Chương 430: Day Four Hundred And Twenty-Eight

Dear Diary,"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett Wasn't that the guy from that old sci fi show? The one who jumped from body to body, winding up in weird historically significant stuff? Y'know, I'd almost think that those shows were, like, meant to be educational and shit, except unlike the educational Anime I've watched, like the one about that red blood cell trying to get with the one eyed white blood cell, that shit is painfully historically inaccurate.

Okay, I mean, maybe not painfully, not all the time, but when I hit the internet it sure as shit didn't seem like they were seeing it from the same point of view as, y'know, Actual Historians. That makes me wonder a lot about how historians here and now are gonna record stuff. Hell, are they even gonna do that, what with having gods around to remember stuff?

Seriously, sometimes it seems almost like Phileo is some kind of weird experiment where somebody threw all the folks who might not be quite as cool with Shit Pyramid as everybody else in the world, and the folks here just ran with it. Like, does anyplace else have a major library like we do? Gotta ask Saffron about that. Maybe ask about making a whole assed public library to go with the public school system that I'm sure she's been working on. Hell, put 'em both in the same place.

It was always a pain going downtown to get to the Camden Public Library, and then they closed that shit for some stupid reason. I don't even remember if they ever said why, other than, y'know, 'fuck everybody who lives in Camden'. Some part of me really wants to figure out a way to go back, now. Just to drop the first graduating class from the Camden Yards Heroic Academy on their ass and see how the fuckers deal with a couple dozen hardass asskickers from the Yards.

But that quote, it definitely hit me when I read it. It kinda sang to me. Maybe it's being from a place like Camden, where everything seems to go to shit despite everybody's best efforts. Because maybe it's not about leaping from the gutter to the top of the world all at one go.

Maybe it's not about finding some kinda cheat code and running to the top, then facing the choice of getting dragged back down as everybody you ever knew tries to pull themselves up by your coattails, or leaving everybody you ever loved behind. Maybe it's about everybody, and I mean everybody who can move even the slightest bit, pushing things forward bit by bit by bit. It's not even about succeeding. It's about failing just a little bit better than you did the day before.

Failing just a little bit better than the guy who failed before you. Failing in new and exciting ways that inspire other people to fail even better and more spectacularly than you did. Because eventually, if every time you fail you fail just a little bit better than the last attempt? Maybe you can fail well enough that it might get confused for success. Last night, just a little after sundown, as I pulled all of me back to Lancaster House, I broke down just a little.

Marie and I were still laughing at Saffron wheezing out 'agreed', and for some reason midway through laughing, as Saffron herself started chuckling, my tears started flowing. I collapsed into her arms, and she and Marie glomped onto me immediately.

"Garde?" Saffron asked as she stroked my hair. I shook my head, shrugged my shoulders, and failed miserably at not dripping snot and tears all over Saffron's chest.

"Fuck."

"Only if and when you feel well enough to stop crying." I chuckled a little, which devolved to more sobs.

"I don't want to somehow forge an association between sorrow and orgasms in your tiny Goof brain." I chuckled again, still returning to sobs in a few seconds.

"Why the fuck am I even crying?" I half blubbered into Saffron's chest as she stroked my hair and Marie kneaded my shoulders.

"I got through the whole day yesterday intact, and the worst thing that happened was not getting a chance to trade rings with you." Saffron hummed, and a moment later I felt Sister Siobhan press up against me.

"Sorrow is not bound by rationality, Goddess."

"Tabitha?" I asked. Fuck, I practically begged. She put her arms around me, pinning me to Saffron, and whispered, "so long as you cannot say my name devoid of my title, I cannot feel right doing so to you, my Hero." That threw me sideways out of my weepy long enough to blink and say, "Sister Siobhan bothers you that much?" She shook her head, her hair brushing against my shoulders.

"Not really. Not at all. But it does place a certain... it lacks a certain intimacy." I rolled my eyes.

"I mean, we haven't been intimate. Yet."

"Yet." I smiled through my tears.

"So the next time I'm gonna hear you say my name will be when you scream it?" She hummed, amused.

