Chương 1105: Day One Thousand One Hundred And Three

Dear Diary, Y'know, I know it's gonna lead to less Epic Fight Scenes™, but I think the mature, adult response of 'talking things out' is gonna wind up way more effective in the long run. Don't get me wrong; if some asshole is way past the Godzilla Threshold, whether morally or practically, I am still ready and able to smack them down in ways that will turn the gorge of nine out of ten carrion eaters. Not just because 'it's a deterrent to others like them'.

Well, fuck, actually not at all because that kind of obscene violence is a deterrent, because it absolutely is fucking not. Killing people is a deterrent to the kind of person who calculates fines and jail time as part of the cost of doing business, because that essentially pegs the meter on 'cost' for them. If that kind of person commits atrocities, it's because they've calculated the risk versus reward and return on investment and decided that the cost is worth the gain.

That kind of person generally isn't the sort to rank deaths, because at the end of the day, dead is dead. Okay, The Morrigan isn't dead yet, and if she winds up dead, she'll be a special case of 'at the end of the year' or maybe 'end of the decade' or some shit like that, but frankly the kind of mind that calculates atrocity isn't usually the kind to be deterred by torture either.

So that over the top tearing someone to shreds and reconstituting them in horrifying ways isn't something I'm going to do to somebody because it'll stop somebody else. I'd like to think that if somebody's pissed me off enough that I do that kind of shit to them, they've deserved an extra humiliating and painful death. But then, 'extra humiliating and painful' doesn't have to be me turning them into modern art that only Conrad could appreciate, and then only in the 'how... nice, Mother.

I'll hang it on the refrigerator until I can disappear it' kind of way.

'Extra humiliating and painful' could simply be me letting one of my kids give them the death by a thousand cuts or some shit like that. Yeah, growing up means looking at the worst parts of myself and accepting them as part of me.

If I get that pissed off that I can't just execute some atrocity asshole without adding another atrocity to the list, just take him off the board and therefore incapable of doing any more atrocities, it's going to be some combination of 'I enjoy that shit' and 'I am filled with fury beyond reason'. I mean, hopefully righteous fury, but lying to myself does not lead to maturity and adult decisions. So yesterday at sunset, I realized that I had maybe less control over the rest of me than I'd thought.

Also, that I was maybe more worked up about the whole hundred day thing than I had let myself admit. I turned back to face Yggdrasil, where I more or less assumed the Norns, or at least whichever of them was not quite talking to me, was standing, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. Any kind of passive granular control of my tentacles is maybe beyond me, but I could, when I put my mind to it, at least get them to settle the fuck down.

"Sorry. Give me a second." I took another breath, let it out, and then did so again, counting to five on the inhale and ten on the exhale. When I finished that, I glanced over my shoulder. My tentacles were still there on the horizon, but nowhere near as rampant and angry. Instead they just kinda lurked there, doing their kelp in a gentle current thing.

"That's better." Then I thought about things and sat down tailor fashion.

"Look, ladies, I'm kind of upset, because I'm worried somebody's been doing some seriously heinous shit. Threatening Children near me." That not quite echo whispered, "Children are threatened every day in this world." I shrugged.

"Yeah. I'm not happy about that either, but exactly once every hundred days for the last eleven hundred one or more kids near me have wound up in some kind of life threatening danger. Eleven times isn't coincidence. It's a pattern. And I don't know anybody who has more control over wacky seemingly coincidental only not really shit like that than Deities of Fate. Now, I'm not saying you're doing it..."

"You'd better not be!" Skuld barked, suddenly no more than ten paces away, her gun at a really shitty port arms, the kind of thing a fundamentally untrained person would do to hold a gun where somebody couldn't miss it, but they didn't want to be pointing it at the person. So fuckin' weird that my ROTC training had left me the most competent authority in gun safety in the world after being isekaied. I shook my head.

