Chương 804: Day Eight Hundred And Two

Dear Diary,"Live your life until it ends. I'll be waiting for you there, You'll tell me all about it." - Tabitha Diaz, Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Closure In this, the final Verse of the Doctrine of Tabitha, she delivers her final Commandment to us, those who choose to follow her. She tells us to live our lives. So much wrapped up in such a simple statement. To live, rather than just survive, or exist in some state of self-negation.

To live our lives, not that of our Deity, our neighbor, our parent, or our child, but our own lives, for they are ours and ours alone, and no one else but us can live them. To live straight up until our final day, whether that means to live each day like it is our last, or live each day as if our life will never end, for she does not direct us as to which, and each of us must decide that for ourselves. She also offers us our ultimate reward as her followers.

Not a palace, or endless pleasure, or any of the other magnificent bribes offered by other, lesser Deities to those who please them. For she offers the same thing to us all, something more precious than wealth. She offers us acceptance. Acceptance of who we were, are, and will become. Acceptance of our failures along with our successes. She simply tells us that at the end of our days, she will be there to take our Soul into her arms and say, 'well done, my faithful friend, well done, and welcome home'.

- Priestess Most High Above All Others, Archmage Imperator Saffron Aetos-Diaz, Commentary on the Doctrine of Tabitha I remember writing this last Verse. Ria's Blessing had broken by then, so my memory from then doesn't have the weird fuzziness that sometimes covers my memories from my amnesiac days. I remember thinking how badly I'd fucked it up. I called it the 'Book of Closure', then failed to give anybody any fuckin' closure whatsoever.

Just 'I'm here to give you a chance to be you, so go out and be the best you that you can be, and I'll be here waiting when you're done'. Which when I put it like that, after reading what Saffron said about it, I guess it's not completely closureless at that. I mean, fuck, I better be there for people now, or at the very least maybe I need to start showing up in Hel and Hades on the regular to listen to folks talk. Or maybe I just need to get off my ass and make an Afterlife for my followers.

For my Worshippers, although I guess only the ones who take me as Patron are gonna wind up there. I kinda wonder about somebody like Siobhan. As far as I know, Canta's still her Patron, and I absolutely don't begrudge him that. He made her a High Priestess first, and from what I can tell she's absolutely his favorite. Shit, from what Saffron and he both mentioned, she lives up to his doctrine better than he does. She's exactly what he wants his Clergy to be, and that's exactly who she wants to be.

So him getting all the Glory just seems fair. Him determining the final resting place of her Soul also seems fair, but she's said she actually wants the Bedroom to be her Soul's final destination. Part of me is like 'why the fuck would anyone want that', but I think that part of me is still running on Church propaganda from back in the day, where Heaven was better than anything anybody could ever think of, which means that something I can think of is obviously not as good.

Thing is, I also remember people talking about what it was, as opposed to the nebulous 'better than anything, so tithe generously to get in' bullshit. From what I remember, it was a sort of mix of Worship and direct pleasure center stimulation. Not bad, I guess, but as Loki could tell anyone who wanted to know, 'Worship' isn't really what I envision as 'eternal reward'. I'm well aware. I still love you, Dad. Because you're the best. I know.

But the Bedroom, now that I think about it, might not be all that far from it. Soft and comfy, a whole assed wall of books to read, and the entire place is designed for titillation and fucking. With no need to eat or excrete, spending an eternity reading, sleeping, laying around, and fucking sounds, and I recognize the irony inherent in this statement now, heavenly. So maybe I gotta go have a chat with Canta.

Nothing violent, just let him know that his favorite kinda wants to spend her afterlife hanging around in my Bedroom, making sure he knows that I'm down for that, and seeing if maybe he wants a free pass, or to take her on field trips, or whatever else might qualify as enrichment for a voluntarily caged Concubine Soul. Yeah, in case it's not entirely obvious, Saffron's commentary here hit me kind of hard. So many reasons, too.

Because if my Bedroom is Siobhan's idea of heaven, my current life isn't all that far off from mine. Yeah, I could do without shit like Loviatar's pain fest hurting my kids, but even the whole 'run around helping people' isn't bad. It keeps me from getting bored, and gives me plenty of time when there aren't me-scale catastrophes to help with for me to play with my kids and engage in adult fun times with my partners.

Kinda sorta wish we had something other than 'eating' that we could all do as a group, but even if I don't include the kids, the group is getting kinda big. With them included, it's absolutely huge. No fuckin' way we're gonna find a board game that all of us like. I'd suggest a movie, but the only theater I know of shows nothing but adult films. Kinda amusing that all my ladies are there watching with every indication that they enjoy it, although it's often more 'Mystery Science Theater' than 'ooh baby ooh'. Yeah.

Definitely hard for me to just come out and say that the idea of heaven being 'the place you're accepted and loved for who you are' leaves me weepy. Then again, maybe it's just another example of me tryna be the person I needed back in the day. So at any rate, got all the movers and shakers in Boltophsberg to agree to sit down and work their shit out, with the express purpose of there not being any more dead kids.

I'm kinda hoping we can work in no more orphaned kids, maybe no more people dying to inflate some asshole's already overinflated ego, all that good shit, but for now, what with them being an entire other sovereign state, I'm setting my expectations low. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Once that was done I stepped over to Baba's place. Knocked on the door, then waited for a bit.

Not sure how long it really took, but like always time passed oddly in M-Space. Eventually her door cracked open just the slightest bit.

"Yes?" I stepped closer to the door, but not so close I felt like I was getting in the door's personal space. If Baba wanted me in, she'd open it further.

"The talks are scheduled to begin tomorrow at sunrise."

