Of Metis and Men- Ch. 5
Olivia was quietly proud of herself. In the past months she had gotten a good grasp on the English language and its pronunciation, not that it was easy. She worked each day on a multitude of exercises including taping her own voice so she could analyze the patters and do away with the guttural sounding inflections. She felt a fierce surge of pride when both Janus and Dr. Abalene had mentioned that she spoke nearly as clearly as any foreign student. She was also privately gathering up all the information on the Egyptian language she could find. Her parents had spoken both growl speak and Egyptian with her during the time she had lived with them, and she found the learning as a way to feel close to them again. Once they were sent away for their mission she was taken to the facility and she soon forgot what she had known. Olivia was surprised at how quickly things locked away in the brain could come back; she worked very hard to get adept with her homid language skills.
She had drug Justin along to be coached because she wanted someone to practice with and since Justin's change he was much more withdrawn and aloof towards the other children. She had had to bully him into coming with her, something that normally would have been laughable, but nothing else seemed to work. In fact there was a great shift of popularity and power in the facility. It was a subtle and quiet change, but the staff had begun to treat certain children differently. Olivia knew she was one to receive some of the benefits but as always she continued to keep to herself, she didn't care how "normal" she looked, she was still herself and couldn't risk the fury of another child that would cause blood splatter. The other children were much more brazen about their favored or special treatment and soon enough small fissures of dissention had begun to grow and color their relationships.
Justin's change had been rather terrifying and he quickly had decided that staying to himself was the only way to stop the harassment, he had only confided in Olivia because she was relentless in talking to him. His change was triggered in absolute terror because his dormer mates had gone through some severe reactions when they changed. Mari had changed but instead of being homid form, she changed into lupine; the over long teeth, huge paws and insane raging beast had made Justin and his dorm mates her targets. As the teacher and attendants were getting control of Mari, Felicia had changed. It was just as terrifying as her body turned lupine and her head homid. Her eyes shone with a deranged light and the high pitched hysterical laughter was neither wolf nor human. She writhed on the ground holding her head with her paws and continued to laugh and laugh. The girls were sedated and taken away, while he Al and Jane had watched on horrified. At some point during the night Jane had changed, but Justin stayed in his room with the door shut and the pillow firmly jammed over his ears. He forced himself to lie there and concentrate on relaxing while he listened to her scream. He and Al were alone in their dorm for a week because all the girls were still being treated., The other children had started to call his dorm the "Crazy House" because all three of the girls who had changed had ended up quite insane, thus all eyes were on him and Al to see if they would turn out crazy too. So Justin started having loud nightmares about changing and what would happen to him. When Al changed in the middle of afternoon lessons, Justin's nightmares suddenly became real, so he cringed and tried to flee. Al had other plans for him and tried to wrap a metal desk around Justin, the gleam of insanity lit up his face and he began to chase Justin around trying to turn him into a pretzel. Justin, through sheer terror and exhaustion, changed himself.
He did not go insane like his dormer mates, but with all of the horrors that were to await him, it might have been easier on him if he had. His huge lumbering form tried hard to squash down into a large lupine form, but the hip bones wouldn't shrink, so they broke and cut through his skin. His fur fell out in huge tufts, leaving raw oozing skin exposed. The fur that remained had a singed look and smell, which upon further exploration it was later learned that the pus oozing from the raw skin was highly acidic and was literally eating away at him. His eyes and soft tissue of his nose were assaulted by the fumes and when he touched his face with his hands, his fingernails split and more pus oozed from them, spreading the acid even more. Being metis meant he had accelerated healing, so damage was continuously being done and then healed. His head was a mass of bumps that were visible even through his hair and the eyes; snout and ears were much too large for the rest of his body. His body was tiny and frail looking almost as if they shrunk his body as a joke. His face looked like a cartoon wolf with the extended eyes and puffy snout but the worst of it was that his vocal cords were warped. In crinos form he lisped, in lupine form even the howls and growl speech were unintelligible. He wobbled and stumbled trying to gain his balance before the attendants came rushing in.
He admitted to Olivia that the only reason that he didn't go insane from the pain was because once he passed out; he reverted to crinos form and the agony stopped. However nothing could convince him to change again. Olivia had snuck in to see him, and often stayed to eavesdrop on the doctors whenever she could. She was appalled, but not shocked to learn that at least one parent of each child in Justin's dorm, had some lineage of mental instability. She also learned that the other three dorms were also arranged with by lineage, but the doctors never discussed just what the others were categorized by, Olivia spent many hours trying to figure it out but in the end there were just too many variables. She did agonize over a few days whether or not to tell Justin what she had learned, but soon she rationalized that she probably would not wanted to have known, it was bad enough that everyone was calling them the crazies anyhow. Since Justin had managed to change and not go crazy Olivia kept her lips firmly shut. Some things were just better left unsaid.
