Hey, Libby, Bella! Orfeo, Elena! Here it is, in the house with all the partying going on! Ready to go? she says, herding the birthday girl away from the entrance.
Elena's packed, too. She has packed a change of clothes, her wolf uniform, and a tiny ziplock bag's worth of travel-size toiletries. If packing choices could scream, hers would scream I am not planning a prolonged vacation.
The apartment is, perhaps, not as uncozy as advertised. The walls are lined with neatly organized bookshelves; the promised couches are large and squashy and comfortable looking; the coffee table is wooden, with rounded corners. There is a general absence of clutter.
"These look comfy," he says, sinking deep into a couch with a random novel off Libby's shelf.
She leans her hands on the back of the couch and gazes meditatively at the opposite wall.
[Sure,] says Mary, not unfondly, before Libby can ask if she has a minute. [What's today's pressing question?]
[Kind of complicated to explain. So to catch you up: I visited another universe and a magically besotted werewolf followed me home.]
[...You have the most interesting problems,] says Mary. Libby grins.
[And you want me to do what about this?]
[The occasional consult,] says Libby. [Hop over to the Golden Empire for a little while, meet a bunch of werewolves, and point them at potential imprints with whom they can have successful relationships. But first we have to find out if you can tell a wolf's future at all; apparently their Imperial Seer cannot, in fact, see them.]
[Okay,] says Mary. [For you. Because I love you so very much.]
There's a slight pause; then she says, [Your wolf boy likes you a lot. Have you introduced him to Chris? Introduce him to Chris. They'll get along.]
[I will introduce him to Chris,] Libby promises, laughing. [So that's a yes on the predictability of werewolves. In which case... hmm, actually, separate favour. I was going to do some experiments, but Bella ran away with her stars. Can I get a few if-thens?]
[You may,] Mary allows.
[First: if Orfeo stays here, without his sister, and I don't do any magic to him, will he be okay?]
[...Not really,] says Mary. [He'll be alive, but unhappy. Why?]
[Being a werewolf without a pack apparently results in suicidal depression. Next question: what if I do try magic?]
Mary is silent for a moment. Libby glances around to see how her guests are doing.
[That's a big range,] says Mary. [Over time and probability both. Uh, you're major-odds going to live for multiple centuries, by the way, and this pack problem is going to fix itself one way or another within about one of those on average. I'm still excluding his sister, right?]
[Right,] Libby confirms.
[Good, because that wouldn't go well. Okay, I need a little more to go on here. What kinds of magic solution are you considering?]
[I was thinking of the direct approach.]
[That is pretty much your worst option,] says Mary. [It's not a one-time fix and it creates a lot of tension for some reason if you keep doing it. Pick something else.]
Libby thinks.
[...If I use magic to make someone a werewolf,] she says slowly, [will that work?]
[Bingo,] says Mary.
Libby grins.
[Thanks, Mary. My favourite source of advice as always.]
[There wasn't,] says Libby.
Then she announces, "Mary has solved our problems, because Mary is awesome. I can't fix packlessness, but I can make more werewolves. One more werewolf, specifically. Orfeo, how do you feel about meeting my aunt Chris? I have it on good authority you're going to like her."
"There are drawbacks," Orfeo admits. "We're used to it. Your aunt's not."
[Yes, and you should make it Chris. You Moriarty girls do like to be in charge,] Mary says, amused.
[Will Chris like being a werewolf?]
[Yep!]
"Well, according to the local oracle, she'll deal," says Libby. "So now we just have to ask Chris."
[Hi, Chris!]
While Chris is on the way, Libby fills her in on the intricacies of the situation. She also takes the time to mention a relevant fact out loud.
"I never told you what my aunt's ingot power was, did I? It's a shield," Libby says. "She points it at somebody and they are protected against all imaginable kinds of harm. Three guesses who that is, and the first two don't count."
