Dear Diary,

"It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one."

- Voltaire

Fuck.

I agree with that. I do. I remember my aunties playing me those old cartoons about, like, civics and shit. 'Innocent until proven guilty' is just something every fuckin kid ever born understands. It's not until people get some power and decide that maybe they don't want other people taking that power away that they start with the 'prove your innocence' shit.

I mean, as a parent I guess that's not entirely true. Flipping the script a little, I can totally see where the seven hundred forty second time I literally poked my older sister with a stick, my mom was fully justified in slapping my stupid ass upside the head. Not that I'm gonna be smacking my own kids, because from everything I read gentle parenting is way better for the kids. But still, I get that if you're a single mom working three jobs with a migraine and no time to even find batteries for your vibe, let alone go on a date or take a spa day, you might skip the whole inquiry and trial phase and move directly to levying consequences against the perpetrator of the last hundred identical offenses.

But, like, governments aren't harried single moms. They're not throwing mildly painful or annoying punishments at kids who jumped up and down on their button just to get a reaction. They're, like, the source of power and shit. If they don't have the money, it's because they decided not to take it from the people who do have it. They're vastly altering or even ending lives. Not only can they afford to be a little more cautious, they have an obligation to do so. If anything, gods need to be better than that, because for the most part gods aren't even facing the existential guillotine of popular revolution.

And I executed four Spartans because one of them cut somebody's arm off.

I had time to think about that yesterday. Mostly I tried to focus on not burning my shit off and listening to Wee Free Men, but my ADHD brain chose not to let me focus entirely on listening to the same thing for the third time in a row. Probably explicitly so I could sit there, staring at Calverton, feeling like the friend's abusive dad listening to the dead silence after I walked in the door reeking of malt liquor with a bottle of Henny dangling from my hand.

Got home, helped everybody to bed, declined the invitation Saffron implied with a glance eastward with a simple headshake, and settled into our vastly expanded cuddle puddle hoping the oxytocin would maybe ground me a little. Or at least let me feel a little less like the kind of horrifying piece of shit I'd been trying to fight against since I got here.

Mimic dreamt of... lurking rhythmically, her emotional support tentacle in her mouth. Kraken are still pissed, and something Kraken-like but not had joined them in policing Calverton's waters.

In the morning extended refugee bath time lasted longer than it had the day before. Mostly because of the women. A little bit because a few of the girls realized Saffron wasn't going to do anything but get them clean, so they stopped squirming and trying to hide themselves and let her go to town with sponge and washcloth and soap. Kinda funny watching her with some of the older ones, who were probably at least five years younger than her, but still bigger than she was. I'm not gonna say shit like she reminds me of The Lord of the Rings, but she would totally cut a path through the fuckin' Shire leaving eternally thirsty in memory of her Hobbits in her wake. Seeing her treating the tweenish girls just like the babies amused me for no good goddamned reason. Probably the juxtaposition of my normal response to her and her current wholesome Mom vibes.

Yeah, definitely had to work to remember to check up on everybody's shark week supplies today.

But it was the adult women who really slowed things down. Some of them had just let Saffron wash them yesterday, but hadn't really opened up to her questions. For whatever reason, today most of them did. Shit, even the ones who'd done so yesterday just quietly poured their hearts out to her. Between the splashing of the soapy water as Saffron scrubbed them and how they kept their voices down, I didn't hear more than a few disjointed details, but we had more breakdowns today than we had yesterday. She didn't rush any of them, just sat there gently cleaning them, holding them, letting them set down, fuck, I dunno, years or even decades of hypervigilance in the safe, quiet space of the tub.

It didn't really occur to me until about halfway through that the only people I'd seen wash someone else were Moms and Maids. Both groups, here and now, who wound up filling 'servant' roles a lot. By now they'd all seen her dressed up for work. I'm pretty sure they knew she was a High Priestess. Given that maybe one in ten of them were as well, they might even know the two of us were 'Highest' Priestesses. I kinda wondered if they realized she was the Imperator, but they definitely felt, deep in places they might not even let themselves admit, the impact of a Highest Priestess, an obviously powerful one, serving them like it weren't no thing.

One of them, a olive skinned thirty something with almost greenish highlights in her hair, gently gripped my hand through the towel as I dried her. "Champion?"

Taking my cue from her quiet question, I pulled her a little closer, pulled the towel up to rub her hair dry, and in the quiet space that created, answered, "what did you need?"

Nodding toward Saffron, she murmured, "she... is yours?"

Maybe blushing a little, I rubbed at her hair, then while I shifted the towel quietly replied, "more like I'm hers." Her eyes got a little wide, and I said, "yeah, I'm the Champion of the Alliance, but if you want to be a lot less formal? I'm..." I waited for her expression to show the tiniest spark of curiosity before I finished, "the Imperator's Attack Dog." The look on her face as she realized what that meant about Saffron didn't finish the Imperator's Attack Dog right then and there, but it certainly made my next few lines a little hoarser. I held her, kept her from shrinking away as I dried her off a little more, then pulled her a little closer. "She's got a thing for blondes, but I don't think she'd be offended that you asked." Something in her gaze warmed, heading toward heat, and I shook my head the tiniest fraction.

Stolen novel; please report.

She stuttered out, "I... I..."

I took a moment to dry off her face, then pulled the towel around her head and draped it, giving us a tiny quiet space again. "You're safe here. We will keep you safe. You don't need to give either of us anything for that. You don't need to ingratiate yourself to us. You don't need to use that to convince us. You're. Safe."

Tears rimmed her eyes, but didn't spill as she whispered, "but what if I... want?"

I smiled, putting on my best sincere Goof. "After."

