Dear Diary,

Seriously, I'm in awe at how much somebody from here and now who spends more of their time getting good at what they do can rock the shit out of whatever it is they decided to do.

I ought to have realized. Saffron is Best Wife, Kitten of Kittens, High Priestess Beloved of her Goddess Carnally and in all Other Ways, not to mention Utter Badass By Design Rather Than Chance, but... she belongs here and now. Yeah, she's awesome and some of that is just her being her, but a lot of what she is she's made herself into. Like, by studying and practice and shit, not by poofing herself into badassery like a God do. But that means that path is there. That somebody who really wants to be whatever can be whatever. Unless somebody notices and squashes them, which I guess is what the Gods here and now did to people like, uh, Alexander, or Temujin, or Charlemagne.

But apparently the Gods don't mind a nihilistic freak of a Bard deciding to go so hard into music and dancing that he's spontaneously channeling Gaga and Disturbed and shit. I mean, I guess their thought process probably went 'what's the worst he can do, sing some little songs and do some little dances and shit? Fucker gets out of line we'll squash him too'. Guess they really need to hope that either Domnu eats his entire ass in a literal sense or that he doesn't hold a grudge.

I'm gonna marry the night,

I won't give up on my wife,

You're my Goddess and Queen,

Endless passion for the Night.

I'm gonna marry the dark

Gonna make love to the stark

I'm a soldier to my own emptiness

I'm here to win her

On the one hand, the words were definitely different. This wasn't exactly a song about positively nihilistic self-love by any stretch of the imagination. This was a dude utterly at peace with throwing himself directly at a Goddess who was, by her own words, the End of All Things, screaming 'notice me', but in an absolutely notice-worthy fashion. The song, the music, hell, he even danced with that 'if I weren't doing exactly the same move every time and maintaining my balance perfectly, you'd think I was having an epileptic fit or some shit'.

I'm gonna lace up my boots

Throw on some leather and cruise

Along the river I love

In my fishnet gloves

Let me in her

I'll go down to the bar

I'll try forever more,

I'll hold my whiskey up high

Kiss her boots and hems twice

I won't lose her

Holy fuck I haven't even mentioned the completely unhinged hip action. Not just, like, the power thrusting you'd expect, either. I mean, yeah, some of that, especially during the whole 'controlled epilepsy' portion, but then he did the kind of stop motion shit you see in belly dancers. Jiggle, jiggle, thrust, thrust, freeze! Like he'd had his own pelvic region replaced by a Sybian saddle or some shit. Not gonna lie, man made me feel a little ashamed of my inherent bias toward prettiness right there, because if, like, his everything weren't some variety of ugly or straight up intimidating? I might have Just Happened to him right there on the stage. He could keep his battleship and his Jarldom, I could make do with seven BBs, five towns, and a crown as my latest 'gifts as love language' to Saffron.

Leave no part of you to explore

Nothing's too cruel

So I give me to you

This world is not

Just a pearl that you'll never choose

My Love is your new

Leather and black

Shadows and blood,

I'll give it all like an addict.

He ended up with a long, involved, hypnotizing cycle through the chorus as he danced around her like a fuckin' bird of paradise hopped up on ecstasy, cocaine, and some random shit he found in the couch cushions. As the last chord wound down, he reached out with one hand to touch her. Even there, he didn't pull the sleaze move of reaching for her ass or tits or even the kind of dick move of trying to touch her face or something, but reached to touch her hand.

I didn't see her move, but a moment later she held his wrist motionless in her grasp. My brain didn't hurt watching her Human sized hand span his Jotnar sized wrist without either one growing or shrinking, but it definitely considered putting in its two week notice at that kind of casual space time fuckery. "You would give me this?"

He met her gaze unflinching. "It is yours already, My Lady. I would only ask one thing."

She waited an uncomfortably long time before saying, "Ask."

He bowed his head in supplication. "Allow me to retain it, that I might use it to please you."

She didn't reply, but let go of his hand as she tilted her head to stare down at him. Which, again, she did without changing size, even with her being maybe six feet tall or so and him being around fifteen feet. Hard to tell what with the chunky boots and heels. He bowed to her; like, bent all the way down until his forehead might have tapped the toes of her boots, maybe, if he'd been an inch closer. When he rose he turned to me. "Your go."

Then it started to rain.

Fuck it. Black outfits, follow my lead.

Follow your... argh, Bitch!

No, we did that already.

The unhinged laughter echoing through my head told me I'd pay for that flippant comment later, but when the Fates have a momentary flash of coherence in the midst of their crack high, you gotta do what you gotta do.

