A/N: What I really should have done was a) be a good beta to whytewytch or b) work on the section of my book my editor returned, but instead I wrote this. Because I just so enjoy 'I Have Gone Out' by Nyah and 'Lady Lazarus' by BlackXangelsXofXLight. (and not just because they picked titles from two poems I love!) Anyways, yes, here it is because I wanted to give you something less depressing than 'First Cut.' Let me know what you think. There is a footnote on mythology at the end that you may want to read before, but I'll let you decide. The narrator is Lyssa, Greek goddess of Madness (as in rabidly, raging, right-sorry mad in the head).


I was born of blood and night.

With darkness my mother bore lust. But I was born of blood.

***

I have a long history of driving men insane, but I was hardly prepared for the challenge posed to me by the Vampire Queen of Louisiana. She had a mean streak, so I liked her from the start. Had I known she wanted me to waste my time mired in this godforsaken bayou, though, I wouldn't have been so nice. Trust me, I recognize primordial ooze when I see it and this place is prehistoric. Older than even its immortal inhabitants can imagine. And it is among those arrogant undead individuals that I am now trapped.

I should be right at home. We are made of the same elements, vampires and I. After eons of detestable family reunions where I was the odd half-sibling out, gazing jealously at glowing Hemera, being the butt of Momos' jokes, you'd think I'd be happy to find some sort of real kin.

But vampires are a different story. Especially now that they are out in the open. I can handle the quiet ones, the ones who like their life of mystery; they're fine. It's the ones all puffed up with self-love that I have a hard time dealing with. Hello, I'm madness incarnate! You don't see me walking around zapping people into lunacy just because I can. But those damn vamps who trot along, fangs out…you know, all I'd have to do is snap my fingers and they'd be writhing on the ground, gnashing those pretty teeth to a pulp.

I may seem to be showing a little more of my rage in this moment and it's only because I'm feeling acutely incompetent and I hate that. All I was supposed to do was spark a little bit of mania in Sheriff Eric Northman and be on my way. So the lady at the top requested. She just wanted to make some mischief with a vampire she deemed somewhat of a threat to her preeminence. It's not noble, but there aren't that many paying jobs for minor deities these days.

It started out normal enough. The queen hinted that the vampire in question had a weak spot for a human. Not all humans, her tone seemed to say. That piqued my interest. Mortals entangling themselves with beings far beyond their power is so much fun to watch. I've never been happier than when I paid witness to the debacle of my sex-minded dummy brother and that poor girl Psyche. The whole affair was insane. It still makes me smile. In the end, she got what everyone wants: the life of the gods. And true love, I suppose, which is the part of the story that crept into all those European fairy tales, but I know full well there was nothing true about it. Everything on Olympus is based on deception. According to my sister Apate, that's how things run in the vampire world as well. I think the farther away anyone gets from the pain of a terminal existence, the less faith and trust they put in those around them. Humans need to at least try to keep each other alive and show love and give help and all that crap. But when you have an eternity to act as you please, being nice is gonna get really boring really fast.

So I decided to try a little experiment. Maybe I could involve this human girl in my job of scrambling Eric Northman's mind. It would make the game more interesting for me, I thought. But oh no.

I went to see her first. That was big mistake number one. What the queen failed to tell me was that a maenad had recently breezed through Bon Temps. I don't like having my thunder stolen, especially not by one of Dionysus' groupies, but it couldn't be helped. I was willing to consider it just an annoying coincidence, but the more I snooped around the place, the more I realized how much of an eerie locus it was for mythologicals like myself. This is a problem, see, because the easier people accept our existence and the quicker belief passes from superstition into actuality, the less our power can affect them. So much of our power is based on the fear we can cultivate in ignorant minds. But people dealing with us on a regular basis as if it's no special thing, well obviously they aren't going to cower when we appear in a cloud of smoke, hurling ancient invectives at them.

This Sookie Stackhouse girl was far too wrapped up in the non-human world for me to do anything effective with her. And as I was just planning to move from that tiny Bermuda Triangle of a town to seek out the real target Eric, I got dragged into big mistake number two.

I interacted with her. I didn't mean to! And it wouldn't have been a problem, if she hadn't been bonded to the vampire. I'm the girl who turns blood rabid. He felt me through Sookie like he would a hot kettle boiling over. He knew I was coming. He had no idea why or what for, or even who exactly I was, but at least he knew that something was headed his way.

My exchange with the girl was simple enough. There was only one place to get a drink in that town. I live on vodka. You could say it's my TruBlood. What I really prefer is liquid fire to fuel my ire, but vodka is about the closest I can come to a burning beverage when I'm on earth.

"Hey there, what can I get you?" blondie chirped.

I would go back and smack myself upside the head in that moment if I could. Instead, I just have to remember how I mumbled my order and watched her scurry off to check on another table, she totally oblivious to my nature, and I to her blood connection with Eric.

When she came back with my drink, she commented on my eyes.

"They're almost violet, it's gorgeous!"

"They're the same as my mother's," I replied, omitting the detail that they were lighter than hers, the color of night softened in the next generation. Only my brothers Hypnos and Phantasos have full black irises.

"Are you—" she started then hesitated. In a whisper she continued, "Are you something special?"

I looked at her sharply.

"What gave you that impression?"

"If you look around, most folks here are pretty fat and ordinary. And you're, well, you're not."

I furrowed my brow.

"I could just be from out of town."

She nodded.

Then she added confidentially, "Plus I can't hear your thoughts."

Big mistake numero tres: getting myself involved with a telepath. Any mind-reading falls under the jurisdiction of Asteria. And if there's one entity in all the universe I cannot stand it's that bitch Asteria.

No use crying over it now. This Sookie girl unwittingly invoked her. So here I am with casual frenemy turned outright foe making things miserable just because she can.

And I haven't even told you what happened with the vampire.


A Mythological Crib Sheet:

Nyx was primeval Night. With Erebus (Darkness) she had Eros (god of lust). By herself she had Apate (goddess of deceit), Momos (god of mockery), Moros (god of doom), the Oneiroi (gods of dreams: Morpheus, Phobetor, and Phantasos), Thanatos (god of death), Hypnos (god of sleep), and Nemesis (goddess of retribution), as well as others.

By the blood of castrated Uranos, she had Lyssa (goddess of madness).

Asteria is the Titan goddess of oracles, prophetic dreams, and necromancy.

Well, readers? What's the verdict?