Dear Diary,

Y'know, at some point if people keep reacting to me the way they do, I'm gonna start thinking I'm charismatic, or cute, or sexy or something. Well, at least that other people think I am, which just proves their lack of good sense.

Saffron is brilliant. This doesn't mean she has common sense.

I mean, more than me, sure, but if that bar were any lower it would be subterranean.

So anyway, after we stood Sister Siobhan back up again... twice... she managed to stay upright long enough to go through all her little diagnostic prayers, aiming them first at Bonnie's general belly region, then at her arm, then back at her belly, then at her teeth, then her arm again, then her belly. "I'm sorry, Bonita, but this doesn't seem to make sense."

Bonnie heaved a sigh. "So I'm barren?"

"No! No, no, no, that's not what I mean at all." Sister Siobhan heaved a sigh. "I can't guarantee you're not, either, unfortunately." She shook her head. "I can't help but feel that my own... ah... fatigue isn't helping. I know this is a pressing matter for you, but could you possibly come back in the morning, when I'm rested?"

Bonnie forced a smile. "Of course."

We walked back upstairs, me with my jacket slung over my shoulders. I'd done that much because I didn't want to keep rebooting the Sister, but I wasn't about to put my arms in the sleeves. The jacket? Definitely made of wool, and it made my scars itch like a bitch.

While we'd been down in the Infirmary, I'd been practicing a little Co-Location with Saffron. Not for that; while Sister Siobhan did her diagnostics, Saffron had picked my brain about everything I remembered about lady bits from my health classes back at Eastside. Okay, most of what I knew I'd learned from the Internet, with the rest from Eastside's library's copy of Grey's Anatomy. The actual reference book, not the show. I'm not quite enough of a dumbass to take television shows as actual medical advice. By the time we got Bonnie all the way back upstairs to our room, I'd traced out the basics; vagina, uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries. Then explained what each one did. Okay, I didn't have to explain what a vagina did. That one's pretty self-explanatory, although of course because I'm me I had to add not just the clitoris mons, but the whole nerve bundle in the picture.

Hey, I take my hobbies very seriously. Not that actual boinking was really a hobby of mine back at Eastside. Spectator sport and solo play, yeah, and both at the same time on embarrassingly frequent occasions, but my life prior to being Isekai'd bore a depressing similarity to Tomoko Kuroki. Okay, I wasn't pervy enough to go watching live people going at it in person, I stuck to professional paid actors, thank you very much.

Okay, there was that one time, but they were both so high they didn't realize they were doing it in, y'know, my bed. I'd kinda been hoping for some three way action, but no, they both fuckin' forgot I was there. While fuckin'. Also, I was already halfway there before they left me hanging. Jerks. Also, also I was young and impressionable and stupid. Which, considering that happened like a week before I got Isekai'd? Just speaks to my impressive growth as a person, right?

So by the time Bonnie got back up to our room, Saffron had half a dozen screens up in front of her. One of them displayed something that looked like what I remembered from using Assess Health myself. Another had the bjorked version I remembered from Saffron's work on trying to figure out if our daughter was actually healthy or just, I dunno, faking it or some shit. I remember doing that way back when my mom was still alive. Seriously, back before she died I didn't have a wide screen or a console, so going to school was better than staying home, even when I was sick. At school I could ditch class and hit the library. At home? I just had to lay there with a quarter-inch layer of off-brand vapo-rub on my chest, running to piss like every half hour from the amount of cheap lemon-lime soda mom poured down my throat.

Her chicken soup was so good though. I kinda wish I'd learned how to make it. Then again, probably best that I didn't. She got too sick to make it when I was still a little kid, and I'm sure nostalgia made it taste better in my memories than it would if I tried to make it.

"Marie?"

"Yes?"

"Can you make me some chicken soup?"

"Now?"

I shook my head. "Nah. But next time we're here for dinner or lunch or whatever?"

"Yes."

"Thanks, Marie. Love you."

Bonnie gasped a little at that, and I put my arm around her and pulled her close enough to speak softly and still be sure she heard me. "Just so you know, I think Marie is still under standing orders from Saffron to painfully execute anybody who expresses disapproval over our concubine's deep and loving connection to both of us."