I felt kinda bad as I started fingering my guitar. Heh. Fingering. Everything Johnson had he'd worked for. I'd say 'worked his ass off for', but the man had a dump truck wider than I was tall. Hell, it might be wider than two of me stacked on top of one another. But me? I couldn't even say some bullshit like 'I won it in battle'. I'd inherited all this from Apollo's dumb ass being an even dumber ass than usual. Still, if I traced it all back, what I'd said to Gregor still stood; however I'd gotten them, my intent remained to use these Skills to make the world a fuckin' better place. Even if mostly all I did was clear the field so Saffron could, like, build shit.

But I'd made my peace with that. As I started the tune with nothing but finger work as God and Anime intended, I tapped the head of my guitar against Saffron's high hat until she picked up the rhythm. I almost lost my concentration as everybody's costumes switched. Saffron in painted on jeans, a white tank top, and nothing else? In fucking pouring rain? I deserve some kinda something for not just taking her right there right then on stage, and fuck the competition or anybody who complained.

Not that I thought I'd hear much in the way of complaints. We'd gone with a sort of faded blue tank top for Marie, Sigyn, and Domnu, and I'm just surprised that Aphrodite and Freya didn't manifest spontaneously to complain about copyright infringement or some shit. Jeans and tank tops on those four in the rain? Even with the rain switching Marie to full on Uncanny Valley mode, the crowd went fuckin' wild. That's when I Co-Located and Mimicked each of them, giving them their backup vocal 'lines' for the song, such as they were.

"Ahh ahh ah ow wow." Yeah, just kind of an auditory drone, but all of them picked it up. By the third repetition, with me in my navy schoolboy uniform, complete with little navy newsboy hat, waving to the crowd, they'd started to join in. By the sixth, with Menace in a matching uniform dancing back and forth along the stage in front of me, shaking her little tambourine to help the rhythm impaired in the audience keep time, the river had more vibrations from the sound than from the fuckin' rain.

I was supposed to go on the seventh, but I stretched it out, absolute auditory edging, until I couldn't stand it any more. "THUNDER!"

Right then I knew I'd chosen well, even if I felt a little bad, because somebody north of us had just had their shit rocked to produce a crack of thunder from lightning that close. By the tenth repetition of the word, the audience was shouting along, and goddamn if they didn't manage to outshout the damn lighting itself. Lightning blasted across the sky through the entire first verse; I have no fuckin' clue what people thought a railroad or guns were, but every time I scream-sang, 'thunder', the whole damn crowd finished the word with me, loud enough to compete with the goddamn lightning striking behind me.

I wasn't really watching my backup singers, but as I chased the Menace back and forth along the edge of the stage, both of us hopping along to the tune and hamming the fuck out of that shit, I noticed that they'd lined up to kind of sway rhythmically. Not half bad, given what they had to work with, but nowhere near the energy the pair of us at the front of the stage were putting out, and Saffron had gone full madwoman on the drums.

Then the second verse started, and a surprisingly curvy, hilariously short compared to the other three chica in green jeans and shirt popped up in the middle of them. Unlike the other three, Lymanette wasn't rotating his hips once for each repetition of that drone. No, that magnificent bitch was absolutely bouncing to the high hat, and getting the other three to do so as well. As I sang the line about the girls? He got all three of them to hop, spin, and face away from the audience, continuing to gyrate and bounce as they spread across the stage until they bracketed Saffron on the drums.

At that point I wasn't facing the audience either. Fuck being a Primordial Terror Goddess, I'm only fuckin' human, and no way in this or any other universe would I not be facing that sight. "I was shakin' at the knees!" Absolutely an understatement, I not only dropped to my knees, but folded over backwards until the rain pounded over me. When I sang, "could I come again please?" I'm really not sure exactly how much of that was song lyric. No, I'm not exaggerating or trying to play coy, between a view that literally knocked me off my feet and a sound level that had everything in the fuckin' world vibrating to put Vulcan to shame, I could not tell. If this was just what Apollo had felt when he was at the top of his musician game, I can totally see why he'd been such a narcissistic prick. Not justifying it, just explaining it.

By the end of the song, with all the extended instrumental solos, including one where Menace played the crowd itself with her little tambourine, unbridled enthusiasm, and not much else, I'd managed to make it back to my feet, but on the last line, as I fingered my guitar again, I dropped to my knees just to make myself shorter than Saffron, who stood behind me, and taller than Menace, who stood in front of me. Right in the middle of the last 'thunderstruck', a bolt of lightning dropped out of the sky, mainly latching onto Sigyn, Domnu, and me, but with little arcs of electricity crawling over everything. Loki and Saffron both sheltered in the middle of the cage of electric bars, and Marie straight up sidestepped and danced over and around the arcs.

