Chương 1104: Day One Thousand One Hundred And Two

Dear Diary, I definitely think I'm growing up. Which, y'know, weird thing to say when I'm married with kids and a pair of live in partners who might as well be wives, even if neither of them want that particular Title. Okay, Tallulah wants it, but only once she's carrying my bun in her oven. Which... I dunno, I guess I understand that, sort of? That's another sign of growing up, I think. On something that's as deeply emotional for me as marriage, I can step back and look at it from somebody else's point of view.

I'm not saying that as an adult I have to agree with or even condone some of those points of view. Wanting to be married versus not wanting to be married is something people can disagree over without either one being a horrible Human Adjacent being. Same goes for different reasons for wanting to be married or not wanting to be married. Whether two other people ought to be allowed to be married, not so much.

Seriously, unless you are the spouse of one of those two people, that really ought not be a discussion you insert yourself in. Part of me is wondering about parents or other close family.

Grandma certainly made it clear she had opinions about whether or not Saffron and I ought to be getting married, but at the end of the day I don't think she ever thought of it in terms of Saffron being 'property' she was letting me have, or whether two women getting married was 'appropriate', or even the whole Dan and Bag thing, since apparently I looked even more Dan before all the scarring and bodybuilding. No, I think she just wanted to make sure I was, y'know, serious about the whole thing.

That I wasn't some player tryna get over or some weird shit like that. That I wasn't going to deliberately hurt her granddaughter. Y'know, talking about not getting married without your spouse's permission is definitely one of those things that isn't even a thing in a brutally heteronormative society like the one I grew up in. Here and now it's all 'do your Patron Deities approve of that marriage configuration'.

I get it, somebody's got to make the call on social things, but given the typical Deity here and now, I really don't see them as purveyors of ethically sourced, value-based morals, if you know what I'm saying. I kinda wish I'd spent more time reading up on polyamory back in the day, but honestly about half of the shit I read was in web fics that did not present anything like healthy dynamics.

Even fucked up pre-Isekai me could see where that shit wasn't good for anybody involved at the end of the day, which is where I got my distaste for the whole 'harem' concept. The rest of the info I had back then was from reading about Consent. Funny thing, but a lot of the better written essays I found were by poly people. Something about not welding somebody to your hip and then holding that over them, I guess.

Kinda ironic, but from everything I read before I got shot, while women definitely got the short end of that particular stick, by the time I wound up checking out of that whole society it wasn't doing guys any favors either. I mean, the ones who'd wised up and moved past the whole thing were fine.

Not even just poly or queer guys, either, but straight cis dudes who deeply understood that women are in fact people, who have their own reasons for wanting to be with another human, who can be convinced but are going to react poorly to be coerced. I knew a handful of them. Okay, they were dudes I met online, so maybe it was just their gaming persona or some shit, but it's not like I didn't give them my contact info if they ever wandered near Camden.

Thing is, back to me growing up and Tallulah's reason, I get where she wants that Concubine Title as a kind of shield and commitment combo, but doesn't want the Wife upgrade until we're in the process of creating a melding of our genetics. I mean, we've already got two of her three remaining kids calling me Mama, so I think she's being a little silly, but that's fine. People need to learn that 'a little silly' is a way better reason than 'honor' or 'Glory' or fuckin' 'gravitas'.

To be clear, I personally think it's a little silly that I'm realizing that on a day when I'm tryna carry myself with some fuckin' gravitas entirely to avoid a completely avoidable fight. So after a day of teaching yesterday, me teaching the kids about basic Math, Karen teaching the Lancasters how to apply fertility Blessings, I scooped everybody up and stepped us home. To the Homestead. Kinda funny, in a way that added just a touch of much needed levity, watching the Gorgon sisters doing their Maid thing.

Or trying to, much like they tried to do their bodyguard thing. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Eventually Iphigenia kind of drifted over to them, our musical quartet and Davey with her, and asked, "Why don't yOU three ReLax?" Still kinda weird listening to her; she's gotten a little better at not sounding like a bad call center bot, but it's only been a couple months. She's still healing, I guess.

