Dear Diary,

Sometimes I wonder how many of the differences between here and now and back in the day are due to interference from Deities, how much is due to folks having shit like Mana in the first place, and which things are just shit going differently. Like, quantum shit. Or uncertainty shit? Look, I was a teenager with too much time on my hands and an internet connection, not any kind of scientist whatsoever. But I read enough to know that while a lot more shit is ruled by the Laws of Physics than any of us like to think about, the shit that isn't, or isn't, I dunno, predetermined by Laws of Physics, boils down to sheer random chance.

Thing is, from what I remember reading, that sheer random chance occurs at such a fundamental level, and consciousness is such an ephemeral thing, that maybe it affects choices we make. Like, sure, maybe almost every choice every person makes is something that with enough knowledge and processing power you could predict, or at least put odds on. But maybe some of those things aren't that settled. Maybe for shit we really don't care about, that we'd flip a coin for, that randomness seeps in. Maybe for shit where we're right on the edge, where we're terrified of doing something, but want the reward so much we can taste it with every fiber of our being, that little random chance comes into play with whether we take the risk or walk away.

Fuck, maybe that spark of random chance is what we think of as a Soul.

Like I said, I'm just a poor dumb bitch who wound up in the exact wrong place at the exact wrong time. Or exact right place at the exact right time, if I flip it around and look at it from a better angle. Okay, I dunno if it's objectively more factual, but I sure as shit like it more. Random chick destined to maybe graduate high school, work minimum wage, pop out a kid or three, and consider it a success if I get a promotion to Supervisor and any of my kids graduate college, or beloved Deity, Champion, Mother, and Wife? That seems like a fuckin' no brainer to me to pick which one is the better deal.

Funny, when I think about it, how much becoming a High Priestess and Deity has made me mindful of my own language. Seriously, I think it took me like a week to realize that if I don't say the G word or call him by name, he doesn't get up in my business. Not, like, in person. Same with the word 'damn', although I slip with that one a lot more. Sometimes not so much 'slip' as actually mean it, I guess. Knowing certain words coming out of my mouth are lethal weapons has made me maybe a little less likely to say them. I mean, yeah, I'm kind of a bitch, but I'd like to think I'm not that kind of a bitch, who would fire a gun at people I don't want dead just to see whether they die or not.

Not sure what it says about me that if it's someone I want dead, who I think deserves it, I absolutely know I will pull the trigger. Or even yell at someone else to pull the trigger while I hold them in front of the gun barrel.

So I spent yesterday practicing Saffron's new Status, specifically calibrating my Mana to use it on my Kitten without erasing her brain and leaving her as a life sized Imperator sex doll, which is one of those thoughts I'm embarrassed to think with my own brain, and definitely not happy to have to quell the sudden upwelling of tentacles. Right before I got to actually pull the trigger and get a look under my Wife's hood, she reminded me it was Revel night.

Never thought I'd feel some kinda way about having to spend a night getting my groove on. Then again, first of all the past couple of weeks have shown me, reminded me and driven home to me, really, that wasn't what my Revels were about. Not in my Temple of Love. Maybe in Aphrodite's old one. Not that I had anything against a night of hardcore fucking, just in case my wedding night had left anyone in doubt about that. Definitely needed to get Siobhan's bean fully cooked and evicted, because I wasn't sure about the others, but I had Darling specific urges that wanted filling. Pretty sure Saffron and Marie did too, because ain't even one of us who doesn't get the urge to do shit that's possibly contraindicated during pregnancy now and then.

At any rate, as happened so often with my Revel nights, the moment I arrived, dropping my Blend and my clothes at the same time, all that fell away. Lest anybody thought that meant my wives, my ladies, my kids and kits weren't as important to me as my Worshippers, may I remind you of the entire 'severe unmedicated ADHD symptom' that is lack of object permanence. Okay, I'm not sure if that's the exact thing people like me lack, but as noted before, avid reader with an internet connection and too much time on her hands, not a doctor. At any rate, I did manage to snag Karen before she went and got the first of my Worshippers up to the Altar and say, "no class for me or mine tomorrow."

