Chương 434: Day Four Hundred And Thirty-Two

Dear Diary,"Grief changes shape, but it never ends." - Keanu Reeves Kinda like with Teddy, after I found that quote yesterday I started looking for more by my man Keanu, and holy fuck are there some bangers in there. A few of them are hilarious, like just funny as shit, and some of them kinda speak to why I relate to his stuff so much, but more than one was like this. Just short, simple, and holy fuckballs do I relate to this. Like, I think some part of me is still grieving my mom.

Some part of me is grieving for the people I killed on the Walls. I'm definitely grieving Garde, and I barely knew her. Maybe along with changing shape, grief can glom together and become greater than the sum of the little initial grief that caused it. Or maybe not, maybe it's smaller than both bits of grief put together, but it's bigger than either one apart.

Maybe different griefs can run together and smush down so they don't hurt as bad, or maybe sometimes new grief makes old grief get spiky, so they both take up more space than they would otherwise. I guess I think about this a lot because along with everything else that fucks with my head, I've got grief to deal with that I never really did. Like, yeah, I cried a lot after my mom died, but I never really made any progress.

The grief stayed the same, never got smaller or easier to process, and it still pokes at me when I think about it. I... I think I grew around it. Not very much, really. Not until I came here and really started to live life instead of avoiding it the way I did back in Camden. Since then, I've just got so much more that I care about, that I don't think about her that much. And...

until Garde, I think that grief had started to change shape, to get maybe a little less spiky, a little less sticky, so that I could think about it and not get torn up and unable to let go. Maybe that's the hardest kind of grief to process; grief that's barb shaped. It sticks in and doesn't just hurt, it won't let you go, won't let you put it down to pay attention to something else. My grief about mom, my grief about Garde, both of those were really spiky and barbed. My grief for Garde wasn't even that big. Just...

hard to put down. I kinda wonder what my grief about me is like? So yesterday went pretty well right up until the end, when Murder Mittens wanted some Mimic lovin', which wasn't really a problem, since I am, in fact, both Mimic and her... Mistress? Is that what the other end of a Concubine is? Eh, fuck it. I'm her fiancé. Even if I haven't asked her yet, so she's still my Concubine, but I'm her fiancé. I've got a ring and everything.

I determined to my own satisfaction that she does not in fact have the grip strength to remove it. Wonder if she would if she used her claws? At any rate, everything was just as freaky fine as you could imagine, even to the point where, a while after sunset I was getting up the nerve to do some really one sided selfish shit, when she looked me in the eye and said, "Sparagmos." I froze.

"Mittens, you know I love you." She couldn't nod, because I currently had a very firm grip on her head, but I felt her try to.

"I am not ripping you to pieces as some kind of kinky sex thing." She shot me an agonized look and whined, "Please." I heaved out a sigh, stepped away from her, and turned her back upright and vertical.

"Look, we've been over this. I didn't do anything special to Artemis, or Apollo, and Mimic still did her god-eating shit to them. I do not want to tear you apart for a bit of fun and wake up as a Maenad tomorrow." She just looked at me and raised an eyebrow, although I also heard a low whine coming out of her.

"Shit, I wouldn't much care about the 'being a Maenad' part of it. I've got a very flexible personal brand anyway. But," I stepped up, pulling her down and rising until our eyes were level, "I never," I kissed her.

"Ever." I kissed her again.

"Want to wake up in a world without you." She lunged at me, or tried to, teeth gnashing, almost screaming, "Sparagmos!" I sighed, pulled Mana, and smacked her with a Heal Injury and a Smite just in case, and then put my arms around her, lowering her face next to my neck. On the opposite side of where Saffron had left a whole mess of hickies, because at the very least I owed Murder Mittens a fresh canvas.

"There. You shouldn't need it for, y'know, healing purposes at this point, right? Now, if you're gonna bite me, go ahead. I'm not gonna risk you like that." Slowly, inexorably, almost gently, her fangs sank into the connection between my neck and shoulder. It hurt, but nothing like what I expected. She didn't rip and tear the way I knew she could. Her fangs were sharper than I'd realized, and she wasn't trying to hurt me. Wasn't trying to injure me.

One of her fangs sank into one of my scars, and I think the scar hurt less after she punched through the skin than it had before. Her mouth closed over my shoulder, and her tongue rasped across my skin inside her mouth. She suckled at my neck like that, almost like Saffron had done on the other side, and endorphins rushed through me. After an endless, agonizing, wonderful moment, she pulled away as slowly as she'd bitten me, licking me one more time as she did.

