Diary of a Teenaged Mimic

Dear Diary,

I'm still processing. Still trying to anyhow. Not ready yet.

The moment I saw her slump forward, I blurted out, "no!" In the silent wireframe darkness outside of Time, Grandma's body was just that, a lifeless hunk of meat slumped over where she sat. Her Soul had already fled. I slipped back into the flow of Time, panicked urgency gripping me.

"SIOBHAN!" I screamed in the Infirmary. She appeared next to me a moment later, and I grabbed her hand and stepped back to the Homestead, back to Grandma, as all the rest of me in the Academy collapsed to the me holding Marie.

At Alliance HQ, I rolled forward off of Treachery Rock to land next to Saffron, who'd been wrapping up some last minute discussions with Lancaster. "Sorry," I growled out, not sorry in the slightest. "Family emergency." I grabbed Saffron's shoulder and stepped us back to the Homestead, landing next to Siobhan.

Saffron realized what she was looking at before I could say anything. "MA!" She fell forward, landing on her knees, her arms going around her grandmother's still form. "Ma... no... Ma..." She'd almost devolved into wordless crying when her head snapped up. "Siobhan!"

Siobhan had already moved forward, close enough that when she knelt, her arms went around my littlest lady. "There's nothing to be done, Saffron."

"Re..." Saffron choked the word off as Siobhan shook her head.

"She asked me, told me, months ago, that she didn't want that. Didn't want to be Revived. I," Siobhan, her own voice full of tears, nonetheless kept talking. I realized right then that she must have done this before. Sat with grieving children. Partners. Parents, even. I moved to shift Marie and I down next to the two of them, wanting to support both of them, my Kitten in her grief and my Darling who somehow managed to be such a beacon of joy despite how much sorrow I now realized she'd seen. Marie lay a gentle hand on my arm and shook her head, so I went still. "I'm sorry, Saffron, but she's so, so old. Her body should have given out... months ago. Even if I did Revive her," she stopped, a single sob shaking her before she continued. "Even if I broke my Vow for you, my love, her body is spent. There's nothing to Heal."

Saffron half turned midway through that. "You would do that? For me? Break your Vow?"

In answer Siobhan just nodded and put her arms around both of them. Saffron collapsed, squeezing Grandma Aetos' still form to her, sobbing. I shifted again, wanting to comfort her, but Marie stopped me again, this time with a single word. "Psychopomp."

"Oh. Oh, shit. Kitten?" Saffron looked up at me, eyes red, tears flowing. "She said she'd see me on the other side."

Saffron drew a deep breath, then shook her head. "Go, Goof. Before her Soul wanders too far."

I set Marie down next to our Wife and Concubine, where she wrapped her long arms around them, pulling them all together. "I'll make sure she gets to wherever she wants to go."

Saffron snorted. "And if she wants the Elysian Fields?"

"Then she gets them. Even if I have to take them away from somebody."

Saffron just nodded, "thank you, love." Then she turned back to her grief.

I stepped to M-Space, but before I even started rising into the air, an old, familiar, snarky voice interrupted me. "Took you long enough."

I looked down to see Grandma Aetos, naked as she'd ever been in the Bath, leaning against the front wall of the East House, not far from where she'd fallen in the Mortal Realm. She looked... somehow she looked solider than the wall behind her. She didn't have the faint phosphorescent glow I'd seen from other Souls; barely a flicker, like the dull luminescence of a dying glow in the dark sticker, that you could only see in pitch blackness. Other than that, she looked like... Grandma. Old. Ancient. Weathered and wrinkled. I stepped over and reached out a hand to her, and her hand rose, slowly, for me to grasp.

"I'm old, Tabitha. Granddaughter-in-Law. Older than I look." She chuckled. "So many things I forgot. Mostly. I guess when you hit my age some of it leaks through."

I went to lift her, and she didn't so much as budge. She was a fuckin' boulder shaped like a little old lady.

She grinned up at me. "Stop hiding and maybe try again?"

