Chương 375: Day Three Hundred And Seventy-Three

Dear Diary,"Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own." - Aristotle Excuse me sir, and please understand I say this with the deepest of respect for your contribution to the sciences, but fuck that noise, and unfuck you of all the fucks you've ever given or gotten for good measure. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Isnomi was not a child of my body on the Autumn Equinox, and I knowingly, premeditatedly destroyed a bitch's soul to save her.

Yes, I understand that in doing so she wound up as much my kid as Saffron's, but I didn't even know that shit would happen at the time. I sure as shit didn't do it for that reason. I did it because she was, in every way that mattered to me, my kid. Not in the sense of her being a possession, either, but in the sense of being my responsibility, my duty, my obligation, my joy, my tiny daily ray of sunshine in what seemed even then like kind of a crapsack world. So yesterday I spent the day with dear old dad.

Kinda funny, actually; he took one look at me once he had me on the table and said, "Tabitha, I must inquire, how the fuck?" His hands shifted something around my general waist region, and as things crackled I moaned at the cessation of constant nagging pain.

"Whut?" He kept working, but asked, "what did you do to yourself. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you'd somehow gotten yourself cut in half." I lost a while to inarticulate noises as things snapped back into place like overstressed rubber bands, then pulled back taut as he kept working.

"Tabitha?"

"Oh. Yeah. Uh, four... no, five? Five times? Maybe six. I don't remember if that fuckin' Hole Spawn cut me in half before nomming my head." I meant to shit talk about the Hole Spawn some more, but Loki pressed my fuckin' spine back into place, and my vocabulary devolved to grunts and groans.

I think I caught the edges of him shaking his head, but I couldn't be fucking bothered to move my blessed eyeballs, let alone my neck or anything else that might let me see something other than the section of table I'd wound up staring at. Got home in the evening, only to have Murder Mittens scoop me up, cart me off to the mast of the Black Dragon, and prop me up in our little black bowl under the stars.

On the one hand, definitely frustrating to be more or less paralyzed while watching the two of them doing cirque du soleil shit. On the other hand, hell of a view, hell of a show, eleven out of ten, would watch again. Flopped into bed, the other two using me like a body pillow. Shortly thereafter both of them were snoring the sleep of the deservedly exhausted, and I sort of watched, but mostly listened to the Brownian motion of the little ones gradually snuggling their little sub-piles into the big pile around us.

I figured there was a nonzero chance that at some point I'd wind up getting buried under a pile of little kids and suffocated or some shit like that, but honestly? After spending days underwater, I was pretty sure I could survive a night buried under our babies. Some of them weren't really babies, I know, but my instincts were absolutely screaming 'do a Protecc!' any time any of them made distressed nightmare noises.

It definitely made me feel all warm and fuzzy when I realized those noises were almost always followed by a little charcoal shadow and purring, followed by a cessation of weeping.

"That's my girl," I whispered. Later, although I'm not sure how much later, what with the complete lack of windows in the room, I heard something from the bathroom. Whatever it was had to be pretty loud, since I heard it through the door. Not fuckin' likely I'd hear it through the walls, what with them being solid stone as far as I could tell. I wobbled just enough to Co-Locate to the far side of the door, leaning against it. I didn't see anybody, but the tub was full almost to overflowing, and the water steamed.

It looked really good what with my whole body feeling that 'recovering from working out' soreness, so I more or less fell forward into a Translocation into the tub. The water was absolutely as hot as it looked, and if it scalded my skin a little, it felt heavenly as it soaked into my muscles. I lay there, my nostrils the only bit of me poking out of the water, every bit of me from my muscles to my hair gradually relaxing and giving up to the heat and support of the water.

I didn't even notice when I sank just a bit, my nose going under. Or when I sank a little more, the weight of my hair pulling me down. If I didn't fall asleep, I wasn't gonna drown, and if I did fall asleep, I'd just collapse back to the me in the living plushie pile. I almost didn't notice when a pair of tiny hands pushed down on my chest. I couldn't quite understand what was happening until my back hit the bottom of the tub, and a few bubbles of air tickled as they slipped out of my nose.

I opened my eyes and looked up into wide, dark eyes in a face so pale it seemed almost translucent. Okay, it seemed that way in the flickering light of the fire that warmed the tub, in wireframe the kid looked small and youngish. They shoved down on my chest hard enough to push themselves up through the water, and panic entered their eyes when the back of their head breached the surface.

