Chapter 2
AN - Here you go, I told you I'd write it nice and quick for ya!
AN2 - Meet Yin and Yang, Y'all! Wow…try saying that ten times fast. Try and guess which one's me and which one's my mate. I won't actually tell you until the last chapter.
Disclaimer - I wish.
"Get out!"
A black fur trail came screaming out of the back of the butchers, followed by a rather irate looking butcher and a rather dangerous looking meat cleaver.
The black streak ran down the narrow alleyway and out onto the main street, dodging in and out of the crowds with a reassuring fluidity a man could never achieve, and dodged finally into the un-latched back door of the Four Winds Inn.
Padding up the stairs, still holding the huge lamb joint in her mouth, the wolf checked the corridor to see that it was empty before dropping the joint and quickly transforming, the fur retracting into her skin as it darkened and smoothed, her limbs filling out and her hair growing longer, until a teenage looking girl stood in too short britches and a too large shirt, tossing her mousy brown hair over her shoulders and picking the joint of meat up again.
"Yin," she called softly, closing the door behind her. "I bought back breakfast."
After a moment, a rounded girl, apparently no older than the first, appeared from one of the rooms, attempting to pin her unruly red waves of hair on the back of her head out of the way.
"I take it from the bite marks you stole it?" Yin asked, and the other girl rolled her eyes.
"No, mother," she muttered sarcastically. "It came with the marks."
"Hmm," Yin muttered. "I'm sure it did, and I'm sure our sweet and innocent little Yang will not find any more meat with teeth marks in it if she does not wish to spend the rest of her life eating her own burned beef steaks."
"Lamb," Yang corrected. "Your favorite."
"Don't try to placate me with lamb!" Yin snapped jokingly, waving the leg of meat at her friend as she began towards the home-made stove in one corner…the contents of a paraffin lamp soaked into a thick mattress of cloth, and a metal tray suspended above it. The tray heated very fast, due to it's size, when the paraffin was lit, and it was more than enough to cook thin slices of meat with.
"I don't know why you bother," Yin told her, disappearing into their own en suit bathroom. "You can eat it raw, you know."
"Yes," Yin retorted, "but unlike you, I have to stay in a carnivores form until it's digested. Besides," she added with an indignant sniff, "it tastes better cooked."
"It tastes better still dripping with blood and straight from the source." Yang argued.
"Savage."
"Denial."
"Bitch."
"Witch."
Both women burst into laughter at the insults. Somehow, being called a bitch when your most natural form was that of a dog lost its sting, just as being called witch when you used your belief in the magic's of plants and the elements lost its own.
Laying a couple of slices on the metal box and lighting the cloth, Yin hacked a few more slices off for the other girl, throwing the raw meat to her. By the time the chunks reached her friend, the younger girl was already in wolf form once again, awaiting the chance to catch it in her mouth. She lunged for the meat, a moment too early, and the end result was that she collided with it…or rather her ear did…and fell over her own feet in surprise.
"Daft mutt," Yin muttered, turning back to her own meal.
Morning was not almost as kind to some other men…more specifically, the ones stupid enough to have drank themselves into a stupor the previous night. True, the first night of shore leave with prize money had left more than a few happy men ashore, but did every single one of them have to have deemed himself unfit for duty for two or three days at least.
"I think I left me 'ead down privy last night," Styles groaned as he tried to support the offending limb with an unco-operative neck.
Matthews, apparently with a little more sense than his younger friend…or at the very least a better constitution…stumbled past the moaning man, slapping the back of his head as he past him.
"OW!" Styles shouted, "yer daft bugger, what'd'ye do that fer?"
"Now you know it's still on," Matthews told the glaring man as he headed our into the corridor to find the toilets he and Styles would be sharing with every other sailor in that hall.
Eventually hauling himself to his feet and reasoning some fresh air would do him good, Styles made his way out of the room and down the hall towards the stairs.
The Four Winds Inn was a nice enough place, and it catered for all the sailors, seamen and officers, with nicer rooms for those who could afford, poorer ones for those who could nor, and holes in the wall like the one Styles and Matthews had spent the night in for those who needed a place to sleep it off. And downstairs appeared to be nothing more nor less than it was...a place for a sailor with a penny and a thirsting to get thoroughly drunk.
Stumbling on the stairs a little, Styles almost tripped over a black mass of fur, trotting happily down the stairs and on her way outside, trough the back door. Reasoning that Styles needed some air anyways, he followed the creature when he was assured no one would see his exit through the owners door and slid into the alley way.
"'Ello, girl," he greeted the creature who had apparently stopped to wait for him. "'Oo d'yer belong ter?"
He petted around her neck, looking for a collar, but found none.
The large dog sniffed his hand and he straightened up.
"Must be 'ungry," Styles muttered to himself. "Mus' be a lost stray or summat."
I am no 'lost stray,' Yang thought indignantly as though Styles could hear her as she begin circling the alley with her nose in the air. I know exactly where I'm going…
Proving her point, she daintily stepped over a tiny crack in the street beneath her, just to land her foot in an empty pail with a queer smell and tip herself over with a crash.
Style laughed uproariously at the sight as the mass of black fur picked herself up; I meant to do that, she seemed to say.
As Styles laughter died, he patted his leg and called; "Come on, mutt. Le's see if there ain't summat we can find yer te' eat."
Wolf, she mentally called out, WOLF! Not Mutt. Mutt will get you bitten in sensitive places.
Ignorant to the threat, Style wandered out of the alley way and back up towards the main entrance of the Four Winds Inn.
EN - I know, my beginnings and endings suck, and my in-betweens ain't so good, but see what you think, and of course, lemmie know in a review. You're great!