Dear Diary,

"My father? I never knew him. Never even seen a picture of him."

- Eminem

Yeah, I feel that. After yesterday flipped to the section on dads in one of those self-help books and yeah, that one just stood out. I mean, maybe it was just her missing her papa. But shit, if she's looking at me as a father figure, I got a bunch of studying up to do. Beyond the basic, 'how the fuck do I dad when I'm a woman' thing, which isn't nearly as hard as you'd think what with the dearth of dads back at Eastside, there's also the whole 'if I'm the dad, how does that affect how I interact with my kids' thing. Seriously, you take your kids in the shower as a mom, nobody bats an eye, you take your kids in the shower as a dad and people start giving you side eye.

Then again, maybe that's more a man versus woman thing. At least I hope it is. Maybe it's part of the toxic masculinity thing, too, where guys aren't supposed to be physically affectionate with their kids, no matter what gender. Because the assholes who promote that shit think that any male human trying to touch any female human is obviously trying to sex her up, and if a father hugs his sons it might encourage them to have emotions and shit. Fuck, given how many homophobic Senators used to get caught hooking up with dudes in truck stop bathrooms, I wouldn't be surprised if they think a dad hugging his son is trying to sex him, too.

I mean, I've got a son now, and by the looks of things he's definitely not the kind of hyper-masculine testosterone addict that those guys think is peak masculinity, so I gotta make sure that any purveyors of that shit in the here and now understand that if they try to spread that shit to him, I will Mineral Bond a fuckin' tutu on their cock and tattoo 'pretty pretty princess' in gold stars across their forehead. Just to be clear, I've got nothing against Vivian, but the kind of fuckers who believe in that toxic shit would sand their own faces and fucksticks off to escape, which I would find hilarious.

So after not sleeping for a long fucking time after Maze mumbled 'papa' into my side, which included Saffron snuggling in and mushing Maze against me even further, I managed to finally nod off.

Mimic danced with her Kraken while giving all of the side-eye to the rock in the middle of the Bay. Somehow she was getting chili now. Shrimp chili, I think, which was weird, but I'd heard of it before. Never had it, and now I was getting envious of metaphoric noms.

Woke up to Menace perched on my chest snoring. Guess she felt some kinda way about Maze monopolizing Mama, even if she tried to put a good face on it. I smiled down at her little snoozing form, vaguely amused that she'd shrunk herself down to her smallest non-baby size just to fit.

Morning prep time was pretty normal, with Menace leading the pack and Maze bringing up the rear with Marie, Saffron, and me. She'd taken to walking between Marie and I, one hand in each of ours, and as we went down the steps I did a thing I barely remembered my own parents doing when my dad was still around. As our hands swung forward, I lifted, and Marie did the same, and Maze swung in between us, laughing. It felt good to hear that, even if it did wind up getting choked off as we hit the bottom of the steps. I carried her the rest of the way to the breakfast table, setting her down to scoot to her seat when we got close and she wriggled a little.

Spent the day split between one of me atop the mast scanning for red flags, one of me in the Academy suite, and one of me in Advanced Mana Shaping playing battery for Karen Smith, who had managed to get a Mana Ward to form inside of a complex coiled Mana Blade by the end of the day. I think she cribbed some stuff from Kitten's Mana Ward research, but let's face it, the entire reason Saffron and I were in the class, other than to provide some kind of grounding and schedule for my terminally ADHD ass, was to act as resources for the other Cadets. So weird that over the course of a year I've gone from useless delinquent to valued member of the staff. Well, okay, technically I was still a Cadet, but that 'Hero In Waiting' thing seemed to outweigh that.

Nothing to do with annihilating the cream of Herodom from three different Cities, or being 'the most powerful military force in Atlantis'. Nope. Just clean living and temperance and moral behavior and shit.

See, you can tell I'm maturing; a year ago I wouldn't have been able to say that shit with a straight face.

