Day One Thousand One Hundred And Sixty-Five

Dear Diary,

Weird conversation with the Kitten today.

Yeah, I know, given our typical conversations, for something to qualify as 'weird' my immediate thought is that it's got to be something really out there. No cap, we've spoken about the fine details of open polyamory and freaky tentacle sex until those are just, y'know, lazy Sunday afternoon comfort talk. Just this past week we've spent a nonzero amount of time talking about literally deliberately rewriting reality to better suit our needs and desires. For something to be weird, the immediate assumption is that whatever it is would have to be fuckin' alien or some shit.

But nope. Pretty fuckin' mundane, yet still weird.

Started out after I got home from teaching the Cadets yesterday. Marie and I had, as noted, double teamed the Kitchen. Which, to be clear, with both of us able to Co-Locate, we were our own sous chefs, so we got fancy with shit. Multiple salads, both of the 'oops all veggies' variety and even a couple of those midwestern monstrosities that Marie found in a cookbook I stole for her. Tacos, enchiladas, tamales, and pernil. Sushi and tempura, both shrimp and chicken and half a dozen veggies. Meat pastries of various shapes and sizes. Dumplings. Soups. Sauces. Chicken tendies. Bread.

No real reason for it other than the two of us getting in a mood in the morning and doing unto the kitchen with as much enthusiasm and creativity as we usually brought to the Bedroom. Only this we could share the aftereffects with our horde, who all dove into the noms with wild abandon. We even got Sarah, D, Alexandra, and Venus down to dinner, not to mention the formerly captive Maenads living with us, who'd taken to spending more time at North House and South House. Okay, Arachne didn't, but I think she mostly ate out in the woods. I feel bad for that, but at the same time I am not a bastion of mental stability she can lean on, so the best I can do is make sure she's got a safe place to hide when she needs it, as well as the sure and certain knowledge that if she shows up to dinner, there will be a place for her and all the grub she can eat.

Not grubs. Although I half suspect she eats those when she's out in the woods.

Saffron worked a little late, and I'd been so distracted by everything I had going on that I hadn't caught on to her emotional state. Which was exceptionally frustrated. I set her on my lap and fed her while massaging her shoulders. Unfortunately Marie and I hadn't really done a lot of sweets tonight. Fortunately at least two of those 'salads' were the kind with fruit and whipped cream. Once I caught on to those I managed to break through enough of my Kitten's annoyance to give her a little mental nudge.

Later, love.

I honestly kind of got that. My Kitten has a poker face. Can't not, what with being Imperator and having to manage the Grand Council. She can even convince our kids, maybe, that she's tired rather than frustrated. We're not that emotionally distant of a family, she can't hide the fact that all is not right in Kitten brain land, but she can at least keep our kids from worrying about potential assassins and starvation and other ugly shit that she might have to deal with. So they all realized that Mom had a long day at work and wanted to sit in Mama's lap and eat cream covered strawberries, but didn't quite catch how frustrated she was.

With herself, I thought.

After dinner, we all got cleaned up, but when even the searing water of the Bath couldn't fully relax her, I lifted Saffron up and, when the kids all looked at us said, "hey kids, Mom and I need to chat."

At which point a quietly murmured, "silly," susurrated through the Bath.

I laughed and stepped the two of us to the Bedroom. If they thought we couldn't keep our hands off one another, I wasn't gonna disabuse them. Most of the time it was true. Honestly, it wasn't untrue tonight, although I think they might have felt some kinda way with how vehemently she pulled the drawer open and shoved my flogger into my hands.

"Whoa. Is everything okay?"

She bristled. Then slumped. "I... I've failed you."

"Dafuq?"

She shook her head, spinning around and flopping face first onto the bed. Thankfully I've been getting better at ignoring my impulses, I think, because while my eyeballs were fully engaged in staring at the Glory and wonder of my Kitten's bodaciously curvy posterior bent over and presented for inspection and correction, my ears heard her murmur into the bedding. "Fucking Ophelia Orange."

I prodded her a little with the handle. At least as much to watch the jiggle as anything else. "Is she dead?"

She snorted. "No. Fuck."

"I mean, you really don't look like you want that right at the moment. Wait, you aren't fucking her, are you?"

"I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit."

I snorted. "Yeah, I was mostly joking. I mean, she's not ugly, but we've maintained certain standards of moral rectitude."

"Didn't you invite Lemonkyenin in here?"

I shook my head. "I mean, if you want a ride on that face, I can totally get it. But honestly, Lemmy's not that bad. I think the rectal craniotomy was a success." I lazily slapped her ass with the flogger's tails, enjoying how her squish bounced, trying to let myself enjoy her hiss. "But what's up with Ophelia?"

She sighed. "I deserve more than that for letting her..." She stopped. Took a breath. "Goof?"

"Yeah, Kitten?"

"Pretend you're torturing it out of me."

I shook my head. "Torture doesn't work."

"As we are both well aware, which is why I said 'pretend'."

I paused. "You really want me to use this to smack the guilt out of your ass?"

She nodded. "Because I think at least some of it is utterly irrational."

I smiled as her bark of pain echoed through the room. "Can't have Kitten being irrational. So, y'know, how about I keep doing that until you don't feel irrational any more, and you tell me what the fuck Ophelia did to piss you off."

"Done and done."

