Summer was here, and with it, the heat and sunshine that begged everyone who had the time to venture out of doors and enjoy themselves. With permission from their parents, and a fervent promise to run around the headland and get help from Tommy and Lena if they needed it, Fliss and Lucas had finally set off for their private little camping trip, armed with everything they needed for a couple of nights entirely to themselves. Of course, no tent in the world could be made comfortable for Lucas' wing span, but they'd come up with an alternative, stringing tarpaulin up between tree trunks to form a reasonably large, surprisingly well-sheltered, man-made cave.

With the sound of the surf barely twenty feet away at high tide, Fliss was delighted with their chosen spot, and decidedly too bouncy to control. "What should we do now" Did I remember to pack the sausages" I brought a pillow for you!"

To be fair, Lucas' wing span could be controlled somewhat by folding his wings against his back, like a bird might do, but it still often made for difficulty where the need for space was concerned. At least, they wouldn't have to worry too much about getting a fire started, so long as Fliss was there. "You are hyper," Lucas accused playfully, as Fliss was practically bouncing up and down with energy. This was the first time they'd been entrusted with going off on their own for more than a few hours, and Lucas wanted to make sure they didn't betray that trust.

"Little bit, yeah," she agreed cheerfully. "I'm just excited! I've never been allowed to go away overnight before, and it's with you!" Squealing happily, she bounced right up to her boyfriend and threw her arms around his neck, planting a loud kiss on his cheek.

Without any younger siblings around to tease them or parents to scold them, Lucas slid his arms around her waist a little awkwardly, feeling a certain amount of freedom for perhaps the first time in his short life. Even after being sent alone to Rhy'Din, he'd never felt quite this much freedom, but then he was no longer a child. "What would you like to do first?" he asked, now that their campsite was ready.

"Erm ..." Grinning, she took advantage of his vague awkwardness to plant a more adult kiss on his lips, thrilling to the knowledge that there was no way Alex or Mo were going to pop out of the greenery and interrupt them. Drawing back, her smile was sweeter. "I guess we should make the camp readier," she considered. "Firewood, that kind of thing."

Someone else might have frowned in disappointment, but Lucas only smiled. Though she might have the ability to start a fire on a whim, he didn't think it would be a good idea to wait until nightfall to gather firewood for a fire. And there was also the matter of cooking. "That's probably a good idea," he replied, as much as he was enjoying her kisses.

Of course, Liv and Jessica had colluded to make sure the teens would have a good supply of firewood near their chosen campsite, but they weren't to know that just yet. "I've never built a fire," Fliss admitted, reluctantly letting go of Lucas to step back and begin looking for kindling. "Although ....I guess we don't really need to know how to build one properly with me around."

"I know how to build a fire," he reassured her, having gone on plenty of camping trips previous to this one and learned the basics. Those camping trips hadn't been with his father, but with the Boy Scouts back home in his native California. "First we need to gather some dry wood," he told her. "And some smaller sticks for kindling."

"You've done this before," she teased him, more excited about learning something new than anything. Fliss had never been camping before - the closest she'd come to it was sleeping in the treehouse with her brother and sister a few times. For her, at least, this was a whole new adventure. "How did you convince Matt not to come?"

"I told him if he came along, I'd make sure to crash every date he goes on until he graduates," Lucas replied with a grin. Alone with Fliss, he was much more relaxed and himself than he ever was around other people, his own family included. "I used to go camping when I was a kid," he explained as he moved around looking for driftwood and sticks that had dried out enough to be useful.

"Oh, I almost wish he had come now!" Fliss laughed, loving the threat and knowing that Lucas would never follow through on it, anyway. "What was it like, going camping when you were little?" she asked curiously. "This is my first time - you're taking my camping virginity."

He laughed at the way she'd phrased her question, glad his back was turned to her so she wouldn't see his blush. He wasn't planning on stealing her virginity, though it was hard not to think about it sometimes. He shrugged in reply to her question, as he cradled some sticks in the crook of his arm, careful of his wings as he moved about the beach. "It was okay, I guess," he said, which told her next to nothing.

"Yeah, like that tells me anything," she giggled, bending to pick up a piece of driftwood. It snagged on something buried in the sand ....a something that revealed itself to be waxed canvas, laid over a store of firewood. Snorting with laughter, Fliss rolled her eyes. "Mom really can't stop looking after us, even from a distance."