The Justin that came back to the recreation room was so quiet and different; Olivia feared that he was emotionally scarred. Quietly she talked to him, persuading him to hang out with her and keep her company. She reminded him over and over of their friendship and how much she liked having him near by. Soon Justin followed Olivia's example and they kept to themselves as much as possible, after a few weeks she finally confided in Justin that she thought that the dorm assignments should be switched around and now that they had all changed, they should have the choice of who their dorm mates would be. Justin thought it was a wonderful idea and then gave Olivia the needed pep talk into talking to Janus about it. The next day was fraught with tension as Justin pointedly ignored the nasty taunts and leers from the other children while Olivia was off being uncharacteristically bold and telling (not asking!) Janus that she wanted Justin to be part of her dorm and that he and the doctors should think about offering dorm changes now that everyone had made it past their first change. She could tell that Janus was trying very hard to look put out at her audacity, but in the end everyone was given the chance to move to another area if there was a vacancy. Olivia managed to convince her dormer mates to move on; she had gone for convincing all four of the boys because she never imagined that any of them would want to leave without the others. She was very much the odd one out, the boys did everything together, so not surprisingly they all decided to move in with Erica who had bullied out her other dorm mates and made very bold announcements that she would have to approve of her new dorm mates and anyone interested so come and speak with her. So Olivia was left alone and happily she began to recruit dorm mates herself. Of course Justin was number one on the list and as they sat in the recreation hall, they tried to figure out who they could live with for the next seven years. She and Justin decided that Tim and Brynne would be nice additions and fit well to their group.
Everyone's requested changes were approved with no conflict of interests. In fact there ended up being two extra beds because Harold and Alicia had not made it through their changes. Instead of evenly occupied dorms, two of the dorms had four children and two had five, a fact that quietly sobered the children. They had often studied and been told about the hard life of the Garou, all the dangers and all of the hardships, but the reality of the changes had brought the message home hard and forced them to really understand that the danger was real. Despite the gloomy reminder, the children were excited to be moving around, it was their first chance to make a decision for themselves.
Tim was a fairly quiet person, who had a large head with bulging eyes, lips and nose. Ever since his change things had been a bit harder for him. His head became so large that he had to wear a specially formed brace on his neck and shoulder to help support the mass, in homid form he looked like a cartoon person. His body was tiny in comparison, and he had brittle bones that could break even bumping into things, so his coordination was stilted and jerky. However his big head housed a big brain and he was a huge problem solver, unfortunately his mind worked so fast that it was hard to keep him engaged for long, so he hopped from subject to subject and often multi-tasked enough projects to fill a normal person's month. Changing merely enhanced these attributes. Talking to him worsened from a slight torture to near impossible to understand as only about a quarter of the information he was processing actually made it from his brain and out his mouth. Asking Tim to answer a question was like using Niagara Falls to brush your teeth. Olivia had found, through much trial and error, that it was better to have a pen and paper and make him use bullet points. The act of writing made him slow down enough for her to grasp the concepts.
Brynne was as solid as they came; she easily stood ten feet tall, was as wide as two of Olivia side by side and was still growing. Aside from her huge size, Brynne also had an arthritic type of disease in all of her joints that was just in the beginning stages. The pain was still manageable most days without any drugs, but only because she forced herself to get up each morning and go through a series of stretches that calmed down the inflammation that set in to her joints anytime she was still for a long while, and she knew that it would only get worse. Communicating with her with difficult because her jaw wanted to lock up each time she didn't use the hinges for more than half hour, it took her a few sentences to get her mouth muscles to warm up and to work properly again. Because of this Brynne was rather quiet, so most thought she was just too stupid or that she really wasn't worth their time to start a conversation because it would take too long and left her out of their conversations. Olivia knew better and had formed a quiet friendship with the girl a few years ago, and now that they were free to move their rooms, she quickly invited the girl in and told her that if they didn't find a fifth person that she would help Brynne convince Janus to cut down a wall, giving her two rooms and ample space.
The weekend designated for the moves was rigidly orchestrated and went smoothly, with Olivia helping her new dorm mates move their possessions since she was staying put. She also made it a point to clean out the bathroom since the boys had left it an absolute pig sty. She did understand that the move was really a big deal since most of the children had lived in the same rooms for almost nine years at the most and seven for the least. It was the first time that they had to go through belongings, pack and decide whether or not to toss something or kept it. Olivia was like the little dorm mother as she assisted everyone in getting settled in. She made sure that fresh linens and towels were available as well as checking in as each new person unpacked to welcome them. She found didn't mind because she knew that with her new dorm mates life for her would be a lot easier. She truly liked each person and knew that their personalities should work well for most of the time. Also they each had similar interests, but their talents were wide and varied, so they could be close if they chose or be individual. In Olivia's mind it was the perfect situation. They could end up being a pack and she wanted to have some people around her that she could work up trust with.
For the first few weeks, the new dorm mates all around acted like established packs and dominance was quickly established. Erica, Matt and their three dorm mates had made it a point to bully the other children around to ensure that they were feared. They were going to be the Alpha pack in the recreation hall and everyone else had better know it. Since there was no intervention by the attendants nor any of the doctors, Olivia figured that they were being observed, yet again, to see how things played out. She also knew that if anything got deadly someone would step in to stop it. It still didn't help the evening that she and Justin were sitting at a work table, carefully trying to reconstruct his still defunct remote control. They had their heads bent intently discussing their plans to repair when Matt walked over and brushed the remote to the ground, causing it to scatter into many pieces on the ground since the casing was open.
