Vars

[Impressive Title Here]
Original poster
LURKER MEMBER
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Posting Speed
  1. 1-3 posts per week
  2. One post per week
Online Availability
Varies incredibly
Writing Levels
  1. Elementary
  2. Intermediate
  3. Adept
  4. Advanced
  5. Adaptable
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Primarily Prefer Male
Genres
Modern/realistic. Low fantasy. Low Scifi. Supernatural. Future Dystopia (not post-apoc).
Pardon the lazy writing. I may pretty this up later...

In this urban fantasy setting, it's a world much like our own except with some fantasy/supernatural species. While all species technically have equal rights, racism/specism is still rampant, and humans are the majority. Werewolves (humans who can shift to wolves) are analogous to gypsies and lycans (anthro wolves who cannot shift) are analogous to off-reservation natives.

In this story, a werewolf and a lycan are in a romantic relationship. The werewolf is going to college, and in one of his classes he meets a human who smells pretty wolfish. Turns out she's a therian, so he begins dating her, and eventually he introduces her to the lycan, and they become a healthy poly triad relationship.
[EDIT: SO I JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT THIS NETFLIX MOVIE CALLED BRIGHT?? AND YEAH, THAT'S BASICALLY THE WORLD THIS STORY TAKES PLACE IN!!

]

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Species notes:
Werewolves MUST shift at least one night during the full moon, this shift is usually outside their control much like traditional werewolf media. However, with time/maturity/training/practice, this particular shift can at least be partially controlled.

Outside the full moon, werewolves with proper training/talent can shift at any time. They can control their shift entirely if they are experienced enough to induce a shift outside the full moon. However, NO ONE is exempt from shifting during a full moon. There is always at least one night they shift. Younger/less experienced werewolves will shift every night of the full moon.

There is no defining feature of a werewolf in their human form that denotes them as nonhuman. Many werewolves are able to be "human passing" in this way, but generally due to their shifts at the full moon, many can connect the dots when people call out of work at certain times, etc.

Lycans:
Cannot shift at all, they are anthropomorphic wolves. Analogous to first peoples/natives, tribal, generally nomadic in nature, usually bipedal. Much like real natives, different tribes have totally different temperaments, cultures, and languages. However, humans being the way they are, have lumped all lycans together as one type of wolf with no distinctions in these languages and cultures.

Lycans generally stick to their own, especially due to the racism they experience from others. However, some journey away from their tribes to try to make something of themselves in more modern civilizations.

Therians:
viewed the same way they are irl. Some people believe in it, some don't, generally they aren't open about being therian. Most people don't even know what it is.



Characters:

WEREWOLF
Name: Zahir Keen
Age: 25
Human form | Wolf form

Zahir was raised in a family of super proud werewolves, who thought the wolf form was superior to all other forms. They believed the best werewolf was one who could maintain their wolf form indefinitely. They lived off the land in the mountains and hated humans.
Zahir didn't agree. He stumbled upon some humans camping in his family's territory and became fascinated with their culture. Following them back to the city, he succumbed to wanderlust. He wanted to learn everything about humans, cities, modern civilization.
Unfortunately, due to his upbringing, keeping a human form was proving troublesome for him, and he couldn't maintain gainful employment.
Living on the streets, he snuck into college classes and kept learning.

One day, Gaea came across him sleeping under a bridge and took him in. They became really close after that, and Zahir was able to become a little more civilized and clean, enroll in school for real, and major in anthropology.



LYCAN
Name: Gaea Trade Winds
Age: 30
Appearance
Gaea grew up in a family of lycans who lived in the city. A few generations back they had decided to take the reparations they'd received from the government and live like normal people. It has been extremely difficult. If their businesses aren't faltering due to lack of customers willing to be served by lycans, they're not very employable despite their in-demand skills. Gaea has had a hard life and bears some resentment for how the world isn't fair or just and how many humans appropriate their culture.

On top of this, Gaea was born female but identifies as male. Through other urban lycans, he has been able to get top surgery and so bears his chest scars to the public proudly. While technically wanting bottom surgery, he has never bothered due to various reasons. While being trans does wear on him at times, he doesn't let it define him, instead identifying more with his heritage as a Trade Winds lycan.

Gaea runs a small trinket shop, The Trade Winds' Trade Post, in a touristy part of town, where he sells all sorts of lycanthropic merchandise that humans love, like feather headdresses, dream catchers, etc. Gaea secretly hates it, but so far its been the only business that has actually seen any marginal success. He and Zahir have been together for a few years, and Gaea helps support him through college.



