Chương 853: Day Eight Hundred And Fifty-One

Dear Diary, Kinda funny how quickly I jump to trying to make the lives of others better. Makes me think I might not be that bad of a person deep down. Then again, I'm almost as quick to do horrific things, everything from Ultimate Tentacle Violation to Despair Brain Noms, so I'm not sure those positive impulses balance that out. Really, I guess I'm just impulsive. Which, as noted, completely unmedicated ADHD, which means I have next to no control over whether I can focus on something or not. Like, can I focus?

Absolutely. If my brain has come to associate some particular activity with dopamine release, do I focus on it spontaneously, even if I really shouldn't? Definitely. Do I have any ability to convince myself that taking some particular action will result in a happy ending of epic proportions? Oh, fuck no. Okay, that last one isn't entirely untrue.

My general lingering guilt over maybe taking too much advantage of my ladies means that I still hesitate when I'm thinking about asking them to engage in fuckapalooza whatever day it is at the time, and can only really do it when it's a spontaneous thing.

Which means that promising myself a private little orgy where Marie sees how much of her tongue she can fit down my throat while I use Tallulah's eyes to stare at Saffron's ass while she's demonstrating exactly how cunning her linguistic Skills are, all of it simulcast to Siobhan's brain until she's unable to remember why she felt awful does not work very well, because I know that even if I succeed at whatever task I decided deserved Reward: Ultimate Debauchery, I'll probably wind up maybe asking for the Saffron part if I don't forget.

Which still sometimes gets the job done, true. If I were slightly less weirded out by the idea, letting Sigyn and Loki use the other half of the bed so I could stare at those asses side by side would be one of those 'sexual fantasy better than sex itself' kind of things. Which is my roundabout way of saying that staring at Saffron's bent over ass in the Bed's mirrors is the kind of thing that seared itself into my brain and resides there as a kind of screen saver. Yes, I know what a screen saver is.

Old as shit computers in the school library. At any rate, yesterday night I wound up inviting Pyevatar and Lemonkyenin over for dinner. Spent the day doing all my various chores, tryna center myself and maybe get to a point where if the next wave of kaiju hit before we found Poseidon, I might be able to, I dunno, yeet one or more of them to Antarctica to cool off for a while. Which I could only do if I wasn't completely in berserk mode.

Yeah, I'm still a little upset that somehow Poseidon has left so little in the kaiju's brains other than rage that they're basically abused kids lashing out at whoever their abuser points them at. No idea why I'd be so upset about traumatized kids being used as weapons. Oh. Wait. Honestly, I get it, I volunteered here in Phileo, at least in part because after having no real Agency for so long, the idea of power put my panties in a bunch. Not that I wore any at the time, but you get my point.

At any rate, I volunteered, and I'm not gonna blame the Marshall or the Headmaster or anybody else for turning me into a weapon. It's part and parcel of why I can stop those kaiju, and why I'm sure I can put Poseidon in the 'former person' category when push comes to shove. But I still realize that the traumatized kid to weapon pipeline might not be the healthiest thing. I just hope my own kids have better motivations for wanting to become Heroes. Wait, no, I can totally blame Lenny for turning me into a weapon.

It's not fair to him, and I guess I'm not going to, but I totally can if I want to.

So I did a bunch of laundry, sat around leaning against Tallulah's calves and on Treachery Rock for most of the morning, played with the kids, for a value of 'playing with the kids' that had me following Alex, Lindsey, and Isnomi out into the snow to check on the fields, letting both Ria and Maze read to me in our Academy Suite rooms, since those are still soundproofed, playing house with Daya and David, lying in bed snoozing with Siobhan and the kits, who seem to nap as much as cats, and the thing taking up most of my focus for no particular reason, working on dinner with Marie.

We took the time not only to make each of the kids' favorites, but to make sure there was enough for the kits to try some of each of those things as well. What with Pye enjoying the savory tea sandwiches made with bread with some chew to it, I figured she'd like the whole steakhouse thing. Kinda wild, but that monster bear I'd nuked from orbit still hadn't been fully carved up.

