Chương 999: Day Nine Hundred And Ninety-Seven

Dear Diary, I know I've said this before, at least twice, maybe more times, but at some point I gotta sit down and make a list of shit I've left unfinished. I mean, as far as I know, I don't have any pressing need to finish that shit any time soon. Immortality is good for something, I guess.

But whenever something sneaks back in and bites me in the ass, I get the awful sensation that everything I've left undone is hiding, sneaking around, gathering together, combining to form some kind of massive Tabitha wrecking ass bite. On the one hand, I know that random stuff I've forgotten to do, especially if it was stuff I never actually told anybody else about, isn't going to consciously make alliances with other stuff I've forgotten to do.

The idea of different random bullshit self-organizing into an assault on my posterior is, fundamentally, bonkers. On the other hand, ear bud cables. Yeah, I know.

'WTF, Tabitha' in full effect. But hear me out on this. Ain't nobody got the money to pick up infinite sets of wireless ear buds, but the cheap assed nigh disposable wired ones are like a buck at the dollar store. But the cables are slightly less durable than an equivalent mass of cotton candy, so you gotta practice good cable management with those things.

Unfortunately, 'good cable management' is nigh mythical in the first place, and when you add in the levels of ADHD that routinely fuck with my brain, that's just not gonna happen. But because replacing even cheap assed ear buds on the regular gets spendy, I used to wrap those up super careful and shit before putting them away. Thing is, no matter how neatly I wrapped those things up, overnight they'd spontaneously tie themselves into the kind of knots that Boy Scouts wished they could tie.

Shibari ain't got shit on ear bud wire tangles. At first I thought it was lying there in bed next to me, so I put them in my pocket. No joy, so I left them on my dresser. Nope. Even putting them in a fuckin' drawer didn't help. In fact, since I'd usually buy a handful of them, every set of ear buds in the drawer would become one with every other set. Looking like some kind of skinny snake orgy.

Wound up having to plug a random plug into my phone, crank the volume up, and try to figure out which buds had noise coming out.

My point here, in case somebody forgot, but I'm returning to it because like I said I'm tryna follow up on things, is that all those random things I've left undone don't need more sentience than a fuckin' set of ear bud cables to become inextricably tangled together, and Murphy being who he is the eventual shape they'll coalesce into will be one that shoves the worst of the ass biting fangs into a set of self-inserting anal beads.

So, short version, I know too late, I'm not just tryna follow up because that's what the person I want to be would do, it's because the perversity of the universe tends toward maximum, and that will wind up with fanged ears ramming their buds up my ass, which is a situation I'm eager to avoid. Speaking of, the whole thing that brought this to mind was Saffron Rae showing up at the end of my teaching day yesterday.

Before I even really parsed what she'd said, I remembered, stepping to her and reaching out to take her hand.

"Oh, shit! Is Raymond okay?" I watched as she held herself physically upright, not breaking down, while inside she just crumpled.

"I..." I didn't make her say it.

"Is he at your place?" She nodded.

"You mind?" I held my hand out, almost touching hers. She grasped at me, and I stepped us to the last place I'd seen Raymond. Didn't even stop to think that I'd last seen him in their bedroom, or that the time before that he, she, and I had had a little mini-Revel with Saffron. One glance, not even an Assess, showed me a man who'd wasted away to almost nothing.

"I've done what I can, but..."

"He hasn't woken up?" She shook her head.

"Fuck." Ladies? Saffron, Siobhan, especially. Before Saffron arrived, Siobhan looked through my eyes, waved my hands through an Assess Health. He's still in a Healing Coma.

"Oh, shit." I turned back to Saffron Rae as Saffron stepped next to us.

"I'm gonna try waking him up, okay?" She sniffled, nodded, and kinda collapsed onto Saffron. Okay, anything special I need to do? Siobhan's calm voice in my head centered me. Healing Coma keeps the body healthy, but it's still possible to starve. The Mind is functionally asleep, and while the Soul might wander far, so long as it remains tethered it ought return upon the Coma ending. I didn't really need much prompting to shape a Stabilize, lay my hand on his chest above his heart, and slip Mana into him.

