That Time of Month

[geste]

Monologuing about your Time Of The Month is a surefire way to draw strange looks from passing strangers - particularly if you're male, and speaking with a strong accent. This was something Raoul had discovered rather swiftly as a German werewolf in an American city. His first few weeks he'd spent happily telling new acquaintances (who wondered why he was different than he had been on the first occasion they'd met him) that his mood "had all to do with the time of the month". It had only been recently that he'd found out that the phrase had some rather unpleasant feminine connotations, and this occurred to him now as he paced rangily along the street. He disliked the English language, he'd decided. It was coarse and confusing. The same may have been said about his own mother tongue, but he was in no mood to be objective. He'd spent the last twenty-four hours as a mangy dog, he'd nearly been trapped and kept as a pet, and there was a certain depression that tended to steal over him when he realised he was back on two legs again that was now haunting him full-force.

So it was a somewhat disconsolate Raoul that sloped raggedly along the street, hands deep in the pockets of the truly ancient jeans he was wearing and a jacket pulled irritably over his bare chest. His hair was messy and his face smudged with unnamable dirt. Altogether, it would be impossible to tell that this haggard apparition and the neat, solemn individual that had paced along this very street two weeks previously were the same person. It was a sunny afternoon, but he was in no mood to enjoy it - he'd spent most of his treasured Monthly Day As A Wolf being petted and prissed about with by a small but determined child who threatened him with fireballs she could summon with her mind (curse this insane American city of freaks and shapeshifters.) He had only been able to escape when he turned back into a human and the girl, indignant, released him. Now he had post-lunar depression, and not even any happy wolfy memories to sustain him through the coming weeks of dull humanity.

But for Raoul, a bad mood could never last long, and his gloomy expression was suddenly and strikingly replaced by a canine look of intrigue. If he could have, he would have raised his front paw - his right hand twitched weakly at his side - and his ears did their very best to perk up. He hissed one word, eyes lighting up with a fanaticism usually only seen in four-legged creatures and the legally insane.
"Katze."

Not any Katze, either, but a very particular one - one that smelt of ancient things and sand, one that was not always cat to the eyes and ears but would never, never deceive his nose. A very particular cat. His hand came up to caress his nose gently, exploring it with careful melancholy for any trace of the scars that had been inflicted. Catcatcat. His pace picked up, his centre of gravity dropped lower, and he took a deep breath of the surrounding air, mourning the loss of his keener wolf senses. She was in the book-shop. A distant part of him remembered that in fact the book shop was a place he had been before - but really, when he had been there, he had not been him. He'd been - his other-self. Raoul's nose wrinkled. He didn't think about himself at the new moon very much, not with the wolf still seething through the passages of mind. The other was an impersonation, not him at all - he was a clone, an imitation, a doppelganger. And at any rate, he didn't care about his reputation in some bookstore. Not when there was a cat to be found.

Raoul, in all his eccentric wolfish glory, barrelled through the doors of the bookshelf, knocked over a stand by the door with the force of his entry, then peered suspiciously around the premises, eyes narrowed and nostrils flared. He wasn't sure what he was going to do when he found the katze-frau - but he would cross that bridge when (and if) he came to it.

[Louis de Saint-Just]

"Oh say can you seeeeeee, by the DAWN'S early liiiiiiiight, what so proooooudly we haaaailed at the twilight's LAST GLEAMING?"

"What is she talking about? I can't make sense of it at all. But at least she's hot...I have somewhere to look, then, at least."

"He's looking at my chest again. Does he think I can't tell? I should slap him, I really should."

[/i]

"Yes, slap him," Zahra muttered, eyebrows twitching in her sleep. She was really dozing, cat-napping, but at the moment she had basically tuned out of reality. Dicing into the minds of humans was occasionally amusing, and she didn't do it often. But today, a particularly interesting couple had come outside the door; the man had been thinking first about shoes, then pancakes, and then finally, how bored he was.
The woman had been thinking (in her subconscious) about what she was going to draw tonight; must remind the outer brain of that.

Then, finally, a new mind entered into Zahra's field of 'vision', and she was startled out of her sleep, and subsequently, her chair.

"I KNOW IT'S IN HERE."

It was a mind she vaguely recognized, but at the moment the important thing to do was to close her mind so that she would just hear her own thoughts. Once she had done that, she pondered upon the picture of the voice, and drew only that this was not someone entierly human, it was obviously someone furry and brown, and she somewhat remembered another mind ALWAYS SPEAKING IN A YELLING TONE.

As she wasn't at all afraid in her own turf, Zahra went to hide behind a bookshelf before the wolf-man came into the store. There was a tiny hole in between shelf and book where she could catch a glimpse of the front door, and she did; noticing the man coming in and knocking over a stand.

