Chương 958: Day Nine Hundred And Fifty-Six

Dear Diary, One of these years, I'm gonna have a winter where I do not have to go traipsing about in the cold. I'll be able to snuggle in the house with my ladies and my kids, only venturing forth when the kids want to play outside. Eventually, they'll be big enough that I can just say 'go have fun' and see how much of my surface area I can cover with willing ladies. Okay, we'll take turns being the filling in the lady burrito.

Funny, I think that might hit Tallulah harder than the literal death nookie, which is just wild to me. I mean, I understand it. While all sex has some level of intimacy to it, not all of it is super intimate. Yeah, a discreet hand job in an alley done entirely for money might not be super intimate, but there's still some body to body contact. Meanwhile my first time with Siobhan literally wound up with all of us in each other's heads. There's nuance to shit.

Taking turns delivering orgasms too intense for Mortals to survive was fun and all, but other than how emotionally vulnerable I was just then, it wasn't really the most intimate thing I've ever done. Wasn't the most intimate thing Tallulah and I have done in tandem, either. But that focused cuddle pile thing is just pure, raw intimacy, and while I think Tallulah is definitely sex-positive Ace, her relationship with intimacy is complicated. She's starved for the stuff, but it scares the living crap out of her too.

She wants someone to touch her under that cold exterior, to slip under her armor and caress her naked self. She desperately needs someone to show her that she can trust them. Trust us to touch without hurting, to caress without harm. At the same time she's lived her whole life in that armor. Without it, I'm pretty sure she's not even sure who she is, really. Oh. Oh, fuck.

Not only do I think I sort of understand all that crap I read about neurodivergent folks masking on an entirely new, visceral level, that could maybe kinda sorta describe me as well. Yeah, her armor is 'ice queen', and mine is 'party girl', but armor is armor. It's stuff that deflects, distracts, blunts the impact and affect that contact would otherwise have. Which makes it even more surprising that Saffron worked her way under mine so fast. Amusingly, not so surprising with Marie.

Not only is my Murder Mittens super sneaky, we also wear the same intimacy armor. Okay, hers is layered, with the outer layer being Maenad Maid Marie, and the inner being Murderfuck Queen Maenad Marie. But it's not like I don't have a layer of 'fuck off and die twice' my own self. Kinda funny, so far my little bit of pondering while wandering through the woods has been ninety nine percent digression by volume.

Not even joking, because I think the only reason I started thinking more about my ladies and intimacy than the past day has been the sheer amount of cold boring trudging I've done over the past forty eight hours or so. I mean, it's probably less than that overall. We left before dawn yesterday, but given that it's the middle of winter, that's not even hard.

We spent all fuckin' day moving between a trudge and a fast jog, because unlike the fuckin' Dire Bears we tracked last winter, the Spartans are not actually even minor kaiju. Yeah, a small unit of guys in heavy armor, but that means they're leaving tracks in any snow or mud or other impressionable surfaces. They're also not immune to the need to eat and drink, because that's part of what Marie and the Heroic crew tracked them by; their little improvised latrines.

Odd footprints, unnaturally cracked ice, and stinking pits are not exactly fantastic conversation starters. Then again, everybody but Lemmy and I was fully focused on tracking. As I might have mentioned, we found exactly jack and squat in terms of anything like an encampment. As the sun set, Marie waved us all together. When we'd all gotten within the kind of distance where we could talk without raising our voices at all, she murmured, "Keep Going?" I felt myself frowning without meaning to.

"I'm not the tracker here, and I can see in the dark, but aren't we likely to miss shit if we keep going in the dark?" Closer and Panther looked at one another, one of those moments of silent communication the three Hunters were so good at, while Mackenzie, Chloros, and Ryan murmured quietly. After a minute, Closer shrugged, and Panther turned to me.

"We might lose them. But we might make up more time."

"Are they getting away from us then?" He nodded, and Chloros backed him up, saying, "it's hard to say exactly given how old the tracks are, but they're not getting even the slightest bit fresher. Unless we find a bivouac or something, we've got to assume they're making better time than us." I huffed out air.

"Shit. Okay. Can you guys reliably keep tracking them in the dark?" Mackenzie waved her hand around, and a light appeared on her shoulder.

"I can keep a couple of these up for at least an hour, maybe two." Closer frowned, then waved his hand through a similar pattern, and got the same shoulder light.

"I can maintain one." I murmured, "you just learn that?" He nodded.

"Good job picking it up so fast."

"I've been practicing."

"Okay then, ladies and gentlemen, we'll keep moving. If we can find a bivouac site, great, if not, we'll head back before midnight. No reason to keep going when it gets stupid cold after then, 'cause we don't want to lose time tomorrow from lack of rest." As the trackers shifted into motion, I pulled Lemmy aside.

"I don't really like how they're spotlighting themselves."

"Nor do I, but I don't see an alternative." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Okay then. Head on a swivel." He quirked an eyebrow.

"Means stay alert." Kinda funny, he did a passable 'pity poor me' look followed by, "Needs must, but woe unto me, for I may no longer focus 'pon Marie's posterior." I frowned, not really at him since I was watching the direction he wasn't, and said, "you been staring at my wife's ass?" I managed to keep a straight face as he ventured a, "Yes?"

"Good taste. She's got a nice ass." He relaxed just a touch, although not all that much with both of us on full alert for any Spartan ambushes.

"That she does."

"You get a chance to get a handful of it? Or a solid smack on it?" He half snorted.

"You're really not jealous about that?"

"Nah. Wife, not property. It's not like either of us leaves the other hanging. Besides, I'm the one she said yes to." He muttered out, "some of the sounds she made were suspiciously yes like." I chuckled.

