"Alright, children!" A way too excited man calls out as he steers his car towards a road exit. "We are here finally!" His boisterous laugh wakes up two small toddlers in the backseat. Their eyes slowly open and it only takes them a short moment to regain their consciousness before they join their father in his good mood. "Ah, I see you are as fired up as daddy, aren't you?" Tears fill up his eyes. "Daddy is so happy that we have a place now where you both can grow up without a worry in the world, my sweet baby darlings." He cries.
The woman sitting next to him smiles warmly at his behavior and reaches a hand out to gently touch his shoulder, "Sweetheart, you need to watch the road." A gold ring shimmers on her finger.
Her husband nods rushed, rubs his eyes in hurry before focusing on the street yet again. His own hand grazes his wifes soft skin, embracing her fingers in his own. "I am just," new tears form "so happy!"
The woman laughs softly and offers him a handkerchief she grabs from her bag. "Yes, yes. Of course you are," she watches him lovingly, "Me too." Then she turns around, her eyes flowing over her youngest children babbling, her second son sleeping peacefully before her gaze settles on her oldest daughter. Her dark hair sticks up in a mess after the long car ride and a pair of bright eyes look out the window lazily. Her mother smiles. Really nothing fazes her oldest, does it? "Olive," she calls out, knowing that the girl will hear her despite her headphones.
Instantly Olives focus shifts to her and a silent question resides in her eyes. If her mother were any less woman she would not be able to discern the change in her kids ever-lazy expression.
"Are you also happy we are here?" She asks with a sparkle in her eyes that Olive is very familiar with. She nods. Her mother beams at her, "I am so glad! I knew you would like it here. After all you adore forests." Kindness oozes out of every inch of her mom. "And I believe that your siblings will love it too," she looks at the other three children again, this time watches her second son with an amused giggle, "Well, Raphael might need a day or two to adjust with his new roommates." Raphael hates insects. He does not mind the move too much as in the age of the internet it is fairly easy to stay in contact with his friends. But beware coming at him with a spider hanging from your hand and he will freak out. Olive remembers a quite perticular moment in their early childhood when she found a shiny bug and wanted to show it her little baby brother. The poor kid ran away in terror. He tripped only a few steps further and scabbed his knees, ending up with him desolving into a crying mess and his sister squatting besides him in concern, still with the bug in her small hand. Their mother found them like this, her daughter gently patted his head while her son stared horrified at the insect, frozen in fear.
The woman chuckles to herself. Even after so many years her sweet Raphael still has a huge aversion towards those small living creatures. Quite honestly, she thinks it is an adorable quirk. Well, everything her children do is adorable. They are adorable.
She turns around in her seat and looks out the window, joining her daughter in admiring the nature. It is a cloudy day and seems quite moist outside. She bets that it will rain anytime soon. Ah, how fun it would be to play with the kids in the rain? A dreamily expression sets in her face, thinking about her sweet twins sitting in their massive coats on the ground playing with mud, her son pouting as she jumps into a puddle near him, getting him wet in the process. And then she would watch her husband putting their oldest child into a headlock, messing up her already unruly hair and how a subtle annoyance would sparkle in her bright eyes.
Ah, her family is such a treasure!
Olive feels her eyebrow twitch. She can basically smell her mothers thoughts. A shiver rushes down her spine. That woman is truly a dangerous person.
But before her mind can wander off to more traumatic childhood experiences she had with her parents and siblings - including an event when their old microwave caught fire and the adults let their kids sit in the kitchen while the adults put out the flames with the extinguisher from her mom's car, laughing away merrily in the process; her siblings thought this was super cool and sometimes she questions herself if she is the only sane one in this family - a faint scent floods her nose. She would describe it as a 'needle falling to the ground in a silent room' sensation, smelling only the scents of her family, the old car, the motor oil working away and occasionally the literal bull shit that people put on their fields and suddenly this foreign scent penetrates her senses, more dramatic in a way she never had. It calls to her, it shrieks at her, warns her, threatens her, but also curiously pokes her in strange places and a restlessness settles in her very bones.
She sneezes.
