Dear Diary,

Sometimes there are no simple answers.

I'm pretty conflicted about what to do with Norfolk. On the one hand, by their own laws? I own it now. It's mine. The Jarldoms are old school 'loans from the King' kind of things, and I now own everything Gregor did. Okay, I'm not exactly sure about how much real estate I owe to the Duelist's Guild or Olga or whoever. Probably a good idea to figure out what kind of social structure they've got that wasn't directly tied to Gregor, whether that means shit that will likely outlast Norfolk being a Kingdom, or shit that needs to get altered to allow for something a little less 'horrific rape-enabler's paradise' and more 'constitutional monarchy'. Or even one of those weird Scandinavian things I read about where they've, like, got a king, but are Socialists or some shit.

Look, I liked mythology and etymology, genre fiction and philosophy. World politics wasn't my thing. At all. Do I know what Socialism is? Not really. Do I know which countries are Socialists? Also no. Was I vaguely interested in looking into moving after my second decade living in a Capitalist Hellscape? Maybe.

But that's all missing the point, which is Norfolk needed a new government. Like, an actual one, not 'me big dick, you fellate or die'. That's not a government. Fuck, that's barely a dictatorship. Heh. Dick tater ship.

DAMMIT! I forgot, I own a battleship now! While I, as a probably immortal person, will not be taking part in direct governance of Norfolk, I would definitely be taking part in riding into Calverton Harbor straddling sixteen inches of over the horizon fuck you. Shit, I don't own a battleship, I own a whole little fleet of the fuckers! I have my own goddamned battleship harem! Saffron gone be jelly. I mean, I'll totally let her borrow one or more any time she wants, because I'm cool like that, but I'm gonna have my name welded on the side of the barrels.

Heh. I should totally tell Marie to do that to D Actual; he's big enough she could probably not only fit 'Property of Maenad Marie' along the side, but some epic troll crap like 'You must be this tall to ride this D'. Which would piss Saffron off, not because she had any intent to fit something possibly longer than her torso into her cooch, but I know my Kitten. Telling her 'you can't do this because you're short' is absolutely a guarantee she'll figure out a way to do it. Which means if I tell Marie to do that bullshit, I'm gonna have to have a Stabilize and a couple Heal Injuries on standby to fix the organ damage. Possibly a Revive, depending on how Marie words her troll tattoos.

Hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, right?

Anyway, last night mostly consisted of Endless Chibi Chef Marie auto-yeets. Mimic, being a bigger glutton than even I am, just kinda let the dissolving yeeted Maries build up in her maw, savoring them as they slopped Marie flavored Worship everywhere. When it got really over the top I think I smelled alcohol. Ouzo? Grappa? Not sure. One of those that the liquor store would have, like, two competing brands of at most, each of which claimed to be 'from the old country', although if you read the really fine print it read 'bottled in West Virginia' or some shit.

Woke up in the morning to Marie everywhere. Two bracketing the other three of us in the bed. One sitting with her legs spread so Saffron and I could pillow our heads on her thighs as we snuggled together. Another one curled up on our feet, with Menace curled up on top of her. Two more sprawled on the floor in the other room, limbs tangled. A constant low level vibration shook the bed, right at the absolute perfect level to keep me utterly content to lay there enjoying the warmth, the feel of her hand stroking my hair, the smell of her.

Okay, I like the way Marie smells, but with a minimum of six of her in two little rooms? The scent of Marie washed over me with every air movement. The smallest part of it, oddly enough, was that smell of the sea on her breath. A bigger chunk came from that weird smell I associated with fur; dogs, cats, ferrets, chinchillas; anything with full body fur had this sort of not-quite-musky smell, and Marie definitely had full body fur. Well, I mean, her fingertips weren't fuzzy. Other bits... well, on the subject of musk, even furry folks don't have fur there, and dear Marie was no exception. She certainly had some musk, though, and that scent had permeated the air as well. Finally weaving through all the others, never in the foreground, but never fully overwhelmed by any of them no matter how strong they got, a faint, fruity, boozy smell. Wine? Brandy? Liquor? No fuckin' clue, but it made me a little thirsty just smelling it. Okay, the whole aroma made me a lot thirsty as fuck, but with Saffron sleeping and Isnomi in the room, I couldn't really do anything about it.

