Dear Diary,

"Don't block others' Ecstasy,

We're all different people,

With our own euphoria."

Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Ecstasy

Yeah, definitely need to put some of this in here. Like, so long as it's not hurting anybody else, people need to take a step back and just say, 'not my fetish, but good on you for finding your joy'. Yeah, I get it, seeing somebody else floating around in an orgasmic haze when a person's in pain can maybe make them jealous, but I've said it before and said it again, jealousy is fuckin' stupid. I might even go so far as to say it's clearly one hundred percent vice in the whole 'virtue versus vice' sorting.

Which is weird to me to think that. I grew up being taught that jealousy was, like, integral to love. Like if I was okay with my partner being happy for a reason other than me, I didn't really love them. Or if they found any tiny bit of happiness anywhere but me, they didn't really love me. Like what the kind of fucked up bullshit is that? Seriously, I am not a game console. I cannot emulate a game console. I cannot run Stardew Valley or Doom Eternal, both of which contain so much pure happiness they're like fuckin' endorphin mines. Shit, I can't even run classic Doom, and that shit runs on refrigerators and fancy pregnancy tests. So I am and always was perfectly okay when my dopamine seeking partner rolled his sweaty ass off of me and hopped on the console. I mean, as long as he left me the good controller if we were at my house. Home field advantage and all that good shit. Of course, they usually did, because my good controller was wireless, and took batteries, and those always went in the vibe when I had a booty call over, because far too often they wound up the warm up act. So they'd leave me the wireless controller for when I was done. Except one notable gentleman who took over vibe duties when he finished. He got the good controller. Not only deserved it for a job well done, I wasn't really capable of independent motion for a good half hour after.

Before anybody says anything, good batteries are spendy.

But yeah, jealousy is definitely a vice, and the idea that it's central to love is just broken. Like, shit, look at Saffron. No, let's just look at her a while.

...

Yeah, makes me smile watching them move as she breathes, or sway as she walks, or best of all any kind of jiggle physics. Okay, yes, I actually like way more about her than just her tits, but holy fucking hell she's got the finest pair it has ever been my honor and pleasure to lay eyes and hands on.

Anyway, Saffron's a great example, because she is absolutely so 'mine mine mine' that she tattooed her initial on my arm, something that she reminded me of in the mirror the other night when we lay in the Bed. Thing is, Marie's clearly part of that scar as well. Even from the beginning, even with her absolute inability to get enough of me, inexplicable as that is, she wasn't jealous about it. I'm honestly not sure if watching her made me realize I get way more joy out of seeing her enjoy a moment with someone else than any fear of her leaving me behind.

Fuck. I'm honestly not sure because I can't fuckin' remember. Damn... no, not gonna damn the fuckin' Blessing, because Ria really did intend it as a good thing. Can't be mad at a kid who endured a several month quarantine, followed by sheltering in place from Undead for three to six months, followed by being almost abandoned and trapped under an unexploded sixteen inch round for a week, when her first action on being rescued is spending her once in a lifetime gift to try and reward her rescuer.

At this point I'm kinda avoiding thinking about today.

So after the sun went down, I spent some time with my Kraken homies just chilling and vibing. Yeah, I had to get to the Keeper Box, the thought of which sent entirely unwarranted rustles in the direction of my jimmies, but that didn't mean I had to be rude. I drifted through the crowd of Kraken with no particular direction in mind, realizing as I did that not only was I kind of, I dunno, thinking with my arms? I'm not sure how to describe it, but I had little Kraken squirming all over my arms. Not in any kind of bad way; almost like Isnomi and her sisters would do, or the women when we'd been gone a while. But somehow...

Okay, there's a kind of, I dunno, small talk. I've never been good at that shit. But I looked it up once when I got really fuckin' bored sitting in the library cutting Gym, because I was allergic to exercise, and it's called 'phatic communication'. It's where you say shit not to actually express an opinion, or convey information, but just to like, say, 'hi, I am a human, I see you are a human too, now it is your turn to affirm your humanness and recognize mine'. I dunno, I never really got it. Like, tell me something to grind my gears or put your mouth to better use, my dude.

