Chương 981: Day Nine Hundred And Seventy-Nine

Dear Diary, I think at some point in the near future I need to start visiting Mom and Dad on some kind of regular basis, doing the therapy thing. Because I can't just keep doing the 'rage until I smash a problem, then collapse into a depressed exhausted puddle' thing. Well, I can't go back to it. For a bit I'd managed to get away from it. Then, after not exactly smashing the kaiju, I managed to auto-yeet into my own worst depressive episode ever by pointing Saffron's new and improved Status at myself.

After that I wallowed for like a month... Okay, that's not exactly fair. I wallowed for three days, then got dragged out of it by the literal incarnation of mindless rage, who I then out-raged, desecrated, ate, and killed. In that order, for maximum atrocity. After that I spent like two months recovering from both the depressive episode and the self-inflicted trauma from doing cathartic war crimes against Lyssa.

Okay, I'm not sure they're war crimes, because I think you've got to be at war for them to be war crimes, but I'm not sure on that. I was gonna say 'I'm not a legal scholar', but technically I passed Geography and Cultures, not to mention Law and Custom, which means technically for here and now I sort of qualify. I'm not Doc DeLeon or even Hero Velazquez, but I did enough extra credit to pass the course with a D minus, mostly due to being Head of State of Norfolk at the time.

All that said, from what I can tell the idea of 'Rules of War' never really took off here and now, and what with 'War Crimes' being an evolution of those, at least from what I remember from ROTC, technically there are no war crimes here and now. Shit, I think the closest thing to that are Phileo's rules about Holy Wars. Definitely need to get with Saffron about establishing something like that going forward.

Maybe once we're done with the Spartans, because laying down a bunch of rules about what people aren't allowed to do during an active conflict sounds like making up excuses for executions, tying our own hands behind our backs, or some unfortunate combination of both.

I really hope my feelings about that aren't just me trying to leave the door open for treating the Spartans like specialty pinatas or those British party jobbers where you squeeze and pull one end and the other end explodes all over the place and makes a mess. Speaking of making messes and parties, I gotta ask Siobhan what she wants for her birthday.

Yeah, I know, I know, every romantic comedy I ever watched says that if I really loved her, I'd already know, but I'm beginning to get the suspicion that those rom coms were not, in fact, the best source of relationship advice, despite what Cosmo told me. A small part of me feels guilty thinking about having a party for my partner when I wasn't up for partying with my Worshippers at last night's Revel, but I think there's some kind of a balance to be struck here.

Like, I'm not partying with her each and every night then denying my Worshippers or something like that. I just wasn't in the right headspace to be intimate with somebody last night. Shit, I still wound up granting the core Boon of what the head of my volunteer line asked for. Honestly I might have granted all of it; she didn't seem to want me to personally get all up in her cloaca, just to alter the internal composition of same to allow her to express eggs rather than swimmy bois. Shit. Fuck. Wait...

That's pretty much the core of what she wanted, which would mean all the rest, the size, the strength, the coloration changes, are just part of 'being a girl Troll'. Which means the rest of the Trolls I have seen are all not-girl-Trolls. Every Troll I know of in Atlantis is part of my Troll Legion, and all of them are boy Trolls.

On the one hand, my intellectual half is thinking 'oh, shit, they've got themselves a little town on the east bank of the Chesapeake, maybe they're finally settling in and starting their own society and shit, which is kinda scary for immortal regenerating horrors with no culture but warrior culture'. Of course, they're also all more or less sworn to Olga. Or maybe me.

One of us, and I'm not sure which, seems to have their loyalty, and I can't see where they wouldn't have some kind of gratitude to the Deity who gave them the ability to reproduce. They don't really seem that alien to me. Alien, yeah, but not even as much as the Kraken, and even they understand cooperation and teamwork and gratitude and all that good shit. On the other hand, if I remember right there are around a thousand Trolls, and now exactly one Troll-ette. She-Troll.

I dunno if they've been making like Thebans in the past or what, but every indication I've got is that Furtim is gonna have her choice of partners for the foreseeable. I'm also wondering if she's gonna be all selective or just do what I'd do and get all slutty up in that bitch. Fuck, for all I know she totally intended for me to fertilize her eggs, but decided to go collect some Spartan meat to feed the baby Trolls when they pop out. Pop out? Hatch?

Trolls are really lizardy, but I don't know if they lay eggs or not. Given how offended Saffron got when I dropped the info about Human and Human-Adjacent folks having eggs, I'm loathe to ask, since something tells me offended Trolls are not likely to lean towards talking things out. Back before I digressed from the digression that digressed from my digression, I was talking about how I've got to get back to Mom and Dad and talk with them about shit. Get their help putting the shit in my head in some kind of order.

