I didn’t sleep well after yesterday’s little illegal escapade. It was one thing to know that I’d committed a cri, and that my career lived or died depending on how lazy the next person who checked that filing cabinet happened to be. It was sothing else entirely to know that the docunts I’d stolen from a governnt facility were in the next room. And yes, I knew that the odds were hilariously unlikely that sobody would both notice that those docunts were missing and assu Foxfire, the ex-superhero whose grudge against Lady Liberty was one of the NMR gossip grapevine’s worst-kept secrets, had taken it.
But sotis, it doesn’t matter what the head is trying to say. The heart will feel what it wants.
And last night, my heart was troubled enough that I needed an overdose of fur therapy from Gorou just to fall asleep.
The next morning saw tired, miserable, and desperately going for the biggest infusion of caffeine I could get my hands on: matcha. Okay, yes, technically a cup of coffee had more caffeine in it, but I’d found that matcha was better at giving a long-lasting bump in energy, as opposed to coffee’s sharp spike and equally rapid falloff.
So I found my matcha, grabbed the bamboo whisk, frothed up two cups’ worth of matcha, and prepped two glasses with oat milk, maple sugar, and a tiiiiiny bit of vanilla extract for matcha lattes.
Gorou delicately lapped at his in between crunching down on four raw eggs, shell and all. I eyed him with envy; if we’d been in Japan right now, I’d have been having raw eggs on rice myself right now, but Arican egg quality just was not at that level. And while Gorou’s whole “having a body is optional” schtick ant that he didn’t have to worry about salmonella, I, on the other hand, did.
I’d managed to avoid ever having salmonella in this body, and I wasn’t about to risk changing that.
Once that was done, I shot off a ssage to Casey, letting them know I might be busy into the afternoon, and to start reviewing the footage Rachael Cruz’s husband provided as his alibi once they got into the office, starting with the stuff that was publicly posted on the alibi-giving friend’s social dia. What had been put in was as important as what had been cut, so I wanted at least one of us to have a baseline. Plus, loath as I was to admit it, Casey was far more computer-literate than I was, particularly where social dia was concerned. If sothing was to be found there, they’d find it, but I probably wouldn’t.
Also, while I did have an email from Julio, and the subject line suggested it was a lead from his friends in the public defender’s office, I just didn’t have the ti or ntal bandwidth for that right now. I shot him a quick reply that I’d follow up with him later this afternoon, but that I’d be out of contact until then.
With that out of the way, it was ti to get going for the day. I got my riding outfit on, found my helt, and headed out to the street so Gorou could bring the motorcycle to — with the sidecar attached, because he was coming along this ti, at Mariem’s request. When I’d called her last night to figure out when the best ti to co over would be, she ntioned her daughter Hounaida being down in the doldrums. Gorou overheard that, rembered I’d ntioned the girl being a big fan of foxes, and offered to co.
I wasn’t exactly able to say no at that point, so… I suppose I had a vulpine passenger.
“Aren’t you forgetting sothing?” Gorou asked as I started up the motorcycle’s engine.
“I’m putting the helt on right now,” I grumbled, shooting him the stink-eye. “And the last ti soone tried to put a helt on you, you bit them.”
“Not that,” he said, pointedly ignoring my jab at him. “Whatever it was your junior wanted autographed.”
I blinked, thought about it for a mont… then my ears fell low as I realized that oh, shit, I had forgotten that! Gorou snickered as I set the helt back down on the motorcycle’s handlebars, raced back inside, and grabbed the frad magazine Fatima wanted autographed. I got back outside and tucked that into the storage space beneath the seat, then finally got my helt on—
“You forgot to lock the front door back up.”
“Fuck!”
“Language,” Gorou chided, poking in the cheek with a tail.
I let out a deep, frustrated sigh, even as Gorou kept nudging with his tail. But I went and locked the front door, then got my helt on and pulled out onto the road.
The trip up to Lady Liberty’s ho was a little less smooth this ti around. While I wasn’t the type of motorcyclist who weaved between cars, any lawyer who’d handled even one motorcycle-related lawsuit knew better than that, the sidecar ant I was still less maneuverable than I was used to being. That, and Gorou drew a bit of attention, particularly when he went up on his hind legs and sniffed at the open rear window of a sedan with kids in the backseat, and extorted ear scritchies from the eager tykes. This also caused a bit of a traffic slowdown as everybody nearby got their phones out to get video of the “pet fox in a sidecar”.
