Dear Diary,

"Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced."

- Leo Tolstoy

Yeah, I can feel that. Goes for music and, shit, even books and stuff too. Not like that's as hard when you can just say stuff, but all of it is all about communicating feels. Like you read a poem about plums and get hungry, or read a book where an old holy man dies and you feel some weird kind of happy-sad, or watch a movie about fuckin' Thermopylae and tear up, or listen to some song where the lyrics are pure thirst and instead of horny you get creeped right the fuck out, and not in a 'uh, oh, molester creeping' way, but in a 'oh, shit, nightmare shit gonna steal my liver and toenails'. I guess visuals maybe hit different, though. We're a visual species.

My Kitten knows all this.

So last night after Saffron laid out her plan for Sparta to Marie and I, she carted us back off to bed. Well, after after. I couldn't sleep for a while, but I think being focused in that one spot, buried in the middle of a pile of warm, cozy bodies, really helped my sense of self, my sense of trying to be, I dunno, a better person, an exemplar of what a Deity ought to be, while still remaining, y'know, me.

Didn't hurt at all that Mimic Dreams, not long before false dawn, featured the return of my chibi Sushi Chefs and all their beans. Focused, oddly enough, not on feeding her, but on gently doing telekinetic massage on all her poor burned tentacles. Okay, less 'telekinetic' and more maybe 'erotic' on the Once and Future Tentacle, but then that one was Marie's sole focus, and Saffron joined her right before I woke up.

By decree of the Imperator, I spent Sunday with Loki. He did some shit to my Soul that felt like eucalyptus tastes mixed with the way aloe smells, and by the end of the day a kind of itching, burning residue I'd been living with since the week before was gone. I mean, I still felt some kinda way about the Spartans, no change there, but I maybe felt a little less constant pain layered over the scars, y'know?

Got home, helped put the kids to bed, and spent another night asleep in the middle of a pile of warm, loving bodies.

Mimic Dreamt of chibi chef massage again, only this time Saffron and Marie weren't even trying to hide the whole 'this shit gonna end with a happy ending' on the Tentacle of Last Resort. Weird as fuck when Mimic straight up deep throated that thing, sucking massage oil and masseuses alike off it, only to have them start up the moment it slithered back out. Dreams. Weird as fuck, and just keep getting weirder.

Spent the day on overwatch maybe the tiniest bit less self-loathing. Yeah, the Undead feared me, but fuck the undead, especially the fuckin' Liches, who seemed to have retained some measure of intelligence and maybe sanity, who could just come up and ask me 'hey, can I be not-Undead' and even if maybe I couldn't do for them what I did for the kids, at least I wouldn't be straight up Smiting them while they asked for help, because I may be an ever expanding variety pack of bitch, but Tabitha's Bitch Factory (Trademark Pending) doesn't produce 'Betrayal Bitch'. At least if I hope if I ever do, Marie and Saffron team up to kick my ass back into sanity.

For whatever reason, ADHD brain decided to get lost in Maze's reading, to the point I low key kinda groaned along with everybody else when she closed the book and announced it was dinner time.

But the big thing today was when Saffron carried me to Phileo, popped a little Air Shield box in the sky above the Parkway Park, and propped me up to stare at the mural across the front of the Academy. I spent the morning staring at the images some nameless Phileo artist had drawn across my first Phileo home's marble front. While part of my brain tried to remind me exactly how badly I'd fucked up with the Spartans, how that was my true nature, how eventually I'd wind up doing that to everyone I interacted with, the rest of me looked at how other people saw me. Well, at least one somebody, but they saw me that way strongly enough to plaster that shit all over the front of a major municipal building.

Fighter. Yeah. Because at the time it happened, the only other serious life or death fight I'd ever been in was against Artemis' High Priestess. Fuck, before that I'd fuckin' run away from a little shit like Rocky the Runt. Yeah, they didn't know what hit them. But at the time, I didn't fuckin' know what I was hitting them with either. Yeah, I killed a bunch of people. Maimed a bunch of others. That's war. Shit happens. I wasn't even fuckin' in charge of that one. Like, not even 'field commander' like I was in Calverton. Just an untried troop who happened to have enough talent that I hit the Army of New Amsterdam and Newark like a sledgehammer hitting an egg. Before anybody even brings up 'raw' or 'hard boiled', think about whether that affects the fate of the egg in the slightest.

