Chương 985: Day Nine Hundred And Eighty-Three

Dear Diary, I think there's another layer to my growing tension. One that I haven't really addressed, even though I've alluded to it. I haven't really lost my shit since Lyssa attacked the Homestead. Now, I know on the surface that sounds all kinds of positive. I've fought two different groups of Spartans since then. Three if you count the singleton left behind at that one Watchtower.

While I wrecked their shit, even turning an entire Watchtower full of them into Vesuvius style char art on the interior of that self same Watchtower, I didn't really do anything that I would consider a war crime. I mean, yeah, I'm sure some of the shit I've done in the heat of battle counts, technically, back in the world of Eastside. But if I define 'war crime' in the abstract as 'doing other than putting an enemy down as fast and hard as necessary', I don't think I have.

To be clear, when I say 'as hard as necessary', I'm not talking about pain and suffering. I'm talking about how much damage it takes to take somebody out of a fight. Against a normal non-Heroic opponent, one solid hit with a Mana Blade will do it. Doesn't even have to be one that leaves them in pieces; if a normal Human Adjacent person has an inch-wide hole poked through their torso surrounded by cauterized tissue, that's generally gonna put them on the sidelines.

So, okay, I guess in the case of people who aren't trained to fight through it, I am talking about pain, but I'm not talking about inflicting pain for the sake of inflicting pain, I'm talking about doing it to remove someone from the fight until that fight is over.

In a street fight, if I knee some poor bastard in the crotch, and I'm talking a normal 'lift them an inch off the ground' knee, in six seconds they're gonna be lying on the ground clutching themselves for the foreseeable, so they're out of the fight, and they'll probably be fine in the morning. Heroic fuckers, and just to be clear I'm using that as a power level classification totally detached from its potential moral component, are generally trained to resist fear and pain and even actual debilitating injury.

Okay, Phileo Heroes trained by duBois are, and at this point his standard is pretty much the Alliance standard. Everybody seems to agree with me that any given Spartan Hero is, as a rule, more than a match for any given Phileo style Hero, even though based on my experience there's some overlap. I'd pit Lachlan or Larry against some newbie Spartan, for example, if I were willing to risk either of them, or in some kind of emergency where I had to skew the odds as hard as I could then roll the dice.

Thing is I don't think the Spartans would send raw recruits on a mission like this. I sure as fuck don't think they'd have the kind of discipline to avoid undefended population centers. So when I got stuck in that Watchtower with two dozen of them and decided to just turn the tower into a smelter, that wasn't me thinking 'burning to death is a hideously painful way to die, I'm gonna be so slick Marie will be able to force her whole hand into me and work me like a puppet'.

That was me thinking 'vaporization will end their resistance permanently, and keeping them all in the tower means none will get away'. Because given they've shown some minimal level of self control and ability to stay on mission, I'm kinda worried about any of them getting away, because I don't fuckin' know if they'll keep killing off our most vulnerable, try for an assassination, or do some other bullshit I haven't thought of yet.

So at any rate, despite maybe hitting individual enemies with weapons possibly better suited to anti-materiel purposes, or hitting groups with things guaranteed to cause cessation of life functions in a fast and permanent manner, I've avoided any war crimes. I haven't done anything I'd peg as an atrocity. If I can get through this entire situation without any atrocities, pegging will be involved in the celebration. There might even be scientific testing to see if...

Wait, no, I'm definitely putting a strap on Siobhan and having her go to town on Saffron, because my Kitten has shown proclivities in that direction, and seeing Siobhan top somebody would just be adorable in a way that would get me Marie glove slick without the slightest shred of guilt. But that presupposes I'll get through it without doing anything atrocious.

Which is yet another layer of worry, because for whatever reason hearing how the Spartans referred to my new kids lit a fire in me, one that makes me worried that my response to them might be closer to Lyssa than the relatively clean execution I gave Gregor. Again, and I'm repeating this to remind myself, I am not worried that I'll do something to the fuckin' Spartans that they 'don't deserve'. I'm worried that I'll do something to the Spartans that I don't deserve.

Or worse, something that ought to fuck with me and doesn't, because I have spent the past three months reminding myself that despite all appearances and arguments to the contrary, I am in some important way still Human. Still a person deserving of love, kindness, intimacy, and maybe, possibly, sorta, the better 'treated like an actual human being' type of respect. If I atrocity the Spartans I'm gonna have trauma and guilt and feel like I don't deserve any of that.

If I atrocity them and don't walk away with any trauma or guilt, I'm gonna know, somewhere deep inside, that I definitely don't. So at any rate the scouts found evidence of more atrocities through the day yesterday, and that damaged my calm something fierce. Stepped back home to find Marie had made a bunch of comfort foods. Tendies, waffles, and sweet gravy.

Those little potato pasta jobbers, although instead of boiling them and serving them with a tomato sauce she fried them and served them with a garlic butter sauce. I only recognized them from the shape and the taste of potato inside. Couldn't remember the name, which bugged me for no reason I could put my finger on.

Probably because even though I didn't get that kind of pasta often back in the day, I knew about it, and so much of my life revolved around delivery food forgetting about any of it seemed like losing part of my past life, part of myself. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Which honestly shouldn't sound so awful, because my past life sucked, but identity crisis gonna identity crisis, I guess.

