Dear Diary,

"Chase down your euphoria,

Fill your life with blissful joy,

Life's purpose is Ecstasy."

Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Ecstasy

I dunno. Maybe I'm laying it on too thick. Of course, the fact that I'm an actual Goddess of Ecstasy, currently tryna fill my head with as many good memories as I can, who wants nothing but people to find and indulge in things that bring them joy, and I'm saying 'oh, hey, maybe I laid on the 'be happy' too thick' is a sure sign that the neopuritan, ascetic bullshit got to me good at some point. Like, I'm literally supposed to be the Moral Compass here, what with being a Deity writing a Holy Book, and apparently some bullshit is trying to make me feel guilty about wanting people to be happy.

I mean, I get it, a lot of people are immediately gonna jump in bed with complete strangers after reading this book, looking to exchange bodily fluids and dopamine release. Here's the thing: so the fuck what? Like, okay, I get it, I haven't seen anything like modern medicine, so there's no birth control pills, but anybody what hasn't figured out the contraceptive utility of hand jobs really needs to educate themselves. But thing is, given that indoor plumbing is a rich people thing, people might wind up getting equally sick from dangerous behaviors like 'eating food', 'drinking water', and 'breathing air'. Given that humans apparently can and will die from lack of oxytocin, I don't think putting getting physically intimate on that same list is a terrible thing.

So yeah, even if I somehow wind up yeeted into some kinda afterlife from my old world when Future Me comes back, I am gonna stand tall and stand by my decision on this one. I already hear people asking 'oh, but why will people behave themselves if their afterlives won't be any better than this one'. To which I say, I dunno, maybe because most people aren't assholes? Yeah, out of every ten, you're gonna have an asshole, but we gotta learn to stop putting the assholes in charge. They will always say they're the only hope for humanity, they will always do whatever it takes to get power, and they will always abuse the fuck out of that shit. And it's not from any weaksauce 'power corrupts' shit either. Blaming the power is like saying 'the devil made me do it'. To which I reply, 'show me this devil, and I will absolutely shove his foot up his ass for you. In the meanwhile, you're going in the penalty box until we sort out how to keep your devil fingers off the hurting people tools.

So after baths and dinner last night, the ladies and I went to the Bed's room for the very important reason of needing a private spot where Karen could give us an update on Tallulah's response. Which she did while I sat on the divan, Saffron sat on my lap, and our Concubines did their best to distract us. Not out of any disrespect to Karen, but because I think Murder Mittens had decided she wanted a 'red / white / black' foursome or something, and had enlisted Siobhan into her Karen baiting. Although it's equally possible Siobhan wanted to find out if red tasted different or some shit like that. No idea.. Not complaining at all, just clueless.

Karen stood in the middle of the floor at parade rest, which should have looked slightly ridiculous with the stripperific wedding dress, but didn't. She was in the dress as a compromise, as certain parties had engaged in a bit of a tug of wardrobe. Which would be why I was in that red gownless evening strap, Marie had her maid's uniform on, Saffron wore a cheerleader outfit complete with pom poms, and Siobhan wore boots and a full body blush. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy to see her blushing like that and not faceplanting. Okay, not faceplanting from passing out. her face kept planting itself wherever she thought she could get away with. Which was quite a lot, since saying no to Siobhan was like kicking a puppy.

"Lady Crow stated plainly that she knew nothing of this fleet, its origins, its contents, or its purpose." She paused. "May I speculate?" At Saffron's regal nod, and holy shit my Kitten could do regal even in that outfit, Karen said, "based on her apparent distress, as well as her desire to hide it, I suspect she believes the fleet is headed for Rich Man's Port, and is not friendly to her."

"So why wouldn't she request aid? We've made it clear enough we support her by now."

Karen tilted her head. "Again, this is speculation, but I suspect she is worried that whatever is in that fleet is a threat great enough the Alliance would not wish to face it."

I cut in with, "yeah, tomorrow when you see her, make sure she knows that we don't abandon our friends."

Saffron nodded. "Make the offer clear, make it clear we'll back her." Karen nodded, and Saffron leaned back into me and said, "speaking of offers, I think one of the miscreants to either side of me had one for you?"

