Full Moon High - An Unusual Date Pt. 1

And it was then a familiar warm feeling crept across his face as the image of her flashed into his mind: Maria the girl he had fallen for after everything that had happened to him, the one girl that made him feel like he could love again. It didn’t matter what part of her he imagined, from her tanned completion, lovely body, to brilliant determined mind, every individual part sent his heart a flutter and his brain into overdrive. Suddenly something gripped him and he charged brazenly up the steps almost jumping the last three before almost diving at the door bell in excitement. Yet his finger stopped five millimetres from the button and he very deliberately straightened up and coughed nervously at his brash action, he really shouldn’t have let himself get caught off guard by that, after all it was just Maria. He paused and thought again: ‘just Maria. ’

Letting his eyes dart around for a second, he placed the box and paper wrapped bag on the window sill before glancing up and looking at his reflection in the front window.

‘God he was a mess’. He had scrubbed vigorously before making the trip to the house by public transportation: true he could have run, and in all things considered if he had it wouldn’t have changed the problem he was now glaring at. His snow white hair he had painstakingly combed and slicked back with generous amounts of hair gel was now once again returning to look like his untidy and messy bed hair, only worse. It was wilder, spikier and even more untamed sticking up naturally as strands fell down around his dazzling emerald green eyes. Producing a comb from within his chest pocket Arthur began to try and prune himself again, but found the gel was now working against him as it got tangled in his thick and dense locks. Groaning he pulled the comb out and stared at himself, and couldn’t help but think how ugly he was. Seriously despite hitting the 6ft mark as of two nights ago his face with its square jaw, straight triangular nose, pronounced cheek bones, light stubble and evenly spaces eyes and brows certainly looked disgusting as he examined his sixteen year old face in the glass. And the problems had only gotten worse since the transformation those few short days ago, the day when he turned.

While he had never said it, and seriously would have never liked to admit it, things like that little dive forwards up the steps and his hair acting out of turn were only a few things he had been noticing since that night barely a week ago. That night his immunity broke and he became a werewolf. Normally he would never rush towards a person’s house, normally he would only run when he needed to, and otherwise he could be more easily spotted causing all sorts of problems. Namely a splitting headache which didn’t seem to let up no matter what he took or how long he slept. The fact silver was now a hazard. And his hair! He stopped and glared at the untamed wild locks that poked in all directions, wildly defying gravity as they jutted out like razor sharp edges around his head. To Arthur he looked like a human pin cushion, a stupid, ridiculous, ugly pin cushion, which was trying to get the girl of his dreams to notice him. Gulping he rubbed his eyes, really what was he doing here, he knew full well Maria was not going to take him seriously, why would she, she only found out about his crush as of a week ago when he turned, and even before that while he could tell she felt more than she said, Arthur was too scared to analyse if what he felt towards her was a mutual feeling or momentary surprise: after all what if she wasn’t and just humouring him. It really caused his head to hurt, and as he rubbed his face he instinctively let out a small low growl of frustration: and suddenly he stopped. Had he just growled?

Opening his eyes Arthur stared back into the glass and let out a sigh as he looked into those deep brown eyes. He froze, those were not his eyes, and the smiling lips of the Pouter-Rican girl looked back at his for a split second before returning to her usual stone faced expression. And suddenly Arthur’s heart went a flutter as he just stared back at Maria. The feelings hitting him all at once as one thought was going through his brain: this was happening he was going out with Maria DeBlanc.

As the door latch clicked and the bronzed goddess stepped out in her jeans and brown jacket that stopped just above her navel she nodded at Arthur who’s hand was still hovering a few inches from where he had rubbed his eyes. His hands rapidly snatched up the two objects he had brought with them and holding them out towards Maria, like they had metal guarders slapped into them. Maria of course took the brown paper bag first unfolding the presents sheets and looking down at the dazzling array of white lilly flowers that rose up out of the plastic arrangements that bond them together. Her head titled as she inspected them and she took in a deep breath and smiled.

