Dear Diary,

"Do not fear having Children,

Feed, Protect, and Educate,

Your best is all you can do."

Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Children

Yeah, I don't want people not having kids because they think I'll rain Divine retribution down on them if they screw up. I mean, legit good faith effort screw up, not fuck around and then claim you didn't know that locking your kids in their room and sliding pizza under the door for eighteen years was not actually a viable parenting method. Like, I get that there's the whole 'spare the rod and spoil the child' mentality, and as wrongheaded as that is, I get that there are folks who literally cannot think of a way to get their kids to avoid touching the oven other than smacking them whenever they reach for it. I personally would sit my kid down and talk to them until they understood, but based on the Academy suite I'm guessing that Saffron, Marie, Siobhan and I baby proofed the shit out of that room to keep little Miss Menace from auto-destructing.

I'm doing my best with our kids, especially with Ria, what with her being not just legit someone else's who we kinda stole just a little bit, but also so deeply in need of affection. Like, she already knows all kinds of basic stuff, and even some not so basic stuff. She already knows basic Mana Shaping, and if Isnomi can do that too, she's got the undeniable advantages of having Saffron's genes and being a fuckin' Goddess. Which makes me want to get a full set of Cards Against Humanity and alter the one card to say 'Being a Motherfucking Goddess', since I am apparently one of those, and that would just be too funny for words.

But yeah, I don't want people spawning for bad reasons, but I also don't want them avoiding kids because of me. Shit, I'm really hoping that somehow whatever crazy idea Future Me, Karen, and I'm assuming Saffron came up with that put child care centers into brothels is gonna work out for the best. I guess when I think about it I realize that brothels run a pretty high chance of 'accidental kid', so having a professional caretaker there to deal with those accidental kids is just good planning. Of course, now I'm a little worried about there being some kind of orphanage to brothel pipeline, which could be bad. On the other hand, if I can extricate enough heads from asses about sex work that it either loses or doesn't get the kind of stigma I remember from back at Eastside, I could also see that being just fine. Like, seriously, I've seen trucks rolling around with shit like 'Ramirez and Sons and Sons Plumbing', where they're obviously proud of having three generations of plumbers in the family. Decent odds they're pretty good at it, what with Ramirez the eldest handing down the trade secrets, and his sons refining them and doing the same with their kids. I don't see why the same couldn't hold true for prostitutes. Seriously, they're just a different type of service worker handling a different type of bodily fluid. You sure as shit don't want either one saying 'oops' right in the middle of them clearing your pipes, either.

So if yesterday was a pretty boring day, today got just plain stupid. Overnight the temperature dropped to the point where the water started freezing. Admiral Pesce had a couple of his sailors loosen up the ropes holding us to the dock so we had some slack. Something about the frozen water maybe lifting the Questing Tentacle, or shifting it around. I couldn't do much except carry them over there then help with raw muscle power, but they seemed appreciative that i was willing to pitch in, not to mention listening to them and not just applying the Gordian Knot solution of Mana Blading the rope apart. At one point they did have me punch it a couple times; apparently some bits had frozen together, and just giving it a good whack loosened it up enough for them to untie it.

When that was done and everybody but me and Karen went indoors and bundled up to avoid turning into sailorsicles, things got even super quiet. The only real sounds were the creaking of the ice, the distant wind from the localized blizzard holding the Fae Fleet in place, and then, not long before dawn, the sounds of somebody on shore singing. Took me a minute to knock the ice out of my ears to really hear the lyrics, and when I did I more or less realized who was singing. "We've got the best ale, we've got the best tail, if life has you wanting to wail, come visit our inn, we've got cures for sale."

After telling Karen I'd be right back, I hopped across to where I remembered the first row of non-dry dock buildings. Still couldn't see shit through the gently falling snow. We weren't getting much in the way of wind, and it wasn't piling up super fast, but in the middle of a cloudless night with snow coming down visibility dropped to 'fuck your ability to see'. So I just kinda hopped a few yards at a time toward where I heard that voice coming from, until I hopped a little too far and suddenly she was behind me. I turned around, trudged forward, and there she was, a super curvy, super naked chick standing there in the show.

"Uh, hey there."

"Oh, my!" She had the patter and the body language down as she did a little startled gesture where she raised one hand to her mouth, then swayed toward me. "You look like you could use some warming up!"

At that point I remembered that we had like two yards of cloth between the two of us, most of it covering one of my legs. "Yeah, I..." I stuttered a little when she did the 'assume the sale' prostitute glomp thing. Y'know, that salesman's gimmick of 'put the product in the consumer's hands', only with the product being, y'know, the fluffy in the BBW way woman who'd just made a decent attempt at forcing a wardrobe malfunction using nothing but her torso. "Wow. You're really friendly. Also surprisingly warm for it being colder than Ymir's buttcrack out here."

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She giggled. "Saucy, too! Don't you worry about me, Selkies have swum in colder water than this." She batted at some falling snow, then suggestively licked the flakes that stuck to her palm off. "But you don't seem any warmer than the snow itself, sugar."

I chuckled. "Yeah, I might have a bit of Jotnar in me."

"Ooh. Any chance I could get a little Jotnar in me?"

