Callie had told herself that she wouldn’t be one of those parents who walked around with pictures of her children in her wallet and drug them out to annoy everyone whenever she got the chance, but like every other plan she’d had for her life it turned out to not have mattered hardly at all.
At the very least no one seemed to mind as they were the ones asking to view them in the first place, and so she felt that was something of a victory. Sure, the photos were more of Jersey than the swaddled little pups she was holding, but the parental pride that glowed on the wolfgirl’s face convinced the onlookers that she was serious about her commitment to her growing family and so the little darlings seemed even more adorable because of it.
Of course, most reactions were coloured by public sentiments regarding both Jersey as well as Callie herself. None of the staple remarks were present, the viewers perhaps believing that comments like ‘she has your eyes’ would come off as spurious in the face of the bimbo’s allegedly dubious understanding of who the ‘real father’ had been; the fact that those aspersions remained unvoiced were out of a respect for Callie, who everyone else viewed as having nobly shackled herself to a set of admittedly very-cute burdens.
Still, it was a source of some discourse for her peers, many of whom believed the wolfgirl had misstepped or at least set herself back somehow. In Callie's mind, her senior year of highschool was something of a formality to begin with, but that perfunctory academic hurdle was what solidified the idea that she’d made a disastrous commitment.
“It’s like this,” Dario had been telling her during Journalism class, “pretty much everybody thought you were going to be like, a neurosurgeon or go into politics or something.”
She hit him with an unimpressed glare. “I’m a linguistics major. Anyone who’s been paying attention in math or bio would know I’m not the science-y type.”
“None of us are paying attention in math or bio,” he laughed, waving away her indignation. “Or not to you, anyway. I’m still banging my head against covalent bonds and isotopes.”
“That’s chemistry, not bio ⸻ well, I mean obviously biochem would care, but that’s just standard stuff, right? Things they make you go over so you can pass the SAT and then forget about it forever.”
“You see!” he chuckled, patting her on the arm. “Cali universities don’t even look at the SAT, Callie. We’re supposed to be rounding out our education for ‘personal experience’ and the like.”
“And surely the ASB and City High Journal achieves that, right?” she returned defensively. “Politics and neuroscience are like, you and Elsa. That’s not my bag. I’m just here for the ambience and vibes, not gunning for Stanford Law or Caltech or whatever.”
“Which is a waste!” Dario insisted, shaking his head. “Listen, City High is the ‘nice’ public school, okay. This is where kids with posh British solicitors for moms go to have a ‘grounded education’ before they head off to MIT or some other big-name university. Half our classmates have somebody important for a parent ⸻ hell, Elsa’s mom has been an ADA here for years, Baxter’s dad is assistant to the Deputy Chief of door-kickers ⸻”
“And your parents?” Callie interrupted, hoping to lose the conversation in the weeds.
“Seasonal workers,” he answered affably, the mask of his smile refusing to slip.
“Ah,” she mumbled, floundering. “I see.”
“It’s chill,” he said quickly, clipping along. “My dad’s covering for my brother until his case gets dropped, so it’s all fine at the Arias household. Besides, we were talking about you, anyway.”
“Do we need to be?” she sighed, pointedly not digging any further into his offhand assertion; Dario was not the type of person who welcomed pity, and short of attempting to tear apart the prison with her wolfier hands there was very little she could do for him and his brother.
“Yeah, man!” he answered earnestly. “Everyone’s got high hopes for you ⸻ I mean, I certainly do. Now, I’m not going to accuse you of doing anything illegal, or at least not maliciously, but we’ve all heard about you being halfway through a bachelor’s degree on a fake ID a little less than a year ago.”
“Be that as it may,” she said with a dismissive half-smile, “I don’t think it’s correct to call me a ‘bachelor’ anymore.”
He grinned. “You’re damn hilarious, you know that Brambell?”
“I’ve had my suspicions,” she quipped, stubbornly playing coy; sadly, Dario was having none of it.
“For serious though,” he persisted, “I want you to be real with me. Wouldn’t it be easier to let your mom handle taking care of Jersey? She could hire some nannies, maybe get her a tutor to help her with her GED.”
“They’re my children, Dario,” she growled, her tone far more severe than she’d intended, “and I’m in love with their mother. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate everything Miss Andersen has done for us after our parents passed, but I’m not going to keep sponging off her or let someone else raise my pups.”
“Fine, that’s cool,” he said, raising his hands in a calming gesture.
It hurt a little bit to have to feed a lie to Dario regarding her ‘deceased parents,’ but even if the Veil hadn’t demanded the narrative she still would’ve preferred them to her actual mother and father. Perhaps they were the reason she was so adamant about being as involved as she could be in the lives of her pups; despite holding a certain amount of anxiety of her own abilities as a mum, she was determined to prove that she was a better guardian than they could’ve ever hoped to be.
“I still don’t understand why you’re badgering me about this,” Callie continued, seeking the source of his meddling. “What does it matter to you what I do with my life?”
