Dear Diary,

"Of all my many Domains, If you must pick only one, Children. Always. Forever." - Tabitha Diaz, Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Children

As has been noted before, of all of her Domains, Children is the one that our Goddess is most proud of, the one she has no regrets or hesitation about. Here in this final Verse of the Book of Children she makes that clear, as well as clarifying that if one has the privilege of choosing which Domain they wish to embody, but can only choose one, they are to choose Children. Children. Always. Forever. May it be so. - Priestess Most High Above All Others, Archmage Imperator Saffron Aetos-Diaz, Commentary on the Doctrine of Tabitha

Kinda funny that of all my Verses, this is the one she decides to quote me directly, following it with a simple Amen.

Okay, I'm surprisingly okay with this. Because I guess even though I'm not Mortal any more, I still think of Children as the future. Shit, even with me being a Deity, Children still are the future. Yeah, I'll be there, but I'll still be me. Hopefully flexible enough to keep changing with the times, but still me. Still with all the problems and traumas that made me what I am. Yeah, I'm working to recover from them, to heal from them, but if I've learned anything, it's that mental scars are even harder to recover from than physical ones.

I mean, I'm doing my best to recover from them, spending time every day thinking and talking to myself and spending plenty of my time talking this shit out with Saffron and Dad and Mom and even Siobhan and Marie, but I still run across problems and knee jerk reactions that shame and embarrass me all the fucking time. On the flip side, my scars ache one hundred percent of the time, but I don't think about them much, and I'm long since past the point where they even slow me down when shit gets real.

Honestly, my general reaction to shit makes me think that I'm never going to heal completely from all the fuckin' mental trauma I've accumulated. If for no other reason, I keep accumulating more. But I still keep trying, and there's one thing that makes me think I'm making progress. Well, not one thing, but one kind of reaction that I've had with multiple people now. Tallulah. My kids. Marie. Even Siobhan and Saffron sometimes.

I see people with Trauma and I help them. I listen. I let them talk, and I encourage them to do what they need to do to recover. I may not be healed, may never heal completely, but I've healed enough that I see other people struggling and I want to help them. Help them succeed, help them heal.

Shit, that's most of why I do what I do on Fridays. Yeah, the antics are fun and all, but if I never had another orgasm during a Friday night Revel, I'd still keep doing it, just for the folks who come in all bound up by pain, sorrow, guilt, and worry, then leave with all of that gone. Or at least reduced, maybe to the point they can start to heal.

Speaking of starting to heal, when I offered her that deal yesterday, Ilmatar just snorted at me again. "Please. You would wrest him from the clutches of Loviatar just to have me cause rainfall?"

"The clutches of who now?"

She shook her head. "Loviatar. She who snatches away Souls."

That put an entirely new and unpleasant spin on things. "I thought you were Ivan's Patron?"

"I am." She winced. "Was."

"You still want to be?"

She had the gall to look offended, after trying to strike my ship with lightning. "Of course."

I reached out, took her hand before she could snatch it away, then stepped us both down to the stern cabin of the Questing Tentacle. Ivan laid there on the table, although Karen had sorted him out so he looked like a proper body at a funeral rather than somebody sloppily dropped off at a morgue. Ilmatar jerked like she'd been slapped when she saw him. Her gasp drew Ilya's head around; the kid looked pissed as fuck, but dropped to one knee and bowed his head.

"Do you think he wants to come back? Or would he rather stay in the afterlife with, uh, Loviatar, was it?"

Ilmatar just frowned at me. "Her realm is the ice, cold, and darkness of eternal winter's night. None wish to stay there, even if most wind up there."

"Well. Shit." Mittens? You find him yet?

I got a wordless sense of weak confirmation, like she knew where he'd headed, but hadn't quite found him yet. Beyond Niflhel.

Right. Head back to Homestead, Mittens. I'll take it from here. I turned to Ilmatar, laid a hand on Ivan's chest while drawing Mana from the me in M-Space. Karen? Little help?

Worship flowed. A second after it started, Madeline stood there in her Holy Garb, fingers interlaced with Karen's. That didn't ramp up the power much, but it sure as fuck reduced how much holding that much Mana hurt.

"You would take from your own Highest Priestess...?"

She stuttered to a stop, and I asked, "do you want him back?" She nodded. "Will you take responsibility for him once he's back?" She nodded again. "Can you put out the fires in Boltophsberg before anybody else's home burns down?" She shrugged and nodded a third time. "Okay then." I looked down at him, leaned in, and whispered, "Revive."