She just nodded, her smile never slipping, and said, "thank you for letting me know, Goddess." Then she paused, slipping up to me, almost a hug, almost an embrace, and asked, "ought you be here then?"

I turned that almost embrace into a real one while murmuring back, "nothing bad, nothing super urgent, we're just visiting with Dad."

"Oh!" She seemed relieved, but took a moment to ask, "should you be unable to come to a Revel, would you rather we stand in your stead, or lead the Revel for you?"

It took me a second to realize what she meant. When I did, I chuckled softly and said, "don't pretend to be me. Not for that. I don't want anyone... Cheated of their time with me?" She nodded, understanding what I'd imperfectly tried to convey. "Do let them know what's up with me if that happens, so they know I haven't forgotten about them, please."

"As you wish, my Goddess."

With that she stepped away and brought up the first of my Revel partners of the night. Hannah, head of the school here at the Temple of Love. Also one of the teachers. Also, also, one of the night school teachers. It felt like somehow Wendel and Dorothea's time on the Altar had flipped some kind of switch. Hannah didn't not want sex, but she wanted more than that. Lots more than that, and most of it was talking. Venting, really, about her job. Jobs. About how kids would try to jump to things they couldn't understand because they didn't have the foundations to do anything but misunderstand the counter-intuitive parts, which I kind of related to after both parenting and teaching. About how adults would get bent out of shape being treated like they were ignorant, even when being ignorant was just the default state and nothing to be embarrassed about, not to mention the entire reason they were taking classes to begin with, to get educated. About how the few parents she spoke with on the regular could ruin days of work with a careless word to their kid. About how the teachers, especially most of the part timers, could be more invested in showing off their knowledge or even imparting it, than invested in the students they worked with.

I listened. I commiserated where I could, accepted where I couldn't. All the while I worked the knots out of her shoulders, her neck, her wrists, hands, and fingers. When she eventually wound down, she leaned over to press her forehead against mine, her eyes slipping shut. "Ready for bed?"

She hummed her response, but didn't start snoring. I looked inside her, saw what she wanted, and must have made some kind of interrogative noise, because she murmured back, "please."

So I held her, supporting her with arm and lap and tentacles, as she relaxed and let me do unto her with one hand while I crooned a lullaby in her ear. Sweet woman dropped off right in the middle. Not the middle middle, but the middle of the good part.

Weirdest fuckin' thing. I knew not only exactly what she was dreaming, but where she was dreaming about. Never realized somebody who wasn't High Clergy could show up at the Maw in their dreams. Fuck it, I'm sure she'd been putting in eighty hour weeks and shit, doing for others what I wished I could, but didn't have the time or skills or talents for. The very best kind of restful dreams were the least she deserved.

After I laid her down gently on the Altar, I turned to find Karen escorting Leanna up. She pressed herself against me and kissed me without preamble, and that dark place within her was filled with filling the dark place within her, hard and fast and honestly too sudden for me to join her, really. As she straddled my lap after, she panted out, "you... You can... Use me?"

I smiled at her, letting her see the desire to hear her truth in my eyes. "Is that what you want?" She bit her lip and shook her head. I slipped her around so I could get a good grip on her shoulders, tentacles working where my hands could not reach to banish any remaining tension from her. "This time is for you, Leanna. You and no one else, unless you want them here." She hesitated. "Go on." I chuckled. "Anything you want. Trust me, it will not be the weirdest request I've received."

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"You sure?" She smirked at me, and I laughed and nodded, and she quietly whispered all her frustrations in my ears. What with the restaurant and bar staff both technically reporting to her, not to mention a few of the folks like dancers and singers who I only now realized were putting on little vignettes of varying erotic content, both in some of the smaller rooms and down at the base of the Altar steps, she didn't want to vent loudly. So I quietly listened to her offering her understanding, and advice where I could. When she ran down, which again took a surprising amount of time, I looked inside her. "Really?"

