Chương 450: Day Four Hundred And Forty-Eight

Dear Diary,"Your intent matters to me, It should matter to you too, Why you choose is important." - Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Agency Yeah, I'm not sure how else to express this one. Unintended consequences are a bitch, and you gotta deal with them whether you meant it or not, but you can't lock yourself in a closet and do nothing ever either. I mean, okay, if that's what you want, sure.

But if somebody's kid is kidnapped and they cut their way through to get them out I'd be a complete hypocrite to say they were doing something wrong. Maybe they need to get good enough to keep the collateral to a minimum. Because 'acceptable collateral damage' is fuckin' anathema to me, but 'collateral damage' is just shit that happens. You fix the problem, then you go back and fix the damage you did fixing the problem.

Like, I'm pretty sure Saffron's gonna have to train some ex-Thralls to do maintenance on the Black Dragon's turrets now, even though they're more or less stationary until we get the diesel engine running at a minimum. Or at least one of the big boilers. Which we can't do until she's got people trained to maintain them, since apparently that's an endless fight to keep them from rusting into so much useless slag.

Kinda nice thing, though, we've already got some Calverton Soldiers trained in part of it, so we can maybe get them working on maintaining their weapons. Greasing gears and checking cables and shit isn't the same as sharpening swords, but it's still maintenance, and there's got to be a certain satisfaction, especially for a common Soldier in a world where Heroes and Mages and shit are tromping all over the battlefield, to have your weapon of choice be sixteen hundred pounds of over the horizon fuck you.

I swear, the first time some bitch throws a fireball at the Black Dragon and my boys respond by shrugging it off, screaming 'catch', and flinging a sixteen inch shell at some poor wannabe wizard, I'm gonna laugh my ass off. Possibly while posing suggestively atop the guns. But I digress. No, really, it's gone beyond 'bad habit' into 'state of being', I'm more digression than dumbass by this point. Shit, I pretty much weaponized that against Calverton, embodying Sun Tzu's 'formless as water' by just...

adding shit to my plan, putting people in charge of that bit, then mostly forgetting about it until the time came to throw it all together. I mean, I guess I got lucky in that with the exception of some over eager types at the bridges trying to push forward into our own artillery barrage, everybody followed orders and did their part. Of course, there at the end I think I also kinda embodied my point above. I went to save my kid, and fucked up Artemis.

Several dominoes down the row, I threatened Artemis with death if she killed somebody saving a kid, and I did that to make another kid feel... I dunno... like somebody took the loss of her mom and dad seriously. I mean, shit, I beat myself to death for that too, so I don't think I went too far. But when Artemis did exactly that, killed somebody to save a bunch of kids, I had to follow through.

I don't even know if it was me being a woman of my word, the whole 'Gods can't lie because their power makes it true' thing, or some combination thereof, but I killed her. Hard. But I went into it with the intent to Revive her. To Revive her after putting her through so much agony that she could set her own past aside and be something better. At least I tell myself that, and I don't think I'm lying. Because intent matters.

She didn't kill the Master Bitch because she was angry, or because Master Bitch had 'blasphemed' or insulted her or anything. All that might have been true, yeah, but she killed her because aforementioned Master Bitch had a weapon to the bodies and Souls of a bunch of kids, and the only way to stop that was to take the hit and then take her down so hard and fast her Soul was left standing there gaping at how her body was now so much tartare. Slept through most of yesterday.

Saffron had a bunch of shit to do with the Alliance now that we didn't need the entire Army in Calverton. Fuck, we didn't even really need it active. So before the weather got too ugly, our ships were busy shuttling troops home. Not all of them by any means; Calverton still needed a shit ton of work done. But we didn't need all our troops active, in Calverton, and sitting on their thumbs.

Siobhan had a whole new Class of Cadets to see to, and a big one at that, what with us now having six Cities worth of would be Heroes funneled through one functional Academy. Along with the lack of Heroes in New Amsterdam and Newark, apparently their Academy hadn't been anything near as effective as Phileo's. So for the time being, everybody was attending Phileo City Heroic Academy while New Amsterdam got their shit sorted and the other four Cities built their own Academies.

Turns out that's part of what Camden Yards had going on in the empty lot next to Drivers. They'd decided that since Mrs. Driver was their Grand Council Rep, and it looked more and more like Bill would wind up their Mayor, them donating the real estate for the new City buildings just made sense. It seemed a little weird to me, but everybody there seemed to agree. I'd have to ask Bonnie and Raven about it later, maybe Saffron as well, although if she saw something super wrong with it, I guess she'd put her foot down.

