Chương 803: Day Eight Hundred And One

Dear Diary,"If you want to follow me, Be the best you you can be, And help others do the same." - Tabitha Diaz, Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Closure Here in the penultimate Verse of Doctrine of Tabitha, our Goddess gives us her perhaps most important, most powerful Commandment. She does not ask of us, as so many other Gods do, to Glorify her. She does not even ask us to change who we are. Instead, she asks something simultaneously much easier and so, so much harder.

To remain ourselves, but the best possible version of ourselves. That sounds so simple at first, until we hear it with a mindful disposition, and remember that with the exception of some very broad strokes, Tabitha has not told us what that means. She has not hemmed us about with prohibitions and prescriptions. Instead, she has given us a few lines we ought not cross, a few goals we ought try to meet, and then left the rest to us. To decide how we can best make the world a better place.

To decide for ourselves, in the light of her own actions and affects on the world, how we are to make ourselves... better. While still remaining, at our core, who and what we are. She does give us one piece of advice on this; that we are to help each other in this, perhaps her most important Commandment. Whether that be through advice, feedback, or just encouragement is up to us, both according to who we are helping and how we are helping them.

But as we do, we must remember that we are each of us on our own journeys, seeking to become our best selves. What is best for one may not be best for another, and we are each the only one who can determine our direction, our destination, our route to becoming the best us we can be. - Priestess Most High Above All Others, Archmage Imperator Saffron Aetos-Diaz, Commentary on the Doctrine of Tabitha Kinda funny thing I just realized; throughout most of the Commentary my Kitten has avoided referring to 'you'.

Like, yeah, once or twice she's said 'I', when she's talking about herself, but except when she's tryna get people to understand the fact that she's actually spoken with me about shit, lived with me, seen me at my best and more importantly my worst, she's stuck with 'we'. That's kinda cool. It's not just cool as a literary thing, either, because even though as Imperator she's totally got the social position to use the 'royal we' thing, but she hasn't.

She's not doing the whole 'speaking for all the following because she's the only one who really has Agency' thing. She's including herself as one of my followers. One of my Worshippers. Doing it just as often when she talks about trying to avoid problematic behavior as when she talks about success or Blessings or any of the good shit. On the one hand, I'm a little bit guilty, because she is absolutely my favorite. I feel bad about that because she's not my only Worshipper. She's not my only partner.

Shit, she's not even my only Wife. But at the same time, I don't really compare them unless I'm looking for ways to do nice things for them, so I can make sure whatever I'm doing is special for them and not just something generic. Not that I have a problem with generic niceness, and I layer that shit on too, but somehow I don't think Saffron would get the same kind of thrill out of being dangled from my jaws as Marie, or being terrified into near catatonia like Siobhan. She's just...

She's part of me, and I'm part of her, and I don't ever want to think about where the line between us is. Because there isn't one. Not really. Oh, there are me things and her things, but there's also that vast region between us where we've kind of melted together. On the one hand, that makes me so fuckin' proud of my Wife.

Like, I hand her the keys to the castle, tell her she can do whatever she wants, and I find out that those keys have never been used, because the castle gates stand open, letting anyone who needs a roof shelter there, anyone who needs a meal get one from the kitchens, anyone who wants to learn read from the library. Fuck. I just realized that while we have a library, and we've given away copies of those books, the library itself is kinda inaccessible to anybody but us.

Double fuck, if I include the little shelf in the Academy office, we've got two libraries, and neither of them is accessible. Gotta talk with Saffron about that at some point, so we can make sure all the women at the Homestead have access to reading material if they want it. Did not talk to her about that yesterday.

From a standpoint outside my own head, I sort of had plenty of opportunity to do so, because after watching the sun rise and hearing the complete lack of distant roaring screams, clash of steel, or anything else that indicated people were fighting, I fucked off to the Homestead and spent the day with my ladies and kids. But inside my head I had no time or energy for anything but reassuring myself that my kids and ladies were okay.

