Chương 915: Day Nine Hundred And Thirteen

Dear Diary, I feel a lot better about things after talking with Dad yesterday. The weirdest thing, and this is where I'm not sure if I ought to be doing more self-examination or maybe some kind of exercise in letting go, but I'm not sure if feeling better is a good thing.

Like, yeah, I get it, I'm an important part of people's lives, and even if I have Changed them somehow, not only is that a thing that happens with any intimate interaction of any kind, and 'wife' and 'lover' ought to count, as should 'mother' and 'child', but also I can't just walk away from that. If I've Changed somebody, I've got a Duty of Care to make sure that if they need me, I'm gonna be there for them.

I've got to try and make sure that they don't need me in any kind of 'I've addicted them to my bodily excretions' kind of way, and especially not in any kind of 'I've handicapped them so now they can't survive without me' kind of way. I've got to stay with them because I Changed them, not run away from them because I might Change them more. Which has its own perils. Fancy way of saying I might wind up feeling more obligated than attached. Or maybe my attachment might wind up more obligation than love.

Yeah, that sounds more like what I'm worried about. Which, to be clear, at this moment it is not anything like that. I love Saffron, Marie, Siobhan, my kids, my parents, even Tallulah. I'm including her that way not because she's 'less than' or anything, but because our relationship started out as a kind of mutual obligation, so I think it might be the one most prone to that kind of problem. But all that's just something I need to be mindful of, something that tells me I need more self-examination, not less worry.

Because that's the trick. Mindfulness and worry are two sides of the same coin. Carefully watching everything you do. Staring at every decision you make until it drives you a little bit mad. Maybe somebody smarter than me can see where the two aren't inextricably linked, but I've never claimed to be smarter than me. Be kind of stupid if I did, although as I am a card carrying dumbass, that would not be wholly off brand. Because yes, I am now a card carrying dumbass! Okay, the card does not say 'dumbass' on it.

So yesterday after noodling around with Loki all day, playing with the kids and letting them show off all their Yule loot, we wandered back to the Dining Room, where we got surprised by itty bitty meatballs in savory gravy over a bed of mashed potatoes. Turns out that Sigyn decided to lean into her motherly aspect, and between her and Marie they managed to recreate a bunch of different stuff Sigyn remembered from way, way back in the day.

Most of the kids loved all of it, although Lindsey and Ria kind of picked at their food until Mom brought out a bunch of fried fish. Lindsey liked that, and that encouraged Ria to try it. She wasn't as gung ho as the rest of the kids were about the little meatballs, but despite a kind of considering look through the whole meal, she wound up putting away like three filets. Up in the Bath she had all the girls enthralled as she told tales of Loki.

Siobhan followed Hailee, and the rest of the ladies clustered around her and listened as well. I got the idea that most of them were ones he'd told her originally. They are. She's much younger than me. Part of the reason I tried to let her go shortly before we first met. I'm really glad you didn't. As I've heard you say before, you and me both. I couldn't resist the opportunity with him soaking not ten feet from me. I pulled him to my side, put an arm around him, and gave him a good hug.

"You deserve her, Dad. You're the best." He chuckled, a sad smile on his face.

"Yes, but does she deserve an old wreck like me?" I shook him gently.

"Stupid question. Have you seen that ass? Literally made of Win. Of course she deserves the best." This time his laughter was way less melancholy, and he slipped an arm under me to hug me back.

"Thank you, Daughter. I shall stop my morose pondering on one condition."

"Okay?"

"You do so as well." I sighed.

"I dunno if I can do that."

"Whyever not?" I stopped and thought for a second.

"When we eventually get you free, and you can come here in person to soak in the Bath, are you gonna be able to just cut loose and splash around?"

"I rather think not."

"Why?" He chuckled.

"I see your point. There are some responsibilities that come with being the biggest and strongest around, I suppose." He hugged me again.

"Thank you, Daughter. I'm proud of you."

"For what?"

"For somehow, despite my middling parental skills, growing into a daughter I can be proud of." I snorted.

"C'mon, what bad things have your other kids done?" Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

"Nothing, really, but then they haven't done much in the way of good things."

"I think maybe you're selling Hel short there." He looked at me.

"She may not like the job, she might be pissed off at being forced to do it with no resources, but she sure as shit has done her damnedest to do it right. That's not nothing."

"No, no it's not. I am proud of her as well. I just never thought of it that way."

"So there you go. Two daughters who both are doing their best. Shit, your sons have all been imprisoned, so they haven't really had much chance to do good things." He sighed quietly.

"Or killed. Or lost." I realized right then that he still hadn't realized. I couldn't tell him, not yet, but I could maybe hint, maybe help him come to the realization on his own.

"All imprisoned. Narvi wound up stuck in that cell with you." Dad didn't exactly get weepy, but his melancholy crept back in.

"I... I know. I never thought of it like that, but I know."

"And I will absolutely be freeing him as well. Just like I'm gonna free you. Just like I'm gonna free my brothers. Like I've already freed your snaky offspring." That perked him up a little. He chuckled and said, "he's got Clergy now, you know."

"Who?"

"Jormungandr. He's never... Well, there were a few cults, a few who sought Ragnarok, but never Mortals who saw him as anything but destruction, devastation." I blinked.

"So who's seeing him differently now?" He chuckled and looked at me.

