Chương 366: Day Three Hundred And Sixty-Four

Dear Diary,"Love conquers all difficulties, surmounts all obstacles, and effects what to any other power would be impossible." - William Godwin Still have no idea what I'm going to get Saffron for her birthday. I mean, yeah, there's all the party preparation, and I've got that one kinda personal 'gift', but that's not exactly something she can wear around her neck or keep in a pocket or some shit like that. I mean, hell, we don't even have cameras, or I'd fuckin' have Marie take some glamour shots and shit.

Hell, even straight up pics taken in the act; she could keep them in her wallet or in a locket or something. Yeah, my instincts are screaming at me 'but what if somebody sees them or something', but let's face it, after what I did with Ericson, that ship has fuckin' sailed. Speaking of ships sailing, after spending Saturday night aboard, apparently she had one of her going through the Black Dragon with a Marie by her side, testing out what worked on a purely mechanical basis.

Well, what we could force to work, anyhow. It takes her a bit, but Marie can actually raise the anchors. I think it's mostly a leverage thing; it's meant to be done in an emergency by a crew of guys, and there was only one Marie cranking at things. The ammo hoists can be moved manually, which just kinda makes sense. Same with the turrets and the actual guns themselves, although in all three cases I'm pretty sure it's like a car with power steering with the engine off.

You've got to manhandle shit without power assist or even any real mechanical advantage, and you might actually be breaking some shit, but you can do it. I can even kinda see why some of the shit is like that; if you're a big assed target in the middle of the ocean, and for whatever reason your power is out, but you've still got hate to throw down range, you're gonna want to be able to, y'know, aim that shit, otherwise you might as well just dump it overboard and hope it floats the right way.

Of course, Saffron and I could both be wrong about whether any of those things were designed to be moved by muscle power in an emergency. It's not like any human from the world of my birth had the ability to just shove their entire arm through an inch thick steel plate like it's fuckin' aluminum foil. Marie might just be breaking shit. Obviously there's a lot of shit that's not meant to be powered, like the doors.

Even the big ones between sections of the hull are just big solid fuckin' metal doors with those round wheels on them to lock them shut. Apparently those aren't a thing on ships here and now. Not, like, metal doors, but bulkheads that separate parts of the ship so even if one part floods, the rest stay buoyant. I think Svart might have made a mess in his fuckin' shorts the first time he grokked that.

For the first time in Europan and Atlantean history, somebody other than the English is gonna have the most advanced ships around. Svart designed Odin's Triumph and Odin's Pride Loki's Prize, and I think he still felt some kinda way about me calling them big sailboats. He's also more or less taken over the royal docks, which might include drydocks, and definitely include places to build big fuckin' sailboats. Only now with compartmentalization and maybe even some kind of power other than big bedsheets.

If Saffron can figure out how stuff works well enough to make it go or reproduce it, I have no doubt Svart will be including that shit in his designs. He's already conned Admiral Pesce into a few late night bull sessions about how, uh, I don't remember the whole thing, but something about using a steering wheel instead of a stick?

Yeah, that shit's apparently a state secret, but Norfolk is part of the Alliance now, and Saffron's been pretty fuckin' tyrannical about every City in the Alliance being an equal partner, militarily. After showing up in my full frontal gladiator outfit atop Black Dragon' s mast yesterday, I spent the day doing cat things. Y'know, 'I meant to do that'.

I might feel some kinda way about every fuckin' person in the Alliance Armed Forces knowing exactly how my hair grows south of the border, but I sure as shit wasn't gonna let them know I cared. If Ericson was a bigger asshole than Gregor, and he got to wave his fuckin' club around with no better excuse than being Big Mad and Painted Blue, I could flash the world and have it be a Them Problem.

Marie and Saffron, beautiful Souls they are, backed me up without me saying anything; when we all stepped across to the docks to talk with Olga, Hargreaves, and Swanson, they showed up with their armored bits on. Gotta hand it to my son, Marie's fancy useless armored bits looked just as good added to her copy of Glowing Midnight as they did on her Maid's Uniform. We wound up doing a fuckin' troop review. I got to give a speech I don't even remember the details of.

I'm pretty sure nobody else does, either, although in their case it was because 'holy shit, tits, holy shit, hoo hah, holy shit, scars, scars, scars' rather than the constant Murder Mittens snickering punctuated by gales of silent laughter from Saffron every time I forgot myself and started making big wavy motions with my arms, which made six thousand odd sets of eyes bobble as they followed the bouncing of my boobs.