To Maria the smell was intoxicating: the aroma of the flowers was amazing, more so than a normal human as her werewolf senses picked up on the tiniest change in the scent, causing her to get lost in the details. Arthur could smell it to, its why he had chosen them of course, while he may not have enjoyed his turning, especially with how it had mutilated his human and wolf bodies, he had to admit the new senses were neat. Well until car alarms started going off after you jumped on them: they hurt a lot. Still going from five foot to six feet in one night after your body rips you in half from conflicting magic’s still didn’t make him feel any less guilty from his initial rampage. And boy did he already miss having blond hair, losing every colour follicle from almost dying that evening really didn’t improve his mood.

“They are nice” Maria said rather bluntly dragging Arthur back from his own riddled brain causing him to choke out a response.

“Your welcome… I um… smelt them an…” Arthur froze as he realised what he had said. “I mean saw them and thought of you!”

For moment both of them stared at each other, as Maria glanced up from the flowers and simply looked at him, with one brown eyebrow raised. Arthur meanwhile chewed his tongue as he resisted the urge to reach out and use him empathic abilities to tell if everything was okay. He secretly cursed himself for his own stupidity as he tried with all his might to stay calm. Maria meanwhile could only take a single deep breath as she let the comment slide unimpeded and only watched as Arthur slowly let a nervous smile manifest itself across his face.

Leaning back inside the house, Maria placed the flowers down without a word and took a step outside the door, straightening her clothes as she did. “Ready to go,” she asked a still dumfounded Arthur, who was still struggling to find any words?

Indeed as Maria has stepped out Arthur had been taken aback by the young girl before him as his eyes darted up and down instinctively inspecting her. Arthur had to admit she look absolutely gorgeous in her blue jeans, white top and brown jacket that ended just above her naval. And for those awkward twelve seconds one thought permeated Arthur’s mind, ‘wow!’

Maria meanwhile could only role her eyes as she saw this and taking charge she grabbed him by the scruff of his white, red jacket and began to haul him down the steps and across the garden.

“Come on,” she said in her same cool emotionless tone as she dragged him along, only letting go after they past the gate and were firmly on their way towards the city centre.

Across the street though a small head of pink hair popped out of a bush as Maria marched off at a brisk pace as Arthur quickly trotted up beside her and began to steadily mutter an apology.  Vivian grinned as she watched the two walk off, and pulled herself out of the bush darting after them. ‘Arthur is going to need some help,’ the young dragon girl thought as she followed them, ‘and I aim to please.’

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Deciding on a place to eat out took very little time for the two werewolves, Ulysses dinner was an old eighties styled restaurant that while never entered into the top tens or twenty places to eat out in Everett had remained a respectable venue since its opening there thirty years ago. Its classic red leather booths, shimmering floor and metallic reflective counter all screamed classic eat out, but its reputation for decent food had kept it steady location for young couples for years. At least that’s what Arthur had read on the website.

On entering the pair were instantly met by a young and preppy girl in a pink eighties styled dress complete with big curly hair who  guided them to one of the booths and asked for their drinks. After ordering a pair of soft drinks the pair sat down and took in their surroundings.

Maria had personally never been to a place like this, still she kept her usual calm as she casually grabbed one of the menus and began to look through what to order. Arthur meanwhile was looking left, right and centre as he took in the atmosphere, a life living on the move had always meant he had never gotten to stay in one place very long: so catching all the details he could was a big part of him. Still it looked like that same dinner he had visited when he was about ten.

“So Arthur… tell me about yourself,” Maria suddenly asked not looking up from her menu as she turned it over to look at the deserts.

Left blinking in surprise Arthur came back to his senses and nervously gave a grin, “well you know as much as I have told you before, but I am guessing you want to know about my personal life?”

“Yes,” stated Maria flatly placing the menu down and staring at the rugged Arthur with her dark down eyes.

Caught up in the radiance of the tanned beauty Arthur tried to chuckle a response “well I haven’t had much of a social live living on the move, only really ever had my sister and father for company. But I do or rather did have a few friends overseas but well…” he trailed off chewing his lip as he looked down at the palm of his hands, “I doubt they would really accept me after my recent… change,” he chocked. He once again felt that same heavy pressure build up in his brain.

