FIC: Moon Dreams I - Wolf Moon Rising (4/7)

["another_soul_lost" <anotherlostsoul@xxxxxxxxx>]

Title:  Moon Dreams I (4/7)
Disclaimer:  Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and a lot of other people own
the show and all the characters.  The plot and the story are mine. 
This cannot be sold or used for profit in any way, shape or form. 
Please don't sue me, because I really don't have anything to take.  

* * * * *

"Willow, sweetie& you're a werewolf."

It was absolutely absurd.  My mother's words hung in the air between
us like the fading rumble of a major earthquake and the only reaction
that I could manage was a burst of manic-sounding laughter. 

She's gotta be kidding.

Right?

"You're kidding right?" I winced as my voice shattered the silence
that had fallen in the wake of my momentary bout of insane giggling. 
"I mean, okay, yeah, so vampires are real and one of my best friends
is a Vampire Slayer and Xander had to stake Jesse when he got turned.
And yes, Amy's mom was a psycho witch that stole her own daughter's
body to join the cheerleading squad.  And then the substitute biology
teacher turned out to be a giant preying mantis that wanted to mate
with Xander and then eat him&but werewolf?  Me? I don't& I can't& it
just doesn't&" 

It was the look on my mother's face that drove home the realities of
the situation for me.  Her expression never wavered from one of
shocked horror at what I had been through as she reached out to try
and comfort me.  No disbelief, no denial, no `that's impossible'. She
knew about the things that go bump in the night and she wasn't kidding.  

Shock doesn't even begin to describe what I felt.  It was like someone
had physically beaten me.  I literally ached all over as the reality
of it sank in.  "No," I whispered pushing myself away from her.  I
scrambled backwards, landing gracelessly on the floor with a bruising
thump as I ran out of room on the bed and I didn't stop until my bare
back hit the cool plaster of my bedroom wall.  "No, it can't be& I
can't be& I'm not a monster& no."  I could feel the tears flowing
freely down my face and I fought to control my growing sobs.

I heard my mother sigh softly as she moved gracefully from the bed to
sit on the floor next to me and wrap her arms around me.  "You're not
a monster, Willow," she whispered softly, her voice clear even over
the racking sobs that had taken hold of me.  "Everything is going to
be okay, you'll see.  It'll all be alright."

"How can I NOT be a monster?" I asked, my voice shrill with emotion,
"I'm a WEREWOLF!  That's right up there with vampires on the monster
scale!" And there it was.  I said it aloud, admitted that I believed
her, that I knew, somehow, that she was telling me the truth.  I
crumbled into my mother's embrace, crying and wanting nothing more
than to be held and comforted.

She began to rock me gently, soothing me the way she always had as a
child, whispering soft reassurances that everything would be okay,
that it would be alright.  I desperately wanted to believe her, to
accept her words as truth.  I wanted everything to be okay, but being
okay seemed like an idea that was so far away that I could never reach
it again.  

Finally, after what seemed like hours, I began to calm down. 
Emotionally, I was exhausted, numb.  I wiped feebly at the drying
tears on my face.  Mom continued to hold me close, gently stroking my
hair now that the worst of my breakdown was past.  She waited
patiently, wearing what I'd always jokingly referred to as her
psychologist face, the same manner that she used in dealing with
traumatized teenagers.  The rational part of my brain realized, that
that's pretty much exactly what she was dealing with right now, the
teenager just happened to be me this time.

"You are not a monster, Willow," she said firmly.  "Natural Weres are
no more monsters than their human sides make them.  You are a healthy,
well-adjusted teenage girl, Willow, who just happens to not be
entirely human.  You are no more a monster than your friend Bunny&
She's the Vampire Slayer you mentioned, right?"

I sat up in shock, pulling away just a little to look my mother in the
face, "How did you know about Buffy being the Slayer? And what do you
mean a natural Were?  And how do you know about all this stuff?  Why
didn't you tell me before?"  My emotional numbness was slipping away,
replaced by a growing sense of shock and anger about the things that
my mother had clearly been keeping from me.

Wisely my mother held up a hand and cut me off before I could work
myself into a temper tantrum.  "We have a lot that we need to talk
about Willow, a lot of things we'll need to work through between us
before this is over.  But before we talk about anything else, you need
to eat.  It's been more than 12 hours since you ate, and having gone
through your first Change today, you need food or you're going to make
yourself sick."