It took more Mana than I'd expected. Maybe more than any Human person I'd Revived. But I'd revived Ria Crow, un-burning her Soul from ash. His spine bowed and his eyes glowed, but Ivan gasped, spat out something that was more wordless epithet than profanity, then sat bolt upright. "FUCK!"

I couldn't help it. "I'm a little busy with a lot of shit right now, and Karen's coordinating refugee evacuation, but I think Madeline's open to guys if they're, like, moderately polite about asking." Madeline made embarrassed High Priestess noises in my brain, so I smiled at her. "No obligation, Mads. You know I don't work like that."

Ivan, for his part, looked at Ilya, who signed, the Goddess paid for your Revival with rain.

I realized right then that Ilmatar was nowhere to be seen, but the first patter of rain on the deck above us and the windows around us confirmed that she'd started the storm I asked for.

"What's going on?" Ivan might have been asking Ilya, but he was looking at me, and starting to slip off the table, as if he was gonna get to his feet.

I placed a hand on his chest, and if he looked ready to throw down if no explanation was forthcoming, especially with one of my fingers going through the slit in his shirt that showed his brand new cardiac piercing scar, he didn't actually take a swing or say anything. "As of you coming aboard, you're officially a refugee. A non-combatant."

"I didn't agree to that," he growled.

"Yeah, and you didn't agree to be Revived. Now, my question for you, did you agree to be stabbed?"

"Fuck no!" he spat.

"Then I'm guessing you didn't agree to be used as an excuse for your Sailors to riot. Or as bait for them to be led into a trap."

He tried to leap forward, but as I may have mentioned, Ivan wasn't exactly a powerhouse of a guy. I might have some trouble with him if he got a can of spinach or some other kinda power up, but mostly this time he'd just bounced off my hand back onto his butt. Which was fortunately still on the table. "Let me go, woman! My people need me!"

I shook my head. "Nah. Traps been defused." Both of them looked at me at that. "The Palace is currently under Alliance protection." He got a really angry look on his face at that, but before he could speak I plowed over him. "As are you and anyone else claiming refugee status aboard any Alliance ships."

"How is that defusing the trap? When the Adventurers retreat to the Palace..."

"They'll be stuck outside the Ward I've got around it. Just like all their buddies and all the Scribes are stuck inside."

He blinked at that, then slumped. "Truly?" I nodded. "My people are still going to be hurt. The City..."

"Won't burn down. Ilmatar's making sure of that." The rain pounded against the roof. "Also making the fight a lot sloppier. Which means if the Adventurers have half a brain, they'll bunker down and stop tryna be assholes. Or they're all gonna die."

"My people will die too."

I nodded. "Some of them. Probably. Not much I can do about that. Best I could do was make the fight a lot more even. A brawl rather than a battle. Also make it no fun to fight; I'm kinda hoping if the Adventurers fort up, the rain will make your folks hunker down as well."

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"Why?"

"Because once the fighting passes? I'm thinking you and I and the other Guild leaders need to sit down with Vainemoinen and have a fuckin' chat about shit."

He snorted. "A chat? You'd have us talk this out? After they murdered me?"

I nodded. "Yeah. And if we can sort out who's responsible for that, they pay whatever price murder normally carries around here. Life in prison, death penalty, community service, whatever."

"So Casimir pays?" I knew the trap in his words, even if he hid it well.

"Nope." He tried to snap something, but I rolled over him again. "No more than I'd shoot a dog who's master told him to attack. I mean, if he did it on his own? Sure. But shit's gonna settle way the fuck down, because I am not cool with how many kids wound up having to run and hide here."

"In Boltophsberg?"

"On the Questing Tentacle."

Karen chose that moment to interrupt. "Pardon, Goddess, about that?"

"What's up?"

"We're almost full up."

I nodded. "Cast off, head for the Black Dragon. Tell the Marshall to expand our perimeter, keep refugees behind it, he's in charge here until we get back. Tell Swanson to bring the Black Dragon closer, but keep the starboard side out of view of the waterfront."

"Yes, Champion." She stepped away, and a few moments later I heard the heavy sounds of ropes smacking into shit, and people hollering commands.

"You'd sail in this weather?"

I shrugged. "Worst case we can Ward shit. Fuck it, absolute worst case I'll just tow us." That got me a weird look, but I recognized the look on Ivan's face. "Tell you what. Part of why I Revived you is so the Sailors have proper representation when the time comes to sit down and talk this shit out. Honestly, that's most of why. But until things get settled down, how about I ask Admiral Swanson to assign you a Cadet to show you and Ilya around the Black Dragon?"