Maria nodded knowing full well of Arthur’s past as a monster hunter meant leaving his whole life behind when he and his sister ran from their father. Still she herself was also caught flat footed by Arthur’s own question, “what about you?”

Maria had to think for a moment, it was true she was one of the most popular girls at her school but it was difficult to put into words. “Well…” she began mulling over her own thoughts with familiar stoicism, “I have always been popular for the only reason being that I have always done what I wanted to, so I have always had a lot of attention. Still that comes with a sort of stigma,” she explained feeling a knot tightening in her chest that thanks to years of practice did not show on her face. “People admire me, and they hate me. I try hard and focus a lot on wining and well that…”

“Drives a wedge between you and others” interjected Arthur softly reaching over the shiny metal table and taking her hands.

Maria raised an eyebrow at this but did not recoil. “It doesn’t sound like you had much room to be popular since you were living on the move half your life?”

“No, but for a while things were shaky between me and my sister, that and other Order children typically are raised to be very competitive, and when I was younger I was no different: I am not saying it’s the same just… similar” Arthur tried to say looking back at her with a soft expression, but eventually looking down and away towards the floor. God his head was pounding.

Maria however felt the knot in her chest tighten and she pulled her hands away and nodded, “right” she said curtly before looking around for the women in the pink dress, “did you see where the waitress went?”

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Meanwhile in the kitchen the same waitress was currently finding herself pressed up against the wall by a rather preppy pink haired girl, who with surprising strength that kept her from running.

 “So-o I have a request,” the apparent fifteen year old asked smiling up at the waitress, “my two friends are currently outside on a date and I want it to go really well, so I was wondering if you could say… you take an order from me and say it was on the house, just to help them along.”

This was highly unusual. Only two months on the job and the waitress was already a little taken aback by this bizarre request and could only stammer an awkward response as she tried to look around for help, only to find both the chefs out on lunch break, “I-I… I am sorry miss umm…”

“Vivian”

“Vivian, but we don’t do requests like that, it would give customers the wrong idea and they may come back expecting more free food.”

The youthful Vivian could only gleam at this obstacle her whole expression relishing the challenge that the young chef was putting up. “Aww come on, if you do this I will pay double,” she teased waving a large wad of cash she had pulled from her pockets.

“No I can’t,” the girl said hastily only for Vivian eyes to light up suddenly with a mauve pink flash, causing the girl to shake her head in surprise.

“Triple” Vivian then asked pouting.

The waitress tried to stammer another response but Vivian placed a finger on the teenager’s lips and grinned. “And I will throw in a free ticket for my families spa, it’s been getting rave reviews” waving the ticket in front of the big haired girls eyes almost mesmerising her.

The young waitress gulped as she reached for her notepad.

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“So what do you do for fun” Arthur asked excitedly as he kept staring at Maria with a warm smile, trying his best not to show his nerves on his face.

Maria however didn’t immediately hear as the Puerto Rican was now staring out of the window at a poor kid who was being dragged along six small dogs: for another split second a smile flashed across her face before Arthur turned to see what she was looking at.

“Poor guy,” he commented solemnly causing Maria to look at him her momentary smile fading back into her controlled stern expression.

“Agreed… what did you say by the way?”

“Oh,” a flustered Arthur tried to say as he quickly racked his brains to five seconds ago and quickly repeated what he said, “what do you do for fun?”

Laying back in the read leather seats the girl shrugged as she adjusted her head band and merely began to chat about it casually. “Well I like billiards… I think you have that in England?”

Arthur shrugged “I’m technically welsh Maria. But I have seen the game all over the world… umm maybe you could show me how to play sometime,” to which Maria nodded with a slight smile. “Anything else,” Arthur than asked enthusiastically almost bobbing up and down in his seat?

“Archery,” Maria said flatly, “then again you have seen me use my pistols from time to time, but yeah I enjoy that too. I relish good marksmanship,” she stated as she leaned closer across the metallic table and looked at Arthur’s green eyes, causing the white haired boy to blush massively. “So do you know how to handle guns” she then asked softly causing Arthur’s eyes to dart down to her chest and cause him to mealy hit himself for that lapse. He couldn’t think with this headache.