"Yeah, well. You learn quick. I meant about the wedding thing." He got quiet, and I realized something.

"Does it get to you, being the side piece? Like, without even anything being official, like with Siobhan and Tallulah?" He laughed, but only after a quiet moment that told me all I needed to know.

"What man would be bothered by such things? I've two beauties to bed, and nothing tying me to them should an opportunity like your Marie present herself." I wrapped a tentacle around his shoulders and gave him a quick squeeze.

"You ever need to talk, or just sit around and get drunk, you let me know, k?" Weird, I'm not sure he knew how well I could see his face, because it went from tense at the feel of my tentacle to soft at my words before firming up into an absolute bro-mask.

"Silly woman. I will be slapping your ass next if we do such a thing."

"Eh. Not out of the question, maybe. You are very pretty, and when you're not tryna prove something you're not nearly as obnoxious." We traded quiet quips like that as we moved through the increasingly cold forest. Finally, as the rest of the fam was getting ready for bed, I called a halt.

"Okay. Homestead, refuel, an hour soaking, then to bed. Mittens?" I nodded toward a tree, and she slashed a recognizable crosshatch pattern in it with her claws. We weren't worried about anybody tracking us, after all. Everybody gathered around, I stepped us back, and the nine of us put away enough stew for twice that many people. Okay, it was more thick bisque than stew, because Marie and I decided we needed something the crew could just slam down before hitting the Bath.

Once everybody got warmed up, they all hit the guess rooms. Even the Heroes, who nominally had their own apartments back in North House, didn't bother going all that way, they just claimed a room next to the Hunters. Lemmy looked a little pouty, but took the room across from them. Marie and I got to the bed only to have Saffron yoink us to the Bedroom, where she knelt Marie on the Bed, then knelt me in front of her, leaning back against my Murder Mittens like a fuzzy backrest.

"You've got to get some sleep too, Kitten." Once she had us properly situated, she smiled and nodded.

"So I do. But that would be why you've more than three High Clergy, my Goddess." A moment later Orla, Mads, and Karen showed up. Not quite the, ah, intimate experience of the prior night, but Marie and I still wound up completely ready to go by breakfast time. I pulled them in, hugged them, and whispered, "thanks, ladies." One at a time, they kissed me, then stepped away to their Temples. The nine of us hit the Dining Room and scarfed down a bunch of eggs and toast with butter.

Nothing really super complicated, nothing to write home about, but filling us with enough calories to keep going. As I stepped us all to the spot we'd left off the night before, I slipped some Stabilizing Mana into each of them. If I wasn't alert, I might wind up looking stupid when some Spartan gave me another lung piercing, but if our trackers weren't spot on, we might miss a turning and lose the assholes entirely.

Around midday, the trail turned sharply north; it hadn't been a bee line by any means, but this was more than the soft terrain following curves they'd done before. Lemmy and I were both on high alert, but neither of us was prepared for what we found when we burst into a small clearing. I'd never seen bodies half eaten by wild animals before. I wasn't sure what kind of scavenger had pulled them down, pulled them apart, but whatever it was hadn't been very big. Not very tall anyhow.

Because they hadn't reached the smallest ones. Half a dozen spikes, four of them pulled down by whatever had gnawed the meat off the adults' bones. It took me a minute to bring myself back from the edge of just obliterating everything in the clearing. At that point I realized the huge gray patch in the middle of the clearing wasn't dirt, but a mix of ash and snow where the Spartans had burned the little farm shack this family had lived in.

"Fuck." Kitten? You seeing this? I am. Now I know why we haven't spotted them Scrying on population centers. They're avoiding them. I reached out, touched the frozen cheek of a kid too small to be obviously a boy or girl, especially with the lower half torn away by whatever had eaten the rest.

"Mittens?" She looked over at me.

"Are they," I nodded to the bodies.

"Still around?" She paused, tilting her head and sniffing. Then she stepped away to M-Space. While she looked, I turned to Lemmy.

"Are these yours or ours?" He shrugged.

"Could be either. We're right near the border. Frankly, they're likely neither, really."

"They're mine then." He opened his mouth, then closed it with a snap as I pulled the remains together. Karen? Ladies? I need you. Mittens returned, hands empty, shaking her head. I don't know if I should. What if they're in whatever afterlife they want to be in? The Children most likely aren't. You could bring them back and leave their parents, or... Fuck it. If me Reviving them fucks up their afterlife, I guess I'll have to twist some Divine arms to unfuck it.

"Revive," I whispered the word as my ladies arrived, shivering just a little in their Holy Garb. Mana poured out of me as five bodies knit themselves back together, five sets of eyes snapped open. The littlest one just lay there. Rage swept over me, rage that sublimed into Mana.

"Live." I handed the baby to her shell shocked mother. Shell shocked, probably terrified as well, what with my tentacles still holding her up. I snapped my fingers, and the three oldest ones, two guys who could be brothers with a big age gap or young father and oldest son, plus the baby's mother, all jumped and looked at me as they shivered.

"The ladies will take care of you, take you someplace safe" I handed them all over to my ladies.

"Get them a warm bath, then find them a place to stay."

"Let it be so," they chorused, and then all of them, refugees and ladies, were gone. I looked at Lemmy.

"You got something to say?" He took a deep breath, then did a weird bow curtsey thing. He nodded formally, then sighed.

"Once again you remind me of my place." He turned to the trackers.

"What news?" Chloros broke away from where she, Panther, and Marie had been conferring.

"They holed up here for a while. They left between two and three weeks ago."

"Do we have a direction?" She nodded.

"Lead on. We've got Spartans to catch."