"Anyone have any big plans for the holidays?" Paige asked, before taking a bite of her chicken wrap.
Melanie rolled her eyes, "Mostly working. We get a few days off, but they pay time and a half over the break and since there's no school for two and a half weeks it's a pretty good chance to pick up some extra money. Only drawback is dealing with irritable humans all day long."
"Same," Cerys grimaced. "I'll be putting in extra shifts at the store along with Melanie."
"It's pretty much same as last year for me," Kaylee responded. "And the years before that. Loads of relatives to go visit, or who want to come visit us. I'll have a few days here and there to do my own thing, but my mom's already got a pretty full calendar booked for the whole family."
Cerys asked, "Don't you and Cass have anything special planned? I figured you two would be excited to spend the holidays together, now that you're an item again."
It was Wednesday and by now all our friends knew me and Kaylee were officially girlfriends again. We were doing all the nice fun stuff from before, like holding hands and hugging each other in the hall before and after class. And all our friends were happy and supportive and everything.
Even Nina was happy for me and Kaylee. It probably didn't hurt that the cute redhead had a talk with the small demon at lunch on Monday, to properly apologize for how she'd acted and stuff all through the summer. I didn't know all the details of their conversation, but whatever the two of them discussed it obviously went well.
"Me and Kaylee are definitely getting together for new years again," I finally responded with a happy blush, "Like we did last year. And I'm sure we'll have time together before that too."
"How about you Paige?" my girlfriend asked the athletic brunette. "Spending more time with Brooke I bet?"
Our club leader nodded, "Yeah. We were looking into maybe doing a day-trip or even taking a couple days to go skiing somewhere? Like over to that resort in the valley if we're just going for the day, but if it's a few days we'd want to go somewhere a little more special? Except then we get into the cost of booking a room, and that's assuming anyone has rooms available. Stuff might all be booked solid."
Kaylee looked at me and smiled, "That actually sounds like fun. Maybe we should try something like that too?"
"I haven't been skiing since the nineteen-thirties," Nina commented quietly, which drew a few surprised looks.
Cerys smirked, "It's only been about two years for me. It was a school trip over to the valley resort."
"How about you?" she added as she looked to her girlfriend.
Melanie grimaced, "I've never tried it, despite growing up practically surrounded by mountains."
"You know what this means right?" I asked with a grin. "Club Luna ski trip?"
My girlfriend almost facepalmed, while a hopeful smile appeared on my little sister's face. Melanie and Cerys exchanged a look, and Paige grimaced.
Our club leader rolled her eyes, "I'll talk to Brooke first and see what she thinks. If she doesn't mind our idea turning into a club event I'll post it on group chat, then we can all figure out if there's a date that works best for everybody, and we'll go from there."
"Speaking of finding a date that works for everyone," Melanie said, "I know we were talking about doing the club meeting Friday evening? And I know this is really short notice, but could we bump that up a day and get together tomorrow after school instead? We can still use my place, and dad will be home around six-thirty either way so we can't make it a late meeting. But I think we were a little too ambitious when me and Cerys said we'd be good for Friday."
The young blonde blushed as she apologized, "Sorry everyone. It's just that the full moon peaks Saturday night, and I'm worried that I'm not going to be good company Friday after school. I might not even be able to come to school that day? So tomorrow would be a lot better for me."
"And hopefully this won't keep happening," she added with a frown. "Melanie's doing her best to help me get through it, but this is only going to be my third full moon and..."
Paige gave the new werewolf a supportive smile, "It's ok Cerys, we get it. And tomorrow night works fine for me. I'm pretty sure Brooke will be able to make it too. I'll text her and Melody though to be sure. How about everyone else? Cass, Nina, Kaylee, are you all ok with meeting tomorrow?"
The three of us nodded in agreement, so Paige got out her phone and sent off a quick message to the two college students about the change of plans.
"Wait, what if we don't have skis and stuff?" Melanie asked with a frown. "That stuff all looks pretty expensive. And are we talking about downhill skiing or cross-country?"
Cerys replied, "You can get rental equipment there, I think?"
Paige clarified, "Me and Brooke were planning to go downhill skiing. And yeah, we'd be renting equipment. They do their pricing in four-hour blocks which is kind of annoying, and it adds up if you want to be there all day."
"If I remember right," the athletic brunette added, "It was about ninety dollars for the lift ticket and equipment rental, for every four hours. So a full day's going to cost almost three hundred dollars."
Both wolfgirls frowned and Melanie sighed, "Crud. That's a lot more than I was expecting."
