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Rocío Valdés
(01/15/2025 at 20:09)
Sixth Year
C7D4T7S5
shrieking shack
wednesday 12 september 1973
moonrise
Getting out of the castle was easy. Following the group down to the shack wasn’t hard either. The hardest part for Rocío had been the war with herself—whether she should come at all.
Did Lorelei even want her here anymore?
She wasn’t alone in there, not with the Head Nurse and the Head of Gryffindor both present, so maybe Lorelei didn’t need her anymore.
Or
want her. Rocío had to keep reminding herself of that over the past week, but right now, she pushed the thought into the back of her head where it wouldn’t sting as much.
The message had been clear enough. She probably shouldn’t have come.
But she did.
Rocío stayed outside the shack, half-wondering how the damn thing was even still standing. Magic, probably. She rolled her eyes. Finding a spot mostly hidden by some trees, Rocío slid down until her back rested against the weathered boards of the shack. Pulling a book and her wand from her bag, she sat there for a moment, unmoving; she just listened to her own heartbeat hammering in her chest.
She knew it wasn’t because of what was about to happen, knew it was because of
who
she was here for, and how stupid she felt for even being here at all.
Rocío was pretty sure Dragomir had seen her. There’d been a flash of yellow in the professor’s eyes—unsettling as hell—but no one said anything, and no one stopped her. Sounded enough like permission to her.
She was well aware Lorelei would be able to smell her here, and maybe even hear her, and that was fine. She was about seventy-five percent sure the other girl wouldn’t come out and bite her throat out for being here. Besides, there were two others in there, and Rocío wasn’t naïve. She had a guess why the Head Nurse was out here (but she had a couple of those).
Not that she cared.
Rocío only cared about one person in there. Even if Lorelei didn’t believe her.
Lorelei Kensington
(01/19/2025 at 05:02)
Sixth Year
C7D4T5S6
Although in any other circumstance, Lorelei might have been happy to have Healer Bellestorm join her and Professor Dragomir out on their monthly treks to the Shrieking Shack, this evening, she felt anything but happy. She felt her feet drag against the soil, something her mother would think unbecoming.
(Something, she couldn't help but worry, Healer Bellestorm would
also
find unbecoming.)
Yet she couldn't help it. The absence of Rocío Valdés weighed heavier on her shoulders than it had on any of the nights before. And on those nights, the weight of it was already crushing her. There was more than Wolfsbane to blame for the circles under her eyes; every night she lay light in her sleep, waiting for the telltale click of heels against the dormitory floor. Alert to any sign that her roommate had finally returned. That she was no longer bent on avoiding Lorelei at all costs.
Heavier still was the weight of a jar in her bag. A new salve that had appeared on her bedside table. Proof that Rocío still thought of her—still must care for her in some measure, even if she did not care to stand in her presence.
Or, perhaps, it had been meant as a goodbye. One last gesture, for the road.
Whatever the meaning, she had it ready for the morning.
Sure as ever, Lorelei went through her usual full moon ritual. She found a sturdy pillar, surely reinforced with enough magic to withstand the pull of a giant, and wound chains too bind herself to it. Her wrists slipped into their manacles—loose, now, though soon enough they would dig welts into the skin of a monster, where they would remain come sunrise.
The Shrieking shack was dark, but to a werewolf, even in human form, that mattered little. Feeling the moment draw near, she looked to Billie, then to Tala, feeling the mounting apprehension that always came in these moments. As sure as she was of the blessing this curse had given her, doubt always crept in when sunset loomed close. With her guard so worn this time, it hit her all the harder.
As the moment approach, she felt goosebumps creep up her skin. Even without seeing the sun or the moon, her body knew their cycles well. The beast would always be ready to pounce, to seize its moment.
It started with the crack of bones, then the ripping of flesh as a thicker hide, coarse with black fur, sprang free, and a hitch at the back of a larger throat as teeth sprang free, sharp and laced with their eternal poison.
