Chương 1090: Day One Thousand And Eighty-Eight

Dear Diary, Y'know, between Aisling and Aoibh, I'm thinking maybe a lot more of the Human Adjacent and even Human Adjacent Adjacent species hereabouts aren't so much 'Adjacent' as 'subspecies' of some kind. Seriously, Aoibh is, while being the offspring of a Dan and a Bag, some kind of proto-Fae, Aisling's outburst yesterday was the closest thing I've heard a Mortal voice make to the wail of the Bane Sidhe. I guess it's not stupidly surprising that there weren't dozens of different converging evolutionary paths.

I mean yeah, there are Deities fucking around with that kinda shit, but let's be honest, with the exception of Conrad, most of the Deities here and now do not have the technical expertise to develop a whole assed intelligent species on their own. The closest anybody has come is Dionysus with the Maenads, and all he really did there was give a tigress speech, bipedalism, and the sex drive of a bonobo. Then again, looking at how fucked up the basic Human frame is, maybe one of the locals did put us together.

At any rate, after the near disaster yesterday, I scooped up Aisling, turned to Hailee, and said, "what did you do?"

"Consumed her Distress." Yeah, that tracked. Still...

"Will she be all right?" Hailee tilted her head, staring at the little one.

"Other than her Distress, she is healthy. Small, like me. Underfed, like Boy and Girl and like Siobhan once was. But otherwise healthy."

"You know how to Assess someone?" She shrugged.

"The Shape? No." I nodded, shelving that for later.

"What about the Docs?" She turned, stared at them for a few moments, then stepped over and lifted them up into what looked like more comfortable seated positions. Each of them stirred while she did so.

"Healthy, but they are the experts." It took a while between 'stirring' and 'fully awake'. Eventually Doc Z took a deep breath, then let it out as his eyes slipped open.

"Is everyone safe?" I nodded, cradling Aisling to me, nodding at where Isnomi had ensconced herself in his lap.

"Other than some enforced down time, I think you three are fine."

"Us three?"

"You, Doc G, and Aisling." He put one arm around Menace, clearly hugging her for comfort. Whatever he'd experienced must have been awful, because he'd dealt with Undead without losing his humor this much. Of course, the moment he turned to Doc G and cast an Assess, most of his tension leaked away.

"Thank the Gods."

"You're welcome." Before he could react to Hailee's reply, Isnomi chimed in, "yes, you're welcome!" Yeah, I think no matter what else, he'd never really fully absorbed the fact that half of the folks in the room weren't Mortal. I mean, intellectually sure, but there's a huge difference between intellectual knowledge and emotional acceptance. Pretty sure that's an even wider gap for smart folks like the Docs. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

A while later Doc G stirred. Okay, he seemed a lot more like Siobhan than Saffron. A couple twitches, then his eyes flew open.

"Joseph!"

"I'm here, Steve." Doc G sighed, reaching one hand out to clutch at his partner's. When he realized that Hailee had her hand on his shoulder, he looked at first a little spooked, then annoyed, and finally his expression relaxed into grudging acceptance.

"I take it we have you to thank for our survival?" Hailee shook her head.

"Sanity." Doc G blanched, shook his head.

"How old are you again?"

"My first birthday is this month." He turned to me.

"Your daughters can be exceptionally disturbing." I just chuckled.

"She's normally the least disturbing of the bunch, honestly."

"I prefer to think that I am soothing. I Consume the Distress of others." Doc G frowned.

"Wouldn't that make it in your own best interests to foment distress?" She tilted her head, like she'd never thought of that.

"Perhaps? But that would be wrong." He looked back at me.

"I would not have expected you to be a better mother than Hera."

"Couldn't be much worse."

"Granted." He rolled his shoulders, kind of stretching in place.

"Hey, why don't you guys come back to the Homestead with us tonight?" When they looked curiously at my suggestion, I explained, "dinner's ready, you guys wound up losing like half a day tryna do me a solid with Aisling, the least I can do is feed you dinner and let you have a soak in the Bath." Yeah, Doc G didn't look convinced, but Doc Z gave his hand a little tug.

"That does sound nice." Doc G relented with a simple, "if you like, Joseph." I stepped us all back to the Homestead. Aisling roused at the smell of dinner, which wound up being something between panzerottis and pastelillos. The crust wasn't quite pizza, wasn't quite pastry. On the other hand, it was good, and Aisling seemed intrigued by the idea of a pocket of tasty goodness in a deep fried shell.

Of course, she wound up using a fork to poke holes in them until she found the alfredo ones; she wasn't much fonder of tomato sauce than she was of garlic. I mean, it might have been the garlic in the tomato sauce, but still, she wanted the alfredo ones, and it's not like most of them didn't have some holes poked in them to let the steam out anyhow. The Docs seemed to enjoy the food, but they wound up getting half swamped by girls as Isnomi brought her sisters over in ones and twos and even the whole band at once.

Apparently Menace thought Doc Z especially needed to meet all of her 'little sisters'. She was, by her own definition, the 'big sister', since she'd been with us the longest. Funny, watching Maze nudge Ria to get her to go along with it, then seeing Isadora absolutely agree with Menace's assessment of the situation. When dinner was over, the girls half dragged, half carried the Docs up the Bore to the Bath.

I think they both forgave any amount of manhandling and psychic damage after about thirty seconds of soaking, and by the time bed time rolled around, I think they barely made it to the guess room Isnomi led them to. When we got to the bedroom she pulled Hailee around behind her, then snuggled in facing Aisling, who I'd spooned up behind. Aisling hadn't mentioned the incident at all. I mean, she wasn't normally talkative anyhow, but she'd definitely expressed preferences for certain kinds of deep fried pockets.

Woke up early in the morning and Co-Located around until I found Lachlan.

"Hey, big guy!" After what would be a bone crushing hug for anyone else, he said, "Commander! How have you been?" I shrugged.

"Can't complain. But I've got a bit of a situation I'm dealing with. Could you cover my class for me today?"

"Certainly. What class?"

"Combat Training. Camden Yards Academy." He thought for a second, then grinned.

"Will do, Commander."

"You need a ride there?" He shook his head.

"No, I can get Buddy to drop me off there." That taken care of, I collapsed back to myself as everybody else was waking up. I figured I'd talk with the Docs today, maybe see if there was some way Hailee could keep Aisling calm while the Docs spoke with her. I figured wrong. Isnomi had Doc Z at the Homestead, and she was bound and determined to give him and his beau the full tour. With a dozen sisters to help her, none of us stood a chance.