Charrnidia Townsed opened the door to her house, and strode in, mind busily going over all the little details that would occupy any high school girl in the Enclave. She might be a social outcast at times because of her red eyes and "crossbreed" heritage, but she still had lots of stuff to attend to. There never seemed to be enough time for everything, either. She walked into the living room, and started talking to her father before she even looked around.

"Hi, Dad, I'm home-- I'm going to need to be home late tomorrow, though, we've got an after-school meeting of...." She stopped and her eyes widened as she saw not one person, but three. "What is she doing here??"

Her father laughed almost nervously. "Charr, this is Adept Lilith from the eastern fur country. Oh, and her translater, Saeko." This with a nod towards the male fox sitting on the couch beside Lilith.

"I know who she is, dad, " Charr said with obvious patience. "I saw her give her talk at school today about what things are like over there. But why is she here?"

"Oh, well, the authorities thought it would be nice to have the Adept stay with various families to get to know how we live here..."

"No, to save on hotel bills. " She scowled at Lilith, whose mild expression hadn't changed a whisker in all this time. "I simply won't have it! I do not want a barbarian in our house, no matter how noble she acts! I'm not going to sit around and worry about whether or not her wild stories about fireballs are true and whether she's going to burn the house down in her sleep or something. Get rid of her."

Phillip Townsed was rather upset. "I'm afraid you've been overruled on this one, honey. But even if her presence hadn't been demanded by people higher than you or me, I would not just let you toss a guest out of our house."

Lilith turned to Saeko and asked something. Charr couldn't understand a word- if you could call what she was doing words. Sounds more like a bunch of wild foxes than an ordinary fur. That's what you get with wild furs, I guess. Hisses and growls instead of nicely rounded vowels, she thought contemptuously. The frontal assault having failed, she was going to have to do something else to get rid of this interloper.

Saeko had answered Lilith, and after a short conversations, he told Charr, "The Adept wishes to know if you want to physically force her from the house."

Charr's indignation faded a bit, replaced by defensiveness. "Oh come on, I'm not going to just shove her out the door. Ok, I could turn her into mincemeat with my bare hands if I wanted to, but I don't just go around doing that for the fun of it." More's the pity she added a touch sulkily to herself.

After another short hissing session, Saeko stated, "The Adept has decided to take your challenge."

Charr stared at Lilith. A vixen about her height- and my blood red eyes- who seemed to be actually amused with Charr's statement! Her small smile was a definite challenge, Charr could see that. Ok, you asked for it! Charr returned both the smile and the challenge. "Good. Time and place is now and here. No fancy staffs allowed." she added, motioning to the gray shaft, topped by an amber ball which the barbarian carried.

Saeko translated. Lilith nodded and set the shaft aside as she stood up. The ball seemed to glow brighter for a second, but she casually stroked it with her right hand and the glow was gone.

"Charr!" her father gasped. "Have you lost your mind? You don't attack guests, either! I didn't teach you what you know just to see you sink below the level of the 'barbarians' you seem to so despise!"

"Oh, relax, dad, I'm not going to kill her. But taking her down is definitely in order. This one is just too cocksure she knows it all!" Charr failed to see the bemused expression both her father and Saeko got when she said that. She was too busy concentrating on the opponent. Forces flowed in her mind, her chi gathered itself in the proper place, all angles were perfect.

She lashed out with her right foot towards Lilith's left knee. It wasn't there anymore, but as Lilith spun to one side, Charr's leg hooked that way to come scything over to her left. Lilith's fist shot toward Charr's chest, spoiling Charr's aim for her legs as she dropped back. A quarter circle had been turned as the opponents drew back. She noticed her father in the back of her mind from where he sat behind Lilith.

This time she charged headfirst, but instead of trying to counter any of the threats directly, Lilith dropped to her right. In a quick sidekick, Charr's left foot snapped toward Lilith's chest, catching her in the ribs. Lilith spun backwards and to the floor, but kept rolling and as Charr sprang forward to take her down, Lilith reversed her turn and came up underneath Charr. A split second later Charr was instinctively throwing her arms above her head to bounce off the ceiling. As she fell forward, Lilith's grip changed to accelerate her dive, but she stopped that nonsense by quickly snapping her arms around Lilith's thighs.