“Ummm… err no, I don’t lik… I mean I can handle or rather use guns, yeah but I prefer… ummm… swords yeah, I like using swords, it requires more skill… I mean umm” Maria’s face flashed with annoyance as he mentioned that last part to which Arthur quickly tried to recover by saying, “well what I mean sword fighting takes a lot longer to learn and… I am digging myself a hole aren’t I?”

Maria raised one eyebrow and shook her head as she reached for the menu a second time and began to read through it.

“Sorry,” Arthur muttered as his apologies were met on deaf ears.

“Hey you two,” came the upbeat and preppy voice of the waitress, “we saw you two were having fun so we decided to give you a little something on the house, a onetime deal,” she said cheerfully holding two bowls of soup and placing them in front of Maria and Arthur. “It’s our special soup, it is quite expensive but since you two look so cute together we felt you deserved it,” she announced happily before reaching into her pocket and fiddling around for a second with an awkward smile managed to finally pull out and throw into the air some confetti that fell through the air and landed on both Arthur and Maria. “Enjoy,” the waitress added before almost practically running off back to the kitchen.

“Thank you” Arthur called after her before staring down at the red soup with a green swirl pattern in the middle and commenting on it to Maria, “looks interesting” before spotting the girls rather apathetic look as she pulled a strand of confetti out of her hair. “Um you okay?”

“Yeah sure,” Maria stated reaching for her spoon and poking the food unenthusiastically watching Arthur tear happily into the soup with ravenous enthusiasm. Still watching Arthur tear in his food caused Maria to cock another amuse eyebrow as she dipped her own spoon into the green and orange soup, “mind you don’t eat the bowl.”

Arthur immediately stopped and stared back with an almost horrified face, the splashes of green and orange around his face dripping away as the white haired boy realised what he was doing.  “I-I am so sorry,” grabbing a napkin Arthur immediately tried to wipe the soup from his face and looked around with a sense of dread, “I-I don’t know what came over me!”

Maria shook her head as she absently stirred her soup “do not worry about it.”

Arthur however wasn’t about to just let it drop as he neatly placed his spoon to the side of his bowl and bowed his head, speaking in a low and solemn voice. “Truth be told Maria, I… need some help…” God his head hurt.

“And what would that be,” Maria calmly asked as she popped her spoonful of soup into her mouth in a very slow and deliberate fashion. Immediately though her expression changed, her eyes went wide and she began gagging as she nearly jumped out the booth heaving.

Arthur was at her side in a split second, his head suddenly clear and his hands on her shoulder trying to shake her, “Maria, are you okay?!” He frantically looked around for some way to help her, only for Maria to grab him by his baggy jacket and drag him out of the dinner with a cold muttering. “We are leaving!”

“Um Maria why are we leaving,” Arthur then tried to ask before the brown haired girl dragged him through the eighties dinners glass double doors.

“Okra,” was the only thing she said to him as she marched him down the street.

Poking her head up from over the bar Vivian could only be left blinking as she stared god smacked as the two werewolves ran out on her free food. “That cost me twenty-eight dollars!” Now glowering at the waitress who poked her head out from the kitchen she rounded on her, “hey what did you give them anyway!”

“You told us to give them our special so I did,” defensively the teenager raised up her tray to try and hide her face from the rather annoyed looking pink haired girl.

Leaning, almost jumping, over the counter Vivian demanded an answer. “And what was the special?!” She placed her sneaker onto the tray pushing it and the waitress down.

“Well you never asked which one, so I gave them our gumbo soup.”

Vivian muttered as she tried to remember what that was, “gumbo?”

“Yes gumbo, the soup here has quite a reputation,” the waitress began to explain peeking out from behind her tray as she slowly tried to sidle back into the kitchen, “it’s also known as orcho, ladies fingers and okra. Guessing your friend didn’t agree with it.” And suddenly she was gone disappearing into the kitchen.

