Chương 1158: Day One Thousand One Hundred And Fifty-Six

Dear Diary, Yeah, sometimes I gotta remember that here and now, not only are there some really shitty traditions regarding family, some of my ladies, my partners, my dearest ones, have literally spent thousands of years wallowing in those shitty traditions. Bit to unpack there, I guess.

First, and I think I may be in a weird position to understand this, what with my family from back in the world of Eastside disintegrating over time, but still having some traditions, some cohesion, not all family traditions are healthy. I think I've said it before, and I don't remember who said it, but I read once that 'trauma at a family level can look like tradition'.

That's part of a bigger quote about individual trauma looking like personality and societal trauma looking like culture, but right now I'm focused on the family tradition part. Okay, that's not entirely true, I guess. Societies have traditions and cultural norms about families, and I'm really talking about the interface between those two, where societal expectations meet with and can even wind up overriding family traditions or personal morals, ethics, values, and preferences.

One of the big ones that exists here and now, and I'm not gonna sugar coat how much I hate it, how toxic this shit can be, is the whole 'sins of the fathers', 'nits make lice' thing where kids get blamed for shit their parents did. Morals are not genetic. If anything, they're memetic, and yeah, there are situations like Larry and Lachlan where their family raised them to be sexist, racist, assholes. Thing is, both of those men have managed to learn and grow past that.

Yeah, with Larry it took me yanking his head out of his ass and Bonnie refusing to let him do the anal ostrich thing after that, substituting her bodacious cleavage for his rectum when he needed a place to hide, but just because someone needs help getting to their feet doesn't mean they're incapable of learning to stand and walk. Shit, Lachlan wasn't even dedicated to the entire thing in any way; he was literally faster, stronger, prettier, in almost every way a poster child for Dan Supremacy.

Yeah, he was dumb as a brick, but it really wasn't any kind of aggressively contagious stupidity. He was just barely dumb enough to think that being a superior human bean had something to do with him being a Dan dude rather than, y'know, him getting five numbers plus the power ball in the birth lottery. There's also a problem that culture isn't really something you can just legislate out of existence. Not really.

It'll inevitably burble up and reassert itself if you try, and at most you'll wind up with it mutating into something different, but Change isn't always good. The new tradition might be better than the old one, but it might well be worse, too. Instead, or maybe as well as, legislating that the old ways need to go, you need to start some kind of counter-culture.

A replacement, whether engineered or even just evolved, and if it can take the non-toxic portions of the old toxic trauma culture, it might have a better chance than if it doesn't. I think, just maybe, that I've started in on doing that, although I didn't realize it at the time. But Maze's birth mom killed Isnomi. The 'nits make lice', 'eye for an eye' traditions would have had me kill her. Which I absolutely am not doing.

Shit, she's a kid, if she'd been part and parcel of her mom doing that, or her dad attacking Lancaster refugees during the Plague, I still wouldn't, because she was a kid. Instead, I took her in. I'm raising her as my own. Shit, as I think I said to Dad back then, she's mine by right of conquest, and I'm gonna load her up with every good memetic I can, and if they're as good as I think, that'll maybe override whatever bullshit prompted her mom to kill a kid because her Goddess was a spiteful bitch.

Can't even say anything about her dad. Yeah, he joined up with Garland's Calverton for revenge, but he was a mercenary and his baby mama had been killed; I can't say I would have done any different. So yesterday I think the rest of the Mom Collective caught on to my reaction to Assessing Aisling. Before I'd even really finished reacting, I felt my ladies piggybacking into me, Saffron's quiet, is everything okay, love? expressing their collective concern most clearly.

Yeah, I slapped on a comforting face immediately, hugging Aisling to me just to make sure she didn't catch any of the conflicting emotions rushing through me. Also, incidentally, making it very clear to Tallulah, who stood in front of me, behind Aisling, that any of that blaming kids for their parent's misdeeds bullshit would not fly if I had anything to say about it. And I did. She raised one hand, the gesture almost plaintive, as she said, "Tabitha...?"

"Tallulah." I kept my voice flat, but with my arms full of Aisling I slipped a tentacle into her hand, around her wrist, and squeezed gently. The same kind of thing I'd do with my hand. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. She is my nemesis' get, Tabitha. Goddess. I... I crave Vengeance. I looked into her eyes, and realized that while she wasn't lying, she also wasn't fully committed to doing harm to the Child in my arms.

She wanted to, needed to lash out at Leanan, and all of her cultural acclimatization and experience told her to do so by hurting Aisling, but she also didn't want to upset me. Didn't want to upset any of our Children, especially those who'd bonded with their newest sister. I nodded to the floor beside me.

