Dear Diary,

"The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned."

- Maya Angelou

Fuck, that hits hard. And I know something about shit hitting hard, in case somebody hasn't been paying attention. I hadn't really thought about why the idea of literally building a house with Saffron and Marie got me so worked up. Just that I was willing to rush both not just food, but feeding Saffron breakfast, and not just sex, but the first time the three of us got busy on our new land, just to start making that house happen.

It's not really building a house, is it? I mean, yeah, we're building a house, but we're building what's gonna be our home. It's not a cottage by the sea, but then, when I think of that cottage, I don't think about a horde of screaming kids running around. Just me and Saffron. Oh, shit, I don't even think about Marie there, although I don't think about her not there, if you see the difference? I definitely think of the kids as not there. Like, maybe as adults visiting or something. Maybe that's why I don't think of Marie there, because I don't see Marie 'retiring', as such. Does that mean I think of me retiring? Maybe just Saffron, eventually, when she's ready to hand off the Imperator job to somebody else, and I'll be all 'going to work' and 'honey, I'm home', and shit, I dunno, neither of us is really domestic, maybe just creating food from scratch when we're hungry.

But what we're doing now has been marked as 'home' somewhere deep inside, in a way that our Academy and Lancaster House suites aren't. I mean, they're great. I love them. But this will be someplace where we can just, I dunno, dig in and say, "ours, everybody else can fuck off and go home now," before we shut the lights out and fall asleep in a pile of warm fuzzy.

So yeah, spent all day yesterday doing what I think of as 'foundation work'. I mean, some of it was literally digging holes for Saffron to put foundations in. Weirdest fucking thing I learned yesterday is that in the here and now, 'concrete' isn't really a thing. I asked Saffron, and she gave me one of those, 'concrete, what's that' looks. Turns out they use cement in mortar, but like, 'making artificial rocks' isn't a thing. Even bricks are, like, something she's heard about but she wasn't sure if she remembered seeing them anywhere. Kinda figure that's why at the end of the day none of the holes were, y'know, filled in, because I think she wanted to go do some research on that.

When we got home, I definitely wanted a bath. Of course, as we herded the kids to dinner, I noticed exactly how sopping Saffron was, and spirited copies of us off to the remodeled Love Shack. She looked up at me and groused, "we're going to get the sheets all dirty and sweaty."

"Kinda the point," I growled back, enjoying how that made her giggle into my mouth when I kissed her. Never really understood people into covering themselves in, like, massage oil before getting it on, but if they were trying to simulate sweat drenched, I think I get it now. Sloppy, sweaty, silly fun. When we lay there after, before we collapsed back to ourselves, I looked around the room and said, "Y'know, I kinda wish we could take this setup with us."

"It's not exactly portable, love."

I shook my head. "Nah, I don't mean like on the road, although having a mobile home for the fam might be... why are you laughing?"

"Captains quarters?"

"Okay, yeah, I guess that's at least as big as our Academy digs, but I never really thought of Black Dragon as an RV."

"RV?"

"Recreational Vehicle."

Her Grin really should have made Zeus shit himself in terror right then and there, whether he knew about it or not. "Oh, I can think of plenty entertaining things to do with Black Dragon."

I laughed. "Down girl! Down!"

"Okay."

"I didn't mean..." Too late, slippery sweaty skin makes for rapid short range transit, and right about then I lost the capacity for speech. My chick bad. She got Skills and shit.

Dinner wound up being chicken and waffles. When I kinda looked a question at Bonnie, she shrugged and said, "I don't think any sane person with taste buds would turn down more Lancaster House waffles, and the chicken makes them a little more dinnery. It's also cheap."

Larry winced a little at that. "You know we don't really need to economize, Bon Bon." Hearing Larry use his pet name for her so openly made me smile, even as it surprised me a little.

She just bopped him on the nose with a tendie, then fed it to him while saying, "we're rebuilding quite a bit of Lancaster House lands, and I'd like it if someone," at that point she ran a hand across her belly, glancing down as she did before looking back at Larry. "Had very clear objective evidence that your changes have been for the best in every way, including the Lancaster coffers."

He shrugged, and those of us from Camden, Yards or otherwise, all shared a bit of a longsuffering look. Larry might have turned over a new leaf, with his head on more or less straight and not buried in his own asshole far enough to see his duodenum, but he was still a rich kid. Then again, I don't think any of us in the room really hated that about him. I mean, seriously, if I could wave a wand and make sure nobody in the world ever had to worry about whether they could get food for dinner, or would have a safe place to sleep, or any of the other million fucking ducks that nibbled poor people to death on the regular, I would wave that shit.

