WHO: Jules Hart WHEN: Afternoon of February 12 WHERE: Primarily the parking lot of Wilkerson's SUMMARY: Jules has a perfectly normal day, until suddenly it's not normal at all. WARNINGS: None
The day had been normal.
Well, it had been a new sort of normal. A normal that had only started that week. A normal that she had never expected and thought she might never get used to.
The morning had started as per always, with Jules making breakfast for herself and Ella, then dropping the latter off at school. From there, she picked up the morning coffee -- fully caffeinated for her, decaf for her newly expecting boss -- and went to Tessa's office to start the workday. Eventually, though, she had found herself at Gabe's (again) after having been given leave from Tessa. Having a job with flexible work hours was convenient, she had found, as she carried on with this clandestine something or other with her ex and father of her child.
But eventually she had left Gabe's, hoping that his neighbors weren't too nosy. Jules didn't care too much about being the subject of the town's gossip, but she would start to care if it got back to the wrong people. The last thing she needed was for their daughter to get ideas before they even had any real ideas themselves.
Her day continued on, still normal -- at least, normal until she stopped at Wilkerson's to pick up some groceries for dinner before going to the school for Ella. It was when she was checking out and the clerk wished her not just a good day, but also welcomed her to town that her brow arched. She'd gone through that particular clerk's lane plenty of times since she had moved to Dunhaven six months prior, but she decided not to dwell as her gloved hands picked up her bags and she carried them out to the car.
All pretenses of normal shattered when she loaded the bags into her car, slid into her seat, and glanced in the rearview mirror. It wasn't Jules that stared back at her. No, instead she was looking at the emerald green eyes of a gorgeous woman, her skin pale and her lips full. Jules let out a yelp of surprise, reaching out to adjust the mirror. Her eyes caught on her hand and she made no hesitation as she pulled off one glove, then the other. The hands weren't hers either. They were longer, more slender than her own.
Jules looked back at the mirror, her heart racing as she found herself staring into the face of Lysandra, the woman she had been dreaming about for months.
Forcing herself to take in a slow, steadying breath, Jules closed her eyes. She knew what had happened, of course. She was waiting for this moment for what felt like forever. Though she had assumed she might take the form of an animal or that she would have done it on purpose, the evidence was clear -- she had finally inherited Lysandra's abilities to shapeshift.
This time, perhaps simply because she was aware of it, Jules could feel the changes, her form shifting by thought alone. When she opened her eyes, it was her own brown ones that stared back at her. Her skin was dark, her nose and lips her own. She breathed a sigh of relief.