Before Lilith could recover from that sudden pressure, Charr got what she wanted- a headlock with her legs. She applied pressure, but it was a second or two before she felt Lilith's legs buckling. As they fell, Lilith came down on top- or was going to. A midair flip- helped by a tail shift- changed that.

She was off the floor almost before she hit, and was off Lilith and spinning around a split second afterwards. She had almost expected to see Lilith trying to come up behind her, but she was still stretched out cold on the floor. Charr grinned and knelt to bring her to, but the grin faded as she realized that Lilith wasn't breathing.

Both her father and Saeko erupted in a babble of conversation, and Charr gave up trying to figure out who was saying what. Her father was as angry as she'd ever seen him, Saeko she didn't know but it took no genius to see that he was upset, too. Just before they could reach Lilith, though, she started breathing again and sat up. Charr didn't have time to be relieved before her father grabbed her by the shoulder, hauled her to her feet, and told her to go fix supper, that he'd deal with her later. She affected a sulky look on her way out, but in truth she was a little scared. Getting supper suddenly sounded like a great idea. After her shakes subsided, she was amazed at her own foolishness. Just why had she acted so dumb? She resolved that no matter what her father prescribed, he wouldn't get any backtalk.

Supper was a miserable affair. The cooking was Charr's best, but she felt isolated, partly because of her own low feelings, and partly because everyone else was speaking that hissing stuff. She hadn't realized that her father knew it, too, although since he had been in Intelligence it made sense. No telling where he'd been during those years he had been gone from town. Lilith apparently didn't hold any grudges. She smiled at Charr and seemed friendly enough, although she didn't have Saeko tell her anything. Not that Charr wanted to hear anything. She avoided Lilith's eyes all during the meal. Well, she avoided everyone's notice, if she was honest with herself. After supper, she braced herself for her father's wrath. He didn't get angry often, and she usually could avoid any trouble before it started, but she knew she'd done wrong this time and didn't even have the heart to defend herself. But her father simply told her to make sure she got the dishes done, and to not stay up late. The others went back into the living room to talk, Lilith giving her a friendly nod. Charr wasn't sure which was worse. Having her father punish her, or not.

Later that evening, Charr sat glumly in her room, looking at her latest project and trying to summon the enthusiasm to work on it. But even concentration was failing her. She sighed. Face it. All I really want out of life is to be left alone. I don't really like to humiliate someone, whether they deserve it or not.

Someone knocked on her open door, and a strange voice asked politely, "May I come in?"

She jumped, and stared at the stranger. "S-s-sure," she stammered. Then she blurted, "I didn't know you could talk!" A quiet descended as Lilith smiled gently and crossed to the bed to sit down. Charr suddenly blushed as she realized how that might have sounded. I guess she can talk, at that, it just isn't in our language- well it WASN'T, I thought???

"I'm sorry for intruding, but I owe you some explanations, " was the gentle response. "Not the least of which involves letting you know I can talk." she added wryly.

Charr looked a little guilty. "I'm sorry, too. I really owe you an apology for acting the way I did."

"Your offer is appreciated, Charr, but you might want to wait on that."

"No, I don't. I didn't just behave rudely, I simply lost my temper and I didn't even need to."

"And I didn't need to accept your challenge, but I did- in fact, I was the one who treated it as a challenge, and maneuvered you into accepting it."

Charr blinked.

"Remember, I could understand what you were saying from the start. I could see that you wanted me out, but I also knew that your talk about turning me into mincemeat- whatever that is- was more observation than threat. I chose to misinterpret it as a challenge so that we could have that little match."

Charr turned cold inside. This vixen had almost signed her own death warrant simply out of curiosity to see what Charr could do. "I could have killed you, " she breathed. "Shaveitall, I almost did!"

This time, Lilith grinned. "Actually, you didn't even come close, although I understand my little trick of not breathing managed to scare everyone."

Charr was unconvinced, but decided to drop it.

"Oh, another thing. I told your father what I just told you, and convinced him to let me handle this instead of him. I told him you were sorry for what you'd done, and he had to admit that your behaviour did seem repentant."

