Social Studies with Lucifer

The first few days Ercan spent living in The Penthouse, as Lucifer called his palace, mostly revolved around resting and having his leg bandages changed.

He also had something known as a 'con-cush-shun;' it was a kind of head injury that resulted in his having a throbbing headache, feeling queasy, and wanting to just sleep a lot. Ercan had new spectacles, also called 'glasses,' by the second day, which helped to alleviate the headaches and his general grouchiness at having to squint at everything.

He liked the new clothing because there being fewer pieces to worry about in order to be considered fully dressed. The vibrant, playful array of colors and designs were infinitely more interesting as well. He just wasn't sure if he liked the feeling of the 'denim' material that the trousers were made of, or perhaps he just wasn't used to it.

Lucifer had tried to introduce him to the 'superiority' of something called 'bespoke suits.' However, after one session with a tailor, Ercan decided against it. He didn't like having a stranger wield that many small pins so close to his crotch.

Lucifer himself was something of a demi-god, or perhaps even a minor deity, but he didn't act like one. He owned a tavern, which he said was called a 'night club,' and would sometimes assist a woman named Detective on her duties as City Watch.

'Detectiving,' seemed to be more a hobby than Lucifer's actual occupation.

The woman, Mazikeen, was a bounty hunter who enjoyed throwing knives and having sex. She claimed to be a demon but her overall… being came across more as a Tiefling than the maliciously powerful entities of the Nine Hells.

He didn't know what to think of her yet; she was absolutely terrifying, but primally attractive in a way that Ercan had never experienced before.

In the meantime, it was probably safest to just let her get used to his presence and not draw too much of her attention.

So far, Ercan hadn't been able to do a lot; his feet needed bandaging once a day and it hurt to walk for more than a few minutes at a time. The bulk of that first tenday was spent on the 'cow-tch' flipping through the pages of the 'Dungeon and Dragon' books. The drawings were fun to look at, but the rest of it seemed like a bunch of wizardy hooba-hooba nonsense with all its dice and numbers.

Lucifer strode into the room from his sleeping area and turned toward the 'eller-fate-or' when its doors opened with the 'bing' noise. "Doctor, so glad you could make it," he said happily as a short human woman walked out into the living space. "I'm so sorry I had to cancel my appointment, but there's been a bit of an unexpected development."

Doctor smiled, then saw Ercan and paused. "I wasn't aware you had a guest."

"Err… about that…."

Doctor Linda Martin, as she was called, sat across from Ercan with a sheaf of paper called a note pad. She'd been staring at him for a few minutes, not talking.

"A dock-ter is the same thing as a healer, right?" He asked, mostly to fill the awkwardness between them with some kind of noise.

"That… depends," she said hesitantly. "What do you imagine a healer to be?"

Ercan shrugged. "Somebody who fixes injuries and sets bones. If it's a sickness, the one in my village will bring his apothecary friend to figure out what powders, elixirs, or herbs will help most." He pushed up his 'glasses.' "Lucifer said you're a sigh-cotter-gist, though, and that it's not like being a normal healer."

Doctor Linda nodded. "I'm a psychiatrist; it means I help people who have an illnesses of the minds."

"Then, how come Lord Lucifer wants you to examine me?" Ercan leaned forward and whispered, "Does he think I'm gonna go mad from hitting my head really hard on his floor? 'Cause, it hasn't hurt as bad since I was given these spectacles."

She tilted her head. "How old are you, Ercan?"

"Forty-two."

"If you were a human," she said. "Based on what Ella's suggested, you're still not fully grown for an elf."

Ercan shrugged. "Well, from what my adoptive dad says, I'm about the same as a Human boy in his fourteenth mid-winter. I won't be able to start a proper apprenticeship until I'm fifty."

"Does that mean I can't have parties up here, now?" Lucifer asked, standing over at the bar. "How the bloody hell am I supposed to have my orgies with some otherworld elf-spring underfoot?"

Doctor Linda turned to stare at him, totally confused. "A what?"

"Offspring of an elf," he said.

Ercan snorted at the pun. "Elf-spring."

"See? He gets it."

"Lucifer, this is not the time to be discussing sex," Doctor Linda rolled her eyes. "Especially not with a minor present -."

"I've had sex before," Ercan huffed. It'd only been twice, but still. "I'm not that young."

At the same time, Lucifer shouted, "I would never-! He's physically too young for me to be even remotely interested!" He shuddered in revulsion. "That's disgusting."

"Whoa, okay, first of all, I do not need to know that," she said to Ercan. To Lucifer, she said, "Secondly, that was not what I meant and you know it."

Ercan had no idea what the point of this conversation was supposed to be, so he just sat there and watched Doctor Linda take Lucifer out of the living area and up the steps toward the book loft.

She whisper-shouted some kind of lecture at his host about 'minors,' 'proper supervision,' and 'being the adult.'