As I said to D, 'have you met me?' I nipped at my Marie thigh pillow, twitched us both down to the Library, and spent from then until morning enjoying the heady mix of being cuddled by my Concubine while we watched my Wife sleep, while also using said Concubine exactly as intended, while she reciprocated with wild abandon. At some point it'd tickle me to find out that a couple centuries from now some archaeologist is gonna open that room up, take one breath, and either seal it up or get it on with his research assistant right the fuck there.

Eventually Menace stirred, and this morning I noticed that Saffron began her wake up routine just a moment after that, like some kind of super Mom wake up power. I felt Marie tense, realized I'd done the same thing, and glanced up to see the same goofy smile I'm pretty sure I had as we watched Saffron make all the cute little faces of her boot up routine. When she did a mlem, mischief overtook me and I pounced, catching the tip of her tongue gently between my teeth, kissing her, and licking the tip of her tongue. Her eyes shot open, and I got to watch indignance melt into indulgence, then ignite into something a lot less gooey when I flicked the tip of my tongue across hers.

The Library Love Nest Count was now two Maries, two of me, and one Saffron. Who immediately became the center of much attention, because of course she did.

In the bedroom, as after keeping the kiss up long enough she seemed a little out of breath we slipped away from one another, she looked around and said, "Marie, while I enjoy the indulgence of literally sleeping in a pile of Concubines, don't you think this is a bit much?"

Stolen novel; please report.

"No."

For some reason that struck me funny, and by the time Menace got all the way awake she'd already joined us in laughing our collective asses off.

"Thanks, Marie. I needed that."

"Welcome."

Saffron's head snapped around to stare at Marie at that. Somehow, without any words, she came to the same realization I had, and her gaze went from incipient panic to warm affection; she snuggled into Marie's thigh while I did the same. "So, one of you watching over us? At all times?"

"Yes."

"Three more cuddling with us?"

"Yes."

Two sprawled out in the other room just lazing around?"

"Yes."

"Six of you pinning D somewhere and ravaging him senseless?"

"No." She looked so cute pouting.

"His Avatar finally found you and took over?"

She pouted more. "Sneaky."

"More than one?"

"Shell."

That took me a bit, but my street rat was apparently stronger than Saffron's. "Wait, wait, wait, he popped out another Avatar and pulled a whole shell game with you to get himself away?" I broke down laughing at that. When she looked almost like she felt some kinda way I forced the important words out. "My Murder Mittens managed to fuck the fucking God of fucking Revels into fucking submission? Into full fucking retreat?"

If she looked adorable pouting, she looked even moreso when she got a cute little sheepish look about that. "yes?"

I laughed again, pulling myself up to put my arms around her and squeeze her to me. My hands in the library might have wandered in a Marierly direction as well. That room has got to be my favorite Saffron creation, and I'm including the entire Alliance, including that room, in my assessment. Yes, I am aware of 'recursive paradoxes'. They inspire bussin' bean binges, so fuck off with your 'but they're not grammatical' and 'but you're a Deity now, you'll break existence!' if existence can't survive me enjoying some facet of it more than it is possible to do in normal space time, it can just put on its big girl panties and deal with it.

Anyhow, I got an impish impulse and said, "so, I'm guessing your sisters are still playing with their very own D Avatars?"

She smirked. "Yes."

"That's good. Make sure you guys put together some kind of rota to, y'know, make sure you each get some proper alone time with one of him. Once you're all, y'know, satiated." She just gave me a look. "Okay, that's not gonna happen, but what about, 'no longer mindless fuckbeasts due to centuries of pent up lust?" She nodded. Yay, I'm all adulting and giving good advice to my Wife... uh, Concubine and shit!

"So, you're filling in for all of them here at the Academy?"

"Yes!" She looked so fuckin' proud of herself. I almost paused in my Nefarious Plan, but then I thought about exactly how much I wanted to do it, and went ahead with it anyhow.

