Dear Diary,

  I know I've said this before, but working on myself is a journey, a process, not a destination or a project. It's not something where I can ever really say I'm done. I think I remember something from my Sophomore Bio class, a thing about evolution, maybe, but it kinda applies here. I can't remember if it was the teacher or something he had us read or maybe a video he had us watch, but it described evolution as 'the Red Queen's Race: running as fast as you can just to stay in place'. Which sounds fuckin' exhausting when I put it that way.

  But it's not really quite that bad. I can make progress. I can see that I'm in a better place than I was a year ago, and holy fuck am I in a better place than I was two years ago.

  No, I am not referring to the space between Marie's thighs, or Saffron's bodacious bouncing boobs, nor am I even referring to the surprisingly cool interior of my Ice Pop's mouth. Although now I've got an idea where I want to visit next time we've got time and energy to visit the Bedroom for more than soporifics.

  Seriously, though, even just realizing that self-improvement is an ongoing, lifelong process rather than a one and done project is a huge leap forward from where I was this time last year, when I'd really just barely started working on, y'know, being a better me. Two years ago now I was still in high school. Mostly cutting class as often as I could get away with it, killing the pain of being me and living my life with everything I could get my hands on. Weed, booze, dudes, video games, my own personal joy buzzer, whatever made the dopamine flow, I clung to that shit, hard. Which is sort of one of the things I worry about here and now. Am I getting better, am I progressing and growing and becoming a healthier person, a better partner, a better mom, or have I just found more reliable, less toxic sources of dopamine?

  Does that even matter?

  I get that the whole 'being a better, less toxic, healthier person, partner, and mom' is important, but if the way I'm getting there is by frequent dopamine injection, does that negate all of it? I'm really curious. I'm not gonna stop working on it, one way or the other, because even if most of the progress is due to my lovely ladies and the occasional visit from my himbros, the work that I do, sitting down and talking things out with Mom and Dad and Saffron and Marie and Siobhan is, I dunno, cementing it in place. Letting me see how far I've come, maybe mapping out what direction I need to go in the future.

  Of course, thinking about the future definitely winds up being an entirely different prospect when I'm not thinking about a couple decades. I'm not even talking about a century, where at the end I'm all wrinkled and pruney and ready to take a dirt nap. I'm a Goddess. From everything I can tell, I'm immortal. Not quite 'unchanging', which I can only think of as a good thing, because if I weren't capable of change I'd still be waking up at night screaming about being shot. But Dionysus doesn't look more than maybe thirty something. Marie looks like she's in her early twenties. Hel looks to be maybe the same age as Dionysus, and if I had to put an age on Sigyn, it would probably be something like, 'Catherine Zeta Jones', because who the fuck knows how old that walking thirst trap is.

  All that really makes 'this is an ongoing process I will be engaging in for the rest of my life' hit different.

  So yesterday the Cadets sparred. Most of them went at it with the enthusiasm of gym rat martial arts students with more testosterone than brains, but they still somehow wound up being less violent and get less injuries over the course of the day than Hildegarde and Citron inflicted on each other in under sixty seconds in that first spar. With thirty Cadets, I wound up able to split them into groups of three, two sparring and one doing the ref job. After lunch, when my two star pupils and personal trials returned, I joined them as ref, which they both took as some kind of huge compliment. Right up until the point they realized that the 'refs' were rotating in to spar.

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  Hildegarde is strong. Really fuckin' strong. Probably stronger than Angel was her first Season. Possibly even in the same general ballpark as Bill is now. She is not, in fact, as strong as a raging berserk Jarl, or a fuckin' Hole Spawned Crab. She seemed to feel some kinda way when I calmly explained to her that grappling with someone stronger than you is what they call a Bad Move, as she'd shown Citron just a few hours earlier.

