Chương 734: Day Seven Hundred And Thirty-Two

Dear Diary,"Judge others not where you stand, But where they stood when they chose, To judge them Equitably." - Tabitha Diaz, Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Egalitarianism In the ninth Verse of the Book of Egalitarianism, our Goddess reiterates the importance of Equity to Egalitarianism not by stating that yet again, but by clearly stating what is required for Equitable judgement.

She spends this entire Verse doing so, giving us step by step instructions on how to judge the actions of others, and thus the moral standing of others, Equitably. Two things are required for this, as Tabitha makes clear, and both require both mindfulness and empathy. The first, to judge someone by where they stand rather than where you stand, requires the empathy to realize that another person may not have the same Agency you do. They may not have wealth, or power, or even the support of a loving family.

They may be the sole support for their own family, or may have some other burden weighting them down, limiting their Agency, removing choices from their sight. The other mental shift required for judging Equitably is mindful contemplation of change. If you discover a powerful person committed murder, do not immediately judge them deserving of execution. They may not have had power when the murder occurred. They may have been coerced by circumstance or others acting in bad faith.

They may simply have been too stupid to know they murdered someone; ever have the ignorant and dim risen to power on their inability to comprehend the consequences paid by others for their actions. This is not to say that they ought not be held accountable, but that those circumstances must be taken into account when judgement occurs. - Priestess Most High Above All Others, Archmage Imperator Saffron Aetos-Diaz, Commentary on the Doctrine of Tabitha Wow.

I guess even my Kitten lets her claws out now and then when she gets worked up enough about something.

'Too stupid to know they murdered somebody' and 'ignorant and dim rising to power'. Damn, Kitten, I don't disagree, but damn. Imagine if in one of the Gospels one of the Apostles quoted Nazarene Joshua saying 'yeah, you don't have to be smart to be a Senator, any rich connected douchebag can do it'. Then again, I've read where there are way more books in the Bible back there than ever made it into the book two thousand years later.

Shit just got edited out because some Pope or Emperor thought it didn't fit their narrative or whatever, and all of a sudden there are four Gospels, not thirteen. Yeah, I've mentioned the Library from the Dawn of Time. Apparently if you go back far enough, some schools had Bibles in the Library. I mean, I can see it on several levels. They had that big fuckin' Mythology book, no reason not to have a Bible next to it. Librarian kept getting pissed when I re-shelved it with Historical Fiction, though.

But she didn't get on my case much, because after all, I was cosplaying a Good Kid and Reading The Bible, after all. Just really glad that cranky old bat never smelled my fingers after.

'Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit; I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit' is not exactly 'I'm gonna ride that ass like I stole it', but it's got a certain 'my fingers went wandering'. Kinda disappointed when I finally got to the rest of that poem and realized dude was talking about grapes. Like, who looks at boobs and says 'ooh, grapes, gotta get me some of those'. I mean, oranges maybe, or grapefruit. Saffron's packing melons.

Cantaloupe at the very smallest. But grapes? Does not compute. Although Tallulah's not really well endowed and I'm learning to appreciate her look and feel, so I guess it takes all kinds. So yesterday after fully returning to our normal dinner routine and putting the kids to bed, Saffron dragged Tallulah, Marie, and me to the Bedroom. For 'additional testing'. Because while Tallulah and I are both on the tall side, Blend has me nicely endowed, whereas she's... not.

Turns out they do in fact get in the way, in a mildly painful way after enough attempts. Also turns out that both Saffron and I consider that a feature, not a bug, because joke's on the world, we're into that shit. Okay, I'm into whatever Saffron tells me.

As we lay there afterward, Marie, who'd been brought along as an impartial observer, picked Tallulah up and stepped her back to the bedroom to sleep everything off, idly running my hand down sweaty Saffron side to watch her squirm in an exhausted fashion, I said, "yeah, not the Mor Primordial of Terror Boners."

"What? Why not?" She sounded genuinely upset by that.

"Hunger." Her pout melted into a speculative look.

"Appetite?" She snorted.

"You. You're telling me I'm to be the Mor Primordial of Hunger?" I chuckled a little.

"Yeah, I remember my Academy days. Shit, that was only like a year ago. But yeah, I was already a Deity then. Shit, fueling Mimic with nothing but food. No Worship, no Glory, just calories." She went blank.

"Oh. Oh, yes, I... I'm sorry, love. That must have been terrible for you." I shook my head.

"Nah. Very nah once Marie updated the menu. That woman can cook. We got lucky in the kitchen department with our Wife, didn't we?" She smiled at me, her lips curling from smile to grin as she said, "yes. I did." I snorted.

