Dear Diary,

"When you're sharing your Passion,

Don't disrespect Agency,

Share your Passion, don't force it."

Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Passion

Yeah, that's about thee best way I can describe it, given the limitations of the format. Still kinda wonder what's up with that. But yeah, I can't count the number of dudes back in my old world who I'd invite over for some good old fashioned Netflix and Chill, or Xbox and Bone, or PlayStation and Mutual Masturbation, only to have them start infodumping about some bullshit totally unrelated to whatever we were doing. Like, okay, if we're playing Smash before we Smash, and dudebro decides to spout off about his encyclopedic knowledge of the lore behind the character he's playing, that's at least on topic. Fuck, if he does the same for the one I'm playing, and he's right, that might even lubricate the love tunnel. Same for maybe going all gun fetishist while we're playing Call of Duty before completing the Call of Booty. But I lost track of how many times they'd start going off about their waifu in the middle of a game of Overwatch. Like, dude, you're not even talking about an Overwatch character, let alone Tracer, who is the objectively hottest person in the game.

Fuck, I was bi leaning towards girls even back then, wasn't I?

Eh, my point stands. If you mention your Passion and your partner's eyes light up? Dump away, but be ready to exchange volleys of info, because odds are they've got the same Passion. Or maybe you got lucky and it's something they've always wanted to know, but never had anyone willing to tell them. Win! But if you start in and their eyes glaze over? Yeah, if you're still lookin' to glaze over their intimate bits later, you might wanna take a step back and give them the Cliff Notes version. I mean, maybe you're reading them wrong. Maybe you'll say, "Ellen Ripley kicks so much ass and that's why she's my favorite Strong Female Character" and she'll blink and say, "really? Keep talking," while using her mouth for non-talking related activities. But don't just dump all over somebody without Consent. Trust me, once they gotta hit 'skip' on one piece of your dialogue, they're not listening to the rest, no matter how much you love the topic and want them to love it too.

So yesterday after arranging for a visit to the grandparents' place, then enjoying a minute of necking with Siobhan, I got interrupted by the adorable bane of my existence. Isnomi pushed in between us. "The Thithta ith wowking!"

Siobhan chuckled, risked her hand by ruffling Menace's hair, and said, "yes, I am at work, but keeping your Mama's spirits up is part of my job."

"Oh, so I'm your job now, am I?"

Siobhan laughed at that. "You always have been." While I reeled a little internally from that, she followed it up with, "and I do so love my work." Then she kissed me, then led the kids away to help her with a pair of incoming cadets who looked incredibly bloody, but surprisingly functional for all that. Head wounds. They bleed a lot, even when they're entirely superficial.

I had no idea what to make of that, so I stepped over to Saffron, who sat holding the hand of a Cadet while Marie pulled their leg straight. The moment the kid stopped kicking, she pressed her palm to the bloody spot on his leg, and Mana flowed into him from her. I couldn't see it, but somehow felt it anyway. I realized why when she smiled up at me. "Thank you, love."

I leaned down and kissed her. "Any time, Kitten. Just stopping by to rein the kids in a little." I bunted her head with mine while the Cadet she'd just healed pretended to be a piece of furniture. Badly. But fuck it, points for effort. "You good to visit Mom and Dad tomorrow? I promised the kids some time to show off."

She frowned, opened her mouth, but then shook her head. "I had plans for tomorrow, but nothing I can't reschedule."

"Anything I should know about? Or anything I can help with?"

She tilted her head, considering, then shook it gently while sighing. "You already help more than you realize, love."

Curiosity tugged at me. "You sure you can't tell me? I mean, I get where you've been kinda keeping me on the dark about some stuff. Opsec is a thing, not to mention other shit. But, c'mon. Who am I gonna tell?"

She sighed, then looked up at me. "If you simply must know?" I nodded. "I've been working on a present for you for Yule."

My jaw kinda dropped. "Really?" She nodded, smiling. "Okay. No more questions. Oh, shit. One more question, then no more questions about that."

I paused, and she said, "go on?"

"What do you want for Yule?"

She reached up and pulled me down for a kiss. Surprise me.

