Dear Diary,

"Passion is your inner fire,

That will warm your life and love,

Let your freak flag fly proudly!"

Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Passion

Yeah, definitely not unhappy about having Passion as a Domain. Like, Justified Homicide? Yeah, if there's an executioner out there praying to me every time he throws the switch I guess that's part of the job, I'm gonna be there for that dude. If there's a soldier who only ever fights where he's ordered to, who follows his ROE to the letter, and just happens to fight with the hardest of ons, painting his cup with every confirmed kill, better that he's taking advice from me than, y'know, some crazy bitch who's gonna tell him to see how many hearts he can crush before the Heroes catch him. Some poor bastard asking me to help make his Vengeance as clean as it can be while also being the most spectacular exemplar of Finding Out ever to go down in history as an object lesson for why not to be an entitled empowered douchecanoe? Fuck it, I wish I had somebody to do that for me, so I gotta be the person I wish I had, right?

But Passion? Fuck. And I mean that in the 'what can I say' and 'that is, indeed, my Passion' sense. Or, y'know, it's one of them. I'm... Damn, this sounds so fuckin' pretentious, but at the same time it's absolutely true, I'm a creature of my many Passions. Like, Passion for sex. Passion for food. Passion for love. Passion for Saffron. Passion for Marie. Passion for Siobhan. Passion for double teaming Siobhan while eating Marie's sushi off Saffron's ass. Despite all kinds of weird leftover twinges which I deliberately ignore with even more intensity than I ignore the constant low ache of my scars, I refuse to be ashamed of any or all of those. If the ladies all agreed and Saffron told me it was a good idea and, y'know, not a huge faux pas, I would totally do that front and center on the altar in the Temple of Love, because I refuse to believe that Passion or Love or even Lust are inherently bad. Fuck it, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that in the absence of some external factor, they are objectively good.

'But Tabitha, Lust makes you do stupid things' I hear people saying. Yeah, it does. So does Love. So does Passion. So does being a dumbass. So does greed, and anger, and zealotry. But where zealotry leads to all kinds of murdery shit, anger goes the same but without the self-righteous sphincter clenching, and greed does it too, just quietly and slow, if you remove the guilt and stigma the worst Lust is gonna do is make a mess in somebody's shorts. Before anybody goes off about rapists and other humanoid pieces of shit, entitlement and misplaced rage definitely qualify as 'external factors' in my book. I'm even gonna drop 'shitty parenting leading to insufficiently socialized ignorant assed adults' in that external factor bucket, because an exchange between two properly socialized adults which begins with 'let's share orgasms' has, as a worst case endgame, 'I'm sorry, Spleen, there's not enough beer in the world'. With a best case option of two properly socialized adults cancelling their plans for the week as they discover that they are in fact each other's fetish.

So yeah. Done with the book of Passion. Tomorrow I start on Ecstasy. Which, honestly, since I have yet to catch a whiff of designer drugs here, I think might wind up being my first entirely positive Book. Like just an Ode to Joy kind of thing. An 'I hope you never have to deal with Books four through six, I hope you're careful with Books seven and nine, but if you do your best, I will do my best to make your afterlife a live action adaptation of Book eight'.

Okay, no whiff of designer drugs, but definitely some solid supernatural altered state of consciousness delivery from that Fae grain.

Speaking of, after the fam woke up near sunset, stumbled through a perfunctory bath time where we washed off the results of our epic pie time yesterday, staggered down to the dining room to fill in the corners with soup, salad, and the remains of all of yesterday's pies, then stumbled back to bed, I snagged Marie and Co-Located back down to the dining room. She looked down at me, maybe a little surprised at the two of us standing there naked in the dining room, but otherwise just waiting patiently for me to explain myself. I glanced around, and the only people in the room were Stheno and Euryale. Don't ask me how I knew it was them, specifically. Lancaster House Maid uniforms, not the Academy Maid uniform Marie habitually wore. The tweaks to that uniform to let them do their job as nursemaids with a minimum of fuss. The way they moved in an oddly more natural unison than the creepy supernatural one most of the Maenads shared.

No matter how I recognized them, they just looked at me, shook their heads, looked at Marie, nodded, and went about their business sorting out the head of the table.

I looked up at Marie and whispered, "hey Mittens, do you think you could maybe get me one of Ria's waffles?"

She did not look thrilled at the idea, but instead of telling me no or anything like that, she just tilted her head and asked, "Why?"

