Small, perfectly-manicured hands slid forward over Eric's shoulders, down to his chest.
“Hello, Jade,” Eric greeted her, without looking away from the computer screen.
“Now, is that any proper welcome?” she pouted, eeling around him to sit in his lap. The kitsune was so tiny, not quite five feet tall, that she fit easily. He'd had so much practice at typing one-handed, steadying her with the other arm, that he scarcely noticed the difference anymore.
“Sorry, I'm in the middle of an argument online that's getting rather heated.”
She twisted so she could look at the screen; for a moment, she watched him flipping through the five chat windows he had open. “It mystifies me how you can follow so many conversations at once,” she observed. “What's the argument over?”
“There's a movie about so-called witches that came out a couple of years ago and it’s been out on VHS for a while. Someone started singing its praises as being the most awesome thing ever. Some other people started screaming that it encourages Satanism. Lenore and I, along with a few others who could be witches or mundane or liminals for all I know, are trying to point out that combining mental health issues and severe bullying and abuse, including suicide attempts, with goths, a half-assed kind of Satanic-flavoured paganism, invoking demons that give powers, plus inherent abilities, is not only a bit ridiculous, but potentially dangerous for other reasons.”
Jade gazed into space, head cocked to one side. “That’s quite a list. And not a good one.”
“No kidding. When way too much of the culture around you tends to think that pagan equals Satanist and both are linked to psychotic violent behaviour and possibly sinister cults, by the same people who probably believe that Dungeons and Dragons is also causing mental health issues and leading kids into cults... stop and think about what you’re putting on screen. Real-life people are real-life suffering because they’re pagan or struggling with mental health issues—probably more dangerous to themselves than others, like Uncle Malcolm. Or just for how they dress. Adding more confusion and associations to the whole mess is potentially hurtful and can do some genuine harm. I don’t think any of us are in favour of censorship in general, just of creators being responsible about what they show.”
“Quite a lot of harm, when witch-hunts begin, and innocents are hurt or killed for what others think their beliefs to be or because they think someone else is to blame for every small thing that goes awry in their lives.”
“There are actually two other sides: one is claiming that it's just a movie and nothing really matters because no one will take it seriously, and the third side is claiming that it's completely factual and accurate. That third side just broke up into two factions, one saying that it will help people to know what to watch for, the other saying that it will just lead more people into Satanism.”
“A pretty mess. Who's winning?”
He shrugged. “No one involved is going to change their opinion, so in that sense, there is no winner. On the other hand, we're dumping two or three times more actual information into the issue than the rest all put together, which is certainly positive. I'm also catching up on news with Lenore about how the British Columbia branch of the family is doing, talking to David who wants me to recommend a software program he can use to keep track of the experiments he's doing with illusions, explaining some basics about online courtesy to a total newbie who’s just recently ventured onto the Internet for the first time, and having an extremely sporadic conversation with an online friend about how to get the attention of a girl he really likes and keep her once he has her.” Eric kissed her white-silk-clad shoulder, and smiled at her. “I had a good teacher at that sort of thing.”
She snuggled against him comfortably, resting her head on his shoulder. “I had a good student.”
“Meg left a few minutes ago. She was basically just grumbling that the guy she’s now dating in real life is attractive, attracted to her, likes a lot of the same things, and is generally fun to hang out with, but she says even if we’ve never met in person, I spoiled her and she wishes that he was as good as I am at flirting without being creepy or disrespectful and generally making her feel good about herself.”
Honestly, it baffled him, why skills like that were so rare. He’d always had a girlfriend in high school, and it wasn’t just because he was tall, blond, and in uncommonly good condition for a computer geek. Invariably, with the popular girls seeking him out, he’d declined and sought out the overlooked ones, partly because they were more interesting and partly because watching them start to appreciate themselves the way he could felt so much better. Pop culture screamed at him that it was hard to get and keep the attention of women, while also showing approaches and methods that were doomed to fail in the real world. It, along with several male classmates, insisted that he had underhanded ulterior motives, even though he gently set boundaries on how far he’d go even if offered more.
He genuinely cared for many humans, but human culture made no sense sometimes.
Jade giggled. “Courting a lady who’s already with someone else, with no intention of actually having sex, has plenty of chivalric precedent.”
“I pointed that out. And that if he’s likely to be jealous and not understand, I’m okay with that, too, and it’s absolutely her call. But I’ll miss her if she stops. Once she got into it, she was really good at it. Maybe she can teach her new boyfriend. I swear, I’m going to start doing online classes one of these days on courtly love for the modern era.” Eric flipped back to the newbie and warned him against using all capitals if he expected to be taken seriously. Then he went back to the chat-room, read the last few posts, and muttered a couple of choice insults under his breath. “Asshole. You don't want to get personal, if you value your hard drive. Call me names again and you're gonna regret it.”
