Dear Diary,

Y'know, I'm not sure if what I did with Giselle was smart or not. Check that, I'm sure it wasn't, but I'm also not sure exactly what level of stupid it was. I mean, sure, letting her think that her pregnancy and eventual kid is due to a tryst with her Goddess on the altar might make her feel better, might make her just a little less likely to mistreat the kid if she winds up failing that particular way. But I kinda feel like maybe deception wasn't the best choice there. Then again, it's not like she did something really awful or unkind. From what she said, from what I picked up after a quick mental conversation with Karen yesterday, Giselle is basically the Temple bike. I don't mean that in any kind of bad way, either. She volunteers at the Temple and does whatever she's asked to do, but apparently her best skills are 'doesn't often miss any litter when she's set to police the grounds', 'cleans up after herself when she spills lunch deliveries from the kitchen', and 'has yet to let a pity sex partner know she's not actually attracted to them'.

Kind of like Siobhan without the brains or talent or, honestly, looks. Just a sweet, simple young woman who does what she can to help people out. I swear to fuck, I haven't asked about her day job yet, if she's even got one, but I would be utterly unsurprised that it's some here and now equivalent of 'match girl'.

Oh, fuck, I just realized, she's basically what would have happened to Aphrodite's High Priestess if Aphrodite hadn't picked her as 'sock puppet of choice'. Shit, now the absolute worst part of me wants to do that with her for her own good. Y'know, make her a High Priestess, show up and puppet her a few times so nobody takes advantage of her, scrape the meaningless fragments of persona from within her and use her when I'm bored and holy fuck I haven't had that kind of a fucked up impulse in a long fuckin' time. I mean, yeah, I stepped on that slippery slope with the intention of 'protect one of my worshippers, so I'm not gonna beat myself up, but I think I might tell Saffron and let her decide how much time I'm supposed to spend in the penalty box.

Yeah, there's some 'mixed emotions' shit right there, what with my inner twelve year old thinking 'hurr hurr hurr box' and tryna decide if I ought to be going for tentacles, boy mode, or just, y'know, starting with one finger and seeing if I can stretch things to all five. Meanwhile a certain hypermelanistic orange tabby of unusual size portion of me immediately jumped to my present to Saffron last year. I'm pretty sure the impulses about hollowing poor Giselle out and using her like a body condom came from that part of me, so I'd normally consider 'treat people with the dignity due people, or you get the box again' to be appropriate, but now my inner twelve year old is thinking about how smashed my box wound up. Boxes, if you include the one Marie packed me in. Although that one only got smashed once that morning, and along with her force feeding me a wooden ball gag to allow my tongue access to her lady parts, Saffron lost any pretense about being careful with what went in me other than that.

Huh. Weird, normally my inner twelve year old sex gremlin gets this way when I've not been getting my surgeon general's recommended daily allowance of intimacy, but I've been spending one to two nights a week doing nothing but that.

Luckily the kids wound up self-amusing during Bath time; by the gestures and bits of conversation I caught, Maze was telling the other four how she, Menace, and Ria caught Baby. Which is apparently the fuckin' Water Panther's name now. While they all talked about that, I quietly murmured, "ladies? Got a bit of a... problem, maybe?"

I had their attention immediately. Not even in a bad or disappointed way. Marie's ears perked up, one turned to listen to me while she floated atop my lap, my arms around her, my hands laying on her chest. Siobhan, who'd been lying atop Marie in kind of the same pose, rolled over to look at me from between Marie's ears, propping her chin on her hands, which themselves lay on Marie's bulging baby belly. Meanwhile Saffron, who'd been engaging in some breathing-optional-club underwater sightseeing, popped her head out of the water just far enough to raise an eyebrow and think, Well?

"Nothing awful. Just... y'know how I got all depressed?" They all nodded. "Yeah, I just realized that my brain has started to do that thing."

Well, ladies? Shall we... I saw my Kitten grin under the water before she sang, rescue her from depression?

I maintained eye contact with her for the next few shuddering moments. Kinda proud of myself for that. Also, if the flickering imagery coming to me from her was any clue, watching that activated many Kitten neurons. But then I sighed and said, "I don't think that's gonna fix it?" All three of them managed to express a bit of disbelieving shock without actually saying anything, just by posture and expression, and I chuckled and said, "oh, I'm absolutely willing to give it a try. Maybe a little gently with our overachieving baby maker here..."

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"No."

Right then Siobhan twitched, like somebody'd goosed her. She arched her back a little to look down at the belly beneath her, then blinked a little. "Pardon, Mistress, but yes." Marie's ears swiveled back to point at Ice Pop, who shook her head like she was arguing with herself. "Saffron, could you please Assess Marie?"

Saffron surfaced just enough to ask, "what in particular am I to be looking for?"