I dropped my Blend, and she smiled as a fine coating of black fuzz covered me. I bent down, squatting to lift with my knees like all the warning labels said I should, slipped one arm behind her back and another under her knees, and lifted. She was fuckin' heavy as shit, but I managed to pick her up smoothly, without any kind of wobbling or bumping her into anything. "You got rocks in your pockets or something, Grandma?"

She cackled at me. "Nah. Just old. Just weighted down with more memories than any Mortal Soul ought to have." I opened my mouth, I'm not sure whether to argue or whatever, but she cut me off with an unexpected question. "Tell me, Mimic. Do you know what happens to Souls here? In the Afterlife? The Land of Souls?"

"You, uh, get your final rest and reward? Or, y'know, consequences?"

She shook her head, somehow managing a quiet cackle. She waved one bony hand at me. "You're not wrong. But... we come here, and those of us Blessed or lucky enough find our way to an afterlife, and then... well, it depends on the afterlife, doesn't it? Those of us who licked enough boots, sucked enough Divine cock, ate enough Holy shit over our lifetimes get an eternity of partying. Valhalla. Elysian Fields. Summerlands, although I always thought that was a little weak." She shrugged. "But then they don't have Tartarus, or Niflhel. Maybe that's the price. Never been to the Summerlands."

"Is that where you want to go?"

She shook her head, then nodded at the West Tower. "Never made it to the top of that. You mind stopping there for a bit?"

I hugged her a little. Not like I could hug her a lot, and not for the reason I'd normally have hesitated. She wasn't rickety, she wasn't likely to be injured by a hug, but I couldn't shift her much without overbalancing, and I kinda thought I might throw my back out if I tried. "Hey, for my Kitten's Ma? Whatever you want."

"Whatever I want?" She asked as I rose into the sky, headed for the top of the West Tower. "Watch what you say, girly. Might decide I want the Maenad treatment."

I smirked down at her, because bantering with another smartass definitely put me back in my comfort zone, no matter how painful the situation. "I dunno. Never got the appeal of granny banging, but if you've got time for three rounds, I did say anything."

She shot me a look. "Three times?"

I nodded solemnly. "If I'm gonna try anything, I try it three times. Gotta, just to be sure if I like it or not."

"What if I'm not into girls?"

I shifted to boy mode without breaking stride, "hey, you wanna lie to me here in the afterlife, that's fine, but I did say anything."

She just cackled and leaned into my chest. Then poked me in the pec. "Switch back, that's not comfortable."

I laughed and switched back. A moment later we settled on the roof of the East Tower, and I turned to show her the Homestead proper spread out below us. The whole thing, especially the courtyard, was still kind of fuzzy, ethereal, like the stone hadn't had time to set itself yet, but the buildings were kinda solid. Weirdest part, some of the apartments in the North and South Houses, not to mention the dining room, the bedroom, and the Bath in the East House all were almost as solid as the tower we stood on, which rose even higher here in M-Space than it did in the Mortal Realm.. "So. What do you think of our place?"

She sighed, the sound one of contentment. "Solid. Secure. Safe. Feels good knowing my family's got a place like this. Not just a place here on somebody else's sufferance. But their own... Heh, never thought there'd be an Aetos fortress."

"There is now." I whispered.

"Not gonna go on about that whole 'Aetos-Diaz' thing?"

I smiled, my eyes tearing a little, but shook my head. "Nah. I mean, it makes me go all gooey, and I love it, but nah. The family started out with Saffron and Isnomi. And you. I just got lucky enough to be picked up along the way."

She patted my chest and said, "you're making your own additions to it now though."

A goofy grin stretched my lips, my whole face, at the thought of Murder Mittens and Darling and their glowing baby bellies. "Yeah."

She pointed down to the Bedroom, which showed up even through the rock of the mountainside, solider than anything here except maybe Grandma. "That where you did it?"

"Yeah."

She sniffed. "Looks a bit of a mess."

My face heated. "We, ah, didn't have much time to clean up."

"After two days?" I just blushed harder, and her smile got even more knowing. "You gonna take her back there before you clean it?"

I wasn't about to start lying to Grandma now. "Probably."

