Dear Diary,

"The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse."

- Edmund Burke

I read this one a little while back, but my conversation with Saffron yesterday brought it to mind. One particular part of the conversation, at least. From what she told me, I can literally reach out and take over Saffron or Marie like puppets. That's... so wrong. I mean, the intrusive thoughts are already thinking things like 'if she's about to be beheaded by a rock you can see coming and she can't, it would be right to make her duck'. Hell, part of me can't believe it, and wants to walk them both to the Love Shack for proof, and is suggesting maybe walking them somewhere innocuous as a compromise, completely ignoring the fact that walking them around like puppets is the wrong thing I'm afraid of doing in the first place. Like 'non-sexual mind violation isn't as bad as rape' or some dumb shit like that, ignoring the fact that yeah, basic sexual assault might not be as traumatizing as using some dude as a Playtex Rubber Tentacle Condom and I totally was gonna do that if I could find that fuckin' Undead fucker's Soul.

I'm an awful fucking excuse for a human being.

Like, I keep trying not to be, and over and over the whole fuckin' world seems out to convince me that the only way to stop the evil fuckers using the world like their own personal play pen and buffet, one where the cruelty and abuse isn't even coincidental, it's the fucking point, is to be worse than them. Fuckin' Shit Pyramid again, and Her Dark Fatassness' natural place is at the top of that goddamned thing. Because let's be clear, that is a concept worthy of damning to whatever pits of dissolution exist.

I don't know if it's better or worse that if I ask them, they'd both probably consent to me running them around like little playthings. Shit, add 'eagerly' and maybe even 'blissfully' and 'thirstily' if I specified I was gonna use them as some kind of self-motivated Real Dolls or shit like that. Which is, at best, morally sketchy as fuck, and which is also, based on my reaction as I'm thinking about it, definitely on my ever growing list of neuron activators. I'm blaming the hypermelanistic orange tabby for this one. Which I shouldn't. I should own my impulses, try and at least control them a little, but fuck, I'm not in any kind of shape to do that right now, I don't think.

So yesterday was another day of being lazy in beds. I mostly paid attention to Maze reading to me, talking with her when she seemed particularly worked up about something. I'd really forgotten that the later Tiffany Aching books had her getting kinda older. Not, like, Granny Weatherwax old, but Young Adult old, and despite her maturity, Maze was definitely still a kid. So some of the stuff went over her head, or hit her harder than it hit me. So we talked about stuff. Mostly about dealing with being scared, or when and how and who to talk with when she needed help. Honestly, most of what I said wound up being old platitudes about stranger danger and shit, which made me feel a little bad, but whenever I tried to really think up something better, I tensed up and hurt and had to shut up.

Of course, through the day I got a constant influx of Happy Brain Chemicals, not to mention Worship, from my very favorite Highest Priestess. Gotta say, between the boots and the height of the bed and the mirrors, Conrad has earned a blessed gold star sticker. I think she likes me watching her in the mirrors, too. She certainly played to them whenever I managed to pry my eyes back open after, ah, endorphin spikes. Of course she also kept giggling and having me switch back and forth between boy me and girl me. By lunch I think I lost track of which was which. By the end of the day I just drifted in a pleasant complete forebrain shutdown haze, letting her do whatever the fuck she wanted, doing whatever she told me to. Good times.

When we finished up for the day, Saffron told me they'd had another quiet day in Calverton. Not even a single red flag. This did not fill me with the copacetic feelings the way it ought have.

I did feel some kinda way about knowing about the whole puppet thing, not to mention the whole bombshell about them being literally buffed when doing something I told them to do. Still, neither pain nor endorphins left me in a state good for thinking, so I decided to put all that off for morning, and lay down in a tub full of tots, while Marie and Saffron took the opportunity to snuggle up with the rest of the posse and horde hoard on and around the mattress in the middle of the floor. That was a mistake.

