Kiley Ricks (kileyanne) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-08-01 22:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2009-07-22, kiley |
When everything is wrong, we move along
WHO: Kiley and Rosa
WHERE: Starbucks
WHEN: Midmorning
WHAT: Catching up!
Rosa was of two minds about Starbucks. She admired them as a corporation, sure. Anyone who could take a small business with one location and less than a decade later have grown it into a mega-corp with thousands of locations worldwide deserved respect. But there was no soul to the corporate chain, every store was pretty much like every other, and their coffee wasn’t even all that good as far as the werewolf was concerned.
But given that they were the 800 pound gorilla in the business, it paid to keep an eye on them, which is what brought the young owner of the Mudhouse to the local branch that morning. She stepped into the store, wearing a simple red and white dress and sandals as she was trying to beat the heat on an already muggy morning.
There were a few other people in line, so she waited patiently for her turn, glancing around to see what might have changed since her last visit and observing the staff as they filled orders. The scent of another wolf somewhere in the shop caught her attention, and Rosa looked around trying to spot who it might be.
There were a lot of different things in her store that brought back different memories for Kiley. Case in point, the fact that someone had come in that morning and ordered a quad skinny vanilla latte - Cedric’s drink. Her ex-boyfriend’s drink. Regardless of his reasoning for leaving town so suddenly, it didn’t change the fact that he was gone and she was once again left to pick up the pieces. Everyone left eventually and one day, she’d remember that.
Seeing Alanna the day before had been a great distraction, though, and Kiley thought about that instead. She hadn’t shifted in front of any of her friends since she’d gone out for a run with Morgan, and seeing as that day ended in a demon attack, this was definitely better. At the moment she was at one of the back counters, mixing up a batch of mocha, adding the hot water to the pitcher and stirring in the chocolate powder. To the wolf, the smell of cocoa was almost enough to mask the other scents in the room - almost. It was hard to miss another wolf in the room, no matter what she did.
Kiley lifted her head, scanning over the other people in line. She was dressed in her Starbucks best - black polo over a long-sleeved black tee to hide all of her scars, black pants, and of course, a green apron. It took a moment to pinpoint where the scent was coming from. Is that... Rosa?
Rosa caught the redheaded woman staring at her, and it took her a heartbeat to recognize her in all that Starbucks black, and it caused memories of the last time she’d seen either of the Ricks to come to the surface.
It had been at the funeral of Kiley and Corwin’s parents. Both siblings had clearly been bitten by another wolf given the scents coming off them, but had been too numbed with grief to pay much attention to her. She and Corwin had dated a for a bit back in high school, but with her focus on art and having to watch what she did in the bedroom things had kind of petered out after a while. Kiley had just been Corwin’s older sister to her, but the two had always been friendly.
Rosa wondered how well either sibling had adjusted to their new circumstances over the past year. Maybe she’d get a chance to find out today.
Kiley didn’t always keep track of what happened to the girls Corwin dated in the past - after all, before they’d been turned, there had been a good number of them. But Rosa Kiley remembered, though she couldn’t say they’d ever been close. And the scent coming off Rosa now was unmistakable. If Corwin hadn’t gotten in touch with her and told her what happened, what had become of them, Kiley would now have to. The last time she’d seen Rosa had been at the funeral, and so much of that time was a blur for her, who knew what had actually been said.
She gave Rosa a wave, finishing up the mocha and leaving the wire whisk in one of the sinks to be washed later. “Hey,” she said, drying her hands on a nearby towel, “what brings you in here?” It could very well be that she came in all the time and Kiley had been too busy holed up in her house to really notice what was going on in the outside world.
After deciding it wasn’t going to be a huge revelation, Rosa simply told the truth. “Just checking out the competition and seeing what the evil empire is up to. I took over the Mudhouse from my grandmother after I got my Bachelor’s.” She stepped up to the front of the counter and placed her order.
“Are you going on break soon? It’d be great to catch up.” Rosa emphasised the last two words, hoping she’d find out how the siblings had been handling things the past year.
Rosa owned the other coffee shop in town? Really? When did that happen? It wouldn’t surprise Kiley if that was old news and she was just figuring this out. There were a lot of questions she wanted to ask Rosa - the basics, how she was doing and all of that, but also wondering if she’d known then, at the funeral, what was happening to them. Kiley had been too strung out at that point in time to even think about what her hyperactive senses might have meant. “Werewolf” was the last thing on her mind.
“It’s awesome that you have your own place, though,” Kiley said, taking her apron off and hanging it off a hook hanging on a nearby shelf. “I was going to take lunch soon, we can chat then?” Better than sitting out back and eating by herself, anyway.