I started to protest that I wasn't hungry, but my stomach betrayed
that thought by growling loudly at the mention of food.  I blushed
embarrassedly, evoking a smile from my mother.  "Put something on and
come downstairs," she ordered as she stood up casually, gently
reminding me of the fact that I was sitting completely naked on the
floor of my unlit room.  

My mother turned on the lamp on my bed-side table before she left the
room, leaving me to gather my thoughts and get dressed.  I stood
slowly and caught sight of myself in the full-length mirror on the
back of my closet door.  I looked different, proving once more that
something had changed.  

My hair was a darker, more vibrant shade of red now, and much of the
length of it seemed hopelessly tangled together.  My eyes were a
somewhat paler shade of green now, a more translucent color than the
darker green had been.  My eyes drifted down over my nude body noting
other obvious changes.  In some places my muscles were tighter and
more toned than they'd ever been, yet in other places I was gaunt,
almost unhealthily thin.

Suddenly it seemed odd to me that I could so openly examine my body. 
That I could stand here naked and unashamed.  I could remember being
embarrassed about being naked before, but now the idea of being
bashful about my body seemed distant, almost alien.  I shrugged and
filed that thought aside among the other things that I needed to
discuss with my mother.  Maybe she'd have some answers.

I opened my closet door and pulled a long, terry-cloth bathrobe off
the hook inside the door, wrapping it around me and tying it off. 
`There,' I thought, `that's dressed enough for now.'  As I turned to
head down to the kitchen, I caught a whiff of a scent I couldn't place
but that instantly set my mouth watering and my stomach growling and I
realized that I was hungry enough to eat a whole cow.  The scent got
stronger as I moved toward the kitchen and I suddenly knew that it was
raw meat that I smelled.  And it smelled delicious.

As I stepped into the kitchen, I noticed immediately that my mother
had laid out a tray of cold-cuts and cheese and was putting a couple
of good sized steaks under the broiler as I entered the room.  Without
even turning she spoke, "Sit.  Eat.  Your metabolism will be working
overtime for the next few weeks as your body recovers and adapts to
your Changes.  You'll need to eat a few large meals a day and snack
almost constantly.  You need lots of protein and carbohydrates to stay
healthy or your body will consume its own mass.  You'd actually do
better to push protein over carbs, but they'll do in a pinch."

"How do you know about all this stuff, mom?  Are you a werewolf too?"
I asked around bites of meat and cheese as I began eating.

She looked at me with a slightly sad expression on her face before
answering, "No, honey, I'm not a werewolf."

"How come I'm a werewolf anyway?  Don't you have to be bitten to
become a werewolf? Or is that just folklore, like vampires being able
to fly?"  I suddenly realized just how quickly I was eating and was
tempted to try and slow down, but I was too hungry for that just yet.
The irony of wolfing down this part of my meal was not entirely lost
on me.

"What do you know about werewolves, Willow?"  Mom asked, as she turned
back to her cooking, placing a frying pan on the stove.

I shrugged and then realized that with her back to me, she couldn't
see the gesture.  "Nothing really," I said around a large bite of
cheese, "Just what I've seen in movies, TV, and read in myths.  The
obvious stuff, silver bullets, full moons& you know."

She sighed, and I knew in that moment that she was more than a little
frustrated.  "Well, you can forget most of that Hollywood garbage and
most of the mythology too.  Both are so full of misinformation that
it's not funny."  Mom reached into the fridge and pulled out a gallon
of milk and poured me a tall glass of it before leaving the entire jug
handy for me to refill the glass as needed.

I greedily gulped down the contents of the glass as Mom took a deep
breath and began to explain.  "First off, werewolves are not unique. 
There are a dozen or so different species of were-animals and most of
them share certain basic traits."

"Really?  What kind of other Weres are there?" I asked, my curiosity
getting the better of me as she continued to cook while she talked,
frying up eggs in the now hot pan, as well as checking and turning the
steaks.

"Well, there are a few different species of were-canines, like wolves,
coyotes and jackals, as well as a number of different were-cats:
lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars," Mom paused thoughtfully before
continuing.  "There are also hyenas, foxes, bears and rats, and a few
non-mammal species like ravens and alligators."  

The list was pretty surprising to me.  "Wow!  How come I've never
heard of anything but werewolves before?" I asked, as I continued to
shovel down food at a rate that would have made Xander proud.

"Well, wolves are probably the most common.  Natural wolf species are
native to Europe, Asia, and Africa as well as North and South
America," she answered, slipping into her lecturer mode.  "It's also a
cultural thing.  Many of the other species are much more common in
legends and myths of the Far East, Africa, and South America.  Of
course, it also doesn't help that the wolf and other canine forms are
the most contagious."

