Dear Diary,

"Do not seek to harm Children, To do so will bring my wrath. Fuck around and find out, bitch." - Tabitha Diaz, Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Children

I love our Goddess. I love her more than I can easily express. I know I am not the only one to do so, but I am among the few who have been privileged, even Blessed enough to share her life, to live beside her and see her grow into her Divine power. While I loved her before that terrifying Autumn Solstice of Year Three Forty One AFP, that was the day, by embodying the sentiment in this Verse, she recreated me as her fervent and willing zealot, her Priestess Most High Above All Others, her devoted Wife. It was her instant, implacable wrath, focused on the Goddess then known as Artemis, the one who in her vindictive spiteful pettiness had slain my child, that seared into my Soul the sure and certain knowledge that should any seek to harm our Child, she would stand against all the Gods and Powers of this world to see them pay for their crimes, to see our daughter safe once more. Over time, I have realized that her aegis protects more than our daughter. Time and time again she has stood against Gods and Men and the very fabric of reality to secure the safety and well being of Children, whether one, or many, or all. Diana who was Artemis struck down when she stole our daughter. The Morrigan humbled and imprisoned for striking down another. Dozens, even hundreds of children pulled from death's door during the Plague. Child after child saved, no matter what threatened them. In Calverton, not even the fabric of reality, the specter of Undeath itself could stand against her when she pulled over a thousand children from it's rapacious maw. If a child is in danger, she stands ready to save them, and if a child is threatened, she will not leave that threat standing, no matter who or what it is. Finally, something I only realized this after years of deep meditation upon our Goddess, on her actions, on her responses to seeing those she loved threatened or harmed, on seeing how deeply she loves all of us, her Worshippers. Though she will never say this to us, thought she may never even admit it to herself... in some ways, we are all her Children. To protect, to nurture, to love. - Priestess Most High Above All Others, Archmage Imperator Saffron Aetos-Diaz, Commentary on the Doctrine of Tabitha

I... I don't even know what to say to that. How to process that. Like, holy shit, Saffron, way to put my shit out there on display.

Then again, that's kinda exactly what I asked her to do, isn't it? To tell everybody who I am, and what I want from them, and what I'll try to do for them. I mean, 'what I want from them' is mostly just 'don't be a dick', but I've come to realize that's stupidly ambiguous. So I guess I need to spell more things out. The advantage of my Doctrine being all poetry, that my followers will be able to reinterpret it over time as culture changes, is also kinda it's weakness.

I don't think of people as Children. I really don't. Children are innocents, unable to defend themselves, because they're still learning, still growing. But... on the other hand I really do love my Worshippers. I can't think of another way to put it. I love them, and I would, if the situation called for it, fuck shit up for them.

I'm not sure I'd do the same for some rando on the street. I mean, I probably wouldn't, unless I saw something stupidly unjust going on, like a Hero kicking the shit out of a street vendor, or a Deity stopping by to throw down with a Guard. Yeah, at that point I might step in and apply some of those submission holds I know, because while I'm not gonna go into full on rip somebody's tongue out through their asshole mode in that case, I do not fuck with bullies.

Which is a sign I've changed and grown since back in the day.

So after spending all day yesterday mostly doing stuff with the kids in my Temple, I spent the evening with the family. Fried rice, salad, eggy cheese paninis, along with lots of deep fried goodness. Pastelillos, calzones, and fried veggies. We even managed to score some potatoes, and after me explaining what waffle cut fries were, my Murder Mittens managed to cut those things by hand. I couldn't even follow how she did it, but the kids loved them. Okay, I'm kids. I loved them.

Dreamt of my ladies all kinda huddling in my Maw, hands over their ears, as someone in the Boltophsberg direction screamed my name. Like, not loud enough to hurt or anything bizarre like that, but fuckin loud enough none of us could ignore it, and strident. Not even, like, strident in the 'afraid and desperate' sense, but strident in the 'asking to see the manager' sense.

By morning I was not a happy Mimic. I stirred, woke, and stepped to the top of the West Tower. "What. Do. You. Want?" I screamed out at the top of my lungs. Echoed pretty good.

Did not change the screaming of my name one little bit.

That shit had gotten to the point where it had to stop. I stepped to Baba Yaga's place, right outside her door. Weirdest fuckin' thing in the world, the screaming cut off like a switch. I knocked, politely.

The door creaked open. "Come in?"