“Well… argh,” growled Vivian as she collapsed onto the counter and rolled her head from side to side. “Still if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!”

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Traipsing through town trying to forget the debacle that was lunch, the pair soon ended up at one of Everett’s many malls in the down town area. Not the biggest place, it still had that bright clean white appearance of the late eighties mid-nineties feel, with fresh fern plants arrayed almost everywhere and wide open entrances to various shops. And as it was a weekend the location was busy, although not overcrowded, so they could browse through the various locations at their leisure until Arthur eventually spotted a clothing store and on a whim nodded at it to Maria.

Now trapped inside a retail store Arthur could only watch as Maria browsed through dozens of outfits and clothing, finding and trying on anything that caught her eye. Yet as the clothes piled higher and higher, he didn’t seem to mind. Maria may not have shown it but she was having a blast, passionately marching back and forth through the isles grabbing lots of clothes and then diving inside the changing rooms before pulling back the curtain and posing for her lone spectator. And while many men considered being hauled inside a clothing store a death sentence, Arthur, headache free for once, sighed happily as he saw every so often a smile on Maria’s lips.

There was another faint click of the curtain rings as Maria stepped out again and posed by placing her hands on her hips over a pair of leather trousers while she proudly stuck out her chest with the low cut bright red tube top. She smiled at Arthur who looked her up and down, with his mouth hanging slightly which he had to mentally try and close, but found himself powerless to so: Maria though walked up to him very slowly and placing one finger under his jaw tapped it shut.

Turning then around Maria rolled her eyes and strode back towards the booth and commented “You really need to work on impulse control,” and then proceeded to pose in the booth mirror, gently taking the headband out of her hair and letting some of it fall over her eye.

Arthur could only try and mutter a apology, “sorry, I normally am better than this. I just find you so… um never mind.” And as he tried to form his words his headache returned with a vengeance.

Maria was not a person to let something slide though. “So what,” she then asked sternly not noticing the small grimace on Arthur’s face.

“Beautiful… I mean if that’s okay with you and…” Arthur tried to muster up the courage to try and explain, he felt flash of glowing warmth hit him, a almost red hot uncontrollable feeling of scorching heat which drowned out the pain in his head. Still nowhere on his body did he actually feel the sudden intense flash of heat, but rather he could sense it inside him, and it took him to second to realise it was his empathetic abilities acting up again. As he looked around the store for the source the only person he could see though was Maria, and as he glanced past her to look in the mirror he could see, for the first time ever she was grinning ear to ear with flushed cheeks.

‘Woah, how is she doing that, I don’t even have my abilities turned on and…’ Arthur began to think before he realised that the red hot feeling had suddenly turned dark and cold: and looking at Maria’s face all the joy suddenly drained out of it as she glowered at herself.

Maria was suddenly not happy, not happy in the slightest. True she had just been on an emotional high, but that was the problem, she had let it affect her outward calm. Burying it deep down inside her she spun around and dropped a large pile of clothes into three bags.

“We are going”, she said in a flat almost monotone fashion as she charged out of the booth, past Arthur and to the counter. She however stopped half way realising what she had just done, spinning on the spot she then looked up at Arthur and tried to find some words. Still as Maria looked up at the white haired boy she could not feel a bit awkward after seeing the formerly five foot boy, now looming over her at six foot: she momentarily wondered how she was changing since becoming a werewolf. Still she knew she would have to say something.

“Arthur could you go get us some food, something sweet please, and no Gumbo,” she heard herself saying in a curt, almost drill sergeant fashion. She mentally slapped herself for that, he was bound to take it badly. ‘God I can see why some people saw me as a bully all those months ago,’ she mentally cursed to herself.

Still Arthur did not take it badly and merely nodded and smiled at her, “gladly, how about a movie afterwards.”

“Sure,” Maria responded just as curtly as before, causing herself to mentally gag at her own training. Still Arthur smiled his charming smile, and with a nod of the head and click of the feet he was off. Still as Arthur walked out of the store happy as can be, Maria could not help but blow some of her long brown hair out of her face with a quick puff of air. She really could be a pain at times. ‘And this is why I have never had an actual boyfriend.’