Aside from that, though, the traffic wasn’t terrible. Could’ve been way worse.
That recent twinge in my back chose to bother again the mont I dismounted from my bike, and a groan of discomfort slipped out before I could stifle it, sending Gorou’s ears swiveling my way. I pulled off my helt and stretched briefly, rubbing my back with the heel of my hand in case it was a tight muscle. Then I noticed Gorou was giving a bit of a Look, which had scowling and lowering my ears. He turned away and hopped out of the sidecar, but I could still feel his attention on . And yeah, sure, fine, I liked that he was concerned. But at the sa ti, I wasn’t made of spun glass or anything. I was fine.
Gorou tilted his ear towards one last ti before trotting off to the front door. I locked my helt to the bike, got my briefcase and Fatima’s to-be-autographed picture fra, and joined him at the door before ringing the doorbell.
There wasn’t as much audible movent behind the door this ti, and so part of was actually dismayed to not hear Mariem’s daughter Hounaida almost chirping in excitent again. I’d been a decently popular superhero during the two years I spent in Chicago, yeah, and I was still rather well-loved throughout Japan, but… how do I put this…
Maybe that the interest and adoration of a child was far more precious to than any other would-be fan’s attention? I guess?
Regardless, by the ti the door opened to reveal a thankful and relieved Mariem, Gorou had hopped up onto my shoulders and anchored himself in place by winding his tails about my arm. And when I saw that Mariem didn’t have her hijab on, my ears perked up in surprise, then lowered in question — and only then did I rember that Mariem probably wasn’t as clued in on vulpine body language as her daughter. Which ant…
“You’re not wearing a hijab?” I asked aloud, nudging my head against Gorou’s flank. “I’m sorry if that was out of line, just curious is all, given this guy is, well...”
“Our thanks for welcoming us into your ho,” Gorou added, taking the opportunity to introduce himself after my awkward little trail-off there. “You may call Gorou.”
“M-my pleasure,” Mariem stuttered, her eyes blinking and almost unfocused as she t Gorou’s gaze. Huh, I wonder what her sensory power was seeing there? “Oh, co inside, please!”
She stepped out of the doorway and let in, then closed the door behind while I was taking off my shoes, being careful not to clip my tail on the door. Gorou hopped off my shoulder while I unzipped my riding jacket, and while I hung that on a coat hanger just off to the side, he trotted around the entryway, sniffing away at the Mouthlaki family ho almost… excitedly? Ah, but his ears were low and off to the side, so also so worry?
“There is a scent of fox here,” he humd, letting out a soft rumble from deep in his chest. “Not hurt or scared. Not sick either, yet still unwell.”
“Ah. That would be Zara.”
Mariem walked over to a combo shoe cabinet and storage table that they had by the door, and pulled one of many frad photographs off of it. Huh, I guess I’d been dragged inside by Hounaida too quickly to notice that last ti.
“There’re foxes in the forested areas around here,” she explained, and showed us the photograph of her daughter holding an adorably fluffy baby fox with a purple cast on its right front leg. “And when we moved in, a skulk was living in the woods just behind the house. But not long after we got settled in, we were woken up well past midnight by a fox screaming, and when we checked, the mother fox that woke us led us to one of her kits, who was hurt and trapped in so netting. We took the kit to the vet, who set her broken leg and told us she’d need to be kept safe for a few months. My daughter nad her Zara and begged to let us keep her with us, and the two bonded during that ti. Even after we released her, she ca back every few days to see us, even bringing her mate and kits two years ago. But a few nights back…”
“Is Zara okay?” I asked, ears low in worry and concern, but Mariem just looked askance.
“She is, but her mate… he got hit by a car, and by the ti we got him to the vet, it was too late.”
“The vixen’s sorrow stains the air,” Gorou murmured. “So that’s what it is. Hmm…” he humd, eyes closed and ears twitching. I felt a slight hesitation coming across the connection between our souls, but it faded away only monts later, replaced by Gorou’s overflowing compassion. “I assu she is with your daughter. Where are they?”
“Ah… upstairs, second door on the right. Is there sothing you can do?” Mariem asked, tone and expression warring between worry and relief.
“Perhaps. I must see her to know more.” Gorou turned to Mariem and lowered himself into a bow, head dipping in respect. “My thanks again for your hospitality.”
His piece said and formalities observed, Gorou trotted up the stairs and out of sight.