"Your sailors. Particularly ones in your Alliance Navy. They took a liking to him after that final battle against the kaiju." I laughed along with him.

"Yeah. Yeah, I can see that.

'Our Kaiju is bigger than your Kaiju'. Definitely the kind of thing our Navy boys could get behind." I laughed a little more.

"Reminds me of the line by Serizawa.

'Let them fight!'" Dad just looked at me, mildly confused.

"Old movie. Maybe I'll steal a copy and see if Conrad will host movie night for everybody." Dad shook his head slowly, not denying, just in mild disbelief.

"I still find it hard to believe, not to mention terrifying, that the Weyland Smith is my grandson. Not to mention slightly confusing."

"How so?"

"Well, you're aware that the Deities of this world have done a great deal to alter history, yes?" I nodded.

"Yeah, I get that."

"They've also sometimes... You recall what you did with Jackville?" That took me a little off guard, but after a moment's thought I said, "they broke space-time?" He shrugged.

"How would any of us who cannot step outside of Time know truly? But some things are strange. For instance, Sol."

"Sun Goddess?"

"The same. And not." Fascinated despite myself, I asked, "explain?" He glanced over at Sigyn, waved at her when she smiled at him, then waited until she and her audience were focused on her story again.

"She is Sigyn's mother. She is one of the older Deities."

"Okay...?"

"She is also a construct. A machine crafted by an 'unknown' master smith to carry the sun from horizon to horizon, to prevent it from being consumed by the wolves who pursue it." I sucked my teeth a little.

"If she was a Goddess, wasn't that her job?" He nodded.

"Did they catch her or something?"

"I do not know. I am a God of Secrets, and I do not know. I suspect Odin might, but I'm uncertain. It is possible that she was caught, and the 'unknown' smith recreated her somehow. But my earliest memories of her are as a Goddess, and yet now I know that she is a construct of metal and glass."

"You keep saying 'unknown' with obvious scare quotes. Why?"

"How many Smiths do you know of capable of such a feat?" That stopped me cold.

"Uh... Wait... Wouldn't that make him, like, Sigyn's grandfather? Sort of?"

"Sort of."

"So..." I went silent, then shook my head.

"Nope. Way too Mark Twain for me." He gave me a look.

"I've heard of family trees that are more of a shrub, but if that's true ours is a fuckin' wreath." He chuckled at that.

"A wreath that is alive and growing." He nodded to the collected kids. I glanced at Sigyn, then back at him.

"So... More siblings for me when?"

"Tabitha!" I smiled at him.

"Hey, you're obviously still capable, and while she looks way closer to Devorah than Siobhan, it's not like Tallulah hasn't been asking me to knock her up."

"Really?"

"Really. Not sure when she's gonna get serious about it, but apparently she and Saffron have some plan to create a 'Sidhe Demigoddess' or something." He nodded.

"They could use one. The Morrigan was, as you might put it, Sidhe Adjacent at best."

"Oh, man. Now you're on team 'Impregnate the Overlord'." He just smiled.

"I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone other than The Morrigan who isn't, at least a little." After a moment he added, "well, many might have no opinion whatsoever, but still." At that point the hot water had done its work. I stretched and yawned.

"You staying with us in the big bed tonight?" Somehow watching him leer as Lyman wasn't nearly as brain bleachy as watching him do the same as his genuine Jotnar self.

"Perhaps? In a bit?" I just chuckled softly and said, "don't take too long. I think the kids will wind up waiting up for you." Turns out that old married couples do not, in fact, need to take very long at all. They detoured into their guest room to 'put their clothes away', and joined us well before the kids got to sleep. I think Saffron's been picking through the dim recesses of my brain for cringe memories to torture me with.

The ladies recreated an awful sports anime I remembered where women try to knock each other off floating platforms using nothing but their butts. Awful anime. Still watched the shit out of it for private fanservice reasons. At some point I'm going to stop remembering stuff that should have clued me in to the whole girl kissing thing, but it seems today is not that day. When I got up, Saffron had a distracted frown.

"What's up, Kitten?" She shook her head.

"We've yet to reconnect to all of our outposts." I tensed a little.

"You want I should go pay them a visit?" She shook her head.

"No. This could be a simple matter of the storms altering things too far for Scrying to work properly." She took a deep breath, then let it out.

"Also? I saw you tense. The Alliance needs you, love, but right now it needs you more as symbol and figurehead than force of nature. I have no doubt we will need you again at some point, but until you are fully healed, or the situation is as dire as it was four days after Yule, I will not risk you."

"I'm not spun glass, Kitten." She reached up and stroked my cheek. As I leaned into it she said, "no. No you are not. Were you spun glass, we could fix you. You are blood and flesh and Soul, and you must heal. You are far stronger than glass, and when you crack, it takes far more to make you right than it would a spun glass statue." She snorted.

"Not unlike the Black Dragon."

"Wait, what? What happened to my baby?" She chuckled.

"You were there, Goof. The damage to her turret and deck?"

"Oh. Wait, that was repaired, though?" She shook her head, still smiling.

"Only a field repair. We've brought her back to Phileo for full repairs. The Academy smiths are working with Admiral Swanson to bring her back to one hundred percent." I hugged her.

"Thanks, Kitten." Then i had a thought.

"Did you ask Conrad?" She just smiled.

"Who do you think explained the engineering documents to the Academy smiths?"