Healer. Shit, that one I actually feel proud of. Not, like, have an intellectual understanding that I might have done something good, but it felt good. Even while I did it, under the sweat and puke and snot, in and around the exhaustion and despair at how many people I failed to save, how many people we didn't get to in time, I felt good, every time I Cured somebody, every time I saw another person who would have left a grieving family instead walk away, as healthy as they had been beforehand. Hell, maybe healthier.

Defender. If I did the whole 'fighting' thing right anywhere since I got here, it was against Calverton. Yeah, I think I killed a few people. I had to stop them before they got to noncombatants. But I went for disabling shots, left them alive with as much in the way of shelter and supplies as we could spare, and wasn't getting my freak on killing people in new and creative ways. I mean, yeah, the mural only shows the fight against the Dragon, but even there, I wasn't the one with the kill shot. I just got in the way and distracted that big fucker, kept him from doing irreparable harm to the folks under my protection. Saffron killed it. And even if Saffron uses me for a Moral Compass, I still trust her when it comes to making decisions about 'this opponent is too dangerous to fuck around with'.

Liberator. Even the first time I saw it, I caught that implication. Sure as fuck the artist intended it. When I got to Lancaster, it had the worst 'women as property' situations I'd ever personally experienced, and sure as fuck one of the worst I'd heard about in my own lifetime. I'd say 'short of actual slavery', but when you're locked in the 'women's quarters' your entire life, delegated to cooking and being a ejaculation receptacle for the 'master of the house', I can't see a meaningful difference. By the time we left, Lancaster House, seat and source of power not just in Lancaster, but hugely influential throughout Phileo, had a woman sitting coequal with the dude running the place.

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Heh. 'Coequal'. Every time I thought about that I thought about Bonnie's preferred public image, one she'd probably edged off of a little as her baby bump made it a little less comfy for her. Draped over Larry's shoulder like a shawl, taking 'has his ear' literally as often as it was figurative. Knowing without a doubt that stupid people saw her as Larry's bimbo arm candy, not giving a shit so long as they knew she was Larry's, and able to act as a secondary external brain pack and conscience without anybody realizing. Like a horny Jiminy Cricket, or a sexy shoulder angel. I totally understood, since despite the heat where we hovered, Saffron hadn't left her position draped across my back, her mouth next to my ear, constantly murmuring affirmations and flirtations. Didn't help that much like Marie, I'd had to brace my feet in the back corners of the box and lean on the front to keep from sliding around. Some positions just feel kinda hot, and when somebody decides to imitate an article of clothing while you're wearing them, it doesn't reduce that feeling in the slightest.

Pretty sure she'd have started shit right there if I hadn't wriggled every time her hands started to wander, forcing her to grab onto my shoulders or go sliding off of me. After the first couple times she kept her hands held tight to me, but maybe sorta ramped up the teasing suggestions about my heroic rewards a little bit. Which, from my wife, who I adored, and who I literally set above me in every way I could, I was completely willing to accept.

Right around noon, she twisted a little bit and said, "what..." But not in any kind of alarmed voice, just a mild curiosity. I'd been staring at the Walls part of the picture, thinking about the connections between Elatha, Sengann, and Apollo, idly wondering if I'd have to deal with the remaining portion of that trio, so I just held still and let her look.

I tingled where she Co-Located away, then again when she returned. "Goddess. Come."

I grinned, knowing she'd hear it even if she didn't see it. "Right here, where everybody can see?" I paused half a beat, then followed that up with, "I don't think I'm gonna be down for drunk sex any time soon, but maybe once I am, sure."

She nipped at my ear, then said, "Not what I meant, but I'm holding you to that, stone cold sober. Now, come with me."

Before I could voice the flirty bullshit about timing and simultaneous release that percolated up through my brain, because them tits shifting gently against my back all morning had been more than a little distracting and titillating, and holy fuck is that where that word comes from? But she pulled us both to some spot I didn't quite recognize at first. Like, just north of the low hills the Big Seven stood on, where a flood plain would be if the Delaware had one. I didn't see anything at first, but then she turned me to face northeast and pointed. I still couldn't see what she meant; a bunch of glare reflecting off some of the buildings made it a little annoying to even look that way.

"Fuckin' glare... what am I lookin' at again?"

"Exactly."