“I… I’m sorry for asking another favor of you on top of everything else,” Mariem sighed, turning away from the stairs with an apologetic expression, halfway between an awkward smile and a shaful grimace. “Hounaida was with us at the vet when Zara’s mate passed. The fox has hardly left her side, and she’s had to hand-feed the poor thing. Plus, well…” Mariem trailed off, her eyes flicking to my ears and tail.
“You don’t have to worry about my feelings,” I grumbled, ears rolling back in sympathetic embarrassnt. “Foxes generally don’t sll like sunshine and roses. Believe when I say I’m well aware that Gorou and I are exceptions.”
“Oh, thank you for not making that awkward,” she gasped out, tension leaving her shoulders as she deflated. She placed the picture fra back atop the shoe cabinet, and turned to face properly. “Anyways, I know we have our own grim task to be about, but first — I just picked up so baklava this morning. Would you like so?”
I didn’t even have the opportunity to voice a response. My ears and tail did it for , much to the amusent of a now-giggling Mariem Mouthlaki.
A few minutes later, I was seated at the sa low table around which we’d had our discussion during my first visit, a plate of baklava and a bottle of sparkling water set in front of . Mariem had spotted the fra carrying Fatima’s preferred autograph target and liberated of it on the way to the kitchen. When she returned it to a minute or two later, it now bore a decent bit of Arabic writing in silver sharpie along the front, almost shining on the page when seen at the right angle.
“Where do we begin?” she asked, setting the great big pile of mailings down on the table, after which she reached over and snatched a piece of baklava from the plate in front of .
“Making a separate ‘before moving’ pile and an ‘after’ one should co first,” I suggested, nudging the plate of baklava over so it sat roughly between the two of us. “Also, um… should I not have asked about the hijab thing? Was that, like… taboo to ask?”
“What? Oh, no, nothing like that, I promise!” She let out a nervous little chuckle before sighing, and busied her hands by pulling the pile of mailings apart into more easily manageable stacks of threes and fours. “It is… I wear a hijab as a personal religious choice, yes? It’s not a requirent or a command. But at the sa ti, it hides . Conceals. And with how the fox is doing a favor… I worried that the hijab might be seen as disrespectful.”
“That…” My ears pulled low, and I worried at my lip for lack of anything else to say right then. The bottle of sparkling water practically glimred out of the corner of my eye, and I softly cleared my throat before grabbing my beverage to buy myself a few precious seconds.
Rude as it might’ve co across, I needed that mont to think about how best to respond to Mariem, because, well, her answer caught a bit flat-footed. Admittedly, the only Muslims I interacted with in a purely social manner with any regularity were my friend/ntor/occasional-adversary Amir, his kids, and their families. And every ti I dug Gorou out of his den and brought him along to see them, the won wore their hijabs, because Gorou was male. Quadruped, yes, but still male, which ant the hijab went on.
The part of that respected those won’s decisions saw Mariem’s choice to go without her hijab here, and felt… I don’t know. Ashad? Disappointed? Embarrassed? No, none of those quite fit… ugh. Lack of accurate descriptor aside, it didn’t feel good.
I pulled the bottle away from my lips and briefly covered my mouth, then set it down and gave her my response.
“Please don’t feel the need to compromise your comfort for ,” I said, fingers drumming on the table to burn off a bit of nervous energy. “I appreciate it, really. But if it’d make you more comfortable to wear the hijab, please do.”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I—” Mariem cut herself off, pressing her lips together in a tight line. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll work on sorting these,” I waved her off, deliberately not remarking on the way she floated off to the other room instead of walking, the way she had earlier. Sure, regular people might not see it the sa way, but Mariem’s absent-minded use of her powers really humanized her for . Brought her down to earth.
Which was ironic, considering her powers let her escape the Earth, but that just made it a bit funny.
Mariem was only gone for a minute or two, but by the ti she got back, I’d already eaten another three pieces of baklava and sorted most of the rest of the pile according to whether their mailing addresses were on the east or west side of the country. It helped that the more visibly old and worn docunts were all west coast mailings… and thanks to the way they were all in their original envelopes, I saw a little sothing that would help.
“Wow, that was quick.” My ear swiveled to track Mariem’s voice and footsteps as she returned to the table. “Do I need to get more baklava?”
“Eh,” I waved her off with a flick of my tail. “No need. I probably don’t need more empty calories anyway.”
