Chương 449: Day Four Hundred And Forty-Seven

Dear Diary,"You have a right to exist, So does everyone else, Use your Agency wisely." - Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Agency Yeah, I don't know if I'm really up to writing this shit. Okay, let's be clear, I have all the paper and ink I could ask for, and my hands work and I can, in fact, if I had to, write or translate it into Standardized Celtic even, although I'm gonna ask my High Clergy to help me with that part.

But I don't know if my poor Goof brain is up to writing a Doctrine which is going to wind up affecting the cultural norms of a good chunk of the eastern seaboard of Atlantis eventually. Like, I'm the Patron Goddess of the Alliance. No matter which name you slap on me. Eventually that's gonna come out, even if it stays a kind of 'open secret' like the Greek names of the Greek Pantheon. Shit, I don't even know some of the Reman names. Like, who the fuck was Persephone in Reme?

But if the Clergy of Mimic doesn't know my Secret Identity by now, if they can't figure it out eventually maybe they're not up to snuff in terms of perception or brain power. I mean, yeah, Blend does a lot of work, but my Clergy have to have at least a little bit of resistance to that, right? Maybe? If it's something I'm no longer trying to hide from them? But one way or another this book that I'm writing is gonna wind up changing lives.

Given the shit nature of here and now, I'm hoping for the better, what with the bar being so low. But that's just it, I can't know it's going to be for the better. If it's a question of competence, I'm sure whatever I write is eventually gonna wind up with some screwed up interpretation. Fuck, some of it won't even be assholes twisting my words, just people who don't know any better.

So the best I can possibly do is try to clarify stuff as I go, maybe clean it up before I go public with it, and possibly put some self-corrective measures in there. Like lobster DNA. I remember my science teacher talking about how lobsters don't die of 'old age' the way humans do. Eventually they get too big to molt, but if somebody just, y'know, kept helping one molt? It'd keep getting bigger and bigger, so long as they kept anything else from killing it. Maybe I ought to try that.

Get some Kraken to pick out a lobster and protect it, let it grow until it starts having a problem molting, then just... peel it every so often when it needs to molt. Give it a couple thousand years, and we'd have a lobster kaiju! Wait, shit, what if they've already done that? So anyway yesterday left me lying on my bed in the Black Dragon, wearing Orla's anti mind control helmet and just generally not okay with the world.

"I'm sorry, Marie. Even some of the Sidhe are... honorable." Marie snorted.

"Yes, I know, that's practically the defining characteristic of the Sidhe. They honor their word. But..."

"Assholes." Marie definitely sounded like she knew of what she spoke. Then again, that was kind of the defining characteristic of Marie's verbalizations. The times she said something and didn't sound like she was declaring laws of physics were few, far between, and come to think of it usually had something to do with her emotional connections to Saffron and I.

"Ladies?" The four of them all looked at me.

"Do I need to wreck the living shit out of somebody right now, or are we good?" The others looked to Orla, who shrugged and said, "the Black Dragon is secure, and I doubt any Sidhe would come within a Crossbow shot of her, even if they were welcome aboard." When I raised an eyebrow, she explained, "too much iron, way too much Cold Iron."

"So... what the fuck happened?" Saffron looked thunderous, and I waved to Orla, "you can go do ship stuff, or just go hit the sack if you need to." She nodded, saluted, and left, closing the door behind her. Definitely knew how to take a hint. Saffron took a deep breath, let it out, then said, "I don't know." I held out my hands, and she first put her arms around me, then swiveled down into my lap.

"So what do we know?" She shook her head.

"Before that, can you tell me what you remember?" I thought about it.

"It's... fuzzy. I spent Thursday napping at the Academy suite, right?" At her nod, I followed that with, "I don't really remember what I dreamed about then or Friday night. I'd guess something about Mimic, but nothing concrete, and that's just me guessing. I... vaguely remember something about heading to Calverton, carrying a load of supplies direct from Lancaster House, then maybe just... going around lifting shit? S and R?

