Ash felt the dull pain in her back all throughout breakfast. She felt it in the back of her neck as she bent down to bring spoonfulls of food into her mouth. She felt it shifting through her organs as she laughed with her friends. She felt it spread from her back to her legs as she walked to class and felt it in her arms as she shifted the weight of her book bag from one shoulder to another.
"Ash, you don't look well. What's wrong?"
Isabelle looked at her friend with concern.
Ash smiled widely, but even the effort of smiling made her face muscles ache.
"Don't worry about me, Mom. I think I might just be catching a winter cold or something. I always feel a full body pain before I get the flu."
"Mom?" Celia laughed. "Don't mock the Comtesse, Ashy. She may just well adopt you. She has connections, she can totally do it." she joked.
Izzy looked pointedly at Celia before turning to look at Ash. Celia may not have meant anything by it, but Izzy was sensitive about jokes regarding Ash's lack of family. Ash may have looked like it didn't phase her, but Izzy wanted to be careful nonetheless.
"I would love for Boots to be part of my family, but she's turning 18 soon and I can't adopt an adult."
"---You actually can adopt an adult if said adult has a diminished capacity or disability. Among other reasons, of course."
The three girls turned around to see who had interrupted their conversation. The young man leaned against the wall just a few feet away from the girls. Apparently he had been walking around the corner when he decided to drop in on their conversation.
He had dark blonde hair that he pushed back from his face and Viking blue eyes. His long brown trench coat had a light smattering of snow.
Celia and Ash were in the same class. The boy was in the same class with Isabelle.
"I know about adult adoption, Hunter. What I meant to say was that since I'm the one who's a minor, I can't adopt an adult." Isabelle retorted, annoyed. "If you're going to lurk and drop in on other people's conversations, maybe get some background first before you embarrass yourself."
Isabelle crossed her arms across her chest in triumph, proud of her excellent response.
And then Celia, without thinking, chimed in.
"Yeah, man. Ash IS retarded!" She shouted at the young man, annoyed.
Ash and Izzy looked incredulously at Celia.
Celia only caught herself after she'd already blurted out her words. She had meant to say "isn't retarded" but had slurred her words, the meaning tripping over her twisted tongue, landing wrong outside the catch of her teeth.
"I mean, she is NOT retarded!"
Celia had shouted her first statement with such force that it sounded like she meant what she actually said. The subsequent take-back was unconvincing and only seemed to punctuate the mistake. The young man laughed out loud at the insult to Ash's intelligence.
"Of course she's not retarded. I wasn't implying that at all, Celia." The young man replied, a wide smile on his face.
Ash's own face was burning with embarrassment. Izzy grabbed Ash's hand protectively. Celia, on the other hand, had shut her eyes, cringing in second-hand embarrassment for her friend.
"I'll see you later, ladies. And for the record, Boots, I don't think you're retarded at all." The young man waved goodbye and walked past them still smiling.
"Thanks, Hunter," Ash mumbled under her breath, low enough so that he couldn't hear. Her ears were burning and she could feel the blood rushing to her head. She felt a small pain go through her chest, an acute pain that was different from the one in her bones and muscles.
"Ash, I'm so sorry! I was just trying to make you look good in front of Hunter! I didn't mean it like that! I meant to say that you were smart!" Celia pleaded, rubbing Ash's shoulder.
Ash thought that if she could have died right there and then, she would have used her last words to not invite Celia to her funeral.
Izzy tugged at Ash's hand and started walking toward the classrooms. Celia followed along, tugging at her earlobe in frustration. She pinched her earlobe just enough for it to hurt a little. It was Celia's own way of punishing herself: her best friend was in love with Hunter Guzman, and she had just called her "retarded" in front of him.