“I’ll have to box so up for you to take back to the office, then,” she said, kneeling over the table to check the piles. I looked up and saw that Mariem had on a plain beige hijab, and her face was more relaxed now. I hadn’t noticed any tension in her expression earlier, but now that it wasn’t there, it was unmistakable.
“God, you’re as bad as my sister,” I grumbled, though it was good-natured. “She never let leave for the airport without a al for the trip ho.”
“That’s nice of her, to — ah, wait,” she paused, seemingly stumbling over her own thoughts. “I thought you’d said that your family…?”
“It’s a bit complicated,” I admitted, coming to the rescue so Mariem didn’t have to try and ask her question without stepping on a social landmine. “We’re cousins by blood, but after my family disowned in the wake of the foxening…” Mariem let out a surprised giggle at the way I put it, and I smiled as the discomfort faded from her posture with it. “Well, her parents adopted , so in the eyes of the law, we’re sisters.”
“Ah,” Mariem nodded. “That makes much more sense. She seems like a wonderful woman, then.”
“She is,” I agreed. “And her daughter is a bit younger than Hounaida, so maybe I should let you know when next they’re in the States visiting ?”
Mariem seed taken aback at the offer. I smiled at her, letting my ears droop to the sides a little. The offer was genuine, truly; I still hadn’t seen much of the real Lady Liberty, I’d admit that, but at the sa ti, what I had seen was telling. The horrid, wrathful attacker from fifteen, almost sixteen years ago was almost a different person compared to the woman who sat before now.
Age, maturity, family, motherhood. They’d changed Mariem Mouthlaki, giving her room to grow beyond the sharp sixteen-by-nine corners of Lady Liberty’s public image. And I was willing to accept that.
“A-anyway!” Mariem stuttered, hands lightly slapping the table as she clearly tried to move onto a different topic. “What do we have here so far?”
“That’s the west coast pile handled,” I said, flicking an ear and nodding my head in its general direction. “The east coast ones have so differences that’ll let handle further sorting myself, but if you could try and get them sorted by location and in chronological order, oldest on top and newest on bottom, I’d appreciate it.”
“Of course!” Mariem pulled the mailings over to her side of the table and started going through them, handling the particular tedium that I’d normally have a paralegal get through without complaint. “What makes the east coast mailings different, if I may ask?”
“Hmm? Oh, well, you see the envelopes?” I held one up for Mariem to see
“Yes? What about them?”
“Postage,” I told her. “The west coast mailings all have stamps on them, and the addresses were printed out with an inkjet printer; you can see it from slight variations between each line of text. But these ones,” I waved the piece of mail in my hand, addressed to the NMR PO Box in Rochester, which also served Syracuse and Buffalo, “are prepaid envelopes. They’re the kind you’d purchase from the post office, and either you’d hand-write the address, or soone would print it onto it. But these ones were done with a laser printer, as opposed to hand-written, which suggests soone was using workplace supplies for these. And one more thing.”
“What?”
“The bar code.” I tapped at the evenly rectangular bar code atop the mailing, separate from an uneven bar code along the side. “Your stalker made sure every mailing arrived on the second Monday of the month, every ti, and while that was doable with regular snail mail even as recently as two years ago, but after the anthrax scare leading into the Republican primaries last year?” I shook my head. “Extra screening ans unpredictable timing. Unless, of course, you pay more. Which I can track.”
“What — really?” Mariem asked, staring at the envelope with slight incredulity. “But, but if that’s all you need, why even bother with these?” she spat, gesturing sharply at the pile she was sorting.
“Because this only solves half the problem,” I explained patiently. “Yes, it lets find who this person is and stop them from going further. But it doesn’t answer for us how he’s been tracking you in the first place. And if we fail to answer that question…”
I let the implication hang in the air. Mariem got it imdiately, going by the way her expression shifted from anger, to fear, to crestfallen acceptance.
“I don’t even know where to begin on that,” Mariem admitted, her fingers tightening on the loose cloth of her hijab. It was the sa nervous tic I’d observed the last ti I was here. From the way she’d seed almost unsure what to do with her hands back then, I’d wager that her hijab was as much a religious preference as it was a safety blanket and her preferred anxiety outlet.
“I… have a thought,” I began, hesitation making every word drag, “but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
My ears pinned low and back, worry tightening them against my skull. I was beginning to see a pattern in which locations got eliminated over ti, but while I wanted to confirm that hunch, I needed to be delicate with how I explained my reasoning, or else it would co off as victim blaming. And I was not about to fracture the fragile camaraderie I’d managed to build with Mariem by doing that.
