Dear Diary,

"Agency, Consent, Choices,

You are captain of your ship,

Chart your course with my blessing."

- Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Agency

Yeah, I'm kinda tapped out on ways to talk about 'Agency' at this point, I think. Hopefully that'll get the point across that I want people thinking, not obeying. Which is a weird fuckin' position to take for a Goddess writing a book of Doctrine, I guess. 'Do as you will, not as I say' is better than 'do as I say, not as I do', at least. I guess part of me is hoping that Karen has enough Saffron in her, and lasts long enough, to maybe min max the commentaries and corollaries and shit until even the most die hard deliberately ignorant thoughtless idiot has some flow charts to use when he needs to think. Something like that, anyhow.

Of course, now my brain has gone to feeding me images of getting more Saffron into Karen, which is totally not what I meant but apparently when I don't have any physical activity to speak of in my day, my brain just starts randomly generating head pron at the slightest provocation. I dunno if its better or worse that me-without-memories has gotten most of the sexy fun times lately. I mean, obviously it's better for keeping me from pulling a runner, because even at my most paranoid, I am still a sucker for the right kind of bait, and any one of my ladies would be absolutely the right kind of bait for me. All three of them together? Eternally bubbly, eager, innocent Siobhan, raw, visceral, passionate Marie, and oh, my, fuck brilliant, calculating, merciless Saffron? Look, my paranoia can take all the seats it needs, if the Eternal Ultimate Torture Device comes with an endless buffet of the three of them? Hook my ass up and make me scream, because I am just exactly that kind of stupid.

The weirdest thing of all, though, which has me more than a little bit freaked out, and is just tickling my paranoia buttons' ass with a feather? How the fuck those entries in the Doctrine got in there when I didn't write them. Okay, one of them, I think, was me from before the dawn of me filling in for me. But yesterday? How? What? I mean, it's obviously me writing it. Totally my particular brand of stupid. But I know I didn't write it, and I know she was in no condition to do any writing, so again I ask of the universe, 'what, the actual, absolute, real fuck is going on with that shit?'

I'd ask Saffron or Siobhan, but they're both still sleeping. Marie just shrugged, which just means that however it happened she either wasn't involved or considers it so basic I already know and she's just fuckin' around with me. That leaves me as not exactly a happy camper at the moment, although I'm less unhappy than I was wearing Bad Magneto Cosplay. Jon the Smith managed to work up a kind of tiara headgear thing for me. Still Cold Iron, still a little bit heavy, but at least I can scratch my scalp when it itches. Okay, I can have Marie scratch it, because my nails are pretty much working woman's nails at best. Headgear issues aside, pre-isekai me apparently soaks up Happy Brain Chemicals like a sponge.

After spending a painfully long, slow time getting my Soul back into my body, my historical-ego decided that she'd gone long enough without carnal gratification and pounced on Marie. Who held her off just long enough to close the door to where Siobhan and Saffron had sacked out on Marie's floor bed. Apparently all the fooling around in the Captain's Cabin of the Black Dragon had not prepared her for full on Marie A-Game in a real bed, because by the end of it the only thing she had resembling a thought was wondering how Marie managed all that with no shorter fingernails. I wish I knew why exactly she saw Marie as Human. I mean, yeah, she's human in every way that matters for purposes of laws and rights and dignity and all that other good shit, but she is, in fact, a Maenad. A tiger who decided to become a horny pinup model. A purpose built fucking, killing, nursing machine. I guess I'm not upset, but I am a little weirded out.

Marie took the opportunity to give me a good scrub in a tub, which left alter-me even less averse to whatever the fuck Marie wanted to do than normal. Seriously, when the Happy Brain Chemicals apparently make up enough of the brain juice to have a proof normally associated with whiskey, nothing seems like a bridge too far. After she toweled me dry and combed out my hair, she slipped my new Cold Iron tiara on me...

At which point I realized that 'too awash in Happy Brain Chemicals' past me is, in fact, still kind of depressed. So I pounced on her again. When we both lay there sweaty and disheveled, she grinned at me and said, "Messy."

"Yes, thank you."

