As Gillie ruffled the fur of Fox's cubs, Elise's still clung to the purple lupman teen with
Mary doing much the same. He didn't look relieved so much as just happy to have someone
help him carry the burden. Ulysses knew that he and the leoman cubs weren't really family.
'But that doesn't matter, Beta-Fran and Beta-Darla aren't leoman, and they're part of Chief
Gillie's police.... And Chief Gillie cares about them as if they were pride mates.'
While Ulysses knew it was lupman tradition to make multiple mates, what history he had
read implied this had come about, or rather, held onto out of the lupman's old habits of
fights for rank among the different levels of the pack, civil wars BETWEEN different pack
branches, and of course wars with humans who had seemed to be lupmans direct
competition.
For this reason, Ulysses wondered if the whole multiple mates thing had become simply
outdated. After all, the ranking system was something Alpha-Jensen wanted to do away
with (which prickled some packmates the wrong way as it was).
Gillie thought as the four dirty orange cubs hugged her as if she was a beloved aunt. 'I
wonder if I should have the hypnosis done early... I wonder if I can take all of this before
the curse is killed... but even if I'm hypnotized to think that my memories of being human
and a man are all just a dream, the curse will still be there for me to see reality when it
changes. So I'll be back to be confused, freaked out, and likely question if my 'dreams'
were really dreams... sigh, I had just best wait until the curse is taken out of commission.'
Any other thoughts Gillie had on the subject were distracted when the one with wilder fur
than the rest began to tickle her.
+++++++
'I can't feel the activities or spread of the leoman reality ripples directly,' Glass Marie
thought, 'I can only feel it through those who had been effected by the game or Kurse in of
itself.
'That means that it's become independent of the curse, like the magic members of the Pack
and Pride possess. It's functioning under it's own power, it's no longer tied to the curse,
it's been accepted as part of reality.' Of course this particular thing accepted by reality was
a reality warping cascade effect that Brian and Felicity hadn't realized the full implications
of, not thinking that there was more than one type of love in the world. 'Even if the curse
is finally destroyed, it won't stop the spread. No more than the destruction of the curse will
kill me or anyone else.'
"How the bloody hades did they managed to get into the VATICAN?" Betty asked the one to
ask inconsistencies related to cause and effect. As Lawrence pointed out questions related
to history and culture. And as Maddex pointed out just how awful the witches really were.
Lilly and Casandra seemed interested in pretty random questions. Alice, Samantha, and
Abbey had become the most silent observers almost, just listening to the story politely.
Now that they had found Samantha and found that she was alright, their drive from that
morning was pretty much gone and were now willing to simply listen to the fascinating
forgotten history that Glass Marie was willing to share.
"I mean," Betty continued, "I doubt they would have just been let in tra-la-a."
Glass Marie spoke, "Now that is rather interesting. It's actually rather simple... they said
they were Kathrine's family... the guard present happened to be a Leoman, who after
Marie's several comings and goings over the years had picked up the scent of, and knew
they were being honest.
"Kathrine also knew she'd have to go to confession for the lies she had just told her sisters
in order to keep cover. Even if they believed her about the witches, there no way they'd
ever let go engage in such a task. Going to the New World itself was a scary quest for her
to undertake as it was."
"ANd here I thought it would have something to do with Rachel's 'interesting life' "
Lawrence said.
"No, but it was no joke to say that Rachel had lived a very interesting life, perhaps the
reason that Mary out paced her four to one. Remember that the felman had gender
equality long before lupman, humans, or even leoman. So among her own kind at least,
Rachel was seen as an equal. She of course had the problem like any felman of the time of
being considered 'a inferior version' of a leoman (by everyone except the leomans believe it
or not). But perhaps that makes her achievements even more fantastic with the roadblocks
she faced."