“Who?”
“One of the advocates of educating people about the Devil's wiles.” He typed a quick response, Why should I take you seriously if you're going to call names instead of arguing reasonably? “He just informed me that I am obviously uneducated, naive, and not overly smart, since I don't see how I'm doing the Devil's work by arguing this way.”
Jade growled, a soft, high-pitched noise that always made him think of a puppy. “Annoying man.”
Eric flipped to the private chat with Lenore, and smiled at his cousin's disgusted dismissal of the intelligence of the man in question. “FireRaven agrees.”
“Perhaps there is a way I could seek him out and show him who is uneducated, naive, and not overly smart?” She tossed her head, rust-red hair flying. “I consider that a personal affront, as one who has certainly had a hand in your education. Uneducated and naive? When you have lived these past four years with Margaret and I, and were here a great deal in the decade and a half before?”
“And a wonderful job you've done,” Eric said soothingly. “He appears to be alone in his opinion, even his allies aren't backing him up on that one. I'd much rather have you here than running off to find this nuisance, beautiful. I deserve your time and attention much more than he does.”
That made the kitsune laugh. “You are correct, you do.”
He answered Lenore, flipped through the other three and replied to each, back to the chat-room, and rolled his eyes. “He's just informed me that sin doesn't pay well. Someone else just asked why drug lords and pimps are usually rich, then.” He blinked, and re-read the last post. “That sounds like a threat. Nitwit just said that the agents of God have a duty to see that the agents of Satan pay the price for their actions. He wouldn't seriously try to nuke my system, would he? Talk about your mouse challenging the cat. I hope he doesn't have anything valuable on his hard-drive, if he's going to start threatening me.”
“What will you do to him?” she asked eagerly.
“Nothing unless he attacks first, but if he does, I can do a few things. Probably what I'd do is reformat his hard-drive to three-sixty K.”
“Do what?”
“The hard-drive is the memory inside, remember? Where everything is stored?”
“Yes.”
“And remember how much more it can hold, than the three-and-a-half-inch disks I use sometimes? And how those hold much more than the big floppy five-and-a-quarter-inch ones I don't use anymore?”
“Yes.” She tilted her head to one side. “You could turn his hard-drive into a disk?”
“More or less. Give it the same memory as a five-and-a-quarter, anyway.”
Her eyes widened in delight, and she began all but bouncing in his lap. He tightened his arm around her before she could slip off, considering how little friction her favourite white-silk dress offered. “Will you show me how to do that, for the next time I grow annoyed with someone online?”
Eric visualized giving that particular ability to a fox, even a very sweet and extremely intelligent fox, and had a number of interesting visions of the havoc she could wreak, all from his computer. “Um, I think it would take you longer to learn to do than it would be really worth. Besides, you do an awesome job of running circles around anyone who says anything you don't like.”
She preened a bit at the compliment. “It is a new way for kitsune to do what we have always done to the self-important.”
“I don't know anyone who can out-debate you, clever lady. Why would you need a battleaxe when you do so very well with a stiletto?”
Jade considered that. “There are times when only a battleaxe will succeed, when all else fails.”
“Not very often, for you. If that happens, come get me and I'll do it for you.”
“And when you go away from us, to go to school?”
“Oh, c'mon, Jade, you know I can't leave you and Gran alone. She can hardly walk now and it's getting worse. You do great at looking after her, but are you going to do the grocery shopping and all the cooking and cleaning and laundry and stuff too? I can't go running off to university.”
“There are ways for those things to be done.”
“But not properly. Forget it, vixen, you aren't going to get rid of me anytime soon.”
“I thought no such thing! I certainly have no wish to be rid of you, and I would miss you very much. I simply wish you able to continue learning, as you love to do.”
“I am still learning. Don't worry about it.” He hugged her tight, and she nestled into it warmly. “Give me a hand with this nitwit, and let's see if we can get him chasing his tail?”
She looked at him for a heartbeat with brown and black eyes he'd never been able to see the true depth of, then smiled. “That's what kitsune do best. Well, one of the things kitsune do best, and we can do the other one later.” She winked, and settled herself so she could see the screen more comfortably. “He will never know what hit him, and you'll have no need of a battleaxe.”
Prysmcat Okay, readers, I have a question. It will take until mid-November to wrap up Lamia at the current pace. I don't want to overwhelm anyone, but I also don't want to stretch it out beyond anyone's attention span. The whole story is complete already and ready to post. I'm open to thoughts as to whether I should increase the frequency or leave it the way it is.