"Sit." She sat. Stiffly, at least until I wrapped one arm around her and pulled her to me. I... I want to hurt her. Aisling? Or Leanan? Before I'd even said Leanan's name, Tallulah replied, yes... No...? I... Feel some kinda way so strong you can't even think about it? She just nodded, not even able to think at me. Want to talk about it? Her mouth worked, and eventually she sighed and thought, I don't want to upset her. She's gotten way better at controlling that keening though.

Tallulah looked at me, her mouth dropping open. I hadn't even thought about that. The subject of our discussion hadn't really twigged to it; she just snuggled into me. Then, maybe surprising both of us, tugged Tallulah into the hug as well. We sat there more or less like that until it was time to go home. After dinner, as we lay there soaking in the Bath, I got a little lucky when the musical kits showed up and pulled Aisling away to an impromptu jam session at the far end of the Bath.

Once my newest Fae daughter was out of easy hearing and no longer glancing at me every couple seconds, I pulled Tallulah to me.

"You still want Vengeance?" She nodded. Her jaw worked, silent at first, but the hot water on my scars left me patient. Eventually she whispered, "I know I ought not, but my Soul hungers for it." I chuckled.

"Shit, I'm a Goddess of Vengeance, T. Be kinda hypocritical of me to say that Vengeance is wrong." She stared at me.

"So you'd allow me to harm her Child? One you've claimed?" I shook my head.

"Didn't say that now. But there's Vengeance and there's Vengeance."

"Go on?" I thought about it for a second.

"Have you paid attention to how she acts every time we mention her mother?" Then I paused.

"Wait, are we sure Leanan is her mother? It could be a situation like you and The Morrigan." She shrugged.

"It could. It matters not for my urges."

"Okay. Fine. But the thing is, she's your nemesis' kid, right?"

"The Child of my enemy, yes." I nodded.

"Okay then. But I want you to think about something. Which hurt more, Ria coming here to live, or Adrienne leaving your home?"

"Adrienne," she said without hesitation.

"And you were ready to put your own kid down to save your City, and The Morrigan actually did that out of spite. Either of those hurt worse than Adrienne?" She opened her mouth, then closed it. Eventually she shook her head.

"No..."

"Why?" I laid there soaking while she pondered. Eventually we all got out of the Bath, toweled off, and headed to bed. She stole me away to the Bedroom, sitting next to me on the Divan.

"I... I think because despite all that happened, Ria was still my daughter. A daughter I nearly lost more than once, but mine. Adrienne..."

"You thought you'd lost her. That she was still alive and well, but just not yours." She nodded. Opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. More than once before she settled down, a troubled look on her face.

"Hey, T. Adrienne loves you. She's not... She's a married Adult now, but she still loves you, she's still your daughter." She chuckled.

"My Mind knows this, but my heart... She doesn't stay in her room at the Keep."

"Does Ria?" She shook her head.

"Do you want Adrienne to have a room here at the Homestead? Cailyn?" She snorted.

"That would be silly."

"Still would, if you needed it." She shook her head.

"The offer is appreciated, lo..." I smiled at her.

"Go on. Kitten won't bite you. Or if she does, she'll probably make you regret not having her bite you sooner." Tallulah leaned her head against my shoulder, then sighed out, "love." I squeezed her to me.

"Okay. You want to hurt Leanan, right?" She nodded, and I felt her face contort with the severity of her frown, but she didn't say anything.

"Okay then. Which would hurt her worse? Killing Aisling?" I paused for effect, then whispered out, "or stealing her away, becoming the mother that little girl longs for with every quiet breath? Making it so the next time she sees the dam she fears so much, she cries 'mama' and hides behind you?" A faint growl tainted her voice when she whispered, "I envied you so when Ria ran to you."

"Sorry about that."

"You need not be. You did not do aught for her that you wouldn't do for any of your Children. You didn't do it to harm me. You did it because she is your Child, and doing that was, is, who and what you are."

"You still envious?" She chuckled.

"When she has since run to me with just as much excitement? When she had never done so before then?" She shrugged.

"I may feel a bit sheepish, but my own maternal examples were less than stellar, so I can lean on that knowledge when I recognize that you are a better mother than I. Even as I work to become better than I was." I smiled.

"Better than me, even?" Funny, I know that Saffron has deliberately cultured an intellectual, aristocratic demeanor, trying to separate herself from the streets she grew up on, but now and then it still showed through. Tallulah was absolutely the opposite, and her aristocratic upbringing showed when she snorted and said, "hardly. I do try to keep my expectations within the realm of reason and sanity." After we both laughed quietly at that, then maybe did a little smooching.

I pulled away and said, "so, is my long tall Sidhe Lady fully on board with plan 'Vengeance by theft of daughter'?" She shuddered, then quietly said, "I... Do not think it meet that I express exactly what a visceral thrill that idea gives me."

"Why not?" I very pointedly looked at her. Then at the Bed. Then raised an eyebrow.

"Why not indeed."