THERIAN
Name: Rhiannon Grant
Age: 22
Appearance

Rhia carries a happy-go-lucky disposition, although she’s learned to temper it in order to be taken seriously. Still, she’s generally optimistic and takes action with good intent. She smiles a lot, and her brown eyes are expressive. She keeps her mousy brown hair in a short pixie cut. She rarely wears makeup or jewelry, and her style is a blend of minimalist and gamine. Her typical outfit consists of a men’s dress shirt over a plain t-shirt, along with a pair of well-fitted jeans and flats.

Rhia comes from a middle class family, and is the second youngest child out of five. While her home life is stable and warm, she does not stand out in sports or academics like her older siblings. She loves her family, but struggles finding her own identity while amongst them. Wishing to distance herself from her big family, she decides to attend an out of state college.

In university, Rhia is one year away from completing an arts degree in Journalism. She works for the university’s newspaper, doing a mix of general assisting and copywriting. In her free time, she likes to photograph things in nature and wildlife. She has a particular fascination with wolves, especially because she holds a budding belief that part of her soul or psyche is intrinsically connected with the animal. She keeps a couple of fake wolf ears and a tail tucked away in her dresser, remnants from when she was a teenager and into the furry fandom. They mostly go unworn as a closely guarded secret, but she can’t bear to throw them away.[/hr][/hr][/hr]
 
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Although it had been years since Zahir had been with his wolf family, he still compared almost everything to how he grew up. He tried to sanitize it, make it human if possible, but sometimes when he was explaining something in class, he'd just pretend he was talking about wolves in general and not his family specifically.

Questions relating to life experiences resulted in "Well when I was, uh, camping..." and discussions about interpersonal communications were met by "I heard wolf packs do.... which is sort of like how humans..."

Zahir was a werewolf, but he'd been human-passing for the last 3-4 years. He didn't have shame in his race (although he didn't particularly like his specific family), but to be totally consumed with a culture, he needed to dive right in, and he didn't want to segregate himself willingly by admitting he wasn't human. Werewolves, even in this city, were not very well-treated. Although they technically had equal rights, everyone seemed to look down on them, calling them grifters, thieves, even murderers. Werewolves were basically some mentally ill, crazed monster who were also somehow surprisingly cunning at screwing over people and stealing their things.

It was hard to straddle a line between empathizing with the wolves and with the humans, but he did his best. He was sure some classmates had their suspicions about him, but he always tried to avoid the question. Somehow, no one had straight up asked if he was a werewolf bluntly. If they had, he wasn't sure if he would lie about it or not.

But even so, he managed. He had tried to get a normal job, but after the first few full moons passed with him calling in sick, his employers seemed to connect the dots and quietly fired him, refusing to cite a reason. He knew why, though. Nobody wanted a werewolf on staff.

Eventually, he gave up, and started working for his boyfriend in a tourist trap of a gift shop named the Trade Winds' Trade Post. He lived with him too, which was yet another secret he kept. His boyfriend was a lycan- they were on even worse standing than werewolves. But for some reason, humans seemed obsessed with lycan culture despite simultaneously begrudging them, and the tradepost saw good business.

His boyfriend, Gaea, hated it. But having also felt the pressure of not being able to be otherwise gainfully employed, begrudgingly accepted his fate of being objectified. The tourists saw Gaea as some sort of zoo exhibit, a window into a place in history where everyone lived peacefully off the land, held shared spiritual beliefs, could do some sort of shamanic magic, and had no pollution.

Gaea was part of the Trade Winds tribe, hence the name of the tradepost and also the lycan's last name. Trade Winds had their own culture, their own history, their own language, and they weren't even from around this particular city, historically.

One day, Zahir had made the mistake of asking Gaea why the tradepost told all these stories about a unified culture and sold dream catchers. Dream catchers, specifically, because Zahir knew Trade Winds had never made or used them.

"It's all bullshit," Gaea explained. "Humans don't want to know the truth. The truth is too complicated. It doesn't sell souvenirs and trinkets."

Despite Gaea being bitter about how the world worked, he still managed to be a loving, entertaining, and somehow still-hopeful individual. That's part of what drew them together. They'd both had not the best life experiences growing up, but still managed to make do and survive. Zahir admired Gaea's perseverance and drive. And Gaea... Well. Gaea had first taken sympathy on Zahir, seeing himself in him. But now... Gaea secretly was so envious of the werewolf and the ability to pass as human. Gaea wanted Zahir to succeed in anything he decided to do... Not only because he loved him... But also because, perhaps through Zahir's success, Gaea could be successful too. Not that Gaea was not, himself, successful - far from it. Financially, yes, Gaea was taken care of. But spiritually, and personally, he was not.