"Bless you," her father laughs out loud, "Let's not get sick. It would be a shame if your first memories would be laying in bed all day instead of exploring our new home." Her mother joins in with her gently giggles. Olive rolls her eyes. They all know that she does not get sick. Not since the last time she had this horrible fever and quite seriously? She is very happy that she does not have to go through something like this again. Whenever her mother complains about a stuffed nose or an itchy throat, Olive is always more grateful that she will not get those infections. Or sick in general.
Well, she thinks dryly to herself, sadly this does not include motion sickness.
The forests begins to clear up little by little and the nearer they get to their destination the more intensifies the strange feeling a Olives chest. An unexplained tightness she has never felt before and the desire to cough it out rises up in her.
She cannot figure out what exactly bothers her so much till the car stops moving and her father exclaims loudly that they finally reached their forever home, tearing up in the process again. He jumps out of the car, reaches up to the sky with his arms and twirls her mother in a joyful embrace. Olive wakes her brother with a shove, waits for him to blink his eyes open and rescues her smalles siblings out of their seats. Noah, the little boy, jumps excitedly as he waits for the big car door to be opened, which does not take long as his father unlockes it and gathers the kid in his arms with a yell and starts playing airplane with him. Noah giggles an squeals.
Olive hands her mother the girl, Annabeth, who looks around curiously with her fingers tugged in her mouth. The older woman swoons at that, reaches for her phone and takes at least a good thirty pictures. There is never too much as she would say.
Raphael jumps out before her and finally she can leave the car too.
"Huh?" Her brother mumbles, "That's not bad at all." He looks over the two story house, the small garden in front of it that is, admittedly, quite pretty and if you let your gaze wander a little further you will be able too see a quite big area that belongs to their own.
But Olive is not stuck with the appreance of this town or their home or the huge garden in the back. The moment her feet touched the ground a terrifying amount of pressure put itself on her very being and everything in her screamed at her to flee. Well, not everything.
Her inner wolf.
It was the animal inside her that barks and growls, that stomps it feet and runs around in circles, full of panic.
She inhales the air to calm its and in that aspect her emotions.
And then it hit her like a thousand tons wrecking ball smashed into her soul.
"Oh," she breathes out and a calm is spreading in her heart, taking away her wolfs panic and fear, but not the restlessness in her very being.
Raphael turns to her with an eyebrow raised in question, "You said something?" Olive looks into his fair eyes, seemingly being lost in thought - something that is not exactly new and her brother understands that, waits for her to finish whatever she is thinking about; she is slow, sometimes, very slow - and shakes her head. "You sure?" He asks again, receiving a faster nod this time and shrugs after watching her for a few seconds, "If you say so." She bumps into is shoulder gently. He does not think anything of it further. If she wants to talk, if she even has anything to talk about in the first place because for all he knows she could have thought about dinner, he is not going to poke his nose in it. He would ask, she would answer, little bump between the two of them. That's how a lot of conversations between them happen and how they reassure each other that they are fine. Once their mother found out about that habit she was head over heels for it. Their father too.
"Olive!" The man calls out as he catches his baby girl Annabeth from the air, a grin stretched across his face, "Olive! You probably found already out, right? What do you think? Your daddy found you some friends, isn't that great?"
"What?" Olive blurts in a way so very unlike her, making her parents laugh. Her brother stares at their dad with wide eyes, gaping like a fish on land.
"So you did notice. Great!" Their mother exclaims and claps her hands.
"Wait a second," Raphael says flailing his arms in front of him, "This is not what it is that I am thinking it is, is it?" He turns towards his sister, "Please tell me that this isn't-" He stops himself seeing the blank stare in Olives eyes, looking ahead and as if her soul left her body. He even sees a piece of her soul flowing above her. Or maybe it is because he watches too much anime. "Oh. My. God."
"Finally you have some wolf buddies to hang out with, isn't that amazing? Even Noah and Annabeth are happy about this, right?" Their father puts his lips on his youngests cheeks and blows air out, resulting into a fart sound that amuses the little ones to no end.
Raphael and Olive just watch the laughing mess in front of them.
A hand claps Olives shoulder and she looks down into her brothers face who has his eyes closed, "Should you ever need someone, I have your back. But-" His face twists into a grimace of agony and he turn his head away from her. "Non-supernatural only. Sorry, but you have to go through this on your own." Another claps that feels everything but comforting and the boy walks away from her stiffly. Olive watches him leave with her blank expression.