That's pretty much why I made Saffron Emperor. Empress. Imperator. Shit, now that I thought about it like that, she should probably be 'Imperatrix', which would just objectively be more panty soaking, but what's done is done. I guess having a woman as Imperator of the first decent sized political polity in Atlantis or Europa, and giving her a title that some dick haver wouldn't get his boy panties into a bunch about might wind up being better in the long, long run.

I'm still calling her that in the Love Shack until she tells me to stop.

Spent the night in the tub with Maze and Marie.

Storm overnight, and Mimic danced with the lightning. Her Kraken, some of them at least, seem to be at least vaguely aware that shit stings, but Her Dark Fatassness is like a kid licking a nine volt battery. I think she tried to deep throat the stanky tentacle for some fuckin' reason. Weird as fuck. But then, dreams. Weird as fuck is pretty much normal for dreams.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

In the morning when we finished up with baths and everything, I sent Maze ahead with Saffron and held Marie back for a second. Before I could say anything, she pulled me up and did a thorough inspection of my upper alimentary tract with her tongue. Never thought I'd be the sort to find an SCP hot, but here we are. Her fur was still squishy even after an hour or so out of the tub, but I really found it cute how she wasn't cranky about it like I'd seen her get in the past. "Hey, Murder Mittens, whose onesie are you working on next?"

"Alex."

"Have you come up with how you're gonna decorate it yet?" She shrugged and shook her head.

I'd been watching the horde hoard while I refereed the games during the day, and I'd begun to get a feel for each of them. Daya was shy as fuck, but not stupid or cowardly or anything. Just small, and shy, and seemed to have no real interest in what you might call verbal socializing. Playing games, sure, although even there she kinda did her own thing, but I don't think I saw her talk to anybody except David and Lindsey.

David was... oh my fuck David was the girliest girl to ever girl, which made me vaguely worried with the whole twig and berries thing going on. Not, like, 'oh, no, my boy isn't a boy', but more 'I don't want my kid suffering dysphoria or any shit like that' contesting with, 'I don't want him thinking he needs a vag to be girly'. Fuck it, if I had to, I could just Boon him with shapeshifting, and let him boy and or girl how he fuckin' felt like.

Lindsey was kinda the opposite of that. She and Alex both gave off boy vibes, but where with Alex it was all about the almost stereotypical toxic male bullshit about being in front, being in charge, and generally insisting on every privilege they thought they could get away with, with Lindsey it was way more of a carriage and, I dunno, presentation thing. I dunno, maybe Lindsey was just a really athletic girl, where Alex was I dunno... bossy? Like, not in a good way. Not in a Saffron way, but in a, I dunno, generic conservative rich guy way, where they want everybody to see them as in charge, even if they shouldn't be.

Still, while I kinda maybe wanted to give her some feedback on how to be alpha bitch without being quite so much of an asshole about it, I thought I might know what she'd like in terms of her PJs. I conferred with Marie just long enough to give her my idea, then we walked down to breakfast. After we necked a little bit more. What was I supposed to do when she leaned down and said, "Thanks. Vlickies."

Took my time feeding Kitten all the waffles, since we wouldn't be heading to our new place today. When I fed her the last bite I leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek before murmuring, "sorry about yesterday. I'm kinda jazzed about us having our own place."

She swallowed, smiled, then whispered back, "I could tell. No more choking your wife." Before I could reply, she kissed my cheek and said, "with food."

Then she fucked off to class, leaving me sitting there staring. Goofy grin gonna get permanently etched on my face.

Class was class, refereeing toddler games wasn't as boring as I'd first thought, since I wound up having to run around kinda watching, and to be honest even shapeshifted I was faster, stronger, and had better wind than the rest of the posse and the horde hoard, Some of that might have been Maze being one of the oldest of the bunch, though.

With that in mind, I had a thought when we sat down to read. "You know how I've been playing with the other kids as you?" She nodded, more interested in finishing Wintersmith than anything else at the moment. "Well, lately instead of playing I've been refereeing. Not nearly as crazy or, y'know, high impact as actually playing. Still kinda fun and social though."

She realized at that point that I actually wanted to talk about something, so she closed the book around her little fingers and said, "so?"