I think one of my favorite things about Marie is how open she is with her emotions, and how many nonverbal ways she has to express them. She purred. She growled. She ran her tongue over my not quite completely healed permanent tiger hickey, then flicked my nose with a claw, followed by delicately pinching the bridge of my nose. Letting me know without a fucking word that a spontaneous bridge piercing was, in fact, an option right then.

Before she could figure out what to say, I smiled at her and said, "go ahead, Mittens. I trust you." She bore down just enough to barely pierce the skin, then pulled away with a booger look, which is both weird and oddly intimidating to see on a seven and a half foot tiger woman. "What's wrong?"

"Saffron."

I tried to frown, but just could not work up a good frown with all the happy flowing through me. "Saffron told you not to give me a bridge piercing?"

"Any." Before I could respond, two claws touched my lips. "Asked." Then she sighed, her eyes fluttering closed as she savored an obviously happy memory. "Nicely." Then she frowned at me again. "Messy."

I chuckled, licked her claw tips until she pulled them away, smiling, and said, "you could just lick me clean." She froze. "Oh, shit, I'm sorry. Was that offensive? Fuck, I didn't mean..."

Her claw tips descended on my mouth again, and she... didn't smile at me. There was way too much hunger in that expression for it to be a smile. "Now?"

"How can I say no to a face like that? Yeah, nowwww..."

While I was previously aware that many big cats have the whole 'rough tongue with little spines on it' thing going on, and my Marie is obviously a tigress who woke up and chose bipedalism, I had not previously realized her tongue was, in fact, in possession of spines like that. I also was not aware of exactly how much control Marie had over those little spines. Cats of all sizes use those rough tongues not just for cleaning, but to scrape meat off of bones. I didn't lose any meat, although it felt like it came real close on my not quite healed shoulder scar. She started with that, and when she growled and purred and looked up at me, pleading clear in her eyes, I nodded. I wasn't kidding about letting her do just about fucking anything when she looked at me like that.

She slipped her fangs back into me, clamping down just hard enough to immobilize me, purring and clinging to my upper arms the whole time. I have no idea how long she sat there, clamped to my shoulder, tongue gently scraping dead skin and scar tissue away. By the time she'd satisfied herself that my shoulder was in fact bitten and licked to her satisfaction, I might have had some blood left in my endorphin stream, but I am not prepared to bet on that.

Then she proceeded to clean and exfoliate the rest of me. I was also previously aware that certain body parts are not meant to be exfoliated. Marie apparently gave no fucks about that fact today. Worse, she was totally focused on actually getting me clean, not potential antics or hijinks. When she finished and lay there atop me, grinning down at me, I reached up with both hands, ignoring the faint ache in my shoulder, and gently but firmly took her by the ears. "That was mean."

The big freak just grinned at me. "Yes." Then she leaned forward, ignoring my hands clutching her ears as much as I'd ignored my shoulder, and kissed me.

I tried really hard not to think about why her mouth tasted like she'd eaten enough pumpkin pie spice to keep the Academy in pie for the entire holiday season. Fortunately, I'm really good at not thinking about things, as has been noted.

When she finally pulled back, satisfied that my tongue and mouth were both clean, I asked, "so, am I clean enough for you now?" Her mouth dropped open into a chuckling grin, her tongue lolled out, and she lowered her head toward my chest. "Okay! Okay! I'm clean enough now!" Laughing, I tried to push her away, but she whined until I let her nip my nip with one fang. As she helped me up, I lay a hand on my shoulder. "You really wanna do more than just this, don't you?"

She smiled and nodded. Then, like that wasn't enough, said, "Yes."

I traced my fingers across her lips, slipped my palm into her mouth. "Go on. I trust you."

She shook her head, rolling her eyes as she did. "Promised." Then, giving my palm a lick which might have removed the last of the callouses I'd earned from sword practice with Lancaster, she grinned and said, "Yet."

"Oh, shit. I'm in danger."

She bunted my forehead. Never truly, Vlickies. Not from me.

"I know that, you big fuzzy freak. I love you."

Skin, on the other hand...

I couldn't help it. "I'm in danger!"

We kept our chuckles quiet as we slipped into the office, where I sat down and wrote while we let the other two sleep. Marie stayed close behind me, draping herself over my shoulders like a blanket. With a blanket wrapped around us. I didn't really need the warmth, but I appreciated her staying close. I thought through my few lines, scribbled them onto the foolscap I'd been working with, then pulled open one of the books on the table at random. "Law and Custom of the Inter-City Alliance." I whispered. "Damn, Kitten. Ten steps ahead, as always."

