The Universe's Mixer

The den under the bridge in the park had been temporarily abandoned. It wasn't that Firekeeper couldn't stand cold weather--she was quite used to it, in fact, and had survived much more frigid winters than this one--but she was near somewhere that was warm with plentiful food and she decided to take the opportunity to be comfortable.

Was trying to take it, in any case. There weren't many places that allowed wolves as big as small ponies.

She gathered up her injured dignity after the third deli owner saw the pair out (both for Blind Seer's presence and for Firekeeper's shoeless state) and stopped looking in the brightly lit restaurants. Blind Seer advised her against threatening the people who told her in no uncertain terms that they didn't allow vagrants with dogs inside their stores, and she had to reluctantly agree. There was no Derian here to translate the bigger picture for her, no Elise to diplomatically smooth raised hackles.

Food was less of a problem than shelter, though at first both she and Blind Seer were reluctant to scavenge like vultures. Eventually Blind Seer's stomach got the best of him and with a silent shrug and a wolf proverb about not overlooking what was right in front of them he made himself a meal of still-warm hamburgers from behind a fast-food place. "Not entirely meat," he told her, sniffing delicately at it, "but enough for a full belly tonight." Firekeeper had held out for only a little longer before joining suit. That was the first night that somebody had handed Firekeeper a dollar on the street. She started to ask why, but whoever handed her the scrap of greenish, smelly paper didn't seem too inclined to interact with her and hurried on their way. So she shrugged and pocketed it and accepted it as just another new, strange custom that these new, strange two-legs kept.

So today, a week later, she sat on the stoop of an apartment building just down the street from a cafe, enjoying the sounds of somebody's guitar as Blind Seer slept, her feet tucked under his belly fur to keep warm. It wasn't a castle, but neither was it starving in the middle of a mountain forest. Life was good.

Connor wasn't one for surprises. I mean, sure, he liked to joke around with his brother, but for serious pranks, that was left to other people. Working at the meat packing plant had certainly eaten a lot of their time up a few months ago, but ever since the discovery of 'The Duke' being their father, things were very different. The money they had procured from the hits in the beginning had been enough to sustain his 2 main food groups. Pizza and beer.

That random Wednesday he will not likely forget. He awoke to be standing in his disheveled room, with the other bed empty of his brother. Normally, his brother woke him, or visa-versa, so seeing the bed that way was...a little out of the ordinary. Quickly he threw on a black T-Shirt and a pair of blue jeans. Lacing his boots up, he then headed out the door, to see something that wasn't supposed to be there. A hallway. They traded in their squatting apartment for one with their father...and it wasn't on an upper floor. It was on the first floor. He walked briskly to the right of their door, passing several doors that he still did not recognize.

At the end of the building was a window. He stopped, weighed his options, and went back to his room to get a gun. Picking up his hand gun and two extra clips, he strapped them into his black boot and headed back towards the window. Connor was on the third floor of a building he didn't recognize, and a city he had never been to. That was bad. What made it ever worse, is his brother and father were nowhere to be found. Exiting the building via fire escape, he hit the pavement and stood completely still.

"Well, this is certainly sucks. How the fuck did I end up here?" he said in his southern Boston-Irish dialect. He scratched his head.

Things were not looking good. Not good at all.

Dear Ms Blake,

We have assigned you a new partner, a detective named Deborah Morgan. She is new here, so we'd like you to find her and show her around. Please introduce her to your colleagues and help her set up her desk in your office.

We expect that you two will work well together.

- CPD, HR