Y'know, heavy flat stuff on the bottom, small crushable things on top, things in between neatly arranged or nested so it's not a massive smashable crockery avalanche waiting to happen. Yes I've seen that meme, yes it's informed my attitudes about therapy, no I have not previously had reliable people to help me safely open the China cabinet, catch what can be caught, help me sort through and clean up the mess on the floor, then go shopping for new dinnerware.

Because I can't go careening from rage to depression to orgies forever. Okay, I suppose that's factually incorrect, I absolutely could, and my ladies would back me one hundred percent, but I don't think that's fair to them, to my kids, to my Worshippers. Yeah, I may wind up having to lose my shit and puree some motherfuckers now and again.

I might even wind up doing it on a few occasions where 'have to' is debatable, but I do it because I'm imperfect as shit and typically it happens when somebody I care about has been hurt and I'm in pain and tired. Which means I really ought to rest up more while we're hunting these last three groups of fuckin' Spartans.

Yesterday after most of the Worshippers at my aborted Revel wound up declaring jihad against the invading Spartans and holy shit that is exactly what has happened and I don't really know what to make of that since I didn't order it or suggest it or anything, they just did it because the Revel was spoiled. No, no, not really because the Revel was spoiled, but why and how it was spoiled.

I think if I'd said I had the Divine Flu or something and wasn't up to party, they'd have sung me hymns or some shit until I felt better. But I wasn't in the mood to Revel because some assholes did asshole shit, so they decided it was asshole season. When I looked up at Olga and said, "please, stick together and be careful?" She smirked at me.

"It's a little late for 'careful', Goddess. The Spartans have seen to that." My shit wrecking senses tingled, and I shook my head.

"Yeah, no, I think that's exactly what they want." I took a deep breath.

"Look, you guys want to help the Alliance military with hunting them. Good. Excellent. But I don't want the Spartans getting anything they want from this." Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"What do they want?" I shook my head.

"I'm not sure. I'm really, really not sure, and that's part of what's got me..." I thought about my next word very carefully.

"Concerned. I'm concerned that what they want is to get us mad, get us to do things in a stupid way, so they can fuck us over because we've gone looking for them in our rectums." She took a deep breath, and when she let it out I wound up forcibly reminded that the woman's cup size is 'Volkswagen Beetle', and she's not particularly well endowed. Not flat, by any means, but not in danger of giving herself black eyes while jogging or during vigorous sex, either.

"You need not worry about the Trolls, I don't think." That caught me.

"Uh, they were at the head of the pack. Shit, they didn't even have to go find boats. Shit, I really hope people don't get in boats without supplies." She shook her head, chuckling.

"I'll see to my people. The Trolls, though... By nature they're very regimented. I can't see them flying into a mass rage and becoming sloppy."

"Even girl Trolls?" She blinked, then head tilted.

"Is that what that was?"

"She." Olga shook her head, clearly denying any intent to call Furtim a thing.

"Oh, no. I meant the transformation, not the person. Well, the new form, too, I suppose. But on the one hand I wish her well as the first she-Troll since Grendel's mother." With one final head shake, she said, "on that note, if you'll be taking your leave?" I sighed.

"Yeah, just... Spread the word, the Spartans are laying traps and trying to get us to get stupid. So... Hunting them? Killing them? Can't say I have any problem with that, but if you need the Goddess' stamp of approval on the thing, I want folks doing things in the smartest way possible. Stick in large groups. Watch for traps and ambushes. Fight smart, not stupid." She chuckled.

"Just like Calverton. You'll take all the fun out of war at this rate."

"Good." She paused, looked down at where Svart lounged in her lap, just listening to the two of us talk. It looked like much like Bonnie, he'd taken to his role as Consort pretty well.

"I find myself agreeing with you despite my better judgement."

"Heh. Make love, not war." She barked out a laugh.

"Hear that, love? Divine commandment, that was."

"Oh, hey, before I go," I tagged them both with the Boon of Mimicking Size.

"Have fun with that." Then I stepped home. Spent the rest of the night murmuring quiet lullabies to our two new kids. Really needed to either figure out their names or give them new ones. I'd heard all about folks being given numbers and turning them into names, like Zero Two or Eleven, but in this particular case unless the kids did that themselves as some kind of empowered taking back of their destiny, which was a little advanced for their age, my considered opinion was fuck that noise.

Followed them around all day, Blended just enough to let them ignore me while still knowing I was there. Another of me stayed with each of my Ladies who left the Homestead, another few dropped by my Temples to teach Math, and one of me poured Mana into Scrying windows. Most of them were looking at towns and villages and small military units looking for the Spartans, but I personally maintained one each on Furtim and Olga.

Felt like there was something else important I wanted to do, but for the life of me couldn't remember what. Came home for dinner, bringing my ladies home with me. Not sure where she got recipes for thin scalloped potatoes, but Murder Mittens made some intensely awesome potato stuff that I don't remember having before.