I pointed out, "We don't have to go for a full twelve hours though, right?"
"Yeah true," Paige nodded. "If we went from nine to five that's less than two hundred each, and gives us a full day skiing. Or one in the afternoon till nine at night gives us some daytime skiing and some nighttime as well."
Kaylee was already looking at her phone, she announced "They do group discounts. If the whole club's going we can get about fifteen-percent off."
Our club leader smiled, "Ok ok, I'm posting it to group chat! If Brooke and Melody are on board we'll hurry up and pick a date then try and book it as a group."
Melanie and Cerys still seemed a little worried about the price, and I couldn't blame them. I knew they both needed the money, they were planning to work extra over the holidays just to earn a little more and they were probably wondering if it was worth it to turn around and spend so much on something like a ski trip.
My little sister must have noticed that too. She got a thoughtful look on her face for a few seconds then looked to Paige and offered, "I'll pay for it. For everyone. So the whole club can go, and we can spend all day if we want. It'll be my treat."
That led to everyone staring at the small demon in surprise for a few seconds.
"Are you sure?" Paige finally asked. "Lift tickets and equipment rentals for eight people for twelve hours... That's got to be around two thousand dollars."
Nina nodded, "I'm sure."
Melanie commented, "That's really generous Nina, but how'd you get that kind of money to just throw around on stuff like skiing?"
"I'm fourteen hundred and seventy years old remember," my little sister replied quietly, "I've had a long time to save up and invest and stuff."
That made me smile, and also made me think about our parents. We never really talked much about money at home, my parents gave me a good allowance and so far they'd never pushed me to get a job or anything. And while we weren't rich we seemed comfortable. Except thinking about it, mum worked at a charity place and I had a feeling she didn't get paid for that. And mom did web-design stuff at home, but I couldn't believe that paid too much. I was left thinking maybe my parents had a bunch of savings and stuff as well, considering they'd both been around for at least six centuries.
"All right," Paige grinned, "I'll mention that in the group chat too, so Brooke and Melody know our smallest club member's sponsoring the club's ski trip."
That ended our lunch on a high-note, and all six of us were fairly happy as we finally headed off to our afternoon classes. The actual lessons were less fun, but they weren't so bad as to spoil the good mood. And finally after school me and Kaylee and Nina all walked home together. My girlfriend and I held hands until after we emerged from the ravine, then we hugged and stuff before finally going our separate ways.
Back at home I disappeared into my bedroom as usual, then sat down with my laptop and those antique books. I was still working on my big idea, to take ownership of that piece of Socha in my chest. With the full moon coming on Saturday and the winter solstice next Tuesday, I couldn't help feeling like time was running out.
I still wasn't finished yet either, there were another handful of questions I'd come up with and didn't have answers for yet. Like I'd figured out what I wanted to do, and I was about ninety percent sure of what would happen once I did it. I was only about halfway through figuring out how to actually do it though, which was the tricky bit.
Like demonic and divine energies didn't mix well, which was the main problem. That was also the reason that someone like me wasn't even supposed to exist in the first place.
It also occurred to me that it was kind of like the universe had checks and balances on things. Like May told us once demons and gods were the two most powerful kinds of supernaturals around, and I'd learned that the limitation on demons was their big magic required consent. Gods didn't have that limitation, but they had a different restriction instead. Gods were heavenly creatures, so they could be banished back to the heavens and cut off from Earth.
Which is why the universe probably didn't want things like me to exist. If Socha achieved her goal, she'd break all the checks and balances. She'd have godly power and stuff, but she'd be bound to Earth like a demon. That kind of worried me more than a little, with the thought that if the universe somehow noticed me it'd take steps to get rid of me since my existence broke some big rules.
So I did my best to push those thoughts aside and just focused on answering a few more of those questions I was working on. I read through my new antique book on thaumaturgy then cross-referenced stuff in the old wizard journal, and made more notes on my laptop.
It was slow going and I got kind of lost in it a few times, until I had to take a break to go downstairs and have dinner with the family. After that I was back in my room 'studying' again, which made my parents happy thinking I was really putting in the effort to bring my grades up.
Thursday morning was more of the same, me and Nina set out for school together at the usual time and met Kaylee just before we reached the ravine. Then the three of us walked the rest of the way together, before we had to split up to visit our lockers.
Morning classes were kind of boring, but after the second one was over I hurried to meet Kaylee at her locker then the two of us set off for the cafeteria together.
We were nearly there when a familiar voice behind me asked, "Excuse me Cassandra?"
