Chương 810: Day Eight Hundred And Eight

Dear Diary, Some of the physics of here and now baffle me sometimes. Like, physics is supposed to be a zero sum game, but last night and yesterday morning still boggle me a little when I try to think about it. Yeah, okay, my High Clergy all poured Worship into me all night, so I wound up powered up and so full of Mana that I got lost in the vision of some kind of anti-entropic universe in my own eyes for most of the night.

I'm not sure whether that has something special to do with me being a Deity, with me being a Primordial, with me being one of the few beings not technically native to this universe, or because I'm apparently supposed to be the one to push in the chairs and shut the lights out at the end. Funny, when I said that about not being a native, I'm not sure if I meant Tabitha me or Mimic me. Yeah, I got isekaied here, so I'm not a native.

But along with my universe from back in the day being entropic as fuck, I'm not sure the Mimic part of me is technically native to here and now either. Domnu and I are the only two who can step outside of Time the way we do. Yeah, I've heard Loki mention some shit about others able to do the same, but given Dommy Mommy is the only one who ever shows up, I can't imagine folks like us are thick on the ground. You are not.

There are perhaps a handful of you of which I'm aware, although some, like Mother Domnu, have many names, many facets Worshipped by Mortals. Huh. Any chance I'm like that? Like, Mimic me? Dad sounded genuinely confused. How do you mean? Worshipped by other names. He went quiet for a bit. I find it unlikely, but not impossible. Alternately, there may be others who embody a similar Domain, but are distinct from you. That got to me. You know, don't you? I heard the hurt in his voice when he replied, I do.

Saffron made you promise not to tell me? He sighed. Would it make it better or worse if I agreed with her, and made that promise only to strengthen my resolve, to perhaps give me the strength to resist your influence? I shook my head. It's okay, Dad. I trust you. I trust you both. Worst case, it's something I've already come to terms with and not told anybody, which will just be funny and a little sad, since it's clearly put you through some shit to avoid telling me. I think maybe Saffron too.

But honestly, I figure it's something where I'm gonna wind up needing some recovery time. You guys are just asking me to wait until we've got the breathing room for me to take a break. I get that. Appreciate it even. Thank you, Daughter. No problem. Anything for my Dad.

'Cause he's the best. I know. At any rate, my point about that whole 'zero sum game' thing is that yeah, I had six ladies pouring Worship into me, stuffing me full of Mana all night, so the idea that I could then stuff two of them full to bursting with Mana doesn't bother me, not really. But I'm thinking back to the prep for the Liberation of Calverton, when we did pretty much the same thing, only with three High Clergy instead of six.

When we finished that, I topped all three of them and still had power leaking out of me. Okay, topped them off. Didn't do the other until after my date. Didn't do it to all of them at one sitting until the Wedding night, really. I don't think so anyway. I really don't do that much to Saffron. For obvious she is absolutely my Domme of choice, even if it's a narrow thing between her and Marie.

And now I've lost the thread again completely, but given the topic that distracted me is just pure Tabitha-nip, I refuse to feel guilty about that. At any rate, more power came out than went in. I'm not upset about that, but it does raise questions.

Like, is it some kind of synergistic thing where otherwise inaccessible energy is getting recycled, which would be absolutely cool, is it drawing energy from some other dimension or world, which could be a major dick move, or is it somehow converting mass into energy, which is pretty cool since as far as I know nobody's gone and got cancer from excess radiation or anything like that, but might be problematic if I go to do something too freaky and accidentally the moon or some shit.

Yeah, in case it's not apparent, I'm still kinda buzzed from yesterday. Which means that since my ladies, my Kitten and T specifically, basically used me as intended, since Deities seem to be purpose built to store and redistribute energy in the form of Mana, I didn't wind up a puddle on the floor. Seriously, I think last time the whole 'shoving myself through my own Ward, which was specifically designed to stop anyone from shoving anything through it, by overpowering myself' took more out of me than I realized.

Gave myself a massive M-Space turbo wedgie. Which would explain why I wound up more than a little susceptible to my adorably serious Fae daughter. That would be Ria. Maze is the adorably snarky one. I might not record each and every emotion I have about each and every one of my kids here in my Diary, at least not all at once, but I do have feels for all of them as a group, each of them individually, and even in some cases particular groupings of them.

