Dear Diary,

I never really thought about how other Gods interact with the world; I always figured they did things pretty much the same as me and Loki.

Each Deity interacts with the world differently, depending on their Pantheon, their Domain, their Myths, and who they choose to be within those constraints.

They can't break those constraints?

Before I met you, before Yule, I would have said no. But then, perhaps I gave you a greater Boon than I knew?

Just more proof, Boss. You're the best.

I know.

It's weird to think that even as I'm trying to, y'know, do better than the rest of the shit show that is Divinity here and now, not to mention doing better than I did yesterday and the days before, not every Deity out there is just sitting in some kind of celestial mansion eating cheese and grapes and shit. I mean, I knew that. Even if I didn't quite get it until Loki brought me home to meet the missus and saw him laying there, being tortured and chained to a slab of rock by the remains of his own son.

I am something of an outlier, Daughter.

Are you really though? You on your slab, Jormungandr petrified beneath the waves, Sleipnir enslaved, Fenris chained, and Hel... ugh. Forced to work as a Civil Servant.

My daughter does good, important work.

Oh, no shade on her, Boss. She's doing great. The dead aren't walking the Earth, Calverton notwithstanding. Speaking of, is there any way she could help out there?

She is not permitted to leave her realm, nor has she Psychopomps to send.

No worries, Boss. I'll figure something out.

But yeah, Bonnie and Saffron set up a whole night out for us, and before we did more than show up, D comes running out of an alley in nothing but a towel, Marie in hot pursuit wearing less than that.

"Marie, a moment?" All four Maries on scene, both the ones dangling like possessive anchors from his arms, the one stalking up behind him, and the one behind me with her arms around my neck froze and stared at Saffron. "What is it you think we've done?"

"This is the first time in two weeks I've had a moment's rest, and I had to leap out a window while she blocked the door!"

I couldn't help it. I started laughing, and his indignant look only made it worse. "Dude, just tell her 'no'?"

"I've tried! Don't you think I've tried? How am I supposed to tell her..." the rest of whatever he intended to say got lost in one Marie's mouth, and the one behind him slinked forward with her hands forward like she intended to steal his towel away. Morbid curiosity aside, I felt vaguely responsible.

Snapping my fingers to get the attention of the naked Marie sneaking up behind him, I asked, "look, Marie, you know I'm down for all you can eat shenanigans, but don't you think you've taken this a little too far?"

"No."

"Uh... two weeks? Have you eaten? Slept?" She raised an eyebrow, and I realized. "Okay, has he eaten? Slept? Gotten his drink on?"

"No."

"Don't you think you should let him?"

"No."

"Okay, that I did not expect." I'd never seen Marie quite this confrontational before. Okay, there was that time with the Arse Priests, but that was the appetizer for long overdue revenge. Suspicion growing, I asked, "Why not?"

She just confirmed my suspicion when she replied, "Centuries."

I nodded, considering. "Okay, yeah, I get you've missed the D, but you seem a little... thirsty..." That's when it hit me, something Saffron told me a while back. "Really?" She just nodded, and I turned to D. "You kinda did this to yourself, dude."

He gave me a deeply betrayed look. "Tabitha Diaz! Are we not family? How could you do this to me then tell me I did it to myself?"

"Dude. You made the Maenads what they are, right?"

He frowned, nodding. "Yes."

"Including that whole, 'thirsty as fuck for fuck the closer they get to you', right?"

He rolled his eyes. "Well. Yes. But they've always had other duties. Distractions. Then you go and give this one," he tossed his head to indicate the Marie behind him, who'd slunk up behind him and narrowly missed getting clobbered in the face by the back of D's head. Of course, 'nearly missed' meant he now had that Marie attached to his ear by her fangs. "Aiee! Marie! Gently, please!"

"No."

"Hey!" All the Maries snapped around to look at me. "Are you mad at him?" I had all I could do to keep myself from laughing at how much the Maries in my field of view looked like the Menace at her most mulish. "Okay then. Unless you're so mad you're gonna start with the Sparagmos, keep the fangs in if he doesn't agree to them, okay?"

"I seem to recall you liking those, love." Saffron murmured.

"Yeah. I like them. Doesn't mean she gets to use them will he nil he on a he who's presently nil." I paused. Hey, Boss? Isn't there some kind of Divine Woo that lets Gods make copies of themselves? Like, not Co-Location?

There is, Daughter. Any Deity with the Glory or Mana can create an Avatar.

I thought I remembered you saying that! Thanks, Boss. You're the best!

I know.

"Okay, D. I do feel the tiniest bit bad, but at the same time I didn't dig the hole you're losing yourself in. All I did was kinda illustrate that you did something maybe a little bit shitty and then refused to take responsibility for it."