But that's what those little Kraken were doing, just making phatic... not noises. Colors and patterns and motions. And my arms were doing that shit back, without me consciously doing any of it. Weird as fuck to describe, weirder to experience. But not really upsetting, because I could tell that all those little Kraken were absolutely jazzed about being acknowledged. Not just, y'know, acknowledged by a big Kraken, but specifically acknowledged by me. By Mimic. By the Chosen. Which... all boiled down to me. So fuckin' weird that it took a host of mixed cephalopods to really get me to understand my own celebrity. Which, y'know, explained a lot of how the women at the Homestead treated my attention. Or explained it in a way that made sense to me.

Eventually, I'm not sure exactly how long after sunset, I got the feeling that nobody would feel snubbed if I had to go, so I motion-imaged them all, must go.

The weirdest thing happened; starting with the big ones, they all slipped away from me. Not, like, super far away, just maybe conversational distance, where before they'd absolutely been all about getting up in my personal space. The littlest ones left last, and I got a definite sense of some of them hoping I wouldn't notice them tagging along, but I had no idea if they would be safe wherever the Keeper Box was, so I waited until they'd all disembarked and moved back with their larger kin. I realized right then that they'd left three gaps in the circle around me; one to the north, one to the south, and one to the west. Didn't take much to realize that those were basically the directions I could swim for any distance, with north being further up the bay, west being up the river toward Calverton, and south being down toward the open ocean.

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I thought to Saffron, you at the Box place?

A few moments later she thought back, I am now. Oh. Please hurry, love?

I shot my adoring Kraken fans the motion-image of a cocky Kraken grin, and Translocated to my Kitten.

I guess I didn't really realize how big I'd gotten as a Kraken, because I certainly didn't expect her to be, like, smaller overall than my eyeball. Wait, I couldn't remember if cephalopods had proper eyeballs, or just, y'know, non-ball eyes. Of course, her eyes got real big when I arrived, and they hadn't exactly been copacetic calm before then. I realized why when a whole shoal of Humboldt squid rushed around me, whipping around as soon as they passed me to realign on her. I scooped her up, curling one arm around her and pulling her to me while simultaneously motion-imaging, OI! at the Humboldt shoal.

For those not familiar with them, Humboldt squid, which I'd done a report on back in my Bio class, are what happened when cephalopods heard about wolves and piranha and, with all the enthusiasm and restraint of a typical twelve year old edge lord, thought 'omigod, so cool, let's make one of those', and when everybody else in the ocean asked 'which one', they said, 'YES!' Like, seriously, they move in shoals like a wolf pack, and when they find something edible they go through it like piranha. Like one minute you're a cod, just chillin' with your cod homies, swimming along without a care in the world, and the next moment you're so much squid poop gently wafting toward the ocean floor. Just to be clear, each of them was, on average, a little bigger than my Kitten.

Fortunately, for whatever reason they did not immediately look at me and think nom. Strange for Humboldt squid, they came to a dead stop, all of them turning just a bit to get a look at me. One of them, a little braver than the rest, maybe, drifted forward a bit. Keeper?

Before I could respond, another bigger one drifted in from the second layer of the shoal. Along with goosing the brave boi with a tentacle in what looked way too much like a smack on the back of the head not to be, the bigger squid motion-imaged, Chosen.

I definitely felt like a single big badass facing down a whole fuckin' motorcycle gang at that point. And I am not talking about the clubs who get together to ride and do charity shit, either, but one of the ones that absolutely refers to themselves as a gang, the kind that the cops lock their doors when they roll by. Kitten? What's up with the Keeper thing?

Love? I... did not expect you in the form of a Kraken.

Yeah. Helped more than a little communicating with the other Kraken down in the Bay.

I suspect it would. However, while it is absolutely your right to do with me as you wish, both as my Goddess and my wife, might I suggest now is neither the best time to eat me or, ah, insert me into whatever opening that is?

