Chapter 816: Chapter 816 When you can’t Decide. Procrastinate!
After the meal, Belle quickly encouraged them to turn in. It wasn’t entirely through words, but because she had a shower and then invited the girls back to her office. When they arrived, Belle turned off the light and flopped down on her own mattress. Didn’t even give them time to choose a chair. Luckily they both have exceptional night vision so just a slight application of demonic fire for light was more than enough to look around. Once the pair was settled, mental conversation was considered... but dismissed. Despite how unlikely it would be, Kat and Lily couldn’t shake the idea that Belle would start clicking her fingers again to interrupt them even while she slept.
The next morning Belle was up first. Kat and Lily awoke to the sound of her opening the door and heading out. Kat followed quickly with Lily staying tucked into her arms and heading back to sleep. Belle was much quieter come morning. She simply went about her duties and let Kat follow along. For breakfast, she went to another warehouse and grabbed a big wheel of cheese that was already missing a few slices. With that, she headed back to the table and ate cheese, crackers, and a bit of the smoky meat.
Lily accepted a few chunks of meat while Kat took their share of crackers. They might have been super dry and hard but Kat had enough strength in her jaws to deal with the latter and didn’t mind the first. After the food was eaten Belle said, “If you need anything else from me you can find me in my office. I’ll leave a note for Stevon,” and left.
The pair watched Belle leave, not really sure what to say. They’d thanked her for letting them stay earlier... but as to what else they could have said... well they just didn’t know. What was likely to happen with Gaston was rather up in the air and neither were keen to make promises they couldn’t keep.
Now that Belle was gone, Kat took the chair that was now free and ignored the fact it didn’t fit her wings all that well. “Right. Well... what’s the plan Lily?”
Lily glanced at the chair Kat had chosen and made the decision to just stick to her Memphis form. [I don’t know. We’ve pretty much done everything that we’ve asked now. ‘Gender and Status’ wasn’t hard. Jara was pretty sure it was a guy and he was dead. We got confirmation of that from the orphanage. As for chances. We know that she’s still hurting because she hasn’t stopped her workaholic tendencies but everyone who knows her like Belle and Theresa seem to think she won’t help herself.]
[That’s not even getting into the fact we’ve already provided him with advice. I worry that we might have already done everything required of us and more. Sure we could see Apep and give him that information but what happens if we do? Will we get sent away immediately?]
.....
*I don’t know and it’s like I said before I don’t know that I want to ask either in case D.E.M.O.N.S thinks we’re getting funny ideas. I never really though about what would happen if we keep helping beyond what we’ve been paid for. Sure that sort of happened with Thyme and the Tournament stuff but the first time around it was more a ‘do what you want’ and I WANTED to try properly. I wasn’t doing anything else.
This though. We specifically agreed to ‘Gender, status, Apep’s chances, and a bit of further advice’. Depending on how you count things we might be able to stick around to try and give further advice all the way up till the moment he just asks her out... but then what? Do we just leave? We could theoretically wrap things up today in just a few hours...
But I’m interested in seeing if we can solve everything with Gaston. I’m interested in talking to Marem just to see what she has to say about the whole thing. If we could go there right now I definitely would. I just wish Zuhra either had more friends we could get a hold of or I thought it was likely that Jara knows where Marem lives. I doubt it though.*
[Yeah I doubt it too. If Jara knew anything about her we’d have heard about her when we visited the first time. At best she might know that Zuhra has a friend in some section of the city but I’m not sure how helpful that will be. We’d probably have a better chance to finding Marem’s husband but nobody told us his damned name. So we’d have to go to his workplace, cause a bunch of issues asking around for which of them were married to Marem, and then convince them to bring us to meet her after confronting him at work. Not only is that rude, we don’t have any way to pay for his time or services. Something that he might ask for.]
*Ugh. I didn’t think about the payment issue. I’d be pretty annoyed if we managed to find his office, find out who he is, and then be told that he can’t help us during work hours so we’ll have to wait or pay him. Actually... don’t they move around though? For work and what not? They’re a bit like accountants so I can’t imagine they actually do much work in their own office. Too easy to lose secrets that way or have things copied down without permission. So if we went that route we’d just be running around town for ages.*
[You make a compelling and rather annoying point. We basically have to either admit things to Zuhra and then look for Marem, or we just go to Apep. Did... hmm... we didn’t Contractually agree to not tell Zuhra right?]
*No we didn’t. Let me just... hmm... no I think it was just us agreeing that going straight to Zuhra might not be the best idea. Nothing really preventing us from talking to her now. Which... hmm. Might be best to go to Jara, explain that we think it’s fine to just talk to Zuhra, or if Zuhra’s around ‘the person in question’ about the whole thing and explain where we are. I mean. It would certainly tell us what Apep’s chances were wouldn’t it?*
[Yeah but Zuhra can lie even to herself. I wouldn’t put it past her to say she wasn’t interested or that Apep could find someone better, or whatever else she wants to say just to keep being miserable. Though... hmm... I wonder if she has OCD?]
*I don’t see how that matters here.*
[I think it would let us make an important distinction. Does she feel compelled to clean things, or is it just that when she’s stressed the thing she defaults to is cleaning. I would bet a week’s worth of hugs that she’s depressed. What I want to know is if her depression makes her OCD worse requiring her to clean everything constantly... or if she defaults to cleaning because coming from an orphanage has given her the impression that everything can always be more clean, or that cleaning is a job nobody else likes so it’s always available or something.]
*I’m still not entirely sure why that matters Lily...*
[Gah. Ok. I think that it would help us determine how much and what sort of help she needs. If she has OCD, then Apep needs to be aware of that and act accordingly. If she doesn’t, and isn’t getting any better by herself, Apep probably needs to be a bit more... I don’t want to say aggressive with his affections... perhaps more affirming? Make it routinely known that she’s loved, that it’s still possible for someone to love her that sort of thing.]
*Do you think that’s likely to be an issue? Surely she’s aware that she’s still attractive right? I mean... she is attractive right?*
[I feel like that has to be a trick question...]
*Nope. I swear. Completely serious. Though I at least understand why it could be construed as a trap, I can still feel your emotions. So feel free to answer honestly*.
[Yeah... still feels like a trap to answer that but yes she is attractive. Not really to my taste but if I didn’t have anyone I liked and she asked me out I’d have agreed to see how things worked pretty readily. Top marks for her eyes as well. I’d probably say they’re her best feature.]
*Better than mine?* Asked Kat with genuine curiosity.
Lily internally sighed. [Dammit. I almost wish I couldn’t feel how genuine that question is. No, your eyes are better to me but I am immensely biased. I’d probably choose basically all of your features over someone else’s because they’re yours Kat. I bet if I got Sue to strip naked in front of Apep and asked him who the most attractive women he’d ever seen was he’d still say Zuhra. Well, after he picked his jaw up off the floor.]
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