Dear Diary,

"Children are meant to be loved,

As long as you're doing that,

All else is secondary."

Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Children

Yeah, I'll be wrapping this up soon. One more verse on Children, then three or four verses of wrap up. Then I guess I show the whole thing to Karen and Saffron, maybe the rest of my High Clergy. Because I've got another one now. Not the worst decision I made yesterday, I guess. Still, consequences. Always consequences. Weirdest consequence is that I never figured I'd be able to keep up this fuckin' meter for damn near ninety Verses, and yet here we are, only a couple Verses left. Not exactly the consequence you'd expect from temporary Fae Blessing based partial amnesia, but here we are.

As for this verse, I dunno, looking back I've talked about feeding them, educating them, protecting them, but that's all practical shit that I'm pretty sure people who love kids are gonna be trying to do anyhow. Maybe this is just me trying to point out that if you do all that shit without loving them, they're maybe gonna know that and still wind up fucked up, but if you love them but aren't able to do all that, kids are resilient and might still wind up knowing they're loved and loving you back.

Yeah, still kinda fucked up about Ria in more than one way. Yeah, she's my kid. Yeah, that bitch killed her in cold blood right in front of me. I absolutely do not regret killing my brother and eating him from the inside out to Revive her. He was an asshole of the first water, I gave him a chance to back down, and instead he decided to kill everybody and laugh at me about it. But even in the heat of the moment I kinda wondered what makes my kids so special, that I'll bend the rules for them when I wouldn't for somebody else. Because that's sure as shit what I did with The Morrigan, damning her to eternal tentacle-sleeve-hood, when I'm supposed to be about fuckin' Redemption and shit.

After Ria stopped crying, then had me carry her over to her mother for the world's awkwardest hug, I think all the emotional fatigue that had been building up for I don't know how fuckin' long caught up with me. Like, a lot of it was relief, but not all of it. some of it had to do with not knowing what would happen when the Blessing faded, but not all of it. I think a chunk of it was not being what my family needed when they needed me eating at me, but... yeah, a lot of it was that. That's my story. I trudged over to Saffron, Ria still welded to my hip for obvious 'little kid who just felt herself die' reasons. She'd picked up Menace, and I put my arm around both of them and led them over to Marie's remains.

"Okay, Menace. I said there would be consequences. I'm really not up to anything subtle, or thoughtful, or... shit. I'm pretty sure this is some shit tier momming right now, but you're gonna lay her out right."

Her eyes got big, a little watery. "Whud?"

"You heard me. You decided you were old enough and smart enough to overrule me about not coming along." I nodded to Marie's body parts, still mingled with Lindsey's dust. "This was one of the results. One of the ones I didn't want you to have to deal with. But now you do."

I nodded to Saffron, who held Isnomi out and said, "she's right, my girl. You chose to do this, now you deal with the consequences." She spun Isnomi around, set her on her feet, and gave her a little shove.

"Bud... bud thee be ohtay inna mowning!"

I nodded. "She will. But what if Karen had jumped over to help you? Or Mom? Or Siobhan?" She stood there, looking upset, a little stubborn. "Or what if she isn't? I think you're right. I think she will. But what if Balor got a look at her? Or if he'd given The Morrigan or Lindsey some kind of god killing whammy like Jormungandr, or Fenris, or Nemesis?" Her eyes got watery, and I wanted to give in, but I'd said there would be consequences, and while I knew this was shitty, I also knew that if they didn't happen right away, or weren't connected to what she'd done somehow, they wouldn't fuckin' connect in her still very much a kid brain. "I'm not gonna say no tears, because this is very much a crying thing. But it's also something you do anyway when you're crying, Menace."

She turned away, nodded, sniffled, and trudged toward Marie's nearest arm. Ria wriggled, and when I looked to her, solemnly said, "I helped her defy you." Before I could reply to that, she kinda floored me with, "I should help her with the consequences." I couldn't argue with that. I mean, I could, and I wanted to, but she was fuckin' right. I nodded, then gently set her on her feet. I dropped down into a tailor seat right there, more exhaustion catching up with me. Saffron knelt next to me, one arm going around me, her head resting on my shoulder. I wanted, needed to talk to her, to release some of the weight I'd been carrying around for so long, to share some of the burdens I'd picked up over the last... fuck, not even an hour, but I just couldn't.

Diana walked up behind us. "Matriarch?" she murmured.

"Yeah?"

"May I help them?"

"No. I take it she called you in?"

I couldn't see her. Didn't really want to. "Yes. Are you angry with me?"

I shrugged with the shoulder Saffron wasn't leaning on. "Did you know about this plan of hers?"

"I did not."

I nodded. "When'd you find out?"

"She summoned me after her sister fell."

I thought about that for a bit while Ria showed Isnomi how to rest Marie's arms over her chest. "She's not your Clergy, is she?"

