Dear Diary,

Look, I get that I'm asking more out of life than I have previously. On the other hand, that's a really fuckin' low bar, because previously my asks from life were semi functional fingers, enough calories to avoid starving to death painfully, and enough nervous function to complete single player mode shenanigans. An internet connection and a console were optional extras. I didn't bother asking for anything approaching Actual Happiness™. Now I've actually got a home full of women and kids who, for some unknown reason, actively desire and enjoy my presence, and I'd really like it if I could spend a reasonable amount of time with them. Not even all day every day, although that would be great. Mealtimes, bath time, bedtime. Maybe some sexy times when the kids are asleep, or as is increasingly likely, playing on their own without a need for constant supervision.

I suppose that's one advantage of having extremely precocious toddlers. Not that they're all toddlers at this point, but Menace isn't even three. She's two and a quarter at best. I think Daya and David are four or five, maybe, and our older four look like they'd fit right in at a grade school. Shit, Maze and Ria could show up at a Junior High and maybe sneak in as really smart kids who skipped a couple grades. Maze is smart enough for that, and Ria sure as shit is, even if she looks younger than Maze, Lindsey, and Alex. So long as all seven of them are together, I'm not gonna panic if we don't have adult eyes on them. Ria and Maze can even Stabilize their sibs if some shit goes down, and none of them are 'accidentally insta-gib themselves with cutlery' young.

So yeah, I'm asking for more, but not asking for a lot. So I don't think my expectation of fucking linear Time is a bridge too far, or unrealistic in any way.

Shit, I'd blame the Fates and their nostalgic return to their crack habit, except apparently I'm the one that did this. Okay, I had help. Adrienne is a Sidhe, a noble Fae, and of the House of Crow, descendants of The Morrigan herself, but I didn't actually figure she'd be able to break fucking space time as badly as she did. Okay, I really didn't expect her to break space time at all. Yeah, I can step outside of Time, but breaking it has never really been one of those things that seemed like an option. Seriously, who does that. Who looks at their screen and sees, 'Fight', 'Run', 'Cast', 'Use Item', and 'Break Time'?

Yeah, shit is definitely fucking with me.

One moment I stood in Johnny's place, my tentacle resting along Adrienne's spine, full of Mana and ready to support her. Jack made his wish, Adrienne's Blessing kicked in, and the next... shit, no, not even 'next'. Sequence is broken without time, but some part of me forced a shitty, jury rigged causality out of the shards rippling around us like the ice in those kayaking videos.

I stood on the beach, a cool breeze mitigated by the warmth of the morning sun. Adrienne stood just out of arm's reach, her gaze still focused on Jack. Jack, not old Johnny. I mean, yeah, sort of the same guy, but where old Johnny looked like a dude who might have been a big strapping lad in his youth, and a solid dad bod maybe in his thirties and forties, but had been ground down by life until he couldn't even sit upright to play Santa Claus any more, this Jack was young. Not childlike young. Older than me and Saffron and Siobhan, maybe. Twenty something, and if he maybe had a little fleshy pudge hiding his muscles, he definitely had muscles under there, and the kind of long, lean muscle you'd expect from a hiker or climber, not the bulk you'd see from a body builder.

"Jack?" Adrienne gasped. Even during his vacation at our place, Jack had never looked like this. Hadn't looked this good. Which is saying something, because while he wasn't hard on the eyes, he wasn't movie star pretty, either. But he definitely had a little something something. A rakish glint to his smile when he looked at Adrienne.

"Heart." He swept her up into his arms, lifting her off her feet and kissing her, even if he had to lean back a little to do it. Adrienne wasn't as tall as Tallulah, not quite, although she had a little more stockiness to her. But that left her almost the same height as Jack, which meant that he had to lift her a bit to get her feet off the ground. Which he did, spinning her around, inadvertently wrapping my tentacle around them both. Power still flowed through it, coming from me, coming from Mimic, coming from that part of me beyond the Mortal Realm, beyond Metaphoric Space, beyond Time and Space. When he pulled away from her, he glanced around her.

"If you put me down I'll let you stare at my buttocks all you like, Husband."

"Do you have a tail now?"

I cleared my throat, apparently startling them both. Blend at work, I guess. "Uh, that would be me."

They both blinked, the expressions on their face going through nearly the same sequence. Confusion, then growing horror as they remembered that a nominal moment ago, we'd stood in old Johnny's shack in the middle of Jackville, the setting sun shining through the bead curtain covering the front door, and now we stood on some random... not even a beach. We stood on a sandbar a few hundred yards from a coastline covered in those trees with the hanging moss shit I'd seen in pictures of the Deep South. The sun shone from just above the horizon to the east, and it crept across the sky in a visible rush. Then it stuttered backward.

"Uh, so it looks like your wish might not have been as well worded as you thought, Witty Jack?"

He snorted. "I suppose not. I didn't think 'sooner than possible' was, uh, even possible."

