Chương 688: Day Six Hundred And Eighty-Six

Dear Diary, I really do worry on the regular about my inadequacies as a Goddess. Okay, mostly 'inadequacy'. Like, seriously, I understand that I've got many inadequacies, but most of them are generally pretty common human failings, and ones that my Divine peers here and now seem to have as well. Not paying enough attention to people I'm intimately connected to. Not being mindful enough of people I'm not connected to. All my normal human failings, just writ large because I'm no longer human.

I mean, okay, I'm still definitely Human Adjacent, but still. But I've got that one main problem; no matter how many places I can be at a time, I can only pay attention to one thing at a time. Yeah, I'm getting pretty good at doing dumb repetitive shit while Co-Located, but 'dumb repetitive shit' is me being a warm body to throw at problems. A strong, durable, tireless warm body, but just a warm body.

If I'm not doing anything where I need to focus all day, I can sort of skip through, keeping an eye on each of me to make sure I'm not sitting there ignoring some shady bullshit going on right under my nose.

I guess I'm focused on that because right now, Karen needs me looking over her shoulder, which I could do just fine during Physical Training, since a lot of that is just, y'know, making sure people keep working, make sure they know how to improve the way they want to, and trusting someone to clue me in if somebody gets hurt. Lachlan is absolutely perfect for that. But... Combat Training. We're definitely to the point where we need to start working more seriously on stuff like dueling.

Not in the whole fucking 'honor duel' sense, or even 'trial of arms' like I did in Norfolk. But one on one fighting against an opponent, because most of the fights I got into early on were definitely one on one fights. Okay, you know what I fuckin' mean. I wasn't the Wee-Zard throwing fireballs, or the Grand Strategist moving armies around, I was the shitkicker right up in the enemy's face. So last night I got home with dinner. Pizza night, and if the flavors aren't quite right, they're not entirely wrong, either.

We had a whole assed variety of toppings and even a couple different sauces. Those included a couple combos that might have gotten me on some kind of list back in the day, but here and now I'm the one introducing pizza, and I've got kids who need protein and don't like meat, so along with a whole stack of pretty conventional sausage pizzas with marinara, we had an alfredo pizza with shrimp, a pesto pizza with lots of shrooms, and a garlic butter pizza with egg.

Ria liked the egg pizza, but she ate like half a slice of the alfredo and shrimp and a full slice of the shroom pizza. Pulled Saffron over to murmuring distance in the Bath.

"Have you been watching Karen?" She shrugged.

"Not focusing on her. Is something wrong?" I shrugged.

"She's tryna get an audience with Jack, but he seems to be a hard man to get in touch with." She sighed.

"That's not exactly true. It's relatively easy to get his attention. Just threaten Jackville."

"Wasn't there this whole assed plan where I wasn't going to be starting any wars, and trying not to eat any more Deities?" She rolled over, grinning at me.

"Oh, no. There was a plan to give Deities capable of learning better opportunity to do so. The plan for the rest is deep frying until they're lightly crispy, remember?" I pouted a little. But only a little.

"I don't know whether to be impressed you remembered that or annoyed that you're making the source of my worst impulses get all rumbly in the tummy." She slipped up, kissed me, then slid back down my front.

"Perhaps later, when the kids are in bed, I can satisfy your appetites."

"I am suddenly completely devoid of annoyance." Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Now it was my Kitten's turn to pout.

"Bother. I was in the mood for bitey Goof."

"That can be arranged," I growled. And so it was, although I still need to be careful not to chip a tooth on her jewelry. Dreamt of my ladies, with Saffron front and center, returning to absolutely cramming my maw full of themselves. Over and over and over, laughing joyously and uproariously as they did. In the morning, before we left for work for the day, I snuggled my ladies in and said, "it really does make me feel better when you guys sound so happy about, y'know, dream stuff."

