Chương 735: Day Seven Hundred And Thirty-Three

Dear Diary,"Judge fairly and with nuance, If you wish to embody, Egalitarianism." - Tabitha Diaz, Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Egalitarianism The penultimate Verse of the Book of Egalitarianism, while not mentioning Equity or Equality directly, makes it clear the key factors of those concepts which make them so important to our Goddess' interpretation and implementation of Egalitarianism itself. Equality, the simple version of Egalitarianism we teach to our youngest children, tells us to treat everyone Equally.

Children easily grasp the fundamental concept and desirability of fairness, and Equality is the simplest form of fairness. While this is not entirely anathematic to the idea of Egalitarianism, it is incomplete and, if not expanded to a more complete education, can undermine Equity and thus Egalitarianism.

Equity, the idea of judging fairly by paying mindful attention to the details of the person making a decision as well as the situation in which they employed their Agency, bridges this gap, enabling us as Mortals, with our limited perceptions and knowledge, to embrace and fulfill the promise of Egalitarianism in the Mortal Realm. - Priestess Most High Above All Others, Archmage Imperator Saffron Aetos-Diaz, Commentary on the Doctrine of Tabitha Funny, the things I remember clearly.

Like, I still remember wondering why the fuck anybody would want to 'embody Egalitarianism'. I mean, okay, if your idea of a fun night is to body abstract concepts, maybe. Although there you're either talking about being opposed to Egalitarianism and feeding it the carpet, or absolutely dominating it in two player bedroom games, which might also involve feeding it carpet, but in an entirely different context. But both of those are 'bodying Egalitarianism' not 'embodying Egalitarianism'.

But even when my brain is working properly and remembering relevant shit and not playing old SpongeBob episodes mashed with Dev and porn, I still wind up kinda focused on getting my groove on. I'd say 'hyperfixation', but this has gone on for almost a decade now, and shows no sign of stopping. Honestly, given what I do every Friday night and a few other nights a month, I really doubt I'm gonna stop being an S plus plus tier horndog.

That's actually something I've been pondering lately, along with wondering about the Attributes in Saffron's new Identify and how they're measured. My Domains. I keep wondering if I got them because of some facets of my essential nature got all blown out of proportion when folks started Worshipping me as, y'know, me instead of Her Dark Fatassness, or if all those traits wound up being assigned to me by my Worshippers because of stuff they saw me do.

That's before even getting into how the Continent Spanning Tentacle Kaiju affects my own judgement, emotions, and desires. Seriously, I even wonder if it's some combination thereof. Like, I had those tendencies already, and that drew me toward doing shit that people wound up Worshipping me for, and those parts of me in particular got amplified even more because they resonate with some part of the Hypermelanistic Orange Tabby of Unusual Size. I mean, Passion and Ecstasy I can totally get behind at this point.

Why wouldn't I get behind 'do what you love' and 'do it so hard you leave a mess Future You will smile in fond reminiscence as they're cleaning it up'. Children... I mean anybody who doesn't get my essential adoration of Children at this point just isn't paying attention. Which is maybe weird, because I still kinda remember my first meeting with Isnomi, and how no matter what, if you hand me a baby, its bowels evacuate. But I'm totally okay with it.

Vengeance is something that I'm not super proud of, but I'm also not super surprised by. I read once that ADHD folks are hypersensitive to injustice, and I guess Vengeance is just one way of balancing the scales. A violent way that I need to be careful with, but still if I look at it like that I can accept it without too much fuss and bother. Justified Homicide is weird, and really niche, but I can totally see how it dovetails with Vengeance. Not to mention how much unjustified homicide I saw back in the day.

Then there's the elephant in the room. The one that, after some of the things she did on her birthday, not to mention stuff we've done on Penance nights, I'm pretty sure is what's drawn Saffron to me like a moth to a flame. I just worry that at some point, she's gonna fly too close, and the Bloodlust will take over, and I'll wind up with a slowly dissipating flavor explosion in my Maw and an eternity of lonely guilt to look forward to.

I can lie to myself all I want, talking about 'self control' and 'just saying no' and 'I'm not like that', but on Saffron's birthday, I wasn't in control. I lost myself entirely to the overwhelming sensation of Siobhan's hair dissolving into my Maw. Dissolving through me. Overwhelming me. Some part of me says that I need to put a stop to that. Utterly, completely, no more living or recently living things going into my Maw. Full stop, cold turkey, no means no.

But another, maybe more mature part of me realizes how few times I've seen that work. I'm not really talking about addictions here, either, but impulses. Like, natural ones, but this... On the one hand, I hate calling anything like a Maw the size of a major stadium and surrounding parking lots 'natural'. At this point it's practically its own ecosystem, or it would be if it wasn't just me, my tentacles, my greater oubliette of a digestive whatever it is.

