Dear Diary,

I am not the villain. I am not the bad guy. I am not the BBEG. I am not Ragnarok given human form. 'Human'. Yeah, right.

I am not a villain. If I keep telling myself that, maybe I'll believe it at some point.

Crashed hard last night. Even chill dream got muted. Not gone, but everything just kinda... dark. Like, literally dark, not scary nightmare dark. No light show to the east, itchy everywhere to the north, wildly active psychedelic tadpoles in the water. But at the same time everything got more, it also felt... less.

What? It's a fuckin' dream, they're not supposed to make sense.

Anyway, woke up to fuzzy Isnomi rubbing her cheek against mine and purring. Also, my tits were kinda sore. I checked, no missing nips or anything, but I still whispered, "did someone forget which mommy has milk again?"

"Mama na mak. Mama bad!"

"Mama isn't bad!" Not sure why I reacted so strongly. Just feel like every time the whole 'good, bad' dichotomy comes up lately, I get slotted firmly into 'bad'. Worse, even Saffron doesn't tell me I'm not. She loves me, won't leave me even if I am the bad guy, but... Shit, I just don't wanna be the Bad Guy.

The menace pushed herself back enough to look me in the eyes, and gave a brief idiot-voice lecture. "Mama na bat. Mama gu bud."

I snuggled her, rubbing my cheeks against hers in turn. "Yeah, we're buds. Still not gonna get you out of this room all fuzzy."

She just rolled her eyes and reciprocated the face rubbing. She even started pawing at me, and something clicked. "Hey, Menace, are you marking me?"

"Ya." She nodded solemnly. "Ka Mama Sa. Ma Mama! Ma!"

I smiled at her, said, "Screw it, we both got a bath last night, neither of us stinks too bad.", then picked her up and just rubbed her all over me while she giggled.

"I don't want to know, do I?"

I smiled at Saffron and said, "I think she wants me to smell like her today. No idea why." I held Isnomi to look her in the eye. "So, is it Ma's turn for fuzzy Isnomi to mark her up but good?"

She just tossed her head and said, "Na. Ma ga."

Saffron got the cutest little pout as she sat up and folded her arms across her chest. "I cannot believe that I am actually envious of someone being used as a human marking post."

"See, Menace? You're gonna make Ma feel all left out." I turned her around to face Saffron, then gave her a shove in the butt to get her moving. She giggled madly as she pounced on my Kitten, proceeding to rub her face all over her before settling in to breakfast.

I rolled and bounced my way out of the bed, jostling Marie enough to wake her up. Well, enough to make her admit to being awake; I figured she'd been awake and just lazing for a bit. No judgement, big cat's gotta laze sometimes, and it made me feel six kinds of special that she did it here, with us.

I pulled The Dress out of the armoire, handed Marie the boots and hopped up to perch my ass on the desk, dangling my feet out. "Little help, please?"

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the menace making grabby motions at my boots. "Oh, no. You're not allowed to get a pair of these until the thirty fifth of never, in the year of fuck that." I hid my shudder at the thought of The Smith even knowing I had a kid, let alone getting close enough to her to measure her and shit. Once Marie had the boots on me, I hopped off the desk and took a turn around the room, strutting in front of Saffron. "What do ya think?"

She raised her eyes from my ass to meet my gaze, then said, "Marie, my hands are full with Isnomi. Would you?" I didn't even see it coming. Marie's just too fast. Her open palm must have been doing just short of the speed of sound when it hit my ass. Isnomi fell off the tit giggling at my reaction when Saffron said, "thank you, Marie."

"No fair, you two ganging up on me."

"No, it's absolutely not. You're always the one getting twice the attention. You two should really work on that."

What about Marie?

Well it's not like we can catch her if we plan that out loud, is it?

Fair point.

I got The Dress on, then went over and let Isnomi and Saffron make sure every fold and drape lay Just So. "Will you be taking Isnomi today?"

I didn't try to hide my shudder. "Hell no. I've got my modeling session for the Smith today."

She winced. "I can't recall if you forgot to tell me, or you told me and I blocked it from my mind so as not to worry."

"Don't worry, love. I can handle him."

"I'm not sure you can."

I popped out a pair of arm-length, arm-width Mana Blades from the backs of my wrists, then shadow boxed as I said, "if he gets out of line I'll give him one of these, one of those, and some of this!"

"Love?" Saffron's quiet pleading stopped me mid-punch. I dropped the Blades and knelt down next to her. She put one hand against the side of my head and kissed my hair, while Isnomi mirrored her on my other side. "Be careful. The Smith terrifies the gods themselves. If such a thing exists, he is Evil Incarnate."

