Dear Diary,

Yesterday reminded me of something. Namely, that not every person following me is gonna be an absolute horndog of the first water, but everybody deserves acceptance, and everybody craves intimacy, even if that means radically different things to different people.

Like, for me it's all about that skin to skin contact after every bit of tension has been annihilated by repeated blasts of high density dopamine. For some people it's about conversation. For some it's about physical closeness, but not sex. For others it's about emotional closeness, or even mental closeness.

But for everybody, it's about someone letting a person close enough to be well inside that danger radius, that distance that sets off the inner four F response, and reacting with welcome. Acceptance of a person as a person, not predator or prey or, I guess for some people, even fuck partner. Just... a person, deserving of acceptance and kindness.

Probably helps that I've hit a point where I don't need to have my defenses up. Well, I don't need to have any kind of mental awareness of danger. Or... Y'know, this is kind of hard to explain, which is stupid, because it's been so integral to my life experience, and yet as I'm setting it aside I'm realizing it wasn't some core part of what makes me who I am. It's a burden, one I needed to survive, but one I don't need twenty four by seven. It's like armor, I guess. The constant alertness. Hypervigilance, although I never really thought of what I'm setting aside that way.

I mean, yeah, in an environment like the Practice Yard on Combat Training days, that just made sense. Out with the Expeditionary Force, or standing watch atop the Black Dragon's mast during the Siege of Calverton, again that kind of vigilance made sense, and I always thought of that as 'hypervigilance'. But while that might be a type of hypervigilance, it's also just... Vigilance.

Nah, the thing I'm realizing, and I've got this idea that I've had this revelation before, but maybe on a shallower level, which explains the three steps forward, two steps back thing, since people are like onions and ogres and have layers, and now I've totally lost the thread. At any rate, hypervigilance isn't about those times when vigilance is called for. It's about the times when it's really not. Yeah, I know I surprised myself being unguarded with my ladies and kids, but if there's anyplace a body should be able to set aside vigilance, it's safe at home.

I suppose that's part of what always surprises me with my Worshippers. Shocks me, stuns me, leaves me utterly incapable of responding coherently, really. For them? I'm home. Not just the big badass who happens to be on their side. I grew up seeing a lot of those, and if there's one thing my mom managed to get absolutely right, it was never bringing one of those dudes home. A lot of my friends had 'dads' like that. The ones where they'd beat the shit out of anybody who looked cross eyed at their kids, but would sometimes beat the shit out of said kids when the kids were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So at the end of the day yesterday, after a dinner of fried bread pockets, we all lay soaking in the Bath, because the kids seemed to want to decompress quietly more after a day of school than a day of playing around the Homestead, no matter how hard they played or worked. I pulled Saffron to me, buried my face in her hair, and murmured, "can I ask you something?"

She chuckled. "What makes you think you need permission to ask?"

I shrugged. "Consent? Meh, nah, really you're just working your ass off all day answering questions and giving opinions and, y'know, doing talky big brain shit. I figured you might want to just vegetate."

"Hmm..." She relaxed even further, if that was possible. "If I'm supposed to be emulating a vegetable in this big simmering pot, are you planning on making a snack of me?"

"You're already kind of a snack." Then I realized what she was talking about. "No! I..."

She rubbed her head against my face, silencing my spluttering with her hair. "Oh, hush, Goof. Not only did you enjoy it on your birthday, you know I absolutely enjoyed it in every way possible."

"Still think it's a little sus," I muttered.

She rolled over, took a deep breath, and in doing so erased all coherent thought from my brain. "I regret it no more than I regret the night of Penance when you left Darling and I satiated, drooling, and eventually utterly overwhelmed." She snickered. "You know, I think waking up secured in a position where my choices were indulging in antics with our Darling or going back to sleep was what first put the idea in my head of doing unto her as I did on our wedding night."

"Still not sure I'm entirely convinced I shouldn't be doling out some Penance for that, too."

She blinked and Grinned at me. "You mean you'd deny me the opportunity to make a child with one of our lovers?"

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I rolled my eyes. "Nah. Not that. You know."

Her voice deep and throaty, she murmured, "you mean that the scales are not yet balanced for," she leaned in and breathed into my ear, "too late!"

When my eyes uncrossed, I muttered back. "Yeah. Something like that."

"Don't worry," she growled, "they will be." When I made concerned Tabitha noises, she nipped at my ear and said, "Ledger Day."

"I swear, every time you mention that little last second taunt or Ledger Day, I get the urge to carry you off and see if I can put more babies in you than I did in Marie."

Murder Mittens herself cut in at that with, "Too Small."

Saffron just sighed, reached out to either side to pull Marie and Siobhan closer to us, which had the side effect of pulling Tallulah, who'd been finger combing Darling's hair, closer as well. "Despite our tallest partner's attempt to taunt me into taunting you into doing just that, the time is not yet right, love." Then she looked over to Tallulah. "Although our Overlord...?"

