Day Nine Hundred And Fifty-Four

Dear Diary,

I'm really not sure I'll ever completely keep up with everything that Saffron's doing in my name. Because that's something I need to understand and accept as part of here and now reality. As a Goddess, people are gonna do shit in my name. That's just reality in the world I'm living in. Shit, that was reality back in the day, and nobody with a normally functioning sensory apparatus and lack of access to hallucinogens had actual Deities speaking in their ears.

Now, some of the folks here and now I'm not gonna throw a shit fit over, because they're doing the best they can, then dedicating that shit to me. I'm also not going to take complete responsibility for them, especially if they haven't even bothered to pick up a copy of the Doctrine and Commentary from one of my Temples. I'm pretty sure we've made those cheap, if not free, just to get more people educated in reading and writing. I'm not a historian, but I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that's one of the things that contributed to rising literacy rates back in the day; Gutenberg started churning out Bibles, Martin Luther said the Church was corrupt and people ought to actually read the Holy Book, and Bob's your uncle.

Okay, I'm sure that's so wrong that some Actual Historian™ in the world of my birth just had an aneurysm without even realizing what I said. Just pure 'holy shit someone is so wrong it's killing me' vibes baking their noggin.

I still stand by my point, though, if somebody's doing shit in my name, and it's not really something I'd do, but it's also not something I find anathema, I'm not gonna blow a gasket. If they haven't even read the Holy Book, they're just running on being a huge fan and trying to do the best they can, worst case I'll see about air dropping them the text. Or maybe bringing them in to Karen or something. But I'm not gonna visit them with Holy Wrath or shit like that.

Somebody raping and pillaging 'in my name' is gonna get yeeted to Sparta. Okay, 'at' Sparta, because I'm not sure a human frame can actually survive the acceleration required to hit Sparta from here. But I'll probably yell in their face a bit before I do, making it clear to Genghis Junior that I will not have that kind of thing done in my name.

But those are both categories of shit where anybody blaming that shit on me is gonna get all of the side eye. Possibly catching an earful from me before I turn them over to one of my legions of faithful Worshippers for education.

The ones I have to really be aware of are the ones like Karen. Like Panther. Like Saffron.

Always comes back to my Kitten. Not really surprising, even if some part of me is still a little surprised at how much I love her. Always makes me smile to say it, but... Always Saffron.

But I've got to accept that she's gonna do shit in my name. Fuck, I'm not sure she does anything that isn't in my name. Like, yeah, I realize that there are things she's not gonna blame on me, that she's gonna say 'aren't my fault', but at the end of the day she's doing them because she thinks they'll Change the world in ways I want it changed.

Thing is, while I'm not herd animal stupid compared to her, she's definitely way more organized, subtle, and just plain smart than me. So the only way I'm gonna ever figure out everything she does is to watch over her shoulder twenty-four seven, three sixty five, and honestly, I... Holy shit, I think I'm definitely maturing, because I just realized why all those couples who looked through each other's phones broke up. It wasn't about the dumb shit they found. I mean, yeah, superficially that might be what they officially broke up about, but really what broke them up wasn't the betrayal. It was the lack of trust in the first place.

No, seriously, if somebody's boo is fucking around on them and they don't know, like really have no clue, how is it really hurting them? They're not hurt by the fucking around, they're hurt by the lying, the deception, the betrayal. Yeah, that's a bit of a weird example, but thing is if Saffron told me about some side piece she'd been banging, I wouldn't give two shits about the actual sex, because we've both done shit with plenty of other people, because that's how we roll. I'd be upset because she didn't tell me about it.

Thing is, she told me she's doing shady shit sometimes. She didn't hide it. At that point I had to decide if I trusted her to tell me what I need to know, and the answer was yes. I mean, if I was like Marie, and could live in Kitten's head constantly without distracting me from anything else, I might still do it because that way I could fill her every waking moment with head pron of the two of us and everyone in the room with her. But even if I could do that, I wouldn't do it to 'check up on her'. It would be to spend more time with her, to be more intimate with her. That's the connection to the phone thing; if somebody gave me their phone at this point, I wouldn't go looking for 'evidence of betrayal' or dumb shit like that. I'd go looking at their wish lists, their favorite songs, what porn they watch.

What? I'm still me. I'd definitely try to re-enact some of their most watched shit, entirely for the same reason I'd buy them shit on their wish list, or put their favorite songs on while we're lying around between... Fuck, I never really had anybody like that back in the day, and I think that might have been a bigger problem than the whole 'dead mom, bitch sister' thing. Yeah, losing my mom at that age, especially the way she died, was agonizing. Traumatic. But everybody goes through that at some point. The difference being most adults have some friends, maybe a partner, maybe more than one, who can help them through that grief. Hold them, comfort them, do everything we did for Saffron and Marie when Grandma died.

Yeah, getting a little morose. I think it's the terrain.

