Chương 713: Day Seven Hundred And Eleven

Dear Diary, On the one hand, I know that I've only lived through like six hours since my Power, Adrienne's Blessing, and Jack's wish twisted the timestream counter clockwise until it snapped off and left us floating around in some kind of fucked up frozen time wasteland. I've spent that long literally fucking around with Volunteers at my Temple on any given Revel night. Longer, even. I shouldn't be so desperately wanting to be home with my ladies, my kids, my Saffron.

But on the other hand, I don't think I've ever been quite this far from them. Not since I got here. Which means the last time I was this far or further from all of them was before I got isekaied, and nothing from back in the day is worth giving up my here and now family. Not social media, not video games, not on demand entertainment. I feel bad saying this, but not even my blood relations.

If somebody approached me and told me that I could step back there and have my mom back, that would tear me up, but I wouldn't, couldn't go back. Couldn't leave my ladies, my kids, my found family here and now. Couldn't leave Saffron, who was the first person to see me and cling to me the way I wanted, needed someone to. I miss them. Oddly enough, I'm not afraid for them. Afraid I might fuck this up and not see them again, maybe, but not afraid for them. Marie and Siobhan will care for them.

Tallulah too, I think, now that Ria's home is our Homestead. Karen won't let them down, even if she's more like a big sister than a mom. Saffron will care and provide and protect them all. Heh. Always and forever, Saffron. Don't think I'm gonna have a tombstone here and now, because if something manages to off me, I doubt there will be a body left, let alone any place to be buried, but if I had one, that would be my epitaph, I think. Saffron. Always Saffron. I could live with that. Shut up, you know what I mean.

One moment I stood in Johnny's place, my tentacle resting along Adrienne's spine, full of Mana and ready to support her. Jack made his wish, Adrienne's Blessing kicked in, and time and space shattered into spinning, sliding, splintering fragments. I reached out, not even thinking, just doing, pulling the pieces back together.

Four big chunks tried to refuse, wouldn't fit back together, pushed each other apart like the ends of magnets, only they wouldn't, couldn't, didn't want to slide back together no matter how I turned them. Unfortunately for the Agency of random chunks of discorporating space time, I was not bound by the limits of a human body. Or even really bound by the limits of a continent spanning mass of tentacles.

I grabbed all four, twisted them, shoved them together, and held them in place as they heated up, welding them together with pure spite. Of course, doing that forced them further from the rest of the space-time where my ladies and my kids and my Saffron slept, woke, slept again, cycling and spinning. Except it wasn't them spinning, it was me and this fuckin' jank hunk of causality. I glared down and saw myself standing there.

Four of me, standing in the same spot, staring at four couples, all the same people, refusing to be in one place at one time they way they ought. I shook my head.

"The fuck? Okay, Jack, did you or did you not get your wish?"

"Wish?" echoed from the androgynous walking snowstorm.

"What was my wish?" asked Nimble Jack, his head tilting until he stared at me upside down.

"Our wish. To be one," came the growling clink from the porcelain pumpkin head. Finally, his voice a sigh, old Johnny sighed out, "she chased me, caught me, wed me in all my forms. But I am still... broken."

"Yeah, you didn't... wait, did you wish for that? Like, to be broken, or to be made whole or some shit like that?"

"I... I don't think I did?" Adrienne snuggled him even as she shook her head.

"That's my Jack. Wishing for me and not for himself, forgetting that in binding myself to him, his problems become mine." I nodded along with that.

"Okay, okay, so do you have any way to fix this one?" She smiled sadly, shaking her head. I tried not to get a migraine at how all of her heads shook, how the words came from all of her at once.

"I do not."

"Wait, how many of you are there?"

"One and four. Much like my Jack." He shook his head.

"No, love, I'm four quarters, never both one and four." I rubbed at my temples, trying not to get angry from the pain, but I had to ask.

"Why not?" He just sat there, mouth hanging open.

"How can one person be in four places at once, and four people be in one place?" My brain refused to word, so I stepped to both sides and forward, then back again, all while standing still.

"Like that?" All of him, refusing to move in unison, rolled their eyes.

"Yes, but I cannot do that." I did not have the time or patience or, surprisingly, pain tolerance for this bullshit. I granted him the Boon of Translocation and Co-Location.

"There. Now you do."

"I what?"

"Me Big Goddess. Me say you can do. Now you can do." My fuckin' head hurt, both from looking at four Jacks being forced into one point in time and space, and from holding all four of those space time wibbly wobbly timey wimey chunks together, and from keeping them from drifting apart. Breaking a world was, apparently, easy. Keeping it from breaking, especially after some dipshits in love threw it at the wall, was hard. I stared at him as the four of him stubbornly refused to not be four of him.

"What now?" Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"We are too different. We cannot... We are bound to Adrienne, and she is bound to us, but..." Fuck it. I granted her the boon too. Jack's explanation hiccupped as he realized all four of Adrienne were now one, which pulled all four of him closer together. Superimposed them. All four winced, Jack O' the Lantern and Jack Frost moaning and keening respectively.

"We are still too different!" Witty Jack ground out.

"So... change? Adapt? Shit, shapeshift?" Nimble Jack twisted his head the rest of the way around to stare into my eyes.

"Could we, then would we, but we mayn't, so we donen't!"

"If I find out you can talk normally and are just being some kind of asshole about grammar when I've got a migraine, I'm gonna make Adrienne a High Priestess just to download detailed knowledge about sounding into her brain." That shit hurt, my temper frayed by the second. This Jacked up causality crinkled where I might have been a little rough gripping it.

