Dear Diary,

So yeah, apparently Maenads don't get pregnant. Or 'Maenads getting pregnant' hasn't been a thing before now. Which really makes me wonder about the potency of D's swimmy bois, what with him going at it more or less non-stop with Maenads on a regular basis. Like, last time I checked he's got Avatars dedicated to Maenad servicing. Yet he seemed utterly floored by the Maenad's gremlin mode prank with their adopted babies, and the Maenads at the Academy are now utterly entranced with Marie's belly. Not to mention my nether regions, apparently. Almost like giving up motherhood was something some of them regretted, but had previously assumed was part and parcel of Being A Maenad.

I get it. I am stoked in so many ways at this point. Eager to meet the epitome of cute that's gonna pop out of Siobhan at some point, because there's no way anybody's gonna convince me that any kid blending those two together is going to be anything less than nigh inhumanly adorable. Wildly anticipatory to get to know the eight bundles of joy Marie is cooking up for us. Eight. Fuck, she's gonna be huge. I mean, she's already huge in the 'tall as fuck' sense, and her belly is bulging out enough that I think I could maybe fit inside it if I got all curled up in a fetal ball, which I'm not sure I can do, because I'm not sure I've kept up enough with my duBois stretching regimen as much as I ought to have. Eight. Fuck. I thought seven kids was 'big family'. Eight plus one plus seven is gonna be sixteen fuckin' kids. I mean, yeah, there are four of us, so that's only four per mom, but still, sixteen.

I gotta say, I'm a little worried about that. Back in the day anything past triplets was some kind of freak occurrence that had obstetricians and other baby delivery professionals a little worried, and eight was just utterly into 'there are so many potential serious issues' territory. Yeah, Marie is immortal. The real deal, even; worst case if she dies in child birth and we have to extract all the kittens, she'll be back by morning if we Do A Sparagmos to her. Yeah, there might be some issues there, because as far as I know she winds up physically coming out of Sparagmos factory fresh, which means there might be some nursing issues, but even there Maenads are designed for that shit. So it's not exactly Marie I'm worried about. It's the kittens. Her kittens. Our kittens. Holy shit, after calling my wife 'Kitten' for going on two years now I'm actually going to have kittens with Marie. Like, half me, half her, all us, kittens.

Look, if the weirdest possible thing happens and she pops out eight actual tiger kittens, with no more sapience than any other tiger, I'm gonna love 'em anyhow, but that's gonna be really fuckin' weird. I mean, I'm guessing they'll either come out Bog Standard Maenads, some kind of Maenad Human Adjacent Catgirl Hybrid, or Human Adjacent slash Passing. Of course, now that I've let my disaster ideation take over, I'm worried that she's gonna give birth to eight balls of tentacles. Or worse, eight tentacles that just scrunch around like worms. Yeah, I'm kinda freaking out now, which is utterly stupid because I should have thought of this before now. Like, well before now. Like, before the wedding night.

Fuck it, if she pops out eight wriggling snaky girls, I'm gonna love 'em anyway, because that's what you fuckin' do, right?

Funny, all the disaster ideation with the kids has me utterly distracted from the thought of putting a bun in Saffron's oven, not to mention how she's made it very clear that she is gonna check my box even more firmly than she did to Siobhan.

So yesterday after I got to thinking about not really getting my stretching in, I wound up partnering up with Lachlan for stretching while we put the class through some pretty basic training. Power lifting, endurance runs, laps through the obstacle course. I got a bright idea in the afternoon and, after running it past Lachlan to be sure I wasn't inflicting my stupidity on others in a bad way, had them all calling out basic mathematic sequences as they ran and lifted.

Got everybody home, the kids going on about their day and what they learned, which I paid as much attention to as I could before I had to leave. Even Co-Located myself around to the room to listen to each of them. Most of them are still learning their letters and numbers, although Alex and Lindsey are in a different classroom. I guess it'd be kinda weird to be in a room with real little kids, like four and five year old kids, if you're seven or eight years old. Not sure if that's exactly why or not, either, because I had kids of all different sizes in there when I taught math. Think I need to go back next Friday and do more math teaching, too. Not, like, because they desperately need a math teacher, but because I want to connect with the kids as much or more than I want to connect to the adults. Especially the older ones.

That sounds really weird, but the New Moon Revel in Calverton brought that to my attention. Another half dozen folks came up to me. Lance, who was definitely packing one, but didn't want it touched. Held him, talked to him, let him break down in my arms. Same reason as Madeline, although he seemed to be dealing with it a hell of a lot better. A Smite, a song, a Goddess who listened to him without judgement, without criticism, just accepting him as loving him, and he drifted off. Willow, who bent over backwards to look at me while I showed her off not unlike I'd done with Siobhan on New Years, smiling at me as everyone adored her. Archibald, an old dude who maintained the place, who'd given up on sex so long ago he seemed surprised when the pain killing massage he'd so dearly, deeply desired wound up with a happy ending. Oliver, the youngest adult Temple volunteer in Calverton, who seemed so very embarrassed about something. Took me moaning out his name to make me realize that's what he'd worried about. Made him look me in the eye the second time just to make sure he knew his name was his, not some Orange douchenozzle's. Finally Crystal, the oldest Temple volunteer down in Calverton, who seemed surprised she'd lived long enough to get a turn on the altar. Orla whispered after that Crystal might wake up disappointed, because she'd told my senior Priestess she didn't expect to survive her time on the altar either.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Karen? I thought as I gave the remaining Temple volunteers waiting in line a quick hug before I left for the night.

Yes, my Goddess?

Keep in touch with Orla regarding Crystal. She volunteers at the Temple down here in Calverton.

