Dear Diary,

"Bloodlust is a tiger's tail,

If you wouldn't do a Maenad,

Bloodlust might not be for you."

Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Bloodlust

Yeah, can't think of a more succinct way to close this one out. Not sure if it absolutely gets my point across, but given who and what they are, not to mention the dribs and drabs I've learned about them, I don't think the Maenads will be terribly pissed off if they start getting hit on by people in desperate need of Bloodlust to complete their Vengeance. Shit, they might even find another way, whether that's joining Marie's sisters or getting one of them to proxy in for them.

I'm not gonna cry big tears if there are more Maenads in the world. Okay, from my interactions with them while working construction, they seem to have a lot of 'former abuse victim' red flags. Given that I haven't shoved a spit up Dionysus' ass and roasted him like a pig, and that Maenads don't seem exactly incapable of making their displeasure known with anything less than a Deity, I'm assuming the abuse occurred before they became Maenads. Tells me a lot more about why I haven't eliminated the ultimate party bro that his 'chosen people' are abuse victims who he's altered so they can defend themselves. So they can feel safe. So to get back to not crying if there are more Maenads, I'm gonna be pissed someone got so hurt they had to join the Maenads, but be happy they found a safe space. Because 'within arm's length of a Maenad' seems to be a pretty fuckin' safe space for women and kids.

I really do want to see Marie as herself before I go. Like, if we figure out how to undo the Blessing enough that Future Me can come back and, y'know, be herself rather than being me, I'm straight up gonna ask if I can spend one last however long stoned on Fae grain, just so I can spend that whole fuckin' time lookin' at Marie. Then again, might want a day looking at Mom, too, since apparently if I go away, Future Me sees Sigyn as Sigyn, which... isn't the same. Yeah, I get that she is in fact my adopted mom, and loves me like her own, because she's awesome like that, but some part of me deep inside wants Marie Diaz to hold me, comfort me, tell me she's proud of me, of what I've become, of what I've done.

If nothing else, I hope Future Me gets to remember that part. Shit, if they can choose which part of the Blessing to turn off? Like 'forget shit', 'stay home', or 'see Mom'? I absolutely would not hesitate to erase 'forget shit'. Even knowing it would remove this version of me. I'm pretty sure Future Me is just better at protecting everyone, keeping them safe, doing all the parts of 'parent' that are my core competency. Like, Saffron pays the bills and makes the plans, Marie cooks the food and keeps everything clean, and I... give hugs and wreck shit. Fuck, now I've got myself depressed wondering if she gives better hugs than me. Y'know what? I fuckin' hope she does. I hope that when they manage to pry this well intentioned but problematic Blessing off me, the kids wind up with someone who is a better parent than I am in every particular.

Because it's not about me, is it? I'm a parent now. Yeah, it got kinda dumped on me when I showed up due to the Blessing, and yeah, I never expected I'd love it so much, but I do. I love it, and them, more than life itself. If making the world a better place for every one of them, not to mention my partners, means I have to go away? Then I have to go away.

Not my first choice, mind you, not one that fills me with joy, but one I can accept, one I've come to terms with.

So yeah, last night shit got unpleasant. Bonnie's belly decided to decant, and something went wrong. Watching through Saffron and Siobhan's eyes, hearing with their ears, I saw a splurt of something from Bonnie's bits, heard that awful wet crunching sound, and the next thing I knew I had an armful of mini-human covered in slippery post-amniotic goo. After confirming to Siobhan that I had not, in fact, removed the placenta or even all of the umbilical, I stepped over to Larry's side. "You wanna hold him?"

"Thank you, Commander, but..." he went silent except a hissed breath as Bonnie crunched up and squeezed his hand with the force of another contraction. He looked past me and said, "Stheno? If you could please?"

As I turned I heard a very familiar voice say, "Euryale." A Maenad in a Maid's uniform, but one far closer to the ones I'd seen Lancaster House maids wearing than Marie's outfit, stepped up and held out her arms.

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"Here you go. Careful, he's squirmy and greasy."

She rolled her eyes and said, "newborn," in that familiar yet different voice. With one big, manicured hand she scooped the little one out of my arms, with the other she undid a button and attached the kid to a tit. The vague grumbly noises Bonnie had been completely obscuring with her ongoing labor groans went away as the little guy latched on and started sucking.

