#medora quijada

[loganscanons]

teenage fixation

A soft breeze blows through the open window, making the sheer curtains billow. The candles providing light on Diwa’s desk flicker and flinch as the late autumn chill brushes past them. Diwa doesn’t notice the shadows dancing across her wall, too engrossed in recording her day in her journal. Her pen loops over the lined pages, scrawling frantic and fervent adorations. 

We went outside during lunch today, just to walk around. He didn’t say much, but as I’ve said before, he can be a man of few words. I always wonder what he’s thinking, what colorful ideas he dreams up when he has that thoughtful look on his face. Does he think about me? I can only hope I’m the reason he has that expression of deep thought, when his eyes go a little out of focus and he has the slightest smile on his lips. His lips are a little chapped this time of year, but they match the color of his cheeks. His cheeks. The weather dropped overnight, so our brief walk outside was chilly. The cold does the most wonderful thing to his cheeks. They turn such a beautiful shade of pink, along with the tip of his nose. You can practically see the blood pumping beneath his skin. What I wouldn’t give just to touch—

Diwa’s stream of consciousness is interrupted by the sound of footsteps causing the old wood slats in the hallway to creek. She straightens her back, staring at her door. The house is old and her door, a sturdy wood, doesn’t have a lock. Not that Lola would approve of her having a lock on her door anyway. She waits, watching the door, anxious that she might be interrupted. The footsteps pass. 

Diwa turns back to their journal, open flat on the desk that once belonged to Makani, a desk marked with burn marks and dents. This is part of their nightly ritual. They spend however long is necessary to describe their day, and more importantly,to  describe Junior’s role in it. What he wore, what made him smile, the moments when he looked at them. Their heart flutters just thinking about it. They bend forward to continue their diary entry, taking half a page to describe how soft and angelic Junior’s cheeks look when turned pink from the cold. 

When she finishes, she closes the journal and ties a strip of leather around the beaten and worn book. She takes the small iron key on a chain around her neck and inserts it into the keyhole of the chest sitting on the desk. Standing, she looks inside the chest. 

Her collection of things related to him. 

A photo of the two of them in front of Junior’s house, sitting on the porch, taken by Medora. Diwa looks at the camera without expression, her long hair falling in front of her right eye. He wears that small casual smile she loves so much. They’re close enough that their knees nearly touch, but not quite. 

Another photo, a school photo, one of the small wallet sized ones, that she’d swiped from the Rivers-Quijada house. The photo in a variety of sizes had sat on the kitchen counter in a neat pile. They wouldn’t miss one of the small ones missing, Diwa had thought. After all, she would appreciate the photo more. 

A small snipping of his ginger hair, wrapped in thin twine, from when she sat behind him in class. It smelled like his shampoo. 

A bloody napkin from the time he tripped up the stairs outside the school, the rough rock scraping against his knee. She’d pulled the napkin out from her lunchbox and held it against his knee until the bleeding stopped. He’d laughed and said thank you and she was so close to him, she could feel the warmth of his breath. She remembers hearing her heart beating behind her ears. She remembers the way his blood gathered in small beads where his skin had scraped open. He hadn’t noticed that she didn’t throw the napkin away. 

An oak leaf that had been pressed between the pages of a heavy book. He’d picked up the leaf because it looked like it had a face on it. When he handed it to her, she’d held onto it. 

Diwa delicately rearranges the contents of the chest and places the journal at the bottom, then closes it, locking it. She says an incantation to magically lock it, then blows out the candles on the desk, ready to go to bed.

[loganscanons]

the latest gossip

Context: Medora’s sister Inez asks Medora about her new relationship

Characters include: Medora, Iracema (her mother), her sisters Leondra, Inez, and Araminta, Sabrina (Leondra’s wife), Esmeralda (her grandmother), her great aunt, her Aunt Jacira, and her cousins Yma, Tania, and Andrea

Steam hangs low in the bathhouse, mixing with the sweet scents of soaps and oils, and making the air thick and humid. Medora sits in the below-ground bath, her feet floating lazily in the clear water as she leans back with her elbows resting on the comparatively cool stone floor. She tilts her head back, closes her eyes, and listens to the latest gossip in her sisters’, cousins’, and aunties’ lives. 