"There's not much to tell," Lucas pointed out, a little defensively. "My Dad thought it would teach me some responsibility, but I used to think he just wanted to get rid of me for a while," he said, unsure of his father's real feelings where his sons were concerned. He might have said more, but she said something about her mother, and he looked over to find a ready supply of firewood had already been provided. "You don't think they have any cameras hidden around here, do you?" he teased.

"Oh god, I hope not!" she giggled, tucking her arm about his waist as she moved to join him. She hugged him for a long moment, looking up at her handsome boyfriend with gentle understanding. "You do know you're allowed to be mad at your parents, right?" she asked quietly. "No one can tell you how you're supposed to be feeling."

He dropped the kindling on the beach near the pile of firewood, straightening to look back at her as her arm went around his waist. "I'm not mad," he assured her, though that wasn't entirely true, at least, not where his mother was concerned. "I just wish my family had been more like yours. I know you don't like to hear it, but you're really lucky, Fliss."

"I know I'm lucky," she promised him, her own confusion following Bess' birth cleared up now that the months had proven that she still had a place in her parents' affections. "I'm luckier than a lot of people. But that had nothing to do with me, Luc. I'm lucky because my mom and dad chose me, because they built our family around me. And you're lucky, because you're a part of our family now."

"Yeah, but ..." he started, a small frown on his face. He really didn't want to upset her with his own worries - worries she shared, but hadn't told him about. "Never mind," he told her, touching a kiss to her nose. "Let's get the fire going before it gets dark."

Fliss eyed him suspiciously as he cut himself off, smiling at the kiss to her nose. "All right," she conceded. "But you and me need to talk, you know. I got things I need to say, and I need you to listen and not immediately think the worst, okay?" She nudged him gently, bending to gather up a big armful of the wood.

She was quiet for a moment, inching closer to capture his hand in hers. "You know what that tells me?" she asked softly, answering her own question before he could. "It tells me that I don't need to be afraid. I'm not going to leave you, Luc. There's no one like you. I'm in love with you, remember" I promised. And nothing's changed. I don't need to be afraid of losing you because you just told me how much you love me, without needing to say the words."

He lifted his gaze to her, eyes shining a little suspiciously, but at least he was brave enough to meet her gaze. "I love you, too. I'm not afraid to say it, Fliss. I just ....I'm tired of hearing how we're too young to know how we feel about each other. I know I love you, and I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I'm not gonna change my mind about that."

"So stop worrying that I'm going to change my mind," she told him firmly. "Trust me, and I'll trust you. This isn't just a bit of shine on my hand, Luc; it's a promise, and it's a promise I intend to keep. Waiting isn't about us, so much as it's about our families. My mom wants me to enjoy learning for a little while longer, but she respects the decision I've already made about what I want to do with my life. We compromised." She considered her boyfriend for a long moment. "So here's a compromise for us. We wait until I'm seventeen. After that, we'll both be working, and theoretically adults." A smile flickered across her face as she said this. "I won't lose faith if you don't."

"You're going to work at the fire station?" he asked, knowing what her plan was, so long as she hadn't changed her mind about it. What she was asking him was to be patient for one more year, until she had graduated and they both were working and able to support themselves. "I have faith in you, Fliss. I trust you," he assured her, giving her hand a soft squeeze.

"Yeah, I am," she nodded, confirming her plans for him. "You're gonna be studying the EMT stuff for a year, so we'll be starting at the same time." Wrapping his hand in both her own, she smiled at him encouragingly. "So stop assuming that something bad is underneath everything serious I say," she scolded gently. "I promise, I will always be blunt with you. If I mean it, I'll say it; no deceptions or white lies or pretending. I'll always be honest with you."

"I'm sorry I stop talking, Fliss. I don't mean to," he told her clinging to her hand. Maybe this trip was more than about just having fun. It was hard finding time to be alone, and without that time alone, it was hard getting to really know each other.

"I know." She smiled, shifting onto her knees to face him, leaning close to touch her forehead to his. Who would have thought she'd have learned so much from watching her parents' interactions over the last two years" "And I know it's hard to find the words. But I promise, it will always be safe to talk to me. Yes, I might get angry sometimes, and I might argue with you - we both know my temper - but you should never let that stop you from being honest with me. If we're gonna get married, we kinda have to be honest with each other, you know?"

