Dear Diary,

Over the last week or so I've really learned what the term 'victim of your own success' means, I think.

First Johnson. Okay, I'm not sure I'd call him a 'victim', exactly, because he absolutely wanted exactly what he got. Or at least he thought he did. I still haven't had a chance to talk with him or Domnu yet. I'm getting a lot less in the way of distracting impulses from the old Emergency Coring Tentacles, and the sky in M-Space isn't wall to wall freaky porn, so I'm guessing they're in the post climactic heavy breathing stage now. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're either in better shape than me, which at this point is like, yeah, right, not too fuckin' likely, or you're just not giving it all you've got. Frankly, unless you're a pro and you're earning your rent check on volume rather than quality? Not giving it your all is just kinda sad.

I mean, okay, yeah, there are gonna be times when you're just beat and in desperate need of All The Endorphins. If you're lucky at that point, you'll have somebody as skilled as my Wives... I mean Wife and Concubine to administer Marvin Gaye's favorite kind of healing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Aunties had old CDs, too.

Then D. Seriously, the man is the literal God of Partying, but apparently at some point at least once he'd been a twelve year old boy while still retaining the powers of a God, because only a twelve year old boy would deliberately turn someone he liked, possibly loved, into an actual nymphomaniac who only got worse the closer she got to him. I mean, shit, I get the impulse. Really I do. Having a hot humanoid tiger who gets ever more down to fuck the closer she gets to you, until she's literally in 'will kill or die to fuck you in whatever way you suggest' mode when in contact with you? That's some heady shit right there. I just get the 'we both really think the other is hot, and we love each other and want to make each other feel good, and we can literally run off to do unto one another without actually forsaking our mundane duties' version of that. Which has a lot more depth, but less twelve year old boy appeal.

Shit, I even get the whole 'makes more like herself' thing. Threesome? With Twins? Especially if you're willing to be the object of their combined affections, that's living the dream right there. Hell, if you're a particular flavor of fucked up and you look at them from just the right perspective, you could even consider some pairs as 'mother and daughter' which means he's even got the whole 'taboo mother daughter threesome' option if that's his kink of the moment, while also still having the twins thing going on.

They're basically all of a twelve year old Furry's kinks rolled into one, and I can respect that, but as duBois said; 'there are always consequences'. In this case, when you create a self-replicating horde of horny tiger women who are obsessed with you, you'd best have taken your lecithin supplements, if you know what I'm sayin. Okay, my list of favorite subjects left out 'porn', but I couldn't exactly look at porn in the school library. My phone didn't have a good enough data plan to stream shit, and the workstations were too old to do it. So I didn't. Much. Okay, 'every chance I got' for a value of 'every chance' that equaled about once a month.

Weird, you'd think the nightly chef binge would get dull after a while, but they just taste so fuckin' good.

But back to my man duBois and consequences.

Woke up this morning surrounded by Marie again. I'm entirely uncertain why I seem to be waking up early lately. I kinda suspect it's the nightly Worship bingeing. I'm vaguely worried that I'm gonna lose my taste for actual food. I mean, I'm not sure I need it. I don't know what my body does with stuff I shove into it. Okay, I'm talking about the stuff that goes in my mouth. The stuff that stays there. Never mind, I'm gonna go ask Marie.

I gently scooched around to peek up at Marie's watchful gaze. She saw me looking, of course, and smiled down. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the Maries bracketing us smile and snuggle in a little closer. "Hey sweetie?" She looked down and raised one eyebrow. "I wanna eat something."

One Co-Location and a bit of being manhandled later I smirked at her and said, "not what I meant and you absolutely know it." I mean, I didn't stop or anything, because nom, but still. "Can you make me something special to eat today?" A second Co-Location, this time with her in her Maid Uniform with the Optional Armored Attachments. I giggled and said, "you enjoy misinterpreting what I'm saying, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Hey!" I whispered, "I didn't even say anything about me, you, and eating that time."

She smugged at me. "Nope." On the one hand, there was not another of me with Marie using my mop of hair like handlebars. On the other hand, did you know feline tongues are made to scrape meat off of bones? I am now intimately familiar with this fact. Okay, I was before, but she reminded me.

"Is this going to wind up a daily occurrence, my magnificent Murder Mittens?" She grinned and nodded. No more Co-Location; our Library hideout was getting a little crowded. I scooched around and said, "help me sit up without waking everyone else?" She clamped her hands under my shoulders and pulled me, excruciatingly slowly, up to sit on her lap. Saffron, who'd been using her other thigh as a body pillow, wriggled around to glomp both our thighs together and wriggle her face in before she started snoring again. I looked back up to Marie to see the expression I felt on my own face mirrored in hers.

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"Marie?"

"Yes?"

"I get distracted a lot. I do dumb shit. I've tried to do it for better reasons, but I still do dumb shit. I can't help but think at some point it might wind up ending me. It's already put me down for days, even weeks, when I couldn't do shit except lie here in bed resting..." I lay my head against her chest. "Protect them?" I felt her nod, but said, "please, I know you will, but can I hear you say it?"

Always and forever, until Kronos fails, Dearest One.

I buried my face in her chest and cried. No idea why. I wasn't sad. I wasn't hurt. I wasn't afraid, not really. Relief, maybe? She held me while we sat there; I'd kind of intended on necking, but this just felt righter.

