TEST DRIVE #10 - Cetacean Pool and Ten Forward

[tenforward_m]

#1

Option 001. Cetacean Pool/Aquatics Lab: Of all the places in the world, you open your eyes and you find yourself in a medium-sized aquatics laboratory, filled with various living specimens along with various science officers bustling about trying to maintain order. There's much to explore here (and hopefully, in the crew's opinion, not break), but the main attraction is the large pool at the far end of the lab; enormous but tanklike in appearance, it contains several dolphins happily swimming about, seemingly without a care in the world.


2

Option 002. Aboard the Enterprise, Ten Forward: You have no idea what just happened. One minute you were home, and now you're on a spaceship, in the middle of a crowded room. It looks like a bar. There are people eating and drinking, some in uniform, others not. Some are clearly aliens.

You've managed to land in Ten Forward a long bar with barstools and a bartender, tables sprinkled throughout, and the far wall is nothing but windows out to space. It looks like a nice lounge, low conversation making the room hum.

Better ask some questions and find out where you are, or just tap the closest person on the shoulder and try to make friends. The bar is open.

Comments

[wolfmd]

Isaac can’t help the smile when she says her name. “Do you go by Kitty for the irony of it, or…? And of course you can ask. Just try not to pry to deeply into my private life just yet. We only just met!”

But while they’re talking, his meal is giving up a distracting aroma so Isaac carefully cuts the steak in half and pushes the plate between them before carefully cutting his half further into bite-sized pieces. The reason for his closed-mouth smiles is revealed when he takes the first bite; his canine teeth are more like a wolf’s than a human’s.

“At least it tastes as good as it smells.”

[midnighthour]

"Sadly the name Kitty came before the bite. I don't much care for Kathrine." She sighed knowing that he, like man others, would find it silly. It was delightful irony though she didn't much care for the reactions it got her.

Kitty eyed the meat curiously taking a deep breath. She could smell everything, the sterile smell that clung to Isaac's clothes, the scent of fur and then the smells of the room around them. It was clean but it was strange. The air recycled and it didn't taste as fresh as it would in the forest. Then she smelled the meat and while there was something off about it, it smelled good.

When he presents to her the food she stares at it for a moment before picking up her knife and fork. It was strange but Kitty clung to human tendencies and so she was glad. This wasn't like with a pack though it was hard to slip away from that mentality. She took a bite as well her eyes taking in the sight of his pointed teeth. Just how often did he change for that to happen? She hadn't seen that before, even with TJ who she worried was going to become a wolf and then never turn back. Thinking of TJ stung and so she shifted her thoughts.

"It is." She agreed tossing another piece in her mouth. "So." She lightly tapped her teeth with the edge of her fork. "I've never seen that before. Though I haven't met many others." Besides the pack she left behind. "Is it normal?"

[wolfmd]

Isaac spends a moment more chewing and swallowing before he answers. He shakes his head a little, smiling. "Ah, it's all coming together now. I'm going to guess that your strain doesn't work exactly like mine. I'd peg you for a gray wolf, but you smell a little different. For most of us, though, we're born this way, so we show the signs a little more obviously than those who end up becoming Weres later in life."

He sits back a little, looking her over. He can smell her, but the physical signs he'd usually look for aren't there. Even bitten, there should be some sign of change. In the teeth or eyes, at the very least. "I'm going to guess, if things are similar, you didn't choose this life? But kudos for not letting it force you to change who you are; I can't be the first one who brought up the name."

[midnighthour]

She smiled. “You’re not.” She was pretty sure her name was just some ironic joke considering her situation but she didn’t let it bother her.

That was interesting. Kitty kept eating but her sights were trained on the wolf in front of her. “Born this way? Does that mean you can’t turn others?” She wanted to know. She wanted to know everything about the wolves he knows. Where there people like her old pack leader there too? For all she knew he was like that. She couldn’t imagine that pack dynamics would be different but then there was something else nagging at her thoughts.

Werewolves could have kids? She watched him trying to keep the awe and shock from her features. She knew what would happen if she got pregnant. It would end up as a miscarriage because the child wouldn’t be able to withstand the change. Then again, maybe he meant something different. She didn’t know but she was going to find out.