I arrived home to the bedroom, to our big assed bed, and got cat-piled under first the kits, then the girls. Any other time I'd have been amused by Anise not being first, but Hailee's pitiful yowl of, "MAMA!" before she tumbled into me had me sobbing with relief. The rest of the kits echoed her, albeit with varying degrees of success at making with the words. Isadora knocked the wind out of me, and I oofed out, "gently!" before the girls joined the pile.

Not because I gave a shit about myself, but because the kits being the inner layer of that sandwich gave me some pause. By the time the ladies laid themselves around me, I just wanted to lay there all day in the warm embrace of my family. So I did. Tallulah and Marie wound up bringing up food. When I tried to maybe wriggle out or Co-Locate to help, the others held me down, kept me from doing so. I looked guiltily at Marie, who laid a hand on my forehead and said, "Experience Helps."

I must have had some kinda puzzled look on my face, because Tallulah sighed and translated for my insufficient ass.

"She is correct. The longer one lives, the more tragedies great and small befall one, the better one can function before recovering." I thought about my mom when she lay there dying, but couldn't bring myself to say anything. I just held onto my family, wrapping a tentacle each around Tallulah and Marie's waists, gently letting them know I was with them as they tended to the rest of us.

When we moved to the Bath to wash away the sweat and tears of pain and fear, I did Co-Locate, one of me playing with the kids and kits while the other of me floated with my ladies, Daya, and Hailee.

"Hey, Kitten?"

"Yes, love?" I sighed, because getting up and doing it anyway when I wanted very much to not was why I didn't feel guilty about accruing hot short stacks and long tall ladies.

"I'm going to need a couple people to come up and talk with the folks in Boltophsberg."

"Just tell me who and when, love." I nodded.

"Thanks. You, obviously."

"You need me to convince their leadership to seek out a less bloody way to reorganize every fifty years?" I snorted.

"Nah. I mean, yeah, that's kinda what I want them convinced of, but I mostly want you there to keep Lenny in line." She chuckled.

"Oh. Oh, my. You're going to set Lord Lancaster upon them? Have I been perhaps influencing you a little too much?"

"I see no problem with this," interjected Tallulah before I could even shake my head and nuzzle my face into Saffron's hair.

"Nope. He's there as backup. And to keep her in line." Saffron raised one eyebrow.

"Her?"

"Ophelia." Siobhan jumped forward several lines of banter, giggling and saying, "well, the two of you do rub a lot." I pulled her into the middle of our little floating cuddle island.

"I swear, after we welcome that naughty little bean of yours, we're gonna team up and rub you until your hair stands straight out from your head like a dandelion." The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Siobhan's hand darted to her belly.

"My daughter is not naughty!" I snorted.

"Not bad. Just naughty, making her momma sick all the time."

"It's not her fault." I nodded.

"It's not. Totally not." Saffron cut in, laying her hand atop Siobhan's.

"No penalty, no lasting animus. Just acknowledgement that she's made the challenge of pregnancy even more challenging than normal for our Darling. Also proof of how dedicated you are to her." We might have talked longer, but Hailee chose that moment to squirm up onto Siobhan's belly, curl up, and start purring up a storm. I watched, bemused and happy, as the tension seemed to leak out of Siobhan completely. Dreamt of my ladies cuddling in the middle of my Maw, much as some of them had done with me in the Bath.

Made sense. Just felt right. Absolute silence reigned from the direction of Boltophsberg. Not long before sunrise, I woke, kissed foreheads, and stepped back to Boltophsberg. To the Black Dragon, where she sat watching over a stunningly quiet Boltophsberg. I stepped to the Training Tentacle where she sat docked closest to the waterfront of any of our Tentacles. With suddenly silent refugees watching me, I walked down the boarding ramp to the dock, then up the dock to the waterfront.

