Dear Diary,

"Embracing death without fear, Empowers Righteous Vengeance; Bloodlust overcomes that fear." - Tabitha Diaz, Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Bloodlust

As she did with the Testament of Values, our Goddess interweaves her Domains here in the Testament of Domains. Vengeance is not always easy, and Righteous Vengeance, striking down those who have done harm with no remorse, who often harm others not out of need, but from greed, is often the hardest form of Vengeance to take. Because while it is the most Righteous kind, it is also that type of villain who will spend the wealth acquired from his harmful actions to defend themselves against the consequences, rather than ameliorating them. But while wealth may buy protection from those with fear, little can stop those of us who have left fear behind. When we accept that our own lives are over, when we no longer fear for ourselves, when all that remains is Vengeance for loss, we become unstoppable agents of Righteous Vengeance. Bloodlust, as Tabitha explains to us, can give us that lack of fear. When the desire for the death of another becomes so overwhelming that fear cannot grip us, we can no longer be stopped short of our own utter destruction. Even then, without fearing destruction any more than we fear death, we may manifest Righteous Vengeance despite all the villains of the world do to protect themselves from it. - Priestess Most High Above All Others, Archmage Imperator Saffron Aetos-Diaz, Commentary on the Doctrine of Tabitha

It's funny. Not haha funny, but odd funny. I don't remember thinking about suicide bombers when I wrote this originally. Maybe it's because those never made a lot of sense to me back in the day. Could be because I'd been here long enough that bombs and guns weren't things that popped into mind for me any more. I mean, it really should have. I'd just introduced here and now to them, after all. I'm still not sure if there were any firearms aboard the Black Dragon, but the sixteen inch guns work just fine now, and if I know my Kitten the five inch Dual Purpose guns are functional as well.

Okay, yeah, I know those sixteen inch monsters are the fuckin' hammer of god with that over the horizon fuck you, but I cannot be me and not love a gun that's literally called a five inch DP.

My inner Tomoko is a lot more violent than the original. Or maybe rednecks and street kids have a lot more in common than people think. Which sort of brings it back around, since being utterly consumed to the point of sexual gratification by the idea of ending some entitled asshole who destroyed our families, our homes, our lives is something I think poor kids from the streets and poor kids from Bumblefuck Holler can both understand.

I think that's what a lot of people don't get, that deep connection between rage and Bloodlust. They don't see that inner fire that's burning us alive from the inside out, the pain in the soul so overwhelming that no amount of physical pain could compare. The need to quench that fire, whether it's by splattering some bastard's brains across our bellies or riding a God of Madness until even his Divine Endurance gives out.

Yeah, I do actually remember what happened after I violated those poor Greek bastards over in Persia. I'm not super proud of it, mind you. Any of it. What I did to the Greeks, what I did but didn't do to Dionysus. I think my biggest remaining shame from that entire chain of events has nothing to do with any of my physical actions. Yeah, I killed some motherfuckers painfully, but lets face it, killing is killing. I didn't drag it out for hours or anything special. I didn't so much torture them as just kill them in ways that would make Pinhead start sizing me up for black leather and egregious body modification. As for fucking D, dude is one of my wife's favorite mounts, and I think she'd have negative hesitation about sharing him. Shit, she might even consider it romantic to scoop up one of his Avatars and hold hands and gaze soulfully into each other's eyes as we ride both of him into a sweaty mess.

Fuck, I think I'd consider that romantic, which means I don't think I can legit not ask her about it before he heads back home. Which means that shit is gonna show up on the Maw drive in. I know I can point to certain things and say 'that's fucked up', but I sometimes wish I could point to some particular event and say 'this is when my life took a turn for the incredibly weird'. I mean, I can. That would be getting shot in the forehead and becoming a Primordial Deity instead of fish food. But still.

Yeah, the thing that embarrasses me about that whole chain of events is how disconnected from any sense of responsibility I felt. Shit, I even made Saffron take over and do the riding part for me, because that was right in the middle of my culturally mandated neopuritan guilt's extinction behavior. Which is totally fucked up, given that I literally experienced multiple climactic finishes while turning those Greeks into so much charbroil.