Apparently the lake is cold as fuck, and whatever the Mother of Water Panthers did to speed grow the thing left it more than a little bit hostile to normal bacteria and fungus and shit. So, bear steaks. Which aren't super easy to cook well, because they're a little tougher than good cuts of beef, and whatever she did to speed grow the thing left the meat 'less sweet' according to Marie. That just meant we marinated it and slow cooked it a little longer before taking it out to put a sear on it.

That seemed backward to me, searing after cooking, but I'm not gonna argue with Marie. We got some big fuckin' potatoes too, and after baking them with some salt and butter and spices, we loaded those bad boys up with bacon and cheese and some chopped up peppers. Bell peppers, because from the best of my recollection, Ivan and Danica weren't all about the spicy foods. Overall the potatoes looked as good as they smelled when they hit the table.

We had a vegetable medley on the side, too; carrots, pearl onions, string beans, and corn. Apparently the folks from Grandmother's village had decided to introduce the Homestead women to sweet corn. We didn't have a lot of it stored up yet, but I figured what amounted to a state visit was as good a reason as any. I met Pyevatar and Lemonkyenin at the docks in Boltophsberg just after sunset.

Lemmy might be a bit of a prig, and I feel sorry for Pye and Illy that he's their gold standard of bedroom Skills, but he does apparently keep an eye on the docks. So, y'know, he's doing at least one part of his job right. I stepped them just outside the doors, mostly to show off the entryway to Pyevatar. Surprisingly, Lemmy wound up playing the gentleman role pretty well, holding an elbow out for Pyevatar to lean on. Not that she really leaned, but she did lay one hand on his arm and let him guide her.

He wore the same outfit he'd worn every time I'd seen him, but in different colors; a kind of red brown thing that matched Pye's dress; a kind of deep auburn thing. Not exactly fancy, but it did look warm. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Weird; they both liked the bear steaks, and praised the veg medley, but neither of them had even seen a potato before.

I guess here and now the Europans didn't wind up winning any assaults on Mesoamerica, and the locals didn't share the potato with them until recently. Until, at a guess, Saffron got them. For me, because I was homesick for French fries. Hadn't even thought about baked potatoes, because that's not how I used to roll, but they came out really good. Even had some sour cream and more butter to add to them. Once the couple from Boltophsberg saw me tearing into mine, they tried theirs.

Kinda sad; Pye seemed to like hers, but Lemmy thought it was 'a bit spicy'. Like, dude, could you be any less loin-fire-inducing? At any rate, when we finished eating, I said, "so, ready to see the Bath?" Pyevatar shot Lemmy a worried look, but he shook his head and said, "in all honesty, I think you'll enjoy it." So he led her up and, while the kids and ladies and I washed down on one side of the room, the two of them showered on the far side.

Like, mostly just showered; at one point there was a bit of a snuggle, but then she figured out how to turn the hot water off. Kinda hilarious watching him yelp and jump back while she giggled. Credit to him for stepping back up and massaging her shoulders while she let the water sluice over them. Then she got in the Bath, which given the cold outside we'd set to be a little hotter than normal to thaw any icicled kids, and I swear she kinda melted. She's almost as pretty as he is.

I nodded and snuggled Saffron to me. She is. Honestly reminds me a little of Persephone. How so? I shrugged. She's got that working woman build. Like a farm girl or factory worker, somebody who does enough physical labor to put on some muscle, but not so much that they lose the curves over top. Mmm. I see what you mean. Rather directly between the two of us, isn't she? We sat there enjoying the scenery as our guest enjoyed the heat of the Bath.

Her section might have gotten hotter, or it might just have been some cold air getting in from the front door that made her side of the Bath steam more, I dunno. Nobody got scalded, so I wasn't gonna make a thing out of it. Okay, maybe Lemmy, but he's the one who stayed in her part of the Bath the whole time. Macho bullshit, sure, but way less obnoxious than his normal bullshit. Once we got the kids in bed, I held a hand out to Pye.