"Okay, look, I came here to talk to you. I mean, I kinda wanted to talk to you and your sisters, because maybe they know something you don't, but I've talked to you before and I know you're not a complete asshole. So if you tell me you had nothing to do with it, I'm gonna believe you."

"Why would we have anything to do with that? With threatening children?" I just slow blinked at her.

"One, I'm pretty sure you guys are well aware of the dangers to kids out there in the world, and you haven't done something like fucking over people who hurt them, or there'd be a lot less kid hurting than I've personally seen. Two, that wasn't a denial, it was an evasion."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm not trying to say anything. I'm saying that if you straight up deny any and all involvement with whatever's been fucking with me every hundred days, I'll believe you, because I don't think you're a Trickster, and I'm pretty sure you can't lie without it fucking you over." She blinked when I said that about being a Trickster. Then she shook her head.

"Such a lack of trust."

"Yeah. Well. I'm Loki's adopted daughter. I deal with Tricksters on the regular. Also, my dad, mom, and two siblings were imprisoned, not to mention my other two sibs functionally enslaved, for crimes they never committed. Not only that, but I've had people attacking me for shit I haven't done yet since the day I got here. I think a certain amount of caution on my part isn't undue." This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

She sucked at her teeth, then glanced to her right. A weird kind of double glance, like she was checking the positions of two other people.

"Fine. I had nothing to do with any of the threats to children that you've spoken of." I nodded to her right.

"And those two?" Her eyes got wide, and I shook my head, chuckling a little.

"No woo involved, Skuld. I'm a trained Phileo Academy Senior Cadet. Marshall duBois would disown me as his protege if I missed a tell like that." A woman stepped forward out of nowhere to stand maybe three paces to Skuld's right. She looked kinda like she could be Persephone's distant cousin. Not so much from the face as the everything else. She was a healthy girl in the mold of my own Isadora. She also looked like she was in her late twenties, early thirties, unlike Skuld's barely legal late teens.

"It is part of my duty as a Norn to place many people in danger, some of them Children, but I say to you now that I have not been part of nor had any knowledge of any campaign against you or children near or dear to you." I turned to face the air to the right of her.

"And you, Urd?" I could feel the disgusted frustration in the weird not echo that replied, "Fools." I shook my head yet again, slipping my hands between my feet and my legs.

"Look, I'm sitting on my hands here. Completely not in any position to do shit to any of you."

"Tentacles." I rolled my eyes as ostentatiously as I could.

"Fine. If you tell me that you had nothing to do with the shit that's been going on, I've got nothing against any of you, and I won't start any kind of fight with you."

"Or my sisters?" I sighed, then looked at Skuld.

"Yeah, I deserve this, don't I?" She shrugged and smirked at me.

"If none of the three of you, individually or as a group, had anything to do with the repeated threats to Children near me, I won't attack any of you. Fair?" The echo of a sigh drifted by me.

"I have ushered many a Child into the embrace of Memory, but I have no memory or knowledge of any ongoing plots against you or Children near you."

"Okay. Fair. Can you come out of wherever you're hiding? I know you're not some kinda ghost, 'cause I saw you watering Yggdrasil on one of my earlier visits."

"Jormungandr?" I shook my head.

"Not here today, and," I raised my voice, "if he's watching, I'd be really upset if he got aggressive with my new friends here. Possibly violently so." Then something she'd said hit me.

"Ongoing?" Another woman stepped out of nowhere to stand to the right of Verthandi. I'd seen Urd before; a willowy forty something who had a big pitcher hanging from one hip.

"I was aware of the Spartans seeking to harm the Children at your Temple and the Children at your Homestead."

"Didn't think to let me know?" She shook her head.

"No more than I thought to tell the Spartans before you rescued the Maenads you held captive, nor the Master of Calverton before you ended his reign." I took a deep breath, reminding myself that she wasn't threatening me with anything, just pointing out that she was neutral in any kind of conflict.

"Okay. Fair." I sighed, then started pushing myself to my feet.

"Sorry to have bothered you ladies, then." I shook my head.