All he'd learned from his own parents' interactions was who could shout the loudest. It wasn't that he didn't love them, but why they'd ever gotten married, he didn't know. "You really think we'll get married, Fliss?" he asked, forehead to forehead as his fingers tangled with hers.

"Why shouldn't we?" she countered with a warm smile, her amber eyes crackling with the banked flames that were always in her gaze. "People younger than us get married and stay together all their lives. I don't see why we can't."

"Not back home, they don't!" he argued, though his argument was irrelevant and didn't really mean anything where they were concerned. Back home in California, the divorce rate kept climbing higher every year, and it wouldn't be long before his own parents would be part of those statistics. He was sure his father wasn't very happy about the affect that might have on his career. But Lucas was at least smiling now, relieved she wasn't angry with him. "We should probably roast the hotdogs," he pointed out, though he made no move away from her just yet.

Smiling, Fliss kissed the tip of his nose, looking down at their little fire thoughtfully. "How do we do that?" she asked curiously. "Do we have a skewer or something, or do we trust me not to turn the dogs into charcoal?"

He laughed at her questions, wondering if she was serious or just teasing him. "We roast them on sticks, and no cheating!" he warned her, tapping a finger to her nose. He moved to his feet, pulling her up beside him. "You want to look for a long straight stick," he instructed.

Given that she'd only ever cooked at a stove, it was a fair bet that she wasn't teasing him for once. Pulled up onto her feet, she kept his hand in hers as they went hunting for sticks to cook with. "We should definitely bring Alex and Mo camping," she said enthusiastically. "You know, when I know what I'm doing."

"It's not that hard, Fliss! You're doing great!" he praised her. She'd helped him with the tent, and in his opinion, that was the hardest part of camping. She was a natural at fire-building - she only had to learn the technique of keeping one going - and she already knew how to cook. He was looking forward to teaching her what he could, though she had probably learned a lot from her father already. What he was most looking forward to, though, was watching the stars come out together. It was the simple pleasures, after all, that he enjoyed most.

"I found one!" Lunging to snatch up her prize, she fell over when it turned out to be not so much a stick as an outflung branch that hadn't grown up much before falling from a tree. "Or maybe not."

Lucas couldn't help but chuckle, though he was concerned for her safety. "Are you okay?" he called over, as he picked through a pile of driftwood in search of a suitable stick.

Laughing, Fliss rolled onto her back, brushing the sand off her legs. "I'm fine," she giggled, sitting up. "What was I supposed to be doing" I'm all sandy now." With her bright grin back in place, she pulled herself up onto her feet, pausing to pick sand out of her belly button.

He moved over to offer her a hand and pull her to her feet, helping her to brush the sand from her arms and shoulders. He didn't want to laugh at her, but he couldn't help but smirk. "I can't take you anywhere, can I?" he teased. His gaze darted to her bare belly, but only momentarily before forcing his gaze upwards again.

"Maybe you should chain me in bed, then," she suggested impishly, a rather bold tease for a girl who was still just getting comfortable with making out. Brushing the sand from her bare belly and hands, she pronounced herself sorted. "So ....sticks?"

"Darn it!" he said, snapping his fingers. "I knew I forgot something," he told her, a teasing grin on his face. He wasn't too worried about the sand; it was a beach, after all, and there was plenty of water nearby. "You better stay close," he told her, grabbing hold of her hand to pull her along behind him. "I promised your parents I'd bring you back in one piece!"

"And I promised your mom I wouldn't make you blush too much," she countered teasingly, skipping along in his wake to catch up as he tugged her along with him. "She didn't actually specify how much was too much, though ..."

"So long as you don't plan on skinny dipping!" he countered, though he wouldn't have put it past her. One thing about Fliss was that she always managed to surprise him when he was least expecting it, but he didn't think she was quite that bold yet. He paused a moment in the search for sticks as the wind caught his wings and he glanced to the sky, shading his eyes with a hand to see if the weather was turning.

Which, of course, only made his flush redder and clear his throat in embarrassment. "I'm pretty sure it's as straight as it's going to get." Thank God he wasn't only dressed in swimming trunks or her affect on him would have been much more obvious.

"Oooh, can I see?" she asked laughingly, trying to coax him out of his embarrassment. She didn't quite understand why he found it so embarrassing; she thought it was a rather wonderful compliment, really. It was a shame, in some ways, that she couldn't really show him a similar response, even though she felt it.

