Chương 403: Day Four Hundred And One

Dear Diary,"You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them." - Desmond Tutu Back at Eastside I might have agreed with that, maybe. Sure as fuck the folks in Camden wound up with some kind of cut rate god who gave out half assed gifts. Seriously, intellectually I knew Mom loved me, but she worked so fuckin' much I didn't get to feel that in my bones as much as I wanted. My sister never let me forget I was a stupid unwanted burden.

Then again, I can't say I got the short end of the stick, because they got stuck with me. Here and now, I'd have called absolute bullshit, because while I love my Loki Dad, I am not even crediting him for 'giving' me my family. I found that shit. Well, okay, we found each other. Even Loki and Sigyn and... okay, fuckin' Conrad found me, but still, he's the closest thing to a 'god given gift' we've gotten, family wise. Shit, when it comes to Isnomi?

I had to fuckin' Prometheus that bitch away from Artemis, so don't nobody say she's a 'gift from the Gods' unless they desperately want to feel the kind of damage my foot can inflict on their junk. Precious to us? Absolutely. God-given? Fuck. No. But after yesterday. After today. I don't know any more. Because, y'know, what the hell am I supposed to think when I'm the one delivering the gifts? Mimic wept. She sucked on her wounded limbs like a child or animal might suck on a burned finger.

Layers of skin sloughed off some of them. Others went into the maw and didn't come out. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, she quieted, sucking on that one recalcitrant tentacle, drawing comfort from it even as it burned. So I snapped awake and bolted upright. Saffron tumbled away from me, squawking.

"Are the kids all right?" She rolled back, coming to her knees atop the mattress as she did, putting her arms around my head and pulling me to her breast.

"Be at peace, love. The Maenads, the Healers, the staff at Lancaster House have them." I exhaled, slumping.

"Well, had them." I gasped in another breath, and would have turned to face her had she not clung to my head. Totally spun her around me on her knees.

"Had?" She nodded, a smile in her voice as she said, "some have already been claimed by refugee families from Calverton. After the Healers confirmed they were healthy, and Bonnie ensured the family had someone who could nurse the little ones." I let that breath back out again, my brain hitching a little on the idea of wet nurses. For whatever reason, I wanted to ask why they didn't just give them baby formula, despite how idiotic that would have been.

"Baby elixir?" She chuckled, igniting some neurons as that made things jiggle against the side of my face.

"Explain, please?" I put my arms around her and pulled her around so I could hold her in my lap, then muttered into her cleavage. She could read my brain if she couldn't understand my muttering.

"Milk and... I dunno, minerals and vitamins and the good stuff from food, all powdered so you can mix it with water and feed it to kids."

"That sounds... complicated." I shrugged.

"Yeah, not everybody's equipped to feed an entire family of four plus the family cat." She snorted.

"Did you just complain about the size of my breasts?" I shook my head, enjoying the proto-motorboating sensation.

"Nah. Fuckin' reveling in them." She pushed me back to look up at her. The mirrored ceiling let me see her pony tail spread across her back as she leaned over to kiss me. Oh, when this is done and we have time, you will absolutely do both, as is just and right, my Hero. When we came up for air, I asked, "both?"

"Fuck them. Revel in them. Do anything you wish with them. I am so, so proud of you, my love. My Goddess." A predatory glint sparked in her eyes.

"Mine." I laughed.

"Anything?" She nodded solemnly, that glint still in her eyes.

"Anything."

"I'm gonna hold you to that, you realize?" Her mouth dropped open, her tongue darting out, her breath getting a little ragged.

"I'm counting on it." I pulled her to me, silent for a bit, just enjoying the feel of her skin against mine, until the endorphins started to die down.

"Ow." She pulled back immediately.

"Are you injured, love?"

"Feel like I've got a sunburn all over my fucking body. Worst on my arms and tits." At her tilted head, I said, "where I held her. The first one."

"Bad?" I nodded, then paused. I gently set Saffron on the bed, then rolled off the end to stand there and flex and stretch. Everything burned and felt just a size too small, the way it did when a burn had nearly healed. I ran my hands over my arms, and a layer of skin peeled off. Shouldn't really have been surprising, given how I felt, but it still shocked me a little.

"Uh, feels like it was, but it isn't so much any more?" She smiled, then moved to the end of the bed on her knees. Given that it was waist high on her, that put her at a really nice height to pull me in for a bit more gentle kissing.

"So. We're here because despite the best efforts of the Lancaster House staff, people kept sneaking up to try and visit you." If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

"They got through those locks?" She shook her head, chuckling.

"Hardly. But the noise and general chaos wasn't helping anyone else. Once we let a few people into the bedroom and bathroom to show them that you were not, in fact, in residence, but would return as soon as you were able, they stopped being quite so obstinate about it."

"Oh. Uh... sorry?"

"For what?"

"Passing out and leaving you with that big pain in the ass situation to deal with?" I really wasn't sure how to react to her first glomping me to her chest, then grabbing the back of my hair, pulling me back about four inches, then slapping me upside the face with her tits.

"Uh..."

"That was too goof, Goof."

"I'm not sure if I should stop or not. Didn't that hurt?"

"Yes. So you should feel guilty about making me do it, every time I have to do it, because you are apologizing for saving over eleven hundred children from the maw of Undeath itself."

"No, I'm..." THWAPWHAP.

"Ow."

"Kitten, don't do that, I just..." THWAPWHAP.

"That is painful, Goof. Are you done yet?" I grabbed her tits, because it was worth risking a dislocated thumb to keep her from hurting them again.

"Uh. Part of 'anything' is gonna include you doing that way gentler. Shit. Are you poking the 'remove Tabitha's want-to-mouth filter' button again?" She smiled down at me.

