More Tales of MU

…or, Violet Thoughts

Marlot and I sat there just bullshitting comfortably with each other for a while. I told her as much about the dragon show as I could put into words while the music box played. I was craving a cigarette, but I knew there was no way in hell Marlot would want to come with me. I wouldn’t have asked her to go up and down all the stairs, either. I toughed it out. Not wanting to get dressed made it easier to put it off.

After half an hour or so, somebody knocked on the door. I got up to check the peephole. When I was halfway there, Marlot called, “Come in, the door’s open!”

The door swung inward and there was Missy. We swapped facial expressions; I put a smile on as hers fell away.

“Why are you in your underwear?” Missy asked me, eyeing Marlot.

“We had to check for stirges,” Marlot said.

“Oh, okay,” Missy said. She was just standing there. I closed the door and grabbed my jeans off the floor before anybody else decided to show up. “So, I was going to tell you about—wait, stirges?”

“Yeah, they nest and breed in guys’ bathrooms,” Marlot said. “Guys usually check each other after they shower, but Jamie’s a little shy about asking now that everybody knows about him.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Missy said. “So, anyway, I was going to tell you about that Mack girl.”

“The Harlowe one?” I said.

“Yeah, her,” Missy said. “Guess why she’s in Harlowe.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“No, guess!”

“I seriously don’t know, Missy,” I said. “I look at her and she looks more human than a lot of the people in our dorm.”

“Really?” Missy asked. “Like who?”

“Like me, for one,” I said. “Seriously, just tell me.”

“Okay,” She took a big breath “She’s a demon.”

She stood there waiting for us to react, but Marlot and I both stared at her like she’d just told us one of her classmates was a demon.

Yeah.

Simile failed me.

“Did you hear me?” she asked.

“I’m not sure I did,” I said. “Unless you actually just said that she’s a demon, for some reason.”

“Well, I did,” Missy said. “Because she is.”

“I’m pretty sure somebody else would have figured that out and done something about it,” Marlot said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Last I checked, the rule with demons was still ‘destroy on sight’.”

“Okay, well, the way I heard it is her parents have a lot of money and they threaten to sue anybody who hurts her,” Missy said.

“Her demon parents?” I said.

“Don’t make fun of me,” she said. “I told you, that’s what I heard.”

“I’m not making fun of you,” I said. “I’m just trying to make sure I understand what you’re saying.”

“Well, that’s how she got into the university in the first place,” Missy said. “Her parents sued and there was this huge court case and now they have to let demons in.”

“Missy, don’t you think if that was true, we would have heard something about it?” I asked.

“Well, yeah, and I did,” Missy said. “It’s all over the school.”

“What I mean is, if it was a huge court case, don’t you think it would have been in the news?” I asked.

“Maybe it was,” she said. “I don’t know. I don’t pay a lot of attention to the news.”

“I don’t really pay a lot of attention to it, either, but something like that would have had people up in arms all over the Imperium,” I said. “We would have noticed.”

“Well, obviously, the university hushed it up because they don’t want people to know there’s a demon coming here,” Missy said. “Maybe they got a gag order?”

“Gag orders don’t work that way,” Marlot said. “And you can’t ‘hush up’ a court order. That’s on the public record. And all of that is ignoring the real problem with this theory.”

“What’s that?”

“Demons don’t get to sue people in the first place,” Marlot said.

“Maybe she’s adopted?” Missy suggested. “Her parents could be human.”

“Demons don’t get put for adoption,” Marlot said.

“But what if there were a pair of demons and they were killed and the killers found they had a baby?” Missy asked.

“I’m pretty sure the baby would be put down, too,” I said.

“I don’t think demons come to this plane to reproduce,” Marlot said. “At least, not with each other. Now, maybe if she had one human parent, that might be different.”

“Yeah, I could almost believe that,” I said.

“Why would you believe her story if you won’t believe mine?” Missy asked.