Yeah, great kiss, awesome kisser, didn't even think about the poor dude having to sit there and pretend to be part of the scenery until we finished. Then I ran like hell, because what the hell am I supposed to get Saffron that's gonna surprise her? Shit, in some ways I barely know her. Like, she and I have spent most of our time together either working, fucking, or playing with the kids. With Menace clearly being stupid young, maybe we had time to talk while she was still in football mode, but lately there just hadn't been any time for things like that.

I ran, but I didn't run home. I mean, beside the basic confusion about that right now, between our borrowed place in Lancaster House, our unfinished place at the Homestead, and our nearly abandoned place at the Academy. But I guess, in a way? I did run home.

I threw my arms around a surprised Sigyn. "Mom!"

A very scantily clad Sigyn, with a pair of thigh high boots that gave her an entirely un-grandmotherly silhouette. Badonkadonk to end all badonkadonks aside, Mom wrapped me in her arms and murmured. "Daughter. Tabitha. What's wrong?"

I muttered. "Does there have to be something wrong for me to want to visit my mom?"

She laughed, and holy fuck I did not need to hear that deep throaty chuckle coming out of my mom. "Well, no, but normally you'd contact your father first, that we might not be, ah, engaged in anything distracting."

"Oh, shit! No, I'll..."

"You absolutely will not go, Tabitha." She one handed a table around, then slid chairs up to it as Loki flopped back to his bead, sighing. "Now. What's wrong?"

It took me a second to force the words out. "It's... it's Saffron. Or, not her. It's me. I love her. Holy fuck do I love her so much it hurts sometimes just thinking about it without stepping to her and scooping her up and wrapping myself around her and swallowing her whole and holy fucksticks where did that shit come from?"

Sigyn waited for me to splutter myself still, chuckling the whole time. "It took you time, and effort, and help to come to any kind of terms with your darker nature. Mimic's nature. I suppose the bad news is that you might need to do so once more, or at least make up some lost ground. On the other hand, one of your strongest points of commonality?" She waited until I nodded, then said, "it is absolutely clear to anyone who knows you that both you and your other self adore your wife, Saffron Aetos-Diaz."

I balked a little at that. "If I'm so into her, why am I trying so hard to make things so perfect marrying Marie?"

She tilted her head. "You know, but do you want me to tell you?"

I scrunched up my nose. "Kinda?"

"Which of your children do you love most?"

I pulled back. "What kind of a question is... oh."

"Yes. Now you see?"

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I shook my head. "I... I don't really? Maybe? But I think I get the point, sorta. But it's gonna take some getting used to." I shook my head again, this time to clear it. "But I love Saffron, but I don't... I don't know her, and Yule is coming up and she's been working on a present for me, and I need to get her one. Shit, I need to get Marie and Siobhan one too, and the kids, and how I feel bad because I don't know them as well as I'd like either, and because I totally freaked out when I couldn't figure out a present for Saffron, but I'm not freaking out about Marie or Siobhan or the kids, does that make me a bad partner, or a bad mom, or..."

Mom silenced me by leaning over and pulling me into a hug. Woman's got some serious padding on her, when she hugged, it muffled the shit out of me. Funny, I'm pretty sure she's just a little bigger than Saffron, but Saffron's like a foot and a half shorter. What's 'nicely padded' on Mom is 'holy fuckballs I'm in lust' on my Kitten. "Tabitha?"

She let me go just far enough for me to say, "yeah, Mom?"

"We're here to help you, Daughter. Now, are you busy today?"

"No?"

"Good. Help me with your father's bindings. So you know, you've spoken to us at length about them before."

"Which ones?"

"Other than the newest one, Ria? All of them." She smiled at me as we worked the stalagmite free so Loki could sit up. "Most especially and extensively, your wife Saffron."

So I spent the rest of the day talking with them. Hell, I Co-Located home when the sun went down, and kept talking with them most of the night. About Saffron. About the kids. About Saffron. About Marie, and about Siobhan, and oh, so much about my tiny tyrant I adored with every fiber of my being Saffron. It's weird, so much of what they told me, reminded me of, felt... felt like that. Like they were reminding me of stuff I already knew. Stuff I could never really forget, even if I forgot it.

