Chương 976: Day Nine Hundred And Seventy-Four

Dear Diary, Y'know, I remember seeing those memes about how ADHD people get impatient waiting for other people to finish sentences.

While I can't say that happens to me here and now, that might be because the people I talk to the most include a humanoid tigress who rarely strings more than two words together, a Sidhe Lady who tends to being concise and pithy, a quiet Healer who is both submissive and, as Saffron proved, breedable, and then the Imperator herself, who might at some point get annoyed with the fact that her tits often distract me from the content of her infodumps, but as of yet has not, because what with my nerd kink they also inevitably put me in the mood for some dopamine exchange.

Heh. Despite everything, that's a sign my life and outlook on it have improved. Dopamine exchange rather than endorphin exchange. Chasing euphoria rather than trying to kill the pain. Seeking perfective changes rather than corrective ones. Honestly, I am not averse to the latter in any of those cases, because whether it's my war wounds acting up or the Black Dog chasing me, getting railed until word salad pours out of my mouth does, in fact, kill the pain.

Especially when my ladies have the time and tolerance to lie there with me in our collected exuded fluids, skin on skin and the scent of physical affection making my brain give up its carefully hoarded supply of serotonin. Endorphins are silver, dopamine is gold, but serotonin is pure platinum. At any rate, before I got distracted by sex, which just to be clear is the name of my prequel sex tape, not to mention more of a state of being for me than an excuse, I was talking about ADHD and impatience.

Because that's definitely one of those things where my personal presentation of that particular symptom is anger. Which may explain some of the overwhelming anger issues I've evidenced here and now. Yes, me, I've got anger issues. I may have mentioned them before. I am aware of them, and I'm working on them. When I've got a legitimate target for them, I try not to let them get out of hand.

I didn't torture any of the Spartans, or prolong their suffering, or do anything but just kill them as hard and fast as I could without collateral. Because unless I decide that my new residence is the top of shit pyramid, collateral is something I am deeply concerned about. Yeah, once I found them I could have manifested one of my biggest tentacles and done unto the whole fuckin' Farmstead as I did unto that one strip of Calverton. Speaking of, I think they intend to turn that into a park or something.

Saw it last night in the Maw, where my Clergy apparently make use of my local control of M-Space to do planning or some shit like that. Not sure, because when I'm asleep... Oh, shit, I think my consciousness, whatever bit of me that makes me me, is distributed across, like, at least a small township's worth of real estate, including the tentacles covering that area. Which generally renders me nonverbal.

Which, me being me, now makes me want to tell Saffron I want her and the ladies to figure out a way to induce word salad while I'm dreaming, just to see if that would cause massive envy from the far side of the pond. Okay, also because, y'know, more nervous tissue. I know that has something to do with intensity of sensation. Eh, fuck it, worst case it's a failed nookie experiment, not unlike me doing me in my Dragonslayer armor.

I'm pretty sure the worst side effect would be clam jam in my favorite ladies, which we have multiple solutions to. The solutions are Revels and Orgies. Or self service, I guess, that always works, mostly, but it's not as fun most of the time. At any rate, when I'm forced to focus on something, I can, but that makes it both harder to avoid digression and puts my anger on a hair trigger, which is the point I wanted to get at when I started this whole digression filled rant.

I spent all day both forcing myself to focus on maintaining eight Scries, plus doing everything I could to be both present and unthreatening with the two kids. I need to figure out what to call them, because 'Boy' and 'Girl' bring up unpleasant memories of Sandra Bullock in a blindfold. I prefer my creepy to have a side order of horny. Well, a fifty fifty mix, at least. Like Marie, who even in maximum creepy mode still makes me melty.

Sandra's nice and all, and holy shit every time I think about my media preferences back in the day I wonder at how much of a self-unaware dumbass I was, not realizing I was Pan with Lesbian leanings, rather than Hetero with some same sex kinks. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. So when dinner rolled around, I led the procession of girls surrounding the new kids back down to the Dining Room.

