Creek's tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth as he finished the design on my cast. They had taken it upon themselves to decorate it so it wouldn't be as noticeable. Don't know how they thought this would make it less noticeable. I was now sporting a cast with flowers and trees on it. And he had drawn a wolf on it too. It was funny and I liked it. Made it all a little less serious.

"Aaaand there." Creek straightened his back and smiled down at his handiwork. "Now no one will notice the cast, only the sick artwork on it."

"It's like it's not even broken at all," Fred muttered and pushed a terrible tuk-tuk coffee towards me.

"I like it," I said and smiled at Creek. "Better than it just being white. Boring colour."

"White is a pigment, not a colour," Fred pointed out and rolled her eyes.

"It's technically a shade." Creek winked at her.

"Nerds," Abel said and gently grabbed my cast, turning my arm to look at all the designs. "I wonder if cast-art is a thing."

"It should be. I'd be so well-paid," Creek chuckled and shoved one of the strings on their hoodie in their mouth.

"You will be once you graduate and get all the best animator jobs," I said.

Creek smiled that full face smile he had inherited from his mum. So cute.

"It'd be nice, but I'm not counting on it. Besides, it'd mean I'd probably have to leave town, and honestly, I'm not sure I want to, you know? This is home."

"Find a company that allows remote work," I suggested. "Then you wouldn't have to leave, nor give up a dream about being an animator."

"Not bad, wolf-boy." They winked at me, but they couldn't wink with just one eye, so instead they blinked... At me.

Dork.

Doing assignments with my right hand in a cast wasn't exactly the easiest. I decided to just try and make the best of it and make a project about it all. It was the best I could do under the circumstances and my tutor agreed. So, I was doing everything I could with my right hand, and when it started hurting too much or there was something I simply couldn't do, I'd use my left.

I did it to distract myself. Someone out there wanted me dead. Someone had been close. If it hadn't been for Fred, I'd be dead.

I looked at her over my canvas. She was doing these hyper realistic portraits that turned surrealistic by introducing animals. Like a bird flying past the model's face. She was using me in her project as well. I was coming out of a wolf's mouth. The lower half of Cal's face was hidden by feathers. Creek was surrounded by peacocks. Abel had bats flying in front of his face. Her paintings were awe-inspiring. I had fuckall to teach her when it came to oils.

Fred was the kind of girl, who'd underplay her abilities. I wasn't sure why because she was amazing. Like she was so kind, so smart, so talented. And she could do actual magic. She had saved my life, using that magic. Secured my home. With magic.

"Hey Fred," I said and put my canvas down.

She turned her head and looked over at me. She had a smudge of Prussian blue on her cheek. Her hair was barely contained on the top of her head in a messy bun, a bandana around her head to keep all the stray hairs away from her face.

"You're really cool."

She snorted and turned back to her painting, putting in some tiny details into the wings of the bats on Abel's painting. "Why do you say that?"

"I was just looking at your paintings. They're so good."

"You're kidding. What you're doing right now is so much better."

"It looks like shit."

"The concept is amazing. Conceptual art is all about the concept. Your concept is so much stronger than mine. I make pretty pictures of my friends. No one will know what the true concept is."

"What is the true concept?"

"You haven't guessed it yet? I mean, you're literally coming out of the mouth of a wolf."

"I thought it was a bit of an insider joke."

"They all are. Peacocks scream. Vampires and bats have always been connected. And I've actually referenced Cal's feathers."

I nodded a bit and then smirked. "You could always paint nudes of Cal. Something-something about the male and female gaze."

Fred laughed and looked back at me. "If you think I'm not already doing that, you're dumber than I thought. You're not painting Abel in the nude yet?"

I snorted and shook my head. "I don't think he'd enjoy it. The man can't sit still to save his life."

"Nah, but you'd get to see him naked for like a super long time."

I bopped my head from side to side. "That's true. It'd probably be more interesting than landscapes painted with a broken arm. I could title it 'Broken Nudes'."

"I love it already."

I picked at the cast; a string having loosened itself from it. 'The Elders' were talking amongst themselves, and I wasn't sure why I even needed to be there. They could talk security protocols while I painted Abel nude. That had been the plan, but instead I was sitting in Fred's garden, surrounded by Fred's, Cal's, and Creek's family members. Cal's had even flown in to help out with the security. And it was super cool to meet Cal's siblings. She had an older and younger brother.

Fred had three sisters. All older than her. All looked like her too. It was like her parents had just copy-pasted Mila over and over again. Fred's dad looked nothing like his daughters. Where they were quite short, he was tall. And he had a dad-bod. He was also wearing flipflops and glasses that looked like something from a 70's movie. He was also really pale and had red hair. So that was about it for all the daughters had inherited from their dad – his freckles. They made it work though. All of them had this unbothered way of carrying themselves.