Meanwhile back at the bath room, I stared in horror at the kids. "Uh, guys, I hate to ask this, but do you see a problem with this picture?"

All of them stared at me, my ladies and the kids all equally confused. Also, equally covered liberally up to the elbows in blood. Okay, not covered, but it sure as fuck seemed like it. "Yes, we're all dirty. That's why we're about to take a bath."

"No, I... Okay. Let's get started." Bed room conference, now.

As Saffron washed and I toweled dry, looked at the others in the Bed room and said, "look, guys, have I ever mentioned germ theory before?"

Saffron nodded. "I'm sure you said something of the sort when we were dealing with the Plague. But no one here is ill?"

I rubbed at my forehead, trying to cudgel my brain to remember shit from High School. "Okay, look, disease is caused by microorganisms. Germs." They nodded. Okay, Siobhan and Saffron nodded. Marie had started cleaning herself. Cat style. "Right. So germs are fuckin' everywhere, but normally it doesn't matter."

"Why not?"

"Because most of them can't make you sick unless they get inside you. Some can infect you if you breathe them in, some if you eat food with them in it, but the really, really awful ones? Need to get under your skin. But even then, once your body gets a handle on them, it can fight them back. Like, yeah, they're there, but it doesn't matter, because your immune system kills them off faster than they can reproduce."

Siobhan giggled. "You make the 'immune system' sound like a tiny host of Heroes living inside of us."

I shrugged. "Not entirely wrong. But my point, and I have one... Shit... I had a point." I shook my head to clear it. "Okay, so since I got here you've been taking a lot more baths, right?"

"Yes?"

"Since then, other than the plague, have you gotten sick as much?"

"Well, no. But in part that's because we're both High Priestesses. Still, that's why I'm pushing to have cisterns and sewers and plumbing made universal in all the Alliance." Trust my Kitten to be two steps ahead of me.

"Okay, yeah, that's awesome. Definitely needs to happen. But here's the thing. Most of those germs, the ones that are inside us? Wind up chilling in the blood stream. And each of us have different ones." They both looked at me curiously. "So when you get blood on you fixing one person, then go treat someone else?"

Siobhan paled. "Any 'germs' in the first person get transferred to the second?" I nodded, and waved my hand in a 'go on' gesture. "Who has no defenses against them?"

"Exactly! Well, they might. If it's something really common. But the Academy has Cadets from all over the place now. Don't tell me you didn't notice an uptick in, like, head colds and shit when the new Cadets came in."

"Yes, but that happens with every new batch... of... oh."

Saffron took her hand, smiling ruefully. "We didn't know. And Tabitha, like with so many things, didn't know we didn't know something she took for granted that everyone knows." She turned to me. "So, what, we make sure Infirmary staff wash themselves after each patient? Cure all incoming Cadets as a preventative measure?"

I thought about that for a second, then shook my head. "I mean, yeah, on the washing thing. Or, like, if you could come up with lots of sets of gloves or something. But yeah. But the new Cadets? Honestly? if the whole place isn't so sick that it shuts down, its honestly probably for the best." They all looked at me oddly. "Okay, so if a kind of germ makes you sick, and you get better, you're immune to it from then on, right?"

Saffron nodded. "Unless it... mutates?"

I sat there with my mouth hanging open until I realized that, from what I'd been told, we'd actually stopped a fuckin' Plague together. "Yeah. Unless it mutates. But that doesn't happen real fast, and even then most of the time you won't get as sick when you catch the mutated virus. Like, if you're used to fighting, um... one kind of bear, and you find another kind of bear, you're not gonna be in perfect shape, but you're better than if you run into a mountain lion, right?"

"So, you're saying we deliberately let the Cadets get sick to let them build up immunity to as many things as we can?"

I shrugged. "It's shitty. I'd rather say eradicate communicable diseases entirely. Hell, maybe Curing them on the way in is the right thing to do. I don't fuckin' know. I'm not exactly a Doctor. Just a kid from a shitty town with sub par schools. But I know that the bit about germs and immunity is factual, as far as it goes."