"YOU DARE!" He straightened up to his full height, but I wasn't about to back down.

Besides, I had a secret weapon. "Marie?"

Within seconds D hit the ground. Not exactly violently, but not gently, either. The Maries on his arms duplicated themselves and those four clamped onto him, one per limb, and just carried him bodily to the ground. The Marie behind him almost pounced, but at a quelling look from me she dropped to her knees and smothered his mouth with hers, rather than what I suspected she'd intended to smother him with. Of course, she also Co-Located herself and stole his towel, prancing away with it, waving it like a flag as she ran in circles around us like a kitten with a cheap grocery bag around its neck. I may have mentioned before, D is like eight feet tall and heavy, not ripped like a powerlifter, but like one of those strongman competition guys. He had junk that lived up to every unspoken promise his mega dad bod made.

"Hoo, boy. That's... ah..."

"Impressive." I'd kinda forgotten Bonnie and Larry standing there, but when I glanced over, I found her staring with the same kind of fascinated awe Saffron and I had been.

"Commander!" Larry choked out, and I realized that I not only had a Divine situation to deal with, I also had a teachable moment with my Champion.

"Marie, keep him entertained for a moment? Maybe make this show just a touch less NC-17?" Naked Marie two point oh, wearing D's towel like a cape, plonked her ass down on his crotch. "Marie..." I warned. She rolled her eyes at me and whipped the towel away for a moment, just long enough to show that she had not, in fact, gone riding in the middle of the street, but was using her ass to keep the South from Rising Again. I sighed. "Fine."

That situation on pause, I turned to Larry, who definitely looked some kinda way, and Bonnie, who looked like the only thing keeping her from tears was indignation she really didn't want to have toward her Clydesdale. "Larry?"

"Yes, Commander?" He wasn't mad at me, specifically, but he definitely had some mad in his voice.

"Is Bonnie your property?"

He looked like he'd just choked on his own mad. "No!"

"Is she your servant then?"

"No!"

"So she's her own person, free to do as she will?"

He choked out, "yes," but waved one hand to where Marie sat on D's lap, looking like the cat who'd stolen all the cream. Which, given what she'd been up to, wasn't far from the truth.

"I'll get to that in a second. She's your equal partner, then?"

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"Yes!" Exasperation gave me a lot more to work with than jealousy.

"Okay then. Bonnie?"

"Yes, Commander?" Funny how she could say the same word and make it sound like an in joke. Which I guess I'm okay with, because that shit always felt vaguely like a joke to me. I'm a shit kicker, not a troop... ordering... person... fuck you.

I took a deep breath to center myself and said, "if Larry saw some stupidly hot chick and wanted you to share, would you?"

Oh, lord, I suddenly saw why Larry done got so smitten. Her pout absolutely qualified as 'to die for'. "Yes." She even folded her arms across... well, under her ample bosom, which just made her bosom ample more.

"I wou..."

"Shut up, Larry. Not the point, and yes I'm getting to it. Bonnie, do you want anybody else?"

"NO!"

"Not even that literally Divine bit of man-meat Marie's mashing right now?"

She got it right then, because as I've noted before, she and I seem to have compatible stupidity. "Oh, no! Not at all. I mean, yeah, it's pretty, and, like, wow, big. Like my arm, even. But," here she draped herself back over Larry, who looked pretty solidly mollified. "I don't want anybody other than my Larry." I opened my mouth, and she snapped out, "you know what I mean, Diaz. 'My Larry' to differentiate him from any other possible Larrys out there. Not 'my Larry' like I own him." Here she propped her chin on his shoulder in her preferred whisper-in-his-ear position and said, loud enough for all of us to hear, "although I would kinda like to procure exclusive mineral rights to certain portions of him."

He snorted. "You've already got that, woman. I thought you knew."

She licked his fuckin' earlobe and said, "it's still nice to hear you say it."

I chuckled and said, "yeah, I'm thinkin' your honeymoon isn't any more over than ours is, but you two might want to sit down and have a nice long chat about expectations and limitations and, y'know, what kinda rules you expect each other to follow." I nodded to Larry. "Take that as advice from your Patron."

"We will," said Bonnie. Ah, shit, now I had two of them. Fuck me. Only, y'know, not, because Larry. Ew. Although, much as Bonnie had stared at D with appreciation without intent, I had the sudden thought that extra-curvy Bonnie might actually look good enough to, I dunno, put a bag over Larry's head and pretend he was Lachlan or something.

Trying to get my brain off the track it normally enjoyed, I laughed and said, "the way you started talking about mineral rights made me think you were gonna start drilling or some shit." Neither of them replied, but Larry's dismissive chuckle made me realize that with the way she dangled over his shoulder, he couldn't see the huge evil grin she shot me. Nope, that was clearly a them problem that they'd have to work out on their own. Bad behavior corrected, good advice given, now I had a Deity to deal with.