"We're telepathic, when we're wolfy," Elena says. "Not nice voluntary telepathy like the 'brainphone'. Within a pack, anything you're thinking about gets broadcasted in real time to everyone else in the pack who's also being wolfy."
"We eat a lot," Orfeo says, looking at discarded wrappers and orange peels. "Like, a lot. If there are foods you don't like right now that'll probably go away."
"Every pack has an alpha. They are in charge. You cannot disobey an alpha order - if they really mean it - without splitting packs, and most people can't do that unless they're the original alpha's bloodline or if the alpha is deliberately trying to let them. And we need to have packs - the ones who've split off all by themselves, which is all of them except the three main alphas back home, are not in good shape," Elena goes on.
"We can regenerate. We don't get sick, or cold, or even tired from exertion - we do sleep normally though," pipes up Orfeo.
The magic door to Moonstone Palace is just down the hall. Libby has to herd everyone through, because she's the only one who can see through it, but they all make it.
It's a very pretty palace.
She gives them a moment to gawk before leading them on to Mars.
"Pretty straightforward," says Orfeo. "Okay, which station do we want?"
Olympus's buildings get a little shorter around the edges, but not much; most of the work is done by the fact that it's on a mountain. It gives way to a mix of moss and grass and patchy shrubbery, full of birds who are not particularly afraid of any of them.
"Whoo," breathes Orfeo.
"We don't get cold and we can't avoid some amount of nudity as an occupational hazard," Elena says. "If you didn't see anybody running around naked while you were visiting it was a coincidence. People aren't fussed about it, even though we still default to clothes-while-on-two-legs."
Orfeo finishes getting out of fragile fabrics, and floofs. His fur is a much more manageable length. It's sort of a frosted-charcoal color, like he's gray but stood in the snow on a windy day for a few minutes. He trots back over towards them. You're not freaking out, far as I can tell, Orfeo says, but regardless the trick for phasing back is calm - sometimes humor, sometimes distraction, but usually calm.
And without further warning, she bounds away from the city at top speed.
Orfeo wonders if this is going to make it hard for her to slot back into the right pack at home.
I'll figure it out, Elena thinks dismissively.
She is also pleased to discover that being a wolf makes no difference whatsoever to her power: there it is, steady as ever, tucked around a mental representation of Libby like a comfortable blanket. She turns right, circling around to head back toward her niece, and idly checks Orfeo and Elena for protectability.
Orfeo wouldn't want you covering him, anyway, that'd un-protect his Libby, Elena thinks. Oh, by the way, it's now somewhere between unthinkable and impossible for you to harm Libby even if you wanted to unless Orfeo's dead first. No one bothered mentioning this ahead of time because no one thought that was an option you wanted kept open.
Her fur is in her eyes again. Chris lets her head drop down onto the moss with a sigh. Of course this kid doesn't know the whole story, and it's theoretically true, even if in practical terms she is about as likely to take her power off Libby as she is to spontaneously lift off and fly into the sun.
And just how unlikely is that, huh, with magic flying around everywhere? Imprinting stuff is proof against magic. This one lasts even if you stop being a wolf - deactivated wolves still can't poke the Princess in the eye even if she asks them to nicely for experimental purposes, Elena says.
But a vampire had to break her legs first, thinks Elena. The wolves couldn't do that. If you thought you were going to break Libby's ribs or whatever doing that, you couldn't've done it.
[Some people have mood swings,] Orfeo says, flopping down on the moss. With the brainphone there's no strong reason for him to phase again now. [You seem okay so far, so yours won't be bad if you get them. You're going to bulk up. You might look younger - no one naturally activates after 25 and then we all look that way till we quit, so I dunno about you. Nobody's perfect at phasing in the first month and you'll have to use your emotional triggers - and avoid using them when you don't wanna floof or defloof.]
It seems like about time to get dressed. Chris has squares. She uses one to bring her clothes back from wherever Libby vanished them to when she floofed the first time.