She just laughed at me. "One, if I may throw your own words back at you without really understanding all of them, been there, done that, burned the tee shirt, didn't buy any tchotchkes. Two, I wasn't surprised by her. I've never heard someone declare their love for their concubine in front of their wife and not wind up in some kind of hot water."

I shook my head, mock-serious. "Oh, no. Marie doesn't like getting in the tub. Does horrible things to her fur. She winds up looking like a half-drowned cat." I let go the grim look and continued, "besides, the whole 'concubine' title is her idea. I'd marry her in a heartbeat if she and Saffron were okay with it."

Saffron, who'd been walking along behind us with, when I looked through her eyes, another two screens of information open in front of her, muttered, "I'd be perfectly fine with it, although I suppose that would mean I'd have to marry her too. Not that I'd really mind, although Isnomi's jacket tag would get a little crowded, and we'd have to find yet another godmother for her."

"See? We're all one big happy family, and she's a concubine because she wants to be and we're not going to tell her otherwise."

Bonnie opened her mouth to say something, but in an uncharacteristic bout of polysyllabic speech, Marie said, "Absolutely."

Right about then we got to the room, and Saffron de-Co-Located, all of her open screens flowing to face one of her. I still couldn't see them myself, but kept half an eye looking through her eyes so I could cuddle her without getting in her way. "Bonnie?" she asked as I wormed my way in behind Saffron and put my arms around her waist.

"Yeah?"

"It looks like this may take a couple days, if you're okay with that?"

She heaved a sigh. "I really don't want to be away from Larry that long, but... will it help if I stay here?"

"Possibly. I can't be certain, of course, but having to run and fetch you if I think of something might jostle it loose from my head."

Bonnie nodded, her expression firming up. "Then I'll stay. As long as I need to."

Saffron wriggled her way free and wandered into the other room. "You can take our bed; it's been a while since we all slept in Marie's." The smile that stretched her lips when she said that? Even more adorable because I don't think she'd done it on purpose.

"Yay! Sweepower!"

"I don't think that word means quite what you think it means, Menace. Not complaining, just observing." The three of us tossed our dirty clothes in the laundry pile and flopped onto the padded floor while Saffron sat on the chair and kept poking at her screens. Bonnie blushed a little at the casual nudity, but after months of not wearing sandpaper to bed, I wasn't about to start now, what with her sleeping in the other room, wearing a borrowed shift-nightgown on top of that.

When Saffron finally cracked a yawn so big it forced her eyes closed? Utterly adorkable the way she tried to keep working. "Come to bed, Kitten. You'll do better in the morning if you start fresh."

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

She smiled as she stripped and flopped on the floor on the far side of me from Isnomi, who'd wormed her way between Marie and I. "I have rather been chasing my own tail for the past half hour or so. You're probably right."

In the morning we woke up to find Bonnie had, at some point in the night, snuck in and spooned up behind Saffron. When we all woke up, she stuttered out, "I... I can't seem to sleep alone any more. Not well at least."

I twisted myself around to face her, then reached over Saffron to pull her into a hug. It also kinda sandwiched Saffron in between us, but that was a feature, not a bug. "It's okay, Bonnie. Despite the ubiquitous euphemism, 'sleeping together' is not actually sex."

She snarked back, "really?" giving me a wide-eyed ingenue look as she did.

I nodded, going full serious. "Yes. Sex is when a man and a woman... wait, when two adults... well, when two or more adults..." by this time Bonnie's fake ingenue look broke down and she started snickering, which I of course took as reason to turn things up to eleven. "when some number of consenting adults attempt to make some other, possibly overlapping group of consenting adults achieve orgasm through any number of methods." By this point Bonnie had straight up lost it; I think she'd have literally been rolling on the floor laughing if I hadn't kept her pulled into a hug with Saffron still sandwiched in between us.

Her voice muffled by the way I'd shoved her face in my tits, Saffron said, "I don't think Bonnie consented to be party to what you're doing right now."

I shrugged, enjoying Saffron's reaction before I let go of Bonnie, who absolutely rolled away laughing. "We weren't having sex, that was just a friendly hug between friends. Friends without sex benefits, just to be clear. Because consent is important." At that point Saffron, who hadn't really moved away when I let go of Bonnie, hummed that little seven note tune I'd come to know and, apparently, lust after, as my whole body tightened up. "Yeah, Kitten? You remember that Pavlov thing?"

