Chương 303: Day Three Hundred And One

Dear Diary, I am more than a little bit disturbed at how much my viewpoint and assumptions change when I tap into the full power of Mimic like yesterday. I mean, I get it. I'm a chick from Camden who happened to get both the top and bottom of the karma sliders balancing them out all at once with the 'get shot in the head and fed to an octopus' and 'incarnate as the Avatar of the uber-Goddess' in the same instant. She's an animate land mass with the IQ of a houseplant. We're not going to see things the same way.

Really, when I think about it, I mean really think about the times where she and I have somehow slid into sync to the point where we might as well be a single entity, I'm not even that upset about it. Seriously. The only times I can recall where that's happened are when an infant's life was on the line.

Okay, that got parlayed into a shit ton of emergency healing during the Plague, and into binding Domnu into my own personal Pokebitch yesterday, but I can't say I'm upset about the overlap in the Venn Diagram of she and me. It's not that part that gets me. It's... subtle things. Or maybe not so subtle, but things I don't notice when they leak over until something shoves them in my face. I do not 'harvest useful, interesting, or amusing Mortals,' I make friends.

Which, since I'm talking about actual real friends I would Do Crime with or for, rather than just occasional online gaming partners or fuck buddies, is a new experience for me. But even if they're not in a position where we're gonna start melting into one another and finishing each other's sandwiches, they're still people. Not things, or even pets. Oh, shit! I need to ask Marie if she wants to be a pet.

Normally I'd say 'of course not', but she's my goddamned Concubine, and that one word now revs my engine and slams me into gear while simultaneously wrenching the emergency brake and slamming my foot down on the floor brake at the same time. But she's my Concubine, that title specifically, with all the implications about who officially has All The Agency, because she practically demanded it.

So, y'know, if there was Agency transfer, it was at her instigation and insistence, which is probably way down some kinda kink scale, and not something I'm entirely comfortable with, but at the end of the day I think I said yes and continue to say yes because I couldn't stand the hurt and disappointment in her eyes if I told her no about that. But I still have no idea about the pet thing.

On my end it might be a step too far, even if the subtle urges I'm getting after communing with my inner Orange Tabby of Kaiju Size are more along the lines of 'of course she's a pet'. Then again, those same impulses classify her as 'Mortal', so the brain dead tentacle beast might, in fact, be factually incorrect about shit. Who knew? At any rate, she's an intelligent, oddly articulate, incredibly skilled woman. Not some kind of trophy to mount on the wall.

And now I have an urgent and abiding need to mount her against the wall, thank you introspection, just what I always wanted. On the other hand, she sleeps on the goddamned floor. Her bed, the one we all think of as 'Marie's bed', is a pet bed we built into the floor. For all I fuckin' know she's been eagerly awaiting the day we all go shopping for collars and nametags. Growing more and more disappointed and despondent the longer I put it off.

Hiding some scrap of cloth I dropped, wrapping it around her neck as she works, pretending. Y'know, if I were actually dumber, to the point where my imagination running wild resembled a teacup chihuahua on a bender rather than a coked up kaiju squirrel, my life would be a lot easier. Probably would have been a lot shorter, what with my Standard Combat Tactic being 'initiate chaos, make shit up,???, Profit!' But easier? Hell yeah. Fuck it. I'll ask her the next time we've got a private moment.

So yesterday, while the wolves and bears derezzed, all the crowd that hadn't nearly gotten melted into burning goo by a Dragon tried not to shit themselves in screaming terror, and Domnu meticulously deconstructed Anundr in the slowest, most painful way possible, I realized I may have made a slight tactical error. At first I just kinda watched with a Mimic-induced lack of bowel and stomach evacuation as she erased bits of him, starting with his clothes and skin. When she took his feet off I shook my head a little.

"Why isn't he falling down?" Here in a place where Time existed, her voice became a strange auditory equivalent of darkness, made entirely by lack of sound, yet somehow still coherent.

"I removed his ties to the Earth first." I tried not to go into screensaver mode thinking about that. I also looked away, not out of any sense of disgust, but because the leftover Mimic vibes had almost the opposite effect as shit started to leak out of him. Both figuratively and literally. Of course the first thing in front of my eyes had to be Big Johnson. Equally inevitably, his damn wall-shield sized codpiece had dented outward as he stared at Domnu.

