As the dream faded, Kaycee chased it forlorn, both wishing it to stay so as to keep ahold of this last memory of her family and for it to fade away so she wouldn’t feel the pain any longer of watching them all die in front of her. Realizing it was indeed fading, chocolate colored eyes open to stare at the smooth painted ceiling of her room. Running her hands through her short dark honey colored locks she looked to the left to see what the time was now on the analogue clock by the door.
“0800, time for breakfast” she softly groaned, wishing the dream hadn’t come again as she had only just gotten back from spending a week at her pack’s medical center four hours earlier.
Deciding that she wasn’t likely to go back to sleep with her memories swirling through her head, Kaycee sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, her athletic body naked as she threw off the covers and stood to her full five foot six height. The room was sparsely decorated, light grey walls accented by a black desk, that sat against the back wall beneath the thick paned window, with papers strewn all about its surface under a black military style cap. A belt with a gun and large hunting knife attached to it sat on a ridgid black chair, whose seat was facing into the room, that matched the style of the desk . The black metal frame of the bed whose dark grey sheets and blankets where messily thrown back against the bed’s right side, where it sat against the right wall. A closet was built into the left wall with folding dark wooden doors, one side still thrown open, a pair of black combat style boots and a pile of dirty clothes falling out of the open frame Moving to the closet Kaycee pulled out the dark grey cargo pants, black t-shirt and forest green pullover sweater that made up her uniform with some underwear and socks, setting them on the bed. Memories triggered by the dream rolled about her mind as she slowly started to dress, listening through the walls as those in the other rooms on either side of hers also got ready for the day. Letting her mind flow as it will, her thoughts became lost in the memory of what happened after the transportation spell.
Thomas, more powerful than his timid nature had suggested, had been able to transport them both easily to a hidden cabin far away from the forest where he and Daniel had attacked her family. After throwing Kaycee upon the ground, he had torn the one room of the cabin apart, muttering under his breath about finding some sort of journal. Kaycee, still in shock from the tragedy that had befallen her, had only watched him with silent tears that ran down her face to mingle with the blood from the long cut on her throat that somehow missed her arteries as she mourned the loss of her parents and sister. She had seen the knife pierce her father's heart, watched as her mother take her last breaths after Daniel stabbed her, had seen the knife pierce her sister’s shoulder. Even as Kaycee’s soul had still felt the connection to her sister, with all that had happened her mind told her the knife in her sister meant all of her family was dead. As she had become more and more overwhelmed by the scent of sulfur that flooded her tender young nose as it picked up the smell of the residual Mage magic that filled the small cabin, her distraught mind had started wishing for Thomas to just kill her so that she would no longer feel so alone.
It was not to be, for just as Thomas finally found that accursed journal the door to the cabin had burst open and the local Hunters Guild had swarmed in to confront the timid Mage. Thomas had tried to attack them with a spell, but was shot by one of them before he could complete it. Kaycee, was lifted up and taken from the cabin into a waiting armored van while they searched for others in the cabin. By listening she learned they had come because of reports that some Mages had been using the cabin to stage attacks on several mixed race Were families from the surrounding packs and prides. A kind woman had tended her neck wound and other scratches while trying to get her to speak, but the woman’s magic aura was very similar to that of Thomas and Daniel, a metallic gold, causing Kaycee to fear her, refusing to respond to any of her questions even though the woman’s rosey scent held very little sulfur undertones.
When the team of Hunters had found no trace of others, they had returned to the van and piled in. The leader of the group had ordered the others to set up in the front as he joined the woman and Kaycee in the back before the driver took off to return to the Guild house. The man had asked the five year old Kaycee the same questions as the woman, but she still would not answer him, even as she noticed he had no aura whatsoever. Deciding to give her a chance to recover the man and woman had discussed Kaycee’s wounds and the state of her clothes while she half listened, focusing her gaze out of the back window. Upon reaching the Hunters Guild compound, she was rushed to the medical wing where the woman had helped her to wash off the days of filth from her skin and dressed her in a grey jumpsuit several sizes too large after treating the small gashes and bruises she had sustained when fleeing with her family. Kaycee still did not talk, and wouldn’t for weeks as the woman and man gave her a room and insured she ate so that she would regain her strength.
Shaking the memories from the front of her mind, fully dressed Kaycee pulls on her boots and laces them up before pulling on the belt from her chair. Reaching into a drawer on the desk she pulls out a brush and combs through her layered, pixie cut, dark hair while looking at her reflection in the full sized mirror hanging over one of the folds of the closet door. She couldn’t help but imagine for a moment that she was looking into the soft hazel brown eyes of her twin rather than her own dark chocolate ones, as her crimson-rainbow flowing aura glowed about her. Catching sight of the ever present scar on her neck Kaycee turns away from the mirror with a sigh, she grabs the cap from the desk and walks out of her room towards the cafeteria. Nodding at people she passes in the halls, she again lets her mind wander to her first few weeks here.