Zahir was actually envious of Gaea- Gaea was able to run a business as a lycan, and not give in to the constant pressure to move elsewhere. The police pestering, the inappropriate questions by tourists, the heckling. Gaea had a will of steel that Zahir only wished he could possess.

Instead, Zahir focused on learning about humans and pretended to be one. Subconsciously he wished he could be human, but had already accepted that he was not, and never would be. But, he could be a human-expert if he tried, and with Gaea's financial help, he was able to go to college and pursue anthropology.

It was in one of his classes where he met a girl named Rhia. She was a journalism major, so they didn't have many classes together, but she was noticeable. Zahir wasn't the talkative type, but he kept an eye on her because he had some sense that she was not all human. He couldn't quite place it, really. Objectively, he knew she was 100% human, but still... Something was off. It made her interesting, at least. He kept comparing her to a wolf, making weird parallels between some of her mannerisms and things wolves would do. He never confronted her about it, but it was a thing that was usually on his mind when he watched her in class.

Eventually, he'd finally worked up the courage to actually talk to her. They made smalltalk before and after class sometimes, but nothing major. One month, he had a particularly bad full moon shift, and had missed some classes. When he got back, he asked Rhia to catch him up on what he missed. Next thing he knew, he was going on a date with her. A human date! A courtship ritual. Something he'd only read books about!

He knew that, objectively, it was probably no different than any courtship any other species had, but still, he'd never actually done a "date" date, and so he was all a-flutter about the occasion.

He told Gaea about it, who didn't protest but seemed to avoid the whole situation, not sure what to make of it.
"Are you doing it because you like her, or because you're studying her?" Gaea played, but that was really the most of the interaction. They were hesitant, because neither of them really knew what to think about it, and so the week continued until the date of the "date" arrived.

It was at a pizza parlor, which was a casual dining experience, but Zahir knew dates were special so he wore nice clothes anyway. He didn't have any super nice clothes, and he wasn't sure he should just go out and buy some, so he instead pulled together one of his old working uniforms, which was simply a plain blue button up dress shirt and some khakis.

Zahir was a relatively simple man. He normally wore a plain white t-shirt and jeans, so really anything other than that was a step-up for him. Clothes were still a thing he wasn't entirely comfortable with, having grown up in a quadruped form on most days.

He'd made sure to come early, and was sitting on a booth in the waiting area for his new girl-date to arrive. Did them going on a date make her his girlfriend already? Oh, he had so many questions, none of which he would ask because they were stupid and he should know better!
 
Rhiannon abhorred adequate. Next on the list was average, expected, middling, ordinary, and typical. Since her birth, Rhia's life had been defined by those concepts. Her parents loved her, but never pushed her to be more than adequate. Teachers appreciated her, but her achievements never placed beyond average. Her friendships, relationships, and employment all followed the same, typical trajectory--she had a best friend, she went on dates, she held a menial summer job, she graduated high school, and she escaped for university.

University was her gambit. She’d broken expectations by taking an offer from an out of state college, moving herself three states away from her supportive, yet suffocatingly large family. Once there, Rhia promised herself that things would be focused on building her independence. As much as she looked forward to detaching herself from her family, there was a long period of adjustment for someone who had lived among so many people. Sometimes, she really did miss it, and would think back on how things were when she was young.

As a child, she loved acting like a wolf, and imagined her family as part of her pack. Alongside her older brothers and sister, she’d run through the maple trees that made up their unfenced backyard, periodically pointing her nose in the air as if to pick up a scent. Together they’d growl and yip at each other in play, and once the moon had become visible, they’d end their game by howling and racing back home. Sometimes, Rhia would find that she felt more like a wolf than a human during this play. When she turned nine, she finally opened up about a bizarre feeling:

“My ears are itchy,” Rhia whined to her siblings.

“Then scratch them,” laughed Freddie.

“But I can’t touch them!”

“I can touch them just fine!” Freddie boxed Rhia’s ears playfully, making their two brothers roll with laughter. Rhia snapped her teeth menacingly at her sister, who joined in the laughter.

“I don’t mean those ones!”

“Weirdo,” scoffed Freddie. “What other ones do you have?”
That was the first time Rhia began to doubt that her family could really be her “pack.” She’d assumed that all of her siblings had felt the same shifts in psyche and body. As the years passed, she realized how alone she was, and that to them it had just been play. So, Rhia followed their example, and stopped acting out her wolfish impulses. As a teen, she rationalized that she was merely a creative child, with a vivid imagination. Sometimes she’d still slip into old habits--sniffing the air, feeling her ‘ears’ pull back when she sensed a threat, pacing when excited--and then she’d spiral into a week long identity crisis.

