17 Aug 2017

The Devil You Know - Commentary 4

Ione's ticket turned out to be a meeting request, in The Devil You Know Chapter 4.

Let's see if the oddities were apparent.  The big one is the ticket Ione received in Chapter 3.  Diesel found it, but Ione never took it out of her jacket pocket.  The cat is treating it like it was a threat.  The note could have been a Mountie trying to hit on Ione, but then he added the bit about Paris.  Did it work?  Was it just off enough to get readers wondering?  That's up to readers to answer.

Diesel's antic are something I've seen cats do.  Cats know when their staff are upset and will take it out on the object they believe is the cause.  Contrary to popular belief, cats do have loyalty to their people.  It's just that the cat believes it is in charge.  My own floof has come to me after I've awakened after a bad dream, concerned about me.  In the past, I've had cats come tell me that something was going wrong.  In particular, going back iver twenty years, three cats came to tell me that the burger I was trying to reheat in a microwave a problem, including the little feral who was afraid of people.  She was the one that made me realize that something was serious.  Turns out, the wrapper had foil, which made for a light show.  If I had been more awake, I would have realized the wrapper shouldn't go in, but I had a headache and was tired.

This floof cares about her staff.  Photo by author.
Ione's using a method I tend to use with problems - setting them aside to clear my head and come back refreshed.  It works provided there's no deadline.  Probably shouldn't be used when being trailed by an unknown and having a third person step into the mess.  But, Ione needs to take a step back to get a better picture of what's going on.

It was fun writing Karen's part of the dialogue this chapter.  She doesn't know what is going on, so getting a note from a cop instead of a ticket is more thrilling than odd.  Karen is encouraging her friend's love life.  There's an unstated backstory going on there, something I never really expanded on.  However, Ione and Karen have called each other on first dates to see if the other needed to be extricated.

Friday, meet Jack, in The Devil You Know Chapter 5.
Also Friday, over at Psycho Drive-In, The Hercules & Xena Roleplaying Game.
Saturday, over at The Seventh Sanctum, Captain Power & the Soldiers of the Future.


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