A/n: Okay so I have a marvelous friend who’s proofing this wretched thing for me so mebbe it’ll be better, anyhow, I revised the prologue and ch. 1 to reflect necessary corrections and I’m still open to any other suggestions.

That said, I hate the title. I can’t title anything until its done and this annoys me. This will not be the permanent title because it is dumb. So says me. Dammit.

Chapter Two: School Marm on a Mission

Cecily, 12:00 pm, August 23, 2014:

I was never overly interested in the magical world or the Others. That was more my twin Xan’s thing then mine. She was the one running around with Fae Princes and such back in Dragon-controlled Los Angeles. I didn’t have anything against magical folk. I just didn’t have much experience with them sequestered as I was in rural Northern California. “The armpit of nowhere”, as Xan referred to our ranch holdings and the little town nearby, was as far from the rest of the world as possible and, having its own rather self-sufficient economy, it had changed little since the magic came back and the power went out. Sure, the townsfolk had to adjust to the occasional brownie or nymph sighting, but the residents of Porter Fields Village were a mellow lot. Populated by retired employees of our family’s now fractured and rebuilt conglomerate, the town itself was more a giant extension of the Porter family.

Its population never reached more than 50 persons, twenty of which were below the age of eighteen and therefore my responsibility every weekday from half past sun up to half past noon. I was known in town as Ms. Porter, and despite the existence of two others who could be called such, everyone knew who was being referred to. I was the town’s school teacher, being the only adult for 200 miles that had any kind of teaching degree. Although with only 20 students, of varying ages, it was more like home-schooling than public education.

As the teacher of the town’s youth I found a certain amount of power in teaching about the world, about tolerance and kindness towards those different or less fortunate. I had a good solid class of decent children raised by decent men and women and so I wasn’t overly concerned when I met the town’s newest residents, different as they were. There was a girl, the same age as my younger sister Andrea, which brought me into the whole mad situation.

I’d made house calls before in my duties as school teacher, welcoming new children and families to the neighborhood, updating concerned parents on their children’s education or more rarely, seeing to disciplinary problems. I made an effort to convince myself that this was the same thing, as I made my way along the old mining trail into the mountains on my old mare, Swidgeon.

If the parents I was visiting tended to turn a bit fuzzy every so often, so what? I’d seen the girl, Kelly, in town and recognized the avid curiosity in her eyes that told me she’d be a voracious student. I’d teach a troll if it showed the same interest. I never really made a distinction between different kinds of people. Especially after meeting Prince Evlion of the Fae, my twin’s best friend and professed ‘platonic soul-mate’.

‘People are people, no matter their shape, and if you treat everyone with politeness and respect they’re more likely to return the sentiment.’ Dad used to tell us kids growing up. I tried to impart the same sentiment to my students and one day hoped to teach it to my own children. That is, if I ever found a man worth breeding with trapped in a tiny town where all single men were at least twenty years my senior. The younger men were all down south at the Porter Ranch Facility in Nevada, where the famous Porter herds spent the winter.

I sighed when Swidgeon’s snort brought me back to California and the little trail I followed toward the possibly dangerous and guaranteed awkward meeting ahead of me. Tolerance aside, even Prince Evlion had warned us about Werewolves. He’d called them intolerant beasts, so in love with their dominance plays that normal society could not function peacefully with them. Since the pack of wolves had moved into our little valley a month ago there hadn’t been any trouble. The townsfolk only really saw two of them, Kelly, the 15-year old, and her constant escort, a cheerful enough fellow with a flashing smile and long black hair. He was rather attractive if you ignored the whole…wolf thing. Xan would love him. He joked and spoke politely enough with the men of the general store. He ignored the women though. That was the part that made me twitchy. Was he some kind of old fashioned chauvinist? I took a deep breath to steel myself. If he was he’d learn quickly that Porter Fields did not put up with such barbarism.

Swidgeon froze on the trail, ears pointing forward as the world was filled with a long ominous howl. I frowned, wondering if my horse was safe on this visit. I kicked her back into motion firmly. They wouldn’t hurt her with me present. They’d have to go through me first and that would bring down the whole town on their heads as well as Xan and her loyal Prince of the Fae and that was not something to take lightly. Everyone knew the associations, especially those in the Other community. Xan was supposedly Evlion’s mistress and therefore her family was protected.