"Oh, please. Me? Cook?"

"I know you've been personally responsible for most of the creativity and all of the work for almost every new dish we've had here at the Homestead, love." Yeah, definite Grin, and some of the slick on my hands as I let them idly wander south of her border was not sweat. Idly, because she'd made me realize something.

"Holy shit. You're... you're right. I'm actually learning... Shit, I've actually learned how to cook!" She laughed, low and throaty, then stretched, arms up toward the headboard, legs dangling over the foot, letting me see every inch of her magnificent curves in profile. Especially the, uh, very prominent signs of arousal atop those curves. I couldn't help it. I laughed in response, although mine had more genuine humor and less thirst to it.

Her words came out hot rather than heated when she said, "you have ten seconds to explain why you're laughing at me, Goof."

"Why only ten seconds?"

"Your mouth will be busy after that. Three." I managed to laugh out, "grapes!" before she took away my ability to speak in absolutely the best way possible. Not like she could speak either at that point. Kinda funny, I spend most of the morning getting things in motion. Kids, laundry, Infirmary, kitchen, all places I'm pushing in the mornings. Not in any kind of bad way, really.

Just getting some inertia going, because usually by lunch time I've got nothing that requires my attention, so I can pay it all to my precocious Archmage's pit stop. I guess that's why my brain comes up with questions afterward. Everything's more or less in motion, so all I've got to do is ponder shit. Which, what with Saffron radiating genius so strongly I can feel it in the air when she's doing her Shaping research and coding, means I wind up asking her questions in the afternoon.

Or at least poking at her new Inspect to learn some shit. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Today I fired up an Inspect of my Kitten, looked at the deets on Strength again, then looked at her Attributes.

"Kitten?" A second later, after a few hand passes, she replied, "yes, love?"

"Tier one Strength seven is seventy times stronger than baseline, right?" She nodded, but said, "seventy times Tier zero, Strength one, yes."

"So you can lift... um..." I did a little mental math.

"Holy shit, you can dead lift five fucking tons?" She stopped, frowned.

"Ye... wait..." She facepalmed.

"First," she mumbled, "after my new Inspect goes global, the official Alliance ton will be one thousand pounds."

"Uh, won't that screw with the merchants?" She snorted.

"First, half of them don't use standardized weights and measures anyhow. Second, each City in Atlantis uses different 'tons'. Phileo and New Amsterdam fought at least one minor war over that, in fact."

"Ouch. Which one are you using?" She scrubbed at her face, and when her hands dropped away, she said, "neither. One ton is one thousand pounds."

"Okay, fair, easy to do the math at least. I guess it's just lucky that they all..." She turned her head, not far enough to look t me, but enough I could see her grin.

"Ah, fuck. They don't have standard pounds, do they?" Her grin got a little predatory.

"They will soon."' I laughed aloud.

"Holy shit, Kitten. Why didn't you just convert the whole fuckin' place to metric while you were at it?" She tilted her head just a little, "you mean your birth world's International Standard Units?" I thought I remembered that.

"uh, yeah, I think?" She just stared at me. First suspicion, then comprehension dawned, I opened my mouth, and she interrupted me by sighing and saying, "if only merchants and mathematicians both had the sense to convert to base twelve."

"Uh, whut?"

"A system wherein twenty is twice twelve rather than twice ten. It requires the introduction of two more digits, but it makes fractions so much easier to convert to decimal, and in practical terms makes splitting things up in equal portions that much easier." She shook her head.

"Still, it took me a few weeks to really grasp it, and I've come to the conclusion that only a few mathematicians and some very old Magi are, at this point, my intellectual equal." I felt some kinda way, but for once just let it all out.

"I really hope you don't get bored of me." She snorted, snickered, but before I could get bent out of shape giggled out, "why do you think you're a math teacher, love?""' Cause I can count and I'm good with kids?" She nodded, "yes on the 'good with kids'.

While I don't want to really examine your intellect with Inspect until we're testing the anti-Blend feature, and even then I suspect you'll need to lower it partway, and even then you might be the only one to be able to get through your own Blend, I suspect when I look through your eyes I will see a Tier no less than two." I snorted.

"Who, me?" She nodded.

"Wait, really?" She sighed.

"You cannot truly multitask, love, but you switch back and forth between two dozen bodies on a daily basis. Flickering back and forth, back and forth. Occasionally focusing on one, yes, like now." Her lips curled and she sighed, "or four, like earlier. So nice. At any rate, yes, you are likely on a par with most University Mathematicians, at least in terms of your ability to process those equations you know." I shook my head, then remembered my earlier suspicion.