I blinked, then let my eyes unfocus a little, stopped trying to avoid the glare and let it sink in. Not just the shape of the shiny glare patches, but the way the auras from that glare blended, intermingled into a single shape. A single figure. A silhouette of pure light, a bust rising above the horizon. A bust of a figure standing just south of New Amsterdam.

Me.

I don't remember if I wondered what I looked like when I Mimicked Mimic's size, pulled so much Mana that it almost tore me to shreds. I don't remember a lot of that day. That shit hurt. That shit burned me, inside and out. I've had a lot of painful shit happen to me since I got here. My scars aren't just decoration or memorabilia. The recent burns from dealing with the Undead Babies in Calverton were bad, but somehow the way I could think about them to compare, but my brain shied away from the pain of holding that much Mana spoke volumes to which one hurt more.

I would do it again in a heartbeat.

"This, love."

"Huh?"

"This. This is how we see you. Yes, you are Domnu's daughter. There is Darkness in you. I'm not sure..." She paused and took a deep breath. "I'm not sure you could love me if there were not." Before I could reply to that, her fingertips lay against my lips. "There is Darkness in you, yes. When under the influence of the God of Intoxicated Madness himself, after he invoked your aspect of Bloodlust, you defiled and destroyed five men you could have simply killed. Five men who knowingly chose to hunt down Maenads, Dionysians, and abuse survivors with the intent to murder, rape, and enslave. Perhaps you are strong enough to fight darkness like that without calling on the darkness within you. In case I don't say it often enough, I do not care."

She pointed once more at the slowly fading sculpture of light someone had created. As I idly wondered what it would look like on the Spring Equinox, she said, "yes, there is darkness, but there is also light. Darkness, which, when pushed to your limits and begged, bullied, and commanded to by your allies, you will let tiny amounts of out to smite those who would commit atrocity. But the light? Oh, my Goddess, the light? The light that burns the darkness in you whenever you try to hold it? The light that you foster, create, embody even as it remains antithetical to your very nature? That you give to all of us willingly, joyfully, ecstatically, even as it destroys you from the inside out. Every person in the Alliance has heard of it by now, love. Most of them saw it with their own eyes. The light within you smiting disease and Disease alike, light of such stature that the entire Alliance could see it."

She brought her hands down, cradling my face and drawing me down until I knelt before her. She mirrored me, pulling me down further until we knelt in that open field, foreheads touching. "But I see inside you, love. I feel it when you burn. I know how when you choose, when you think you have a choice, when you can do more than react, every single time you not only choose light, but choose to Glory in it, to brighten the world for everyone around you, even if you do it by lighting yourself on fire."

I smiled down at her. "I'm..." I choked up a little, but forced out, "I'm not all that bright, love."

She smiled, chuckled, and said, "do you know why I use your Mana to create Mana Blades when I need them?"

"Because you prefer to pass out from me refusing to stop nomming on your lady bits?"

She Grinned at me, mouthed, 'later', and then shook her head. "Perhaps at first. But even now that I can make my own, I prefer this," She held out her right arm, elbow bent to point her hand at the sky, and extended a three foot glowing bar of white. "To this." She mirrored the action with her left arm, only this time a crackling, hissing bar of darkness extended upward.

"Wow. I was mostly kidding when I said, 'dark much'."

She smiled and said, "I know, love. It's yet another reason I love you. You give me a reason to choose light, to be a better person."

"But you do. I... didn't."

She dropped her Mana Blades, reached around the back of my head, grabbed my hair and forced my head around to look at the last vestiges of the fading light sculpture. "You. Did."

I pulled my head back around, and even as I wondered at how it managed to remain attached to my scalp, pulled her lips to mine. A moment later we knelt on the new bed, and I pulled away long enough to say, "lights. Zero."

In our tiny wireframe world, I murmured out, "sometimes you make me wish darkness wasn't evil."

She chuckled, a throaty thing that came from her belly and below, and growled, "who says it must be?" Before I could reply, she pulled my face down and made it impossible for me to talk. Not complaining. Magnificent. "Visceral. Primal. Savage." She hissed as my teeth might have maybe gotten a little nippy, but she didn't pull me away in the slightest. "Yes, love. Show me. Show yourself. Darkness need not always be..."

She gasped. Point to Tabitha. Shut her up mid-monologue without even covering her mouth.