Still getting the clothes proved fairly simple, and with her enhanced strength carrying them was no trouble at all, and seeing Arthur across the mall at a nearby stall, absently staring at an arrangement of food stands she could not help but roll her eyes. He had no idea how curt she could be, or yet didn’t seem to care. ‘Can’t say I have ever met anyone like him,’ she chuckled: after all even Peter had thought of her as a bully in the past, and yet he could forgive anyone. But Arthur…

“Maria how have you been?”

Curtis ‘Curt’ Cram, an odd name for a person, if there was nothing odd about him himself as he jogged up to Maria pulling his headphones out of his ears. He has been the runner up in the schools archery competition and lost out to Maria two years on the trot for the title of head of the Archery club. And to top it all off the 5’10, teenager with the lean athletic build, his tight fitting running vest showing off his nicely muscled arms had a thing for her. As such when he began to loom over her, his sly eyes darting up and down taking in her body the young werewolf had to resist the urge to send uppercut into his chin.

“Hello Curt” said Maria flatly as she now stared up at his toothy and overly confident smug face of the runner, as beamed ear to ear on seeing her. She had to resist a wince as his pale almost grey hawk like eyes widened as she spoke: it was creepy as hell.

“Taken any more consideration to my offer… you and me could be quite a team if we were to partner up,” referencing his idea for them to team up for the school state championship as he began stretching his arms in a vain attempt to show off his body. But worst of all, for Maria this wasn’t even the first time he had done this, especially after Sarah had made the mistake on setting them up on a blind date once.

So it didn’t take her long to find the words, “no,” before thinking a little harder on it she added “thank you.”

Curt however frowned, that same frown he made when she had turned him down the other four times he had asked: the same four times she had seen though his thinly veiled excuse of plan to try and get some alone time with her. Still as usual that annoyed frown quickly twitched up into his usual smug grin.

“Well at least I am up to a thank you, that’s at least something” his grin widened as he leaned in, his large pale eyes looking at hers. “Yeah I will see you…”

“Hello, who is your friend Maria?”

‘Oh thank god Arthur’ Maria mind said to itself as she spun out from under the arm of Curt and towards the smiling white haired boy. Maria instinctively grabbed his arm which was holding a bag of sandwiches and hugged it as she looked back at the sporty jock hoping he would get the memo.

He got it all right, but in all the ] wrong ways. “So, who are you then?” The venom was evident in his voice as Curt squared himself as he known gave the white haired boy and his baggy clothes a once over before letting his expression tighten into a vice like grimace.

Arthur as dense as ever extended his hand smiling as always. “Arthur Amell my good sir, it’s a pleasure to meet…”

Curt snapped, “I wasn’t talking to you!”

Now almost glowering at Maria who’s blank expression only frustrated him further, he said absolutely nothing as his fists clenched and unclenched as the wide grin he was trying to keep up now seemed pained and awkward as it spread across his face. As he spoke his voice sounded horse as his vision then when back to Arthur who smiled back cheerfully.

“Who is this,” the aggravated sportsman demanded pointing at Arthur as he clenched his perfectly straight teeth.

Maria groaned, he was really going to force this. “This is Arthur, he is a friend from overseas.”

“Didn’t know you were into Brits Maria, what you like the accent,” Curt then asked almost scoffing as he looked the white haired boy in his green eyes, not caring for what the other two thought. “So tell me how good of a shot are you… bet you can’t even pull off a bullseye?”

‘Oh god he is really doing this: why on Earth is he doing this,” Maria could only help curse as she watched Curt take a step forward let his chest bash into Arthurs, looking him dead in the eyes now with his same cocky grin. Still as the overconfident Jock gave the most sickinng look of distaste he still smiled as he asked the same question again, and then a second time.

“Can you? Can you!?”

And to Maria’s surprise Arthur replied with the flat controlled word. “No.” Yet the tone seemed disjointed, almost cold, hash, flat, just like her. But as she looked up at the normally cheerful  expression Maria caught the face of a stone cold man who was glowering back at the Curt, taking his own step forward and almost pressing his forehead against his. ‘Were they really going to fight?’