A passionate fire burning in his harsh gaze, Dario leaned in, bringing the two to a conspiratorial distance. Stunning her with what she believed to be unearned confidence, he turned their friendly talk down a darker avenue.
“Because I need connections,” he replied with direct sincerity. “I need allies. I don’t have to point out how miserable everything is, not to you, but none of it is going to get any better unless we do something ⸻ and I don’t mean a general or a hypothetical ‘we,’ I mean you, I mean me, and I mean anyone else who cares about making sure there’s something worthwhile left of the world to present to the next generation.” Eyes alive with restrained fury, he drew Callie into his noble aspiration. “They’re calling us ‘Doomers,’ Brambell. Doesn’t that piss you off? They sneer at us and crack jokes like they’re all better than we are, while they elect chud after chud, shit-slinging white supremacists who think vaccines give you autism. They’re bringing back smallpox and letting the plague run wild and sending the fucking military to our own cities, and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of letting them get away with murder.”
Venting the pressure that had been building the entire time he’d been alive, Dario railed against the structures of injustice that threatened so many lives daily, a combination of targeted violence and overarching fascism that cared about power for power’s sake and nothing else.
“You want to be a family girl? That’s fine, I support that, but no one is going to dig us out of this hole unless we start grabbing shovels and showing them how it’s done.”
Compressed anger still burning in his eyes, he nevertheless returned to a comfortable distance, the jovial smile replaced as if it had never left. Setting a hand on the wolfgirl’s arm, he imparted one final thought, camaraderie and determination clenched in the firm grip of his fingers.
“No one in this school has stronger hands than you do, Callie. All I’m asking is that you think very carefully about how you want to use them.”
Now that Jersey was no longer attending school, Megan found ways to be around Callie as often as possible, even if only just on the periphery; the most-absurd scheme involved taking a circuitous route between second and third period so that her travel would ‘coincidentally’ overlap with the amazon’s, allowing her excuse to walk alongside the taller girl.
Perhaps at the start of the school year she would’ve hated it, but after giving her the ring Megan had mellowed out a great deal, no longer stooping to insulting the wolfgirl whenever she had the chance. Sure, it wasn’t ideal that her behaviour so closely mirrored that typical archetype of chaser that tended to protest too much when denied what they wanted, but Callie wasn’t about to prioritize reforming the obstinate girl into a decent person; doubtlessly it would improve the girl’s own life if she weren’t so entrenched in her internalised misogyny, but change wasn’t something that could be forced externally. For the time being she resolved to enjoy the awkward not-friendship, but spend her energy in pursuit of those who sought to harm Jersey.
Still, as popular as she was, the student body had an amount of vested interest in her personal life, and somewhat surprisingly that tendency to pry extended to the ASB officers as well.
“So you and Megan, huh?” Elsa pestered her during Linear Algebra, the only course that Callie was more than happy to be mediocre at.
“Me and Megan what?” she replied absentmindedly, wrestling with whatever the hell she was supposed to be doing with the series of matrices scribbled in her notebook.
“Don’t play coy,” the other girl laughed, amusedly watching the normally-unflappable amazon flounder. “I see the two of you together all the time ⸻ and you missed a sign, there; that should be negative.”
“Ah,” Callie grumbled, as much at the unreadability of her own handwriting as her evident association with the problem-causing brunette. “I promise you, we don’t know each other very well at all.”
“That’s not how Riley told it,” she grinned mischievously. “She said you two were all over each other at Chad Baxter’s party ⸻ the one that got all shot-up, I mean.”
“You know how that kind of thing goes,” the wolfgirl huffed dismissively, waiving off the other girl’s romantic speculation as she tried not to think about the carnage she’d left in the backyard. “Half the hookups at parties are just for the hell of it, not the prequel to a relationship.”
“Say whatever you’d like, but we all know you’re two-timing your baby-momma,” Elsa hummed in a sing-song voice, needling the taller girl. “Was it trauma-bonding or something? She’s been showing off that ring you gave her to literally anyone who asks about it, and tons of people who didn’t.”
“I’m not ‘two-timing’ Jersey,” she growled, growing annoyed with the wild theorizing of highschool students. “I gave Megan that ring because she asked for it, alright? It’s cover for some cotillion thing she wants me to escort her to, so she can lie and say she’s already taken.”
Concentrated on her studies, it took Callie a long moment to realise that the other girl had stopped responding. Glancing up from her notebook, she met Elsa’s eyeline as she worried at her lower lip, barely holding back something she clearly wanted to say but perhaps felt was far too much to tell any one person. Eventually deciding that the amazon needed to hear it, she awkwardly cleared her throat.
“I’d stay away from that if I were you,” she stammered, her eyebrows knit into a concerned expression. Reflexively displaying her discomfort, she crossed her arms over her chest, protecting herself.
“I’ve been to weird church things before,” Callie said with an understated irony the other girl probably wouldn’t catch. “I’m sure it’ll be gross, but I’ll be fine.”