Then I had to do the whole fuckin' shit show all over again, because I didn't pull the troops off the perimeter or pull in the active Killer squads just to watch me give a speech. So I had to give them an encore by special unanimous request. Then I had to do another from the deck of the Black Dragon, where the Navy guys still aboard ship could see me. Like, somewhere between ninety and a hundred eighty minutes of pure happy sappy go team bullshit spouted, and I don't remember one fuckin' bit of it.

Maybe I was in some kinda fugue state. I know that after I yoinked one each of them back to the Love Shack in the middle of the first speech, Saffron had Marie pin me in her lap so she could stare right in my eyes and quietly lecture me about how I needed to focus on the brave men and women fighting to liberate Calverton. All while fuckin' laughing her ass off inside my head.

Of course, I cannot adequately describe how I felt after that third speech, with cheers echoing over the fuckin' Bay from every god blessed ship in the fuckin' fleet, when the Saffron in the Love Shack, who'd had Marie pinning me in place all day, lay a hand on each of my temples, pulled me in to kiss me on the forehead, and said, "I am so proud of you, my love." I kinda melted right there and then. Possibly with extreme melty side effects.

Definitely stopped all my struggling to wriggle free of Marie and have my very pointed way with a certain Kitten. Y'know, it just now occurred to me that I must have realized they were right. Not like anything can bind me when I don't want to be bound. Of course, while the part of me that still looks in the mirror and expects to see a vaguely dumpy brown girl is still curled up in a corner weeping or some bullshit, two things surprised me.

Less surprising, this morning when I checked in with the command staff, they tell me morale is at an all time high throughout the whole fuckin' Expedition. More surprising, no matter what part of my memory I poke at, no matter how much I try to find even one set of eyes looking at me disrespectfully, I can't think of a single fuckin' one. Oh, ogling happened, sure. If lust was actively harmful to Undead, I'm pretty sure we'd have burned a few thousand more with each speech. Yeah, we.

While the part of me indoctrinated by the whole 'sex bad' Puritanism of the world of my birth curled up in a corner, most of me kinda sorta reveled in that shit. I think I get why rock stars who do a lot of stadium concerts can start thinking they're Gods and shit. Probably doesn't help that I am, in fact, a Goddess, and that shit was absolutely worshipful. A really randy kind of worshipful, but not disrespectful worship.

No, despite impulses from Her Eternal Dark Fatassness, I will not be pulling a ten thousand car train tomorrow. Even if Saffron asks real nice. I've got shit to do. I can't believe I said that with my own mouth. Am I growing up or some shit like that? Weird. Anyhow, Mimic Dreams included chibi-Chef Marie slowly lowering chibi-Chef Saffron into the maw. Gently, with the sous chef squad layering in the shrimp and beans around her like cushions. Weird as fuck.

Also weird that the fattest of M-Space asses has now decided the docks are okay to plant parts of her ass on. Not, like, actually sitting there or anything, but kinda propping her ass up like you do when you're trying to get somebody's attention despite the fact that they're busy doing something else, so you just let the edge of the desk push the squishy part of your ass up into maximum pertness positioning. Not like I can do that any more, but still.

Today I wound up fully on point when it came to my 'getting ready for Ultimate Saffron Birthday Bash' tasks. I almost screwed up, because despite a year of dealing with 'Monday Night' starting at sunset on Sunday, I still thought I had another night before Saffron's birthday officially started. Thankfully Marie and Jon are absolutely on point when it comes to stupidly simple shit. When Marie and I hit the Black Dragon's mast, I turned to her.

"Hey, Marie, I need your help with part of Saffron's birthday gift. Some clothing..." I shot her the imagery I'd snitched from Saffron's brain yesterday.

"Can you do the soft bits of that? And maybe get smith Jon to do the rest?" She looked at me, one eyebrow arched, but I had a completely unfair card to play, and for Saffron's birthday, you know I played that shit.

"Please, wifey?" She whimpered and blushed a little, and I continued with, "I promise, I have not forgotten about you. Wait... when is your birthday, anyhow?" She frowned and, after a moment, said, "Calendar."

"Oh, shit. You predate the fuckin' modern calendar?" She frowned, and after a second I appended.

"Fuckin' hell, you predate calendars?" She shrugged.

"So, they just weren't a big thing where you were from, when you were born? Or... no... people have always cared about planting crops and shit. But... dates and months?" She nodded.

"Holy fuck." She just grinned down at me.

"Literally." I rolled my eyes.

"We can take care of that after Saffron's birthday, okay?" The next moment one of me stared up at the ceiling of the Love Shack as Marie's face occluded it.

