Chương 282: Day Two Hundred And Eighty

Dear Diary, Weird feeling, having a bunch of smart people go on about how smart you are; not sure if I like it or not, and if so not sure how much of not liking is imposter syndrome, and how much of liking is me apparently literally being a Trickster Goddess. Some days I feel like an idiot. Lots of them, really, maybe even a majority if you count 'a little bit slow', what with my genius wife and daughter. I've made my peace with not being the smartest woman in the room.

It's okay, because the smartest woman in the room always thinks I'm hot, and smell nice, and she likes me better than she likes the other smart people, and it's because of the hotness, nice smell, and amazingly somehow that I'm 'nice', which nobody's ever really called me before. But once in a while I feel like I need to have Marie make me a uniform with a cape with a big 'O' on it. Not talking 'Omni-Man', either.

Not because he's the kind of really well written villain who manages to be internally coherent, thinks he's fully justified, and does shit on the regular that would have me saying, 'okay, buddy, time to apologize and go do your time out before I gotta go Primordial on your ass'. Before anybody goes on about 'oh, he can kill off everything on a planet' or anything, that's nothing special, I can do that.

'He'd just super speed super strength you to death'. When dude can stop time and rewrite reality so that the O stands for 'overwhelming body odor', I'll have major concerns. Shit, I really do need to talk about the overconfidence tomorrow. No, my 'O' would stand for Obvious, as in Captain Obvious. But just so you don't get me wrong, I don't mean I think I'm stupid.

I mean along with all the 'planet crack, rewrite reality, stop time, do your sister as your sister and leave her thinking it was a weird masturbatory waking dream', I also have the power to point out something blindingly obvious in such a way that all the Smart People are going on about how it's some kind of world-shaking revelation. So, good day yesterday; made progress on building up my extra credit in Law and Custom.

Before I get up in my own shit about not doing any of the clearly spelled out assignments on the syllabus, I'm gonna note that most of the courses I passed back at Eastside were either 'pass / fail based on attendance' or I passed them from accumulating sixty five points worth of extra credit, thus ensuring my D minus and place on the dishonor roll. Also did some quality Momming, and wound up both remembering and looking forward to my class today.

Seriously, Doc Zeccardi sorta-babysitting, Sister Siobhan providing easy on the eyes, and now conscience, color commentary and normalish person speak translations of Docs Glass and DeLeon's discussions with Saffron, and best of all my mega tempura sushi lunch platter. What's not to love? Mimic dreamt of Mom, only now my inconsistent alter-ego was scared and trying to hide. Not an easy task for somebody the size of the tri-state area, made even worse by the fact that her method appears to be 'look at the ground'.

Oh, shit, right, I forget, because my own doesn't affect me. Blend. Still not proud that part of me almost literally sticks her head in the sand and considers that 'hiding'. Woke up to what I first thought was my Kitten adding some decoration to my necklace, then realized that she herself was still waking up, but had started with her face pressed right up against me, so her boot up taste test wound up doing little mlem licks along my clavicle.

Awesome weird feeling in so many ways when I felt her smile and she murmured, "Good Morning, love. You smell so nice, I could eat you right up were Menace not proving the accuracy of her name by having her foot in my ear and her head on my butt."

"Yeah, but she's cute, so her antics just give us warm fuzzies rather than making us angry most of the time. Gotta be genetic; her mom's cute like that too." She opened her eyes, looked up to me, and said, "yes, she is." Then she pulled me down for a long, slow, gentle, surprisingly sparsely tongued kiss. Kinda fun, like savoring the bread on a sandwich or something else weird, but not bad. Also took long enough for me to realize she hadn't been talking about herself. Three, two, one, we have comprehension.

Oh, hush your mouth and kiss me, Kitten. I... I'm literally doing that, my Goddess. Unless you meant... but, no, not with Isnomi literally in the bed. But then I suppose I could Blend down there and... no, how would you notice? Would you notice? Could she notice if you did? Hold up, Kitten. On the one hand, I really did mean 'keep doing what you're doing', and you've kinda stopped.

On the other, you are hereby commandmented to try your hardest to make my lady bits go 'ding, fries are done' that particular stealthy ninja style next time we've got free time and an Isnomi free bed.

"And no," I whispered as she pulled away, "you may not have Marie take her to her own bed now. Not gonna kick the little one out of bed so we can get our freak on. Also, more kissing please?" As her smiling lips touched my own, she thought, oh, that's your line in the sand? Whether she's already asleep in the bed when one of us gets in the mood? Hey, I'm not the one who called me rational. Gentle or not, she dragged the edges of her teeth over my lips at that.