Last night after a pretty simple dinner of flaky meat pastries, roast veggies, and rice, everybody spent some time in the Bath. The hunters and Heroes I'd recruited joined us, although we really didn't do much prep work, or planning. Just what suits back in the day would call 'team building'.

Okay, at one point when she looked around and realized who I'd collected, Saffron shot me a little questioning side eye. I said, "I'm planning on taking these six and Marie to try and track the Spartans."

She nodded. "Have you decided which group to track first?"

I shrugged. "Hadn't decided."

She pondered a moment, then said, "I'm not really knowledgeable regarding tracking, but from a diplomatic standpoint, it might be an idea to ask Lemonkyenin to join you and pursue the group who manhandled him."

I nodded. "Might get him to help with the others too, then."

She smiled. "My thought exactly."

Closer quietly asked, "who is this Lemonkyenin?"

"Demigod from Boltophsberg."

He snorted. "And the Spartans 'manhandled' him?"

I shot Closer my best 'I'm serious' look. "I've sparred with Lemmy. Full contact, a couple times. He's not quite up to Marie's speed, I don't think, but short of a full on War Deity, I don't think anybody'd call him a pushover."

"Then... These Spartans are that dangerous?"

I nodded. "I'd bet on Marie curb stomping any one of them, and against a singleton Lemmy is probably gonna win too, but there are at least twenty four of the bastards tromping around together between Boltophsberg and the Alliance. Plus more further south."

"So we're hunting big game again." Silk shrugged, laughter under his words. "What else is new?"

"Just don't forget to duck. Every woman who's seen you would deny me if I let that get messed up."

Yeah, weird thing about Silk. He's hot as fuck, knows he's hot as fuck, but he gets a little flustered when I straight up tell him he's hot as fuck. Like he wants his potential partners not knowing why they're drooling from both sets of lips looking at him or some shit.

So cute. I looked at Saffron, clocked her smirk, and said, "Okay, everybody. We're gonna take tomorrow to prep. Marie and I will be making trail rations, so if any of you want anything in particular, let us know. Talk to the women if you need any gear replaced or repaired, because while we'll be returning here at night, while we're chasing them we don't want anything slowing us down."

That got a round of nods, after which the six of them started discussing details. Unfortunately, the Bath is warm, and I suspect a certain Kitten made it warmer on purpose. A few minutes later the kids started yawning, and we all wandered off to bed. The Heroes returned to North House, and the Hunters wandered to the guess rooms.

Okay, they intended to do so, but after putting the kids in bed Saffron and I intercepted Silk. The man's face is an aphrodisiac, and neither of us really had a reason to abstain. As we hopped away, I noticed the look on Panther's face. So I might have Co-Located a little to the guess room with him. I'm not gonna leave my most devoted local guy Worshipper hanging. Shit, I try not to leave any of them hanging when I can.

Didn't sleep, but then after a night with Panther, didn't really need to. I was still sitting on his bed, his head in my lap, playing with his hair as he snored, when Closer poked his head in. "You've got him nearly as bad as Silk now."

I laughed softly, because he was mostly smiling as he said it, then came to the realization that Closer might be as Ace as Conrad. Which, on the sliding scale of Ace, if there is such a thing, has people like Tallulah at one end, where they see fuckin' as an interesting pastime, but might turn it down for a cup of chocolate, and Conrad somewhere in the middle, where the whole thing was a big joke to him, but any thought of him personally doing the deed put him off his feed. I'm going purely on speculation, because I have no personal visceral connection to any part of the Ace spectrum, despite viscerally connecting to Tallulah on the regular, but I assume there's Ace folks who throw up in their mouth just thinking about genitalia and their various uses.

While I did my normal stuff, Marie and I each popped out another Co-Located one of us to make trail stuff. Not a huge amount, because as I noted I intended for us to return to the Homestead to sleep, but I wanted us to have stuff we could gnaw on the run, because cold weather work was hungry work, as was tracking, and I remembered last time we did this shit in the cold and snowy.

Also hopped one of me up to the docks in Boltophsberg. Stepped right up to the edge of the docks dressed in my uniform and waited. Not long after, Lemmy showed up.

"Tabitha Diaz."

"Hey Lemmy. You busy?"

"Not as such."

I nodded. "You up for some running through the woods, maybe beating the shit out of some assholes who desperately deserve it?"

He frowned, rocked his head from side to side. "I'm not fond of woods, but I can manage." Then he smiled. "Giving villains a drubbing is always fun, though."

"Cool, cool. I got a few friends who are good at tracking, we're gonna hunt down those Spartans you tangled with a couple weeks back." I held out my hand. "You in?"

He took my hand, nodding, and I stepped us back to the Homestead.

New funniest moment; introducing Lemmy and Silk, watching the two prettiest men I'd ever seen get gobsmacked that yes, each of them had competition.