Nobody said a fuckin' word as I strode along the waterfront, although some of them fell in behind me. Working on my memories of hovering over the City when I placed the Divine Ward, not to mention the impact of the barely visible Ward on the clouds and stars, I walked through the streets toward the Palace in the dim light of false dawn. When I walked past the block where the Adventurers had holed up, a small squad of them came out to meet me, maybe. Maybe intercept me.

I slowed, turned to face them, and they paused. A few moments later, somebody behind me screamed out, "Die, monster!" and something shoved through me. I looked down to see a sharpened metal point sticking out of my belly. I didn't turn. I didn't react other than to reach behind myself, grab the dude's arm, and pull him around, holding the sword in place with a tentacle.

"No." I kept trudging until I reached the edge of the Ward, now followed by as many Adventurers as I was by Sailors. Fuck, there might have been some Shipwrights and Courtesans in the mix too, I dunno. Probably no Scribes. I think I'd have noticed if somebody started throwing Spells around during the fighting. Four distinct contingents stood inside the Ward, all focused on a single figure facing me. Adventurers on one side, armored and armed.

Scribes to the other side, all robes and hoods, some with big bushy beards. In the center, Courtesans, their unifying feature a kind of bland attractiveness. I was not pleased with the fact that while I saw Dimir standing there with bags under his eyes, I did not see Danica anywhere.

Between them and that lone figure, a small group; Pyevatar, Lemonkyenin, an older woman who bore a passing resemblance to both Pyevatar and Ilmatar, and a guy who could have passed for an elder Lancaster, rod and rectal kumquat look included. I stopped just on my side of the Ward, glanced away from the figure opposite me, and called out, "Ilmatar!" A moment later she dropped out of the sky to land gently beside me, and the faint mist still floating out of the sky seemed to pause.

"Is that sufficient?" I nodded, my gaze going back to the dude on the far side of the Ward.

"Thanks, Illy. Nobody deserves to go homeless just because somebody else couldn't keep their shit together." V took that as a sign, I guess. The dude who'd led me to Baba Yaga's place knelt in front of me. I swear the Lancaster-kin standing next to Illy and Pye's mom squashed his kumquat at that, but didn't do more than clench his fist.

"Thank you, Tabitha Diaz, Champion of the Alliance." V. I should have guessed.

"Vyenemoinen, I presume. Thank me for what?" As I named him, his youthful seeming fell away. He didn't look really different, although he wasn't one of those old dudes with a baby face. No, it just looked like one of those time lapse things where you see a picture of somebody every day for years, until the dude in front of me had a long, kinda bushy beard, not to mention a few more lines on his face. Even mix of laugh lines and worry lines, which I could get behind.

"For many things. For saving so many of our people. For freeing my City from a curse that plagued it since its inception." I snorted.

"You telling me she forced you into a marriage contract?" He just shrugged.

"My power has never been that of brute strength. Oh, I can wield a sword when needed, shoot a bow, but my greatest strength has always been words and wit." He sighed.

"Not sufficient wit to get my people free of Ymir's advance without a price, however." Some part of me absolutely knew this fucker was shading the fuckin' truth. Not outright lying, but I didn't think he'd shed a single tear about anybody who'd died since Boltophsberg's founding. Fuck it, if it got us a stable northern border, I'd put Ophelia, Lenny, Tallulah, and above all Saffron against this fucker in a battle of wits any fuckin' day of the week.

"So. Here's the deal." I waited for him to say, "yes?"

"Yeah. Your people have been suffering. Most important to me, kids have been suffering. Children. I don't give a shit about the wealthy and powerful; they can usually look after themselves. I care about folks who aren't, yeah, but as you said, this is your circus, they're your monkeys, and here and now I'll tell you and them that any of them who want to move south are more than welcome to, so long as they don't try to bring that bitch with them." He nodded.

"And?"

"Yeah. You need some stability. I'm not gonna enforce how you do it. Wouldn't fuckin' work, anyhow. But the Alliance wants a stable government to make treaties with. So what's gonna happen is that starting tomorrow at sunrise, you fuckers are gonna sit down and talk this out. The heads of each Guild, plus you. Baba Yaga will arbitrate. That means if you fuckers can't come up with a solution agreeable to all of you, she'll impose one that nobody likes.