Not like we weren't getting our freak on four times over down in the Library. But while that was fun, and awesome, and incredibly de-stressing, and I wouldn't willingly give it up for the world, this was... nicer. If I'd had to collapse into one of me in that instant, I definitely knew which one I'd chose, and it wouldn't be any of the ones in the Library.

When Saffron stirred, I straightened up a little bit, pulling away from the damp spot on Marie's fur. "Good morning, you two." Wordlessly we each put a hand under one of her armpits and pulled her up to her knees, nearly eye to eye to us. She took her time kissing first me, then Marie good morning. Then, after draping her arms around our necks and hugging us both, she grabbed our ears and pointedly bonked our noses together until, laughing, we took the hint and kissed. "There. Much better to face the day fortified with the taste of loves filling our mouths, don't you think?"

Marie and I slid apart, snickering, and the Library Reveler Count jumped to sixteen. I know what I said about crowding, but she's little and fits in small spaces well. Fuck off.

Then Saffron stretched and frowned. "I am sorry, loves, but I think I'll be needing to return to work today."

"Aw... no more Worship?"

She flicked my nose. "You know very well you'll get that too, you glutton."

"I thought you were the glutton?"

"Like recognizes and calls to like. Basic Magic Theory." She put the back of one wrist to her forehead and declaimed, "I have ruined your education forever by sneaking you past essential classes!"

While we laughed at that, another country was heard from. "Aww siwwy." When we turned to look, she held her hands out to us. "Up! Up!"

We scooped her up and everybody got good morning Isnomi kisses, which bore an unpleasant resemblance to getting licked by a Saint Bernard this morning. We retaliated with hugs and tickles until Marie sighed and said, "Breakfast."

When we got down to the Dining Hall, two Maries stood there with an extra big tray they set in front of me the moment I sat down. Then the Marie who'd accompanied us down whipped the cover off to reveal a diorama of Johnson's Green done up in Spicy Eggs and Jalapeno Scrapple. It even had five little figures made out of bread. Okay, four roll sized dudes and one that was like five loaves put together for Olga. There was even a little sausage person with red peppers wrapped around her not entirely unlike Saffron had put The Dress on me. "Aww... So sweet!"

I turned to give Marie's lips some appreciation, which left the folks who'd been watching me gawping like they'd all just seen something incomprehensible crawl out of the Uncanny Valley screaming about wanting to eat souls and gonads. Marie and the gapers distracted me long enough for Saffron to reach out and snag mini-sausage me and pop it in her mouth. Okay, she wound up with her eyes crossing as she apparently had to ignore her gag reflex to swallow it whole. I opened my mouth to complain, but her broad grin shut my mouth.

"Fair."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, Murder Mittens. Turnabout's fair play." I tilted my head back until I could see her standing behind me. "So, how many failed attempts did you eat before you made that one?"

"None." I raised an eyebrow. Okay, I was upside down, so I lowered it? No idea which it counts as, but it didn't matter when she said, "Four."

"Close your eyes!" I knew better than to argue with playful Saffron, so I just turned toward her, my eyes closed. "Open your mouth!" I opened, only to have bread stuffed into my mouth, more of it pressing on both sides of my face. When I opened my eyes, Saffron had the bread-Olga stuffed into my mouth crotch first. She giggled. "I had to do something to fortify me for the endless torture of Council Meetings."

"Fair point. Marie?"

"Yes?"

"Can one of you stick with her today?"

Before Marie could reply, Saffron bonked me on the head with the remains of bread Olga. "I am fully capable of..."

"Shutting your adorable mouth and accepting that the Imperator needs a bodyguard who can focus on her so she can focus on fixing our shit."

Command me, My Goddess.

Really? Eh, fuck it. I command you, accept Marie as your bodyguard.

As my Goddess wishes.

Why?

I am, apparently, more prideful than I am smart. But prideful me isn't smart enough to outsmart smart me.

I laughed as, out loud, she said, "as you wish, my love. I do wish I could stay longer, but now the Alliance military needs to launch our Calverton campaign, not to mention integrating our new military assets."

"So I murder the fuck out of some poor bastards, get an involuntary lung piercing, give you an entire City's military and not one but two Jotnar femurs that should be shipping up here soon, and my reward is you going back to work?"

"Oh, you loved doing all that. Don't pretend you didn't."

"Well, yeah. Even if I do feel sort of guilty about how much I loved some of it. But that's all beside the point. I won, and this is my prize? I'mma go be grumpy now."

"No love," eight Saffrons in the Library whispered into my ears, "my newest Skill is your reward." Then she demonstrated, and all ten of my eyes might have perma-crossed.

Back in the Dining Hall I managed to force out, "okay. Fair point. Sorry I said anything."

"You absolutely are not."

I grinned at her. "Nope. Not really."

Once I demolished the diorama after acting out some of the fights with an extra sausage me that eventually went down Menace's maw, we went up to the Practice Yard, where I got the hopefully final bit of being unpleasantly fucked by my own success. "Good morning, Diaz."

"Good morning, Marshall. Who am I sparring today?"

"Nobody."

"Ah, hell. I guess I run laps then?"

"Nope. Worse."

"Worse?"

He nodded. "You get to help me teach."