Xeik wasn’t one to visit places like Sularia often. Having grown up in a much colder climate, he never could quite adjust to the weather like he wanted. That being said, this was the place that he had fallen victim to heavy drug use, and almost lost his life. It had been a long road, but one that he had traveled with the help of many. It was because of them that he was here today.

“Mia, stay close,” he said as they walked down the hectic streets of the Afthonia Bazaar. Many sights and smells assaulted the couple as they went, but they were here for a very specific task. Xeik promised Mia that they would take some time after the meeting today to explore more. For now, they were almost late.

It was thanks to Toya that they were able to set up this meeting. White hair, brown eyes… They were nearing the fountain at the center of it all. The elegant statue in the center of a mother and child signified the meeting place, but Xeik had yet to locate the woman they were supposed to meet.

“You see her, Mia?” he asked. He wondered just how much she was able to focus with so much happening around them. While this hadn’t been her first outing, it was one of the first times she had come to somewhere so busy. The healer was quite worried that she might be overstimulated with everything happening, and was doing his best to keep hold of her hand. There was, of course, more to it than just that.

She might commit suicide. The words that Toya had said echoed in his mind. I can’t imagine what it’s like… When he had asked Drake what it was like to change into a dragon, he had merely replied ‘painful.’ That didn’t give him much to go on, but the draconian was barely able to explain how or even why he could, let alone the complexities of it. It was just instinct.

“Ah…is that her there?” Xeik asked, pointing. “Hello!?”

Mia was looking around everywhere with excitement as she held Xeik’s hand and stayed close. She had finally, for the most part, gotten over her fear of people. Now she liked most of the people she met. They found the fountain and Mia got excited grabbing his sleeve and pointing at it. It was almost like the one back in the temple only this one had water in it. The desert air was hard for her to breathe in but she could adjust, or at least she thought so.

Shaking her head Mia looked around for this mystery woman. They were late or so Xeik had said. Mia was getting up on her tippy toes to look around but she was sadly mostly too short to see. She felt eyes on her but mostly it was on the brand that was on her leg. Angela said Sularia would be safe for a person like Mia.

Mia was determined to shift and she was a little scared but if this was something that had been taken away from her she wanted it back. Once Xeik spotted her Mia looked and saw the woman coming over to them with a light job.

“My apologies! I am a bit late myself!” She was a tall woman almost having a foot on Mia. Her long white hair was in a braid and she had eyes like dark amber. “My name is Elizabeth Rose but you can call me Liz… Everyone else does.” She held her hand out to Mia and Mia took it for a shake, something she had been familiarizing herself with. Liz held her hand out to Xeik as well.

“I’ll be helping you through your first shift and unfortunately I do apologize for my house. We’ll go there first… Just to go over what a shift is, what it will feel like, and overall what to expect.” Liz had them follow her through the market to the white district. It was a cozy looking house and modest compared to a mansion.

She opened the door to let them in and immediately a white-haired boy was almost on Mia trying to fight her. “RIVEN!” Liz screamed but before she could command Mia had thrown the boy into the wall. She watched him immediately submit to the older lycanthrope. “I’m so sorry Mia. Riven thinks he's the pack leader but that would be his grandfather Garland right now.”

Two girls his age with black hair came over and they were attempting to help him. They all have Liz’s brown eyes except for Riven who had blue. “These are my triplets Primrose, Jade, and Riven. Primrose and Jade will try to trick you so be careful. They are identical in every way.”

She got them to the kitchen and sat them down. “You two must have questions for me so let's take the time to answer them shall we?”

As Elizabeth Rose introduced herself to the pair, Xeik noted how easy it was for Mia to shake her hand. The lycan woman had come so far in these past months that it was heartwarming to see. He was happy for her, and oddly enough thankful to Raine for bringing her into his life. He was lost in thought, and almost didn’t notice that Liz was offering up her hand.

“Oh, it’s a pleasure!” Xeik said with a smile. “We really do appreciate that you’re meeting us like this.” With the formalities out of the way, Xeik and Mia followed Liz through the white district, and to a cozy house. Xeik looked impressed at it, and wondered what it was like to have something like that. Lewis’ castle was one thing, but this seemed far homier than that. I know which I would prefer.

As they entered the room, immediately Mia was attacked. Thankfully, Mia was strong enough to easily throw the young boy who had lunged at her. Xeik didn’t have proof, but he was pretty sure that Simone was teaching her some moves, not that the mender had any room to complain. He wanted her to be able to defend herself, just in case.

“He’s not gonna go after you again,” Xeik said as he rubbed Mia’s back. “And if he does, I’ll take care of it.” He was a healer, but that also meant he knew how to disable people as well. With all of that out of the way, Liz invited them to sit at a table, and it was there she opened up the floor.

“Well, I guess we can start with these. Basic information for Mia…” He looked over to her. “When does shifting happen to start. And can she control it? Does it hurt? Does she lose self control? What about eating? Sleeping?” He listed off a variety of other basic questions, all that they had talked about beforehand. Mia, of course, was ready with her own questions too.

