Dear Diary,

I'm glad Saffron and I had that talk about her penance thing. Like, if she needs that to keep herself from bending to the pressures Lancaster and Ophelia and their inevitable successors and supporters must constantly be putting on her, to steel herself to speak to them in the only language they won't willfully ignore, then I'll provide it. It's the least I can do when she's doing a job that I not only don't want to do, I'm not sure I have the ability to do. So from now on she'll tell me when she hits one of those situations. Hopefully. Like, I'm sure she wouldn't deliberately lie to me, but I'm not so sure that she wouldn't subconsciously lie to herself. Tell herself that some compromise she's making is something I'd just find distasteful rather than outright anathemic.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that those kinds of things really do exist. They're the political equivalent of doing really skeevy dishes, or taking out the garbage when something inside has died and rotted, and the bag itself is kind of iffy. Chores that are nasty and unpleasant, but not actively immoral. I mean, at the lightest level of that I guess I would list working with Ophelia and Lancaster. Especially Ophelia, since Lancaster at least seems to have the integrity to hold himself to his own rules, even if I think some of those rules and some of the values that lie underneath them are sort of shit. Ophelia, on the other hand...

Y'know, I just realized my distaste for Ophelia is pretty fuckin' superficial. I had more reason to hate Lancaster on first meeting him than I did her, yet working with him for the length of a military campaign showed me that while I'd never want to socialize with the asshole, he's far from dedicated to exploitative abuse of those subordinate to him. Shit, I think his reaction to Larry taking charge and taking steps to correct Lancaster House's misogyny problem may have been the tipping point from me, the thing that shifted me from 'Lenny needs a Mana Blade enema' to 'ugh, him'. I'm not sure I want to understand his thought process, but for him all the awfulness he purveyed as Lord Lancaster was just... the best way he saw to do things. The fact that Larry's convincing argument was 'my way will yield better results' kind clinched that for me.

Ophelia, on the other hand, is just the living personification of an entitled privileged bitch. Like, back in the day, I'd have called her a 'typical white girl'. Which probably wasn't fair, since not all white girls are rich or even entitled. Here and now, though, she was definitely Dan entitlement, privilege, and wealth as a person. Thing is, at least once, probably more than once, I remember her justifying her position on something with an argument that wasn't pure selfishness or cowardice. I mean, it was an argument that didn't hold water back in the day, but here and now 'we only have enough resources to implement plans that are going to work' isn't total bullshit.

Anyhow, going forward I hope I can maybe do Saffron's Penance as a maybe less intense thing that the other night. Like, make her ass glow like Rudolph's nose, then give her a 'hurt almost too much to come' orgasm rather than beating her bloody and leaving her post-orgasm paralyzed with involuntary ahegao face. Okay, look, if she comes to me and says 'beat me bloody, not because I feel guilty and need penance, but because that got me off so hard I would willingly risk death to climax that intensely tonight', I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to say no. But that's kinda the opposite of Siobhan's 'I'll accept a little pain along with the pleasure'; it's 'the more intense the pain, the more intense the pleasure', which I just realized I kinda relate to. Like, Saffron may have been right about me enjoying it in and of itself, not as some kind of lingering guilt or something.

So yesterday I played hooky from class again. This time actually skipping a class I'd signed up for with an actual teacher, rather than skipping a day when I'd signed up to run around exercising on the Practice Yard. Of course, I had a serious reason to do. Okay, last time was serious, but that's because I wanted to spend a day connecting with my Kitten before spending a night disconnecting her consciousness from her motor skills via intensity of sexual climax. This time was serious because I wasn't going to give up my Sister Siobhan seduction for anything as ultimately meaningless as perfect attendance in a class I didn't strictly need to take.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Of course she frowned at me when she got home, flopping herself onto my lap and pouting. "You skipped my class today."

I shrugged. "You were teaching Cure Disease today, right?"

"Yes?"

"I already know that Shape."

She huffed. "That's not the point, and you know it."

"So what is?" She just kind of pouted at me more, so I Co-Located us to the Basic Heroic Skills Two classroom. As I did, I snatched away everything but her habit, her outer robe, and her harness. Meanwhile I put The Dress on myself. In Gladiator mode, but without any of the armor. Sitting at one of the desks, looking up at her standing in front of the classroom, I batted my eyes and said, "oh, teacher, is there anything I can do to make up for missing class today? I don't want to fail! I'll do anything!" I leaned forward, squishing my tits together for maximum cleavage. "Anything at all." I breathed.

She got delightfully pink and squeaked out, "tower?"

I smiled at her right in the middle of acquiescing to her request and said, "you realize if I'd come to class I wouldn't do this, right?"

To which she breathed out a hesitant, "Maw?"

I snuggled satiated Siobhan to me as we lay in the Bath after. "You know at some point I might not catch you?" I asked in an attempt to maybe give her a little bit of post-prandial titillation.

She just sighed, smiled, and said, "if that is to be my end, I cannot say it would be an awful one. To dissolve into you while suffused with pleasure."

I chuckled, trying to make light of it, but I could tell she wasn't joking in the slightest. "I thought your afterlife was supposed to be spent in our Bedroom?"

She rolled over and snuggled into me. "That's entirely up to you, my Goddess."

I hugged her with one arm and said, "if you find yourself inconveniently dead at any point, and I can't Revive you, and Marie and I can't find you? You get your ass directly to the Bedroom. You hear me?"

"Yes, my Goddess."

I settled in for a nice long soak after that. Slept surprisingly well. Dreamt of a certain Ice Pop swan diving into my Maw while the rest of my ladies sat along one edge, holding up score cards. Dreams continue to be weird, even when I almost maybe understand sort of where some part of them might be coming from maybe.

Followed Marie around the Academy with a Maid uniform on for most of the day. Eventually had a moment while the two of us were alone in one of the laundry rooms to quietly ask, "Hey, Murder Mittens, you said you predate modern calendars, right?"

She shrugged and said, "Yes."

"So, um, what season were you born in?"

She thought about it for a bit, and right when I was about to apologize for asking, she said, "Spring."

"Huh. That makes sense, I guess? Would you be upset if I maybe picked a day this Spring and we celebrated your birthday on that day?"

Her eyes lit up, but after a half second she shook her head. "Sparagmos."

"Uh... That's... Um..." I tried not to do my normal knee-jerk refusal; she hadn't actually asked me to do it. "You..." As I started to speak, her meaning and the reason behind it all fell into place. "You want us to celebrate your birthday on whatever day I happen to," I paused, having to force the words out, "literally tear you limb from limb?"

Her smile practically defined 'radiant'. "Yes!"

I slipped up in front of her, put my arms around her waist. "Because that's the day you'll be reborn, that I'll remake you, as mine?"

She picked me up, her hands lifting me by my ass, and when she brought our faces level, eyes shining, said, "Yes."

"You know it might not happen, right? Only gonna happen if Saffron says it's safe." She shrugged. "You realize that if she does find a way before our wedding, with you wanting me to do that to you then, your birthday will wind up being our anniversary?"

She smiled, mouth open, and kissed me. Vlickies best gift.

Before I could reply to that, Saffron's voice whispered through our skulls. I heartily concur.