Mimic Dreamt of settling back into the Bay, lurking rhythmically while her Kraken and High Priestesses marched into her ravenous maw. Marched like toy soldiers, in serried ranks, with no grace or thought or joy or passion and they did it again and again and I woke up screaming under the water, the only reason the children weren't terrified awake being the water damping my voice to a burbling moan.

Then Saffron and Marie were there, pulling me out, drying me off, pulling the other kids from the tub, drying them, and forming themselves and the swarm into a pile of warm, comforting bodies around me. I lay there, afraid to sleep, until it was time to get up for the day. The kids were oddly subdued, although I tried to smile and play as I dried them off. Menace held off on leading them down to breakfast until everyone was ready, and then she and Maze both walked up and glomped me. Then Alex and Lindsey, then Marie handed David and Daya into my arms. The rest of the posse crowded around, with Saffron and Marie behind them. I...

I cried. In front of the kids, and I couldn't even explain it. Not to them. How could I tell them that I could turn their mamas into dolls, into walking automatons with no more will than the fucking kettle? How could I tell them that the part of me I dreamt of would do that without thinking about it. Might even have done it already, and I would never know.

I don't know how long I stood there, but eventually Saffron and Marie both nudged their way closer until they both stood there, arms around me, holding me up. Like they always did, whenever I wasn't enough, whenever I fell short, trying too hard to do something I shouldn't have tried in the first place.

Eventually, when I had nothing left to cry, they sponged my face off, and Saffron said, "Marie, I think it best if Tabitha takes her meals in the suite today." Marie simply nodded, and I felt her step one of her away, even as she kept an arm around me.

Menace looked up from where she clung to my calf. "Can we stay?"

Saffron glanced at me, then looked down at Isnomi. "Can you be quiet? Keep the games quieter?" At our little one's nod, she said, "then of course you can, my girl. Everyone, let's get Mama to bed."

"Papa," grumped Maze, although it had a sound of humor to it.

"Mama." Isnomi's quiet pronouncement had the sound of the start of a fight, but Marie's touched a single claw to each of their shoulders and, when they looked up, shook her head once. Then she reached over and picked me up, letting the girls dangle from my legs.

The assorted legion of tots took great delight in feeding me fried chicken tendies and sausage. Saffron balked at me feeding her my waffle until Marie picked her up, set her on the bed next to me, facing me, so I could pick single bits up and put them in her mouth.

"I'm supposed to be taking care of you."

"This makes me happy, Kitten." She frowned at me, then opened her mouth wide. "Good girl."

She swallowed as I ran my fingers down her throat. "Aren't I supposed to be saying that to you?"

I shrugged. "I wouldn't be upset if you did."

She snagged a sausage from Maze, held it out, and I proceeded to nom it all in one big bite, catching her fingertips gently in my teeth as I did. As memories of last night's terror rushed back, her words hit my ears. "Good Girl. Very. Good. Girl." My head spun, but I smiled at her.

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"Ladies? Quick conference elsewhere?"

Marie looked down from where she stood beside the bed with a loaded tray. "Urgent?"

"Some urgent. Some important. Some... I just need to, please?" She looked at Saffron, who looked at me, then nodded. Marie laid a hand on each of our shoulders and Co-Located us all to the Shack.

While the kids went back to feeding me, with Daya taking over feeding Saffron bits of my waffle, Marie sat down at the end of the bed, spreading her skirts for me to sit on, her arms around me holding me up. Saffron straddled my legs and put hers around me from the front. "So, love. Are you in desperate need of intimately induced happiness, or is there another reason for this?

"A couple things. First, we need to arrange a conference tomorrow with the command staff in Calverton."

"Certainly. Not today?"

I shook my head. "I'm not up to it."

"What reason? That we might prepare?"

I nodded. "It's been quiet."

"Too..."