"Woman of culture, woman after my own heart. Get her back there this week; it starts to go bad after that." Then she sniffed again and glanced around. "Well. Mortal Realm it would. Not sure about here. But definitely get her there before then, just to be sure."

"I'm not sure whether to thank you for the advice or get all bashful and shit."

She just glanced at me. "Yeah, you're sure."

"Yeah, I am. Thanks."

She nodded. "As I was sayin' about the afterlife, some folks get the good ones. Party forever. Not sure if it happens to all of them, but the ones I seen... kinda calcified. Became caricatures of themselves. For somebody like your little Concubine, what is already kinda... pure? Might not be so bad. But for most people it kinda leaches the them out of them."

"What about other places?"

She nodded. "Tartarus? NiflHel? The places Gods put other Gods they don't want to think about, to torment them forever? Yeah, Mortal Souls don't survive that. Not for long. Like meat in a grinder. Logs in a flame. Burned away to nothing. Less they get out, and believe you me, they're always tryin'."

I thought about the Master Lich, tried to feel any kind of sympathy for her, but all I could think of was her threatening to end a bunch of kids just to piss me off. "Good."

"Eh. If you say so. Then there's the rest. Hel. Hades. Where most of us wind up. Where people just... slowly fade away."

"Wait, really?"

She shrugged. "I mean, it's like the good ones, only there's not really anything intense keeping them together. So yeah. Now and then you'll get a Soul that's strong enough, knows themselves enough, that they sort of carve themselves a little place. Now and then Hel or Hades or whoever carves a favorite a little spot like that. But mostly yeah, they just slowly fade away. It doesn't hurt them or anything. They don't act like it does anyway. They just slowly disappear."

"You talk about it like you've been there."

She nodded. "When you've been there a few dozen years... maybe a couple hundred, it's a little hard to tell. When you've been there long enough, sometimes you hear something. Feel something. A sense of longing, of direction. It terrifies some Souls. But if you follow it, you wind up someplace warm and wet and comforting." She snorted out a laugh. "Not much different than your Bath. Just smaller." She shook her head sadly. "And you... forget. Forget everything that came before. Until you die again, and wind up back here, where it all comes back to you."

"So reincarnation is a real thing?"

"Is that what it's called? Living another life? And another one? And another one?" I shrugged, nodded. "Then yeah." She sighed. "Damn shame. Turn around."

I'd turned to face the Homestead proper without thinking about it, but now I gently spun in place to face the valley. The area where, on the other side, we'd cleared a bowshot from the top of the West Tower and claimed everything in sight. The rest of the Homestead.

My Maw, big enough to swallow up a small town.

"There it is." She paused, then nudged me. "We gonna get moving?"

"That's what you want? Really?" She nodded. "But... why?"

"Because I'm old, Tabitha. So fucking old. Even if somebody tapped me with some kind of immortality stick, my Soul is so old. So heavy, I can barely move. I stick around here in the Afterlife, I'm not sure I can even move enough to answer that call if I'm offered another go round. All there is for me here is just to fade away."

"Might be peaceful, at least. You could just sit here. Nobody'd bother you."

"I appreciate the offer, but... fuck that noise. I'd have let go of life back in the day if I didn't have Saffron to care for. She's safe now. Hung on until I saw that, just to spite Sengann and Balor. Nothing keeping me there in a used up body any more, and don't want to hang around here in a used up Soul, either."

"You sure you don't want to stick around long enough for the ones who can make it here to say good bye?"

She shook her head. "Couldn't have better last words to Marie, and that rascal Menace might try to follow me in. Besides, once she's been here she'll know how to get back."

I carefully did not mention or think about the times she'd already been to M-Space, albeit not specifically to whatever part of it Souls hung out in, I just nodded. "I get it. Hold on, I don't want to drop you." I lowered us both down, down, down to the edge of my Maw. It took a while.

She started chuckling when I said that, and about halfway down blurted out, "don't want to drop me. What happens if you do?"