You're not being irrational, you're placing your boundary. I don't have to understand it to respect it. Also, you won't kick the little one out but you would kick the big one out? I mean, only if she minds me waking her up by using her sleeping body as a sex pillow to prop you up for ease of access. Let's face it, better than even odds that you just wind up being double teamed, but the rest of the smart money's on 'feels more like watching' or 'still too tired and moves over to her floor bed and closes the door'.

Does it count as 'kicking her out' if we just make her want to leave? Yes, absolutely, but I think there may be a difference between, 'fuck or get out' and 'could we have the bed if you're not going to help us use it?' if you take my meaning. Yeah, I take it, and even without it being a combo pack with taking you. She smiled and pulled our lips the tiniest bit apart, still holding our foreheads together.

"Sadly, I think it's time to start the day."

"Yes." Marie confirmed.

"Ooh, before we get up, quick question. Do you mind one or both of us waking you up using you as sex furniture?" She tilted her head, mlemming like she was taste testing my question, thinking about it for a bit, before turning back to look me in the eye. Without breaking eye contact she rolled Saffron over, producing a grumpy whine from down by our collective feet, kissed her good morning way more open-mouthed than I had, then said, "Never." the moment their lips broke contact.

"Ooh, I think I know where our communal feisty brain cells have all migrated this morning. You gonna try to convince us all to play hooky today, Murder Mittens?" She actually stopped and thought about it for a second before carefully but irresistibly pulling me into a hug, sandwiching Saffron between us while Menace scrambled up with the intent to infiltrate clear in her eyes.

"No."

"Okay, anticipation it is then." Her eyes lit up and she said, "Yes." A big silly grin stretched across her face. I realized right then that the thing that made her stand out from the other Maenads was body language, mostly the way she just looked happier than the rest of them, especially when she knew we were around. Right about then Saffron started making muffled grumpy Saffron noises and playfully beating her fists against Marie's front.

When we pulled just a little apart to let her out for air, then just a little more when Isnomi slipped right into the gap recreating the problem, she huffed and said, "just to be clear, I have no objection whatsoever to that position, but only when my actions are not constrained by our occupation."

"Do you mean you were being occupied or that we've got shit to do?"

"Yes." She sighed.

"Let's be about it, ladies." Breakfast was a little weird, but nice. The Maids had managed to whip up actual fluffy corn pancakes, then topped each one with what they called a 'tortilla', but I got the impression the word had way more to do with 'torte', like the pastry, than the little flat wrapper things I'd grown up with. Kinda like a fluffy, unfolded omelet. Different. Weird, even, but not bad, especially since we had butter and fruit-flavored syrup to go over it. I mean, syrup on eggs isn't normally my thing?

But neither is getting my food stolen, and having Saffron steal some of mine after totally vacuuming up her own because sweets was just adorable. When there were only a few bites left I held a hand over my plate to block her, saying, "ah, ah, ah," and tapping my lips.

She bounced up to give me a quick peck, then went to steal another bite, but I snagged her hands in one of mine, scooped up like half of my remaining tortilla and pancake and ran that through the syrup until it dripped, then lifted it up and mooshed it around her lips before finally putting it in her mouth. When her tongue slipped out of her mouth to clean her lips, I froze her with an upraised finger, then leaned in and kissed her.

Much like this morning, mostly without tongue except where mine darted around between her lips and my own. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. I leaned back and said, "just wanted to taste my favorite sweet with her favorite topping." She grinned, swallowed, and said, "but I didn't taste any chocolate?"

"Oh, lord, you two, I'd say get a room, but you've already filled that and spilled out to here already, haven't you?"

"Aw, c'mon, Raven, they're cute." She rolled her eyes.

"My point exactly." I turned to her and said, "oh, so if we were to experiment with whether or not we could each get both arms in the other's orifices to the shoulder simultaneously right here on the table, you'd be fine with it?" I realized the first part of my mistake when she just propped an elbow on the table, leaned on her hand, and made a 'go ahead, I'm waiting' gesture. Then the second part of my mistake hit me in the ear with, "owwewfishes?"

Luckily I hadn't annoyed Saffron with my syrupy antics, so she replied, "any opening on the body, like your mouth, or nostrils."

"Eaws?"

"Yes, your ears are orifices."

"Butt?" Saffron couldn't fully contain her sigh.

"Yes, your butt is also an orifice." She chewed on that while she chewed on her last bits of, interestingly, completely un-syruped tortilla and corncake. Then she snickered and said, "Wiam's wight. Gwown ups siwwy. Awms canna fid in eaws."

