Dear Diary,

After the other night's sexcapade, we all slept in the following morning. Okay, I slept in, Saffron and Siobhan slept in, and Marie left one of her in bed with us. Even when we woke up all of us were maybe a lot less active than normal. Siobhan had a kind of loosey goosey goofy grin on her face as she lay there giggling until she had to leave for work. I didn't have anywhere to be, so I moved slow, vaguely worried that even though Marie had popped my hips back into their proper upright configuration, they might wind up folded around with me all about as capable of movement as a tray table. Look, I've got eating on the brain, both because I ate light last night and because Marie had taco for dessert, which I could do nothing about because of nonfunctional hips. Not that I'm complaining. Just weird. Also they felt weird afterward, like I could hit positions now that even my duBois stretching training hadn't prepped me for.

Marie slept late and lazy with us because cat. Saffron... oh holy shit Saffron. I definitely felt some kind of way when she woke up groaning. For a second I wondered where she'd found a blanket, and when we'd even gotten a purply black blanket for her to wrap around her. Then I realized that pretty much every inch of her from neck to ankles had purpled up. Before any of the kids could see and ask uncomfortable questions, I rolled over, scooped her up, and Translocated us to deposit her on the Bed.

"Holy shit, Kitten. I, uh... sorry?"

A ghost of a grin flashed through the grimace of pain. "Don't be." When I opened my mouth to apologize again, she said, "I asked you to do this. I needed this. I deserved this."

"Did you really?" I whispered. At her slow nod, I asked, "why?" She grimaced. "I'm not gonna hold anything against you, I just... I'm not sure I'm comfortable with not knowing what it is you've done. I... I think I could forgive anything, but..."

"Don't. I don't want you to forgive me like that. Not without some kind of consequence."

I sighed. "Yeah, but," I paused, thinking. "I want to make the world a better place. For you. For our kids. For us, maybe. But... that's just it. I'm not some kind of crusader. Not really. I don't do it 'because it's the right thing'. I mean, maybe, yeah, since I've got all this power, I'll use it for good, but my first motivation was to protect our little girl." I smirked. "Kinda like you with becoming an Archmage, really."

She chuckled, grimaced, and chuckled again. "It was, wasn't it?" Then she looked a little forlorn. "Are you trying to tell me you won't do this again?"

I sighed, then shook my head. "Anything for you, love."

"What about Isnomi? Or Maze? Or Alex?"

I smirked. "That's not fair, and it's also a stupid question." When she raised an eyebrow, I said, "same motivations, Kitten. You do what you do to protect them."

She smiled. "True. Very true. I'm sorry, that wasn't a fair question then. Would you have me let the Alliance fail, then?"

I thought about that for a second. "No. No, but I don't want you making those decisions alone. Yeah, you're so much smarter than me that you've probably already thought of everything I could think of, but you're not omniscient. My Goof Brain might think of a stupid solution that works without moral ambiguity, where your obviously generally superior Kitten Brain gets tangled up in being too clever or something."

She smiled up at me, and I realized that she'd more or less gotten into the least uncomfortable position possible, then frozen. "Kitten Brain?"

I nodded solemnly. "Yep. I'd get a laser pointer and make you chase it just to prove my point, but I think you might get trampled by Marie."

"I think I might need this now and then anyway, Goof."

"Really?" She nodded. "Okay. New deal, if you're willing?" She just nodded again, listening. "When you need to do something that you think I'll disapprove of, because all the other options are worse, you tell me." I tapped my head. "Right then and there."

"Won't that just make us both guilty?"

I shrugged. "So we burn together. Better than... better than you bearing it all until I beat you half to death."

"Oh, please. This isn't nearly that far. But... even so, that won't work."

"No?"

"Absolutely not. Because how can you do this to me if I've got to do the same to you, if we're sharing the guilt. Nope, we'll have to take turns burning if we're going to share the guilt."

I lay down next to her and put my arm over her shoulders, hovering it until she said, "it hurts worse to be separate from you, even by inches, Goof." She winced when my arm came down. Winced, but purred while she did it.

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"Can we go home now, Goof?"

"I'm not really ready for the questions just yet. You gonna go to work today?"

She nodded. "I expect tomorrow will be worse. I'll tell them I'm staying home Thorsday."

I nodded, then did the insta-dressing trick to put her in Glowing Midnight. When she pouted at me, I asked, "really?" She pouted harder, and I popped her harness under it, then dropped us both into my chair for breakfast. When the kids found us, they reacted to our return with a joyful dogpile. Appropriate, what with them celebrating after us being gone for like two minutes.

I fed her carefully, then handed her to Marie to deliver to the Grand Council.

During the day I hopped down to Norfolk for a quick visit with Olga regarding her coronation, then back up to chat with Karen regarding whether the temple had been scheduled for Spring weddings yet. She surprised me when I told her Saffron and I would be marrying Marie.

"Are you sure, Goddess?"

I tilted my head. "Sure I want to marry Marie? Hell yes."

