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reminds me of you.
Allison half-gaped, half grinned into her phone at the image of a baby black panther, all claws and patchy black fuzz for fur. It was the cutest damn thing she'd ever seen in her life, and it made her melt in all the right ways.
How dare Jason make her squishy.
Mock pouting at her phone, she texted him back as she crossed the apartment to head for the kitchen. It was a Saturday, she wasn't working, and she was still red enough from her beach adventures that she was giving the Boardwalk a break for the day. So far, she'd cleaned the apartment, worked on her summer reading assignment, done laundry, restrung both her compound and her recurve bows, and sharpened her ring daggers.
She was bored, idle...and idle was not good.
Not since Lydia had left.
Like most terrible things that happened, she was doing her best to forget. She hadn't spoken to anyone else about it, not even Scott...she hadn't really spoken to anyone about much since the day she'd realized it. A text had bounced, her apartment was vacant...and she knew that people came and went, that was how Darrow worked. It just...hadn't happened to her yet.
And everything she'd heard had been right: losing a packmate was like losing a limb. She wasn't gone, but...she wasn't here.
So the text was perfectly timed, a distraction...a slice of very real joy to make her forget how much it hurt, how lonely she was without her best friend. It filled her with all the warmth and safety and fierce, visceral affection she felt for him.
Leaning against the kitchen counter, she texted him back with a grin.
how dare you imply i'm an adorable baby kitty! just for that? you have to come over and help me eat muffins.
She sent the text, deciding on impulse that making a batch of muffins was going to be next on her list. Hell, she'd make a few dozen, give some to Kenzi and Bruce, along with Aramis and Porthos.
And then, after a moment's thought, grinned, biting back a giggle as she sent a second text.
and possibly strip search me again.
Blushing at her own gall, she sent the text and tossed her phone on the counter so she could enter the kitchen and start pulling out what she needed for muffins. She had everything except eggs, blueberries, and chocolate chips. Maybe cranberries and oranges, too, she didn't just want to bake one kind...
Leaving the dry goods on the counter, Allison dashed back to her room to swap cutoffs for a nicer pair of denim shorts underneath her tank top. Glancing at her reflection in the mirror over her vanity, she tried not to see Lydia sitting on the edge of the bed behind her, pointing out that she should put on some makeup in case she ran into the boy...
Allison swallowed past the tightness in her chest and drew a deep breath, pushing the pain aside.
Thread the needle. She's gone and you can't bring her back.
When she felt calmer, she ran a brush through her hair and headed back out to the kitchen to grab her phone. Sliding on a pair of flip flops by her front door, she grabbed her keys off the end table...
She nearly missed it. The only reason it even caught her attention was because it was wedged midway through the split ring on her gemstone keychain, half on and half off.
Like she was meant to see the innocuous little USB drive dangling next to the sparkly, oversized plastic diamond along with the rest of her keys...relics from home, those that were part of her new life in Darrow.
Dangling from her keys like it once dangled from her grandfather's keys...
Standing with the front door open, midway towards leaving, Allison left it hanging there, ajar, forgetting herself as she darted back in to grab her laptop off her desk. Rushing back to the living room, she booted it up and, with shaking fingers, slid the USB drive off her keyring so she could plug it in.
She waited for the drive to open as she clicked on it. Her heart was slamming against her ribs and her vision felt fuzzy around the edges.
When the lone file appeared on her desktop browser, she thought she might faint.
Thread the needle, Allison. Thread the needle, keep it together...oh God...
She double clicked the file and watched it open.
She started paging through it. Words, sketches, etchings...some in French, some in English, some in the archaic Latin that Lydia was no longer there to help her translate.
The entire Argent bestiary was here. In her hands.
Ready to be filled with new races, new truths...whole new worlds for her family to fight and learn about and educate themselves on.
New peoples, new races...and now she could bring them all home.
(Allison's first item in Darrow! Denizens of the Bramford Building, feel free to pass by and see her apartment door just hanging open, same for friends who might drop by to visit! She's also too deeply distracted to be paying attention to her phone, so feel free to come over if she's not picking up and freak out to find her apartment door thus. :P)
Allison half-gaped, half grinned into her phone at the image of a baby black panther, all claws and patchy black fuzz for fur. It was the cutest damn thing she'd ever seen in her life, and it made her melt in all the right ways.
