Chương 725: Day Seven Hundred And Twenty-Three

Dear Diary,"Agency, Consent, Choices, You are captain of your ship, Chart your course with my blessing." - Tabitha Diaz, Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Agency In this, the final Verse of the Book of Agency, Tabitha reminds us once again of the meaning of the Value of Agency. The right to make choices, the power to choose for ourselves. She also, by inclusion of 'Consent', reminds us of the responsibility that comes with the power of Agency. That we must acknowledge and accept the choices, the Agency of others.

While there are other Gods who have, now and again, cared so little they allowed their Worshippers to do as they would, so long as it did not discomfit or disturb the Deity themselves, in this Verse Tabitha makes it clear that she does not use her position as Deity to arrogate our Agency to herself.

Our lives are ours, and while future generations of Mortals may well feel that is a gift she has given them, let it be known that she has vouchsafed to me that she deems this a Natural Right exclusive not to Deities or only those strong enough to enforce their will, but to all people. Her final commandment of this Book tells us to use our Agency, to live our lives as we will; with intent rather than capriciousness, with her Divine Blessing.

- Priestess Most High Above All Others, Archmage Imperator Saffron Aetos-Diaz, Commentary on the Doctrine of Tabitha I'm not really sure if I meant all that. I mean, right here and now as I'm reading this, I sure as shit agree with it. I think. I'm sure I agree with the idea that Consent is Important, and Agency is a Natural Right. Yeah, both of those are absolutely on point. But the bit about intent... Honestly, I think I might give somebody my Blessing even if they don't have some kind of grand life plan.

Just so long as they're making choices, rather than just drifting. Which sounds weird coming from me, I know. I'm practically the poster child for stumbling from crisis to crisis. Back in the day all I knew was twerk, charge my phone, be bisexual, eat hot chip and lie. Shit, I didn't even really twig hard to the 'be bisexual' part. I mean, I knew, but it was more of a 'yeah, women are gorgeous, but what I need to find is Just The Right Dick'.

Like somehow a magical mystical phallus of power would straighten my shit out and all would be well in my world. Then, Saffron. Always Saffron. Not, just to be clear, because of her mystic kinky kitty powers. Not even, and I know this sounds like heresy coming from me, because of her magnificent mammaries. But because of the constant, unfailing, unquestioning support I get from her. Because of the emotional care and kindness. Because of her love, I've actually started to, I'm not sure, heal, I guess.

Heal isn't wrong, but it doesn't encompass everything. Not really. Not to me. Yeah, I've got Trauma, and for the first time in I have no fucking clue how long, but probably since my dad died or left or whatever, I think I'm healing those old traumas faster than I'm accumulating new ones. But there's so much more. Parts of me I thought had withered away to nothing, atrophied too much to ever grow, are actually growing. I'm learning how to make stuff.

I mean, I always thought I'd be a writer, not a chef, and always dissed my own cooking, but holy shit I'm actually learning to make, and I'm making. That's... that's not healing, at least I don't think of it as healing, but holy shit is it part of everything that started with her. Started with Saffron. Who, let me be clear, Just Happened to me.

I didn't decide something like, 'I need to find a good partner, so let me go looking for one', or 'I want to get laid', or even 'I want me a short stack with tits each as big as her head'. I stumbled into her, and she and Marie picked me up, set me on my feet, and helped me stay there. Thing is, if I just stayed like that, stumbling around doing whatever, forever, I wouldn't be being the best partner I could for them.

I still remember what I asked myself to do, and if I've got any kind of anything driving me at this point, anything I can point to outside of myself, even if it's not outside myself, not really, it's 'living up to what Past Me thought I could be'. So yeah, I'm the Patron Saint of Rudderless Fuck Ups, but I'm tryna be better, and a huge part of that is making myself a rudder.

Yeah, sometimes I borrow Saffron's, or Siobhan's, because mine is still not up to the task when something critical like our kids are on the line. But I sure as shit won't be doing that forever. At least I don't intend to. That's the key thing, right there. Intent. I have it now. So fuckin' weird. Anyway, I've discovered that I'm actually pretty good at cooking.

