Dear Diary,

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Growing up where I did, you couldn't avoid seeing Dr. King as a kind of end all, be all Great Man, the ultimate moral authority. It wasn't until I hit high school and started really soaking up weird trivia that I realized that he was as human as anybody else in the fuckin' world. I'd like to say that I grew as a person and realized even heroes are human as the rest of us, but let's be real. I'm me. I blew a fuckin' gasket about that shit, and almost failed my History class because I wanted to write more about Malcolm X than Dr. King. No, X wasn't any more virtuous than Dr. King, but from my perspective he never presented himself as that. He was the shit kicker waiting in the wings if people refused to talk to the pacifist. Not unlike yours truly, only there aren't really any pacifists in the here and now.

Okay, Sister Siobhan maybe? Which would make my whole Date plan a really weird reverse-Yaoi alt-historical allegorical slash fic.

But then I got here, and I'm in that position. I've got people relying on me of all people to be the Moral Compass. I've stood up and basically told people to straighten up and fly right, which means that like it or not, I've got an obligation to demonstrate proper behavior. But at the end of the day, I'm still fuckin' human. Even as a Primordial masquerading as a Demigoddess, I've still got all those fuckin' human flaws, just amplified. Dumbass. Bloodlust. Horny on main. You name a flaw, I've got it. I try to stifle the real bad ones, like 'hypocrisy' or 'self-righteousness', but even there I feel like they leak out now and then.

Fuck, maybe that's part of why I like letting Murder Mittens and my Kitten go to town with their darkest Love Shack impulses. 'Cause deep down in my heart of hearts I think I deserve all of it and worse. I mean, I guess I'm learning to accept myself better, what with talking things out with my partners and my parents, but sometimes emotions don't respond well to talking. Well, mine don't.

That's kind of my biggest problem with Dr. King in the here and now. Non-violent protest only works when there's some empowered group who will force the assholes to stop their bullshit. Even then, the assholes will usually dream up new bullshit until someone comes along and explains a few of them into very small pieces that bullshit will be met with consequences they can't just shrug off. Then stands there repeating the lesson until the new guys joining in realize that the end result of their bullshit will be ending up in very small pieces.

Got home last night, got everybody into bed, and got yoinked into the Love Shack by a Grinning Kitten. "What's up?"

"I got you some new reading material."

I looked at the headboard only to see most of the bookshelf sized shelves at least partially full of paperbacks. "That's... wait, most of those are from the Black Dragon." I stared at the spines for a bit before realizing, "did you move all the romance novels here?"

Saffron grinned at me, but as she opened her mouth Marie stepped behind her and said, "Yes."

"Spoilsport. Also, Marie and Loki and I found you a new book." She pointed to a single tall book with a familiar black and yellow color scheme in the top right of the headboard shelves.

I scampered up onto the bed and kneeled myself over until I could read the spine. "Really, Kitten? Acupuncture for Dummies?"

"You don't like it?"

I heard the drawer slide open, but I'd already flipped the book open. A smile stretching my face as I caught that new book smell, I said, "I love it. I can't wait to..."

A familiar pressure poked both sides of my neck, and I dropped the book as my everything went limp. Marie caught it in her other claw, shelved it carefully, then dragged me back to where Saffron had slipped the bandolier of needles around her chest. Marie laid me down with my face kinda dangling over the edge, and I cranked out, "really? Playing with my toys before I even get to again?"

Saffron laughed, deep and throaty. "Oh, but when you stick something in me it's me using it first?"

"Shit," I grumped. "That makes a lot of sense. You read the book?"

"Of course, love. Specifically so you could, in fact, be the first one to have these inside you."

I rolled my eyes and laughed. "You make that sound way sexier than it ought to be."

That got another of those incredible brain melting laughs out of her. "No sexier than I intend it to be."

"Fine. When I'm done reading you're my little pincushion."

Her hands descended on my shoulders and started rubbing the tiny shreds of tension that never left out of them. "I look forward to it." She slid one hand down my spine, tapping each vertebrae like she was counting them. "Once we're both proficient, we can demonstrate on our instructor, our dear Marie."

"What."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

That got laughs out of both of us, but I still felt some kinda cranky way. Not, like, actually angry. Just childishly petulant. "I'm good with that. One condition."

"Of course, my Goddess, my love, my wife."

"Both of you, boots and stockings and garters."

She laughed again. "You know we'll be bending over to get to you, love?"

"Counting on it."

"Well then..." A moment later Glowing Midnight's boots covered her feet. Cloth rustled, and her dress slipped down to land around her ankles. I tried to raise my head, but ran into the back of her hand. "Lie still, love. I'm not as Skilled as our dear Marie."

"But... Wanna see." Yeah, I sounded kinda petulant even to myself.

"In good time, love. Marie tells me the points on the front require a bit more skill, but I promise you I'll get there eventually."

"Tonight?"

She ran her fingers along my spine again, and a moment later blissful numbness spread across my left shoulder and down my arm. "In good time, love. All In good time."

Mimic dreamt of lying in a puddle and just letting the chibi beans yeet shrimp in her mouth again. Marie poked little holes in one tentacle and milked out something dark and milky that dripped a single drop at at time into Mimic's gaping maw. Did not fucking care, even in dreams endorphins had me high as fuck.

