Page 68 of The Deer and the Dragon
She guffawed. “It’s nighttime, dumbass.”
“Hey!” I grumbled. “It was daytime when we left Earth. Or is this not Earth? Oh my god, I’m getting a headache.”
She shook her head, damp silver and copper tendrils reflecting the firelight. Even the little white freckles were brighter somehow as they caught in the flame. “Time moves differently in every realm. Next one.”
“Fine,” I sighed. “Electricity?”
She frowned. “What’s the question?”
“I…I just didn’t expect…”
“Oh! Yeah, that’s a really stupid question too. Oh my god, Marlow. We’re immortal beings, and you think we want to stay in the stone ages? Life is long! When we see something nifty, we incorporate it. You humans have decent ideas sometimes. Half these demons are traditionalists. You could probably pop next door and find someone sitting in the dark who only makes his calls through silver bowls of fresh goat blood. Life, joy, and adaptability all go hand in hand.”
“Then why do you come to the mortal realm to watch TV?”
She giggled into the bright-emerald drink. “You think we’re going to debase ourselves by doing the dumb shit you do on your shows? No, that’s uniquely human. It’s marvelous. I hope people never stop. Okay, so, we covered modernity, hopefully? I knew some of your questions were going to be brick-brained. I think that earned me at least two in return.”
“Fine,” I grumbled.
She flashed me her most dazzling smile. “On a scale from one to ten, how breathtaking am I?”
I gave her my most deadpan stare. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Is that because I’m an eleven?” she asked.
I wanted to fire back with something clever, but it was anight for transparency. “Honestly? You’re gorgeous.”
She wiggled with delight.
“But you’re also an enigma. You are equal parts king and clown.”
It was her turn to interject. “Hey!”
I made a show of relaxing into my chair. “I’m just shooting you straight. You have no respect for anything, you have the taste buds of a four-year-old, you’ve dated an angel, apparently you seem to have no problem taking a stand against Heaven, you—”
“I get it. I’m mysterious and cool. But mostly I’m pretty. Now, I had another. Try to make your answer interesting.”
I wondered if she was still being playful or if something I’d said had truly struck a nerve. I looked into my bubbles and waited.
“Caliban.”
My eyes shot up. I looked from left to right, panicked that someone might overhear.
Fauna was unbothered by the disinterested crowd of distant patrons. She set down her drink and looked at me seriously. “You didn’t even believe in him. Now you’re on this vigilante mission to find him. Why?”
I made a weak attempt at deflecting. “You mean other than because he’s even hotter than you?”
“Beauty is subjective,” she mused, “but yes, I’ve heard he’s a fox.”
Fox.The word set me on edge. It was like swallowing a burning coal. It scalded going down as I considered her question, then sat heavily in my stomach, roasting me from the inside out. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Is it cliché to say ‘the beginning’?”
One corner of my mouth flicked upward for the barest of moments, eyes returning to watch the slow climb as carbonation escaped my beer and popped. “Yes,” I said quietly. The writer in me was mildly amused, but the wounded child in me was stronger. “Because he’s the only person who’s evertruly seen me. And fuck, I’ve been so madly in love with him, even when I didn’t think he was real. I’ve fought it so goddamn hard. To learn I could have given in long ago? That I didn’t have to make my life this difficult? It’s torture.”
Copper waves tumbled to the side as she tilted her head. “You have friends. You’ve dated. It’s not like you’re alone.”
I shook my head. “It’s not like that. He understands me so well that it was easy for me to convince myself that hewasa projection of my subconscious. He gets my sense of humor. He’s so fucking clever. But I thought he was the part of me that loved myself, you know? Like, my self-loathing was so palpable that I had to create an external figure that didn’t judge me, that helped me think through things without making me feel bad about myself. He was the part of me—well, what I believed was the part of me—that thought I was worth keeping alive. And he did.”