Cal's brothers were talking to Fred's sisters and everyone in Cal's family had the same size. All massive. All blonds too. Looked like the cast from a Viking show.

"No, yeah, we're actually moving here."

"Uh, what?" Cal's voice had never been in that high of a pitch before.

"Yeah, we thought it'd be good to have more shifters around to break up that whole dynamic," Cal's older brother, Connor, said.

"Why?" She looked so utterly terrified.

Her younger brother, Cooper, sat down next to me on the garden sofa and smiled at me. I forced an awkward smile back.

"We're moving here. Con and I. But don't worry, I know I look like a total knucklehead, but I'm totally with it." Cooper smiled very brightly.

"I... Don't... With it?" I asked and almost in panic looked after someone to bail me out of this conversation.

"Yeah, like I know Creek is non-binary gendered and you and Fred and Cal are all homosexuals."

Cal buried her head in her hands for a brief moment before looking back at her younger brother. "Coop, no one says 'homosexuals' anymore."

"Why?" He looked at her with wide eyes.

"Because it was an acceptable word but then fundamentalists started using it as a slur, thinking we didn't know they definitely meant it as a slur."

"Ooooh, like how queer and gay were slurs, but they've been reclaimed by the community." He looked so proud of himself.

"The same, but opposite," I said and glanced up at Cal.

"Right, right. I'm gonna go grab a beer. You want one, Gael?"

"Uh, I want one," Cal said but her brother didn't hear her as he was already headed towards the outside fridge.

"I'm sorry, I'm trying to teach him, but he's dumber than a board." She sighed and sat down in the seat Cooper had occupied moments before.

"At least he's trying?" I said and shrugged.

Abel came to the couch too, hauled me off the sofa and stole my seat, grabbing me and getting me into his lab, as if that wasn't a kind of a weird thing to do all of a sudden. I mean, he did it all the time when we were alone, and I guessed he forgot he was in public. Kind of.

I decided to not comment on it but just give his cheek a kiss. He smiled at me and pulled me closer, squeezing me to him.

"I cannot believe my brothers are moving here," Cal muttered.

"Maybe it'll be nice with more shifters," I tried. "Then it's not just you and me. You know?"

She softened a little and nodded. "Yeah, maybe. Just feels weird."

"It's not like they lived that far away anyways, right?" Abel said.

"Oh no, just an hour's drive, give or take." She shrugged a shoulder. "They got a flat downtown. It's not permanent. Other griffons are coming too. Like a couple of my cousins and some of my brothers' friends."

"That sounds pretty cool," I said, hoping to make more friends that could relate to the whole... Turning into an animal.

"I guess. And it's for your safety too." She scratched the side of her head, running her fingers over the whole bald spot on her head.

"You guys alright?" Fred asked and squatted down next to her girlfriend's seat, taking Cal's hand in hers.

"Yeah, I'm... I'm grateful you're all doing this, but I can't help but feel it's... Too much," I admitted.

"Is it though? Remember what Creek's mum talked about? It's not just about you. It went from threats to actual deathly violence. And it can spread like wildfire. First, it's you. Then it's the griffons. Then it's the witches. Then it's the vampires. Who knows, sooner or later it'll be all the supes and then there'll just be the humans."

"And then the humans will join in. It's not like we haven't seen what happens when they go nuts," Cal said and glanced at her girlfriend.

"Huh?" Abel said, looking up at me for answers.

"Witch trials, I reckon," I said and patted his head.

"Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, there were vampire hunters for a while there too. I think they all died, and the descendants were like 'nah fuck that' so now there's not anyone left." Abel shrugged a little and scratched his hair.

"That we know of. Might still be some who're working on a more systemic level. Like how the vampires are working. So, some might be undermining your whole set-up, without you knowing," Fred countered.

Abel shrugged. "I'm not that far into the system to be privy to that kind of information, if it was happening. I'm barely an adult in the community."

"Have you talked to anyone about what's happening here though?" Cal asked. "Might be good with something systemic if it helps us."

"I texted my mum, but she didn't reply so..." He grimaced. It looked like he was about to say something more, but Cooper came back and handed me a beer, smiling widely.

"So, you really didn't bring me one," Cal muttered and rose to her feet, going for the fridge.

Fred took the opportunity to steal her seat. She sent me a cheeky smile and I couldn't help but snort. She had apparently noticed how we were all kind of playing this weird version of musical chairs.