The me in the Academy suite flipped through all the self-help books looking for shit about dadding. I mean, I'd been reading through the parenting stuff, I am not the flavor of idiot to ignore good advice when it's applicable and available, but I hadn't really slotted 'being a dad' into that previous category before. Which, given how much my Kitten and my Murder Mittens wanted my personal baby batter as their oven bun starter, was probably an oversight on my part in the first place.

Sus Alley Two, Sus Alley Harder, wound up being another third red flag yesterday. This time a small swarm of basic bitch Undead were providing a not-living shield for an armored guy and a pair of archers. Calverton really seemed to like archers. The Phileo Academy taught us all archery, yeah, and technically we were all supposed to carry some kind of missile weapon, but from everything I'd seen most of the Phileo Heroes just threw fire until we got right up in the enemy's face and did unto them in close quarters combat. Then again, Marshall duBois carried a short bow in the field, and as far as I knew he wasn't deficient when it came to Heroic Skills.

The Units on duty were a pair of Dragonslayer Volunteer units with Crossbows, so before I went in, I stepped up between the sergeants. "So which of you guys called me in?"

The bigger of the two, a auburn haired dude that looked like a former dockworker by his heavy build and working muscles, looked at the smaller one, a wiry blond guy who shrugged and said, "we talked it over. If we couldn't get backup, I think we could hold, but Sean's right, we'd be lucky not to lose troopers doing it."

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

I nodded, then said, "okay. Nobody fire until I tell you otherwise."

"Yes, Ma'am!" they chorused, and I walked forward to calls for the Volunteers to port their Crossbows and pull out shields and spears. Not a bad plan, just in case any of them made it past me. Also, it lowered the chance of me being shot in the ass yet again. I pushed my Blend up and ghosted forward, turning the Undead to ash with Smite as I passed them. When I felt the miasma rolling out from the archers, I Co-Located and dropped to my knees as arrows shot through where my heads had been. I whomped each of the archers with a Smite from where I knelt, then stepped forward, collapsing into myself and drawing my swordstaff. Still Blended, I brought one of the normal blades around as hard as I could, right into the big ugly's neck armor. His head sailed free, and I dumped a Smite into the open neck of his armor.

I dropped my Blend as I dragged the now mostly empty Cold Iron armor back to the two dozen or so Dragonslayers standing there. I tossed it on the ground, grabbed Sean by the collar of his breastplate, pulling him behind me as I shoved the blond to the wall of the alley. His back hit the wall, I spun and pulled Sean down into a fast, deep hard kiss while I ground my ass against the blond's codpiece. Before they could respond, I pushed Sean back, stepped away, said, "good boys," before collapsing back to join Marie on the mast.

God, I desperately needed to get laid.

I did not need to know that.

Yeah, I know. Sorry.

Specifically I had a growing need to have some guy six to eight inches deep inside. Okay, maybe more. Fuck, at this point I might take less and be grateful. I wasn't really in a state to be picky. This is right about where back at Eastside I would have been talking about how my current partner wasn't fucking me right or something like that, coming up with an excuse why it would be okay to go get my need to be penetrated fulfilled. Except here and now, I didn't need an excuse. Shit, maybe that was, like, an actual sign of growth and maturity. I didn't need to make an excuse to do something I wanted to to, because, and this had to be the part that left me staring sightless at classroom, book, and Bay, my loving, caring, dedicated, and physically passionate wife and wife to be were both utterly fine with me fucking whoever, whenever, wherever. I mean, they wanted to watch, which was at least a kink I half understood, but the whole 'okay with it'.

Did. Not. Compute.

Lost quite a bit of the afternoon to that.

Got home to find Maze had the tub already full with what felt like near boiling absolutely heavenly water. I smiled at her where she waited, nothing but her eyes, ears, and hair visible above the surface of the water. "Sleeping in the cuddle puddle isn't your thing, huh?"

She surfaced just long enough to say, "tomorrow," then disappeared under the water.

I climbed in, slipped down under the water, and let the heat of the water and the warmth of her snuggle carry me off to sleep.

