Uhhhhhh...

[mommahatedme]

Who: The girl with the worst name in the universe
When: Any given Wednesday
What: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

There were a few things absolutely certain. This was not Building E room 334: advanced demolitions for engineers. What she was staring at was not Dr. Lee. It was, apparently, a salamander but it was not a Salamander and it was not not not Dr. Lee.

Dezzi had no shame at all in the fact that there was a very puppyish whine issuing from her throat. She was flammable! She did not want to be on fire! Did salamanders hunt by sight, or was it by sound?!

Comments

[mommahatedme]

"We don't have lords. We're part of a representative republic, although people tend to call it a democracy. It means that people vote for people who then vote on things and it gets so big and complex that...a lot of people, mostly human, fall through the cracks. Some of us non-humans get treated as second-class citizens, but that also means that we tend to support each other. The packs, of course, are fiercely family oriented. We've learned to be less territorial so we can live in cities and the like, but mess with one of us and you've got all of the pack on your tail." she said it in easy cadences. Dezzi was a very smart young lady and she liked precision.

She was, after all, an engineer in training. Now a city engineer. Entirely mental whine? Yes.

"There're outreach programs and such, but honestly I don't know much about them. I'm not a bigot!" she hastened to say, "I'm just taking way too many classes to do volunteering right now! I'm in high school and taking some pretty heavy college classes," she held up a backpack that could easily club someone to death with all the books, papers, flash drives, and her computer, that were in it, "so right now my life is school, home, college, home, homework, spend time with dad, sleep, repeat. You can pretty much put food in any of those sections but sleep. I don't sleep-eat. I think."

[homeless_pard]

"...ah," she noted, not really following MOST of that but hey, she could try? "It seems your world has a fare greater number of people than the Dales did, even before the war killed many of us."

"The abbey aided as we were able, we were a place of peace and of aid when others may be persecuted or ill, but there was no great outreach, nor was I able to stay. I was chased forth."

[mommahatedme]

"I think it's in the trillions." Dezzi said, although she wasn't entirely sure. She tended to zone out a little in social studies. "There are massive amounts of people, that's for sure. More than there should be, in some ways. It's hard to keep track of."

Then she frowned, "Just because you're a cat?"

[homeless_pard]

"Ah..." she could...not honestly picture that number in the least. In fact it was a number she'd never even heard before. "People must be like drops of water in your world, or grains of sand..." she could only assume as such? It was an absolutely boggling amount.

"...in part? It was...an excuse. I was not liked, in the least, by the new Abbess. Being a war orphan I would not be bringing a lady's gifts to her coffer, nor was I bound to take oaths to the Flame. My discovery was...simply convenient I believe, thinking back." Terrible, frightening, and traumatizing, but ultimately simply the excuse the Abbess needed.

[mommahatedme]

"Water and sand do out number us," Dezzi said wryly, "but, yeah, we're pretty packed in there." Then she looked at Khem again and said, "That was really, really shitty of her. People shouldn't be dragged away from their home, or forced out. I'm really sorry that happened to you." she was, too.

[homeless_pard]

"I would have been asked to leave even by my own elder dames in time," she admitted. "Children may be excused, but if I would not swear to cup and flame I would have had to leave." It was just the manner of leaving that was...terrible.

[mommahatedme]

"Well, yeah." Dezzi said, "Moving out 'cause you grew up is normal. That's not being thrown out or chased out." she had Strong Feelings about this kind of thing. Very strong feelings.

[homeless_pard]

"True," she chuckled softly. "I am...adjusting? I was afraid for a very long time but now I am here." And it was...easier? It was an insane, empty city but somehow still far less frightening?

[mommahatedme]

"It's easier for people to group together when we're all in a weird situation." Dezzi said wryly, "Also, you know, pack animal." that was pointing at herself, "So we may be alone, but we're alone together and there are worse ways to be."

[homeless_pard]

"Very true, less...censure and far more cooperation," she chuckled easily. "And I have....a whole hospital to learn here? It will be strange."

[mommahatedme]

"Yeah, but super useful!" Dezzi said, "I mean, who knows what strange illnesses and stuff are going to show up here? If I got sick I wouldn't have any idea what to do. Except eat a lot." She really didn't get 'illness', except as an academic thing.

[homeless_pard]

"Healers always are," she chuckled. "You do not grow ill in your world?"

[mommahatedme]

"Nope. Silver poisoning is about the only thing that'll keep me down, but honestly if I get it here I'll probably die before you get to me." she said perfectly honestly, "It disrupts the way that my cells switch between their two states." she held up a hand to demonstrate the change between human hand and wolf's paw as it went fluidly between the two. "So if silver is introduced you get uncontrolled shifting. It's a really fast, really painful way to starve."

[homeless_pard]

"Ah," she noted, watching closely. "Should you be struck by silver is it best to remove a limb or drop you into a stasis sleep?"

[mommahatedme]

"I dunno what stasis sleep is, but I can regrow a limb in a couple of hours." she offered, "So just hack it off. Otherwise, um. Get as much food near me as possible with as high calories as possible and pray?"