But the impulse of 'tastes good, nom' is pretty fucking much the most natural thing in the world; the only things I've personally experienced that compare are 'stimulation feels good, convulse in ways that move the baby batter deeper' and 'vajayjay warm and soft and tight, give that vajayjay a cream filling now'. Then again, I do remember my Bio classes, at least a little bit. If you look at 'life' not as 'what it's made of', but 'what it does', life is all about consume, grow, reproduce.

That middle one, 'grow', isn't really something we do deliberately, either. That just happens. Not unlike me, I guess, which covers the 'reproduce' part of it for me, which goes back to Passion and Ecstasy and what I do on Friday nights. Even though I've realized that I am not, in fact, there to get my fuck on. Yeah, I do, frequently, but the whole point of me being there is to commune intimately with my followers. I know I mention that a lot, but I need to keep reminding myself.

I'm not sure whether I'm reminding myself because I don't want to forget and slip into an Aphrodite-like abuse of my Worshippers, or if I don't want any lingering neo-puritan guilt screwing it up for any of them. Which, if it were just 'sex for them' I could lie back and think of the Alliance, but the ones looking for nookie seem like they want mutual satisfaction, so I can't have me being guilty over it either.

That's not to say I'm never gonna feel guilty, but guilt is just part of the whole Tabitha experience, at least at the moment. Then again, maybe that's not a bad thing. Guilt is one of the things that keeps us from turning into monsters, after all. I'm pretty sure Odin never feels guilty when his big plots and plans leave somebody else paying for his bullshit. Pretty sure Zeus didn't feel guilty when he wound up leaving women as unsupported single moms.

Or when Hera came along and killed them and their kids for having the audacity of not saying 'no' to Zeus, which I'm pretty sure would have gotten them raped and dead rather than pregnant. I'm pretty sure Hera doesn't feel guilty about any of the bullshit she pulled on any of the women her husband raped. Wait, husband or brother. I'm pretty sure it's both. Which explains a lot, really. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Anyhow, guilt didn't make me stop nomming Siobhan's hair. Saffron did when she stopped pushing my tentacle down and told me to take us all back to the bedroom. My darkest, most beautiful lady kept control of herself, and I'm utterly unsure if it's because she's denying herself or because she's accepted that part of herself and indulges it exactly as much as she feels comfortable doing. Shit. If I say 'no more feeding' and somebody accidentally stumbles, I'm gonna eat somebody I don't want eaten.

I'm gonna have to learn to control that shit. Which means doing it in a controlled fashion. Now part of me wonders if Karen's up for letting me nibble her hair, but another part of me realizes that using somebody because I'd be less upset about them getting eaten isn't the right way to do this. Not just because it's morally wrong to outsource my risk while reaping the rewards, but because I'm pretty sure my Inner Dumb Bitch of Galactic Proportions saves her worst cravings for the ladies I least want to lose.

At the end of the day yesterday, Saffron turned to me, kissed me, and said, "I'll be waiting in the morning, love. I'll need a good night's sleep so I don't throw off the testing." I nuzzled her, set her down on her seat in the dining room, and after delivering dinner and distributing hugs and kisses, stepped to my Altar in Calverton. Where Olga looked at me, a little surprised, and said, "Goddess! Is all well?"

Stretching a little as I dropped my Blend, because sometimes my Worshippers wanted me to be a little more flexible than my muscle tone and muscle mass could do without a little warmup, I said, "yeah, totally. Why, did something go wrong?"

"You weren't here last night?" It took me a second. Then I slumped, carefully avoided facepalming, and called out, "Diana!" She showed an endless moment later, drifting down from a few feet in the air to land a step below me. She still kinda towered over me. Olympians be tall.

"Yes, my Matriarch?" I bowed my head.

"I'm sorry I missed the full moon Revel last night." She really did sound shocked when she said, "you'd apologize to me? Here, in front of your Worshippers? For failing to deliver a gift you've never been obligated to give in the first place?" I smirked as I looked up at her.

"Yeah, ain't I just a piece of work. But yeah. I'm apologizing to you, because I've made a practice of showing up at Full and New Moons, because they're important to you, and you're important to me. You... you had faith in me."

"Justified faith, my Matriarch." I nodded, shook my head, then nodded again.

"Yeah, maybe, but that's not the point. You had faith in me, and you helped us out when we needed it, and you called me Matriarch. That... implies a certain Duty of Care."

"And? You'd take on that Duty willingly?" I shrugged.

"Already have. Honestly, though, if shit had gone down yesterday, like some big crisis, I wouldn't be upset. Might still apologize, but wouldn't be upset, really. Shit happens. If Saffron's birthday had been on one of those Revel days, I'd have maybe let you know I wouldn't be attending in advance, because, uh..." She smiled at me.

"Because I am yet another of your accidental children, but she is the love of your life?"

"Sounds bad when you put it like that." She shrugged.