She pulled away just enough to look me in the eyes, her gaze overflowing with mischief, the Grin in full effect. "Yes, beloved Goof?"

"Totally working."

"Good." She pushed herself away and to her feet. "We'll have to explore that once we've come to some kind of conclusion with Bonnie."

That started an entire day of Co-Location practice, as one of me stayed in our suite playing with Isnomi, in maximum Goof Mode to distract Bonnie from Saffron's apparent lack of progress. Another of me spent the day in the Scrying Room, where I'd commandeered another few punch bowls to see how many farmsteads I could maintain a scry on simultaneously. Turns out I can do three; when I Shape the fourth I lose my concentration on one of the others. Nobody raised a red flag, nor even a yellow, so I just sat there scrying, occasionally answering questions for Raven, Lachlan, and Larry. Saffron, of course, was Co-Located to do her Imperator thing, although I'm pretty sure she didn't put much effort into it, because by the time lunch rolled around, she had a dozen of those screens up, and had pulled Sister Siobhan up to our suite to consult about Bonnie.

I'm pretty sure her biggest contribution was having a normal set of adult lady bits that weren't Blended or potentially made out of shadow stuff, but fuck it, she wanted to help and that helped.

We spent the night in our suite again, because Bonnie didn't want to face Larry without an answer.

Larry, of course, felt some kinda way when I told him, asking me, "Is she going to be okay?"

I shrugged. "Maybe a little bored, and I worry about how she'll feel if she can't have kids and we can't fix it, but we're making sure she eats and sleeps and doesn't do something stupid."

That got a sigh of relief from him. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Sure. Whatcha need?"

"Should there be some risk she needs to take, please don't let her risk herself. I would rather my brother's child becomes Heir than live without her."

I hadn't really thought about it before, but in the here and now, thinking about dynasties wasn't just some kind of weird affectation of the wealthy and powerful. 'Heir' wasn't just a fancy way of saying 'rich and gonna get richer'. It was a Title that actually meant something. I looked at him, sighed, and shook my head just a little. "That's not a decision you can make for her, Larry. But I'll remind her that you said that. Because while I know she'd risk herself to have your kids, I think if she thinks about it, she'll realize she'd rather have a life with you rather than having to, y'know, wait for you in Hel."

"I don't have to ask if you'd Revive her."

"Damn straight you don't, but I dunno where the line is on that, whether whatever Siobhan and Saffron come up with will make it impossible if it goes exactly wrong."

He nodded. "Thank you, Commander." He shook his head a little. "Thank you, Tabitha."

"No problem, Larry. It's what friends do, man."

Today, along with Co-Locating to our day jobs and Saffron diving into the deep magic behind global spells in general and Assess Health in particular, scanning Siobhan, me, Marie, Isnomi, and Bonnie each at least once an hour? When Saffron mentioned me getting Loki to help look into things, Siobhan said, "oh. Oh, my. I'm sorry, I still don't really think about being the High Priestess of Canta for Phileo. I'll ask him if he can help in any way..." she trailed off, then looked at Saffron, head tilted. "Ought you not consult with..." I'd never really thought about Siobhan being 'courageous', but despite her obvious tightly controlled terror, she managed to say, "Mimic?" in a reasonable approximation of her normal voice.

Saffron, of course, just raised an eyebrow without stilling her hands or looking away from all the information floating in front of her. "Not every Clergyperson need move their lips to pray, Sister. I have consulted with Mimic since I began this effort." Siobhan's face went beet red, I couldn't tell if it was from embarrassment, fear, or something else. I also got a massive hit of 'fucking adorkable and adorkably fuckable' from that, but my Kitten had made it really clear that until we came to some conclusion, there would be zero nookie for anyone in the room. Of course right about then she had to start humming that little seven note tune.

That's really distracting.

Laughter bubbled through her reply. You aren't doing anything that will matter if you're distracted.

Hello? Scrying?

You're doing that as much for practice as anything else, and this makes it Good Practice.