It was during one of these crises that she decided to distract herself by taking a risk in asking out a classmate. Zahir and her had conversed a few times before, but only idle talk you’d expect to hear between strangers. Still, many of his anecdotes referred back to the wilderness and wolves, which intrigued Rhia. When he had approached her in order to catch up on the lessons he’d missed, she took the opportunity to suggest they meet over pizza. Pizza made an adequate first date, Rhia thought, and in times of emotional turmoil, even despised old habits had a way of coming back.

Since she hadn’t considered a pizza parlor date anything spectacular, she had only washed and threw on clean clothes for the night. Her outfit consisted of the same things she tended to wear everyday--dark wash jeans, black flats, and a black v-neck shirt under a much larger lavender dress shirt that she left unbuttoned. The biggest change was the addition of a couple of pearl earrings she wore, as a small testament that she really was on a date. So, it came as a surprise when she first saw Zahir, who had a comparatively dressy outfit for the night.

“You look nice,” she chimed and shot him a smile. “Hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long. I figure you’re probably busier with schoolwork than usual?”

Rhia seated herself across from Zahir, and looked around quickly to gain her bearings. While there were a couple of girls who looked to be servers, they were busy attending to other tables. She tried to see if anyone was minding the counter, but she didn’t see anyone behind the till. She then turned her attention back to Zahir, nervous and giddy.

“Thought about what you’d like? I'll pay.”
 
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Zahir stood up as soon as he saw Rhia, and then smiled nervously as she commented on his appearance. "Haha.. Thank you... No, I only just came 5 minutes ago..."

Ah yes, the dredded schoolwork. He wanted to be a human-expert, but truth be told, all of the work made a lot of assumptions about someone's knowledge and experience prior to the class. A lot of those things Zahir did not know or experience, making the assignments that much more difficult to complete. He took frequent breaks from it, as it all made his head hurt.

He wished he'd grown up with humans, like normal werewolves. Why did his family have to be so weird? Maybe he should've just watched a ton of movies to sort cram all that human culture in. Oh, now he was off on a tangent in his head. "Um, you look nice too-- uh? What? N-no!" he waved his hands up as she said she'd pay.
"I'm the guy, I- I'll pay. That's how it's supposed to go... Right?"
stupid, he thought to himself.
Why was a girl making him so jittery? He'd never been so weird before. He was 25, this was only supposed to be happening to teenagers... Or something.

With embarassment, he sulked to the booth, sitting across from Rhia and grabbing a menu. He'd never been to this place and hadn't bothered to look at the offerings before they came. He propped the menu up in front of him in an excuse to block off his face from view as the anxiety began to settle in.

He couldn't even think of what he wanted, he was too busy thinking about how much of a fool he looked to Rhia. "... What were you going to get?"
Yeah, just get her talking, then he wouldn't have to talk...
 
“Me? Oh,” she paused and looked down at her own menu. Ravenous due to forgetting to eat all day, her mouth began to water looking at the shop’s shamefully greasy offerings. Her daydream of devouring each type of pizza was cut short when a practical thought entered her mind: if Zahir insisted on paying, should she go for the cheapest option, like a side salad and water? Should she not allow him to pay for her, in order to avoid the guilt? Or would he think she didn’t enjoy the date if she rejected his offer? Did he expect them to split a pizza, or were they each going for their own?

The simple date she thought she had planned was turning out to be a little more complicated. She glanced up to see if Zahir was still waiting for an answer, and saw that he had his face buried in his menu.

“Anything with meat sounds great,” she finally said, managing to avoid a direct answer. She continued to look over at Zahir, wondering if he needed glasses or just wanted to avoid her. Although she did not know much about him, she knew he was a returning student, and thus a little older than your typical undergraduate. Despite their ages being relatively close, Rhia had still imagined Zahir as experienced, sophisticated, and worldly--his age was when “real” adulthood began, she had always reasoned. So, watching him stutter and stumble over his words while on a date was a surprise. She wondered why he was acting so weird, and unlike how she’d imagined.

“Actually, everything here is great, so long as you abide by the three topping rule. You know about the rule, right?” she said, trying to get his face out from behind his menu.
 
She said anything with meat was fine. His eyes started searching for the pizzas with meats. "Yeah... that sounds good..." he mumbled, mostly to himself. Of course, meat was sort of obvious. They were wolves afterall. He should've expected meat was fine.

His rolled his eyes around the menu and kind of hoped they'd stop on something that made sense. A 'meat lovers' pizza or a 'supreme' would do well, that had a little bit of everything, and meant he had the least amount of decisions to make, because the chef did it all.

Then Rhia piped in with the three topping rule, and he dropped the menu to the side accidentally, it slapping on the wood table rather loudly. Instinctively, he put his hand on it, as if to stop it from falling, but clearly it had already occurred. He slunk back into his seat, hunching his shoulders a bit.