Determined I pressed Swidgeon on in spite of another threatening howl. Windbags. I thought uncharitably then censured myself. It wouldn’t do to approach them with hostility.

My first conscious thought was Ow. This Ow was quickly followed by a great deal of confusion based firstly on the fact that my entire body was one big gigantic bruise on top of a great deal of pain coming from my torso. Secondly, my face was smushed into something rough and very warm. It was warm enough on my lightly crisped face to make me pull back to see the offensive pillow-object. It was a dragon. Huh.

I blinked and very carefully and painfully pushed myself up until I was propped on my hands. That hurt like hell of course so I continued the movement until I was sitting up, which hurt more, so I continued backward to rest on the nice solid wall behind me. That was a miniscule bit better so I rested there and looked around. I was in my carriage.

I was sitting on the rear facing bench seat in the corner nearest the right side door. Sharing the bench with me was a dragon. A very small dragon. It was about the size of a middling terrier. It was curled up, still asleep, not having moved since I stopped using it as a pillow. It was completely black, but the scales covering it had a kind of grayish tinge. I got an odd feeling that it wasn’t well. Further investigation revealed nearly healed shreds in the wings and long welts tracing its spine. If it had been bigger I’d have been afraid but as it was, it was just cute and pathetic. I resisted the urge to snuggle it.

A moan drew my attention to the opposite bench of the carriage and unfortunately back to the reality I was avoiding thinking about. I stared at Evlion, curled on his side on the bench, his injured leg, pant leg torn off, was covered with drying and flaky blood but for the spot where the wound had been. It was healed but for a dark indigo line over his pale blue flesh. He stirred again and I realized he was alive. The crazy leg-eating lady hadn’t…eaten his leg. I scrambled across the carriage, idly noting the sway that told me it was in motion. The screaming of my whole freaking body was telling me to stay still but I had to know if he was alright. I knelt on the floor in front of his head and tried to get his attention.

“Ev? Ev?” I whispered. He scowled in his sleep, a distasteful pout as if the very idea of waking up offended him terribly. I put a palm on each side of his face and shook it a little. His eyes flickered open and focused on me.

“Bugger off!” He slurred at me, irritated. I grinned and let out the relieved breath I’d been holding. He was still scowling at me, blinking. I watched his memory slowly filter back behind his ice blue eyes. “Oh Xan…Armen…” I nodded, feeling tears on my face again, feeling sick at the mental image I couldn’t avoid of that bitch leaning on the sword in his head. “Elorn?”

“I don’t know….his legs…god he had no legs…I wanted to go back but that woman she…” He was sitting up, bracing his hands on the seat and wall as he inspected his leg.

“What woman? Who’s driving?” He asked, not sounding very Ev-like. He sounded more like how he’d looked when he’d faced his evil sister: very Princely and businesslike. And oh hey, I could hear again. I wondered how long I’d been out.

“I don’t know…I just woke up. There’s a dragon…” I shifted to the side so he could see it and ended up gasping, continuing down to lay flat on the floor of the carriage. I found myself staring under the seat. “Oh look I found your crystal hair doo-hickey.” I mumbled, pulling the barrette free from its bed of lint and lost French fries.

“Are you alright?” He asked, ignoring the discovery.

“Yeah. I’m good.” I said, looking up at his face as it peered over the bench seat. “Just, you know, blown up. Everyone keeps throwing me at walls.” I informed him. He still looked concerned and not likely to laugh so I sighed and tried to be serious. “I think my ribs are broken and who knows what else. But hey, I’ve still got my legs.” I tried not to move, moving hurt, but the carriage was swaying, making it difficult to keep still.

“How far down did he lose them?” He asked softly, getting straight to what was wigging me the most. It was easy to answer, I would have the image stuck in my head for a very long time.

“His knee on one and mid-thigh on the other.” I answered.

“They’ll grow back if he didn’t bleed to death.” He said firmly. I couldn’t decide if that made me feel better or not. My mouth felt dry and it was getting hard to breath. “Hey now, calm down, sweety. We’re okay. We’re alive. Hey even Zivgurt’s alive.” He said, lying on his stomach on the bench so he could reach my hair. He pet me like my dad used to pet an excitable horse, murmuring and making nonsense noises. I wanted to be offended, but it was actually working. I was taking less panicked strained breaths. I know the thought of my father, the gentle horse breeder was helping. I slowly relaxed until I could focus on his words again.