Fuck. You're right. Fuck.

Not until we are done, Goof.

I did not miss the number of syllables in that last phrase, because of course she said them in that little singsong. Cruel. My wife is cruel. The cruelest woman ever to cruel at someone.

You love it and you know it. Seven. Fucking. Syllables.

I do. Shall we go visit Loki?

I wasn't sure why we had to go visit, but I wasn't about to say no. Every little bit of info got us closer to a solution got me a bit closer to the night of wild abandon that lurked in my future, taunting me with its current inaccessibility.

We both Co-Located to the cave to find Loki all chained up, Sigyn leaning against the wall with her back to him, wearing her 'not so much a mini-skirt as a wide belt' micro-mini-skirt and her boots. The moment we arrived, Saffron opened with, "Good Afternoon, Lord Loki, Lady Sigyn. Lord Loki, I need you to teach Tabitha how to scry on her world of origin."

He heaved a sigh. Even the most adorkable of beaver dams and cock blocks was still frustrating. "Of course, daughter-in-law. If you would, love?" He nodded to the bonds keeping him from sitting up. Sigyn got one, I got the other. Still a little envious that she can just one hand one, where it takes me both hands and a little bit of lifting with the knees.

"Oh, before we do that, would either of you mind if I cast some Divination magic on you? I need as broad a basis of comparison as possible."

Sigyn shrugged. "Sure."

After casting a couple different versions of Assess Health she'd cooked up, Saffron turned to Loki. "Could you be a female version of yourself, please?"

He shrugged and shifted while remaining seated. He'd kept his size and coloration, but... "Oh, fuck, he's hot."

Sigyn barked out a laugh. "Now you see why I'm so jealous of him?"

"Oh, hell to the yeah." I paused, struck by a sudden realization. "Fuck!" When Sigyn raised an eyebrow and Saffron just kept casting, I wailed, "I'm a girl-type-person. I'd managed to avoid the whole Elektra complex. I'm not supposed to have an Oedipus complex!"

Sigyn slid down the wall laughing. Even Loki got a chuckle out of my deeply disturbing attraction. I mean, Loki'd totally fallen right into the 'dad' slot in my emotional landscape, so the traitorous thought 'holy fuckballs my dad's got an awesome rack' should not have ever entered my brain. Let alone echoing back and forth until he shifted back when Saffron told him she'd finished. She carefully shut down all of her little informational windows, then dropped onto Loki's bed next to him, clutching at her gut and laughing her fucking ass off.

Not literally. That would be a tragedy, nothing to laugh about. After a bit, once the whole 'Tabitha can't stop ogling' wore off completely, I chuckled about it myself. Right up until Saffron whispered into my head, You're turned on by your father. Fucking singsong.

You love it and you know it.

If I hadn't been more certain that the payoff would eventually be worth it, even if Saffron had to break our bed, our soundproofing wards, and possibly causality to make it so? I might get pissed about how much she loved that little singsong tune.

We spent the rest of the afternoon scrying on the world I'd come from. I wound up having to Translocate through the farmsteads checking up on things, but within about an hour I'd gotten the inter-universal scrying thing down, at which point Loki took over, since we had shit to do and I was still kinda slow about it. Saffron wound up looking over multiple someones' shoulders at actual copies of Grey's Anatomy, not to mention watching several academic YouTube videos and one fortuitously timed lecture at a medical school. By the time sunset turned the light from our window violet speckled with stars, Saffron had a tired but triumphant smile on her face.

"You've got it?"

She shook her head. "It's not done yet, but now I know what I need to know to make it go. But not tonight. I'm exhausted." She turned to Sigyn and Loki. "Apologies for interrupting your day, and thank you for your help."

Loki, who'd laid back down on his bed so Sigyn could lock him back down, said, "think nothing of it, daughter-in-law. You seek to make the world a better place. What better use could my powers be put to?"

We got back to the Academy too late for dinner, but Marie'd brought up enough for everyone. After we ate, we all piled into the bed, because those of us who might have cared were too tired to do so, and Marie and Isnomi just loved sleeping in one big pile, the more the merrier.

I couldn't even be mad at Saffron, eyes closed with The Grin on her face, humming in my brain until she fell asleep.