That one word made my heart skip a beat.  My condition was contagious,
I could infect other people.  Up until this point in the conversation,
I had hoped that I might still have a chance at a normal life, a
possibility that seemed suddenly to slip away from me leaving a cold
emptiness in my gut.  "Contagious?" I asked in a half-whisper.

Mom didn't pause as she pulled the steaks out from the broiler and
dumped the largest of them on my plate along with several fried eggs
and placed the food in front of me.   "Stop worrying and eat," she
said softly, "And I'll explain everything you need to know."

The smell of the hot food in front of me hit me physically, despite
the fact that I'd already eaten an entire tray of cold-cuts and
cheeses.  I half-nodded and picked up the fork and knife my mother had
set out for me, digging in quietly as I listened.

"Now then, there are three possible ways a person can end up becoming
a Were.  You can inherit it like any other hereditary condition, you
can be bitten, or you can be cursed by a very powerful witch or
sorcerer.  Anyone who becomes a Were through the first two methods is
considered a natural Were.  You are a natural Were because you
inherited your wolf through my side of the family.  Your grandfather
and all of your maternal uncles are werewolves, which is why I know so
much about it."

"What about your sister, Aunt Claire?" I asked, curious about my only
other female relative on my mother's side.

She shook she her head, "It's extremely rare for women to be born
hereditary werewolves.  It hasn't happened in our family line for
almost 150 years now.  That's why I never told you anything about
this, the odds of you being a werewolf were so small that I thought
you'd be better off not knowing."

"That rare, huh?  My money's on the Hellmouth being responsible then,"
I muttered as I continued to stuff my face.

"Hellmouth?" Mom's eyes widened at the term and she swallowed hard. 
"What's a Hellmouth and why would it be responsible?"

"You don't know?" I was sort of surprised by that, after all, she knew
so much already.  "Sunnydale sits on top of what Giles, that's Buffy's
Watcher, calls a `center of mystical convergence'.  The walls between
dimensions are thin here and it attracts all sorts of magical badness
to the area, vampires, witches, other demon-y things.  You didn't know
about any of that?  Early Spanish settlers called the area `Boca Del
Infierno' or the Hellmouth."

Mom seemed lost in thought for a few minutes as I continued to eat. 
My hunger was finally starting to subside and it was about time, I
felt like I'd eaten a ton.  "I just sort of figured that all that
mystical energy floating around might make something that rare, a lot
more likely to happen," I offered, explaining my train of thought.

That startled Mom out of her contemplation and back into the
conversation.  "It's possible I suppose& I'm just sorry that I never
realized how dangerous this town really was, I never really gave much
thought to why there seemed to be so many vampire attacks around here."

She shook herself slightly, and steered the conversation back to me,
"Anyway, natural born Weres, like you, can learn to control when you
Change.  You're not tied to the moon or any other conditions, but fear
or anger can cause your control to slip and make you Change
involuntarily.   You are also going to have to learn to cope with and
moderate your beast."

"My beast?" I asked, interrupting again.  "What do you mean, beast?"

"It's one thing common to all Weres, pumpkin.  As a hereditary Were,
your first change woke up a spirit that's been asleep inside you since
birth.  It's a part of you and it always has been, and it's probably
even influenced you without you realizing it at times.  It's the part
of you that makes it possible for you to Change, your animal-spirit,
your beast, your inner-wolf."

As she spoke those words, I felt what she was talking about.  Felt the
wolf-energy inside me stir, stretch and move.  It was warm and strong,
powerful.   I could feel my beast prickle along the surface of my
flesh, making its presence known.  It was like nothing I'd expected;
there was no darkness in it, no bloodlust, and no evil intent.  It
merely was.  I could feel it brush against my conscious, human mind
and felt the surge of its instincts, its primal urge to run free under
the moon, to hunt, to mate, to find my pack and protect it.  I could
feel its strength flowing through my body, could feel my body tingling
with it.  It was a good feeling.  

Ever so slowly the feeling receded, as if the wolf settled back down,
curling up within me, resting and acknowledging that now was not the
time to Change.  Not the time to indulge its ancient yearnings and
animal desires.  My body was too tired, too weak from my earlier
Change to endure another and both the wolf and I knew it.  It was
content for now and the rest would come in its own time.

I realized suddenly that my mother had fallen quiet as my beast
stirred and was now watching me with a strange look of longing on her
face.  "Mom," I asked quietly, "what's wrong?"

