Teddy and Zack’s shift for the day ends, Zack going to General Mort’s office while Teddy heads to the lockers, intent on going home after changing out of his uniform, he coming to a stop when he sees a familiar face, his sister Dolly standing outside of the room that held the lockers in wait for him, she grinning when she sees him. “So you respect me do you?”
Teddy laughs at the question, what a thing to say to someone after not seeing them for years. “Yula’s been talking to you hasn’t he?”
Dolly gives a frustrated grumble. “The kid likes to talk, he never gives up trying to start up a conversation with me.”
Teddy nods his head. “Can you really blame him? It’s not like he lives a very exciting life. He needs someone to talk to or else he might just go crazy.” He chuckles to himself. “Also, I’m not so sure if it’s appropriate to call Yula a kid when he’s three hundred or so years older than you.”
Dolly frowns. “I don’t care what his age is, if he’s going to act like a kid he’s going to be called a kid.” She begins walking down the hall towards the entrance of the building. “Come on, let’s go grab a bite to eat before you head home for the day.”
Teddy follows after her happy to oblige. “Are you going to pay for my meal?”
Dolly laughs at the comment. “Of course not, I was hoping that you would be a gentleman and treat me to a meal.”
“What? You’re the one that invited me!”
“I was just kidding, no need to get so pouty about it.”
The two make their way to a café near the building Teddy worked at, it a common place he would go to after work, the two taking his usual table and ordering some food as they caught up, the brother and sister not seeing or really speaking to one another in years, most of this catching up being a series of questions for one another, the first topic to come up how they were doing at work.
Dolly bares her teeth at the mention of Zack Magellan’s name. “You’re working with Magellan now? Well isn’t that a stroke of bad luck? Honestly that guy is one of the worst. I couldn’t stand it every time General Mort brought him along with him. If there’s anything for me to like about being taken out of the action and being demoted to a stupid guard dog is that I don’t have to work with the likes of him anymore.”
Dolly crosses her arms continuing to go on about him. “I always found it creepy how General Mort always keeps Magellan by his side or keeps calling him to his office. Just what kind of relationship could General Mort possibly have with Magellan to be doing that all the time?”
Teddy nods his head, he also noticing that. “Maybe Magellan is some kind of relative of his, something like the son of the brother of a sister in law or something crazy like that. General Mort does seem to play favourites with him a lot. Though I guess that explains how Magellan gets away with as much stuff as he does.” He too saw exactly what Dolly was talking about when it came Zack and how he would so rudely voice his opinions on wilds. “He’s very… I don’t know the word for it… I guess ignorant, at least when it comes to wilds.”
Dolly slams her fist against the table, startling the people that were currently eating at the table behind them. “That’s the worst part about him! You think that he would watch what he’s saying when decedent’s, ex-wilds or even half wilds are around, but no! He thinks he’s obligated to talk to them like they’re garbage. It’s completely unacceptable! I don’t know how many times I’ve or someone else has reported him but nothing is ever done about it because he’s General Mort’s favourite little pet.” She bares her teeth at the thought. “What burns me the most is that someone like him is still a soldier, while I say one stupid thing and get demoted right then and there!”
Teddy nervously looks back at her. “From what I understand you did more than just say something…”
Dolly frowns at the comment. “Alright so maybe I acted my threat out, but still! Demoting me to the most boring job they can think of?? A desk job is more exciting than guard duty.”
Teddy laughs at his sister’s reaction. “Yeah, I can hardly stand the job and I’m pretty easy going, if I can’t stand it then there’s no way someone as short fused as you could put with it.”
“You’re right about that!”
“You know being called short fused isn’t a complement.”
“Hey I can admit that I have one, and for your information I think it’s a trait to brag about. If you ask me being called ‘easy going’ is more of an insult. I mean come on what are they implying by saying something like that?”
Teddy laughs at the comment while Dolly sits back in her seat. “So, are you still dating Sara?”
Teddy shakes his head no. “We broke up almost five years ago.”