Look, I totally get that the woman rubbing herself against me was a professional trying to close a sale, but as I may have mentioned, I am not immune to propaganda. And while I still needed to get Marie to... fuck it. Marie?

Vlickies?

Make Saffron a pair of booty shorts with the word 'propaganda' embroidered across the ass, please?

Amazing how direct mental communication could send emotions with such fidelity, like the sudden eager enlightenment accompanying Marie's mental voice. Yes!

At any rate, my momentary diversion to the curvy brunette I wanted to be fondling distracting me from the curvy brunette currently trying to entice me into transactional fondling, I looked down into her eyes and said, "Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the offer, and hey, if the wives and I are looking for somebody with a bit more comfy padding than our current concubine, I'll keep you in mind, but right here and now is not the time."

Credit where it's due, she did not bat an eye at my mention of 'wives' and 'concubine'. Okay, I think I may have seen little dollar signs deep in her eyes as she thought about triple rates, because that shit costs extra. Instead she said, "oh, honey, I'm sure they wouldn't mind." She scooched a little closer, impressive with how close she was already scooched, and said, "I certainly wouldn't."

I might have rolled my eyes a little. I definitely sighed and said, "there's a fleet of ships less than a day out of Rich Man's Port, and they do not look to be friendly."

She snorted. "Ain't nobody does at first."

She looked like she had some snappy patter after that. Not sure what, but I'm sure it had something to do with her whole 'cash for orgasms' stock in trade. So I decided right then and there to cut this short, because I figured either I could get her to spread the word instead of her legs, or I could at least warn her and move on. "Bane-Sidhe."

I swear I've never had somebody disengage that fully that fast before. Left a little bit of my skin icing up where she'd been maybe sweating on me. I hoped that was sweat. "The fuck, sugar?"

"We're not absolutely certain, but our best guess is that there are Bane-Sidhe with that fleet. I don't think they're the type to be interested in your services."

"You don't say?" She shook her head, then stopped. "Wait, you're one of those Alliance folks, aren't you?"

I smirked at her. "Yeah, you could say that." She frowned, and I heaved another sigh. "Look, if we're wrong, you guys will just be hunkered down for the storm, and if they're all just merchants looking for a new market, you can open your doors and fleece them to your heart's content. But if we're right, you guys do not want to be out on the street if shit goes down. Hell, if you've got a basement, someplace sturdy and secure? Get into it." She kept frowning, but nodded. "Think you can spread the word? I think folks might spend less time trying to get into your pants than mine."

Her frown melted into a smirk, and she glanced down at her complete lack of pants, then glanced back to where I had, in fact, forgotten my own panties. "Yeah, I'll spread the word. If they are here for a fight, what are you lot gonna do?"

I nodded. "The Alliance stands firmly in support of House Crow and Rich Man's Port. If they start anything? We'll finish it."

She sighed, then shook off the show that had settled on her hair and shoulders. "Good to know. Thanks for the warning, sugar. I'll pass it on."

I waited until she went back inside the... inn? Brothel? Bar? Whatever it was, she went in and closed the door behind her, and I stepped back to the deck of the Questing Tentacle.

After sunrise proper, the snowfall let off a bit. Not gone entirely, but dying back to a steady light fall that gave us visibility to that first row of buildings from the deck of our ship. Unlike the previous day, none of them stood open. None of the drydocks, even the ones with ships in them, had anybody working in or around them. Oddly enough, it didn't quite feel like every person who'd found a hiding spot was... cowering, exactly. More... waiting. I realized right then and there that Rich Man's Port definitely had a lot of old Eastside Camden in it. Nobody back there would start a fight if some outsiders walked in sporting military gear and looking like an army. But holy shit, if any of them lagged behind, or they started shit without provocation, they'd find themselves buried in a ton of dudes who might have nothing more dangerous than a sharp stick, but there's a reason the saying is 'better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick'.

We sat there, the snow muffling the silent docks even further, waiting.

As the sun neared the western horizon, the storm to our east seemed to die down. Just as it did, the prow of a long, lean ship poked around the curve of the river through the curtain of falling snow. A few figures stood on the deck, not unlike the Questing Tentacle. Just enough to steer the ship over the first empty dock, where a single tall, thin crewman leapt from the ship to the dock, tied her down, then leapt back to the deck in a single smooth motion. Six more ships came around the bend. The next two, like the first one, moved in creepy silence. They got to the far end of the docks and weighted anchor without moving close to the docks themselves, Then went silent and still. The next four came around two by two, the lead ships towing the ones following them. None of those four looked good, and the two being towed had lost every mast on them. They pulled just far enough forward to be 'in Rich Man's Port', basically crossing the invisible line where the 'snowfall' had turned to 'storm', then dropped anchor and went still and silent themselves.

Kitten? They're here.

Have they done anything yet?

Nope. One docked, the other six anchored mid-river.

Well then. It looks like they're waiting for something. Given that Rich Man's Port has plenty of stores to last the winter, and we can Translocate food in for our people if we have to? We can outwait them.

I hate waiting.

I solemnly swear that I will reward you for your vigilance, my love.

Gotta say, my Kitten does know how to motivate me.

But I still hate waiting.