We all have a Hunger

Eleanor Moretti. Original Werewolf.

[fadedstarsfms]

"Right, you just have a problem with the moon." Maia said, knowing she could smell the wolf on her from a mile away practically. She wasn't not friendly towards wolves, just people who gave her any slight attitude. Maia caught the ring with ease thanks to her vampire speed and gladly put it back to its familiar space. "Yeah yeah. Thanks for giving it back."

[eleanor-moretti]

"You're not worth the fight." Not yet at least. But she liked to establish herself when she was in town - set any of the vampires back on their haunches if they thought about intruding in wolf business. They might not know who she was, but they certainly wouldn't try coming at her after that first go. "How long you been in town? Don't remember you from my last swing around."

[beauwolfsong]

Beau was delighted she remembered him. It had been a while since he last saw her, and he figured he looked quite different now. "Nell, you got it. I quite like Eleanor—it's a very pretty name." He gave her a warm smile as she stepped closer. "Oh, the Acres? Plenty of space to spread out out there." Memories of his own spreading out at Dead Man Acres flashed through his mind. He glanced toward the central part of town and then back at Nell, laughing.

"Me? I did nothing!" He playfully batted her shoulder with his papers. "Dad thinks it has something to do with this tear in the forest, but the people in charge are saying it's from the sewers. But..." He paused, his expression turning serious. "Something just doesn't seem right."

[eleanor-moretti]

There was a look, and in truth a scent, to the Wolfsongs. After all this time, she'd have recognized them half-blind. "Exactly. I'm not one to live in town. Too constricting."

She laughed as Beau batted at her, letting her eyes shift momentarily to blue. "Well I've got to check. Your family's never far behind when there's trouble." And she wouldn't have them any other way - even if such antics gave her fits. "Heard there's been a string of bad luck too."

[glitchfms]

"And let me guess, you're that plumber," he asked with a touch of sarcasm in his tone, not noting the smell to the certain intensity as his company was picking up on. Banks could only refrain from rolling his eyes as if there was a solution to their comments that he would be able to pull out of his pockets but instead put his hands in there to keep them still and away from any change encounters with anything on his way to work. He already had it cut out for him, taking a longer route to avoid a face that continued to try and haunt it's way into him acknowledging them. "You've got the nose for it."

[eleanor-moretti]

Oh. So he had a bit of bite to him. Nell almost smiled at the slight. It was something that even centuries on didn't change. She'd always look young, she'd always be small, and assumptions were an inevitability. She crossed her arms. "I might be good a spotting bullshit," she said, eyes trailing down the boy, "but that doesn't mean I'm good at fixing it. What about you? Got anything but snark to give for help?"

[fadedstarsfms]

Addie was thankful of Nell's lingering touch, she felt like she couldn't get enough of her younger sister. "Exactly! Not to sound too old but I feel like each generation gets scared less and less, that's why I think sometimes they need something extra to make them start believing it all again." She rolled her eyes at her sister's story. "He probably would have, at least he would have had a story."

She grinned widely. "I guess you do have a point there. But hey I've been mostly behaving since I've gotten here so you should be proud of me!"

[eleanor-moretti]

"I admire them for it." When she pulled back fully, her hands went into her pockets. Addie had always been a looser cannon then her, even while they were still human. Things rarely stayed calm when she was around. She adored that spot of chaos as much as she'd once envied it. "Mostly, huh? You know there's a Morgrave lurking about right? How long we think that's going to last?"

[captnbennett]

Vermillion looked over, almost offended. "I beg your pardon?" He sniffed himself. Sure, he probably smelled a little ash, a little fire, a little dog... Maybe he should have taken a shower before leaving the station.

[eleanor-moretti]

She looked over quickly, filling her lungs with the scent of the other wolf. It was cleansing after the wrongness of that sulfur in the air. "Not you," she said. "I'm not some brain dead leech looking to get a laugh off some dog joke."

[kaixwinter]

It wasn't often that Kai found himself challenged, but the dig at his own music taste certainly felt like just that. "The old stuff is always the better stuff." He stated, turning his attention towards her. "That's just a given, isn't it? Unless you'd like to wow me with whatever it is that you consider to be tasteful. I'm always open to suggestions."

Putting down the clipboard in his hand, he leaned against the counter. To look at her, Eleanor couldn't have been more than late twenties, but Kai could sense that she was much older than that. "Educate me, please."

[eleanor-moretti]

"Can't," Nell said. She kicked a bit of mud off her boots before stepping fully into the store. "That's the whole point. Taste can't be quantified. Who's to say Bowie's better than Mitski? Or McCartney has a better voice than Hozier?" What she did know was that older music had the advantage of saturating older times. Nostalgia was always preferable to reality.

She rested her elbows against one of the counters she leaned forward. "Though, in deference to the oldies, I'm looking for some cassette tapes."

