Chương 363: Day Three Hundred And Sixty-One

Dear Diary,"When we love a person, we accept him or her exactly as is: the lovely with the unlovely, the strong with the fearful, the true mixed in with the façade, and of course, the only way we can do it is by accepting ourselves that way." - Fred Rogers, You Are Special: Words of Wisdom for All Ages from a Beloved Neighbor Yeah. I know that, sir. I really do. Well, the first bit. I get that the whole thing ought to be the way things are, the way we should want it to be, to strive for it to be, but...

I read something once online.

'You know that saying, "You can't love someone unless you love yourself first"? It's bullshit. But you - Oh god, I loved you so much I forgot what hating myself felt like.' I... I love my Murder Mittens, I do. She's so wifey that in my honest moments I'm not at all surprised that I wind up just lumping her in as 'wife' even though there's so many steps I want to take my time with. But Saffron? Oh, fuck. Oh, shit. Saffron just existing makes me forget how much I hate myself. I dunno. Maybe I can do better.

Maybe I can be better. Maybe I have to be, because maybe hating myself means I'm loving Saffron wrong, and she deserves to be loved right. Sorry, little bit maudlin. Murder Mittens and the fam have all been sleeping in Loki's cave since everybody cuddled up. Nobody's like, slipped into a coma or shit like that, they're all still snoring or breathing or whatever. Something about the cave, the way it fucks with time, I think they're all sleeping until they're all done sleeping.

Like, whatever little alarm that goes off in your head saying, 'oh, shit, I've got shit to do, I've got to be awake now!' is perma snoozed, so they'll wake up when they're good and rested, rather than when they feel like they're missing something. If they're not awake by Friday morning I'll wake them up, I guess. Hydration and shit. So much depressing shit ran through my brain yesterday as I stood there on the mast staring at the docks. It got even worse right around when the sun went down.

I mean, it really shouldn't. I'm a whole assed Deity of darkness and shit, right? I mean, Domnu is, which means I ought to have some of that going on. Like, when I channel my inner rage-moppet and stop time, it gets super dark, and apparently the only two peeps who clock that shit for real are me and her. The only ones I know of, at least. Maybe there are some others who do, but they just haven't bothered to come over and say anything.

Right after I collapsed the me in class back into the me on the mast, right before I collapsed myself back to just the one in the cave, I realized that without some kind of clock, I could totally wind up doing a Rip Van Winkle, only staying awake the whole time, which would suck. Yes, I know Rip Van Winkle, we had to read that back in Junior High. Apparently it's some kind of 'classic'.

At any rate, I looked around the cave and realized that everybody I really cared deeply about was right there, and I could totally just snuggle all of them and, fuck, maybe do some kind of Mana IV to keep them from going all mummified. Of course, Saffron actually did have shit she wanted to do, and some of it might be sort of time critical, and beyond that she's got that whole 'fast aging' thing going on. I have to figure out how to make a fuckin' afterlife.

I mean, yeah, Aiden seemed good with Helheim, and I guess I could talk with Hades about dropping some folks in with him. Hell, maybe I could give him a skylight too. I'm sure Persephone would like that. She's all into plants and shit, and they don't grow without light, right? What am I even thinking? I know plants don't grow right without light. That's basic biology. I mean, forgetting all the details about photosynthesis, sure, but plants need light. Nothing grows in the shade.

Hell, that's not even basic biology, that's a joke Dolly Parton made about her own waist size. Yeah, I think I've got a tendency to panic and get stupid, and it's worse when I'm on my own and have nobody to clock that shit and reboot my brain. Still, I decided on Friday Morning, and I'm letting the fam sleep until then. Any stupidity I come up with before then the world will survive. But no longer than that. No fast aging into decrepitude for my Kitten.

I don't need to be breaking her hips when we celebrate her birthday. That thought landed in my brain with the force of a nuclear weapon, and I Co-Located to the Infirmary.

"Hey, Sister?" She spun from where she'd been stretching herself backwards, popping upright with a blush already forming.

"Tabitha! Is... it's a little late..."

"Oh, shit, sorry. Were you headed to bed?" For some inexplicable reason she got even redder.

"That's not what I expected... but..."

"Look, I'm kinda having a panic attack at the moment, but that's not important right now. I need to know Saffron's birthday." A bunch of emotions rushed across Sister Siobhan's face, eventually settling on resignation.

"Ah. Well. Normally I'd say that's privileged information, but the two of you are married with a child, so I suppose I can help you out. Also, having a panic attack isn't 'not important'. Come here." I half staggered over to her desk, where she sat down and pulled down a big ledger and opened it up. She flipped through to the first empty pages, then carefully flipped back two pages.

