"But I'm really good at dodging," Kathy teased. "And who doesn't want to meet friendly elves?"

Then he started stroking her hair and teasing became less important than enjoying the sensations. Kathy gave a happy sigh, shifting a little bit closer in wordless approval. "My Mom is Buddhist and my Dad's Baptist and while neither me or my sister is all that religion, I like Buddhism better. It's less formalized. Like, there are temples and things, and it's kind of political in Korea, but it's also really personal. It more like precepts to follow to be a better person than anything to do with worships or gods or whatever. And since no one is better than anyone else, you don't have priests or anything yelling at you for being bad or evil or sinful. You're just you. You can strive to live a moral life, but there's less...I dunno. Structure and rules and being told that you're going to Hell if you do something bad. When you start putting hierarchies into things, that's when dogma and politics start getting in the way of faith."

She was rambling now, she realized. "What's your faith about, if you don't mine me asking. If it's a touchy subject or whatever, we can talk about something else."

So long as he kept with the pettings.