How dare Jason make her squishy.
Mock pouting at her phone, she texted him back as she crossed the apartment to head for the kitchen. It was a Saturday, she wasn't working, and she was still red enough from her beach adventures that she was giving the Boardwalk a break for the day. So far, she'd cleaned the apartment, worked on her summer reading assignment, done laundry, restrung both her compound and her recurve bows, and sharpened her ring daggers.
She was bored, idle...and idle was not good.
Not since Lydia had left.
Like most terrible things that happened, she was doing her best to forget. She hadn't spoken to anyone else about it, not even Scott...she hadn't really spoken to anyone about much since the day she'd realized it. A text had bounced, her apartment was vacant...and she knew that people came and went, that was how Darrow worked. It just...hadn't happened to her yet.
And everything she'd heard had been right: losing a packmate was like losing a limb. She wasn't gone, but...she wasn't here.
So the text was perfectly timed, a distraction...a slice of very real joy to make her forget how much it hurt, how lonely she was without her best friend. It filled her with all the warmth and safety and fierce, visceral affection she felt for him.
Leaning against the kitchen counter, she texted him back with a grin.
how dare you imply i'm an adorable baby kitty! just for that? you have to come over and help me eat muffins.
She sent the text, deciding on impulse that making a batch of muffins was going to be next on her list. Hell, she'd make a few dozen, give some to Kenzi and Bruce, along with Aramis and Porthos.
And then, after a moment's thought, grinned, biting back a giggle as she sent a second text.
and possibly strip search me again.
Blushing at her own gall, she sent the text and tossed her phone on the counter so she could enter the kitchen and start pulling out what she needed for muffins. She had everything except eggs, blueberries, and chocolate chips. Maybe cranberries and oranges, too, she didn't just want to bake one kind...
Leaving the dry goods on the counter, Allison dashed back to her room to swap cutoffs for a nicer pair of denim shorts underneath her tank top. Glancing at her reflection in the mirror over her vanity, she tried not to see Lydia sitting on the edge of the bed behind her, pointing out that she should put on some makeup in case she ran into the boy...
Allison swallowed past the tightness in her chest and drew a deep breath, pushing the pain aside.
Thread the needle. She's gone and you can't bring her back.
When she felt calmer, she ran a brush through her hair and headed back out to the kitchen to grab her phone. Sliding on a pair of flip flops by her front door, she grabbed her keys off the end table...
She nearly missed it. The only reason it even caught her attention was because it was wedged midway through the split ring on her gemstone keychain, half on and half off.
Like she was meant to see the innocuous little USB drive dangling next to the sparkly, oversized plastic diamond along with the rest of her keys...relics from home, those that were part of her new life in Darrow.
Dangling from her keys like it once dangled from her grandfather's keys...
Standing with the front door open, midway towards leaving, Allison left it hanging there, ajar, forgetting herself as she darted back in to grab her laptop off her desk. Rushing back to the living room, she booted it up and, with shaking fingers, slid the USB drive off her keyring so she could plug it in.
She waited for the drive to open as she clicked on it. Her heart was slamming against her ribs and her vision felt fuzzy around the edges.
When the lone file appeared on her desktop browser, she thought she might faint.
Thread the needle, Allison. Thread the needle, keep it together...oh God...
She double clicked the file and watched it open.
She started paging through it. Words, sketches, etchings...some in French, some in English, some in the archaic Latin that Lydia was no longer there to help her translate.
The entire Argent bestiary was here. In her hands.
Ready to be filled with new races, new truths...whole new worlds for her family to fight and learn about and educate themselves on.
New peoples, new races...and now she could bring them all home.
(Allison's first item in Darrow! Denizens of the Bramford Building, feel free to pass by and see her apartment door just hanging open, same for friends who might drop by to visit! She's also too deeply distracted to be paying attention to her phone, so feel free to come over if she's not picking up and freak out to find her apartment door thus. :P)