[nathanielwolfsong]

who: @eleanor-moretti where: nightshade park

Things had quieted down at the Wolfsong household. It meant they were to start on their end-of-day duties, some of which involved cleaning. Nathaniel had scampered off long before anyone came looking for him. As the youngest, he drew the short end of the stick most of the time, and he was not feeling like hosing down and mopping an entire room today. He was busy. So very busy, he texted his eldest brother, sending him to voicemail when the inevitable phone call came. He silenced his phone and stuck it in his jacket pocket, watching his step as he navigated the pathway that led to his secret spot in Nightshade Park. Better start calling it his not-so-secret spot, Nathaniel supposed, because someone was already here. “Hello?” he called as he approached, annoyance giving way to curiosity as the person came into view. He recognized her.

[eleanor-moretti]

She was unlacing her boots when Nathaniel came on her. Nightshade was as quiet a place as any to shuck her clothes and then her skin. The moon wasn't full, but her wolf had the better nose, the sharper instincts. She'd do better patrolling the area on four legs. "Hey," she shot back, straightening. The last time she'd seen Nathaniel he'd been a kid, tucked away in the center of his pack, surrounded by brothers and family. She looked to her discarded jacket and shirt, thinking she was several centuries removed from the embarrassment of being caught in any state of undress, and smiled. "Guess this spot isn't quite as private as I thought."

[cruelmiracles]

. . . she gave a single, long, full-throated howl, as if she wanted to rid herself at once of all the cries that pain had stored up in her.

Albert Camus ǁ The First Man (1960)

[beauwolfsong]

Beau had noticed an awful smell in the air for some time. His older brothers and father had found a crack in the forest a while ago and couldn’t figure out how it got there, but Beau figured it was platonic plates or whatever made the Earth move. Today, he was at the town hall picking up death certificates for the family business, wanting to escape the basement’s smell, though the outside wasn’t much better.

He was carefully reviewing the certificates to ensure he had all the ones he needed when he heard a familiar voice. Looking up, he saw Eleanor standing next to him. "Eleanor?" he said, eyebrows furrowing. "It's Beau Wolfsong. Do you remember me?" He smiled warmly at her. Eleanor was an old family friend who had popped in and out of his life for years, and Beau found her fascinating. Who didn’t he find fascinating, though? "Are you back in town? Mom and Dad would love to see you."

[eleanor-moretti]

"Beau. Yes, yes, of course." She was smiling then, without meaning to, lost for a moment in the simple joy of seeing and affable face. In what, if she was honest, was one of her main draws back to Raven's Peak. The Wolfsong family and pack still strong, still growing with the generations. "Please, call me Nell. Eleanor makes me sound so much like my old aunt."

She laughed then, casual as she stepped closer, and eased into the old routine. Wolves lived long lives but they did age, were supposed to age. She was always a connection of a connection. The familiar face of someone who'd come before her. "But yeah, I parked a trailer out on the Acres. Thought I'd come back for a bit and now -" she wrinkled her nose, "now I'm regretting it. What'd you do to this place?"

[fadedstarsfms]

"Well you could ask in a different way." Maia wasn't sure why the other cared so much, especially cared enough to keep it hostage from her like this. "Yeah well you would too if you missed the sun." She said plainly hoping that it would help her cause of getting the ring back. "Jesus why does it matter? I met a witch a decade or two ago and asked them to do a bunch and paid if that's what you're implying." Sure Maia wasn't above stealing things but she knew well enough to not make an enemy of a witch.

[eleanor-moretti]

There was more to that story, at least she thought there must be, but Nell could see the anger taking over Maia's face. She didn't care to make a scene. "Sun's not my problem," she said off-handedly, and flipped the ring toward the other girl. "You should take better care of that next time."

[ravensrevcnge]

Raven's Peak didn't have the same power that it once did these days. The stone no longer influenced the town, enriching the magic that seemed to crackle in the very air they breathed. And yet, it still had a strange draw that had Noah returning time and again. If he were to claim to have a home, it was in Raven's Peak, despite everything that had happened here and how much it had changed with time.

Spotting a familiar face step out onto the street, Noah sighed, eye lifting to the sky momentarily. There never would be a sense of annoyance that came with seeing one of the Morettis around. Ever since that time on the peak - or before, if he really put his mind to it - there had been animosity between the families. It had just become innate down to their very DNA since the stone cursed.

"You're right, I thought I smelled a mangy wolf," Noah stated bluntly, making a show of rubbing his nose as if to rid the scent of her from it. He knew very well that wasn't what she was referring to, of course. The sulfur stench had seemingly seeped into everything over the last week or so - almost to the point that he'd stopped noticing it until she'd mentioned it once again. "It's not a good sign. There's something strange going on in Stygian."

[eleanor-moretti]

"Aren't you funny?"

Of course there was a Morgrave in town. She wasn't naive enough to assume they wouldn't be getting the same reports from their own networks. And, after all this time, she almost didn't have the drive to be annoyed about it. Almost. Because they were like a splinter beneath the toes, a buzzard in the ear around the carcass that was Raven's Peak.

"I'd rather smell like dirt than bleached bones." She turned to face Noah with her arms crossed, lifting her gaze to him straight on. If her instincts started knocking around any vampire, around Noah they were banging at the door. And yet, in the middle of all that, he was familiar. There was a horrible sort of comfort in that when you were immortal. "You saying this isn't the work of your leeches then?"