I'm a Goddess of Vengeance, Bloodlust, and Justified Homicide. I'm gonna do some fucked up shit. But the least I can do is own that shit. Accept that yes, I am doing those things, and I need to take responsibility for doing them. Maybe I'm not gonna be thinking those thoughts right in the middle of a Bloodlust fueled rampage through, I dunno, an army of serial rapists, but before I even get in that fight I gotta take myself in hand and say, "self, you're about to cut loose on some folks who desperately deserve it. Are we certain that they've hit the point where they deserve being used as unwilling single-use sex toys?"

The answer to that ought to be 'no', but let's face it, there are going to be many occasions where I look at some number of assholes and say 'surrender and face the consequences of your actions now, or I'm going to literally get off turning you into asshole chips' and some subset of those assholes will metaphorically, or perhaps literally, say, 'buckle on your strap and leave us gaping'. Seriously, some of these dipshits are just as fucked up as me, I'm sure.

Speaking of people I have a surprising amount in common with, Marshall duBois stayed the night. I think he's the first person to visit who didn't entirely succumb to the Aetos-Diaz Homestead's aggressive hospitality and irrepressible lack of formality, because while he very politely tried everything we brought home for dinner, up to and including the kitten's meat mush, he did all that while looking like he'd decided to cosplay Lenny Lancaster without a costume. Honestly, if Lenny had showed up and done that, I'd have taken it in stride, but with everyone else basically treating everyone like family, he stood out.

That whole family thing made me feel good, even if the women and Maenads visiting and not, acted more like the kind of cousins you couldn't quite track the connection to rather than nuclear family or even one step removed like grandparents or first cousins. Like maybe even if I was an incarnation of Primordial Terror, who literally got off on killing and eating bad guys, sometimes even in that order, I wasn't a complete loss as a Human being. Human Adjacent being. Whatever, it made me feel like not a piece of shit. Which made the Marshall's standoffishness stand out that much further. If Loki had clearly stepped in as a father figure, I still looked on Marshall duBois as my mentor, and him being all stiff did not say good things about my personal growth.

So as dinner wound down, the girls and visiting kids leading the parade up to the Bath, I quietly stepped over and lay a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, Marshall."

He didn't jump, but it was a near thing with how much he tensed up. "Champion."

I slumped, plunking my ass down on the table next to him. "Aw, c'mon, Marshall. Don't be like that."

He looked at me like he couldn't see the trap. Not that there was one, but there's a certain look somebody gets when they think there is, and he had it. "Like what?"

I rolled my eyes and imitated his gruff tone. I didn't Mimic it, because I kinda thought I knew what might be wrong, but I did say, "Champion." Then I shook my head, chuckling. "C'mon, I'm barely a Cadet. Not even a Senior Cadet yet."

He did not look convinced. "I don't think you ever will be, what with the 'Hero-in-Waiting' thing."

I sighed. "Yeah. Not my idea."

He nodded. "I'm aware. It was mine. Well, mine and Leonard's."

That took me by surprise. I guess my body language must have changed, I must have tensed up, because he definitely stiffened up further as well. "Marshall? Did I do something wrong?"

He took a deep breath. "You've done nothing I can hold you accountable for."

I rolled my eyes. "Not what I asked." I looked around the room, which had mostly cleared out. "You wanna come see the Bath? I can't imagine you've been a Hero as long as you have and never got tagged. It's pretty awesome on old injuries."

He jerked his head, almost like he wanted to say no, but couldn't bring himself to for some reason. Saffron saved us both at that point, sliding her arms around my waist and saying, "if you're not comfortable in a mixed Bath, a few of the extra rooms have tubs in them. Or Marie could bring an Academy style tub to your room, if you like."

He shook his head. "I don't want to impose, Imperator."

