Dear Diary,

"Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else."

- Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

That definitely qualifies as one of those 'as above, so below' kinda things, I think. Like, I get that it works for big stuff. Like when you think you're done with school, only to find out that adults do not, in fact, sit home and party all day, but do, in fact, go to work and do shit that makes school seem like partying all day. I mean, I never had to do that shit. No graduating for me! Nope, just getting shot in the face and Isekai'd to a fucked up version of reality where the Gods are real and I get to go to an Academy that trains fantasy heroes until shit happens and I wind up having to sit on the mast... all... day...

Something amiss, Daughter?

HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS I FORGOT AGAIN!

Daughter?

I was supposed to meet my friends in class on Thursday, and I totally fuckin' forgot again!

Haven't you been sleeping in a house owned by one of those friends, with another two living there? Three, if you consider Lachlan among their number?

Shit, of course I do. Him and me and Bonnie are like the complete bo set.

A sense of confusion emanated through my brain. Pardon?

Bonnie's the bimbo, Lachlan's the himbo, and I'm the shimbo. Full set.

So... there isn't some male version of a... shimbo?

Pfft. No. What would it even be? Guy who is all femme coded and displays all the bimbo traits? What would you even call that? Wait... no... shit, that's basically just a bog standard femboi, isn't it?

I must confess I have no idea. However, if I might suggest, you could perhaps socialize at mealtimes?

I blew out a full lungful of air. Yeah. Yeah, I'll do that. Thanks, Dad. You're the best.

I know.

So yesterday just as the sun touched the horizon, I Co-Located to The Smith's Workshop and called out, "son? How's it going?"

"Good evening, Mother!" he said from behind me. I turned and pulled him into a mom-hug, maybe enjoying his discomfort a little more than I ought, even as he faked enjoying it enough to hug back. "I am just about ready. In fact," a sound like the biggest fuckin' crystal chime in the world rang through the workshop. "My preparations are complete. If you could just step back to the drydock?"

"Don't want me riding along this time?"

He sighed, his look of resignation picture perfect. "I'm sorry, Mother, but I'll be scrying on you to find my destination, and with you inside the Workshop it will not work as I need it to."

"S'ok son. I'll see you there soon!"

With that I collapsed back to the me in Marie's arms looking down at the gunk in the bottom of the drydock. Now that I thought about it, if the fuckin' Hole Spawn could hide in there, it had to be at least five feet deep, probably deeper. The thing managed to creep around under the muck, and even lying flat on its belly it had to be five feet thick. I did not envy Conrad having to wash that shit off; it stank almost as bad as the spooge Vulcan coated me with when he'd blasted that first one, and as Marie showed, it took the same kind of special whatever to get it off. I really gotta ask her what that was, because even though we killed off the big one, the existence of this ugly thing meant there were still giant enemy crab Spawn and probably channel catfish Spawn swimming around.

The sun dropped below the horizon, and as the colors faded from the sky I heard that scraping, metal-on-metal sound I'd first heard when Conrad helped us move. Some part of my brain told me I'd heard it before then, but with the way it set my teeth on edge I couldn't really place it just then. A few moments later, a pair of doors slid sideways at the bottom of the drydock across from where we sat. The gunk at the bottom oozed through the doors into the Workshop. Glistening lines of oily gunk flowed across the surface of the glop filling the base of the drydock, and the overall level of gunk lowered enough for the shell of the thing to show up out of the gunk. A few seconds later I realized why its wings were so fucked up; the corpses of another pair of Hole spawn, one thankfully small scorpion type and one catfish type, both ripped into and eaten, slowly became visible as the glop receded.

The Hole Spawned Crab just sat there picking shit soaked bits out of the scorpion Spawn, shoving them into its maw. A weird kind of tone echoed out of the opening into the Workshop, and the crab twitched a little, but kept eating. The tone sounded again, and my ears leaked like the wax had liquefied, but the crab didn't respond other than to scuttle around a bit to turn its back to the big double doors. After a few moments, something went 'whoomp' from inside the doors, and air rushed out. Air that stank worse than the fuckin' Hole Spawn, even. Like some bizarre combination of garbage left to rot for days under the August sun, mixed into a septic tank, with several gallons of chunky menstrual blood layered atop. I had all I could do to keep from barfing, and as far as I knew, I wasn't physically capable of vomiting.