Maybe her soul really left her this time.
break
She stares at him. He stares at her.
In the back of her mind, Olive asks herself and whoever is listening to her thoughts - God, Buddah, anyone - why, oh why, this is happening to her. On her first day in school nonetheless. Why did she need to run into one of the people that she did not want to see, like, at all. She takes a second to mourn her lost freedom because she is quite sure that they will not leave her alone. After all she is the one that invaded their territory, even when it was not on purpose. Did her parents never hear the term 'lone wolf'? And Olive is a perfectly fine, lazy lone wolf who enjoys the vicinity of her room. And pizza. She loves pizza.
The heated glare in front of her intensifies. Oh, she thinks, there was this person too. And he looks like he wants to set her on fire with just a single stare.
She blinks.
"So," she says, stretching the vocal unnessacerily, "Are you going to say something or is it that?"
As if she stuck a nerve his already dark expression turns into a more angry one. He growls loud enough for her to hear, shows his teeth in a threatening manner and turns away, stomping his way through the hallway quite similar to her younger brother when their mother teases him to get a reaction out of him.The girl just looks after him till he vanishs behind a corner and then shrugs. Whatever. Not her problem. Well, it sure is her problem, but she wants to enjoy every minute she has before she gets torn apart by the local pack her in La Push. She is convinced that this will happen and the unfriendly manner this particular shape shifter greeted her just proofed her right in that thought. Her wolf wails in despair.
Olive nearly forgot the girl behind her and is only reminded of her as she hears the girls inhale before she raises her smooth voice, sounding curious, "What the hell was that about?" Turning around a small, chubby creature springs into her view. The curly hair on top of her head shimmers in the light and dark eyes switch between her and the place where scare dude left.
"No idea, Deborah," Olive answers truthfully.
Deborah purses her lips in an adorable pout, "Don't call me that! Debby! Call me Debby!" Her fingers grab the taller girls cheek and squeeze her in the rhythm of her words, "Deb-by! Deb-by! It's not that hard, you know? I'm calling you by your nickname too, Olli!"
'Olli' puts on a blank expression. Is that normal behavior for someone you just met that very same day? She is not so sure about that, but her mother would be disappointed if she pushed away a possible new friend, so she endures the treatment for the time being. And she finds herself not disliking this quirky human in front of her at all. Nevertheless, after some time she catches the chubby hands and pulls them away from her face gently.
"My name is Olive, Deborah. And I already told you six times that I don't do nicknames," Olive says watching the girl in front of her puffing up her cheeks and crossing her arms in front of her. Olive hasn't seen a teenager behaving like this since she got out of middle school. It is weird. Refreshingly weird. Olive decides that she likes weird.
"But Deborah sounds horrible," the shorter one complains before throwing her arms into the air, "Alright! But you can't stop me from calling you Olli, Olli!" A mischievous grin brightens up her face. Olive does not think anything of it and only nods.
"If you say so," she mumbles under her breath, turns around and slowly makes her way through the corridor towards the outer area of La Push's high school. She listens to the steps following her.
"But seriously, how come the Paul Lahote not only noticed you but apparently hates your guts?" Deborah asks, "First I thought this was something along the lines of love at first sight but holy moly if looks could kill you would have died, like, a thousand deaths just there." Putting on a dreamy expression that reminds Olive way too much of her mother - cold sweat forms at her brow - she continues, "It could have been so romantic. The new girl! One of the untouchable Quileutes!" She giggles. It stops the instance her face falls, "But rather than that and all the fluffy feelings, it turned out into an enemy relationship!" She flails her arms dramatically.
Deborah does not notice that behind Olives blank face her brain begins to spin. Fluffy feelings? Enemy relationship? Maybe he just wanted to say hi...?
"Ah!" Deborah exclaimed excited, the despair in her face vanishes and is replaced by utter delight, "That's it! Why didn't this cross my mind sooner? Of course it is like this! It has to be!"
Olive, being completely lost, asks, "What?"
Deborah stops in front of her, her small hands grab Olives shoulders and shake her, "You start of as enemies that meet in school. Then a dramatic accident happens and he saves you and you get closer and befriend each other. In the beginning it is still quite rough but you start to like each other more and more and experience so many fluffy fluff fluff situations that will melt your heart and he asks you to prom and you confess your love for each other and then you marry and have many kids and your happily ever after!" Deborah desolves into a giggling mess, her face is a burning red mess and she does little excited steps while standing in one spot.