"I wasn't going to wait quite that long, but that's a wonderful idea, my Hero."

"Fuck."

"Oh, no. My Hero and Goddess has decreed that shall not be until after our date." I laughed at that, and for a moment I thought I'd finally broken free. Then the sobbing took me again. The three of them held me until I fell asleep. Mimic dreamt of chains of her High Priestesses doing synchronized swimming in her maw, each bit dipping below the surface dissolving to nothing, yet somehow returning when the others pulled them out.

Woke in the morning to Saffron and Sister Siobhan each snuggled up under one of my arms, with Marie curled up across our collective legs like a big ol' cat. Which, I guess, wasn't really all that far from accurate. A quick mental prod told me the sun would rise over the coast in maybe two hours, which put us not long before breakfast time, what with Bonnie and Larry both having classes to get to.

I wondered a bit about how the two of them managed classes and managing Lancaster House and the Lancaster contribution to the war effort, not to mention Bonnie being Pregnant and only getting Pregnanter by the day. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Wakey, wakey, guys. Time to get up and about our day." Eyes popping open nearly as quickly as yesterday, Sister Siobhan nuzzled my side a little bit, then sat up and rooched around until she could stand up and walk to the end of the bed and down the little steps. I envied her a little bit, since I had nowhere near that kinda clearance standing on the bed. I thought I might bonk my head on the mirrors if I bounced too hard. Once she stood on the padding she stretched, hands above her head and arching her back.

I lost track of time while she did, until she straightened and said, "well, I'll be going now. Ladies, please call me if our Goddess needs me again."

"Hold up, aren't you gonna get dressed first?" She shrugged.

"I left my robes and headdress back in my cell. And I'm already wearing the undergarments mandated by my Goddess, after all." She winked at me as my mouth dropped open, and then she was gone.

"Who taught her how to Translocate? Okay that was my stupidest question today. Not my fault she shut my brain down just there." The other two laughed at me. After a second I joined in, kissed them both thoroughly with the surgeon general's minimum recommended daily allowance of shenanigans, then rolled us back to the bathroom to start the whole morning process.

Apparently the remaining Maenads had decided to stay with us, because along with our normal bath time routine, the Maenads found the collection of brushes and combs and did some grooming. A pair of them even started in on Marie. She looked at me, and I thought, I can be all possessive if you want me to be, Mittens. She just sighed and gave me the world's tiniest headshake. You want I should do it right tomorrow night? That got a smile and a nod. See, I'm learning.

After a breakfast of waffles and 'summer' sausage, which I had no idea was different from non-summer sausage, I split myself my normal half dozen ways. Lachlan and Carruthers came along with us to work on the house. I thought maybe they'd be weird about things, but honestly I was weirder about it than them, keeping my shirt on until it had gone fuckin' see through from sweat anyway.

By the end of the day we had most of the pit dug into the hill, and Lachlan had packed the loose dirt around the outside by just stomping it into place.

"Hey Kitten?"

"Yes, love?" I nodded to the top of the hill.

"Isn't that gonna, y'know, collapse inward when it gets rained on?" She frowned.

"I've been hoping you could work on the reinforcing rings over our next few days; once those are in that shouldn't be a problem." I tilted my head.

"Why didn't you have me do them before?"

"I wasn't ready to hold the Filtration Ward to mold them long enough, and you didn't seem ready to both hold that and melt the stone."

"Oh. Sorry about that." She stepped up to me and put her arms around my neck.

"Never be sorry for that, love." Back at Lancaster House, I sat with Maze and listened to her read Wintersmith to the gathered refugees, kids, and now Maenads. Oddly, they looked kinda irked at the story. Not sure why, they didn't seem to dislike the storytelling or anything, just that something about the story rubbed them wrong. Menace and her squad played Hide and Seek in the boy's club and the surrounding suites.

I wound up really glad Lachlan and Carruthers were out at the homestead with us, because I did not want to hear Lachlan's answers about why the Lord's bath room was such a mess, or why so much of the mess was women's undergarments. Down in Calverton, I stepped to the bridges, collected the baker's dozen of Undead who sat patiently awaiting restoration and, after un-Undeading them, delivered them back to the Black Dragon.