With her curiosity peeked, her wolf settled into a patient silence. There was nothing threatening about him yet even though he looked more wolf than she did. “I know of people who’ve let the wolf take over. They usually have those sorts of traits and eventually they don’t turn back.”

[wolfmd]

"I wish" Isaac sighs, expression going a little guarded.

"It's entirely too easy to transmit. For all the information it carries, the virus is very small, so it saturates our cells and intercellular fluid. If I'm not careful, I could expose an infection risk to every human in this room. Or other species, if they're susceptible. And it's vertically transmitted from mother to child too. Somewhere between forty to sixty percent result in very early miscarriages, but usually, if the fetus survives the first five to six weeks, it will be carried to term. Overall, we're very healthy! But you probably know that already."

Isaac is careful, though, and doesn't have to worry about things like that with another Were so he makes himself relax a bit.

"Back to the physical signs, because I've been a werewolf since pretty much literally conception, the signs are more obvious. Someone who's infected later, say, childhood or teens, will probably show more obvious signs than someone who's infected after adolescence. My-- ah, well, biological father, has the teeth too, but they're smaller and blunter than mine, because he accepted the change when my biological mother was courting him."

He's almost done explaining when she adds the last bit, and it's obvious surprise. "We have to change once a month, or it will eventually kill us. Granted! It doesn't mean going both ways. Some Weres I've met prefer to live one month human, and then the next in their other form, but most of us change in the evening, and then change back in the morning. As long as we're eating well enough, we can change whenever we want, otherwise, and if someone's out of sync with their pack, they can use that fact to push the change back, but never more than two weeks or so."

[midnighthour]

Kitty listened curiously eating her food every now and again when she realized it was there. The wolf was hungry, very hungry but she couldn’t look away from the man in front of her. He was so very different than her and she wondered if he could teach her a little bit more about being a werewolf. She couldn’t say she wanted another packed or anything like that after her last encounter with one but she was a lost pup who hadn’t been taught to hunt in fear that she would leave the pack. Of course, in the end she did leave but she was forced away. She ran.

There was a soft sigh as he finished, her eyes glancing down at the stake for a long moment before eating more. It was a submissive gesture, looking away and she did it without realizing it. How long did she think she could last alone anyway? It wasn’t as if she could easily trust again.

Her eyes flicked up at him watching him for a moment before she spoke. “Some things I know are close to that. There are small differences. I have to change once a month as well but I don’t control when it happens.” She always related it to her period. “I don’t think I can have kids of course I’ve never thought about that before anyway.” She wasn’t sure she wanted kids or that she’s want to bring a little werewolf into the world. It was a hard thing to live with though perhaps not as hard if it comes from birth.

He was something that Kitty hadn’t ever seen before and she was hesitant to ask for help. Except that she was alone, on a spaceship without any other wolves or a forest to run through. It was lonely and she knew that it might eventually drive her mad. She looked at him evenly, her human side more present than her wolf.

“I want to trust you.” Kitty’s words were straight forward but there was doubt in her tone. She had been hurt so many times before.

[wolfmd]

"Most young or new Weres can't really control the monthly change. I'm only now just getting to the point where I could change my cycle, but at this point I don't see the point in the extra effort. New moon or full moon doesn't make much of a difference; I still need a specific night off a month. Holding it back even one or two nights can get to the point of making work impossible, so I'd need to take time off, and well-- Residents don't get the time."

Isaac smiles at her, and at the statement. He can understand that. "It's hard, isn't it? I want to trust you too, but strange place, no pack... It's hard to feel secure enough to trust."

[midnighthour]

Kitty put down her fork and knife studying Isaac closely. "Let's just say I have bad memories of my last pack and I don't think I'll want to be under someone else control again." She hated and loved every moment of it because that's what the alpha did. She had always been infatuated with him feeling the need to be a good pup but she wanted to be Kitty too. She couldn't handle the abuse.

She looked away defiantly not wanting to say more. She felt as if she had already told him to much, maybe because the scar hasn't fully healed yet. She smiled her best friend, she missed her show knowing that it wouldn't really work on a spaceship and now she missed the forest. To add to that, one of those three were never coming back.

"I'm not really sure what to do here. I guess the first step is finding a safe place to change." Kitty already felt the wolf pulling at her senses. She wanted to hunt and she knew that her change would come in a little less than a week.