Moving slowly, because my brain hadn't really registered any danger, and I didn't want to hurt some misguided kid, I slipped my hands around their wrists, then said, "are you done yet?" Okay, I'm sure they couldn't tell what I said, what with there just being bubbles and blorping, but they jerked backward, pulling me up until my face came out of the water. They flopped backward, their ass landing right about waist height on me, shoving me into a sitting position.

They struggled silently, then went limp, staring hatred at me.

"Did you draw this bath for me?"

"I won't let you take another one!" she hissed. Her accent was really weird; it reminded me of something, but I had no idea what.

"Another what?" She looked away.

"You killed them." I couldn't really shrug, but I twitched my shoulders.

"Maybe. I've killed a lot of people. I feel bad about some of them. Most of them, really, since most of them were at the Battle of the Walls. Who are you talking about?"

"Mama. Papa."

"Okay, I'm gonna guess you mean your mama and papa?" She shot me a look that said, 'duh' louder than words.

"Where are you from?"

"Rich Man's Port." I blinked at that.

"Uh, I hate to tell you this, but I've never been there. You sure you got the right killer?"

"Papa fought for money." I put pieces together.

"So your dad was a mercenary. For Calverton?" The kid nodded.

"What did your mom do?"

"Hunted."

"Okay, she hunted. What did she hunt?" They frowned.

"She hunted."

"Okay then. Your mom was a huntress." They nodded at that, decisively, like they'd been looking for that word.

"Did she hunt for Calverton?" The kid shook their head.

"Phileo." That threw me a little.

"Your dad fought for Calverton and your mom hunted for Phileo. Who did you live with?"

"Papa." I nodded.

"So I get how I would have killed your Dad, if he was one of the ones Garland sent to kill me. Poor bastard, dying for money he never got to collect." The kid shook their head.

"No. Revenge. You killed mama." I frowned.

"Dafuq?"

"Garland said you killed mama in the Temple of the Moon. That made papa mad, and then you killed him too." Things clicked into place, and my stomach clenched.

"Ah. Shit. Do you remember what your mama looked like?" They gave me another 'duh' look, and I shapeshifted to match my best memory of Artemis' High Priestess.

"Did she look like this?" I didn't need an answer. The kid's eyes shot wide, they mouthed the word, 'mama', and then they broke down entirely. First they struggled to get away, then collapsed into me. I forced recalcitrant limbs to work despite the screaming pain it took to do so, and I pulled the girl to me, holding her while she quietly sobbed and beat her fists against me.

"Fuck, I'm sorry, kid. I'm sorry I killed your mom and dad." I sighed, holding back any number of comments about how much of a bitch her mom had been as I shifted back to myself.

"Garland was a grade A asshole. He lied to a lot of people, threw them at me because he was too much of a fuckin' coward to come straight at me himself. He got a lot of people sick down in Calverton, too." I stopped. Beyond 'Garland was an asshole who hid behind your dad and got him killed', I'm sure she gave no fucks about that.

"Your mom, though. She... Do you know Isnomi?" You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. She looked at me with the first emotion that wasn't hate or fear, nodding curiously.

"Yeah, she's my daughter. Saffron and mine. Your mom... your mom stole her. Sacrificed her to Artemis." I took a deep breath. Fuck it, little kid took priority over dumb shit like 'admitting guilt to capital crimes'.

"I killed her to bring Isnomi back." The kid whispered, "lies." I shook my head.

"Ask Isnomi if you don't believe me." The girl shook her head.

"she's just a little kid. A baby back then. She wouldn't know. Just what you told her." I blinked at that.

"How old are you again?"

"Six." Really fuckin' small six year old, but I'd bet Saffron hadn't been much bigger.

"Okay, miss six years old. What's your name?" She clamped her lips together, but I shot her a 'really?' look, making a point of nodding at how I had her kinda clamped into my arms.

"Maze." I nodded.

"Okay, Maze. So you think Isnomi wouldn't remember. Your mom's dead. You won't believe me, or I'm guessing any of my friends who were there?" She shook her head. I sighed.

"Even the ones who I had to cut my way through to get to Isnomi?" She shook her head again.

"Fine." I held her still, Shaped Mana, and forced it into the surface of the water we sat in. I focused the Scry on the smell of the water, the child, the stone, the room itself. It focused on a veiled woman in widow's weeds sitting in a tiny alcove on a mountainside.

"Yo! Artemis!" She jerked, looked up to the focus of my Scrying, tensed as if to run.

