Dear Diary,

"When only Vengeance Remains, And that Vengeance is Righteous, Call on me, I will be there." - Tabitha Diaz, Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Vengeance

Continuing from the previous Verse's explanation of what can make Vengeance Righteous, in this, the final Verse of the Book of Vengeance, Tabitha makes clear that in our hour of need, she will be there for us. If we have sought out other responses to harm done to us, and none remain, if we have focused our Righteous wrath upon those responsible for the harm done us, and we call upon her, our Goddess will see our Vengeance done. She has never claimed omniscience, nor omnipresence, but she listens, and responds, and above all cares for us all, whether we have taken her as Patron or not. Even if your faith is too weak for your plea to reach her ears before your own demise, when her psychopomps claim you, she will hear your Righteous plea in the afterlife, and see your Vengeance done nonetheless. - Priestess Most High Above All Others, Archmage Imperator Saffron Aetos-Diaz, Commentary on the Doctrine of Tabitha

That one... I worried about that when I wrote this Verse, I think. I mean, if somebody's going for Vengeance in the situation I described, where somebody's taken everything from them, I'm definitely all for being there for them, making sure they get their Vengeance. Shit, I did that with Ophelia's father and brother, handed them over to a woman who'd had her daughters stolen from her. She fuckin' tortured them to death for that, and I just sat there watching. I still don't know exactly how I want to feel about that. How I should feel about that.

But what I do know is how I do feel about that. Thinking about it now I feel a kind of grim satisfaction. Not the kind of exultant thing I felt with the Mother of Water Panthers, or the triumphant one I felt with the Undead Dragon, or even the relief I felt when I heard Saffron's voice after the Battle of the Walls. It's more a quiet thing, not unlike... Okay, I just realized, it's what I feel when I've cleaned up a particularly messy, dirty room at the Academy. A feeling that things that were wrong have been set right.

It's even different to cooking, which I'm coming to realize I've gotten not half bad at. I started doing both the cleaning and the cooking to spend more time with Marie, got a shit ton of practice at it when she took her honeymoon maternity leave, but now I'm doing it for... Not for myself, exactly, although... Shit, that's exactly why I'm doing it. I could absolutely just fuck the fuck off and not ever clean another spooge and sweat crusted sheet, never fold another lump of butter into dough to make the pastry flaky. I wouldn't even miss out on the food, because my Murder Mittens would absolutely spoil me with anything I asked for.

I just realized that between spending time with her, then filling in for her, then helping her out, I've come to be way closer to Marie than I ever really thought I would be. I get her, and realize why she gets me. We're definitely two peas in a pod in some ways. The endless hunger for sex and violence, the pure raw talent for it, is something we share. But that doesn't mean we don't have the very Human need to create. To leave things better than we found them. To make a mark on the world that isn't a blood stain. I guess at some point I might want to find my own way of doing that. But then again, maybe not. We've got eight... shit, we've got fifteen kids. Fuckity damn, we've got seventeen kids if you include Conrad and Vulcan, although the former doesn't often eat with us, and the latter doesn't eat, as far as I'm aware. But that's still fifteen mouths to feed. Even with eight of them not yet on solid food, that's still gonna take both of us cooking our asses off to feed them.

I do not like how my brain just reminded me that Marie is, to the best of my knowledge, just fine eating raw meat. I mean, if she's got a jones for a raw leg of whatever, more power to her, but I am not going to cut corners by not cooking her food, or the food for our kids. Okay, sashimi isn't cooked, but it's still prepared. Same with tartare. My Wife is as much a person as I am, and I'm gonna treat her like a person and feed her people food. Food people eat, not food made out of people.

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Shit, I'd totally do that if she asked me to. I am so fuckin' besotted. Eh, fuckit. I can, at any point I am in need, look at her and say, 'orgasm please', and the worst thing that will happen is that she'll be grinning that smug grin at me as I lose control of my vocal cords. I am absolutely fine with admitting to my besottment.

So I asked Marie, Saffron, and Siobhan, and it turns out that since our eight are the first eight Maenad kittens in existence, nobody knows when they're supposed to be on solid food. With that in mind, Murder Mittens and I made lots of minced meat. Okay, I'm not sure if it was properly 'minced'. But she and I sliced it and smashed it and turned it into pate. Some kind of whitefish, some salmon, some beef, and of course some bear. I wasn't super clear on whether our kids were susceptible to the stuff you find in raw chicken or pork; Marie can eat both with no problems to speak of, but our kits are not Maenads. Not exactly, anyhow. If any of my girls start salivating inappropriately when D visits, I will have words with him.

That's not entirely fair to him, I suppose. But then, where my girls are concerned, I want desperately to be fair, but not at the cost of them not being safe.

So we brought the kits down for dinner time. Mostly they stayed attached to Marie or me, but we smeared some meat mush on our fingers and held it out for each of them. Anise tried all of it, but got a booger look at the fish. Felicia did the same, but opposite. Isadora sucked any meat mush fingers clean, then went back to nursing. Each of the other girls seemed to have at least one kind of meat mush they could tolerate, at least taste wise. Hailee was the only exception. She very politely sniffed each one, licked it once, then pointedly turned back to my nipple.

Of course our girls got into feeding the kittens. Of course Alex got her finger bit by Anise. No tears, because my little Hero-to-be doesn't cry when people can see, but she definitely ran over to me to have me Heal it. No shouting, no big deal, just a cut and some blood and some Healing and she went right back to feeding her sisters fingerfuls of mush.

Not Anise, but Alex is brave, not stupid.

Floating in the Bath, I murmured to Saffron, "should I plan on a visit north?"

She hummed, then said, "let's arrange a meeting with the Marshall first."

"Here?"

She considered that a moment, then shook her head. "The Black Dragon."

I nodded, said, "just let me know when," and went back to soaking. Gotta say, nursing eight kids has my nips a little sore, and the hot water did wonders for that. Okay, it might be the hot water, it might be the Bath is the only time all eight of them are willing to leave my poor breasts unoccupied. Even Hailee, who floats over in the 'adult' section of the Bath, quietly watching us, doesn't insist on nursing; she just lies there against me.

Dreamt of the ladies shaking the movie screen until it jostled me awake, with Marie grinning at me in the darkness. Spent some time in the Bedroom, then fell asleep with her warm fuzzy under my cheek, at which point the ladies watched reruns like those dudes who do football commentary. I absolutely dunked any of them that irked me, only to have them giggle and shriek adorably.

Today, as I went about my day, Marie pulled me aside in the kitchen. "What did you need, Mittens?"

"Dionysus. Sisters."

It took me a second. "You want to bring them for a visit?" She nodded. "To see our kittens?" She nodded more, and I slipped my arms around her waist. "To adore our cute little fuzzballs, as is good and right and proper?" She mlemmed. I kissed her, absolutely taking advantage of that big tiger tongue. When we pulled apart, I leaned back, smiled at her, and said, "okay, Mittens. We'll just need to make a bunch of extra food." When she tilted her head, I said, "you don't think D's gonna leave his kids behind, or that Diana's gonna pass up the opportunity to watch him go all goofy, which means those kids she watches will be along too, right?"

Turns out the Academy Maids are not actually putting forth a heroic effort to feed the full population of the Academy. Not if they can make that much extra on that short notice, anyhow.

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