My guys weren't so lucky. I got to watch as one of the Jotnar went to hands and knees and lost his lunch. Points to the big guy for his aim; it all went right down into the drydock, where it formed a weirdly chunky island of red-pinkish yuck in the overall grey-brown muck. That set off a bunch of our other troops. Unfortunately, none of them were big enough to barf in the drydock without falling in. Fortunately, most of them made it to the waterfront, where they fed the hopefully normal sized crabs and catfish and... sharks? I think? Sharks eat chum, right?

As the sounds of mass stomach evacuation died down, I got to watch as Conrad Translocated behind Marie. Weird thing, I realized just then that his looks different to Saffron's and Marie's. When Saffron Translocates, she's just there, like she'd been standing there the whole time. When Marie does it, there's a sense that she just landed there after jumping. Nothing specific like motion or bunched muscles I could point to, just a feeling. Conrad flickered into being like when you're half asleep and your misfiring brain suddenly recognizes something in your line of sight as a fuckin, I dunno, spider the size of your hand about to land on your face or some shit, only for you to realize when you jump up screaming and flailing that it was an eye-floater or an airborne dust bunny or some kind of fuckin' hallucination or some shit. Kinda appropriate for his Domain, I guessed.

Before his hand could touch Marie's shoulder, she held his wrist between two claws, swiveling her gaze to glare at him, eyes sliding shut then open again. "Good evening, dear Marie." She let go of his wrist, and his hand slid against hers as he dropped his arm. "Mother dearest, might I have some assistance?"

I shrugged. "Sure, son. Whatcha need?"

He pouted. "My lures didn't work. It won't get into the containment tank."

I looked down to where the fuckin' crab had gone back to noshing on its deceased sibling. "Could you make, like, a harpoon gun or something?"

After a moment of silence he said, "I have one. But it's wings are already damaged, and I'd hoped to avoid harming it further. I could work with a deceased specimen, of course, but..."

"But that's not what you want. I get it, last resort shit. But... why don't you see if you can snag the one it's eating? Lure it back by taking it's food? Or is your containment tank too small?"

He scoffed. "Hardly. I've never had the opportunity to study one, so I'll need some time to observe it. I'd intended to keep it alive for some time in that state, which means I made the tank large enough to be a living environment."

"So snag the scorp. You'll even have a handy food source for your new pet."

He opened his mouth like he was about to dispute me labelling the fuckin' Hole Spawn his 'pet', but then shut it with a snap and faded from view. A little bit later, a huge thrumming twang sounded form behind the doors, and a spike at the end of a dark rope flew out of the doors and punctured the scorpion's torso. As it winched backward, I noticed Weyson walking up to me, his robes practically glowing in the darkness.

"Hey, Weyson! What's good? I thought you were doing Council shit?"

He nodded, his face maybe paler than normal, although that could have been the moonlight. "The Imperator's bodyguard graciously agreed to convey me to Princess Olga, that I might confer with her regarding some decisions."

I turned to Marie. "Have you been ferrying every fuckin' person in the Alliance around whenever they need it?"

She blushed a little as I smiled up at her. "Maybe."

I shook my head and reached up with both hands to pull her face down into a kiss. "You work so hard to make this shit work. I love you, Murder Mittens."

She purred a little and murmured, "vlickies"

"Ah. Yes. Well. I..."

I leaned back against Marie as the scorpion glushing its way across the bottom of the drydock released smells that no man or beast ought smell. "So, did you need something, or did you just come over to take in the fascinating smells we've discovered here in Calverton?"

He tensed, looked around, then hissed out, "I come to warn you!" When I tilted my head, he said, "that thing is a danger to every being in this City!"

I glanced down at the Hole Spawn, which had scuttled over to the remains of the catfish Spawn as the scorpion Spawn slid through the doors into the Workshop. I turned back to Weyson. "I mean, yeah, Hole Spawn are kinda fuckin' awful, but this one's wings are all fucked up, and the drydock's walls won't support its weight, or they're too slippery or some shit. Probably slippery with shit, now that I think about it. What the fuck went into there that stinks like that, anyhow?"