"Run and I get pissed and hunt you down." She slumped, what looked suspiciously like a single sob shaking her.

"Here. Now." She shuddered and looked up at me.

"Why ought I not run if you would kill me anyway?" I growled out, "because if you piss me off, I will ask Mother Domnu for advice on how to keep you alive as long and as painfully as possible." She whimpered, and I reiterated.

"Here. Now." She twitched, like she was arguing with herself.

"Artemis the She-Bear, a third time I tell you. Here. Now." She stood, slowly, tears dripping from her chin beneath the veil.

"It will take time."

"Fuck." I reached out beside the tub, Co-Located to stand beside her, grabbed her hand, and collapsed us both back to Lancaster House. She stood there, frozen in terror. Even so, a palpable aura of wild things spread through the room. I swear to fuck that Maze sprouted a full on tail, and ears popped out the top of her head, both of which made her blink, and then she shied away from the Goddess who somehow towered over us even as she fit into the room without crouching.

Tucking the little girl under my arm, half behind me, I asked, "is this kid your High Priestess' daughter?" Artemis frowned, then almost reflexively leaned down and tried to sniff. After a cut off gasp of pain and a few red droplets dripping into the bath water from her veil, she shook her head.

"I do not know. I know Diane had a child, but she left it with its father that she might serve me as High Priestess." I cocked my head.

"Aren't you supposed to be a Goddess of protecting children?"

"That is part of my Domain, yes."

"You do a shit job of it." She opened her mouth to argue, and I glared at her. She shut her fuckin' mouth.

"Was Diane... wait, your High Priestess' name was Diane?"

"That is the name she made herself known to me by." I shook my head.

"And you didn't bother to check. Fuckin' typical. Anyway, was her baby daddy a mercenary from Rich Man's Port?" She cocked her head, then nodded.

"I seem to recall so, yes." I looked down at Maze.

"Okay, kid. This is Artemis, right?" She jerked her head in a single convulsive nod.

"Okay then. Artemis? Did you tell Maze's mom to take Isnomi and sacrifice her?"

"Who?" I closed my eyes, feeling Maze practically vibrating with fear against me.

"Know, huntress, that you retain your skin only due to my need of you to answer my questions rather than screaming incoherently. Saffron's daughter. My lover's daughter. My. Daughter."

"Oh. Yes. I commanded her to avenge your slight of me."

"Huntress?"

"Yes?" I didn't think. I just reached out from M-Space and snapped her left leg backward, then dragged her close enough I could cover her mouth with my hand.

"Shut the fuck up. Now." Her screams dropped to a kind of wet mewling sound.

"Better. Now. If you had come at me? Or even sent her at me? You still might have gotten your shit wrecked, but I wouldn't hold it against you. If somebody pisses you off, you don't go after their kids. You fuckin' grow a pair and go after them yourself." She raised her head, glaring at me, and her gaze slipped toward Maze. I ripped her veil off, rammed my fingers into the remains of her nose, and pulled her face nose to lack of a nose with me.

"If you so much as glance at anybody but me ever again, you will lose your fuckin' eyes. Are we clear?" She whined.

"Are. We. Clear?"

"Yes," she whimpered.

"You don't touch my people, or you die. You don't touch my kids, or you don't die, ever." Confusion hit her eyes.

"No matter how long you beg me to let you. If you touch this one? You will wish you had touched one of my other kids. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Now, some part of you is scheming right now, thinking of how you can turn this to your advantage, how you can show me up, how you can use what you think you've learned, because you think you've learned things, don't you?" At her involuntary nod, I continued.

"You think you've learned my weakness, that I care for every fuckin' kid in the alliance. That I care even more for the kids who have wound up mine specifically." I twisted my fingers, forcing her down until she lay splayed on the ground.

"Let me disabuse you of that notion. I am trying to be a better person. To be kind. To be understanding. To be merciful. Do you want to know what my kids are? What they truly are?" She whimpered out something that might have been, "yes?"

"They are my excuse. My excuse to not be kind. To stop trying to understand. To throw mercy to the wind. To be as cruel as I have ever wanted to be. To let my dark side play like she so desperately wants to. You hear?"

"Yes."

"Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now." I clenched my fingers, driving her face into the tiles of the floor.