Marie had returned to the kitchen, and apparently decided that the menu tonight was 'tamsty enuff to maek rocks eat' crossed with 'nothing you can choke on if you forget to chew'. Three kinds of butter, gravy, and sour cream soaked mash. Potatoes, yams, and I think something that might have been a mix of sweet potatoes and carrots. Sweeter than the yams or potatoes, at any rate, without losing any of the savory flavor or heartiness of the potatoes.

Bisque, and while I identified the tomato and shellfish in one, I couldn't tell if it was lobster, shrimp, or a mix of both. Another clearly was Siobhan's favorite, that super savory liver bisque she loves so much, which she shared spoonsful of with Hailee. Then there was a third one that I couldn't really place at all. I know it had a kind of radish bite to it, and the color was a sort of creamy off white, but other than that, no clue. Just good with a hint of radish spicy.

Which, for those not in the know, is different to pepper spicy or mint spicy. Mint spicy is weird and cold like ice, or water. Pepper spicy is fiery hot. Radish spicy is a kind of earthy spicy. Magma, maybe? Now I wanna know what air spicy tastes like, but I don't want to really put any effort into it, because something tells me if I look into that too much, the answer will be lightning, and Zeus will try to convince me that his spooge is essence of spiciness of air or some bullshit like that.

Would honestly piss me off more if he wasn't lying than if he was. At the end of the meal she brought out chocolate, vanilla, and butterscotch pudding, with sweet whipped cream to dollop on top. So many things. So good. Tasty variety, and even the textures were subtly different. Marie outdid herself, and it should have been one of those awesome triumphal dinners. I think everyone in the family wound up with just the tiniest bit of a hate on for Spartans by the end of the meal.

Because our new boy and girl just sat there, opening their mouths when told to, swallowing when told to, that dull, disinterested, dissociating look on their faces the entire time. We took them up, scrubbed them down, and my musical kits sang to them as they soaked in the bath. I realized they didn't float very well, and wrapped surreptitious tentacles under them to hold them up to make sure they wouldn't drown. Burned my tentacles a bit, but they'd heal.

Dreamt of, as noted, my ladies working with Orla to plan some urban renovation in Calverton. Weird thing to do with Spartans on the loose, or so I thought at the time. Woke up and almost immediately realized something. Kissed Saffron awake, enjoying how her questing lips curved into a smile when they found mine.

"Thanks Kitten?"

"What for?" It took me a second to think of the right words. Fuck it, wrong ones would do.

"For dunking on the Spartans so fuckin' hard." She smirked at me.

"That's your job, Attack dog."

"Woof. Nah, I mean planning out a new park in Calverton right now." She shrugged.

"It's going to be spring soon, it seems the best time to begin planning and planting."

"Heh. Yeah, but you're doing that while they're ostensibly doing military actions against us. They're all 'grr, we sneak around and attack you' and you're just 'fuck off, come at us or don't, but we've got important shit to do'. Utterly relegating them to 'not important' by doing so." She smiled at me.

"Had I not things I need to work with you on today, things related to a possible cure for those two poor children, I would express my pleasure with you at having done so thoroughly for near half of the enemy already. And for making me smile at urban planning." I raised an eyebrow.

"Don't you have Skills for that?"

"For research? Yes, but it's still better if I pay attention."

"I meant the other part."

"Yes, but it's still better if I pay attention." I chuckled at that, whispering because the kids were starting to wake up.

"Yeah, but sex is like pizza. Even when it's bad, it's still good." She chuckled about that for a moment. Until both of us realized that our new kids had woken up. If they'd ever really gotten to sleep. They just lay there, staring at the two of us. Utterly passive. Yeah, along with everything else I did today, Saffron and I spent some time in the Bedroom, chasing away the Black Dog. Gonna make the Spartans pay for that being corrective rather than celebratory too when I catch them.