"Or we could take care of that now, so long as you can guarantee me that shit I showed you and at least three big meals full of goddamned sticky sweet shit for our Saffron?" Her brow furrowed.

"Four."

"Four?" She held up one finger.

"Breakfast?" She nodded. Second finger.

"Lunch?" Another nod, another finger.

"Okay, third is dinner, but what's fourth?" She booped my fuckin' nose as she said, "Vlickies."

"Oh." I smiled up at her.

"Have I told you today how much I love you, Murder Mittens?" As she made it abundantly clear that showing was better than telling, I Co-Located up to the Inter-City Council Chambers. Saffron spotted me immediately and said, "Champion Diaz? Is anything amiss?"

"Uh, I need to talk to you, just a little privately?" I nodded to the door and held out a hand. She frowned, but took my hand and let me lead her out the doors of the Council building. Meanwhile, the moment her back was turned, I Co-Located to her spot and put one finger to my lips. The moment she was out of the radius, I popped up a Filtration Ward set to stop sound, then said, "okay guys, Tomorrow's the Imperator's birthday. She's taking the day off to celebrate with family and friends.

If you guys want to do something public, you can have her for an hour after lunch." A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Lenny raised an eyebrow.

"Don't you think she ought put in an appearance with the Army? Or in the other Cities?"

"Fine. Each of you can set up something for an hour after lunch in your City. You find a way to tell Marie," I nodded to where Murder Mittens stood just behind and to the left of where Saffron normally stood, "where you want her, and I'll make sure she gets there. Otherwise, I guess all of you are invited to her party as 'friends of friends' or 'family of friends' and shit." Mrs. Driver immediately squeed a little and said, "I'd love to!" George smiled and said, "if you're sure, I'd like to as well."

Lenny just sighed and said, "I assume I am the reason for your 'family of friends' comment?"

"No, that was mostly the Drivers, but yeah, I guess you qualify too."

"Then I shall attend. I suppose the same rules as my son's wedding apply?" I nodded.

"Yeah, that'd probably be for the best."

"Anybody else?" Weyson and McCann both shook their heads, declining politely. Ophelia just snorted. At least she didn't have the gall to say 'as if' or some shit like that.

"Cool. I'll be by to pick you up before it really gets into full swing." Outside the building, the moment we cleared the doors I swept Saffron off her feet, pinned her against the wall, and kissed her. The kiss lingered maybe a minute after I'd finished and left the council chamber, but fuck it, wife kissing is important business, way too important to cut it short. When we finally pulled away from one another, she raised an eyebrow and asked, "so, what did you need to talk to me about?"

I closed one eye and scanned the wall above her head with my other for a bit before saying, "that just about covered it." She laughed, wrapped her arms around my neck, and pulled me in for another kiss. When she let me up and wriggled to be put down she said, "well, let that be my considered reply to your very important communique, my Attack Dog."

"Woof." I walked her back in and, as she started the meeting back up, stepped to Loki's cave.

"Hey, Dad." Loki flopped back onto his bed, wheezing a little, laughing a little too.

"Good Morning, Tabitha. I take it you need something badly enough to interrupt?" At that point I glanced over to where Sigyn leaned against the wall. She looked over her shoulder and smiled.

"Good Morning, Daughter." I have some class. I managed not to say, 'what are you doing, step-mommy' in my best, 'holy shit dat ass' voice. Instead I nodded politely, said, "hi, Mom!" then looked back to Loki and said, "hey Boss, can you contact whoever is looking out for Hilde? I need to get in contact with her. Kinda urgent. Like today." He frowned.

"Is something wrong?" I shook my head.

"Nah. I got an idea, and it's time critical, but... nothing's exactly wrong." As he tilted his head, I segued into my other convo topic of the day and said, "can you two come to Saffron's birthday party tomorrow? I'm sure it'd mean a lot to her." The moment I mentioned birthday, the confusion evaporated from his face.

"Of course, Daughter. Hilde is with High Priest Pesce at the moment, helping clean my Temple in Newark. Did you need a guide to her?"

"Yeah, kinda." A hand grasped mine, and I stepped forward. Antony Pesce stood there in his copy of The Dress, arms akimbo, belligerent look on his face.

"What you need wit Hilde?" I shook my head, hands down.

"Oh, hey, nothing bad, just checking in to be sure everything's okay." I saw a flash of white-blonde hair behind him, and Co-Located behind her with my Blend all the way up.

"Hey, Hilde, everything okay?" Her eyes fixed on the me with Antony between us, she said, "yes, High Priestess! Did... did you come to collect me?" She looked really cute in the kid's version of The Dress that I'd seen on Ophelia's little sister Ora before.