I remember looking, I remember slicing a couple big bits of stone apart, I remember maybe lifting some shit. Then I woke up on a slab of rock in the middle of the City, and couldn't remember anything that happened after getting shot back in my old world." Siobhan sat down next to me, put her arms around me.

"Poor Tabitha. That must have been awful." I put my arms around both of them, a soft smile slipping onto my face when Marie slid around behind us and wrapped herself around us, lying her head on top of mine.

"Yeah. Very not fun. On top of being lost and alone in a strange fucked up City? I kept... hallucinating."

"How do you mean?" Saffron's question had a certain bite to it that let me know she wasn't just trying to figure out my trauma.

"Uh... the first thing I remember was seeing some folks running toward where I'd woken up. When they were running toward me, I saw... our troops, I guess. I wasn't paying a lot of attention, because that's how people notice you. But when I turned to make sure they hadn't decided to come back at me, they were just some homies from the hood running away from a few cops in SWAT gear."

"SWAT?"

"Special Weapons And Tactics. Dudes who... shit, our Guards wear actual armor and shit. Okay, most police back where I'm from just wear uniforms." At her nod, I realized she might be thinking of stuff like our Academy uniforms, which I had come to realize were a lot more protective than I first thought.

"Like, just cloth and shit. Some holsters for small weapons, and a badge, some communication gear, but not actual, like, combat gear. They're meant to be able to stop a drunk guy or a dude with a knife, not an actual soldier."

"And?"

"SWAT guys were... cops who were pretty much soldiers. I mean, in places like Camden some of the cops were wearing body armor and had shotties and rifles in their cars, but SWAT guys were who the cops called in when they were outclassed." Saffron nodded.

"So, Heroes?" I winced at the comparison.

"Yeah, no. Really, no. I mean, I remember a couple shows painted them that way? But where I lived, if SWAT showed up everybody on the block was fucked, because if you hadn't evacuated they assumed you were on the side of whatever coked up gangbangers they'd been called in to put in the ground." When she didn't look like she quite understood, I tried again.

"Look, if the guards called a Hero in and they found a building with a unit of Volunteers ready to throw down, what are they gonna do?" Saffron shrugged.

"By the book? De-escalate. Find out why the Volunteers are ready to fight, who armed them, if need be disarm and disable them." She paused, then said, "I suppose some of them might not survive if they were Dragonslayers, had Crossbows, or both, or if the Hero wasn't very powerful."

"Yeah. SWAT guys? In the experience of anybody from the hood? Are gonna just kill everybody in the building, and if anybody in the buildings around there gets killed, it's just unavoidable collateral." She frowned.

"That's... not right." I shrugged.

"Not right or not, it's what everybody expected if we saw SWAT and the folks they were called in for didn't crawl out on their bellies like, immediately." Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. She shook her head.

"At any rate, what you saw changed at that point?" I nodded.

"What other 'hallucinations'?" I thought about it a second and said, "two kinds. First, people were, like, what I remembered from ho... Eastside. Just... normal humans in clothing like what I had when I got here. Shit, there were some big soldiers, I think I may have been looking at Trolls. But I didn't see Trolls, I saw big guys in green outfits with a military bearing." When she nodded, I continued.

"The other weird thing was that here and there shit... wobbled. Like a heat haze, or like reality wasn't real stable. I kinda got the same thing happening when you put this," I rapped my knuckle against the helmet.

"On me." Saffron nodded.

"That sounds like the affects of Cold Iron on Fae illusions. You likely weren't seeing anything as it was. But not a complete dreamscape, just a kind of visual... as you said, hallucination, making you think you'd returned to your world." I snorted.

"Not my world. I'm from there, but I like this one more." I blinked everybody's clothes onto the chair.

"Because reasons." Siobhan, cool against my side, warmed just a bit.

"Do you remember last night?"

"Just kinda said I didn't, Ice Pop." She pouted at me when I turned to look at her.

"I worked so hard on that."

"Oh, no, you get to do it again now that you've had some practice." She smiled at me and, if she rolled her eyes a little, nuzzled into my shoulder right after. Saffron turned me to face her with her fingers on my chin.

"I heard what you said. Or, almost said.