Tallulah looked up, shook her head, and answered, "eleven more days."

All of us got a little confused by that, until she sighed and explained. "Eleven more days until one of you Assesses me to see if I'm to be fitted for a ring or a collar."

I shook my head. "So fuckin' weird." When they all looked at me, I said, "that you'd want that. I mean, I get it, it's just a different kind of ring, a different kind of commitment, but..." It took me a second. "I guess I still can't get over the whole 'implied lack of Consent' when it comes to Concubines." All of them giggled or snickered at that. "What's so funny?"

Siobhan slipped her fingers around my wrist, pulled my hand up to her neck, and slipped it around her neck, so my palm covered her collar. I still wasn't sure how it wasn't uncomfortable, because it had practically become one with the skin of her neck. Shit, Conrad made it. It might very well have done just that. I tensed up a little when she forced my fingers around to where I held her by the neck. "Beloved Mistress, the closest you have ever come to that was when you force fed me, because you thought I was starving myself."

"Still feel bad about that."

"Do not, dear Tabitha. You've apologized, made amends, and I know it was an accident. Since then you have been..." Her eyes fluttered closed, and I felt her chuckle through my palm. "The thought of that Penance night has carried me through some of the darkest parts of my pregnancy thus far."

"Some?"

She nodded, chuckling. "That night. Our Date. The Wedding night. Although..." I raised an eyebrow as the others sat listening. "My favorite memory is probably sitting atop the Black Dragon's mast with you, watching your Kraken in the moonlight."

I barked out a laugh. "C'mon, I was awful to you that night."

She giggled. "You were. You absolutely were. I loved it so much." She nuzzled against me. "I love you so much, Tabitha."

"I love you too, Darling." She made a pouty face against my side. "I love you, Siobhan."

I did not expect the satisfied sigh from Saffron, who still lay atop me, or the smug purr from Marie. When Tallulah scooped Hailee atop Siobhan, who just melted when the kit started purring, Saffron cleared her throat quietly.

"You said you had a question?"

It took me a second. "Oh. Uh. Yeah." I'd kind of intended to ask when everybody else was sort of distracted, but it looked like my intentions had gone the way of all things. "Yeah, um, did you... how much of the Commentary was, um, intended for me?"

She made a curious noise, then said, "I take it you expect an answer other than 'all of it, of course'?"

"I mean, all of that stuff is pretty clearly for my followers. Worshippers. Whatever. You explaining my jank ass erotic poetry to them. But some of it seemed like it was maybe also you talking directly to me. About shit like parenting, and... other stuff."

She rubbed up against me, which had the expected effect of making me lose the plot entirely. "I cannot truly say without knowing exactly which Verse you're speaking of, but... would it help if I said that in the Commentary for each and every Verse, I bared my Soul to the faithful, that they might see the impressions you'd made upon it, and if any particular Verse's Commentary felt directed at you, it was then that I bared those parts that I normally need not cover, for they are pressed firmly against you?"

Part of me melted. Another part of me took control of my mouth and snickered. "I like the bits pressed against me right now."

"I know. I like the way you show your appreciation for them."

I glanced down at Hailee, wondering at and about how fast she was picking up language. "Uh... Bedroom after bedtime?"

Saffron pushed herself up enough to glance back and forth to the others, seeking wordless confirmation, then braced her chin in my cleavage to look up at me. "That sounds lovely, love."

Funny, wasn't exactly quiet, but wasn't super energetic either. Tallulah and Siobhan pretty much hung out on the Divan spectating. Okay, they might have gotten up to some two player mode while Marie and Saffron distracted me. Or while I was distracted with Saffron, or with Marie. But, y'know, distracted. It has a meaning, and they were absolutely the loveliest possible definition of that.

Dreamt of all my ladies watching that shit like a Lifetime movie or some shit like that. I do not quite grok. I don't think. But they all seemed way less boisterous, way more into it than normal. Weird. Not bad, but weird.

Spent today teaching the kids math and playing heavy referee in Boltophsberg. Seriously, at this point a lot of what was happening was detail work, they'd hammered out the broad strokes of a kind of constitution over the past couple days, but they had centuries of bullshit to work out before they could all sign off on the results with a clean slate. Our foursome from the Alliance: Ophelia, Lenny, Tallulah, and Saffron pretty much were coaching more than anything, and Baba Yaga wound up being the main referee. From what I could tell, she was gonna wind up playing a role not unlike Saffron's 'official' role on the Grand Council of the Alliance; a tiebreaking arbiter. I really didn't think she'd wind up de facto leader like my Kitten was, mostly because she definitely had that 'I'm too old for this kind of shit' energy in spades. But for what amounted to the Boltophsberg 'constitutional convention', she was the arbiter. The ref, laying down the law when two or more people had been going around in circles, none of them willing to budge, for long enough that she got annoyed.

Sad yet hopeful thing, only had to apply my knuckles to Perun's moose knuckle once today.

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