sirenofwrath-blog

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“If not,” he shrugged a little. “You can always go back and give her a piece of your mind after you leave here. I’m sure you will learn a thing or two that she won’t.”

“She’d probably give you the shits,” Eloise said strangely smiling at the very off color joke he’d made. “Nah just Massachusetts is really far from Texas, so hopefully she just doesn’t bother. I’m sure she’s got plenty of other people she’d duped over the years that she can go over far easier.” She didn’t believe herself, but Damien didn’t know that. "Right?”

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“there’s power in a lot of things. Though, I don’t really like the idea of having it. I’ll leave that to other people.”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I only ever really checked my own. You should probably check sometime, though. There can be a lot of power in names.”

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“Damien,” he said with a deep breath. “I don’t know what it means---I never really looked it up.”

Zoey found Damien’s statement a little odd, but  smiled as she guessed it was mean as a compliment. “Than you. It’s Greek. It means life.”

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“I could eat her,” Damien shrugged, smiling a little to ease the danger that could be taken from the words. “Would make your deal go away and all that. Though, I’ve read that witches tend to taste horrible, so you might owe me for that one. Especially if I get heart burn and then we would get into paper work---it would just be a lot of effort.”

Eloise laughed. “My few experiences with witches have been shit too. You know this hand, right? Obviously I couldn’t go to the doctor and all that, so I made a deal with a witch, only basically it’s she gets to call in that deal whenever she wants. It sucks. Fuck witches. She probably has a spy here somewhere just watching me to make sure I don’t skip the country or something.” She did already skip the state, but she had no thought that the witch didn’t know. That bitch knew everything.

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“That’s a myth,” he said with a deep breath. “Clearly we can be males as well. I like to think I’m at least a little attractive though”

Reagan wasn’t sure what she was supposed to expect, but what he did say was shocking. She has heard that myth before, though she didn’t expect someone to actually accept something like that. “But you’re not an attractive woman.”

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“Magic and water don’t mix,” he agreed as he took one and pointed it at El and let it fire, small red sparks going off. He took a bite and smiled. “Cinnamon. When I was younger, my first not human home was with witches. They were assholes because of what I was. So I learned early to stay away from the stuff. This is cute though.”

Eloise grinned and still holding his hand headed for the booth selling them. As soon she got to the front and bought one she was pointing it at Damien’s nose and little small pops of fireworks go off. “Tiniest fireworks ever,” she said. “I’m not that into the whole magic thing, but little fun stuff like this is great!” she exclaimed.

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Damien’s face it up as she said she would go. He thought his meal of choice would ruin everything and she would be too scared to go near the water with him. He didn’t know what the ocean would do. He had been told he would be stronger in the ocean, the changes would be more obvious than in fresh water, but--she trusted him. Actually trusted him. “Yeah, alright. You had me at chocolate.”

Eloise smiled at him and nodded. “Yeah,” she said “I didn’t bring my bathing suit in my luggage for nothing.” If he was going to eat her he’d have done it already, right? “Yeah, I know you won’t.” She thought she could trust him, really trust him. He was on the diet, what else could he possibly need to do? Some weres didn’t handle their first shifts too well, but killings usually didn’t happen. “Hey let’s get some of the chocolate sparklers. I heard they actually make tiny fireworks like magic wands or something.”

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Damien winced in sympathy. He imagined that wouldn’t feel very good, especially if it took her arm with it. “I’m sorry,” he said--even though she had probably long forgotten about it. He laced their fingers together with a small smile and worried his lips before speaking again. “Would you go with me? I won’t----I mean I wouldn’t eat you.”

Eloise eyes cast down towards his fingers. She couldn’t really feel him touching it, but she could pretend. She did move the magical fingers and grasped his hand in return. “Bear trap,” she said as she lifted her eyes. “And when I shifted back to a person my hand was still gone. This puppy though can transform with me, so it works even if it looks a little weird. Normal prosthetics can’t do all that.” She smiled slightly, and almost a little sadly, not at explaining her hand, but at the fact that his mentor wanted him weak. He didn’t deserve that. He hadn’t hurt anyone here, and it was a fresh start. “I think you should try going to the ocean. I’m sure this David guy is great and all, but he doesn’t know everything.”

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“I get that. When I was a kid I used to get really sick and when we’d go fishing or to the pool or something I would start to feel a little better---not a lot better cause, I wasn’t eating right---but a little. When I got older I started going to the river more. Maybe going to the ocean would be better for me. Make me stronger. Probably why David doesn’t want me to---at least this way I’m neutered.” He wet his lips and looked down at her arm, touching it gently. “What happened?”

