Chapter 1215 Day One Thousand Two Hundred And Fifteen

Dear Diary,

Back in the day I was never a big fan of geography. History I could maybe tolerate if the teacher actually let us engage with it like a story instead of a boring assed list of names and dates. Math... I never thought it was my thing, but I think that's because again, it never got presented right. Now that I'm teaching it, teaching my daughters how to teach it, I'm realizing more with each lesson that it's a language. And language is and always has been my jam.

But while I'm now beginning to get and enjoy Math in a way previously reserved for Language and Literature, I'm still not a big fan of Law and Custom. I'm not even sure what the equivalent class would have been back in the day. Then again, having passed Law and Custom, I'm not technically a legal scholar, which means I'm guessing it's some kind of Pre-Law college class.

While I regret not sticking with ROTC, and probably would have done really well in the Army or Marines, I'm just really glad I never thought I could handle Law School. I mean, I probably had the brains for it, but I sure as shit didn't have the temperament.

This isn't just me rambling about how much better my life is here and now, either. I mean, it is that, but it's also me explaining exactly why I'm so... I dunno, I was gonna say 'indebted', but that's not really what I mean. I don't feel a debt to Tallulah and Saffron for taking care of all that stuff. Our relationship, even the semi-professional parts like Champion and Overlord and Imperator, aren't really Transactional like that. So there's no debt there. But there is appreciation.

In fact, I think I have, over the past couple years, conclusively proven Saffron wrong about one thing. If one compares my record on 'appreciating Saffron' and my record on 'not dying', my Tiny Tyrant appreciation satiation numbers are significantly better than my not dying numbers.

So along with appreciating my legally minded partners, I'm also kind of distracting myself from that revelation about my Worshippers.

Spent the day thinking about it yesterday. I mean, I still did all my normal stuff, bodyguarding, teaching, playing with the kids, cooking, and even some cleaning at the Academies. But I had one of me sitting on the West Tower in M-Space, just kinda thinking about it.

Did a bunch of different kinds of meat in pastry today. Didn't get real fancy with the pastry, just used it to keep the meat juicy. It came out pretty good for the most part, but the fish wasn't as good as the read meat. The chicken kinda wound up somewhere in the middle.

In case anybody's wondering how I knew, my little pony girl told me she'd tried all three, and even with her preferring fish to red meat, that's how she ranked them. I gotta make something nice for Ria today, since she didn't even turn up her nose or anything.

Once everybody soaked a while, I helped the younger ones dry off, which led to the bigger ones wanting the same, and by the time I got everybody dried and into bed, my ladies were all asleep. Not upset about that, by the way, I think I was too pondery to enjoy anything else, and it wasn't really depressed pondering. Still thinking, I stepped to the top of the M-Space West Tower again, then stepped off and gently dropped down to the edge of my Maw. I tried stepping in just a little, but it still felt like dry cleaning fluid smells. Not sure why my ladies don't feel that way, but I'm glad they don't.

I stepped out, then crouched down next to the edge. Crouched there and just watched and listened as the chibi beans carried their shrimp in and dissolved. Some of them strode in like they were at some kind of formal event. Some danced in. Some charged like they were hitting the wave pool at a water park. I tried to sort out which were which, but I could barely make out what they were saying.

Some time around midnight, I sighed and stood. I thought about it for a little bit, then reached out. Dad?

Yes, Daughter? 

Do you mind if come and talk to you for a bit?

Not at all. When were you thinking of visiting?

I thought about it a second, then smiled and thought, you and Mom both decent at the moment?

He chuckled. Give us a moment? I waited, the timeless nature of M-Space making it pass in a second while stretching out to eternity before he thought, whenever you're ready.

I stepped over to find Mom sitting on his lap, a sheet wrapped around her and draped over him. I raised an eyebrow, and she just smiled and said, "I was asleep while your father was reading."

"Ah. Fuck, didn't mean to wake you."

She shook her head. "Think nothing of it, daughter. Now, what troubles you?"

I stepped over, picked up the table, and moved it over in front of Dad, then pulled my chair up to it. Mostly so I could lean my elbows on it and sigh. Dunno why, just felt like the position I wanted to be in. "How do you guys deal with prayers?"

Sigyn looked at Dad and said, "this is really more your bailiwick than mine, husband."

"Why's that?" I asked.

