I first met Stella when her younger sister Zeta got her fangs.

I’m a Cani doctor—I should probably explain the Cani part first. Cani are pretty close to a lot of things. Generally like humans, but with fangs like a vampire, but decidedly not vampires. All Cani have some bestial qualities, so they’re also close to werewolves, but not like exactly. Oh, and we each get some kind of power too. I, for example, just have fangs but can also control metal to an extent. And we can also go into another dimension called the void. Generally, a Cani’s fangs come in when they’re a teenager, as was the case with Zeta Faleur.

Zeta, the poor thing, she looked absolutely petrified when I saw her. That might’ve been from the fangs coming in, and her newly awakened thunderstorm power going off in her room, making her slip, fall over, and bite her face up from her new fangs.

So for the Cani doctor part, in summers I work at a hospital helping new Cani make sure their fangs come in alright, and figure out their next steps as they suddenly have the aforementioned some kind of power. A first fang appointment involves the nurses cleaning up any injuries, me getting a mold of fangs, looking over the general health and whatnot, and offering my advice for next steps. Since I work at, in my opinion, one of the better Cani schools during the school year, I usually recommend they go there.

When I stepped into the room, the first things I noticed was that Zeta looked intimidated by my presence (I don't think I'm an intimidating person, but I did make kind of a loud entrance and she was already rattled from her fangs coming in so...), and that her parent/guardian made my heart actually flutter. That fluttering might have been from the Volleyball Muscle energy drink I was mid-knocking back, but this radiant woman had to contribute, with her long, straight hair, sky blue eyes, and much better taste in fashion than I ever could pull off.

I’m a professional, so obviously I didn’t flirt with her in front of her kid or something dumb like that. Although my immediate instinct was to try and show off for this woman by chugging my drink and chucking it in the nearest bin. After I completely biffed a throw, I had to save face, so I said I’d pick it up later.

“Hey! I’m Dr. Diast,” I said. “I’ll pick that up in a sec.”

“Hi,” Zeta said.

I got her info up on my tablet, then noticed the video they were playing.

“Oh man, they’re still showing that?” I said. I knew they were still showing that, but it was my go to line meeting a new Cani, because it perfectly set up me showing off my Thadley impersonation. Thadley, of course, being the weird surfer dude who for some reason was the star of all the Cani tutorial videos that were made twenty years ago. “I’m sorry. ‘Like, whoa dude. Like, Cani fangs can help me nosh this sweet wave.’”

Zeta laughed slightly, the moment at which I also noticed she’d been holding her hand out to me this whole time. She must’ve thought I was ignoring her. I shook it firmly of course before measuring her fangs with my trusty fang measuring tool.

“Zeta Faleur, pleasure to meet you, how did your Cani awakening go?” I asked. “Mine was terrific. Fantastic. Terrifying, but it was one of the best days of my life.”

“I don’t know if this is gonna go down as one of the best days,” Zeta said.

“The nurse said you had a pretty hard bite,” I said. “But it’s not bad enough for stitches at least. Now you get to the real fun stuff.”

The real fun stuff was me getting a mold of her fangs, confirming that her power was weather control, and getting her power blocker wristband set up so she didn’t thunderstorm the whole room. I held out the wristband to her, and gave her guardian the paperwork.

“Zeta, put that on, and parent/guardian, you handle these,” I said.

“Guardian,” The woman said. “I’m her sister.”

“Hey, no judgment here,” I said. “I come from a unique family situation as well. If I may presume.”

“That’s about my line for presuming things,” she said.

“Then we shall leave it at that,” I said.

Crap, that came out kinda flirty. Be a professional, damn it!

“And your name is, miss…?” I asked. That sounded more professional, right? She had a bit of a stern pout to her, which I’m not gonna lie, I found very attractive. But I also didn’t want to annoy her, but I was starting to get nervous, and when I was nervous and attracted to someone I got annoying, so this was a bit of a dilemma.

“Stella Faleur,” she said, holding her hand out for me to shake as well. Faleurs were big on handshakes, apparently.