Day One Thousand One Hundred And Ninety-One

Dear Diary,

Y'know, with all the attention I've been paying to Furtim and our kids over the past couple days, I kinda completely lost track of everything else that's been going on.

I mean, on the one hand, I can't find any fault with that. Okay, that's a lie. It's something I did, which means I have nigh infinite ability to find fault with it. Probably most of what I'd bitch at myself about is more or less irrelevant, and at least one thing I'd pick at myself for endlessly would be objectively positive, but I'm me. I unironically, without sarcasm, used to like all of those 'own worst enemy' memes. I am not kind to myself as a rule.

But I'm tryna do better, which means I'm not gonna pick at myself about that. I've got a new idea, actually. Or, well, I don't know if it's new, or new to me, or even just something I said I'd do but forgot about and now I'm trying it, which is almost as good.

I'm looking at the shit I've done as if I were judging somebody else's actions.

In this case, if somebody hooked up with a woman at a Revel, and she wound up preggers, and when the dude found out he had a quintet of kids running around from that tryst, he invited them home to, y'know, be family, I couldn't really judge a dude harshly for that. Okay, how he handled the invite and her response is pretty important, but the actual impulse of 'I am partially responsible for the entry of new Souls into the world, my impulse is to care for them and make sure they have what they need to survive and thrive' isn't in any way I can think of a bad one. So I'm not gonna beat myself up about that part.

Getting a coworker pregnant like that adds maybe some side eye for not realizing the coworker was with child, but I think there's some leeway when there was no 'waddling around with baby belly' stage to remind me. Getting someone who is from any reasonable estimation my employee pregnant... Okay, yeah, I can frown at that, but the fact remains that things done on my Altar at my Revels are, with the exception of things that happen without my active participation, explicitly requested, either openly or via that deep connection I have with my Worshippers on my Altar at my Revels.

I think that kinda goes double for my High Clergy at those times, and Furtim was at that point. So I'm not taking feedback on whether I took advantage of her, because that just feels like backsliding to where I was mentally when I gave my Worshippers my First Commandment. Which is honestly the biggest one I care about.

I mean, it might be one of the only general 'if you follow me, do this' ones I've given. Not the only one, I'm sure, because I think there are at least like two 'do this thing' or 'don't do that thing' items in my Doctrine. But I'm not sure where I heard it, but 'an it harm none, do as thou wilt' always seemed pretty much on point to me. Seriously, if you include indirect yet inevitable harm and self-harm, I can't think where there's any problem at all with it as an overall measure of whether something is okay or not.

At any rate, long story short, I know, too late, I spent the past week getting to know my Troll High Priestess and our kids, and I absolutely refuse to feel at all guilty about that. Not least of all because a lot of that time was spent with the rest of my kids getting to know their Troll sisters.

I am not commenting on whether the athletic mostly bipedal ones have started running like the Troll girls do, leaning forward with their arms pulled in, kinda like a mix of Naruto running and the classic raptor run. I am not going to be the one to give any of my girls a complex about their shit, and I know my girls; they are far too competitive to let anything like that screw up their ability to, y'know, compete.

At any rate, after drinking heavily the night before family therapy, we did not wind up hung over yesterday. That happened this morning, to all of us adults except Marie, and unsurprisingly our Maenad Wifiest of Wifies knows all the best hangover cures. Caffeinated beverages, although that wound up being hot chocolate and tea rather than coffee. Sour juice, although again that wound up Concord grape juice rather than orange juice. Lots and lots of water. A hearty but not over-hearty breakfast. Finally, and it warmed something deep inside to see this delivered to Furtim along with the rest of the Mom Collective, hair of the dog delivered via tonsil tickling by big cat tongue.

Once we all had a solid breakfast and all of Marie's hangover cures inside us, Furtim sighed, stood, and said, "the Conquering awaits."

"How long until the Legion is home?"

She paused, thinking about it. "Few days at most."

"You want the girls to stay here?"

She stood there, obviously torn, thinking about it, until Anise approached and tugged at my pant leg. When both of us looked at her, she asked, "can some of us go visit them there?"

Furtim looked a little floored by that, especially when I turned to her and said, "I can keep an eye on them there if you want."

After a moment she shook herself, clacked her jaw in what was clearly a 'listen up', based on how the Troll girls immediately focused on her. "Behave." Then she nodded at the rest of them. "Be safe."

I do not think she expected a cheer and mass glomping by our Kid Collective.

What, if there's a Mom Collective, it just stands to reason that there's a Kid Collective.

At any rate, after very carefully peeling all the kids off her, which involved some degree of hugging of each of them, she nodded to me, then stepped away.