“Zivgurt?” I whispered. His eyes flickered to the dragon. “But…he’s so tiny?” I frowned.

“They call him ‘Varied’ for a reason, love.” He said, still sounding like he was addressing a small child which for the moment felt about right and reminded me that we’d just had his 152nd birthday two months ago. For all he acted like a teenaged brat, he was ancient. I remembered something my twin, Cecily, had mentioned once. She said she’d found an old book on the Fae in her library at her school in Porter Fields. It talked about the duels and rituals of the Fae and briefly hit on a duel fought by the Ice Prince in which his opponent was brutally dismembered. I’d shrugged it off but Cecily reminded me that the Fae were notorious for not being as they seem. I wished she was with me just then. I needed something familiar and comforting and my school-teacher sister was the definition of familiar and comforting. She always denied it, but Cecily was the brave one.

I shook off my gloomy thoughts, trying to calm down and think rationally like my sister would. She wasn’t here to pull my ass out of the fire this time so I had to. I focused on Ev again. “What’s outside?” I asked him. He had a better vantage. I wasn’t moving again until someone gave me lots of drugs or something. He blinked then looked up, squirming along the seat to look out the window. For someone who’d come so close to dying he was in much better shape than I was. Jerk.

“It’s still just the afternoon. We’re headed west on the old 101 I think.” He pulled back. “This is too far out in the open. They’ll be looking for us.” Most of the highways and main streets had been cleared by more of the government contractors in the past few months to allow easier travel from place to place. Under advisement of major horse brokers like my father’s the most heavily traveled portions had rest stops set up at regular intervals to rest horses and people. Most travel was done by trains now but such travel was expensive and strictly controlled by the military or private security for the railroads. Obviously, those on the lam avoided it like the plague. “We’re stopping…” I could feel the carriage slowing and listened to the sound of hooves clopping. I heard four sets, four horses. If we still had my mini-herd maybe we had a chance.

That thought, though, brought up a few questions. If we still had the Master Chief with us, why hadn’t he fought? Ev had fancied the stallion as a proper warhorse and had been training him since he was a colt to battle imaginary monsters. He was a formidable fuzzy monster with a lot more intelligence than most. Why would he just follow along without mine or Ev’s reassurance? Who was driving?

Ev reached down and grabbed my arm. “Sorry love but I want you on the seat. I can’t protect you if you’re on the floor.” He started to pull me upright but the involuntary squeak of pain made him stop and lean over to take hold of my torso instead. With much pain and whimpering he got me back on the bench with my head by Zivgurt in much the same position as I’d first woke in, except now I had my head carefully away from the sleeping dragon. Let sleeping dragons lie, right?

Ev suddenly held the same sword as before and I stared at him as he prepared to meet the driver. “Where’d that come from?” I whispered. He gave me a completely Ev look of mixed arrogance and amusement.

“Do you really want to know?” He teased. I stifled a nervous laugh when my body argued painfully. The carriage reached full stop and shifted as whoever was driving moved to the right side to get down. Ev crouched on the floor, sword ready, facing the door.

It took another half an hour before I managed to get up the trail to the mines that the wolves had taken as their home. Technically the mining camp and the caverns themselves were Porter property and therefore owned by my family, but since the facility was abandoned when the mine ran dry we didn’t really use the land for much. The old gravel road that the miners utilized to bring equipment and such back and forth from the town had become overgrown in the century since and a good portion had been lost in a rock slide twenty years earlier making a game trail the only usable access. The land itself was too rough for our herds and too far from town for anything else so Evelyn and I, the resident representatives of the Porter family in town had declined to protest when the wolves moved it.

Evelyn had toyed with asking for rent for a bit but when I pointed out that they were werewolves and therefore didn’t have actual jobs she’d dropped it. She still hadn’t noticed that they frequently bought supplies in town with gold coin and I didn’t bring it up. I disliked being a landlord and asking for money is one of the things I despised most. Mother rather liked it and that’s why she lived in Nevada and I lived here. I’d decided before leaving on this trek that I’d mention their squatting only if it helped my purpose of convincing them to allow Kelly to come down for schooling.