Dolly crosses her arms. “Shoot… five years hu? It really has been a long time since the two of us talked…”
“Hard to believe isn’t it?”
Dolly smiles back to him. “Mom called me a few days ago, said that you had come over to visit them for a bit, and that you had a talk with dad about some stuff concerning your native heritage.”
Teddy sighs at the reminder. “Don’t think too much into it… it was just some stuff related to work that’s all.”
A disappointed look fills Dolly’s face. “Are you really that embarrassed to be a wild? If you ask me it’s great to have such an interesting history to make me stand out, most domestics have hardly any family culture to brag about you know.”
Teddy nods his head. “Yeah… standing out is exactly my problem. Unlike you I don’t want to stand out, I much prefer blending in and being thought of as normal thank you very much.”
“Different is interesting!”
The waitress drops the food off at their table, Dolly digging right into it. “You know Teddy, I bet if you gave yourself the chance to learn about our culture you would like it. You can still be in tune with your heritage and be discrete about it enough to not be seen as weird.”
Teddy rests his head in his hand. “Say, have you heard of the Raven Wolves?”
Dolly nods her head. “The packs name is actually called Raven Wolf. It was both the Raven and the Wolf spirit that cursed them, you can’t change it into a plural form it just doesn’t work that way.”
“So I’m gonna guess that you know about them.”
“Yeah, the cursed tribe and all that stuff, really interesting story if you ask me.”
Teddy begins to question her about them, Dolly perhaps knowing something more useful than his parents did about them. “Do you believe in curses?”
Dolly nods her head. “Of course I do.”
“Seriously?”
Dolly again nods her head. “If I believe that the animal spirits exist then I believe that they are capable of granting both fortune and misfortune, and yeah sometimes even curses. Though, animal spirits don’t often lay a curse on someone… they have to be pushed pretty far before they do something like that.”
Teddy seems confused. “The way I heard the story… the Raven Wolves… or I guess the Raven Wolf tribe didn’t do anything bad to receive the curse they got.”
Dolly points her spoon over to Teddy. “Hey, just because we sometimes don’t understand their actions does not mean that is without reason. The reason the raven spirit picked that tribe may not be clear to any of us, but it was defiantly clear to him.”
Teddy shakes his head. “It all sounds pretty sketchy to me. If the spirit was really that angry couldn’t they just have handled everything themselves? They being all powerful and everything?”
“They’re not all powerful, they’re keepers of great wisdom and guides. It’s true they are not without power but that power is not why they exist. If the spirits ruled only by showing power the world would be a sad place indeed. We are to respect them of course, and when they show themselves to us we are also to make understanding of the guidance they are trying to show us and learn from them.”
Teddy shrugs his shoulders. “So have you ever seen one of these animal spirits?”
Dolly shakes her head no. “Not yet, I guess I don’t need any guidance right now. I suppose short fused is the path I was meant to lead.”
Teddy lets out a sigh, his sister not helping to figure out why Iuana would be so important to the military either. “I somehow doubt that.”
After finishing his meal and catching up with his sister Teddy heads home, he rubbing the back of his neck as he enters his apartment kicking the mail that was laying in his doorway to the side and making a note to himself to look through it before going to work tomorrow. It had been nice to catch up with his sister, though all the spirit mumbo jumbo he could have done without, even if it was his fault for bringing it up. He lays himself down on the sofa and closes his eyes drifting off to sleep.
A faint whistle fills Teddy’s ears waking him up with a start, Teddy quickly sitting up and looking around him. His eyes move to the clock on the wall, he having only dozed off for about ten minutes, he looks over towards the window in his apartment, the wind that was blowing through it causing the faint whistling that had woken him. He lets out a sigh of disbelief as he walks over to the window and closes it, a little embarrassed that the spirit stories his sister had been going on about had cause him to jump at a sound as common place as that.