I couldn't help it. I facepalmed. Then just stood there a bit shaking my head. When I looked up, the newlyweds had done like newlyweds do. "Uh, guys? I appreciate that you both want to consummate your marriage and shit, and if you're really not worried about me watching, I've been a third wheel before and remember the tune if you give me a second to hum a few bars to get me started, but I really think we ought to figure out what the fuck we just did." While I spoke, I, dunno, felt around. With that part of me that heard Shapes crunch when I walked through magically locked doors, the part that governed my Mana and Shaping and even, sort of, my Tentacles.

The part of me that connected me to my Clergy. My ladies. My Wives, my lovers. I panicked as, for a moment, I couldn't feel them. Then I realized that I could, but unlike normally, where I could hear their thoughts and experience their senses, I could only feel... their Souls, I think. Life. Love, a web of it between each of them and me. And, dimly sensed, each other. I got a sense of echoed panic, of reassurance, of steel self control, of absolute confidence, of all of those things wrapped up in burning heat. Rage, lust, determination, I wasn't sure what it was, but... heat. My brain hurt, both from trying to feel more than I could do at the moment and from... experiencing whatever connection remained between here and me and there and them.

"Yeah, um, I dunno how long I can keep this up."

"Are you tiring... Mother?" I couldn't tell whether Adrienne's discomfort or her smirk was more real, especially without any kind of Clerical connection to her.

"Yeah, no, not yet, but I've got a bit of a feeling that this might explode into a full on migraine if I keep it up too long."

"How long is too long?" Jack asked.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Good question. Pragmatic. Tell you what. I don't even know how long this will last, or if time is really passing, or even where the fuck we are."

"Jackville. The beach." He sniffed the air. "A few miles Southeast of my shack?"

"You don't sound certain, and that does not make me copacetic."

"I'm not, and I agree. This... this place and time are not right?"

"No shit. Your wish literally broke Time."

He had the grace to look a little ashamed at that. "Apologies. I, I just," he trailed off, but juggled Adrienne up until his arms were around her thighs. He leaned his head against her belly and said, "I wished perhaps unwisely, but truly."

I rolled my eyes. "C'mere." He stepped over, and I reached up and pulled his forehead down to mine.

"What are you doing to my Husband, Mother?"

I sighed. "Your sister calls me Mama. I'm not tryna make your Jack call me Mommy too, if that's what you're asking." I tried to listen like I did with my Worshippers, but other than some vague vibes, I got nothing. I didn't really think he was bullshitting me about his heart's desire or not knowing what was going on, but it would be nice to be sure. "Please, both of you, stay in arm's reach of me. If shit starts to fall apart, grab on. I'm stronger than I look, and I didn't break Time just to lose Ria's sister. Again."

"Mama? Am I a child now, Mother?"

I sighed, summarily ignored my snarky new shirt-tail daughter, and focused on my connections outside of this janky pseudo-time we stood in. I realized right then that I was Co-Located. Not... not normal Co-Location, though. Or rather, normal Co-Location, but not normal locations. I felt three more of me out there, each one fainter than the previous. They were each simultaneously here, now, me, which was... not entirely abnormal for Co-Location, and also northeast of me, and, inexplicably, tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that.

Look, I said shit got weird, even for the fucked up shit that passed for normality here and now, and I wasn't kidding.

I thought about it for a second, realized that Adrienne had wormed her way down just enough to tip Jack's head back and continue with the liplock, and decided that mildly amorous adventures weren't the worst thing the two of them could be doing. After a bit, though, I decided I needed more info, and maybe to rope them into a plan.

One of my plans, which probably involved rope, duct tape, and WD-40.

"Okay. Jack, can you feel any more of you, any Avatars out there?"

He shook his head, "I can't," he stopped, mouth open. "I was going to say I can't make Avatars, because I'm a Mortal Human Man, but I, I think I feel them, yes."

"Anything in particular from them?"

He shook his head. "I think they're northeast of here. They're each in different... oh, that is unpleasant."

"Time space migraine?"

"Is that what that is. Ouch. Does this happen to you often?"

I shook my head. "Nope. I get some headaches when I've got more than one of me in one spot, but this hits different. What else do you feel?"

"Surprise and curiosity. Surprise, fear, and anger. Surprise, irritation, disgust, and ennui."

"Three more of you?" He nodded. I looked up at Adrienne. "How about you? Can you feel more of you?"

She shook her head, then stopped. "Yes? Maybe? I don't know. I'm..." Her face scrunched up in pain, "Oh, that hurts. Can you make that stop?"

"Try not thinking about it." I poured more Mana into her, and her face un-scrunched a little. "Okay. I've got a suspicion." I looked at Jack and shook my head. "Sooner than possible. Dumbass."

"I would shatter the world for my Jill, for my Adrienne, for my Heart."

I bonked my forehead against his, just hard enough to know that harder was in fact an option. "Shut your dumbass mouth. I understand the sentiment, but my ladies and kids and lots of other people I care about live on this world. No deliberate shattering." I snorted, shook my head. "Accidental shattering might be tolerated if there aren't any casualties beyond peace of mind, and everything gets fixed before we're done."