Eyes roaming up and down as she gave the amazon the once-over, Elsa didn’t seem as convinced. “I think maybe you, personally, might be fine,” she hedged, “but not many other girls are as massive as you ⸻ no offense.”
“None taken,” she replied smoothly, “I’m well-aware of how monstrous I am.”
“That’s not what I meant,” the other girl huffed, disarmed by the taller girl’s frank but self-deprecative evaluation. “Maybe it would be better if you were, though,” she continued, worrying at her thumbnail as she appraised the amazon. “They might leave you alone if you look intimidating enough, but that’d take a heck of a lot of aura.”
“You’ve never seen me all cleaned-up,” Callie smiled amiably, tugging on her 3XL hoodie; while she’d only caught glimpses of herself in the mirror during the shopping trip, she figured that if her fit hourglass wasn’t enough on its own, then her imposing size would do the trick. “I’ve got a certain amount of … ⸻ what do the kids call it these days? ‘Rizz’?”
“Brambell you are literally the same age as me,” Elsa scoffed, rolling her eyes; despite her reproachful tone, the taller girl’s words served their intended purpose, defusing her apprehensive mood. “No one actually says ‘rizz,’ one, and two, I’m being serious. I was at the Genesis cotillion last year and the vibes were rancid. Lots of gross old dudes creeping on girls that were young enough to be their daughters. Everybody knows how effed-up it all is, but they still hold it at least twice a year.”
“So then why go?” she inquired, confused by the conflicting statement. “Megan was acting creeped-out about it too. If ‘everybody knows’ how awful it is, then why does anyone show up?”
“Some of us don’t have a lot of choice,” Elsa muttered, squirming in her seat as she was confronted by the ghost of uncomfortable memories. “It’s a big social event, so adults that want to stay relevant in the club’s scene always choose to attend, and for girls like us ⸻ well, more like myself and Megan, maybe, not you specifically ⸻ it’s a way to forge connections that can be relied-on for letters of recommendation and items of that nature.”
“And why wouldn’t I benefit?” Callie returned, assuming she already knew the answer but wanting to hear how Elsa would phrase it anyway.
“Because it’s about stroking male vanity,” she explained, confirming the taller girl’s suspicions. “I’ve seen enough of you in the locker room to know how that would play out. Unless you’re willing to grovel on the floor like a dog, I don’t think they’d be very fond of you.” Almost willing to leave it at that, she tapped a finger to her lips, her brows furrowing as she considered the alternative. “I mean, maybe you could try going after one of the madams that hold up the social order, but that’ll backfire if you pick one that’s trying to show off their son.”
“This sounds like a massive headache,” the wolfgirl sighed, entirely certain she didn’t want to involve herself at all. “Thankfully I’m just there to play guard dog and then call it a night. I don’t really care about any kind of ‘connection’ that sort of group could leverage.”
Of course she didn’t doubt that they had quite a bit of sway ⸻ Callie was completely certain that they were instrumental in either forming, funding, or organising the work programme she and Jersey had been punished with ⸻ but she wasn’t going to engage in games of kiss-ass with what sounded like a bunch of wealthy fundamentalists. Trading favours with Megan was fine-enough, but she had no desire to be at that party for a moment longer than was absolutely necessary.
“Not interested in brown-nosing, huh?” Elsa smiled wryly, as if there were levels of irony there that Callie hadn’t yet seen.
“I’ve gotten into university before, haven’t I?” she countered with a lopsided grin. “I’ll muddle my way through.”
“Still,” she tried hesitantly, “an evening of sucking-up could open a lot of doors for you, and out of everyone in our grade you’re one of the best-positioned to walk through them.” This chapter was copied from novelping.com without permission.
“Dario said the same thing,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes at her classmates’ attempts to push her into what she assumed was some mistaken impression of ‘elite’ academia.
“Has he given you his little ‘freedom-fighter’ speech yet?” the shorter girl giggled, exchanging a knowing look.
“Earlier today, in fact,” Callie nodded, her amusement a little more subdued than the other girl’s. “Not that I disagree with any of his broader points, mind you, but I suppose I’m a little more pessimistic than most.”
“We’re all a little pessimistic,” Elsa shrugged, “but he’s right in that whatever we choose to do now will shape what we’re doing in ten years’ time, and then twenty, and so on. Whatever ‘tomorrow’ we want to work toward has to start today.”
“I’m concerned with a much-more immediate future than that,” the wolfgirl replied disinterestedly, her general attitude positioned against that sort of optimistic ‘hustle’ discourse, “but I’ll keep it in mind.”
Really, her dismissal had more to do with her overall lack of a concrete plan for the future than anything else. Back when she only had to care for herself and Xena, life had been a very simple collection of days in a row, managing a handful of resources: time, shelter, food, paycheck. Given that the only person she could ever truly hurt was herself, it had been easy to sacrifice any of those things to gain more of another, even if ultimately she had been on the same sort of ‘grindset’ she rolled her eyes about. The problem now was that she had more people depending on her than just her four-legged companion, and she wanted a far better life for them than she would’ve been willing to settle for on her own.