Aside from that morning's minor incident, the rest of the school day was uneventful. Ash had gotten over her embarrassment quickly and by lunch time, she had already allowed Celia to earn her forgiveness by buying her an extra plate of chicken wings.As Celia and Ash used their hands to dig into their lunch, Isabelle looked at them, her face scrunched up and looking judgemental."What, do you want to take a picture so it lasts longer?" Celia asked, sarcastically."I know it's normal for you guys to eat like barbarians, but I'm still not used to seeing it up close." Isabelle said as she sliced delicately at her salad and chewed carefully."Come on, Izzy, we've seen you eat a burger. That's not exactly fine dining." Ash replied."Yes, but that's outside of school, in a restaurant that sells hamburgers. That's only appropriate, especially when I'm always outvoted by the two of you at dining choices," Isabelle said, primly."It's not about fine
"Hey, I'm going for a run later, are you coming along?" Celia asked the girls after class."I have a fencing class later, but if you go before that I can do a quick jog around the field with you." Isabelle said."Uh, yeah, I'll go too. My back's been hurting all day. Maybe I can jog it out, stretch my muscles.""I don't know, Boots. If it hurts, maybe you should go lie down. It's a little cold out."The girls were walking back to the dorms to put their things away. The sun was still out, but the wind was cold.Ash pressed her thumb to her lower back and traced along her spine, massaging the sore spots. She'd felt a slight pain in her back for days now, but today the pain was sharp. Not only that, she had felt her joints aching all day. It was like someone had thrown her body in a washing machine and set it on high."Maybe she just needs a massage. I bet she'd like a Swedish massage, wouldn't she, Cece?" Isabelle said playfully, looking to Ce
As soon as Ash got inside her dorm room, she dropped her book bag on the floor, tossed off her overcoat, stepped out of her leather school shoes, and flopped face down on her bed. She didn't even bother to change out of her uniform.Celia looked on from the doorway. She shrugged and quietly picked up her friend's discarded book bag, setting it on the floor beside Ash's study table. She balled up the crumpled coat and set it on top of Ash's book bag. Then, she put away both of their shoes, nudging aside Ash's strewn pair with her socked feet, and put her own book bag on her own study table, just beside Ash's.Celia quietly changed into a pink velour Adidas Originals tracksuit and put on a pair of pure white Adidas trainers with gold accents. She knew that some of the students made fun of her for being noveau riche and ragged on her alleged lack of good taste, so she made it a point to double down on her flashy street-style aesthetic at school. She knew what she liked an
Hunter had noticed the change in the color of Ash's ears as he passed by the girls that morning, just before class. He had been genuinely amused by Celia's accidental insult of her friend's mental capacity (Celia had accidentally called Ash "retarded" earlier that day) but he felt a little guilty that Ash had been embarrassed by it. He had no doubt that Ash was smart. And it wasn't because she was a scholar: the SBA scholarship's only conditions were that she didn't violate any of the Academy's rules and that she pass all of her classes.Despite that minimum standard, Ash had made the effort to perform well in school. She maintained her academic standing in the upper 10 percent of their level every year since she started at Saint Blaise's Academy. While she didn't exactly top the class, she always ranked third or fourth at every term and received minor commendations at the end of every school year.Hunter admired Ash's tenacity. She didn't have the advantage of exclusi
Hunter bounded swiftly into the woods. He had been aching to shift since lunch time: he had felt the surge of animal energy coursing through his veins and the wolf's hunger had been clawing away at his insides. He needed to channel his urges into a hunt, otherwise, he would have gone crazy.When he was far enough away from the fence, he chose a safe spot under a tree. The half moon was cradled in the tree's branches as he looked up: he deemed it a good sign.He let go of his human mind and began to shift. His spine lengthened and his muscles grew to accommodate the increase in his height. From his human frame of nearly 6 feet tall, he grew larger to an impressive 8 feet from his head to his new hind legs. His bones shifted all over his body and his muscles and tissues expanded to cover them, all the while his organs moved, resizing and reorganizing inside him. As the surface of his body increased, his leather costume was swallowed into the expanding mass of his new ski
Hunter took stock of the tattered uniform in front of him. He knew from the scent who it belonged to, but it didn't really give him much to go on.Thinking was hard. It was especially hard when the aroma of a fresh kill was still wafting in the air and the enticing scent of a possible mate was within immediate mating vicinity.Hunter left the pile of tatters and returned to the deer carcass. He ate the leg that Ash had dropped, fed on the entrails, and tore apart the deer's front legs. When he had finished with his meal, it looked like a pack of wolves had descended on the poor deer. He would leave the rest for the scavengers to find.If a forest ranger were to pass by, the carcass would just be another hard piece of evidence for predation in action: another prey animal succumbing to a carnivore, just another day in the wild with Mother Nature.He turned his attention back to Ash, eager to sniff at the new werewolf up close.When he found her, she
"You know, I saw you at lunch today, and---"Hunter cut himself off mid-sentence: he noticed Ash's eyelids were twitching. It looked like she was about to come to.[Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,] he thought, panic rising in his chest.She was still haphazardly dressed and propped up on his knee. He would have wanted to put a modest distance between their bodies (making room for the Holy Spirit, as the teachers called it) especially considering her state of undress, but that would have meant putting her back on the cold ground.He settled for cradling her shoulders: it seemed like a reassuring thing to do for her (human contact after passing out and all that) but more importantly for him, he could at least keep her from slapping his face the moment she opened her eyes."Heeeey, Boots. Wassup?" he said.[Wassup? Where the hell did that come from? That sounded so lame!] he thought to himself, cringing inwardly.Ash slowly open
[The following is Ash's interpretation of what happened on the night of her first transformation]Tonight, I was in the woods with the Prince of the Forest. The palace was cold and the deer that drew my carriage ran away because his stomach hurt. I think he ate too many blueberries.The Prince arrived after dinner when they had taken all the food away. The fairies were playing a song when he asked me to dance with him, but the music wasn't right so I asked him to wait until it changed.The Prince gave me his tunic to wear because he had chosen me as his betrothed. I was very happy. I had never been chosen before. Then he asked me if I knew my way home so we could tell my parents of our engagement. But I couldn't tell the Prince that my parents were gone. It would have made him very sad, and I did not want to see him sad.I was only sad that we never got to dance.I picked up my garters from where I dropped them: if human things