Dear Diary,

I can't tell if not really caring enough about the Trolls I've been fighting is a huge terrible sign that I've become inured to the violence in the here and now, or if I've gotten past the need to talk about every minor victory I have in a given day.

Maybe it's because they're so minor that I can't even consider them victories. Like, where is the Glory in defeating someone who is orders of magnitude weaker, slower, and above all more fragile than I am? Oh, look, I've defeated an Undead Troll with a spell designed to straight up execute Undead. Yippee. Go me. Seriously, it's not a fight, it's an extermination, maybe an inoculation if it's one of the Trolls who aren't fully converted yet. This isn't a running battle, it's just... a job. I mean, if anything it's the kind of job I was made for, and I'm not talking post-Isekai monster in a pretty dress me, although even there it's pretty much right up my alley. But I get to run around, look at new places, kick the shit out of people in a completely justified way, and even help people. What's not to love?

I mean, yeah, I shouldn't love kicking the shit out of people. Maybe. Really, if you think about it, though, there have always been people who are into shit dickery and won't stop until somebody feeds them their teeth. Sometimes it's because they don't know any better, and when somebody smacks them hard enough to open their eyes, they learn. Like, y'know, Larry. Hell, Rider and Rosen pretty much stopped being more than Larry's defense against self-incrimination and destruction once I stomped them in the sparring ring. So I guess there's a need for shit-kickery as a kind of social W-D Forty? It's not exactly 'social lubricant' in the same way booze is, but it's definitely something to break somebody's unfortunate preconceptions loose and let them see reality as it is rather than as they want it to be. Of course, that leaves the question of folks whose misconceptions are more durable than their bodies. Do I feel guilty over those, or do I just consider them the cost of keeping my loved ones safe from inadvertent prejudice based misadventure? My gut tells me I should just say 'if they wanted a functioning spleen, they shouldn't have been so stubborn about being assholes'. Unfortunately, my gut is linked directly to Mimic, who would splatter someone over the landscape for being inconvenient, so I'm not sure I can trust it.

On the other hand, the whole 'inured to violence' thing is something where my gut tells me it ought to be concerning. Maybe Mimic really enjoys violence, and doesn't want to get jaded to it. Maybe she's dark as fuck and gets off not on the violence, but on the pain and terror when I take some poor bastard apart. At least that's not happening with the poor Trolls. I mean, not much. A few seconds of agony as the Smite burns away anything Undead, but no time for any real fear, not that the Trolls seem to be big on that anyhow. They seem really sanguine about whatever happens so long as they've got orders to follow. I like that word, sanguine. Really fits them, too. Calmly positive and bloody. Sad they're more greenish than reddish. But even still, I like 'sanguine' way better than 'cold blooded' for them.

I tagged along behind a couple of them for a bit last night and watched them fight. They're not hyper wacky violent like I am when I'm in full on berserk mode, but they're also not nearly as mechanical as I thought they'd be. It's like Marie in a way; when they're in formation, or standing guard or some shit like that, they're like she is when she's in Maid Mode. Rigid, stiff in more than just a physical way. But in a fight it's like they come alive. The constant tension they hold themselves under melts away, and they're fluid in a way I've only seen from her. There are differences, of course. When I've watched her fight, it's constant motion except in the infinitesimal moments as she's tensing to pounce. The Trolls, at least in the water, are more slow, almost motionless motion, if that make sense, until they lunge forward in a flurry of violence. But the parallels are definitely there.

Of course now I've got that thought in the back of my head, wondering if they'd be as terrifyingly erotic in control in the bedroom, or adorably delectable when they're the ones submitting. No. Bad Tabitha. Stop perpetuating HR nightmares. You're the Legate, you can't be getting a leg over your Legionnaires. Even if they were just as eager to be your concubine as Marie was when she and Saffron and I first sat down and talked things out. Even if they give you puppy dog eyes and say please and... fuck, nobody clue them into that shit, because I'm really not in any emotional way copacetic with expanding our little... harem? Polycule? Family? Fuck fest nine thousand? Whatever it is, the immigrant part of me feels guilty enough about wanting it to keep me from Just Happening on a nightly basis just for shits and giggles, despite the Mimic part wanting to taste test every flavor in the Ultimate Sampler Pack. Okay, I can't say I won't do anything of the sort, because let's face it, I'm me. Even I don't know what the fuck I will and won't do. I've got some things I really try not to do, and apologize for and try to make right if I do them, but other than those? Like, any given thing that doesn't register as 'blatantly immoral'? If it makes me giggle at the time, I'm probably doing that shit. I'm just really hoping that at no point does Saffron or Marie look at me and a Troll and start having 'how would that work' thoughts, because I'm already committed to a date that I really wasn't feeling entirely copacetic about, and I sure as hell don't need, like, a full dance card lined up and shit.