No one had said it out loud, but Callie assumed that there was a limit to how long Kelly could continue to support her little family, especially given that she apparently had a number of children of her own to take care of back in the UK. That sort of strain had to be quite the burden on even a wealthy solicitor, and she had no idea how much income sorcerous intervention could supply; surely someone as powerful as Genie wouldn’t let her little ones go hungry, but the Veil was a force that not even a djinn could battle for more than a few moments.
As an unemployed, semi-educated, unmarried, parentless werewolf with two pups and a dependent girlfriend, Callie needed to figure out what she was going to do sooner rather than later.
“Well, whatever else happens,” Elsa said eventually, “just keep Megan away from the boys. There’s a long tradition of making a game of trophy-hunting, and they’re not exactly the type predisposed to accept ‘no’ as an answer, if you understand my meaning.”
The bell forced them to leave their conversation at that, but Callie would later regret not asking for specifics.
After school involved a suit fitting, and Callie was somewhat grateful that the experience did not include Jersey as the little cow was back home tending to their potatoes. Sure, her girlfriend might’ve liked to witness the process, but their girls needed watching and the wolf had repeatedly asked Kelly not to photograph anything; if her mum or romantic partner wanted a memento it would have to be taken during the evening-of, which was much easier for the amazon to tolerate. Dressing masc was the last thing on her mind after her magical transformation; perhaps the only reason she even considered the idea was that it would sell the ‘boyfriend lesbian’ cover story, and Jersey and Kelly got hungry looks in their eyes whenever they talked about it.
Thankfully the ordeal wasn’t as mortifying as her last shopping trip, largely due to Jersey politely explaining to their mum that ‘fun clothes-shopping’ meant something completely different to the wolf than to the lawyer. Still, the latter’s occupation meant that they could afford to call on a well-respected and high-quality tailor who ensured that the fitting was an exceedingly private experience ⸻ well, save a handful of understandably-awkward and somewhat amusing moments.
“I’ve never had to ask a girl which side she dresses to before,” the assistant smiled as she took Callie’s inseam measurement.
“It’s, uh, the right,” the amazon mumbled abashedly, “if you couldn’t already tell.”
“Generally speaking, it’s not something I would point out,” she replied with a soft chuckle, “but I did already have a guess, yes.”
Despite the semi-uncomfortable acknowledgement of her anatomy, it did at least lead to a productive conversation regarding styling and supportive garments that made her feel much more human than the mall shopping had. Thrilled to find fashion advice that didn’t center around tucking ⸻ which had been painful and awkward even back when she didn’t also have a pussy to worry about ⸻ Callie enjoyed engaging with a professional who had meaningful ideas on how to best flatter all the parts of her figure while still retaining maximal comfort, and a further referral to a shop that offered bespoke underwear left her feeling far more confident in her body.
I suppose the clothes do make the wolf, she laughed to herself as they left, finding herself genuinely excited to wear her ‘date outfit.’
Unfortunately, the details of said ‘date’ were much thornier than the process of dressing for it. Concerned with how severely she’d been cautioned against attendance, the wolfgirl brought the matter to the family after dinner.
“If it’s as bad as all that,” Kelly questioned her, as she gently held little Melia and expertly demonstrated proper ‘burping’ technique, “then why is Megan bothering to ask you to play ‘girlfriend’?”
“I think it’s more about playing bodyguard,” Callie answered, trying to replicate her example with Mes. “There’s all of two kids at City High taller than me, I think, and allegedly I have ‘aura’.”
“No, I’m definitely getting the suspicion that she wants more than just a strong arm to cling to,” Jersey added teasingly. “I’m willing to bet your kisses left quite the impression on her.”
“Maybe that’s part of it,” the amazon hedged, ignoring Kelly’s mischievous glance, “but it does genuinely seem like she’s looking for a protector. I don’t doubt that her dad’s a fan of … ‘corporal punishment,’ for one, and for two I think she harbours real fear of the other adults that’ll be present ⸻ and the boys too, probably, since Elsa warned me about them.”
“Surely any boy would’ve sufficed, then,” Genie reasoned, bringing up the obvious flaw in her argument. “For instance, Dario seems like a kind and charming fellow, and one that the other students respect.”
“But it won’t only be City High students at the cotillion,” Callie explained. “As far as I understand it, a number of private-schooled kids will be there, and Megan mentioned that she doesn’t feel comfortable around any of them.”
“I still don’t see why she needs you specifically, if not for some sort of romantic inclination,” Kelly argued, suspecting that her daughter was leaving out some key detail. “In fact, I’d be more inclined to believe that having a trans girl as her date would be particularly contentious, and thus self-defeating.”
“I think she’s banking on my more … terrifying aspects,” the wolfgirl sighed, frustrated with how her monstrosity was so consistently polarising and yet mostly only positive when it was being used to perform violence ⸻ well, violence or sex, at any rate; perhaps Jersey was the only one who truly appreciated all the facets of her wolf, and the amazon loved her for it. “She witnessed everything at Chad Baxter’s party, including when I wolfed-out.”