Of course, my Goddess. Any particular reason?

She's getting on, and I think she wanted personal psychopomp service more than, y'know, altar servicing.

Karen chuckled into my brain, as fuzzy as the men she liked, as you wish, my Goddess. The Questing Tentacle should be reaching Muscogee City some time in the next few days, by the way.

Thanks for letting me know. Give me a heads up when you're ready to go talk with them. I'll check with Rabbit; with a name like Muscogee I can't think she's got no clout there.

Yes, Goddess, as you wish.

Got the kids to the Phileo Temple in time for breakfast, because while they each have playmates back at the Homestead, both sisters and girls and boys from South House, I thought it was important for them to socialize as much as they felt comfortable with. Need to check with Saffron and Marie that Daya's doing okay. Then again, maybe she's just not comfortable with, y'know, me. Which isn't a super happy making thought, but if it's true, I guess I just gotta put on my big girl panties and suck it up, because sometimes that's what you do as an adult. As a parent.

Got a dozen Crossbows for the Cadets to work with. I know this sounds really fuckin' weird, but 'old model' Crossbows. Like, the ones being made now are better, just because we've learned so much about how to make them from the ones we churned out for the war, and then to arm all the Volunteers for Calverton. But the production rate is way down, too, so the 'new models' are going to Dragonslayers first, and I guess to 'high priority' applications like Heroes in the field and Volunteer units who might actually need to put hurt downrange.

Fun, if short conversation with the terrible trio while other Cadets were taking their turns shooting. Vickerson started it, really respectfully, but curious. "Ma'am, why did you have us doing that yesterday?"

I shrugged. "I figured the two of you could keep Citron running all day chasing your asses. Always worked for Saffron."

If Vickerson kinda swallowed her tongue hearing that the Imperator had been lured into Endurance training by my buns of steel, Hildegarde just snickered, but clarified, "the math."

I snorted. "Look, Hildegarde, I get that your background didn't give you a lot of practice, but that shit was barely math. It was practically counting. Which means you need practice with it."

She bristled a little, but Citron spoke before she could get herself in trouble. "She passed Remedial Arithmetic last Season, Ma'am."

I nodded. "Yeah, I get that, but some stuff you wanna practice until you don't have to think about it. That's what Skills are all about. But for most of you that's not what it was." I paused, made sure they were all listening, because they'd all kind of come to me together to ask the question. "Part of being a Hero is being able to do more than one thing at a time. Not, like, 'true multitasking' or anything like that, but..." I paused, thought about what I'd been thinking when I had them do it. "At some point you might wind up having to do your part to fight in a big fuckin' battle, meaning moving and shooting and Shaping Wards and shit to cover for your Unit, which means you've got to be able to move and fight and Shape without thinking, because your bigger job might be doing the simple math to figure out loss rates between your Army and the enemy you're fighting, figure out where to throw your reserves, or whether to disengage and fight another day, or any of that good shit." I paused, realized that more examples would just confuse the issue. "Short version? As a Hero you gotta do half a dozen things without thinking about it and be able to think about shit while you're doing it sometimes."

All of them nodded along at that. Hildegarde with a bit of a booger look, Citron like he'd known already, and Vickerson... she looked like she'd actually grokked what I was laying down. "Thank you, Ma'am."

I nodded at her specifically. "You're welcome, Vickerson. I'm kinda sorta supposed to be mentoring you, after all, right?" I waited until she stopped looking sheepish and nodded. "And you and me, we're different. You're... a little more like Saffron. Like Lord Lancaster. Yeah, I did the General job down in Calverton. Another part of being a Hero is being able to do the parts you're not good at when you're the one who's gotta do 'em." I thought for a second, then nodded. "I'm not sure you'll ever be quite the utter chaotic shit wrecker I am. Fuck, Hildegarde will probably keep pulling away from you in that regard. And that's fine; not every Hero has to major in shit wrecking, so long as they can dance the dance when it's time. But you're already showing signs you'll be better at that part of Heroing than Saffron, or even Lord Lancaster. You're..." I realized something then, and smiled at her. "You're kinda in that same sweet spot as Marshall duBois; a solid battlefield combatant who can also command a battlefield."

She blushed as her partners nudged her with their shoulders. "Thank you, Ma'am."

I glowered at her a little, the expression clearly half fake. "That's where your talents are, anyhow. You've got a long way to go, a lot of hard work to do to get there. Part of my job is seeing that about you, letting you know maybe where you should be shooting for. Which I've done, and if I see something else, I'll let you know. But right now? It's my job to push as hard as I can, to get you as close to the best you can be as you can get here in the Academy setting."

Hildegarde sucked on her teeth and said, "what happens after that?"

I smiled at her, enjoying the fact that she didn't back down in the slightest. "At that point? Hopefully you finish all the 'required coursework' and get the Senior Cadet nod, and we put you in the field for final polishing. Y'know, like with rocks."

"Rocks, Ma'am?"

"Yeah. You want to smooth rocks, you put them in a barrel full of sand and water and roll it down a hill a couple thousand times."

She finally looked the tiniest bit uncertain. "That sounds... kinda painful."

"How'd you think I got the scars, Hildegarde?"

Yeah. Glad Vickerson has one partner who can help her navigate high society and one who can help her navigate the gutter. Sure as fuck would be easier for us if Saffron and I had had a Citron at some point. Then again, we've done okay for ourselves at the end of the day, I guess.

Speaking of the end of the day, when I went to pick up the kids, they gave all their new friends hugs and kisses good bye, since they didn't expect to see them until next Friday.

Good kids. Good day. Good luck keeping this up all week.

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