Instantly, her anger at messes flared up, and so she quickly turned her stare into a glare. No need to jump into action just yet...who knew if this man was dangerous, or held a gun? She certainly wasn't going to turn on her telepathy and find out. She didn't want to be yelled at again.[/size][/center]

[geste]

He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, ignoring the sometimes frightened and sometimes disgruntled stares of the other patrons in the store. His brain was chanting "cat cat cat cat" in a repetitive, reassuring kind of way in the back of his head, and while there was a foreboding prickle that said maybe he should be thinking about the impression he was making on other people, the blissful majority was enthralled with pursuit of the cat-thing. This was what life was about, his pulse sung in his ears, life was wild and hunt and chase. Not clothing, not pavement, not smiling and nodding to passing strangers, not words. He gave a book a disgusted look and shouldered his way through the store, all ragged breath and gleaming eyes.

He wasn't doing wonders for the store's business, that was for sure, but nothing could have been further from his mind as he shoved stealthily passed a family, moving inexorably towards the shelf behind which his quarry was cowering. It was a sign that the rational mind was returning that he spoke as the triumphant grin spread across his face - the words may have been garbled, but they were words. In a few days, he'd be sane and rational again. The moon would tug the ego into greater prominence and check the wild id. Of course, a few days was a long time, and while Raoul didn't have any weapons (or any real intent to harm) he was still a foreboding sight, prowling through the bookstore and panting like a dog.

"Kittykittykitty. Come out." English, though thickly accented. Raoul's new-moon self endeavoured to imitate the American accent. "Come here -" -closer to komm hier in pronounciation - "Come out, fraidycat. Angsthase."

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Why was she hiding? This was just some spoiled pup who didn't know what was best.
Behind the safety of the shelf, Zahra scoffed, and then drew herself up to her full height (not that it was intimidating at all....but whatever). She had dealt with little baby dog-things. Her younger brother had been a jackal, after all.
One swipe across the nose would send him grovelling to the floor.

Hey, she had done it once, she would do it again. It was a good thing that her red nails, while not terribly long, were always kept sharp.

Of course, she would rather not come out; he could come to her. That would give her an excuse to jump him: her territory, he coming into it, goodnight doggy.

So she held her ground, and began the thorough inspection of her fingernails, managing to look quite bored, and not at all captivated by the shiny lengths of dead skin. In fact, they may have been the most boring thing in the world. This was why her ear was able to perk up just a little bit at the dog opening his filthy mouth.

Kitty?
Kitty?

What the hell did this tiny man think he was? Okay, so maybe he wasn't tiny. Maybe he was actually rather big. But, hey, she could push back his mind; that had to count for something, didn't it?

[geste]

Alright, the grin definitely faded a few notches as he came around the corner of the shelf to find her regarding her blood-red nails with something like boredom. One hand, surreptitiously, reached up and protected his nose from the Claws Of Death, and his eyes narrowed.

"Kitty has not changed," he growled. There was something in the back of his mind, getting louder, that strongly suggested getting out of there - some voice of reason. He wavered, hearing it - then he recalled the creature it belonged to, the snivelling neat-freak weirdo who went back and apologised - apologised! - to those cat owners whose precious pets he may have harassed in dog form. It would be ridiculous of him to take that idiot's advice. The moon was fat in the sky and he had a cat cornered and he was damn well going to -

Well, he wasn't sure what he was going to do with it. He'd never actually caught a cat before. To cover his confusion, he spoke again with aggressive bravado. "No trees here, kitty. Where - where - woher versteckst du dich?" He took a step towards her, threateningly.

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Zahra perked up one eyebrow, and glanced upwards, her gaze not moving from where she set it, which was on this dog's eyes. That was how cats did things; whoever could hold a stare the longest was obviously the owner of the territory, and therefore won. Of course, dogs (filthy, mangy, drooling, scraggly things) did something different, but really, Zahra could have just cared less.

"I don't know where your ditch is, but we speak English here," she said, not even bothering to cover up her accent. Who needed an American way of speaking when you could use an accent that comes from the Arabic walking into the United States.

"Plus, you don't scare me, puppy. Go romp around the litter or something." She dismissed him with a wave of the hand, and then promptly turned around to close her eyes and open up her mind. She had decided that despite the yelling, his thoughts might be useful.

Except they weren't, because aside from the word 'kitty', they were all in German. Useless mongrel.....of course his mind would be useless too.

Well, she would just have to wing it then......oh well....

[geste]

"English!" Raoul almost yelped, pausing in his awkward advance to give her what he evidently assumed to be a scornful look. "Bastard language," he growled. "Bastard child of European languages. And you, America, you speak not even that correctly." He turned in an aggrieved circle, eyeing the inhabitants of the bookshop, who seemed irked by the volume at which he was persisting in speaking, and also giving his outfit some askance looks.