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Weyson looked a little nonplussed, and replied without thinking, "I think Mayor McCann mentioned something about them burning all their ships under construction along with as many bodies as they could pack onto them."

"Oh. Fuck. Yeah, that might do it."

He grabbed my arm, and I might have got real quiet, what with our only previous semi-physical interaction having been on a field of combat. "But no, not the Hole Spawn. That... thing... you were talking ckkkhkk..."

I looked down my arm to where I realized I couldn't quite wrap one hand all the way around his neck. "Weyson? I want you to think very carefully about the next words out of your mouth about my son."

I let up the pressure just enough for him to wheeze out. "Smith!"

"Yeah. He's the Weyland Smith. He's also my adopted son. He goes by Conrad now, to family and friends. Which you might have and still might be one if you're not a complete douchebaggy idiot. Then again, you're one of the One Eyed Monster's High Priests, so I'm not holding up high hopes about Olga not needing a new High Councilor by the end of the night."

Right about then I noticed Olga had knelt down to conversational distance. "Your adopted son."

I looked her square in her eye and spat out, "yeah, what about it?"

"How did you get him to agree to that?" Olga's whisper ought to have been louder than some men's screams, but it wasn't.

I shrugged. "He asked me. Didn't quite beg... wait, no, I think for him it would have qualified as begging. If you bring that up with him in any way, I'll encourage him to get creative with you."

Funny watching somebody that big shudder. Made her tits wobble. Which I guess it does to anybody with tatas big enough to, y'know, wobble, but with Mimic sitting her ass on the docks now I got a shot of anxious straight to the crotch at the thought of that much fear sweat. "You tricked Loki."

"Yeah?"

"You overpowered Domnu."

"Are we gonna sit here going over shit I straight up told you all night?"

Her shuddering sigh almost spelled the glorious screaming end of her right the fuck there. "You would allow me to take your throne?"

I rolled my eyes. "Fuck, don't tell me you don't want the job any more."

She chuckled, and my control almost slipped as that wry smile did for the sane parts of me what her terror had done for the rest. "Do I look stupid? Of course I still want to be Queen. I just," she raised one hand, asking for patience, "some part of me thought I'd given you a good enough fight that day on the Green that you thought me worthy."

"You did give me a good fight."

Her laugh rolled through the night, almost holding back her shudders. "Oh, please. Had you wanted me dead, I would have been dead."

The bitch dancing on the Bay washed over me, and I waved her closer. Closer still. I ran the hand not around Weyson's neck down the curve of her chin. Her eyelids fluttered closed as I said, "I never said I didn't want you dead. It would be so, so satisfying. But I choose to make you Queen, instead. Just know that while I try my best to be merciful, and kind, and understanding, and patient?"

Her eyelids fluttered. "Yes, Mistre... Majesty?"

I pitched my voice to carry no further than her ears and growled out, "Should you deliberately abuse or neglect our subjects, or anyone of the Alliance, I will take apocalyptic pleasure in rending you from the inside out." I snorted, trying to pull myself back from the edge with humor. "Laughing about me being a Jotnar condom, best behavior or you'll find out what it's like." Okay, shitty fucked up edgelord sex humor, but humor. I pushed her back, not a shove, just a gentle nudge, and turned back to Weyson. "Now. Where. Were. We?"

He knelt there, eyes down, his weight on my hand as he tried to fall to kowtow to me. "I was apologizing to Your Majesty for causing offense. Please, forgive me, I meant only to save you from harm. Please, I intended no insult to..." he gulped. "Your son. Please forgive my offense."

"Not even going to offer some kind of something to make that shit right?"

He nodded, or tried to as best he could with my hand around his neck. "Anything, Majesty. Name it, and it is yours. I ask only that you spare me, that I might continue to serve you."

I leaned down to whisper at him. "You mean serve One Eye. I'm not stupid, Weyson. But you'll get to keep serving Norfolk, and the Alliance. Y'know why?"