"No!" he exclaimed, mortified by the mere thought of that, her plan of coaxing him out of his embarrassment backfiring into embarrassing him further, so much so that he immediately let go of her and turned away, so she wouldn't try and steal a look before marching back onshore. "If we screw this up, your parents will never trust us again." It was unclear whether he was really worried about her parents not trust them, or just not trusting him.

Left alone in the surf, Fliss sighed, tucking her hands into the pockets of her shorts. "My parents love you," she reminded him, wading back toward the shore in his wake. "Seriously, dude, they let us share a bathroom for three months. You think they don't trust you?"

"I think I don't trust me," he replied, without considering his response, openly admitting to the affect she was having on him. Maybe she thought it was funny, but he didn't. Regardless, he had always been nothing short of a gentleman with her, but maybe that was part of the problem. He stomped back up the beach to check the fire and return to the task of searching out a couple of sticks suitable for roasting hotdogs.

Brought up short by this unexpected reply, not to mention the bad temper she seemed to have put him in, Fliss stopped abruptly ankle deep in the surf. She didn't quite understand why he was so angry all of a sudden; even if she had gone too far with her teasing, he'd never reacted like this before. Frowning, she turned back to look out over the sea, not knowing how to make things right again. Every time they got a little closer, something like this happened. It was beginning to get more than a little frustrating.

He wasn't in a bad temper exactly, nor was he angry - at least, not at her. It was so like Fliss to tease him, and though he knew she didn't mean anything by it, it sometimes felt painful. He wanted to apologize, to take on the guilt and the blame. After all, it was his body's reaction to her that was the cause of the problems, but wasn't that a perfectly way of his body responding" Why, then, was it so embarrassing for him"

After a while, Fliss returned to the sand, unconsciously drying her sneakers out as she walked back up to where they'd made their camp. She sat down not far from Lucas, chewing at her lower lip, and sighed. "I don't mean to hurt your feelings," she said quietly. "I just don't know how you want me to react. If I ignore it, you get huffy. If I'm serious about it, you get defensive, like I'm going to attack you. And if I tease, you get angry. What am I supposed to do' It's not like you have any control over it, and it is a pretty big compliment, you know."

"I'm sorry," he said, ashamed of his own reaction to her teasing, when he knew she'd only been having a little fun and wasn't trying to be mean. He'd managed to find a couple of suitable sticks and was whittling the end with a knife to make it easier to skewer the hotdogs, while he perched on a log not far from the fire, his wings brushing the sand. "I don't have any control over anything, it seems," he murmured, though that wasn't quite true, nor was it the heart of the problem. He'd been making most of his own choices since he'd come to Rhy'Din, and it wasn't that his body's reaction to her was unpleasant - the exact opposite, in fact.

"Don't you like me, like that?" she asked almost plaintively. "If you had the choice, would you react like that to me" I don't understand what you mean, Luc. I get confused enough by the way I feel when we're close."

He jerked his head up to look over at her, stunned by her question. "Of course I like you like that. I love you! It's just ..." He frowned and sighed, having trouble putting his feelings into words. "I'm trying not to go too fast, but my heart and my body and my head all want different things, Fliss, and I don't want to hurt you. That's the most important thing of all."

"But if we never do anything about the way we feel when we feel it, it'll hurt more," she pointed out. "Luc, I love you. When we get close, I feel hot and cold and shivery, and I want you to touch me. I want to touch you. I get fidgety and restless, like I'm looking for something that I won't be able to find without you, but I don't know what to do about it. So I tease and I laugh, and then you get annoyed with me, and I feel frustrated and hurt, and I know it's all my fault."

He shrugged and looked back to his whittling, unable or unwilling to meet her gaze out of shame or guilt or fear; he wasn't quite sure which. "It's not your fault. You're right ....I can't control it. I can't control a lot of things, but I can control my own actions, and if doing the right thing is waiting until we're married, I'll wait."

"What, so ....you'd rather we were both terrified on our wedding night than comfortable with each other?" she countered almost immediately. She might be young, but she wasn't stupid. "Look, I don't know anything about it, but isn't it supposed to be, like, a celebration' What's there to celebrate if we've built it up so high in our heads that there's no way we can ever match the fantasy?"

