Dear Diary,

Sometimes I don't think about being afraid enough; not like, I'm not afraid enough, because that's pretty obviously the case, what with 'fear' being 'the brain's way of saying don't do that, dumbass', and that dash light being burned out on your girl Tabitha.

Back in Camden, I didn't really think about fear much. I'm guessing fish don't think about water, birds don't think about air, and polar bears don't think about ice, either. Okay, Polar bears didn't think about ice until we took it away, but before that they didn't. Honestly, that's how a lot of kids I knew spent their time; thinking about what it would be like to not be afraid, even as they denied being afraid. Like, 'what would it be like if I were rich and famous' hits different when the first things you think about are 'nobody would bully me', 'cops wouldn't beat me up for funsies', and 'I wouldn't have to worry about whether I'd have food tomorrow'. Yeah, I got lucky with that last one, but still, there were nights I wondered if some rando would wind up putting a bullet through my wall into my skull because their aim was shit.

Damn, just realized that the only reason I'm here is some rando whose aim wasn't shit.

So, like, Incarnations of Terror. Domnu. Conrad. Menace. Me. On the one hand, I remember my first introduction to Conrad, and totally get that. Even now, even when he's trying to act like a normal healthy adult human being, right in the middle of his 'dutiful son' act, he grabs at my hindbrain and shakes. I guess to some degree I don't mention it much any more, not because I think he's any less of a sociopathic killer, but because I've figured out a working model for his motivations. He kills people who offend him. Okay, he doesn't always kill them. His specialty, in fact, seems to be 'things worse than death'. Turning a couple kids into furniture. I think he killed people to make those 'light shows' happen the week before we met for the second time. Despite some part of my brain auto-deleting the conclusion whenever I come to it, some other part keeps telling me I know exactly whose hand he's using, because he got so smug about it when he talked about replacing his own. Not even smug about whose it was, but about how appropriate...

I Co-Located out of bed, gently petting Saffron to calm her back to sleep as I shifted. I blinked on The Dress without any accoutrements, stepped through our armoire into Conrad's Workshop and called out, "Son?"

He lay a hand on my shoulder, and I congratulated myself for just sighing and laying my own atop it, leaning my cheek against it for just a moment the way my mom used to do with me. "Yes, mother?"

I turned to face him, taking his hand in mine, nodding to his other, darker, hairier hand. "You sewed Tyr's mouth shut so he wouldn't harp at you?"

His just too wide smile answered the question, but he spoke anyway. "I also didn't want him attempting to bite himself, or me. or anything I might be working on. Silencing his endless tirade about my allegiance to you was, frankly, a pleasant side effect."

I nodded. "Can you reverse what you did to him?"

Conrad rolled his eyes in a masterful impersonation of someone who might have once, in another lifetime, given a fuck. "I did unto him before you adopted me. Before you even proposed your condition."

I smiled, reached up, and lay a hand on his cheek. Maybe a mockery of what a real parent might do, but fuck if I was gonna let him out act me. "That's not the question I asked, is it, Son?"

His naughty little boy caught out wasn't a patch on Loki's, but that's like saying a good Hibachi steakhouse wasn't a patch on Morimoto's when the man himself decided to chef it up for a night. "It was not. He might not be returned quite as he once was, but he could be... humanoid. Self mobile. Arguably as functional as he was before."

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"Did you have a plan on when you were going to do that?"

He frowned. "Why would I plan for such a thing?"

I took a deep breath, and put on the same face I did when talking to Menace about shit that made me want to shrivel up and hide. "Because eternal imprisonment is Anathema to me. To Mimic even more so, really."

He nodded, the most real expression I'd seen yet settling on his face before slowly subliming away. "I see. I understand. Well then. I suppose, since his offense was primarily social in nature, I would be more than willing to restore him should I receive a sincere and appropriate apology." He frowned at his hand. "I should almost hope I don't get one, since he has performed his tasks so well."