His voice held not the barest hint of mockery when he replied, "please, Majesty, enlighten me."

"Because I am trying to be merciful, kind, understanding, and patient. If I find that you, who unlike Olga I have never really liked, have done something against the interests of the Alliance or, more importantly, her people? I will have my son turn your ribs into successively larger butt plugs until we can shove your head, hands, and feet up your ass, at which point I'll use you as one of those fancy toilet brush holders. I will then take the cost of doing so out of Odin's ass, followed by monthly rent payments for the space you take up in our commode. Do we have an understanding?"

"Yes, Majesty." Strange, that the scent of urine could overpower the stink of Hole Spawn even slightly. Then again, the bottom of his robe was pretty fuckin' yellow.

"Good. Drink more water. Hate to have you decide to do the right thing then die painfully of kidney failure and shit. Son? You good?"

Conrad lay a hand on Weyson's shoulder, and my grip around his neck was the only reason Odin's fuckboy didn't faceplant into the mud from his own piss. "I suppose his apology was heartfelt and comprehensive. What 'penance' to apply, though?"

I smiled as I let go of Weyson, the Smith's grip the only thing preventing from splashing piss-mud everywhere, "why don't you give him a ride home when we're done here? You can talk it over with him then."

Gotta hand it to Conrad, his gleeful little boy with a new toy smile was on point. "Of course, Mother dearest." Then he frowned.

"What's wrong, son?" He didn't answer, just pouted and nodded to the drydock. I looked down to see the very tail end of the catfish Spawn inside the doors into the Workshop. The crab Hole Spawn stood directly across from the doors, claws up in a defensive posture. "Ah, fuck." I sighed. "Any way I can help?"

He looked at me, and I swear to all fuck that he somehow managed to look like a grade schooler asking his Mom to take care of the neighborhood High School bully. "Could you bait it for me?"

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, got my gagging under control, and said, "have those doors ready to slam shut as fast as you possibly fuckin' can."

His arms crushed me to him, "thank you, Mother!"

I opened my eyes, looked around to an absence of Conrad or Weyson, then turned to Marie. "Murder Mittens?" She looked a little frightened, but nodded. "I am absolutely not going to make you go down in that shit. It's hard enough to get off of skin, we'd have to fuckin' shave you." I pulled The Dress off and handed it to her, followed by her boots. Then, standing there barefoot in Weyson's piss-mud, I said, "tell me you can have some of whatever that black powder was ready as soon as we've got that fucking thing contained."

"Yes."

I sighed, then looked up into her eyes. "Good. You've got thirty seconds. Make me forget every reason I don't want to do this."

Her arms snaked around me, lifting me. Her tongue invaded my mouth. I think she wound up licking my larynx. She reminded me yet again that her claws, while non-retractable, were fucking precision instruments utterly under her control as they very pointedly did not gut me. 'Scratch my belly from the inside' indeed.

Don't fucking stop.

I Co-Located half a dozen of me into the pit, and the fucking Hole Spawn reacted as expected, lashing out at me before I even arrived. Two of me fell screaming into the muck, legs dissolving, as the others lashed out with Fire Bolts then leapt backward. Tried to leap, but wound up staggering as the muck clung. Another pair fell, the pain hitting as I collapsed them into the remaining pair, who stood atop the catfish and the scorpion. A quick glance showed me high, shining, slick looking glassy walls surrounding an area big enough to park a quartet of tractor-trailers two by two, and then the crab punished me for looking around by grabbing the me atop the catfish and shoving me headfirst into its maw. I discovered the downside of unholy high Endurance in the next few moments as its best efforts didn't so much crush my head like an egg as erode it like a goddamned Hole Spawn jawbreaker.

The doors finally finished rumbling shut, and I collapsed that me into the me atop the scorpion.

Drop me!

No way was I getting Hole Spawn shit muck in Marie's fur if I could avoid it. I collapsed back to the me falling into the piss-mud.

