Chapter 202: 156. Giving Thanks

"They thought the stream chat was wild before, but right then it went absolutely ballistic!" Kaylee said as she tried to hold back another giggle while her tails swished around behind her.

"Some of the viewers were positive the whole thing was a hoax," she continued, "While the rest were just as sure it was real. They knew the hosts wouldn't fake something like that just for a publicity stunt or whatever, but they were all freaking out over seeing the two guys turn into a couple cute catgirls right in the middle of their stream."

My parents exchanged a worried look. Then mum looked at me as she commented in a pointed tone, "That sounds like the sort of thing that could get you in a lot of trouble hon."

"It's not their fault!" our girlfriend insisted as she came to our defence. "They didn't do it! Chaz confessed right on the stream, about pretending to be a trans girl and asking Kid Chaos for a plushie! So Cassandra sent her one. Well two, so her girlfriend could have one as well. But Cass didn't force them to use the plushies, and she didn't make them do it live in the middle of a stream. That was their own idea."

My mom frowned as she asked me, "I thought you said those plushies wouldn't do anything to make the user unhappy? I can't imagine those two young men were very happy about being transformed into catgirls like that."

Once again Kaylee spoke up before either Cassandra or I could say anything.

Her tails were swishing around again as she stated, "That's one of the things the chat was arguing about? Like some of them were saying maybe Serenity was really trans after all, and she was lying about the whole thing being an act. She definitely looked happy, she was already smiling even before they cut to the commercial."

"I'm not so sure about Callie though," she admitted as her tails and ears drooped a bit. "Or Keith I guess, depending what name he or she ends up going with."

A moment later her ears perked up and her tails were swishing around again as she continued with another wide happy grin, "Anyways that's when Cassandra finally joined the chat. She was using 'Kid Chaos' as her screen name, and things went from wild to ballistic to nuclear! So there were all these hundreds of RSS subscribers, they'd just watched their two hosts turn into a pair of house cats, then into a pair of hot catgirls. Now here was someone using the Kid Chaos handle in chat, thanking Serenity and Callie for the endorsement and telling them it was the best episode of Really Strange Stuff she'd ever seen."

"Technically that was the truth," I mumbled. "Then again, it's also the only episode we've ever seen, so..."

Once again my parents exchanged a look. This time mum's voice was a little more firm as she stated, "Your mom and I would like an answer to her question. And this time we'd like to hear it from Cass or Cassandra, rather than Kaylee."

"I'll handle this if you like?" my other self volunteered.

I was more than happy to let her take care of it so I nodded, "Be my guest."

Once again that sense of calm came over me as Cassandra took control. Then she addressed our parents, and our sister who'd been quietly listening while Kaylee enthusiastically described the RSS live-stream from Friday night.

"I knew who Serenity was from the moment she first reached out to me online," she stated. "I also knew that most of the details in her story were lies. Having said that she played the part of a trans girl very convincingly, because it wasn't an act. While much of her story was a fabrication, there was some truth behind it. And as more than half of the viewers in the chat quickly surmised, Serenity was happy with her transformation."

Our mom asked, "What about the other host? Are you going to tell us that Keith is also a trans girl, that she's also happy with how things turned out?"

Cassandra replied in her usual calm and confident voice, "I think we'll find out for sure how Callie feels during the next Really Strange Stuff live-stream, which they've promised will happen before the end of the week. But from what I've seen and sensed, I'd call her gender-pragmatic or gender-neutral rather than trans."

"Her life-long ambition was to have some sort of breakthrough on camera," she continued. "She wanted to prove to the world that the supernatural is real, and she achieved that goal Friday night. I believe that's more important to her than whether she identifies as a man or a woman."

Then Cassandra added, "And for what it's worth, she's the one who triggered the plushies. It was her decision to do it, and to do it live on the stream in front of hundreds of viewers."

Our girlfriend had been quiet for the last minute or two but she obviously had more to say and she couldn't hold back any longer.