Like Anise and Felicia, the curiosity elemental and her faithful fearless sidekick. Last night was a great example of that going sideways in the most hilarious cute way possible, when during our nightly shower Anise pounced on a sliding bar of soap, only to have it shoot out from between her claws. Felicia, seeing the semi-shredded bar sliding away, pounced her own self, but caught it with her fangs as well as her claws. Yes, she washed her own mouth out with soap.

The look of betrayal she shot Anise was both heartbreaking and hilarious. As was Anise's utter refusal to take any responsibility for her sister's unwise actions. Oh. Oh, shit, I just realized that along with whatever else the leftover Mana or Worship or whatever has on me? Yeah, my brain is like a ping pong ball in a fuckin' tornado. Just bouncing from one thing to another. Weirdest part is how after a thorough shower, the three of us fell right the fuck to sleep the moment we got in the Bath.

Even me, with my brain buzzing. Dreamt of my ladies staring at the sky. Tallulah with curiosity, Saffron with the satisfied look of a craftsman watching a complicated machine they'd designed working perfectly, and the others in various flavors of wonder and awe. The sky in M-Space sparkled with an endlessly intricate, ever changing mesh of Mana. Each and every celestial body had those fancy hermetic magic circles spontaneously forming, spinning, changing, and following them.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Woke up to Hailee staring at me from where she lay curled up on Siobhan's belly. Her gaze flickered from me to Saffron and back just in time to alert me to my Kitten's boot up sequence. I reached over and skritched my kit between the ears as I watched the adorableness incarnate that was my Wife waking up. She smiled as if she sensed me watching before she even opened her eyes.

"Good morning, Goof."

"Good morning, Kitten." She wormed her way over to kiss me. When we pulled apart, she smirked and said, "I can feel your curiosity from here. I think it might be what woke me." She kissed me again, then said, "ask."

"What was that? The first one?" I tried to remember the word Tallulah'd said, but no matter how hard I tried, all I got were weird almost synonyms.

"The 'System' one Tallulah did?" She smiled, glancing toward where Tallulah still slept, Ria, Maze, and Calliope snuggled in with her.

"As I worked on my improved Inspect over the past year and a half, not to mention creating three other Global Spells, I realized that the existing... I hesitate to call them a 'network' of Global Spells. They were..." She paused, shuddering.

"Awful. Just awful."

"Three?"

"The new Assess Health, Smite, and then the improved version of the new Assess Health." She frowned, a cute little moue.

"Both of which need to be reworked now, but at the very least Assess Health was designed with some of my new Shaping paradigm in mind." I realized just then that we'd wandered a bit.

"Okay, yeah, new paradigm. Is that what the System thing is?"

"Yes? It's..." She pondered a moment, then asked, "what do you know about computer programming in your birth world?" I shrugged.

"Not a whole fuckin' lot. People write code. Computers run code. Including, uh, system software that tells the hardware how to run the code?" She thought for a little more.

"That's not a terrible way to look at it. Essentially, as I worked on both Assess Health and my new Identify..."

"Oh, about that, why 'Status'?" She smiled.

"Because Franklin had that backward."

"Holy shit, Kitten. I think that's the first time I've heard you say his name without immediately getting spitting mad. You're... Smiling." She chuckled, then snuggled into me.

"I did what he could not. Proved what he failed to prove. Raging against a venerated con man who incidentally harmed my ancestors and obliquely threatened my children, and channeling that rage into drive to succeed where he failed? Perfectly reasonable behavior. But," she took a deep breath, then let it out, smiling as she did.

"I did it." I snuggled her.

"You did." She nodded, then put on what I thought of as her 'benevolent Imperator' look. I hadn't seen it often before, mostly when she was snubbing Ophelia in ways that bitch couldn't respond to, but I'd also seen her level it at Sonja Novak last week when the Scribe got schooled by Ophelia Orange.

"It would be unbecoming of me to hold grudges against my inferiors." Okay, I realized right then where she'd gotten that look. She'd stolen that shit from Lenny. A few moments of essence of confused lady boner later, I shrugged, laughed, and hugged her.

"Congratulations, Kitten." She nuzzled into me more, and I put my arms around her to encourage that, because of course I did.

"Thank you, love. I couldn't have done it without you." I shrugged.

"Nah. I mean, I'm glad I helped, but I'm sure you could have." I pulled her just far enough to look down into her eyes.

