eswareinmal | werewolves, werewolves everywhere

Entry tags:

werewolves, werewolves everywhere

Characters: One thread goes to Faolan and Kay, but if anyone else wants to gawk at an eight-foot wolf trying to look sneaky, you're totally welcome to tag in.
Open? Basically yes
Where: Anywhere between the castle and the fields outside the city.
When: Sunset, GHB 2
What: Kay is slinking off to warn Faolan about Selene, because he doesn't trust anyone associated with monster-killing hunters. He doesn't know that Faolan has already asked her if she wants to join his pack. Talk about awkward.
Warnings: Standard language + being a jerk warning that comes with any log Kay is in.

Great. Just great. It was just his luck that the day after he arrived, someone with ties to "Hunters" would show up. Kay had just finished dealing with the fallout of the last group of monster killers that had gotten wind of his existence -- he didn't need more.

But one thing he knew about monster killers was that they didn't care who was really guilty and who wasn't. Innocent or not, it didn't matter. If you were a monster, you were dead. If you got in the way, you were also dead. The only way to survive was to hide.

And Kay could name one innocent monster in this place who wasn't good at keeping secrets.

He held off until dusk, but couldn't justify waiting any longer. Sunset found him in full wolf form slinking from shadow to shadow, following Faolan's scent through town. Finding the trail wasn't hard, but sneaking? Well, when you were eight feet tall and covered in fur, you'd find it hard to be inconspicuous, too.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"And boots, too. Very important, boots." She chuckled, teasing just a little more because of the annoyance in his voice. "And it simply doesn't do to walk around barefoot, at all hours of the night." Of course, her boots were somewhere in the middle of the forest, right now...but that was all right. Talking fire was a perfectly good excuse.

"'Freaks'?" She stiffened a little. "We're people, too. We fought hard for it to be recognized, and in most places, it is. Hard to ignore us when some of us start wars to conquer continents, and others stop crime daily, and even more are doctors, and scientists, and politicians, who all lead us into the future together. Besides, we're all human. And there is a chance those Martian bastards might come back for another round; makes the little differences less important."

"Yeah, I bet. So important you forgot them, right?" he shot back, full of teenage attitude. His annoyance was compounded by the fact that okay yeah it made sense that calling werewolves "freaks" in a society where they actually had rights would be some kind of charged slur, but that fact hadn't occurred to him. He thought of himself as a freak.

Mars? Really? Kay opened his mouth to ask, then shut it again. For all he knew, fairies sounded just as weird to Selene. Were fairies any less implausible than Martians?

She coloured again, a little, and shrugged. "I thought there was a good chance I might have to grow fur, so discarded them. Ever transformed in boots? It can kill you, tangling up your paws. When I followed the fire, I neglected to retrieve them, I'm afraid." She rubbed an arm, and studied him a little longer, chewing on her bottom lip. "I can't imagine hiding this kind of thing from everyone for years and years simply because it wasn't okay. Must have been difficult."

Despite himself, Kay found that her sympathy pacified him a little. He took a quick breath. He didn't really want to talk about how ~hard~ it was being a teenage werewolf -- it'd sound like whining, he felt. "It was usually sneakers, for me," he said. "They're not a problem. Your heel pulls right up out of them. Good luck finding a pair in a place like this, though. Looks like it's boots, sandals, or nothing.

"And being a werewolf's not so bad," Kay went on, deciding not to open up about hiding the fact that he was a werewolf from nearly everyone he knew. "There are definitely upsides. Besides, I didn't really have to go it alone, there was --" He cut himself off, shutting his mouth slowly.

"Sneakers aren't the best option for hiking about the countryside, anyway. Besides, they so rarely fit the rest of my outfit." She plucked at the shirt she had on and shrugged. "Not that this is exactly my normal attire, either, of course." She moved over to a wall and leaned against it. Rubbing her arms, even though it wasn't cold, she looked up at the sky.

"Well. Getting dark. Been in the city long enough it's odd to see so many stars. And I don't recognize any of them, either. Figures." she sighed. "I wonder if any of them have names, or stories. I should ask about that, probably." Curious? Of course she was. But some things she was too polite to pry into like that. Considering his reaction to her brother, it didn't seem reasonable that whoever he was with posed a seperate danger to her, if they did show up. Hopefully, anyway. "Maybe they'll tell us about who these people are, and who they used to be."