"Wait. May not? Or Can not?" Witty Jack paused, obviously in pain, but also obviously trying to think rather than emoting.

"We have no control over it. The change happens when it happens, not when we will it."

"But if you could, you would?" He just stared at me. So I granted him the Boon of Shapeshifting and Mimicking, just to be sure. Then did the same to Adrienne, because goose, gander, good, and good good.

"Try. It. Now." Jack Frost reached out without moving, and was sucked into the shadowy form of Jack O' the Lantern and Adrienne. They stepped apart without moving, their singular form separating into Nimble Jack and his bride, who slumped over into an exhausted looking Witty Jack and Adrienne, who crumpled to the ground, still clinging to one another. The moment they did, those four cobbled together bits of causality stopped rejecting one another. Stopped burning themselves, each other, and me.

"Hang on to yourselves, kids. This might get bumpy." I pulled. The worst part wasn't the weight, the mass, the resistance. The worst part was not letting momentum build. In a first for my end-of-Season shenanigans, I wasn't tryna smash. I was tryna bring this chunk of whatever back to where it belonged without breaking it or the rest of space and time. I don't know how long I pulled.

I stood outside not only of Time, but of Space, manipulating a thousand trillion tons of mass like a model painter trying to slide two bits together without breaking either one. Unfortunately, somebody hadn't really been careful separating them from their fuckin' sprues. Yes, I briefly dated a dude who painted minis. Very intense dude. Good hands, though, and taught me shit about what brushes could do. I don't know how long it took.

Then again, from another perspective, it took no time at all, with me being outside of Time and all. Eventually things got close enough that shit wasn't properly meshing, because of aforementioned sloppy disconnection. Fortunately, sloppy connections were something I had plenty of experience with. Channeling a meme from before the dawn of time, I Co-Located and intoned, "use force, Tabitha!" Jackville settled into place with the same kind of crunch my old dorm room doors made when I broke the locks.

I collapsed back into just one little old me standing on the shore as the tide came in. Really glad I don't need to breathe, because standing was not within my current capabilities. Tryna make sure I didn't have to pull any more cray cray shit today, when the water receded between waves, I called out, "you two okay?" Jack's response came back oddly muffled and broken up.

"Yes... We're quite all right... Soggy and sore, but..." After the next wave, I heard some sloshing and struggling, followed by, "not that I mind overmuch, but why so eager, Heart?"

"I have wait..." more water washed over me, "... idea how long remains until the Summ..." Another wave interrupted her explanation, but I heard the end where her voice got maybe a little shrill.

"... will not be satisfied with 'quick'." I lost my shit, laughing so hard I inhaled water when he replied, "But... Nimble?" Of course, the two of them seemed safe and secure and not likely to die or spontaneously combust in any kind of permanent way, and I had frankly more important things to think about. Kitten? The very next moment any remaining air left my lungs as a four foot nine squish coated mass of muscle landed on me. Tabitha!

I deemed words too much effort, and let my mouth and hands do the talking for a while. Waves of affection and mutual joy at reunion washed over us like the waves, until some time later I looked up through the water as Saffron pulled back just far enough to look at me. Missed you too, Kitten. How badly have you damaged yourself this time? She glanced down my front, pushing The Dress aside to give me a very thorough once over.

Everything responded as it ought, and I grabbed her hands and held them in place to cover up my nips, because seawater is cold. Really. No other reason. Just tired, Kitten. Not hurt. Okay, might have pulled some things. Strained myself lifting shit and moving it around. No worse than tryna help some friends move into a new place, right? She raised an eyebrow. Strained yourself? What did you lift? Florida? Maybe part of Georgia? A big chunk of Jackville and the surrounding area, at any rate.

At her continued raised eyebrow, I shot her a mental picture of the map I'd stolen. Yes, I know what Florida is. You... lifted it? I shrugged. Had to put it back in place after Jack's Wish and Adrienne's Blessing blasted it free and broke it into pieces. She just stared at me for a bit. A smile slowly crept across her face. Well. You have roughly four hours to recover. Adrenaline tried and failed to make shit tense up. Too much tired, too much sore. What's wrong? Wrong? Oh, nothing, really.

But the Summer Solstice Revel begins at sunset, and our girls are eager to join us for a Revel. I froze. How fuckin' long was I gone? She laughed, the last few bubbles blowing out of her nose. Almost five days. It's Thorsday afternoon. Our girls are a little young to Revel, don't you think? She smiled and shot me images of us last year, dancing and leaping over fires as Menace feasted at the Temple of Wisdom. Not all Reveling is sex, you incorrigible lecher.

As she rolled me over, pushing me toward deeper water for some reason, I rolled with it, literally, and thought back, I thought you liked me that way? Oh, I do, love. I do. Never fear. But not every joyous occasion is one of lustful urges. I sighed, amused when no bubbles came out, because she'd squished all the air out of me earlier. Yeah, I get that. I'm kinda looking forward to it, really. Or... She raised an eyebrow as I trailed off. Or what, love? Or I would be, if I weren't so exhausted and sore.

She slipped her arms around me, lifting me and swimming out into the ocean while I admired the interplay of her muscles under the squish. Oh, I know just how to solve that problem and another that I've discovered, both at the same time. Hmm? We've four hours until you need to be ready for the Summer Solstice Revel, which will require some Worship, I think. I'm listening. She Grinned at me, leaning down until our noses booped. Then her eyes got really big. Her eye got really big.

That I stared into with my own, by my side, my arms and tentacles instinctively wrapping around her. Your Kraken Clergy are envious of your land bound ladies. We've four hours to correct that. A Goddess' work is never done.