"... What?" Olive asks again but is ignored by Deborah who is seemingly still in her own world. Looking around the taller girl notices a few other students watching them as if that is a normal occurrence here. Maybe the shape shifters are not the only strange beings around La Push. Olive moves her gaze back to Deborah.
Certainly not.
Deborah wraps her arms around Olives and pulls her outside the stuffy school. Her steps are a little more jumpy than before.
"It's gonna work out fine!" Deborah says, as if wanting to reassure Olive, whos brain slowly fries in her attempt to grasp the situation, "That's so amazing! There is so much to plan for; I have so much to do!" She takes a hold of Olives hands, "Don't you worry about anything! I have everything under control, just you wait and see, Olli!" Her eyes tear up with happiness - another quirk that reminds the taller girl of her parents - and she quickly embraces Olive, turns around and waves her goodbye.
In her numbness Olive only realizes how she weakly raises her hand as a greeting, staying frozen in place.
When she cannot see Deborah anymore she looks at her raises hand, back to the spot where the quirky girl vanished, before asking no one in perticular and still every one, "What?"
break
Walking along the edge of the forest, Olive already forgot the encounter with a certain shape shifter or the strangeness of Deborah and only attributed this to her personality. Her mind did not stay over this matter any longer. Besides the fact that even her sensitive ears could not really follow the fast rambling. Currently her head is filled with numerous ideas that could be dinner this night.
Olives mind works slowly and predictable, she is not stupid, but maybe a little dumb. She is a quite simple girl with simple needs and likes to avoid complications. To make her feel satisfied it only needs a bed, a soft blanket, food and internet.
She is an easy teenager.
But even this simple teen is able to pick up signs of distress, signs of change and yes, she is able to adjust to them just fine.
It is only... that shape shifters and wolves are not your average change in environment.
Hopefully they stay away from her long enough so she can still have her nap.
Olive yawns. She is tired. Her eyes fall close. It is not that much of a problem when she has them shut for a moment, no? She just needs to rest them. Only a few seconds! She even keeps on walking! Who cares if she sees anything or not then, right?
She walks on and on, listening to the crisp leaves breaking under a feet, feeling the wind on her skin bringing a refreshingly coolness with it. And...
The strong scent of wolves.
It penetrates her nose uncomfortably.
Opening one of her eyes she comes to a stop and looks towards the ones that block her way. She did not hear them come, huh. Well, in her defense she was not really listening either. Still, she thinks with a dry expression, if her father saw that he would have kicked her shin.
She lifts a hand, "Yo."
The boys in front of her are younger, around her brothers age and they probably go to the same middle school. With only one middle school in La Push this is quite plausibil. They look at each other completely dumbfounded, unsure how to proceed, before they hesitantly return the greeting.
They stay across each other in awkward silence.
Olive waits for them to say something, apparently not effected by the weird atmosphere as the younger ones in front of her start to fidget under her blank stare. She does not notice this though, as she slowly begins to walk again, nods as she steps pass them and continues her way home. She also does not notice their wide eyes following her.
After she already put some distance between them her sensitive ears pick up their conversation.
"Shouldn't we, you know, do something?"
"And what do you think that would be?"
"I don't know! Do I look like I know? But, man, can we really let another wolf run around our territory like this? Just like this?"
"I have no effing clue, Brady, let's find Sam or Jake or someone, tell them and let them deal with this."
"Yeah, let's do. Seriously, dude, I never even dreamed about an outsider to come here. I mean, La Push isn't exactly your first town of choice, is it?"
"Nope, don't think so too. I didn't even knew that there are people like us that aren't, you know, us."
She stops listening in as she goes away further and it becomes a struggle to hear them clearly, looks up into the sky, closes her eyes and shrugs. She is going to barricade in her room. Her stomach growls. Blinking down she presses a hand against her tummy.
Looking like a lost child in the middle of nowhere she mumbles, "Hungry."
And then it strucks her.
Freezing in place she first glances left, then right, then back ahead of her before turning around and staring back.
She blinks.
"Where am I?"
Olive is not stupid, but maybe a little dumb.