Dear Diary,

"Children will be our future, Of all the things I hold dear, Children are most important." - Tabitha Diaz, Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Children

In this, the first Verse of the Final Book of the Testament of Domains and the Doctrine of Tabitha, our Goddess no longer speaks to us bound by restrictions and cautions. For in this, the Book of Children, she has found the calling most dear to her heart. Not just quickening and birthing them, though she Revels in that as well, but in cherishing them. Raising them, nurturing them, protecting them. For as she says, they are our future, whether Divine or Mortal. I share with you who read this Commentary a secret, one even our Goddess may not have realized as of yet. When newly awakened and still in the first flush of her power, our Goddess feared the company of Children. But not even she realized why, though upon meditation I have come to know the reason. She cared for them, cares for them, so very much that she thought she could not interact with them without bringing them harm, and to prevent that she would pay any price. Even keeping herself from that which she most dearly loved. - Priestess Most High Above All Others, Archmage Imperator Saffron Aetos-Diaz, Commentary on the Doctrine of Tabitha

Okay, what's really weirding me out is that when I first read the Commentary on this Verse, my initial reaction was 'holy crap, my Kitten is putting my business out there'. Which is just a stupid fuckin' reaction on so many levels, what with me tryna be more open about who and what I am, and who and what is important to me. Like, seriously, I'm showing up with my Blend down and getting busy with anybody who wants that intimacy every Friday. So I can't really throw any shade her way, since baring what passes for my Soul to my Worshippers about this might make them actually think about how their actions affect kids, rather than using 'for the Children' as some kind of way to stifle dissent.

Yeah, people who do that make me want to punch them in the taint until their skulls crack.

Anyway, my next thought was 'wait a minute, she absolutely knew I'd be reading this, so she's saying this to me'. Which is just kind of, I dunno, sweet and special and also still weirding me out a little bit, because it's my Wife sending me secret love letters in a Holy Text that's gonna be read by most of the current population of the Alliance at some point. I mean, I don't think most of the people currently living here are gonna read it, but if you take the not insubstantial percentage that are Worshipping me, either as their Patron or just as the Deity that is telling everybody else in the world, 'fuck off, we're tryna do shit here', who want to know me well enough to pick up a copy of the Commentary and read it, then push that forward in time, I figure we'll have at least as many people as the current population reading it before it gets, I dunno, replaced by another, newer, more culturally relevant Commentary.

While I was thinking that the next layer hit me. The whole 'my Kitten knows I wasn't utterly taken with Isnomi at first, no matter how well I thought I'd hid it'. Which is pretty fuckin' scary to think about, if I hadn't immediately realized that she knows me better than I know myself, because holy shit that is absolutely why I worried about interacting with kids. I mean, other than the fact that diapered kids literally give me shit whenever they're handed to me. Our own kits do that, and amusingly Marie has taken to handing them to me, then reaching to take them back to change the diaper before settling them onto a tit to nurse from me. Without ever actually handing them to me that time.

Okay, at this point I could get all huffy about my Wives knowing me better than I know myself, and totally maneuvering me and the shit around me to take advantage of that knowledge. But that would, in my Divine opinion, be stupid as fuck. No, seriously, it's not like they're managing me to get something out of me that I wouldn't naturally give them if I could. They're managing me to let me do things that I would self sabotage or otherwise fuck up if they weren't. Shit, if they told me more directly they were doing that, I'd probably fuck that up too. Which isn't really great for my self esteem, except for the fact that they all think I'm worth it, which is something, I guess.

I think I'm a little bummed by the past couple days. Not hugely, just not as super jazzed as I have been. Figures, I spend most of my two decades back in the day struggling with trauma and depression, then wind up reincarnated and still have the depression. Shit, I've got even more trauma if you add in being locked in a box for all eternity.

But at the end of the day, I found something worth putting myself in a box for if I had to. That might be enough to turn depression into simple restful melancholy all by itself, sometimes.

So yesterday after Baba had her cackle fit, I looked across the table at Pye. "Yeah, I'm real sorry about yanking you around. Manhandling you." She went to speak, not sure if she was gonna say something nasty or not, but the look on her face said it would be. "I wish I could tell you I'm never gonna do it again, but," I shook my head as her jaw kinda dropped open in disbelief. "Yeah, there are times I've needed the sun up or down or whatever." I took a deep breath. "I don't see that never happening again. But! I'm gonna try real hard not to do it for stupid bullshit. Just genuine emergencies. Or times when I get in touch with you and okay it first, so you know to, I dunno, brace yourself and hold on."

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Her eyes narrowed and she growled out, "who are you to dictate terms to me?"

