Chương 557: Day Five Hundred And Fifty-Five

Dear Diary, I know I talk about this a lot, but I'm really not sure if I'm the right person to be the Moral Compass for our little group. I mean, Saffron certainly seems to know more about ethics and philosophy and everything else other than wrecking shit than me. Siobhan is possibly the nicest person it's been my pleasure to meet, let alone swap body fluids with. Marie is probably the closest to me in overall temperament, but she's got three thousand years of experience on me.

So no matter what situation we run into, she's probably seen it, or something similar enough that it's not incredibly different. Thing is, Marie is fundamentally passive. Or maybe the right word is reactive. Spending over three hundred years just doing Cadets' laundry when she's clearly more than a match for any given Cadet on the field, not to mention most Heroes from just about anywhere is a bit of a hint about that.

Oh, what she did when I set her loose on Ares' Priests shows that she's not really passive, and she's definitely not a pushover, but if her current situation isn't actively hurting her or someone she cares about, she's likely to let it go on. Kinda reminds me of me pre-Isekai. I think maybe it's an ingrained fear that no matter how shitty the survivable situation you're in is, trying to change it might wind up with it being even worse. Siobhan...

Siobhan's an absolute fucking delight, and I say that unironically and in every way I can think of. But at the same time she is passive. Yeah, when given some encouragement she'll stand up and say 'down with the Undead', but she went from 'grr, I Smite them all' to 'I can fix them' in zero point zero seconds flat when it became clear that she could, in fact, fix them. She's very cautious, very kind, very sweet.

If Saffron and I weren't here busting up the status quo and building a new sustainable one, she'd have lived out her life in the Infirmary, doing her best to keep Cadets in one piece long enough for them to become Heroes, at which point they'd wind up in pieces too far from her to help. Then Saffron. It always comes back to Saffron. I love her, she's my missing pieces, she's everything I never knew I wanted and needed, but... Maybe I am too, for her.

Maybe my fucked up cereal box Moral Compass, even now that I've cleaned the gunk out, refilled the fluid, and sealed the cracks, is better than her complete lack of one. Because I've come to realize that she really doesn't have one. Prior to my arrival, Diana was her Moral Compass. If Diana had said, 'give me your kid so I can kill her', I think she would have handed Isnomi over. It probably would have broken her.

Holy shit, broken her differently than Diana stealing Isnomi away and sacrificing her in a fit of pique, but it still would have broken her. But I think part of why Saffron studies ethics and philosophy and religion so zealously is because she doesn't have that little thing inside her saying 'this is right, that is wrong'. Just 'these are mine, I do a protecc'. So yeah, I'm the one who gets to say where the lines are.

Per an agreement that I'm terrified by, even as the details attract and repulse me, I'm the one who enforces those rules. Which since Saffron is too ashamed to hand me an itemized list of what she's done wrong, means I've got to come up with legitimate punishments that make her feel like she's not slipping further into being her worst self when she's Imperator.

Because while I'm ninety nine percent sure that even though she loves the job, she finds herself doing things she knows I'd be horrified by, I'm one hundred percent sure that I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it both right and well and the way I want it done. So I can't take it away from her, but I have to find some way to make it clear that she is, in fact, being punished. Weird thing, I'm not sure she's really masochistic the way I am.

Holy shit, I just thought that inside my own head without couching it with jokes or anything. Yeah, it took an absolute virtuoso of pain to make me realize it, but I'm so used to pain being part of life that when I know it's just pain, not an actual life threatening or crippling injury, I think I notice the endorphin spike more than I notice the actual hurting.

Shit, at this point my subconscious feels that hurt when Marie or Saffron are doing their thing, and it starts letting loose the happy chemicals, because it knows what comes next. But that's not Saffron. For her it's psychological. She's not exactly amoral, but her morals come from me.

So when she does something because her choices are doing something I wouldn't approve of, or failing to do her duty as Imperator, which is something I told her to do, trusted her with, she winds up taking what I guess is the path of least guilt, maybe. The path of least Evil might be a way to describe it, if I really thought my Moral Compass pointed to Good and Evil. I guess maybe 'path of least Consent violation'.