Once I passed through the broken old gate that gave access to the main mining camp Swidgeon, who’d since started ignoring the howling after seeing that it didn’t worry me, started to get twitchy again. The old mare took deep breaths and her ears moved rapidly, following sounds I couldn’t hear myself. She was a clever old thing, mother of many of our strongest and most intelligent stallions, including Xan’s ridiculously named Stallion, Master Chief, but she’d grown trusting in her old age, letting me think for her until now when she suddenly realized that I’d led her into a den of big predators.

I patted her neck roughly, speaking soothing nonsense to her and stopped just within the gate. I could feel eyes on me and tried to think of a good way to present myself. I usually planned such things in advance but I’d somehow forgotten what I’d planned to say. I mentally shrugged when no one presented themselves and leaned over to the gate post and knocked on the worn and dusty wood. “Knock knock! Anyone home?”

I heard a rustling in the trees on either side of the broad dirt road that led into the main square ahead of me but nothing stepped into the open. “I bring coffee?!” I called out hopefully. Terry, the old hand that ran the store had mentioned how the wolves seemed to go through a few pounds of coffee a week and how the leader, Caleda, and Kelly seemed to glow with profound joy whenever they saw or smelled the stuff in the store.

There was a louder rustling and suddenly there was a wolf standing 40 yards ahead in the middle of the road between the first two buildings, the dilapidated barracks building and the tiny chapel. It was huge, the size of a full-grown pony, around 8 hands high and covered with sleek pure white fur. I stared for a moment in shock before I started to process. Its head and paws seemed over-large, like the wolf was still in the process of growing into them as you see on large breeds of dogs. It stared right back at us but didn’t move, just stood, ears at attention.

After a moment of staring, Swidgeon, whose eyes were going, finally noticed the big white blob ahead and jerked backward in shock. I started murmuring to her, realizing that there was no way in hell she was going any further. I didn’t want to get off her though, she would bolt if I left her and it was a hell of a long walk home. My considerations were interrupted when a harsh voice broke the tense silence.

“Kelly!” The wolf flinched and shied sideways, away from the porch of the barracks even as she was surrounded by a flash of color. A second later I could make out three new wolves, these all the same size as Swidgeon, or larger. I froze as they turned from growling chastisement to the white wolf and looked at me. A very large part of me joined Swidgeon in her sudden realization of predators.

Wolves weren’t supposed to be that big. Mine and Swidgeon's heads snapped to the right when the owner of the voice spoke again, having somehow gotten within ten feet of us without our noticing. The man from town, Malcolm Caleda, was standing in front of us clad only in a ragged pair of jeans. He was barefoot and his long black hair was rumpled but his blue eyes were sharp and suspicious, studying me as if I posed a threat to his pack of giant wolves. The thought almost made me laugh and broke the tension in my own head enough to compose myself.

“Ah Mr. Caleda, I apologize for coming unannounced, but I didn’t really have a way to announce myself.” I said, keeping my tone polite and respectful. He quirked his head to the right, a glimmer of curiosity showing in his eyes very briefly. “My name is Cecily Porter, I am-“

“The school-teacher.” He cut in, still staring then suddenly the suspicion was gone and he seemed to relax every muscle from his head to his toes in a visible wave that made me pointedly not look at his bare chest. When it was over all that remained was the curiosity and a rather charming crooked grin. “We don’t take such invasions on our land lightly, Ms. Porter. Why have you come?” The words were threatening but the tone light and somewhat dismissive. I considered informing him of the mistake in those words but decided that arguing wasn’t the best approach.

“I have come to invite the young Miss Caleda to my school.” I said simply. I glanced back as the clump of wolves that peered at us and the smaller white wolf that I’d deduced was Kelly. I looked back at Caleda in time to catch him bursting into laughter. Not seeing what was funny and therefore suspicious that he was mocking me, I kept my mouth shut and waited patiently for him to finish.

“That….that is certainly one I haven’t heard before!” He gasped through his laughter. The wolves had also seemed to adopt a more relaxed posture and had something like humor in their eyes. They seemed able to convey more with their expressions than true wolves, it was unnerving. Swidgeon, oddly enough, had relaxed at the sound of his laughter as well.