Kaylee and I both stopped and turned, and found the small catgirl Kirstie standing there. And that made me realize I hadn't seen her around for at least the last few days, maybe even the past week. Same with Kenzie in fact. I couldn't remember the last time I'd spotted the two of them in the lunch room, or when I'd last seen the bunnygirl in class.
That made me wonder if something was wrong, or if they were just avoiding me that much harder than before. The last time I had any interaction with either of them was when Kirstie asked for another plush toy, and that left me thinking maybe Mrs. Winters used it after all. And maybe that got the whole family mad at me again or something.
Except the catgirl didn't look angry or upset. Instead she just looked kind of awkward as she asked, "Could I have a word with you please?"
She glanced at Kaylee before looking back at me and added, "In private? Maybe we could go talk in the library again?"
"Yeah ok," I agreed. I looked at my girlfriend and said, "I'll catch up with you in the cafeteria. Hopefully this won't take too long."
The cute redhead nodded, "Ok Cass. See you in a bit."
Kaylee continued on toward the lunch room while I walked with Kirstie into the library.
As we passed Ms. Sutton's office the catgirl gestured, "Let's talk at the back again, in one of the study cubicles. The one in the far corner, if that's ok with you?"
"Sure," I nodded. As I led the way towards the back of the library I asked quietly, "Is this about Kathie? Did she finally use that plush toy I gave you?"
Kirstie sighed, "Yes and no."
By that point I was all but convinced that her wife had used the plushie. I was pretty sure I was going to find a young foxgirl waiting to talk with me in that cubicle. And I was just as certain that either her or Kirstie, or maybe both of them, were going to ask me to do more demonic contract magic for them.
So as we approached the study cubicle I was kind of bracing myself to have to deal with another uptight and possibly stressed or anxious new demi-human, and trying to think up some excuses for why I wasn't comfortable doing big reality-changing spells anymore.
Being preoccupied with those thoughts I barely noticed the sound of Kirstie fumbling with something behind me, and almost missed it when she whispered "I'm sorry."
At the same moment someone stepped out of that last cubicle, only it wasn't Mrs. Winters or any other demi-human. Instead I found myself face to face with Brian. I didn't have a chance to react though, before something hard and pointy was pressed into the back of my neck. There was a buzzing sound, and my brain lit up with an explosion of pain and colours right before everything went black.
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"Anyone have any big plans for the holidays?" Paige asked, before taking a bite of her chicken wrap.
Melanie rolled her eyes, "Mostly working. We get a few days off, but they pay time and a half over the break and since there's no school for two and a half weeks it's a pretty good chance to pick up some extra money. Only drawback is dealing with irritable humans all day long."
"Same," Cerys grimaced. "I'll be putting in extra shifts at the store along with Melanie."
"It's pretty much same as last year for me," Kaylee responded. "And the years before that. Loads of relatives to go visit, or who want to come visit us. I'll have a few days here and there to do my own thing, but my mom's already got a pretty full calendar booked for the whole family."
Cerys asked, "Don't you and Cass have anything special planned? I figured you two would be excited to spend the holidays together, now that you're an item again."
It was Wednesday and by now all our friends knew me and Kaylee were officially girlfriends again. We were doing all the nice fun stuff from before, like holding hands and hugging each other in the hall before and after class. And all our friends were happy and supportive and everything.
Even Nina was happy for me and Kaylee. It probably didn't hurt that the cute redhead had a talk with the small demon at lunch on Monday, to properly apologize for how she'd acted and stuff all through the summer. I didn't know all the details of their conversation, but whatever the two of them discussed it obviously went well.
"Me and Kaylee are definitely getting together for new years again," I finally responded with a happy blush, "Like we did last year. And I'm sure we'll have time together before that too."
"How about you Paige?" my girlfriend asked the athletic brunette. "Spending more time with Brooke I bet?"
Our club leader nodded, "Yeah. We were looking into maybe doing a day-trip or even taking a couple days to go skiing somewhere? Like over to that resort in the valley if we're just going for the day, but if it's a few days we'd want to go somewhere a little more special? Except then we get into the cost of booking a room, and that's assuming anyone has rooms available. Stuff might all be booked solid."
Kaylee looked at me and smiled, "That actually sounds like fun. Maybe we should try something like that too?"
"I haven't been skiing since the nineteen-thirties," Nina commented quietly, which drew a few surprised looks.
Cerys smirked, "It's only been about two years for me. It was a school trip over to the valley resort."
"How about you?" she added as she looked to her girlfriend.
Melanie grimaced, "I've never tried it, despite growing up practically surrounded by mountains."