With her tails swishing around again she chimed in, "I recorded the whole stream, but they posted it for the public first thing Saturday morning. I can send you the link if you want to see it for yourselves? When I looked this morning the video already had almost twenty thousand hits. A bunch of us watched it at the clubhouse during our party on Saturday, and I gave the link to Paige when I met up with her yesterday morning for brunch."

"The hosts both came back on after the 'commercial break' by the way," Kaylee added. "Not for long though, they basically just came back to say they were cutting the stream short. Serenity definitely looked happy, like she was obviously having a hard time not smiling. Callie was maybe still a bit freaked out, but not in a bad way? More like she was still in shock, but she wasn't in tears or having a break-down or anything like that."

Our parents still didn't seem very happy about the whole situation, but there really wasn't anything more they could do about it either. So they decided to just let the subject drop.

Then mom asked our girlfriend, "How was Paige? And how did your family thanksgiving go yesterday?"

Kaylee replied with a smile, "Paige is good, she said she's really enjoying university and she's making lots of new friends out there. It was really nice to see her, even if it was only for an hour."

Then her ears and tails drooped a bit as she added, "I guess I kind of miss her though? Cass and Cassandra are my girlfriends, but Paige is my best friend and I'm not used to not having her around."

"And dinner last night was pretty good," she said as her ears perked up again and her tails resumed their happy wagging. "Me and Cass and Cassandra had a good time I think? Not that my folks know about the Cass-Cassandra situation, we agreed before-hand not to go into that with them. They're still getting used to all my changes, but they're doing their best to be accepting and understanding and everything."

She grimaced as she added, "The only really difficult thing was trying to explain how I don't actually need to eat food anymore. Like I still can, and I did eat with them at dinner last night. Just like I ate a bit at our club thanksgiving on Saturday? But my mom thought I wasn't eating enough, and that I was eating the 'wrong' stuff. Like having a tiny helping of the tasty stuff and ignoring the boring veggies. So I tried to explain that I didn't need to eat anything at all and was just eating what I liked, but that was kind of confusing for her."

Mum nodded, "I can imagine how humans would find that hard to understand."

"I won't be offended if you don't stuff yourself full today Kaylee," mom added with a smile. Then she looked at Nina and commented, "You've never said anything about not needing to eat, I hope Tanya and I haven't made you feel pressured to eat when you weren't interested?"

Our sister shook her head as she replied, "Not at all. And even though I don't technically need to eat regular food, I really do enjoy it? Or most of it anyways."

"And having normal meals with you and mum and Cass makes me feel like part of the family," she added quietly. "It helps me feel like I belong. But honestly I really do enjoy eating with people. Maybe not all foods, but I like most things."

Mom gave her a sympathetic smile, "I'm glad you haven't felt pressured hon. And I'm glad you enjoy our family meals together."

Then Kaylee asked our folks, "Sorry if this is too personal, but do angels need to eat? What about gods, do they have to eat food? It seems weird that demons would be the only ones that don't need food."

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Our mum shook her head, "Gods survive on the energy they gain from their followers, through belief, faith, prayers, and worship. If they're strong enough to create angels then some of their energy goes toward sustaining those angels as well."

"In other words," mom took over, "An angel who's still connected to her god doesn't have to eat food to survive. However fallen angels like Tanya and I no longer receive that sustenance, since we've rejected our gods and severed our ties to them. We're as powerful as we were when we were in their service, but it means we need another source of energy to keep going. And eating food is a convenient and enjoyable way to take in energy."

Our girlfriend nodded slowly, then she turned her attention towards us. "So demons don't need any food, and gods don't need food. And according to what you've said, and what Sasha said, you're both a full demon and a full goddess. But you still need to eat. Why is that?"

I shrugged, "I guess because of how we were created? Our body was originally human."

"So was mine," Kaylee reminded us. "But food doesn't sustain me anymore."

Nina pointed out, "Cass is different though, she's unique. Maybe it's something to do with how Sasha set things up?"

Our girlfriend shrugged, "Sasha was a goddess though, so she wouldn't have been used to eating food right? She'd have had her worshipers to sustain her. Like Cassandra does now."