Charr frowned. "I can take care of myself, you didn't have to do that." Then her curiosity won out. "Just how did you convince him anyway? I've never seen him that mad."

"Actually, I did have to do that, since it was my responsibility that the whole thing started. Once I got him to agree that I owed you an apology, he found it a bit awkward to still insist you were the cause of the whole thing."

Once Charr wrapped her mind around that, she almost laughed. "And I thought I was good at getting what I wanted out of him. You didn't even meet him until today, and already you know how to change him in midstream."

Lilith did laugh at that. "Not in midstream, maybe, but certainly a bit of influence." She stood up and came over to Charr's desk. "If I could ask, what is this?" She picked up the statue that Charr had been staring at, and turned it in admiring paws.

"Oh, nothing. Just a hobby I engage in when I want time to think." Charr waved to the shelf of a half a dozen or so figures that had been completed. "They call them Osik statues. The challenge is in painting them so that the details become as lifelike as possible."

Lilith frowned slightly, looking at Charr's collection of tools and back at the statue. "What kind of metal is this?"

"Pewter." Lilith stared at her tools and Charr laughed. "Yeah, that's part of the challenge. Your tools that you use to apply the paint are harder than the statue itself, so you can add textures and remodeling to suit you- or turn it into a jumbled mess if you don't watch it."

"Yes, that would take a lot of concentration and skill. You've done well."

Charr blushed. "Actually, you have to put several coats of paint on, then you dig into them to create both texture and underlying color tints." Lilith nodded, putting down the statue of the Fox fur warrior in uniform, and looking at the completed works more closely. "Guess which one was the hardest to do." Charr invited.

After a rapid look, Lilith picked out a statue of a rat fur with a sword for a closer look. "This one." she replied.

Charr was surprised. "But that one is all black- I mean, black fur, black uniform, eyes, everything."

Lilith nodded. "That's why it is so hard. If you have a lot of different colors, it's easy to create nice textures, but when it's all black like this it threatens to turn into a lump of coal. You've not just painted it black, you've given it slightly different shades of black, and the textures accentuate it perfectly."

"Wow." Charr felt both proud and deflated. Her lecture had been spoiled, but she suddenly realized that for the first time someone truly appreciated what she'd done with that piece. "I don't think anyone ever saw that for what it was before."

"Most people see only what they expect to see," was the reply. "Subtlety is lost on them."

"You must have a graduate degree in it."

"If so, then I have been doing post-graduate work these past few months." Lilith sighed. "And it's been black on black on black, too," she muttered to herself.

Charr shook her head. "I think you should have tried a little of that subtlety with Scythe this afternoon. He really embarrassed you, you know that?"

"Scythe?"

"Yeah, the big wolf fur that demanded to know if you could really do magic."

Lilith smiled. "Yes, everyone was left thinking he'd won, weren't they."

Charr snorted. "No thinking to it. You didn't even try to reply to him, just asked for the next question. What good is subtlety if you lose?"

Lilith shrugged. "You won the little match that we had. Didn't you?"

Charr nodded, then looked thoughtful. "Well, no, I don't know if I did."

Lilith smiled. "No, you won all right. It was just that after you won you realized that winning it didn't really get you what you wanted."

Charr grinned ruefully. "You are so right. I felt awful. I guess I just wanted you to leave, but you sort of sidetracked me."

Lilith laughed. "I haven't heard that word sidetracked before, but I think I agree with your point. And speaking of leaving, I guess I need to get to my own bed." She stood to leave.

As she reached the door, Charr's grin faded a bit and she admitted, "I don't think I do want you to leave now."

Lilith turned. "Thank you, Charr. I really do appreciate that. There haven't been many here who honestly said that to me."

Charr's eyes widened in understanding, then she stood up. "I tell you what- would you like me to show you how to do what I did?"

Lilith smiled widely. "I'd love it," she admitted.

Charr laughed. "Then come on, let's go downstairs to the practice room and I'll have you a black belt in no time!"

As the laughter from both Charr and Lilith faded down the hall with them, Charr realized that she was going to be doing almost the same exact thing as last time- and this time, it would be fun instead of humiliating.