"You know what this means right?" I asked with a grin. "Club Luna ski trip?"
My girlfriend almost facepalmed, while a hopeful smile appeared on my little sister's face. Melanie and Cerys exchanged a look, and Paige grimaced.
Our club leader rolled her eyes, "I'll talk to Brooke first and see what she thinks. If she doesn't mind our idea turning into a club event I'll post it on group chat, then we can all figure out if there's a date that works best for everybody, and we'll go from there."
"Speaking of finding a date that works for everyone," Melanie said, "I know we were talking about doing the club meeting Friday evening? And I know this is really short notice, but could we bump that up a day and get together tomorrow after school instead? We can still use my place, and dad will be home around six-thirty either way so we can't make it a late meeting. But I think we were a little too ambitious when me and Cerys said we'd be good for Friday."
The young blonde blushed as she apologized, "Sorry everyone. It's just that the full moon peaks Saturday night, and I'm worried that I'm not going to be good company Friday after school. I might not even be able to come to school that day? So tomorrow would be a lot better for me."
"And hopefully this won't keep happening," she added with a frown. "Melanie's doing her best to help me get through it, but this is only going to be my third full moon and..."
Paige gave the new werewolf a supportive smile, "It's ok Cerys, we get it. And tomorrow night works fine for me. I'm pretty sure Brooke will be able to make it too. I'll text her and Melody though to be sure. How about everyone else? Cass, Nina, Kaylee, are you all ok with meeting tomorrow?"
The three of us nodded in agreement, so Paige got out her phone and sent off a quick message to the two college students about the change of plans.
"Wait, what if we don't have skis and stuff?" Melanie asked with a frown. "That stuff all looks pretty expensive. And are we talking about downhill skiing or cross-country?"
Cerys replied, "You can get rental equipment there, I think?"
Paige clarified, "Me and Brooke were planning to go downhill skiing. And yeah, we'd be renting equipment. They do their pricing in four-hour blocks which is kind of annoying, and it adds up if you want to be there all day."
"If I remember right," the athletic brunette added, "It was about ninety dollars for the lift ticket and equipment rental, for every four hours. So a full day's going to cost almost three hundred dollars."
Both wolfgirls frowned and Melanie sighed, "Crud. That's a lot more than I was expecting."
I pointed out, "We don't have to go for a full twelve hours though, right?"
"Yeah true," Paige nodded. "If we went from nine to five that's less than two hundred each, and gives us a full day skiing. Or one in the afternoon till nine at night gives us some daytime skiing and some nighttime as well."
Kaylee was already looking at her phone, she announced "They do group discounts. If the whole club's going we can get about fifteen-percent off."
Our club leader smiled, "Ok ok, I'm posting it to group chat! If Brooke and Melody are on board we'll hurry up and pick a date then try and book it as a group."
Melanie and Cerys still seemed a little worried about the price, and I couldn't blame them. I knew they both needed the money, they were planning to work extra over the holidays just to earn a little more and they were probably wondering if it was worth it to turn around and spend so much on something like a ski trip.
My little sister must have noticed that too. She got a thoughtful look on her face for a few seconds then looked to Paige and offered, "I'll pay for it. For everyone. So the whole club can go, and we can spend all day if we want. It'll be my treat."
That led to everyone staring at the small demon in surprise for a few seconds.
"Are you sure?" Paige finally asked. "Lift tickets and equipment rentals for eight people for twelve hours... That's got to be around two thousand dollars."
Nina nodded, "I'm sure."
Melanie commented, "That's really generous Nina, but how'd you get that kind of money to just throw around on stuff like skiing?"
"I'm fourteen hundred and seventy years old remember," my little sister replied quietly, "I've had a long time to save up and invest and stuff."
That made me smile, and also made me think about our parents. We never really talked much about money at home, my parents gave me a good allowance and so far they'd never pushed me to get a job or anything. And while we weren't rich we seemed comfortable. Except thinking about it, mum worked at a charity place and I had a feeling she didn't get paid for that. And mom did web-design stuff at home, but I couldn't believe that paid too much. I was left thinking maybe my parents had a bunch of savings and stuff as well, considering they'd both been around for at least six centuries.
"All right," Paige grinned, "I'll mention that in the group chat too, so Brooke and Melody know our smallest club member's sponsoring the club's ski trip."
That ended our lunch on a high-note, and all six of us were fairly happy as we finally headed off to our afternoon classes. The actual lessons were less fun, but they weren't so bad as to spoil the good mood. And finally after school me and Kaylee and Nina all walked home together. My girlfriend and I held hands until after we emerged from the ravine, then we hugged and stuff before finally going our separate ways.