Despite the casual tone with which she related the incident, Genie and Kelly were suddenly focused on her admission, their faces forming themselves into serious masks. Exchanging a knowing glance between themselves, the shorter of the pair returned the much-sleepier Melia to her mother as they began to interrogate her sire.
“When you say ‘everything’,” Kelly began, “how much are we talking about?”
“Literally all of it,” Callie said with a slight shrug, careful not to disturb her tiny bundle too much. “Like I just said, like she saw me transform, and ⸻”
“Directly?” Genie interrupted, leaning forward on the couch. “As in, she consciously witnessed it from start to finish?”
“Y-yeah?” she returned haltingly, unsettled by the way she was being given the third degree. “That’s the main reason I agreed to accompany her. She said she lied to the cops about what she’d seen, and if I escorted her to the gala she’d keep quiet about me being a werewolf ⸻”
“And how did she find that out?” Kelly interjected, a weird mix of excitement and worry on her face.
“I just … told her?” Callie replied, her gaze shifting nervously back and forth between Genie and her mum. “I mean she saw me tear like three guys to shreds. There wasn’t really a way for me to hide anything, so I figured I’d get out ahead of it and come clean before she worked out another way to extort me.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, Genie leaned back against the cushions. “I’m sorry Callie,” she said with an apologetic half-smile, “I think perhaps Kelly and I should’ve been more forthcoming with our methods of surveillance so that you could’ve come to us with this information earlier.”
“What information?” she echoed, gently shifting Mes to the crook of her arm.
“That Megan has managed to pierce the Veil around you,” Kelly explained somewhat helpfully. “Any regular onlooker wouldn’t have been able to see you change, as the Veil would’ve either confused their senses or otherwise contrived some distraction or alternate interpretation.” Grimacing slightly, she inclined her head. “In the worst-case scenario, it would’ve, ah … forcibly-edited her memories. I don’t expect it would’ve been pleasant.”
“The handful of times I’ve seen it happen have been decidedly tragic,” Genie confirmed. “The Veil is neither gentle nor understanding, and such erasure is closer to jumbling up an already-completed puzzle than it is simply removing the offending piece.”
“Sounds gruesome,” Callie agreed, making a mental note to be more cautious with her wolfier endeavours. “So the fact that Megan didn’t get all scrambled means … what, exactly?”
“That she’s drawn into the same enchantment as you and Jersey,” the djinn answered, elucidating the importance of the ‘Veil piercing’. “It’s the sort of hint we’ve been waiting for the whole time, and with it comes an entire host of clues ⸻ and several useful suppositions to piece them all together.”
“So we’ve done it, then?” Jersey piped up, a hopeful look on her face. “We’ve discovered who’s trying to harm us?”
“Not exactly,” Genie returned, bringing down the mood just slightly. “To continue our metaphor from the other day, it’s similar to narrowing our search area down from a vast forest to a single building. We still don’t know our enemy’s identity or numbers, but now we know where to look for that information.”
“Seems promising,” the little cow smiled brightly, ever a source of reassuring optimism. “At the risk of sounding overconfident, hasn’t that solved the ‘game,’ as it were? We already know your magic is much-more powerful than theirs, so I assume the rest of the hunt won’t be that difficult.”
“If there’s nothing they’re holding back, then yes,” the djinn allowed, then tacked on a warning, “but we’ve never really been concerned about the strength of the cult so much as the mage that’s at the head of it. We won’t be sure of how dangerous they are until we actually enter their den.”
“Then where is it?” Callie wondered impatiently, her protective instinct demanding action sooner rather than later; conscious of Mes, she stifled her growl before it could start, worrying she might upset her tiny darling. “I’d happily raid them tonight, even.”
“There’s bravery, and then there’s recklessness,” Genie chided, fixing the wolf with an unimpressed glare. “Though, I do admit you’re the perfect hunting dog for this sort of thing. The fact that the officer drew down on you before your metamorphosis suggests that they have some method of reasoning or identification that has registered you as a threat; while risky, we can use that as our advantage.”
“By sending her right into the middle of everything?” Jersey inquired, a worried expression creasing her brow.
“Precisely,” the dark-haired woman nodded, offering her sympathetic look. “If the mage or any well-informed lieutenants or enforcers are present, they’ll notice Callie right away, and any sort of aggression or meddling will give them away immediately.”
“But that increases the chance she gets hurt in the process,” the much-shorter bimbo argued, clearly concerned for her mate.
“And not doing anything puts you more at risk every day,” the wolfgirl rejoined, a harsh severity to her tone; given the choice between risking bodily harm to herself or the mother of her pups, the correct decision was obvious. “If one of us has to be in the firing line, I would prefer it be me.”
“Then it might be best to send both of you,” Genie said, surprising the taller girl.
