, kiss me, and lift me up to show me off to the congregation all at once. We got the hug and the kiss right, and the salute was close enough for me. The presentation wound up with her staring at my butt, and I swear I heard her thinking scandalous things about 'the Legate's mammal buttocks'. Ah, shit, now I'm turning the scalies into fleshies. Fuck it. Dao of the Bonobo for the win.

At any rate, a pair of Jotnar came up to the Altar down at the Home of the Trolls, and if she didn't look really pregnant to me, I didn't Assess her or anything. I still felt that flutter when I rose up and touched her belly. Fuck, maybe I've somehow got a 'uterus sense' or some shit like that. Or maybe I can feel that little forming Soul in there. Got home and spent yesterday building the world's flimsiest wooden pillar.

Okay, that's not really fair, it's not actually flimsy or anything, but with the rest of the Homestead being solid stone, it still looked a little flimsy. But Tallulah, Saffron, and the woodworker women of the Homestead said it would stay up until the Solstice and, more importantly, collapse into itself as it burned. After a couple days of moderate, all day exercise bracketing a completely sleepless night, I was ready for dinner, a hot bath, and a full night of sleeping.

I got the first two, but my ladies insisted on dragging me to the Bedroom and 'congratulating' me on the upcoming 'blessed event'. Okay, they were all pretty much the same mix of happy and weirded out that I was about Furtim's clutch, but by the time all of them had their turn, the mood had shifted almost entirely to happy. Also, while I did not get a full night of sleeping, I did get my full eight hours. Maybe more.

I woke up before noon, but not much, after Dreaming of my ladies doing some very obvious paired high jump choreography. Kinda neat, that they can do things like that in shared dream spaces. I woke to something unusual, an almost completely quiet house. Uh, where is everyone? Mostly out harvesting fruits and vegetables, thought Saffron. I hopped to her, then watched for a moment as I saw the clear circle of authority going on.

And by that I meant that the women were looking to Saffron to make sure whatever they were doing was right, Saffron was looking to Lindsey, and Lindsey was clearly looking to the women. Okay, I saw all that going on, I'm not sure if anyone in that circle realized. Okay, maybe Lindsey, possibly Saffron, maybe even some of the women themselves, but fuck it, there are worse things than the nominal person in charge defers to the expert who is asking them for... Well, permission, really.

Not so much advice as confirmation that their decisions were the right one. Yeah, some of them may have felt some kinda way about Saffron deferring to Lindsey, but after watching a little more I saw that all of them realized Saffron knew who Lindsey was looking to for confirmation. I cleared my throat.

"Anything I can do to help?" Saffron turned to me with a smile, reaching up to caress my cheek.

"Of course, love." Then she spun me around and slapped me on the ass.

"You can get back in the kitchen with Marie where you belong today." I almost bristled at that until I realized why she'd said it. In the fields, I was just another hand, and a clumsy one at that. In the Kitchen, I might not be Marie's equal, what with her having more than three centuries experience more than me, but I could still do work, and do it well. Funny, today's work wasn't all that complicated.

Other than some bread and crackers, almost everything was just cutting fruit and veg into eye catching bite sized shapes. Okay, we made some sauces, not to mention whipped cream, but that hardly counts. Heh. If only me from back in the day could hear me say that.