"Same thing that happens if I set you in gently, but it just seems disrespectful." She laughed again, and I realized something. "Oh, hey, you say you stayed alive just to spite Balor and Sengann, huh?"

She nodded. "Kinda hoped they'd hear me and come running to rebuke me."

"Not gonna happen," I laughed.

She looked up at me as we lowered to the point where my feet touched the damp ground at the edge of my Maw. "Aren't you the cocky one."

I grinned at her. "Not really." Then I belched, long and loud, the kind where you gotta exhale at the end before you can breathe. "Excuse me."

She just stared at me, her expression slowly taking on a radiant look of unholy glee. "Really?" She nodded to my Maw. "In there?"

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

I shrugged. "Nah. Neither of them made it that far. But Balor's been gone since before this past Yule. I blasted Sengann to dust," I glanced away and murmured, "and maybe inhaled him," before continuing in my normal speaking voice, "New Years before this last one."

She broke down laughing. She laughed until she cried, then cried until she smiled again. "Oh, thank you for that, lass. Thank you." She waved me down, and when I bent over to hear whatever she wanted to whisper to me, she pulled me down into a kiss. Still not into granny banging, and even here she didn't have Saffron's sheer Skill with her lips, but passion and intent count for a lot. She pulled away, batting her old thinning eyelashes and laughing. "My Hero."

We stood there chuckling about that for a while, until she nodded to the Maw. "So what happens in there?"

I shrugged. "For Gods, or things like that big assed Dragon I ate? They dissolve, and I get their Power and Portfolio."

"That affect you much?" She tapped the side of my head. "Up here?"

I paused in thought. Eventually I said, "maybe? I'm working to keep a handle on it. If I don't, I've got Saffron to keep me in line."

She chuckled at that. "That you do, lass. What about Mortals?"

"I dunno. They just kinda... dissolve. I mean, Souls do. Live Mortals do too, but, uh..." She looked at me expectantly. "I ate a little of Siobhan's hair the day before the wedding and holy shit it tasted so good I almost ate the rest of her right then."

She tapped me on the forehead, a gesture I'd seen her make once with Saffron, a couple times with Menace, always while they were being a particular kind of self reinforcing stupid. "But you didn't."

I blew out two big lungsful of air. "No. No, I didn't. Because that's not who I want to be."

She nodded. "So, Gods become part of you?" I shrugged, nodded, still kind of uncomfortable after her earlier question about my mental stability. "Mortals maybe too?"

I shrugged again. "I guess?"

She nodded. "Worse things could happen to a Soul." She paused, then nodded. "Put me in, if you please."

I flowed forward, hovering just above my Maw until I got to the parts deep enough that I could immerse her without maybe hitting the bottom. If there was such a thing anywhere, it would be near the edges. As I lowered her slowly, gently, into the Maw, I scrunched up my face. "Oh, man, if you become part of me, does that mean having sex with your granddaughter is incest?"

I hit just the right spot with that one. She guffawed as she slipped beneath the surface. Before she sank all the way under, she spoke, and I paused while she did. "Better not be, because I expect you to put at least one baby in that belly of hers."

I smiled down at her while her limbs slowly, at the speed the Bath's water would infiltrate painfully sore muscles, dissolved. "Planning on having her put one in mine, too."

"That's my girl," she whispered, still smiling. "Fuck the Gods." She smiled at me as her body started to dissolve like an old school bullion cube. The taste hit me, slightly sweet and unmistakably bitter and overwhelmingly pungent all at once. Her smile slipped into a Grin that told me where Saffron got hers from. "Put babies in the cute ones."

Right before her head slipped under the surface, she whispered, "tell Marie that Tina Kae says good bye. Good seeing her again bef..."

Then, with a burst of flavor that had me rising out of the Maw, head spinning, she faded away, a smile still on her face.

I stepped back to the Courtyard, landing right outside the House where I'd left the others. All of them were right where I'd left them, Saffron cradling Grandma's body in her arms, Siobhan and Marie holding her while she mourned. Night had come, painting the sky with the kinds of stars only visible out here in the middle of nowhere.

"The kids?"