"I could let you use one of the guess rooms, but I still feel kinda bad about the other morning. So, y'know, you get the nicest room for the night." She took my hand and I stepped them both to the Bedroom.

"Oh. Oh goodness." I realized right then that the two of them hadn't gotten dressed in night things or anything. I guessed maybe they thought I'd have robes or something in the rooms. I think Lancaster House had things like that, but we'd just never bothered here at the Homestead. At any rate, I'm not sure whether Pyevatar had ever gotten as good a look at herself as she did right there, staring into the big mirror behind the divan.

"Yeah. Oh, before I forget," Marie? Tallulah? A moment later the pair stood in the room with us. Kinda getting on the full side, and Pyevatar plopped her butt directly on the Bed, then succumbed to the sybaritic luxury of the sheets.

"I'm not sure Lemonkyenin is up for this." I snorted.

"Oh. Shit, no, not what I intended at all. Although if you two wanna make use of the Bed like that, feel free, just put everything back where you find it when you're done. No, I brought these two here because I told them I'd have them make it up to you. The other morning. So, y'know, just let them know what they can do to make it up to you. Nothing to egregious, please. But, I dunno, maybe have them do you some favors or something like that?" Pyevatar looked like she wasn't really in a bad mood any more.

Like she almost, but not quite, decided to forgive my ladies right then and there. Then her smile got a little impish.

"I heard my sister say you weren't impressed by my paramour's bedroom skills?" Tallulah and I both looked at Marie, who shrugged.

"Had Better." Pyevatar sniffed so quietly I thought I'd imagined it.

"Of course you'd think so." Marie must have looked some kinda way, because Pyevatar backpedaled immediately.

"Meaning no offense, but your preference is clearly for the fairer sex." We didn't really mean to laugh at her, but we couldn't help it. Marie and I both caught the giggles so bad we just flopped back on the divan while Tallulah shook her head and said, "while that may be true for Sister Darling, and of course Marie and Tabitha both married women, I have no real preference for any gender. Also, Marie was literally crafted to Revel with a God. Of the male variety." Couldn't help it. Both of us kept giggling.

Marie managed to force out, "Big D." Pye looked a little miffed at that.

"Not every woman seeks a rod larger than her arm. Lemonca... Lemonkyenin is an elegant sufficiency." We all looked at him, and I felt a little bad when I realized he'd kind of pulled his knees up to maybe hide the fact that all the laughter had negated his gallant reaction. I mean, I'd seen it before, and she wasn't wrong, he wasn't underendowed or anything. Definitely a grower, though.

"Yeah, okay, but were you going somewhere with that?"

"I would..." She hesitated, and I realized that Pye was absolutely doing an entire 'nobody can see me here, and I'm gonna get buck wild and do Vegas shit' thing. Which, given what came out of her mouth next, was as sad as it was tame.

"Show me then, a man to compare with my paramour." She paused again.

"Marie, show me this lover of yours, and how he pleases you, and I will consider any debt between myself and your house paid in full." We all looked at one another, holding in our giggles when, as one, we all thought, Saffron? Yeah, I think Pyevatar expected some kind of sexy little vignette or something like that. When Saffron, after confirming what we'd called her for, arrived Shapeshifted into boy-mode, both Pye and Lemmy looked a little stunned.

Not often Lemmy sees someone who'd give him a run for his money for romance novel cover contracts, after all. Tallulah and I headed to bed at that point. Not like we'd miss anything. I absolutely did not treat the ladies floating in my Maw like popcorn as I watched my Kitten use Marie to give the Boltophsberg couple a whole fuckin' education.

No, I am not being metaphoric, she fuckin' lectured them both, especially Lemmy, while making Marie pop off fast, hard, and so many times that when Saffron finished she flopped into bed and joined the ladies in my Maw seconds later. At which point Saffron tilted her head, dropped back to girl-mode, and asked, "did you catch all that?" Credit where its due, Lemmy had paid attention, and if Pyevatar went to work in the morning without a lick of sleep, she didn't seem to mind too much.