"Sorry..." he admitted, looking about to see if anyone cared. They did not. He looked back to Rhia, overcompensating, and trying to play it off, overacting that he was fine, and totally not embarrassed. "No, I don't know about it. What is the three topping rule?"

He awkwardly put his forearm on the table, over the menu, and his other arm's elbow on the table, putting his chin in his hand, as if he'd planned it all along.
 
Rhia’s eyes followed the path of Zahir’s menu, and after he’d slammed his hand on it, stared for a few awkward moments longer. His klutzy demeanor, while unexpected, was endearing. At least, Rhia’s own insecurity was lightened, and if she were less aware, she might’ve thanked Zahir. Instead, she kept her mouth shut and broke into a smile when he seemed to recover from his mishap.

“You’ve never heard of it? You can’t be serious,” she exclaimed, giving him a playfully incredulous look. “Well then, let this pizza sophisticate introduce you to the ways of the world. You see, there is only so much room on a pizza--on any pizza.”

Rhia brought both of her hands together, creating a circle with her fingers.

“See? Now, each topping takes up a portion of that pizza. One or two toppings are OK, but pretty boring. However,” she said, pausing to make sure Zahir was still following along. “However, if you do more than three, you end up sacrificing on the quality. You can’t put the same amount of pepperonis on a four topping as you would a single topping. It’ll cook uneven. Even worse, you might not get enough toppings on each slice. Imagine getting just one pepperoni on your slice. That’s just sad!” Rhia emphasized her mock indignation by comically slapping her hands down on the table.

“So,” she continued, uncertain how Zahir would take her little tirade. “How does a guy make it to your age without learning such necessities of life? What sort of things do they teach you out in the woods?”
 
Zahir listened to her. He didn't want to believe it, but what she said was making sense. He narrowed his eyes though, and as he thought critically about it... No. No it didn't make sense.
"But that only applies to big toppings," he said. "Onions, muschrooms, peppers, olives, and all that, you're not sacrificing anything. Even some sausage and other meats, they cut them so small it's not a big deal. Basically, the only way the rule works is if you like toppings that are huge, like pepperoni, salami, anchovies..." he began to drift off, his eyes wandering about the room.

"Uh... Well anyway, let's just get one of those meat lovers pizzas and share it?"

And then he was caught off-guard by the question of what he was taught in the woods. His shoulders tightened and he grit his teeth. It was only for a second, but it was a definite uncomfortable body response.

He sighed, looking down at the menu beneath his hand. "Yeah my family life... wasn't that great. I came here to start over, like, 5 years ago maybe? It's a little blurry, really. What about you?"
Anything to change the subject, really.
 
Considering the polite attention Zahir had shown during her spiel, Rhia did not expect the immediate rejection to follow.

“Maybe,” she deferred, unconvinced but unwilling to debate. As he trailed off, she subconsciously mimicked his body language, and looked out a nearby window. Her attention floated back to the conversation when he began to speak once more. “Yeah, meat lover’s sounds great.”

Getting a clear read on Zahir was more difficult than Rhia had imagined. One moment he came across like a kicked puppy, scared and defenseless, hiding behind a pizzeria menu. The next he brandished a scathing sense of logic, leaving her to feel like an idiot for opening her mouth. To her horror, her failed axiom was just the start.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out, distressed that she’d obviously picked at a wound. She racked her brain for any answer that could work as a sort of consolation to him. Left with the realization that she had nothing, Rhia briefly considered making up a lie. “I don’t...I mean, I’ve never really…”

She sighed, frustrated that the words weren’t coming to her. She ran a hand through her short brown hair, and her eyes looked at Zahir imploringly. “I come from a good family. I love them. They love me. Just, sometimes, I don’t feel like I fully belong with them.”

She turned to look back out the window from before, nervous for Zahir’s reaction. Defensively, she added, “It’s not logical, I know. It doesn’t make sense. And, in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t that big of a deal. Relative to others, I had it easy. Still, it’s jarring, feeling so alienated among the people you should feel closest to.”

Rhia’s stomach chose then to audibly grumble, an anti-climatic reminder that she’d gone way off topic.
 
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"It's ok," he interrupted, trying to calm her down once he realized how hurt she was from both his rebuttal of her pizza logic and his not-ideal answer to her question about his woods education.

"I understand what you mean. And that's fair," he returned when she explained about her own family situation. "You shouldn't feel bad because you keep comparing to other people. It feels real to you. That shouldn't be undermined." he looked at her stomach when it growled, cutting him off. He gave a nervous chuckle. and looked around for a server, who thankfully was on her way over.