Kay was grateful for the change of subject. His mentor's betrayal (if you could call a man who made you deliver drugs and experimented on you a mentor) still stung. Every single adult in his life who wasn't actively out to get him invariably either gave up on him or walked out on him. He regarded Selene for a moment, wondering if it'd be the same with her.

"Please. Like the people here wouldn't make up stories about constellations. Careful, if you get one talking, they probably won't want to stop," Kay said carelessly.

"Hell, I wouldn't mind. Can't get them to say word one about anything else when I ask. Except clothes, and most of that is just hash." She smiled, faintly, still staring at the sky. "Used to get stories about the stars. All kinds of wild, fanciful tales. Looked 'em up, years after. Every last one was nonsense, made up on the spot. Still, I like most of them better that the real stories."

Her eyes closed, and she didn't move for a while, face turned up to the sky. "I ain't shared more than a dozen words with another wolf since he died," she said, finally. "Almost didn't say one to you."

"So what would you have done instead of talk?" Kay asked, deciding not to ask who 'he' was. Selene had done him the favor of not prying, and he would return it. "Try and kill me?" Considering what he already knew about the fate of her old pack, that seemed most likely.

Most people would probably laugh it off or bounce back and forth on it or something to make it sound not so bad. Selene grinned. "No." She looked at him. "You've never even met a wolf before. If you hadn't said somethig and caught my attention, I would have left you in an alley. There's nowhere to run."

She closed her eyes again. "I hope it doesn't come back to that."

"You don't know who'd have left who dead," Kay said, looking at her sideways. "Let's not find out unless we have to, okay?"

He was too proud to let I would have slaughtered you slide, but didn't actually want bad blood between them.

"Of course not. That's part of the excitment." She laughed, and it wasn't cruel or mean, just amused. "Hell, look what I did when I was a kid." A pause, and then she shrugged. "Well, it wasn't what they expected, anyway. And you ain't exactly like the wolves back home, either." She was making an effort to soothe him; she hadn't really meant to insult him or anything like that. It was simply that, well. That was something she knew she was good at.

"...'course, I do have a fair amount of experience over you." She couldn't help it, not really. Especially around someone who smelled so much like, well, a wolf. She may look and act like the wrong gender, but in her world, wolves generally followed a rather strict hierarchy, based on strength, ability, skill, cunning...and without any way to gauge Kay, she was simply going to act a little smug. She just couldn't help it.

"I took on three vampires at once, last month," he shot back. Granted, he'd had some help from a witch, but she'd also hindered him, so it all balanced out, right? "They were in some kind of blood-frenzy, too. Like sharks. It was crazy."

Kay decided not to mention the fact that those vampires had been classmates of his, classmates whose worst crime had been agreeing to become vampires and giving in to the drives that they didn't have the experience to control. Kay had the lives of a lot of people on his conscience, people who hadn't deserved to die. Bragging about this sort of thing made his conscience twinge.

"And half the soccer team."

He wasn't going to mention the policemen.

She opened an eye and looked at him. Her eyes ran up and down what was little more than the shadow of a form, now. She wasn't sure what differences existed in vampires between their worlds, but imagined a blood-crazed bloodsucker probably, well, sucked in them both.

She let out a heavy breath. And pushed at her hair with both hands. "I imagine the bastards weren't expecting quite a performance." she straightened, smoothing her shirt. "I might ask you along, next moon."

"What's the full moon like for you?" Kay asked. It was apparently really different from his own, and he was curious.

He was pleased that he'd apparently impressed her, though.

"Bright," she said in a flippant to, snorting at him. "And a little furry."

She took a breath, and shook her head. "Things get a little fuzzy, it's like wearing a shirt that's too small for days. Used to make me mad, just, ready to pull apart anything that I saw, but doesn't do that so much anymore. The worst part is getting stuck in one form. It's like getting trapped for a couple of days. Can't even talk."

She shrugged. "You?"

Kay rolled his eyes at her snark, but wasn't bothered. It was the kind of humor most of his friends back home favored.