It ended with a whimper, as the beast sprang forth but Lorelei remained. Present, always, with the wolfsbane. Present to take control, present to feel the pain, present to remember it all in the morning. Present to smell blood on the wind, close—so very
close—
as well as gardenias and cinnamon and cigarettes and—
Rocío
.
Another whimper came from the black werewolf as the person within realised with a pang that she was
here
. Unseen, maybe, but
here
, if she could only find out where. Lorelei, only an animal at the end of the day, began to sniff the ground. With what area her bounds allowed her, she paced the edges of the pillar, drawing close to the edge of the outer wall closest to her usual pillar.
So close
.
The beast groaned, and then it began to dig, claws scratching loudly against the old floorboards, pulling out deep splinters and tearing gashes where the wood had grown softer with age.
So terribly close
.
When the storm, it gains and the sky, it rains
Let it flood, let it flood, let it wash away
And as you stumble through your last crusade
Will you welcome your extinction in the morning rays?
Tala Bellestorm
(02/05/2025 at 21:22)
Head Nurse & Jr. Healer - Emergency & Triage
C22D11T15S14
Closer to the full moon, everything sharpened; her senses forced into overdrive. After years of working as a Healer had trained Tala to endure (and even longer as Tomas Bellestorm’s daughter). But endurance was hardly immunity. When the moon clawed at her muscles, set the very blood in her veins boiling, her nerves stripped themselves raw, and her bones aching in preparation—it left an ever present aggravation, teetering on a dangerous edge.
She had long since adjusted her mask of control to accommodate the monster.
A mask that, unfortunately, did little for the burning behind amber eyes. Especially in the seventy-two hours leading up to moonrise. Nothing could temper the edge in her tones. Least of all now, when she was forced to contend with teenagers whose raging hormones were as much an affliction on her sanity as the beast itself.
Nevertheless, there was one student among them for whom Tala felt something dangerously close to relief—perhaps even gratitude. It meant she could step in when necessary, and more importantly, keep a close eye on her. Because, despite all her misgivings about her current predicament, this gave Tala a chance to atone. If only a fraction.
She studied Logaratchagi closely as they descended from the castle. Tala had not spent an extensive amount of time with her—not by accident, nor by inclination—but she knew enough to recognize when something was amiss. Since the Opening Feast, Logaratchagi had been off balance. The tension in her shoulders was evident, her gaze darting back toward the castle with an almost panicked flicker, as though expecting something—or someone—to appear.
Tala didn’t think it was due to the full moon either. Logaratchagi had always been disturbingly pleased by the bite.
Perhaps it was nothing. Simply teenage dramatics. Hormonal catastrophes of no consequence. She could dismiss it as such, and likely should. And yet, the pang in her chest had little to do with guilt this time. It was something else, something suspiciously close to worry, tangled uncomfortably with what could only be described as a reluctant sort of
fondness
. Tala was not interested in examining it any further.
Fortunately, moonrise would give her something else to feel.
She barely paid Dragomir any mind. This was certainly more people than she was accustomed to at her transformations (or wanted). But Tala understood the necessity of the older woman’s presence. Two werewolves, dosed with Wolfsbane or not, were not to be left unattended. Should something go wrong.
Logaratchagi looked to her then, and for that moment, the overwhelming guilt surged back, sinking its teeth into her gut. Tala had never been present at the girl’s transformations before. Never witnessed, firsthand, just what she’d damned the young woman to month after month for the rest of her life.
But that, and everything human, burned away as the moon had its way with her.
The heat in her veins became unbearable, every nerve raw and exposed, stripped down to the most visceral instincts. To hunt, to run, to claim. A hunger came with the stretching and tearing of muscle and sinew, an overwhelming awareness as her body was twisted and reshaped by something violent and primal.