'Home'." I opened my mouth to say something, I'm not sure what, but her fingers slipped up in front of my mouth.

"No, Tabitha. I'm not upset. Not at you, in any way. I'm worried that whatever Spell or Curse or Geas was placed on you hasn't been removed, just suppressed."

"Shit." I took a deep breath.

"No time like the present to find out." I lifted the Cold Iron helmet off my... Fuck on a stick Jazz had herself a fuckin' rack to die for, and some part of me hoped I wasn't gonna get smacked for the words already slipping out my lips.

"Gyatt! Where were you hiding those puppies, Jazz? I mean, uh... not that you're hiding them now. Or..." I looked down to where she was very, very naked on my equally naked lap, and seemed entirely unconcerned with the thin, pale arm trying to sneak across my belly toward my cooch. I turned to see the smaller blonde from earlier grinning impishly up at me.

"Just seeing to my duties?" she said before turning to kiss my shoulder.

"Holy shit. Wow. I think maybe my mollies wore off or some shit like that? But... holy fuck..." I realized right then that whatever I'd taken for them to get me into this situation, I was absolutely willing to be the meat in this sandwich.

"You guys... uh... wanna...?" Somebody, by the squishy breasts against my shoulders probably the WNBA blonde from earlier, pressed herself against my back and pushed my hands down. Fuck it, if they wanted me in the cosplay helmet, I'd be their Magneto any...

"Holy fuck that is weird." Saffron sighed.

"I'm... afraid we'll need you to stay here while we figure out how to remove whatever magics the Fae have placed on you."

"Why? I mean, I get I have to keep the helmet on, but it's not like wearing a funny looking hat is the weirdest thing I've done." Saffron's frown melted into an affectionate smile.

"And how will you get anywhere, Goof?"

"I'll just Trans... oh, that would not be good. Fuckin' Viserys ending for me if I do that." I put my hands to either side of my head and mimed exploding.

"I'm afraid so."

"So what, I'm stuck here on the Black Dragon until you figure it out?" She frowned at me.

"Unless you trust us enough to carry you from place to place, even while under the effects of your Geas?"

"I trusted you enough to let you bring me here." Saffron sighed, then said, "that's true, but I'm worried about you leaving." When I did a little head tilt, she nodded and said, "you've practiced Translocation until I'm certain you could do it in your sleep. You might do so instinctively."

"Not from here." Her jaw dropped, like she hadn't thought of that.

"So." I took a deep breath.

"I feel safe with you guys. Like... really safe. When that Geas is on me. So I'm not likely to rabbit. But right here? While it's safe? Convince me I don't want to leave?"

"How do you expect us..." Siobhan interrupted Saffron, "I know!" Then she pulled me back onto the bed, rolling onto me as she did. Halfway there, Orla's helmet slipped......" Oh, hey, you're really friendly aren't yoummphh." The blonde chick decided to taste test my tonsils, and honestly? She wasn't half bad at it. I'd say it ground my gears, but they were way too greased to grind. From behind her I heard Jazz say, "I do suppose that would convince our Goof not to run off."

When my mouth became available for comment, I blurted out, "uh... our?" While the smaller blonde propped herself up and hefted one of my knees over her shoulder, the big one lifted my left hand, long fingernails poking at a pair of rings on my finger.

"Mine." She nodded to Jazz, who knelt behind the blonde with her chin propped over the blonde's bruised shoulder.

"Hers." I nodded to the smaller blonde.

"Uh, and who is she then?" Jazz said, "this is Siobhan. Your newest partner."

"Mine?"

"Ours." the big blonde declared. The little one... Siobhan put on a serious face that barely hid her grin and said, "as such it's my solemn duty to make sure none of you have any urges going unfulfilled." Look, I'm only human. Three hotties clearly all about seeing how often they could ding my bell is not something I could resist. I'd messed around with girls before, but holy fuck sticks I didn't even know that scissor shit worked like that. It did. Work. Holy fuck did it ever.

I guess the others decided I was the party favor of the day, because after Siobhan, Jazz took a turn, then turned to the big one.