I nodded. "So long as there's a path to redemption, a way out of the box, I suppose I can't complain about it too much." I waggled a finger his way, careful to never actually point it at him. "Just be sure you don't keep him there after you've gotten your apology."

He held his hand over his heart. "Mother! I would never!"

I lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I didn't really think you would. But we all have our temptations, and it is a nice hand."

"It is, isn't it?"

Right about then my brain yeeted another random quote into my forebrain. Specifically, Loki screaming 'guts for garters' at Odin. "Son?"

"Yes, Mother?"

"What happened to Thor?"

Conrad's smile reminded me that new name or not, he remained The Smith in every terrifying way possible. "A masterpiece indeed!"

I sighed. "What did he do?"

The Smith shrugged, then smiled. "He tracked Tyr to my Workshop, then broke in uninvited, without even announcing himself or requesting entry, then accused me of murdering his brother."

"You realize some people would say what you did to him is worse than murder."

"He tried to lay hands on me!" I looked to my hand where it still lay on his shoulder, and he smiled. The Smith's creepy, sociopathic smile. "Oh, Mother. Your hand has ever sought to comfort, not coerce or even correct."

"But do you want me to move it?"

He shrugged. "Do as you will."

I laughed. "Well, it's weird now. You had to go and make it weird." I squeezed his shoulder once, then dropped my hand. "So. Thor?"

"I assure you, Mother, not only is his condition fully reversible, but he is as enduring as I know how to make him."

I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again, then thought for a bit. "Uh. Where is he?"

He tapped at his teeth. "Well, I suppose since it's night, some of him is in the armoire along with the rest of my dearest Sister's attire."

My brain immediately went to her uniforms, but then I remembered; Marie made those. "Wait... her sash?"

He nodded. "And the tiara! It seems the God of Thunder's armor is part of his Divine form. Almost like skin! I shouldn't allow one hair upon my darling Sister's head come to harm, should it be in my power to do so."

"Oh. Well." I think I managed to keep the screaming terror out of my voice. The smug satisfaction welling from deep within probably helped. "Wait. Some of him?" The Smith nodded. "Where's the rest?"

He grinned at me for a solid minute, then said, "you did ask me to make her boots."

I blanched. "Guts for garters?"

"Indeed."

I suddenly needed desperately to get the entire fuck out of the Workshop. "Well. So. Yeah. Same parole requirements as Tyr?"

He sighed. "I suppose so. I take it you're off to bed then?"

"Yeah." I held my arms out, and he stepped in for a quick hug. Entirely performative, but performed well. "Good night, Son."

"Good night, Mother. Sleep well."

"You too." I realized as I slid the door shut that of all of us, he probably slept least. At all, really. I made my way back to bed, lay a hand on the Marie at the end of the bed, and Co-Located the pair of us to the Love Shack. "Hey, sweetie? I don't want to impose, but..."

She shut me directly the fuck up through the simple expedient of pouncing on me, her tongue filling my mouth to capacity and beyond. Without my mouth, I couldn't explain, couldn't talk about how much I wanted my son to make a pair of stockings and garters for The Dress. How some part of me wanted more than one pair, one black, one pale with black highlights, one purest white. Absolutely could not give voice to the sudden thought that he already had the leather for the black set, how an Avatar of my Murder Mittens would almost certainly do for the white ones.

I really tried to avoid thinking about how my biggest reason for not marching back to the Workshop was realizing that none of them matched The Dress' red and red vibe.

Honestly, I really just tried to avoid thinking. Marie helped with that. She helped with that a lot.

No sleep, so no Mimic Dreams, and in the morning when Saffron woke, she'd already decided that my Physical Training today would, in fact, be further pile driving my berserker nature into the soft, yielding, very much not concrete.

Oh, noes. Whatever shall I do?

Oh, right. Whatever the fuck she tells me.

See? I can learn!