  Citron is fast. Surprisingly so for such a big guy. Probably faster than Lachlan. Maybe as fast as duBois, which is really fuckin' impressive. He's not faster than Larry, and definitely not faster than Murder Mittens or Miasma Lightning. He'd reffed for Hildegarde and I, not to mention getting manhandled by her, so he worked his reach advantage as much as he could. I mostly pulled my punches, because I wasn't there to hurt either of them. Hell, I wasn't there to beat either of them. I was there to teach them. So much like with Hildegarde I kept up a running commentary about his technique. Right up until something I said pissed him off. I still don't really remember what it was, just some ongoing stream of consciousness critique.

  Wait, no, I just remembered. "No wonder Cadet Hildegarde's so pissed at you if that's the hardest you can slap it. I think Sister Siobhan's nipped my nips harder than that."

  Okay, yeah, I was tryna piss him off. Not just because it's my general operating procedure in combat, but because if he's gonna lose his shit, better to do it with me than with someone he's gonna actually hurt, or someone who might hurt him in return. He came in, hard, and woke up mostly on the ground. I'd been nice and knelt down to let him rest his head on my thighs. Mostly because I didn't remember doing that particular anime chick trope before. I mean, I'd had Saffron do it with me, definitely, but I hadn't done it, so, fuck it, I ruffled his hair and said, "Let that be a lesson, Cadet. Anger can put some serious heat behind your hits, but it also makes you sloppy, not to mention stupid."

  Weird, their second match of the day, which wound up being the final one between the two of them, was way less hyper violent mutual destruction and way more intellectual. Their witty banter wasn't anywhere up to my normal standards, but if Hildegarde's wound up being mostly threats of bloody dismemberment, Citron's constant accusation of her flirting with him definitely pushed her buttons. By the end of the day I wound up praising both of them. Him for finding something to throw her off her game, and her for remaining coherent rather than going full on berserk.

  Got home vaguely proud of myself. Murder Mittens seemed to agree, as did Siobhan. Both of them flirted shamelessly through dinner, shower, and Bath, and the follow through on that flirting definitely left me sleepy and happy deep into the night.

  Woke up earlier than I normally do on a day off.

  Dad? You and Mom have some time to talk today?

  Of course, Daughter. Did you want to come now, or...?

  I know Mom's got, uh, duties, and I don't want to interrupt anything.

  He laughed into my brain. Fondly, even though I'd just been talking about his mandated 'torture'. Come over after you break your fast?

  Thanks. Mind if I bring the fam?

  Sigyn would torture me for true if I said no. Of course.

  After breakfast I convinced Saffron and Siobhan to Co-Locate for the day; honestly with a whole fuckin' team dedicated to me straightening my head out, some of them being a little distracted probably wasn't a terrible thing.

  The moment we got there Sigyn wound up under a pile of girls. Even Maze, Alex, and Lindsey, who normally were a little more reserved when it came to touchy feely hugs and things, joined in on the 'hug Siggy into submission' pile. Saffron smiled at where Sigyn's face barely poked out from where Menace had wrapped herself around Sigyn's head and said, "so the Goddess of Victory is defeated?"

  Sigyn's smile was absolutely beatific. "This, daughter-in-law, is absolutely what Victory looks like."

  I put a mental pin in to remind me that she still had kids who needed to come see her, then helped Loki settle his table in place while Mister Slither collected the smaller kids for a ride across the ceiling, and Sigyn chatted with the older girls about what they'd been up to.

  "You... seem almost entirely undamaged," Loki said as he ran his hands over me, a quick bit of light Soul Massage.

  I laughed. "Thanks, Dad. Almost like you expect me to self-destruct every minute of every day."

  "Of course not," he scoffed. "That would leave no time for you to come here and beg me to mitigate the worst of your self inflicted wounds."

  I flipped up to my feet on the table and leaned in to hug him. My arms barely spanned his chest, and I could feel how gently he held me when he returned the hug, but right then, right there, I think I understood what Sigyn meant.

  "Thanks, Dad. You're the best."

  "I know."