Siobhan nodded toward the East House. "I told them to start on dinner, that we'd be in after a bit."

I nodded, and Saffron looked up at me, her eyes just a little haunted. "You're back."

"Yeah."

"Where?" I closed my eyes, sighed, and nodded toward where my Maw lurked in M-Space. Her jaw dropped. "Why?"

I hung my head, ashamed for no reason I could explain. "It's what she asked for. What she wanted. What she needed."

"Why did you let her?" she bawled out, anguish in every word.

"For the same reason you did not take me again as a man," whispered Siobhan. "For the same reason our Goddess made her first and primary Commandment unto us." When Saffron looked at her, anger kindling, Siobhan whispered, "it was her choice. Not Tabitha's. Would you have our Goddess deny Mortals Agency in such a personal matter?"

I watched the pressure build in Saffron. Build and build until she threw her head back and screamed. Howled, yowled almost like a wild animal, pouring her grief into the uncaring sky.

Then she collapsed, falling back over into Siobhan's arms, into Marie's arms. I swept in, arms and tentacles wrapping around them all, lifting them up.

Grandma's body was so light. Like lifting an empty dress. "Where do we go?"

"Her room." Marie declared. I nodded, walked into the house and headed straight up the stairs. I think the kids heard me come in, or maybe heard the doors shut, because as we walked up the steps to the third floor I heard them come out of the dining room. I didn't hurry, but I didn't slow, and after setting Siobhan down at the door, I laid Grandma and Marie and Saffron down on the bed in Grandma's room, laying her out straight and making sure her eyes were shut before turning back to the door. Siobhan stood there delaying the girls. I walked out to join her, and the moment Isnomi saw me she asked, "whas wrong, Mama?"

I... I couldn't lie to her. Couldn't find a way to sugar coat the truth. I had a total mom failure moment. I squatted down on my heels, as close to eye-to-eye with her as I could get, and keeping my voice quiet and level, said, "I'm sorry, Menace. Grandma Aetos died."

I held my arms out and watched the same emotions I'd seen overpower Saffron rush through her until she bawled out, "GAMMA! NO!" and darted past me to run into the room.

I stood and turned. I didn't know if I was gonna try and stop her or or what, but Siobhan lay a hand on my arm and nodded to the rest of the girls. Alex and Maze both trying to keep things inside, eyes shining and breath getting just a bit ragged. Lindsey, weeping openly but still in control of herself. David and Daya both sobbing. Ria standing there, a look of pure animal terror on her face. I stepped forward, scooped them all up into a hug, then pulled them into the room with me. Daya and David both scrambled up to cling to Marie, who soothed them while they cried. Menace clung to her mom, clung to Grandma's body, Mana flickering around them as Saffron held herself together just enough to soothe our daughter.

I nodded to Siobhan. She pulled the door closed and stepped over to where I embraced our four bigger girls, putting her arms around them as well. "It's okay to cry. To be sad. To let it out."

I ran out of words, my own face wet, and Siobhan stepped into the gap. "Your mother speaks the truth, girls. Crying isn't weak, isn't something to be ashamed of. It's just another way of expressing love, the love for someone who is no longer with us."

Alex blubbered. Maze sobbed, but didn't quite collapse onto me the way Alex did. Lindsey kept crying, holding her sisters, holding on to me. Ria... I took one look at her and shifted the other three girls into Siobhan's arms, where Maze and Lindsey kept crying and helping to shelter Alex, who completely broke down. I reached out, pulled Ria to me, and stepped up to my little office atop the Bore.

"Ria? Sweetie? I'm here. You're safe."

Her head shook convulsively. "NO. No, not safe. Never safe."

I took a deep breath, then scooped her to me, tentacles surrounding us, forming a tiny dark cocoon in the middle of the room. "Anyone trying to hurt you will have to come through me to do it. Or, more likely, die trying. You, Ria Crow, are safe here in my arms."

She broke down weeping, crying, sobbing incoherently. After a while, I'm not sure how long, words trickled out. "I... I remember."

"Grandma?"

