Dear Diary,

I sometimes forget that Saffron isn't just 'smarter than me'. She makes me feel like a slow kid in an AP course on the regular, but she's not just 'smarter than me'. She's not just on another level. She's multiple levels above and accelerating.

I really hope she doesn't get bored of me.

So she turned and walked back into the dorm, leaving me staring at her. Hell of a view, though, so I sure as shit didn't not follow. I mean, damn, if I were the introspective sort, I'd be feeling six kinds of weird about my adopted son, who as far as I can tell is straight up Ace, putting my wife in a dress designed to drive anyone susceptible to the curvature of the female ass to lustful madness. Even worse, I'm pretty sure he targeted it at me specifically. Fortunately for me, as the sight of aforementioned ass dragged me along the corridor like it had a string attaching it to my nose, that vision of horny-inducing loveliness erased everything else from my brain.

"HOW did you do that shit?" Okay, not everything.

She spun around, backpedaling on her toes, bringing one finger up to her mouth before spinning back around.

Sufficient application of my Goddess' most central inherent power.

You... you mimicked a door? That doesn't make any sense. Coherence is tough staring at an ass that rivals Morticia's, but confusion? Dead easy.

She just chuckled, the sound rolling through the corridor and twisting the shadows into fanciful shapes. Not your Skills, Goof. Your Domain.

My what now? Wait, what the fuck even is a Domain again? I have a Domain? What the fuck is my Domain?

Saffron got to our room, opened the door, and beckoned. I forgot all questions in my rush to get in and close that fucking door.

I remembered my questions a while later while we were getting Saffron back into her uniform. "Domain?"

She looked over her shoulder at me. She can tie her own shirt fine, but it's straight up easier to have someone else do it. "I know you've heard this before, but it's the core of a Deity's power. 'Portfolio' is the Domain plus any additional things a Deity has added to the Domain. Like, Apollo's Domain is The Sun, but he's also a God of Healing, Disease, Music, and Archery."

"Okay, so my Domain?"

She lost her balance on the padding and took half a step back, shoving dat ass in my face as she answered, "Primordial Domains tend to be much broader, especially abstract ones. They tend not to have anything resembling a Portfolio, since they don't really need to expand so much as come up with an excuse for claiming something is part of it. Indech, for example; he pretty much claims everything that isn't, right at the moment, 'orderly'."

"Huh." Yeah, I'm the soul of eloquence. I had other things on my mind. Well, on my face. Fuck off. "Wait. How the fuck do they tell what belongs to who?"

"Interestingly, it's not unlike jurisdiction in Phileo City." She turned around and waved for me to button up her jacket, which hung open. Did not help my concentration one bit.

While buttoning, I asked, "didn't you complain about having me do this for you all the time?"

She nodded, prim and proper as ever, "and then your completely logical arguments thoroughly trounced me in our battle of wits, so..."

I had all but one of her buttons done up before my brain finally parsed that and figured out what the hell she was talking about. When I did I stopped, looked up to see her smiling warmly at me, and pulled her in for a hug, burying my face in her jacketed belly, reveling in the feel of her arms wrapping around my head, pulling me to her. We just stayed like that for a little bit. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna get back to marching in circles, but if we can't do this? What the unholy fuck are we even fighting for?

We let go and stood up, and I asked, "my Domain, though?"

She paused, heaved out a sigh, and asked, "do you trust me?"

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"Absolutely." No question, no hesitation.

"I'm not going to tell you, for many reasons. All the important ones boil down to the same thing; it would hurt you if you found out."

"Oh, god. My Domain is 'Evil Incarnate', isn't it?"

She punched me right in the tit. "NO!" Then she flicked me in the nose. "Don't start guessing, either. It'll eventually hurt you just as much if you guess your way into it."

I looked down into her eyes. "No more looking then. No guessing. I can't promise to forget if somebody tells me or I figure it out, though."

"I wouldn't ask you to hurt yourself just for me, love."

"Pfft. Like forgetting something hurts. NOT forgetting shit is painful sometimes, but forgetting? That's like breathing. I stop thinking about it, it just happens."

She giggled a little at that, but tried for seriousness when she said, "it does make me a little sad when you put yourself down, love."

