Chương 326: Day Three Hundred And Twenty-Four

Dear Diary, Why is it that no matter how much of a reliable impact something has on me, I still can't reliably remember that impact, nor correctly predict that it will have the same impact the next time I do that shit again? Woke up this morning unable to move. That included a troubling degree of 'not breathing' as well. Okay, one lung worked fine, but they're meant to work as a matched set.

For what it's worth, my diaphragm, and we're talking the big breathing muscle here, not the little sperm trampoline, seemed okay, just a little stiff. Any flexing of my chest, though, made my body send me big old 'fuck you' signs. If that were the only problem I walked away from my corrective massage with, I'd just power through it somehow, but on top of that none of my little bits wanted to work. Y'know, fingers, feet, hands, joints. Something about being kicked across the Green like a soccer ball.

I asked him about it while he worked. Apparently anything that does enough damage will cause my Soul to compensate. With my Endurance where it is, I can compensate for a whole fuckton of problems, too. But every time I do that, my Soul gets a little rattier. When I get that shit realigned? All of a sudden I can feel all of that shit what I done fucked up. Worse, the rattiness has to heal as well.

So, like, even though the through and through wound up getting healed by our class, my Soul still wound up all fucked up and in need of repair. That's all to explain why I wound up lying very still this morning when I woke up early after a night of Marie yeets and aggressive subordination from Norfolk. Gotta say, not only is that shit weird as fuck, but it's also a little disturbing on a deeper level. Like, not the fact that some group of people is doing that, but the fact that I think I like it.

Mothra Returns kinda like it. Now, I get it might be confusing why that's a problem, but along with my allergy to formality and organization, I definitely don't need some eager legion of fanbois grabbing me up, forcing me to the top of the shit pyramid, and feeding me laxatives. Just... no. But that still wound up with me alert with nobody else doing much but snoring. Okay, our Marie-pillow seemed to never get bored or tired of stroking our hair.

I couldn't really tell if the minor pain of her touching bits that still hadn't quite healed up was, on balance, negated by the warm fuzzies of stroked headpats, but my jaw's stubborn refusal to cooperate left me with no option but to enjoy it anyway. Oh, no, forced to enjoy headpats! What will the other felines think of me? Okay, I know exactly what the other felines are likely to do to me when they realize I'm incapable of running away, and I'm surprisingly okay with it. No, I'm not talking about the sex part.

There is absolutely no surprise there, either in what they're gonna do or that I'm okay with it. It's the dress up. I'm not sure, but I think there's some deeply rooted human need to play with dolls, and if it's stifled when we're kids, it comes out with a vengeance when we're older. So I looked up at Marie and quietly thought, you mind making me decent and propping me up in the back of the classroom today? She grinned down at me and whispered back, "Maybe." I snorted. Not like I've got much of a choice.

Can't miss class, can't move. So, please help me out? She just nodded, grinning wider. Then she turned my head to face her, leaned down, which really emphasized the flexibility of her spine, and kissed me. Like, not a peck, or a smooch, or even our more normal tonsil hockey. Which I would have lost, what with my goalie being off the rink due to injury. Yes, you can absolutely lose at a kiss. Not that I ever had.

Okay, my mouth had been conquered by Marie's tongue before, but that was more an invading foreign power, not a game played by ice gremlins with knife shoes. A foreign power that decided to occupy my mouth and mouth-adjacent portions of my anatomy from the moment I asked for her help until we heard Saffron's snores turn into boot up sniffs. When she heard that, her tongue troops pulled out of my tracheal territory, then she head-bunted me before sitting back up.

I managed to flop over enough to face Saffron right before her eyes slid open.

"Good Morning, Kitten!" She smiled as her eyes opened, and she leaned forward to become the second foreign power to conquer Tabitha's tonsils in the past hour. Unlike our Maenad, she didn't feel the need to occupy the territory for long enough to elect a local government; when she pulled away she smiled and said, "someone's been kissing Marie this morning." I snickered, "hey, I'm still strung out from Soul Massage. I was totally an object she used to satisfy her oral... wait a minute."

I flopped my head around and looked up at Marie, who grinned down at me.

"Did you manage to massage my mouth back into working order?" She just grinned down at me, at which point Saffron said, "if she's gone to all the trouble to get you to the point where your mouth can move, it would be a shame to let it atrophy. I prescribe a thorough course of rehabilitative exercise." Then she kissed me again, although she took her time teasing me until I responded. With my mouth, at least, everything else still ached just a bit too much to move.

We lay there doing that, Marie occasionally adjusting the angle of my head, because like I said, human-adjacent people and dolls. Fuck, I wonder if that's why Gods do that shit? Maybe we ought to get Mister Kraken some playmates. Eventually Isnomi stirred, and we stopped and turned to watch her wake up. Okay, Saffron turned, I got turned, same difference. We paid proper attention to the cute, then got our rewards when she toddled down the bed to hug us each good morning.

Once the three of them got dressed, and I wound up getting dressed up by Marie, my magnificent Maenad picked me up and I got to be the one princess carried down to the Dining Hall. Okay, Menace got one too, because she pestered Saffron into doing it. Not that it took all that much; I think Saffron kinda wanted to be the one carrying me. She definitely could have been, but Marie got to me first. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Breakfast at the dining hall still consisted of corncakes and tortillas, although the former had a selection of fruit preserves and whipped cream available, and the latter had so many spring vegetables it really ought to count as some kind of inch thick omelet. No cheese though. I don't know what's up with having whipped cream and not having cheese, but I'm not gonna question it, especially given how my Kitten delighted in stealing my corncake from me despite Marie's best efforts to get it into me before she did.

"What the hell did you do to yourself now? Also, what the hell are you wearing?" Angel asked. I managed to shrug.