Outlining a fairly straightforward plan, the djinn suggested that Jersey would make for excellent bait; a non-threatening but desirable target, the little cow would be able to draw in anyone associated with the ‘links’ that surrounded her, sifting through partygoers to find any potential cultists. Once she’d meandered her way through the cotillion, checking for sorcerous activity, her ‘vulnerable’ presence primed a trap that Callie could then spring at her leisure; Genie’s remote monitoring of the couple would ‘tag’ any potential spellcasters, allowing the wolfgirl a priority list of targets, or simply saving them to hunt later.
While the plan required both girls to walk directly into the lion’s den, so to speak, Jersey’s proven ability to offload physical demand onto the wolf promised to keep both of them safe from physical harm. Of course Callie would’ve preferred a much-stronger guarantee, but fighting a magical enemy was going to require some amount of risk no matter what; at least the plan allowed her a measure of freedom in choosing where and when to have a decisive battle, and so she believed she had no other choice than to accept it.
Kelly, perhaps as a way to clear the tension from the room, expressed her delight at having a chance to pick out dresses with her curvier daughter, leaving Callie with a sense of relief that she wouldn’t be the focus of any shopping shenaniganry for a while.
Still, a gnawing worry settled into the pit of her stomach, where it would likely remain until the matter of the gala had been satisfactorily resolved.
In spite of the looming danger of the cotillion and the threat against the little family, the more mundane aspects of their lives continued on regardless. Aside from school, Xena’s routines were another important aspect of the day-to-day; with Jersey occupying most of her time either caring for their litter or resting after having done so, the management of their canine companion fell to Callie and Genie. Read this novel at novelping dot com for the best experience.
Well, not that Genie strictly needed to involve herself in any way, but she liked to lead with the excuse that Callie’s entanglement in Jersey’s enchantment meant that the wolf required some form of magical protection to stay close at hand; to the astute observer, however, it was obvious that the djinn enjoyed spending time with the charming canine. Growing steadily more attached to the snowdog with each passing day, she indulged herself in Xena’s company as much and as often as she could.
Of course, the dark-haired woman was a skilled-enough handler that she could’ve been trusted to walk the Husky down to the dog park on her own, so there was no strict need for Callie’s presence either. Despite her long association with her canine companion the wolfgirl held no illusions about the fact that her incorrigible princess preferred the company of the other women in her home, though that fact didn’t bother her any ⸻ after all, she was rather attracted to the lot of them herself. Still, that begged the question of whether Genie enjoyed engaging Callie specifically, and the thought that the attractive amazon might want to share time with her was an intoxicating fantasy.
The wolfgirl already had her mate, true, but her polyromantic tastes stirred whenever she was alone with the djinn ⸻ or at least, as alone as they could get with a furry chaperone present. That fluffy observation was only temporary, though, as once they made it to the park itself the snowdog always set off to greet the local inhabitants, leaving the two with hardly anything to do but trail after her and share a bit of conversation. Given that it made up the bulk of their expeditions it was hard to disprove the idea that Genie looked forward to their time together, the acknowledgement of which set her heart beating just a little faster, stirring up an apprehensive energy in her chest.
Deciding that she might like to know the other woman a little better, Callie took her chances.
“So who was ‘Dornollë’?” she asked, prodding at the personal life of the woman who had lived for nearly two-thousand years. “Before you started granting wishes, I mean.”
“No one special,” the djinn replied affably, indulging the taller girl in her prying. “She was a foolish girl with more dreams than good sense, much like anyone else.”
“Oh c’mon,” Callie tried again, gently poking into the other woman’s past life. “You can give me more than that, can’t you?”
“I can give you quite a lot, yes,” the dark-haired woman returned with a lascivious smirk.
“You know what I mean,” the wolfgirl muttered, cheeks tinged pink. “I’m just looking for some parity, is all. You already know so much about me.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” the djinn agreed with a slight shrug, having spent enough time peeking into the other girl’s thoughts. “There’s not a lot to tell, really. She spent all her time fighting against the inevitabilities of her era and the roles she was expected to play, wasting her energy resisting the social expectations of her gender ⸻ for all the good it did her.” Turning slightly, she flashed the other girl a brilliant smile. “I expect you know a little bit of what that’s like.”
“I can imagine,” Callie remarked easily, the corner of her mouth turning up into a crooked grin almost in spite of her commiseration.
The two women were marked by very similar scars; their genesis and social ramifications might’ve been markedly different, informed as they were by time and circumstance, but the two shared wounds that had left burdensome self-criticism that lived forever in their thoughts. A cyclical sort of self-recrimination, it was a difficult thing to fight against even when one knew that ostensibly there was nothing that could’ve been done; there was always the mistaken belief that if one had tried a little harder or been a little more clever then the disasters of the past would’ve been avoided.
“Is that why you became a djinn?” she wondered, digging deeper. “To get back at everyone else.”
“Yes and no,” Genie sighed, an ancient ache hidden in her alto. “At the time, I believed I was doing what was best for my people, and for those I held dear to my heart.” Slowly unraveling the complicated knot of her life, she allowed her companion a glimpse into the woman beneath the confident exterior. “Becoming a djinn is supposed to be something of an equal trade, you see; in exchange for being forced to grant the wishes of others, they are allowed a greater wish of their own, one that is far more powerful than even a dozen normal wishes.”