"Given how many of our opponents think five steps ahead, thinking fifteen and acting ten is the only way I stay ahead." Saffron rolled into my lap, burying her face in my chest. If she hadn't, I wouldn't have heard her whisper, "the only way I can even try to keep us safe."

After that we just sat there for a while, until Siobhan sat up. "How long did you let me sleep?"

Saffron leaned out from my lap and replied, "long enough for you to be rested, and that's all that matters." Then she looked at Marie. "Could you collect Loki, please?"

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

A minute later Dad showed, and Saffron knocked on the door in the back of the armoire. Conrad leaned out and asked, "is she ready?"

"As ready as I'm gonna be."

He frowned. "I'm sorry, Mother, but you cannot set foot in my Workshop with that," he nodded toward my head, my tiara, "on your head."

"Weird rule..."

He shook his head. "No, mother. Not by my choice. By what you would call Laws of Physics. Cold Iron cannot exist within my Workshop. Should you attempt to bring it within, I cannot say exactly what would happen, but... I believe you have Translocated with Cold Iron on your person?"

"Okay, yeah, molten iron on my head: bad. Got it." I turned to Saffron and Siobhan. "No chance either of you could give me a Smite to get me copacetic before we do this?"

"Either?" Saffron asked, looking at Siobhan.

"Both." Siobhan said, nodding to Saffron.

They each dropped the Spell into me, one after the other in close succession, I almost oozed out of the chair as Marie scratched at my scalp with her...

Marie carefully removed something from my mane of hair, then set it on the chunky desk. A tiara. An all metal one. Siobhan and Saffron looked at each other, waved their hands, and I got a double dose of whatever mystical weed whammy they'd hit me with before. I almost fell out of the chair, but Marie lifted me up into a princess carry. My whole body felt kinda... raw. Not in a bad way, but like I'd just gone half a dozen rounds with a loofa. "Hey, guys. 'Sup?"

"We're ready to begin the next steps in discovering what was done to you, as well as who did it."

Something struck me just then, an idea that floated through my head and drifted out of my mouth before I could stop it. "Hey... if you guys figure it out, and you fix it. Does that mean this me like, stops existing?"

Everyone but The Smith froze. After a moment Saffron said, "there... There is not..." She shook her head. "You are you, love. You aren't a completely different you just because you've lost your memory."

"I'm not? I... I act different, don't I?"

"Only in ways that are affected by those memories." She leaned in and put her forehead against mine. "You, my love, are always yourself, whether you remember the rest of us or not."

"Oh. Am I just being stupid?"

She shook her head without moving away, the sensation oddly familiar. "No, love. No, concerns are never stupid." She sighed. "I... Would it help to speak with yourself?"

That made no fucking sense, but screw it, most of the time I don't anyhow. "No idea how that'd work, but I guess it couldn't hurt."

"Then I will find a way. For you, love." She stepped away, turned back to the men. "If we are to do this, let's be about it." Loki stepped forward, The Smith moving aside to let him pass. Siobhan moved to follow, but Saffron took her by the hand and held her back. She looked The Smith right in the eye and said, "son. To be sure you understand. This is Sister Siobhan Darling, who your mother and I have taken as a Concubine. As such, she is family." She paused, and I almost thought I imagined the booger look that flashed across The Smith's face. Then, her voice low and almost growling, Saffron said, "also, she is your Mother's to break and crush and swallow, and she would be very put out should her new toy be damaged."

I have no idea why exactly that ground my fuckin' gears, but the weirder thing was The Smith's reaction. Something that almost looked like a genuine smile spread his lips just a little further than ought to be possible, and he almost sounded like a normal decent honest human being when he said, "of course, Mom. I understand completely. She will leave my Workshop in the same condition she enters it."

Of course, that was not nearly as reassuring as it should have been, because while he was doing and saying that? Siobhan blushed, turned toward Saffron, and collapsed, her eyes rolling back. Saffron caught her like the waif she absolutely was. Then she blew my mind by doing the whole Sleeping Beauty kiss, and it fuckin' worked like a charm. One moment, unconscious blonde nun, next moment Nuns Gone Wild liplock with my wife. Apparently my wife. Still fucked with my head having a wife. Didn't even want to think about the ethical nightmare of having not one but two concubines. Like, the fuck was I thinking? I guess I'd have to ask that when Saffron figured out a way for me to talk with myself.