"Here she is. Saffron Aetos, date of birth Door Twenty-Six. Four days from now, plenty of time for you to arrange any kind of celebrations." I let out a breath I'd been holding, leaned my ass against Sister Siobhan's desk, and as an afterthought said, "oh, hey, did you want to come to her birthday party?"

"Are you certain?"

"Yeah! Sure! The more the merrier, right?"

"I..." She shook her head.

"I'd be honored. Now, what was that about a panic attack?" I stepped away, shaking my head, but froze when she lay a hand on my forearm.

"Tabitha. It is my duty to care for your health. Please, allow me to do that?"

"I... I can't..." I didn't pull away. I couldn't step further, but I couldn't step toward her, either. We stayed there like that, her sitting with her hand on my arm, me standing frozen, paralyzed by a million tiny fears that I normally ignored, that got overwhelmed by the shit I dealt with on the daily that should have been terrifying. Right then something caught my eye where I stood atop the Black Dragon's mast. Lights. Lights in the water. All around the Black Dragon, as far as I could see.

"Sister?"

"Yes, Tabitha?"

"I'm going to take you somewhere. It does not count as our date, because Saffron would be upset if she missed that. Okay?" She lay her hand a little more firmly on my forearm. Not holding it, exactly, but more than just a simple touch.

"Are you sure you shouldn't be taking her, then?" I smiled down at her.

"I can show her tomorrow night, I think. She's sleeping now, and she needs it. But I want to share this with someone. I don't want to be alone. And I trust you." She smiled back up at me.

"Well then. Take me where you will." I froze again, then giggled. A moment later I dropped to sit next to her atop the mast. She gasped, looking out across the ever changing rainbow shining up from under the surface of the Bay. We sat there, just silently watching the show. As it got cooler, she slipped an arm around me and we snuggled up a little to share warmth as we watched. Eventually, right around midnight, she shuddered and tensed.

"What's up?

"Don't you..." She shook her head, then shuddered again.

"Do you see that? I'm not even sure I'm seeing anything, let alone what it is?"

"You mean the lights? Kinda what I brought you here to see." She elbowed me, then winced.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" I rolled my eyes at her, and she sighed and said, "no, not the lights. The shadows." I blinked, then looked again, watching. It took me longer than I'd liked to pick it out, and when I realized what it was, I realized why I'd had such a hard time seeing it, not to mention why she could see it when nobody else in the fleet had mentioned it. Massive bands of shadow swept across the Bay, clumsily mimicking the brilliant rainbow patterns in the water.

Appropriate choice of word, considering Sister Siobhan's spotting the shadows cast on the Mortal Realm by Mimic cavorting on the bay in Metaphoric Space. Cavorting over the dance floor the Bay had become in the night. I still have no idea why nobody'd told me about that shit. Then again, they could put it together as well as I could, if they were close enough to get a better view of the dancers under the water. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Don't worry about it." She looked up at me.

"Don't worry about it? Really?" I smiled and gave her a sideways hug, enjoying the warmth and the feel of her robes against my bare skin.

"No, really. I'd say 'it's not dangerous', but that would be a lie, and I made a promise to myself a long, long time ago not to lie to somebody I'm planning on having sex with." I enjoyed how the rainbow lights turned her blush all kinds of funny colors, then said, "it's dangerous, but I promise you, you are in no more danger here than you would be in the Infirmary."

"Planning to have sex with?" I laughed, rubbing the back of my head with my free hand.

"I mean, yeah, I'm not assuming you'll say yes, and if our date goes horribly I might not even ask, just run away and hope you don't regret it so bad you won't do the Infirmary thing for me any more, but I'm trying to be more honest with myself. Even when it makes me feel pretty shitty to admit it."

"Why would you feel bad about that?"

"Like. Duh. Married?" She smiled up at me.

"Didn't we have this conversation? None of those involved would be hurt by you... um... succeeding in winning my favors? From what you said, the others are more fascinated by the idea than you are." I stared at the gargantuan shadows languidly rushing across the sky while I thought about that. Eventually, words leaked out of me.

"No. No, I don't think they are. I mean, shit, yeah, Marie would do every living thing in the Academy given half a chance and a bottle of ouzo, and I suspect you'd be pretty high on the list, but that might be my personal bias. Saffron has a thing for blondes. But no, I think if I weren't interested, I'd never have talked to you about it. I sure as shit wouldn't have agreed to a date."

"Which this isn't," she interrupted.