Liz thought about and she squared herself at the table. “Shifting happens differently for everyone. It can cause unique effects depending on the person. Tempest, who is Toya’s granddaughter, and her brother have been shifted since they were three months. When they turned three months they actually aged to four years of age. When I was five I had my first shift and I aged to fifteen. It was the same with my brother. Some children don’t age at all like the triplets or Toya’s Sparrow. In both cases of rapid aging, we’re not pure-bloods. Also, my triplets are as close to pure-bloods as they can get. My mate is pure-blooded.”

Mia perked up a bit and knocked on the table.

“What’s wrong Mia?”

Mia did a few hand signs for her to go back a few words. “Mate?” Mia nodded. “Mate is how we refer to each other. Not husband and wife.” Mia got excited and slapped the table at Xeik. Liz giggled a bit at it. “It’s a lot more intimate for us. Once you are mated you are mated for life.” Mia got more excited about it and Liz was highly amused.

“For the other things… It will hurt but you get used to it. Bones will crack and your body will contort. The moon for us calls us and for some they can’t control it. You being here for three months… Having no shifts. You are probably not hearing its call right now. She won’t lose self-control as long as she has the will power but some do. Eating… We often go hunting in our wolf forms. Deer we can eat it raw or cooked. To us it doesn’t taste bad. Sleeping… We still sleep as you do. The triplets howl at the moon… At least they did from the time they could shift… We shipped them to Toya because the neighbors were getting upset.” Liz laughed a little.

“You could be small or large depending on the type of lycanthrope. I’m not as big as my mate is.”

Mia wrote out a question the best she could and handed it to Liz. Liz held a look on her face, “No, I don’t think you’ll be able to make any noise. If you are blind as a two-leg then you’ll be blind as a wolf… I’m sure it is the same.” Mia frowned a bit but nodded.

Liz read the next question, “Will Xeik like your wolf form? I don’t know the answer to that but… we don’t know what you will look like. You should have fur the same shade as your hair.”

Listening to Liz’s information was helpful, and Mia seemed excited to be learning about her kind. Xeik knew a little bit about lycanthropes, mostly from the medical notes that Angela had on hand. For the most part, he knew how to take care of them from a healer’s perspective, but a cultural one was completely different. Mia’s excitement about the word and concept of ‘mate’ for instance, was something that brought a blush to Xeik as she got a little overexcited about it, though Liz seemed to find it amusing.

Her lack of voice in wolf form was something that Xeik had pretty much guessed. He had hoped that Mia would keep her expectations low for that, but he couldn’t entirely stop her from at least the tiniest glimmer. The next question though, made Xeik laugh. “Mia, I’ll love you just the same. You like me for who I am, not the form I take. It’s the same for you…I’m sure I’ll adore you just as much as I do now…”

That must have set her mind at ease. There were other questions that Xeik had, and he laid them out. “So how does shifting work? I’ve heard of some lycanthropes being able to shift at will. Is this a common thing? Does the moon always force a shift? And…for her first one, what do we do to trigger it? Some sort of ritual?” There were a slew of other questions that also followed. Part of this was from a pure healer standpoint as the curiosity got the better of him. “What about libido? Do you burn a lot of energy? What about muscle mass?”

Mia kissed his cheek almost immediately once she heard that he would like her no matter what. She was like a puppy and Liz found it endearing. “Some can. My pack can I’m not sure about Mia. We won’t know until tonight. It is a common thing for those strong-willed. Some see it as a curse but us… We don’t. We have a bipedal form which you see detailed in books and we have a four-legged form which is just a wolf. Most of the time we are in our wolf form so we blend in.”

Liz thought of the best way to answer, “For Mia… We’ll try to connect her with the Mother Moon tonight.”

Mia slapped the table and looked at her. “Mother Moon? We consider the moons our mothers. The seasonal moon not so much. We worship the moons over the gods much more but if you listen to my old man of a mate… We aren’t so much controlled by the moons anymore even if I like to act young.”

Liz leaned back, “As for libido… Before the triplets, Krystopher and I were having sex…” She thought about it. “At least seven times a day. We found time to fit it in. Oh, it burns loads of energy but we get energized by the moons as well. Normally, if we hear the call we get a burst of energy for a run. Muscle mass… Some of us are strong and some of us aren’t. Just like all races.”

Mia had a questioning look on her face at the end but it had begun to form once sex was brought up. She wrote down another question and passed it to Liz. “Do Lycans always have so many babies at once? Will Xeik and I have loads of babies?”

Mia nodded and Liz thought about it. “I don’t know. Multiples run in our family which is why everyone here seems to have so many like myself, Toya, and so on. You might just have one at a time and consider yourself lucky… The triplets ruined my sex life… We have to lock doors now.”