Stew pots may be involved, and I can't bring myself to care much about that." The moment I talked about heads of Guilds, the Courtesans tensed, and the Scribes started muttering, unable to keep silent. I looked straight at Dimir.

"Bring them both." He didn't hesitate, just grabbed a dude near him and took off like a shot. I looked back at Vyenemoinen, who still knelt.

"Aught else?"

"Yeah. A couple people from the Alliance Grand Council will be here. Not to tell you what to do, but to let you know what we've done that's worked. We've got an eighteen month head start, and I am absolutely willing to let you catch up if it means we don't have to worry about our kids negotiating a new fuckin' treaty with Boltophsberg." He smirked at me.

"Not even a treaty to join your Alliance?" I shrugged. Snorted, annoyed that a little blood came out when I did.

"Yeah, that's a want and a hope, not a need or a worry. Speaking of, the folks who will be here will be here to make that first treaty as well. Non-aggression pact, whatever you want to call it, but making it at the same time means we don't have to worry about your government having some kind of legal caveat ours won't tolerate peace with, and make sure no part of our treaty fucks with your government. Fair?"

"Given that you... No, your Mortal fighters defeated the one who held our city hostage for so long, more than fair." I dropped the Ward and held out a hand.

"Do we have an agreement, then?" He took my hand, shaking it as he stood.

"We do, Matriarch." Yeah, the dude I assumed was Perun apparently had a rectal kumquat juice explosion event at that. He stomped forward, shaking his wife's hand away and reaching for the axe at his belt. Before he got to us, I brought the dude I'd been holding this whole time around and handed him to Vyenemoinen.

"I think this belongs to you." I glanced down at my front, where whatever he'd stabbed me with still stood out.

"Careful, he bites." Vyenemoinen reached out and took the dude with a single hand gripped around his neck. Credit to his acting ability, he looked genuinely saddened.

"Casimir." He shook his head.

"Such a disappointment." He clenched his fist, bones cracked, and Casimir went limp. Then, without turning, he continued.

"Father-in-law, do you really think she would need more effort than that?"

"She seeks to undermine my... Our... Your authority!" V shook his head, still in full on 'son I am disappoint' mode.

"No. She has made it clear she could take that at any time. Frankly? She has already taken it by force from Loviatar. What she's doing right now is offering it back, asking only that we recognize her superior might, her restraint, and her good intentions." I shrugged.

"Not really worried about the superior might part. If I need smoke blown up my ass, I think I've got a line of folks willing to do that shit, and none of them are sticking a shiv up there unless I ask them really nicely." Dunno why that set him off, but Perun leapt at me, his axe coming out as he did. I caught his arm before the blade hit me. I'm not sure how, I'm not sure why, but where Loviatar had forced me to pull on every bit of power I could muster, catching him was like catching a kindergartner.

He stopped right there, straining hard enough to crack the pavers beneath him. I looked at V, took the glowing, sparking axe from Perun with a tentacle, then slammed it down into the paver in front of V.

"I think this belongs to you?" Vyenemoinen leaned over and whispered something to Perun, who's eyes shot wide. He slumped, and a single manly tear slipped from his eye.

"So be it." I dunno where he went, because as he turned to go Dimir ran up carrying a shrouded figure, his fellow Courtesan doing the same with another behind him. I pulled Mana, lay a tentacle on each of the corpses, and whispered, "Revive." When I looked back at Vyenemoinen, a subtle tension had leaked out of him, replaced by something else, and I did not have the fucks left to figure out what.

"Tomorrow, then?" I nodded.

"Tomorrow." Then I turned to Pye.

"Think you ought to be getting to work, shouldn't you?" She nodded, and as Ilmatar stepped to Vyenemoinen's side, she rocketed into the sky, the clouds parted, and the sun shone down on Boltophsberg.