undergrounds | [Open] June Catch-All for Shea's Characters!

So Lydia had a boyfriend. Okay, Nancy didn't believe that for a second. People who's names you didn't know were not boyfriend material. Or at least not someone you actively called your boyfriend. Sure, virginity loss was a big thing to some girls, and Nancy was sure Lydia was one of those girls. She hadn't been precious about it, personally. But her life had hardly been ordinary, and Nancy's understanding of sex and how it worked in the real world was not exactly the healthiest view.

But she did have a good understanding of what to do during the act, which was why she was going to help Lydia. Besides, it was her civic duty, in a way, to make sure Lydia knew how to enjoy herself. She had had a few women give her a few tips when she'd first been on the street, so she considered this her paying it forward.

She arrived at Lydia's house with her purse filled with a few unmentionable items. This was totally what normal girls did, right?

"Hey, love!" She calls when Lydia opens the door, and gives her friend a hug. "So you want me to show you your way around a dick, then?" May as well jump straight to it, and the alcohol on her breath didn't exactly want her to be gentle about it. It was best to be frank when talking about sex, she'd learned that the hard way.

There were few situations Laura imagined she could get herself involved in so early that would make her meeting with Katherine loom darker on the horizon. She'd gone against orders in order to partake in Hillingdon's capture of the newly opened Institute, and even had some beautiful flowers she'd purloined from their gardens sitting on her desk. Further more, she was new, not only to the pack, but to London and to being a wolf. She knew what she'd look like, some strange upstart coming out of nowhere asking questions, but she had them, and she wanted a straight answer.

So Laura had taken it upon herself to schedule a meeting with their Alpha, and arrived dressed in a well-pressed blazer and suit combo, her glasses set upon her nose and her gaze steady. She had questions, and she believed she had some experience that could prove beneficial for the East End pack.

If there was one thing that didn't impress Katherine, it was a power suit. She'd done background checks on Laura before admitting her to the pack, so she knew that the woman used to be a witch – and it showed. It was exactly the kind of outfit that one of those fancy pants high up witches liked to wear and it did nothing to make Katherine feel like this was a person she could trust.

Katherine herself was dressed in her usual battered leather jacket and jeans, lounging in a corner of the den away from the rest of the pack. She had an apple in one hand while her other hand rested on the arm of her chair next to her mobile.

She looked up at Laura when she approached, assessing her. "You settling in?"

Still looks like she's here for a job interview, she thought. Not quite at ease.

It's such a casual meeting- a far cry from the meetings she'd gone to preciously in the US, or indeed even a faculty meeting. No, this was mostly public, relaxed- Laura almost wondered if a bottle of beer wouldn't be remiss from the scene.

"Quite well," she says warmly. "It's a wonderful pack, and I'd like to thank you for welcoming me to it so readily."

Ellie is sitting down in the commons, a book open on the coffee table and some half-assed notes in her lap.

She'd only been with the pack for a couple of weeks, and with school finishing for the year, she hadn't had much time to spend in the den. While Ellie doesn't enjoy school very much, she does want to at least pass the year. So here she is, trying to be social and meet other werewolves while working on her final essay.

Also, Sherman's making a communal dinner. Ellie isn't sure it was meant to be communal at first, but then he'd asked if she liked shepherd's pie. She did, so he was making that. Not that Ellie would really turn anything down.

Ellie hears a set of footsteps coming down the way and sniffs the air. Luck is on her side, because the draft brings the smell to her. It's vaguely familiar, beyond the underlying scent of werewolf Ellie is learning to recognize. That probably means she's part of the pack, or at least has been here a lot.

Ellie waves when she comes into view, straightening from her book. She's only met a few of the pack members so far--Katherine, Ghoul, and those who keep similar hours to her. There aren't many, but she'll track them all down once school is out.

For now, though, she smiles just a little. It's another pack member, even if she looks...not like Ellie would imagine a werewolf to look like. Sort of like Mrs. Blatherwick, but more professional.

"Uh, hi. I'm Ellie." Ellie doesn't know if Katherine has introduced her to everyone, or if Ghoul has, or what, but the people so far have accepted her without much fuss, if with a few raised eyebrows.

Two young teenage werewolves joining up around the same time is sort of unusual. Especially when they both have activated curses.

"Glad to hear it."

She bites into her apple. Presumably Laura is here for something other than to say how great everything is, so Katherine will just wait for her to spill.

Laura's taken to exploring the den every so often. Ghoul's tour had been informative, but she wanted to see the place for herself. Which meant that every so often, she'd wander into a random room, just to make sure she'd never been in it before.

"Hello," She says warmly, turning to look at the young teen in front of her. Early high school age, she'd guess. "Nice to meet you, Ellie. I'm Laura- are you new here?" She's only been here a few months, but Ellie is an unfamiliar face.

Straight to business, then, she can summize, from the way the Alpha looks at her. Very well.