"What do you want me to do' Get you pregnant' Your parents would love that," he countered, jumping to the worst conclusions, as usual. Things would be a lot easier if they were a little older, or so he thought at the moment. Then they could get married and do whatever they wanted and no one could tell them different, but she was only fifteen, and he was a product of a different place and a different set of morals.

Fliss stared at him for a long moment. "Thanks," she said with deep sarcasm. "Thanks a lot. Nice to know that you don't seem to think I have any kind of autonomy over my own body or what happens to it. Oh, no ....if Lucas trips and accidentally falls into my ladyparts then obviously I'm going to get pregnant because I am, of course, a complete idiot who would just jump straight into that kind of intimacy without taking precautions first."

"That's not what I mean!" he said in his own defense, lowering the knife and stick to look back at her with furrowed brows. "I'm trying to do the right thing here, Fliss! I'm trying to take things slow, but my body isn't cooperating, and I'm scared, okay' There, I said it."

"How is it the right thing when it makes you so upset?" she countered passionately. "Look, I'm not demanding that you rip my clothes off and get right to it, all right' But obviously what we are doing is upsetting both of us, and we're not children. I'm not a child anymore." This last was said with quiet fervor, a certain amount of resentment in her tone not directed at him in particular.

Even if he had her permission, he was unlikely to rip her clothes off. "You haven't heard a word I said, have you?" he asked her, immediately regretting his words. He really didn't want to argue. That wasn't what they'd come here for. They'd come here to have fun and get away from the pressures their families had inadvertently placed on them to behave a certain way, and here they were, all alone where no one could see them or scold them, and he was still feeling that pressure. "I don't want to screw it up."

But this wasn't a conversation they could have anywhere else. Though it didn't feel like it right now, the very fact that they were talking about this at all spoke volumes about the depth of their relationship. "How is owning the fact that you fancy me going to screw things up?" she asked, the tick in her jaw suggesting that another slip like that one was going to result in a shouting match. "You're not the only one in this relationship, Lucas. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm in it, too. And I trust you. I trust you to listen to me if I start to say no, and I trust you to stop me if you need me to. I thought we'd figured all this out."

Now that the storm between them had passed, they relaxed once again in each other's company. Maybe it hadn't been such a bad thing if it had helped to bring them closer together and understand each other better. The tears turned to laughter in the following hours as he made good on his promise to teach her how to build a fire and roast weinies, until darkness approached, and they laid a blanket out on the beach to watch the stars come out.

"Do stars really have names on Earth?" Fliss asked as she stretched out on the blanket beside him, careful not to lie on any part of his wings. They hadn't tested whether or not his feathered limbs could comfortably take her weight as well as his in this position, and this was probably not the best time to find out.

"Yes," he replied, "but I don't know all their names. Earth's sun is out there somewhere, but I'm not sure where. I'm not sure you can see it from here," he told her as he gazed at the vast array of twinkling lights in the sky. "There are constellations, too. Like the Big and Little Dipper." He wasn't too sure if people named their stars on Rhy'Din or the patterns they made up in the night sky.

"Mom pointed Sol out to me once, but I wasn't really paying attention," she confessed with a slightly guilty chuckle. "I guess that's something that's missing here. On Earth, you have constellations and they have stories behind them, behind why they're called what they are. If there's anything like that on Rhy'Din, I've never heard of it."

"Neither have I. Maybe we should have asked Miss Tolmay," he said, though it was too late for that, at least for him. As much as he enjoyed watching the night sky, he had never taken much time to study it, either here or back home on Earth. "The stories aren't true, anyway. They're just myths. Stories to explain the pictures in the sky." He paused a moment to tuck an arm behind his head. "Maybe we should make up our own," he suggested.

"Maybe Dom knows about the stars," Fliss mused. She hadn't forgotten the surprisingly magical evening they'd been treated to, when Professor Dominic Granger had regaled them with the stories from Mount Yasuo. She glanced at Lucas as he made his suggestion, smiling at that idea. "You go first."

"Maybe," he admitted uncertainly. There didn't seem to be much Professor Granger didn't know, in Lucas' opinion. "Me?" he exclaimed, turning his head to look at her, though it had been his suggestion. "I, uh ..."