I nodded. "I just figured if you want to stick around at Lancaster House some of the time to, y'know, play with your sibs and friends without being quite so hounded, it's an opportunity."

She frowned. "You just want to stop reading with me."

"NO! No, no, no, I love reading with you. I kinda like reading with you more than I like refereeing, to be honest. I just wanted to let you know the option is open for you. No pressure, and it's not, like, an either or. You wanna read half the day and play half the day, I'm cool with that, or you wanna play one day and read the next, that's good too."

She smiled softly up at me and said, "I'll think about it."

Calverton was oddly quiet still. Not gonna say it. Not gonna say it. You can't fuckin' make me say it, because I am both a Primordial Force of Nature and Not an Idiot. But it was creepily quiet.

Really odd day in class, too, with nobody really injured, and most of the class spent either demonstrating Smite, which left people chillin' like villains, or talking about the potential for 'healing' Undeath. I felt some kinda way about that, because if there was a reliable, 'put 'em in a box, throw a weakness potion on them, and feed them gilded apples' method, I'd definitely prefer that to just turning the poor bastards to ash. I mean, I guess some of them are like the guy we dropped off at Lancaster House, all full of rage and hatred. Maybe being Undead makes that worse. But I don't think anybody asked to get Plagued.

Still, not gonna call a halt to the very slow moving but safe method of clearing Calverton just because there might, maybe, be a way that will make me feel a little less bad.

When we stepped back to Lancaster House at the close of the day, Oscar stood outside the suite door and knocked. I knew it was Oscar, because despite her normally getting the door, Marie directed me over. I'm guessing she and he kinda share being in charge at this point, what with him technically being the boss, but him also not being an idiot and realizing that Marie had been Maiding longer than Lancaster House had been a House to have a Butler.

"Pardon the intrusion, Champion, but a visitor has been waiting to speak with you."

I shrugged. "No worries, Oscar. Where are they at?"

"The entryway, ma'am."

"Thanks." I stepped straight to the entryway, hoping Oscar didn't feel some kinda way about me leaving him standing in the doorway. I recognized the dude standing there clutching hands with the woman next to him. I caught his eye, nodded to the woman and said, "found your wife?"

"Yes, Champion, I..."

"Awesome!" I stepped over to them and pulled them both into a big hug, holding it until they both stopped holding themselves stiffer than Oscar. I stepped back, one hand on each of their shoulders, and said, "Really glad you guys found each other again." I sighed, maybe a little dramatically, but fuck it. "I just wish I could do that for everybody left in Calverton, y'know?" Then I looked them both in the eye and said, "did you guys need anything? Money? Food? Place to stay? I mean, my wife hasn't started recruiting people for the new house, but I could put a good word in. Or, y'know, I could give you guys a lift to wherever. Calverton's still technically a war zone, but I can get you to pretty much any farmstead in Lancaster, or to any of the Alliance Cities." The two of them just stood there staring, jaws slowly dropping as the bullshit flowed. "Or... did you want to take a swing at me or something? Offer's still open if that's how you're feeling. Have to be outside though, don't want to throw down in my buddy Larry's house. That'd just be rude."

They looked at each other, and after a moment of wordless communication, she looked up at me and said, "We came to thank you. But... can we have some time to think about it?"

I pulled them into another hug. "Don't worry about it, I'm just glad you guys found each other. I know I can't undo what's been done, but the sooner I can get everybody back to a place as good as they were before this shit started? The sooner I can try and focus on maybe making stuff better than that."

They nodded, and he said, "may... May we go?"

I nodded. "Sure! Just come see me whenever, whatever you decide." I bumped my fist gently against his chin. "Even if you change your mind about needing to smack me."

They left, and I turned to see Saffron standing there, smiling fondly at me. I stepped over and scooped her up into a hug. "He found his wife!"

"I see that." She smiled and chuckled a little. "So Goof. So my Goof."

"Yeah, I like seeing people happy. I'm even maybe not entirely defensive and embarrassed about it any more."

She kissed me, then pulled back. "I know that, and things like that are what make me proud to be your wife. But that's not what I meant, Goofus Maximus."

I pulled back a little, confused, but not unhappy. I had Saffron in my arms, dinner was soon, and the kids were all healthy and happy and noisily being herded down to dinner by Marie. "So what gooftastic thing have I done now?"

She leaned in next to my ear, took a long moment to nibble on my earlobe, and just when I'd almost forgotten my own question, whispered, "what are their names?"