Chương 790: Day Seven Hundred And Eighty-Eight

Dear Diary,"If someone finds joy in you, Take that as a compliment, But you do not owe them yours." - Tabitha Diaz, Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Ecstasy This Verse is a reflection of the previous Verse, and in it Tabitha makes clear her position regarding the appropriate relationship of those who find joy in others and those who bring others joy. If a person reveals to us that we bring them joy, we ought not respond negatively.

We ought not crush the joy they have in us, so long as they do not attempt to usurp or deny our Agency. Instead, we ought to accept their confession as the compliment that it is, and perhaps offer them our thanks for validating us as bringers of joy, as agents of Ecstasy. But accepting a compliment and thanking the one who gave us that gift is not the same as feeling obligated to find joy in the one who gave it to us.

While Tabitha would not have us ignore the possibility of reciprocation, she also has made it clear that we are under no obligation to do so. Tabitha's position on finding Passion and Ecstasy in others is clear; we ought be ready to give that which brings us joy to share, but we must not expect or Tabitha forbid demand others to give of themselves to facilitate our joy. - Priestess Most High Above All Others, Archmage Imperator Saffron Aetos-Diaz, Commentary on the Doctrine of Tabitha Huh.

I think I was still thinking about parasocial relationships when I wrote this one. Saffron definitely picked up what I was putting down, though. Honestly I hadn't thought about this yesterday, but I think the Commentary might wind up being a lot more grounded in here and now reality than the Doctrine. Which isn't a horrible thing. She's gonna put her own spin on my religion, and it's a local spin, and that's gonna help people understand what I want.

But I think it's an important and good thing that the Commentary isn't the Doctrine. It surrounds it, explains it, supports it, but I think the fancy book is a kind of good metaphor. The Commentary without the Doctrine is straight up missing something. The Doctrine without the Commentary might be a little obscure, the way poetry is wont to be, but it's not incomplete.

Which means at some point a thousand years from now, when society and culture has progressed to the point where I'm not sure our kids would recognize it, let alone us, folks will still be able to look at the Doctrine and maybe get some useful direction from it. Fuck, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody put out a new Commentary every couple generations. Culture changes over time, yo.

Now that I think about it, I wasn't thinking about me recognizing here and now culture a thousand years from now, because unless something goes horribly sideways, I ought to still be around and kicking. Shit, if I can swing it, so will my ladies. Whether because they're already ageless, like Marie or Tallulah, or because I find some way to make them so like I lowkey eventually intend to do with my Kitten, or if Siobhan gets her wish and spends the rest of eternity haunting my Bedroom, they'll still be around.

Hell, Saffron might want me to just expand the Bedroom enough to house both of them. Although now that I think about it, if you don't need to eat, excrete, or exercise, a comfy bed and couch with a built in library isn't a bad place to hang, and I sure as shit wouldn't need much space in that case. Then again, if Saffron goes the Afterlife route, she's not gonna want to spend it in the Bedroom. Okay, she might, but that Bedroom is gonna be part of our little cottage by the sea.

Which means I'll need to move the Bedroom or the sea at some point, and it's fucking with me a little bit that I'm really pondering which of those is easier, because that should be fuckin' obvious. Digression, thy name is Tabitha. I was gonna point out that people don't get weirded out by cultural changes that they're part of. The older Aunties back in the day didn't get freaked out by the idea of streaming movies.

They had the VHS archives because some of the stuff they had on VHS wasn't really available online, and they'd recorded it back before DVDs became a thing that could be made. But the ones with more comprehensive collections had some CDs, some DVDs, and even some stuff in video file format too. Because they weren't a 'VHS culture', they were a 'media collection' culture.

A couple of my teachers who socialized in appropriate ways with the students, like hanging and watching Anime at lunch, or fuckin' around in Discord servers after school like normal people, didn't sound too out of place in those chat rooms. Okay, yeah, sometimes they'd come out with some archaic bullshit, but that was true of most of the people I hung around with. We were all nerds and geeks and shit, so all of us had some old crap we'd read and reference on the regular. In my case, books.

I think Jazz was into old music. Kinda weird, at this point I don't know if spending so much time with Saffron has messed with my memory, or if she really does bear a striking resemblance to my old friend from Eastside. My point, though, is that if I'm still spending most of my time being part of Mortal culture here and now, I don't think I'm going to wind up feeling totally alienated from it a thousand years from now. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

Maybe that's the whole fuckin' mistake the Gods have made. Separating themselves from Mortals. I mean, okay, yeah, they're obviously gonna maybe need a little bit of elbow room, especially the Deities with more physicality like Loki or D. Shit, even Diana is tall as fuck. But that's just a health and safety issue, and I think Olga has made it abundantly clear that a society that accommodates everybody is possible.