Slowly and carefully, watching as the baggage under his eyes faded, his limbs and chest filled out closer to where I'd seen them last. As Saffron Rae broke down in Saffron's arms, I reached down and lifted Raymond from the bed, trying to be surreptitious about checking for shit like bed sores. Gotta give her credit, she'd kept him clean and cared for, just... Y'know, in a coma. Where I'd left him. Siobhan? Help? Of course, Tabitha.

Guided by my little Healer, I reached out with my Mana and slowly unraveled the Shape that kept Raymond sedated. A few moments after it dispersed, his eyelids started twitching. Not long after that, he groaned. I didn't even see what hit me; Saffron Rae shoved me aside and had him in her arms before I could react.

"Raymond! Raymond, please wake up!"

"Rae?" His voice definitely sounded like he hadn't talked in months. A moment later, after blinking his eyes once, he heaved one giant, heart rending sob, then buried his face in Saffron Rae's belly, weeping almost silently. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"I'm sorry, Saffron Rae. I thought he'd, y'know, wake up normally once we dealt with the Kaiju and Lyssa." She shook her head, not arguing, not accusing, but almost like she wanted to deny the time she'd lost. Meanwhile Siobhan whispered, that's what would normally happen, I think we all assumed that as well, into the back of my brain. Saffron and I sat down on the edge of the bed, hand in hand, and waited for our fellow Clergy of the Temple of Wisdom to be ready to talk to us.

I sure as fuck didn't have anywhere better to be, and if there's one big advantage to being the top of the org chart, it's setting your own schedule and priority list. We sat there until well after midnight. First Raymond fell asleep crying. Then Saffron Rae did. Neither Saffron nor I felt comfortable leaving them alone, so we just sat there enjoying one another's company. Not even canoodling, let alone shenanigans. Just sharing a vigil, watching over friends, I guess.

We talked a little about her day managing the Grand Council and mine wrangling young scholars, not to mention the previous day making Freshman Cadets run in circles until they wanted to puke. Eventually Raymond stirred, then looked at me. When I met his gaze, I saw more desolation than I'd ever seen in a person's eyes. Worse than Larry's after his asshole cousins killed his One True Love. I reached out a hand, but just left it there and silently waited. Eventually he half whisper, half croaked out, "he's gone."

It took me a second. When I did, I scooched over and lay my hand atop his head.

"I'm sorry, Raymond. They were all dead when I got there." When he half head tilted, I jerked my head toward Saffron Rae. He reached up, touched her cheek.

"Love?" She woke with a bit of a start.

"Oh. Oh, Goddess. I half thought it was a dream." She pulled him up to kiss him. We lost a little time there. Fuck it, time well spent, as we watched them reconnect. When they pulled away, they both turned to Saffron and I.

"Thank you." When he sobbed again, she twitched like he'd slapped her, and I realized she didn't know.

"His God is gone." She slumped, that guilty realization I'd had so many times that her partner wasn't upset with her, but she had no right being relieved, because his trauma went deep enough she needed to focus on being there for him, not on how his reaction to the trauma made her feel.

"I'm so sorry, Raymond." I heaved a sigh.

"Yeah. Me too." When they looked at me, I explained, "every Titan in Tartarus was killed to breed those Kaiju that attacked us. Based on how out of his gourd Raymond was back then, I'm pretty sure that's where Lyssa drove them all bonkers, too." Both of them looked a little confused. Saffron Rae eventually said, "Titans have fallen and risen again before, though?" As Raymond shook his head, weeping once more, I heaved another sigh.

"Yeah, no. I ended Tartarus." When she looked at me like I'd just said something as insane as I had, I shrugged again.

"Tartarus himself was an asshole, and was gonna try holding me there while the Kaiju ravaged Atlantis. Also, apparently he'd gotten off on not just the torture done to the prisoners of Tartarus over the millennia, but specifically on the sick shit done to make the Kaiju."

"So when you say gone...?"

