Chương 481: Day Four Hundred And Seventy-Nine

Dear Diary,"Justification does not, Mean freedom from Consequence, Just that I won't Deny you." Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Justified Homicide Yeah, gotta get that in there. Just because killing somebody is justified doesn't mean there won't be consequences, and if the shit somebody does has consequences, that somebody needs to deal with those consequences. Some jackass is hoarding so much wealth that people are literally starving to death? They refuse to stop even when it's pointed out?

Okay, yeah, killing that asshole is justified. But at that point, if he had a wife and kids, and they weren't party to the whole hoarding thing, because that kind of asshole rarely lets their heir incubator or offspring have any agency they can deny? Whoever did the killing needs to step up and make sure that wife and those kids are taken care of. And by 'taken care of', I mean fed and housed and cared for, not shot in the back of the head and dumped in a ditch.

Before I hear 'oh, but the asshole killed lots of wives and kids', yeah, that asshole did. They didn't. Not only that, but even odds their wife and kids dying wouldn't have the same kind of emotional impact on a douchecanoe that greedy; they'd probably just see it as a loss of time and money. So killing them after the douchecanoe is dead is just letting anger do the talking. Trust me, I get the need to make the asshole responsible suffer through everything everybody they killed suffered through.

I'm told I literally tortured one dumb asshole to death multiple times, reviving him after each one until I boiled him away brain first. But killing another victim just because they shared an address is not the way to make things right. Shit, I gotta remember, when I get to Vengeance, to explicitly state that I am okay with Reviving some asshole specifically to kill him a second time in cases like that.

Not saying I'm providing the Mana, especially without reviewing the situation first, but I'm not saying I won't provide the Mana either. So yesterday after a day of rock melting and Siobhan watching, we all headed home for baths and dinner. Much to Saffron's dismay, the first one lined up for a bath was Isnomi.

"Baff time ad nite!" Saffron got an annoyed frown.

"Your bath time is in the morning, my girl."

"Wan baff time wid ewwabody elth!" You really sure this is the hill you wanna fight about, Kitten? Saffron just shot me a look. So I should give in to her tantrum? I shrugged. May I? She's your daughter too. Yeah, but we really shouldn't disagree in front of her about her. May I? Saffron shrugged, glowering at our stubborn faced Menace, who stood there backed up by her siblings of the horde hoard and her posse.

"Oi, Menace." She looked up at me, smiling as if she thought I was about to side with her.

"Don't try to out-stubborn Mom. That's dumb." Her little face fell, and I had to steel myself to stay on course. So I whipped out the big guns.

"Why?"

"Wha?" I nodded.

"Why. Why do you want to take your bath now?"

"Cuz I wanna." I shook my head.

"That's selfish, and not well thought out, and you know that's not gonna convince your Mom. Hell, that wouldn't even convince me." I paused, tilted my head her way, and said, "think." She stopped, then mlemmed and sniffed.

"Wan baff wiff ewwabody elth."

"Okay, but why? Is there some good reason for that? Or are you just being stubborn and having a tantrum, like a baby would do?" Oh, she did not like that. The cranky swelled, but right at the last moment before she started hollering, the details of what I said percolated through her brain. Which, like Saffron's, wasn't slow.

"Leth waddah?" I looked over at Saffron, who pursed her lips.

"Water isn't precisely rationed... even hot water. Anything else?" Our little one mlemmed and sniffed again.

"Wawm waddah maketh uth thleepy?"

"Before dinner?"

"Yeth! We ged thleepy, we ead dinnah, we go wight to thleep!" Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Did you just help our daughter win an argument with me? Hey, I just told her to use logic instead of stubborn. It's a whole teachable moment thing. What about when she needs stubborn? I couldn't help myself, I snorted out loud, and both of them turned to look at me. I held my hands up, doing my best innocent look. Like she doesn't have that in spades already.

Point.

"Okay, my girl. Get in here. But I expect you to wear a nightshirt to dinner, and go right to bed after."

"Yeth!" Probably would have been better if Menace had taken her clothes off before jumping in the tub, but I guess we all make mistakes now and then. The kids did drop off fast after a warm bath and warm dinner. All of us with kids small enough to carry wound up carrying at least one upstairs. I wound up with Maze and one of the bigger girls; her mom carried Menace right behind me. Dreamt of all four of my ladies feeding me. Probably shouldn't lump Karen in there, but... spicy dessert.

Speaking of Karen, she showed up at the Homestead after I'd spent the morning making various sizes of slabs. Mostly still the big monolith ones, but I'd also started making smaller ones, which Saffron told me would be used for steps. Wasn't sure how that was gonna work, but I figured I'd go watch while the current batch was cooling. Of course, right as I was walking away from that batch, Marie walked up with Karen, who wore her Academy uniform.