“It’s a lot of work, but I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.” Rosa checked her watch and debated how much time she had. “I can do lunch,” she confirmed after a moment’s thought. “Just come get me when you’re ready.” She had a good staff back at the Mudhouse and she trusted them to keep things in order while she was gone. Half of them had been working there since she’d been in braces, so it wasn’t like they didn’t know how the place worked!
After taking her café au lait and paying the bill, she stepped aside to make a few calls on her iPhone while she waited for Kiley to go on lunch break.
“Give me like... two minutes.” All Kiley had to do was grab her lunch, nothing more than leftover pasta from the night before, and refill her glass of water before heading out into the cafe to join Rosa. Perhaps she should have been nervous, seeing as she had only met a handful of wolves before, and they’d always been people she knew for some reason - people she hadn’t known to be weres. Funny how that worked. Being turned thrust her into an entirely different world, in more ways than one.
Giving Rosa a smile, she went to join her friend on the other side of the bar. “Come on, we can sit over here,” she said, pointing to an empty table.
“All right.” Rosa smiled back and put her phone back in her purse before following Kiley over to the empty table. She was extremely curious to hear how the Ricks siblings had adjusted to being weres, especially how they dealt with the full moon. She’d tried getting in touch after the funeral but there had never been any response. “So how have you been?”
That... was something of a loaded question. Overall, Kiley knew she’d be fine, though sometimes it didn’t feel like it. And she’d been out of touch with Rosa long enough that her current troubles would seem rather minor, in retrospect. “Where do you want me to start?” she asked, shaking her head. “It’s - been a rough year.” On top of being turned, she’d lost their parents, too. It was a lot for anyone to handle, and Kiley knew she should have kept in better touch.
“Start wherever’s most comfortable for you,” Rosa looked at her sympathetically. She’d been much younger than Kiley when her own parents had been killed, and she hadn’t seen it, so she only had some idea of what the other woman was going through. “I imagine it has been a very rough year for you. How are you and Corwin holding up?”
For a moment, Kiley glanced up, making sure her co-workers weren’t within earshot. Her were abilities weren’t exactly public knowledge and Kiley wanted to keep it that way. “Better now, that we’ve had some time to adjust,” she said. “The first few moons were rough, to say the least. Corwin took to it better than I did, total alpha.” And anyone who’d ever met her brother wouldn’t be surprised by that at all. She looked up at Rosa. “You knew at the funeral, didn’t you? What we were?”
Rosa nodded at the description of Corwin, though she imagined it had been a rough adjustment for him to go from playing the field to having to look for the sure thing relationship-wise. She sipped her drink and debated what to say to Kiley’s question, before finally nodding in confirmation. “Yes, I did. I tried to talk to you but neither of you were really up for it, and the few times I called nobody ever picked up. After a while, I just figured someone else must have clued you in.” She felt slightly guilty about that, because how many other born werewolves did the Ricks know? Maybe Alex and his family, but she didn’t remember Corwin hanging out with the younger man back in High School.
Kiley winced. It sounded horrible, when you put it like that. “I didn’t mean not to answer the phone,” she said. “It was just - I wasn’t talking to anyone, really. I didn’t think I could trust myself around them.” Because, regardless of what Rosa might think of their were nature, Kiley knew the truth. Once a month, she was a monster, and she’d carry that inside her now for the rest of her life. She shook her head, “Not really. We figured it out after the first moon. And from then... we figured out how to deal with it.” They had cages before the politicians made a big deal out of it. The first actual wolf she’d met had been Morgan, and he’d been surprised to know she’d been turned, too.
“Yeah, it’s a little different with those of you who weren’t born with it from what I’ve seen and heard.” Rosa was sympathetic, she had a hard time imagining not being able to control her shape during a change, and not being in control of herself at the full moon. It was something of a nightmare, actually. “What do you do during the moon?”
If it was just about changing into her wolf form for the moon, being a were wouldn’t be so bad. Kiley couldn’t remember the moons, only how she woke up - in the cold floor of her metal cage, bloodied, bruised, a complete mess. “What any sane bitten does,” she said. “A pair of stainless steel cages, in the basement of my house.” It hadn’t taken her long to realize there was no way they could remain free during the full moon - she never wanted someone else to go through what she did because she’d been careless.
“I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you Kiley.” Rosa murmured in sympathy. At least the young woman and her brother had taken sensible precautions. She had no clue how the born/bitten divide had come about, or how lycanthropy in general had evolved. All she knew was what had been taught to her, and the instincts that came naturally to her kind.
“So the two of you know the ropes then? About everything?”
Kiley shrugged, finally realizing that there was food in front of her and maybe she’d want to see about eating sometime soon. With the current conversation, she wasn’t all that hungry. She picked at her pasta, eating a bite, before continuing. “It’s okay,” she said, “it’s not your fault, what’s done is done.” And there was nothing either of them could do to change what happened. Looking back at the past wasn’t going to help her any. “And I wouldn’t say that,” she said, making a bit of a face. “I’ve only met a couple who are like us, wolves, since then.” Probably because she’d barely left the house, but that was her own damn fault. “I know what instinct tells me, but the rest... who knows.”