She shook her head. "No, Goddess, that you wish to use this venue."

"Temple of Love seems a pretty solid fit for marriage to me."

She smiled. "It would change some people's views, yes. Although we've already had a few people ask me to perform wedding ceremonies for them, and I've informed them that my preferred venue is your Temple. By the way, what are your views on appropriate pairings?"

"So long as they're all of legal age to sign the contract and doing so willingly, I'm fine with it."

"All?"

"All."

She nodded. "I suspected, but thank you for spelling that out."

"What about not using the Temple, though?"

She took a deep breath. "Marie is the unacknowledged heart of Phileo City Heroic Academy, and her influence will be felt throughout the Alliance, with our recent and upcoming graduates moving back to their home Cities to found their own Academies."

"Yeah. Go on."

"Saffron Aetos-Diaz is the Imperator of the Alliance."

I nodded. "Okay."

"And you are not only the Alliance's Champion, but its Patron Deity, twice over."

"So...?"

She nodded. "So you three really ought be wed in the Temple of Kings."

I stopped. Thought about it for a second. "I don't think they're likely to give us any day we'd want. Any day at all, really."

She just smiled an impish smile at me. "My Goddess, when did I imply you should ask them?" When my jaw dropped, she followed that up with, "rulers, whether they call themselves Kings or not, generally do not."

I let out the breath I'd been holding. "I'll think about it."

"I will keep every..."

"Monday."

"Monday available for your wedding through the Spring Season until and unless you tell me not to."

I gave her a pat on the shoulder and said, "thanks, Karen."

"De nada."

When we got ready for bed, I sat Saffron in my lap, with her wincing at every little movement. When we finished dinner, I looked at her and asked, "You ready for the questions?"

She just raised an eyebrow as if to say, 'aren't I always', and I stepped us up to the Bath, banishing our clothes as I did. I gently scrubbed her down, rinsing pain sweat from her as I did. Other sweat too, but that was a lot more common. I'm not sure if Isnomi was the first to notice Saffron's bruising, but she was the first to say something.

"Whad happened, Ma?"

Saffron just smiled and, wincing, reached out to ruffle our littlest miscreant's hair. "I did some inappropriate things, and there were some consequences." When our Menace just made an interrogative noise, Saffron sighed and said, "something like a spanking."

"Whassat?"

I realized right then, as the rest of the kids turned to stare at Isnomi, that none of us had ever done that to her. I hadn't realized until that moment that a staple of my childhood had just... missed her. I definitely felt some kind of way, but everything else got overwhelmed with the feeling of 'maybe we didn't fuck up entirely after all' when Maze said, "you've never been spanked?"

I leaned into her field of view and said, "have we ever spanked you?" She shook her head. "Even when you tried to drown me?" She shook her head again, her eyes getting a little wide. "What did we do instead?"

"You... talked to me."

"And?"

"Asked me why I'd done it." She paused. "Found out what was wrong, and made it right."

I nodded. "Menace, did we spank you when you stabbed me?"

The other kids looked at our littlest with a kind of horrified awe as she shrugged and said, "no."

"So what did we do instead?"

"Tole me box brudda is nod a toy."

"And?"

"Tole me thewe wud be conthequentheth if I pwayed with him."

I nodded. "If you break a rule you know about, there are consequences. Which ought to be spelled out as part of the rule. But if you don't know the rules, it's not fair to give you consequences if you break them, is it?"

The kids just shook their heads, murmuring until Ria stepped up and asked Saffron, "did you break a rule?"

I felt Saffron wince as I lifted her to carry her to the tub, and again as she nodded. "I did. Many rules. Many times."

"Why?"

I never failed to be amazed how Saffron could face tank that question without hesitation. "Because each and every time, every other option I could see wound up with more people being hurt."

"So... you broke the rules because the other options had worse consequences?"

Saffron nodded again as I lowered her into the water, wincing then sighing with relaxation as the water hit. "Yes."

"But you still get the consequences of breaking rules?"

I lowered Saffron into the water to let it soothe her aching, then turned to Ria. "Yeah. Yeah, she does. Because if there were no consequences, or if being justified negated them, people would be trying to say how their situation justified their rule breaking all the time. So yeah, sometimes you break the rules because you have to, but you do so knowing that eventually, when you're done, you'll face the consequences of breaking those rules."

"Truth." Marie announced as she arrived and stripped down to join us in the bath.

Isnomi shook her head and announced to the world at large, "Thank you, Mama."

"What for?"

"Tewwing me nod to gwow up. Gwown upth awe too siwwy. I'mma nod do thad."

Kitten?

Yes, love?

Did you just turn your own punishment for rule-breaking into another decade of us not having to worry about the kids growing up?

She laughed into my head, the sound pure and clear despite the agony of her back. No, love.

Oh. I wasn't sure what to think of that.

A year or two at most.

What can I say? Oh. Yeah. My chick bad. Badder than yours. Even when momming.