To be clear, he wasn't staring at Anundr or what she was doing to him. Just, like, absolutely fixated and trying to do the hot-guy-preen that hot dudes do to get the attention of women instead of going up and talking to them. Despite his edgy fashion sense and surprising wooing skills, the poor bastard had, like, zero of the traits one would normally associate with 'hot guy'. Apparently he'd traded those in for 'literally Apocalyptic taste in women'.

Seriously, I had no fuckin' clue what exactly this giant chuuni emo... Fuck. I meet here and now's biggest chuuni emo freak, and then I summon up his own personal catnip and because I am incapable of non-soundless farting I pour her into a mold that could be labelled 'MILF, Basic' and face no meaningful argument. I can't even blame this shit on the goddamned Fates and their deep and abiding crack addiction.

"Fucking hell. Are there some kind of massive hallucinogen fields on the Other Side around here or some shit?" Without turning from where she'd removed his kneecaps and let his shins dangle by nothing but meat, Domnu said, "Rich Man's Port Fae fields." Big Johnson had scuttled around Domnu and Anundr until he got almost within reach of me. Before he got any closer, Domnu shot him a look, and he froze. The moment he took a knee pointed toward me, she returned her full attention to her grisly work.

"M'lady?"

"Yeah, Johnson?"

"Who is... Is... Is that really her?" I nodded.

"Yep. Live and in what passes for the flesh." He sighed, then grimaced. Somehow he conveyed the nuance of the emotion I'd felt so often myself when I realized how thoroughly unqualified I was for shit I'd been handed.

"Would that I were as cruel a man as my peers."

"Huh? Seriously? I don't think she gets off on this or anything. I don't think she gives a shit, she's just doing what I told her to do." He shook his enormous head.

"Oh, no. Not that, although her divine technique is awe inspiring. I meant that I wish I were a cruel enough man to ask you to have her leave him alive, ask you to leave this duel incomplete."

"Why?"

"Oh, that your Summon might stay at the conclusion of the duel. I would spend all my time upon my Green, wooing her with word and song and deed, all in hopes she might deign to notice me." Crazy fuck sounded like he actually meant all that shit. Honestly? I could relate. If you put Saffron on the Green standing next to some poor half dismantled asshole, I sure as shit would be ready and willing to spend a few eternities clowning around to get a laugh out of her.

I mean, shit, if she took a break from coding to watch me I sure as shit would jester it up for her. Get you a man who looks at you like Big Johnson looks at Domnu indeed.

"Uh... I wasn't lying when I said I don't really know how to Summon." He just looked at me, confused.

"I didn't technically use the 'Summon' spell. I... uh... I guess I convinced her to show up and do shit for me." His eyes popped a little, and he whispered out, "I don't understand how that matters, but if you could give me some pointers on how you did that?" Say what I would, the man was not shy about his inclinations.

"Oh, no. I meant as far as I know, she's not gonna go poof when the duel is done." He whimpered. This massive dude who managed to rock a name like Big Johnson without it being ironic, whimpered. Then asked, really politely, "m'lady, would it be possible for her to attend our musical contest?" I laughed.

"Sounds almost like you're gonna sing to her or some shit like that." He just stared.

"Holy shit, really?" More staring, maybe the slightest shrug. In the background, Anundr shrieked as Domnu erased the front half of everything pelvis and below, opening the innards up to the air. Never seen half of each testicle fall out of a dude's sack and dangle there. Never really want to again. Looked and sounded painful enough my goddamned ovaries shriveled in sympathy. I took a deep breath, focused on Big Johnson, and let it out.

"I'd actually been thinking about having her as a backup singer. Or, I dunno, maybe just handing the instruments and letting her sing." He laughed, each chuckle full of pain.

"Oh, that is cruel, m'lady. Setting me at odds with the most beautiful creature I have ever seen."

"I dunno, Johnny. She seems kinda like the kind of chica who likes a guy with enough spine to stand up to her and give her a run for her money, y'know?" Unfortunately, right about then Domnu decided to remove everything that connected Anundr to his spine. It dropped to the ground with a chunky splat, and the poor bastard's screaming got way wheezier.

"How the fuck is he still alive?"

"I removed his connection to his Mortality before I began." Right. I guess if you're the Big Bad of the whole goddamned universe, 'Laws of Physics' were more habits somebody else had, and 'Laws of Causality' were more like guidelines. I turned back to Big Johnson.

"I mean, you said six days, right?"

"Yes?"

"Okay. I think today's more or less shot, which goes for tonight as well. I think tomorrow night I've got something to do with my daughter, and that means tomorrow I want to rest up and make sure she takes a solid nap. I won't want to do anything the day after, because I suspect I'm gonna be running all the fuck over chasing her fearless hyperactive ass down. So that's not today, not tomorrow, not the day after.