“I don’t know how you did this six fucking times, Mom,” Leondra says. She lets out a low groan as she settles into the water, aided by her Aunt Jacira and cousin Yma at each elbow. Leondra’s pregnancy had only become visible in the past couple weeks, but the morning sickness and discomfort had been plaguing her for months.

“They got easier,” Iracema says, not looking up from the task of pulling a fine-toothed comb through her mother, Esmeralda’s hair. “Seneca’s was the worst.”

“It’s because his head is so big,” Inez quips. She’s sitting on the edge of the bath, one leg in the water, the other bent as she leans forward and rubs an exfoliating balm into her skin.

“Ugh,” Leondra says. She lets Yma take her hand and begin to rub lotion over her tendons and joints. Meanwhile, Jacira begins to work a sweet-smelling oil into Leondra’s thick locks. “Sabrina gets to have the next one. I’m not fucking doing this again.”

“Think you’ll have more than two?” Andrea asks. 

“Maybe,” Leondra says. “Probably. Sabrina wants three. Which is fine, as long as she’s the one having them.” 

A brief chorus of laughter fills the bathhouse, coming mostly from the older women, who are long past their years of pregnancies. 

“Where is Sabrina?” Yma asks. She works the lotion up Leondra’s arm, soothing her tired muscles.

“Flying out to Oregon for her friend Melody’s bachelorette party.”

“Have we met Melody?” Andrea asks.

“I don’t think so,” she says. “But, you’ve met her fiancé, Edmund. He and Sabrina grew up together.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember him! He was sweet,” Andrea says.

“I guess,” Leondra shrugs, unimpressed with men in general.

A brief, comfortable pause passes, occupied by the echoey sound of water in an enclosed space. The quiet is interrupted by Inez as she straightens her body, turns to look at Medora, and says, “Speaking of relationships,” a sly smile slides over her full lips. “Medora, what’s their name?” 

“What?” Medora lifts her head, startled by the direct question.

“You’re clearly seeing someone,” Inez says. She lets her other leg drop into the water as she rotates to face her sister. “We’ve seen all the classic ‘Medora-in-love’ signs.”

“I’m not in love,” Medora frowns. She’s grateful that the warmth of the bathhouse has left everyone’s cheeks pink and flushed. No one will be able to tell the difference between that and the embarrassed blush spreading across her face.

“Okay, fine, infatuated,” Inez says. “Crushing. Whatever you want to call it.”

“A ‘crush’ sounds so juvenile,” she says. Her dark brows are bent together beneath her bangs.

“You’re avoiding the question,” Inez says. “What’s their name?”

Her cousins have turned their attention to her, awaiting the gossip that Medora so often withholds. She’s never been as chatty as the rest of them, and anytime she has something new going on in her life, their eyes train on her like hungry vultures. Though her mother, grandmother, and great aunt sit on their stone perches in the bath with an air of disinterest, Medora knows they’re as curious as the younger women.

Medora flicks her bangs out of her eyes, then says, “His name is Ainslie.”

“Ainslie what?” Inez prompts. She slides into the bath, the water coming up to just above her breasts.

“You’re just asking that so you can stalk his social media,” Medora says.

“Well, yeah,” she says. “I have to. You’ve proven time and time again that you can’t be trusted to pick out good partners.”

Medora’s face flushes again, this time from anger rather than embarrassment. Her sister isn’t wrong, really, but it hurts to hear her say it. With a huff, she says, “It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have much social media.”

“I can find out things without social media,” Inez waves a hand. Droplets of water flick off her fingers. “As long as I know his last name.”

She lets out another huff and gives in, knowing Inez won’t let this go, “Rivers.”