The she-bear snorted. "Rather the reverse."

I sighed. "Did she ask?"

"She did not. She was very imperious. As is her due."

I sucked at my teeth. "As is her doesn't, if I have anything to say about it. Which I do. Sorry about that, I didn't realize she'd start grabbing Clergy with a fuckin' Goddess."

"Ah. Demigoddess, actually."

I looked over my shoulder at her. "You get a demotion or something?"

She shook her head. "I wasn't the first." She nodded toward Marie.

My shoulders slumped. "Shit. Well. Thanks for letting me know. I've got her now, if you want to head back to what you were doing."

"Would you be upset if I left an Avatar here to stand vigil over Marie?"

"Nah. Figure caring too much is way less of a problem than caring too little."

Not sure why she clucked her tongue at that, but a few moments later a bear sat down on the far side of Marie from us, and I felt Diana leave.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Tallulah came over shortly after. "Goddess."

I smiled up at her. Crooked, tired, but she deserved a smile. She hadn't done anything wrong in all this shit that I could tell. Okay, maybe a little too quick to sacrifice her own daughter, but unless I missed my guess growing up with The Morrigan as a... not role model, but constant presence, she might have figured it was Ria or Ria and then her whole family. "Tallulah. Call me Tabitha."

"I..."

"Look, You know who I am." Her head jerked, once. "Yeah, when I forget that, and worse when I forget that I don't want to be everything her dark fatassness encourages me to be, bad shit happens. So, except for formal occasions? Tabitha."

She stiffened up. Which was pretty fuckin' impressive, given that her default level of stiffness seemed to be 'Marie at her most formal'. "Which occasions?"

I couldn't keep a bleak laugh from leaking out. "Tell you what. Just make 'Tabitha' the default, and check with Saffron if you think the occasion's formal enough to warrant anything more."

"As you wish, G... Tabitha."

"Did you need something?"

She looked a little confused. "I came to see what you required of me."

I looked around the room. The battleground, really, what with all the shit that had gone down. Lotsa dust. A few suits of armor. Tallulah's bodyguards, incongruously still lying there, corpses in armor. "I mean, I was just gonna say keep doing your Overlord thing, call me if something comes up that you need help with, or anything you think I'd want to know about, but for the moment I think your hall's a bit messy for that."

She just stood there, looking awkward, until Saffron stirred and said, "Tabitha will let you know if we need anything in particular. For now, we'll be sitting vigil with our daughters until sunrise. You're welcome to join us if you like, now or when you've gotten things organized."

Tallulah nodded, then strode off. I think she ordered some folks around. At one point she seemed a little surprised when she leaned over to feed some Mana into one of her Bodyguards, only to have one of my tentacles touch her shoulder and offer her more. Not too surprised to take me up on the offer though. Shit, maybe that's why the universe let me be here, because they were tired of the Gods hoarding all the Mana to themselves when people obviously needed that shit.

After maybe an hour of quiet, serious work, the girls came back to us. It did bad things to me to see Marie laid out ready for her funeral, but this... this was like the crossbow bolt. She needed to get a clear picture of what happened when she tried to go where she wasn't ready to go yet. "Now whud?"

"Now we wait."

"Until?" asked Ria.

"Until morning. At which point you two can apologize to Marie for dragging her into this. Or, in the worst possible case, we go home and explain to your sisters why she's not there."

I wasn't sure which hurt more, Menace's haunted look when I said that, or Ria's tearful solemnity. But I let both of them sit in my lap while we waited. At one point Karen came in, saw what was happening, spoke with Tallulah, then left. Maybe an hour in, Tallulah came over. "Tabitha, can you assist with the Nightmares?"

"What's up with them?"

"The refuse to move."

I sighed, but before I could answer, Menace knelt on my lap and held a hand up to my cheek. She swallowed and said, "may I, Mama?"

I raised an eyebrow. "You can make them behave?"

"I telled them not to move."

I sighed. "Of course you did. Tell them to do what Ria's mother says." I lifted her up to Tallulah, who seemed oddly stiff when taking a child and carrying her, but carried her over to within street conversation distance of the Nightmares.

I couldn't hear what Menace said, but Tallulah's, "retire to the stables," was clear enough. She brought Isnomi back, handed her back, and said, "my thanks."

I shrugged. "Kids gotta learn to clean up what they broke."

Tallulah shot Ria of all people the hairy eyeball and said, "indeed," before walking off to do Overlord things.

Saffron fell asleep against my shoulder. Isnomi and Ria gradually nodded off leaning against one another in my lap. Well after midnight Tallulah joined us, kneeling on my far side from Saffron. "Sorry about your son."

She shrugged. "I've long known his allegiance did not lie with me. Would that I'd known it lay with my greatmother, I might have prepared for this meeting better."