She snuck under my arm and gave me a squeeze. "It's quite all right. We built the Homestead with the intention of housing guests. At the moment, since our newest daughters aren't big enough for their own rooms, we don't even need to house you in North or South House." He opened his mouth to demur again, and her voice hardened just a touch. "I will of course take exception if you refuse the invitation to stay until Tabitha returns you to the Black Dragon tomorrow."

He nodded, still kinda stiff. "Of course not, Imperator."

"Good. Well, I need to be off to the Bath to corral Tabitha's newest additions to our ever growing family. I'm sure you two have plenty to talk about." She stood on tiptoes to plant a kiss on my lips, then sauntered off toward the back stairs.

The Marshall and I looked back at each other once she went out of sight. Can't blame him for watching her walk away when I couldn't take my eyes off that sight myself. He sighed and said, "I guess we've got our marching orders, Champion."

I sighed. "Call me Diaz? Or Tabitha? Fuck it, call me Cadet? Or even 'idiot'? Please?" He'd got a weird look on his face when I asked him to call me Tabitha. The last few women were streaming out of the front of the room, but I didn't see the one I was looking for, so I cupped my hands around my mouth and called out, "Devorah?"

The woman herself popped back in a few seconds later, then sashayed over to where we stood. "Yes, Champion?"

I rolled my eyes. "Not you too." Then I shook my head to rattle my brains back into thinking. "Yeah, have you got anything with some kick to it?"

She licked her lips. "My mead isn't quite ready yet. Apologies."

I snorted. "If it's as done as it was before, that'd be better than anything I've had before. Got anything else?"

She frowned. "I've been working on some lager, and some ale. The wines are barely grape juice at this point."

I smiled. "Hey, I'm sure whatever you're working on is good. I just wanted to kick back and have a few drinks with the Marshall." I held up a hand to forestall her protest. "I'm not expecting perfection, especially if it's stuff you're experimenting with. So long as it's got a kick, that'll work."

She frowned, but nodded and said, "I'll be back shortly?"

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I nodded, gave her a quick hug and kiss on the cheek, and said, "thanks, Devorah. You're a pal."

"Wish I was more than that," she grumbled as she walked away.

"That's for After!" I called out, treasuring her giggle as she left. The Marshall didn't say anything, just raised an eyebrow. I shrugged, and we sat there in silence until she returned. She had half a dozen bottles filled with something dark in a basket, plus another mason jar filled with liquid gold. She set them in front of me wordlessly, then closed her eyes and tilted her head back a little. I sighed, rolled my eyes, and gave her the kiss she so very clearly wanted, her giggles as I did an absolutely fantastic addition. She smiled at me, which quickly melted into a smirk as she spun about, her skirt flaring, then sashayed away.

When we'd watched her leave, I picked up the bottles she'd brought, turned to the Marshall, nodded to the kitchen, and said, "c'mon. We can talk in my office."

"You have an office?"

I snorted. "Yeah, kinda. You okay with stairs?"

He shrugged, then followed me. He might have been breathing a little heavy by the time we hit the top of the Bore, but then I hadn't really slowed down. I set the bottles on my desk, half perched on it, and offered him the chair. He sat down, then looked up at me and said, "so. Intending to seduce this old warhorse, are you?"

I smiled at him and shrugged. "I mean, not tonight. That's for, uh, a couple years from now."

He blinked. "You? Planning things out?"

"Hey! I can plan. I planned the whole assed Liberation of Calverton!"

He chuckled, and as I popped the corks out of the two bottles that had them and handed him one, said, "that you did, lass. That you did." He paused, took a sip, then pulled the bottle away, looking disappointed. "Your woman's right, this is barely grape juice."

I took a drink myself. Definitely grape juice, and the kind of heavily sour grape juice I thought of as Concord at that. "Yeah." I shrugged. "I don't think wine and beer are her thing, though."

"What is?"

I tapped the golden jar. "Mead. Saving this for last. Hoping, y'know, we can share it as a celebration of, I dunno..."

"Your conquest of a man old enough to be your father?"

I snorted. "You're not that old."

"How do you know?"

