Chương 644: Day Six Hundred And Forty-Two

Dear Diary, All my life I heard that bit about 'find a job you enjoy doing, and you'll never work a day in your life'. Of course, by the time I wound up on the internet, there were so many different subversions of that, but my favorite had to be the one that follows it up with 'because the market will collapse and nobody will ever hire in that field again'.

Yeah, my generation didn't have minimum wage jobs that could buy a house, or the chance to work our asses off to maybe afford an apartment with functional utilities, but we sure as hell nailed dark humor. Something about the oldest of us graduating high school with no prospects, I think, and the rest of us watching shit slide downhill from there. I dunno, maybe some of my agemates elsewhere in the world had it better, but back where I'm from, it was pretty much 'choose your fail state'.

But here and now, I've gotten away from all that. But as I've mentioned, I still have a job. A career, even. Fuck, I've got a Title and a mission and maybe even a vocation. I'm pretty sure that's what it's called when you're tapped to be Clergy, a vocation.

My 'job', such as it is, includes kicking the living shit out of fuckers who threaten me and mine, fucking around with dipshits who deserve it as part and parcel of my High Priestess duties, teaching the next wave of would-be Heroes how to kick the shit out of assholes and survive with minimal loss of life and limb, mentoring one of those would be Heroes, and the latest addition, delivering overwhelming Ecstasy to my Worshippers one at a time one or two nights a week.

Yes, my career now includes intimate relations, and I'm kinda the one in charge of the whole deal. I think if I turned somebody away, nobody would question me, but whoever I turned away would get some serious side eye, maybe even shunned or shit like that. So it feels a lot less like I'm the religion's bike and more like I'm literally fuckin' my way through my entire Worshipper base.

Which would leave me feeling some kinda way, except they were the ones who lined up for it, and my ladies were in fact the first five. Yeah, I'm a special kind of stupid. I wind up a Goddess of Love whose Worshippers literally mostly want me to use them to unconsciousness, and I'm looking for some way it's wrong and bad. Then again, I suppose that's better than just assuming it's all good in the hood and winding up like Aphrodite at some point, just using people and disposing of them like tissues.

Also, I'm not sure how much of this has to do with me doing so much laundry over the past week, but some part of me is actively not wanting to go to work. Was still thinking about that when I delivered dinner to my ladies, at which point Saffron smiled fondly at me and said, "I know you want to spend the evening with us, love, but Duty calls." I leaned in, kissed her, and said, "is it that obvious?" All three of my ladies laughed and nodded.

"Sweet Tabitha, your Worshippers await. Trust that we will be with you here," Siobhan reached up and touched my temple.

"And here." She slid her hand down to cover my heart. I wasn't quite done being grumpy yet, though. I captured her hand and slid it just far enough to the side.

"But I want you with me here." Then I caught her other one and slid it down my belly.

"And here too." At that point Marie reached out, pulled me to her, and said, "Sunday Night." Took me a moment to realize she meant the night after Saturday. Still taking some getting used to.

"What? Two days?" Why two days?"

"Tomorrow night is the full moon, Goof." I'd barely realized why that mattered when she blinked my maid uniform off, replacing it with my Academy uniform, and said, "now, off to the Temple with you, love. If you're very, very good, perhaps there will be a surprise waiting for you at the temple tomorrow night." I stayed long enough to collect a hug and kiss from each of them, and then from each of the kids, which was weird for no reason I could admit to myself, before stepping to the Temple.

"Hey, Karen. Anything I should know before we get started tonight?" She turned to me from where she'd been speaking to the gathered crowd. And it was absolutely a crowd.

"Oh, ah... I was just telling everyone that you might not be here tonight?" I shrugged.

"Hey, some Revels I may wind up having to do stuff to earn my keep, but," I realized right then what I'd been so worried about; screwing this up somehow.

"This is probably my favorite part of being 'Patron Goddess'." That got a cheer from the crowd, which quieted quickly as I followed it up with, "getting to know the people Worshipping me, the ones giving me the power to step up and keep everybody safe when I need it." Because that's really what this was about. Not me getting my jollies. Yeah, that happened, and it happened for my Worshippers too, but that's not what this was about. This was about me getting to know them, and celebrate them.

Shit, that latter bit is what the whole thing had started out as on New Years with Siobhan. Me stepping into the background and highlighting someone I loved. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I... don't know if I'd use that word for my Worshippers. But then, I don't know that I wouldn't? Like, I remember way, way, way back in the day my mom telling me about all the different kinds of love.

She might have skipped over the sweaty kind, but then I'm sure she knew I'd figure that one out eventually on my own. But you can love somebody without it being a lifetime commitment. Or, y'know, a super exclusive whatever. The kind of love you can have for somebody because they're another human being, doing their best to make this shitshow of a world a little better. So that's what I did. One at a time, my Worshippers came up to the altar to join me.