Xeik had been asking a lot of his questions from the healer point of view, but as Liz started speaking, he realized what it must have sounded like from the other perspectives. On top of that, the information he was getting was that he would, in effect, probably have to fight Mia off at some points just in order to get work done. Though, like with many other things, it may have been an independent thing…the Rose family wasn’t exactly known for their lack of sex.

“Miaa….” Xeik groaned as she asked about children. That was something that the healer didn’t want to think about at all. If anything, he wanted to push that as far out of his mind as he could. He was nowhere near ready for kids, and that would have to be a discussion for later. Mia, on the other hand, almost seemed excited for kids, despite the fact that she barely knew how to take care of herself. It was definitely going to be a long talk…

“Anyway…is there anything else we should know?” Xeik tried to think of anything else to ask, but he was coming up blank. “So now we just wait until tonight, right? Do we need to do anything to prepare?”

Liz laughed a bit at Xeik. “It’s normal. We are geared towards families as we are pack creatures. Mia doesn’t have a pack so she is geared towards making one. She is probably more understanding that it isn’t what you want right at the moment but it's in her nature to try and find a pack. Very rarely does being a lone wolf actually work out. Talk to my mate or me and we’ll tell you. We both were before we rejoined the family.”

Liz thought about it more and she shook her head, “Just try to get some sleep… and mentally prepare for the pain. It’s going to hurt but I will do my best with everyone to help Mia through it.”

Mia climbed into the bed given to them by Liz. She was laying on Xeik and looking down at him. She was excited. She huffed at him lightly as she traced his face. She knocked on his chest lightly and she scribbled down. “Are you mad or embarrassed?” She tilted her head at him and showed him.

As Xeik climbed into the bed with Mia, he reviewed the information that Liz had given them. For the most part, it was all about what he expected from the whole process. There weren’t any wild, out of the ordinary things to expect from it. It was mostly just on Mia handling it. He sighed. He had hoped there was some way he could help with this, but there really wasn’t much to help with.

Mia was on top of him, and it was now becoming a familiar thing. Restless, she wrote down a question to ask Xeik. “Hmm? No…I’m not mad. I…don’t even think I’m embarrassed. I just…don’t really know how to handle all these new feelings and this relationship. It’s a learning process…” He pulled her back down, and started to pet the back of her head as he closed his eyes.

“I’m scared, but this isn’t anything I can do to help. All I can do is just trust that you can handle this…” He kissed the top of her head. “And I do trust you…” He took a deep breath. “Now, get some rest. You’re going to need it…”

When Xeik woke up next, it was pitch black. He yawned, and slowly rubbed Mia’s back. “Mia…it’s probably almost time. Wake up…”

Mia nodded and she scribbled more. “It’s all new to me. We can both be scared.” For the most part, Mia found it a hassle to write so she just played charades. There were times when she decided to that it was important like now. Mia laid her head on his chest and nodded as she closed her eyes.

She nuzzled her head up under his and smiled before laying a kiss to his neck. He was right. Mia roused when he woke her up and she stretched with a big yawn. Getting up she ran over to the window and opened it. The moons were so big in the desert.

She could feel her heartbeat accelerating a little bit but she figured it was because she was nervous. Liz was waiting for them. “We’re going to go to the lake. Normally I would shift here and we would go but because we have Xeik with us we’ll walk.”

“But mama our feet are going to hurt…”

“So you three shift and run next to us. Not too far okay?” The triplets were out of their clothes faster than the words left her lips. Liz didn’t look so enthused about it but soon the triplets all shifted and they were running around them as smaller wolves.

“See? It didn’t hurt them too much. They probably didn’t even think about it,” Liz reassured Mia. “It’s natural for shifters to be naked so it’s a good thing that you don’t get too shy about it.”

Mia nodded and smiled at Xeik as she pulled him with her to the lake. Once they were there Liz sat down and watched the triplets do laps around a farm field. “Alright, Mia… What I want you to do is focus on the moon. Think about your wolf. Think about your connection and running on all four.” She wasn’t sure how well this would work for Mia.

Mia had already stripped down to nothing and given her clothes to Xeik. She was antsy and it showed. “Mia, you have to center yourself and calm down. I know this is scary… Maybe even exciting but… Please.”

Mia nodded and stopped her bouncing. She was looking up at the moon and she was focused. Her eyes dilated after a little bit and Liz gave a reassuring nod to Xeik. After an hour of this, there was bone-cracking and Mia looked like she was in intense pain. “Mia, it’s going to be alright. Don’t fight it. It hurts more if you fight it.”

Mia didn’t respond but the pain didn’t seem as intense anymore as she shifted into an almost white colored wolf with extremely fluffy fur. “There you go. How do you feel?” Mia looked at her paws and she did a spin so she could see her tail. “Go up to the water.”

So when Mia finally did see her reflection she got a sudden burst of energy and ran all the way around the lake and then she was running around Xeik as fast as she could. Mia was the size of a dire wolf which was large compared to how small Liz said she was.

“She’s built for fighting.”