The woman Kaycee had first met at the rescue had been Doctor Maira Sharp, and she was a Mage like Thomas and Daniel. However Maira was from a more accepting clan, much like the one Kaycee’s mother had said Daniel had once belonged to when they were growing up together. She had chosen to use her magic to help the victims who were attacked by those supernaturals who thrived in the act of harming others. Maira had seen Kaycee’s aura which showed both the little girl’s Were and Wiccan ancestry, so developed a healing process that expounded upon the social aspect of Were culture by exposing her to the atmosphere of the Guild compound’s pre-training schools for member’s children. She had hoped that the interaction with the other children would allow the little girl to learn to open up and trust someone as Kaycee had not spoken once in the few days she was kept in the medical center. Though it still took a long time for the young girl to warm up Kaycee did begin to interact with the other children who had made sure to include her in their games, and slowly pulled her into their conversations as the weeks passed.
One little girl in particular, Maira’s mischievous daughter Devyn, really helped Kaycee to begin to act more like herself again. Devyn had decided to prank the quiet girl and dumped a bucket of water over her one day when she sat on her own watching the other children have a water fight early on in her recovery. Maira had been certain Kaycee would react badly as she had looked up at Devyn, her face void of emotion, stood and walked back to her room to change clothes. It wasn’t till later that day while the children were all eating that she figured out her daughter was the key to bringing the shell shocked girl back into acting like a child again when she watched Kaycee quietly pick up a bowl of jello and dump it on Devyn. This started a food fight among the children, Kaycee’s laughter joining into the other childrens squeals of joy at the playful fight.
Kaycee was crashed out of her thoughts just outside the cafeteria as she heard a high pitched squeal just before she was tackled to the ground by an unknown attacker. Catching her body from the fall with her arms she took a deep breath through her nose to try and figure out who the body on her back belonged to. Smelling the familiar base scent of water lilies along with the scents of sulfur and antiseptic that often clung to Kaycee’s tormentor’s skin from working in the compound’s medical labs, she turned beneath the body to face the overly energetic Devyn. Looking up at her friend’s long messy red curls and bright blue eyes, the flowing metallic rainbow of the other girl’s aura shining bright, she smiled broadly before holding her hands up to defend herself from playful slaps.
“How dare you leave me back here to go on a stupid mission without saying where you are going, or even that you are going at all!” Devyn complained at the laughing Kaycee, the other Hunters chuckling as they maneuvered around the laughing girls.
Kaycee getting tired of being slapped, rolls her body to place Devyn underneath her, pinning the other girl’s arms above her head. “I didn’t have time to tell you. I had to leave the moment I got told I was needed. I didn’t even have time to organize a mission bag.” Kaycee tells her, smiling as her friend tried to roll them back over, failing as Kaycee was much stronger than Devyn due to her Were genes.
Devyn stills when she realizes Kaycee isn’t going to be overcome without using magic and huffs in annoyance, “What sort of mission wouldn’t give you time to pack?”
Standing, Kaycee reaches down to pull Devyn up, causing her to squeal in protest as the smaller girl flies off the ground into Kaycee’s arms, only staying there a moment before her feet can settle onto the ground. Once Devyn had her five foot three body back in balance she slaps Kaycee’s arm, glaring up at the taller girl who is smirking playfully at her friend.
“I’ll tell you over breakfast what I can before my debrief with Guild Master John,” Kaycee compromised, “Now come on, I’m starving.” Kaycee grabbed hold of Devyn and dragged her down the hall towards the cafeteria.
Devyn rolled her eyes as she allowed Kaycee to drag her into the cafeteria, the huge room already packed with Guild members and their families. Along the back wall trays of glasses, cups of silverware and jugs of milk and orange juice sat ready to be grabbed to shared at the tables. Windows covered the wall to the left, lighting the room with natural sunlight rather than electricity. The right side of the room was filled with carts to place used trays, glasses silverware and plates. The center held a well stocked buffet line set up to file though in a single line. Kaycee pulled Devyn into the buffet line, grabbing a tray and waiting patiently to reach the plates.
Devyn, catching her balance before grabbing her own tray turned to tease Kaycee, “You are always starving. I’ve never known you when you weren’t eating, planning to eat or just finished eating.”
Another Hunter laughs from in front of the girls turning to look at them, her blood red aura the same color of her eyes, as she picks up a large glass filled with blood. Taking a sip while showing her bared fangs, her eyes fade as she comments, “That's the Were metabolism for you.”
“I know that Heather, you vampiric know it all,” Devyn says playfully, sticking her tongue out at the teasing Vampire who smiles with a shrug, turning her five foot frame to hook her arm into the arm of the six foot man, with an aura of Were amber, beside her.
Heather’s eyes were now a green amethyst that were filled with playfulness. Whipping her long black hair behind her, sending a whiff of her bronzy scent towards Kaycee’s sensitive nose, she looks up at the man towering over her, grinning to show her fangs retracting, “Did you know Devyn knew about the Were biology James?”
James glanced behind Heather to see Kaycee and Devyn,his long auburn hair pulled back to show his own emerald colored eyes, his stoney scent surrounding him like a fog. He gave a cheeky grin of his own as he leaned down and kissed the top of the Vampire’s head. “Whatever you say babe,” he tells Heather before beginning to load his plate with waffles from the serving tray in front of him.
Kaycee grins as she reaches in front of her to grab a tong full of bacon. Devyn huffs at Heather before grabbing her own plate and grabbing smaller portions of everything Kaycee was grabbing. Kaycee for her part made sure she had two plates full of the waffles, bacon, sausage, hash browns, fruit,and scrambled eggs that was on offer, adding a bowl of oatmeal with honey as she neared the end of the buffet line and started to look for a spot to sit and eat.
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