You wanna do it the day after that, or wait another two days to give you some more time to work on your pickup lines? I mean, your act?"

"You will really do this to me, force me to strive against my Goddess on the field of honor?"

"Shit, Johnny, we all got our crosses to bear. I wanna win, too, y'know? But I'll make you a deal."

"Go on?"

"I'm not gonna, like, pimp her out to you or anything, because that would be skeevy as shit. But at the same time? I'm not gonna tell her to not respond to you. So, y'know, yeah, she's gonna be there on Team Tabitha, even if she's just lurking rhythmically to fuck with you and shit. In the metaphoric mess up your groove sense. But she'll be there, which means you'll have at least the length of your set to convince her to lurk rhythmically to fuck with you and shit in the literal sense."

I looked up and watched as he navigated my bullshit syntax and came down with two fully opposed yet firmly held convictions. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. The wheezing screams took on a whole new pitch and tone. I looked over to see bits of meat slipping, bit by bit, off something that looked more and more like the Harriet Cole exhibit at Drexel. Turned right the fuck back to Johnson immediately.

"No disrespect intended, seriously. To you. Or her, I guess. But if you've even been paying the slightest attention to what's going on over there and you're not shriveled up and running for the hills? You're a fuckin' lunatic." He shrugged.

"Life is, in the end, only darkness and pain. She is life in its purest form, to be adored in whatever way possible, m'lady."

"Fuck. You are absolutely a fuckin' maniac." I held out a hand to him.

"Absolutely my kind of fuckin' maniac. If you fuck up on the wooing, or succeed and still have any semblance of life or sanity left, we gotta sit down and have a beer or some shit. Battle of the Bands Thursday?" He smiled and nodded.

"Thorsday." He took my hand, shook solemnly, then nudged it around so he could do the lip knuckle brush thing. I mean, he really was gentle about it. I could have held my hand still with the lightest of pressure. I just... he seemed so sincere and sweet, I figured I'd get sad puppy eyes if I stopped him. Like kicking a kitten or some shit. I think we all know my opinion on 'kicking kittens'. So a moment later the screaming stopped, and I looked over to see that Anundr had not, in fact, left the mortal coil.

His eyes kinda twitched as his irises oscillated. Other than that, he had a brain, a nervous system exposed to the air, and a pile of meat underneath him. I sighed.

"Just fuckin' kill him already so I can go home and ogle my wife." She looked at me, shrugged, which activated jiggle physics in a way that had Johnson whimpering again, then gestured to the brain floating in the middle of the mess. It kinda de-rezzed, evaporating in a decreasingly chunky cloud. When it hit maybe half again the size it started, his nerves and eyes flopped to top the pile of meat. I shook my head, held out my hand, and after a moment of confusion she took it.

"See you Thursday, an hour after noon." Then I stepped us both to our private room in the Library. Before anybody gets any incorrectly inappropriate ideas, this was the one room I knew Menace absolutely would not be in. For one thing, even a normal human nose could detect that the room had been used as a fuck shack. Marie can work cleaning miracles, but frankly I think all three of us with access to the room found the slight nuance of sex in the air titillating.

Menace would, without doubt, spew out an endless stream of questions should she ever get a whiff of the place. Marie looked over at me, smiling. Then froze. Saffron made disappointed Saffron noise, then pushed herself up.

"You're home early, love, d, d, di, di, Domnu? Why is Domnu here. Why is Domnu on the Mortal Plane? Why is Domnu in our hideaway? Why is Domnu standing next to you?" The moment she went silent, she lay in Glowing Midnight, twisting about to bring herself up to kneel on the bed, glaring at the figure beside me.

"Yeah, she showed up when I was in the middle of un-Dragoning some of the people in the stands down in Norfolk. We had a discussion."

"Is there a reason she is not yet digesting in your belly as we speak?" I shrugged.

"Isnomi."

"WHAT?" I sighed.

"That's why she wanted to fly at night. She was looking for her grandmother."

"And you somehow thought it would be a good idea to bring her home?" I threw my arms in the air.

"It just kind of happened!" Marie and Saffron froze, then both of them collapsed laughing. I noticed the shadows moving toward them.

"STOP!" She turned to me.