Teddy pauses for a moment thinking to himself, something wasn’t right about this. He had never opened the window and he was sure that when he had arrived at home it had been closed. His ears perk up as his body now stands alert, he paying attention to his surroundings. Instinct was kicking in now as Teddy scans his apartment, the room he is in dark, the vision in his right eye still a little fuzzy, trying to focus on its surroundings after waking up so soon.
That was when it happened, there was a white blur that he could barely make out to his right, and then just as suddenly as he had seen it Teddy was hitting the floor as someone leaps at him and throws him to the ground.
Teddy fights with the figure upon him, managing to force them off of him and throwing them to the side, knocking over a table and hitting the back of the sofa causing it to tumble over, the intruder hardly taking a moment to turn back towards him and leap at him again forcing him to the ground before he could get back up. Teddy again fighting back against them, forcing them off of him and this time throwing them into the stand that held his TV, a loud smashing sound filling his ears when it hits the ground, the figure letting out a painful moan as they lay there for a moment, this one having gotten to them.
The intruder though manages to force themselves back to their feet and once again attack Teddy who had just managed to get back to his feet, the figure darting to Teddy’s right and leaping at him to tackle and bring him to the ground again, Teddy this time prepared for the attack catching onto his opponent’s arm, twisting it behind their back and then holding them in place. His opponent not yet taking this as a loss as she forcefully pushes back against Teddy, forcing him to back down a short hall and crash through a closet door at its end, both of them falling and hitting the ground after going through the door, Teddy of course a lot more dazed by the blow then his opponent was.
The intruder pulls free before Teddy could compose himself, sitting down on his chest and pinning both of his arms down so that he could no longer get up to attack. “Yula! Take me to Yula!!”
Teddy opens his eyes recognizing that voice. “Iuana…?” He stares up to find that it was indeed Iuana, the test subject that was right now supposed to be locked in her cell at the labs, in his house and pinning him down. “What… are you doing here? How did you escape?”
Iuana narrows her eyes. “Yula! Where is he!? Two weeks ago you said the name Yula when speaking about someone that had seen me in their dream. Take me to him!”
Teddy lets out an annoyed growl. “You jumped at me from my right too! I should have known it was you!” He struggles against her, Iuana in turn struggling to keep him down. “I don’t know how you managed to get out, or how in the world you managed to find out where I live-”
Iuana speaks up answering his concerns. “I found the opening I needed to free myself and forced my way out of that building, when I was outside I saw you leaving another building nearby and I followed you here.”
Teddy looks up at her. “Ok… so I guess that explains how you found this place… but why!?”
Iuana growls at him impatiently she having thought that much to be clear. “You’re blind in one eye not deaf in both ears!! Yula! The day you became my guard you spoke of him so you know where he is! Take me to him!”
Teddy manages to force and throw Iuana off of him, Iuana letting out a threatening growl as she prepares to leap at him again, Teddy quickly pulling his gun out and pointing it at her, causing Iuana to stop dead in her tracks. “Contrary to what you might think I’m actually not blind in one eye, and as for Yula, what would you possibly want with him?”
Iuana glares at the weapon that Teddy now has pointed towards her. “So then I heard right? It was Yula’s name you said.”
Teddy frowns at the reaction Iuana had given to what he had said. “What!? You attacked me asking about him when you were unsure as to if that was the name I said or not?”
Iuana begins to explain. “I heard Yula’s name clearly! I just didn’t know if it could possibly be real… Yula has been thought to be dead for three hundred years.”
Teddy sighs to himself, they defiantly talking about the same person, he not knowing of any other three hundred year old wolves named Yula. “Alright then… so I know the guy you’re talking about. But what does that have to do with you?”
Iuana suddenly leaps forward catching Teddy off guard, grabbing onto the weapon he held pointed towards her and prying it from his hands, turning it around and now pointing it towards him. “No more questions! You will take me to Yula now!”
Teddy stares down the barrel of his gun, though he wasn’t entirely sure if Iuana knew how to use it or not he wasn’t about to recklessly find out. “Ok! Ok! I can take you to Yula, just calm down will you?”
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