Day One Thousand Two Hundred And Four

Dear Diary,

Y'know, with all that I was pissed about Tallulah's nemesis yesterday, I forgot about the one type of false accusation I'd seen on the regular. Honestly, I think it's maybe a good sign that I did, because as far as I can tell it's entirely a thing from my old world, one that hasn't taken root here and now.

Because while this bitch clearly tried to weaponize that accusation against me, I am not a poor Black man being accused of raping a white girl by her brothers because I didn't bow and scrape fast enough or hard enough. Or maybe because I tried to be polite and shook her hand or some shit like that. Worst of all, because I committed the ultimate sin of being an expendable Black kid in the same town as a young white girl whose brothers got her pregnant against her will.

Yeah, every time I get pissed about atrocities here and now, I wind up discovering, or really remembering, three very important things. First, that no matter what kind of bullshit I've seen here and now, I can remember shit just as back from back in the day. Second, that Lancaster notwithstanding, that shit has never become anywhere near as systemically entrenched here and now. And third, I have the power to do something about that shit here and now.

Fuck, not just 'have the power' in the sense of my personal ability to feed rapists sausage made from their own ground up genitalia stuffed into their entrails, but apparently just by existing I'm slowly shifting things closer to 'my perfect paradise'. Which would be a big part of why I'm not going to stop journaling like this any time soon, because if nothing else I gotta take some kind of conscious control over what my perfect paradise is. Right now my biggest concern with that Sidhe bitch isn't that she'll do it again, even though that is a concern, no matter what atrocity 'that' refers to, but that when I finally catch her and ask if she's got any last words, she'll whisper out, "you needed worthy opponents."

Yeah, I think finding that shit out would fuckin' break me.

Which is why, by fuckin' daily affirmations here in my Diary if nothing else, I need to remind myself that my perfect paradise is, in fact, that little cottage by the sea, with a nice kitchen Marie and I can cook in, a Bedroom for Siobhan to spend her Afterlife when she's done with her current one, and my Kitten there to melt all our brains with her dark, sultry genius. Not sure what it says about me that if I think about Tallulah, Furtim, Cherry, or our kids at all, I think about them visiting on holidays and shit.

Okay, it's possible that for once, my subconscious impulses are healthy ones, since I'm not seeing my kids as eternal children. At some point they'll... Okay, maybe not 'move out', since multi-generational homes are a thing here and now, and we've certainly got not only a big enough house, but a whole fuckin' mountain to expand into if they need it. But at some point they'll have their own lives. Shit, when I envision that cottage, it's definitely on a beach, which means either the Atlantic or maybe Erie or some shit like that, if Bear's people don't mind us building a retirement home there.

Shit, I'm definitely healthier than most of my peers from back in the day, because I can see myself living until I retire. I'm not sure what that means for a Deity, but I'm guessing something like setting back and doing like Mom and Dad, spending most of my time with my chosen intimate partners, with regular visits from those beloved bits of flotsam and jetsam that life has washed up on my shores. My found family. Who are family, not possessions or shit like that. Okay maybe, like I once pondered, they're a part of me that will forge into the future and make it even better than I can imagine, but still, that would make me part of them, too, just one continuous chain of personhood from Domnu down through the ages until I shut the lights out.

Gah. Fuck. Shit. Damned depression. And yes, I am damning depression, because while I think this one might be a reaction to my fully justified rage bender yesterday, I'm still crashing. Spiraling, maybe, if I'm lucky.

At any rate, yesterday Furtim dropped our girls off at Calverton for Math class. She didn't stay long enough for me to ask her if she intended to come to family therapy, but I figured she wouldn't pass up Marie's cooking, and I could always ask her then. Or even bribe her with the Bath. Okay, bribe her by letting her use my tits as a pillow while she soaked. Not sure what's up with that, because while she's got powerful pectorals, especially compared to the boy trolls, who are not exactly skinny themselves except in comparison to her, she's not so much with the sweater puppies. Which kinda makes sense, what with her not being a mammal.

Late in the day, not long before it was time to pack things up, I pulled Davey's girl aside... Yeah, I maybe need them to pick out nicknames, because I can  definitely identify which one is which, mostly, but without names it's tough to refer to them. There's the one who hangs with Davey, the one who hangs with the musical kits, the one who spends her time napping with Isadora, and the two who mostly get into tomfoolery with Anise and Felicia. Although one of those two also spends a bit of time with Daya, but much like I know Thomas, Richard, and Harold are all now part of a polycule with Karen and Gertrude, but I swear I still can't tell which of them is which. That goes for the two 'tomboyish' Troll girls, as well as Karen's trio of beefy, hairy, Bag men.

Yes, I know liking someone because of their race is only maybe slightly less prejudiced than hating someone because of it, but I honestly think she sees all four of them as more than that, at least at this point. Just like anything else, we can't control what lubricates the love tunnel, but a fully lubricated love tunnel isn't enough to maintain a long term relationship. Which is what she has now. And, as I may have alluded to, love is better than hate any day of the week.

At any rate, pulled Davey's girl aside and asked, "did your mom want to come to family therapy tomorrow?"