So the rest of our conversation was held to the steady percussion of leather flogger tails against gorgeously curvy Kitten squish. Posterior squish, because even though I got a sudden impulse to roll her over at one point, I realized that Aoibh was not yet weaned, and now and then Saffron had stepped up to spend some bonding time with our daughter like that.

"Okay, what did she do?"

It's what she's doing. As we speak.

I got another bark out of her, then asked, "what's she doing. Unless you're too embarrassed to tell me?" I then applied a bit more embarrassment negation.

She is organizing a sortie of every non-warship in the Alliance.

"Dafuq?" My next shot was a little halfhearted.

Harder. I complied, punctuating her sentences with little barks. I'm not certain how she realized we're gearing up for a major battle. But she did. Honestly any of the Grand Council could probably have done so, we're not being super secretive about the Black Dragon's movements; she's too fast for any other Navy to react to anyhow.

"Okay, but I'm confused about the whole 'why is she doing that' part."

Politics. The merchant marine of New Amsterdam is a major force in the City's political environment. They sailed with us against the Kaiju, but since then they've been mostly inactive. Well, militarily so. They were thinking they would be backing the Navy against the Pirates.

"Why would they want to do that?"

Money. The Alliance has bounties on Pirate ships, not to mention the ships themselves being valuable when captured. Plus most of them having some amount of loot stored away.

I sighed. "Okay. Yeah. I guess that tracks. I'm guessing it's one of those 'high risk, high reward' kind of things?"

Exactly. Also, Ophelia already has a reputation as being more capable a politician than her brother and father, but her military reputation is... Well...

"Nonexistent?"

She grunted as I switched directions on the next lash. Exactly. But if she leads any of our people... Any of her people, really, against the English Pirates and triumphs?

I got it. Fuck me, I got it. "She's also the finest military mind of the House of Orange since they had to flee Europa."

Exactly.

I kept up the flogging while I thought that through. "I can't see where she's doing something wrong, though?"

That's why she's doing it. Because I couldn't stop her.

"Why would you want to, though?"

She screamed her frustration into the bedding. So I made her scream again for squish impact related reasons. Because I was a prideful idiot.

I thought about that some more, taking my time and keeping the flogging anything but metronomic, playing with the sounds I could make. Both the slaps of impact, the yips of pain, and even the slight squish of sweat and lubrication.

"Okay. So she's... She's taking volunteers only, right?"

Saffron shrugged. Not every Sailor might be volunteering, but their Captains are, and our Sailors aren't slaves. So they could leave if the risk of combat isn't to their liking. And none of the ships she'll be taking are incapable of combat, so their Sailors are more likely to stay on.

I nodded. Then played my new percussion instrument a little more. I realized just then that we had an audience. Marie and Tallulah, silent but fixated. "We are kinda massively outnumbered in the Channel, at least until we break more of them free."

We are.

"So... I'm guessing she came up with this idea of taking a bunch of her people to reinforce our Navy, and you tried to shut her down? Out of habit?"

She's also paid through the nose for Magi to contact Norfolk, Calverton, and Rich Man's Port calling for volunteers to join her. But, she sighed, then squealed as the flogger hit once more. Yes, essentially.

"I'm guessing she started with just her folks, though, didn't she?" My Kitten nodded, whining. "Then when you told her no she doubled down and dropped her own cash to pull together her impromptu reinforcement fleet?"

Yes. Her reply had a bit of a whine to it, because I'd already put some bruises on her butt, and some of them looked really close to splitting open. Which I had Shapes to Heal. Not to mention sudden awful urges. The first of which drew a his out of her as her Yandere Shobitch Wedding Gown pressed into her squish. Because I'd realized I didn't need those spells if I put that on her first. Also I kinda wanted to see the contrast of red on white.

"So what you're telling me is that without even trying, you got the biggest single thorn in your personal side to spend her own money to lead an Alliance wide volunteer mission to support the Alliance Navy?"

She made confused Saffron noises as I hit her again. One more, maybe two. Her mouth and Mind both whined incoherently.

"Y'know what I'm gonna do to you?" She whimpered again. Welts showed. Two it was then. The red looked incredible leaking into the fabric of her Gown. Of course, Conrad being Conrad, it followed fabric channels obviously designed specifically for that, calling out her curves and the corded muscle hidden beneath them. I ran my hand across her ass, then lifted it to my nose and lost myself in the scent of her.

Without the slightest warning, as her brain meats felt like she was just about to put together a thought in the affirmative, I flipped her over, slapping her one more time with the flogger, this one right between her legs. Halfway through her cry of pain, I grabbed her ass and pulled her upright. Pulled her to me until I stared into her eyes. "I'm gonna show you exactly what I think of my Kitten, Imperator Sexypaws, first of her name, making Ophelia fucking Orange so mad she went and did a Fanatic Patriotism." Saffron's mouth dropped open, probably to argue, but was too full of tentacle an instant later to get any words out.

I stared into her eyes as I poured Mana through three penetrating tentacles of my own, Gifting her Ecstasy until her eyes fucking glowed. "Good Girl."

Time flows oddly in the Bedroom. I kept her like that for moments, for minutes, for millennia, forever. Until her Gown poured even more light and life and Ecstasy through her, banishing every ounce of pain I'd inflicted.

She still walked kinda funny in Math class today.

And every time she met my eyes, hers crinkled as she thought, worth.