“Ainslie Rivers…” Inez says thoughtfully. Medora can practically see a lightbulb go off above her head as the name jogs her memory. “Wait, Rivers? Like, of the Rivers family? The witch hunters?”

She nods slowly. Inez is already making her judgments and there’s nothing she can do about it. “Yeah. But, he doesn’t just hunt witches. He hunts bad supernatural creatures in general.”

“Is that supposed to be better?” Araminta, Medora’s usually quiet younger sister asks. In this instance, Medora wishes she had stayed quiet.

“We’re supernatural creatures,” Inez says, as if Medora isn’t already aware of that.

“He only goes after bad ones!” Medora says defensively. They don’t even know him and they’re already deciding he’s a bad person. They could at least do him the courtesy of meeting him first.

“How’d you meet him?” Andrea asks, and Medora is grateful for the diversion away from Ainslie’s occupation.

“He was at the party a few weeks ago with his cousin, Ashley,” she says, referring to a celebration that Iracema had hosted, and to which she’d invited several high profile members of the supernatural community. “He was visiting from Texas.”

“There are Rivers in Texas?” Yma asks.

“Yeah, there are rivers everywhere, Eem,” Tania says. “People tend to settle near water sources.”

She rolls her eyes, “You know what I meant.” 

“You’ve met them, dear,” Iracema cuts in. Her long fingers are deftly working Esmeralda’s hair into a thick braid. “They married into the McTavish family.”

“Ohhh,” Yma says. “Yeah, I remember them. Sort of. Is he the one who--”

“Hold on, Ainslie Rivers?” Aunt Jacira interjects. She’s paused oiling Leondra’s hair and is staring at Medora with her eyebrows raised in bewilderment. “Medora, honey, isn’t he like twice your age and a complete asshole?”

“No, Jacira, the son is also named Ainslie,” Iracema says. “The one you’re thinking of is dead.”

“Oh,” Jacira says, turning her attention back to Leondra. “Well, I hope he’s not like his father.” 

“Knowing Medora, he is,” Inez says under her breath, but not so quiet that Medora doesn’t hear her.

“He’s not!” Medora says. “He’s sweet.”

“I’m sure,” she says dryly.

Andrea again comes to Medora’s rescue, veering the conversation by asking, “How long have you been seeing him? Since the party?”

This is a subject that Medora is far more willing to indulge. The memories of talking to him at the party, their two dinners together, the weeks they’ve spent texting and talking on the phone, all make butterflies flutter about in her tummy. Her gaze rests on the water, though her eyes are unfocused, and with a small smile, she says, “Well, I asked him at the party if he wanted to get dinner with me while he was in town. He didn’t seem all that interested, but he said yes.”

Her brown eyes seem to sparkle as she looks up and meets Andrea’s gaze, “The dinner went really well, though. At the end, I told him I had a really great time and said I’d like to see him again before he left. And he asked me out on a date! He was such a gentleman.”

Medora doesn’t hear Leondra’s unimpressed scoff as she continues, “He paid for the meal, and pulled out my chair for me, and wanted to hear me talk about the things I like.”

“That’s sweet,” Andrea says. She gives her cousin an indulgent smile. Medora misses the twinge of sadness in her eyes, as she thinks about how Medora has deserved this as a bare minimum from everyone she’s dated, but hasn’t gotten it.

“And we’ve been texting almost every day since then,” Medora says. 

“When do we get to meet him?” Inez asks, not nearly as touched as Andrea is.

“Inez, I’ve only been seeing him for like a month!” she says. 

“Okay, and?”

Medora sighs, “We’ve been talking about going on a camping trip soon. Maybe after that.”

Before Inez can give her opinion on going on a camping trip with a man Medora’s only known for a month, Yma says, “Ooh, a camping trip!” She wiggles her eyebrows up and down. “All alone together in the wilderness.”

Medora laughs, “Something like that.”

