Female complications, day 33 Looping marbles.

As they clear the table from breakfast, Elvira asks if there will be another stag night for my wedding to Kari, to which I immediately reply no, because that's one thing me and my sambos agree on. Elvira says nothing but seems a bit disappointed. I still can't really understand how I can be so attractive when it is just pure sex - in practically a type of gangbang - but I hope I never become so arrogant as to expect that. It's hard to know Elvira's feelings about certain things as she keep most of her thoughts to herself, so I don't really know what she thinks about me or my sambos or how we live, and I can't really ask. The talk in the household is that Elvira, more than the other staff, has become ice cold towards Jalida since her pregnancy became known, and takes every opportunity to make biting remarks to Jalida, like she doesn't deserve to live on the island or serving in Thrymheim. Given the huge life change and the enormous prestige Elvira has achieved compared to what she thought her life as a slave would be like, I can understand why Elvira seems protective as hell about her role in the manor, and why she despises Jalida's behaviour and 'betrayal'. I do like that Elvira is good at her work and isn't flirting with me.

The first kinetic sculpture with glass marbles is officially finished, and have after comments from my sambos been placed on the mezzanine in the main hall, and under the swords on the wall. My throne is never there anyway, and the throne can be placed in front of the marble machine if the throne is needed. It will be a nice contrast between the steel and swords above the simple marble mechanism and pure art below, and the marble machine matches the room and pendulum clock in style and finish quite good. As I haven't painted the bronze cannon in camouflage yet, the cannon with its metal and wood honestly match quite well too. If the weather is nice, both cannons will probably be painted tomorrow, but it may be better to just 'blue-darken' the cannon itself. I don't trust how well the paint sticks to the metal, but that blueing seems to a chemical change of the surface layer. A future project will probably be to try and develop some kind of etch primer.

Many are fascinated by the marble machine. Kari, Iselin and Ciara love it, but have seen enough of it in my workshop to get over that first impression curiosity, and for Jane it is nice but not 'sejdish'. But for the average Elf that have hardly seen a machine? So lots of eyes watching the glass marble roll down track and the arm that lifts the marble back up when the marble reaches the bottom, and then the arm falls back down. The marble makes cycle after cycle.

Bodil loves the specialised craft and we already know she wants to make one of her own, especially after I pointed out that it can be made entirely of wood. So I give her a glass marble which she carries gently like a little kitten, and we discuss manufacture and design. Bodil starts sketching on a slate board as we talk, as she loves the lifting mechanism I suggest; a wooden ring that has two holes opposite each other from the middle, and rotates half a turn each time a marble reaches the lower hole to lift to the upper. She is contemplating carving Freya's symbol in the centre of the ring so the outer ring becomes a part of the symbol, and Bodil thinks it fits as Freya is the goddess of sejd. Maybe have the centre stationary so just the ring rotates. Or maybe do Yggdrasil in the middle and the roots joining the branches at the top. Just like my own marble machine, hers will have two marble tracks, which stay on their own side of the centre so the view of the ring and whatever decoration it gets isn't blocked.

Since I feel like just taking a break, I go my bedroom and just lie down in my bed with my eyes closed and relax. It's nice to just try to enjoy the silence and calm and let my thoughts wander. I'm still not really comfortable with sleeping on my back, so I'm not particularly worried about falling asleep, but it will hardly be a disaster if it that happens.

I haven't been lying in bed for more than half an hour when Caecilia comes in, and just lies down next to me. Ugh. I can guess what she wants, but I don't feel like having sex right now.

"Play with me."

Apparently Caecilia gets that, but the tone she said it with means she really wants some intimate contact and I know what she means and wants, and it's something I can do without much effort and practically continue resting. She's wearing some sort of t-shirt like garment and soft pants, so she has planned for this. So I turn on my side to face her, and Caecilia moves quickly to lay on my arm and become the little spoon, and I caress her hip, side and belly with my left hand. Caecilia takes my hand and sensually licks my fingers and slides my hand down the waistband of her soft pants, while she rotates and adjust her position and puts her leg over mine, so I have better access. So I start to sensually and softly caress and finger her most intimate parts while I move my right hand down her cleavage and start to caress her breast and nipple. Caecilia smile and make a content sigh.

It's kind of weird that I can just lay here and let my mind wander, and I haven't even gotten a hard-on even though I have beautiful and sexy Caecilia in a very intimate embrace, sensually playing with her most sensitive parts. This is actually its own unique relaxation I'm getting used to, because clearly Caecilia likes to ... 'cuddle' in this particular way. She would absolutely love it if it escalated to real sex, but she seems to genuinely love just being 'played with' for a long time. If she orgasms, that's nice, but it seems to be a secondary thing. 'Cuddling' in this way is something she apparently only does with me and Iselin, and something that started last autumn and became more often since she officially became my woman. Personally, I would have found it 'uncomfortable' to be similarly fondled and masturbated for a long time, but Caecilia likes it, and frankly I'm happy to be able to make her a little more sexually satisfied with something this simple and low effort. And her lying like this beside me in bed is better than her laying on top of me, especially on a sofa. She also likes to feel my hands on her breasts and between her legs when she is sleeping. I think it should be uncomfortable and keep her awake, but it is the opposite.