"Sparagmos?" I opened my mouth to reply, and she nuzzled my shoulder again. Not biting, just nosing where she'd marked me up. Then she bonked her forehead into my shoulder. The one where I still bore Saffron's impromptu scarification. I'm dumb as fuck, but eventually if someone beats me about the head and shoulders with a clue long enough, I can in fact get it.

"You want me to mark you." She nodded, pulled away enough I could see her eyes. Which were leaking tears around the edges. I smiled at her softly, trying to figure out how to respond.

"Have you marked Saffron up yet?" She looked a little shifty, then sheepish, and said, "Yet."

"Oh, so you're planning on giving her a clavicle piercing too, huh?" She just grinned at me, her tongue blepped.

"You gotta be careful with her, y'know. She is, in fact, Mortal, and even if we'd have a lot more time to fuck around after I Revived her, she likes being Imperator. So let's not take her job away just for some sex." Marie looked just a little too shifty for my comfort, and I rolled my eyes.

"Not even really awesome sex. No. Bad Murder Mittens. Naughty in a bad way Murder Mittens. No Murdering Saffron for funsies, even if she asks us to." Marie raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, okay, if she says she's done with being Imperator, and it's not just some kind of temporary thing where she needs a vacation, we'll plan out some kind of orgasm beyond the bounds of Mortality as a retirement gift for her. But not until then, got it?" Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! She just grinned at me and said, "Yes." Then she got a little pouty and said, "Sparagmos."

"You're not gonna give that up, are you?" She shook her head. I sighed.

"Okay, gimme a second." Kitten? Need you. A moment later Saffron joined us. I realized after a few moments I'd just been staring at her, because despite us spending a lot of time sans clothes, I don't really get that many chances to just, y'know, leer appreciatively. Respectfully even. There were definitely almost thoughts of aesthetic appreciation filling my head, and probably Marie's too when I realized I was being needlessly selfish and turned Murder Mittens around so she could leer too.

"Damn we're lucky."

"Yes." It had been a long while since Saffron blushed where I could notice, watch, and appreciate it. I think that made her blush harder. The appreciating it.

"Well, did you need me here for something in particular, or just to stare at?" She snorted as we both kept staring.

"Or did you want me to watch? Or are you working to expand your fine control? You certainly seem to have gained a fair amount of proficiency with your tentacles here in M-Space." I snorted.

"Yeah, somebody's been demanding. Multiple somebodies." I fell silent a second as realization struck me.

"Are you using stupidly kinky sex to get me to practice controlling The Dark Fatass Herself?" Saffron sniffed and looked away.

"Like I would do anything of the sort." I paused, waiting, but she didn't say anything until I opened my mouth to reply.

"When have you ever known me to do anything for just one reason?" She turned back to me, Grinning, and flopped backwards. I caught her with half a dozen tentacles folded into a vaguely recliner-like shape.

"Aww. Marie looks so comfy."

"I could make her look a lot less comfy."

"That makes it even better." When my brain and mouth returned to functioning as coherently as they ever did, I said, "seriously, though, I need your help with something."

"Well, since I'm sure you could apply as many simultaneous Stabilizes as you wanted with all of these tentacles around, I can only think that you need me to be your, what did you call it? Thinking brain human?" I sighed.

"Yeah. A certain someone will not let go of the idea of me literally tearing her to pieces. As opposed to metaphorically tearing that ass up, which, y'know, I'm down for at any time." Saffron nodded, crossing her legs, which had Marie and I both staring in fascinated wonder at the play of her muscles through the squish.

"Well then. Since I've already made my position quite clear regarding the continued existence of our dear Marie, I guess you're asking me to find a way to do it safely?" I shrugged.

"Yeah?" Before Saffron could do more than nod, Marie purred out, "Vlickies." and kept purring. After taking a deep breath and blowing it out through her nose, Saffron said, "you realize that no matter how well I research, your power, both by its nature and by its potency, means that it will never be completely safe?" Marie whimpered a little, and I said, "yeah. Yeah, I get that. Shit happens.

But there's a big difference between 'oh, I thought you could hold your breath that long' and 'oops I plugged all your breathing holes with silly putty', y'know?" She nodded again.

"Just so you understand. Marie?"