She shook her head. "Dying." She sobbed again, then whispered, "falling apart. First my body, then my Soul, turning to ash as Balor looked on, impatient that I didn't die faster."

I couldn't help it, my tentacles writhed as leftover fury raced through me. "You're alive, Ria. You're alive and safe here with me."

She kept shaking. "But what if he comes? What if he comes for me again? While you're not here?"

"He won't."

She pushed away from me, almost screaming, terror keeping her voice hoarse and quiet enough not to echo. "How can you know? He's the Mor Primordial of Death!"

I held her by her upper arms, turned her to look me in the eyes, and said, "not any more." Confusion laced itself through her terrified anger. "Balor of the Mor isn't anything any more." More confusion. I sighed, tugged on the Emergency Coring Tentacles. A moment later Mom stood there, and Ria froze, turning just far enough to glimpse Domnu's feet from the corner of her eyes.

"Daughter."

"Hey, Mom. Can you tell Ria here what happened to Balor?"

"Yes."

I waited while Ria stood there, frozen with terror. Then sighed and said, "Mother, tell Ria what happened to Balor."

"My son, Balor, Mor Primordial of Death. You killed him, daughter. Killed him, drained his essence, his Mana, and used it to Revive this one."

Ria's gaze swiveled around to meet mine. "Really?"

"I do not prevaricate, child." Mom sounded a little pissed.

"Calm down, Mom. People get a little stupid when they're afraid, and she's a kid and she's terrified."

Domnu snorted. "So she is more intelligent than most." She half lifted a hand. "I could remove her fear."

I forced her to stillness. "No, Mom. Thanks for the thought, though, I know you meant well." I thought for half a second. "Did I interrupt your, uh, Worship?"

"Yes."

I nodded. "Okay, yeah, head on back to Johnson's or wherever. Thanks, Mom."

"De Nada." With that, she disappeared.

When I turned back to me, Ria had something else in her eyes. "You... you really did that for me?"

"You're my daughter. So far, two times out of of two, when someone has killed my daughter, I've burned the fuckers to Revive my girls. Practically a fact of nature by this point."

She snorted out something like a laugh, then started weeping again. "She told me not to be afraid. Of dying, that is. She told me there were worse things, things I never had to fear, for I am Sidhe."

I thought about that for a second. "Yeah. Yeah, you'll never have to worry about your body betraying you for no better reason than you've lived a long time. You'll never have to realize that you're more Skilled than you ever have been, and it doesn't matter because your body won't work the way it's supposed to."

"She... she never told me any of that. She never told me those things were happening to her."

I shook my head. "No. No, she wouldn't. Because she wasn't asking for your sympathy, or pity, or even help. She just didn't want you to be afraid."

"Why didn't you have her take my fear away?"

I sighed. "Because people without any fear? Do really stupid shit, and inevitably somebody else winds up paying for it. The worst of them do it over and over and over and never get caught, never wind up paying for their mistakes."

"So... I live with fear?"

"We all do, kiddo. You feel it, you let it keep you from getting too reckless, but you don't let it freeze you. You don't let it stop you when it's time to do really stupid shit."

"Like?"

"Like killing Balor while Domnu watched me do it."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh. You ready to go back downstairs?"

She nodded, and we rejoined the rest of the family in Grandma's room. We cried, we held each other. Eventually we slept. Well, everyone else slept. I think I did too, but...

I don't remember falling asleep, or even waking up, but I dreamed. Dreamed of Marie hovering over my Maw, staring down into it, yowling. My tentacles writhed out over the Maw. As my other ladies faded in and out of perception around my Maw's edges, she yowled out her grief, my tentacles holding her, gently soothing her, stroking her glowing belly.

When Saffron woke, she rose to her knees on the bed. "Girls. Your best dresses, please."

Menace sobbed a little, then asked, "Wedding?"

Saffron nodded. "Most of you may wear your wedding dresses." She looked down at where Isnomi clutched Grandma's hand and said, "I think your uniform would be more appropriate, though."

"Yes, Ma."