At any rate, she can't bring herself to admit to every little detail, or maybe there are so many little details that she thinks I'd wind up horrified, or bored. So she asks me for blanket punishment, expecting me to hurt her, to mete out the consequences on her body, since we both know I won't hurt her heart, and breaking what she's building... What she's building, even with all its flaws, is still the best option either of us see. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

So, yeah, yesterday I told her I'd be delivering some Penance after sunset today, because I remembered saying I wanted to play hooky with her after we liberated Calverton, and I'm not sure we ever really got to. I don't remember doing so at any rate. Yeah, we took vacation days, I guess, and there was the whole Yule holiday, but I think everybody was more or less officially off work those days, even if they weren't actually off work those days.

But today I was scheduled for Physical Training, and she had a full day of Imperatoring and Archmaging planned. As I pulled her to me in the Bath, she murmured, "I'll need to tell the Grand Council."

"No the fuck you will not. Marie can take the message to them. Or Tallulah. Or Siobhan. Or I'll show up and tell them, if you think they need the reminder." She just smiled, rolled over to lay on top of me, letting all that squish press against my belly.

"Reminder of what?"

"That their options do not include 'going back to bickering nobles ruled over by capricious Gods. They can have a hyper-competent Tyrant trying to build a real nation, or they can have me."

"Oh, and you're worse than me?" I shrugged.

"Oh, I'd probably be easier to bullshit, but if someone outmaneuvers you I think you'll nod, learn, do damage control, and keep working towards our goals. If someone does that to me I'll just kill them. Probably in some kind of messy, fucked up way." She lay her cheek against my breasts.

"How poorly they know us." I shrugged again.

"Yeah, but if they're scared of me they work with you. And you get shit done, where I'd forget half of it. Also, I'd waste resources in a fit of pique."

"And I wouldn't?" I smiled at her.

"Nope. You know I'd be disappointed in you, so you don't." She pursed her lips and pouted.

"No fair being so right all the time." I laughed, and we snuggled and talked about nothing much. Soup Dumpling Saffron laughed as she tried unseriously to escape my Maw, and all my other ladies kept pushing her back in. I think I might have been upset on waking had she not been laughing joyfully, uproariously the entire time. Caught her trying to sneak off to work in the morning, scooped her up, and carted her off to the East Tower.

"Don't make me take your Translocation away, naughty Kitten."

"Aw..."

"Because then I can't do this." I reached inward, took hold of her, and plonked one of her under each of my arms as we sat on the edge of the uppermost roofed floor, a warm fire at our backs. We spent quite a while right there, talking about nothing much at all. Eventually the kids found us. Both of us were so proud when they did; not so much for the finding, but the conversation that followed.

"Ma, Mama, why you hiding up hewe?" I snickered as one of my Saffrons said, "we're not hiding, we're enjoying the view. And we were enjoying the peace and quiet." She snorted.

"Bowing." At that point the real pride kicked in, because Maze chuckled and said, "she's just mad because it takes so long to walk up those stairs." The way she emphasized the word 'walk' painted the picture clearer than anything that despite everything, they were still adhering to the safety rules we'd set about stairs back at Lancaster House.

"Well, I guess if our Menace walked all the way up here to get us, we can head down and play with the kids for the afternoon. After we all have lunch. Right Kitten?" Saffron smiled at me.

"I suppose." So we all trooped down and wound up playing kid running games around the courtyard. A couple skinned knees when kids hit ice patches were the worst of the injuries for the day, which made me realize that no matter what we did, the kids were still gonna find ways to mangle themselves in new and creative fashions. If we managed to box them into a permanently safe little cocoon, I'm not sure they'd come out the deadly little butterflies they ought to anyhow.

So Saffron and I kissed booboos and dispensed hugs in between bouts of running around like mad people ourselves. Finally, late in the day, I pulled Saffron in for a hug and squeezed her new harness just a little.

"Soon, Kitten. When the kids are asleep. But first," Siobhan? Yes, Goddess? Knock off just a little early and meet us in the Bedroom? Got a present for you. So I got to watch as Saffron got to put Siobhan's harness on her. At which point Ice Pop looked at me and said, "don't you have one?" I shrugged.

"Conrad didn't make one for me." I squeezed her just the tiniest bit, a naughty remote hug.

"Can't think of why." She giggled.

"I know exactly why." Saffron tilted her head and said, "so enlighten the rest of us?"

"If Tabitha could do that to herself, she'd never leave the Bedroom."