I kinda slumped, because it totally had to do with her, and I wanted it to have other reasons, and maybe it did, but none of them really mattered, and I had no idea why I had so much trouble explaining my reasoning to her when i could absolutely ask her to apply any number of stimuli to any number of intimate body parts without the slightest hesitation. "Uh..." I hung my head. "I want to see you." Her long, sculpted fingernail... her claw, that despite my every effort I could not see no matter what I did, gently but firmly lifted my chin until I looked her in the eye.

"See." My head twitched, and she frowned, confused. "Explain?"

I lowered my voice so that anyone beyond the reach of Marie's claws wouldn't hear anything but a murmur. Not that there was anybody to hear anyhow, but a lifetime of habits born in the hood died hard. "You. Not the hot blond giantess. You. Not Siobhan's big sister with the bitchin' overdone manicure. You. I want to see... you." I closed my eyes, imagining, remembering. Even in memory the fuckin' Blessing tried to cover her over. "I don't know how much longer I'll be here. I mean, yeah, I get it, I'm her. She's me. We're us. No, that's not right, there's just one of me, even when there's two of me. We're me. But... this me. Like I am now? When that Blessing goes away, I'll be her. I guess part of me will stay with her. Or, really, I'll just be a part of her. But... I'm still scared. It's still going to be an ending, and I... this me? Won't ever really know whether or not I'm part of her, she's part of me, or she's just here and I'm just not. Because the only way I'll still be here, like this, to know? Is if it doesn't work."

Her fingernails... Claws caressed my cheek. "Vlickies."

"I can't be this me and know. And I... I love this life, I love you. I love all of you. My ladies. Our kids. The women staying with us. Our friends. Our life. I even love that half built pile of stone at the Homestead. I... Shit. Two months ago I was living alone in a shitty rowhouse that probably should have been condemned, getting high on the regular to kill the existential pain of just existing. But if you'd asked me if I wanted to end it, and I was being honest rather than being an emo little shit or a troll, I'd have told you to fuck off with that nihilist bullshit, I had video games to play and a vibe if I could find batteries and another half dime bag of weed to smoke. But here? Now? I... she... I do not want to lose this, but if someone handed me a button that would take the Blessing away so she could be here for you guys? To give me back the memories it hides from me? Which would end me and turn me permanently back into her? All I'd ask is that my ladies be there for me, hold me while I push that button so fuckin' hard it couldn't be unpushed, ever. Shit, I'd want the kids, but I don't want them to ask why I'm crying."

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I realized right then that I was. I cried, the tears dripping. I wasn't sobbing, or incoherent, or any of that shit, but the tears would not stop flowing. I sniffled just a little, then said, "I'd press that button, because you guys deserve the best me that you can have." I snorted out something not entirely unlike a laugh. "Ain't that a thing? Two months ago I had shit to live for, and would have clung to life without thinking why. Here I've got every fuckin' thing I could ever want, and I would give it up in a heartbeat to let you have a better me. Because she is. A better me."

"No."

My eyes shot open and I glared up at my Murder Mittens. No, not my Murder Mittens. The pale Human reflection of what my Murder Mittens ought to be. "Yes. She's everything I am. She'll remember everything I've done, every thought I've had..." I stopped, snorting, realizing. "Okay, not every thought, because we're both me, and I forget that shit while I'm thinking it half the time. But that's just it. You remember when you slapped that Cold Iron hat on me and she wrote me that note, right?" Marie nodded. "Yeah. She didn't spend time figuring out what I wanted to know. She already knew, because she is me. Only more. She remembers all those things I don't. She has all those skills, all that knowledge, all that power, that I can barely kinda sorta fake enough that nobody outside our inner circle realizes what's goin' on. So I am literally her, but mentally handicapped. So yeah. I would press that button to give you all a better version of me."

Her eyes glistened, and she pulled me to her. "Vlickies."

"I just... before I go? Because I do not know when Saffron or Conrad or Loki or anyone else will find the right string to pull to give me all those memories back and make me go away?"

I paused, and a quiet voice murmured, should I find that string, I will let you know before I do, that you might be surrounded by all you love until the very end.

I chuckled. Here I always thought I'd die alone. Thanks, Dad. You're the best.

I know.

"I've helped build our new home. I've played with the kids, talked with you three and Mom and Dad, I've done every thing that came to mind to show you how much I love you all. But if there is one thing I would regret, it's not being able to see you, the real you, as you are, more. Shit I don't even know if I can be really coherently me while being able to see you, but... please let me try? Or let me see you, even if all I can do is stare and drool at you?"

She put her arms around me, and a moment later we stood in the Bed's room, my back to the Bed. "I appreciate the thought, and I'm not stupid enough to say no, but..."

She smiled at me, put her fingertip on my forehead, and shoved me back to flop on the Bed, my calves dangling off the end. "Hush."