[loganscanons]

Inez Quijada

Were-jaguar

she/her

The third born of Iracema’s children; Medora’s older sister by two years

5’6”, gold/amber eyes and long dark lashes, dark brown hair shoulder length hair, usually parted in the middle, wiry, between hourglass and pear-shaped, has several scars, including one above her eye through her left eyebrow

Needs glasses, usually wears contacts

Physically active; goes on runs almost daily, does kickboxing 

Intensely loyal to the people she loves. Very protective, especially of her younger siblings

Got very badly injured protecting Medora and Araminta (their youngest sister)

Does not care if people like her; if you don’t like her that’s your problem

Very outgoing and friendly when she wants to be

Shows her love by teasing 

Was legitimately a bully when she was younger but not like tyrannical or deliberately seeking out victims. If you annoyed her, she would be mean

Still can be a mean girl

Very opinionated and will share her opinions; can be judgmental 

Would do a murder without hesitation or remorse if it meant protecting someone she loves

Her family members might argue that she wants to do a murder, but she brushes that off and is like “only if they deserve it”

She thinks lots of people deserve to be murdered or maimed

Got into arguments and spats with Iracema all the time when she was growing up but they get along well now and she completely trusts her mother

Afraid of commitment and getting her feelings hurt but she will not admit this; avoids situations where she might get rejected and if she can’t avoid that, she goes in with the expectation that she’s going to be rejected

Flirts with people all the time, but never intends or expects it to go anywhere

Has intense top energy

Likes metallurgy/metalworking; knows a lot about historical weapons and armor and likes to forge weapons

[loganscanons]

Medora Quijada

Were-jaguar

5’3”, brown eyes and long lashes, full lips, dark reddish-brown hair, bangs, wiry muscles but very busty, wears a lot of jaguar and leopard print

Wears glasses during the day, but at night she has better vision than humans do

Very into mysteries and crime fiction; ends up becoming a private investigator in Chicago

Also likes bird watching

A great listener, very observant, good at getting people to relax around her and tell her things 

Actually a major dork once she’s comfortable around people

A hopeless romantic. Despite being an observant person, she has rose-colored glasses on when it comes to her partners

Has bad taste in partners

Got engaged to a man named Romeo shortly after high school. He was a were-bear and she was very in love with him. He broke up with her a week before the wedding.

After that, she dated a woman named Raegan who also ended up breaking her heart

Has had a few shorter relationships in addition to those relationships

Loves with her entire heart and nothing less

Tolerates much more than she should

Very family-oriented, intensely protective of the people she cares about, would murder without hesitation to protect her children and loved ones

Not a morning person 

Physically affectionate and communicative with people she loves

[loganscanons]

Quijada family

Were-jaguars 

Several centuries ago, a priestess named Ayala, was granted the ability to turn into a jaguar by her jaguar goddess Ozkilya 

The priestess Ayara is an ancestor of the modern Quijada family

Since then, members of the Quijada family have gone through rituals around puberty to allow them to turn into were-jaguars

Children are born with a few were-jaguar traits that will go eventually fade if they never go through the ritual

After the ritual, they have the ability to fully transform into a jaguar as well as transform only partially (furrier, claws, sharp teeth, etc)

There are a few branches of the Quijada family throughout the world, all of which are led by a matriarch. A new matriarch takes over every other generation generally

Children generally take their mother’s last name

Not every branch has “Quijada” as their last name

Medora and her family are from the Chicago branch of the Quijada family. Her mother, Iracema, is the current matriarch

Some members of the family have the ability to do magic, granted to them by Ozkilya. The magic differs depending on gender

Until the rite of passage ritual, children spend about equal time with their mother and father and learn general life skills and household chores. After the ritual, children are more separated by gender, with some gender roles coming into play (tho not traditional western gender roles)

The Quijada family lives on a big estate outside of Chicago. They have a bathhouse on their property, which is place where a lot of gossip and bonding happens

Family love and loyalty is Intense in the Quijada family