Day One Thousand One Hundred And Thirty-Five

Dear Diary,

Yeah, on the one hand yesterday went way better than I thought it would.

On the other, I should not have expected all questions to be answered to each and every one of my kids' satisfaction. Seriously, with twenty-two of them asking questions, at least twenty-one of whom could be nominally counted on to ask in good faith, with the remaining two being a supposed Adult significantly older than me and the other being an inanimate object still somehow capable of looking unconscionably smug, it's surprising we actually got through everything.

But we did. Hygiene, contraception, Consent. I mean, yeah, I always wished Sex Ed had more education about being a better participant in the act itself, but that wasn't one of the goals yesterday. Not even one of the stretch goals, because I really wasn't that ambitious.

I am going to completely ignore how by the end of the evening Murder Mittens had a small crowd of kits around her listening and watching as she murmured her secrets to them. I am also going to trust that she has enough perception and discretion to have noticed Maze, Ria, and Aisling sitting around Hailee at the edge of that crowd. I took care of 'don't get sick, don't get pregnant, don't rape anyone', I'm trusting her to take care of 'don't disappoint your partner'. Also maybe 'don't tolerate partners who perpetually disappoint you', although given that most of our kids seem to be growing a reasonably healthy amount of self-esteem, I'm hoping they wouldn't tolerate that anyhow.

So yesterday at the end of the day, the kids were all kinda surprisingly worn out, given that they'd done nothing but listen and ask questions all day long. Okay, there was a midday break for lunch, but even the questions kept flowing, although most of the answers yesterday were more along the lines of 'yes, that's really how that works', 'no, those myths are not reality', and most amusingly for me, 'yes, Grampa is a mom'.

I carried everybody home, gave each of them a single pastelillo to keep them from waking up hungry in the middle of the night, washed them all down, and carried them all to bed. Okay, Marie and I hopped the Docs back to their townhouse in Phileo so they could do their rounds in the morning. Once I had everybody else in bed, I settled in to sleep in the middle of them, only to have Saffron murmur, "no." Before I could ask, she followed that up with, "Marie?"

The next moment I dangled over my own Maw, my ladies forming beneath me, Marie collapsing back to the her falling to sleep in bed, appearing in pasta form beneath me a moment later.

Siobhan is the least athletic of my ladies, and apparently she's kept up with hitting the Practice Yard since last Season, which while she's not a Hero, she's now pretty fit. The other three are literally superhuman, and none of them have all that many inhibitions in the Bedroom. That number drops somewhere south of 'zero' when they dream themselves into my Maw.

When the last of them faded away not long before the sun rose, I hopped back to the bedroom to find them overseeing the morning rotation through the water closet. I snuggled up behind Saffron, realizing as I did that the little hairs on my arms were standing up. My mane might have been dancing a little too, and if it wasn't glowing, sparks made occasional appearances. "What was all that about?"

Saffron purred and pulled my arms tighter around her. "Because the other three are in complete agreement with me."

"About?"

"You are incredibly hot when you're maternal."

I chuckled and leaned down to nuzzle her neck. "Tryna get me to do that more with positive reinforcement, huh?"

"Absolutely." She glanced at me, then quietly, almost like she didn't want me to realize that she wasn't quite as confident as she seemed, added, "I trust that meets with your approval?"

I pressed my lips to her hair. Did you do it because you wanted to?

"Of course."

Then you did as you would. First Commandment. Only one that matters, really.

That got me Saffron squirming around to face me, an absolute treat given her habitual lack of a nightgown, which itself didn't compare to the kiss that lasted until we were the only ones remaining in the bedroom.

One of me went to class today, researching Divination with Doc Roberts' help. Another went with Saffron and Tallulah to the mid-Atlantic conference, where all three Pirate Captains looked far more relaxed than they had Saturday. The last of me stayed with the kids. Okay, I Co-Located at the Homestead now and then, mostly Blended and making sure the girls... The kids, really, I gotta remember Jack more often, but making sure they didn't start any of the seemingly ubiquitous myths that crop up any time kids start talking about sex.

Super proud of my kids that not a single one of them brought up that whole 'you can't get pregnant the first time' bullshit. No idea where that comes from, but I remember my sister telling me her friends believed it, I'm pretty sure mom said some of her friends believed it, and I know some of my peers did too.

Three questions stood out. One was Menace with half a dozen others following along with her, almost like she wanted me to settle an argument, or confirm that she was right. Alex and Lindsey, Ria and Maze, Hailee and Aisling. Maze led them to me and asked, "Mama? Consent is everything, right?"

It took me a second to parse the question, but when I did I nodded, watching as Alex, Aisling, and Lindsey looked annoyed, relieved, and surprised respectively. Then, just to be sure, I explained. "Yeah, Consent is important in everything. You shouldn't be forcing anyone to do anything against their will. That goes for games and day to day stuff as much as s... intimate... sex stuff."

Menace didn't seem to catch that I'd almost said 'silly' in an effort to avoid saying 'sex', and if any of the others did, they didn't call me on it. Of course, that's when Ria kinda blew me away when she said, "what about Curing?"

"What?"

"If someone has a communicable disease, ought they be allowed to remain ill, if they are endangering others?"