"Do you mean you're stuck as a wolf for days?" he asked, surprised. "It's different for me. I only change if I'm in full moonlight. It's fine as long as I'm inside, and sometimes I get lucky and the moon sets before it gets dark or after I've gone to bed, but..." He shook his head.

"It's never felt like a trap, though. Kind of the opposite. I feel like I'm finally breaking out of something." Turning into a wolf came with an adrenaline rush and a surge of strength Kay liked more than he should.

"Mmm. The curse is tied to the moon, but somewhat more indirectly, I think, than yours." She rubbed her arm and shrugged. "I can usually change whenever I want. Losing control...it brings back bad memories." Because, in the end, she liked it a bit more than she should, too.

"So let me get this straight," Kay said, trying to piece together the bits of werewolf lore Selene had given him. "You're stuck as a wolf for days around the full moon, but can change whenever you want. People new at the whole changing thing lose control, but not always, and not when you've got experience. You can keep yourself from changing at the full moon, but it's not fun. And everybody knows you're a werewolf. Is that right?" He ticked off each piece of information on his fingers as he went.

It was better than talking about losing control.

Selene studied him. "Close enough," she said. She wasn't going to give details about silver or iron, nor talk about her weakness during the full moon. "I mean, I'm pretty sure my postman doesn't have the foggiest idea about me, and the poor dear is allergic to fur. But I have to insist every week that no, I simply do not own an animal that might be bothering him." She laughed.

"And you...you can change at will, obviously. Unless you're in the light of a full moon." She stood and began pacing again. "I'm thinking you generally keep some control, like earlier. I imagine you're...something...when that slips up, though." Half a soccer team might not be terribly impressive, but fighting Hunters and Vampires, well. For an untrained kid, not bad at all.

She turned her head towards the street and paused, a low growl in her throat. But the guard didn't even pretend to look, and was gone after a moment on his rounds. Sheepishly, she cleared her throat and looked back at Kay. "Sorry."

"...we should probably go," Kay said, looking after the guard. He'd nodded to confirm her statements but added nothing else. "Before someone does get on our case for being out here." He pulled a face and heaved a sigh.

After a moment, she nodded. "That's probably a good idea. Last thing I want is to get scolded for absconding with a young knight while dressed like this. Or worse, everyone thinking that's the kind of thing I'm interested in. No offense, but I don't care for the thought of the maids at the castle contriving to arrange accidental meetings between us at every opportunity, and I'm rather confidant they'd delight in it." She laughed, shaking her head.

"Anyhow, though I detest playing the responsible adult here, I might suggest having care when you're running around the city like that. I know you think about folk attacking you, or hunting you down, but that's not all. The fewer people who know there is a werewolf or two, the better it will be if we find ourselves in a fight. Folk who don't expect you to change won't know what to do with it."

Kay rolled his eyes. Everyone here was insane. Like LARPers gone absolutely nuts.

Well. More nuts.

"You're a little late for that. Sorry. I don't spread my condition around, and no one knows the wolf is me but you and Faolan, but I ended up--" Oh, jeez, how did he explain it? That he'd been tricked into rescuing a girl by someone who was trying to make people do heroic stuff? "--rescuing someone in the wolf body. And you know how everything we do here is basically in the public eye." Kay sounded irritated. He didn't like that he'd been tricked, and he definitely didn't like that Loki guy. Where did he get off, playing people like that?

She pursed her lips. "Did anyone get a good look at you? See you're not just a big wolf?" She licked her lips. "Last couple of days, right? I heard about heroes fighting each other or something like that."

"Are you kidding? I couldn't pass for 'just a big wolf' if I tried. They thought I was a mutant coyote back home. I didn't say I was a werewolf, but I don't know who guessed. Anyway, about what happened -- some asshole called Loki kidnapped a girl and made us jump through a bunch of hoops to get her back." His tone said that he thought the whole thing had been a bad idea.

She snorted, and flushed a little. "Well, I guess you have a point. At least they haven't connected it to you." She cleared her throat, smoothing her clothes.

"Loki. Someone to avoid, I'm guessing?" She let out a heavy breath. "Like half of this God-forsaken kingdom, I suppose."

werewolves, werewolves everywhere

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Well. I suck. Sorry.

It's cool! Last week I didn't have time to tag either.

<3

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now it's my turn to be the awful slow person, sorry!!

Everyone's slow lately~

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