Dear Diary,

"The biggest surprise, which is also the best, is that I didn't know I would love motherhood as much as I do."

- Deborah Norville

Holy shit yes. This, absolutely this. I never set out to be a Mom. Like, I pretty much stumbled into that shit, and I'm not even talking 'forgot to wrap it up' or 'didn't take my pill'. Straight up Just Happened to my adorable little Kitten, and she just happened to come as a BOGO offer with the Menace. I still kinda remember when she first started trying to nurse, with me getting all weirded out and going on about lactose free boobage. I say kinda remember not just because my memory is a leaky sieve, and I know sieves are by nature a collection of leaks, but my memory is an extra leaky one, but because the memories I do have, the ones slow burned into my brain that I can't forget, are the ones with her snuggled up nursing.

I'm a very physical person. I've come to realize that about myself. I think when Saffron Shapes Mana she thinks of it as using her mind to guide and control something external to her, but for me, it's totally pushing parts of me out into the world. That physicality is probably why even on a slow day, I'll think about fuckin' or fighting or maybe feasting way more than I think about, I dunno, stopping in Hargreaves' office to check on supplies, or watching the remaining stupid gulls diving in the Bay for food. But when it came to breastfeeding Isnomi, it's like any of the other connections I've made. It's the ones with some kind of physical component that just grab hold of my brain and sear themselves in.

So after the inevitable post-workout slip and slide Shack session, Saffron and I slipped into the Imperator's Suite bedroom just as the kiddos were bedding down for the night. While Saffron settled Isnomi and her posse, and Marie did the same for the horde hoard, I wandered into the bathroom. Maze stood there poking at the fire that heated the tub water. By the newness of the logs, I figured she'd only just gotten the fire going.

"Hey Maze. How'd your day go?"

She shrugged, then when I waited silently she said, "good, I guess."

I moved over so I could sit on the edge of the tub. Close enough she could come sit with me, or even lean against me without giving up tending her fire. "Did you do anything fun?"

She shrugged, and I waited. "The kids played tag, and hide and seek."

"You say that like you're not one of the kids."

She looked at me, almost surprised I'd caught that. "Isnomi always wins hide and seek. Tag... I don't do so well."

I tilted my head. "Aren't you Horse Girl? Don't horses run pretty fast?" She shot me a look that mixed horrified and offended. "Look, other than 'maybe Bag' and 'horse ears and tail', I've got no idea what your background is. Other than wanting to get to know you and what's important about it to you, I don't much care, either. So I'm just, like, guessing. I'm sorry I said something wrong."

She sighed and poked at the fire. "You... didn't. I'm a dud. Papa could run. Mama chased him down." I noticed a few tears dripping from her eyes, but didn't say anything; if she wanted to ignore them, I'd sure as shit play along. "I... can't run."

"Okay. Um, like, 'can't run' like you've got a limp, or 'can't run' like you can't keep up with little miss Runs With Wolves, or 'can't run' like you're not a jock?" She shot me a head tilt at that last word, and I said, "not an athlete?"

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

She nodded. "I like books."

I felt myself grinning before I realized it. "Really?" Then I thought about what kinds of books I'd seen here. "Do you like stories?" She blinked, but nodded. "I'd really like to show you something, but I can't bring them in here. Do you trust me?" I held out a hand toward her. Not reaching for her, just offering a hand for her to take.

She froze, staring at my hand. After a long, long moment she reached out and put her hand in mine. "Yes."

I dropped a Create Water on the fire, because the last thing we needed was to start a fire in the bathroom, then stepped us both to the Suite in the Academy. Then I turned her to where I'd put the little bookshelf full of paperbacks, right next to our armoire. While she watched, eyes wide, I hunted through the thing until I found the one I'd been looking for. I held it out to her, and she reached out, tentative until I nodded, and stroked her hand across the cover. "Did you want me to read it to you?"

She pouted up at me. "I can read."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, I get that, kinda figured if you liked books more than running around you could, but this book is in English."

She returned my rolled eyes with interest. "Silly to put the title in English if it's not." Then she slid her finger across the words of the title. "Wee Free Men?"

Right then something I should have realized, but didn't, even though it had been right in front of me the whole time, hit me right in the fucking face like a trout launched from a fish cannon. Maze didn't have an 'odd accent'. I mean, when she spoke to Marie and Saffron she sounded a little weird, but nothing I could put my finger on. But when we were alone, just me and her, she had been speaking fucking English, and I hadn't even realized until now. I laughed out loud, scooped her up, dropped into Saffron's chair with her in my lap, and put the book in her hands. "Okay then. Go ahead. I think you'll like it."

It took me a little bit to explain that the pages with the publisher's information and all that other stupid bullshit weren't really part of the story, but then she got to 'Some things start before other things', and off she went.

She didn't read fast. She was six fuckin' years old. She read out loud to herself most of the time, more sounding out the words than really 'reading aloud'. But for all that she plowed steadily through. A couple times we hit words she didn't know, or mispronounced, and I helped her out, quietly whispering the pronunciation or the meaning, whichever she needed. When she got to the Nac Mac Feegle dialogue she giggled, looked up at me, and said, "they sound like when Saffron or Isnomi try to speak English."

"Not me?"

She shook her head and went back to reading, smiling at the goofy adult who didn't even know what accent she did or didn't have.

It must have been at least an hour or three later when she crumpled forward, asleep sitting up. I caught her without waking her, and the book without damaging it. Definitely in that order, because even one of my carefully cared for stash of paperbacks wasn't as important or irreplaceable as a little kid. Especially one that seemed to like reading as much as Saffron and I. With her curled up against me, I fished a pair of Isnomi's panties out of the armoire to use as a bookmark, then slipped the book back onto the bookshelf and stepped us back to Lancaster House.

By dint of much wriggling, a little help from Marie, and maybe some size-shifting shenanigans, I squirmed into place between Saffron and Marie. I'd intended to go to sleep on the far side of Saffron from Marie, but my Kitten had sleepily insisted by tugging me between them, and I wasn't about to argue. The wriggling and squirming and shifting didn't go unnoticed by my passenger. When I settled down, one arm still around her, she muzzily pushed herself half-upright, then pushed at my arm until it stuck out beside me. Saffron took advantage of that to use my arm as a pillow, but not before Maze slipped down to my side and pillowed her head on my bicep her own self. Saffron reached out to snuggle her in, but our little horse-girl murmured crankily and burrowed herself into my side.

I almost didn't hear the tiny murmur she mumbled into my side, but when my brain finally made sense of it, I froze, shattered, and melted all at once.

"Papa."