I clamped my hand over her mouth, the other catching the back of her head. "Don't say it. Bad luck. I don't need any more bad juju at this..." At that point I realized that not only had she gone instantly silent the moment my palm touched her lips, her eyelids fluttered a little. "Shit." I dropped my hands. "That's... that's the other thing. I... I don't... I can't handle having this kind of power over you. I don't know how to control it. I don't even know if I'm doing it. I don't even know how to stop it." Saffron silenced me with a kiss.

She slipped her arms around me, and wordlessly Marie did the same from behind me, their bodies and arms surrounding me with warm softness of varying textures. "Now. You're still not cured, are you, love."

"Uh. did you rail the shit out of me while bending me over a balcony in a sundress?"

She laughed. "Which of us is to be wearing a sundress again?"

"Oh, me, definitely, although I'm down for you wearing one if you like. Kinda figured you'd want pants. Or maybe a kilt? Yeah, definitely a kilt!"

"Well then. Since you're not cured, you're to do as I say, yes?"

"Yeah?"

"Force us to let go of you."

"I..."

"Dog. I gave you a direct order."

"Woof!" I reached out, slipped into their minds. I sat with arms around the me in the middle, holding myselves tight against me, breast to breast, breast to back, breath warm in my hair, against my chest. I pulled away. I tried to pull away, but my arms refused to move. I bore down, forced my fingers to let go of each other, forced my selves surrounding me to sit upright, to shift away from the sweat sticking us together.

Minutes later, the three of me sat upright, panting, arms rigid at my sides. I slipped back into myself, and the two of them snapped back to holding me like they'd been loaded with magnets or some shit. Sweat squished and squelched, and air wheezed out of me as they clamped onto me from front and rear like a vise. A vise made out of vice, what with all of us covered in sweat. "See, love?"

"See what? I forced you. I'm..."

She silenced me with a kiss again. "You did as I asked you... no, told you to. And it was not easy, was it?"

"No?"

"You couldn't do it by accident, could you?"

I shook my head, "no, but that's because you were fighting me."

She smiled, shaking her own head gently, laughing just a little. "If we're not fighting you? That means we want to do whatever you're pushing us to do."

"But what if maybe you're not sure, and I am, and I push you?"

"Oh, no! I will get more honey than cream on my waffles! Whatever shall I do in the face of this great tragedy?"

I frowned at her. "I'm serious! What about, like, the powerleveling thing. What if you didn't want to do that, but I wanted you to, so I made you do it?"

She snorted. "Oh, yes. That's exactly why I used our darling Marie, first among Maenads, until she lost the capacity to move. I got no enjoyment..." She snorted. "I got no..." A bark of laughter escaped her. "Fuck, I can't even say it, let alone with a straight face."

"Well, what about yesterday? You didn't get anything out of that!"

She rubbed her fingers in tiny circles on my temples. "Oh, you who almost always falls asleep first, I will show you the falsehood of your words later. In fact, just for now..." I stood, bent over, legs holding a position which would have had me screaming in minutes before I'd trained at the Academy, before I'd become a Hero. Now it barely registered except as a pleasant stretch. My back, the same, arched to press my breasts against my love's trembling thighs. Ever goofy, she'd lost track of my hands, but responded deliciously to the way my mouth and throat vibrated with my own noises of pleasure. Any second now...

I blinked. "Holy shit, Kitten. Okay, yeah, that was some sexy, sexy shit. I'm also kinda impressed that you were hands free at that point. Fuck, that was... wow. Just wow."

"So would you like me to work on my Skills again today? I'm not sure sharing perspectives would aid in that or not, but we certainly could if you'd enjoy it."

It took everything I had, but I shook my head. "Yeah, no, I... shit, I want that, but holy shit how am I going to know if you're as into it as you are because you're into it or because I want you to be into it?"

"Seriously, Goof, you're being Goofier than usual right now."

"No, this is serious! I love you two. I want you to be you, not some kind of fucked up Saffron and Marie flavored echoes of me. Or being what I want you to be."

"Oh? So what do you want us to be?"