Also, doing anything with my Trolls would be, y'know, unprofessional as fuck while we're out here in the field. That'd be like, trying to bang Marie on top of her cart while she was delivering dinners or, I dunno, right in the Dining Hall and fuck now Mimic has latched onto that shit. Wait! No! I just figured it out! It's not anything about being inured to violence or getting bored with my job here! It's about being a professional! I dunno how I just figured that out, or how it took me so long to do so now that I have, but basically I'm treating this whole thing like a job, and I'm being professional about this shit. I'm not screwing around 'entertaining myself' with the fights. I'm not deviating wildly from the search pattern, or doing any of the other million dumb things I normally would. I'm, like, being a Professional Undead Smiter and shit.

Wait. No. I can't be a Professional, yet.

Kitten?

Yes?

Pay me!

Despite not being able to see her face, I suddenly knew that at least one Saffron had to be blinking in confusion. Excuse me?

I wanna be all Professional Undead Smiter, but Professionals get paid, and as far as I know, this is all pro bono community service shit, which means I'm a Volunteer or a Hobbyist, not a Professional. So, pay me!

Saffron released my wrists as Marie's fingers interlaced with mine. Just so I understand, you want to be paid for hunting the Undead in Calverton?

I mean, not just Calverton. Right now I'm hunting them in the Bay. But... yeah? Is that so bad?

Her weight shifted as she sighed. I suppose not. But you realize our budget is fairly stretched as it is?

Oh, I don't give a shit how much. I'm cheap. Heh, 'Tabitha Diaz, Undead Exterminator Extraordinaire, I'm close, I'm cheap, and there's never too many'.

You're close, you say? Something in the Love Shack clinked as Saffron's weight shifted.

I mean, yeah, I'm right here in the Bay. I found another Troll at that point and Smited it, hard. I held a Heal in reserve, but it dispersed into a murky cloud of dust, with no Troll remaining to heal. Damn.

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What's wrong?

I found one. Fully Undead, couldn't save them.

Would paying you help you save more of them?

Oh, hell no! I mean, I don't think so, unless there's some mystical mercenary woo that kicks in that I don't know about yet. But it might make me feel a little better about the ones I don't save. Maybe. So, um, please?

She leaned forward, one arm pressing against my side. I'm working on that as we speak. But for the moment, why would it make you feel better?

I hadn't thought about it before I spoke, so I took a second, then thought, If I'm a paid professional doing the best job I can, I don't feel guilty when I screw up. I'm doing my job, doing my part, and that's what I'm supposed to be doing. If I'm not being paid, I'm some kind of crusader, and nothing I do short of perfection will ever be good enough.

A cold circle of metal pressed against my belly just below my navel. So, I remember you mentioning you're close? Another cold circle right on my belly button. So, how close? A third in line with the other two. Marie? A fourth circle just a bit further up my midline, and Marie clutched my hands, reminding me there were, in fact, other things I'd hovered no further than close to for the past thirty six hours.

Oh. Uh...

Another circle right at the base of my sternum. Your pay is whatever doesn't fall off before it's time for you to come home and sleep tonight.

Oh, you sadistic bitch.

A final coin slipped in right at the base of my cleavage. Was that complaint about your pay, the delivery method, or perhaps your working conditions?

Complaint? Who's complaining? I was complimenting my awesome wife!

A Saffron appeared in my arms aboard the supply ship I'd taken to keeping one of myself on. "So sweet," she breathed in my ear. "Just this once, you get a countdown. Three. Two. One." Marie?

The countdown definitely made it harder to keep those damn coins from sliding off. Holding absolutely still like that is way harder than it looks. I think I remember the DIs doing that when one of the wannabe ROTC kids back at Eastside decided he was supposed to be in charge, even though he'd just started and there were kids who'd been in the class for two years at that point. Like, not lying them down naked, putting a line of coins down their belly, and then seeing how many they could keep on while going off. But he pulled out two Benjamins, had the kid hold his hands palm up to the sides, and told him he could have both if he kept them from falling off without moving until the end of class.

He made it to about the fifteen minute mark, then he had to go to the nurse.

"Hey Kitten?" I murmured into Saffron's hair, reveling in the mix of the salty blood smell of the sea mixed with her hair.

"Yes, Goof?" she replied quietly.

I put my arms around her, lifted her, and shifted us both over to a more comfortable spot. "Can you stay with me today? Like, just to sit here? I don't need you really doing anything. Just... be my woobie?"

"Woobie?"

"Uh, someone to cling to? To hold? To snuggle?"

I swear I felt the smile stretch across her face looking down at the top of her head. "Of course, love. I will be your woobie any time you need me."

"Even if it's more a want than a need?"

She huffed out a fake aggravated sigh. "Fine, then. I will be your woobie, now and forevermore, say the word and I will be there in your arms."

"Yay!" I whisper-shouted, not wanting to disturb the Trolls sleeping below decks, or the sailors doing all the sailory shit to keep us in our place in the fleet. I wrapped my arms tighter around her and then just lay there, reveling in the feel of her lying on top of me. At some point she'd twisted her hair into a single long braid, and now and again she'd reach up with the tip of it and brush it across my neck. Kind of weird that had more of an impact on my patrolling than ongoing shenanigans back in Phileo.