Her front paws landed heavily against the old, creaking wood of the shack, mind flickering between control and abandon. For a moment, the wildness nearly took her. But the Wolfsbane held. The edges of her mind clarified, steadied.
Tala's head lifted first toward Logaratchagi. Even in this form, she saw the similarities between them—black fur, lean muscle, the same sharp awareness in their stance. Tala’s fur was a dense, black-brown, save for the red-tinged edges caught in the dim light. Amber eyes burned the same as ever.
She turned them on the younger wolf, and if wolves could frown, Tala would have been frowning. Instead, she watched as Logaratchagi whined, restless, digging frantically at the floorboards.
Then Tala smelled it—blood. The hot tang of it, laced with the acrid aroma of a cigarette, and beneath that, the unmistakable salt of human skin.
Tala’s head snapped toward Dragomir. The Gryffindor House Head was now fully in panther form, sprawled lazily on the far side of the room, simply observing the two werewolves. Did she smell it?
It occurred to Tala that Logaratchagi was
still
digging, claws scraping wood—all within the general vicinity of where the smell was strongest, she realized, on some level.
She had chained herself back, limiting the range between them, but she moved over as far as her chain would allow. The warning
snap
of her teeth came down toward the younger wolf’s shoulder, just enough to make her point. Not an attack. But a warning, clear and sharp.
Stop
.
Tala let out a low, rumbling growl, stepping forward, standing tall. Her head high, her gaze unwavering. She may not be able to frown in this form, but her disapproval was unmistakable in the faint, deliberate bearing of her teeth.
Lorelei Kensington
(02/06/2025 at 05:13)
Sixth Year
C7D4T5S6
Every snarl, every growl, every whimper and every desperate scratch against the old wood floor—none of it was the wolf. It was all Lorelei. Even with that intoxicating smell permeating the air, even with the hunger it caused, the wolfsbane held fast. It held the beast in place, but it had no control over Lorelei herself, reduced to her basest instincts.
Until Rocío Valdés had walked into the most secret corners of her life, control was not something she'd had to worry about. It had always been a given—a potion ingested routinely for seven days before the full moon. It had never needed to be anything more. But even at the best of times, Rocío turned Lorelei's self-control to dust. What surprise, then, that it did the same for the animal within her.
For even with her mind intact, tonight, Lorelei was a wolf. Not a monster, not a bloodthirsty beast, but an animal, still. And that animal wanted to get as close as it could to that person beyond this wall. To burrow beneath these floorboards to come out on the other side, with her.
(And maybe, even now, she also wanted to sink her teeth into her skin. Softly, carefully—only hard enough to bind them together forever.)
Something snapped near her ears and Lorelei leapt back, haunches raised. Then she saw Tala—growling, disapproving—and Dragomir—watching, bored.
Immediately, shame washed over her and Lorelei lowered her guard. Dark eyes rimmed with fur looked back to the wall. Still, she struggled to push back that irrepressible pull exerted by the mere knowledge that Rocío waited on the other side. But those terrible thoughts that had been intangible (yet undeniably real) just a moment before played through her head.
Now, she felt fear. For her own urges. For her own actions.
Lorelei looked back toward Tala, toward a mirror of herself, older, more experienced. This woman who called her by the name of a girl she'd once thought lost—one who remained forever seven years old, forgotten with the absence of her parents. This woman who cared more about her and her curse than anyone she'd met before. This woman who was hard on her, whose disappointment hit her like a brick. This woman she'd met only a year ago and interacted with very little since, but who was more a mother to her than the one who had claimed the title.
Dropping her head, Lorelei stepped away from the wall and toward the other werewolf. There was just enough give in her own chains to bridge the gap between them. With a whine in place of an apology and a huff to announce she'd given up, Lorelei curled up at her feet. Close.
When the storm, it gains and the sky, it rains
Let it flood, let it flood, let it wash away
And as you stumble through your last crusade
Will you welcome your extinction in the morning rays?
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