I held up my hands and started counting off points. "You were classmates with Leonard Lancaster. Cadets together, which means you're roughly the same age, since you're both Dan." He frowned, but nodded. He took another sip of grape juice without thinking and grimaced. "Leonard's oldest son is Lachlan, who is only a few years older than Larry, who is roughly my age."

He grimaced after another sip of juice, then said, "doesn't that prove my point about being old enough to be your father?"

I shook my head and took a long pull of juice. The flavor wasn't bad, just way tarter than what I was used to. Which is saying a lot, I guess, since my usual enjoyable proportion of tart is 'all of her'. At any rate, I smiled and said, "Lachlan has a son who is in the same age range as my daughters. Which means he got Liam's mom pregnant when he was maybe twelve years old. Balls barely dropped and shit."

He took another long drink of juice, then tipped the bottle back. "Yeah. You're not wrong."

I nodded. "I figure Lenny did the same."

He stared at me, watching me down the rest of my juice, then hold up each of the remaining bottles. Two with something dark brown, almost black, two with something pale, a different hue to the mead, but not a different shade. "You're not wrong. He talked to me about his hopes for Lachlan a lot back in those days. And his disappointment, by the time we were Senior Cadets and Lachlan turned out to be..." He trailed off.

"Lachlan?"

He nodded. "That's about the size of it."

"Sounds like you guys talked a lot?"

He shrugged. "Opposites attract."

I almost dropped the bottle of pale lager I'd handed him. "No fuckin' way. You and Lenny?"

"Lenny?"

I shrugged. "Tryna keep my annoyance with him to manageable levels by needling him." Then I sighed. "He calls me Tabby. Like I'm a fuckin' cat."

He took a long pull of the beer, as did I. This one was much better. A little on the raw side, but definitely sweetened with something. Not just grapes, either. Some definite fruity notes. He nodded at the bottle, and a smile crept onto his face unbidden. "Yeah, well. You are fuckin' a cat, aren't you?"

I half choked on my beer, snorted, then managed to force out, "that's more like it." Then I smiled at him. "Hell of a ride, isn't she?"

He tensed up. Fuck. "I... I wouldn't presume to comment."

"Aw, c'mon, Marshall. I'm not the fuckin' jealous type. Or the jealous fuckin' type. You and she did the deed back, uh, right after that last sparring session we had. Out in the courtyard, when this place was still a mostly empty valley and a dream." I paused. "At least... I think you did? My memory of that whole Season is still, y'know, kinda unreliable."

He'd been taking one long pull of the beer as I spoke, and muttered into the bottle, "like it's reliable otherwise?"

I snorted, chugged the rest of the bottle, and said, "that's more like it. Seriously, man. You're like, one of the people I most look up to in this world. I've missed you."

He frowned at me. "I don't recall us really being friends, though." He sighed. "The last few times you and I spoke we kicked the shit out of one another. To one degree or another." He finished off the bottle, reached down, and rubbed his left foot. "Kept lopping off my fuckin' pinky toe, just to taunt me."

I snorted, gently popping the wire and glass top off of the other bottles of beer, the dark ones. "Nah. That wasn't taunting. That was flirting. Like the Wife says, there is a seduction plan in place, after all."

He shook his head. "You... I think I understand what Leonard meant." At my curious look, he shrugged again. "Back during... might have been just after the New Amsterdam campaign. Right around the Battle of the Walls." For some fuckin' reason, he tensed up as he spoke about that. Then again, he had died. That kinda thing smarts, even if you survive it. "He said something about you being like me, only more so."

I took a sip of the dark beer as I handed him his bottle. Dark, bitter, and clearly the most alcoholic thing we'd drunk tonight. Not my normal thing, but maybe it'd help lubricate the bug up his ass and help it escape. "He really said that?"

DuBois nodded. "He did. Also said the same about himself and your Wife." He paused. "The first one. Yeah, you definitely... Leonard's right. I thumb my nose at tradition often enough, and I thrive in the chaos of the battlefield, but you..." He shook his head and took a long drink. He smiled when he looked at the bottle. "This is good." Then he glanced at me, almost surreptitiously. "You, on the other hand, you..." He shook his head. "The Battle of the Walls was you in your element. From the little I've heard of the Liberation of Calverton, that was another like that."