"What are you doing?" he sneered, leaning against the table in a dominating pose.
"Nothing now, since you threw everything on the floor." Olivia said, used to his gruff.
"Well maybe you should be building me something so I can understand your new spaz friend." He said, nodding over to Tim.
"Maybe you should leave and let us finish our business." Justin said irritate, as he picked up the pieces of his remote.
"What did you say to me crazy boy?" Matt snapped, feeling his power a bit too much.
Olivia was about to say something when Brynne came walking up, stood behind her dormer mates and looked down at Matt.
"You be flat, go now." Brynne said, working out the stiffness in her jaw as she spoke. "Don't mess with mates again. Pompous freak! Go before I break you into little piece and tell the rest of your group to leave me and mine alone."
Matt didn't even bother to try to posture for her, he tucked tail and left.
"Thanks Brynne. " Olivia said "I wasn't looking forward to an altercation."
"Glad to be of assistance." Brynne said with a twinkle in her eyes "It's why you wanted me to be in the dorm with you huh?
"Actually, it was so you could reach my stuff on top of the armoire." Olivia said with a giggle.
"What are you working on?" Brynne asked as she chuckled.
"Justin's remote, come sit and we can talk while we fix it." Olivia said, gesturing to a chair. She had learned that once Brynne started talking, she liked to converse a while because the procedure of loosening her jaw hinges enough to talk lucidly was so painful.
The three of them sat working and talking quietly for an hour, until Tim came up and interrupted them with a stream of thoughts. Olivia handed him a tablet and asked him to write down his questions and then read them off to the others. He was curious about what they were doing and wondered if they could have intercoms in their rooms, whether or not they were going to form a pack, what they thought of their homework assignment and if they wanted to join him in the cafeteria for a late snack. The small group agreed to go to the cafeteria and talk along the way. Olivia was starting to feel like this group would work well for her, and that she might even have an assertive voice with them sometimes. In fact she thought that everyone was getting along better since they were in a group where they weren't ostracized. Out of their starting group of twenty; four were insane, five were bullies, two were dead, the other ten were tossed somewhere in the middle of metis normalcy and then there was Olivia. She kept wondering just what was wrong with her, whether some hidden disease was going to just pop up one day and do something to her, or maybe her blood would turn toxic and eat her from the inside out. The hushed comments of the doctors the day of her change made her wonder, was she really the only metis to look "normal"?
Olivia didn't worry so much about it as she began to settle into the new phase of her life. The schedule was maintained of course, but had gotten increasingly harder as time went on. They had to learn how to master all of their forms and the weak homid form was the most challenging. She was often disgusted with being in the form at all, it was weak, broke easily and if something got hurt even a bit the whole stupid body would go into shock from it. Her natural form was a much sturdier model and she was used to using it so she was often frustrated in the tiny petite model that she was forced to work with. It wasn't until Janus reminded her that people were homid and the only way to fit in was to master the form did she relax and work with all the frailties that it presented. She did notice that she was pretty adept at the gymnastics portion and soon was able to tumble around, talk on narrow surfaces and twist her body into positions that tended to make the doctors cringe.
Quietly things fell into place, the new dorm situations were working out just fine with the children. Olivia began to wonder what would be next on the agenda. Obviously they would not be kept in the institution forever and she wondered where they might be placed. She went for her weekly meetings with Janus and the first few times she tried to pose the question he deftly maneuvered the conversation away. By the third or fourth time she got frustrated and just point blank asked him, he seemed nervous almost and repositioned himself in his chair a few times before telling her that he really wasn't sure what would be happening with them. No hard plans were made because no one was sure what would happen when their group changed. She scoffed openly at him, and told him that since they weren't possibly the first to go through that some plan must have been laid, to which he gave her a high suspect and guilty look before quickly turning his head and the topic. She tried to press the issue and for once in their relationship he had gotten gruff and loud with her.
"Olivia! Enough with the questions!" he had snapped "You are a child and therefore knowing everything is not your right. Now let's focus on the exercises I have for you."
"But Janus…" she had started to say.
"If you choose not to cooperate then we are done. You may be excused back to your room until evening meal." He had said, stood abruptly and walked out of the room.
Olivia sat there in shock for a few moments, looking out the open door then slowly stood up, glared hard up at the camera lens and then strode out of the room. She went back to her own room, put on her headphones and mentally cursed about everything. She would have liked to skip evening meal but her stomach had other plans. Her upset rolled off of her in waves and even her dorm mates gave her space. Matt leered at her once and the look she gave him back must have near peeled the skin off his nose because he quickly turned his head and found someone else to pick on. She ate little, said less and when excused from the table she went back to her room to sulk. For the first time since she could remember she skipped her evening tests, determined that if they really wanted to test her that they would have to come to her for once No one came for her and she stewed all night long. She finally became tired of pacing around two in the morning and went to bed. As she drifted off to sleep, she wondered idly if the look on Janus' face was guilt, or it was fear for her future.