Dear Diary,

"A decision that is made, When you have all the power? Will be judged accordingly." - Tabitha Diaz, Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Egalitarianism

Here we have the second of the intended pair of Verses, Verse eight of the Book of Egalitarianism. Much like Verse seven, while the full impact of the Verses is only obvious when taken as a pair, Verse eight can enlighten us on its own. While Verse seven tells us that decisions made under duress are not true Consent, verse eight talks about the opposite situation, where the decision maker has the power to fully employ their Agency. In this type of situation, there is no excuse for harming others, no excuse for a lack of mindfulness. Every consequence of an action taken, of Agency employed in such a situation will be, eventually, visited on the decision maker in full. When taken together, the Verses speak eloquently to the idea of Equity of Judgement. Where not only the action taken, the decision made, the Agency employed, is judged, but the circumstances surrounding those choices, those decisions, those actions. She shows us with this how we can seek Equity in the Mortal Realm, rather than waiting for intercession by the Divine or a balancing of the scales in the Afterlife. Having been shown, having been given this knowledge, this power, it is now our duty to, as best we are able, do our part to seek Equity, both for ourselves and others. - Priestess Most High Above All Others, Archmage Imperator Saffron Aetos-Diaz, Commentary on the Doctrine of Tabitha

Huh. Y'know, I hadn't really thought about that. Either bit, really. I mean, when I wrote the whole Doctrine of Tabitha, I remember thinking about letting people know how I would react to stuff sometimes. I know I thought a lot about the kind of behaviors and attitudes and beliefs that would make the world a better place for people to live in if everybody, or even some significant portion of the population, started believing and acting on them. Sort of. I'm not sure I ever really thought about people deliberately using those beliefs to make the world better. I know for certain I didn't really think much about me judging them in the afterlife.

That latter one isn't something I like to think about. Mostly because of the three people I remember dealing with afterlife wise, the first one is at my adopted sister's place, and I... I ate the other two. Yeah, they both literally asked for it, and not in the 'oh, they were asking for it' sense that wound the Primordial Dragon going in my Maw. They asked for it in the literal 'please, Tabitha, we don't want an 'afterlife', we just want the afterlife equivalent of suicide'. Which would be a guaranteed Black Dog whistle, but something about the way Grandma described it still, I dunno, keeps it from being absolutely awful. Like maybe it's not the end that they and I think it is. Hell, maybe they wind up somewhere outside of Time, and they'll be waiting for us all when we get there the long way around.

On the other hand, I can see where that former one is easier to step to from what I intended. 'This stuff will make the world better' isn't all that far off from 'hey, guys, let's use this stuff to make the world better'. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally down for it. It's just way more than I ever expected. Which, I guess, is yet another example of my Kitten taking what I made and making it that much better.

Makes me feel a little guilty about what we were doing in the Bedroom all the way through dinner, because I'm the one who ought to be pampering and rewarding her. But she kinda made her desires clear, and at that point I had no idea what to do other than go along with it. Made it a little hard to properly keep her pinned in place through dinner, although by dinner time most folks had managed to stuff their 'special for the Imperator's birthday' food into her and were just taking turns feeding her. Bit by bit, bite by bite. Eventually she begged off, first telling the Cadets and staff at the Academy, "I need to be getting home to put my girls to bed," then looking around the dining room at Lancaster house and saying, "okay girls, tell your friends here good night, it's time we headed home."

I stepped everybody home, where Tallulah pretty much took over getting the kids to first help Marie clean up the dining room and kitchen, then climb up the Bore to the Bath room. As they trooped up, I called out, "we'll be up shortly!"

When I looked back at her, she groaned out, "I don't know if I want you to carry me up, Translocate me up, dangle me over your Maw and shake me until the excess comes out, or just drop me in."

"Oh, Kitten, sweetie, I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she groaned. "Worth."

At that point I pushed myself up on my elbows, looked down at the Saffron at the end of the Bed and said, "why aren't you stuffed?"

"Because I can't taste you like that?"

I snorted, laughed, and grabbed her with my legs, keeping her from going back to what she was doing long enough for me to sit up and pull her into a kiss. "You, Kitten, were in rare form in here last night."

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She froze. "Too much?"

I smiled. "Absolutely not." When she shot me a little disbelieving side-eye, I looked at the ceiling mirror for a second, then back down to her. "Okay, some of what you did scared me a little. Which, I get, you were enjoying the fuck out of terrorizing Siobhan and Tallulah, and Siobhan is into being terrified, so I get that, but..."

She snickered. "Sixth."

I shot her a look, picked her up, spun her around, and plunked her down on my lap. Tiny bit painful, but worth to hear her squeak. "That's my rule, not yours."

"I thought I told you I couldn't taste it like this."