I shrugged. "We can do an after action if you want. But I guess so, maybe? I don't think it was really, though."

He nodded. "Maybe later. But then you act like you never heard of tradition. Like you'd lived your whole life under a rock."

I dunno what moved me to say it. Maybe the slightly higher proof of the bitter ale. Maybe the frustration I felt at him being so standoffish. Maybe a sense of wanting to rip the band aid off. "Or in a box?"

He froze. Looked down at the floor. At the walls. At the ceiling. Everywhere but at me. "Mimic," he breathed. A confession. A plea. A desperate prayer. Then tipped his bottle back and guzzled down the rest of his beer.

I looked down. Not away from him. At his feet. Then a smile crept onto my lips unbidden as I realized he'd kicked off his boots at some point, and his left foot was pinky toeless. Okay, I didn't bid it to. "Yeah. That's me." I whispered. "And you know what?" He froze. My voice deliberately soft, I asked, "do you know what you've done, Marshall?" His head jerked, a single shake. "Not gonna run away?"

He snorted, the sound soggy with unshed tears of fright. "Like I could outrun you."

I shrugged. "Gotta say, I don't know how strong my chase reflex is. Haven't come across too many things that run." Something almost entirely unlike a laugh slipped out of him. "No, really. I think it's the whole goofy idiot thing. Which, I swear, is not an act."

"Everything with you is an act."

I shook my head, gently lowering myself to my knees in front of him. "Do you know what you did, Marshall?" I asked again.

I think the beer made him say, "your Wife?"

I mock-pouted. "You mean Saffron got a test run with you?"

"No, I... the other one."

I snorted. "I know that. Like I said. There's a whole assed plan in place. You think Leonard would deviate from a plan once it was in place?"

He shrugged, the motion shivering. "Depends if it had failed yet."

I very pointedly looked at the fear-boner hiding under his slacks. Right at eye level where I knelt. "Doesn't look like it's failed yet." Then I snickered. "I ask you once more, William duBois. Do you know what you've done?"

He opened and closed his mouth a few times. Then shook his head and creaked out, "no."

I smiled, reached down, and lay a hand on his left foot. He tried to jerk it away, but I didn't let him. His whole body tensed, and that only got worse when hair fine tentacles wound around under his sock, slipping it off, wrapping around the scarred stump of his left pinkie toe. "You mentored me. Showed me. Taught me." As gently as I could, blocking the pain as I opened that old wound, slicing the scar tissue away and Healing him, letting Siobhan work the Shaping when my own knowledge ran out. "How to be more than the Walking Ragnarok. How to be more than just a monster." I looked up at him, staring into his wide eyes as I slipped my tentacles away, the last one making him twitch as I ran it across the sole of his foot. "How to be a Hero."

He froze. I think I saw a gleam trickle down from one eye before he snorted. "Next you'll tell me I've saved the world, that all the Gods will live to see the end."

I stood, gaze still locked to his. Shook my head. "Oh, no. Not all of them. Apollo, Sengann, and Balor won't. Artemis... Is Diana now, and happier for it. The Morrigan... still hasn't made up her mind, I don't think. So no. Not all of them." Then I shrugged. "But not all the troops from New Amsterdam lived. Damn near none of their Heroes did. Same goes for Calverton, although I'm not the one who killed most of those." I'd watched his hand twitch when I mentioned Sengann and Balor. "You know you don't have to do that, right?"

He choked out a laugh. "I'm in the presence of Mimic and I need not make the sign against evil?"

I smiled at him. "C'mon, Marshall. You know me. I'm not smart enough to be really evil."

He winced. "No. Maybe not. But evil doesn't take smart." I smiled as he muttered, "or Ares couldn't do it."

As I worked the wire contraption off the top of the mason jar, I said, "I'm serious about wanting to be a Hero, y'know. And about looking up to you. Like a role model and shit."