"Not with that attitude," grumbled Raven. Saffron, already leaning so far she had her knees on the table, leaned a little further to give Raven a friendly peck on the cheek.

"Thank you so much for reminding me of that, Raven." When I gave her as much of a 'wtf, Saffron' look as Raven as she pulled back, she looked up at me and said, "ledger clearing, love."

"Oh." I adopted my best George Takei and said, "oh, my!" Then I leaned over and replicated Saffron's peck on Raven's other cheek.

"Thanks, Raven." She facepalmed.

"At least tell me I didn't make the cute worse." Saffron let the Grin out to play and said, "my Goof is inherently cute, but I wouldn't describe any of my plans as specifically enhancing her 'cuteness'. But I'll make a note to show you stills of what I mean, if you like." Raven shrugged.

"Artistic?" Saffron nodded regally while simultaneously shrugging, "as much as I can make it, of course. I'd like your opinion on that regarding the final product, really."

"Sure." After that, the food was all gone, so we wandered up to class, taking our time about it since we had plenty of time to spare. Marie walked with us, letting the Menace sit on top of her cart, encased in five Air Shields shaped into a square bucket, letting her hover around the cart like an old school VCR screen saver, giggling each time she bumped into a 'wall'. Right down the hall from the classroom, I caught Saffron looking at her, mystified and a little concerned.

"They're Air Shields, she's completely safe." Then, because Saffron, my brain kicked into gear.

"Aren't they supposed to be immobile?'""Hence my fascination and concern." I stepped over, timed Mana Blading the Air Shield on my side of the bucket carefully, then caught her when she slid out.

"Who's a clever little Menace? Who are? You are! Yes you are!" I nuzzled her each time I paused, and after her initial mini-pout at having her fun ride interrupted, she giggled with each nuzzle. She completely forgot about all that when we entered the classroom, squirrel leaping and gleefully crying out, "Doccah Zeccawdi!"

"Good Morning, Isnomi!" He called out as he caught her.

"How have you been doing?"

"Good!" After a moment for hugging, she said, "I godda new game! Wanna thee?" After glancing at Docs Glass and DeLeon, who stood chatting about something they'd sketched on the board, he turned back and said, "we have a little time. Sure, show me your new game."

"Hol on tite!" She concentrated a moment, and Doc Zeccardi's legs went out from under him, leaving him to plomph down onto the floor butt first. I'd had that happen a time or three walking the wall last winter; while it wasn't in any way dignified, it didn't hurt at all unless you careened into an actual wall or slid off the Air Shield and got some friction burns from the floor, but the bucket walls stopped that.

After a moment of initial confusion and concern, Doc Zeccardi let out a laugh and sat just like Menace normally did when playing with Air Shields, his legs crossed tailor fashion, hands on his knees. By his grin and half-giggled laughter, I think he enjoyed it almost as much as she did, and she straight up crowed both at getting an adult to play one of her games and at him enjoying it. Saffron and I just sat in our normal seat, her on my lap snuggled in, as we watched the pair goofing off before class.

"She's so adorable. They both are. Sometimes I have a hard time believing she's mine."

"What? I call you adorable all the time!" She smiled coyly up at me and said, "yes, because you have no fear and never saw what I did to people who called me cute when I was younger."

"Should I be afraid or turned on?"

"I'd say both, but somehow you have matured me past that particular hang-up. I think by somehow inextricably welding together the concepts of 'cute' and 'orgasm so intense it can only be accurately described by your mid-coital word salad'." I snuggled her into me.

"You say the sweetest things." After all the other students arrived, Saffron hopped off my lap and walked up to Mana Blade one of the Air Shields down, at which point the pair of them slid off the side, ignoring Saffron's offered hand until they toppled over sideways, still cackling. Only then did he let her lift him upright.

"Thank you. And thank you, Isnomi, that was fun!" Saffron stayed up front, clearing away the other Air Shields, then just waiting there. Isnomi ran back to jump in my lap to listen to the opening lecture by the Doctors. After that lecture, Saffron stayed up front playing whiteboard while Doc Zeccardi came back and sat next to Isnomi and I.

"Letting the students do the heavy lifting, Doc?" He chuckled.

"Little bit of that, little bit of me knowing Revive, but... I know it. I can do it, if I get volunteers to spread the load or a single one who convinces me." He got real quiet.

"Near the beginning of the Plague, I had an infant, mother, and grandmother come in. The infant, by some miracle, hadn't taken ill, but the mother came in unconscious, the grandmother nearly so. The mother passed before the triage orderly got her to me. The Grandmother begged me to let her granddaughter grow up with a mother." I reached an arm around him, giving him a side hug while Isnomi turned and glomped him.