Yeah, Ivan's definitely a ship geek. Ilya did not look quite as enthused that I set him up to be infodumped, but fuck it, the Black Dragon had good food, and ain't nobody doesn't like good food at that age. "So be it."

It took us until late in the day to get everything in place. Of course, part of that was because while the Tentacles were designed to interface with the Black Dragon, it was more of a 'the battleship's cranes can lift stuff in and out of the Tentacles' thing, not a 'masses of refugees walk across a ramp' thing. Fortunately most of the refugees were either Sailors or their kids, so we wound up emptying out some big cargo pallets, putting a bunch of loops of rope as impromptu safety harnesses, and just lifting a couple dozen refugees at a time from the Questing to the Dragon.

Of course, while we did that, after Ivan and Ilya led the refugees onto the Black Dragon, I pulled Karen in again. "I need you to get me a High Priestess on each of the Tentacles."

"All five of them?"

"Wait, there are five now?"

She nodded. "Rich Man's Port and Newark both completed theirs just this past week."

I sighed. "Well, shit. I guess the crews might wind up showing their asses if we do anything fancy, but if nothing else they can sit at the dock and let people get in out of the rain." Then I had another bright idea. "Have any Tentacles in port load up on medical supplies, food, and fresh water."

She nodded. "Anything else?" I shook my head, and she disappeared. She reappeared a half hour later. "Madeline, Tallulah, and I are aboard the Tentacles."

"Three of you on four of them?"

She just grinned. "I've gotten enough Co-Location practice I can at least stand in two places at once. Unless you need me doing more?"

I shook my head. "Let me know when they're loaded up."

While I waited, the me in M-Space stepped over to Baba Yaga's place, where I knocked politely on the door. A minute later, after I stood there getting the feeling somebody was watching me, even stalking up to me, it creaked open. "Come in."

I stepped inside, and she waved me to a seat. Not wanting to be rude, I sat, but said, "I don't know if I'll be staying long, though."

She narrowed her eyes just the tiniest bit. "No tea, then?"

I smiled. "Okay, you convinced me. No need for all the fancy food, though."

In the end she still brought out the little sandwiches and those fried pastry powdered sugar cookies. When I'd had some of each and complimented them, she said, "so. You've certainly kicked over a hornet's nest."

I shook my head. "Nah. I didn't kick it over. I just put a bucket over it."

She snorted, an aborted cackle. "That won't make the hornets any happier, you realize?"

"Fuck 'em." Her eyebrow rose. "Literally, if it'll get people's heads out of their asses. Or not, if that's what it takes."

She nodded. "Adventurer Casimir came to see me."

"Really? Huh. What did he want?"

"Knowledge of how to remove that barrier you placed over the Palace."

I nodded. "Kinda figured. What did you tell him?"

"The truth. Of course."

"What would that be?"

She narrowed her eyes at me. "What makes you think I'd tell you a truth he paid good blood and coin to learn?"

I just smiled at her, ate another cookie, then said, "you wouldn't have mentioned his visit unless you wanted to tell me." She frowned. "And you'd have told me already if it wasn't something you thought I'd be pissed about." She tensed a little. "You can put the pestle down, Baba. I'm a big girl, and if you didn't lie to him, I'm not gonna be pissed. What did you tell him."

She was still for a moment longer, then relaxed. "That for him to remove that barrier, he would have to kill you."

I rolled my eyes, then froze. "He's not still here or some shit like that, is he?"

"No."

"He didn't, like, bribe you to poison my tea, did he?"

She snickered. "Do you think I would take a bribe to do something like that?"

"Eh. A big enough one, sure. Or you'd just do it for a scheme. Or for the lulz."

"Lulz?"

"Your own amusement."

She spat out a little snort. "I do very little for my own amusement."

"Yeah, but feeding me laxatives would be both stupid funny and not really something I could respond to without looking like the wrong kind of bitch."

"You could reply in kind."

I picked up one of the little sandwiches, nibbled a bit, and set it down. "Yeah, but you don't eat my food. Although I gotta remember to bring you something at some point. Don't want to be a rude guest."

"Though you've no problem with being an uninvited one."

I laughed. "Okay, I don't want to be the wrong kind of rude." That got her for whatever reason. She cackled a bit, and as she calmed down I asked, "can I get you to be the arbitrator between the Gods and the Guilds?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Not you?"

I shook my head. "I'm not from around here. I'm just stepping in and making sure there's not more of a bloodbath."

"Some people like bloodbaths."