Ercan ran his finger along the words as he mouthed them to himself. He wasn't a very fast reader, but it was more than most of the boys in his village could do. "Okay. 'As a hig-hee elf, you have a keen mind and a mast… mass-ter-ee… mastery of at lee-ast… least the ba-sick… basics of ma-guh-ick… magic.'" He scoffed at that. "'In many of the worlds of Duh-.'" He'd never come across anything that looked like the '&' symbol before, so didn't know what sound it made. Ercan shrugged and skipped the word, "'…there are two kinds of hig-hee elves. One type (which ink-lud-dis… in-clue-dis… includes the gray elves and val-lay… vall-ee… valley elves of Gree-haw-kuh, the Sil-vay-nest-ih… Sill-something of Drag-.'" With a groan, Ercan leaned his head back against the 'cow-tch.' "Why're all these words so hard?"

"What seems to be the problem, Elfspring?" Lucifer asked, sitting next to him.

Ercan handed him the book. "I'm trying to see what this says about my world, but I'm still not very good at reading."

"Don't your people send their young to child-prison to learn that in your world?"

"Humans send their children to prison?!"

"I believe they call it 'school,' but to me it seems to be the same thing." Lucifer grimaced at the idea. "They lock their spawn inside of a building for most of the day while training them to do repetitive tasks for hours on end. The keepers feed them a substandard food-like substance once at noon, and then set them loose on each other for an hour before herding them back to their lessons."

That sounded terrifying. Ercan knew that, at home, he was technically old enough to become part of Lord Aethel's militia if the kingdom ever went to war. Even then, he'd only be put to work in the camps with the wagons or something.

In order to be sent to the gaol he'd have to have done something extra stupid, like steal a sheep. To be sent to prison, though? That kind of sentence was for heinous crimes, like slaughtering an entire family.

Seeing his expression, Lucifer put his hands up. "I'm not going to subject you to that, don't worry. If we can't find a way to send you home, I'll make certain that you're tutored properly."

"What if I accidentally break a law and the City Watch comes to arrest me?"

"I'll just give their Captains a stack of cash and tell them to leave you alone." The Devil explained, "humans of this world worship money so much that it actually counts as a form of speech. I don't know how that works, exactly, but I've got so much of it that I would be considered a large nation unto myself, and therefore can purchase just about anything."

"You can do that?!"

"Of course. I'm the Devil, I can do anything." He got to his feet. "Now, why don't you join me down in my club and I'll teach you how to do favors."

"Okay!"

The human male, Daniel, was a member of the City Watch and Ercan could tell the man wasn't at all happy with The Devil at the moment.

"What the hell are you doing, man?"

"You're going to have to be a bit more specific, Daniel."

"I got a call about a minor being served alcohol in your club," the man had his arms crossed and was pointedly looking at Ercan.

The young elf quickly put down the beer bottle and pushed it toward the City Watch. "I didn't know-."

"He's forty-two, which is well above the established legal drinking age," Lucifer said.

"Humans have to be eighteen in order to enter LUX and they can't buy alcohol until they're twenty-one, and you know that." Daniel said with an exasperated groan. "Elves age differently than humans, Lucifer. For Ercan, it's the same as if he's a fourteen-year-old human child, remember?"

"I couldn't just leave him upstairs alone-."

"This could get your club permanently shut down, Lucifer." Daniel sighed before he took the seat across from them. "Why d'you think I intervened when I heard there was a minor being served at LUX?"

Ercan could tell his host was just as confused as he was now.

"As aware of the laws regarding LUX and running a nightclub as you are, you still obviously struggle with perceiving humans' ages and don't have a lot of experience with us as a species."

"Not-." Lucifer glanced at Ercan, then to his friend. "I am so sorry for this, Daniel. What do I have to do for recompense and keep my club open?"

"Unfortunately, I'll have to issue a citation. You'll have to shut down for the rest of the week, put your staff through some mandatory training, and pay a fairly heavy fine. This is just your first offense, so you'll be able to reopen pretty soon."

"Very well. I'll make an announcement and send everyone home. Thank you for coming, Daniel. Again, I'm-."

"Just keep him away from the alcohol." Daniel glanced at Ercan. "You're not in trouble, just make sure to remember not to come into the club area while it's open again, okay?"

Ercan nodded, not completely sure what had just happened. "Should I go back up to your palace, Lucifer?"

Daniel took away the beer bottle and gestured for the young elf to get up. "Yeah, Ercan. It's… look, I'll come up and explain in a minute, okay?"

"Is this one of those laws that I'll get sent to the child prison for breaking?" he asked, suddenly very scared. "Lord Lucifer said that if I broke one on accident, he can give your Captain a stack of money to make sure not to send me there."

"Child… prison?" Daniel looked at Lucifer. "Did you tell him to try to bribe his way out of-?"

"No, I said I would bribe the authorities. As his temporary guardian, I refuse to allow Ercan to rot inside one those infernal institutions that you claim are for 'education.'"

"Oh. My. God. Lucifer, for the last time, a school is not a prison for children."