The crowd rocks back and forth around you, shouting hoarsely and waving signs. You crane your head to read one, but the jostling of the people around you makes it impossible. What are they protesting, and how did you get here? You've been lost in the city before, but never this lost.

Someone in the crowd begins yelling, and everyone around you takes up the chant. Without meaning to, you join in, unable to even hear the message you are shouting.

This is Nimue's Bar.

Kaia slips through the crowd of shouting shifters, who unconsciously part around her without noticing she is there. Many of them hold signs, and each of them have taken some sort of prohibited hybrid form, sporting a pair of ears, a tail, or scales somewhere on their body. Snow has begun to fall, tumbling gently through the chilly air and melting into slush the moment it hits the ground. Kaia buries her face a little deeper in her indigo woolen scarf, and adjusts her hat so it better covers her ears.

She eventually manages to find Dirk, who is toward the back of the crowd with his hands stuffed in his pockets. He's next to a clawed man with a sign reading “Hybridism is Our Right,” and Aiden, the fur-covered young man from the bar three days ago. Dirk has no sign, and he is somewhat conspicuous in his lack of animalistic features.

“Hey,” Kaia says, sidling up to him and pulling down her scarf. She bumps his shoulder with her own. “Took a while to find you.”

Dirk grunts in response and doesn't look at her. “Maybe I didn't want to be found.”

Kaia wraps her arms more tightly about herself. Ever since she became a shade she's had trouble staying warm, and the weather is not helping. Even though it has yet to snow, each day has gotten colder and colder. “Come on, Dirk, don't be like that. You know that I hate the way the Circle treats shifters.”

“You've got a funny way of showing it,” he mutters through his gray beard. He stares up at the tower in front of the crowd: Eclipse Tower, home of the Circle.

“Really? Because you do too. You didn't do anything to stand up to Officer C when he hurt Aiden, and here you are at a peaceful dissent like you always talk about, and you aren't even in hybrid form like everyone else here.”

“Your girl's right, Dirk.” Aiden's form ripples, face lengthening and fur moving from his arms to cover his entire body. A moment later an imposing shifter looms beside Dirk, almost eight feet feet tall. His face is elongated and lupine, and his mouth bulges with so many teeth that his words come out slobbery and slurred. He is shirtless, and his chest ripples with an enormous tattoo of a crescent moon. “You've gotten soft.”

Dirk jumps in surprise. “Aiden? How are you...” There's an edge of fear in his voice that Kaia has never heard before.

“You never saw me in my more human forms in the old days,” Aiden says. His fists clench when he says the word “human.” “I don't blame you for not recognizing me for who I really am.”

Kaia takes a careful step back, every cell in her body on high alert. She's heard of shifters with two hybrid forms before. Dirk had called them Blues. Notoriously dangerous, on account of their violent and animalistic urges.

“Relax,” Aiden says, clapping Dirk on the back and making him lurch forward. “I'm not here to drag you back or anything. I'm only here to show you how fruitless this kind of protesting is.”

From the front of the crowd, a shifter with vestigial bat wings in place of arms begins giving a speech, whipping the crowd into a frenzy. The doors to Eclipse tower remain closed.

“While these people stand here screaming, we're making real progress, Dirk,” Aiden says. “Plans are being put into motion. You don't have to try to change the Circle's minds when you get them out of the picture entirely We've got some major power players on our side this time.” His eyes glint red. “The Lunars could use you back.”

Dirk hunches his shoulders uncomfortably. “I told you, I'm done with fighting. That kind of life isn't for me any more.”

“You think that peaceful protest is going to change anything? The Circle has this whole city over a barrel and they know it. Quiet resistance is not an option.” Aiden puts a hand on Dirk's shoulder. At the front of the crowd, the gates to Eclipse towers remain shut, and the crowd begins to lose energy.

“Think about it,” Aiden hisses, clapping Dirk on the back again and turning away. “You know where to find us, and if you really care about your own kind, you'll join us. We need people like you.” Dirk continues to stand in place. Snowflakes embed themselves in his grey beard, melting and causing it to drip water down the front of his jacket.

“All right, who the hell was that?” Kaia asks.

Dirk passes a hand over his eyes. “That was my old boss. I never knew his name back then; I just knew him as the leader of the pack. I should have known something was up when he mentioned he was a blue the other night.”

Kaia shivers. “So he wants you to join back up with the Lunars. The most violent of all shifter gangs. Labelled as terrorists by the Circle.” Even though they had not noticed her and Dirk in the alley the other night, Kaia had seen the aftermath of territory wars involving Lunars before, and it was enough to make anyone at least think about how the Circle's ban on going hybrid might actually not be a bad idea. “Don't tell me you're actually thinking about it.”

Dirk is silent a long time, and Kaia realizes belatedly how hypocritical she sounds. Telling him not to work for the Lunars, when she herself is considering working for the Circle. She and Dirk silently watch the crowd disperse until there is nothing left over but trampled signs and litter. The doors to Eclipse Tower remain firmly closed, and Kaia and Dirk are the only ones left in the square. Snow begins to fall.

“What do I do, K?” Dirk eventually whispers.

“I don't know,” Kaia whispers back. “But maybe it's best if neither of us talk about what we do outside of work for a while.”

“Yeah,” he says distantly. “That's probably for the best.”