"Why, though? You care for her, are committed to her for your lifetime. I am, at best, an adopted adult child, not a babe in swaddling. Even your younger children would understand you focusing on her on her day of celebration. They focus that way themselves." I sighed, nodded, then squared my shoulders and looked her right in the eye.

"Okay. Cool. So, sorry I missed your Revel. Any way I can make it up to you?" She chuckled, then laughed.

"Is that an invitation to visit your Altar with you again?" I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, no, I'm not gonna try to buy forgiveness by bribing you with a piece of ass."

"Oh? Pity." I put my hands on my hips.

"Really? You really want that?" She rolled her shoulders and grinned at me.

"Here in Calverton, where your Clergy encourage physical fitness, I'm tempted to say that I want you to make me." Grinning back, I asked, "so what happens if I can't?" She reached her arms out to the side, bending forward in a wrestling pose.

"Then I make you, Matriarch." Turns out the Altar in Calverton is a lot sturdier than I thought. Also, turns out that I'm stronger than Diana, I think, but she's got reach on me. Which doesn't mean shit when I've got tentacles. Yes, they were instrumental in me winning that wrestling match, and yes, they were instrumental in collecting my forfeit. Good fun times, lots of cheering, lots of Worship, and the weirdest thing had to be how much more the folks after that felt special.

The folks in the congregation even Worshipped harder, if that's' a thing. I sure as heck went into the day today completely refreshed and ready to go. Took the kids to school, opened the infirmary, settled in to read an old book of poems I found in my collection to Siobhan, and a dozen of me split up to keep the Academy running. Saffron stopped in to tell the Grand Council she'd be working with me at the Academy today, then came with me to the Practice Yard today. To, not in.

We collected five other test subjects along with my Kitten. Finding the trio was less easy than I thought, because Vickerson and Hildegarde had changed their Devotional Day to Wednesday to match Citron. After checking with the Headmaster, then visiting with Trease, who was as slimy and obsequious with us now as she used to be awful, which somehow made dealing with her even worse, we found them in Intermediate Heroic Skills with Doc DeLeon.

He made the executive decision that working with the Archmage on her latest project was clearly an educational opportunity not to be missed. I asked Marie if she wanted to help us, and while she wasn't up for it, she sent Helen along to help. Cadet Brat was in the room she still shared with Vickerson. Worshipping. Vigorously. So after a bit of wrangling to get everybody together, we all walked up to our Suite, because that's where Saffron's new Inspect was all set up.

Inspect still showed Saffron was Strength seven, Tier one. Helen showed as Strength one, Tier two. Oddly enough, Brat and Citron were both Strength eight, Tier zero, with Vickerson at Strength seven, tier zero. That looked a little sus, because Vickerson and Brat definitely could share clothes. Probably did, for things that weren't embroidered like their blouses and pants. Still weirded me out that folks who looked more like team sport athletes than power lifters could lift that much weight, but then... Mana.

Of course, Hildegarde actually looked like a bodybuilder. Well, not exactly; I had that ripped bodybuilder look, she seemed more like one of those strongman competition women. I was cut, she was bulky. Also, she was normal average woman height to my five to six inches taller than that. She also was rocking Strength two, Tier one. Which meant she ought to be able to deadlift a thousand pounds, which boggled me a little. We pulled out all the weight sets.

It turns out the plates and dumbbells and shit in the Practice Yard aren't pot metal or iron. They're lead or something else heavier. The smaller thick plates were fifty pounds, the larger ones a hundred. We started with Vickerson, who by Inspect should have been able to dead lift three hundred fifty pounds, struggled a little bit, but managed to lift it. Citron and Brat both managed four hundred, and Hildegarde lifted her thousand. She even managed another fifty pound plate, but couldn't do eleven hundred.

Then Saffron's turn came up. She maxed out at three thousand, and couldn't manage a single plate beyond that. We put most of the weight set onto the bar for Helen. By Inspect's math, she should have been able to lift five thousand pounds, which was most of the weights in the yard. She lifted that easily. I had to Co-Located duplicate most of the big plates before we finally hit her limit, right around ten thousand pounds.

By that point it was well after lunch, what with setting up weights, letting people lift, adding more weight, then having them lift again. Saffron definitely looked like she was missing her afternoon pit stop, and really wanted to tear something apart.

"Any ideas?"

"It should be working. Why isn't it working? It's working for them." She gestured to the Cadets.

"But not for me or her." She waved at Helen. Right about then I had an awful, awful thought about the last time I wound up having problems training my Strength.

"Cadets! Line up!" I shuffled them around a bit, then said, "Helen, could you come over here?" I stood her at one end of the line. Then took Saffron by the hand, walked her to the other end, spun her about to look at the line, and Co-Located her back to stare at the line. I didn't say a word. I didn't have to. She took in the Cadets, lined up in order of height. Then at Helen, then at herself.

"Son of a BITCH!"