It was Saturday afternoon at Toralei's house. While the werecat would love to be hanging out at the maul with the twins at the moment, she was catching up on the school work she missed during her surprise field trip to Ever After High. Fortunately, she'd gotten notes from friends that covered what she hadn't been in class for which had helped catch her up.
After several hours of work, it was around five o'clock. Clawdeen had taken a bus from the maul after spending the afternoon doing what Toralei had originally wanted to do but with her own friends. She walked to Toralei's house carrying several shopping bags and rang the doorbell. Toralei came down, opened the door and lead Clawdeen up to her room. They entered the room and Clawdeen put down her bags.
"We haven't had a chance to talk about this since I got back," Toralei said a serious expression on her face, which was in stark contrast to her usual catty playfulness. It was a little unsettling to Clawdeen but let her go on. "I knew I would most likely get back here, but a part of me was worried that I might never come back. And one of the worst things about that would be that I'd never get to see what could happen between us.," Toralei finished by holding Clawdeen's hand and gazing lovingly into the werewolf's eyes. "I apologize in advance but I have to do this."
"Do wha..." Clawdeen was interrupted by Toralei yanking her arm to draw her in close and then kissing her. Toralei kept her mouth against Clawdeen's for about five seconds before breaking contact. "Sorry," Toralei said with a grin and indicating that she was not sorry at all.
"Don't be," Clawdeen retorted and then brought her mouth up to Toralei's and they began making out. They'd been talking and hanging out with each other ever since that fateful night where the truce between Cleo, Toralei and all their friends had been established. Clawdeen had learned more about Toralei than she ever had before and decided that Toralei wasn't that bad (when she wanted to be). A few minutes later, they broke apart.
"I was a little worried you might not come back too," Clawdeen said as they held hands. "As fun as making out with you in closed rooms would be, I want to be honest with everyone about us."
"Okay," Toralei agreed. The truce had been going strong since it's inception and Toralei's parents already liked Clawdeen. Telling the people in their lives what was really going on between them would likely go well. "Grab your things and I'll give you a ride home on my motorcycle," Toralei said with a wide grin. All the talk about what she might have missed if she hadn't come back from EA HIgh was putting her in the mood for a ride.
"Maybe while you're there, you could join us for dinner," Clawdeen offered. With the Wolf family being so numerous, one more person wouldn't make much of a difference.
"I don't know," Toralei said nervously as she scratched the back of her head. "How big is your family again?"
"Big," Clawdeen answered, realizing that that wasn't such a great idea. "On second thought, let's work up to that."
Toralei agreed and the new couple went downstairs so Toralei could take Clawdeen home.
...
The next day, Clawdeen had called a meeting of sorts with her closest friends: Frankie, Draculara, Ghoulia, Cleo, Lagoona and Abbey. All of them plus Toralei got together at Draculara's house.
"I'm glad you all made it," Clawdeen said, standing next to Toralei. "Toralei and I have something to share with the rest of you."
"What'd she do this time?" Cleo moaned in exasperation.
"It's not like that," Cleo clarified. "Toralei and I have been spending a lot time together ever since the truce started."
"That's because," Toralei began, "I told Clawdeen how I feel about her."
"What?" Frankie asked with nearly tangible confusion.
"I like Clawdeen in ways that would make the family values people want to beat me up," Toralei explained with a surprisingly non-condescending tone. "I've felt that way about her for a while but didn't act on it because I let my rivalry with Cleo get in the way."
"But since they've settled their differences," Clawdeen continued," Toralei told me how she felt and I said that I was open-minded about returning her feelings. We've been taking things slow to build up some good will after so much bad blood."
"But after my unplanned field trip to Ever After High," Toralei chimed in, "I decided that if I ever got back to Clawdeen, I would be done with taking things slow."
"And I felt the same way," Clawdeen finished by holding Toralei's hand.
"I am okay with this," Cleo said with a slight smile.
"What?" Toralei asked in shock. She was expecting Cleo to be the strongest detractor to their coupling, not the first supporter.
"I know that sounds surprising, given our history," Cleo began, "but my respect for you went way up when you confronted my sister at Lagoona's birthday party. In addition to how amazing you were verbally ripping my sister a new one, you started a series of events that lead to Nefera being sent away to college (1). Since I'm not dealing with her everyday, my life is way easier. That was a big reason why I let you and the twins play with some of my family's artifacts."
"I thought it was because we talked you into it," Draculara said.
"No, I let you talk me into it," Cleo boldly explained. "There's a difference."
"I have no problem with you two getting together," Ghoulia moaned. "But I am confused about one thing, Clawdeen. You want to be a fashion designer: in terms of occupations and where they line up with probable sexual orientation, that is definitely on the homemaker end of the spectrum."
"I mostly like fashion design," Clawdeen said, "because of how I like making ghouls look their most beautiful."
"That's less straight when you put it that way," Ghoulia admitted.
"I'm a little confused about this," Draculara began, "but I am happy that you have found someone."
"What she said," Frankie agreed.
Clawdeen smiled at how well this had gone with her friends.
...
The next day, Clawdeen was at Toralei's house for Sunday brunch with her and her parents. They were all sitting down and about to eat when Clawdeen told them about her and Toralei. Toralei's lizard woman mother, Komodoyoko, smiled and then said some stuff in Japanese that Clawdeen didn't understand.
She seems to be taking it well, Clawdeen thought.
"I'm also happy about to hear this," Toralei's black lion werecat stepdad, Rio, said. "You can help me keep her from being almost killed again."
"You make it sound like I go looking for trouble," Toralei said. "Which is kind of true, but it rarely escalates to anything more than detention."
"Except for the three times you almost died," Rio countered.
"Two times," Toralei shot back. "That time when we went zip lining doesn't count."
"I haven't heard about that one," Clawdeen interjected.
"I'll tell you later," Rio said. "Seriously though: please keep Toralei away from anything too dangerous, especially if it involves magic."
"Sure," Clawdeen agreed. She was really happy that things went well with Toralei's parents. She knew that things would go well with her own family as well.
This was never what she expected, but she was looking forward to where it would lead.
….
Author's notes: (1) Cleo is referring to events the second to last chapter of my story 'Diplomacy and Defection' if you want to see the events in detail.