I shook my head, "Nah. I'm just accepting who I am. Memorizing shit isn't my thing. Schedules? Nope. I just do the best with whatever shit my memory chooses to yeet into my consciousness at any given moment."

She just giggled a little and pulled me down into a kiss. Yeah, we'll get back down and work our asses off, but like I said, if winning loses this? What's the point of winning?

As we walked out the door headed for the training fields, I asked, "so, without getting too deep into things Tabitha was not meant to know, how the fuck did you even pull that off? I mean, cutting through the wall? I could pull that off with sufficient Mana Blade. Qui-Gon ain't got shit on me, boi!"

She chuckled and shook her head, squeezing my hand. "No, no Mana Blades involved, although I'm sure you could. Kind of like using your toes when your fingers and tongue are both functional, but you could. You really ought to know this one, though. You've been a High Priestess longer than I have."

"You say that like it means anything."

She snerked a little at that. "A High Priestess can grant any Boon her Deity can."

"Okay, yeah, I get that."

"Even to herself."

My brain kinda ate itself trying to digest the implications of that. "Fuck. I can't. What does. How does that. Concrete example, please?"

The Grin has, apparently, grown stronger when backed up by so many sisters. She looked up at me, shoved me back into the last dorm room door in the corridor, put one hand above my shoulder, then leaned into me. Before I could even crouch a little to let our lips meet, she reached around with her other hand and, with a crunch, opened the door, pushed me through, and slammed it behind us. She spun me around, mirroring our position against the door, but on the inside. "I can't fucking believe I'm saying this, but we really do have to get outside eventually. Also, whoever's room this is," I recognized the Altar just then, "Angel will get a little pissed at us for fucking in her room. I really don't think she's even in the right mental spot to say yes to an invite if she walks in on us."

Saffron growled out, "oh, I think we've got the thirty seconds I need to do this."

Just like that, I stared into slit hazel eyes, a pale almost-porcelain face surrounded by a riotous mane of black waves. Before I could really register that, she leaned in and kissed me. My eyes slid shut, my mouth filled with pumpkin spice and a tongue far too nimble to be normal. One big hand roamed down my side, fondling as it went. I don't think I'd ever been kissed by someone my own height before. Saffron? Clearly smaller. Marie? So much bigger. Me? Well, shit, you can't get much more 'your own size' than yourself, can you?

Thirty seconds of Essence of Weird Lady Boner later, Saffron dropped back away from me with a giggle, then led me out of the room. "A Deity can make a Boon of anything they can do. And a High Priestess can give any Boon their Deity can."

As we walked down the steps, my brain finally cooled down enough to say, "so you're saying I could do anything..."

She spun me around, jumping to a step above me, leaning up against my ear to breathe, "yes, exactly, Goof."

"Jeez. So anything I can do you can do better?"

She snorted. "You are so dim sometimes, Goof. I will never be braver than you. I will never have your talent for brutality, your irreverent sense of humor, your... humility."

With that she kissed me, then led me down the stairs and out the doors to the training field. I followed along behind her, my brain seizing up whenever I thought too much about those thirty seconds in Angel's room. Eventually we passed her unit, and she hopped up to give me a peck on the cheek, then I moved on to work with my guys. The rest of the afternoon went by in a blur.

I'm not even gonna talk about the night that followed. Maybe at some point when my brain starts functioning vaguely normally again.

Oh, Goof, it never did in the first place. Don't be sad, we love you just the way you are.

Morning brought mega-breakfast, because apparently Lancaster believes in the 'feed the troops' thing. Over the course of the day on Sunday we started actual weapons training for the troops. The spear training went pretty good for the folks from the Yards, because 'poke it with a stick' isn't exactly rocket science, and more than a few of them did spear fishing as kind of a side business slash hobby. By the end of the day Saffron and I were both wiped out. Me from training dude after dude in the basics of one handing a spear. Saffron from trying to get people to squeeze the trigger rather than jerking it, and fire in unison rather than as soon as they could.

Bath night. Marie went overboard with the post-bath rubdowns. I kinda wanted to play around with Saffron and Marie, but the menace nixxed that, letting us know exactly how much she missed us, what with us being gone all day and so exhausted we couldn't play at night. We spent maybe a couple hours playing toddler games, then all passed out in a heap in the middle of the room.

Brain's still a little tied in knots, though. Never knew I had a narcissistic streak.