"People say the same things about me."

Her frightened frown twisted up into a lopsided grin. "So they do, but you're my Evil Terror Incarnate."

I frowned, "I don't want to be Evil."

"I know, love. That's part of why I love you. But even if you dove headfirst into your worst nature, my love would remain."

"Pfft. You just want me headfirst into your natural bits."

She slapped at my shoulder. "Be careful, Goof."

"Never am, never will be. I'll see you tonight."

Ready, Boss.

I lifted one hand, grabbed Loki's, and stepped into the baking heat of the Smith's Workshop.

Loki stood beside me, wearing thick leather armor cut into a semblance of a suit. Okay, above the waist, because below the waist he had his black leather pants on. Gotta say, Sigyn's got some good taste there. What? I'm married, not dead. If those two mixed their genetics? Legendary ass. Just sayin'.

Then I thought about what happened to their actual kids, and hit just about the right amount of pissed off for dealing with this asshole.

"I have been waiting for hours." I was right about the appropriate amount of pissed off. Instead of jumping when he spoke from just outside my field of view, I just swiveled my head around to stare at him.

"You were promised a day's work," Loki replied. "Sundown to sundown was not specified, and sunrise to sundown is completely reasonable. She is, after all, a mortal, and you agreed she would not be harmed."

The Smith just looked at me and snorted. "Mortal." Then he turned to Loki, "You are, of course, correct. Your arrival at sundown was assumed on my part. I would have had a further evening's entertainment planned had I known. Apologies." He turned to me and nodded as he apologized, then turned back to Loki. "To be clear, lest either of us become forgetful, I agreed that she should not now or ever come to harm through my actions, nor should I allow her to come to harm through the actions of others while she resides in my workshop. In addition, I generously added that I should do my utmost to keep her from any harm at the hands of my worshippers."

"Such generosity is suspicious in one with your reputation. The wording is even more suspicious. You of all deities I expect would keep a tight rein on your worshippers."

Yep. Sociopath. Nobody else could make such a perfect, 'who, me?' face. Okay, maybe a con artist like yours truly, but I've been told by those old dudes on the New Jersey that I had a natural knack for that. "I have yet to control the actions of my worshippers, save to express my displeasure with those who have offended me personally. I would hardly dictate their actions."

"Yeah, he does that, none of them piss him off, and he doesn't get to go all murdery on them." At the Smith's creepy smile and nod toward me, I continued with, "you've got me until sundown, and we're burning daylight."

"Such professionalism. You could stand to learn a thing or two from her." As Loki did his Divine best to not stand there gaping, The Smith turned, pointed to a weird dais in the middle of the room, and said, "disrobe and stand there."

I pulled off The Dress, tossed it to Loki, did the same with her boots, and took my place on the dais. A circle maybe four foot around, maybe four feet up from the floor, with steep steps up one side, and another set of steps extending up the other. Prior to duBois, I'd have had a bitch of a time climbing up, but now I just hopped up the steps two at a time, then turned to face Loki, who stood holding The Dress folded up atop one hand, her boots over his shoulder, one hand casually resting on the bone white hilt of a dagger at his side.

The Smith went to work. For hours he had me posing in every imaginable position. I caught on to the reason for the weird steps pretty quick, as he used them to stand and take measurements everywhere from the soles of my feet to the top of my head. Also, he could simulate me positioned on a slope pretty well, although every time he did that, he'd move me back to the middle of the dais afterward and make me hold the same fuckin' pose until he'd finished his measurements. At some point early in the day my sweat overcame the dry heat of the workshop. The Smith snapped his fingers and a gentle breeze wafted across me, drying up my sweat almost as well as the dry heat had been doing.

"Thanks."

"I cannot have my model slip, and your sweat might overwhelm even this," he waved one hand toward the high grip surface I stood on.

"Wow. I didn't know you cared."

"If your pose changes, I must retake all of my measurements, and as you have correctly noted, my time with you is limited."

"Right."

"Be silent. Speaking also changes your pose when you go on too long."

I zipped my lip. Of course he didn't give me a break, at lunch or otherwise. I was thankful for that, really, since I'd long since passed the stomach-clenching phase of physical effort. Running a marathon is what human bodies are made for; we're pursuit predators. This kind of weird posing shit, though? Exhausting, even for me.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

What really baked my noggin a little was that I'd expected to be The Smith's dress-up doll for the day, but not once did he put an actual article of clothing on me. Once or twice he wrapped some kind of tape measure around a body part, then have me move through a full range of motion, but 'tape measure' does not equate to 'clothing'.