"Champion? There's a problem."

"Something dangerous enough you need me?" She rocked her head from side to side.

"Not specifically? But... it's not something I can figure out, either." Kitten? I think I need my Thinking Brain Human. A moment later Saffron stood with us, then took my hand and Karen's.

"Show us." Karen stepped us to the bridge of a big sailing ship. It wasn't too big for the river we were on, but I would not envy the skipper trying to turn it around without some kind of tugboat or oars or something.

"There." I turned to look and saw a single flag flying atop a single tower, anything else near it obscured by trees along the shoreline.

"What am I looking at?"

"That would be Rich Man's Port."

"One tower?" She shrugged.

"It's the first visible tower, the sign that the port is just beyond the next big bend in the river." I nodded.

"Okay. So what's the problem?"

"Look at the river, love." Saffron's quiet statement seemed to startle Karen, who nodded. When I looked at the river, I didn't quite get what I was looking at until I realized that the river... wasn't moving. Like, not 'not flowing', but the water itself, up to and even especially the small waves being split by the bow, were frozen in place.

"Is that ice?" Saffron shook her head.

"No. Something... I'm not sure what, but that is not Fae magic."

"How do you know?"

"Cold Iron embedded in the prow and front of the keel. Specifically for things like this."

"So... not Mortal magic either?" She shook her head.

"Shit."

"Indeed." I nodded.

"Hang onto something." I followed my own advice and took a firm grip of a railing, just in case there was some kinda backlash. I reached in to that place where I'd felt my ladies without any part of my normal human shaped body touching them, where I'd lifted those monolith sized stone slabs, and kinda sifted through looking for... big. I don't know how some of them felt bigger, but they did. I reached for the whatever in front of me, felt myself stretching, as if this might be a little out of reach...

I almost landed on my ass as an oddly familiar sensation flooded my brain. I froze that big assed tentacle as it started materializing, then very carefully slipped it back to wherever it had come from.

"Hoo. Whoa." I gripped at the rail, oddly unsurprised as it crumpled under my grip.

"Love?"

"Marie. Help?" I held out a hand, carefully still. Marie's hand wrapped around my bicep, and I said, "carry?" She lifted me into a princess carry, and when I rolled my face around to look at her, I stared into fangs and fur and...

"Beautiful."

"Are you all right, love? You sound... intoxicated."

"Mmm... High as fuck. High as balls. Dunno why. Hoo. Think I'm seein' shit right now. Maybe seeing not with the curse hallucinating? Oh, shit, grammar's fucked."

"Just a bit, love. Karen, assist me, please?" I'm not sure what they did, but for the next... while, they stood there waving their hands. Shaping stuff, maybe? I might have seen Mana flickering and flowing between them and the aurora borealis hovering between us and the tower, across the tower, the bowsprit of the ship just touching it. I just rooched my butt back into Marie's arms, enjoying the feel of her fur against my skin.

"Marie?"

"Yes?"

"Wanna be nekkid."

"No."

"Pleeease?" She just shook her head.

"Ooh! Ooh! What about the dress?" She rolled her eyes, and a moment later I lay in her arms, my butt pressed against her dress.

"You too!" She frowned, I turned on the puppy dog eyes, and she shook her head, but a moment later I got to rub my butt against fuzzy Marie belly.

"Y'look hawt." She just smiled and maybe snugged me a little closer. As the sun lowered in the sky, Saffron stepped over to lay a hand on my arm.

"Highest Priestess Smith?"

"Yes, Imperator?"

"Your Goddess requires you to stay on station here until we return. Tell us immediately if the situation changes. In addition, you are not to sleep until specifically ordered to, and maintain yourself Co-Located within either the Academy or the Temple."

"Yes, Imperator." She nodded and dropped into parade rest. I felt a little fuzzy, and saw something rocket away from her, gone in the blink of an eye. Saffron stepped, and we were in the office. She knocked on the door in the armoire, and I tried to burrow into Marie as The Smith called out from behind the door.

"Yes?"

"Good Evening, Son. I could use your advice, if you've time?" The door slid aside, and The Conrad Smith nodded. No, not The Conrad Smith. Weyland. No. Smith the Conrad? Scary little dude. Nodded, then looked at Marie and I, a terrifyingly eager smile painting his face.

"Of course, but might I suggest your Concubine set Mother down? Ten."

"Why?" His smile got wider.

"It's almost sunset. Seven."

"That matters why?"

"High Holy Day. Three."

"MARIE! DROP HER! NOW!" I blacked out before I hit the ground.