"You have a very special chance right now. If you abandon the fuckin' suicidal pride that killed your brother Apollo when he fed himself to me, answer my questions honestly to the best of your ability, and obey every fuckin' order I give you, I will lie to myself and tell myself that you're on some kind of path to redemption from being an insufferable bitch who deserves an eternity of pain undreamt of by Mortal or Deity. Understand?"

She burbled something like, "yes," into the floor, and I lifted her up by her lack of nostrils.

"Who killed Diane, High Priestess of Artemis to Phileo?"

"You did," she whispered, tensing.

"Good. Now. Who is responsible for Diane's death?" She gagged three times before choking out, "I am."

"Why?" She closed her terror filled eyes and said, "I ordered her to enact petty vengeance by kidnapping and sacrificing your infant child."

"Good. Good. Now. Who is responsible for the death of Maze's dad?" She looked at me with something near panic, and I said, "the one I killed when Garland sent him after me." If Gods could piss themselves I think she might have done so out of relief.

"Ares. Garland was Ares' High Priest to Phileo. None but Ares' Champion and Highest Priest may do aught without his explicit permission." I nodded, then forced her to look right into my glare.

"Now, if anything ever happens to Maze here, whose shin bone will I use to scrape Ares' skin when I'm tanning it?" Her eyes closed and tears leaked out.

"Mine."

"Good. Good. Now. Just a few last things, and this will all be over." She whimpered out, "I beg of you, be merciful."

"Maze and my kids are fine. You're a protector of children. Stop doing a shit job of it."

"Yes, mistress." I tried really hard not to let my body react to that shit, because Just Happening to what I'd left of Artemis right in front of Maze was not the impression I wanted to leave the kid with.

"Now. Look at me." I dropped my Blend. All of it. Shadows danced through the room, and I slipped hair thin tentacles through her not-a-nose, right up into her no-longer-coherent brain. I savored the vision of her loss of sanity as her jaw dropped open.

"Do you recognize me?" She didn't say anything, and after giving Maze a quick peck on the forehead I set her on the edge of the tub, then let go of her and slapped Artemis hard enough I heard her cheekbone crack.

"Wake the fuck up. Now." She twitched, terror reeling her back over the edge it had thrown her off.

"Yes. Yes, mistress. Please, mercy, mistress." I smiled at her, letting her see exactly how much I wanted to just let go and eat her a tiny bit at a time, from now until the end of all things.

"You cannot run. You cannot hide. You may fight, and I will end you in that moment, or..."

"Or?" I waited until the tiniest bit of terrifying Hope showed in her eyes.

"Or you can obey. Completely. Utterly. Enthusiastically. I say jump, you say 'how high' while you're headed upward. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"If I say 'die', you die, right there, because I don't want to dirty my hands with you. Understand?"

"Yes," she whimpered.

"Good. Now. Close your eyes." She slammed them shut.

"Do not open them again. Ever. Unless I tell you otherwise. You open them, you die. Understood?"

"Yes."

"See, you can learn." I took a deep breath.

"You tell no one what you've seen. And if you try to weasel your way into telling anyone somehow?" I waited until she twitched, about to ask.

"It will be your skin I use your shin bone to scrape. While you watch. Before I use your own skin to bind your eyes shut forever. Do you have any questions?"

"Yes." I smiled at her.

"You can learn. Ask."

"Will you end my pain? If I obey long enough, eagerly enough?" I leaned down and breathed out, "what's the magic word?"

"Please?" I slipped my fingers out of her lack of a nose, cupping her face in my hands.

"Good girl. Such a good example in manners for the child of my Concubine. Should you obey? Should you convince me to lie to myself and tell myself that you really are trying to be a better Deity, to protect your followers, to build them up, to be a Goddess worthy of something greater than a septic tank full of tanning waste?" I Co-Located one of me to M-Space and sucked in power until both of me glowed white, the water heating up again until it steamed.

Then I channeled every bit of it into a Smite and hammered her with it. Then sucked all that power again, swallowing the screams of pain at pulling too much Mana too fast, then slammed it all into a Heal Injury. She shuddered, her eyes fluttering until she squeezed them shut and shoved her palms over them. Her fingers twisted down, and she drew a shuddering breath through her nose. I pulled her face to mine, kissed her cheeks one at a time, then drew her ear to my mouth.

"I can be understanding, and merciful, and kind, or I can be the bitch everyone thinks I was born to be." Tears streamed out of her squeezed-shut eyes, and she drew in shuddering breaths only to sob them out again.

"So tell me, Artemis daughter of Zeus. Which would you prefer?"