"A large meat lovers please," he ordered for the both of them, closing his eyes and forcing a smile. "Extra water too, please," he said before he reached for his glass and drank some.

Once the server left, he put his elbows on the table and rested his chin on interlocked fingers, leaning forward and watching Rhia. "I didn't fit in with my family, either." he chuckled again. "Obviously." Maybe not obviously to any onlookers, but it was clearly obvious to him, so maybe it was a joke for himself.

"Anyway, just because your family was normal or healthy or whatever, doesn't mean that alienating feeling is any less than mine was." he shrugged.
 
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While Zahir placed their order, Rhia cautiously studied him--he wasn’t the first to claim to understand her. ‘I understand’ was hardly more than a crude sentiment to Rhia. Shared by adults who saw a simple teenager going through simple teenager changes, the phrase was quickly retired once Rhia opened up over the origin of her insecurities.

Something reassuring shone through Zahir, though. Perhaps it was because she was no longer a teenager. And, she reasoned, Zahir really wasn’t that much older. Plus, maybe the rumors she’d overheard made her choose to believe he really could understand.

As the waitress walked away, Zahir took a quick drink from his glass and re-engaged Rhia. A tense, prickling sensation blanketed her body.

Not now, she groused as she covertly rubbed her arms underneath the table, hoping to disrupt her body’s perception that she was encased in a scratchy bodysuit two sizes too small.

“It’s very kind of you,” she murmured, still scratching at her arms. “The things you’ve said, I mean. They’re very kind.”
 
Watching her, she seemed even more uncomfortable. And then thanked him for being kind. That made him think something else was going on. Why thank him like that? Was nobody ever kind to her?
But rather than actually ask that (a comparatively lucky turn of events, considering his contextual social awareness... Or lack thereof), he decided to just go ahead and answer the question he'd deflected instead. He interpreted her disappointment as not having an actual answer.

It was true, he supposed, that deflecting any chance of conversation would hinder conversation and thus... totally disrupt the whole dating process. How else were they supposed to get to know eachother? Besides university, he didn't really do anything. Read a bunch of stuff on the internet, saw some movies, but nothing particularly worth talking about or bonding over. Plus, he doubted his latest 'human tip' would go over well. "Did you know that people like watching movies!" was like... C'mon, a human should know humans do that sort of thing.

"Uh... You're welcome? But... Yeah, I was kind of... Shut in? I guess. As a kid, I mean. My parents were really..." he struggled. What was a human equivalent? "Off the grid. I guess. I was home-schooled, and we never really traveled, so, basically my time at uni has been all my experience as living like a normal person," he gave a nervous laugh.

He stared down hard at his menu, trying to avoid looking like a pathetic excuse for a human being for a few seconds. He managed to take a deep breath, hold all the crazy in, and try to move on, however. "So, what about you, though? Why did you decide to come to the city? Or you grew up here?" He asked, looking up to her again.

Is she cold? he thought to himself. It didn't seem cold in here.
 
“Off the grid? That’s so cool,” she sighed, imagining how idyllic it would be to be that self-sufficient. “I’m from a few states away, just your regular ol’ suburban town. It was pretty nice, actually. A quick drive away from civilization, but right next to a bunch of nature trails. When we were young, my siblings and I would spend a lot of time wandering off together, pretending to be animals and stuff. Y’know, like kids do.”

Unlike most kids, though, Rhia took their roles seriously. While her siblings grew tired of their game, little Rhia was convinced she was a wolf--her transforming powers just weren’t good enough yet. As puberty set in, she’d scrutinize her body hair’s length and amount. Was it longer than normal girls? Was it thicker? Were her adult teeth sharper than the other kids’? Rhia could never decide, and after her 13th birthday she gave up hope.

Still, she’d get weird feelings that she later learned were called phantom limbs. Most of the time they would come and go without issue. The stifling feeling of something constricting across her skin was the newest addition, and while disconcerting, she knew it’d stop if she just ignored it. It had probably been brought on because she was anxious she’d insulted her date, but he didn’t seem to care.

Resigned, she placed her arms back on the table and raised her glass of water to her mouth.

“Here was my chance to get out and explore,” she said after gulping down her water. “Got a lot of brothers and a sister, so it was always the same thing--same town, same school, same university. One right after the other. I wanted to do something different, so I took the first chance to get out of town. It’s not so different from home with all the wildlife reservations and amenities of civilization being so close, but at least it isn’t home, y’know?”
 