Curt gave a love drawn out snort as he dug his finger into Arthur’s hoody trying to push him back, “well that’s just sad, how can you deserve Maria if you can’t even do that you…” He stopped suddenly mid-sentence as he found Arthur was not moving back, his finger not even making the white haired boy shift an inch. “What the fuck is up with you! You got metal under that hoodie?”

As he looked down at Arthur’s chest to puzzled his push had failed he just missed Maria’s dates eyes glow a bright yellow as his headache intensified and his face turn into a snarl with some rather pronounced canines. “I don’t need to hit a bullseye you dolt, I can snap your arm without even…!”

Fifteen minutes later Arthur and Maria were standing outside the cinema soaking wet, with Maria still squeezing her hair to try and drain off as much water from it as she could, while Arthur was now standing under a ventilation shaft trying to dry out, now back to his old self. Thankfully the pair of them had managed to dash out of the immediate blast zone of the sprinklers and into the relatively dry porch of the malls movie theatre rather quickly, and despite the weirdness they had both just gotten though the dating couple decided to go ahead with the seeing a movie. Yet they had hit another snag.

“So action movie, adventure, feel good film… Romance?”

Maria rolled her eyes for what felt like the thousandth time today as she watched Arthur trying to coax out an opinion from her. He stood there, his eyes moving every slightly to her as he spotted a new movie and tried to list off what it was about. Still it was amusing to see him value her opinion on these things, while Arthur nervously tried to figure out what sort of film Maria might want to see. Although Maria, in her own way, wasn’t making it easy in the slightest, which was driving Arthur’s poor headache into overdrive.

“Whatever you want to see,” Maria would calmly say as she began to readjust her hair and pull her head  band back on. And yet try as he might Arthur couldn’t bring himself to choose. What would happen if he picked the wrong one, he was not especially fond of films himself.

Gulping the white haired boy scanned the selection again and found his eyes resting on an action flick, a big mega blockbuster with explosions and a rugged looking man hugging a dark skinned Latino woman who were both staring longingly off into the distance. He slowly looked at Maria who was looking less than interested as she stared at the films as well, and once again he felt the blood rush to his cheeks and gulp: ‘I can’t screw this up!’

He then decided on the comedy flick, thinking that could possibly make Maria smile and have a good time, and was about to speak up when a small overly excited voice called across the room!

“Maria!”

The Puerto Rican span on the spot turning towards the calling voice and was immediately greeted by being dive bombed by a small yellow haired object. “Natalie,” Maria managed to wheeze out after being winded by a pre-teen missile, stumbling back as she stared down at the blonde haired teenager who eagerly started to half hug, half snuggle against Maria’s chest.

“Oh I haven’t seen you in ages, you and Sarah don’t come around anymore” the short girl lamented not letting go of the hug as she happily kept up her joyful embrace.

Maria however looked almost shocked at being hugged in public, although quickly calmed down and began to rest her hand on the blonde girls head smiling. It was always good to see the little ball of energy that was Ashley’s sister: and she wasn’t surprised to find that she was still wearing her special headband: complete with… ‘wolf ears, that’s new,’ it was usually cats.

“Huh, you change your headband,” Maria asked a little surprised, as she gently pushed the little girl off with a warm smile, with Natalie giggling in response.

“Yeah cat ears were so last season… I’d thought I would update since you know werewolves are so much cooler!”

Maria and Arthur glanced at each other on hearing this: Ashley, Natalie’s sister, and Marias BFF, may have been turned like they had been, but Natalie herself certainly hadn’t. Still while Arthur was in the dark Maria had long since known of the young girls obsession with cute animals and her fondness for headbands with little toy animal ears, which apparently had something to do with the fact that her father had once said they looked cute on them. But if she felt werewolves were real that could be a problem.

Proposing the question Maria waved Arthur away and looked at Natalie with as permanent smile as she could manage. “So you really believe those werewolf stories?”

