Date with Rot

Ramsey brought Rot to one of his favourite cafes down by the waterfront. It wasn't a very big place, just a few tables, and the serving was all done by robots, though there worked one human behind the counter who greeted customers and took orders. Ramsey ordered some pastry while rot sat down by one of the tables. He put down a brown cake in front of rot.
“It's a date cake.” he smiled blushing. “I thought I could be the one giving a you date instead.” Then he scratched the back of his head. “But if you don't like it we could switch of course.”
“Haha, no I appreciate it!” Rot answered smiling.
She put down the cat transport cage they picked up on the way, she had figured it might raise a few eyebrows if you walked into a cafe with a demon blood fox kit in your arms. Kit was sound asleep inside.
“You think she's okay in there?” Ramsey asked uncertain and leaned to the side to look at the cage. He had never seen a shifter being transported in animal cages unless they were criminals or suspects in chokers.
“If she weren’t fine you would hear it.” Rot said reassuring. “If we are lucky she might sleep a bit longer.”
“What if she shifts while she's in there?”
“I don't think that will happen. Did you ever shift as a pup?”
“No but I didn't know how to until a few months ago…” Ramsey said like he was a big failure.
“Well, neither does she. She is only a few days old. It is pretty rare that a shifter learns how to without someone telling them they can.”
“I guess… so does this happen often? I mean, people asking you for dates?”
“It happened a lot more often when I was younger. People liked to trick their friends into dating me. Because of how I look you see. But it never bothered me much. I like to prank people too, so I often had them take me on the most ridiculous ventures.”
“What did you do?” Ramsey giggled.
“Once I had one poor sod take me to a fancy masquerade ball, and I did everything in my power to embarrass him in front of human high society!” Rot said. “Another time I wanted to see the sunset on top of one of the Gallas vault cliffs and had my date carry a ridiculous amount of picnic food up there for me. It was a good date; in the end I think even he enjoyed the sunset.”
“And this was all lost bets? I bet the winner was the disappointed one since they did not get to eat picnic there.”
“Haha, I guess you are right. Sometimes losing can be a good thing.”
“I'm glad I lost, it means we can be here, and nobody died.” Ramsey smiled and stuffed his face with some chocolate cake.
“Nobody died? Geeze kid, seems this bet was weird in more ways than one.”
“I don't know, it was my first bet. I didn't really want to win.”
“Well I wouldn't bet with whoever you were betting with again. It is pretty mean to trick someone into a bet when they don't know what it will entail.”
“Magnesium? I think it's fine. She can be harsh at people she doesn’t like. But I don't think she had and bad intentions.” Ramsey smiled. “Well, not towards me at least. Rather towards the ones we were betting about.”
“I can think of a few people Magnesium doesn't like… Strange for her to bet against them dying.”
“Heh…” Ramsey scratched the back of his head. “Considering what I heard about it so far I think she wouldn't mind losing that bet. At least if it was the right person who died.”
Rot sighed. “Isn’t it strange, that we want to kill each other so badly? Did you know the most common cause of death among shifters is murder? Right after violence that went too far on accident.”
“She told me that, that's why she thought she would win.” Ramsey laughed. “It makes no sense. Well, why do we want to kill one another so badly? What makes murder the reason we die?” Ramsey asked interested but concerned.
“Surely you’ve heard the lectures ‘We were made that way’ and ‘It is programmed into us, nothing can be done about it’ and all that crap. I say something can be done. We built a society, gods damn it, that isn't something you can do if everybody murders each other all the time. We don't have to be what we were made to be.”
“So you don't believe in the common enemy theory? Shrapnel told me about it. If there's a common enemy much stronger other brawls can be put aside to fight the bigger threat.”
“Nell is a sweet guy, but he believes the worst about everyone. That includes thinking a free for all murder brawl is just around the corner.”
“So you think we could've stopped the war even if the gods didn't interfered to kill us?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there. From what I’ve been told I think the gods might have just as well killed us for stopping the war as for continuing it. Who knows?”
“What if the gods never intervened? Maybe we did stop it by ourselves?”
“Now you are thinking on your own! Though these are discussions that can't be held in any company. Especially not in times like these.”
“Rot… which side are you on?” Ramsey quickly added. “I'm just curious. I'm not trying to rat you our or anything. It's just… I've been thinking a lot about it lately. Nobody seems to know where they're at. I'm new to all this society, humans and everything, and people is telling me it's all falling apart.”
“Hm…” Rot took a long sip out of her coffee cup.
“Someone even told me to go back to the forest while I remember what it's like to live as an animal.”
“It is not bad advice, you should treasure your childhood, but you should also know when it’s time to grow up and act like an adult. And I’m afraid you’ve come to the society in a time when adults are needed.” Rot made a short pause. “If you still feel you need to be a child a while longer you should leave now, before everything explodes. Otherwise I think you should stick by whatever friends you’ve made here and listen to their advice.” Rot looked at him seriously. “You can go back with me and Kit.”
“No, I'm not going to hide! I promised to protect my friends!” Ramsey exclaimed. “But… I'm not sure how, some i of the friends I made since I got here have left for the rebels. The others fight the rebels. Reed told me to use my own head. But I don’t know how to know if I made the right decision.”