She head tilted, clacked her jaws in a way that made me think of her mom, then with a seriousness that made me realize that in a lot of ways, the Troll girls really were mentally younger than Daya, said, "she didn't say, but we do."

"Huh. She drop you off because she thinks you need more Math?"

That got me that little jaw clapping laugh that again reminded me of Furtim. "No, Sire. But we do."

Yeah, that kinda floored me. Not just the fact that my Troll girls were setting their own curriculum and thinking that Math was an important part of it, but also her calling me 'sire'. Because, y'know, I know I technically was, but that just seemed so... Cold. "Well. I'm glad to help you out." I paused. "You know you can call me Mama, right?"

That got me a long stare, a slow blink, and finally a quick headshake. "No."

Yeah, I hid how I felt about that as best I could, but it did not help my oncoming spiral whatsoever.

Furtim showed at the end of the day, and when I asked about dinner, she did a weird inverted jaw clap and facial expression that Blend translated as absolutely an over the top eye roll. Then said, "of course."

Wound up playing pillow for Furtim overnight in the Bath. I think maybe changing herself from boy Troll to girl Troll left her not sleeping well curled up in the kind of bivouac most of the Trolls I'd seen felt comfortable in. Then again, it could be drastically changing her shape and size after multiple thousand years of sleeping in her old shape or something. Hopefully she doesn't feel any kind of dysphoria from the change, because I've come to realize her change wasn't the same as all my Worshippers in New Amsterdam who'd asked for that, but a calculated action to save her species.

Dysphoria as a consequence for that kind of change would really suck.

Fortunately, she did come to family therapy, and if today was one of those sessions that were way more a lot of little breakout sessions than one big one, I took an early opportunity before I forgot to ask her. I pulled her aside a little, bringing Siobhan along for moral support, and asked, "hey, you aren't feeling some kinda way about changing from a boy to a girl, are you?"

"From male to female?" When I nodded, she clapped her jaws, a little chuckle. "Powerful. Strong." She paused, then finished. "Important?"

"I mean, yeah, you are. All of the above. But you're having trouble sleeping, aren't you?" She nodded. "Do you feel bad about not being a guy any more?"

Yeah, that time she barked out a laugh loud enough to startle everyone. "No, Goddess. Just... Bigger, bulkier. Harder to get comfortable. On solid ground, at least."

"Y'know you're welcome in our Bath any time you want, right?"

She just smiled. "Thank you. Building my own, though."

Yeah, I should have figured. While Siobhan is a... Y'know, I was gonna say Siobhan is an exception to the 'driven career woman' who seems to be my type, the woman is an Archmage and a respected Healer in what I've come to suspect is the best City for Healers in Atlantis, possibly in the world. I don't think of Marie as any less driven because her areas of expertise are homemaking and Revels, I really shouldn't do so for Siobhan because she's a Healer.

With that done, all the wind left my sails. Furtim got conscripted to mediate and arbitrate some stuff between the kids, but Siobhan noticed me slump almost immediately.

"Mistress? Are you well?"

I shook my head. "Not really."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Nah. I'm not beating myself up at the moment. Just... Exhausted. Emotionally. Shit, I wonder if most of the times I wound up passing out was because of emotional exhaustion rather than physical?"

She smiled, walked me over to Dad's bed, then sat us down leaning up against it. "That would make sense, since many of those times were when you'd performed Heroic, even Epic feats of Shaping, and Shaping can be quite emotional. Especially for Shapers like you and I, who rely on our emotions far more than Tallulah and Siobhan's more intellectual approach."

I put an arm around her, leaned my head on hers, and just sat there. Time flowed oddly in Dad's cave. We sat there like that for a few minutes, we sat there like that for millennia, we sat there like that all day. Or at least half of it, because at one point Davey's Troll girl brought us lunch, then squatted down in front of us.

"I'm sorry."

I blinked at that, swallowed the bite of savory pie I'd taken, and asked, "why?"

"My answer." She paused, and I kind of saw her lining the words up like some serious kids will do, making sure she wouldn't misspeak when saying something important. "It was not untrue, but it was poorly said."

I took a deep breath, took firm hold of my feels, and told my serious little Troll girl, "it's okay, kiddo. We all make mistakes, and you weren't tryna hurt me."

"I did, though."

I froze for a long moment, weighing whether to lie or to tell an uncomfortable truth. Finally I nodded. "You did, but you didn't mean to, and you apologized. That's all that there is to it, and all that needs to be. It's in the past, and can stay there."

She shook her head, then moved to sit on the far side of me from Siobhan. She paused midway there, in a kind of freaky motionless pose that reminded me that generally humaniform or not, Trolls were not as Human Adjacent as they looked. "May I?"

"Sure." I lifted my arm up, and after  a pause she slipped in under it, curling up a little to lean against me.

After a bit, she said, "my answer was not complete, either."

"Oh?"

Almost sleepily, she quietly said, "we also come to Math class to spend time with you." I felt something inside me give at that, felt that depressive block shattering into a mound of sand. Still exhausting, still hard to feel or think or do anything, but not nearly as bad. Then she hit that lump of sand with a power washer.

"Papa."