Insane little mini-bitch, child of mine that she is? Leapt around on them like some kind of jungle gym, her form blurring as she moved so fast she managed to get two full laps in, tambourine vibrating in tune with my fingering, laughing like a fucking lunatic the entire time.

The crowd had lapsed into stunned silence when the lightning bolt hit; when I leapt to my feet and we all took a bow they lost their goddamned minds. As we bowed and waved, I Co-Located to the Workshop. "Son?"

"Yes, Mother?"

"Did you do that?"

He scoffed. "I am no God of Lightning, Mother. You know that." I just stared at him. "I did not use the slightest bit of Divine Power to summon or guide that bolt." I raised one eyebrow. "Do you know what kind of calculations it would take to design a set, instruments, and costumes to not just attract, but direct and sustain a bolt of lightning of that magnitude?"

I smiled at him, hopped over and threw my arms around him in a big old sloppy Mom hug. "That... was awesome, Son. Thank you."

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I think he was even blushing a little when I collapsed back into myself, stood, and nodded to Johnson. "Your go."

He reached over and slid the piano-thing around so he could play it with his back to the crowd. Then he turned adoring eyes on Domnu and waited. It took the crowd a full minute or two to calm down from the raw adrenaline we'd pumped them full of, but at some point a hush poured across them, leaving nothing but the quiet whisper of misty rainfall. I think I saw him swallow nervously before his fingers touched the key things.

Hello darkness, my dear friend

I've come to sing to you again

Because the sight of you demanding

As I wept not understanding

And the vision of you seared into my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

I swear, the man's sincerity made me want to cry just listening to him. His backup guitarist joined, but I'm not sure he even hit the dude with the amplification whammy. Shit, I'm not sure Johnson had that thing going. He wasn't singing to win our contest. He was singing to Domnu, and fuck what anybody else thought. Decided right then and fucking there that anybody but Domnu trying to hurt this big sad freak would have to go through me. Or, as the Raccoon God of Ammosexuals would put it, I'd go through them.

In restless dreams, I've walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone

'Neath the glowing of your sweet face,

I bowed my head once I knew my place,

When my eyes beheld your beauteous face again,

In reflection,

I heard the sound of silence

And in the deepest night, I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never shared

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

He wasn't just singing random shit. Somehow I knew that at some point in his life he'd stood there, watching, waiting, weeping, as everywhere he looked he saw her, where nobody else could. Where nobody else would, even if they could. And where they all saw terror if they did, he saw nothing but beauty.

"Fools" said I, "You do not know

Terror does nothing but show,

Her that you are all unworthy,

To join me upon my journey."

But my words, like silent raindrops fell

And echoed in the wells of silence

Fuck, he just kept crooning out these lines. Right then I realized why he'd faced away from the crowd. Not all the water on his face came from the sky.

And the people bowed and cried

To the darkness of the night sky

And the dark flowed overtop them,

They fell and let it stop them,

Then I cried out "Domnu take me for your own, though I am nothing but a man,

All that I am."

I whispered to my love, the silence.

He slumped over his piano thing. It should have looked ridiculous, because if anything it was even more disproportionate than Marie's cart. But the way he slumped, the total exhausted submission in his posture elevated it from what should have been humor into a deeply humbling view of a man who had given his all and now waited, utterly at peace and utterly spent, for his Goddess to deem him worthy or not.

Domnu just stared at him. If her expression changed at all, it had slipped from 'maybe loathing' to 'possible tolerance'. I slipped over behind her and whispered, "decide yet?"

I heard something I'd never heard before, something I had a hard time believing existed. Domnu's response came back hesitant. "No? Not yet?"

I smirked to cover up my shock and whispered, "just remember, dude has earned some private time, either to mourn when you tell him no or, y'know, so he can concentrate on, ah, Worshipping you."

The hesitance gone from her voice, she said, "Understood." A few heartbeats passed, then she said, "Agreed."

Johnson raised his head. I'm pretty sure he hadn't heard us. I'm not sure he'd been aware of anything since he finished his song. He smiled sadly at me and said, "your go."

I think he deserves it, Kitten.

Spice?

Spice.

I skipped over to Domnu, blue sweatpants fluttering, positively reveling in the support of my bright red sports bra. "You remember your lines?"