Like, not Marie awesome or anything, but if I've got her there with me, gently correcting and guiding when my hyperactive ass hares off into the hinterlands or thinks a really bad plan is something I ought to try, I can make some really tasty stuff. Good enough for kids, which isn't always as hard as you might think, but also good enough to satisfy Saffron, which is also easier than it might otherwise be.

Okay, I got the ultimate compliment from Tallulah, and Siobhan can actually eat my pate, so I'm gonna count that as a win. Yesterday I managed to sneak into the kitchens in the Overlord's Keep, where I stole some of their pate and chicken soup. With samples to work from, Marie and I brought home near perfect recreations of the stuff from her kitchen.

We had more than that, and I kinda surprised myself when I realized that I'm not only helping to feed the Cadets at the Academy, I'm basically feeding at least a dozen and a half people every night. My ladies, our kids, our women, even Cadet Aetos showed up for dinner at the end of the day yesterday. Oh, that was precious, by the way. Because he didn't so much 'show up' as get pulled to the table by a few of the women from North House. Almost like it was a big old multiple date. All of them vying for his attention.

I kinda worried about it a little, but Saffron assured me they'd all agreed to whatever arrangement they had. Which, I guess, goes back to Agency and Consent. So long as nobody's lying and everybody says they're okay with it, I can't see where I've got any right or duty to interfere. After the meal, once the kids headed up to the Bath and the ladies spent a few quiet minutes with our cocoa, the OG Overlord's Keep non-spicy version this time, Tallulah walked over to where I sat and looked at the floor.

I almost asked her what she needed, but realized just in time she was working herself up to speaking, so I waited. Finally she nodded once, then looked at me and said, "forgive me for complaining, for you did an excellent imitation of the kitchens of the Overlord's Keep, but..." When she trailed off, I shrugged and said, "still too spicy or something?" She smiled then, and shook her head.

"No. I preferred your way."

"Even the spicy cocoa?" Her head tilted. She licked at her lips, almost like she wasn't aware she was doing it.

"I've mixed emotions regarding that. But on everything else, yes."

"You mind asking the kids which way they prefer it?" That got me a surprised look. She even took half a step back.

"Me?" I nodded.

"Why? I mean, why me?" This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. I reached out a hand, then pulled her in to where I sat with Siobhan on my lap, reaching out to pull Saffron in from my other side. My Kitten got a little bit of an irked look when her chair scraped across the floor, but Marie on her lap gave them some friction.

"Because you're one of the Moms in the house, and I want them all to know that?" She looked Marie in the eye and said, "you'd trust me with your children?" I knew she meant all of us, but I also knew Marie had a bit of a knack for making people very aware of how thoroughly she could express her displeasure without doing a damn thing. Still, she smiled at Tallulah, reached out with one long arm and lay her claws on Tallulah's cheek.

"Always, Tallulah." We might have had a bit of a cry over that. Tallulah definitely did. We carried her up. Okay, I carried her, but it was a very team effort kind of night. Today I watched as Saffron's tension slowly ratcheted up over the morning. Despite heroic measures, I couldn't seem to drain all of it away at lunch, but I definitely tried. As I lowered her back down into her seat, she laid a hand on the tentacle around her waist and said, "Thank you love. That was wonderful.

But I think I'll need to be standing some this afternoon."

"Hmm? Why?" She just twisted around to look at me, eyebrow raised.

"It's ready?" She nodded.

"Well, ready to begin testing. Starting with you testing it on me."

"When?"

"Are you ready now?" I nodded, set her on her feet, and stood up.

"Anything special I need to do?" She held up one hand, then turned to her coding windows, which were still invisible to me despite all my efforts to learn to see them, since I hadn't been dosing myself with Fae Grain. Didn't want to fuck up mealtimes because I'd fucked up my dosages. Maybe once Marie was able to cover for everything again. At any rate, she made a few gestures, then said, "Nothing special. So long as we're both in the suite, accessing Inspect should call for my new version."

A thought popped into my head.

"Is this all currently built into the Aura of our Suite?" She smiled at me.

"See? I told you you'd learned things."