In the morning I realized the most hesitant and prone to breakdown among the refugee women were the ones who spent the most time just leaning against me with the towel wrapped around them. Fuck it, if it makes them feel better, doesn't bother me. I mean, yeah, my kinda possessive protective reaction when a couple of them melted just a little, finally letting go of their hyperalert tension, that bothered me a little, but that's a me thing, not a them thing. I just gotta fortify and be the rock hard certainty they need right now, and not be the kind of douchebag who would take advantage of them. Okay, Devorah and her quiet, "after," followed by a giggling retreat to Marie every morning is getting a little hard not to respond to, but fuck it, this is why I... Yeah, I don't get paid, but I get free room and board and the concentrated attention of two hotties with Skills to drive anything resembling worry directly the fuck out of my head.

Split one of me off to my day with Marie, where instead of puncturing me she squished me and pet me while I stayed glomped onto her like the world's most muscular oversized vertical body pillow. Another of me played seat cushion for Saffron. No antics today, just letting her lean back into me, propping my head on her shoulder and listening to her breathe as she worked.

Ran with the kids as Maze while simultaneously letting Maze sit on my lap and read to the refugees and quieter kids. Gotta say, the rowdy kids definitely got a bit rowdier, what with none of them being the shrinking violet type. Daya and David were both in the bedroom listening, Alex and Linsdey both out playing... I think it was 'tag', but these little adrenaline junkies insisted on, like, a slap hard enough that everybody could clearly hear the impact, just to prove that the tag had, in fact, been made. They all agreed to it, and we had me there to heal if something went wrong, so again, screw it, some lessons you gotta let 'em learn on their own.

Finally, the three of us hit the new house work site again, and we brought Carruthers and Lachlan along to help out. The foundation holes started eroding a little, so Saffron had me bake up some big slabs of rock, and Lachlan and Marie went off to collect and, I think, harvest some heavy lumber to brace those slabs against the sides of our excavated holes. Meanwhile Carruthers got to work clearing out the holes themselves. I absolutely did not spend a good portion of the day staring at him shoveling and hauling barrows of dirt around. I just had to check to make sure the slabs would fit without being too small.

Really.

Weirdest thing today though has to be that we've now got a new bear skin rug, and Lachlan may have a few new neurons activated in his brain. Okay, we don't have a rug yet, but I'm pretty sure that's what it's going to wind up as. Early in the afternoon the three of us working on the foundation excavations heard a pair of roars echo into the valley. One was obviously Marie, the other a deeper chuffing noise. The other roar cut off with a crunch, followed by Marie's roar trailing off in confusion.

I tensed to leap to her, but with her sounding more confused than hurt, I thought, everything okay, Mittens?

Yes? She sent a quick full spectrum image of a fuckin' grizzly bear towering over even Marie, mouth full of fangs open and roaring at her as she, arms full of newly cut logs, roared back. Before she could do more than think about whether to drop the logs or throw them at our unfriendly neighbor, Lachlan leapt into her field of view, his fist connecting with the thing's jaw hard enough to snap it clean off. Boy might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he's Larry's brother and has some of that quickness in him, and he sure as shit has just as much muscle as you'd expect in a six foot plus Lancaster Hero. At that point the bear kinda blinked and shook its head, like it couldn't quite process that it now lacked some essential parts of the whole 'roaring' apparatus. It took a swing at him while Marie stood there feeling more than a little bit dumbfounded.

I kinda understood. I'd be a little weirded out if, y'know, Carruthers jumped in the way of somebody attacking me, too.

Whatever kind of bear it was, because I realized the gray bits weren't the gray hair I remembered from zoo trip grizzlies, but grayish bone spikes, the thing definitely had some toughness to it, because even sans jaw it managed to wade through a series of punishing hits from Lachlan, and even soaked up a decent Fire Bolt straight to the chest. As it went to wrap its arms around him in a very unfriendly bear hug, Marie let her logs slip and leapt. She landed on the thing's back and unceremoniously shoved her fingers into its ears. Then waggled them around when her claw tips met in the middle.

A few moments later Lachlan muttered, "ow. Little help?"

Marie rolled off the thing's back, got her hands under it, and rolled it off him; apparently its paws were pinned behind him, and he had, like, zero leverage with his own hands pressed back into his chest by the thing's bulk. Right about then I realized that he was, if anything, just as sweaty as Carruthers, and Murder Mittens was definitely in a Hero Rewarding kind of mood.

? The question that came through from her was just a wordless need for permission.

Go ahead, Mittens. He saved my favorite fuzzy wifey, he earned it.

Oh, yes, beloved Marie, the Hero is worthy of his Reward, Saffron chimed in.

Over the next few minutes I learned to appreciate my Maenad's restraint when it came to vocalizations, because we definitely heard some happy tigress roaring, and I'm sure I didn't recognize the hills they'd been hauling lumber from.

Didn't help my ability to keep a straight face when Carruthers spoke up. "You think we should go help?"

Saffron, who'd been checking the measurements of the excavation her own self, just shook her head and said, "no, I'm certain Marie has things well in hand."

Mistress of understatement, thy name is Saffron.