As Ash stood in the middle of the ground floor corridor between the flow of young men and women, she felt slightly lost. She had made sure to put on a skirt and a casual shirt to match, her third outfit for the day and realized it stood out like a sore thumb among the river of fades torn jeans, open shirts, tanks and crop tops. She looked far too proper to be casual.
The weres looked at her and looked away. Her schedule said the orientation was in a hall on the first floor but moving between the thick crowd meant she would bumping into someone pretty easily. So she paused every once in a while and waited for a the thick flow of students to pass her before moving forward. By the time she reached the stairs, she knew it would be harder to make it. Weres jumped from the landing to landing, some skipping steps, some throwing their peers like a cannonball.
Unsure of how to excuse herself and pass between them, she paused at the corner of the stairs. A girl slammed into the wall and slid down, her oversized baggy crop and high rise jeans fluttering everywhere as she rolled over and stood in a fit of laughter.
Their eyes met. The were asked, "wanna head up?"
She gave the woman a curt nod and woman hollered, "move it gang. We have a human who needs to head up."
"Much appreciated," she thanked the woman and got a snicker in return. As she headed up, the guys on the middle of the landing, stuck to the wall, with a woman each hanging on their shoulder whistled. Heat and unease snaked around her body, pushing her to walk faster. She did not give in to impulse. She could not.
Once on the first floor, she met a with a set of rolling pins, carved rolling pins made out of something solid and white. Before she could look closer at what it was, a werewolf, came sliding across the floor and banged into the pins. Surprisingly, he managed to topple only half, and went on sliding. The rails behind the pins broke his slide.
The werewolf growled and stepped aside as another werewolf came sliding, knocking the rest. This one didn't need anything to break his fall. He simply rolled over and stood up. With all the pins knocked, the two wolves, banged their bodies and howled loudly. Two woman ran up to fix the pins and Ash recognized one of them.
Bob cut, wavy white hair that of the MoonBlessed tribe. She was at one of the camps outside too. Ash stepped forward and cleared her throat. "Excuse me."
The she wolf looked over her shoulder, "what?" Then paused to blink, "human?"
Ash asked, "can you help me? I wanted to go to Hall 1."
The she wolf gave her an empty smile, eyes blue, "this is hall 1. This is the orientation. Wanna have a go?"
Ash couldn't tell if the woman was breaking ice by pulling her leg or if it was a real offer. "I doubt I can be rolled or do the rolling."
Finally, the she wolf's eyes lit up with humor. She looked back at her friends and called, "we have a funny bone here. Who wants to chow?"
Ash peaked around the corner into the corridor and found the red haired guy together with the white haired guy, arms slung over one another, looking confused.
The red haired guy saw her first, "hey. Isn't that…" his eyes widened and he removed his hand from his friends, standing attention and giving her a curt nod, a shorthand of a formal greeting. Ash returned the gesture more slowly.
"You royalty or something?" the she wolf growled back at her and the white haired guy looked at her curiously.
"Something," she responded slowly.
"Stay here and watch if you are going to attend. This is no place for your swagger." The she wolf snapped and Ash froze. The woman went from flat to friendly to casual to flat all in one short conversation. Unsure of how to address this, she accepted.
"Thank you for letting me join."
The wolf looked at her up and down, amused again and left her there, hollering back to her group, "who's up next?"
Two other werewolves rolled across the floor, each on their wolf forms, both white and snickered as soon as their eyes landed on her. The she wolf came back to fix the pins, checked her presence and went back without a word. More wolves rolled in, checked her out, snickered once and trotted back and the the pattern continued.
Ash stood rooted to the spot, keeping her eyes pealed for the thick mix of furs and how each was unique. There were even unnatural sheens of blue and red among them. The red wolf was smaller and more nimble white the white was majestic and sharp. Moonblessed tribe was well known even in supernatural world, located in the northern hills, serving as a royalty among the werewolves clan. Even were-coyotes regarded them high. The werecats and their tribal leaders are always at odds with the Moonblessed. However, she had heard nothing about BloodMooners. Surprisingly, the BloodMooners had heard of them. She was surprised to know the man with red hair recognized her.
She was lost in thought when another nimble red wolf rolled into the pins, stretching his body, middle of the pins and knocked everything over, rolled quickly and stood up. It looked at her and bowed its head before trotting back. Ash returned the courtesy before the wolf left.
When the she-wolf came back to fix the pins, she glared, "stay away from Sven."
With the weight of the bad night on her shoulder, exhaustion buzzing in her muscles and the snickers stuck to her skin like emotions, Ash did not have the sense to pause before she asked, "who is Sven?"
The woman bared her teeth, soundlessly and she heard a grunt, "Karlene."
The woman stood straight, looked down the corridor, glared at her once more, flickered her hair and left.
Ash forgot to breath. Karlene, the daughter of the MoonBlessed, one half of the twin pair of eldest children of the Alpha of the MoonBlessed tribe. The same Alpha that offered to take her out of Kalai's equation, to settle the throne dispute.
"I will take her off your hands. Send her to me and you will never have to worry about her interference within the kingdom." She had overheard Alpha Karl talk to her father. The man was as tall as he was wide with hair long, slicked back into a multi-knot ponytail, around the same age as her father.