Every time I got a glimpse of Loki, he still stood there, The Dress and her boots held carefully, casually slouched with that bone handle close to hand.

Eventually, after an eternity that hit 'fuckin' torturous' sometime about half an hour in, The Smith held out one hand and escorted me off of the dais.

"Already, Smith? The sun has not yet set in Phileo City."

"I am well aware of the time, Backbiter. Leave us." Loki straightened, his hand gripping that ominous bone hilt, but before he could speak, The Smith looked at me and asked, "must I harm this one in order to make him understand our positions?"

At the slithery sound of a bone dagger slipping free of its sheath, I realized The Smith hadn't been asking Loki. "Boss, stop."

The dagger paused, its tip still sheathed. "Tabitha..."

"No, Boss. He didn't promise your safety."

The grin that stretched across The Smith's face went just the tiniest bit further than a human smile ought to. "She is correct. Before you choose your response, let me make it clear. Had I desired to harm you? I would have done so by now."

Are you certain?

Go. I'll call for you when I need you. Keep The Dress safe.

Loki drew himself up from the combat crouch he'd assumed, his dagger sliding back into its sheath as he did so. "Should she come to harm, I shall wax most wroth with you, Smith. Keep your worshippers in check."

That creepy fuckin' smile got wider, if anything, and the whole place darkened just a little. "I do so even now. Begone."

Loki bristled, but gave a quick bow, stepped backwards, and was gone.

That stupidly creepy smile melted into something far less inhuman, but maybe scarier because of that. I nearly pissed myself when he dropped to one knee and said, "Mimic. I had so hoped you would bring your lovely daughter along today."

The meaning of his words hit, and before I could think I stood over him, dozens of Mana Blades extending from my arms, my shoulders, my torso, curving around to surround him with a thicket of hissing, spitting points of light that pressed against a Mana Ward that hovered inches from his skin. I poured Mana into the blades until the entire room darkened, filled with the hissing crackle of imminent death.

"Mimic, never have I uttered this word before, and never shall I again, so know the import when I say unto you," he raised his head to look me straight in the eye, ignoring how it lined a Blade up with each of his eyes. "Please, hear my request before you pass judgement upon me."

That got to me. This sociopathic chucklefuck did not seem the sort to say 'please', or make any kind of 'request', come to think of it. I kept all the Mana Blades in place, but stopped shoving Mana into them, stopped leaning on them with all my might, and said, "You have until sunset. Make it good, or I will wreck your shit in every conceivable way possible."

He smiled up at me, the most natural smile I'd seen on his face yet. "Of course, although it is you who has a sunset deadline, I believe."

"Explain that. Now."

"I am not threatening you in any way whatsoever. I am informing you of an impending natural, unavoidable effect of my High Holy Day, which starts at sunset."

I sucked my teeth. "Not threatening me, just telling me I die on your High Holy Day or some shit like that?"

He shook his head, "no, my High Holy Day is only tangentially connected, and I doubt the effects will kill you. I chose my Day for the same reasons you will doubtless find it refreshing, yet reduce our ability to communicate regarding the agreement I wish to forge with you."

I glared down at him, "what makes you think I'd make an agreement with somebody who just threatened my kid?"

He shot me a look of innocence accused. Damn this fucker was good. "Threaten Isnomi?" He chuckled. "In my current state, I am uncertain I could harm her standing here in my place of power. As you might put it, 'all I would do is piss her off'."

"Yeah, pull the other one, it's got bells on."

He looked down at my feet. "Mimic. Living Ragnarok. Black Swan with a thousand, thousand young. I have not once lied to you, nor shall I ever should my request please you."

"How the fuck do you know what a fucking Black Swan is?"

He looked back up to me, tilting his head and smiling. "Any Deity worth the name can see the world of Tabitha Diaz, should they know where to look. Since our first meeting, I have perused it thoroughly."

"So you know where I'm from. Good for you. I'm guessing you think you know all about me then."

He shook his head. "How can any know Mimic? She can barely know fragments of herself, the rest of us can simply look on in awe."

I shook my head, the Mana Blades wobbling just the slightest bit as I did. No luck, he didn't drop his shield. "Look, stop blowing smoke up my ass and tell me what you want."

He nodded, "as you wish." Fucker had to have hit that cadence on purpose. "Mimic, Living Ragnarok, Black Swan with a thousand, thousand young, from my earliest childhood memories you have been my inspiration. To meet you in the flesh is an honor beyond any I expected to befall me, and yet I would ask you for an honor that dwarfs that in comparison." He lowered his head until he looked up at me, nailing the perfect 'beseeching' pose. "Adopt me."