Small, perfectly-manicured hands slid forward over Eric's shoulders, down to his chest.
“Hello, Jade,” Eric greeted her, without looking away from the computer screen.
“Now, is that any proper welcome?” she pouted, eeling around him to sit in his lap. The kitsune was so tiny, not quite five feet tall, that she fit easily. He'd had so much practice at typing one-handed, steadying her with the other arm, that he scarcely noticed the difference anymore.
“Sorry, I'm in the middle of an argument online that's getting rather heated.”
She twisted so she could look at the screen; for a moment, she watched him flipping through the five chat windows he had open. “It mystifies me how you can follow so many conversations at once,” she observed. “What's the argument over?”
“There's a movie about so-called witches that came out a couple of years ago and it’s been out on VHS for a while. Someone started singing its praises as being the most awesome thing ever. Some other people started screaming that it encourages Satanism. Lenore and I, along with a few others who could be witches or mundane or liminals for all I know, are trying to point out that combining mental health issues and severe bullying and abuse, including suicide attempts, with goths, a half-assed kind of Satanic-flavoured paganism, invoking demons that give powers, plus inherent abilities, is not only a bit ridiculous, but potentially dangerous for other reasons.”
Jade gazed into space, head cocked to one side. “That’s quite a list. And not a good one.”
“No kidding. When way too much of the culture around you tends to think that pagan equals Satanist and both are linked to psychotic violent behaviour and possibly sinister cults, by the same people who probably believe that Dungeons and Dragons is also causing mental health issues and leading kids into cults... stop and think about what you’re putting on screen. Real-life people are real-life suffering because they’re pagan or struggling with mental health issues—probably more dangerous to themselves than others, like Uncle Malcolm. Or just for how they dress. Adding more confusion and associations to the whole mess is potentially hurtful and can do some genuine harm. I don’t think any of us are in favour of censorship in general, just of creators being responsible about what they show.”
“Quite a lot of harm, when witch-hunts begin, and innocents are hurt or killed for what others think their beliefs to be or because they think someone else is to blame for every small thing that goes awry in their lives.”
“There are actually two other sides: one is claiming that it's just a movie and nothing really matters because no one will take it seriously, and the third side is claiming that it's completely factual and accurate. That third side just broke up into two factions, one saying that it will help people to know what to watch for, the other saying that it will just lead more people into Satanism.”
“A pretty mess. Who's winning?”
He shrugged. “No one involved is going to change their opinion, so in that sense, there is no winner. On the other hand, we're dumping two or three times more actual information into the issue than the rest all put together, which is certainly positive. I'm also catching up on news with Lenore about how the British Columbia branch of the family is doing, talking to David who wants me to recommend a software program he can use to keep track of the experiments he's doing with illusions, explaining some basics about online courtesy to a total newbie who’s just recently ventured onto the Internet for the first time, and having an extremely sporadic conversation with an online friend about how to get the attention of a girl he really likes and keep her once he has her.” Eric kissed her white-silk-clad shoulder, and smiled at her. “I had a good teacher at that sort of thing.”
She snuggled against him comfortably, resting her head on his shoulder. “I had a good student.”
“Meg left a few minutes ago. She was basically just grumbling that the guy she’s now dating in real life is attractive, attracted to her, likes a lot of the same things, and is generally fun to hang out with, but she says even if we’ve never met in person, I spoiled her and she wishes that he was as good as I am at flirting without being creepy or disrespectful and generally making her feel good about herself.”
Honestly, it baffled him, why skills like that were so rare. He’d always had a girlfriend in high school, and it wasn’t just because he was tall, blond, and in uncommonly good condition for a computer geek. Invariably, with the popular girls seeking him out, he’d declined and sought out the overlooked ones, partly because they were more interesting and partly because watching them start to appreciate themselves the way he could felt so much better. Pop culture screamed at him that it was hard to get and keep the attention of women, while also showing approaches and methods that were doomed to fail in the real world. It, along with several male classmates, insisted that he had underhanded ulterior motives, even though he gently set boundaries on how far he’d go even if offered more.
He genuinely cared for many humans, but human culture made no sense sometimes.
Jade giggled. “Courting a lady who’s already with someone else, with no intention of actually having sex, has plenty of chivalric precedent.”
“I pointed that out. And that if he’s likely to be jealous and not understand, I’m okay with that, too, and it’s absolutely her call. But I’ll miss her if she stops. Once she got into it, she was really good at it. Maybe she can teach her new boyfriend. I swear, I’m going to start doing online classes one of these days on courtly love for the modern era.” Eric flipped back to the newbie and warned him against using all capitals if he expected to be taken seriously. Then he went back to the chat-room, read the last few posts, and muttered a couple of choice insults under his breath. “Asshole. You don't want to get personal, if you value your hard drive. Call me names again and you're gonna regret it.”