Natalie nodded with a huge but none the less adorable smile. “Duh I saw them at the party when they came in and beat up that nasty Sub-Zero creep, plus dad said they saved him!”

Maria’s face remained as stoic as ever but inside her head she could only feel one thought run through her cranium. ‘Ah crap!’

She had to say it: “Natalie, werewolves are not real!”

Arthur meanwhile had taken a step away from the pair as they chatted and soon saw two young girls about the same ae of Natalie looking on with dismay. “You friends of hers,” he asked them taking them both off guard as they were suddenly addressed by the broad six foot man.

“Yeah isn’t it obvious” one of the pair said looking at him with a critical eye, as if she was judging him.

Arthur smiled warmly and nodded back at the silver haired girl “and why is she wearing that headband?” His eyes now drifting too the two wolf like ears perched on her head.

Both the girls giggled at this, although not harshly as he asked this, before the first girl smirked and rolled her eyes. “Oh she has had an obsession with animals since as long as I have known her,” she admitted with a slightly condescending attitude, “she wants to start a ‘werewolf club’ at school to, and it’s getting to be kind of like an obsession.”

Arthur chuckled at this as well, finding it cute how people seemed to be getting more comfortable with the ideas of werewolves, momentarily struck by his formerly bigoted views he had only a scant two years ago. Taking his mind off that he distracted that question with another one, “so you here to see a movie?”

The first girl gave him an indigent but amused look as he asked the most obvious question in the world. “Urr yeah, we were just about to go see ‘I will see you by the Moonlight’”

“And that is?”

“Oh it’s this cracking love story, based off a best seller,” the other girl said jumping up, almost exploding with energy, “I have read the books and oh my god, oh my god, oh my god I can’t wait to see it!” She managed to finally say though her squeals of delight.

“Is it a kids movie?”

The two girls looked at each other and then looked away a little red in the cheeks, “technically me, Natalie and Diana here are a ‘bit young’ to be seeing it,” the hyper active one hesitantly admitted, quoting the air as she talked.

“Yeah but Natalie’s Dad scored us front seat tickets, and plus he owns the Cinema so they can’t stop us even if they wanted to,” the other one, Diana, said with a smug filled grin.

Arthur nodded with a smile, although inside he wasn’t exactly keen on the way she had phrased it, still he thought on it and came to an adequate conclusion. “How much are the tickets?”

“What ours,” the hyper active teenager gasped almost instinctively!

Arthur rolled his eyes and let out a sigh, “no at the desk?” He pointed past the ginger girl towards the ticket booth and grinned

“Oh well they sold out like three minutes ago,” the smug girl explained with a little bit of apprehension and even sadness on having to say that. She raised her hand and pointed at the sign on ticket availability right at the romance films name. “Maybe you could come back at a later date.”

Arthur nodded to the girls and thanked them, but then let out a small curse inside his head, ‘well there goes plan B.’ Still as he turned away from them he felt something thwack into the back of his head, and looking down at the object saw it was a small envelope folded into a paper airplane.

“Huh that is odd,” the hyper active girl said looking down at the airplane as Arthur picked it up, reading the words ‘from a friend’ on the cover.

While it went against his personal morals to pry into things he did not fully understand, Arthur none the less felt compelled to peel back the brown paper and lettering revealing two tickets. Two tickets for ‘I will see you by the Moonlight.’ Well that was convenient: ‘thanks friend.’

Not wasting a second Arthur spun towards his date smiling. “Hey Maria, I got us some tickets!”

Meanwhile nestled in the rafters sat Vivian grinning madly: she was so glad she had managed to snag the last tickets for the days film, and was even more pleased to see that Maria and Arthur might have some pleasant company for the film. Still as she happily watched the back of the two werewolves walk hand in hand towards the movies entrance the dragon girl pulled herself up and using an unusual amount of acrobatic skill maneuvered herself towards the same utility entrance she had used to get up there. However once the pink ball of mischief was out of sight the doors of the cinema flew open and a large gang of thugs marched in. Roland leading them, with his right fist stained with a hint of blood.

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