Then we stepped through the doorway into the Workshop. A quick look around showed that my initial glimpse had pretty much been exactly on point. I recognized a drill press and a table saw from a shop class I took one year before they closed that program down. I recognized an anvil, because I'm not an idiot, and a furnace nearby with heat rolling off it. From the safety of Marie's arms I panned my gaze across the room. I almost looked past it, but something about it pulled my gaze back like somebody'd connected a cable to my eyes. I stared, confused, for like half a second, before I realized why I couldn't recognize what the fuck I was looking at, what was giving me worse danger signals than even The Fucking Weyland Smith, who stood next to the thing like a proud papa.

I recognized the bench first. Bench? Bed? Rack? Yeah, the thing obviously had 'rack' deep in its ancestry, with wrist and ankle cuffs to pin somebody to it. But instead of the normal gears you'd expect to pull somebody apart with, a stubby gleaming pressure vessel with tubes dangling from it squatted underneath the surface of the rack. The controls made me look past it at first. Instead of a single vertical sliding bar, it had a set of horizontal ones, each of them with what looked like positive and negative values arrayed to either side of the central neutral position.

That was not the worst thing in my field of view, though. That whole setup, which left my entirely un-sanguine about putting myself at the mercy of The Fucking Weyland Smith, sat in the very center of a gleaming metal arch. Nightmares from surfing through parts of the web no kid the age I'd been should be allowed near surfaced, and my whole body trembled as the word, "nope," leaked out of me over and over.

Of all the people in the room I did not expect comfort from, The Smith stepped over and took my hand in both of his. "Mother. Mother Dearest, Mother of my Soul, be... be not..." Finally, with an obvious effort of will, he managed to force out, "be not afraid."

The weirdest thing? I didn't think he was faking. "That... those are torture devices."

"Yes."

"You want to strap me into a pair of torture devices."

He shook his head. "Were there any other way, Mother, I would not expose you to this."

I'd dealt with one too many grifters to miss what he hadn't said. "That's not a no."

Without letting go of my hand, he lowered his eyes to the floor. "A dutiful son does not lie to his Mother."

"I like my skin. In one piece. On me," I whimpered.

He nodded. "Mother, I swear to you, you shall survive this with not one single additional scar."

I looked down at the scars crisscrossing my body and a near hysterical giggle slipped out of me. "I don't want to be mostly dead."

He smiled at me, the expression no less creepy for being as real as anything I'd seen on his face. "I cannot help you with your current condition, Mother. No matter how much I surprise myself by finding myself wanting to. You shall emerge from my Workshop as close to your current condition as it is in my power to keep you."

"And if he does not do his utmost to preserve you, as is right and proper for a dutiful son," said Saffron, "Siobhan and I will restore you after I have chastised him appropriately."

Tears slipped down the sides of my face. "What if he kills me?" I whispered.

The smile on Saffron's face vanished, replaced by a grin so cruel I couldn't tell who to be afraid of. "Then I will tell his sister what he has done, and your injunction against bullying him will no longer apply."

I wanted to hit her with all the 'dafuq', because I could not conceive of anybody who could apply 'scared straight' tactics to The Fucking Weyland Smith of Legend. But I swear the fucker almost pissed himself, covering it up with coughing like he'd swallowed all the spit in the world down the wrong tube. "Mom. Mother. I assure you both, there will be no need." He dropped to one knee, one manicured hand holding mine, one oddly hairy one holding Saffron's. "I swear to you on my Power, on my Workshop, on my Divinity, I will protect her as I would myself."

Saffron stared at him a long, timeless moment. Then she nodded once and turned to me. "Love? I believe he is sincere."

"Yeah," I rasped out.

"Will you... can you bring yourself to do this?"

I closed my eyes, taking deep breaths to center myself. When I opened them, I looked at the scary little motherfucker kneeling on the floor in front of us. "Son?"

He looked up, something almost like hope in his eyes. "Yes, Mother Dearest?"

"Is there any other way?"