Of course at that point they clammed up. "I'm... flattered?" Marie let out a rumbling growl-purr, and Karen laughed. "Well, 'intrigued' might be true too."

"Interested?"

She shrugged. "Is this an order of my Imperator, or my Goddess?"

I cut in. "No orders. Not for anything like that." Then I got a sudden wild hair up my ass, and in the spirit of chasing euphoria as long as I could, said, "But... maybe a request?"

"From you?"

"Yeah. A kiss, maybe? No obligation. Just an impulsive request."

"With or without the Imperator on your lap?"

I laughed and moved my arm away from Saffron's waist, only to replace it with the other one. "Up to you."

I still don't know which of those two incorrigible horndogs currently self describing as my Concubines had the idea to romp with the redhead. Good idea, though.

Sadly, she didn't stick around for cuddle puddle sleepy time. Something about having to sleep in Adrienne's suite as a guest thing.

Dreamt of my ladies shoving Karen around the Maw on an itty bitty boat, giggling every time it capsized. She tasted of peppermint, cayenne, and can sugar.

In the morning after breakfast, our whole little horde hoard confronted me, Isnomi in the lead with Maze and Ria standing behind her shoulders, the other four arrayed behind them. "Mama, time to see the new rooms!"

I looked over to Saffron. "Have you seen them yet?"

She shook her head. "To the best of my knowledge, the only one of us who has is Marie."

When I looked at Murder Mittens, she shrugged and said, "Supplies."

I scooped up Isnomi and put her on my shoulders, then took Ria and Maze by the hands. Saffron took Alex and Lindsey, and Marie picked up Daya and David. I looked at Siobhan, but she shook her head. "Sorry, but I really must attend to the Infirmary today. Marshall duBois is having Cadets do full contact sparring."

I winced, but nodded her over for hugs and kisses good bye to fortify her before she left. Then the lot of us stepped to the Homestead. Which I realized just then I had no idea where it was on a map. Needed to maybe sort out how to figure that out at some point.

But not today. Today was the day for the kids to give us the grand tour of our almost ready to live in house. And by almost ready to live in, apparently all we needed was some additional furniture, plumbing hookups, and, like, stuff like rugs and blankets and shit. I saw some women working on that kind of things out in the courtyard when we arrived.

We landed right outside the front doors of what I thought of as the Main House, but which the women and my ladies had all taken to calling the 'East House'. Which, if they felt some kinda way about the houses they were gonna live in not being the 'Main' houses, I was fine with living in the East House. Isnomi led us through the big double doors, which led into a two story entryway just big enough to open the doors into. No huge five story balcony here, just a one story jobber where the sides wound up blocked with the doors open. When we'd all gotten all the way in, Marie pushed the doors closed, and Isnomi said, "lights! Ten!"

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The little lantern things on the walls slid open, lighting the place up like daylight. Directly in front of us were another pair of wide floor to ceiling doors, although in this case 'floor to ceiling' was only one story. Of course, they looked like if we opened both sets all the way, they'd block off the rest of the room entirely, including the steps up to the second story on both ends of the room. Is that on purpose, Kitten?

Given that the only other route to our children's bedrooms is the Bore, what do you think?

Sally port?

Something like.

Nice.

Of course Isnomi waved at those doors and said, "that's just the dining room and kitchen. Nothing good in there yet." Then she guided us up the steps to the second floor, which again was just a wide hallway with a chunk missing in the middle, a railing keeping it nominally safe. Isnomi waved to another set of steps directly above the ones we'd come up. "Those go to the guess rooms."

I very carefully did not snicker as she led us to the doors directly above the dining room doors. These weren't as wide, but what they lacked in size they made up for in fancy. Scrollwork, little carved stuff like vines and flowers and clouds and little animals. None of it painted, which surprised me, but the center of the doors was a big blank shield with the name 'Aetos-Diaz' carved across the top. I think I teared up a little, but not just from that. The only thing painted on the whole door, at least so far? In some space in one corner of the space with 'Aetos-Diaz', somebody with excellent handwriting had painted, 'Crow', and in the far corner, 'Darling'. I dunno which of them had done that, but I absolutely approved, and shot Siobhan an image of what I saw.