I shook my head again. "No. NO, I'm not gonna tell you that. Nope. No way. Too much like making puppets out of you."

She tilted her head. "And are you opposed to me 'making a puppet of you' to help you clear your block? Which I want just as eagerly as you?"

Suddenly pouty for no good goddamned reason, I said, "what about Marie?"

"Revels."

"There you have it. So am I to do that to help you, or not?"

I shrugged. "Of course."

She tilted her head the other way. "What if I want to do it to please you better?"

"Huh?"

She shrugged. "Oh, sampling your senses and desires, shifting your body so that I might do unto you exactly as you wish. What of that?"

I didn't really have to think about that very long at all. "I guess that sounds okay? I mean, shit, you can pretty much do that verbally already."

She nodded. "Yes. Yes, I can. Now. Why in creation wouldn't I want you to do that to me?"

I sat there, mouth open, until inspiration hit. "Okay. Fine. High Priestesses, are you listening to your Goddess? Ready to hear her command unto you? What I want you each to do?"

Saffron lowered her eyes demurely, which sat at odds to the smug smile on her mouth. "Always, My Goddess."

"Yes."

I nodded. "Good. Hear me, My High Priestesses." Reaching out, I pulled Sister Siobhan into a little mental confab with the three of us, thinking my words to all three of my High Priestesses as I said them aloud. "Now and forevermore, I, Tabitha Diaz; I, Mimic Reborn, Command you, My High Priestesses. Do as you will."

Sister Siobhan dropped away from us, almost like she'd been a little stunned by the sudden intrusion and command, but Saffron just grinned. "Hold her." Marie grabbed me, and Saffron's mind slipped into mine, sifting through my mind, my memories, my senses... my desires.

My mouth slipped open and spoke of it's own accord. "Marie, I want you to be the wifiest wife who ever wifed, to cook and clean and mom and fuck and get pregnant and pop out as many kids as you possibly could ever want and get fucked until you can't walk at least once a month for the rest of fucking eternity." I slapped my hands over my mouth, or tried to, but my treacherous lips kept talking. "Saffron, I want you to nerd your nerdiest until you nerdgasm all over me, preferably while fucking me and her in every possible configuration your genius little nerd brain can think up, at every possible instant of every possible day until you die of old age in the middle of the world's biggest orgasm at which point I will build a fucking cottage by the fucking sea in a secluded fucking corner of M-Space and we will continue fucking there for the rest of fucking eternity." I tried to clamp my mouth shut, almost did, but then Saffron licked one ear and Marie licked the other and I lost any semblance of conscious control over my actions. "Oh, and I want us to tease Sister Siobhan when we get each other very obviously pregnant. Possibly but not necessarily like sexy teasing that keeps making her pass out from excessive blushing." I sat there panting until I whimpered and said, "and maybe get her and anybody else interesting pregnant too, and raise all the kids in the house we build together with a huge bathtub and huger bed we can all cuddle up in." I slumped, utterly defeated, my deepest desires laid bare.

Saffron stroked my hair as she slipped out of my mind. Or, really, as she let me slip out of the iron grip of hers. "There, there, love. Think on all that. Think on everything you just said, and consider, was any of it horrible? Painful? The slightest bit dark? Even your desires for my demise are of the most blissful natural causes I can imagine, surrounded both before and after by the women I love." She nodded to Marie as she slipped off my lap, and kept talking as she clambered onto the bed and started tossing pillows onto the floor. "Think on that while we continue to 'do as we will'. Think on that as we 'do as we will' unto you, my love."

Marie lifted me gently and twisted to lay me face first on the bed. As she did I saw the bare open space near the head of the bed, with Saffron kneeling there, arms outstretched. Of course my brain picked up on the stupidest part of what my eyes saw. "What am I gonna do for a pillow?"

"Today, love, I will be your pillow." She took me under the arms and, falling backward, dragged me atop her until my head rested on her breast.

"I'm particularly well suited to it, aren't I?"