While Marie isn't hardcore into forcing 'protein, starch, veg' into every meal, today I think she managed it by putting the veg into the garlic butter sauce, because while the flavors of garlic and butter dominated the sauce, it had some other stuff going on as well. I'm pretty sure the new kids got some of that medication Saffron had scored for them in their waffles or something, because I definitely got some Fae Grain in mine.

Not enough to do more than loosen me up, but enough that by the time we hit the Bath, the heat of the water served to relax already loose muscles further, rather than trying to melt the unmeltable. Got the new kids' attention and waved them over from where they'd been watching the rest of the girls play. Well, I say 'rest of the girls', but it was mostly Menace, Alex, Anise, and Felicia doing some splashy active stuff while the rest hung around the margins.

Hailee stayed in contact with Siobhan, and Isadora had placed herself as a kind of floating barrier between the new kids and the rest of the horde hoard. At any rate, when the new kids floated over, suddenly tense like they expected the other shoe to drop, I quietly asked, "how do you kids like it here? At the Homestead, I mean?" They both shrugged, as if trying to answer without committing to anything.

"Do you want to stay here?" They both tensed, but nodded. It took me a second to realize that they expected me to name some kind of price. It took all I had to keep my tone calm, my face smiling. The Fae Grain might have helped with that.

"Okay. If you want your own room, there are still some empty, I think. Or you could bunk up with some of the other kids if you want." They both looked confused, maybe a little frightened. Like being offered more at this point was clearly just setting up a bigger shoe, one that would squash them without hardly any effort. But they clutched at one another's hands and nodded again.

"Okay then. No rush, take all the time you like to decide. If you want to share a room with one of the other girls, they'll have to agree to it, okay?" If the boy felt any kinda way about me saying 'other girls', he didn't react to that, other than to nod along with his sister. Fuck, I think they were brother and sister. They definitely looked enough alike to be twins, so I'd been assuming, but it's not like I'd asked. Fuck it, they were brother and sister now, even if they hadn't been.

"One thing?" They both tensed.

"When you do pick a room, the girls have kind of made a tradition of decorating the door with their names. So, y'know, if you want to do that you'll need to tell somebody your names." That got another wave of tension, but I kept my cool and added, "or pick new ones. Or maybe ask somebody around here to pick new ones for you." I paused while they both kinda shuddered, like they wanted to relax but couldn't. Then I sunk down so that they were looking down at me, while I tried to look as innocuous as possible.

"Whatever you decide. It's your decision, and what I want?" They tensed again.

"Is for you to do whatever is right, is healthiest for you. So take your time. Talk it out, with each other, with the other girls, with any of us. With anybody else here at the Homestead, if you want. Okay?" Yeah, I wound up with them sobbing into me until they fell asleep again. Bit of a rash, but I'm not bitching about that. Also, I think it was less intense than before. Carried them down to the bedroom, where they stirred just long enough to snuggle into me.

Dreamt of my ladies still organizing shit in their war room in my Maw. Also dreamt of itching all night long, and I'm proud of myself because I did not once scratch or rooch or do anything but endure it. Because if anything will get me to do better, to be better, to not be a fuckin' dumbass, it's kids. Woke up to a feel like sunburn where they lay against me. Nothing horrible, nothing compared to so much shit that had happened to me.

And I had two kids who each hugged me when they woke up, even if they pulled away after and looked... Not embarrassed or ashamed. Something closer to guilty. Something that made me have to control myself when I realized what it was. Tensing up to survive the punishment. I held my arms out, murmured, "only if you want to, kids." First the girl, then the boy moved in to claim their hug before moving off to the toilet. Of course all my other girls rotated through after that.

By the end of it my burned side didn't feel so burned. By the time Saffron and Marie got done with the me they Co-Located to the Bedroom, which was right around the end of breakfast, it didn't feel burned at all. Little bit stretched, maybe, but that was the kind of ache that left a smile on my face as I stepped out to all the things I had to do. Parenting, Bodyguarding, Maiding, Scrying. Some time in the middle of the day I remembered, and thought, have we contacted Muscogee and Compton?

Saffron's calm response came back, soothed away some of the rage building from another half dozen destroyed cottages discovered. I spoke with the Yakky and Rabbit. Compton's military has swept their territory and are standing guard on the borders, but they really don't have the numbers and quality combined to do more than that. One of our Scryers is listening in on the Yakky with her knowledge, that she might call for us if the Spartans attack them. And Rabbit?

She and Lily are both far better at hiding than hunting. They mentioned Spirits who might be capable of aid, but who will not, and I'm not sure why. That rankled a little. Want me to talk with them? I think not. You're not at your most diplomatic right now, and I'd rather let them sit on the sidelines than spark negative feelings. I took myself in hand. This was our fight, not theirs, even if it had spilled over onto them. Fair. You let them know we're on call if they're attacked?

I did, and both Lily and Rabbit seem ready to call us in the moment they have anything concrete. Something about the way she said it tugged at me. Concrete? They seemed on edge. Like they'd sensed something, but nothing they could express, possibly even to themselves. I sighed, and forced a semblance of calm. Thanks, Kitten. I'll get back to it then. As will I, love. I also hopped in to see Conrad and ask him to make something for Siobhan's birthday. Nothing huge. Not really. More a party favor than anything.

Then I went back to watching for the Spartans. And waiting. I hate waiting.