She turned to me. "I have few Worshippers, and those who pray to me are usually asking for Victory."

"Okay, but... How do you deal with them?"

She shrugged. "I usually don't. I've yet to have one ask me for something I can grant. None of them ask whether their plans will lead to Victory, they ask me to grant it like it's... Like it's fertility, or wealth."

"Oh. Oh, shit. You mean your Clergy don't know how your Victory thing works?"

She shook her head. "I had few Clergy before you came to us, almost all of them following me in my guise as Goddess of Marital Devotion. The new Clergy since then have all been of that sort."

"Huh. Uh, don't they pray to you?"

She shrugged. "Yes, but most are thanking me for blessing their union. Some praying to me to save it, but again, while I can perhaps grant patience for dealing with the ill fate of a partner, I cannot change a partner. Especially one who does not wish to change."

"So... You just ignore them?"

She paused, tilting her head. "Not exactly. I listen, I hear, I remember. If one asks me for aught I could grant, and it seems like it would do more good than harm, I help them. But... So few do that."

"How do you go through them all?"

She just stared at me blankly. "I just do?"

At that point Loki splayed his hand across her front, hugging her to him. He looked down at me and said, "Daughter, I think the answer to the question you knew not how to ask is not one you'll enjoy hearing."

I took a deep breath. Let it out. Counted to ten. Thought about my ladies, my kids, my Worshippers. Smiled. "Yeah, well. I'm a mature woman, I can deal with bad news. But not if I don't know what it is."

He nodded, smiling. "Well then." He paused, mouth open, then said, "before I answer, have you tried listening to them?"

"Yeah. But there are so many coming in so fast, it's all I can do to get even a vague idea of what each of them is. If I'm not awake, I can't really act on them, either. If I'm awake, it's way harder to understand them, and I'm not sure I could act on any of them without missing some others while I'm doing so."

Mom shuddered, and Dad shook his head. "So powerful."

"Huh?"

He chuckled. "I suppose a more specific statement in this case would be 'so fast', but in this case it is simply another aspect of your power."

"I say again, huh?"

He shook his head, laughing, and I smiled at his laughter.  At the idea that even when I had problems, I could make one of my family smile. "To answer your question, most Deities, myself included, partition our minds. It is..." He stopped, pondering, then shook his head sadly.  "It is like making Avatars, only less complete. Just a fraction of our Mind, with enough access to our power that it can answer prayers. Minor ones within our Domains, at least. Or, as you might say, 'kick it up' to the front of our Mind."

"Like Avatars?" He nodded. "Like Co-Located Duplicates being able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time?"

He sighed. "I'm afraid so."

"Shit." I sat there for a bit. Time passed oddly, as it always did, and after staring at nothing forever, I asked, "so what got you so freaked about how I was doing it?"

He smiled. "Not 'freaked'. Impressed, really. Astounded, maybe? But... I can't imagine being able to make any sense out of any of the no doubt thousands, even tens of thousands of prayers which must be directed toward you at any given moment."

I slumped. "Yeah. Well... Fuck. Guess I'm just getting a big old goose egg when it comes to the answering prayers part of being a Deity."

Mom snapped out, "you absolutely are not!"

"Huh?"

She shook her head. "What do you expect most of those prayers are? The actionable ones, that is? The ones that are not thanks, or vague requests for making things 'better' or 'right'? Which, I'll remind you, you've already done, and continue to do?"

"Who, me?"

She nodded. "Through your Clergy, through your Temples, you have done more for those seeking aid from Gods than any Deity in recent memory. Well, any Deity not associated with your new Pantheon."

I stopped and thought about that for a bit. Just sat with it while the two of them watched. Finally, I nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, I guess I can get that. Can maybe feel a little less guilty. But... I can't help feeling like this is gonna come back and bite me in the ass at some point."

"And when it does, we will be there to help you deal with it. As will the rest of your family. As will your Clergy. As will all of the other Deities of your Pantheon, and your Worshippers, who you have protected and supported even before they declared for you."

I sighed. Nodded, then stood and shifted around the table. "Yeah. I still can't... I still feel like I'm failing."

I think she realized. She held out her arms, and I hopped up into her lap. Her arms went around me, as did Dad's.

We sat there like that for a long, long time.

Until I felt like maybe, if I failed slow enough, for long enough, trying hard enough, enough people might mistake it for success.

Trickster Goddess, after all.