"What. The. Ever-loving. Fuck. Why the fuck do you think I'd do that?"

He cast his gaze down to my feet. "Many reasons. Should you re-create me as your child, I will strive to be a dutiful son. I shall watch over my siblings, taking slights upon them as upon myself, harm to them as harm to myself, which I have ever responded to in kind. I shall obey your every command to the best of my ability to comprehend it. I shall never lie to you, and will gladly answer any question where the answer itself will not do you irreparable harm."

That sounded too good to be true. "Can you lie?"

"I know the method, although I have never used it. I find lies aesthetically displeasing."

That forced a snorted chuckle from me. "Yeah, I'm sure you live for your art."

"And many have died for it." He peeked up at me through his lashes. "Did you enjoy the show these last nights, mother of my heart?"

I refused to respond to that. I knew exactly what he implied, both the light show and that he'd killed at least one person for it. Fuck it, I had to respond. "How many?"

One hand twitched in a throwing-away gesture. "Seven. They all plotted designs against your paramour, at their Gods' instigation."

Fuck. I was actually considering this crazy shit. Double fuck. This was crazy shit, which put it squarely in my wheelhouse. "You'll be a dutiful son to my wife as well as me."

I caught a flicker of mild disgust cross his face, but he said, "as you have said it, so it shall be, mother of my heart."

Loki? You out there?

When nobody replied, I upped the power in my Blades an erg and growled out, "what did you do to Loki?"

"Nothing. I have simply sealed my workshop, that we might speak candidly without him discovering your identity, oh beloved Primordial."

"And he's not trying to get back in?"

That pulled a chuckle out of The Smith. "Oh, the locals curse Poseidon with every breath. The earth trembles with the Liesmith's wrath, but that does not concern me. Amuses me, but does not concern me."

"So people are dealing with an earthquake so you can do your little song and dance in private?"

"Would you rather the Backbiter learn of your true identity from me? I could arrange that, should you desire it."

"Fuck." I trusted Loki, but right now I'm not sure if his reaction would lean toward Saffron or Angel. Not that Angel knew about Mimic, but you get the point. A wave of darkness washed across me. "The fuck was that?"

"The wheels of Apollo's chariot touch the horizon. Time speeds past."

"Double fuck. You don't touch family. Any of it."

He sighed and nodded, "I should only ask that you clearly indicate who you consider family."

"You don't know?"

He smirked up at me. "How would I know when you do not?"

I tilted my head in a shrug. "Fair point. You're an Evil fucker. Probably the Evilest one I've met yet."

He imitated my shrug. Smooth fucker. "You've met Zeus. I have yet to rape. You've met Ares. I have never started a war, for my own amusement or any other reason. You've met Hera. I have yet to vent my wrath upon fellow victims of an abuser. Am I really so Evil?"

"You terrify the fuckin' Gods."

"So do you, mother of all that I am."

"You torture people to death, and enjoy doing it."

He nodded, "I have never claimed otherwise. Those who offend me become my canvas and my pigment, my marble, my clay, their screams the instrument of my music."

Fuck. If I was gonna do this, I might as well muzzle this fucker. "As a good and dutiful son, I expect you to ask for mommy's permission before you kill anybody." My brain kicked in and I added, "Or anything else irreversible."

He sighed, "I had hoped not, but I should have expected that. Then again, I suppose as a good and dutiful son, I shall come to appreciate my mother as audience to my Art."

"No fighting with your sister."

He arched a brow. "You would allow me to fight with my brother? What would your wife say?"

"You don't have a brother."

"But should you adopt me, I will." He dangled that shit out there, taunting me. "Mother-to-be, time grows short. May I stand?"

I slid my Mana Blades back in, and felt his Mana ward shift as he stood. A pace later it fell apart after travelling with him toward a cabinet he unlocked. He pulled down a large, flat shelf, then set a few things on it. A shoebox sized case. A small guillotine, the opening sized for a wrist rather than a neck. A dagger twin to the Evil fucker I'd snapped on the Equinox.

"So what do I do, just declare you my son?"

He smiled ruefully at me. "I should wish. But before we begin, long before I dreamt of you adopting me, I had another, less ambitious dream." He lifted the guillotine blade into place, threaded a string through the lever, and handed me the other end of it. He shoved his right hand through the guillotine's opening, clamping it in place. "If you would honor me?"