“What did you spend it on?”
“Pointless frivolities,” the djinn chuckled, her tone absent the bitterness the taller girl would’ve expected; perhaps time had healed some of that wound, or Genie was just very practiced at hiding it. “None of it came true in the ways that I wanted, and I failed spectacularly in all of my goals. History wiped out my people not that long afterwards, with hardly more than a handful of short wikipedia entries.” Coming to a stop, she turned her careful mask towards the wolfgirl, holding Callie’s gaze. “And now, here I stand alone: the last of the Iceni, and no longer even a human myself.”
“Surely not the very last,” the taller girl argued, fumbling around for any sort of encouragement that she could give the statuesque woman, something that would soothe the centuries-old pain. “What about your children?”
“A culture is much more than a single bloodline,” the djinn answered with a wry smile. “My people were songs and stories, feasts and holidays and craftswork, hills and moors and forests, spears and sadness and hopes for the future. All of that was washed away when our lands fell into the hands of outsiders a very, very long time ago, and hardly anything remains save a few shriveled artifacts.”
“And you,” the wolfgirl persisted.
“And me.” Blinking away some troublesome thought, she turned her eyes away from the past. “Now I’ve become something else, too, and I’ve learned to accept it. The Iceni live only in the past; I do not possess such luxury, thus I concern myself with the direction of the present.”
Callie wanted to summon some artful phrase, some sentiment that would erase the ache suspended in the other woman’s firm alto. Confronted by millenia-old pain, her stubborn personality demanded that she fight against ghosts that her claws and fangs could never reach; she could weather any number of scars herself with indifferent resignation, but she couldn’t bear to see suffering in someone else.
Still, there was nothing to be said. Antiquity would forever be out of her grasp and Genie would be made to hold that weight.
“Was it worth it, then?” the wolfgirl asked, hoping to find some marker of acceptance that didn’t feel so hopeless.
“Oh, yes, absolutely,” the djinn replied quickly, escaping the heavy atmosphere. “I’ve gotten to see and experience so many new and wonderful things, and watch the progression of humanity steadily trundle along. I’ve seen the development of modern medicine, computers, space exploration, and hundreds of other fantastical things that would’ve been unimaginable in my time.”
“So being a djinn isn’t as bad as in the stories, then,” Callie posited.
“Oh, no, it is,” Genie laughed, her humour at adds with her frank assertion. “Aside from hundreds of years of being forced to grant the wishes of selfish and evil people, the job itself is nothing compared to the accommodations. The interior of the bottle is a hellish nightmare, and one that I’m glad to be free of ⸻ well, mostly free. I spend hardly any time in it at all, anymore; perhaps a few minutes a year.”
“Uh, wow, okay,” the wolfgirl stammered, unsure of her conversational footing. Returning the other woman’s grin with a strained half-smile of her own, she deliberated over whether or not she should give Genie a hug; on the one hand, she wanted to provide some proof of solidarity, but on the other she hated the idea of being so forward. “I’m surprised that you’d just, like … casually admit to that.”
“Well, you know what it’s like to suffocate, don’t you?” the djinn remarked in a conspiratorial tone, extending ironic camaraderie to the taller girl. “No use lying about facts, and I figured that you of all people would be able to appreciate the circumstance.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she allowed. “Still, a ‘suffocating nightmare’ is a hell of a thing to try to tank.”
“Yet somehow I manage,” Genie chuckled, amused by the wolfgirl’s modern idiom.
Lapsing into an awkward silence, the two followed along after Xena. Stewing in her own thoughts, Callie snuck glances at the djinn every so often, trying to pierce the other woman’s enigmatic smile.
Was Genie’s relationship with the Andersen sisters enough to hold back the pain of her traumatic past? Were the smiles of her children able to wipe away the moments inside the bottle? The circumstances of being a djinn seemed like such a monumental burden that it filled the taller girl with doubt. Labouring under that incredible weight felt like an impossibility, and yet the dark-haired woman had done so for well over a thousand years; Callie was just as impressed by the other woman’s fortitude as she was concerned for her mental and emotional health. She couldn’t fathom what it must be like to grapple with that sort of existential trial.
Or, well … perhaps she had some idea, but her own struggles seemed small and pointless when compared to the djinn’s. She had been tortured, true, even to the point of death ⸻ but that had been merely a decade of pain and suffering. Yet another layer of guilt curled around her core, assaulting her with a smothering feeling; if Genie could weather so much time spent in the bottle, then what was her excuse? She should be better than her trauma, more capable of suppressing its lingering effects.
Gripped by a sense of inferiority, the wolfgirl felt like she had lost some miserable contest. Sure, the world was in a wretched state and the regime was trying to legislate women like her out of existence, but if Genie could find the humour in two-thousand years of pain then surely there was no excuse for Callie’s petulance.
“I’m sorry,” the taller girl said, disturbing their quiet minutes together.