“Well, you know about silver right? I know it’s cliche but it’s also true. And wolves mate for life, I don’t know if that’s really instinctive with bittens or not, but I know it applies to them too. Hope Corwin figured that one out.” She had to smirk at the thought for a moment, imagining Corwin tied at the hip for life with some blonde bimbo he’d met one night at a bar and intended only to be a roll in the hay. That would suck.
In spite of herself, Kiley snorted. “Oh, Corwin got the message, all right. Needless to say, watching him try to date now has been... amusing.” To her, at least. She didn’t want to see her brother do something stupid and find himself mated to someone he couldn’t even stand the next morning. “And I got rid of all my silver jewelry. Helped that I wasn’t much of a silver person to begin with.” Truth be told Kiley wasn’t much of a jewelry person in general, but she had a few pieces she’d liked. Getting rid of her mother’s old pieces had been harder, wanting to keep them for the memories, and being unable to do so because they would now poison her. “I’m still figuring out the whole pack thing, though. I know what feels right to me, but it’s hard.” Her pack, the way she saw it, was her friends and family. What she lacked in blood ties she’d make up for in friendships. Nothing wrong with that.
“It is hard.” Rosa agreed, sipping her drink with a pensive expression. “My grandparents are regular humans so they can’t truly understand what a pack means to a wolf.” She’d been without a wolfpack of her own since she was ten, and now that she was out of school it was something that had to change. “I’m looking to form my own pack somehow, but the whole Alpha issue gets in the way.” She wasn’t willing to submit to an Alpha who wasn’t her mate, and was used to being the one in charge.
She nodded. The other weres she knew - Alanna and Roxy, respectively - didn’t really have packs like a wolf did, and it was something she knew but couldn’t exactly explain. That was the problem with instincts, you just knew they were right. “What do you mean, alpha issue?” she asked. “I don’t see why you couldn’t just run your own pack.” Hell, if Rosa could run her own business, she had what it took. Kiley couldn’t imagine a pack that didn’t include her brother, and of the two of them, Corwin was clearly the alpha.
“I am used to being the boss anymore,” Rosa nodded. “You don’t really hear about packs with female Alphas, so what I’d like to do is pretty unique. I haven’t run into many wolves who don’t already have packs.” There was Alex’s pack, but that was the only one she really knew about in the area.
There was that, something Kiley had not yet thought of. She knew she didn’t want to run her own pack, that was for damn sure. And that being said, she didn’t really know if she and Corwin were considered their own pack either. They just were, for better or worse. “I think that’s one of those things that comes to you in time,” she said, brow furrowing as she took another bite of food. “I don’t know a lot of wolves, so I’m still learning how it all works. You’re like the second one I’ve met.”
“Who’s the first?” Rosa asked curiously. She only knew of Alex and his family for certain around these parts. “Don’t worry, a lot of it works by instinct. If that doesn’t clear things up you can always call me and I’ll help out.”
Kiley opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it pretty quickly. “A friend of mine from high school,” she said after a moment. Morgan wasn’t particularly open about being a were and there was no reason to go around broadcasting it. Even though she hadn’t talked to him in a while, it still wasn’t her secret to tell. “Ran into him randomly, hadn’t seen him in years and... yeah. That was a fun conversation.” She gave Rosa a bigger, more genuine smile, “That’s what we’ve been figuring out. And I’d love to talk someone who knows about this stuff, honestly.”
“You’re welcome to call or come over anytime, no strings attached.” Rosa smiled back at her, happy to help. “That’s what friends are for. If you and Corwin decide you’d like to help start a pack, well, that’d be great too but take your time.” She glanced at her watch and frowned. “I’d love to keep talking, but I’ve got to get going.”
“I’d really appreciate that,” Kiley said, nodding, looking down at her phone and catching a glimpse of the time. “And not just to talk about, you know, this stuff. The offer goes both ways, you know.” Now that she was back to living her life, with all the ups and downs that went with it, she didn’t want to lose touch with any of her friends again. “And I should finish my lunch. It was great to see you, though. I promise not to fall off the face of the planet again.”
Rosa nodded as well and smiled over at the other wolf as she stood up. “That sounds great Kiley. I’ll give you a call or a text in a few days. Tell Corwin hi for me, it would be nice to see him again too one of these days.”
“Sounds good to me.” Kiley didn’t move to get up, seeing as her food was already here, and she knew she had to eat something while she was on break. She did, however, give Rosa a bigger, more real smile as she waved. “And I will, I’m sure he’ll love to hear from you. We won’t be such a stranger anymore.” And she wouldn’t be; Kiley had made that promise to herself already.