She grinned at him, taking pity. Turning her eyes back to the stars, she studied them for a long moment before raising her hand to point to one particular collection. "That there ....looks like of like a wolf's head, doesn't it' So maybe it's called Lupus, and that's the wolf from the Three Little Pigs fairytale. When he got boiled by the water in the cauldron, he shot right up through the chimney and got stuck in the stars."

Lucas winced in the dark at her story, though he chuckled a little. "That's terrible, Fliss!" he said, though it wasn't her choice so much that was terrible as it was the story.

She giggled, flicking her hair back out of her face. "Well, you do better, then," she challenged him. "Go on, I dare you. Outdo me, and I promise to take it seriously when it's my go again."

"Besides, the Three Little Pigs is an Earth story. You have to come up with something original!" he pointed out, almost wishing he hadn't suggested this, though it was a challenge. He searched the sky for some pattern in the stars that might make a good tale. "Hmm, what about that?" he asked, pointing to another collection of stars a little to the north and east of the one she'd pointed out. "What's that look like to you?"

Tilting her head, she considered the scattering of stars he'd pointed out, swallowing down a snicker at the first thought that came into her head and making the attempt to take their pasttime at least slightly seriously. "Looks kind of like a hand," she said finally. "You know, reaching out?"

This was a pasttime she needn't take seriously, though if she was seeing any phallic symbols out there, he didn't really want to know about it. "A hand?" he echoed, tiling his head to mirror hers and let his eyes see what she was seeing. "I guess it does, sort of. What kind of story could we make up for that?"

"Hmm ..." Lost in thought, Fliss hadn't noticed that her head was resting on his wing, her cheek against his shoulder, giving all her focus to the little game he'd produced for them to play together. "I have an idea, but it's kind of sad."

He was obviously not a good story teller, and he didn't mind her doing it for him. "What is it?" he asked, pillowing her head with his wing as the two of them gazed at the stars.

"It's kind of rough," she warned him, apologizing in advance for how little she'd thought out her explanation for the hand they could see in the stars. "But what if the hand belongs to, I don't know ....some villain or other. Someone who did horrible things, but was forgiven for them by the gods because he looked after a child he'd found. And then one day, some great disaster, like a flood or an earthquake, hit his home, and instead of saving the kid, he saved himself, and the gods were angry with him for it. He lost everything, and now he's up there, in the stars, looking for the little kid he abandoned, reaching out to save them and save himself, too."

"That's pretty good!" Lucas said, smiling. He wasn't even going to try and top it or add to her story in any way. "What do you think of New York?" he asked, knowing she'd been there on occasion to visit Liv's sister and her family. In fact, he'd gone along a time or two.

Bemused by the change of subject, she shrugged. "I haven't really spent all that much time there," she said thoughtfully. "It seems big and loud, and kinda scary. But then, I guess Rhy'Din would seem big and loud and scary if you weren't used to it."

"It's a different kind of big and loud and scary. I mean, I was terrified when I first got here. Back home, it's just humans. No mutants, no dragons, no elves, no vampires. Those are just stories; they're not real. But humans can be scary enough all by themselves." His was a different Earth even from the one her Aunt Lucy and Uncle Steve occupied; a much more mundane Earth, but no more peaceful for it.

"Humans can be horrible to each other," Fliss agreed quietly. "I don't know, it seems like there's something inside humans that looks for anyone or anything that's different. Not all humans, obviously, but ....Well, everyone who has ever tried to bully me has been human. Elves and dwarves and ogres, they don't seem to care so much that they're not the dominant species."

"I think you're right," he said, remembering how he'd been bullied when he'd first arrived on Rhy'Din and how it had been other human boys who'd done the bullying. It hadn't even been his wings so much that had brought on the bullying as it had been that he was a newcomer, a stranger, someone to be tested. Back home, it was different. The son of a politician, he was often bullied simply because the other boys were jealous, though Lucas didn't think there was much to be jealous of. "Even back home, they bully each other. When they get along and work together, they can accomplish so much, but it doesn't happen often enough."

"I think that's why I prefer Rhy'Din," Fliss admitted thoughtfully. "Like ....like the very fact that it is such a fantastical melting pot of a place is what makes it safer for anyone to be here, in the long run. Nothing is allowed to get out of hand. There are the usual run of loonies who hurt people for hurting's sake, but there aren't any fascists or hateful movements that have huge amounts of support. Even the evil religions are kept in check by their counterparts."