So D and Diana and Marie and I and anybody else in my future Pantheon is gonna spend plenty of time in, y'know, diners and classrooms and places real people live, rather than distancing themselves from everything. I decided. Just now. Maybe the way to make sure the top of shit pyramid doesn't get too high and the bottom doesn't get too nasty is making sure the person at the top takes a tour of the very bottom on the regular.

If everybody gets raised sidewalks to keep them out of the shit in order to keep the big man's shoes clean, everybody gets raised sidewalks to keep them out of the shit, y'know? Yeah, I'm all over the place today. Yesterday wound up kinda wacky, what with me spending the night reassuring Tallulah and, kind of incidentally, myself.

Funny part, when we all woke up, and that happened kinda late in the day, even for us, even for here and now, as I got everybody moving I pulled her to me and said, "so, who's gonna Assess you?" She gave me the Platonic ideal of an arch look and said, "no one."

"Uh. How do we know if you're getting a ring or a collar then?" She froze, then very deliberately let herself... She didn't slump. She still stood ramrod straight, but something about her posture told me it wasn't defensive, just habit at this point.

"I told you I've lost many." I hugged her, as did Siobhan; Saffron had already left for the day, and Marie had her arms full with the kits.

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for. I suppose this might sound cold, but I found the best way to survive the pain of loss was not knowing what I'd lost." That hit me kinda hard. I pulled her to me, holding her, and Siobhan wrapped her arms around both of us from behind our long tall Sidhe lady.

"Okay. You tell us when you're ready to check, okay?"

"I already did." When I looked as clueless as I was, she sighed and murmured, "one month after last night." I did some mental math.

"Eight fifteen."

"Pardon?" I realized something right then.

"We need to have a talk tonight." She frowned, and I shook my head.

"Nothing terrible. Secrets that come with the ring or the collar. Or, y'know, the dresses, I guess, but I don't know how much any of you knows, really."

"As you wish, Goddess." I gave her puppy dog eyes.

"As you wish, Tabitha." So the day went by pretty uneventfully. When I got everybody home, and had the kids and kits settled into bed, I tugged gently on my ladies and stepped back up to the Bath. I wanted to talk, and I knew myself and my ladies well enough that having all of them in the Bedroom without me winding up distracted was nigh impossible. When all of us floated in the steaming water, I slipped myself a little upright, enough for all of them to drift themselves around to look at me.

"Hey, ladies. Thanks for coming." I pushed my Blend out around the room, not as hard as I could push, but enough that Madeline glanced around curiously. I shrugged.

"There's an old saying that three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead, so I'm not gonna be super paranoid about this, but it's still..." I trailed off. Saffron murmured, but obviously enhanced her voice to reach everyone's ears.

"A secret known only to Tabitha and those she trusts implicitly." I smiled at her, reached out to brush my fingertips against hers. I really didn't want anybody feeling left out, and again if I had them all snuggled to me, my tentacles and fingers and probably my mouth would wander. Secret girl talk sharing session, not orgy.

"Thanks, Kitten. Yeah, so some of you know all this already. Honestly, I think most of you do. But I want all of you to know, because I really don't want secrets between us." I took a deep breath.

"Seven Hundred Eighty Eight days ago, I was shot and killed at the Aquarium in Camden, New Jersey..." I told the story of that day, and my path from there to now. I wasn't as detailed as I had been with the Marshall, but then I had women who'd been with me almost every step of the way here, and I didn't want to bore them. Shit, I had Marie and Siobhan here. Both of them had been there since Day Two.

Honestly, they'd taken care of me after I passed out Day One, so they'd been with me, caring for me, since Day One, really, even if I didn't remember that. They asked questions. Okay, mostly Karen and Tallulah, but once they did and got answers with no judgement from me, Madeline asked a few as well. I answered them as honestly as I could, Saffron and Siobhan and even Marie filling in the gaps where I forgot something, or didn't know it in the first place.

Eventually things wound down to murmurs and quiet, soft embraces. I'm not sure how many of us fell asleep in the Bath and stayed in the Bath, but my dreams started with all of them floating just as they had been, just slowly, languorously dissolving in my Maw. Funny thing, mostly funny because I'm only noticing it now, but when they just float there instead of plunging down into the depths, it's almost like they're reforming from the inside as fast as they're dissolving.

Kinda made me feel better realizing that for some reason. Let me focus on the pure, intense flavors from each of them. My mystery caller called again. I Co-Located to the mountaintop above my office and called back. No joy, just more cranky caller. Like they'd forgotten they had me on mute or something. Today went by kinda quick, mostly because the girls were all taking advantage of the sunny weather to do outdoorsy stuff, and that meant I wound up stretched a little thin.

Not a bad thing, it kept me busy, which meant the day, as noted, just flew by. Late in the day, Karen pinged me. V just dropped off an invitation for you. Luncheon tomorrow at noon with Baba Yaga and Pyevatar.