I stepped just inside the doorway, enough for polite conversation, but not so much that it seemed like I was gonna sit down. Baba Yaga sat there in a house dress. In a dressing gown. In every variation on 'old woman just got outa bed and doesn't wanna be' clothing I'd ever seen plus a few. "Hey there, sorry to bother you. Did you hear somebody screaming last night?"

She growled out, "pain. In my ass."

"Shit. Sorry. Didn't mean to bother you. I'll see myself out." I nodded to her, trying to show some respect as I stepped out the door, then stepped home.

At which point that fuckin' M-Space Karen started shrieking again.

I was not pleased. Not happy in the slightest. Especially when I collapsed back to myself and realized that Menace and the kits were all kinda logy and cranky looking, like they hadn't slept long enough. Co-Locating around the room to scoop up some of the kits, handing the rest to my ladies, I picked up Isnomi and said, "you okay, Menace?"

"Wowd," she grumped. The kits latched on, but they weren't happy about it.

I looked over everybody else. Siobhan and Saffron both looked passably rested, as did most of the girls. Ria and Tallulah both looked... I tried to remember where I'd seen that look on somebody's face before, and when I realized where I'd seen it, seeing it on Ria's face lit a fire somewhere deep inside. The Expedition to Lancaster. When all us Cadets were pushing as hard as we could, tryna be the Heroes we were there in the place of. I hadn't even realized at the time, because we all looked a little like that now and then at the Academy.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I waved Tallulah and Ria over, pulled them into the hug with Menace. "You two gonna be okay?"

Tallulah took a deep breath. "I will endure. Is this an attack?"

I shook my head. "It's a fuckin' lure, I think. I stepped over there to ask Baba about it."

"And?"

"It stopped. Then started the moment I came back."

She nodded, and Saffron cut in, her arms around Siobhan, who had Hailee and Calliope in her lap. "Did the Baba tell you anything?"

I shook my head. "If anything, I think it was worse there. She's not in a good mood. I apologized and left."

"Could it be her?"

I thought about that for a second, then shook my head. "I guess, yeah, maybe, but I don't think so. It doesn't sound anything like her, and she really did sound pissed. Like she hadn't been able to sleep."

The kits, all of them, wavered between nursing crankily and trying to slip off to sleep, then stirring back awake whining and yowling. I sat there, clenching my jaw for a bit before making up my mind.

"Kitten?"

"Yes, love?"

"Can you do anything about this?"

She stopped, jaw hanging open, then leaned her forehead against Siobhan's I caught the edges of communication between the two of them, and a few moments later each of them reached a hand out toward me. Tallulah slipped free of our embrace and stepped to them. Their thoughts got a little quicker, a little more complex, but they'd started out too fast and quiet for me to keep up. After a couple minutes of that, Saffron nodded and pulled away, leaving Tallulah holding Siobhan.

She stood and held a hand out to me. "Love?"

I handed over Isadora, Anise, and Felicia to Marie, who pulled the girls in to help hold them, pet them, keep them settled. Then I took Saffron's hand and stepped us both to M-Space. Even this deep into the Homestead, the constant hollering of my name echoed, whined, scraped at my ears, my mind. "What now?"

"Mana, please?"

I smiled, stepped to the Academy office, picked up our office chair, stepped back, and sat down, pulling her into my lap, my embrace, my tentacles. Then I gently poured mana into her from every point of contact. She smiled and started Shaping, a dome that swelled up until it enclosed... not much more than our bed. Within that dome the sound was... still there. For a moment I thought we had complete silence, but no, her Ward only lowered the volume to something that could maybe be ignored.

"Apologies, love. That's the best I can do without possibly cutting this section of the Homestead off completely."

"You need me to stay here? Do you need to stay here?"

She shook her head, and I watched as tiny droplets of sweat flew. "No, love. I've tied it into the Ley Line beneath the Homestead."

I sighed and nodded. "I don't want to go, especially with whoever this is having the juice to throw shade this far."

"It's only noise, love. Unpleasant, and perhaps dangerous if it goes on too long, or if we can't find a way to maintain this," she nodded to the Ward, "and possibly improve it."

"Okay then." I braced myself. "Can you keep them safe?"

She smiled. "We will, love." I opened my mouth, and she twisted around to kiss me. When she pulled away, she said, "I will keep them safe. We will keep each other and the Children safe. You go and do what you need to do."

"What if..." I ran out of words.

She hugged me. "If we are attacked with half of your High Clergy here, you will know, and we will hold out until you can rescue us." Then she took a deep breath. "And if we cannot?"

"Yeah. What then?"