"Why?" I looked her in the vaguely eye-shaped spots and said, "these two are family now. In-laws, at least. The one in black is Saffron, my Wife and High Priestess. The one remaining distractingly naked is Marie, your granddaughter's Godmother and my Concubine." Marie stuck her tongue out at me, and my train of thought slipped a gear at her teasing playfulness. Maybe Murder Mittens reacted to pants shitting terror not unlike I did, with snark and mass amounts of fuck it all? Had to look into that later.

"Also, if you hurt anyone in my family, I will rip you apart from inside out and hope our little Menace doesn't notice, or gives me credit for trying or some shit."

"Acceptable. Menace?" I shook my head.

"Isnomi's nickname. Because she is one." She nodded.

"Acceptable."

"Okay. So, you gonna adhere to the 'hands off family' rule?" Her blank gaze raked across all three of us.

"I already said your demand is acceptable. What of your siblings. Your other nephews? Your prohibition against killing family did not save my Sengann." I stood there, mouth hanging open for a second.

"He was a wannabe genocidal fuckstick. Also, he attacked me first." She cocked her head.

"Wannabe?"

"He wasn't even any fuckin' good at it. He just picked up Apollo's sloppy seconds." Watching a figure made of darkness who spoke with silence heave a sigh made my brain twist in uncomfortable ways.

"I understand. Do your family members meet your standards?"

"Uh... yeah? Not like I've got a lot of those, apparently? But yeah."

"Acceptable. What of the others?" I stared at her, but reading a face made out of shadow wasn't exactly at my skill level.

"From here on out, if they come say hi instead of trying to wreck my shit? We can sit down and talk. Maybe even have dinner or some shit. Marie makes a mean sushi plate."

"Yes." I glanced at her, and she wrinkled her nose at me as if to say, 'what? I'm right and you know it.' Domnu just repeated.

"Acceptable. Should you release me, I will inform them."

"Yeah. About that. You're gonna be staying with us a few days."

"She's what?" Saffron sounded a little iffy about the idea. I slumped, spun, and sat on the bed.

"Yeah. I've got to do some kind of musical competition against Jarl Johnson on Thursday. He's got a thing for Domnu, so I figure having her on stage with us can't help but fuck with him." Saffron draped herself over my shoulders.

"There are so many things in that statement that make my brain hurt that I'm going to ignore them all for now and discuss them with you later."

"Sure. I figure I want her to be a surprise for Menace on Monday, so she can hide in here until then." She flumphed down behind me. I turned to see her pointing a perfect petite pout at me. When I raised an eyebrow, she said, "I'm not really comfortable using the room for its intended purpose with your mother watching." I couldn't help it, I fell over laughing. Stress, I think.

"Oh, noes! The s3xx0rz might not be continuous!" Her pout got deeper for a moment, she pouted out, "ledger!" Then she fell over on top of me laughing as well. Marie draped herself over top both of us, purring and giggling.

"I do not understand? Who was harmed?"

"Nobody? That's why we're laughing?" Confused Domnu noises preceded her saying, "but... that makes no sense? Why laugh save to gloat? Are you threatening one another?" I couldn't help it.

"Oh, no! Not the ledger!" I barely got it out before all of us sorta melted into a jiggly pile of laughter. A moment later, as the three of us lay there laughing, we also lay in our bedroom. Saffron pushed herself mostly upright.

"She's likely to be a problem."

"You wanna tell Menace Grandma can't visit because Mom ate her because she was a handful?"

"Shit."

"Exactly."

"How are you controlling her, by the way?" I dropped my gaze to the floor. I really wasn't proud of what I'd done, now that I thought about it and had to explain it.

"Mimic literally shoved a hand... well, multiple tentacles... up her posterior regions. To the point where I can work her like a puppet if I have to."

"Can she fight you? Escape?" I shrugged.

"I dunno. I really don't want to not sleep for the rest of eternity though, so... maybe if she thinks she doesn't want to, she won't? But, like, while I'm paying attention? Not a fuckin' chance." Energy washed over me, like a cocaine laced energy drink.

"My Goddess is powerful beyond measure."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. No, really, I think this might help me stay up until she's convinced."

"Of course, my Goddess." She then shuffled herself around to kneel facing me, bowing down until she pressed her face into the bed, her arms outstretched toward me.

"I'm really not sure how I feel about that." I felt her smile when she thought, Of course you do. Energized.

"Fuck. You're right." Not today, Goddess. You need your edge to finish Norfolk.

"Okay. So I guess I just try and rest up for now?" That's probably for the best. I lay a hand on Saffron's back and turned to Marie.