She nodded and bit her lip. "Please?"

I lay her on the Altar, leaned over her, and whispered, "this time is for you, Leanna. You don't have to say please." Then, as she relaxed, I added, "kinda turns me on when you do, though."

She finished before I did, her echoing repetition of 'please' fading into murmurs that still did the trick for me. I guess it was a night for things, because she joined Hannah there in my Maw. Okay, joined Hannah briefly, as the Temple's Headmistress slipped under the surface not long after, her dream self dissipating in an explosion of erotic Glory.

I worried a little about running out of time before Amber was done, but she looked at me, desperate, and said, "please."

It turned out she did not want to unburden herself by talking. It took a little creative use of Blend to avoid anyone else in the Temple realizing who all I shapeshifted into over the next hour or so, not to mention muffling the details of the primal shrieking beratement that she blurted while doing unto me. Kinda on the weird side, maybe a little worrisome, but the final piece was what left me just the tiniest bit more copacetic, when I had to retrieve my flogger from the Bedroom. Because if she was frustrated with her fellow Clergy and temple volunteers, she was even more frustrated with herself, at least in part with her own frustration.

Really glad I'd had some practice with the flogger before, and equally glad the handle had in fact been designed for the other use. Not gentle 'other use', but she didn't want gentle. Just reassurance. Surprised me when she showed up at the Maw, even more so when, as the ladies flickered away, waking up, my tentacles set to showing her that there were enough of them to mete out punishment and reward concurrently.

I pulled Karen over to me as the sun rose, cleaning Amber, both of us, and the Altar. "Hey, see that Amber gets some time off maybe? Or some help?" I kinda dumped the entire zeitgeist I'd gotten from the Temple's Operations Manager into her brain, and she nodded understanding.

"Sorry for not seeing that sooner, Goddess."

"Nah. She's been hiding it. Thinking she has to hide it, or she won't be able to do her job. Which...?"

Karen nodded. "She's very good at it. Very dedicated. I'll work on trying to perhaps keep her from getting quite so frustrated. Unless...?"

I laughed. "Look, if every so often I gotta sit here and lend an ear and apply dopamine release to grease the Temple's wheels, I'm down for that, but I'm not gonna even think about wanting the Temple to be engineered so people need that." I stopped myself before I got mad, then quietly said, "I know other Deities want that. Have wanted that. Honestly? If you guys get to a point you don't need me, that would be perfect."

She hugged me, then said, "we will always need you, Goddess. If only to know that you are there when the shit hits the fan."

I laughed, hugged her back, and stepped back to Dad's place, where I got an armful of snuggly Kitten before I could even announce myself. "Hey, everything okay?"

She pulled me down for a kiss, and when she let me up, smiled up and said, "nice to see you inspiring such devotion in your Worshippers, love." I must have tensed, because she goosed me. While I squirmed and squeaked, she laughed and said, "I'm serious, Goof. You are mine, my Wife, my love, my Goof, but..." She sighed, but a sigh of deep contentment, not regret.

"But what?"

She smiled. "Sharing you with those most deserving of such a gift makes me feel like I might be a better person."

"Oh, Kitten..."

"And gifting them, Passion and Ecstasy and Worship and all, to you? Absolutely an act of Devotion to my Goddess and Wife."

I smiled at that. "Careful. Might prop you up there on the Altar some Revel night. Douse you in all that for a night or twelve."

She smirked and buried her face in my chest. "So decadent. So wasteful."

I shrugged. "Meh. I figure it might be an interesting experiment. See if maybe we can elevate you despite my Glory disability."

She leaned back, frowning. "I like my job. You know I like my job."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Such a sad story, 'I came so hard and fast and often I had to stop being Imperator and just be a Goddess instead'."

She snorted. "What would I even be Goddess of? Orgasms?"

"Magic?"