By pretty much doing the same fuckin' thing. Y'know, for a cereal box prize desperately in need of restoration, my Moral Compass wound up having to do a lot of fuckin' work.

"Marie?" The Marie holding D in a lip lock lifted herself just far enough away for him to glower at me. The one on his lap writhed around until she lay face first on top of him, with her chin on her hands on his belly, her butt sticking out from the end of the towel, her feet kicking idly in the air.

"You have stolen my favorite from me!"

"DUDE!" I don't know if he looked more shocked at me yelling at him, or at Marie not intervening. When he shut his Divine trap and looked like he had his ears open, I continued. "You are the one who designed the Maenads to be eternally thirsty hosebeasts, who specifically go from 'down to fuck' to 'unthinking vag in need of filling' when they get close to you. Tell me I'm wrong?"

"But..."

"DID YOU?"

"Yes, but..."

"Zip it!" I think he might have a bit of a conniption with me cutting him off repeatedly, but I wasn't about to back down now. I had... A Plan. I know what you're thinking. 'A plan, or twelve percent of a plan?' I'm hurt. I really am. I had a plan, and a good one. For certain Tabitha-based values of Good.

At this point I feel the need to remind you that my Moral Compass does not, in fact, point to 'Good'.

"Okay. Look, you made them like this. Yeah, when I wanted to have Marie with me despite her having shit to do at the Academy, not to mention watching our kid, I granted her the Boon to do the same shit Saffron and I do. Only she's better at it, because Murder Mittens is a real live Demigoddess and Kitten and I are just High Priestesses and shit."

Just High Priestesses, Goof?

Don't you start now, Kitten.

So forceful. I'm not sure I'll be able to dance until I get a chance to change my underwear.

You'll dance like you are and you'll like it.

Yes, ma'am.

That shit lit some fires that I was not ready to put out or feed right at the moment, so my plan might have gotten a bit meaner, but fuck it. "Okay, D. I got a solution for you. One I'm sure you'll like, but I'm not telling you without a couple promises."

"You would extort me, the Heir to Olympus?"

"Have you met me?"

"Fuck. What do you want?"

I took my time sliding my hands over both Saffron and my Marie's adorable asses as I disengaged from them and walked over to squat close to D's head. "Two promises. First, that you'll guide my buddy Larry and I and our wives and as many Maries as want to tag along," here I looked back at my Marie, smiling to take the sting out of my words, "to specifically not fuck on the best dance floors on South Street."

"Normally I would protest your inclusion of celibacy in Revel related activities, but go on. What else?"

"When I tell you the solution to your woes, you never let a Maenad go thirsty again if it is at all in your power to quench that thirst. You get me?"

He sighed. "I see the justice in what you say. I did make them this way, and if nothing else the past weeks have show me the potential folly of my decision. But my basic dilemma is that I cannot?"

I grinned down at him, reaching to pat his cheek. The naked Marie kneeling next to me growled a little, but I just sideways head bunted her shoulder and said, "oh, hush, you. You'll love this, I'm sure. Okay, D, how long would it take you to create an Avatar?"

He shrugged as best as he could with Maries pinning him. "It is merely an act of will; should I need such, I could make one in an eyeblink, but I think you overestimate my reserves of Glory."

I grinned down at him. "Marie?"

"Yes?"

"Go fill in for the rest of the Maenads and let them know where D is. Also, y'know, what he just promised."

D opened his mouth to protest, but closed it with a snap when every Marie in attendance purred out, "Done."

His eyes shot wide. "DO YOU INTEND TO KILL ME, WOMAN?"

I couldn't help it. I snickered. "Death by snu snu is absolutely how you should go when you do, but no. Check your Glory, D."

He opened his mouth to argue, then got the kind of look I'd expect if he suddenly realized that Marie came with internal vibrating attachments. Which I just realized she absolutely did, and gave D props for some serious Gentleman Of Culture thinking. "How?"

"Well, there was that situation with those Arse Priests."

He snorted out, "Arse... Oh, that's precious. But that might have given me enough to create a single Avatar. Perhaps. But this?"

"Oh. Yeah. She might have been instrumental in helping a Bard with a seduction."

"Who did he seduce? Hera? Athena? Artemis?"

"Domnu."

His face paled. "Great Mother Night."

"Exactly. Oh, and they've been 'Reveling' pretty much constantly for, um..." I hammed it up, counting on my fingers until I ran out, then grabbing my left boob. "Eleven! Eleven straight days now."

"That... that would explain it." He really sounded like the Marie holding him down might have Translocated herself not quite perfectly around him then tried to do unto him the way some women did with tin cans, but I couldn't see her doing that and not looking smug about it. She didn't look smug, she looked... anticipatory.