"Yunya?"

"I swear to you, if it is at all possible for Tabitha to do this thing without undue risk, I will find a way. Until then, no more asking. It upsets Tabitha, more than I think you know. Both that you would ask her when it might take you away from her, and because she cannot fulfill your clearly heartfelt desire." Marie sighed, then nodded and said, "Understood."

"Good." Saffron turned her gaze to me.

"And you. If and when I tell you I have found a way? When I tell you how and when to do so? You will remember how long and how patiently she's waited, and you will give her what she's asked for."

"Promise me it'll be as safe as you can make it?" She rolled her eyes.

"I love her as much as you do, Goof."

"I know that! I... I just need to hear you say it?" Saffron sighed, then smiled indulgently as she shook her head.

"Goof. I promise you, here and now, that when I tell you, it will be the safest possible way, at the safest possible time, that I can possibly devise. Is that enough?" I thought about it a second and nodded. Saffron nodded in return, then slowly uncrossed her legs, then crossed them again with the other leg on top. Then she giggled.

"What? You got sore thighs or something?"

"Not nearly sore enough, but I swear, watching both of you tilt your heads from side to side in unison is almost..." She switched her legs back, and laughed out loud.

"Tell me the two of you are doing that on purpose?"

"What?"

"Doing what?" I said at the same time as Marie asked. Saffron threw her head back into the embrace of her tentacle recliner, clutching at her lovely tummy and laughing. After a few minutes of laughing every time she looked back at us, she said, "so, do you both accept that compromise?" Marie and I looked at each other and nodded.

"Well then. Since I won't be able to get back to sleep any time soon, what were the two of you up to before I arrived?"

"Uh..."

"Oh, no. No evasion, Goof. If you're being evasive, I definitely want to see this now. Go on. Marie, do you have any problems with whatever deviltry our Goof had cooked up for you?" Before I could say anything, Marie intoned.

"None." So, blushing fiercely until Marie took away my ability to think enough to be embarrassed, I showed her. Before I could talk, Saffron cooed out, "aww. That's so sweet. It reminds me of our wedding night." After closing her eyes with a look like she was savoring the memory of that night, which I totally could vibe with, she said, "now, about that practice with controlling more of your tentacles at once..."

So yeah, turns out there is, in fact, a limit to the number of tentacles I can control at once with any kind of precision. Also that 'lack of precision' isn't a deal breaker for either of my lunatic partners. Still, all three of us slept well. Mimic dreamt of knitting. Don't look at me like that. Hypermelanistic orange tabby bitch never makes any damn sense at night. Menace brought her kids in to listen to Maze finish up Wintersmith.

No idea how she knew it would finish up today, and I'm vaguely embarrassed that my kid seems to be a 'jump to the last page of the book' kind of person, but what are you gonna do? You love your kids whoever and wherever they are, you don't try to make them different people. Marie and I kept watch from the mast of the Black Dragon. No PSAs today, because the Undead were manning the rooftops before I even got up on the mast. Sixty one percent of a plan in place.

Okay, maybe less than that, but I'm ballparking it, okay? Along with doing my thing working on the foundations of our hilltop tower, I also got some Endurance training in helping ship a couple things from Phileo to Calverton. For bulk shipping we still had Pesce's fleet in constant motion, but there were a few odds and ends we needed down south right away, so your girl Tabitha played pack mule.

Today reminded me that my first real 'Endurance Training' in the here and now that really pushed me wasn't actual physical effort, but Mana Shaping. Also, the boys managed to punch the tunnel all the way through to the foundation of the tower. Poor boys, having to discover that the reward for all their hard work tunnel punching was having to punch more tunnels. Still, they didn't seem to complain much. I think me being absolutely dripping with sweat might have had something to do with that.

No idea what they see in that, but screw it, just because I'm not my type, yada yada. Of course, along with all the other shit I had to do today, Saffron decided that instead of working from the Academy suite office, she'd be working from M-Space, resting in a custom fitted massage chair atop the endless undulating sea of tentacles. I didn't even get to play seat cushion, because she had me practicing Shaping with my tentacles. Specifically trying to shape fucking Stabilize.

Which, I'll remind you, requires multiple digits, of which each tentacle only has one. I very carefully did not take my lack of progress out on my smug Kitten when we broke for dinner after the longest, most frustrating day I can remember. I mean, I rewarded myself for not doing so, but that was totally her idea.