He nodded, then shook his head. "Mother Dearest, I swear to you, I know of no other method to acquire the information we need to free you from this curse."

I closed my eyes and took another deep breath. The smell of the sea filled my nose, and I realized right then that I'd never left Marie's arms. Without opening my eyes I asked, "can Marie hold me? Hold my hand even?"

"I'm sorry, Mother, but she cannot." Before I could say anything, he added. "She can stand as near to you as I will. Any closer and I am not certain it will be safe for her. Although..."

"Yeah?" I asked, desperate for any crumb he would throw me.

"Once my device has done what it must, I believe she may be able to touch you, at least until it is time to undo what has been done."

I took a deep breath. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. I wanted to do anything but this. "Marie?"

"Yes."

"Can you... I dunno... show me our kids?"

Like she'd done the day before, I felt her mind, her perception, slip into mine. A moment later, I felt Saffron do the same. Images drifted before my mind's eye, somehow crisp and clear and yet fuzzy at their core, the way I knew my own mom's face, but knew it both from when I looked up at her round cheeks as a kid and looked down on her withered face as she died. Like I wasn't seeing just one image, but every image I'd ever seen of them.

Freaking me out just a little, the Weyland Smith came first. Just him, as he stood before us, unchanged and unchanging... except not. Something about the smile on his face. No less creepy, but... less fake, maybe.

Then the crossbow I'd seen sitting in the case in the other room. I had no idea why, maybe it was a favored toy or something, but it just sat there looking smug as shit, which is not something a thing without a face should be able to do.

Before I could give voice to the growing 'what the fuck' inside me, a girl. Skinny, like a lot of the kids I knew got at the end of summer, but smiling. She had a pony onesie on, and she clutched at a copy of Wintersmith as her lips moved, reading it aloud. Seeing her sparked a deep, abiding rage at everyone who had ever hurt her. Including me.

Next a blonde girl, one whose whole bearing reminded me a little of myself. Quiet but not invisible. Maybe a little tomboyish, but not ever a boy.

Then the girliest girl to ever girl, in a pink taffeta dress with a tutu that did not go with it, but somehow went absolutely with the girl herself.

A tiny little strawberry blonde, hiding on top of an armoire, a finger pressed against her lips.

Then a dark haired little hellion, the kind who would absolutely do every 'boy' thing you could name, just to prove that she didn't suck. Her 'armor', a knit onesie complete with a visor, should have looked absolutely ridiculous, but the super serious look on her face kept me from laughing.

Then... a girl. A tiny thing, head of dark curls, look in her eyes that told me that she had every ounce of her mother's commanding presence, every bit of my own hell spawned nature. The kind of kid who even in diapers could and would rock the world, standing as tall as her tiny stature would let her in an military uniform with the name 'Aetos-Diaz' on the left breast. One glance and I knew I would do anything for her. Anything at all.

Even this.

"Put me in."

Marie lay me gently on the table, kept one hand on my belly as she used the other to cuff first my ankles, then my wrists, until I lay spread eagled. Lips against mine popped my eyes open. Siobhan, who stepped away after wiping the sweat from my brow. Then Saffron, who glared at The Smith as she pulled away from me. Then Marie, who stepped to his side and glared down at him. I realized right then that her hands were probably big enough to wrap around his neck twice. "Carefully."

"As careful as I can be," he said, pulling a few suction cup looking things from beneath the table. He attached one to each of my temples, another to each armpit, and one to my crotch. "Apologies, Mother, but I needed to adjust the positioning of these." He turned back to the machine, looking at something I could barely see hovering above the sliders. "With this, I will be able to monitor and control the flow of Mana through you. Siphoning off excess which might interfere with the process and damage you, or supplying more should you require it."

He turned to Marie and, his whole posture one of deference, shifted her to stand slightly further from me. Just as close to me as he was, as he'd said. "I am ready, Mother Dearest."

"Will it hurt?"

"Oh. Yes. It will." He threw a lever, and the table I lay on shifted. It lifted me until I hung from my wrists, barely supported by the clamps on my ankles. Then it spun me to face the wall of cabinets behind the arch, sliding forward until I hung directly beneath it. Something clunked, like the table had locked in place, and the cuffs on my wrists and ankles tightened. The cabinet along the wall opened.

Then the knives came out.