"Marie? I think she needs sleep. Could you?" Marie grinned, her teeth like, professional capped white and big, and then proceeded to show me that she was, in fact, a mistress of all things scissor related until my brain gave up the whole 'consciousness' thing as stupid. Weirdest fucking dream I ever had. I lounged around nomming snacks shaped like the women I'd been banging. Jazz... Jazz? Jazz shaped soup dumplings, Marie shaped pasta, and finally Siobhan shaped Ice Pops for dessert.

She crunched when my maw closed around her, shattering into a million tiny slushie pieces, like the perfect melding of a popsicle and a slushie. I think I might have definitely had more Siobhan slushies than the other two put together, and I really hoped they didn't feel some kinda way about that. Woke up with the three of them snuggled all around me, light leaking in through the mostly covered windows.

Weirdest thing, they'd shut the lights out, but I could still see the shadowed corners of the room, fine white lines picking details out of the darkness. The moment I stirred to check out the other corners, Marie said, "Morning." Jazz started licking at my underboob while Siobhan blinked, sat up, looked around, and then stretched.

"Good morning, Tabitha."

"Morning, Siobhan. Sleep well?" She finished her stretch, which shifted a couple small scabs on her bruised shoulder, then turned to smile down at me.

"Absolutely. I'm not nearly as athletic as you three. That much exercise and I sleep very well." I snorted.

"Me? Athletic? Are we talking about the same me?" Siobhan took one of my hands and, with a sad smile, lay it on my own belly. Where I could not help but notice a set of washboard abs. I sat up, kind of disturbing Jazz' taste testing me, but couldn't get a good view of them past my own tits. Which were pale enough that I must have been indoors for, like, years. I realized right then that wherever I was and whatever had happened, I had more than a little bit of time missing.

As Siobhan leaned into me and Jazz did the same from the other side, I realized that I really wanted those memories back, because these three women clearly had it bad for me, and by my own complete lack of worry, I reciprocated.

"Still." said Marie from behind me, and I surprised myself by instinctively going completely motionless while she lowered that Magneto cosplay helm... I snuggled Saffron and Siobhan to me and leaned back into Marie. The three of us purred our contentment, giggling to a stop when Siobhan eventually pouted, "not fair. I want to do that too." I took her by the back of the neck and pulled her around to look deep into her eyes, then singsonged, "somebody needs to shapeshift."

She blinked, gaping at us while we giggled more. Eventually she crossed her arms and huffed.

"Well now I don't want to." I bunted her chin with my forehead, enjoying the view as I said, "in your own time, when you're ready." Saffron blew out a lungful of air and said, "sadly, speaking of time, we need to be about our duties." With an amused, affectionate, faux authoritative look at Siobhan, she said, "our normal daytime duties." Siobhan pouted for a second, the expression clearly fake, then said, "I can do both!" as she Co-Located next to herself.

Then she groaned and collapsed back into herself, clutching at her head.

"Yeah, two of you in one spot. Not pleasant."

"How do you manage it?" I popped a Heal into her head, followed by a Smite just in case. She smiled at me as I said, "you get used to it. I'd put it as maybe a three on the annoyance scale."

"Three. Out of?"

"Oh. Ten. Ten is dying hard. Nine is dying quick, or maybe a thousand of me in one spot. Eight is, like, painful mortal wound shit, like losing a limb or most of the skin on it. Seven..." I petered off as tears leaked from Siobhan's eyes. I pulled her to me.

"Oh. Oh, Ice Pop, please don't cry. Please." She snuffled into my chest.

"I... It wouldn't be so bad except that I know you're speaking... speaking from experience." She sobbed gently into my chest, and I just sat there holding her for a while.

"Siobhan's misadventure aside, we'll certainly all stay here with you as well, love." Aided by Marie, she gently pushed me back to the bed.

"While you rest. We all had a harrowing day yesterday, so today please, rest while we just... lie here and remind ourselves that you are, in fact, here and safe in our arms." I closed my eyes, my head cushioned on Marie's thigh, wrapped around Siobhan while Saffron wrapped herself around me.

"That sounds really... really..." Even with the chunky helmet on my head, I fell asleep before I could finish the sentence.