Day One Thousand One Hundred And Twenty-Six

Dear Diary,

Okay, look, I know everything I said about diplomacy being better than losing my shit and mindlessly raging until whoever the opposition is has been turned into so much post atrocity mulch, but I think I'm gonna lose my fuckin' mind if I have to sit through another day of bickering over minutiae.

Yesterday it was all day long going over every point in both contracts we'd made so far, specifically deciding how they interacted with each other, then documenting that shit. Okay, a couple times they changed the second contract, because after all the first one took precedence. Okay, I say 'of course', even though a couple times I thought it would absolutely be easier to change the initial contract.

I bit my lip and maybe hugged Aisling and definitely did not scream even once.

When we wrapped up for the day, I nodded to Swanson, told him, "take care of them tonight?"

He just nodded. "As we have been, Champion."

Stepped the other three of us home, where the new and improved tendies were waiting. Apparently Marie got that effect by doing multiple dredges in flour and tempura batter, which is really watery, with intermittent frying of different layers. Kinda intricate process, even if the components are stupidly simple. I wondered how she'd gotten all the awesome not-chicken flavor into it until she tapped the cauldron of hot oil.

"Infused."

Which made a stupid amount of sense now that I thought about it.

But I'd made plenty of tendies for everybody, and even more for myself, and I kinda went to town nomming. This wasn't 'fuel the Goddess with Mortal food', this was pure comfort eating. On the other hand, I got a lot of comfort out of it. I think everybody else did too, because by the end of the meal Saffron and Siobhan were both leaning on one elbow watching me. Neither Marie nor Tallulah leaned, but both of them had small smiles on their faces as they watched me. The kids didn't so much, but then most of them had nommed down two or three of the extra big tendies, which was a full meal for a kid, an absolute feast for the little ones like Daya.

I carried everybody up to the Bath. Despite Menace pestering me, I did not dangle her over the Bore so she could pretend to be flying. Nor did I do that to Siobhan so she could pretend she was falling.

When we got into the Bath, I pulled Saffron and Tallulah over. "Tell me we're halfway done."

Tallulah head tilted and said, "I cannot, Godd... Tabitha. Even should you demand it, I am Sidhe. I cannot lie."

I tried not to sound too whiny as I whined, "but why though?"

Saffron chuckled, but made it better by hugging me. "This is simply the way of contracts among the Pirates, love." Then she frowned. "Honestly I'm thinking of codifying it into the laws of the Alliance as well."

I blinked at that. "Dafuq?"

She shook her head. "Is there some better way of determining how to adjudicate the interactions of multiple legally binding contracts?"

I thought about it for a second. "I dunno, maybe take them to court?"

She stared at me like I'd grown another head. "Once time has dulled everyone's memory of the original agreement? That sounds like a terrible idea. Besides," here she nodded to Tallulah, "how could parties from multiple polities find an impartial court to adjudicate?"

"You could do it?"

She blinked. Shook her head. Then chewed air a minute, then shook her head again. "No. Beyond that, absolutely not. Barring you as my Goddess commanding that I do this thing, I absolutely refuse. I would wind up doing little else, and as noted, that would be torturous." Then she paused again, finally saying, "was that how things were done where you're from?"

I thought about it for a second. "I mean, there weren't really any 'international' courts. Or there were, but some people ignored them, and they usually didn't bother with contract law, just shit like war crimes and crimes against humanity, like destroying world wonders and committing genocide and shit. Not that folks in power paid much attention even then."

"So how were contract disputes adjudicated?"

I thought about that a little more, and I'm pretty sure my answer was a mix of muddy pre-isekai memories and Reason based guessing, but I answered, "for little local disputes, there were local courts just about everywhere. If something crossed state lines, or people didn't like the answer the local court gave, they bumped it up to a state court... District court? Something like that. At any rate if they didn't like those answers, they'd bump it up to federal court, all the way up to the Supreme Court. I think. I didn't pay all that much attention to that part of Civics. Gave me a headache."

"So... The Supreme Court was international?"

"Oh, hell to the no. Just the nation I lived in. I mean, I think each state had one. Other countries might have had one, I'm not sure."

"So in international contract disputes, how did they find an impartial arbitrator?"

I shrugged again. "I don't know what the law was, but it pretty much seemed like whoever threw more money at the problem got to pick the court."

She shook her head. "That... That sounds awful. That sounds worse than me personally arbitrating every dispute ever."

I didn't even have to think long about that. "Yeah. Yeah, I can't argue with you there."

Very tentatively, like walking on crackling ice, Tallulah asked, "would you have us do that here?"

I shuddered. "Y'know what? As painful as the past couple days of listening to bick... Negotiations have been, I think you guys are right on this one. Forget I said anything."

"As you wish, Tabitha."

Any chance I could get you to scour my brain free of any memory of me asking you to?

Of course, love. We'll take turns. Unless you'd rather?

I sighed, smiled, and settled into the water deeper. Y'know what? I don't even care how. Just hit me like the biggest truckload of THC ever.

Right about then my ladies chorused, let it be so.

I know some shit happened in the Bath after that. Quiet conversations, kids playing, normal nightly stuff. Not sure exactly, though, because even my Memory succumbed to that level of bliss.

In the morning we went back to the negotiating table. All day long today, Saffron and Swanson dickered with Anne, Red, and John about what would be expected of their ships when it came to protecting Alliance hulls, as well as what kind of compensation they'd be getting. I'm pretty sure it wound up with some kind of fee based on the value of the cargo and ship, the duration the Pirate ships escorted them, with a bonus for actually engaging in combat.

Through it all, Tallulah observed, occasionally making comments about how things might potentially interact with the earlier contracts. The Captains looked a little weirded out by that, but all of them acknowledged her comments with the bare minimum of grumpiness.

What's up with that, T?

The Imperator and I thought on your suggestion, and as I'm not a direct party to this or the next contract, it seemed like a good use of my time to shorten the reconciliation process.

Took me a second to parse that out, because I was definitely making more tendies at home, not to mention teaching our kids more math. So you're saying my suggestion helped?

Of course it did, Tabitha. If nothing else, you are correct, she is likely to wind up the de facto arbitrator of last resort, barring one or both parties turning to one or more of the Gods for arbitration.

That actually felt kinda good. Like despite my distaste for the dickering, I'd helped, in some other way than being eye candy or growly Attack Dog.

When we got done for the day, I snuggled up to Saffron, pulling T in behind me, where she wrapped her arms around both of us. Once we were out of earshot of the Pirate Captains, I said, "tell me we don't have another day of reconciliation tomorrow?"

"Of course not, love." I sighed. Then let out an entirely different sigh when she followed that up with, "that's Moonday. Tomorrow is family therapy.