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So I just lie there and relax while Caecilia enjoys the slow gentle movements of my hands and fingers.

I give Hillevi her own glasses with yellow lenses, wood and metal frames 'Designed by Jane' with a small Academy/Ackerek logo on the sides, and honestly, they are better looking than the other glasses we designed. Hillevi has had to try out the lenses that work best for each eye, so although it's not ideal, it's certainly a big improvement. Hillevi is really surprised how much better she can see at a distance in them. Everything is so sharp and she can see so far!

She just looks at things and out the window, and have really started to understand how the rest of us have always seen the world. She handles the glasses very carefully. I give her the same warnings as Bodil about headaches, strained eyes and handling, and I reckon she will wear them more than Bodil does, who use hers more as crafting and reading glasses, which is one reason I've tried to make Hillevis the best we can. Ciara is proud to have helped and that Hillevi is so happy. I ask Hillevi to note down how quickly she gets a headache, gets tired in the eyes, and I warn that some lens may need to be changed a little etc, and then actually let me know. There is a good chance I will try to make better glasses for her in the future, and similar applies to Bodil. I remind both Bodil and Hillevi that eyes change and they will probably need new glasses in ten years because these might no longer work as well for them. The glasses might also break.

Of course the bodyguards have known about Hillevi's upcoming gift, and Bodil has made a small protective case in wooden with fabric inside to better protect the glasses, just as she has done for her own glasses. The shape of the case shows that she used the table router.

My laser ring and its mount for the telescopic sight are ready. It sits quite well in relation to the barrel and I've adjusted its point to match the sight. Not actually useful during the day as the laser is weak, but visible in the scope against the right surface, and a lot of hunting is at dawn or dusk when the light is lower, and thus the laser is more useful. However, it might spook animals. I've already set the laser to 100 meters, and beyond that I'll never see the dot anyway unless it's night, and then I am unlikely to see the target well enough even when I can see the dot. Although it might be useful in twilight or heavy moonlight. Iselin, Kari and Ciara think the tiny laser is very magical, and it is, I just gotten used to lasers myself. If I hadn't needed to worry about draining the battery, Ciara would definitely have played a lot more with Krosp using that laser.

I should improve the open sights and increase the contrast with a small recessed hole that gets filled with white paint or white horn. We have that mineral that is somewhat luminescent, but I don't know if it is worth it to apply to the front sight as the mineral needs UV light to glow, and does not glow for long, and the substance is 'beige' in daylight. A good white will have more contrast. But it might be useful for hunting at dusk or dawn when the sky is getting brighter but the terrain is dark and even more so in woods, because the sky still has quite a lot of UV light that our eyes just can't see. There is thankfully no radium paint here, but better night sights for 50 meters would be nice. Maybe I can do a flip-up thing as a larger front sight that have a large white line or dot, instead of trying to paint the narrow front sight post or inlay white horn. In low light or dark, there won't be any long range shooting anyway. I have a tritium powered Nite glowring in my key ring that I could take the tritium vial from for a weakly glowing night sight, but it feels silly, so that will stay in the key ring.

I should probably do a prototype flip-up front sight and test its usefulness before we start to make more pump action air rifles.

It will be interesting to test if and how high bullet rotation in the air rifles changes the effect on living targets. I wish I could satisfy my curiosity by just Googling real data and examples, but according to my rough calculation on a standard 900 m/s 5.56 NATO bullet, bullet rotation only provides around 16 to 20 joules of energy, which is only about 1% of the bullet's total energy, and variation in propellant charge and barrel length means greater variation. A round ball in an air rifle's much larger diameter gets 5 or 20 joules of energy at about 200 m/s if the barrel has a 20 cm or 10 cm twist, but even 20 joules shouldn't be noticeable if the bullet has 300 joules or more from muzzle velocity. Short 15 gram slugs at 280 m/s means 18 joules and 70 joules respectively, so not much more, but I would like to actually test the effect of the higher of those. But the long heavy hollow point slug at 230 m/s with a lot of the weight further from the centre of rotation, gets 120 respectively 480 joules of extra energy with those barrel twist rates, and that certainly feels worth trying. If the forward velocity of the bullet can provide 400 or 800 joules, and the rotation of the bullet can provide an additional 80 or 480 joules, then it should be far more effective at taking down a target. At least if the bullet penetrates any armour and the remaining energy is then dumped into the body and doesn't over penetrate. A stopped bullet has depleted all its energy from forward motion and rotation. If 300 joules is spent on getting through the armour, then having another 480 or something from the rotation should greatly improve the effect on target.

It will be interesting to experiment with rifling and an effective bullet, and how improvised ammo is affected. It is possible to change the barrel on future weapons if a nice combination is found, and not hard to do on the air rifles.

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