"I'm not very familiar with the English government here, so you'll have to pardon my missteps, but- is there any particular reason that we're not allowed representation on the Night Council?" She knew shifters on the whole were, but they were something else entirely. "It strikes me as odd that Islington has representation, especially considering their actions in recent history, and yet we have none." She says it with a smile, carefully worded and not accusatory. An innocent question, almost.

Then, she adds: "No one seems to be able to give me an answer."

Nancy had some 'splainin' to do. And, for that matter, so did Allison. Who the hell randomly has knives in their boots, anyway? While Allison had been sick, Nancy'd brought over some soup for her, but due to said sickness, the two women had never actually sat down and had the conversation they were supposed to have had months ago.

The one where Allison explains the knives. And where Nancy explains that oh, hey, she's a witch.

So that's what brought them here, Nancy having invited Allison over to Cooper's place so they could be away from prying ears. When Allison arrives, she invites her in. "Can I get you something to drink?" Nancy of course is thinking about her fresh bottle of gin in the cupboard.

Katherine swallows her piece of apple, raising her eyebrows. "It's because the Night Council are cowardly fucks who pander to the rich and powerful. I had a deal with the Witch Rep that might have gotten us a seat but we fucked that one up. Now we've got a vampire for a President. The bloodsuckers have taken over and until we root them out, we won't get anywhere near the Council."

They've been close a couple of times. This time with Samantha on their side and Sylvia getting kicked out, she had thought there might be an opportunity. Needless to say, neither event turned out in their favour.

It really has been a long time coming. Between then and now, Allison has surely made some assumptions, met different people, tried to find some direction while living in London. It's been a little isolating recently, but that is her fault entirely. Maybe it's a bout of homesickness for a place that had only just begun to feel like home to her.

When she's invited to Nancy's ( boyfriend's? ) place, she doesn't hesitate this time. When someone has extended friendship, Allison knows better than to reject it.

She takes a seat in the sitting room, lips pursed to the side. "Ah – water's good. Please."

"Ah." Well, that explains a lot of things, and straight from the horses's mouth. So things were bad, but they'd sided with Samantha. Who seemed to be riding the losing side right now. Or at least, the unpopular one, most everyone else having taken stances opposing her latest.

"I don't suppose anyone's petitioned the new President for a seat?" Why would anyone want to? "Otherwise, from what I can see, the tides are turning against Ms. Okeke."

"Sure." Nancy glances at Allison, then with a flick of her hand, opens up a cabinet behind her, and floats a glass out. With another small movement, the glass fills itself with water, and sets itself in front of Allison.

"I thought I should break the ice, so to speak." Bad pun. Please forgive her. "But I'm a witch...?" Somehow it was a question on her lips. "I can do magic, and I'd really appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone." Please? She looks up at her hopefully.

"I'll answer any questions you have, too. Gods knows I've got my own."

Katherine snorts and if she'd had a piece of fruit in her mouth she would have choked on it. Good thing she doesn't. "Petition a vampire? Ain't gonna happen. We lost our chance with the witch and the President won't give us one. Maybe things work differently across the pond, but over here the people in power like to keep it and that means keeping us out."

She takes another bite of the apple, her tone seeming final. In Katherine's mind that's the end of it. Not that she won't take the opportunity to improve their standing if she can, but right now she can't see any way of doing that and frankly she's bitter about it. It doesn't help that Laura is sitting here in front of her today asking about petitioning for a seat as if she didn't help to fuck up their chance in the first place.

"Nancy!" Lydia's cheeks coloured rapidly, and she hastily closed the door behind Nancy and pulled her towards her bedroom."
"Shhhh! The other girls here don't need to know!"

Once inside the bedroom, she closes that door too. "Oh my God, Nancy!" she starts. "It was so big! When he took it out, I nearly fainted!" She can't even bring herself to say 'penis', let alone 'dick'. This is going to go well.

The call from the East End Pack was unexpected to say the least. Sylvia knows they'd had a rather public falling-out with Circle Daybreak following the unfortunate events in Richmond. As always, she offers help and sanctuary to the witches affected by the takeover. As for the wolves... she's not sure what's going on with them. Did they collectively agree to end their alliance with Circle Daybreak or was there a rebellion?

Either way, they live in interesting times.

Sylvia only has one office left and she hasn't been available to most since she's bogged down in talks with her lawyers. Perhaps a chat with a werewolf will be a welcome change of pace.

"Come in," she calls, standing up when she hears the knock at the door. "You must be Laura."

Stepping forward, she holds out her hand, regarding Laura with an appraising look. From the little research she's done, Laura is new to the pack. Interesting that they'd send a new recruit.

Laura gives her a sidelong glance. "I know how politics tend to work."

There were other avenues, to get a seat. And she intended to explore them. Other alliances to create that would possibly get them where they wanted to go.