I thought for a second, not wanting to leave, but having nothing really useful to do. Eventually a neuron fired in my head. "Your name is Euryale?" The nursemaid Maenad nodded. "That's one of Medusa's sister's names."

"Yes."

She definitely wasn't anywhere near as talkative as my favorite Maenad, but I was trying to be friendly. Mostly wanted to stay near the kid until I saw him safe in Bonnie's arms, I guess. "So, were you named after her?"

"No."

"Oh. Common name where you're from?"

"No."

I faltered as her monosyllabic replies left me with, like, nothing to start up a conversation. I stood there thinking until another neuron fired off. "Wait. The other Maenad working for the Lancasters is Stheno?" She nodded. "That's a funny..." Her stare cut my comment off mid-sentence. "That's not a coincidence, is it?"

"No."

I flopped my ass down into a tailor's seat on the floor. "Wow." Euryale focused on the baby. I couldn't really fault her for that. After another little while, maybe half an hour, maybe more, maybe less, Bonnie let out one final screaming grunt, and another one of those awful wet noises filled the room, along with a kind of weird farting noise. No crunches this time, thankfully, but when I looked around to see what happened, I saw Lachlan taking a header for the floor. Another Maenad grabbed him before his face met the stone, for which anybody who liked a handsome face undoubtedly thanked her. It wasn't until she scooped him up and carted him off, out cold, than I noticed the absolute spray of gore leading out from Bonnie's hoo hah out into the room, right toward where Lachlan had been standing.

"What the fuck?"

Siobhan turned around, her hands a little messy, a few bits of red on her robes, but smiling calmly. "It seems you left some air inside when you extracted Bonnie's little one."

Saffron nodded. "Between that and her patently insufficient dilation, the afterbirth evacuated... energetically."

"Just tell me it's over," Bonnie moaned. A moment later she waved her hands, and Euryale brought the boy over to her. She took him in her arms, lowered him down and ended his squawking about tit removal with the only acceptable solution. She looked up at me when I stood and said, "thank you, Commander."

I shrugged. "I didn't do anything, really."

She just laughed at me. "Sure, Tabitha. I'm not quite that much of an idiot." Then she waved me over. Waved everybody else over, really. "As we planned, Larry?"

"So soon?"

Bonnie just nodded, and Larry nodded in turn. "Everyone, I'm pleased to introduce Lucas Lancaster. Lucas, this is your father, Laurence. Our Patron, the Commander, Tabitha Diaz. Her wife, the Imperator, Saffron Aetos-Diaz. Your nursemaid, Euryale. Sister Siobhan Darling, Healer of the Academy." She looked around, then let out a sound that was half laugh, half sigh. "I suppose meeting your uncle and your other nursemaid will have to wait for later."

I nodded and slipped my hand into Saffron's. "You be okay if we head back down?"

Bonnie nodded, and Siobhan said, "I'll stay with them to be sure her contractions settle down properly, make sure everything is settled."

Saffron stepped us back to the suite, and after a quick second bath, we stumbled to bed and fell asleep in the middle of a pile of exhausted sleeping kids.

What with everybody being up damn near all night, nobody got up early the next day. Larry more or less declared the day a feast day, a day of celebration, so everybody pretty much slacked, and we all ate the kind of stuff that took minimal prep. Or at least stuff I thought of as 'minimal'. Gotta say, it all still came out great. Oatmeal. Scrambled eggs. Water. Uninspiring, but kinda comforting. Warm and filling.

Nobody really had much energy to do much, either, so by bath time we'd done fuck all.

Dreamt of just... chilling. Subdued. Vibing with the universe and shit,.

In the morning, we got up at the normal time, but due to a near mutiny by the horde hoard, we didn't go to the Homestead today. Instead, everybody trooped up to the Heir's suite and, with a smallest-possible-size Isnomi kneeling on the bed nearby, me standing not too much further than that, and Marie managing traffic, one by one everybody in the fuckin' house trooped through to get introduced to the two day old kid. I mean, I kinda get it. This was the closest thing to a prince any of them were likely to see, and this was kinda the public acknowledgement of him being born, and being Larry's, and all that good shit.

Still kinda boring as fuck, though.

But... and I know how weird this is for me to say, especially after saying that last? I kinda liked it.