"You do what you gotta do, Doc. No guilt for not being able to do more." He smiled at me, an even bigger one for Isnomi.

"Thanks you two. I know that, but sometimes it helps to have someone say it." He smiled up at the front of the room.

"Steven's so good at that, but oddly enough it's nice to have someone else backing him up."

"Funny, I pegged you as the warm and fuzzy one." He laughed again.

"Oh, I'm definitely the cuddly one, but he likes the cuddling." He grinned down at me, "don't tell him I said this, because he already knows, but gets really odd about people knowing that he knows, but it's his structure I'm attracted to. Such self-control and planning." My mouth dropped open, and before I even thought once I said, "I know, right? You get it!" He nodded.

"At any rate, while I can and do perform Revives on occasion? Steven is a master. Probably one of the most knowledgeable Soul magic specialists in the world. The most knowledgeable one that isn't a Priest of some healing deity. I would literally bet my life that he could Revive someone without it costing the totality of another's Soul. If I had to, mind you. I quite enjoy life."

I just nodded in understanding, and then the two of us settled back to watch the rest of the class continue their work on what I'd come to think of as the 'Smite Undead' Spell. When something went over my head, which as before wound up being surprisingly infrequent, I asked Doc Zeccardi, who mostly gave me vocabulary to express my questions and understand the answer.

Eventually, though, right after Marie showed up with a lunch that the class decided to work through, something they kept circling around poked at me, and Zeccardi didn't have an answer, so I raised my hand. When Saffron pointed them my way, I asked, "You guys keep mentioning stuff that seems to boil down to, um, 'imperfect understanding of the interaction of', um, 'more than bipartite Soul and Mana interactions'."

Doctor Glass looked like I'd said something obvious, but not wrong, and asked, "that is one of the difficulties of applying any derivative of Revive to more than one target at a time, yes. Or with spreading the cost around, although that has been studied more substantially."

"Okay, yeah, I get that, but... why don't you just ask somebody with experience handling Souls?" Doctor Glass opened and closed his mouth a couple times, looking at Doctor DeLeon and especially Sister Siobhan kinda tentatively. Sister Siobhan nodded, and stepped forward while Docs DeLeon and Glass stepped back and took the opportunity to get their nom on. I felt some kinda way, but mostly amused, that they both had sushi tempura lunches today. Looking around, quite a few of the rest of the class did too.

So proud of my Murder Mittens. At any rate, Siobhan took up her 'lecture pose' and said, "while Mana Shaping researchers have spent literal centuries studying Revive, that Spell originated as a gift from the Gods, a Boon from Deities of Healing. Which is why the high cost wasn't seen as prohibitive. At any rate, it is to my knowledge the only Spell that can interact with the Soul directly. So researchers like Doctor Glass are probably the most knowledgeable experts we have on the topic."

Doc DeLeon swallowed a big assed bite of sushi to say, "a God would likely know more, of course. Especially a God of Death like Hel or Hades, or even more so a Psychopomp." I shot a single thought at Saffron, because I'd just seen the light go on in her eyes. Wait for it.

At this point, despite DeLeon obviously trying to cut him off before he engaged in potential blasphemy in front of not one but three High Priestesses, Doctor Glass said, "and the Gods are notoriously unwilling to serve Mortals in any fashion; I shudder to think what one would do if asked to answer a researcher's questions." I kicked my feet out, leaned back and let Marie feed me another bit of one of her experimental sushi rolls, then slipped one arm around her and said, "oh, yeah.

Don't ask the only Gods with, y'know, actual jobs and shit to be of service in any way. They might get pissed and do something like, I dunno, poison your lunch." I grabbed up what looked to be a whole tempura carrot and proceeded to Lady and the Tramp that shit with Marie, who, bless her fuzzy murderous heart, hadn't caught on yet.

Of course, the fact that when she looked back up at the room, she had an entire classroom of people staring at her with varying degrees of horror kinda gave her a clue that something was up. Okay, not the entire classroom. Saffron just smiled at the two of us with undisguised affection.

Doctor Glass straight up walked to the back of the classroom, took a fuckin' knee, and without bowing his head further than looking at her chin, but clearly showing more respect than he had for any other Gods, said, "Maenad, thank you for your superlative meals, and I mean no offense by asking, but could you possibly see your way clear to answering some questions for me?" I had to wonder how he shaved his balls that smooth, what with them obviously being made of high grade stainless.

I turned to Doc Zeccardi and said, "damn. I know I might have hinted before, but I'mma say it plain, you got some top tier taste in men."