So I spent today, along with half a dozen of me on kid patrol, getting back into my routine. One of me in the Overlord's Keep, the Infirmary, and the Grand Council chambers. One of me massaging Saffron as she worked on that Shape I needed to be anywhere confidently near full capacity doing anti-Sidhe work, and another of me teaching the Phileo Cadets Close Quarters Combat. I mean, technically it's Combat Training, and there's lots of things I could teach them there, but I had a quick conversation with the Marshall about it when I was done eating breakfast in the Academy Dining Hall.

"So, you're not off doing Diplomatic things now, right?"

He nodded, taking the time to savor some fried bread Marie had brought out before replying. "I am not."

"So why am I teaching Combat Training again?"

He chuckled. "Because, lass, you've got a gift for personal mayhem."

I rolled my eyes and nodded. "So I've heard people say you've told them. Not me though."

Those last two words may have come out as a bit of a muttered grumble, which got another laugh out of him. "When I said that, when I needed to say that, before you proved it to everyone with eyes at the Battle of the Walls? You still had a lot of rough edges you needed to knock off." He sighed, frowned, and surprised me by saying, "I'm sorry, lass."

"For what?"

He shrugged. "I got pulled into that damn war, so instead of spending time here teaching you, I wound up playing soldier out on the front."

I really had no idea how to respond to that. So of course I made a joke out of it, or tried to. "Hey, if you hadn't gone and played soldier, I wouldn't have shown everyone exactly who they were dealing with. And we wouldn't have the Alliance we have today."

Okay, not much of a joke. He smiled sadly and shook his head. "Don't think I don't see how much pain you've endured to get us here, Tabitha." The words were quiet, but heartfelt. Then he shook his head and asked, "how did you go from the point where I left you to the point you could take on two New Amsterdam armies again?"

I shrugged. "Loki and Lancaster."

He head tilted a little. "Lachlan?"

I shook my head. "Larry. He and I were on the wall doing watch, and he decided I needed more sword practice." After a second I added, "I still kinda suck with a sword, but I kinda know how guys with swords fight. Picked up some basic spear stuff from Lenny when we were training Volunteers. All of it the same, just knowing how to fuck with people who use them." Before he could reply, I finished with, "guess that's why the guys with clubs and axes in Norfolk messed with me. Had to learn that shit on the job."

He snorted out a laugh. When I looked the question at him, he said, "Lenny."

"Yeah, I figure it takes him down a peg, which he seems to desperately need at times. Then again, he calls me Tabby for the same reason, and I can't say he's wrong."

He shook his head, and when I raised my eyebrow again, he glanced around to make sure we were the last two at the high table, then grunted out, in a very... Suggestive way, "Lenny!"

I blinked. "Wait, wait, wait, you mean, you and him?"

He shrugged. "It's a requirement for graduation. And he's not the sort to accept second best."

"Yeah, but... Why him?"

He chuckled. "Because differences aside, we maybe have that in common. Or we did." He sighed. "We've grown apart since then, obviously." He paused, considering, then nodded. "Thank you, by the way."

"For what? Keeping Lenny alive?"

He snorted. "No. Vickerson. Well, more specifically the other pair of her troika."

"Yeah, well. Just seemed the thing to do."

He sighed again. "Yeah, well. If Leonard and I had a Vickerson to mediate, we might not have wound up at each other's throats for so many years."

"You mean you're not now?"

He shook his head, laughing. "With his Heir taking my protege as Patron? He doesn't dare." I opened my mouth, and he laughed, holding up a hand. "I wouldn't trade on our relationship for that. I wouldn't have to. From how he looks at things? I outmaneuvered him."

I finally got the humor he was seeing, and chuckled a little. "So... He gets to play politics all day, and you, what, do paperwork here?"

"Nah. I'm teaching Strategy and Logistics, mostly. Some one on one with the new Cadets now and again. Some Shaping training. Got plenty of time for it, since somebody's doing all the sweaty work for me."

"Speaking of, I've got to focus on them, they're starting to spar."

He clasped my hand, and I pulled him into a hug before I collapsed back to teaching.

So along with one of me cooking all day, I also had that half dozen watching the kids. I don't think Furtim quite realized this was the plan, but I think as Goddess of Agency I can maybe keep myself un-Trolled, meant that I had four of me running around as three of our Troll girls showed the bulk of their sibs around Troll Home, one of me quietly watching as Aisling, Garde, and the trio experimented with Davey's Troll sister's voice, since she could make some noises the others had serious trouble copying, and one of me just watching quietly as the final Troll girl slept quietly with Isadora and Hailee.

Near the end of the day I realized that no matter how pleasant the day, Smash Mouth had it right with All Star , shit just keeps coming and don't stop coming, when Tallulah tagged me with a thought. Goddess? I've arrived.