“One what?” I asked when he’d calmed a bit.

“Excuse to come stare at us.” He said, chortling. I didn’t really understand at first but the second run through in my head had my mouth opening to protest.

“I’m here about your child’s education, not to gawk at you!” I snapped my mouth shut on my temper. I wasn’t here to snarl them into submission. Just to nag and coerce a bit. He seemed startled by my outburst, but was still grinning.

“What would a human care about a wolf-cubs education?” He drawled, arms crossing over his chest, body-language turning aloof and closed off. I took a moment to formulate a non-antagonistic response. Obviously this pack had met humans in the past that were far less welcoming. I needed to make it clear that Porter Village was not the same.

“Why wouldn’t I? I don’t care how fuzzy she is. If she wants to learn I would like to teach her.” I said calmly. His eyes narrowed.

“And what of the other children? Their parents would not agree to this. You cannot speak for the whole town.” He argued. I had to squash my smirk but I knew he caught it and was puzzled by it.

“Actually, Mr. Caleda, the entire town and the fifty acres in each direction surrounding it belong to my family. My sister and I are the only ones who can speak for the whole town. Aside from that, I have discussed this with both the children and their parents and all are willing to welcome all of you as a part of the community.” He looked like he didn’t believe me, but he seemed to shrug that part off for now.

“Even if we are welcome, what could you teach that she would need to learn?” He sounded more doubtful but I was encouraged that he’d even ask.

“Oh we cover the basics, reading, writing, math, geography, economics and so on. We have only 20 students in town which allows me and my assistant teachers to give each child more personal attention. We tailor the lessons to the student.” I explained, warming to the subject as I went along, it was my life, after all. “Older students are often assigned a mentor from town to teach them in whatever occupation they choose to pursue and if we cannot provide a proper mentor, we’ve ways to arrange things further in Oroville.”

He was giving me a rather fascinated look that I had a feeling had nothing to do with my education program. I knocked the enthusiastic smile off my face when I realized it was there and tried to act dignified. His fascination erupted again into one of those huge infectious grins. I bit the insides of my mouth. Definitely Xan’s type. My sister always fell for the overly expressive, confident types. I was more inclined to notice the gentle stoic type. He came forward and reached for Swidgeon, taking hold of her bridle and pulling her face even with his. He breathed in her nose, letting her grow accustomed to his scent while I watched him, wondering what he was up to. Once she’d relaxed properly he moved around to stand at my right leg, hand on Swidgeon’s neck.

“I apologize for not inviting you in to speak of this further but there is a rather large storm approaching. If you do not leave now you will not make it back to town.” He said in a very polite tone. I blinked and sat up straight, turning my head toward the mountain from whence most of our major storms haled. A breeze hit me carrying the scent of rain that I hadn’t noticed earlier, but the breeze had come from the opposite direction, from the fields. Storms never came that way. I shivered, my sudden uneasiness passed down to the mare who danced out from under Caleda’s steadying hand.

“That’s…odd.” I murmured, something in my spine tensing oddly. I suddenly felt with great surety that something bad was going to happen. This was new for me, Xan had always seemed to have a keen sixth sense about things, her gut usually warned her of trouble ahead of time, but always little troubles, like getting caught stealing sweets from Terry when we were younger, or when the gate had been left open and the horses in the north pasture had trampled Eve’s sacred vegetable garden. She never knew when really horrible things happened, like when Thomas, the baker was struck by lightning or when Andy had fallen off the roof and broke his legs. “I…I have to go…something’s wrong…” I said, distractedly, no longer paying attention to him.

“We will speak of this again later.” He said, voice even. I glanced down at him. “You should start back, quickly.” He went on. “It was nice to meet you, Ms. Porter.” I nodded and turned Swidgeon, started back down the trail. I didn’t have to tell her to hurry. Between the wolves at her back and my own unease, she was picking her way down as fast as I wanted to risk. It would still take nearly an hour to get back to town and I found myself in the odd position of hoping I was in time for…something, and trying to ignore the sounds of movement in the woods around me as they were probably just werewolves escorting me off their mountain.