"You do the best you can with what you know. If that screws things up, you fix them as best you can and move on. Still too bad you had to lose a son."

I think her eyes glistened a little, but she simply said, "that happened long since. But I suppose I never did grieve then. Perhaps I might now."

"You do what you need to do when you need to do it. Why now?"

She shot me a crooked smile. "Grief makes you weak. I've never been strong enough to be weak before."

For some stupid reason that made sense to me. Maybe to the part of me that thought turning a sentient being into decorative tentacle bling was acceptable behavior.

Eventually, just before sunrise, I woke my wife and daughters up. When she woke to see Marie still and cold, Isnomi turned back to look at me, her eyes haunted, "No?"

"Soon..." I sighed. I couldn't leave her hurting any more than I could have left Ria dead. I tugged the sun just a touch over the horizon. I'd never gotten to watch Marie come back before. It wasn't like Diana, or now that I thought about it, Ria. There was a definite glow, but I realized right then that despite his recent attempts to be a decent father and partner, D was his father's son, as it started right in the middle of her belly and spread outward. Her legs simultaneously disintegrated where they lay and reintegrated as that glow spread outward from her belly. Her arms regrew faster than her head, and she sat up with a roar as her hair grew back all in a rush.

Menace leapt out of my lap, rushing over to her, Ria in hot pursuit. "Mawa!" She skidded to a stop when Marie held out her arms to the two of them. Marie just raised an eyebrow, barely glancing at me before Menace stopped, bowed her head, and said, "I sowwy I did nod lissen to Mama. I sowwy I god you kiwwed."

Marie spun herself around into a tailor seat facing us, scooping the kids into her arms as she did. "Forgiven."

I did not expect the visceral shudders from Tallulah and Ria. But some part of me remained completely unsurprised when Saffron rolled to her feet, dusted her hands and ass off, and said, "well. That's done. I think it's well past time we headed home." She looked at Tallulah. "You're more than welcome to join us, if you like?"

Tallulah shook her head. "There's work to be done here."

Saffron just nodded. "You're welcome to visit any time you wish. Do you require Cailyn's aid here, or shall we have Karen return her to the Grand Council?""

Lady Crow considered that for a moment before saying, "If you can spare her for a few days?"

"Simply let one of us know." My Kitten smiled up at me. "Our Goddess is generous with facilitating such matters." Then she waved Marie and the girls over. "Let's head home."

So we did. First to a surprisingly empty Lancaster House suite, then to the Homestead, where the women had been hard at work for the past couple days. Seconds after we arrived, Siobhan glomped the five of us. "Oh, thank you. I simply do not know how the two of you do that."

Saffron pulled Siobhan in like a life sized plushie. "Likely most of it is Marshall duBois' Endurance Training. You could avail yourself, you realize. There's no rule against Faculty and Staff signing up for classes, and you are part of the Academy."

Siobhan shuddered a little. "No thank you. But... could I? Really?"

"Do you really think anyone would deny the Imperator's Concubine?"

"Oi! Tiny tyrant!" I gave Saffron a squeeze. "No breaking the rules just because she's hot."

Saffron elbowed me just a little. "Not breaking anything, Goof, nor taking advantage of my position. Simply taking blatant advantage of ambiguously written rules, as is right and proper for the Clergy of a Trickster Goddess."

I shook my head, and did not like the way it spun. "Hey, I'm kinda beat. You guys mind if I hit the sack?"

Saffron stepped us all to a room it took me a second to recognize, because at some point the women had hung the curtains around the bed in the middle of the room. "Only if you don't mind us joining you?"

I looked down at the girls and said, "to sleep?"

"Of course, love."

So we bundled in. I wasn't sure if the others really needed sleep, but I did, and I couldn't bring myself to turn any of them away when they wanted to join me. Was not at all displeased when the rest of our kids found us there at some point while I lay there drifting off and clambered onto the big bed to join us.

Woke to the sun rising this morning. Just lay there enjoying the closeness until everybody else started waking up. When Saffron finished her boot up and everyone had had a chance to examine everyone else's dentition via tongue, not to mention giving the kids all hugs, I asked, "ooh, do we get to try the big bath?"

Saffron chuckled. "Sorry, love. I'm afraid the plumbers just arrived yesterday. They assure me things will be ready for Yule, though."

I slumped a little. "Ah, well. Lancaster House waffles?"

She nodded. "Indeed, once we ferry everyone back for baths."

Today... .today was quiet. I needed quiet. I sat there, watching, from atop the West Tower, as it had been dubbed. Saffron had Imperator shit to do. The women knew what they were about, and the kids were going around alternately helping them, pestering them for things for their rooms, and just generally scooping up the refugee kids to play in the snow.

Brooding probably wasn't the best thing for me to do.

But it's what I did.