She rocked her head back and forth. "I am an Archmage already, love. That's... Not the same, but functionally very similar."

"Okay, how about Darkness?"

She frowned. "Isn't that your mother's Domain? I thought that whole 'marry your mother' thing was for men?"

I shook my head, keeping my chuckle low to let everyone else wake up at their own pace. "Nah. Goes for Sapphics as well, far as I know. Besides, she's Mother Night, right?" She nodded. "So here in civilized lands, we have these things called buildings. Some of which don't have windows. And the lamps can be turned off."

"So I'm to be Goddess of Not Having Lamps?"

"Or turning them off intentionally. For reasons," I whispered into her ear. "Or other Dark things."

"Like?" she murmured.

"Chocolate? Yeah, chocolate's pretty Dark. Coffee? No, I don't think you'd like black coffee, and we don't have that here anyhow. Uh... Cake?"

"What kind of cake?"

I grabbed hers, saying, "I dunno."

She mock slapped at my chest. "That's like the least dark part of me."

"Not inside."

"Goof!"

That's when it hit me. "Nah. Nope. Just realized. If I do that, which I'm not sure I'm generous enough to do, and it works, which I'm utterly uncertain it will, you, my beautiful, indulgent, dark, devious Wife?" She looked up at me, expectant. "Will be our Pantheon's Goddess of Decadence."

"Ooh. Ooh, yes, I could perhaps get used to that."

"Good enough retirement plan then?"

She smiled up at me. "So seductive. I chose well."

"Chose? Didn't I Just Happen to you?"

She pulled herself up to put her mouth next to my ear. "I could have let you wake up on your own after the first time you showed up to the door naked."

"Why didn't you?"

She pulled back, realized I was honestly asking, and shook her head. "So clueless. For which I love you as much as anything, Goof. You see, when a woman is interested in having sex with someone, and that someone keeps showing that woman their naked body, that woman will keep coming back until the object of her affections holds it against her."

I squished her buns a little as she looked up at me, because there is nothing quite like the feel of bun squish, and asked, "you thought I'd get mad at you?"

She wriggled and said, "you're holding it against me right now."

That got me. We both lost ourselves to quiet giggles and kisses until everyone else was up. Marie hopped back for food, and Saffron, Loki and I went back to working with the new Status.

I insisted on a couple practice runs, and I was glad I did. Shot straight to upper yellow the first time. "What the fuck is up with that?"

Saffron shrugged. "Any being's power fluctuates on a regular basis. Not very much, but... Your daily fluctuation might be only a percentage of your overall power, but that is significantly more than my entire being. Or at least a substantial portion of it."

So we took a while practicing again, until I managed to calibrate my Secret Blend Buster Status to green ten times out of ten.

"Ready?"

"For you? Always, love." She Grinned at me. "Strip my Soul bare and look upon it naked, my Goddess."

I rolled my eyes, Shaped the Spell, and as carefully as I'd ever done, released it.

Inspection Target:

Saffron "Kitten", "Yunya", "Sexypaws", Aetos-Diaz

Target Type

Humanoid Biped (Human, Faun)

Titles

Adult, Legendary Archmage, Hero (Phileo), Imperator, Mistress, Mother, Priestess Most High Above All Others, Wife

Patron

Mimic

Attributes:

Strength: 9(T1), Agility: 2(T2), Endurance: 4(T2), Reason: 4(T4), Memory: 6(T3), Personality: 3(T4)

Skills

Assess Health, Blend, Canoodling, Coercion, Compression, Cunning Linguist, Dress Down, Flautist, Inspect, Lecture, Mana Blade, Mana Shaping, Percussion, Precision, Research, Strong Arm, Swift Foot, Thick Skull, Ward

"What's up with the different... Holy shit, 'Legendary'?"

My Kitten blushed, then nodded. "I'm not certain whether it's Researching and Shaping three Global Spells personally or being associated with five, but... Yes!"

Yeah, we lost more than a little bit of time to congratulations at that. Fuck it. Worth.

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