Julian went home late that night, mostly out of having avoided it until she knew she needed sleep. When he'd been a wolf, he'd been in and out entirely as it suited him, sleeping under the stars in the woods when he didn't feel like being around his parents, which was often. Now, though...she shivered. The thought of sleeping out in the woods, all alone with nobody to watch out for her, where a predator might come upon her without warning and she'd die in her sleep, or worse, wake up just in time to see it moving in for the kill...
The doe-girl shuddered and pulled her jacket tighter. Even though it was getting cold out lately, especially at night, the jacket was really too warm for her now, at least with the liner in; her coat was just slightly matted with sweat underneath. But she kept it on anyway because it felt comforting to have something surrounding her. Damn this...this weak, scaredy-cat body!
She looked around the bus stop nervously, then tried to calm herself. It was okay, really it was. The largest carnivores anywhere within city limits were the racoons that lived out in the wooded parts of the suburbs and raided people's trash cans, and they were mostly scavengers, anyway; she'd never heard of them bothering with...with large prey. No, it was okay. The bus pulled up and she got on, glad to be safely inside.
It was more crowded than she expected, filled with unchanged people who had that evening-commute look like they really just wanted to get home from work and unwind, possibly with the aid of a cold one. They eyed her curiously as she made her way towards the less crowded seats further back, clearly wondering what this changed...girl...was doing out this late at night. She ignored them and sat down, trying to make sure she didn't nod off and miss her stop.
She managed that, at least, though she was a bit close to drifting off at a couple points. She got off the bus and hoofed it home, slamming the door behind her. There was a package addressed to her on the kitchen counter; she frowned, trying to remember if she'd even ordered anything, and took it up to her room before her parents had a chance to bother her.
Once safely ensconced in her den, Julian set the package down and flicked out a claw, only to realize once again that she no longer had claws. Granted, her thicker, almost hoof-like black fingernails did have a bit of an edge to them, but it just wasn't the same at all. Sighing, she reached for the scissors and sliced the packing tape.
The interior of the box was filled with foam peanuts, on top of which was a slightly scrawly note reading: Something to Remember Me By ;P Julian frowned, not sure she wanted to know what this was about, but dug into the box anyway. She grasped a plank of wood and pulled it out, scattering packing peanuts around her on the floor, and then she stared and gasped.
The plank was a rather simple wooden plaque, sanded and varnished pretty nicely. There was a finishing nail tapped into it from which hung a hastily filled-out deer tag, and wedged firmly but removably into a couple of holes were a pair of antlers. She didn't even have to examine them to know whose they were. A second note was taped to the plaque:
*Just savoring the local color while I'm here. 'Tis the season and all that. Happened to bag a perfectly arrogant young buck, though I admit that my hunting partner did most of the work in packing him in. I think you know her, she has a hippie kind of name, "Moon?" Anyway, these aren't going to fit my living room at all, so I thought you might like them, as a reminder of all the fun, fun times we had together.
- Your Pal, Angel*
Julian stared at the plaque, and the antlers, and the note, and tried to come up with anything like a coherent reaction to them, mostly winding up on sputtering, hand-waving anger - but she was interrupted from coming to a more nuanced expression of her feelings on the matter by a knock on the door. Panicking, she hurriedly shoved the plaque under her bed, trying to scoop the loose peanuts back into the box.
There was another knock. She settled for shoving the box under the bed as well and simply sweeping the peanuts underneath with her hands. "Julian?" came her mother's voice. "Honey, I'd like to talk to you."
"G-go aw-way!" Julian stammered, wishing her voice was more intimidating. She shoved the scissors into the drawer of her nightstand.
"Honey, we need to talk," her mother said. "I'm coming in now." Julian groaned, wishing her door had a lock on it, and situated herself on the bed, trying to look as unapproachable and sullen as she could manage. In reality she mostly looked rattled, which she was, thanks to the contents of the package. Her mother entered, and sat down in the desk chair, facing her.
"Julian, honey," she said, with the same slightly exasperated tone that had started hundreds of similar conversations, "your father and I have been talking, since you changed again, and we think it's time that you started back at school."
The doe-girl felt her stomach knot. School? "N-no!" she stammered. "I...I can't go like...like this!"
Her mother nodded. "I'm sure it's a big adjustment, honey," she said. "But...you'll have a few days to get your bearings. And we did give you an awfully long time to get through your...feral phase, with your first change. But this is important, and we can't let you neglect it forever. So tomorrow we'll take you to get some new clothes, and then next Monday you can start back."
Julian gulped. Clothes...she'd tried to do away with them altogether as a wolf, then she'd wanted them back...but she didn't want to get all...all... "I...I have clothes," she protested. Her mother shook her head. "Julian, they don't fit you anymore - look at yourself, honey. You can't go to school like that."
Julian didn't really want to, but she did look at herself - at the breasts tenting out a shirt that was too tight around the chest and thus pulled up a little short of reaching the waist, and too thin to hide the way her nipples poked out under the fabric, the shorts that weren't cut to accomodate her hips, and the way her powerful thighs stretched them somewhat, leaving them a bit shorter than they were intended to be, the way the dappled patterns on the fur of her haunches spread out strikingly from underneath them, the way her tail, poking out from the slipshod opening she'd made for it, drew attention to the whole thing...
She realized, to her embarassment, that her mother was trying, in a very oblique way, to tell her that she looked...'trashy,' would be a diplomatic way of putting. God, she didn't want to give the other students that impression - but she wanted even less to be wearing poofy pink dresses and other such girly shit. Well, she could fight that when it came to it - but she sure as hell didn't want the other students thinking she was a...a slut. She felt a little nauseous just thinking about it.
Her mother nodded. "You see what I mean. We'll get you some things that will suit you better now." The she hunkered down, looking her son-turned-daughter in the eye. "Julian?" she asked. "Honey? When you changed again...I didn't think that happened. I've never heard of it before. Do you know how this happened?"
Julian gulped. I promise you, if you tell them the truth, they'll believe you... ...but she couldn't tell them that! Not all the things that were done and said in that...that non-place...but then it didn't say that they wouldn't believe if it wasn't true! And if she told them parts that she knew they'd buy...
"I...I d-dunno," she stammered. "I...it was weird, I was l-looking at the Moon, and...and then I...sort of blacked out...and then things just...just st-start-ted happ-pening..." The stammering was genuine; Julian was rather overcome as she thought back on everything she'd endured in that sequence of events. "I d-d-dunno..." she said.
Her mother frowned. "I...huh. That is weird. But...so is all of this, I guess..." Julian sighed, silently thankful that she wasn't going to have to explain about being pregnant to her mom.
Then her mom touched her. It was just a gentle hand on one shoulder, but it was physical contact...Julian flashed back to being bodiless and senseless in the void, and her terror at the idea of never experiencing this again, and she was overcome with emotion. To her great irritation, the deer-girl started bawling, and her mother took her in her arms and held her.