They all hugged me back, but Siobhan giggled, and when I raised an eyebrow, Saffron sighed, smiled, and said, "you, ah... the valley in M-Space flooded last night."

"What? Oh, shit, do I need to..." I trailed off when I realized all three of them were chuckling.

"What?" Saffron reached up and patted my cheek.

"It's okay love. I've been told by an unimpeachable authority that it's okay to drool if you're hot enough, and you are." Before I could open my mouth to argue, Siobhan and Marie both chorused, "Yes." We did sparring in Combat Training today. I had Lachlan pair off with Cadet Citron, because I'm pretty sure he's the only one who will challenge Citron's sword Skills. I paired off against Hildegarde for the same reason. I kept things to hand fighting, although I really wanted to get her some kind of weapon.

We tried daggers, but she kept dropping them. No idea why, they just do not fit her face. I think she'd be good with a few of the kinds of Mana Blades I use, but her Mana Shaping skill isn't really up to making them yet. I guess I'll have to think of something, but at the moment we just practiced 'Close Quarters Combat'. My second stolen Skill, and still one of the ones I've used most often, I think. Hildegarde has that Skill too now. Okay, I believe her when she says she does.

She's officially an 'Adult' now, too, according to her Status, and she got the Skill up to two today. I realized something that ought to be kinda embarrassing at that point, but somehow I wasn't embarrassed at all. Hildegarde has a bunch of disadvantages when it comes to power leveling Skills like my Kitten, but I think one of the biggest might have nothing to do with Attributes or related Skills. When we're sparring in the Practice Yard, we're going hard, but I'm not actually tryna kill Hildegarde.

I think she knows it, too. Whereas when Kitten was doing her epic Skill raising, she was, um, definitely tryna 'seal the deal'. I guess that might be one edge a place like Sparta has over an actual civilized City like Phileo; they can have their Heroes actually kill people as 'training exercises'. Fuck it. Thebes beat them with the Power of Love, and they're not even the fuckin' City of Love.

Sparta comes at us, we won't send them packing, because we'll beat them down, capture them, then make them fix all the shit they've broken over the years. I had the rest of the class rotating through spar partners, most of them going two rounds sparring versus random opponents, then one round playing ref. With the exception of Vickerson, who I had sparring all fuckin' morning long. At lunch she staggered up to me as the rest of the class filed out.

"Ma'am, have I upset you somehow?" I shook my head, smiled at her, and put an arm around her in a bro hug for good measure.

"Nope. Part of the mentoring thing." She sagged as I dropped a light Stabilize into her.

"How so, Ma'am?" she slurred out, recovering from the Shape pretty quickly.

"I mentioned before, you've got a good combination of talents to be a field commander. Thing is, for most of your career where we need a 'field commander', you're gonna be working with other Heroes. Typically, especially while you're still young and fit enough to be on the front lines, you're gonna be in command of your peers. This Cohort, maybe some a little younger than you. Maybe a few older if they're not really command sorts.

But in order to command somebody effectively in a fight, you have to know how they fight. Know details, strengths and weaknesses. I wouldn't use Lachlan when I need someone with range, I wouldn't put my Kitten in where brute strength was called for. Those are pretty obvious examples, but... do you follow what I'm saying?"

"Why am I doing it this way instead of refereeing? Ma'am?" I noticed the hesitation, but decided she was tired enough I didn't need to do anything about it. She didn't forget, after all, and I suspected she really did want to know.

"Couple reasons. One, you really do need more practice. Two, your Endurance needs to be top tier to be able to fight and command at the same time. Three, if your peers see you sitting out reffing, they won't respect you when you're out on the sharp end. Even if you don't beat them, if they see you stepping up over and over and over, they're gonna know you know them, and know you're not gonna hang them out to dry." She thought about that for a second, then nodded and said, "thank you for the explanation, Ma'am."

"No worries. Go get something to eat." Of course, I myself had plenty of worries. Okay, one big worry, and he had a town named after him, but was still playing hard to find.