"How many?"

Her head tilted just perfectly. Her brow furrowed a little, and her eyes slipped closed. I waited, tense, ready to pounce.

Mlem.

Before her tongue even stopped moving I had it in my teeth, my lips against hers, my arms around her neck, my forearms crossed behind her head. The moment my teeth touched her tongue, her eyes snapped open. Then slipped slowly closed as my tongue teased at hers like it had Saffron's. My eyes fluttered closed as her hands slid up my back, her arms pinning me to her like mine pinned her lips to mine. Then her tongue invaded my mouth. No other word for it; she absolutely conquered my mouth, filling my nose, my throat, even my fuckin' ears with the faintly alcoholic smell of the sea. I'm not sure if I just don't need to breathe because Goddess, or my stupid high Endurance means I can hold my breath for lengths of time better measured on a calendar, but Marie didn't let me pull away any more than I did her.

A moment later we had four fewer Maenads in the suite, and a small pack of thirsty tiger ladies in the Library. I'd been splitting my attention between two Maries and a Saffron, but a short squad of Maries scooped each of me up like they had D on the street. "Oof! No fair!"

The Maries in the Library being just a lot too busy to talk, the one in front of me nudged me with her nose, never breaking lip lock. I opened my eyes, and her nose scrunched up as she smiled with her eyes alone. Deal.

I froze, and she took absolute advantage to tease my tongue into her mouth and pin it like I'd done to hers earlier. I got to experience the stupidly high titillation factor of that personally, which broke me out of my momentary fugue long enough to think, Marie?

Yes.

Kitten? Is there something you forgot to tell me?

Right about then Saffron lay her head against the side of our breasts, putting her arms around us in an absolutely explicit show of affectionate approval. Oops. You've got another High Priestess?

For the barest instant I felt some kinda way about not being able to, y'know, speak out loud. Then my Murder Mittens lay her claws very pointedly across my shoulders, and I remembered that not only was I enjoying her absolutely over the top dominance of my general mouth region, but I also could not think of two people I'd rather share this kind of intimate communication with. Nice.

Oh, Goddess. Now both of you are monosyllabic.

My eyes met Marie's, and by mutual unspoken agreement the one poor overwhelmed Library Saffron got buried under two of me and a tiger-pile of Marie. Interesting discovery shortly thereafter; enough little deaths to make somebody pass out despawn that Co-Located duplicate. Also, apparently, that generated enough feedback to knock out the Saffron leaning against us. That really pissed off Isnomi, who'd been perching on her Mom's head trying to get Marie or I to meet her gaze, which she was absolutely too young for, precociousness or not.

We pulled Saffron in between us, resting her against us, letting Isnomi cuddle into her lap until she woke up. "That was absolutely unfair."

"You loved it, Kitten."

Saffron drew herself up to her most regal, arm around Menace to prevent her from spilling off onto the floor. "That true fact has nothing to do with how unfair it was."

"Wat waz?"

I choked down my snickers as Saffron said, "Mama and Marie were doing some very one sided adult things to me. Which I enjoyed, but were still very unfair." Damn, my Kitten could straight up no sell that kind of toddler generated embarrassment and go full edu-Mom mode at the drop of a hat. So proud of my Kitten.

Of course, Isnomi let out a big disappointed sigh. "What's wrong, Menace?"

"I fawt you waz doin' fun fings."

Look, Mortal or not, we're only human-adjacent beings. All three of us collapsed laughing, and between tickles and toddler games we kept laughing so long we wound up late to class.

Advanced Mana Shaping was pleasantly boring. I mean, for me and Saffron. Marie had Isnomi out hang-gliding. Cadet Karen Smith managed to ignite an actual Mana Blade. Not even as big as my initial six inch bread slicer, but it looked like the real thing. Then, after maintaining it for almost five seconds, she collapsed to the floor, Mana Depleted.

I swear my laughter had nothing to do with that and everything to do with some silly satisfying shenanigans Saffron suffered through in the Library.

I'm lying, but that's my story, and it is sticky.