She blinked, a few of those tears falling, glancing around at the kids as she said, "after?"

With the tiniest headshake, I explained, "after you have your own place. Your own people around you. When you feel safe without us in arms' reach day and night. When you're whole again, when no one could possibly doubt that when you say 'I want', you mean 'I want' instead of 'I should' or 'I must' or even fucking hint at 'she said'."

"My... my own place?"

"Sure. Lots of spots open here in Lancaster. Shit tons open in Calverton. Even a few in Phileo, the Yards, Newark, and New Amsterdam." I shot her the kind of grin you gave people in on the joke. "Prolly gonna be a bunch of Jarls who want workers in Norfolk soon, but most of those guys are kinda assholes."

She laughed, hiccupped, and leaned into me, the unshed tears from earlier flowing freely. I held her as long as she needed, watching as Saffron talked with the next woman in the bath. Eventually she pushed herself upright just enough to brace her forehead against mine. "After."

I smiled for her. "If you still want, yeah, sure."

She glanced down my front, definitely giving me 'reprobate after my own heart' vibes when it roamed back up, lingering every few inches, tracing my curves and scars. When our gazes met again, her tongue slipped out of her mouth to run across her lips. With the tiniest of nods brushing her nearly dry hair against my forehead, she quietly declared. "After."

I laughed, spun her about as easily as I ever did with the kids, and gave her a shove on the butt to propel her toward Marie, who'd just finished her stitch witchery with the previous woman.

After the last one, as Saffron scrubbed at me while Marie left to guide our collection of refugees down to breakfast, she playfully asked, "so was that your quietest Just Happening yet behind that towel?"

I laughed and stole a kiss before she pushed me back down to do more work on my hair. "Yeah, I think she started out looking for permission to sample my short stack."

It took her a second, at which point she dunked me, laughing the whole time. Not my usual preference, but she had a certain bloom of maturity about her.

Down girl! No sampling the refugees! When she paused a moment, I thought, Hilde.

When she let me up she pulled me to her, holding me close enough for comfort, far enough to talk, as we sank into the water. "But Devorah's a woman grown?"

I shook my head. "Yeah, but she's completely helpless right now. She'd jump on whatever cock or vag she thought would keep her safe." When she frowned, I interrupted before she could argue. "She might not even realize she's doing it. It's an ingrained response. Hell, it's a trauma response in humans. Trauma bonding. When you're hurt you wanna pack bond with anybody who you think will protect you. In humans, that means fuckin. Well, a lot of the time it does."

"But you haven't said anything so far?"

I shrugged. "So far it's been holding. Listening. Doing for them while they recover enough to do for themselves. Showing them that the Imperator of the fuckin' Alliance will wash their fuckin' feet without expecting a goddamned thing from them."

She frowned. "I expect loyalty."

I smiled at her, bunting her forehead with mine. "And to get it you gave first. Protection, care, support. You didn't open up with 'putting them in their place'." I stopped, surprised at myself. "Wait, maybe you did?" I smiled at her. "You mommed them. You totally fuckin' mommed them, showed them that our 'pack' is gonna take care of them now."

She smiled softly, arms sliding around me and pulling me just a little close, skin on skin dosing us with oxytocin and endorphins. "It... just seemed natural, the thing to do."

"Yeah, and that's why I love you."

She slipped up, kissed me, long and lingering, then slipped back away far enough to say, "and I you, love. So is treating them like my daughters, to introduce them to our 'pack', not a type of 'trauma bond'?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, but a lot less unhealthy, and we're not using them." At her questioning look, I explained, "back where I'm from, it was a really common thing. Find somebody in a shitty situation, pull them out, then use their gratitude to, shit, basically turn them into a full service domestic slave and shit." After a moment, a realization hit. "Fuck, I think that's why I don't like the whole 'Hero's Reward' thing."

"You. Don't like it. When I reward you?"

I laughed. "I don't mean you. I mean, like, getting my, your, our collective freak on with folks whose asses we pulled out of the fire."

She sighed softly, then smiled at me with a tease on her lips. "That could sound increasingly like some kind of plot for you to keep me all to yourself, you realize?"

I laughed, then blushed a little. "Uh..." When she raised an eyebrow and waited, I laughed and said, "I might have invited her to, ah, take you for a spin when she's settled and ready to do it because she wants to get her freak on with her face buried in those magnificent tits."

"Ooh. Magnificent. I like that word."

"I like those tits."

"I'm well aware. So, what was her response?"

I sat there with my mouth open for a second, then chuckled at myself and said, "I think if I hadn't just told her 'not until you're ready' she would have started licking my scars."

A moment later a pair of us flopped onto the new bed, her straddling my waist with her hands pinning my biceps. She ran her tongue across her lips and purred out, "Devorah has wonderful ideas. I hope she recovers from what those bastards intended soon." At the mention of the Spartans, I froze up, a moment later almost convulsively reaching up to hug her to me as I shook. It took me a while to recognize the shaking as silent, dry sobs. "What's wrong, love?"

I opened my mouth, but I couldn't speak. My fuckin Soul ached with self loathing at what I'd done. Even more at how I'd done it. Most of all at how much I'd enjoyed every second of it. Even now I had to hold Saffron still as she responded to my body's reaction to those memories.

"Are you well, love?" I shook my head. "Do you want to talk about it?" I nodded. "Okay then." She waited. As the two of us reached the breakfast table, she murmured, "in your own time, love."

She held me there as, outside our soft, private little world, she ran the Alliance and worked her next world changing Spell, while I listened to our daughter read to new friends and old and tried desperately not to think about how I'd become the Tyrant I'd tried so desperately not to become as even the fucking Undead cowered in fear of me.

Fuck.