"Nah. Just making sure everything's going well for the Imperator's favorite cutie." She frowned.

"I thought... thought I'd displeased her." I shook my head, and something about that softened Antony's grimace.

"Nah. If anything too much the opposite, but she's too nice a person to let herself take advantage of you."

"What if I wanted you... her to... take advantage of me?" I stepped forward, Antony getting out of my way as I reached out and lifted her chin with one finger until she looked me in the eyes. As I did, the Blended me stepped up behind her, lay a hand on her, Mimicked her, then collapsed back into me.

"You're healthy enough now that you wouldn't be doing it for a good meal, but you've still got some growing to do before you know if you really want to, or if you're just reflexively jumping at the most powerful people you can see to protect you." She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything I shook my head and said, "when you are absolutely certain that you could survive telling the Imperator herself to fuck off if she did something you didn't like, you have my personal invitation to shoot your shot."

I glanced at Antony as I said, "fair?" She looked hella pouty, but groused out, "fair." More importantly, Antony nodded. Then Hilde got a mulish look and glared at me as she said, "that shot might not be at her." I did the jazz hands thing and said, "oh, no! Not a cute chica trying to get into my nonexistent panties!" Then I hit her with my most intimidating leer and said, "just know, I share everything with Saffron and Marie."

I knew Antony was doing a good job when she straight up copied my jazz hands and said, "oh, no! A Maenad and the most powerful woman in the world as bonus prizes!" I bumped my fist into Antony's shoulder, nodded to Hilde, and stepped to Lancaster House. Oscar stood in the middle of the second floor dining room, coordinating cleanup, or setup, or whatever. I'd kind of lost track of time.

"Hey, is Larry around?"

"Heir Lancaster is in class," after a barely perceptible hesitation, he continued with, "as is Heir-Consort Lancaster-Obol. It is not their habit to return home for lunch, but they normally do so for dinner. Would you like to leave a message, or return then?" I thought about it for a second.

"They eat lunch in the Dining Hall at the Academy?"

"So I'm given to understand." I shook my head.

"I'll catch them there then." Then I thought of something.

"Oh, hey, we used the bath in the suite we'd been using the other day. I hope that's okay?" He nodded.

"I'll have it seen to, if Marie has not done so already?"

"Oh, no, I... I kinda wanted to make sure it's okay we used it?" He didn't roll his eyes, but I got the impression that he was very carefully not doing so.

"I see no reason the Imperator, her Consort, her Heir, and their Maid shouldn't make use of the bathroom in the Imperator's Suite."

"Oh... oh! Really? Cool then! Thanks!" I stopped.

"Oh! The reason I stopped by was kinda to ask Larry if it was okay to use the dining room here for the Imperator's birthday party tomorrow. Do you think he'll mind?" I finally got to see Oscar with something other than affected ennui on his face.

"I'm sure he'll be amenable. If you have no further need of me at this time?"

"Nah. Thanks for your help, Oscar!" He didn't reply; he'd already turned to stalk off, barking orders at the rest of the staff. I stepped to the Dining Hall just as the Maids opened it. Students streamed in, and I collapsed the Saffron and I who'd just left Advanced Healing Studies back to the Love Shack. She looked at me, glanced at the me on the bed with Marie, and said, "someone's feeling particularly affectionate today."

"Hey, I love my wives. Wife and Concubine. Wife and wife-to-be?" She smiled at me as we both enjoyed watching Marie blush.

"Wouldn't that just be 'fiancée'?" I shook my head solemnly.

"Not until we've asked her, and she's said yes." The me on the bed grabbed Marie's left hand and held it out, fingers splayed.

"See? No rings. Not even one. So not fiancée yet."

"So aren't you being a little presumptuous with 'wife-to-be'?" Marie pulled her hand away, folded her arms across her chest, and said, "Yes?" Both of me grinned my most predatory grin at Marie and said, "I stole a Soul from Artemis, I stole a City from Sengann, I stole a fuckin' Battleship from an entirely different world. I want one particular Maenad and no force in the world is gonna stop me from stealing that fuckin' Maenad."

Then while one of me went about the Serious Business of making sure that adjective was, in fact, correct in every sense of the word, the me down in the Dining Hall watched as the Cadets filed in. I got a little bit of a shock as, while the Barbie Brigade I'd never met wandered over to their old table with some other kids with tailored uniforms with odd colored nametags, Lancaster, Rider, Rosen, and Carruthers all settled in at the ROTC table like they belonged there.