He seemed to miss the insult - his mind otherwise occupied, perhaps - and when he turned back to her, it was with the manic gleam in his eye entirely restored. She spun around suddenly, and he blinked, confused by this tactic, one often used on over-excitable dogs. What was more, the angle of the shelves stopped him from being able to get around to her front to continue to harass her. The frustration mounted in his chest and he made an unnerving whining sound in the back of his throat.

"Whatareyoudoing?" he barked irritably.

((IAMSORRYTHISISSOLATE. BUTISUCK.))

[Maximilien Robespierre]

((HAHA. REVENGE OF THE CADEN.))

Pulling up to the curve, he slammed on the break moments before hitting the car in front of him. He swore under his breath, carefully finished parallel parking, and turned off the engine, grateful to have made it to Frill Lake and back to Shawl without incident. (Needless to say, Caden was a terrible driver when he was upset.) He hopped out of the driver's seat, nearly got hit by a passing car, and after successfully giving the other driver a Piece of His Mind, he slammed the door shut. He walked around to the passenger side, and opening the door, unbuckled his camera.

Let it never be said that Caden did not love his camera.

He scooped it up into his arms and swung the camera strap over a shoulder. He hadn't seen the inside of Counsel Books yet (daily commutes to LA did not necessitate frequenting likely subpar local bookshops; apologizing to Basil did). He walked to door, and thinking better of it, stepped over to the front windows. He peered into the back of the shop, carefully checking to ensure that there were no undesirables about (one clerk and one customer; no detectives to speak of). He pushed open the front door, allowing it to slam shut behind him and announce his presence.

He crossed the store slowly, allowing a multitude of shelves to distract him. No matter how many bookstores he went into, he had still never developed the uncanny ability to find exactly the section he was looking for that so many other bookstore devotees had. He poked his nose past innumerable shelves into innumerable corners and saw no mystery section worth speaking of. If they didn't have The Maltese Falcon, he was going to drive all the way to L.A. for it because fuck if he was going to work with Basil with this hanging between them. Silently praying that it was either hobnobbing with the elite in the Classics section or the proprietor had hidden it in plain view exactly where the clerk and the other customer were standing, he walked very slowly through the store toward the pair. Oh, please, please let him have left. He detested interrupting other customers' enquiries, but it was so often necessary that he had developed a sort of personal ritual about it: search on his own until he was sick of the effort, linger about and hope to be noticed, casually cough in a pointed manner, and then the unfortunate Interruption.

He sidled over to the pair. He coughed pointedly. "Hi," he said. "I'm terribly sorry to interrupt your charming tete-a-tete, but I was just wondering where your, um—" He swallowed hard, realizing that he had just walked into tension thick enough to cut with a knife. Oh fuck.

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Zahra had turned back to smirk at the irritated and confused wolf, before there was a cough directed at her. The cough prompted her to spin around, with a somewhat wary look on her face. What if the wolf was trying to distract her by putting another person there? Then he could scale the bookshelves and jump down on her. She wouldn't even have suspected it!

Well, so much for that plan. She was fully on top of it now, and decided to close her mind and fake normalcy in front of what appeared to be an absolutely normal customer.

French was spoken, and Zahra was put back on her guard. Why? Because the French were a nasty bunch who had harassed an incredible amount of people. Of course, the English were no different, and actually, neither were the Egyptians really. So she let her guard down a tiny bit and even allowed a somewhat charming (and not at all frightening either, she was absolutely sure of that) smile slip onto her face.

She allowed a pause to slip into the conversation (which at the moment was nonexistent) before she decided to prompt him onwards. “Don’t worry. The puppy over here was not generating charming conversation. You have no need to worry.”

Over her shoulder, she glared at Raoul before turning back towards Caden. “I’m sure we have whatever it is you’re looking for,” she said, all the while decidedly probing his thoughts for the book, and then closing off her mind so she could remember where it was, and thus appear brilliant and knowledgeable about the bookstore. That was how she knew seemingly instantly, where each book was.

It was a useful little thing, telepathy.

[Maximilien Robespierre]

Suppressing confusion over puppy references (um, what?), Caden looked over the clerk. There was something a little bit off about her, strange pet names aside. What the hell was it? "Oh, yes, I was looking for, er, The Maltese Falcon. Dashiell Hammett wrote it. Mystery novel, 1940s, you know." Yes, she does, idiot. It's a fucking classic. He gave her a bright smile. He really had walked into a quarrel, hadn't he? Oh, goodness. She did look a bit miffed. "I'm sorry, really; I didn't mean to interrupt anything. I'm sure if you just pointed me toward the section I could find it. Don't want to be a bother, really." Oh, please, please let me get away before you get really angry—

Oh. Oh, yes. That was it. For all the two appeared to be in the middle of a passionate argument (probably an old married couple; that would explain her calling him a puppy. Bit cheeky, that), there was only enough anger for one person. She must have been blocking out her own emotions.

