Dear Diary,

Important safety tip to remember: when scheduling medical procedures likely to render someone incapable of movement, do not have them performed on all large members of the household at once.

Yeah, Marie and I stumbled home absolutely sloppy loose in a state of utter non-thought when Loki finished with us yesterday. Hell, Loki, Sigyn, and at one point I think Saffron and Isnomi hopped up on the table to watch, or help, or maybe both. I'm not exactly sure, because as noted, blissful state of non-thought.

Well, okay, that's not exactly a perfect descriptor, because I'm sure that there were random thoughts bouncing around my head the whole time, but none of them had any urgency or stress to them. The only thing I can really compare it to is some stages of being pretty deeply drunk or high. Like, moment to moment there's there there, but if you were to ask me what I was thinking about? I'd probably have said some shit like 'table', or 'hands', or maybe 'snake'. Then started laughing my ass off, either at the abstract concept of a table, or the color of your eyes, or even the ephemeral knowledge that every thought I had was, in fact, ephemeral. Then laughing more because I was laughing, and laughing feels good.

So, 'no thoughts' might not fit. Then again, I don't really remember any particular moment, so there might very well have been plenty of 'non-thought' moments in there. And before anybody, meaning me, starts thinking about the lewd comic of the 'no thoughts' bunnygirl with a dildo half the size of her torso stuffed up her hoo hah, nothing of that sort happened. Dude, he's ever more like my dad, which makes that kind of thing ever more 'eww'. Objectively, especially now that his scars are healing and he can get clean and sit up and shit, I can totally see where Sigyn would pounce on him even if she weren't, y'know, the literal incarnation of marital devotion. But subjectively? Ew. No thank you.

Yes, I know I tease him. Because have you met me? If I were dying of thirst in the desert, and I met me with a whole fuckin' camelback full of water, I would tease me. Either direction. Because that is, in fact, part of who and what I am. The more I think about it? The more I realize Saffron hit the nail on the goddamned head with 'Trickster Goddess'.

Anyway, the two of us stumbled back to the bedroom, both of us giggling at shit like the fact that at one point I had one boot on and she had a stocking inside out on her hand. Why did we find that funny? Fuck if I know, it's just one of the few semi-coherent memories I've got of last night.

Endorphins. One hell of a cocktail of drugs.

We woke up on the floor this morning snuggled together forehead to forehead. I'm not sure if she opened her eyes because she'd been lying there awake and heard my eyes open, or if me moaning softly as me opening my fucking eyes made my goddamned eyelid muscles ache woke her up, but the thin feline whine that came out of her mouth sure as shit told me she wasn't any better off than me. "Y'okay?" I muttered.

"Sore." She whined back.

"Yeah." I groaned. Kitten?

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her pop up on the bed in the other room, staring at the window. Whazzit?

No emergency. Just might need some serious help getting my going to go this morning. I met Marie's eyes. "Need help?"

"Sp'ragm's?" she whined.

"Really? Stains?" I muttered back.

"Worth." She shot me pretty fuckin' good pleading puppy dog eyes for an anthropomorphized tiger.

I thought about it for a second. "Shit. Can't." When she whined and looked vaguely betrayed, I thought, Kitten, could you explain that you're a little small to dismember Murder Mittens here with anything shy of a Mana Blade, and we're not sure if she'll heal those right, and if I do it, there's a chance she won't wake up in the morning?

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Saffron stumbled into the room, flopped down between us, her back to me, looking at Marie. "Sorry, dear Marie, but I'm not strong enough to do the job short of Spells that might interfere, and, well, Tabitha's Mimic. By the time we'd get your sisters here or you to them, dawn will have passed. So, since you'll probably be fine by tomorrow morning, can we pass on that idea for now?"

Marie heaved a sigh, whining the whole time she did it. "Yes."

"Would you like to sleep until then? I'll tell Headmaster Miles you're unavailable for the day."

"Yes."

With that Saffron reached up, lay a hand on Marie's forehead, dragged it down her face to close her eyes, and our big Maenad snored just like a kitten. Purred like one too.

How is she purring?

Saffron rooched around to face me. "Relax."

Not upset, just wondering.

She rolled her eyes at me. "No, Goof. Relax. Let go. Stop trying to hold your eyes open, stop trying to hold yourself somehow, just... relax."

I may be stubborn and dim, but I can, when not otherwise distracted, follow simple instructions, and you don't get much simpler than, 'do fuck all'. I just kinda let myself go loose, almost like I was trying to go to sleep, or maybe sorta cosplaying last night before bed.

The moment I let go of everything, I slumped over, one eye slipped closed, and the aching dissipated. Not gone entirely, but more hovering there letting me know that more aches were an option if I decided to do anything at all. Fuck.

She snickered at me then whispered, "I doubt you'll be able to stay this loose in the middle of things, but Isnomi is still asleep in the other room. So if that's what you really want?"

I thought about that for a second, then winced as the effort of not shaking my head ached nearly as much as shaking it would have. Let's save that for bedtime. Right now... um... is there anybody in the Logistics classroom right now?

She disappeared, then returned a heartbeat later. "All clear."

You ever play with, like, posable dolls?

She got the weirdest little impish grin. "Really?"

Yeah.

She tittered a little. "If that's what you want, but why?"

Not gonna give him the satisfaction of missing class.

She chuckled, and the sound shot an involuntary ache through bits of me that clenched. "You realize I've never gotten to play with that kind of doll before, right?"

I ate the ache to smile at her. Fuck it. You get to now. Have fun with it, Kitten. Just don't let him know what's actually going on, and make sure I'm there waiting for him when he gets to class, okay?

Which is how I wound up sitting there in my seat in the back row, wearing The Dress. With panties, albeit they were draped across one of my eyes as an impromptu eyepatch. She'd propped my hands in front of me on my cane, the cane itself propped up by my crossed legs. Not sure if it was class, decorum, or some kind of subtle hint to everyone else that she'd dressed me that The Dress's skirt had been draped to cover my cooch. The piece de resistance was a sign dangling in front of my face pinned to my ersatz eyepatch, which I found out later read 'fuck off, I'm praying'.

When duBois arrived, he said, "What the fuck, Diaz?"

From beside me, Saffron whispered, "something involving a Maenad."

He clomped over to me and, not quite shouting, said, "hung over, Diaz?"

I ate the ache to smile at him and whisper, "sorry, busy praying and all, did you say, waah, waah, waah, I'm a piss baby dying of envy, lemme at Big D's personal stash?"

He snerked, snorted, then cut loose laughing his ass off. After what would have been an excruciating minute had I actually been hung over, he said, "do us both a favor and tone down the snark once the class gets here? I'd hate to have to write you up for disrespect above and beyond the call of duty. Or, y'know, disrupting class." Funny, I don't think he gave that much of a shit about the disrespect, but was entirely serious about disrupting class.

I just smiled and whispered, "Hey, I'mma be here praying. Any snark can be directly attributed to divine intervention."

Wait, did you just blame your smart mouth on me?

Like Father like Daughter, Boss.

Thanks. Tabitha. Diaz. You're. The. Best.

I know.

For the rest of the day I just let class flow around me, making silent comments to Loki or Saffron when something struck me funny. Weird thing? I think I absorbed more of the material than I normally did. Not sure, though, since I was absolutely Zen through most of the day.

Gotta hand it to Saffron; after spending all day in the position she'd propped me up in, I didn't hurt in the slightest.

She even remembered my lullaby request. My wife best wife.