I stopped to check in with Johann, then stepped back to Lancaster House, stole Menace for like half an hour, which nobody noticed because none of the kids could ever find her sneaky ass anyhow. The rest of the day I spent hopping from rooftop to rooftop, announcing "ATTENTION! Calverton Miasma victims! If you feel unjustly exploited by The Master, you may be entitled to compensation! Come to your nearest bridge at sunrise for more details!"

I only got about half an hour in before the local Liches showed up to Miasma Ward the roofs. Back in the Academy suite office, I seat cushioned until lunch, then nuzzled Saffron's neck and said, "my Captain's quarters are complaining that they don't smell enough like you."

"Oh, we can't have that." A moment later the two of us stood on the deck of the Black Dragon. A Marie landed behind us a moment after that. When we got into our rooms, Marie closed the door while Saffron devoured my mouth, thinking, so what did you want to talk to me about? I smiled into her mouth, which fucked up my response to her kissing, but she didn't seem to mind when I thought back, have I told you lately that you are the smartest woman I know? Never often enough. Did I mention it's totally hot?

Her lips curved, but her tongue never stopped playing with mine. Not nearly often enough, no. I explained what I needed from her, and what I needed to know, and her eyes just kept getting wider until she thought, that is... devious. I pulled away just far enough to put a little swagger in my stance and say, "Trickster Goddess, baby. I'm all about the tricky." A surprisingly simple plan for one so devious as well.

"Is that why I'm missing my underwear?"

"Hey, I can't rub you all over the room and make it smell like you while you're wearing those, can I?" You know I can't handle a lot of moving parts. Gotta keep it simple.

"Truth." Marie got us both giggling at that, and she slouched into the chair bolted to the floor.

"Oh, thank the Goddess. I thought you'd hang them from the ceiling or something like some kind of demented sachet." Hmm... I thought you liked moving my parts? I pointed at the ceiling, where her panties dangled just inches out of her Glowing Midnight boots enhanced reach. She proved that by reaching for them, then turning to me with the cutest pout on her face. So I tackled her into the bed, because I wasn't about to let that cute little moue go to waste. The last of me hopped over to D's diner to check in on him.

I found him looking more than a little lost, with three football sized rugrats on the table in front of him, each of them just big enough to play with his fingers and coo.

"How's it hangin' D?"

"Soft and exhausted at the moment," he sighed. I put an arm as far around his shoulders as I could and gave him a gentle hug, so as not to distract or disrupt his kid entertaining.

"Aw, Maenads not rewarding you for doing your Dadly duties?" He smirked.

"At the moment." We laughed a bit, and then I checked in with Artemis.

"How are the arms feeling?"

"As well as can be expected, Mistress." I nodded.

"Could you shoot if you needed to?" She chuckled.

"I cannot speak as to my aim," she reached a free hand up to touch her blindfold, "but my arms feel as strong as they once were." I nodded.

"How are you feeling about your brother these days?" She winced, but nodded.

"I... You truly would have given him a path to redemption as well?" I shrugged.

"I honestly hadn't thought about it at the time. Little bit pissed about all the dead people he caused through bad fuckin' aim. But... if he'd shut up and done his best to fix what he fucked up instead of rabbiting, trying to evade his responsibilities? Yet again?" I paused.

"Yeah, I think I might have. Probably would have, honestly. I'm tryna give everybody else who's willing to try one, so yeah." She sighed.

"Then I cannot hold you responsible for his choices, Mistress. I can only thank you for dragging me from my foolishness and allowing me this chance, despite..." I shrugged.

"Thank Maze for that. She needed it. But I'm not mad about it." She lay one hand on the head of a passing tot, who froze for a moment while she ruffled the kid's hair.

"So my redemption is due to a child?"

"Yeah, kinda."

"Fitting."

"I say jump, you say?"

"How high, while in the air, Mistress." She went to shift the kid off her lap, and I laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Not right now. Not... yet."