She turned and blinked at me. She looked weirdly hot in green chased loose black pants and a neon green halter top. I sorta regretted deciding against the wig. "Assist me?"

I nodded. "Sure thing, Mother."

She shuddered as I... didn't puppet her exactly. I just nudged her into action. She leapt toward Johnson, arms akimbo, doing a little hip thrust. "Yo, I'll tell you want I want, what I really really want."

She hopped back, and Saffron hopped up beside her. Gotta say, many neurons got activated seeing her with red hair and sparkly shiny bouncy blouse. "So tell me what you want, what you really really want!"

Johnson's eyes damn near fell out of his sockets, just as entranced by Domnu bouncing around as I was by Saffron as they repeated their lines, then Domnu spouted some absolute random bullshit straight out of All Your Base. Honestly, I might have missed my line if I hadn't had that fuckin Apollonian Music Sense smacking me in the ass to get me to jump forward my own self. "If you want her future, forget her past.".

Menace danced in front of me wearing pigtails and a simple sparkly white sleeveless dress. "If you wan ma Gammama, beddah make id fath."

Domnu danced forward again, "now don't go wastin', my precious Time."

Saffron slid between them, "get your act together you could be just fine."

Goddamn she was fine enough for me right the way she was. Of course, Saffron sliding between the two had blocked Johnson's line of sight on Domnu just long enough that his eyes shot open when she slid her hands along the sides of his face and sang her next line at damn near kissing range. "I'll tell you what I want what I really really want."

Shortly after that we all slid into a box formation around Menace as we sang the chorus. Sigyn hadn't had any individual lines, so from her position in the rear she worked that magnificent ass, putting some hip action that I swear would put Loki in the hospital. Broken pelvis, shattered spine, heart failure, any and all at once.

After the chorus I jumped up in front of him again. "What you think about that? Now you know how she feels."

Menace skipped across between us. "Thay you like Gammamama, if you fo weal."

Domnu didn't even need me to prompt her. "I won't be hasty, I will let you try."

Saffron danced up doing the classic tongue stuck out, pulling down one eyelid look. "If you annoy her then you're gonna die."

During the next chorus I got to jump around doing acrobatic shit, then Saffron slid up behind me and rubbed up against me. I kinda lost track of everybody else's dance routines at that. We kept going on and dancing. The next thing I really noticed was when we all chorused, "slam your body down and wind it all around," because holy fuck did Sigyn ever. In a little black dress not unlike the Sith version of Menace's sparkly white dress, she dropped from standing to damn near bouncing her ass off the stage, then back upright.

Gneeeaaahhh...

I know, right?

How are you verbal, Kitten?

Self Control, Goof.

She did that like every time that line came up until the last one, where Domnu just gyrated down and back up. I think Johnson may have died at that point. Poor bastard. Dehydration, as she induced way too much thirst.

We all danced backward, leaving Domnu standing between us and him at the midpoint of the stage. She looked down on him and, without me prompting, raised one eyebrow, then with an absolutely brain static inducing burr in her voice drawled out, "your turn."

The man stood like someone had attached a crane to the back of his neck, shoving his piano thing away as he did. He reached behind himself to his backup band, snapped his fingers three times in rapid succession, and caught the guitar-ish thing they threw at him without even looking.

Then he totally cheated, and I couldn't even get mad. He pointed at Menace. She perked up at the attention, and he started nodding and snapping until she got the point and started shaking her tambourine, dancing in circles around her Grandmama. The moment her tambourine started shaking, he started plucking deep bass notes from his guitar. Somehow, maybe Apollo, maybe misspent youth, I recognized the song and popped Domnu back into her Mimic-leather boots, skirt, and halter combo. I might have also filled out her Mom Shape a little tiny bit more with, y'know, Sigyn-hair shaped bone straight hair. Sort of. Only long enough to reach the tops of her boots in back. Anybody complaining about the slightly tentacley nature of it can blow me.

You're gonna let him do that?

Shit, Kitten. Let's show these militaristic fucks a better way, maybe slip a little more Mortal into Mother Domnu while we're at it. Back his ass up. I piped the tune into her head.

She hopped straight back to the drum set. More than a little if that codpiece isn't bragging.

I think he has to tuck.

Holy shit, really?

Yep. I think it's bigger than you are.

Her laughter in my head drowned out her drumming, but fuck it. I grabbed my guitar and backed him up. Marie and Sigyn both played go go dancer in the background. Sigyn looked hella hot like that, but Marie topped the charts with Essence of What The Fuck Lady Boner as she somehow managed to mine lustful Nightmare Fuel from her current address in the middle of the Uncanny Valley.