I don't know if Isnomi noticed how her mom stiffened up when her daughter called her that. As the girls trooped out of the room, I slipped my arm around her. She stayed stiff for a moment, then melted into my arms once the girls left. "I don't know how I'm going to go on without her, love."

"The same as you have been, Kitten." She looked up at me sharply, and I sighed. "The only reason she hung on this long was to make sure you were secure enough, strong enough to go on without her. I think these past few days since she moved in have been... I don't think she'd ever been happier."

"She used to be happy when my mom and dad were alive." She sobbed a little, halfheartedly smacking her grandma's corpse on the shin. "Why couldn't you have been happy for me?"

I pulled her to me. "I know how you feel, Kitten. My mom worked herself to death. I never saw her until she lay dying." She turned to me, obviously feeling some kinda way, and I said, "I'm not tryna compete with you, or belittle you. Tryna make you understand, get past something it took me a long time to get past."

"Go on."

I nodded. "My mom... she did all that work because she wanted to make sure I had enough to get by after she passed. After she died." Saffron nodded, and I continued. "Grandma... she told me she probably should have died back when your mom and dad did. Dunno what killed them," I thought about Sengann, "some kinda plague?" Saffron nodded. "Your Grandma held on through that, held on since then, just to watch over you. She fuckin' refused to leave you homeless and alone, even in the face of disease and death."

"She left me alone now."

I squeezed her to me. "Are you though?" She turned on me, but before she could speak I said, "she saw us here. You and me. You and Marie. You and Siobhan. You and all our kids, and the women who live here under your care, and the fucking fortress you've built to protect us. The fortress you own, by the way. She saw you happy and safe and secure and above all loved by everyone here, and she was finally able to let go." I sniffled a little bit, because I missed the old crone too, wanted to maybe break down crying, but right now my Kitten needed me, needed this. "My mom didn't leave me alone because she didn't love me; she worked herself to death because she loved me so much. Your Grandma didn't leave you because she stopped loving you, she stayed with you for... years after she should have died, just to make sure you weren't alone."

"Because she loved me?"

"Yeah."

"Not just to spite Sengann and Balor?"

I snorted. "Hey, you can have two equally good reasons for doing something, and neither one invalidates the other." I paused for a second, then decided to tell her. "When I told her what happened to Balor and Sengann, that she outlived them, she laughed for like a solid minute."

Saffron barked out a laugh that rapidly dissolved into an ugly cry. Eventually, when that ran out, she whispered, "I'm gonna miss her so much."

"Me too, Kitten. Me too."

Right about then the girls got back. Menace in her uniform, Maze and Ria in their Novice dresses, the other four in their onesies. I popped my uniform on, only to have Saffron replace it with The Dress a moment later. "Religious garb where applicable and not inappropriate at funerals."

This isn't inappropriate?

Grandma liked seeing you in it.

She was into scars too, huh?

Saffron smirked. I don't think she ever noticed your scars. Too busy staring at that ass.

I spluttered a little as Siobhan and Saffron replaced their clothes with Glowing Midnight, then did the same for Marie. What about when I was facing her?

She kept hoping one of the straps would slide off.

I realized what she was doing. Which was anything to keep her emotions from focusing on what was going on. So I just rolled with it. When I reached for Marie, Saffron stepped in the way. "She did want you carrying her to her final resting place, after all." And I'm not sure I could without breaking down.

I scooped Grandma's body into my arms. It was... it felt almost like lifting an empty dress again. Like she weighed less than Isnomi. Saffron picked up Marie and nodded to the kids. "Follow Mama, girls." To the top of the Bore and out, love.

Step by step, I walked up the steps, trying not to cry too much. Trying not to be so stoic it made the girls feel like they couldn't cry. Eventually we reached the top of the Bore, and if the littler girls looked a little tired, none of them slowed or stopped. I stepped outside to the stone of the mountaintop, then moved aside for the others to come out. Saffron gently set Marie on the ground.

"Girls, please help Marie stay sitting up."

"Why?" asked Isnomi.

"A pregnancy related injury. She'll be fine, she just can't move her legs at the moment."