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"Really? Humans do that too?" Kids pretended to be animals on the regular? His siblings had pretended to be prey and hunt and such. He had no idea humans would do the same thing with other animals. He got all excited, perking up. "Why?" He was so interested, leaning in. He wanted to question her on all the exciting new things he could learn about normal things humans did.
It was something he could cling to.
Oh, Humans pretend to be animals- I pretended to be different animals! Hey I'm kinda human! his subconscious grabbed for. Maybe. Which didn't even make that much sense since he was kind of already part human anyway. That's what werewolves were, right? Or were they just wolves that looked like humans? That was something he'd never pondered until that precise moment, his mind working overdrive and going a thousand different directions at the possibilities. He wondered if there was a way to be fully human, then. Or would he even want to be?
Oh. Oh now his thoughts just went to a dark place. Was he willing to completely dispel his wolf?
And then he remembered where he was.
Who he was talking to.
His eyes went wide.
She was already talking again.

Maybe she'd missed it? Maybe "Humans do that too?" wasn't a completely ridiculous thing to say as a human. Because. Ha! Humans! Silly creatures. "I'm totally a human"
No. No don't bring attention to it, he told himself. Maybe she won't notice. Maybe she didn't hear. Just continue as if I never said that. Play it cool

"Oh.. No... Yeah, I totally feel you! I felt the same way. I couldn't wait to get away from my family, either. And woods and stuff are nice, definitely. But I basically lived in them so I really prefer the city at this point. You know, for the change of pace. But. Yeah. Having the option of going into the forest is nice. So it's good that it's there. Oh, look, there's our pizza."
His mouth kept running.
Play it cool

The waitress walked by with the pizza. Walked straight on by to another table.
Crap.

"Guess not," he said, laughing nervously and running a hand through his hair.

"I just realized, I have to go, do a thing.. I mean, the bathroom, I have to go to the bathroom. You've been here before, right? Where is it?" he began to make his way out of the booth.
Oh god kill me
 
As pleased as she was to recover their conversation, Zahir mentioning food breathed life into Rhia and she excitedly turned to get a glimpse of the incoming pizza. She pushed aside her silverware and drink in anticipation of the large, circular tray, but it and the waitress zoomed past their table. A barely audible squeak left Rhia's lips in protest, and she enviously watched as a young family dug into their meal.

Rhia did not have long to wallow in her disappointment, however, as Zahir began to sputter about having to leave. She panicked that their date was as good as done until he quickly amended his statement to include 'bathroom.'

"Oh, uh, sure. They're right around the corner there," she said, pointing to an arrow-shaped sign labeled 'bathrooms.' "Just follow that."

Once Zahir had left, Rhia took out her cellphone and began tapping out a frantic message to her older sister.

R: I'm totally failing here, heeelp

??: Need someone to call you with something important? ;)

R: No, no!! I don't *want* it to keep failing!

??: Just trying to help! You being weird again?

R: NO. Not really. I feel like it's 50/50?

??: HAHAHA

R: Ughhh, why did I bother

??: Oh please. This is that werewolf weirdo?

R: That's just a rumor! ...But yeah, that guy.

??: HAHAHAHA

Rhia tossed her cellphone back into her backpack, exasperated. She knew of the rumors surrounding Zahir, but she'd always dismissed them. Werewolves weren't the type to bother with trying to blend into human society--you might find a few on the outskirts of town getting by on random jobs, but she figured they were loners and anomalies. They didn't fit in with their pack, but they never fit in with humans, either. A werewolf pursuing a degree and assimilating to a human culture would be too odd. But, he was pretty odd. If she were to be honest, his interests and attention did seem drawn to the most mundane human things, and he did have a curious amount of experience with living in the wild.

Still waiting for her date to return to the table, Rhia continued to mull over how all of the pieces fit together to explain Zahir.
 
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When he'd pointed out that their (not) food was here, and she'd cleared a space for their (not) pizza, he realized that she was just as susceptible to stupid things as he was. But Zahir was already standing up and going to the "bathroom." He couldn't just back out now. It'd be more awkward than it already was.
"Uh... thanks," he said, turning on his heel and heading quickly to the facilities, a frown evident on his face.

Yes, yes, he could've run away. But in that single moment he realized she was no smarter than he was, so surely they had their patheticness in common, at least. Maybe she was anxious too?
Maybe it was her first date too?
He pushed open the door to the bathroom and headed to the sink, staring at a mirror and doing nothing... Awkwardly. That was apparently the theme for today. He wondered if he should ask Gaea for help. Surely he'd been on tons of dates... But that would be awkward too, what with the whole, him being his boyfriend and all. His frown deepened, and someone flushed a urinal and Zahir decided he should do something to not look so creepy. He decided to wash his hands. A thing the urinal user did not do before exiting. He sighed, washed the soap from his palms and brought them up near his waist and continued to stare off into the mirror, his wet hands just hanging in front of him in odd fashion.

