Day Nine Hundred And Fifty-Three

Dear Diary,

Kinda weird how body image works.

She says, as she exists as a tentacle tip Shapeshifted into a ripped athlete who looks like she lost a fight with a food processor.

Yeah, sometimes I start thinking and immediately stop again because I think something so outrageously understated in context that I just can't continue. Some days, like hopefully today, I push through and make some discovery about myself. Other days I wind up gazing at my navel, and those are both only options when I manage to push through the basic absurdity of what I just said to myself.

In this case, I think I'm maybe gonna make some progress. Seriously, I shouldn't have body image issues. Between Mimicry and Shapeshifting, I can look like whatever the fuck I want to look like. I'd say 'within reason', but I've stood in Hudson Bay and been tall enough to see from Philly. I'm literally the tip of a tentacle. I haven't really tried to Shapeshift into or Mimic anything inanimate, mostly for the same reason I've been super hesitant to create Filtration Wards that block air. I guess I could start messing around with that now that I can functionally hold my breath forever, but I still worry that some dumb shit is gonna happen and I'll be trapped inside unconscious forever due to some weird circumstance I haven't yet been able to foresee.

I know, I know, 'if I can't foresee it, maybe it's not real'. The problem is that I've had too much shit I wasn't aware of bite me on the ass. Shit, I've had shit I was told about, then subsequently forgot about come out and bite me on the ass too. I'd say one of the biggest benefits of my brief existence as nothing but a tentacle tip was the lack of an ass to get bit on, but then I think about that whole 'unforeseen circumstances' thing and do not even want to know how I'd get bit on my tentacle tipped lack of an ass.

So yeah, I shouldn't have self-image issues. Honestly, body image and appearance issues are stupid for most people, especially younger people. I've watched my kits grow in fast forward, and I've watched my other girls grow in a much more normal speed, and the short version is that kids are all kinda cute. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that all young adults are kinda hot. That's not any kind of excuse for doing shit to them, because just because someone is hot doesn't mean they're willing or able to consent. It's just an evolutionary holdover, I think. Kids young enough to need someone watching over them are gonna look 'cute', in that 'aww, I gotta do a protecc' kind of way. Once they age out of needing protection, they change to 'hey, let's all play doctor', because the genes want them to start making with the baby making.

I am, apparently, a bit mature for my age there, because I'm not really into 'look barely of age', even though I am in fact barely of age. For all that she's itty bitty, in the absence of any sense of scale, Saffron has curves for days, and looks older than me. Tallulah is regal as fuck and looks like she might be maybe too old for baby making even. Shit, Siobhan is the closest of my ladies to 'looking like a teenager', and she's both older than me and, frankly, not really my 'type'.

Shit, that's another thing entirely, I have a type, and it's more Devorah and Saffron than Siobhan and Marie, but it's a soft preference, not a hard fetish. Okay, I guess the closest I get to that is boy mode Saffron, who is as far from 'fair, thin, silken haired woman' as you can get without leaving the species.

But back before I made my third digression of the day, thus blowing way past the surgeon general's recommended daily allowance of digressions, I said twice that I shouldn't have self image issues. Not only are they stupid, my self can image however I want. Back in the day I had curves for days, and very few girl kissers who can't be mesmerized by a nice rack can also resist a trunk full of all the right junk. When I arrived here, I might as well have been packed in a box labeled 'trap, thirst, one (1), deploy with care'. Now I've pushed firmly over into 'muscle mommy' with a side of 'body modification, ritual scarification subvariant', but I'm still not exactly ugly. Yeah, I've got a couple scars on my face, and they're not the rakish kind, but they've faded a lot over the years since I got them.

I've also gotten way better at ducking since the Battle of the Walls and the Lancaster Expedition, so I don't think I've gotten any new scars since I fell out of the sky and ruptured my everything Curing New Amsterdam.

So maybe I never should have had body image issues, but the fact remains that I've had them. I might not be entirely over them, might not be able to look in the mirror and unironically think 'I look good', but when Closer crawled into the bower to find every inch of me barring two fingers on one hand completely exposed, I didn't flinch or hide or do anything except say hi. Okay, I stopped teasing aftershocks out of Murder Mittens, but that was mostly because I wasn't really in the mood to have the boys join in, and I felt like it would be rude to keep going and not invite them to join us.