"I have great faith in you." She smiled up at me.

"Which is exactly why I could." We lay there like that for a while. I kinda felt like I'd put in a light workout yesterday. The tiniest bit of soreness, maybe, but mostly just that kind of well rested that only came from a bit of exertion before bed the night before. After a while, I pondered.

"So, kinda like a Global Spell Operating System?" She nodded.

"Operating System. Programming language. Pre-populated, expandable libraries. Unified, dynamic structure. Self coordinating power absorption, storage, and direction."

"Why didn't you do that one?" She sighed, the first genuine negative emotion I'd felt this morning flowing through her.

"I'm still Bag, love." With my brain jumping all over everything like I expected Anise and Felicia would do if they ever found catnip, I saw the connection almost immediately.

"It's connected to her?" She nodded, then smiled, not exactly sadly.

"Given the nature of Sidhe in general and House Crow in specific, she was far more suited to it in any case. But yes, had I Shaped the System myself, it might experience instability at the moment of my death."

"She's, uh, not exactly immortal, Kitten." She is now. Funny, I'd thought Tallulah was asleep, but her eyes shot open. What? You're tied to the System, and it is tied to you. Should you perish, the System will reinforce you. Recreate you as you were the moment before your Mortal injury, with your memories and sense of self intact. Why... Why me? Saffron held out a hand, and when Tallulah took it she pulled her over to us.

"So many answers, none incorrect, but none complete without the others. As a Sidhe, there are no concerns about your body or Soul decaying. As Lady Crow, you had the inherent power to Shape, hold, and connect to the new System in that fashion. As you weren't technically a Deity, none of that type of connection tied you into an existing structure of any kind. You were the right person in the right place at the right time. You're part of our family. You're my friend." Tallulah raised an eyebrow.

"Just a friend?" Saffron trumped her raised eyebrow with that magnanimous Imperator look.

"Do not underestimate friendship. Tabitha and I were friends before we became lovers, and have remained so despite all the world has thrown at us. Marie was our friend before she became our Wife, and again remains so despite and as well as that. Siobhan is our friend even more than she is our Concubine. I do not take friendship lightly." Tallulah just nodded and lay her head on my shoulder while our Fae girls wormed their way over to snuggle in behind her.

"I shall endeavor to emulate your behavior then, Imperator." Saffron made mildly disappointed Saffron noises.

"Saffron." Then, shocking herself more than anyone else, I think, Tallulah giggled.

"Kitten."

"I'm not sure if I like that more or not." Siobhan surprised us all a little by speaking without moving or opening her eyes.

"Which is exactly as it should be." Then Marie sealed that particular deal by announcing, "Darling's Right." Okay, Siobhan blushed nicely at that, and wriggled until Marie undertook the complicated maneuver of nursing kitten repositioning to roll over and push her back against our Ice Pop. My brain bounced back to Status.

"Why... What did he have backwards?" I got to watch as Saffron's eyes sparkled with that incoming infodump sparkle I loved so much.

"Oh! He'd always maintained that Status is simply an inverted Inspect. Essentially that Status is 'Inspecting oneself'. Which is not technically possible given the reality that Inspect is simply accessing the self-assessment of Aura that Status provides. If you actually tried to Inspect yourself? Feedback. Awful feedback." I didn't quite follow that, but she did, and that was enough for me.

"So cool."

"We'll want to visit your father's place." We'll want privacy for me to show you the way to use the new Inspect to see through Blend. Why not the Bedroom? Saffron smiled sweetly. You'll be Inspecting Isnomi?

"We'll want to visit Dad's place. Yep. Dad's place." At that point Siobhan murmured, "so what will we be doing today?" Saffron and Tallulah looked at one another, sighed, and chorused, "Boltophsberg." So I spent all day pondering random bullshit and reading a copy of the new Boltophsberg Constitution over and over again. Could not focus for the life of me.

Okay, I could, but for whatever reason the neurodivergence department in my brain insisted that the only thing I was allowed to focus on was the vaguely terrified looks every one of the Boltophsberg Deities kept shooting at Tallulah, and openly terrified looks they gave Saffron every time Tallulah very obviously deferred to her. I couldn't let myself focus on that. Even I know laughing during solemn deliberations is a faux pas. Didn't have to taint punch Perun even once, though. Win!