I hushed, and she disappeared. She reappeared a few moments later, a few waffles clutched in her fingernails. I pulled myself up to sitting on the end of the bed, reaching for the waffles, but she pulled them away, holding up one finger. "Open."

I grinned and spread my knees. She pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. I couldn't help it, I'm still me, after all. I reached down and spread. "Open!" She chuckled, shook her head, and pointed at my mouth. I rolled my eyes, still smiling, then closed my eyes, opened my mouth, and said, "aah!"

A chunk of warm, almost too hot waffle settled on my tongue. I chewed, swallowed, then opened my eyes. "Still not you." I might have pouted a little. She held out one hand, fingers up. One at a time, painfully slowly, she lowered her fingers into her palm. When her fist clenched she raised an eyebrow. I shook my head. She tore off another mouthful of waffle and held it out. I took it from her fingers with my lips like the sluttiest school girl ever to take communion, licking the crumbs off her fingers before I let them go. I closed my eyes, chewed, swallowed, then opened my eyes again. "Dammit. Still not you. She force me to wait another long four count, then fed me another. Then another.

"How long are you willing to keep this up?" I might have been pouting more than a little by then, and for fuck's sake I realized just then that I get a little self destructive when I'm pouty.

She wiped that all away with a simple, "Yes." Yes, she would feed me waffles until I saw her as her. Yes, she would feed me waffles until the Blessing was gone and so was I. Yes, she would feed me waffles until time came to an end and my daughters sang reality to sleep in my shadow.

I blinked up at her. "Another?" She lay another on my tongue, and I wrapped my tongue around her claws, reveling in the feel of her fur against my lips as I swallowed it whole. I giggled as I sucked her claws clean, grabbing her hand as they slipped out of my mouth, pushing my index and middle fingertips into the tips of her first two claws. "Funny. You know how I knew, how I should have known that you, the other you, the glamour the Blessing puts over you, is fake?"

She smiled down at me, carefully setting the rest of the waffles to the side, then running her other claws down the back of my head, skritching as she went. "How?"

I pressed against her claw tips. Well before it hurt, pinpricks of blood welled. "Fuck, those are sharp as shit. Do you have to file them or something?"

"Yes." She grinned. Chuckled a little even. "How?"

I smirked up at her, pulling those claws to me, running them down my front just the tiniest bit too softly to slice myself open. "Because any girl kisser where I'm from would keep these two nails short."

My beautiful tigress does not need to keep those claws short.

Saffron showed up late in the morning. "There you are."

"Here I are!"

She shot me an affectionate frown, glanced at the denuded remains of the pile of waffles, then waved one hand through the air, where it left a glittering shadow. "HOLY FUCK!"

She froze as a little rectangular window with angled corners appeared in front of her, just off to one side. "Tabitha?"

"I saw that!" I hissed out. Her eyes got wide. "I saw you Shaping!"

Saffron's mouth worked, eventually forming the least likely of words. "Fuck."

"Wha?"

She shrugged, sighed, and plonked that amazing ass down on my lap. "I'd been hoping that perhaps the Fae grain or some derivative thereof would provide a solution to the Blessing, since it removes the glamor. Even if it provided a palliative effect, if we could discover a dosage which rendered the Blessing neutralized without leaving you, well, stoned out of your mind that would be something, but..."

"Oh! We did! Tell her, Marie!"

Marie smiled indulgently, sliced off a mouthful of waffle with her claws, and delivered it to my eagerly waiting mouth. "Hourly."

Saffron smiled sadly, "and she told me that rather than you because?"

I chewed once, swallowed, nearly choked, then said, "'cause I'm shit at math?"

She sighed. "What's the first thing I did after you exposed yourself to me as Mimic Reborn?"

I blinked. "Uh... me?"

She shook her head. "Still Blessed."

I wrapped my arms around her waist. "Yep. Blessed with an abundance of my very favorite people in the world." Right then I got a brilliant idea. "Fuck me!"

Saffron looked at Marie, "it hadn't been an hour since her last dosage, had it?" Marie just shrugged. "Well, I suppose we can wait until it begins wearing off just a touch."

I clamped my arms around her tighter. "Don' wanna not see Marie!" Then I buried my face in her hair.

She twisted just a little, settling that ass on my thighs firmly. "Do you know what you just suggested?" I nodded. "You know what it means?" I nodded again. She sniffed, and laughed. "You and Marie seem to have already been doing so. Did you still want to?"

I nodded one more time, murmuring, "yes," into her hair as I did.

She breathed four beautiful pout annihilating words into my ear, "I didn't say no."