Siobhan frowned. "I'd rather not bias you by saying."

Saffron frowned. "I'm assuming something to do with her pregnancy?"

"Well, yes, but that much..." She shut her mouth, and shook her head.

Saffron paused, going still as she observed Marie's belly. Then she tensed, little ripples expanding around her on the surface of the water. "Yunya?" Marie sounded uncharacteristically uncertain.

Saffron looked at Siobhan. "You felt one of them, didn't you?" Siobhan nodded.

"Felt one of what, Kitten? Mittens is getting really tense right now."

Saffron blinked, then turned to Marie. "Apologies, dear lovely Marie. You're normally so... stoic. So self possessed. Based on my Assess, there is nothing amiss. Just something surprising."

"Okay, now I'm worried. What's up?"

Saffron took my hand from Marie's chest and pulled me down until my hand rested atop Marie's belly, right under Siobhan's chin, where her hands had been. While she did that, she looked at Marie and said, "I suspect you know what surprised Siobhan." I heard a quiet murmur in the back of my head, and Marie relaxed, nodding.

Then something bumped my hand. From inside that big old baby belly. I froze, my hand slipping down into the water.

"The. Actual. Fuck?"

All three of them giggled a little. "That was a month ago, love." Saffron managed to whisper. "Very actual. Much fuck. So pregnancy. Wow."

"Stealing my bits now, Kitten?"

"Oh, you'll know when I'm absconding with your bits, Goof."

I shook my head. "Yeah, I... Maybe... Fuck, um, isn't that supposed to happen in, like, the third trimester?"

Siobhan shook her head. "Oh, no. Typically it starts in the middle of the second trimester, and then it's the mother who can feel it, but," she rolled her eyes affectionately at Marie. "Our overachieving Maenad has stuffed herself so full that we can, apparently, feel it when pressed against her."

"No." Marie's statement took us all by surprise. Then she pulled me up and smiled at me. "She did."

"Uh... what did I do this time?"

Marie's smile went full on gremlin. "Stuffed Me." I floated there, mouth hanging open, until she giggled, took my hand and lay it gently on her belly, holding it there with her claw. "So Full."

After a few minutes of sitting there feeling a kind of languid motion from inside Marie's belly, I said, "wait, are you telling me she's in her second trimester?"

Saffron and Siobhan both nodded. "According to Assess Health. Which has yet to fail in any kind of spectacular way," confirmed Saffron.

Siobhan shook her head. "Not at all, that I've seen. And with so many Cadets still at the Academy, I've tested it thoroughly by now."

After we floated there for another couple minutes, Saffron smiled at Marie and said, "so, at least for the time being, we're going to be just a little gentle with you, lovely Marie."

I nodded, laying the side of my head against Marie's belly, looking up at her. "For the kittens."

She snickered. "Horde." Then snickered again. "Horde Hoard."

We all got a quiet laugh out of that, then snuggled in to pay attention to that motion. After a couple minutes, I got a stupid bright idea and looked at Marie. "May I?"

She picked up what I was putting down immediately, and her perceptions slipped into mine. So fuckin' weird. Yeah, the three of us could feel one kitten in one spot kinda wriggling rhythmically, but Marie? Holy fuckballs, there were eight of the little buggers in there, and if she couldn't quite feel every detail of every one, she definitely had more or less constant motion going on. One would settle down, and the next would decide it needed to wriggle.

After a bit I whispered, "does that bother you at all?"

"Never, Vlickies."

I thought of something just then. The other three turned to look at me, and Saffron just smiled and said, "out with it."

So weird, sharing perceptions and thoughts enough that they could know when something had struck me funny and weird and maybe upsetting all at once. "Yeah, earlier I was worried, 'cause I had one of those really dark awful impulses, to hollow Giselle out and use her as a sock puppet for sex reasons."

"I can't think you'd ever give in to an impulse like that, love, but what made you think of that?"

I sank nose deep into the water, kinda tryna hide. Sorta feel like I hollowed Mittens out to use her as a baby factory for kitten reasons.

Marie's claw wrapped around the back of my head, lifted me out of the water, and gently but firmly pulled my lips up to hers. "You Did." She kissed me before I could respond. "Thank You." She kissed me again, and when I tried to figure out how to respond to that, she shut me down completely by whispering into my mouth. "Good Girl."

Of course right around then the horde hoard started their peanut gallery thing, calling us 'silly'. Which Saffron brought a stop to by the simple expedient of calling the girls over and letting them do the hand on belly thing. All the girls seemed surprised, or impressed, or excited. It took all four of us to keep Isnomi from shouting at Marie's belly. Eventually she settled for whispering, "huwwy ub. Wanna pway wif you!" with her lips pressed to Marie's tummy.

Yeah, the kids wound up staying up late. Worth. So. Worth.

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