The Dark Mage

Chapter 7: Nogitsune Protogen Fixes and Memories

     Victor then let out a sigh of relief. "Good. At least you treat your people with dignity."

     Vixie then put her snow-white paw-hands on Inari's throne confidently. "Always. Besides, I've had enough of Inari treating the people of our clan as mere pieces in an economic game. So, while acting in her place, I'm going to attempt to correct some of the things she's done wrong permanently, starting with the Protogen program. For the ones that have committed serious crimes, they will be removed from society while the rest fulfill their duty to become upstanding citizens while also no longer being treated as expendable. I don't care if they come from impoverished families or not. They're not disposable and everyone has an important role to play in society, and not just those in high social classes like myself. I don't see my extended family delivering the mail, hauling off the garbage, or fixing my kitchen, so somebody has to do it. And there's no shame in not being wealthy."

      "I can already tell you're different from my sister. And I althought when I first became a monk that treating people with dignity was standard, and I didn't realize how rare it was making the American Midwest, Szolsura, and the Tanuki clan feel exceptional in comparison."

     Vixie then rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it. When my husband and I were on a vacation across America for a month, I met the friendliest people in the Midwest, especially in Omaha, Nebraska. Todd and I particularly liked this wing placed called Ray's Original Wings even though the sauce stained my muzzle and found a lovely church community at Saint John the Baptist that didn't judge us for being Kitsunes. I also got to see Creighton University and meet the person who created the first working Protogen parts there as part of a medical research project. It's a shame how his invention and researched was warped from helping people who have lost limbs and eyesight to now making one's own body a prison. I'm sorry. Am I rambling again?"

     "You're fine. But also, I have a question. Who is the current bishop overseeing our clan? I know I serve under the bishop of Szolsura and I'm sent pretty much anywhere I'm needed, but I have noticed we don't have any churches in our clan that are within walking distance or even driving distance from people's homes that aren't some pseudo-Christian confessions or straight up heretics like the followers of Corvin Seiveril and Apollonius. So, I need to ask the local bishop, whoever he is, if he can spare a priest to do the sacraments here in the monastery. I thought it would be much worse, but it seems the youth and the Protogens are starving for meaning in their lives and they found it in our church. I don't want to deny them that, but I realize I can't do this by myself, because so many kits and Kitsunes came to me in the monastery during my prayer rule and meditations that I could not possibly handle a skulk of that size and meet all of their spiritual needs, especially if some of them choose to become baptized and chrismated into the church."

     Vixie then looked a little embarrassed on behalf of the clan and said, "Um... we actually no longer have a bishop of the Kitsune clan. So, my husband, Dixie, and I have had to travel for 2 hours to get to the Divine Liturgy all the way in the Tanuki clan. So, you'll have to speak with his eminence Metropolitan Onesimus of the Tanuki clan about this."

     "Then I will. I'll get to writing that letter to him, and I assume he will understand once I write what is going on here. We first sent missionaries to the Tanuki clan back in the late 1200s, and now they send them back to us 900 years later. If only his eminence was named Moshi instead of Onesimus."

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Blondie and the Protogens