I tried to collapse back to that me, but bounced. The crab's claw sliced me in half, then reached for me. "Mother!" I Translocated up to Conrad's outstretched hand, and he yanked me out of the tank just before the lid stopped sliding shut. "I'm sorry, Mother!" Credit where it's due, he really did look a little bit distraught. Probably me stinking up his lab with Hole Spawn Shit and floppity intestines with an unsurprising in retrospect lack of Tabitha shit. "The containment tank is proofed against Translocation, should it seek to escape that way."

"Yeah. Important safety tip. Thanks Egon." I groaned, because that snark cost some excruciating pain given the state of my diaphragm.

He looked crestfallen. "I didn't think you would stay in there until the doors closed completely. I..." He stopped, started again. "You should be able to de-Co-Locate now."

I waved him down, then put one hand on his face, careful not to smear shit on him. "No worries, son. Just... make me proud with that thing? And with Weyson?"

His grin oozed back across his face. "Yes, Mother!"

I collapsed back to the me lying in the piss-mud. "I'll see you in the bath. K?"

"Yes."

I landed in Saffron's very naked lap. "Oh, fuck. I'm sorry, Kitten."

"Whyever... whyever for? Sorry, that smell... Oh, gods, it got in my mouth."

I tried not to move, because every movement set off another wave of stench. "Yeah, that's why."

"Being here, for you, with you, in this?" She paused, getting her gagging under control. "This is part and parcel of nurturing you according to my nature, love."

I stopped trying to not get her nasty and just lay my head against her chest, my arms around her. We lay there like that, trying not to breathe, until Marie arrived, powdered us, and scrubbed the stench off. Objectively, it didn't take very long at all. Subjectively, it took way too long, and the only thing that made it bearable was my Kitten purring at me.

Mimic danced the stanky leg with her Kraken and gobbled her chibi Chefs and shrimp. I swore I would teach that bitch some manners if it was the last thing I did, but just then my sweet Saffron and marginally marinara Marie washed the memory of Hole Spawn shit out of my head.

Woke to a horde of kids to be washed, dried, and clothed. Hadn't even started getting old, despite my worries about that. Mostly I think I liked the way the kids squirmed until I started the toweling, at which point they'd just kinda go limp like a kitten when you pick it up by the scruff.

Marie and I quietly, slowly, and with a great deal of laughter, smiling, and one sided kissing discussed future mast-related shenanigans while we did overwatch from atop the Black Dragon's mast.

Saffron and I made it to Advanced Healing Studies, and spent the whole class being the moderately delinquent couple in the back trying to get away with antics every time nobody was looking. I think Doc Glass figured out, and Doc Z straight up caught us at least twice, but he just smiled indulgently and went back to playing with Menace, who stayed up front and actually helped out by playing pointer and shit all day long.

Oh! Except for lunch! At lunch a god blessed miracle happened. I remembered! The four of us hopped down to the Dining Room, and if the table wound up a little crowded with the addition of Saffron and Menace, Marie managed to keep pace even with my renewed rapacious consumption of special delivery jalapeño scrapple. We talked about how their classes had been going, about the new shit happening in and around Lancaster House, how Rider and Rosen were working to maybe bring their own families around to not being douchebag-style Dan, and most surprising for me, about how everybody at the table had been working for Bill's election campaign over in Camden Yards.

Yeah, Bill Driver was running for Mayor of Camden Yards. That shit floored me, even though it made a whole lot of fuckin' sense in a lot of ways. Rich parents, at least for the Yards. Connections all over the place through his parents. Bag as shit, but could pass for Human for anybody who felt some kinda way about that. Academy Cadet in good standing, with every indication he'd be a Phileo Hero in good time, unless the Yards wound up having their own Heroes, in which case, still a Hero, just a Camden Yards one.

Of course, even as all that good shit washed over and around me, something bugged me. I realized what it was when Marie leaned over my shoulder with another tray of scrapple. I grabbed her arm, holding her face next to mine, and whispered in her ear, "do you enjoy doing that? Playing serving wench?"

"Yes?" she whispered back.

"Pity." When she glanced sideways at me, I whispered, "enjoy it while you can. After our wedding night, you'll be sitting in my lap at mealtimes, because ain't no fuckin' way you'll be able to stand when I'm done with you."

Pink Marie best Marie.