"I. Don't." When she eventually nodded, I said, "So yeah, I'm gonna make sure everybody sits down and talks, and I'll make it sticks to talking, but I'm not gonna dictate terms. That's gotta come from inside, or it'll just fall apart the moment I walk away."

"Why me, then?"

I nodded. "Everybody respects you. They know you've got your own shit going on, I'm sure, but they all respect you..."

"Perun doesn't."

"Then I will taint punch Perun until he agrees to abide by your arbitration."

"Done."

I blinked at her sudden decisiveness. "Uh..."

"To see that arrogant young whelp get manhandled? I would do far more than arbitrate this little dispute. Done and done." She held out her hand, and we shook.

"I hate to eat and run, but..."

She waved me off. "Go, go. Come collect me when it is time for this 'arbitration'."

I nodded and collapsed back to the Questing Tentacle. The feeling of somebody looking for me never went away, which I guessed meant Casimir was hunting for me. Given I was pretty sure Lemonkyenin could manhandle Casimir, and I'd made Lemmy my bitch, I wasn't all that worried about Casimir attacking me directly. I still had Karen bring extra Volunteers and Heroes onto each of the Tentacles.

Then, not long after daybreak this morning, with a steady rain still coming down and obscuring vision from the waterfront, I stepped to each of the fully loaded Tentacles. Aboard each I stepped to the cabin in the forecastle. The one with the big, broad scrying pool.

I pulled Mana. I Scried. One ship at a time, I linked their Scrying pools to the one aboard the Questing Tentacle, stretched and twisted those Scrying portals until they stood perpendicular to the ocean's surface, then pulled them through. Seeking. Plundering. Worshipping. Training. At that last, I turned to Tallulah where she stood next to the Scrying pool. "Training?"

"She's officially the school ship for the Alliance Naval Academy."

I just shook my head. I figured they'd run out after 'Plundering', but my Kitten is as creative as she is lecherous. Fuck it, not like I minded, really. Even if I still didn't have any piercings.

I stepped the Captains together aboard the Black Dragon, and gave them their orders. "Okay. Training and Worshipping are to remain on station at the docks, acting as triage and shelter for refugees. Anyone who is in danger there gets shipped back here first. Plundering, Questing, and Seeking will keep rotating, bringing folks back here." I looked around at the nodding Captains. "If you can, route so that you aren't all in the same place at the same time, and that you can drop heat on as much of the waterfront as we need to."

"Heat?"

I shrugged. "Crossbow bolts. Heroes. Volunteers. I'd prefer to avoid actual fire if we can; I don't want the place burning down. But if they attack us, the attacker gets put down. Hard. Immediately. But only the attacker." I had a thought, then turned to Swanson. "Load Cold Iron fragmentation into all nine guns, turn turrets one and three to face the City, turn turret two to face directly away, as high up as possible. If we have to make a general statement, before we flatten the City, we'll pop three rounds in the air and see if they get the point. Got it?"

I got nods all around, so I stepped them back to their ships and told them to get to it. I'm pretty sure Karen wound up liaising between ships to organize shit, but she's good at that. Also, I'd started to get maybe a little tired of holding up that fuckin' Divine Ward. Fear just did not hit the same as proper Worship, at least not for me. Weird, what with me being Mor and all.

But the fuckin' Adventurers and Sailors kept tryna start their shit back up every time the rain slacked off a little. Bless Ilmatar, she'd twigged to at least that much of what I wanted, and every time they tried to start killing one another in earnest, they got swamped by a deluge of rain.

Of course by mid-afternoon I kinda suspected some sus shit going on. Somebody stirring the shit I was trying to un-stir. Which was a weird experience for me. But I waited, figuring if Divine shit kicking had to be done, the daughter of the Goddess of Night probably had an edge fighting the Sun Goddess at night.

Not long before sunset, Ilmatar slowed the rainfall, and the Adventurers sallied forth, only to have enough water to fill the Camden aquarium dumped on their heads. When that happened, I dropped one of me into the water next to the Black Dragon, Shapeshifted, and motion-imaged, no boats but my Tentacles and Dragon ought to be away from the docks in this bay.

Understood.

Kinda funny watching as four different little black skiffs got dragged backwards to the docks. It's hard out there for a smuggler.

Then, at sunset, I decided I'd had enough, and whoever was managing to get shit stirring out through my Divine Ward needed to knock that shit off. So I collapsed down to one of me, stepped to the waterfront, and just to be sure as little of any random fallout hit the bystanders of Boltophsberg, stepped to M-Space.

"I call you for months, and you finally deign to accept my summons, only to steal from me?"

Yeah, not what I expected either.

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