"I heard." I waited, and eventually she creaked out, "Perun's taint remains un-punched." I chuckled.

"Hey, I seem to recall that being conditional on him not accepting your arbitration."

"So you want me to offer him things he cannot accept?" I paused, then shook my head.

"I mean, if it's helping everybody else and the only reason he doesn't like it is that, sure. But don't, like, go out of your way to antagonize him."

"Why not?" I gave that a bit of consideration, then answered, "because if you're being fair about shit, he has to accept you as an authority figure over him, and if he doesn't accept that, I taint punch him, and everybody sees it as his fault. But if you're not being fair, at least reasonably so, it just looks like you're only there as my puppet or some shit like that."

"I'm not?"

"Nope. Look, I hadn't even intended to be there, except you reminded me about the taint punching thing. I'm a woman of my word, so I'm gonna be there, but I'm prolly gonna be checked out while my wife and a couple diplomat types do the real work. Well, help your people with the real work."

"My people, huh?" I shrugged.

"Closer to yours than mine. I dunno, maybe a century down the line they'll all be 'ours'." I had the weirdest thought right then.

"Damn."

"What's wrong?"

"Just realized, I should have brought you Loviatar's shoulders." When nothing came out of the door but a quizzical sound, I explained.

"Figure that's the kind of thing you'd slow cook, right?"

"You'd accuse me of eating a Goddess?" I shrugged.

"You say it like it's a crime. Or something I haven't done. Wait. No. I guess I've eaten Gods. Does the Dragon count? She was a she. Does cunnilingus count? Marie's a Goddess. So's Diana. Oh, and Lily. Although she's more a Spirit than a Goddess." Somewhere in amongst my rapid fire bullshit I heard a snort, then a chuckle, and at the word 'spirit' Baba cut loose with her multi-stream cackle. I waited, smiling and leaning against the door frame, until it died down.

"Tomorrow at sunrise, you say?"

"Yep."

"I will see you there then, Tabitha Diaz." The door creaked shut, and I stepped home. Specifically to the dining room, where everybody including Saffron were eating a light lunch. Okay, not super light. Meat mush, paninis, salad, some light soup. Light for Marie, I guess. I went to slump down in my chair, at which point Saffron grabbed me and called out, "Marie!"

"What's wrong?" She just rolled her eyes and handed me to Marie, who awkwardly scooped me up. No idea why, I felt more or less fine, but I'm not averse to being babied by the Wifiest of Wifes.

"I don't want to need to sanitize the dining room, Goof." She stepped the three of us to the showers, where she reminded me I still had Casimir's sword stuck through me. By pulling it out. Turns out it wasn't actually a sword, per se, but like a foot of a broken off spear with a pole arm head on it, the kind with a big pointy spear bit on top. Did not feel good coming out, especially what with me not riding a wave of lack of fucks. Made a big mess on the floor, but that's exactly why the shower floors are tiled.

Funniest part of the whole deal had to be how the three of us kept setting one another off laughing. I mean, when she hit me with the Healing mojo, that shit stung worse than pulling the metal out, but I still couldn't stop chuckling. Not sure what that says about me or my wives. Okay, yeah, I know one thing, it means we all love each other enough that even in our least pleasant moments, we bring each other joy. Seriously, a shower with no hanky panky, not even massage, and with un-stabbing and de-stabbing both?

Blech. I think I enjoyed getting stabbed more than that. At least that looked totally badass. Spent the rest of the day playing with the kids. When night time rolled around, I snatched up Tallulah and Saffron and carted them off to the Bedroom. They both looked at me quizzically, and Saffron asked, "last minute planning session?" I shook my head.

"Nah. I mean, if you two want to, sure, that's fine, but," I Co-Located, taking each of them in my arms, kissing them, then laying them down on the bed next to one another.

"I'm just making sure the two of you sleep well tonight." Midway through, after Saffron had rolled me over to 'improve the angle', I had a thought. Kitten? Little busy. I kinda want some, uh, adult artwork for the walls in here, maybe? She and Tallulah both snickered at that. What? We only really have room for one thing, since Marie would be most put out should you cover up the results of your energetic consummation of our union. I would have shrugged, but my shoulders were a little pinned.

So can we get something on that wall? Did you have something in mind? Nothing specific. Us? She hummed. Then thought, when your ledger is cleared in full, the premier artist of the Alliance will immortalize that event on that wall. What else could I do but keep on keeping on and think, thanks, Kitten! I mean, seriously, I spent a few minutes of me time after delivering them down to the bedroom to sleep in preparation for their big day, because that kinda urge took me each and every time she talked about that.

Not sure what it means about my personal progress that my me time was not the tragic failure it had been the last few times I tried. Fuck it, I'm gonna call it a win. Do not know what to think about the distracted applause every time that showed on the Maw wide screen overnight. Rousted my Heads of State out early, got them dressed in their Head of State finery, let them put my very nicest Academy uniform on me, and got us all to the Palace on time. Whereupon my most trying trial this Season began.

Standing around listening to diplomats diplomance and politicians politic. I swear at one point when the Marshall showed to talk about how repairs to the City were proceeding the bastard laughed at me. Not out loud. Just that look of 'better you than me'. On the up side, I did get to punch Perun directly in the taint. Three times, even. First when he straight up dissed the Baba, which everybody including his own wife agreed he deserved.

Once when he made it start raining right as the Scribes and Saffron started writing shit down. The third time, when he actually had the audacity to raise his hand to Ilmatar for preventing him from ruining the documentation a second time, I grabbed his legs. I had to, because he tried to fly away from the recoil the second time I punched him. I swear on everything I hold dear, despite every bit of bitching and whining he did, his eyes did not pop out of his sockets. Just the one.