She shook her head slightly, taking on a more neutral expression,
"It's nothing Willow.  I just& it's nothing."

That it wasn't `nothing' was pretty obvious.  Something was definitely
upsetting my mother, and I was having a hard time figuring out what. 
She didn't seem upset that I was a werewolf, and all things
considered, why would she?  She grew up with three werewolf brothers
and a werewolf father.  So why the sad looks when I asked if she was a
werewolf?  Could that have been longing I'd seen before? 

Suddenly the answer seemed so obvious that I couldn't believe I hadn't
put it together quicker.

"You want this," I whispered as I realized what was going on, "you
grew up around werewolves but never became one yourself, even though
you wanted badly to be like your brothers&"

Mom nodded her head sadly, without speaking.  

"Why didn't you?" I asked, confused by the realization, "If you wanted
it so much, surely one of my uncles or even grandpa would have bitten
you if you just asked?"

"It's not that easy, pumpkin," she replied sadly.  "Very few people
become shifters by being bitten.  The bite causes massive physical
changes putting incredible strain on the body, only someone very
healthy and very strong can survive it."  She sighed softly before
continuing, "Besides as the child of a werewolf, I'm immune to Were
bites, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway."

A pungent and bitter scent I had never smelled before flooded the air
as she spoke, assaulting my nostrils.  Before I could even wonder at
it, my wolf side supplied the answer:  it was my mother's sadness and
disappointment that I could smell.  "Is it normal for me to be able to
smell emotion now?  Cause it just seems kinda strange to me&" I asked,
consciously shifting the subject away from my mother's yearning.

She grinned and blushed faintly before answering, "Yes, your sense of
smell and hearing are going to be very acute even in your human form
from now on, so you'd better get used to it."  

"Great," I grumbled sarcastically, "that should just be loads of fun
in high school."

"Well, there are some other benefits," she offered with an even wider
smile.

Now that peaked my curiosity and I turned my attention fully to the
discussion, the sparse remnants of my dinner forgotten now that my
hunger was sated.  "Really?  Like what?"

"Well, you're way stronger than a human now.  You remember your Uncle
Jack?" I nodded quickly.  "He could bench-press around half a ton
easily within a couple weeks of his first Change."  My eyes went wide
at that.  That would make me stronger than Buffy& "And you'll heal
incredibly fast too.  I've seen minor injuries heal so quick you
almost watch them fade away and even serious injuries can be healed
quickly just by Changing."

`With abilities like those, I might even be able to help Buffy,
protect her and keep her alive longer,' I realized with growing
excitement.  

"Oh when I Change, do I become a wolf-wolf or a wolf-man thing like in
the movies?  And how often will I be able to Change?" I was beginning
to let my excitement at the possibilities slip through, and it made my
mom smile.  "And does it really take silver to kill me or is that just
more Hollywood stuff like the full moon?"

"Well, at first when you Change, it'll be into a wolf, but with a lot
of concentration and practice you can learn to stop in the wolf-man
form too." She answered quickly, "And you'll eventually be able to
Change whenever you want for the most part, but that will take
practice.  The first few Changes are exhausting, but they will get
better after that.  And unfortunately the silver thing is just a bunch
of Hollywood crap.  Anything that's capable of doing serious damage to
your heart or your brain can kill you, pretty much anything else will
heal up."  

I nodded, suddenly finding myself utterly exhausted, and yawned loudly
before I could stop myself.  I blinked my eyes repeatedly, having
great difficulty focusing on anything for more than a moment.  "Mom?"
I managed to make that word a question before being cut off by a
second massive yawn.

"This is normal too sweetie, now that you've eaten enough your body is
dealing with the new changes.  You'll sleep a lot for the next couple
of days."  I could see her soft smile, despite my eyes' refusal to
focus clearly for more than a second.  "Let's get you up to bed."

I followed her tiredly up the stairs, plagued by the thought that I
was overlooking something or someone that I should have been concerned
about.  Oh well, I'd figure it out after I got some sleep.






"It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in."
"I kinda love you."
Buffy & Willow, 'Choices'

Community email addresses:
       Post message: buffyloveswillow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
       Subscribe:    buffyloveswillow-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
       Unsubscribe:  buffyloveswillow-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
       List owner:   buffyloveswillow-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shortcut URL to this page:
       http://groups.yahoo.com/group/buffyloveswillow

Offical archive for the list:
       http://www.ikoly.com/fanfic 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/buffyloveswillow/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
   buffyloveswillow-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
   http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/