“For what?” Genie asked, seemingly unbothered by their discussion.
“For everything you’ve been through,” she replied, floundering as she gestured towards a monolithic past she could never fully comprehend. “For all the suffering you’ve endured.”
“I appreciate the thought,” the djinn smiled at her, “but it’s nothing you need concern yourself with. The past is the past; I’m far more concerned about the future, and especially yours.”
“Mine?” the wolfgirl echoed, confused.
“Of course,” Genie nodded. “Your persecutors still live, and their cruel machinations escalate on an almost-constant basis.” She fixed the other girl with a sympathetic look. “I’m sure it’s horribly difficult to cope with, day after day.”
“What? No, not at all.” Denying her own struggles, Callie waved away the other woman’s well-meaning concern. “It’s barely anything.”
“Please, sweet,” the dark-haired woman chided, “you don’t need to downplay anything. Anyone can perceive the current shape of the world, and your precarious position inside of it.”
“No, really, it’s whatever,” the wolf protested. “A bunch of fascist jackoffs talking shit on television isn’t nearly so bad, or at least not compared to being a djinn.” Sighing, she raked a hand through her platinum locks, steadying herself with the preening gesture. “I don’t know how you handle it, honestly. You’re something else.”
A complicated mess of feelings wove together as the taller amazon let her gaze settle on the other woman. Respect, sympathy, awe, desire; it all blended together as she took a peek behind the mask of the imposing, self-confident warrior. Of course Genie was an eminently-capable person, her finer points honed over hundreds of years of existence, but the hint of vulnerability excited her in a way that almost felt … improper. Knowing that the other woman laboured under such an incredible burden only made her that much more attractive, her tenacity showcasing yet another desirable facet of the maddeningly-gorgeous djinn. Stuck between feelings of inadequacy on either side, caught on both her admiration and self-derision, the wolf struggled to hold the other woman’s gaze.
“Oh?” the dark-haired woman grinned, allowing the seriousness of the moment to dissipate in favour of teasing the wolfgirl. It was a kind sentiment, one that kept Callie from sinking into her favourite pastime of miserable introspection; leaning on either her arcane insight or hundreds of years of accrued experience, Genie could always tell when her companion had slid into darker thoughts. “Would you say I’m ‘built different’?” she laughed playfully, borrowing one of the wolf’s idioms.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Callie agreed, returning the other woman’s grin, allowing the tension building between them to slowly shift into some other emotion. “I’m amazed, seriously. You’re like … ⸻ I don’t know. Hella strong, or something.”
Mischief glittered in the djinn’s eyes. “Stronger than you?”
“I didn’t say that,” the wolf growled, her fur rankled by the half-joking comment. She had easily seven centimetres and two or three stone on the other woman, and the combination of reach and weight would go far in any sort of physical conflict. “I could take you.”
“I bet you could,” she grinned salaciously, baiting the taller girl. “Maybe not as well as your mate, but perhaps you’d like to prove me wrong.”
“I’m warning you,” Callie shot back, a competitive snarl rumbling in her chest. “Keep this up and I’ll wipe that smile off your pretty face.”
“Put up or shut up, pet,” the djinn laughed, taunting the wolfgirl with the affectionate diminutive. “Come try me if you’d like, but I’ll have you on your back one way or another.”
Assuming the dark-haired woman’s edge had been dulled by centuries of relative complacency, the wolf threw herself at Genie with the careful aim of an experienced combatant. Unfortunately for her, the Iceni warrior had not forgotten the battlefield lessons she’d learned nor skimped on her routine training; ready for the taller girl’s assault, she blocked jabs and slid out of Callie’s attempts at holds with the grace of a skilled veteran. Alive with the thrill of the fight, the djinn allowed it to continue well-past the point where it had become obvious that the wolfgirl was going to lose, entertaining herself by showing off for her captive audience.
Incensed by Genie’s playful toying with her, Callie put everything behind one last tackle, locking-up the djinn’s dominant arm as she tried for an ankle, looking to throw her to the ground; easily stealing the wolf’s momentum, the warrior-princess toppled her opponent with the barest movement. Climbing atop the taller girl, she held Callie down with the weight of her body, her forearm resting on her chest in a simple pin.
“Give up?” Genie smiled, her cheeks flushed, breath quickened by excitement as much as exertion.
“For now,” the wolf grumbled, one hand on the djinn’s hip and the other held by the wrist in the amazon’s powerful grip, their faces only inches apart. Burning red all the way down to her shoulders, her gaze flicked to the side, uncomfortably aware of the intimate distance.
Laughing brightly, the djinn stunned her opponent with a surprise move; leaning in, she stole a quick kiss, frustrating the beleaguered wolfgirl for a completely different reason. Having had her fun, she rose to her feet, offering Callie a hand up; embarrassed as hell, she accepted.
“Come on, sweet,” she grinned, shooting the taller girl a knowing look as she whistled for Xena’s attention. “Let’s go see what your mate’s cooked-up for dinner.”