[ narrative ] Who: Laura Hale What: Laura’s reaction to stress is to do stupid shit. Does making an impromptu trip to Yosemite count as stupid shit? Where: Yosemite When: evening, October 2 through afternoon, October 10 Rating: General/Teen (slight cursing, mention of hunting/chasing animals, terrible passive voice) Status: Closed/Complete.
The wolf was easy. Simple. Emotions were less complicated as the wolf, simmering far beneath the surface instead of directly beneath the skin. Laura loved running as the wolf. Life became about the run, the adrenaline pumping in her bloodstream, the sound of the leaves whispering, and the scent of autumn on the air. Everything called to the primal instincts in her, urging her to run, to chase, to hunt.
Laura ran through Yosemite. She shifted back to human during the day, when she was near people, and spent her nights, and any other moment she could, running as a wolf. A permit to hike Half Dome took a few days to process, so she wouldn’t be going up to the peak until that was procured. Until then? She was going to run as a wolf.
Enough of the connection to her human side remained that she didn’t sit back and howl all night. There was no point, anyway; her pack wasn’t with her, all of them back home, one of them no longer her pack.
The wolf understood that though, watched the cycle of life going on and knew that there were just things that had to be. They were still there, even the one no longer her pack; he was simply connected by other means.
In the end, they were all wolves, all brothers and sisters of the pack, running under the light of the moon. Pack or not, friend or family: the reality of their humanity connected them in ways that superseded lines and definitions.
The hollow in her chest, the pit of anger and stress and frustration, lessened with each night run Laura took, making the days easier, the runs more enjoyable, and by the time she received her permit to hike Half Dome, she felt almost normal.
Half Dome wasn’t a hike meant for the inexperienced, and Laura was lucky she’d thought to throw her hiking boots in the car when she took off. Everything else she needed was easy to procure in days before her hike, and seeing how it was the middle of the week, her path was relatively quiet and mostly free of people. It took little over twelve hours, mostly thanks to her werewolf strength - and her werewolf healing. But she finished - reached the summit, with time to spare. Standing there, looking down over the Yosemite Valley, was really the first time she felt a modicum of peace since that night when Derek texted her from the high school.
It was also the first time she wanted to turn on her phone since she’d left early Friday morning. She winced at the number of messages and Facebook notifications from various people, but resolutely ignored them. She was going to get a selfie, standing there on the summit of Half Dome. Laura positioned herself close to the edge - dangerously close - and snapped a few pictures, making faces at the camera. She almost wished someone was there with her - Libby, perhaps, who generally went along with her wild schemes; or Derek, who might have appreciated the view; or anyone, really.
It would have been helpful to have someone else to get pictures of her.
Just as she thought, the worst happened. Laura, blessed with werewolf strength and grace, rarely fumbled with her phone. But in the process of flipping it around to snap another picture with the rear camera, her grip slipped -
And the phone went tumbling, slamming into the rocky surface of Half Dome with a terrible crunch and a loud thud. It didn’t stop there, either; instead, it went rolling down and down and down, until even Laura couldn’t hear it hitting the side.
“Fuck.”
Wasn’t that just beautiful?
--
Despite a lack of phone, Laura remained in Yosemite until early Saturday morning. It had only been a few days and she needed the peace, the connection with nature, and the freedom that came with having no one around.
Her first stop when she got back to Beacon Hills was the Hale house. She’d showered while out in Yosemite, but only in pitiful showers offered at the campground. It held little comparison to her own shower, in her own bedroom, in the family house. And from there, she had a few other errands to run.
First stop? New cellphone, which inspired a length discussion about how she both broke and lost her phone, and how it wasn’t exactly lost, just… not in her possession.
Second stop? Foooooooooood. Real human food, prepared right there and delivered to her steaming hot. Laura’s choice? Pizza, from the best pizza place in town; a huge meat lover’s pizza. The waitress stared at her like she was crazy when she ordered it, refusing to believe Laura planned to eat the entire pizza.
(Laura wasn’t going to eat the entire thing - she deliberately saved one slice, the smallest slice, and asked for a knife to cut that in two, eating one half and leaving a tiny sliver of pizza.
“I want the biggest box you have to carry it,” she told the waitress, “and a pen.”
The waitress continued to stare at her like she was mental, but did bring her a box - one of the boxes meant for an extra large pizza - and a Sharpie, so Laura could enact her plan.
She also updated Facebook, informing everyone of her lack of a phone for the past week. Well, three days. But no one had to know exactly how long she’d been without the phone.)
Third stop? Derek’s new loft.
It hadn’t been hard to get an idea of where Derek lived, after doing a little snooping and finally texting her mother to ask. She swung by the loft, pizza box with a tiny slice of pizza inside and “Stop being a stubborn jerk. I’ll stop being a stubborn brat,” written in purple Sharpie on the top and left in front of his door.
That was the biggest apology she was going to give her brother. She hadn’t handled his separation from the pack gracefully and had been harsh, but it wasn’t all on her. If he wasn’t going to talk to her and continue to be stubborn over everything going on, then Laura was just going to have to accept that.