In the morning, after we'd all gone through the bath and were ready to bring up the rear of the posse and horde hoard procession, Maze stood there frowning. "What's up, kiddo?"

She walked over to stand in front of Saffron, then waved Marie and I over. Bemused, we closed in until we stood around her on three sides. Maze turned her back on Saffron, then reached behind herself to pull Saffron's hands around beside her, fingers interlaced with her own. She nodded first to Marie, who took her and Saffron's right hands, then to me. I reached down and held their hands, at which point Maze carefully stepped backward and gently planted her heels atop Saffron's boots. "Let's go?"

Some stumbling definitely occurred, mostly from Maze getting used to Saffron's stride, which wasn't much longer than her own. Just enough to make her stumble a bit. Of course, as we walked along the balcony toward the stairs, Saffron jokingly grumped, "this is incredibly undignified."

I laughed and looked at Marie. "You ain't seen nothin' yet. Ready?" Marie nodded, and on the next step we lifted Maze and Saffron into the air, swinging them back and forth. Maze laughed, and Marie and I kept that up all the way down to the table despite Saffron's halfhearted protests. When we got to her seat in amongst the horde hoard, she slipped off Saffron's boots, then before letting go of our hands she turned and placed Marie and my hands together. Trying to hide my grin, I looked at her and said, "so... is this your way of saying we've got your permission?"

She tilted her head, still holding our hands together. Then she shook her head. But she grinned as she did and said, "not yet," before letting go and joining the other kids in demolishing the waffle stacks in the middle of their table.

Before we split up for the day, as much as we did on a day when we'd be spending the day together with the other ROTC kids in Intermediate Heroics, Saffron pulled me aside and said, "Marie?"

A moment later Marie reached around me and lifted Saffron eye to eye with me. She Grinned at me and pulled me into a warm, slow kiss. When she finished, she pressed her mouth next to my ear and said, "I adore how you've been working with Maze. So proud of how patient you've been."

"Hey, she's a good kid who's gotten a shit deal. Of course I'm gonna help her out," I murmured in reply. "Besides, Murder Mittens is definitely worth waiting for, however long I gotta wait."

She pulled away, her Grin wicked. "With that in mind..." she dropped away, spun me about, put her palms on my ass, and shoved me up and into Marie until my Maenad could pull me in for another of those slow, searing kisses.

When they dropped me and the three of us stepped all the Cadets from from Lancaster House to class, I pouted a little and whispered, "No fair. I didn't get to watch the two of you."

Saffron whispered back, "I thought I was the voyeur of the three of us?"

Marie just leaned over and muttered, "Me."

I giggled a little saying, "I'm just being a good wife and exploring my wives' hobbies."

They both laughed at that, catching a little attention from the rest of the ROTCs, who were shooting the shit while they waited for the rest of the Cadets to arrive. All of them except Bonnie just shook their heads in amusement. Heir-Consort Lancaster took it as a prompt to see how long she could keep Larry's eyes crossed.

Right about then Saffron sighed and said, "our lovely Champion is right, and it is my ongoing quest to make the Alliance as fair as it can be. The Grand Council meeting will just have to begin informally until we arrive."

Apparently Marie and Saffron had been collecting breakfast crepes at Drivers', and Saffron, true to her inner sweet tooth, had grabbed one to eat while they waited. I discovered that when both of them blasted my brain with full spectrum images of the two of them, both in Glowing Midnight, neither with any fucks to give about what anybody else thought, conducted asymmetric tongue warfare operations while I sat in the back of the class drooling. By the vague feel of them laughing into each other's mouths, I think they took a page from Bonnie's book and decided to see how long they could keep me distracted.

I am proud to say that it only took me about five minutes to get my brain in order to pay attention to class. Five minutes after they stopped. About five minutes before class broke for lunch.

Their lips ached all day, a fact which they kept me intimately aware of. First from the extended necking session, then from the stupid grins they wore the rest of the day.

Hell, mine did too, really.