At that point, as I caught Baba's wince out of the corner of my eye, I settled back into my chair. Baba cleared her throat, and Pye displayed more than a typical level of self-preservation when she backed right the fuck down and listened as the old woman said, "she is the Walking Ragnarok, destined to cast us down from our high places." She looked at me, nodded, then with a smile in her voice, continued. "Which is why those of us with a bit more foresight never rose higher than we'd care to fall."

Self-preservation instinct or not, Pye's chin rose, and she glared down her nose at me and said, "so, Mimic. Would you cast me down, then?"

I shook my head, more out of weariness than negation. I had no idea how long we'd been sitting here, but it had been longer than it ought to have been. That didn't even begin to express how much I felt like I'd sat here before, over and over, all the way back to the beginning, and how much I knew I'd sit here again, over and over until the end. "Look, Pye, you've got a job to do. I get that. Sunlight is important. Crops need it. People need it. Not your fault the only place to do it is way up in the sky." I paused. "That... that is the only way to do it, right?"

She just stared at me like I was some kinda idiot. Then again, I felt a little idiotic. I maybe needed a nap. I tried to figure out how long until sunrise, but with Pye sitting there it messed with my sense of sunrise and sunset something fierce. "Of course it is the only way to do it. How else?"

I shrugged. "Apollo always said he rode a chariot."

She rolled her eyes. "Men."

I chuckled. "Yeah, although in his case I think it was more him than his gender. I got some really cool guys I work with, and... Wait, aren't you like, married? With a whole assed side piece and everything?"

She just snorted. "You've met him."

"Ouch. Yeah. Sorry. Is your husband any better?"

She shrugged. "He's smarter. And a better singer. He knows how to be gentle when it's needed. I suppose so, yes."

Then I got a really stupid idea. "Hey, maybe you could show me what it's like?" When she frowned, I realized we'd been talking about her husband and boy toy, so I shook my head, "the whole 'being the sun' thing?"

"Why?"

"'Cause I don't want to fuck with you any more than I have to, and seeing what someone else's day to day is like can really help out with that. Honestly, I'd like to do something nice to make up for yanking you around, at least those times I could have just done without, but I can't think of anything. So, y'know, maybe I could follow you around for a day, get a feel for it."

She looked at Baba. "Can that even be done?"

The old woman shrugged. "Apollo did fine. I'm sure Tabitha will as well."

At that point Pye looked around, almost like she was testing the air. She smiled a cruel smile at me and held out a hand. I stared at it stupidly for a second. "Well? Are you truly wanting to come with me for a day?"

I reached out, took her hand, and the tea room melted away around me.

Yesterday was weird as fuck. I think some of it may have been tryna superimpose Apollo's viewpoint of things with Pye's, and all of that with what I consciously knew to be true of, uh, I guess astronomy. Again, High School education, with teachers who were more dedicated than top tier. But all that aside, for the whole fuckin' day I was all at the same time an astronomically far distance from the tiny blue marble that was Earth, a kind of disc floating across the sky at the intersection of the atmosphere and space, and a sense of presence floating along behind and above that disc. I swear, I didn't do any drugs or anything, but that shit was trippy.

Worst of all, the moment I touched the far horizon, I sat in Baba Yaga's little room, blinking as the walls and table and chairs and the old woman herself decided what they wanted to be.

Right as she looked at me and said, "so, how was your day with Pyevatar?", my Murder Mittens' mental voice echoed through my head.

Revel.

Which is right about when I realized that the moon was, in fact, full. "Uh, really freaky. But I've got someplace I'm supposed to be tonight. And I think I need a day to get my head on straight. You mind if I come over on Monday?"

"Noon?"

"Yeah, sure. Sounds good. See you then."

I stepped to my Altar in New Amsterdam to find my Murder Mittens waiting there for me. I'm really kind of embarrassed by the Revel. Starting with my Murder Mittens, followed by another Maenad. Sarah, and if her Hero's uniform in Newark colors surprised me, that was nothing next to her need to be manhandled into motionlessness, then gently skritched and stroked into submission. Still kind of reeling from a day of dissociation, I didn't catch names after that. Just one Worshipper after the other, their secret desires brighter in my eyes and louder in my ears than their faces or names. I... I knew them. Saw their relatives and daily routines and secret fears and... Them, without labels, just them. But I'm still kinda fucked up about not catching names or faces.

Marie, back on her feet by sunrise, scooped me up and stepped me back to the Homestead. I snuggled into her as she laid us both down on the bed to feed the kits. I spent the rest of the day snuggling with the kits, playing with the kits, and working at the Academy with my Murder Mittens. I desperately needed the day to get my head back on straight. To be a person, rather than an entity.

I also maybe understood more why some of the Gods here and now needed to spend way less time in high places.

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