Catalina

Full-moon was different, this month. Grant was talking about Catalina Island as a great place for honeymooners. I think I'd heard the name before but just vaguely assumed that anything that near LA would be either bleak rock or packed with people.

After Demetria told me that Old Snaky wouldn't be a danger to Erynne this month I smoked over and checked the island out. That is a nice place! The clincher was that I bumped into a Kih demon who told me there's a safe portal in from there. I've got a portal to Kih on CDR. Nice easy trip.

We stayed out at Seal Rocks, well away from the town. Slept when we could and wandered around exploring, by day. As evening came on - I've got a charm that gives humans the creeps. Stragglers cleared off, I warded our playground and - it all worked out fine, day and ( night. )

.

By day we just played around, relaxed, partied. There's a whole different - I don't know how to say it but it's like the sea's a different dimension, here. Some of the natives (they don't call those demons,) were kind of looking out around the edges of the deeps.

( The big ones, the whales - they've got whole parts of their minds real different. A lot is recognisable, but how does a mind work with no real concept of co-operation or self-defence? Their concept of death made me wonder if they believe this is their afterlife - and wonder even more about whether they're right... I was glad there were only a couple around, it hurts.)

Dolphins are different - sometimes they move like they're dancing, the groups travelling together move like they're choreographed. The one that really amused me was - like doing a solo for the crowd - I mean for the humans, not for his own crowd. Going backwards with only his tail in the water, doing flips, all kinds of things.

Then it looked like he was concentrating on Erynne and me. I had to know why so I took a "mental look". He was researching the responses he could evoke from the crowd! He'd got lots of theories about why they reacted the ways they did.

He saw by sonar-scanning more than vision, so he'd spotted me as different enough to be recognisable, but maybe too different to react normally in the human group. But if Erynne and me hung out together he was pretty sure he could recognise her from that.

There were too many people around for me to tell her why I was laughing, and I forgot about it, after…