"Yeah. When I ended Tartarus, everything in his realm just went away. Not coming back." I paused, thinking about something I'd ignored before.

"I didn't actually take any bites or shove them in my Maw or anything, but I've, uh, consumed Deities without doing either of those things before."

"So he..." Raymond broke down again. I realized right then that maybe he'd had the same kind of connection to Saturn that I had with Saffron. Or no, maybe to Loki. The weeping I saw matched what I imagined a decent dude with a healthy relationship with his father might do if his dad died. I think you may be right. Deities are often parent figures, even for those we do not formally adopt. Thanks Dad. In case I haven't said it recently? Yes? You're the best. I know.

"I don't know what to do now that he's gone," Raymond murmured a while later. Before I could say anything, Saffron responded just as quietly.

"Should you wish to remain with the Clergy, Mimic would be honored to accept your Patronage and service." I didn't even really have to think about that.

"Yeah. Yeah, I would." He winced a little, and I shook my head.

"It's an offer, Ray. Not a demand, or a commandment, or something I'm gonna force on you. An offer." I sighed, then shrugged.

"I kinda wound up with Tallulah that way. Sorta. I mean, her Goddess turned out to be crap, where yours just got the shit end of a shit deal, but..." I realized right then that the conversational hole wasn't getting any less deep no matter how hard I dug.

"Anyhow, offer's open." He nodded.

"I... Need some time to think?" Saffron reached out and took Saffron Rae's hand.

"You didn't know how to contact us directly, did you?" Saffron Rae shook her head.

"You didn't think to speak with Karen?" Saffron Rae's mouth dropped open, and she barked out a single, harsh laugh.

"Even the wise can become foolish when grief has them in its sway." We all chuckled mirthlessly at that, but then Saffron quietly said, "just in case..." The next moment we'd shifted to one of the guess rooms in the Homestead.

"You are welcome in our home any time, day or night, for need or want, Saffron Rae, Raymond. And now you," she nodded subtly to Saffron Rae, "know the way." If the High Priestess of Hestia looked a little whelmed, she just nodded, whispered, "thank you," and a moment later both of them disappeared.

"Well. Fuck. I gotta get better at following up." Saffron chuckled again.

"Oh, as Siobhan pointed out, we all assumed he would wake normally. I suspect your Healing Coma carried him through the worst of the end of Saturn, and it took you unraveling it to guide him home."

"Awful quick to offer him a High Priest slot, weren't you?" She raised an eyebrow as she stood and pulled us both to the bedroom, banishing our clothes as she guided us to the warm pile of bodies on the bed.

"Did I do wrong?" I shook my head, speaking as quietly as she did.

"Nah. Just... All my other High Clergy are, uh, kinda up in my business on the regular?" She grinned and pulled herself up to whisper in my ear.

"That's why I offered him Mimic, not Tabitha Diaz." When she dropped back down, she tapped at her teeth, speculating.

"Although he would look quiet fetching in the white Holy Garb, wouldn't he?" With quiet chuckles I picked her up, slid us both into bed, and drifted off to sleep. Dreamt of my ladies spending half of the night planning recruitment drives, the other half watching reruns on the big screen. Reruns of my birthday present from Rae and Ray, and I have no idea how that even got on there. In the morning, as I stretched, I looked at Saffron and said, "Academy again today, right?"

She grinned up at me, popped our Heroic uniforms on both of us, and took my hand.

"Yes, but no." A moment later we stood in a Practice Yard. Not the Phileo City Heroic Academy one, either, which threw me for a second. The proportions were wrong, and the towers in the corners didn't reach up as high. A few moments later, when the inevitable stream of Cadets flowed into the Yard with the rising sun, I realized where we were based on the preponderance of blue and white on the uniforms. Saffron hopped up, gave me a peck on the cheek, and whispered, "have a nice day, love," before disappearing.

With a quick surreptitious glance at the ground to make sure there were, in fact, big paving stones making up the ground, I grinned my evilest grin and shouted, "GOOD MORNING, CADETS! LINE UP, FOUR BY FOUR, ON THE PAVER LINES!"