One at a time, I spoke with them, joked with them, opened myself up to see their secret desires, then gave them those desires while showing the rest of the congregation exactly how beautiful, special, and wonderful they were. I guess it's not all that surprising how many of them wanted the same treatment Siobhan had gotten. Funny, now that I'd worked my way through my Clergy and a certain Brat, most of the folks who volunteered at the Temple weren't the sorts to be rocking double digit Endurance.

I wasn't timing anything, but I'd communed with nine of them when Karen approached me afterward.

"Hey Karen?"

"Yes, Goddess?"

"There some kind of reason everybody who came up tonight was of the feminine persuasion?" She shrugged.

"Most of the volunteering is done by women. We've a few men in our employ, and there are a few who volunteer, but," she trailed off, shrugging. I nodded.

"Just so long as nobody thinks I'm not down for dudes helping out around the place." After a pause, I asked, "any guys tomorrow?" She smiled.

"Three of the remaining four volunteers." Her smile got a little shaky and she said, "I, ah..." I pulled her into a side hug, popped my uniform back on, and said, "out with it."

"One of the congregation has asked to be included tomorrow." She did not sound thrilled about it, so I asked, "why do you not sound enthused?" She sighed.

"He's been very generous with donations, but thus far we'd only allowed Clergy and volunteers, many of whom could be Lay Clergy for the asking," she stopped and gave me a look as I snerked at the phrase 'Lay Clergy'. Before she could continue, I said, "yeah, let's keep it to volunteers for now. I don't want to get into that whole 'people who pay more get special treatment'. I mean, maybe..." I trialed off.

"Maybe what, Goddess?"

"I was gonna say 'maybe on somebody's birthday', but then I thought about the fact that we've got what, two million people in the Alliance? That means any given day of the year is gonna be like five thousand people's birthday. I'm..." I thought about what I'd done overnight, about why.

"I'm here to make a meaningful connection to the people Worshipping me. Not pull an all Alliance train, y'know?" Her eyes glazed a little, and I facepalmed.

"Look, if you wanna do that, you can, but I'm not down for that." She shot me the absolute puppiest of puppy dog eyes, and I said, "yet, okay. Yet." This was my life. Multiple people being disappointed that I'm not actually ready to do the nasty with everyone on the coast. At any rate, Karen's announcement the Revel had ended meant it was time for school, I stepped back home to find all seven of my girls dressed up and ready to go.

"Everybody join hands!" They did, and I stepped them back to the Temple. The kids all took a couple minutes looking around the main room of the Temple. Menace even got up and jumped up and down on the altar before I gave her a look, at which point she climbed down and led everybody down to breakfast. It really did me some good to see my kids socializing with kids other than their siblings and the other kids living at the Homestead.

After breakfast, Karen introduced the kids to their teachers; for almost all of them that was one of my Priestesses. Weirdness of knowing what Menace's kindergarten teacher sounded like mid-climax aside, they all introduced themselves politely. Speaking of introductions, while this past evening I'd made sure to ask folks their names, I only just now got properly introduced to Ms. Hannah Miles.

No apparent relation to the Headmaster, although she definitely needed some of that clockwork soul thing going on to deal with my Menace all day. Once I had all but Maze and Ria settled, I took them by the hand and stepped the three of us to the Practice Yard, while simultaneously Co-Locating to Vickerson's room and stepping one of me to Lenny's desk.

"You good to go, Lenny?" He stood and reached out a hand.

"Of course, Tabby." I stepped them both back to the Practice Yard.

"Hey Ria?"

"Yes, Mama?" I motioned to Lenny and said, "this is my friend Mister Lancaster." I handed her the extending staff she'd gotten for Yule.

"He's gonna show you how to use this." He looked at me, at Ria, then at the staff.

"Forgive me, Champion, but might I pay a brief visit to Lancaster House before we begin?" I nodded, stepped him to the Boys Club, where he quick stepped over to his suite, then came out a moment later carrying a pair of... not spears. Or, maybe spears? I stepped him back, and he nodded to Ria and said, "put that away."

He held out one of the two spear things he'd brought; it had a blunt wooden tip, but otherwise looked kinda like the spear I'd seen him using when the army camp got raided by New Amsterdam back in the day.

"This is a training spear. While the other might be useful to defend yourself if you've nothing better, for training you need something as close to the weapon you intend to wield as is practical." With that I left them to it and turned to Vickerson and Maze.

"Okay you two. Maze, this is Cadet Vickerson. Vickerson, this is my daughter Maze. Vickerson, your task for the morning is to teach Maze the basics of hand to hand, just like I taught you."

"Yes, Ma'am." With that I stepped back and watched. Okay, I also stepped down to the school and, of all things, taught math. Like, not just addition and subtraction, but algebra and geometry. Me. Like, okay, I get me being a gym teacher, but a math teacher? Look, three women loving me enough to have kids with me and do the marriage thing is one thing. Being a Goddess who the entire eastern seaboard wants to get busy with is another. But me, a math teacher? That shit just breaks credulity.