Right about then Johnson cleared his throat, started singing, and I think the man might have been audible in the King's box without the amplification. I lost myself in his song, just reveling in the man's absolute balls to the wall, no holds barred, fuck the contest, fuck the world, 'I'm going for this harder than the Imperator's Attack Dog at the Battle of the Walls' unleashed auditory assault.

I said a one, two, three take my hand and come with me

Because you look so fine that I really wanna make you mine

I said you look so fine that I really wanna make you mine

Oh, four, five, six c'mon and get your kicks

Now you don't need that money when you look like that, do ya honey?

Big black boots

Long black hair

She's so sweet

With her dead black stare

Well I could see

You home with me

But you were with another band, yeah

I know we ain't got, much to say

Before I let you get away, yeah

I said, "Are you gonna be my world?"

It's one, two, three take my hand and come with me

Because you look so fine that I really wanna make you mine

I say you look so fine that I really wanna make you mine

Oh, four, five, six c'mon and get your kicks

Now you don't need that money with a face like that, do ya?

Big black boots

Long black hair

She's so sweet

With her get back stare

Well I could see

You home with me

But you were with another band, yeah

I know we ain't got, much to say

Before I let you get away, yeah

I said, "Are you gonna be my world?"

Oh yeah

Oh yeah

C'mon

I could see

You home with me

But you were with another man, yeah

I know we, ain't got much to say

Before I let you get away, yeah

Uh, be my world, be my world

Are you gonna be my girl?

I could tell he'd slipped on that last word, but I'm not sure anybody noticed, because everybody on stage, everybody in the audience even, froze when Domnu took one long step toward him. "Yeah?"

Still amplified, he called out, "Jarl Diaz!"

"What you need, Johnson?"

In a voice that said 'fuck off Gregor, this is my Jarldom, and I do what I like', he shouted out, "you are my Seneschal. Should I not return, you are my Heir. Care for my people as you would your own, please."

"You got it. Good luck, my man!"

I'm not sure if he had any reply to that, because Domnu reached one hand down, one midnight black index finger sliding under his chin and lifting, closing his mouth as she rose. Clearly telling gravity to fuck off and bother somebody else for a while, she rose into the air, lifting Johnson by nothing but one fingertip under his chin. The man's obviously inherent sense of the absolutely most dramatic thing to do must have taken over, because he tilted his head back until that one near vertical point of contact shouldn't have been enough to wobble his second chin, let alone lift him, but he threw his arms back in a pose of absolute ecstatic joy. I think he may have been weeping. Hard to tell with the rain still coming down. That rain really ought to have caused some fingertip to chin slippage as well, but apparently Domnu had decided that each and every Law of Physics could fuck directly off if it didn't want to be her bitch tonight.

Because at some point, maybe while the thunderstorm rolled in, maybe after, maybe just now when Domnu decided 'Night time now', it got cloudy sky night time dark.

"Looks like Night has fallen." Saffron said quietly as she put her arms around my waist from behind.

"Nah. She's obviously on the rise. Moving to a higher plane of understanding, even."

"Not what I meant..." I'm not sure what she was gonna say, because I spun around and kissed her. The crowd, which had been watching breathlessly, lost their goddamned minds cheering. I wondered why until a certain God of Mischief fed me a view from the crowd. They were high enough that it was hard to tell, and clearly accelerating, but Domnu might have lifted him just a touch higher. Face to face, even. They certainly looked a lot closer than they had been on the ground. Might have totally been a trick of perspective.

Okay, and I know this is just a little skeevy, because it sure as shit skeeved me a little, but she still had her 'in case of Apocalyptic behavior, core and puppet' tentacles in place, but it was not a trick of perspective. How things like lips seemed to match size-wise without either of them changing sizes was sure as shit some kind of trick Domnu played on perspective, but that's a different matter.

It didn't skeeve me enough to stop kissing Saffron, but I think it would take a lot more than mild skeeving to do that. Fuck, I'm not sure anything in the 'eww' range could do that, it would pretty much take imminent physical danger to her or another loved one. Maybe even imminent physical danger to me if whatever the fuck it was would interrupt the kiss anyhow.

Then Sigyn stepped up and, scanning the sky, where no trace remained of rain, stars, or ascending power couple, said, "night has come."

You ever have a moment when you're in such perfect synch with your partner that it just vibrates through your bones that they're the one? Saffron and I had one of those just then when we simultaneously broke lip lock, leaned back just far enough to speak, and sing-song chorused, "not yet!"