"Fuck, I guess I've gotta figure out how to get in touch with the Fates." Muttering mostly to myself, I continued, "I dunno if I hope they're involved or not; if they're not I've got no fuckin' clue where to look next." I stood there for a couple moments, trying to cudgel my recalcitrant pre-Isekai memories for where the Fates hung out. At that point Skuld said, "wait..." then stepped over and muttered something I couldn't quite catch to Verthandi.

Urd drifted closer to the two of them while I tried not to eavesdrop. After a minute of Skuld getting obviously more impassioned, and the other two wavering, I cleared my throat. They all turned to look at me.

"Hey, I'm not gonna try to interfere in any family discussion you've got going on, but if you don't mind, I'm a little curious about something else. Professional interest as a Trickster."

"Yes?" Weird, but now that she was here Urd's voice wasn't a weird echo, but just a kind of throaty older woman voice.

"Where were you three hiding?" Urd smiled, then stepped... somewhere, not here. She hadn't Translocated, and a moment later, that not echo hit my ears.

"The past." I turned to Skuld as Urd reappeared and asked, "the future?" She nodded, and I turned to Verthandi, perplexed.

"So where were you hiding? The present doesn't make any sense. Can you Blend or something?" She laughed, and that laugh definitely reminded me that as far as I knew, none of the Norns were married. Sadly, I didn't think any of them were girl kissers either. Then she might has well have slapped me upside the head with a haddock when she said, "the Mortal Realm." I double facepalmed. Then rubbed my face a bit to make sure there wasn't any residual egg on it.

"I really hope somebody can help me figure this shit out, because I obviously am far too dim to do it on my own." I sighed.

"Tallulah's pretty good at Scrying. Maybe Conrad? Or Dad?" I sighed again.

"Fuck, I don't even know if there is any kind of conspiracy or curse or whatever. Fuck." Skuld stepped over to within easier conversational distance.

"You are truly Loki's daughter?" Dad? Little help confirming my identity as your offspring? Then he was there, all twenty feet of him standing behind me, hands on my shoulders like pauldrons.

"Tabitha Diaz, Mimic Reborn, Patron Goddess of the Alliance, Goddess of Bloodlust, Vengeance, Justified Homicide, Passion, Ecstasy, Change, and Children, is in fact my daughter." Skuld looked up, then looked at her sisters.

"And Loki is Odin's brother by blood, right?" Urd rolled her eyes, looking put upon. Verthandi nodded, looking pleasantly surprised.

"I am," Dad said. Verthandi turned to Urd.

"She's got a point, sister." Urd looked positively put out at being argued into a corner, but she shook her head and looked over my head at Loki.

"Just to be clear, you would have us assist your daughter?"

"Of course, assuming the price is not too onerous for her."

"Not for you?" He chuckled, squeezing me gently.

"My daughter has given me back my Hel, my Jormungandr, and my Sigyn. She's promised me the return of the remainder of my family. Beyond all that, she is my daughter. What father would not give his daughter whatever she needed, regardless of the price?" Urd pointed one finger at him, and if he didn't seem to flinch, his grip got the tiniest bit tighter.

"If Odin waxes wroth with us, on your head be it." Dad just chuckled.

"If the All Father chooses to do me harm, or to do you harm for aught you have done for me or mine, I will stand before him just as I stand before you now." Urd sighed, then said, "by the agreements between he and we, you must wait until we are done our divinations, no matter how long they take." I nodded. Kitten? I think I'm gonna be here a bit. I felt a sigh in the back of my brain. Is it safe? I think you'd probably wind up less bored than me, but yeah, basically.

Dad's here, I'm just waiting for the Norns to do some divination. Ah, thank you for the invitation, but unless you'd prefer I wait with you, I've some bickering to mediate on the Grand Council. However, we can cover every gap left by your temporary absence save one. A moment later Karen stood in front of me, hands on Hailee's shoulders as my kit held an obviously distressed Aisling out to me.

"She missed you."