Oof. I think at that moment the only reason I didn't point and shout 'look, air' before running away was my memory of the previous night, which inspired me to momming above and beyond the call of duty. Or at least trying to do that when I thought for a second, then nodded and said, "that's a health, welfare, and safety thing. It's a fuzzy thing, because sometimes people are just done living, and don't want to be Healed. That's... That's a hard thing to do, to let someone do that. But, and this is important, while them deciding they're done with life and ready to head to Hades or Helheim, they don't have the right to do that to someone else. So yeah, if they're sick and they can infect others? At that point they don't really get a choice, because now they're infringing on the Agency and Consent of others."

They all looked maybe a little disturbed, but more importantly a little confused still. I remembered one of my old Eastside teachers' way of describing things. "Okay, you each have the right to swing your arms around, right?" They all nodded. "But you don't have the right to punch other people, do you?" Head shakes all around. "So your Agency about swinging your arms ends at somebody else's nose. Make sense?"

They all nodded and wandered off talking about it. I kinda thought maybe I'd fucked up the details, but hopefully my bright little girls would work those out. If not, that's why the job pays such beautiful rewards.

Later that same crowd came up to me, but this time without Aisling or Lindsey, and with the addition of Anise, Jack, and Davey, the last of whom asked, "Mama, Hailee told me the kits can't get sick."

I shrugged. "As far as we know, they can't. Isnomi can't either."

She frowned at that, then asked, "so they don't have to worry about the whole hygiene thing?"

I noticed Anise looking the tiniest bit smug, so I caught her eye and maybe glared a little at her as I said, "they absolutely need to worry about the hygiene thing. Honestly, they need to worry about it more."

I knew I'd scored a hit when Anise whined out, "why?"

I looked at Davey and said, "how do you know if you've been infected with something?"

She thought about it, then finally guessed, "I'd get sick?"

"Exactly." I turned to Anise. "How do you know if you've been infected with something?"

She chewed air for a bit, eventually settling on, "uh... I don't get sick though."

"Exactly. But you can be infected. You can carry the disease, and it will absolutely build itself up and transfer it to someone who can get sick. So, do you want to be the one to make your sibs sick?"

I ignored how she glanced at Jack and Alex, then muttered, "no."

"Yeah. I thought not. Because you might be a little clueless sometimes," she jerked upright like I'd smacked her, "mostly when it comes to how things you do might hurt other people by accident, but I don't think you're a bad person. So you don't want to hurt them by accident, you just don't always think it through."

She looked really conflicted, then quietly whined out, "I'm not?"

I scooped her up, pulling the other kids in with my tentacles, and nuzzled her hair as I said, "no, Anise. You aren't a bad person. You just make bad choices sometimes when you don't think about them, and don't ask anybody else to double check you on things."

"Like?"

"Like jumping off the roof of East House and parkouring down the mountainside when you weren't allowed to use your glider."

Her eyes got real wide. "You saw that?"

I nodded. "And if you just did it for yourself, I'd call it foolish. Maybe stupid or thoughtless. But what happened next?"

"Felicia followed."

"Yep. Which, don't get me wrong, is on her, but what if Davey got the impulse to follow you?"

My girliest girl barked out, "hey! I'm not that dumb!"

I snerked. "No, you're not, but you're also not immune to peer pressure. To following a whole crowd of people who do something dumb, because maybe they know something you don't."

She frowned a bit, but eventually said, "yeah, I guess."

"So yeah, you all need to remember that; your choices are yours, but sometimes they affect other people. Sometimes indirectly, by influencing them, but..." I thought for a second. "You know that last jump at the bottom, where you were going super fast and had to jump away from the mountainside?" Anise nodded. "What would have happened if Daya came around the corner just then?" She opened her mouth, and I added, "or Siobhan? She was still pregnant back then. What would happen if she'd walked around the corner just then?"

Anise looked horrified. "I... I didn't think about that."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. That doesn't make you a bad person. But never thinking about consequences is a bad choice. Understand?"

"Yes, Mama," they all chorused.

"And not paying attention to your own hygiene or making sure you're Cured of any infections is one of those things where other people will pay all the consequences, which is a bad choice. Got it?"

"Yes, Mama!"

Not even gonna go into how Ria came up to me at one point with Maze behind her looking more than a little mischievous and asked about how things worked between partners of different Human Adjacent Races, specifically ones who weren't, as she put it, 'compatible sizes'. My little pony girl seems to delight in making me explain about spooge.

Around midday, Madeline pinged my brain. Goddess?

Whatcha need, Mads?

I got the idea just then that Madeline was trying to be particularly formal. Queen Olga requests an audience with her Patron Goddess.

That took me a little by surprise, and I realized that I did not have the clock cycles to deal with Olga being formal while doing mental stenography and fielding random sex questions from my kids. Is end of day soon enough?

A moment later she replied, she will await you at your Temple here in Norfolk then.

Honestly, dealing with the ongoing barrage of minor questions and clarifications, the weirdest completely serious of which might have been Lindsey, Ria, and Alex asking about tampons, I didn't even have time to worry about that before the end of the day. At that point, as I gathered the kids for dinner and brought everyone home, I nudged Tallulah and Saffron and said, "I've got to talk with Olga, I'll be home after, okay?"

"Say hello for us, love," said Saffron.

"Yes, my regards to Queen Olga," added Tallulah.

A moment later I stood in front of my Altar under the sky in Norfolk. Olga sat tailor fashion on the hillside right nearby, and despite Mads' earlier formality, the vibe I got from the Queen and my High Priestess standing next to her was a worried woman and her Clergy of preference.

The moment I arrived, Mads glanced my way. Olga noticed and turned to face me before saying, concern in her voice, "have you seen my son?"