"Maybe it's just because Cass doesn't have a 'demonic' way of feeding then?" our sister responded. "Like I feed on nightmares and you feed on stress? Cass doesn't have anything like that, so she has to eat food."

Kaylee frowned as she seemed to think that over for a few moments. Then she suggested, "Or maybe she doesn't have anything like that *yet*? Maybe she just needs to figure out what her demonic food source is, then give it a try?"

That made me grimace, "I'm not sure I want to? I don't mind eating food. Especially mom's cooking. Or when Melanie does BBQ at the clubhouse. Or when we get something delivered. All that's pretty good."

"It's an interesting question," mom commented. "But it sounds like Cass isn't in any hurry to figure it out. Which is a good thing, considering we still have our thanksgiving dinner coming up in about an hour."

I offered, "Is there anything I can help you with in the kitchen?"

Mom smiled, "There's always a few last-minute things to take care of Cass. If either you or Nina want to help I'd be grateful. But probably not for another few minutes yet?"

"Ok mom," I nodded.

In fact it was only about fifteen minutes later that we were all in the kitchen together. Kaylee and mum sat at the table while me and Nina were busy helping mom with all that last-minute stuff. She was dealing with the turkey, while I mashed the potatoes and Nina made the gravy. We also had some squash and stuffing, to round out our thanksgiving feast.

When everything was ready the five of us all sat down to eat together, then the topic of conversation shifted to a nice mundane discussion about how we were all doing with school.

"I've been enjoying grade twelve so far," Nina commented. "I miss not having Cass and Kaylee there, but it's still nice having all my other friends around."

Then she added, "I know Cerys and Melanie were a bit leery of May Hawthorne being our English teacher, but so far she's been pretty nice. She mostly just seems like a normal teacher, same as all the others."

Kaylee teased, "Even Mr. Guthrie?"

My sister grimaced, "Ok he might actually be an ogre in disguise. At least he's like that to everybody, he doesn't play favourites."

"Do other teachers play favourites?" mom asked. "Or are you thinking of Mr. Sanderson? Is he still causing trouble for some of the kids?"

Kaylee glanced at me as she tried and failed to suppress a grin, while her tails all swished around behind her. And unfortunately my parents both noticed the kitsune's reaction.

Fortunately Nina responded before anyone could question my girlfriend, "He was kind of nasty for the first month or so, but the last couple weeks he's started to get a little nicer? Or at least, he's a little less awful."

Kaylee chimed in to further distract my folks, "I'm really enjoying university. I was a bit lonely at first, but I've made a few friends over the last couple weeks and that's made it a lot better. I meet up with Mallory Tate most days at lunch? And she introduced me to some other people, we all get together on Fridays at one of the cafes on campus."

I couldn't help pouting, "I still can't believe your university has cafes and an actual food court on campus. The local college just has a sad little cafeteria that's no better than what we had at high school."

My girlfriend swished her tails at me and smiled, "There's a simple solution to that! Just figure out your demonic feeding thing, then you won't need to eat at the sad little cafeteria anymore!"

"That's not the solution I was hoping for," I mumbled. "Anyways that wouldn't do anything for Sasha. Or the rest of our friends, if they come to college next year."

Kaylee rolled her eyes, "So hurry up and get your drivers license. Then you and Sasha can take the Lunamobile over to the big box plaza and take your pick of all the fast food places. Or the cafe, or there's two restaurants there."

I wasn't too keen on that idea either, but rather than say so I just busied myself with another forkful of turkey and stuffing and gravy.

And to be honest, talking about school or even about taking driving lessons was still kind of a nice change of pace. At least we weren't talking about that mysterious cave, or speculating about who or what sent that cryptic message. In fact apart from that earlier discussion about the Really Strange Stuff situation, it was mostly a nice fun relaxing thanksgiving with my family.

We had loads of good food, it was nice hanging out with mom and mum and Nina, and my parents were both really nice and accepting about Kaylee being a tiny demonic kitsune.

All in all it was a really good day.