"Oh." They clustered around her, and the wind whisked away quiet murmured questions about Marie's belly.

Meanwhile Saffron stepped over to the mountain's nearest outcropping. A Mana Blade slid out of her right arm, and with rigidly controlled swipes she formed a bed of stone, a simple platform, maybe four by eight, maybe three feet high. She nodded, and I laid Grandma's body atop it while Saffron knelt and did something to with a smaller Mana Blade at the end of the bed. When we both stepped back, I saw the inscription.

Anise Aetos
Beloved Grandmother And Great Grandmother
Passed from this world Year 341 AFP, Year 2 AFA
Defied the Gods Themselves to see her Family Safe

Then she stepped forward, turned, and faced the rest of us. "We are here today to say our final farewell to Anise Aetos. My Grandmother. Grandma Aetos. She... she loved me. Loved you. Loved all of us. I... She will be missed. We commend her Soul to the Goddess she worshipped. May the Goddess help her find her just rewards. Let it be so."

She stepped aside as Marie and Siobhan chorused, "let it be so," and I realized that none of the kids knew what to do next. Marie couldn't move, and I don't think Siobhan thought it was her place to go first.

I stepped over, feeling like some kind of fake, knowing that her Soul was already gone, but somehow my last conversation with her and telling Saffron about why she'd hung on so long helped me do things right, to show my kids what to do if nothing else. I leaned over the body where it lay near the edge of the stone bed, one hand resting gently on her arm, and brushed my lips across her forehead. "I'll miss you, Grandma."

I stepped back, and Maze stepped up. I should have realized she'd been to funerals too, even if she maybe never made it to her parents'. Mercenaries here and now probably had a lot of them. "Good by, Grandma Aetos."

Marie waved me over, and I picked her up and carried her over. She lay one huge claw across Grandma's chest and whispered, "Goodbye, Anise."

I remembered just then. Tina Kae.

Murder Mittens' murder mitten tensed. What?

The last thing she told me. The last thing she asked me to do, before... To tell you Tina Kae said good bye, and that it was good seeing you again.

Marie ran her claws gently down the side of Grandma's face, then down her body, like one would do to a departed lover almost. Then she twisted around and clung to me, sobbing. As I carried her back to where the others stood, I thought, do you want to talk about it?

Later. After another few sobs, she thought, Wake.

One by one the girls went up and said their goodbyes. Ria quietly thanked her for helping her be brave. Siobhan helped the three littlest ones up onto the bed, where all three hugged her as they said goodbye. Menace not only hugged her, but cried for a minute, then tipped her head back and howled. Not a sobbing human howl, but a pure lupine cry of distress for a lost pack member. In seconds all the girls joined her, and as they all ran out of breath Marie punctuated their howling with one huge feline yowl of grief. Menace leapt off the slab and ran over to leap up and cling to Marie, making little comforting noises as she did.

Good kid.

Siobhan quietly said her good byes, thanking Grandma for all her help in the Infirmary, and then Saffron stepped up. She leaned over, hugged Grandma, and held her there for a bit as the wind picked up and she quietly wept. Then she stepped back, gently sliding Grandma's body to the middle of the stone platform. "Thank you, Ma," she said, just loud enough for it to carry to the rest of us, although I'm not sure she did that intentionally. "Thank you for refusing to leave me, to leave us, when the bastards stole the rest of our family away. Thank you for staying, for watching over me, for teaching me." Her voice dropped to a whisper, but I could still make out the words as they filled her mind as well as her mouth. "I swear to you, Ma, you will be remembered when their names are lost on the ash heap of history." Then she lay one hand on her grandmother's hand and said, "Good bye, Ma."

She Shaped as she stepped away, and I saw the smoldering and the first licks of fire as she faced us again. "We now commend Anise Aetos' Mortal shell to the winds, for she no longer has need of it, having gone to her Goddess." She turned to face the pyre, and if her voice broke just the tiniest bit, I wasn't gonna say shit about that. "Rest well, Anise Aetos. Your long watch is ended, your work on this Earth is complete."