D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

— Kat —

When the group turned in for dinner Hunter ran off immediately. Kat didn’t catch the excuse that was said too focused on finding the right stuff in her storage ring… but Meg ran off after Hunter right afterwards and based on the sounds in their surroundings was continuing to chase Hunter around despite her complaints.

Kat wasn’t sure how this squared with Meg’s insistence that she lacked a proper way of sticking with the group but Kat had decided this wasn’t her problem.

No, what was her problem was the one that had been bugging her and Lily for some time. What to do about Meg and the slipup they helped induce. Bower was relaxing and probably not all that much help but Kamiko? She was right next to Kat and ready to help with dinner. The perfect excuse. So as Kat brought the food out she whispered, “So… I’m wondering if you can help me and Lily with something,”

“Oh… um… sure?” asked Kamiko very confused. “What do you need?”

“Well it goes like this…” Kat began to summarise the much longer mental discussion she’d been having with Lily earlier. “… and that’s really where we left off. We just don’t know what exactly the best course of action is and I was hoping you might know. Perhaps it’s something that came up in demon school? As silly as that might sound…”

“Oh… um… no not really. Um… like we do know about the demon clans and we learn about a few of them… but like not the specifics. That’s more of an advanced cultural studies unit that I didn’t take… it um… it didn’t seem too important at the time? Sorry…” mumbled Kamiko.

“Hey that’s fine, we were just… pretty lost honestly. Do you have any advice just from… being around more demons in your life?” asked Kat.

Kamiko shook her head, “Um… no. I mean… I… I don’t actually know what my parents would say. They… tended to preach being non-confrontational a lot of the time. Mum regular has to de-escalate things because… well working in the hospital introduces you to a lot of demons that are scared and in pain. Even if they know they’re getting healed…

“So like… um… yeah confronting the issue head on is rarely her suggestion. Um… Dad is a bit more… ’Just go do it!’ in a way… but he’s pretty calm and forgiving. Um… this is… it’s hard. I don’t really understand it either. I think… I think I’m basically with you and Lily. It seems like a silly little thing… and… and I guess I want Hunter to feel valued and safe and be recognised for how cool she is…

“But… but she likes her not name. I… I wonder if Hunter actually likes being called Hunter, or Hunter 23HX443. I mean… it’s… well it’s an angle you didn’t really consider but… but what if for Hunter… her… well it might be wrong to call it a name around her… but it IS her name. I mean… unlike Meg, Hunter has… I think she’s really taken ownership of her name thing.

“I… I don’t know, um… maybe I’m just reaching here but it feels like even if she gets the right to name herself… I feel like she’d pick ’Hunter’ or if that wasn’t allowed she’d go looking through dictionaries for like… another language’s word for ’Hunter’ and picking that. I… I don’t know if it’s a good thing. I… I feel like she might run into the same issue as Sue… where like…

“Like she has… a crisis of identity, I guess? Sue… Sue is a lot younger so maybe Hunter already had hers? And… and instead of deciding she needed to branch out Hunter decided she was fine as she was? I… I don’t really know I’m just guessing here… but… but I don’t think Meg is in the right. Maybe… maybe if she was kinder about Hunter’s mistake.

Intentionally overlooking it or maybe just… thanking her or something? Making it… a… well she turned it into a… a ’one upmanship’ thing. Like… like Hunter’s minor slip up means she was right… but um…

“It wasn’t. Or at least, I don’t think it was. Hunter… Hunter’s a good person and… and while she thinks her clan is in the right… clearly she is at least somewhat fond of Meg… and… I guess she just slipped up this time. I imagine if Meg was… less… Meg about things Hunter might have accepted calling her by her name earlier just to support her… not-quite-friend I guess?

I don’t know them well… so… so as I said before I could be wrong it just… Meg does not make it easy for herself…” Kamiko trailed off a bit at the end, looking around warily as if saying her name so often would summon Meg for the woods.

That was not the case, as she was clearly more interested in chasing Hunter around. As for Kat? Well she just enjoyed the regular sound of chopping vegetables for a bit. When Kamiko started to look a bit worried, Kat paused to give her a quick hug and say, “I’m just thinking about what you said. It was a fairly different perspective and I’m working out what to say,”

Kamiko nodded in acceptance and then they broke the hug to get back to working on dinner. Kat was tempted to poke Lily awake and share what she’d just learned… but that could wait until dinner, something Lily would need to be awake for anyway. So Kat kept thinking about what Kamiko had said, running it over in her head as she chopped.

Really that’s just a hole knew angle. It also makes what Meg is doing with the Lil Sis stuff a lot worse. Which makes me think that Meg is now firmly in the wrong. If Kamiko is right then Hunter isn’t recognising Meg’s choice of name not just because of the clan rules but also because Meg isn’t respecting Hunter’s name choice. Which… hmm…

Not sure what to do with that information. I feel like… shouldn’t they have had a proper conversation about this sort of stuff at some point? Does Hunter think it’s obvious? Hmmm… Hunter did say she wasn’t the best at social interaction so perhaps she doesn’t even realise why she’s so caught up on this issue? It would be nice if I could ask her about it but Meg is sticking to her like glue.

Hmm… hmm… does that mean I just have to put this on the backburner? Let things work themselves out?

That feels… wrong. I want to help, and with Kamiko’s added perspective I’m sure we could help things at least a bit. Even if they don’t suddenly become friends they should be able to understand each other better… I hope. I really don’t know how to subtly fix things. I’m also not sure I can just outright say it because I don’t know if that would work.

Surely other people have tried pointing it out before.

“I think you might be right… or at least there’s something to it. The worry I have is if Hunter would notice the issue or not. Err… I mean I’m not sure if Hunter consciously realises the issue. If you’re right though, it puts Meg firmly in the wrong,” said Kat.

“Oh… I… I don’t know if I want that sort of pressure. I mean… I don’t like Meg but… hmm… no well… hmmm… I’ll… I’ll think about that part a bit more. As for if Hunter has noticed… I would have to think so right? I mean… she’s a lot older then us… so surely she’d have the time to work it out…” offered Kamiko.

“The time perhaps, but what about the prompting? If she’s never looked at it that way perhaps, she doesn’t know. I mean, even between Lily and I we didn’t come up with anything like that. Not sure why, I mean, Hunter is a name some people have back home. It doesn’t mean anything special back there but it’s not too strange. So why didn’t we see it?” asked Kat.

“Maybe you… not forgot because you said your memory is just about perfect… but suppressed the 23HX443 part of her name? I… I don’t know about you but maybe you just recognise her as ’Hunter’ in your head already? I… It’s just a guess?” offered Kamiko.

“No… no it’s a good guess. It’s hard to say how true it is, but it’s a very good guess. You’re quite good at coming up with those, you’re clearly paying more attention to this sort of stuff then I am,” said Kat.

“Oh… no… I mean… you already had lots of ideas about Hunter so I just had to think of new ones… and I mean… my guess about Hunter could be wrong. I was just thinking about nicknames and how they can become more like your real name over time… especially with Meg wanting to be Meg, even though she clearly had to chose both Meg and Meghera. Which… I don’t know is that weird?

Did she chose Meghera and have someone else give her a nickname? I… I don’t know if she has other… I don’t want to say Hunter is a friend… but friends you know?” said Kamiko.

“Hmm…” mumbled Kat. “More to think on I guess,”