"Nope. Because even if I've got a massive amount of guilt about it, irrational guilt according to everybody I trust, which might be why I can function despite it, if this were a date your virtue would not last the night if I had anything to say about it." She batted her lashes at me.

"Didn't we talk about that? As anything that passed between us would be chaste, my virtue would remain intact." I laughed again.

"Okay. Virginity? Ability to honestly say, 'I have not had sex'...?" I waited until she opened her mouth to reply, then cut her off.

"A dozen times in one extended encounter?" Her reply devolved into a wheeze. After coughing a bit, she laughed and said, "that's a lot."

"Too much?" It took her three tries to say, "I didn't say that." I nodded solemnly.

"So. How much is too much?"

"Tabitha!"

"I'm too much now? Well, shit, that puts a damper on..." She silenced me with her fingers on my lips, blushing.

"I didn't say that, and you know it. I wondered now and again how you managed to seduce both Saffron and a Maenad, but I think I'm beginning to see." I shrugged.

"I mean, I love her to pieces, not literally despite how much she bugs me about it, but it's not like doing the nasty with a Maenad is a huge challenge." She shook her head.

"Not... not fuck." She blushed at even saying the word, but soldiered on.

"Seduce. She's moved in with you, hasn't she? Sleeps with you? Changes in front of you?"

"I mean, sometimes 'gets changed by us'. That's kinda fun, really. She blushes almost as easy as you do. Easier, for some things." Sister Siobhan just nodded.

"Sex with a Maenad is easy, as you've said. Just wait for a Revel and be brave or stupid. But trust? The trust of a Maenad is no easy thing for any but a Maenad to earn."

"Oh." I paused.

"I guess. But I still gotta know how much is too much?"

"Dare I ask why?"

"Well, I mean, if you tell me three hundred and fourteen times is too much, then I gotta accept your boundaries and stop at three hundred and thirteen, right?" I watched as she sat there trying to process that. While she did, I came to the very odd realization that at some point, every body surrounding me in the cave had started purring. Not awake, not even close, just vibrating me enough to shake my bones.

Eventually Sister Siobhan worked her way through her mass of fatal exception errors and tugged gently at The Dress.

"Tabitha?"

"Yeah?"

"Do I even want to ask what it is?" She nodded to the sky. I thought about it a second. When my answer fell into place, I took a deep breath.

"I don't think you do. But I want you to. I might need you to. But," I held my fingers over her lips not unlike what she'd done to me.

"The answer will probably terrify you. So right here, right now, I'm absolving you of any duty to me about this," I waved my hand at the sky, at the sea.

"If you're curious, if you want to know, go ahead and ask, and know that you are..." I closed my eyes, took a deep breath.

"No less safe than you would be in the Infirmary, or anywhere else in the world. You're as safe as I can make you, whether you ask or not." I slipped my fingers down, dropped my hand to my lap. Without a pause, before my hand even hit my thighs, she asked, "what is it?"

"She." That stopped her, but to her credit, even with her shivering adding the subtlest possible vibrato to her voice, she asked, "she?" I nodded to the sky, "that's m..." I caught myself, hoping she'd take my hesitation for fear of my own. Well, fear for myself, because right then and there I sure as shit had some serious fear about Sister Siobhan suddenly seeming as much a snack to Mimic as she did to me.

"That's Mimic. In M-Space. In the Realm of the Gods. She's dancing." As Sister Siobhan's jaw dropped, I nodded to the light show coming from beneath the surface of the Bay.

"Dancing with her Kraken." I held her while she brought her fear under control.

"And yet I'm as safe here as I would be in the Infirmary." I nodded.

"I'm not safe anywhere, am I?" she whispered. I pulled her into a hug and stroked her hair.

"You've gotten Her attention. But..."

"But?"

"She likes you. Yeah. You're in danger, maybe, because she can play a little rough, and doesn't always remember that Mortal people have limits, and she could absolutely hurt you without meaning to..." I trailed off, trying to hold off from telling poor Sister Siobhan shit that would break her to hear. That might chase her off, no matter how much she deserved to know. Because I suddenly really, really wanted her to know, but wanted her more than I wanted her to know.

"Hurt me?"

"Not exactly on purpose."

"Not exactly?" I nodded.

"Yeah. She might play too hard and hurt you. Or she might not be able to hold back and swallow you, Soul and all, like a tasty treat." I might have licked my lips a little at that.

"But her goal isn't, will never be to hurt you. And..." Sister Siobhan blinked, lost at sea, desperately looking for a ship, a lifeboat, a hunk of wood, anything.