Her smile would have sent a shark running. "Then avenge us, and feel no guilt at using whatever remains of our violators to restore us. We have faith in you."

I nodded, stepped us back to the bedroom, and set her on the edge of the bed. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

I pulled them all to me with arms and tentacles, hugging them, holding them, letting them know without words how much I needed them and how much I loved them. Then, without a word, I stepped to the mast of the Black Dragon. Then Co-Located to M-Space.

Weirdest fuckin' thing. I hovered, kinda exhaustingly, above a void. Right after I arrived, I slipped a ways to the side, and just hovered above the M-Space echo of some of my Kraken, looking over the nothing where the Black Dragon lurked in the Mortal Realm.

Once I had that straightened I turned toward Boltophsberg. Which had been totally silent since I slipped off the Black Dragon's M-Space void. "Hello? I'm fuckin' here!"

Nothing. Not a fuckin' peep.

I stayed like that all fuckin' day, just watching. Waiting. Late in the afternoon, maybe an hour before sunset, I clocked a bunch of those cop types strolling along the waterfront, absolutely looking for fuckin' trouble.

Karen?

Yes, Goddess?

Be ready. Shit may be going down.

Yes, Goddess.

The cop types dispersed, about half of them staying in one big clump, maybe half going down alleyways and into a few waterfront buildings that had a 'small business' look to them. As I watched through my binocs, from my angle way out on the water, I saw sailors on every ship just sort of drift toward their boarding ramps. Nothing coordinated, nothing violent, just... drifting. Waiting.

Then, with no warning or signal I could detect, every mother's son on those ships went over the side onto the docks, onto the waterfront, jumping in. Every door I could see on every waterfront building slammed open, sailors and dock workers and even a few what looked to be waitresses and shit piling on. The cops, the 'Heroes', the Adventurers, I guessed, were better armed, were armored, were obviously better trained when it came to fighting, but the Sailors outnumbered them at first by like two to one. Then three to one. Then five to one. For every Sailor that fell, two or three more came out of a door, leapt off of a ship, pulled themselves out of the water, or leapt off of a roof.

I realized as the Adventurers started moving back down the Waterfront that only like ninety seconds had gone by, and there was no sign of the Adventurers that had gone down the alleys or into the buildings. Karen!

I hear something, Goddess. It seems like a riot?

There is a full on urban insurrection going on. All troops to the ramps, anybody we have available to deploy here, get them on the deck now!

Shall I bring Heroes in from the Alliance?

I wavered for a moment. No more than one per sixteen troops. Standard Phileo Heroic deployment. You or The Marshall stay on the ship if one of you has to leave. Do not go further than halfway down that dock, but secure exit and evacuation for any noncombatants.

Who are the noncombatants? Karen stuttered.

Kids. Injured people. Anybody unarmed. I don't know where it came from, but I made a snap judgement. No Heroes. No Scribes.

Are you sure about that?

I nodded. If the Marshall wonders, the Heroes are all combatants, the Scribes are most of their Mage backup. I don't want any of either group on our ships. We don't need fighting going on aboard Alliance vessels. But anybody claiming refugee status needs to be unarmed. They can leave their weapons on the dock.

As you command, Goddess.

With that I felt her pull away, vaguely heard her shouting orders before that connection went quiet. I watched as tiny figures from the Questing Tentacle secured the outer end of the dock she sat at.

"Swanson!"

"Yes, Champion!"

"All hands to battle stations. Be ready to fight or to take on refugees."

He stuttered a little. "Those are... Yes, Ma'am!"

I glanced over, smiled at his hesitation so he'd understand I knew what kind of fucked up priorities I'd just handed him, then went back to watching.

As the sun set, Karen stuttered out, Goddess? I think you should see this.

Something told me she didn't mean through her eyes. I stepped to her side, looked down the ramp to where what looked like two Phileo Volunteer units with a Hero each were letting a single file line of refugees through. The Adventurers had been driven halfway back the waterfront, barely past the end of the Questing Tentacle's dock, and injured Sailors, each followed by a few kids, were trailing to our ship. I looked down at the bottom of the boarding ramp, where Karen watched the Marshall greeting people, maybe explaining things I guessed.

It took me a second, because the Marshall is a big guy. When he turned to let the next person past, i realized it wasn't one person but two.

Ilya, one forearm ending in a bloody bandage. The other holding a limp body over his shoulder, one he could barely hold up. One he lost control of as he stumbled, slipped, and fell, dropping Ivan Ivanov's limp corpse onto the ramp.

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.