Chương 1169: Day One Thousand One Hundred And Sixty-Seven

Dear Diary, Kinda funny, in that bittersweet way, that if I'm not omnipotent, I'm probably within shouting distance of it, but I am in no way omniscient, and that makes any dollar store omnipotence I may or may not have significantly less useful than it might otherwise be. Seriously, I've moved land masses and enforced causality, because I broke both accidentally. That's not something that normally gets filed under 'not omnipotent'.

Yeah, I know, there's always a bigger fish, but seriously, I have yet to see a fish anywhere near the size of my pectoral fins, let alone bigger than my Maw. But that doesn't matter if my goal is to make things better for the people around me. Which, just to be clear, it generally is. Just an idle thought that passed through my brain today, because I'm not really in a great headspace to be doing the complex calculations required to push my Global Spell Shaping project forward.

Unlike my Kitten, for whom that shit was and is a Special Interest, this isn't actually a hyperfocus thing for me. Yeah, it's important. Yeah, I want to get it done. But no, it is not eating up my every waking thought. Weirdest part has to be the reason I'm not in that headspace. Unlike most of the times I've been out of sorts, the past twenty-four hours have been an increasing amount of distraction. Started out last night. Okay, that's not quite true.

It started out with the intermittent pins and needles from Siobhan emplacing delayed action Scrying Portals, and that started over the past couple days. Then after Kitten and I got back from sorting out Ophelia's communications and security both by dropping Sarah on her, my ladies pulled me back to my Temples. To my Altars. Plural. Yeah, I didn't get it at first. My Friday Revel kicked off a couple hours early, and it wasn't any of what I'd come to expect.

Yeah, there was some hanky and panky going on in the stands, but for the most part everybody in the congregation wanted the same thing, and it wasn't that. They wanted me to sing for them. With them. The weirdest fuckin' thing of all had to be singing local... Fight songs? I guess? They weren't anthems, not in the sense of 'national anthems'. I don't think they were anything official at all, and the weird part, at least for me, was singing songs I didn't know the lyrics to.

Not just singing them, but singing them with all the lyrics in all the right spots. The words... The words flowed to me from those dark, hidden spots in my congregations. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Songs of struggle. Songs of preparation, of revolution. Songs of community, of love, of triumph.

Of course, something I didn't realize until the end, because my congregations were so focused on me, and I on them, was that in every Temple, but most especially New Amsterdam and Norfolk, my congregations were... Smaller than normal. As in 'fewer people', not 'smaller people'. As my faithful started moving for private rooms or the cloak rooms, I looked around and realized that none of my High Priestesses were in evidence either. They'd been there most of the night, but now they'd all disappeared. Karen? Kitten?

What's up? At that point I realized something else that had been distracting me, specifically as part of it quieted. I felt Karen and Saffron's attention on me, but my other High Clergy, Great Kraken included, were more or less constantly murmuring in the back of my head. Which was a little distracting when it was just my Human Adjacent ladies, but the sheer alien nature of the Great Krakens' thoughts made it that much more distracting. Love? I'm guessing you're all doing Navy stuff? Something like that, love.

Did you need something? I thought about that. It took me a little to remember my initial question. Where was everybody tonight? With the direct mental connection, subtle emotional flavors came through. In this case I got the idea that she wasn't lying per se, but she was definitely not telling me everything, and doing so entirely to mess with Tallulah's nemesis. Who I was still tryna avoid referring to specifically. Mostly out of a sort of superstitious worry that if I thought about her, she'd hear it.

Oh, I'm sure they've found somewhere to volunteer their time. It took me a second, and I totally blame the intermittent flashes of pins and needles mixed with the constant murmuring in the back of my brain. But eventually, sitting there on my Altars, soaking in the passive Worship and tryna remember where I had to be today, I realized the only place they could be volunteering that wouldn't be in reach of my Temples. That would keep them away from my Revels. Really? Saffron's smile carried through to me.

Indeed, love. Something about their beloved Goddess, the Champion of the Alliance, implicitly blessing Ophelia's effort. Damn. I... Damn. Be at peace, love. This is not a Children's Crusade. Many of the Merchant Marine Auxiliary are followers of your father. Yet another reason they've volunteered. The sun was up. I Co-Located myself to the Homestead, to the Newark Heroic Academy, to the Black Dragon, where I sat on the mast and watched the ocean pass far, far below us.

I might have put my Cadets through a lot more repetitive Endurance training than normal today. But then, I don't think I've ever had that much distracting me when I was running a class before. I mean, yeah, occasionally I've done this kinda thing while one or more of my ladies was distracting me. But then, for whatever reason the Worshippers remaining in my Temples had decided to sing to me today. All day long. Not my fault they were singing the very first hymns any of my followers had sung to me. My Doctrine.

In all its seven syllable Glory.