Later, her father had proposed two solutions- enroll in the university up north or marry into the MoonBlessed tribe as their Luna. The emotions all came back to her, the wave of hurt, betrayal, disappointment and anger.
That day forth, she refused to see her father ever again, not the next day when he wanted to meet, not the time she enrolled for university, not the time her brother came over to request a meeting, not the time she got her acceptance or even the time she left the island, unsure of her return.
A white wolf rolled through the pins and Ash stepped back. If this was Karn, the other half of the twin, she couldn't face him right now. She turned and hurried down the staircase. The throwing at the wall thing was over and the stairs were empty.
Her next schedule was with werecats on the ground floor. She entered the assigned room and found a round of werecats, among them the small faced woman who was thrown at the wall.
"Oh hey human." she waved. Ash smiled and found a spot close to her. The woman leaned far out of her chair and whisper yelled, "how was upstairs?"
"They are playing bowling."
The woman snickered, "those self important bunch of good for nothings."
Ash smiled uneasily. If not for her running away or meeting the royalty of MoonBlessed, she didn't agree with the assessment.
"They are fine." They were the first group, apart from the dwarfs that had treated her with any ounce of civility at all. She added, "perhaps even a little friendly, just like you."
The woman scowled, someone behind her growled. And this growl was different. A hand wrapped around her upper arm and Ash shuffled to her feet before whoever manhandled her, draped her to the door and pushed her out.
She lost balance and fell forward. Instinctively catching the doorframe, she caught herself straight.
She blinked quickly, straightening up. What just happened?
There were deep red prints on her arm. Was she manhandled just now? By a werecat? Because she spoke good of the wolves? She turned around and saw the man who had thrown her out slip back into his seat. She looked at him long and hand. Bronze haired coming down to his chin, all pulled back as if it had been run through by the wind. His eyes were slit and nose flat, unremarkable chin.
Around him, the other werecats look surprised or afraid, avoiding their eyes. She felt slightly bad for the others who were scared of this werecat, yet angry at her treatment.
The man met her eyes and began transforming. In a moment, his face was that of a tiger but plain, without spots or patterns. Even as a lion, he wasn't remarkable enough. She made sure to memorize his face. The anger that simmered under the calm knew to wait for the right moment.
She smiled at the man, the time and opportunity will come to pay him back and she will pay in double. The woman who had first addressed her released a breath, almost slumping into her seat. The tiger narrowed his eyes. Ash turned around and left.
On to the next schedule.
Checking the map, she found the shack like structure that held the small vampire party. Unlike werewolves and werecats, she did have some experience with meeting a vampire. Many years ago a vampire, recluse and wishing to die had washed out on the shores of Kalai and lived in seclusion. He told her every once in a while that he was the worst example of a vampire. Vampires were not as depressed and peniless as he was, they were as diverse as humans and lived on a different diet. Nothing more or less. And just like humans, they regulated their diet and had varied tastes.
As soon as she entered the shack, she felt the sense of a house, a temporary house with corridors, rooms, bathrooms around. It was small but efficient for crashing a couple hours, filled with sofas, open cabinets of glasses and a small open kitchen with washed out glasses.
In the back of the shack, the room was but a hollow in the ground with wide stairs leading down.
She climbed down and found herself in another room. Room was the wrong word. She was in an underground hall full of odd angles with corridors leading out of it in multiple directions. The walls were but mud brick stacks in a corner and abandoned tools.
There was map of the underground that started from this room but it did not show what another corridor led to. It simply marked one entire side as under-construction.
Slightly curious about the expansion but knowing better than to sate her curiosity, she followed the path towards the main structure and found herself in another long corridor, running in cross. It was marked as dorms on both sides and continued down further and found herself in a large round room full of vampires, hanging around with the wine glasses full of red.
Some eyes turned to her and some vampires shifted away. She had never seen so many alluring presences in one space once. She knew Queen B wouldn't be here, as a senior. This was an event for newcomers only.
One of them spoke, "she reeks of those were."
"Humans. I heard they have one almost every year."
"Why even… uh and one that associates with weres too."
"Shhh. My father said, even our royalty mingles with them. It's a political requirement."
Ash turned and walked out, through the corridor, up the stairs into shack and out in the night filled forest. Out in the open yet covered in the darkness of the night, she sighed for the first time in 24 hours. A buzzing sensation left her body. Through the trees, she looked up, spying a cloudy sky, covering the moon but failing to cover its shine.
She looked around and found no one in the darkness. Somehow the darkness around her was deeper than that of a moonless night. The blanket of reprieve fill her heart with thankfulness. Even while seeking the blessings of the moon goddess, she had only ever felt truly comfortable in the cradle of absolute night.
And just like night always came to an end, she too began walking, back to the university, to the light, to the dorms.
Once in her room, with the warden absent, she dropped her bag at the table, slipped under the cover and closed her eyes. Every part of her melted like the strain in her muscles or the pulsing her upper arm or even the bone were all turning into nothingness, into darkness. The darkness had a way of holding things together, a way of washing out what need not be there. In that moment, everything that happened that night washed out of her body and she slipped into sleep, wondering if she needed to adjust her sleep schedule to adjust to nighttime university schedule.