I think he realized just then that I'd been manhandling him the way an adult could a toddler, because he'd tried to pull back and my hand on his neck held him motionless. "Yes, Ma'am."

"Okay. Four of you. Four of me. I'm guessing four of Adrienne here. I'm hoping each of Jack is another one of those Jacks you told us about?"

He shrugged. "I see no better explanation."

I looked at Adrienne. "Okay then. You've got however long you've got, in each of those slices of space time, to 'bind yourself together' with each of those Jacks. Because I'm guessing that if you're specifically bound to all of him, you'll be just as immune to death as him. Just like... Jack, you die every Autumn Equinox, and walk around Autumn as Jack O' the Lantern, right?"

"I do."

"So the biggest scary thing about your whole fuckin' cursed cycle is your Jill, Adrienne, dying then, because as a Sidhe, she'll dust just like her sister did when The Morrigan offed her?"

He nodded, and Adrienne said, "I still cannot wrap my head around you... fixing that."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jack? You need to whisper in your Wife's ears everything you remember about your other selves. Every little bit that might help her out when it comes to seducing you. Because that's what she needs to do."

She blanched. "You expect me to sleep with a dullahan?"

"Seduce. To emotionally compromise. To gain power over by emotional manipulation. Sounds morally even more gray than potentially pulling a train with the headless horseman and his headless horse, but honestly thinking about it in sex terms can really be the cleanest of it."

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah. You want Jack to rock your world right now? And by that I mean have carnal relations with you? Sexy times? Beast with two backs? Put his twig and berries in your..."

"YES!" she squealed.

I cut her off. "Okay. But maybe he's not all that into you." I raised a hand to shut him up. "Maybe he's tired from work. Maybe he's hungry for actual food. Maybe he's in the middle of a good book. But you honestly want him in a womanly fashion, and you want it to be a fully consensual meeting of the meaty bits. You want both of you to want that good good. With me so far?"

"Yes, I... I want that," she stammered out.

"Okay then. Nothing wrong with that. Shit, you two are even married now. So no moral quandaries if you get his Consent, right?" She shook her head, blushing. "So you gotta convince him. Put him in the mood for some good old fashion execution of marital duties." I paused, pointedly. "If you want his Consent when he's not in the mood, you gotta change his mood. You gotta effect his emotions. You gotta... Seduce. Him." I waited until the lights came on, which didn't take long. Tallulah bred for brains as well as looks, which really boggled my mind when it came to her desire for my baby batter, but I needed to stay on target here. "Okay then. Now, extrapolate that to non-fuck emotional connections. Do you want to hurt any of the other Jacks?"

"No!"

"You want to make them happy? Or at least help them achieve an emotionally superior state to their current one, whatever that might be for each of them? Help them find fulfillment?"

"Yes?"

"Okay then. You gotta convince them. I'm not sure, but... Jack, any of your other selves really hyper-rational sorts?"

He shook his head. "Nimble is clever, and Frost thinks himself beyond emotion, but... no."

"Okay then. So you might need to banter with those two, but that's just another seduction tool. Got it, Adrienne?"

She took a deep breath. "Yes. I understand." She paused a bit. "I'm scared."

"I'll be right there with you. Daughter." She blushed again, but a sudden wave of fatigue hit me. Not a collapse of this bit of fractured space-time, but... something like. "Okay. Dunno how long you've got, but for now? You two need to do three things."

"Three?"

I nodded. "One, Jack needs to fill your head with as much Jack Lore as he can." Jack nodded in response. "Two, Jack needs to fill your heart with as much confidence in him, in you, in the two of you, as he possibly can."

"II would do that even if it wasn't so direly needed." Yeah, Witty Jack wasn't exactly un-smooth.

"What's the third thing?" asked Adrienne.

"Welp, I'm gonna go sit over here with my feet in the water and watch the sunrise. Or the horizon. Or, I dunno, whatever. But I will absolutely not be pointing my eyes at you two while you... connect. In each and every way possible. For as long as whatever this is lasts."

"But... I... we... why?"

"You don't want to consummate your marriage?"

"Of course I do! But... why now? Why so urgently?"

I sighed, turning and walking for the water. "Because this whole fuckin' thing is about the two of you binding yourselves together, and that's one of the oldest, strongest ways for a pair of adults to bind themselves together." I settled to the sand. "Not that I think you really need it, but if you need any advice or whatever, just sing out." I smiled, letting them hear it in my voice. "I'm here to help you two crazy kids make this thing work, after all."

Don't think I'm gonna tell them any time soon exactly how much I can sense with my tentacles, even when they're Blended, especially when one of them had to remain in constant contact with Adrienne to keep pouring Mana into her.

But they, uh, totally played Baby Roulette too. Like mother like daughter, I guess.

Oh, fuck, Ria's my daughter too.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.