Maybe. She maybe had a little bit of maternal hero worship going on with Mrs. Driver, which I completely understood. The woman was an adorable force of nature, and I say that from the perspective of a terrifying force of nature with a kid who was herself both terrifying, adorable, and a force of nature. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Interesting thing; I'd missed out on stuff like physicals, because Siobhan did them while I was unconscious after showing up, and shit was all kinds of fucked up because of the missing staff that Season. But this Season they had everything as back to normal as it could get, other than the apparently full Class size, boosted above the normal cap since, y'know, Six Cities in one Academy. Short version, both of them collapsed back into themselves exhausted at the end of the day.

Part of me wanted to head back to Lancaster House, but Saffron shut that down fast and hard, simply saying, "we have no idea how you'd react to the children while under your Geas."

"Am I stuck on the Black Dragon until you get this shit removed then?" When I realized how that sounded, especially with her and Siobhan both looking kinda beat up, and also realizing they were both currently helping the kids get ready for bed, Siobhan standing in for me. Sorta literally I realized when I looked through her eyes.

"Not that I mind the break. I miss the kids, but I don't want to fuck them up and raise their inevitable therapy bills by not recognizing them or some shit." Saffron just snuggled up to me, pulling Siobhan into my arms with her.

"No, love. I'm having Cold Iron accessories made for you and delivered to each of the places we might need you. Including Lancaster House." I nuzzled into her hair.

"Thanks, Kitten. I really miss them."

"I know. Although we won't be going there first."

"No?" She shook her head.

"Academy first. We'll be testing to make sure what I'm having made works as well as..." She rapped a knuckle on my big ugly helmet. They all stayed with me overnight. I definitely had to get back to Lancaster House, just to make sure the kids knew we weren't abandoning them at night or anything else sus like that. Fuck, with the exception of the day we'd had Karen babysit, we'd never even really left them without at least one of us at all times. Which...

they still had Marie with them, I guess, but I kinda desperately wanted to be there with her. Mimic dreamt of High Priestess noms. Siobhan was disturbingly tasty, and her mouth feel had to be felt to be believed. Spent today lounging around in bed in the Captain's Cabin of the Black Dragon. Okay, some of it I meandered around the cabin a little, looking out the windows and washing up in the bathroom.

Which still required judicious use of Create Water, but the 'get rid of stuff' plumbing seemed to be normal gravity feed plumbing, so I could do the whore's bath thing at least. Had a little fun bringing Siobhan into the bathroom and sponging her down, then doing the same with Saffron. There's just something heartwarmingly intimate about washing someone else. Yeah, I do it on the regular with Saffron in the tub in the morning, but there's usually a sense of hurry with that.

She's got a country to run, and I've got... Well, shit, I don't have jack shit that I'm required to do at this point. The whole 'Hero In Waiting' thing means I'm not required to sign up for classes, I don't think. I guess if I hung around the Academy the Headmaster might pull me in to teach something, like maybe another Combat Training course, or maybe Physical Training.

The part of me that's enjoying writing up my Doctrine wants to put together some kind of academic 'shit wrecking one oh one', maybe try to write out some of what I do instinctively, maybe get some of the up and comings trained in how to spot and exploit enemy weaknesses. Because, y'know, that's what I do. I don't know exactly how I do it, because I don't think about it, but that's what I do. But I took my time with each of them.

Both of them were Co-Located, doing their jobs, so we couldn't really have any kind of in depth conversation, but I didn't need that. I needed to touch them, to care for them, to maybe pamper them a little. With nothing pressing, I took my time doing so. Lemme tell ya, it's an entirely different experience just... exploring somebody without intent. Or maybe with deferred intent? Like, the only intent I had then was just getting them clean, making them feel clean and pampered and cared for.

Once I had them both clean and bundled back in bed I had Marie hop back to Lancaster House for the combs, and spent a couple hours with Saffron pillowing her head on one thigh, Siobhan on the other, and Marie in front of me getting combed. Had to straddle the foot of the bed to pull that off, but screw it, apparently duBois flexibility training has non-combat, non-sex uses too. Think I bent the bedframe a little when, not long before sundown, Marie decided to express her gratitude in the most Marie way possible.

Didn't disturb either of my lovely ladies enough for them to complain about it though. Giggle, yes. Complain, no.