"I'm not Greek."

"The fuck?"

He chuckled, the sound almost natural. "They're the ones who routinely sleep with their proteges."

I popped the top on the jar, and the room filled with a hazy, smoky smell. "Oh, there will be nothing routine about it when Saffron and I launch Operation: Gold Watch. Also, probably not going to be any sleeping."

I took a sip, letting it warm my mouth before handing him the jar. He took a sniff, and some of the tension melted out of him. "But not tonight?"

I shook my head, swallowed, and let the mead warm me. "Nope. Though I don't have nearly the self control Saffron does." When he looked a little askance at me, I shrugged and explained. "I'm not gonna be seducing you until then, but I'm kinda easy. So, y'know, if you got me drunk and had your way with me, I'd just grin and call it a trial run."

"Ah. No. No offense intended." He took a sip and kinda forgot to hand me back the jar.

"None taken. Y'know, kinda like I'm not gonna be, I guess."

When his eyes uncrossed, he said, "with a Wife like Marie, you're not on the nightly?"

He took another pull, then handed back the jar. "Nope. D's visiting, and she's taking advantage. Damn. Gotta remember to tell her about that." I shook my head. "Not jealous. He was hers long before I was. Also, it's kinda hot. He's not exactly my type, but I can see the appeal." As I took a long pull myself, I thought, Mittens? You wanna? and shot her my fantasized image of the two of us.

After Bath. She thought back.

At that point I snorted, swallowed, and said, "welp, my Wife has put a time limit on our little meet up here." When he looked the question at me while taking a drink, I explained, "Apparently I'll be joining D and Marie tonight after everybody's done in the Bath." Then I realized that while I hadn't been super active yesterday, I'd been active enough that I was maybe unpleasantly sweaty. "Which means I really ought to get a Bath myself." Without really thinking about it, I banished the uniform I'd been wearing.

DuBois swallowed a big gulp of mead at that, maybe half of what remained in the jar. "Fucking hell, Diaz."

"What?"

He shook his head, the mead spreading a grin across his face. I scooped it up and went about emptying the jar. "One, I'm not used to seeing a woman I'm not intending to sleep with in the buff when I'm alone in a room with her." I smirked at him, flexed a little, and he continued. "Two, have you got more fucking scars now?"

I shrugged, pulled the jar away, and swallowed, "Picked up a few in Norfolk. Picked up a few more in Calverton." I paused, thinking. "Pretty sure I got some putting the Mother of Water Panthers down."

"You... you really did that, then? Killed her?" I nodded. "Killed her and saw the body, not just mortally wounded and scared her off?"

"I, uh, yeah, no, no body." When his face sagged, I belched. What? The beer wasn't super carbonated, but it had a little bit of foam to it, which I swallowed. Like you do.

He blanched. "You're kidding me."

I smirked back. "Hey, you saw me in the Cafeteria."

I turned my attention back to the jar and he said, "Diaz, I'm not sure whether to be appalled at how badly you're being at 'reassuring' me that you're not a monster, or relieved that you're clearly not trying to... deceive... me." He paused, staring. "Three, that tongue is frankly a little intimidating."

I set the jar down on my desk and laughed. "Hey, it's surprisingly handy. Picked up that trick from a local Spirit named Lily."

"Handy?"

I shrugged. "You'll find out. Eventually. Or sooner if you take advantage of my inebriated state." He snorted his opinion of that, and I held out a hand. "You coming to the Bath?" When he hesitated, I said, "no pressure. You can go rack out in one of the guess rooms. Or," I definitely smirked at him, "go spend some time in your bunk." I might have flexed a little. Not planning on anything today, or any time soon, but it was still fun watching him twitch involuntarily in a good way.

He sighed, shook his head, huffed out, "I'm gonna regret this," and took my hand.

I stepped away from him in the Bath, headed toward where Marie floated with Hailee atop her, nodded in the direction of the outer lockers, and called out, "your clothes are in the locker room."

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