[fadedstarsfms]

A genuine smile crossed her face, the first one she had in a long time and it was as simple as seeing her baby sister again. Adelaide held her for a while, not yet ready to let her go until finally she pulled back just slightly. "Yeah I was in the Appalachians, thought it would be fun to be a cryptid type for a bit. Sometimes you have to give the mortals something to be scared of you know? It's like enrichment for them."

She shrugged before nodding. "A little. Part of the reason I came back. Thought this place was finally getting interesting again."

[eleanor-moretti]

"If only," Nell said. Her hand lingered on the back of Adelaide's elbow when she pulled away. "These days it seems the fears gone out of them. Ran into a cryptid hunter some years back. Sat the whole night at his campfire thinking he might thank me for turning in front of him." Letting him go unscathed seemed the crueler fate in the end.

She smiled at the half-answer, knowing not to push for more. "Doubtful any place could stay boring with you here."

[glitchfms]

"I guess?" He hadn't ever been the type to stop and smell the roses and it seemed that now that he had stopped, it wasn't roses that the other was smelling. It left him wanting to ignore it actually, like it would run over his skin and leave him unsettled before it was gone and he couldn't remember what the feeling meant. "You do this a lot? Go around and smell things in the air?"

[eleanor-moretti]

"Yes, actually. An unfortunate side effect of having a nose." And a wolf's senses. The same wolf that was itching under her skin at the scent now, curious is not nervous. And wasn't that just a great new sensation after so long. "Whole town seems in need of a plumber."

[fadedstarsfms]

It always felt weird being home, not that Raven's Peak was truly home to Adelaide let alone anywhere else. Everything felt so similar yet so different but she figured that was the price to pay for immortality -- immortality she never asked for. So Adelaide was doing another round of walking around the town she used to know when she saw a very familiar face and immediately broke out into a girn. "It always used to have a weird smell. At least now it smells less like manure and more like fire and brimstone." She called out to her sister and closed the distance between them to give Nell a hug. "God it's been too long."

[eleanor-moretti]

"Addie!" Nell let herself be swept into her sister's arms, that odd cocktail of happiness and anxiety twisting in her gut. She kept track on her siblings when they were apart, little word of mouth reports from fellow wolves. They were an odd little trio. Loud enough, often enough, to keep tags simply. And yet sometimes her information went slack, and she lost her siblings in the wind. It had been like that with Adelaide for several months. "You're back. You get bored with turning the locals in -?" she paused, "the south, was it?"

It wasn't a reprimand, far from it. She smiled as she spoke and slipped her hands into her pockets. "You heard about all the disappearances I assume."

[fadedstarsfms]

Maia tried to reach for the ring but the other woman was there quicker. She huffed and picked herself off of the floor to stand up and face her ring's captor, not bother hiding her glare as she was toying with Maia's ring. "Why do you care? You don't need one. And for your information it's not that hard to get one here in this town." Sure maybe it wasn't smart to say, but she hoped that by downgrading the value it would help get her ring back faster.

[eleanor-moretti]

"I'm curious," Nell said with a shrug. And maybe a little cruel in that moment, but then it wasn't really about Maia. Daylight charms gave vampires freedom from the sun, but no such magic had yet extended to the wolves. Moonstones could preserve humanity, but they didn't stop the compulsion. She'd known some wolves that shunned them, others that abhorred the idea of humanity while four-legged. "True, but then I've found you all get very attached to these things. How's this? I'll give it back if you tell me how you got it."

[glitchfms]

Banks wrinkled his nose when someone stepped out, nearly cutting him off as they didn't even glance in his direction. It caused him to lose a half step and have to move to the side, grateful that he caught himself at the last second before he shook his head and stared at them for a moment. They weren't wrong, but it wasn't the worst that he'd experienced having been there as long as he could remember. "If you think it's bad now, give it another month when everything feels like it's on fire. That's when shit really lights up and you reminisce about the good old days," he spoke sarcastically.

[eleanor-moretti]

She knew what high summer was like, actually kind of enjoyed how to heat could trap the scent of dirt and coconut oil, even gasoline. This wasn't that. It turned her stomach a little, prickled at the hair on the back of her neck and after all this time she'd learned not to second guess her senses. "It smells like rotten eggs," she clarified. Sulfuric even. "You catch that? Like you needed a plumber two weeks ago?"

[fadedstarsfms]

Maia rolled her eyes, sure she deserved some good sass every now and then but Maia knew she didn't do anything at this moment. "Jesus I was just asking." She sighed and got on her hands and knees and started looking around. After seeing a glint on the ground she quickly followed it until she realized it was under the foot of the girl who gave her attitude. "Move your foot." Maia said, not even bothering to word it like a question.

[eleanor-moretti]

Nell reached down to snatch the ring off the floor, twirling it between her fingers. "Seems to me you should take better care of something so valuable," she said. It was a sharp bit of luck, whether bad or good that she'd placed herself between the vamp and her ring. "What's the going rate for something like this these days?" A willing witch she assumed, but maybe not. She'd heard of daylight rings being made under duress.