“Who?”
“One of the advocates of educating people about the Devil's wiles.” He typed a quick response, Why should I take you seriously if you're going to call names instead of arguing reasonably? “He just informed me that I am obviously uneducated, naive, and not overly smart, since I don't see how I'm doing the Devil's work by arguing this way.”
Jade growled, a soft, high-pitched noise that always made him think of a puppy. “Annoying man.”
Eric flipped to the private chat with Lenore, and smiled at his cousin's disgusted dismissal of the intelligence of the man in question. “FireRaven agrees.”
“Perhaps there is a way I could seek him out and show him who is uneducated, naive, and not overly smart?” She tossed her head, rust-red hair flying. “I consider that a personal affront, as one who has certainly had a hand in your education. Uneducated and naive? When you have lived these past four years with Margaret and I, and were here a great deal in the decade and a half before?”
“And a wonderful job you've done,” Eric said soothingly. “He appears to be alone in his opinion, even his allies aren't backing him up on that one. I'd much rather have you here than running off to find this nuisance, beautiful. I deserve your time and attention much more than he does.”
That made the kitsune laugh. “You are correct, you do.”
He answered Lenore, flipped through the other three and replied to each, back to the chat-room, and rolled his eyes. “He's just informed me that sin doesn't pay well. Someone else just asked why drug lords and pimps are usually rich, then.” He blinked, and re-read the last post. “That sounds like a threat. Nitwit just said that the agents of God have a duty to see that the agents of Satan pay the price for their actions. He wouldn't seriously try to nuke my system, would he? Talk about your mouse challenging the cat. I hope he doesn't have anything valuable on his hard-drive, if he's going to start threatening me.”
“What will you do to him?” she asked eagerly.
“Nothing unless he attacks first, but if he does, I can do a few things. Probably what I'd do is reformat his hard-drive to three-sixty K.”
“Do what?”
“The hard-drive is the memory inside, remember? Where everything is stored?”
“Yes.”
“And remember how much more it can hold, than the three-and-a-half-inch disks I use sometimes? And how those hold much more than the big floppy five-and-a-quarter-inch ones I don't use anymore?”
“Yes.” She tilted her head to one side. “You could turn his hard-drive into a disk?”
“More or less. Give it the same memory as a five-and-a-quarter, anyway.”
Her eyes widened in delight, and she began all but bouncing in his lap. He tightened his arm around her before she could slip off, considering how little friction her favourite white-silk dress offered. “Will you show me how to do that, for the next time I grow annoyed with someone online?”
Eric visualized giving that particular ability to a fox, even a very sweet and extremely intelligent fox, and had a number of interesting visions of the havoc she could wreak, all from his computer. “Um, I think it would take you longer to learn to do than it would be really worth. Besides, you do an awesome job of running circles around anyone who says anything you don't like.”
She preened a bit at the compliment. “It is a new way for kitsune to do what we have always done to the self-important.”
“I don't know anyone who can out-debate you, clever lady. Why would you need a battleaxe when you do so very well with a stiletto?”
Jade considered that. “There are times when only a battleaxe will succeed, when all else fails.”
“Not very often, for you. If that happens, come get me and I'll do it for you.”
“And when you go away from us, to go to school?”
“Oh, c'mon, Jade, you know I can't leave you and Gran alone. She can hardly walk now and it's getting worse. You do great at looking after her, but are you going to do the grocery shopping and all the cooking and cleaning and laundry and stuff too? I can't go running off to university.”
“There are ways for those things to be done.”
“But not properly. Forget it, vixen, you aren't going to get rid of me anytime soon.”
“I thought no such thing! I certainly have no wish to be rid of you, and I would miss you very much. I simply wish you able to continue learning, as you love to do.”
“I am still learning. Don't worry about it.” He hugged her tight, and she nestled into it warmly. “Give me a hand with this nitwit, and let's see if we can get him chasing his tail?”
She looked at him for a heartbeat with brown and black eyes he'd never been able to see the true depth of, then smiled. “That's what kitsune do best. Well, one of the things kitsune do best, and we can do the other one later.” She winked, and settled herself so she could see the screen more comfortably. “He will never know what hit him, and you'll have no need of a battleaxe.”
Prysmcat Okay, readers, I have a question. It will take until mid-November to wrap up Lamia at the current pace. I don't want to overwhelm anyone, but I also don't want to stretch it out beyond anyone's attention span. The whole story is complete already and ready to post. I'm open to thoughts as to whether I should increase the frequency or leave it the way it is.