Back at home I disappeared into my bedroom as usual, then sat down with my laptop and those antique books. I was still working on my big idea, to take ownership of that piece of Socha in my chest. With the full moon coming on Saturday and the winter solstice next Tuesday, I couldn't help feeling like time was running out.
I still wasn't finished yet either, there were another handful of questions I'd come up with and didn't have answers for yet. Like I'd figured out what I wanted to do, and I was about ninety percent sure of what would happen once I did it. I was only about halfway through figuring out how to actually do it though, which was the tricky bit.
Like demonic and divine energies didn't mix well, which was the main problem. That was also the reason that someone like me wasn't even supposed to exist in the first place.
It also occurred to me that it was kind of like the universe had checks and balances on things. Like May told us once demons and gods were the two most powerful kinds of supernaturals around, and I'd learned that the limitation on demons was their big magic required consent. Gods didn't have that limitation, but they had a different restriction instead. Gods were heavenly creatures, so they could be banished back to the heavens and cut off from Earth.
Which is why the universe probably didn't want things like me to exist. If Socha achieved her goal, she'd break all the checks and balances. She'd have godly power and stuff, but she'd be bound to Earth like a demon. That kind of worried me more than a little, with the thought that if the universe somehow noticed me it'd take steps to get rid of me since my existence broke some big rules.
So I did my best to push those thoughts aside and just focused on answering a few more of those questions I was working on. I read through my new antique book on thaumaturgy then cross-referenced stuff in the old wizard journal, and made more notes on my laptop.
It was slow going and I got kind of lost in it a few times, until I had to take a break to go downstairs and have dinner with the family. After that I was back in my room 'studying' again, which made my parents happy thinking I was really putting in the effort to bring my grades up.
Thursday morning was more of the same, me and Nina set out for school together at the usual time and met Kaylee just before we reached the ravine. Then the three of us walked the rest of the way together, before we had to split up to visit our lockers.
Morning classes were kind of boring, but after the second one was over I hurried to meet Kaylee at her locker then the two of us set off for the cafeteria together.
We were nearly there when a familiar voice behind me asked, "Excuse me Cassandra?"
Kaylee and I both stopped and turned, and found the small catgirl Kirstie standing there. And that made me realize I hadn't seen her around for at least the last few days, maybe even the past week. Same with Kenzie in fact. I couldn't remember the last time I'd spotted the two of them in the lunch room, or when I'd last seen the bunnygirl in class.
That made me wonder if something was wrong, or if they were just avoiding me that much harder than before. The last time I had any interaction with either of them was when Kirstie asked for another plush toy, and that left me thinking maybe Mrs. Winters used it after all. And maybe that got the whole family mad at me again or something.
Except the catgirl didn't look angry or upset. Instead she just looked kind of awkward as she asked, "Could I have a word with you please?"
She glanced at Kaylee before looking back at me and added, "In private? Maybe we could go talk in the library again?"
"Yeah ok," I agreed. I looked at my girlfriend and said, "I'll catch up with you in the cafeteria. Hopefully this won't take too long."
The cute redhead nodded, "Ok Cass. See you in a bit."
Kaylee continued on toward the lunch room while I walked with Kirstie into the library.
As we passed Ms. Sutton's office the catgirl gestured, "Let's talk at the back again, in one of the study cubicles. The one in the far corner, if that's ok with you?"
"Sure," I nodded. As I led the way towards the back of the library I asked quietly, "Is this about Kathie? Did she finally use that plush toy I gave you?"
Kirstie sighed, "Yes and no."
By that point I was all but convinced that her wife had used the plushie. I was pretty sure I was going to find a young foxgirl waiting to talk with me in that cubicle. And I was just as certain that either her or Kirstie, or maybe both of them, were going to ask me to do more demonic contract magic for them.
So as we approached the study cubicle I was kind of bracing myself to have to deal with another uptight and possibly stressed or anxious new demi-human, and trying to think up some excuses for why I wasn't comfortable doing big reality-changing spells anymore.
Being preoccupied with those thoughts I barely noticed the sound of Kirstie fumbling with something behind me, and almost missed it when she whispered "I'm sorry."
At the same moment someone stepped out of that last cubicle, only it wasn't Mrs. Winters or any other demi-human. Instead I found myself face to face with Brian. I didn't have a chance to react though, before something hard and pointy was pressed into the back of my neck. There was a buzzing sound, and my brain lit up with an explosion of pain and colours right before everything went black.
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