“It’s not a story, I’m just making a point,” Marlot said. “A half-human baby would have human rights. I think.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of plausible,” I said. “I don’t really know if they’d let it go to college or not, though.”

“But if it had human rights, they’d kind of have to, wouldn’t they?” Marlot said.

“I guess,” I said. “Yeah, that does make sense. Maybe there’s an exception for half-demons, though? I mean, I’ve never heard of one that didn’t go crazy and try to kill a bunch of people, have you?”

“No, but why would you hear about the ones who didn’t?” Marlot asked. “I don’t think they’d advertise. They’d probably keep to themselves.”

“That kind of precludes things like going to college,” I said. “But I guess it would be hard to write a law that says half-demons are legal as long as they keep to themselves.”

“Yeah, that would be kind of hard to quantify,” Marlot said. “On top of getting into all sorts of sketchy areas. I think the nearest they could get to that would be to have half-demons be illegal but not enforce it unless they cause a problem, but that would go against a bunch of legal precedents.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Hey, you should be supporting me, not her,” Missy said to me. She was pouting big-time now.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re taking her side over mine,” she said.

“I’m not taking anybody’s side,” I said. “We’re having a hypothetical conversation. It’s the kind of thing Marlot and I do. Like when we were talking about if I had different parents, remember?”

“And you didn’t support me then, either,” Missy said. “You never support me.”

“I do support you,” I said. “But I don’t think you’re right.”

“If you supported me, it wouldn’t matter if I was right,” Missy said. We had differing ideas about that, but I kept my mouth shut. There wasn’t any percentage in hashing that difference out. Missy wasn’t done, though. She pointed at Marlot. “You’d support her even if she was wrong, wouldn’t you?”

“In the unlikely event?” Marlot said. “I’d expect my best friend to be the first person to tell me.”

“Yeah,” I said. “My dad told me that somebody who always says you’re right wants to be your friend, but somebody who tells you when you’re wrong already is.”

“Well, whatever, that’s not how most people are,” Missy said. She pointed at the silk shirt crumpled up on the floor. “Aren’t you wearing that to the dance?”

“I actually wore it yesterday,” I said. “It’s wrinkled and dirty.”

“Oh, it isn’t that bad,” Marlot said, poking at it with her toe. “The wrinkles from throwing it on the floor just counter out the ones it has from being worn.”

“Isn’t this a casual thing, anyway?” I said. “The dance, I mean.”

“Well, sure, but that doesn’t mean you can’t look nice,” Missy said. She picked up the shirt and tried to smooth it out. “Don’t you have anything else like this?”

“I have two other silk shirts, but they’re purple and green,” I said.

“Purple! Perfect!” Missy said.

“My mom bought it for me for some stupid thing where we had to wear school colors, but it doesn’t really suit me,” I said.

“Of course it does, it’s a very elven color.”

“I don’t know how it will look with my sapphires,” I said.

“No, blue and purple are perfect,” Missy said.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll trust your judgment.” The way her face lit up, I might have told Missy that she was the source of all wisdom and power. Whatever. I still needed a cigarette. “You two want to go and get some dinner?”

“I don’t really want to walk all the way over and back when we’re going to be going to the dance in a bit,” Missy said. “And I still have to get ready, and anyway, I don’t feel like burgers and fries.”

“Okay, we’ll just get something from the corner store,” I said. “But I need to make a little stop outside.”

“That’s such a bad habit,” Missy said.

“Maybe you should make a list of which thin, white, flaming things are allowed in his mouth and which ones aren’t?” Marlot said.

“Yeah, maybe,” Missy said. In her defense, I don’t think she was serious about entertaining the idea. It was more that she didn’t have a clue what Marlot was on about and was saying something to fill the gap. “So, is anybody taking you to the dance?”

“No, I’m going to hang out in the party room and let all the disaffected rebels who are too cool for school dances teach me how to shoot billiards and play cards,” Marlot said.