Sick fucker. My head twitched in the slightest of shakes, then I grit my teeth and yanked. The blade fell, and he gasped as his right hand fell into his left. He knelt before me, his right wrist spurting into a growing pool on the floor, holding his right hand up to me with his left. "My final offering to you before I become your son in truth." What the fuck was I supposed to say to that. I took his hand, and he wobbled to his feet. He picked up the dagger, flipped it around to hold it out to me, hilt first. I shifted his hand to my left and reached for it with my right. He nodded to his hand, wobbling a bit as blood poured from his wrist, "I regret the inconvenience, but to complete this requires some modicum of your blood."

I waved his own hand at him, "I don't want to drop this, but I don't exactly have pockets. In case you didn't notice."

He chuckled, obviously wobbling and getting a little delirious. "I actually hadn't." He took his hand back and set it on the desk next to the guillotine. I ran the blade across my left palm to test it, and blood leaked out from a long, shallow cut. He waved me closer. "Take the blade in your left hand." After I swapped hands, he reached out and wrapped my hand around his. "You acknowledge me as your son?" I nodded. "I trust you, mother." He yanked my arm forward, plunging the dagger straight through his own heart.

He collapsed like a doll with its strings cut, and a massive rush of power surged into me as the dagger ripped his soul from him and delivered it to me. I stared down at his body. All I had to do to rid the world of its most sociopathic, sadistic, cruel bastard was walk away. He was a sick fucker who tortured people for fun, who scared the piss out of gods.

The dripping of blood sounded so much like Lancaster's piss.

Everything I'd ever heard about him? People said about Mimic. About me. Okay, nobody said I was 'artistic', but that wasn't a point in my favor.

His last words echoed in my ears as a wave of blackness rushed across me. In the end, it didn't matter who or what he was. It mattered what I was.

I knelt down and lay my hand over the seeping wound in his chest, and pulled together every bit of power that flowed into me through the dagger. "Revive."

His eyes shot open, and he filled his lungs in a single long gasp. He grabbed at my hand and stared up into my eyes, joyous adoration filling his gaze to the exclusion of everything else, up to and including his ever-present creepy. "Mother." He clutched at my hand, holding it to his chest as he closed his eyes reverently. Another wave of darkness washed over me, and he rose smoothly to his feet, lifting me to mine with his left hand. "We must get you home before dark." He slipped his hand from mine. "This will just take a moment."

He reached over and opened the shoebox-case on the desk and lifted out a hand. I couldn't tell on sight if it was an actual hand or a really fucked up prosthetic. He saw me looking and smiled. "Do you like it, mother?" He held it out for my inspection. The skin looked real. The fingers matched his other hand, long and dexterous, but where his other hand had been manscaped to near baldness, this one had thick, dark hair across the back and along the backs of the fingers. As he turned it and I looked on in growing unease, I saw a scar across the back sewn shut with delicate stitches. Then I noticed the eyes. Not a scar. A mouth.

Hoping desperately I wouldn't vomit instead of speaking, I whispered, "it's very nice, dear. Not your usual look, though."

He nodded, literally grinning from ear to ear, and some part of me just fucked the fuck off screaming at that not being even close to the creepiest thing in the room at the moment. "I do try to force the essence of my materials to shine through." He slid it onto his still bleeding stump, and when he folded the skin at the base of the hand around his wrist, the bleeding stopped as the skin melded seamlessly with his own, the dividing line only visible due to the change in hair texture and color. "Tyr objected to the show I put on for you. Rudely." The Smith let out a heartfelt sigh. "Given what he did to Loki's sons, I so wanted to use his intestines for something, but," he shrugged, "an artist must follow his muse, yes?"

"Seems fair to me." I cudgeled my brain for what I'd say to Isnomi if she so clearly wanted my approval. "Well done. Appropriate and flawlessly executed, it looks like." I nodded, and staggered as another wave of blackness rushed across me.

He caught me with his right hand, and I couldn't help but shudder, which only made his grin wider. "Let's get you home." He reached up with his right hand, and a faint crackling rumble sounded through the whole room. I got a sensation of rushing forward, then backward, and a blistering line of light carved the shape of a door into the wall in front of us. He reached out, pulled it open, and guided me through without passing the threshold himself. "I remain near should you need me, mother." He slid the door closed behind me, pushing me all the way through. I wound up with a face full of cloth, and something clotheslined me just as another wave of blackness hit. This one didn't go away. I pushed at the doors in front of me, the rope slithering as the knot untied itself.

I staggered out of my armoire, vaguely noticed Saffron, Marie, and Isnomi staring shocked at my sudden arrival, and collapsed flat on my face on the bed as blackness claimed me.