"No. But perhaps I broke it." Then she pulled my face into her chest.

"I hope so, at any rate." After holding me there for an absolutely too short length of time, which in my opinion would be anything short of a few hours, she said, "are you ready to go meet your adoring new worshippers?"

"Wait, really?" She shook with laughter.

"Yes, really. I'm fairly certain, anyhow. Do you feel up to walking around, perhaps mouthing friendly platitudes a few hundred times?"

"A few hundred... so most of the families..."

"Most of the Calverton refugees had already dispersed to surrounding farmsteads, love. They're on their way, but short of divination, which might traumatize the little ones at this point, there's no real way to find their parents. If they're even still alive."

"Well. I guess that's my next job." She shook her head.

"No. The Maenads can watch over them for now. Your next job is to go visit with the families already reunited."

"Why?" She pulled my face out so I could see her smirk.

"Because someone still has a sunburn, and needs that adoration to bring herself back up to full strength before she goes to do her next super Herculean task." I nodded, pulled her off the bed and set her on her feet, and said, "let's go then." She stepped us just outside the doors of Lancaster House, thankfully dropping our Cadet uniforms on as she did. A couple people in casual clothes did a double take as we appeared.

I looked out over the courtyard, where handfuls of Maenads, both in and out of uniform, clustered around little batches of kids.

"Did they spend the night outside?"

"It was warm, and Bonnie sent out bedding." She shrugged.

"There weren't really enough unoccupied rooms inside, and the... other Maenads don't seem terribly fond of Lancaster House."

"Huh?"

"I'm not certain, but I suspect they've been living in wilds and wastelands, in cottages and small homes, places where the forces of Sparta and Ares cannot find them. A place this size?" She nodded toward the interior of the House.

"Would almost certainly be owned by someone hunting them." Marie? She appeared in front of me, a nursing babe in each arm.

"Please let your sisters know they're safe here?" When she hesitated, I said, "I will protect them. Just like they protected the kids without thinking, without me needing to ask." She nodded, then stepped up and bent over to rub her cheek across the top of my head, murmuring, "Vlickies." as she did.

"Thanks, Mittens." At that point I noticed a sort of Brownian motion in the crowd of people, not to mention murmurs and a certain familiar tingle all over my body. Those tingles gradually soothed the burning, and people moved up around the two of us. Murmurs of 'Champion', 'Priestess', even 'Diaz' susurrated through the doorway from within and from without.

Single moms, couples, even a few small families came up to me, holding their kids out to me, begging me without words to touch them, to reassure them that this was real, not some kind of trick. One of the first, a guy who took the kid from the much younger very pregnant woman next to him, held his rugrat out to me and whispered, "please?" I took the kid, cradling her in one arm and lifting her so I could nuzzle her a little, my other hand reaching out to pull him and the woman close.

"What's her name?"

"T... T... Tabitha Dawn," he stuttered out. I raised an eyebrow, but smiled.

"What did you call her before?" His face fell, and I pulled him into a hug as he sobbed out, "we... we hadn't... I wanted... my wife died just before she did. Just before... before we fled." I looked at the woman, holding him while he sobbed.

"Nursemaid?" She shrugged.

"I'm her," she nodded to the kid, "cousin." When I glanced at her belly, she whispered, "he didn't make it."

"I'm so sorry for your loss." I moved to make space for her in the little hug, but she shook her head.

"No. No, Champion. You... My parents died. My aunt Dawn died. My cousin... died. But... she's here, now, because of you." Something between a sob and a laugh forced its way between her lips.

"Please, please, do not apologize because you could only steal the most precious one of five from Sengann's grip." Whatever she saw in my eyes, her own shot open as I growled, "piece of shit motherfucker won't be fucking gripping anyone any more." At the question in her wide eyes, I said, slowly and clearly, "I killed him. Caught him in M... in the Land of the Gods, sucking the life from New Amsterdam. I burned him to ash when he refused to stop."

"But... but... what if he..."

"If he wants to come back, he can try, but he'll have to come through me to do it. Nobody fucks with kids and lives to tell about it. Not when I can stop it. And. I. Can." The old dude pulled back, "you... you would defy the Gods? For children you don't even know?"

"Would. Could. Did. Have been fucking doing. Will keep doing until they get it through their fucking arrogant shit brains that shit will not fly any more. They want to come at me? Sure. I'm down. Let's brawl. They touch kids? Any kids? Anywhere? They can join Sengann on the ash heap of fuckin' history." He wheezed, "you say such things then call them arrogant?" I looked him straight in the eye, but I saw everyone holding their breath, staring at me.

"I'm here. I'm alive. He's not. Do the fuckin' math." Tabitha Dawn groused, and I smiled down at her.

"I'm sorry, sweetie. Nobody's mad at you. You're just a cutie, aren't you? Aren't you?" She frowned up at me, stuck out a lip, and filled her fuckin' diaper loudly enough for everybody within earshot to hear it. I don't know exactly how many kids I wound up holding today. I stayed there, letting them come to me, holding each kid, talking to their mom or dad or parents or family, letting them know that yes, this was their little one, not some changeling or other weird shit.

I lost track of the names, the relations, the stories of tragedy. By the time the sun neared the horizon, as families came up the roads from every direction, I only knew three things. First, that my initial thought that 'Tabitha' was gonna be one of those 'nobody uses it, because everybody's named fuckin' Tabitha' would be absolutely as true in Calverton as it was in parts of Lancaster.

Second, that from the moment I said that anybody fucking with kids would face the wrath of me, briefly, an ever-strengthening wave of Worship trickled in from the Maenads watching over the kids in the courtyard. And third, that every baby handed to me had a working digestive system capable of producing poop. Good to know that despite everything, there's one thing about me that hasn't changed.