“Don’t you already know?” Missy asked.

“Yes, but it’s more fun to learn things you already know,” Marlot said.

“Oh, totally,” Missy said. “That’s the only thing I like about my thaumo class. If we spend the entire semester going back over high school stuff, I’ll be just about ecstatic.”

“That’s tuition money well-spent,” Marlot said.

“Yeah, no joke,” Missy said, nodding.

We headed downstairs. Marlot and Missy poked around in the store while I headed outside for a quick smoke. Violet was hanging out by the ashtray. She had a messily rolled, spicy-scented herbal cigarette.

“Hey,” she said as I pulled out a cigarette. “Need a light?”

“No thanks,” I said, raising it to my lips. “I’ve—”

I stopped when I saw the tip was glowing. I took a drag.

“You’ve got to be faster than that,” she said. “Is that platinum?”

“Funny, you’re the first one to notice,” I said.

“You don’t seem to be all broken up by that.”

“Not really,” I said.

“You didn’t have those yesterday,” she said.

“No,” I said. I didn’t elaborate.

She smiled.

“Ah,” she said.

“What?”

“That sounds like one hell of a date,” she said.

“What does?”

“All the stuff that’s spilling out of you,” she said.

“Do you just go around reading peoples’ minds?” I asked.

“Some things I don’t have to go looking for,” she said. “Some things just come to me.”

“Don’t they teach you how to block that out?”

“Yeah, it’s the first thing you learn in subtle arts class,” she said. “It’s right up there with not casually lighting things on fire with your mind.”

“I thought you weren’t taking those classes,” I said.

“I’m not,” she said. “Relax, I’m not about to tell Iolana you masturbate while thinking about her, or anything.”

“How would you know that if you’re not prying?” I asked.

“Some things, I do go looking for,” she said. “No, I’m kidding. It didn’t take a mindreader to know what you were thinking when you were peeking down her top. And with my room right next to yours, it’s kind of hard to miss how much you—”

“Your room’s not next to mine,” I said.

“Yeah, it’s on the end of the hall. Right between yours and Kira’s.”

“No, it isn’t,” I said.

“Yeah? Whose room is that, then?”

“I don’t know, but I know your name’s not on that door,” I said.

“Violet’s a nickname,” she said.

“What for?”

“Purple.”

“Funny,” I said. “What is it, really?”

“Guess,” she said.

“Tell me.”

“Guess,” she said. “If you know my name’s not on the door, then you know what names are, and you should have a fifty-fifty chance of guessing it.”

“I don’t remember what it said,” I said. “But I’d remember walking past a name like that, especially after I met you.”

“Flatterer,” she said.

“That isn’t what I meant,” I said. “You just stick in my head.”

“You’re going to make me blush,” she said.

“Why won’t you tell me?” I asked.

“Why don’t you go upstairs and look?” she countered.

“I’m down here with Missy and Marlot,” I said. I held out the cigarette. “They’re waiting for me to finish this so we can get some dinner.”

“How do you feel about Missy?” she asked.

“Oh, she’s alright,” I said.

“Yeah, I kind of think so, too,” Violet said.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” she asked innocently.

“Respond to things I haven’t actually said.”

“Oh, were you thinking something different from what you actually said?” Violet asked. “Because I was totally screening right there.”

“Funny,” I said.

“You should just say what you think, anyway,” Violet said. “I see so many people sticking by people they can’t stand because they can’t spit something out. It’s sad. I was never afraid to say exactly what I think, because when I was little I didn’t understand that people couldn’t automatically tell anyways.”

“Yeah, thank heavens you grew out of that,” I said. I stubbed the cigarette out in the tray. I’d had enough of it, anyway. “Obviously, I can stand Missy or else I wouldn’t be spending time with her.”

“Obviously,” Violet said.

“I’ll talk to you later,” I said.

“Later,” she said.

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