Hey, I said I wasn't embarrassed by him crawling in on us, I never said I didn't still have some weird opinions about shit.

"Well, c'mon in, it's cold outside!"

He shook his head and crawled in, dropping snow on the ground as he sheathed the knife he'd crawled in with. "I suppose it's better finding the two of you here than a great cat, or worse a Water Panther."

I looked askance at him, then realized what he meant and turned to Marie. "Hear that, Mittens? They thought you were gonna eat them all up."

She gave Closer a grin, then turned it on Panther and Silk as they crawled into the bower, changing it from 'comfy' to 'snug' with the addition of three more bodies than had been there a few minutes before. "Still Might."

Yeah, the look she was giving them did not make it clear whether bodily harm was on the table or not. Murder Mittens Achievement Get: Triple Scarousal. "Hey, Panther. Hey, Silk." Both of them were still staring at Marie, so I snapped my fingers to get Panther's attention. "Question for you; do you think you could track someone wearing heavy armor through this?" I waved at the entrance of the bower.

It took him a second to shake off the spell of sultry tigress, but once he did he thought about it. "Maybe. It depends how Skilled they are at avoiding detection." He shrugged. "I can't think that wearing heavy metal would make that easier."

"Okay. There are some Spartans stomping around the Alliance, and we need to track them down, so I'm looking for as many ways to find them as we can. Mittens is pretty good at tracking by scent. You're good with tracking based on traces, right?"

He shrugged. "Traces. Sometimes scent. Sometimes just knowing how animals or people move." When I raised an eyebrow, he said, "animals tend to avoid dangers the same ways. People have hands, so they use different ways, but different people are the same in that."

I nodded, my plan coming together. "We've got at least one Hero who learned to track from you, who does forensics shit." Then I realized that these guys weren't out here for their health. "If we paid you guys for your time, could you help us track them down?"

They looked at each other, then back to me. "We're out here hunting." He let that hang there.

"Okay, so if we provided you with as much meat as you could have hunted? Plus maybe some extras?"

"These men are dangerous, though?"

I nodded again. "Yep. Killed a bunch of Heroes."

"How will you stop them?"

I just smiled. Maybe let a few tentacles shadow the air. "You guys all help me find them. Then I kill them. That's the plan."

"I like this plan," said Silk.

"You would. It's simple." Yeah, Closer wasn't much happier with Silk than Grandmother's daughters most days. Then he sighed. "What have these men done?"

"Killed Heroes, killed Troops. Likely tortured and raped them first. If they've come across any farms or villages, probably done the same to everyone there."

He sighed again, then nodded. "They need to be caught and put down." He looked to the others. "I say we do it, but the Skills are mostly yours, Panther."

Panther locked eyes with me, but before he could say anything, I interrupted. "I want your help, I'll compensate you for your time, and," I smiled. "I enjoy your company, but I don't want doing it because you feeling obligated or anything."

He smiled at me. "Which is why I'll do it."

Yeah, we pulled them back to the Homestead for dinner. The bower was cozy and a fun change while we waited, but the kitchen was way better than any campfire. Also, the Bedroom was better than the bower, which also didn't have a Bath.

In the morning I made my way through the back passages of the Homestead to North House, where our on site Heroes were mostly living. I found Chloros, Mackenzie, and Ryan in the North House kitchens, and asked them to join me in my Spartan hunt.

No, seriously, I asked them. I wasn't gonna order anybody along on this hunt, because if anybody was gonna be dangerous enough that I wasn't sure somebody accompanying me was gonna survive unscathed, it would be the fuckin' Spartans. They managed to put hurt on Lemmy and chase him off, and in close enough quarters they left me needing a couple days to recuperate. Anybody dangerous enough to do that could do unto somebody like Panther or Closer in seconds. So I asked, and when they said yeah, got to work with Marie, Closer, and Chloros laying out what gear we'd need for our hunting party.

Weird. I guess along with not being embarrassed about being naked, I'm actually realizing that I am a very high bar for personal asskickery.

Baby steps applies to self image too, I guess.