Saffron sighed and waved me over. When I got there, she pulled us all into a hug. "We can only do what we can with what we know. I'll speak with the Doctors at the..."

"No." Three of us kinda blinked in unison at Siobhan's tone. "No, Mistress. You have enough to do. I can do this. I will speak with Doctors Glass and Zeccardi when I see them next, and we will take the knowledge to the Disease specialists at the Universities."

Saffron, smiling, asked, "and what if they won't hear you? Or accept what you say?"

I got some chills and butterflies in my nethers when Siobhan smiled and said, "then, perhaps, I will remind them whose Concubine I am."

Might have gotten a little distracted from my toweling duties. Worth.

Dreamt of making an absolute glutton of myself on all my lovely ladies' foodstuff selves. Kraken kept getting closer, moving at a pretty fuckin' good clip, or so it seemed from flashes, images of bodies carving through the water. No clue how far out they'd started, but those flashes showed nothing but open ocean.

Told Saffron about that in the morning as we got the kids ready for the visit to Loki and Sigyn's place. She nodded and quietly said, "our ships sent out to scout have seen nothing as of yet, but we'll let them know to watch for Kraken moving at speed."

I nodded, then stopped. "How are you communicating with them? Are you, like, on all of them? Or Marie? or Karen?"

She smiled at me and laughed just a little. "No, love. Despite there being a wide variety of Clergy now beholden to the Alliance, nothing of the sort. If nothing else, I can count the number I trust with sensitive information on the fingers of one hand. No, something you showed me at the Battle of the Bay, love." When I tilted my head in question, she thought, there is a Senior Cadet trained in Scrying aboard each scout ship, and each of them Scries on the Alliance's Scrying Chamber every day, at which point one of the Senior Cadets there Scries in return.

Holy shit. Instant communication.

She smiled up at me and nodded. Far from instant, given it takes at least a few minutes to set up the connection. But functionally unbound by distance or weather. Because of you.

Y'know, that kinda made me feel some kinda way. Like my contributions to the world here weren't just 'killed of a bunch of assholes' and 'helped build a house'. And all of a sudden, both of those things seemed like they might have been enough, even though they didn't have to be any more.

Funniest part of the day had to be the first spell of the day at Mom and Dad's though. First Siobhan, then Saffron, read the kids a very gentle riot act about only practicing with an adult to supervise, and not pushing themselves, because it could stunt their growth, and above all not playing around with trying to change the Shapes they were shown, because apparently that's like mixing random chemicals in a chem lab; best case you do nothing, most likely you make a mess and ruin shit, worst case your replacement needs a new lab.

Then, with everyone safely behind Mana Wards except Menace and I, ensconced in a Mana Ward of our own, She held her hands out in front of her. Enunciation had been stressed, so she'd swallowed the Hell of Teeth before she started. "You ready, Mama?"

"Ready when you are, Menace."

She nodded, held out both hands, and slowly wove them through a series of poses that faintly reminded me of something. Here, love. Saffron's viewpoint overlay my own, and I saw fine little glowing traces tying her fingers together.

Holy shit. A cat's cradle.

it does resemble that, doesn't it?

Then our little would be wizard stretched the traces and planted her thumbs in the spot in the middle. "Ready, Mama?"

"Just like we said, just a little." I didn't need Saffron's vision to see the spark flaring to life in front of her thumbs. A few seconds later, I cleared my throat. "I think that's enough, Menace." I straightened my leg and slapped my calf. "Here you go. Pretend I'm all injured and dying and you need to keep me from bleeding out, just like you saw Sister Siobhan do in the Infirmary."

She nodded, leaned forward, and pushed.

"FUCK!" I hadn't meant to yell, but my whole leg, especially my calf, had cramped up painfully, the mother of all muscle cramps. A moment later it passed, leaving me gasping and kinda embarrassed. Isnomi, on the other hand, had fallen over backward laughing. "Oh, you think it's funny that I hurt?"

She mostly sobered up at that. "No, Mama."

"Then why were you laughing?"

That set her off again, so much she barely managed to wheeze out. "Mama's grounded!"