“Those who never doubt themselves is the ones you should be wary about.”
“You give me such cryptic answers.”
“Look at Maxine, she never doubts a single thing she does, and she is not what I would call a good person. You on the other hand considers both the wellbeing of your allies and enemies. That is how you aspire to become the best version of you”
“She told me that's one of my biggest weaknesses. I ask my opponent if they're okay every time I hit them on their head.”
“In battle you can’t do that. Maxine thinks battle as the single solution to everything. Not everything is a battle. Sometime the battle will end, and then you should ask your opponent if they are ok, or they might start another one.”
Ramsey sighed. “Everybody gives me such different advices. Not even Reed and Shrapnel tell me the same thing. ‘Don't listen to Reed he's an idiot’ and Reed tells the different, ‘Don't listen to Nell, he has never seen the real world outside his books’.”
Rot laughed. “At least they agree on something, that you should not listen to the other!”
“It's all so confusing!”
“I don’t think you should worry as much as you do. You are a smart kid; I think deep down you already know the answers. Just focus a little bit more on that and a little bit less on trying to please others.”
“I guess your right…” Ramsey sighed. “In a way it was easier when I trained against Delmar. He just told me what I thought about instead of trying to tell me what I should think.”
“You trained against him?!” Rot did little to hide her disgust for Delmar.
“Yes.” Ramsey said a bit taken back by her reaction. “Reed was keeping him under surveillance while training me.”
“I can’t believe they’d let a child fight a child murderer. This is how we get who we are, not by some divine intervention.”
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you.” Ramsey excused himself.
“I’m not upset with you Ramsey, I’m upset with… well, society. And Delmar of course.”
“He didn't do anything to hurt me! First time we met he was out to kill me. But he's changed since that. I mean if even Reed can consider him a friend and the council give him medals of honour then he must've changed. I think he's all about how you treat him. Kind of like a reflection. If you treat him like a child murderer, then he will murder children. And if you treat him like an enemy he will do his very best to be the worst enemy you've seen. But if you treat him with respect hell do the same to you and if you treat him like a hero I'll bet he's going to do his very best to be one as well. Unfortunately I think the society met him with disrespect when he was young and then it all spiralled downwards.”
“A good reason to be angry perhaps, but not a good reason to attack and kill those who had nothing to do with it. Children no less.”
“No, I'm not defending his actions. I'm just saying maybe we should consider why an enemy is an enemy. If wrongs can be made right then maybe we don't need to fight a war about it? And if we stop treating Delmar like a child murderer and an enemy, but a friend and a hero maybe that's what he’ll become?”
“So you don’t think people should be held responsible or punished for their past actions?”
“Isn't that how wars are started? Maybe it can be sorted out before it gets to that if we can just keep a civilized conversation about is first?”
“One madman murdering children is not how wars are started. Wars tend to be much more… complicated. Didn’t Shrapnel have you read all his dull books?”
“Lots of them. But someone also told me to use my own head. Why would you say this conflict started? Why would you say is the reason it keeps going on?”
“Ah, I think rather this is one of the conflicts that have never ended; Who will decide how we live our lives. The energy shifters have managed to stay in power for a long time, but it’s not always they agree on everything either. Just look at Chemical.”
“Chemical? What do you mean?” Ramsey asked surprised.
“The old Chemical lead a rebellion trying to take power for himself. He lost, but that doesn't mean there aren't still people today who think his views was right.”
“Man,” Ramsey sighed. “I didn't think it had to be so rooted into our history. How are we going to be able to change if we never die? My pack has this saying. A conflict never lives longer than the people willing to fight. Eventually they'll die and the conflict with them. A bad pack leader is not eternal, sooner or later he grows old and then anyone can take his place.”
“Do you know how old Gravity is?”
“No?” Ramsey said surprised. Then he looked a bit ashamed. “I barely know what he does… all the other council members have defined responsibilities. But Gravity, is just Gravity. Black Hole claimed he's our king, but I never heard any loyalist say that…”
“King is not entirely wrong, but I think your pack leader analogy fits better. The point is, Gravity have lived ever since War at the beginning of time, and he will continue to live unless someone kills him. And there are very few who could do that, and even fewer who would risk going toe to toe with him.”
“So you're saying we're stuck with a bad pack leader who will never grow old and die?”
“Do you think Gravity is a bad leader?”
“I don’t know…”
“Then my advice to you is; go back to the forest and wait for all of this to blow over, then try to build a life in whatever society comes after.”
The conversation was interrupted by a sound that sounded like distant thunder, but much louder. Chocked they both look towards the direction of the sound to find a huge black smoke pillar rising above the shifter district.
Rot immediately opened the animal cage and brought out Kit, who made a surprised sound from being woken so abruptly. Then Rot shifted into a fox and grabbed Kit with her mouth. She looked at Ramsey, as if urging him to follow her, but Ramsey just smiled at her, his mind was set. Rot turned away and started running, she soon disappeared among the legs of the agitated crowd, nobody noticed her as everybody's eyes were on the burning mountain.