What the hell was this?

[geste]

Raoul eyed the newcomer with distrust and suspicion as he interrupted what was rapidly becoming a somewhat awkward confrontation. Secretly glad of the interruption - he could now behave as though he had been stopped by fate from exacting his rightful revenge. He shifted in place, bristling at the jibe from the kittylady - puppy, indeed! - but was unable to phrase an appropriate rebuff before their conversation had moved on. The newcomer man - Raoul inhaled, subtly, to get a glimpse of his scent and thus an insight into what sort of a person he was - was rambling on about some book or another. Something about birds, or something (he may have recognised the title if he hadn't been preoccupied with glowering at Zahra.)

"Puppy," he muttered under his breath, darkly. "Better to be a puppy than a mangy cat." He didn't know, or particularly care, what the newcomer would make of this. The fact remained that he was being left out of this conversation - and after all, he'd found the kitty first.

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Zahra had to grit her teeth in order to not burst out into yowls in front of the customer. Instead, she smiled politely, and managed to turn on her telepathy long enough to get a picture of the book from the customer's mind. They always had useful insights in their subconscious. But it wasn't worth keeping her mind open, (someone was singing that song about mambos and women, and quite frankly, it was annoying), and she shut it immediately.

"If you would follow me, please," she said, and then turned around so that she could face Raoul. "I will not hesitate to give you another one of those," she muttered darkly, eyes flashing as she pointed one finger at the scar on his nose. "I am not afraid of any dog."

Then, she sniffed, and sidled past him, so as to get onto the floor and peer at the bottom-most shelf. She knew it was here: all that she had to do was just find the right one. Two to the left that she was touching, and she pulled it out. "Hmm," she sighed. "Nope."

"Just as I suspected," she said as she stood and brushed off her knees. "It's the next shelf over."

[Maximilien Robespierre]

All this nonsense about mangy cats and puppies. Oh, they were definitely a couple. Lovers' spats always made him a bit queasy. He caught a flash of annoyance, but then it was gone. He narrowed his eyes, giving her a second consideration. Was she— No. No, of course not. "Oh, no, you don't have to show me," he protested dully, following after her. He dropped to his knees next to her and joined her in peering at the book spines.

He rose and smiled at her. "Really, I'm sure that I can find it. I'll just leave you two love birds to it, then."

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Pff. Love birds. When had anyone heard of a decently sane cat corresponding with a dog who was definitely not fit for social contact? Never was the proper response, and Zahra decided that spending a few moments delving into this child's brain would be able to tell her whether or not he was serious. After a quick rifling through his thoughts, she discovered that he was, indeed, serious, and so she decided to educate him.

"You are mistaken," she said curtly, with a slight upwards tilt of an eyebrow. "I neither love, nor truly know this...mangy piece of dog-meat. You are also mistaken in thinking that you can find that book, because I know for a fact that the last customer to look at it decided to hide it behind several other books. I haven't moved it yet, because I thought he might come back to purchase it, but if you are here, then it is yours.

"Follow me now," she said, with a slight wrinkling of her nose as she stalked off towards the next shelf over, which happened to place her out of eye-range of Raoul. She also closed her mind link once more, because she had learned far enough about the human, and also, people thinking about her disturbed her, especially when they were slightly unstable humans as this one doubtlessly was.

[Maximilien Robespierre]

Caden shot her an enormous smug smile. No, of course, you aren't, dear. "Oh, gosh, terribly sorry," he said. "I thought— but I must have been mistaken. How very rude of me." He did try to look abashed; he really did, but it was a terrible struggle and his better (or, rather, worse nature) won out in the end, and he quickly looked down so as to avoid a horrendous faux paus. He wrinkled his nose. His mind felt... funny. Sort of minty, like a cold draft was blowing over it. What was that? It was utterly bizarre, and there were no emotions coming off her, except when he felt like a fucking Altoid. Seriously, what the hell was this? Was she— No. No, no. Not possible.

"I, er—" He must have really offended her then. Oh, shit. And what was— How did— If she was doing what he thought she was doing, heads were going to fucking roll. This was gonna be the second goddam Reign of Terror, and he was fucking Robespierre (or possibly Hérbert). "I'm sorry, but who was this?" Has Basil been poking around for a copy or something? Who else hides books from possible customers? I take it you couldn't just put the book on hold for the poor guy. Classy establishment you're running.

He docilely followed her to the next shelf, hands held behind him. The minty feeling passed, and throwing caution to the wind, he leaned over and muttered to her, "I'm not actually dwelling on the thought of you in pink underwear, you know. That was just passing speculation."