"Perhaps then we should directly appeal to the Night Council, see what their critera for us having a seat would be. That way, we can begin to work on ourselves. Furthermore, we could see about breaking up the shifter and meta-human seat. Why should both be lumped together while we are left at the mercy of everyone else? There are ways we can go about this, that we should be going about this." She keeps her calm, amazingly, though Laura realizes by the time she's done speaking, she's gone and taken off her glasses. Inhaling, she replaces them on her face.

"You know all of this, of course, but I'm thinking out loud."

It's an odd feeling, knowing she's going to meet the former Mother of Witches (was there a term for that?). She could not care less that Sylvia was the former Night Council President, though it was an important fact she'd made a careful note of. No, the fact that she was the former Mother of Witches hit a deep chord in Laura, some sort of homesickness, the same she'd experienced at Beltane. She missed the magic.

Laura enters, and moves toward the desk, hand extended. She gives her a good, firm handshake. "Yes- lovely to make your acquaintance, Sylvia. And thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I know you must be incredibly busy."

Laura herself was on summer holiday. That, she firmly believed, was the best part about being a teacher.

"Oh, gosh, sorry! I completely forgot you live with others," Nancy says hurriedly, moving inside the flat and following Lydia.

In the bedroom, she takes a seat on the edge of Lydia's bed, putting her bag on the floor in front of her. At Lydia's glee, she finds herself giggling "Oh my gosh- how big was it?" She makes a few gestures indicating possible lengths.

Katherine listens to all this and remains unimpressed. There's nothing she doesn't already know and in her opinion it betrays a painful naivete on Laura's part. The woman has a decent head on her shoulders. But she can't come swanning in and expect to change years and years of entrenched animosity in one fell swoop.

"All right," she says, and she sits up, leaning forward. She's serious now. "I can see you want to help, so I'll be gentle. I know you were shacking up with some bigshot witch over in the States, but you know jackshit about how things work around here. The top seats on the Night Council are held by two vampires, two witches and a shapeshifter who's a fucking cat. Yasmine doesn't want to halve her support base by splitting her seat, Vrinak hates everything that moves that isn't a witch, Samantha told us to fuck off and the vampires are vampires. You're not a witch any more: people don't like us. They think we're animals, cursed, a danger to society. Don't get ahead of yourself. These people are not nice. You'll get burned."

It's meant to be a warning, but not out of disapproval. These are fundamental things that Laura needs to know if she really is going to throw herself into this.

"Yes," Sylvia agrees, smiling as she shakes Laura's hand. She won't go into the details of what exactly she's busy with. The newspapers are chronicling that for the benefit of all. "Well, it's not often that I get a call from the East End Pack. Please feel free to take a seat. Would you like a drink? Tea? Coffee?"

It'll take a minute or two to sort out the pleasantries, Sylvia calling for an assistant to bring in the appropriate drinks, then she gestures for Laura to join her in the seating area in one corner of the office. There's a coffee table, comfortable sofas and a pot plant, all designed to make it feel like a more informal, friendly place to have a chat. And hot drinks too, of course.

Sylvia pours her tea, adding milk before stirring. "So, how is the pack?"

Another American! Ellie thinks that's almost a solid quarter of the pack that's from the US. Of course, she has an accent too, but she's not actually American. She just ended up with a bunch of ex-patriots as foster families in the beginning.

"You too--yeah. Um. Yeah, I just joined up a little while ago, but I don't have much time to actually spend here yet..." Ellie gestures to her book. Well, it's not like she doesn't take off school and wander the streets half the time, but she needs to try and finish off the year strong.

"You?" Certainly longer than Ellie, but many of the pack members are sort of new. It seems like people tend to come and go a lot, which isn't a terrible thing, but Ellie doesn't like the idea. "You sound like you're from America..."

"Not to assume but – I kind of assumed." Allison laughs, somewhat relieved at least to have that out in the open instead of speculating because. Well. It's cool. There weren't official witches in Beacon Hills, as far as she knew, anyway. She watches as the glass finishes filling itself before looking up at her friend once more.

Questions first, then her own confession later.

"Were you born a witch?"

Nancy laughs, thankful that the tension seems to have dissipated with Allison's response. "Phew- that was a whole lot easier than I thought." She exhales.

"No; I was bitten by a radioactive witch when I was seven," she tells Allison as if it's the simplest thing in the world. "'Course I was."

"Hey!" Allison laughs. "I thought that some people could practice witchcraft through learning, that's all." She's seen The Craft like ten times already.

She reaches for her glass to take a sip, needing to cool down from the summer heat outside; her hair, normally down, is pulled into a messy bun atop her head. "Are you part of a coven of sorts? A witch organization?"

[Open] June Catch-All for Shea's Characters!

For Lydia, backdated to late May- nsfw

For Katherine, early May

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Before the full moon in June, if that's good with you!

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of course!

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For Allison

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For Laura, mid-June

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sorry, my brain fried for a lil bit :c

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