After a moment I realized they'd all taken the same spots they did when we'd been on the Expedition together. Lancaster spotted me first and waved to the end of the table opposite him.

"Commander! Long time no see! Have a seat!" I kinda seized up inside.

"Ah, shit. It has been a while, hasn't it?" Then I remembered something.

"FUCK! I specifically signed up for Intermediate Heroics to spend some time with you guys, and I don't think I've been to class once this fuckin' Season." Everybody started laughing, and Angel snorted out, "classic Tabitha." I shook my head.

"Yeah, but I've missed you guys. I gotta have somebody remind me about important shit like this. Fuck! That reminds me. Important shit!" I paused until Bill said, "yes?" I looked at Larry. Mostly. Okay, I looked at Bonnie, who was glorying in her public role of arm candy, like she was wont to do.

"Do you two mind if we use your Dining Room for Saffron's birthday party tomorrow?" Like I knew she would, Bonnie whispered in Larry's ear. He stifled his smile and, artificial pole look on his face, said, "only if absolutely everyone at the table is invited."

"Duh. Kinda the other reason I'm here and she's not at the moment." Fred looked around the table at that and asked, "huh. Where is she right now, anyway?" I just grinned like the cat who had stolen every ounce of cream in the Dairy farm. Then, just like everybody else at the table, broke down laughing when he blushed and said, "oh." He mock glared at all of us and growled out, "I'm not used to dealing with people who casually walk around in two places at once." I shook my head.

"If she can walk, I'm not doing my job right." That got them all laughing again, even Raven, and I nodded and said, "okay, guys. I'll try to make it down here for lunch starting Tuesday, and if I'm not in class on Thursday, I'd consider it a personal favor if one of you got one of the Maids to tell Marie to drag me over there. But right now I've got one more errand to run, and I'm not sure how long that one's gonna take, so I'll see you guys tomorrow!"

I stepped into M-Space, because my comment about stealing Battleships had got me thinking. While most of me paid attention to paying attention to wifey and wifey-to-be, along with scanning the skyline of Calverton for red flags, the me in M-Space scanned the world of my birth, scrying for something. Not long before sunset I found it. So simple. Nothing at all compared to seventy thousand tons of metal. So I stole a roll of wrapping paper and another of cellophane tape too.

Then my newfound maturity and wisdom kicked in and I stole a gift bag as well. Just before sunset I hopped over to the command center on the docks. All three of the commander types were in Swanson's office when I swanned in.

"Hey, guys, would it fuck up our operational pace if we took tomorrow off? Like, everybody?" Swanson looked at me.

"What's the occasion?"

"The Imperator's birthday." They all stared at me like I'd grown another head. Right before I gave it up as a bad deal, Hargreaves spluttered out, "why didn't you tell us sooner? How are we to arrange a proper feast?" The me on the mast looked up at Murder Mittens.

"Wifey-to-be, could you maybe Co-Locate a feast down here tomorrow for the troops to celebrate Saffron's birthday?" She frowned down at me and, booping me on the nose, said, "Obey." As the sun touched the horizon, I looked at the command staff and said, "don't worry about that, Marie will take care of it. You just have the troops ready. The Imperator will be here an hour after lunch, but give everybody the whole day off if you can?"

I didn't hear their answer, because Murder Mittens took hold of my hand and collapsed us both back to the basement of the Academy. I took the hint and collapsed the rest of me back there as well, which left me standing with a sheaf of paper stuffed in a gift bag, rolls of wrapping paper and cellophane tape clutched in my other hand. Marie took both away from me, toyed with each a second, and her eyes lit up. Then she pointed at me imperiously and said, "Change." I did.

Then, one item at a time she dressed me up in the assorted accoutrements she and I assume Jon had put together. Before she made it impossible, I sorta whined, "you know if you wrap this in that paper, this is gonna look like it's from you." She smiled at me.

"Yes." I rolled my eyes.

"Fine." I nodded to the bag.

"That one's from me, though. Like, write 'for Saffron, love Tabitha' on it real fancy, please?" She nodded serenely, then made it a little bit impossible for me to speak coherently. She lifted me, and I tensed as I realized what she was about to do. What I'd planned for her to do. What I'd literally told her to do.

"Sure?" I took a deep breath. Through my nose, what with my mouth being a little bit full of wood and fabric at the moment. Do it. I realized right there and then how much I loved Saffron, and in that realization the tension just flowed out of me like alcohol through a sieve. As Marie did what I'd let her, told her, commandmented her to do, I felt nothing but anticipation. As Marie put Saffron's gift, secretly also known as your girl Tabitha, in a box.