I pondered that for a while, and some time as the lowering sun painted the sky in a rainbow of colors, I asked, "is doing this gonna make me get bored with, y'know, sex? Because that would, in a word, suck."

"Goof?"

"Yes."

"You are my favorite goofball." It had been a while since she mashed the seven syllable sing-song endorphin button in my brain, and before I really recovered, she quietly intoned, "Three. Two. One." Marie? I think I lost a couple coins. Hard to tell, what with every inch of me being sweat soaked for most of the day, and my ears ringing with the results of Murder Mittens going ham. Long before I had any kind of coherence, Saffron asked, "so, was that boring?"

"No?" I blinked a bit. "Wait, if I say 'yes', will you do it again harder?"

She giggled at me. "Did you stop patrolling?"

I surprised myself when I honestly answered, "No? Wow. No. I mean, I'd even say 'I'm not sure how well I'm patrolling', but..." One of me stepped onto the deck about halfway down the ship, dropping a skinny, beat up, but live Troll onto the deck. Well, not so much 'dropping' as sliding them off my shoulder, then holding their forearm as they settled onto their ass, then slumped over onto the deck to lie there breathing and not doing much else, next to a row of other Trolls I'd collected through the day. "I guess I can keep up the patrolling even, y'know, while Marie's in full on maximum distraction mode?"

"It appears so, love."

Her ambivalence irked me for some reason. "Appears so? You're not sure?"

She hummed a little smug hum, then said, "sorry. My wife was distracting me."

"Huh?" It took me a second. "Oh!" Then I felt all kind of smug myself and just snuggled her into me while the other me dove overboard and went back to patrolling. "Wait, are you trying to teach me how to do Marie's multitasking thing?"

She wriggled into me, making the snuggle even snugglier. "That is one possible outcome, although frankly I suspect it's not possible."

"So... why are you trying to do it to me again?"

She relaxed into me and breathed out, "three, two, one," Marie? When I could think with my brain again, she giggled and said, "oh, did you mean why am I trying to train you to multitask in a Deific manner? Because it's impossible to heal Soul injuries. It's impossible to harm Deities. I thought perhaps you'd do the impossible yet again."

"So... am I?"

She sighed. "I'm honestly not sure, love. It's possible, but there are other possibilities."

"Such as?"

"Skills which fuck-face Franklin's Inspect can't detect." It still surprised me how vehemently she hated poor old Ben. Then again, given how badly betrayed by him she felt, I guess it shouldn't. Right around then, Furtim led the Trolls out from below decks. They each saluted us in passing, then leapt off the side to start patrolling. Before Furtim left, he stopped by the recovering Trolls, who all shoved themselves to their feet and crawled down the stairs to the cargo hold. Once we lay there, more or less alone on the deck, Saffron whispered, "you know, love. You don't need to fib about it being boring."

"Uh..."

"To get us to do it harder."

She had my sudden complete attention. "So, uh, what do I have to do?"

"Just say the word, Goof. You know we both love to indulge you, even if it will ruin my carefully planned out testing."

I snapped my mouth shut on what I'd been about to say. "Will it really ruin your work?"

A Grin clear in her voice, she said, "no, silly. But it's precious that you would stop just for that." She rolled over and lay face down atop me, looking up into my eyes. "So, what do you say?"

"Harder?" They did. "Harder?" Apparently Marie had previously been going for uniformity of results or some shit, because she'd had at least two gears left to shift into. "Harder." Make that three. Then the faint ringing of metal striking metal clued me in to something. "Fuck!"

Saffron tittered where she lay atop me. "Oh, love, I thought we were doing that already?" I stuck my tongue out at her. "What's wrong?"

"I dropped all my fuckin' coins. Now I'm just an amateur Undead Hunter."

She snickered and booped my nose. "You underestimate me, love. Back to the library with you. All of you." Ever the obedient Attack Dog, I collapsed into the me there, and Saffron shifted my head so I could see down my front. Then she reached down and carefully lifted the sweat-sticky, blood warm, slightly verdigris colored copper coin lodged between my breasts. "See, love? You are, in fact, a Professional Undead Hunter."

I looked at the coin, clacked my teeth together, and watched her eyebrow go up as she lowered it down until I snatched it from her fingers with my incisors. It rose further when I tossed my head impatiently. The moment her thigh touched my ear, I Co-Located us all up to our bedroom lying spooned up. I reached up, took the coin from my teeth, and placed it on the end table. "Marie? Could you bring Menace in, if it won't wake her?"

A moment later, a Marie settled Menace in as smallest spoon, then threw a single sheet over all of us and tucked us in.

Down in the Love Shack, I thought, now it's my turn for an experiment.

Really, love? And what would that b...

HARDER.

Many repetitions of that single word later, I'd learned two very important things. Well, important to me, anyhow. First, that whole 'passing out collapses that duplicate into the others' is in fact replicable. Replicated it two times, in fact, although the second one was me, not Marie. And far more surprising, Marie has way more gears than I have Endurance.

My chicks bad, badder than yours.