"I'm right?" I had no business being this excited over something like that, but I was. Then she shook her head.

"Not entirely? But mostly, yes. Some of it is in the Threshold of the suite, some in alterations to the Enchantments on the room. But fundamentally you're correct."

"Wow. Part of me has mild sadge that I didn't get it entirely right, but most of me is just kinda thrilled that I got it sort of right, and that I actually understood every word in your explanation!" She giggled and said, "what about the explanation itself?" I stuck my hand out and waggled it, and she grabbed my hand and kissed it.

"Okay then, love. Just to be sure, could you go as close to the traditional method as possible?"

"You mean draw the Shape in the air with my finger?" She nodded.

"I'll do my best." I then proceeded to amaze myself by doing exactly that. Like, I pushed a tiny Mana wire out of my thumb and my other index finger, connected the two, and then slowly, carefully traced the shape into the air, focusing on my Kitten the entire time. When I got to the end, it didn't quite snap into place, it just hung there, and I frowned. Saffron tilted her head and asked, "did you will it into being?"

I'd kind of been too focused on making the Shape to think about what I wanted it to do, but the moment I did, it snapped into clear focus, the window jumping into view in front of me, hovering above my hand. Before anything else, a single alert window popped up. ATTENTION: THE NUMERIC VALUES IN INSPECT HAVE BEEN ALTERED TO ENABLE MORE GRANULAR DISPLAY OF DIFFERENCES VALUES IN INSPECT ARE NOW LOGARITHMIC RATHER THAN EXPONENTIAL I Understand | Please Explain I pointed my brain at 'Please Explain' and poked at it.

Totally to test it out, not because I needed a reminder of what the fuck Saffron meant by Logarithmic Scale. The logarithmic scale now used by Inspect measures using progressively larger values for each multiple of ten. At each multiple of ten, the value of each increment is multiplied by ten. Thus Two is twice One, Three is thrice one, and so on until Ten. Twelve is twice Ten, Thirteen is thrice Ten, and so on, Contact a Mathematician should you need further education.

I Understand Yeah, okay, it took me a couple seconds to wrap my brain around that, but then again, I couldn't really easily understand the old system anyhow. Not intuitively, anyhow. But I chuckled a little at Saffron foisting off responsibility for explaining her math to other people. My Kitten, she a professor, not a kindergarten teacher.

Inspection Target: Saffron "Kitten", "Yunya", "Sexypaws", Aetos-Diaz Target Type Humanoid Biped (Human, Faun) Titles Adult, Archmage, Hero (Phileo), Imperator, Mistress, Mother, Priestess Most High Above All Others, Wife Patron Mimic Attributes: Strength: 17, Agility: 21, Endurance: 28, Reason: 40, Memory: 28, Personality: 40 Display Skills? Y / N"Whoa. That's... that's a lot slicker than the old one. Takes up way less space in my field of vision."

I toyed with pushing it up and down, side to side, and it really was more convenient.

"Kinda wondering about the choice to not display the Skills on the first page, though?"

"The..." I felt her slip in behind my eyes.

"Well. Shit." She sighed, then squared her shoulders.

"Well, this is why I wanted to do testing." Then she smiled.

"Especially why I wanted to test it with you." It took me a second.

"Because you can see what I'm seeing?"

"Exactly."

"Y'know you could do that with Tallulah or Karen, right?" She shrugged as she went back to waving her hands around.

"I could, although I'd rather not. Beyond adding another layer of potential interference? When I find something which needs to be fixed, I'd rather be sitting on your lap than theirs."

"Oh, no, way too subtle for me," I said as I slipped back into the chair, carefully lifting her and setting her back into my lap as she worked. Had to use my tentacles for all of it, because I still had my left hand extended to look at Saffron's stats. She paused, leaned back against me, her eyes slipping closed for a moment.

"Thank you, love."

"For what?" I cut myself off before I could start going on about not doing anything, or not helping. I'm learning. Baby steps. I felt her shift as she smiled.

"For being here for me. Supporting me. Physically. Spiritually. Emotionally. In every way that I could break and fail, you reinforce me, give me strength to do what must be done."

"Anytime, Kitten."