A few seconds later he finally just swallowed and decided to get it over with, shook his hands dry and went off back to his table, his posture a little poor.
"Sorry about that," he said, forcing a small smile.
I only just faced a mild anxiety attack and severe case of secondhand embarrassment, no big, he finished in his mind.

"So, uh, do you come here often?"
 
Rhia returned Zahir's smile as he sat back down.

"Yeah, pretty easy date spot," she answered candidly. "Not to say I'm always bringing dates here. I mean, sometimes I come with just friends, too. Mostly just friends."

Worried she'd made a faux pas of mentioning some aspect of her love life to her current date, Rhia shot a furtive glance at Zahir, trying to gauge his reaction. The awkward silence that had settled over them was interrupted by the timely appearance of their server.

"Here we go," she sang in a cloyingly sweet voice as she set the pizza on its stand at the table. "Now, the dish is hot, so be careful. Is there anything else I can get you both?"

She looked to Zahir and then to Rhia, awaiting any further requests. Both parties seemed to stall, waiting in case the other had something to say.

"We're good, thank you," Rhia finally answered, not wanting the server to pick up on their uneasiness.

"Alrighty, enjoy!" The woman speedily walked away, leaving the two in silence again.
 
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"Not to say I'm always bringing dates here. I mean, sometimes I come with just friends, too..."

Ah, yes. Good thing she has friends, and not an ever expending date pool. Good spirits, what was he getting himself into? It definitely was not her first date! Now he couldn't get the picture of a thousand men lining up at the entrance to the pizza parlor, all holding signs or otherwise making reservations for The booth with Rhia.
His face began to lose its color while he fixated on that image and her comment, but lucky enough the food came in and saved the day... Maybe.

His green eyes went from the direction of Rhia's face (but staring off into a pained PTSD Flashback of the Many Race War) to take in the remarkable human act of achievement known as the pizza pie. Except... He wasn't, really. Although his eyes and head had moved, his mind was still thinking about that line of male patrons waiting for The Booth With Rhia. He imagined himself walking up to the very end of the line with a cheap clipboard and recycled paper, his pen-written "Booth With Rhia" not standing out quite enough. He began to scribble the letters, making them thicker and darker.
The camera panned up to a theatre's LED scrolling sign: The Booth With Rhia...... Unrated

"We're good, thank you," Rhia's voice rung, piercing through the cinematic appeal of Zahir's thoughts. Perhaps he should have majored in cinematography instead of anthropology.

"Alrighty, enjoy!" the audience applauded than quickly left the theatre, not a scene of The Booth With Rhia having been played. The entire audience was female, and went outside, calmly lining up behind him, so they too could also request The Booth With Rhia.
A realization that equal opportunity had now put his odds in an ever worsening position. Oh no. Not them too!

Zahir came back to his senses. "Mostly friends... Right..." he repeated from earlier.

The smell from the pizza entered his nostrils and he clapped his hands, rubbing them together, willing away his dramatic catastrophizing. "Alright! Time to eat, finally!"

He grabbed the serving... thing... And quickly took 2 pieces for himself. He put the tool down only momentarily before realizing he should offer her some too.
"How many do you want?" he asked, offering up his free hand to take her empty plate.
 
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Rhia had expected to serve herself, like an adult, so was surprised when Zahir offered to do it for her. Still, she handed over her plate and asked for a couple of slices without protest. All she really wanted was the food in her face, and protesting would simply move her further from that goal. Besides, he probably didn't mean it like she was a child.

After he'd handed back her plate, Rhia thanked him and immediately started eating. She silently chowed through her first slice, thankful for the food as well as the excuse to keep quiet. Her stomach filled, she felt her anxiety over ruining the date begin to mellow.

"So," she started, trying to force a conversation topic to pop into her consciousness. "Where do you and your friends usually go to hang out? Or is adulthood all doom and gloom, 'slave to the man' once you hit your mid-twenties?"
 
After taking care of Rhia's plate, he dived into his pizza as well. He was a folder. He folded his slices in half long wise and bit into them like tacos. He was also a pretty quick eater, chomping his two slices down, including the crust, and already serving himself two more slices by the time the conversation picked up again.

Mostly distracted by his meal, his anxiety waned enough to not think much about the answer. "Well to tell the truth I don't really hang out with anybody. I work at the Trade Winds Trade post, but other than that I keep to myself. Homework and studying keeps me busy really."

He lobbed the slices on his plate and picked one up and folded it again, opening his mouth to chow down once more only to realize that, too, was rude. He looked to her briefly for the customary reply-question: "How much free time do you have?"
He made sure to stuff himself while she was thinking about her answer.