I can't visit today. Injuries have been coming in already.

Don't worry. It'll be here when you're ready. Darling.

I'm really glad Saffron's been getting her backup, because I'm pretty sure she needed it at that point.

If the doors weren't big, they were definitely thick, and took all seven girls and some surreptitious tentacle help to pull them open. I noticed inset deadbolts and sockets gleaming in both, and those little bank vault spinny wheels on the insides. But then Isnomi pulled me into the room and I lost all interest in the security features. The room was round, each corner covered by a curving wooden wall. It was also fuckin' huge. Like, not as big as the Lancaster House dining room, but... okay, maybe it was that big, but the whole 'round' thing made it hard to tell. The middle of the room had a kind of raised circular wooden dais, with another wooden circle on the ceiling above it, a rail curving all around it's perimeter, curtain hooks already hanging from it.

"Wow! Is that where our bed's going?"

Saffron chuckled. "When the mattress is done? That will be our bed, love."

My jaw dropped open. "That's... that's like twenty feet across!"

"Did you or did you not want more children?"

"Yeah, but..."

"And did you ever intend to deny any of them the right to sleep with us when nights are cold?"

I snorted out a laugh. "Okay, you win. You win. Absolutely perfect."

Before I could celebrate my Kitten's victory, Isnomi said, "lights, ten!" I'd been looking at the room half in that weird dark vision wireframe, but when the lights on the ceiling slid open, the walls... Oh, my god, the walls. To our left, a painting of what looked like the valley beyond the tower, only covered in snow. Also, in the center, covered in seven colorful silhouettes. To our right, the same scene, only with everything green and growing, and the kids outlines captured in paint splashes. I scooped up Isnomi, who'd already begun pulling me toward the far doors, and whispered, "I love how you guys are all snuggled up together, even in the paintings."

She nodded with that little kid seriousness. "Left space."

"For Mom, Marie, and me?" She tilted her head. "And Siobhan maybe?"

Looking very serious, she shook her head slowly, then said, "you forgetted. You promised."

"Promised what?"

"More."

It took me a second. When I got it, I looked at both scenes. The kid silhouettes covered maybe a third of the wall, at best. "Holy sh... sugar, Menace. How many sibs do you expect us to make?"

She looked a little shifty and said, "four?"

"Four." She nodded. "All that space for four?"

At that point Ria tugged my jacket and said, "I believe she means at a time."

I didn't get a chance to respond to that, because Murder Mittens set her chin on my shoulder from behind me and said, "More."

I let myself be dragged to the hallway beyond at that point, visions of entire nurseries full of babies filling my head. Beyond the next doors, which were thick enough to insulate, but not nearly the vault doors we'd come through from the balcony, we entered a hallway wide enough for four people to walk arm in arm without touching the sides. the hallway had to be at least sixty feet long, with doors on either side every ten feet or so. The first one on the right had a little silhouette, this one way less messy than the ones on the wall in our bedroom. Above it, in the same script as the words on the door, the word Diamond. "That's Daya's room," announced Isnomi.

I turned to Daya. Apparently, to Diamond. "So. Diamond. May we see your room?" She rolled her eyes, but nodded. "Thank you. I'm serious, though. This is your space. Unless there's an emergency, you decide who gets to go in and who doesn't." I turned to the rest. "That goes for all of you. These are your rooms. You spaces. I'll be thrilled if you trust us enough to let us in whenever, but that's your choice. Got it?"

They kinda bobbleheaded, eyes wide. We looked into Daya's room, which I'm pretty sure all the other kids had seen already. No furniture yet, but the walls were painted. So was the ceiling. And the floor. It was pale yellow and sparkled. The kids had found the glitter, and Daya had layered that shit onto her walls. Screw it, her walls, if she wanted to repaint, we'd help her out with that too.

Right across the hall was David's room, with his name above his silhouette. His room was... pink. Just a riot of pinks swirling around one another. Total Barbie Dream room. Overall looked about the same size as Daya's. Maybe the exact same size, about ten feet wide by fifteen feet deep. Maybe a little less than that, but clearly big enough to be enough space for a bed, an armoire, a desk, and some space left over for whatever.