"I needed some work done to correct some less than optimal healing after all the shit that went down in Norfolk. Oh, and, uh, this is a sports bra, and I dunno if you saw the pants, but they're shorts. From a boys' school uniform."

"Boys' school? Is there something you need to tell us, Diaz?" I nodded solemnly.

"Yes. My Maid has bizarre fashion sense."

"No." Marie interrupted.

"No?"

"Exposure." She grinned so big I'm surprised she didn't have her tongue hanging out. After the laughter and food both ran out, she picked up Menace, Saffron scooped me up, and we walked up to Strategy and Logistics. Marie and Isnomi gave hugs and kisses when they parted from us on the stairs, Isnomi headed for a day of hang gliding with Marie. Marie, of course, followed us as well, scooping us both up about halfway along the corridor to the classroom.

"This is incredibly undignified," groused my Kitten.

"Yes."

"You will not do this in either Council chambers," she demanded.

"Emergencies." She pouted, even worse because with me still in her arms she couldn't fold her arms under her chest.

"Fine." As we stepped into the classroom Marie Co-Located all three of us to the Love Shack as well, holding Saffron next to the bed until she tumbled me into it. When Saffron looked up at her and asked, "not that I'm complaining, but why are we here again?"

"Rehab." I probably should have been way more scared by the way they looked at me, but we've already determined that my self-preservation got shot off when I got isekaied. Oh, no, I am the helpless object on which my Wives... shit, Wife and Concubine are going to satiate their unholy lust! Anyway, back in class Marie set Saffron down, who then sat me in the very front row of class, although thankfully all the way off to one side.

I figured out why when duBois started class by asking me, "so, Diaz, what's the status of Norfolk?" I could have been a class A Bitch and told him I'd already updated the Imperator, which I had in fact not done, but the class already had A Bitch, what with Cadet Karen Smith in residence.

"Uh, technically I own all their Battleships now. And their Lizard Boi Trolls. And their real estate. I think I might own some more ships than that, as well? Definitely am the Head Bitch In Charge of their military, so ownership notwithstanding I've got control of their ships and troops. Mostly."

"Mostly?" I shrugged.

"They don't do conquest or even warfare, really. They do Raids, almost entirely staffed by volunteer Raiders. So technically their troops heading to Calverton will be 'Raiding'." DuBois frowned.

"I'm not sure Calverton will like the sound of that."

"So don't tell 'em. We'll work on maybe getting something of a less haphazard command structure in place later, but right now we need all available fighters turning Undead into real dead in Calverton. I don't think it's unfair to let them cart off some loot afterward." Karen interrupted.

"The people of Calverton might not agree."

"Look, like I told them, if Norfolk carts off half the wealth in Calverton, the survivors will still have five times as much as they did before. I don't think it's unfair for folks from Norfolk to expect some kind of reward." She shook her head.

"So call it rewards instead of loot? Perhaps have them wait until the Undead are fully cleared before they begin loading it on their ships?" I rolled my eyes.

"Duh. Think up better things to call it, think up ways to make sure they don't cart off what the Calverton folks need to survive, maybe even think up some fair rules on who gets what so the Jarls don't hog it all. This isn't exactly rocket science." She blinked and shook her head.

"It's not what to the what now?" I sat there with my mouth open.

"Uh, it's not brain surgery?"

"I would hope not. Surprising capacity for basic Healing Magics aside, I can't see anyone trusting you with brain surgery." I dunno if she meant to insult me, but it just did not hit home.

"Holy shit no. I hope to hell not. Same as I wouldn't trust me with diplomancy."

"Don't you mean diplomacy?"

"I know what I said." That got a laugh out of the class, which duBois interrupted.

"So, for organizational purposes, do you have an Order of Battle for Norfolk yet?" I shook my head.

"No, sir. Don't honestly think they really have one. I'll be able to put one together in nine days though. That's when all the ships will be in harbor." He sighed.

"That's the best you can do?" I shrugged, then regretted it when my shoulders protested my continued use of their contested ability to move.

"I should have numbers on the Troll Legion and volunteer Raiders by next week. What with our guys just having done a bunch of rough shit, I was gonna suggest the Raiders be the ones to take an initial beachhead."

"You're suggesting we don't go overland with our troops?" I shook my head.

"They'll wind up walking through too much Undead Miasma. This way we can push it back from the waterfront as we go."

"Do they have the ships for that?"

"They can carry all their own plus some of ours, and with us no longer having to worry about Norfolk raiders, we'll be able to pull a lot more ships from New Amsterdam and Phileo. Hell, once we take the waterfront, Calverton has ships as well; worst case we come in waves." No, my phrasing was not influenced by Love Shack Shenanigans. Much.

"So... I suppose for today we can go over what we know of our own forces, how many we can ship down with enough food to last until the next shipment, and when we get the list of extra Norfolk and Calverton assets, we can adjust. Get to it, class." So they did. Kinda weird to me, a bunch of trainees doing all this administrative work, but then, most of it wasn't what I'd call 'command decisions'. It was all just, I dunno, accounting and math.

Not my favorite subjects, but I could follow the bouncing ball well enough, and other than occasionally asking me how I'd fuck up their plans if I were trying to do so, I just sat there and let the Smart People talk. Today mostly turned out to be a non-verbal day for me after that really loquacious start. Pretty good thing, what with how my jaw ached after just that one conversation.

By tomorrow I'd either be fine, or my jaw would fall off, as Kitten and Murder Mittens both enthusiastically took to making sure I did not get a single break from rehabilitative exercise of my jaw all day long. Good thing I can hold my breath a long time. Especially what with neither of them being in a position where they needed to come up for air.