Eloise laughed. Of course it didnt for a siren. “Um… Well once a month I don’t get a choice,” she pointed out, “I have to go fox. But it would be really weird to just never shift. It would also be really weird to live as a fox. I mean I was shifted when this happened.” She held out her arm to show her magical prosthetic. “I really like having thumbs too. So yeah, I’d get twitchy if I couldn’t go back and forth.” That was kind of why she was weirded out that he wasn’t going near the water. How could he deny part of who he was? “It’s fun to have an escape sometimes, and not have to worry about complicated people stuff.”

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Damien pursed his lips and ran his hand through his hair until it was messed up and took a deep breath. “I eat people. You know the mermaid myths of attractive women pulling sailors to their deaths? That was us.”

“No shit.” Reagan frowned, knowing that much was obvious since he lived in Star Harbor. She knew some things about the other creatures around here, but not much. “I mean what can you do? What separates you from the other sea creatures in your dorm. I know the song thing, kinda, but I wanted to hear your description of yourself.”

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‘Doesn’t make any sense at all,” he agreed with a smile. “Okay, well if you could  stay in  one form---which would it be? Or do you get twitchy and have to change no matter which form you stay in?”

“Huh,” Eloise said. She’d not considered that before. Since she could remember, even before she was able to transform she was a were. She wasn’t a human or a fox, but something entirely different. “I’m a were,” she said. “It’s different than being a human or a fox. It’s like both. That probably doesn’t make any sense to someone who’s not a were.”

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“Actually,” he thought for a moment, wetting his lips before he spoke. “Which form feels more----natural?” he asked, trying to think of the right word. “Fox or human? Like----are you a fox that turns into a human or a human that turns into a fox?”

Eloise smiled. She knew she liked him for a reason, and she did have a tendency to just say whatever popped into her head and roll with it. “Well for the record you can ask me anything too I guess. I don’t know if you find werefoxes as interesting as sirens though,” she admitted. She transformed yeah, but she didn’t eat people or anything like that. It was totally different.

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“It’s alright,” he chuckled. “Everyone asks eventually. And it’s better that you ask when I’m not hungry than when I’m hungry right?” Damien arched a brow at her with a smile. “Don’t worry about asking me anything---you won’t offend me.”

“Huh,” Eloise said and thought about it for a moment. She didn’t know what she expected to hear exactly, but it was certainly a more common answer than she expected. “Weird,” she sad to reiterate. “Deer is good. Hard to catch, but good if you can get it.” They made plenty of deer sausage back home and things like that. “I don’t know why I asked that. It just wouldn’t stop popping up in my head.”

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‘Oh,” Damien hadn’t been expecting that question. Though he wasn’t really sure what to expect. “Well---it depends on the person really and what they eat. I guess most animals are like that. I don’t really have much experience but---it doesn’t taste all that different from cow or pork. Definitely doesn’t taste like chicken. More active people taste like deer.”

Eloise nodded and smiled. She didn’t know those woods. They weren’t hers, and without her pack, she as nervous to run them. Particularly after her accident she liked to stick close to others when she shifted. “So I know you didn’t have a normal siren childhood, but I’m really super curious… Um… What does human taste like?” she asked and then immediately pursed her lips.

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It made sense. All the wild foxes he had seen growing up usually stuck to large fields and the school was lacking a little in those. “There is the forest on the other side of the lake---maybe you could hunt on the edges of that?” It was an idea, but he didn’t know if it was a good one. He threw away the box his frog had come in and nodded his head.  “Go for it.”

“Yeah, actually. Probably won’t much here because there’s not really much farmland or forest,” Eloise said. Plus she didn’t have her pack here, so hunting wasn’t exactly safe. Thinking about hunting, a thought crossed her mind. He wasn’t really making a big deal of of her hand, staring at it, or asking about it. “Hey, can I ask you a really awkward question? Since we’re talking about hunting.”

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Damien laughed as he ate his and shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. If it makes you feel any better, I was worried they would keep moving after we bit them---like real frogs,” he grinned after he swallowed his bite. “Do you hunt as a fox a lot?”

“Sure,” Eloise said with a smile. If he was buying she’d have another for sure. It seemed so strange chocolate for a siren. She waited until he had bought more chocolate frogs for them, and then she took his hand for a moment to pull them away from the crowd. She bit into the frog’s body and it stopped moving once again. “This is probably totally fucked up, but this is kind of fun, with the frogs. Reminds me of hunting as a fox.”