The next two doors were blank, and the kids pulled us past them to Maze's room, right in the middle of the hallway. Again I got one of those 'full name' surprises. 'Mazikeen'. Heck of a name to drop on a little girl. I got why she went with Maze. Oddly enough, her room already had one piece of furniture, and it was not what I expected. The entire wall at the far end of the room was taken up by a tub twin to the one in our Lancaster House suite. The fittings on the tub, not to mention the walls and the exterior of the tub itself were all done in a deep sea blue.

The room across from her and the two rooms beyond were all blank. The next two were Lindsey and Alexandra's rooms. One look into Lindsey's showed me where most of the landscape painting had come from; her walls were covered in forested hills. She'd even kinda signed it down in one corner, proving that whatever else, she hadn't been the one to do the door writing. Across the hall Alex had, uh, much simpler landscapes. Basically just green arcs. With chunky little kid 'castles'. And monsters. And soldiers. And, I think, a Dragon. Something big with wings and claws, anyhow. And all over the place, a silvery humanoid blob which was very obviously Alex in her little plate armor onesie.

I knelt down next to her as the others pointed out their favorite bits. "So. Looks like somebody wants to be a Hero when they're older?"

"Yes! I'm gonna be the best Hero ever!"

"You know it takes a lot of hard work, right?" She nodded. "Some of it's really boring hard work." She frowned at that, but nodded. I steeled myself and quietly whispered, "and when you finish? You're gonna get hurt. One way or another. It's... it's a dangerous job." Her eyes getting a little watery, she nodded. I smiled at her, "and when you put that jacket on? When you get tapped for the job? Hell, more importantly, when you go out and do it? I will absolutely be the proudest Mama ever."

I don't think I'd ever seen Alex cry. Like, I didn't see it at that point, because she'd glomped onto me and was kinda using me to muffle the sound and sop up her snot, but fuck it. Worth.

Then we got to the last two bedrooms. The ones right inside another pair of vault doors. The kids who'd chosen to put themselves right up next to where danger might come in. On the left, a tiny silhouette, with 'Isnomi Aetos-Diaz' in that nice handwriting, with 'Menace' scrawled beneath it, obviously finger-painted. Isnomi dragged me in. Another of Lindsey's landscapes covered the walls, but this one had really well done animals painted here and there, obviously just superimposed on the landscape, but still cute. One by one she pointed them out to me. "Mama! Mama! Look! Keel!" A big eyed bird, soaring near the ceiling. "Hor!" A bear, standing on its hind legs. "Mau!" A cat. Of course a cat. "Must!" A little weasel or something. She pulled me over to a picture of a lake with three figures in it. "Mary!" A sandworm looking thing, but clearly in the water. "Loff!" One of those super ugly deep sea fish with the little lure on its forehead. "Meg!" A shark that took up like half the lake. Then she pulled me down and pointed at an itty bitty... cuttlefish? Definitely wasn't a Kraken, because 'itty bitty' and 'Kraken' were not in any way related. "Pee!"

"That's awesome, Menace!" Some part of me immediately thought 'imaginary friends', but then... I'd seen the Hell of Teeth. Something told me none of her friends were as imaginary as anybody might want them to be.

After we got done looking at Menace's room, we went over to Ria's, which stood open. The interior was all white. Just... plain white. No furniture. I didn't notice until I turned and saw the back of the door, where she'd painted a single lifelike, life sized corvid standing at the base of the door.

"I'm sorry. I just wanted..."

I knelt down and pulled her into my arms. "Oh, sweetie. Don't be sorry. This... you heard what I said do Daya?" She nodded. "That goes for you as well. This is your room."

"As long as I'm here?"

I pushed her out just far enough I could look her in the eyes. "No. This. Is. Your. Room. Period. As long as this is our house? This is your room. Yours. Not anybody else's."

Yeah, I had to carry a crying bundle of Ria for the rest of our tour of the undecorated, unfinished rooms of our house, but that didn't bother me at all. I might even have joined her in the weepies a little bit when I saw the outside of her door. Across the top, 'Ria Crow'. Directly beneath that, in letters of different sizes, colors, and finger widths?

'Ria Crow Aetos-Diaz'.