"There's something very, very important that you seem to be forgetting about."

"What's that?"

"It only took Marie like five minutes to get from the Academy to the Temples when she wasn't chasing something she'd done without for four hundred odd years." I grinned down at him as he became aware of the low rumble approaching from the West.

He blinked, and another of him stood there, clothed in a toga that did nothing to hide the raging hard on he'd spawned with. Heh. Total terror boner, and utterly justified as the first few Maenads in the avalanche of Maids hit him and made off with him, growling and racing ahead of the others. Just as things sounded like they might be getting more murdery and less fucky, another D stood there. The Maenads still flowing past us in pursuit of D number two screamed, pounced on him and carried him off in another direction. For a solid couple minutes he popped out another Avatar every little bit, and each time it got gang tackled and carted off by another handful of Maenads. Who, I assumed, would wind up doing something else beginning with 'gang', but if dude had a complaint, my only response would be, 'you literally programmed this into them, dude. Quit bitching and reap what you sowed.'

I'm not sure where they all went, whether they found rooftops or bowers or abandoned alleyways or whatever, but eventually the flood of berserk horny Maenads all left following their chosen D. I'm not sure exactly how they divvied each one up, but like I said, D's a big boi, there's plenty of each to go around, even for a handful of Maenads trying frantically to relieve centuries of built up blue bean. At that point D sighed, looked around at the Maries who still had him pinned, and said, "can I get up now?"

All of them chorused, "No." Then looked at him with heavy-lidded expectation.

He sighed. "I suppose you don't care that I've blown through nearly the entire windfall of Glory you won me?"

"Worth."

He sighed, then started to chuckle. "As you wish." One final extra D popped up, and the six Maries pinning D to the ground lifted him and ran off with him, looking so much like a crowd of albino raccoons stealing a whole damn trash can I couldn't help but fall over laughing.

The D standing above me reached down and lifted me to my feet by the scruff of my neck. The moment he set me down, he had a pair of Maries in jeans and tee shirts dangling from his arms. "I suppose I should go find them and do as I was created to do. But I think I'll do that in the morning." He turned to me. "Are you ready to go dancing?"

"Sounds like a plan." Then, a little guilty, I turned to the Marie draping herself over Saffron like Shaquille O'Neal's fur coat over Hayden Panettiere. "Let the poor man have some food and booze, Marie."

She huffed out, "Fine."

"Hey, I didn't specify a delivery method."

I found myself sandwiched between a pair of Maries of my very own, who engulfed my ears and whispered, "yay."

"Marie..." Saffron's pouty tone wound up with her stumbling under yet another Marie. "Not what I meant, you weasel in tigress form."

"Oh!" I blessed my Mimicked Strength as along with another Marie dangling off my back I had a Saffron riding each of my hips.

I know, I know, world's tiniest violin. "You two ready to go?"

Bonnie pouted. "If I have to walk far in my delicate condition, I won't have the energy to dance." Then she leapt at Larry, swinging her legs up as she dangled from his neck. "Carry me?"

He snorted as he scooped her into a princess carry. Kinda fit, what with her being the closest fuckin' thing to a princess in the here and now. "So undignified."

"You love it," she muttered into his neck.

He smiled, a real smile with no snark or nastiness in it, and in that moment I saw what Bonnie saw when she looked at him. "I do."

"Then let's go dancing! D, lead on!"

True to his word, D's Avatar led us to some really good spots, all with house bands or local musicians playing some fun stuff to dance to. I absolutely refuse to acknowledge what I saw in one place when they started to play something suspiciously like a lambada, because Larry has no business being that smoothly flexible.

No sleep for any of us, and if we dropped Larry and Bonnie off at Lancaster House around sunrise, the rest of us had shit to do, notably Strategy and Logistics, where I wound up taking shit for not having an Order of Battle for Norfolk yet. Just another thing on my list of Shit to Do, I guess. Still, days of paperwork and nights of fucking felt a lot less morally ambiguous than days on end of murderfucking my way through Norfolk's command structure. Still, my tedium and titillation wasn't why I kept smiling through the whole class.

That was entirely due to a memory from the night before, one that had boggled everybody but Saffron and Marie, and even took them a few seconds to start laughing as hard as I was.

A few hours before dawn, with the street lights shut down and stars lighting the clear sky, a massive meteor shower filled the sky. Beautiful, like they always are, especially without sky glow blocking them. Awe inspiring, even if my Emergency Coring Tentacles gave me a little more insight than Bonnie, who looked up at the show in the sky and, reaching up and half whispered, "Tears of Domnu!"

I couldn't help it, I barely got the words out through my laughter. "Those aren't tears."