"Uh... I had something to ask you." She perked up, attentive. At some point she'd put her Maid's uniform on this her. The one back in the room with Domnu still totally rocked the naked albino tiger look, and I couldn't bring myself to tell her to stop.

"What do you think about being my pet?" She got a really weird look on her face at that.

"Shit, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. But I know you like being our Concubine, even if I totally don't get why, and you sleep on the floor a lot... hell, 'your' bed is the floor in the office, and..." I shut the fuck up when she gently laid her claws across my mouth.

"Maybe." I nodded, and she slipped her claws to the side.

"Okay. I half thought you were, like, waiting for me to ask and shit, and I really don't want to disappoint you. So, y'know, I asked. If you want that? I'll totally play along. It'd make me super uncomfortable, but I want you to be happy aaand I just made you decide in favor of incipient petdom the moment I told you that, didn't I?" Marie, who'd started purring the moment I said the thought of her as a pet made me uncomfortable, grinned at me, leaned in to kiss me, and as our lips touched said, "Yes."

A few minutes of gentle, teasing kissing later, she pulled away and I whined, "why? Why is pushing my boundaries like catnip for you two?" From the other room where she'd resumed coding, Saffron called in, "because while you have a moral or two which you hold sacrosanct, most of your 'boundaries', and I use that loosely, because any time you have told us to slow down, stop, or hold back we have, double as erotica for you.

You take literal pleasure in having us push you past them, then are blissfully content when we leave you drifting in the place beyond."

"Well. Fuck." Marie shook her head and purred out, "Focus."

"Yeah, I know. Shit. What about you?" I prefer to explore my own boundaries in a much more controlled fashion. With you and Marie doing the pulling or pushing as needed, of course. Anyone else who tried to push past one would find themselves losing whatever they pushed with.

"What about you, Marie?" Marie just snorted while Saffron again called in, "Marie? Boundaries? Have you met Marie?" Marie just snickered and snuggled me. I decided I was just too fuckin' mentally tired to go any further with this and said, "hey Marie, you mind carrying me to your bed and Saffron watching with me until Menace gets home?"

Instead of answering, she picked me up, snuggled me like a fuckin' teddy bear, and carried me into the office, where she dropped into a tailor seat and cuddled me for the rest of the afternoon while I watched Saffron bend the Laws of Physics to her will. Says the woman holding the personification of the concept of privatives silent and still in our boudoir. We sat there until Marie got back with Isnomi.

"Hey, Menace!"

"Mama!"

"Guess what?" I glanced at the ceiling, only to realize the glider was nowhere in evidence. She noticed, and when she spoke, I could tell she'd reshaped her teeth to keep her diction way less sloppy than usual.

"Fly? At night?" I held up one finger.

"Not tonight." When her joyous smile faltered, I continued, "tonight you sleep on your normal schedule. Tomorrow I'm staying home with you, and after a big lunch you're going down for a nap. Because... tomorrow night?"

"Fly?" She sounded almost too gleeful to believe it.

"Yep. Fly. At night. And yes, you can look for you know who." I swear to God, all the bats in the tri-state area must be dead by now. Of course not. They're predators. Fair point. You seem remarkably chill considering who's in the room. I'm terrified beyond the capacity to express it. Sigyn was rocking back and forth, apparently catatonic, whispering, 'victory?' until I took her in my arms, where she now sleeps. Ah, shit. Sorry, Boss. Do not be. Just please, before she notices us? Assure her we are also family?

At any rate, I got a sudden burst of copper in the mouth when Domnu turned her head to face directly at Isnomi from multiple floors away through several layers of Academy. I cleared that me's throat and said, "tomorrow night, Mom. This is supposed to be a big happy surprise for her."

"As you wish, Daughter."

"Also, Loki and Sigyn may show up. They are also family. Loki has adopted me as his daughter, and Sigyn is his wife." I've never heard someone say 'acceptable' in a way my brain registered as 'bother' before, but Domnu did that shit right then. Back in the bedroom, I started helping Isnomi get ready for bed.

"Time for sleep, Menace. Time for sleep." She wound up sleeping on the floor cuddled with Marie and I, and eventually Saffron when she came to bed. By this morning I felt a little eepy, but upon waking Saffron surrounded me with kowtowing duplicates, and I swear if that shit isn't addictive it ought to be. Menace and I played toddler games all morning, then I held her while she slept through the afternoon. By the time the sun started setting, I'd gotten a little worried, what with the continued absence of glider.

Then, just as the sky outside our window turned fully blue-black, the armoire door opened. On top of mad crafting skills, my son's got really good timing.