I mean, I'd seen the one where you slice the potatoes up thin, hit them with melted butter, salt and pepper them, layer them in a loaf pan and cook them, then slice them into cubes and deep fry them, but I'd never actually tried that before. Then she did something with beef stock, caramelized onions, and layered potatoes that wound up being like those cubed crunchy potatoes had a sexy, sexy baby with French onion soup. What, I see someone sexy, I want to put them in my mouth. That's just science.

It is entirely not healthy that I had to force myself to say 'mouth' rather than 'Maw' just then. Not untrue, just not healthy. I really need to chat with Mom and Dad. While we soaked in the Bath, one of me returned to the Mom Collective's soaking section while Tallulah joined another of me supervising the kids games, making sure they were quiet things the new kids might feel comfortable joining. I pulled Siobhan into the middle of our soak, then asked, "Darling?

Did you want anything in particular for your birthday?"

"Oh, I..." I cut her off, because while I really don't feel completely comfortable talking over my partners, which is a lie but I feel guilty about it, I also want to break Siobhan of the habit of denying herself when there is not a single fuckin' reason in the world for her to do so.

"Hey, Darling. Ice Pop. Mother of my Wife's child." I paused just long enough for her to take a breath to speak, then said, "Siobhan. I want to give you something. I think we all do. So... Wildest dream, spit it out." She blushed, but said, "would a repetition of last year be too much to ask for?" The thought of what she'd look like up on the Altar with me, full on late term baby belly, breasts already swelling, flipped some switches that made me vaguely regret turning down the Revel offer last night.

I took myself firmly in hand, forced myself to neither take Siobhan just as firmly in hand, nor take her even more firmly with tentacle, and murmured, "I'm not comfortable with knocking you out that way, and it might not be vigorous for the same reason, but I'm sure something could be arranged." She blushed and smiled with just that mix of shy and sly that had come to define our Darling Ice Pop.

"Would you take it amiss if I did my utmost to seduce you into doing both?" I sat there with my mouth open, making incoherent noises, while Saffron and Marie just chuckled at me. Saffron came to my rescue. Okay, she threw me under the bus by saying, "I'd order you to do so, but Consent is important, and it is your birthday present, after all. So yes, absolutely, do that, I'm giving you permission as her Wife."

"Hey!"

"That's traditional, when a spouse is incapable of communication, their spouse may speak for them." While I gabbled incoherently some more, only half joking about it, she turned back to Siobhan.

"My only condition is that should anything else at all spring to mind, you let us know immediately, that we might indulge our Darling in every way possible on her birthday." Siobhan opened her mouth, blushed, closed it, then hit us all right in the brain with an image that was probably illegal in several conservative states. I recovered first and said, "yeah, that one's waiting until you decant."

Siobhan managed to verbally stun lock everyone else in the conversation by smiling gently at her belly as she rubbed it and said, "I hadn't looked forward to childbirth, but with such rewards on offer, how can I not?" Yeah, I'd heard some women get sorta randy near the end of their pregnancies. Apparently Siobhan's swinging that way, even as she's still feeling sick. Really glad Hailee can give her some relief. Dreamt of my ladies taking turns doing trial runs of both that fully exposed ride and the...

Shit, our little Darling basically wanted a four horse hitch, and seeing the ladies practice it there in my Maw put me fully on team 'give Darling whatever her horny heart desires', even if I'd already been fully behind the idea. Still holding fast to the 'not until the baby is out and safe in a cradle' on that, no matter how hot she looked doing it all pregnant in that dream. I spent all day today doing much the same as yesterday. The new kids wound up sitting in the musical girls' room, listening.

By late in the day their heads maybe bobbed a little, but every time it got to the point where their bodies moved even the slightest bit they tensed and went still. Not helping my resolution to execute the Spartans cleanly without any atrocities. Guarded Tallulah and Saffron's bodies, for a value of rubbing my un-Blended cheek against Tallulah's calf and maybe lower thigh and staring at Saffron's tits trying to spontaneously develop x-ray vision.

Helped Marie out with her Academy duties, and dropped in to ask Headmaster Miles about his peers at the other Academies. He wrote me up a list of names and locations, told me he'd write letters of introduction if I liked. I think he was joking, but I asked him to do it anyway. Yeah, I know they know me, but... They don't know me, really. They know my reputation. Which isn't me. Miles knows me, at least as well as any of my instructors did. Do.

Yeah, I figure maybe letters of introduction will keep them from assuming I can do shit I can't, and maybe let me do something useful like teaching PT again. Kept Scrying windows open to a bunch of our military types. I'd kinda gradually swapped targets with others until all of mine were military units scouting for Spartans. If the Spartans hit a town, I figured there would be some kind of warning or buildup, but in an ambush seconds counted. So I tracked Olga, Furtim, and half a dozen small scouting units.

Still no sign of the fuckin' Spartans, but then the Trolls and Norfolk faithful haven't really hit the search zone yet.