I snorted. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but your birthday ended about an hour ago."

"You're not indulging me any more?"

I lifted her from her chair down in the dining room, doing it as slowly and gently as I could. "Of course I am, Kitten. Just maybe not indulging your penchant for being completely in charge of everything."

As I carried her up to the Bath, I duped myself in the Bedroom, standing in front of her, my arms going around her as I stood up. "Like, I remembered you liked this back when we had Carruthers and Lachlan over."

She smiled, kissed me, and put on the worlds shittiest fake frown. "Tits get in..." After a quick involuntary gasp, she continued, "the way doing it like this."

So while I slowly, gently, carefully sponged her down, washed her hair, and carried her into the Bath, where I held her and let her float while bloated, I was neither slow, nor gentle, nor careful with her in the Bedroom. Nobody asked why she had that smug little grin on her face in the Bath, because the ladies knew and the kids barely noticed. They'd definitely gotten their own nom on today, mostly following Menace's 'one for Mom, one for me' style of feeding Saffron treats.

When the kids all looked about ready to stumble to bed, I helped Tallulah dry them off while Siobhan and Marie dried each other and I lifted Saffron out of the tub, laid her on the floor next to it, and gently patted her dry. Meanwhile, off in the Bedroom, I nuzzled both sides of her neck and whispered, "so. Anything to tell me?"

"They do not get in the way at all. I stand corrected."

I couldn't help it, I let go of her, both of me holding her head to let the me in front of her kiss her thoroughly. Mid-kiss, the other me whispered in her ear, "Nah. You dangle corrected. Because of those itty bitty little legs of yours."

Before she could reply, I collapsed us both to the two of us in the Bath room. While I picked her up, she groaned out, "I would hurt you, but the dangling is a feature, not a bug."

"Really?" She nodded, humming contentedly as I pulled her snug and headed for the bedroom. "So, do we add that to our menu of potential lunch items?"

"Absolutely not. I have become addicted to the care and attention you pay to me during those 'pit stops'."

As I lay her down in the middle of the bed cuddle puddle, I snuggled up behind her and mused, "I wonder what that's like."

She mumbled, "with four of you, or with the ladies?"

"Is it that different?"

"Oh, very much so. Different..." I didn't get to hear why, because she started snoring. I followed her lead, and dreamt of the ladies... okay, all the ladies but Karen necking as they floated around my Maw. Karen walked around handing out cocktails and shots, all of which tasted like sweet fire. I know, because the ladies were not careful with them.

Today everything returned more or less to normal. I mean, normal for me, which is not really all that normal, I guess. After Saffron's lunchtime pit stop, with her returned to her upright and locked position, which amuses me to no end that at her own request I do in fact lock her into my lap, so I'm probably not gonna stop mentioning it any time soon, I got curious about something.

"Hey, Kitten?"

"Yes, love?"

"Inspect safe to use?"

She paused, moved her hands, then nodded, "go on."

While she went back to doing Archmage things, I Inspected her. Specifically I poked at the word 'Strength'.

Strength:

Strength is a measure of a subject's ability to exert physical force. The most common untrained use for Strength is lifting and moving objects, although it also plays a part in moving the subject's own body, such as when they jump, and can both improve a subject's ability to cause damage to physical objects and absorb physical impacts.

As some of those interactions can be difficult to objectively quantify, Inspect now measures Strength entirely by the subject's ability to lift heavy objects using their core. A value of 'one' in Strength indicates that the subject can lift one hundred fifty pounds using those core muscles in a 'squat', 'dead lift', or similar use of large, central muscles.

That seemed kinda vague, especially with how precise Personality had been. "Hey, Kitten?"

"Yes, love?"

"How precise is Strength?"

She chuckled. "Given that none of the values are to the tolerances that are needed to keep the Black Dragon's engines running, I'd say, 'reasonably accurate, but not perfectly precise'."

"Oh. So, like, somebody with a four might not be able to dead lift six hundred pounds?"

She shrugged. "They ought to be able to on a good day. They might not on a bad day."

I heard a frown in her voice and asked, "and..."

"Strength is one of those that seems... off. I'm missing something with that, I think. But I'm not sure what."

I nodded and hugged her. "You'll figure it out, Kitten. We all believe in you, and we'll all help you out as much as you need."

She leaned back, wriggling into me. "With more than just inspiration?"

"Hey, whatever you need?"

Smile clear in her voice. "Perhaps some more inspiration tonight?"

"What were you thinking?"

She schooled her voice to a surprising fake seriousness, and said, "I think I need more practice with basic real world scientific testing."

"Hey, you name it, Kitten, I'll do whatever it takes."

She nodded. "Oh, good. I think we need to test whether they actually get in the way."

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