“What? What is it?” There was a touch of concern in her eyes, but for the most part, Mariem’s posture radiated fear. She was afraid of what I might be about to tell her — but at the sa ti, she was determined to know.
Admirable.
“First, a very un-fun fact: if you wanted to try and find any one person, and that person has a paper trail, all you would need is six pieces of demographic information about them. It doesn’t matter how anonymous it is or isn’t. Six. Now, if I were to try and find information on Lady Liberty, there’s already so publicly available information out there: nationality, religion, a rough estimate of your age, and physique. That’s arguably four of six, but realistically, it’s just three: age, sex, population group. And it’s clear that your stalker both knows this, and has identified location as a prerequisite to going further, which he’s trying to tease out.”
“I… think I understand, but I’m sorry, I don’t see your hunch.” While Mariem kept her tone level and expression neutral, her body language was telling everything — she’d practically shrunk in on herself, shoulders hunched, legs tight and close to her body, upper arms pressed in against her torso.
This was making her anxious. And while I didn’t like that my explanation was having such an effect on her, it at least told that she was paying attention.
I grabbed the rest of the envelopes addressed to an NMR PO Box in the state of New York, and fanned them. “This person is actively pruning locations from his list, but in order for him to do that in the first place, then there must be sothing he’s looking at in the months between each mailing, so feedback he’s receiving. And it must also be sothing that’s publicly available, or at least sothing that it’d be inconspicuous to look at.”
“Like what?” she pressed, eyes locked onto the envelopes.
“Any changes in your typical behavior in the week or so following one of his mailings arriving.” I pulled out the single piece of mail sent to Maine, and slid it across the table towards her. “He didn’t send any more to Maine after the first one. I know it was a year and a half ago now, but do you rember where you spent the most ti after these all ca in, or if there’s sowhere you went that was different from your norm?”
Mariem didn’t respond. I don’t think she even knew, really — hell, I doubted I’d be able to tell if I’d been doing sothing outside of my usual in January of last year, and that was essentially what I’d asked her to try and recall. Days had a way of blurring together, and sothing remarkable from the outside often went completely unremarked on the inside, especially when it had to do with the regular tedium of a day job.
“It’s okay,” I said, retrieving my notebook from my bag and flipping it open to the bookmark I’d left in it. “I actually have the answer to that. You spent a fair bit of ti helping lobster fishern in choppy waters off the coast of Maine in the week after that first mailing showed up — three tis, compared to the one ti you’d been in Maine in the four years before that.” I tapped the spine of my notebook against the envelope that’d arrived in Maine. “And this pattern repeats. After the very first spread-out mailing, back in 2012, you spent almost a full week doing avalanche rescue in Colorado and Utah. Three months later, you spent three days the week after it arrived focusing on the greater Seattle area, and there were no subsequent mailings to Washington State following that.
“Now I am not saying this is your fault!” I held up a hand to both prevent any interruption and keep Mariem from thinking herself into a self-recriminating doom spiral. “You were handling this like a hostage situation, because it is, and you and I were given the sa training as any other Moonshot who's hard to aningfully hurt: draw attention to yourself and move it away from the hostages. But that training ans all of us act the sa in any similar kind of situation. This one is no different.”
“But — but what do I do now?” Mariem asked, sounding defeated, despairing almost. “This person already knows I’m in DC, Maryland, or Virginia!”
“You don’t do anything here,” I said, flicking an ear almost dismissively. “I, on the other hand, can take this bar code here and work backwards from there. I have so friends and contacts who owe favors, plus a few tricks up my sleeve for good asure. A few shakes of my tail, and this barcode gives a location, which hopefully gives surveillance footage, but if not, it still gives an electronic transaction. That transaction leads to a paynt processor, which leads to a card issuer, which then leads to a credit card number. And from there… I’ve got a na.” I flashed Mariem a sowhat vicious grin, my enlarged canines on full display. “That tidbit about six pieces of demographic information cuts both ways. And as a lawyer, I have a few extra tools at my disposal.”
“... oh.” Mariem gave a slightly owlish look of surprise, then glanced at the pile she’d been sorting through. “Then why have go through these in the first place?”
“Because I could still be wrong about how this bastard’s been narrowing down your position,” I told her. “And I also want to go through them all later, see if there’s a pattern in the content itself as opposed to the mailing addresses.”
“I suppose,” she murmured, the tension in her shoulders loosening. “I’ll get back to sorting, then?”