I realized right then that I had, in fact, been kinda gently nibbling at her. Not, like, actually biting or shit, but the kind of thing you'd do with one of those scented pieces of foam rubber, where it tastes awful but smells so fuckin' good. Oh, shit. Sorry, Kitten. I pulled her back up next to my eye and held her there carefully as I turned to the big Humboldt. My mate.

I definitely got the idea that his next look was the Kraken equivalent of not saying, 'holy shit the Chosen is a furry'. But after that he just kinda did a Kraken nod and replied, your mate.

Can you swim?

Well enough, love.

Stay near me. I let her go, and she swam down and snuggled in under me. Felt really fuckin' weird, and gave me definite 'let's take this back to the Bed's room' impulses, but I had shit to do. It took me a bit to figure out how to express what I wanted to say, but the Humboldt all kinda hovered there, waiting patiently. Surface song of death. Show me.

The boss Humboldt looked at the brave one and motion-imaged, show her.

The brave boi did not look anything like brave as he scooted forward, tentacles stretching out, barely able to stretch far enough to slip one into my siphon and one into my mouth. I got a little anxious as he got maybe a little close to Saffron, but the moment his tentacles got where he apparently wanted them, he froze.

I think he's waiting for you to do the same, love.

I reached down, gently slipping tentacles that really shouldn't have fit into his siphon and mouth. the siphon one barely fit, occluding it totally. The moment I wriggled one through his beak and into his throat...

We looked up at profiles carving through the waves on the surface. Tasty air breathers rode in their wake, and the shoal angled toward them as one. Before we'd taken half the pod, something aboard the stiff dead surface fish sang death, and vast swathes of the shoal floundered, then sank. We dove, fleeing the pod and the song of death alike. When we no longer heard that song, we turned on the foolish of the pod and our own dead. Vengeance and recovery, both filled our bellies and minds. The stiff surface fish carried the song of death toward the Chosen. We had to tell the Chosen. Had to tell the Keeper. We...

The image, the memory, ended abruptly. My brave boi convulsed, ink spurting out of him. His beak twitched, trying to sever my tentacle, but without any strength behind it. Then, achingly slowly, he went still. Utterly, completely still. I have no idea why, maybe some kind of instinct, maybe the memory he'd fed me taking hold, but I sucked him in, my beak turning him to so many spaghetti strands as I did. A few seconds later he was gone, and I blinked as my shoal surrounded me, swirling, sidling up not unlike the Kraken in the Bay. I felt more than saw an exchange beneath me, where one of them sidled up a little too close to Saffron, only for the big guy to smack him. Hers.

Ours?

The big Humboldt slipped an arm up the other one's mouth, and I got the impression it wasn't that different from sticking fingers up somebody's nose and pulling. Hers.

The littler guy backed off fast. Hers.

At that point, letting them get their touchy feely time with the Chosen in, I idly wondered to Saffron, where's the Keeper's Box?

I believe you destroyed it, love.

Shit. What happened to the Keeper?

I do not know.

At that point a... not a voice. Something else. Something I might not have recognized as communication before speaking with the Kraken, if I weren't one myself. Something between a voice and a motion-image whispered into my brain. I do. Return when the Hunters leave, and I will tell you.

What? Who? Kitten?

I... I heard an echo. Not unlike what the Kraken told you. But only that.

I didn't hear anything else after that. Well, nothing from whoever had pinged my brain. Just more ongoing phatic communication with the Humboldt shoal. My shoal now, apparently. Eventually, when the sun neared the horizon, they stirred. Hunt?

I concentrated, then with the most polite motion-image I could, sent back, Cannot. Duty. Go. Hunt.

Moments later, they were gone.

Love?

Yeah, Kitten?

She shot me a little mental throat clearing noise, at which point I realized I had her in my siphon to the knees. Head first. Because very urgent reasons.

Oh. Shit. Um... I pulled her out, held her in front of me. Boy, please?

The next instant he floated there next to me. Of course. Why?

All in one urgent not really motion, I shapeshifted myself back to myself, teleported us to the Bed's room, and banished his dress and panties. "Because I desperately need to get as much of you inside me as possible right the fuck now."