"And?"

"She likes you. She would be... furious... if anything happened to you." The Sister took a deep breath.

"Even if She did it?"

"Yeah." I smiled, chuckling.

"Even more reason for you to make up your mind." If she felt some kind of way about me chuckling after talking about her Dark Fatassness eating her Soul, Sister Siobhan managed to get control of that shit fast.

"About?"

"Is it three hundred fourteen? Seventy Two? Sixteen sweet sudden stops for Sister Siobhan? How many is too many? Inquiring minds want to know." If her laughter had more than a trace of hysteria, I couldn't blame her.

"I... I guess I'll have to let you know? But, and I cannot believe I'm saying this, my Lord Canta has a request?"

"A request." She nodded.

"Not, like, a demand, or a command, or commandment from on high?" She shook her head, suddenly quiet.

"No. He's seen Artemis. I do not know what that means, but he would not presume to command you, Tabitha Diaz. My Patron Deity respectfully asks something of you. Why is my Patron afraid of you, Tabitha?" I smiled, shaking my head.

"Nah, he's got no reason to be."

"He thinks he does." I shrugged.

"Is he listening?" She nodded.

"He hears with my ears, sees with my eyes."

"Well then." I turned her head so I could whisper in her ear.

"He is as safe as you are. Because he is your Patron. Because he is the Deity you choose to worship. Because he's the one who empowered you. And that matters, because," I paused until the tiniest interrogative whimper squeaked through her lips, "I like you too." I leaned backward, my hand clamped to her shoulder the only reason her lips didn't follow me as I did. That interrogative squeak had definitely become an entirely different sound. Frustrated hungry Sister Siobhan noises for the win.

"Please." I shook my head.

"Nope. Saffron's not awake."

"Wake her?"

"She needs her sleep. So you don't want me to wake her either." I got to watch the hilarious sight of Sister Siobhan beating her fists against her knees as she kicked her feet, throwing the biggest tantrum she could while sitting on the crosspiece of the mast.

"I had no idea you could be that much of an utter bitch! Oh, sweet Canta I'm sorry."

"Nah. I'll be disappointed if I don't get you to say that at least once."

"Well, now I've said it." I shook my head.

"Nah. I mean in amongst everything else I make you scream." She wheezed again.

"Oh. Oh, that is so not fair. So not fair at all. Wait..."

"I mean, sure, I'll wait. What for?" She smiled up at me, suddenly serene.

"I just realized two things. First, since you've convinced yourself that nothing will happen between us tonight, you are..." she paused, blushing.

"Ridiculously seductive. A few moments ago I would have thrown myself at you had you not stopped me." I nodded.

"Good thing, too. I don't think we could do anything up here without involving the Black Dragon herself," I flicked a fingernail against the mast, "and Saffron would definitely be pissed if she's not involved in deflowering my ship." Sister Siobhan wheezed again, then chuckled.

"Yes. Well. Be that as it may, my other realization should leave you far less smug."

"Me? Smug? Now? Nah."

"You are absolutely smug right now, and have been looking so since the moment you stopped me."

"Wait'll you see me after you're done screaming." I gotta say, she was right. I was absolutely having fun with this now that I'd decided there would be no consequences. I'm not sure what that said about me. Maybe that I liked playing the game more than collecting the prizes? When she stopped making Sister Siobhan squeals, she said, "at any rate, if this is not a date, and you aren't trying to seduce me now, I'm not sure I'll even survive whatever you do consider a date, and I am absolutely looking forward to it."

I sat there with my mouth hanging open for a bit.

"Oh. Shit." She laughed and leaned into me. We sat there and watched Mimic dance with her Kraken late into the night. One way or another, Sister Siobhan had managed to get me past my panic attack. Right around when the Moon hit mid-sky, she yawned and said, "this has been lovely, but I think I need to get home to sleep. Will you be okay?" I nodded, put an arm around her, and stepped her back to her chair.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I will. Thanks, Sister."

"As I've said before, any time, Tabitha." Before I could collapse back to myself, she continued with, "but, before you go?"

"Yeah?"

"You... you giggled at me before you took me down to see that. As you did, really." I thought about it, remembered, and giggled again.

"Oh. Oh, yeah. That."

"Were you laughing at me?"

"Not... not exactly? More at what you said, and my first thought in response." She shook her head, obviously too tired to remember her own exact words.

"What did I say?" Trying not to Mimic her voice, I said, "Take me where you will." She blinked owlishly and, after a moment's thought, asked, "where else would you have taken me?" I definitely Mimicked a certain Grin just then.

"On your desk."