"Why do I think my Kitten is sneaking the Alliance onto metric, sort of?"

"Because as I just said, you're very smart." Then she facepalmed again.

"Of course, I am occasionally just a high speed idiot." I goosed her, and she shook her head.

"I blame you."

"What?!"

"Oh, not for my mistake. That's me. I mean for you letting my proclivities run wild until there's naught you can do to chastise me for misbehavior." I pouted.

"I could not let you watch."

"So harsh, for mild self-deprecation."

"Fine. So what'd you fuck up?" She shook her head, and focused on her coding for a minute. I felt Mana flow, then she turned to me.

"Okay, try again." I checked again.

"Nope, still Strength seven Tier one."

"No, the definition for Strength." I checked it.

"Fifty pounds? That sounds a little... Why do I think you're using something just a bit heavier than what I'm used to as a pound?"

"As noted, very smart. Not quite your old world's kilogram. Not your old world's pound. Not any City's pound, either, but closest to Boltophsburgs, mathematically."

"Okay. But... okay, so like a kilo each, sorta. Still, seventy times fifty is thirty five hundred kilos. Over seven thousand pounds." She shrugged, nodded.

"That's not far from wrong. That is taking all of my Titles and Skills into account, of course."

"Skills? Oh, right, you picked up Strong Arm. Still. Seven thousand pounds?"

"Thirty five hundred pounds. Get used to it, Goof." I shook my head.

"Okay. Okay, I suppose I gotta. Be the change you wanna see and all. But, uh... one condition?"

"Of course, love, but you'll need to release me from your loving limbs should you wish me to hide under the desk for the afternoon." I snorted.

"Down, horny girl, down."

"That's what I said." I laughed.

"Okay, okay, no, that's not the condition. I wanna see it." She couldn't pull the grin off her face.

"So push the chair back and slouch a little?" I nipped at her neck, then said, "I want to see you lift three thousand five hundred Alliance Pounds. Three and a half Alliance Tons." She thought about it for a few seconds.

"You know, I suppose it might be good for calibration. We can bring a few Cadets up, Inspect them, then see if they can lift what Inspect says they can."

"Oh, so you're gonna show off for everybody?"

"Did you not want me to?" I shook my head.

"Nah. I just thought I'd have to do more work to get you to be all exhibitionist and stuff." We laughed, we chuckled, we took turns under the desk, but eventually she said, "will tomorrow be soon enough?"

"Sure, why?"

"I want to finish a few things today, and we'll want all day for testing." I nodded.

"I think I can even snag a couple willing subjects on their 'Devotional Day'. Won't coerce them into volunteering, but I know they've got the day off and all."

"You just want to see Cadet Brat straining to lift heavy things."

"That thought had not crossed my mind. Thank you for reminding me." She snickered.

"Oh, you mean you'd remembered Cadet Hildegarde?" I nodded.

"And Cadet Vickerson?"

"Yep."

"And Cadet Citron?"

"Yeah, I figure it'd be a good idea to test out some guys, too. Like, not just us Shapeshifted into guys, either. Despite the ironic symmetry, I really don't want the Alliance to baseline everything on women and ignore men entirely. Let's make sure to get everybody, a fair sample." She nodded.

"This won't be enough for sample sizes to really be fully representative, but it should at least be enough to avoid my Inspect being radically off when applied to men." As she got back to work, I mused, "it'll be kinda cool to see how those three are coming along, now that I'm not really Mentoring them full time."

"Hmm. Yes. Not to mention reminding them to start volunteering at the Temple regularly." I hadn't thought of that, but I guessed it made sense. Community service and all that shit, which would keep Hildegarde from thinking she'd morally outgrown her origins and didn't have to care about the folks currently struggling like she did before she became a Cadet. Might show Citron what the other half lived like, if Hildegarde hadn't yet. Vickerson...

she'd been a refugee, more or less, she definitely understood, and I didn't think she was the sort to suddenly think she was 'better than' in anything but a 'more competent than' sense. Of course, while apparently I do actually think faster than I did when I got here, and I've parlayed that into fake multitasking with my Translocated selves, and I can do basic math like a motherfucker, which is appropriate since I am, it took me until damn near sunset to realize why her smirk had been growing bigger all afternoon.

I have got to find a way to stop my Wife from handing me moral quandaries like this. Of course, doing so makes her giggle, so maybe I've just got to get better at solving them?