“Please and thank you,” I nodded, then took a piece of baklava. Pulling Mariem back to normal after that brief panic had worked up a bit of an appetite.
Mariem nodded back, then glanced at the baklava plate, which had one piece left.
“I’m gonna get more.”
“Oh, before that!”
I swiped the last piece of baklava from the plate, smiling serenely as I playfully wiggled my ears. Mariem rolled her eyes, mumbling sothing under her breath in Arabic. Maybe it was a remark on how annoying I could be, but I didn’t care.
I had baklava, and it was good enough that I didn’t even care about how my tail was wagging.
It took a couple hours, a few sessions of anxious pacing and floating on Mariem’s part, and most of the second plate of baklava before we finished going through everything. That said, we had finished up, and I now had the entire pile of mailings sorted by location, and sub-sorted in chronological order. This would make it so much easier to determine if there was a pattern to the content itself, maybe an afternoon instead of a frustrating several-day endeavor.
Mariem disappeared into the kitchen while I got everything packed back up, and returned with a tupperware container full of baklava — not an expensive one, just one from a takeout order that she’d washed for later use.
“Thank you again for your help,” she said, for the fourth ti in the last few hours.
“And again, it’s okay, you don’t need to keep thanking ,” I brushed her off, though it’d happened enough tis that I was feeling a bit uncomfortable with it. “Anyway, I need to collect a fox. Gorou!”
My yell prompted so movent upstairs, and while it was normally hard to catch movent on carpeted floors, I definitely heard sothing this ti. Scratch that, I ntally revised as I tilted my ears to catch a few more sounds, many sothings. Which would an Gorou, Hounaida, and…
Sure enough, a sleek body covered in red-orange fur appeared at the top of the stairs before clambering down them and sitting down quite daintily at my feet. I looked down and t Zara the fox’s amber eyes, watching as the adorable critter sniffed at my leg, then leaned around to get a whiff of my tail.
“... that is the calst I’ve ever seen her in the house,” Mariem said, sowhat faintly. “What did your fox do?”
“I have no idea,” I replied with a shrug, casting a glance back up to the top of the stairs, where Hounaida had appeared with Gorou oh so happily bundled up in her arms, his tails wrapped around her waist to not trail on the floor. “Gorou? Mind explaining?”
“Nothing of import,” he replied, showing absolutely no sha at being carried down the stairs in a young girl’s arms. Which, well, given that he let Satsuki’s daughter carry him around as much as she pleased, it wasn’t much of a surprise. Gorou unraveled his tails from Hounaida’s body and wiggled slightly, which left her giggling, but was apparently signal enough to set him down on the floor, where he gently nudged Zara away from . I was expecting so kind of territorial yipping from the red fox, maybe even a full-blown scream, but she just… calmly walked over to sit by Hounaida’s feet? “Pay it no mind.”
“I’ll… take your word for it,” I hedged, turning towards Mariem as her daughter leaned down to pet the fox. “Again, thank you for letting us into your ho. With any luck, I should have everything all set by the beginning of next week.”
“I hope so,” she said with a nod and a smile. “Hounaida? Can you say ‘thank you’ to the nice foxes?”
“Thank you for helping Zara!” she exclaid, a big smile on her face. And much to my surprise, Zara the fox yipped, as if to punctuate Hounaida’s statent.
I blinked, ears rocking back in surprise, and looked down at Gorou in mild suspicion. He gave away nothing, as expected.
We offered a few more perfunctory farewells before leaving the Mouthlaki family ho, and once after putting everything away in the storage compartnt, I fixed Gorou with a stern glare.
“That wasn’t normal red fox behavior,” I stated, implying a question with my observation.
“It was truly a matter of little import,” Gorou said again, flicking an ear dismissively. “I did for the kit what my mother did for . Nothing more.”
“Oh, well that’s—”
Wait. Gorou’s mother, my greatest-grandmother, is a goddess. I stared at him, ears perked straight up in shock.
“Gorou? Gorou, did you just seed a new population of kitsune in the United States?”
The only reply I got was a high-pitched giggle and ears rolled back in amusent. I wanted to sit there and harangue my greatest-grandpa until he gave an actual response because holy shit this was a BIG DEAL, but I didn’t have the ti for that. It was, after all, still a workday.
So instead, I just put my helt back on, started up my bike, pulled out onto the road, and tried to keep my mind off of how Gorou might have just introduced a mystically invasive species to a new country.
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