At any rate, the two Maenads who weren't holding Lucas while Bonnie ate looked at each other, then back at Iphigenia. Weird hearing them alternate words, but they replied, "We're..." Followed by the other one saying, "Guarding." She just giggled, as did Davey, who said, "from what? Mama doesn't let anything dangerous in here." One of the two just swiveled her gaze to stare at Menace, where our Apex Predator was noshing on some chicken tendies.

"Really." I was kinda worried about Iphigenia saying something to start a fight. I did not expect Davey of all people to angrily shout, "hey! My sister is not dangerous to anybody but bad people." I mean, I had to talk with her about the whole 'bad people, good people' thing, but if she was willing to defend Isnomi against a fuckin' Gorgon, I wasn't gonna step on her toes.

Especially when I had a hard time not laughing when Daya, who'd been talking mostly quietly with Arachne about something, looked over and said, "Yeah. Chill." I could not actually stop myself from snorting out a laugh when Arachne herself glared at the Gorgons and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "tryhards."

"Okay, okay everybody." Once I had everyone's attention, I looked at Davey and Iphigenia and said, "they're doing their jobs. They take their jobs seriously, so they keep doing them even when maybe they don't have to, because if you take a job like that, you gotta keep at it even when you maybe don't want to."

Then I turned to the Gorgons, which also had me looking at the Lancasters, and said, "that said, beyond the basic kind of rough and tumble play that active kids do sometimes, none of my kids are a danger to any of the Lancasters. Right, Larry?"

"Of course they're not, Commander." Yeah, the Gorgon Maenads maybe got a bit of a booger look at that, but they stopped glaring at everybody. I mean, they kept up the whole stoic bodyguard thing, but I think somehow even paranoid Arachne making it clear they were maybe misreading the room struck home. Funny watching them join us all in the Bath.

The kids had mostly taken to tossing their clothes in cubbies, or dropping them in the laundry bins near those cubbies, but the Gorgon Maenads folded their uniforms neatly, then watched over Lucas like a hawk while he splashed around in the shallow parts of the Bath. When we all went to bed, I nudged Saffron and quietly said, "I think we need a bigger bed."

Because with the addition of the Lancasters to the cuddle pile, which our girls insisted on so Lucas could be 'part of the family', the visiting Maenads all wound up sleeping around the outside of the bed on piles of blankets. She just smiled at me.

"So be it." Dreamt of my ladies doing something with big round pillows. No idea, they're still dreams, and some of them are less coherent than others. In the morning I stopped by the Temple of Love and asked Karen to cover my class for the day; her only questions were whether I wanted her to Mimic me, which I did not, and how she should be dressed. Despite a surprising amount of temptation, I told her that it was her choice, but she should probably be in her Academy uniform.

Then I stepped to M-Space, to the base of Yggdrasil, and waited. I didn't see any of the Norns when I arrived, but then I hadn't really told them I was coming. By noon I started to worry. I didn't remember talking to Skuld since I set Jormungandr loose. She hadn't seemed super upset about that, but then I'm not sure she realized what I was doing. I kinda worried that he'd come back and eaten them or some shit like that.

By mid afternoon I'd realized that if he'd done that, the tree wouldn't look as healthy as it did.

"Anybody here? Skuld? Urd? Verthandi? Anybody here? I need to talk to you guys!" Something like an echo without an originating sound brushed past my ears.

"Talk?"

"Yeah. Just talk. I mean, I'm pretty sure I just want to talk. Unless you guys have, y'know, deliberately been targeting Children near me, I got no problem with you." After a moment, I felt like I needed to add something, so I shrugged and said, "I mean, if you're targeting me with shit, I'm gonna ask you to stop, especially if it's hitting kids near me, but that's all stuff we can talk over." Again that weird not quite echo.

"Just talk?" I sighed.

"I give you my word as a Deity, if you don't attack me or anybody I'm responsible for defending, I'm not going to hurt you."

"Truce?" I shrugged.

"Yeah, sure."

"Certain?" This was kinda getting on my nerves, but I didn't want to let them see that. So I just smiled and said, "why are you guys so worried?"

"Those." I got the weirdest impression that somebody had just pointed over my shoulder, even though there was nobody in front of me. Still, I figured if they were gonna stab me in the back, they would have done so, with my lack of ability to see them. I turned around and looked. To see a horizon filled with black not-storm clouds that positively writhed with hostility. Oops.