jace couldn't help himself. A low growl rose from his throat as he heard her saythat. He hated it when his kin where hurt and killed. He took it amongst himself on several occasions to keep watch at night while the others slept. He chased off hunters with unrestrained fury. He stared ahead "I'm sorry. What happened?"

It was one of those mortifying, "please god let the earth swallow me forever" moments as Kier realised that he'd completely knocked the wind out of the poor girl, and was torn between making himself scarce (like she probably wanted him to do) or do the decent thing and stick around until he knew she was OK.

For all those reasons, it caught him totally off guard when she burst out laughing uncontrollably. Obviously, he felt confusion. At the same time, there was relief that evidently she wasn't badly hurt. But the overriding stimulus on his mind was what a pretty laugh she had. It was so heart-meltingly beautiful that after the first fifteen seconds of it his anxiety was almost forgotten, and he couldn't help but let a smile crack on his face. After another thirty seconds he was resisting the urge to laugh himself; although he forced himself to show restraint, as he didn't feel he'd quite earned the right to levity after his little indiscretion.

Of course, the laughter had to end some time, and immediately the stress came back, as he wondered what would happen next. Only this time, the worst possibility didn't seem to be having to sit awkwardly and wonder what to do; the worst possibility was the thought of having to just walk away without being able to talk to her some more.

Which is why it came as even more of a surprise when she actually invited him to lay down! In almost any other context it would have seemed flirtatious, but it was fairly apparent that that was not her meaning. Even if he hadn't just sat on her like a dufus while looking (and smelling) his absolute worst, there was just no way he was that lucky.

As she lay back down, he looked her over and wondered who she could be. He'd certainly never seen her around the lake before. He didn't feel sufficiently at ease to lay down yet, so her sat cross legged facing towards the lake and caught his breath. After a minute or two, he turned his head towards her, gulped, and spoke to her.

"I'm surprised more people aren't out here doing this." he said. "You'd think in a small town like this people would have learned to appreciate a quiet moment."

After a pause, he added.

"But maybe you're not from around town...?"

Mina shook her head.
"He killed her. He said 'oh, I thought it was going to bite me.'" she growled.
"But she would never do that! Not unless you were trying to hurt me, of herself." mina shook her head again.
"Lady was the sweetest thing. I've alsways had a soft spot for wolves. Clearly my neighbor didn't feel the same."

She opened one of her eyes just a crack, and then closed it again. She didn't blame him for wanting to stay away from her, she being what she was. She nodded at his question and said, "Well I've only been here for a little while. A few friends are here with me." Her voice quiet in the stillness that surrounded the two of them. She couldn't help but wonder what was on this man's mind. Deciding to make the next move she said, "My Name is Victoria, but you can call me Torrie."

"Oh that's nice." he said in response to her reply, "Perhaps I'll get to sit on them too some time."

He winced at his own joke, regretting it almost immediately. Fortunately she either ignored it or didn't hear, and told him her name.

"Nice to have met you Torrie." he said sincerely, trying to control the torrent of thoughts swimming around his head. "I'm Kier. Any particular thing bring you to Willow Falls? I mean it's not a place many people come to fulfill dreams, I can testify to that."

Jace nodded looking down. "t hats what most humans do they fear that which they think is a threat" he looked into her eyes gently. "i am very sorry that happened to you. I lost someone close to me too. A long time ago. His heart started beating hard again. Yeah i like wolves too".

Mina rested her head on his arm.
"I love the freedom they have. They are clearly very intelligent." she said with a smile.
"I've always wondered what it was like to have that feeling of freedom, and the feeling of security you have in a pack. My mother abondoned me when I was a baby and all I had was my dad."

Jace blushed as she put her head on his arm. Smiling he said " Yeah i bet its pretty great. But Being human isn't so bad. I mean a wolf couldn't hold hands with a beautiful woman could it? ". He smiled. Seeing the diner. "hey we made it are you hungry,?"

"I'm not starving." Mina said as she smiled at him with a slight blush.
She brushed her auburn hair away from her face.
"What about you?" she asked him softly.

He smiled as the blush crossed her face. He scratched his head slightly as they got closer to the diner. "I could eat. I havent eaten yet and by now normally i would have had a good amount of food in my stomach." he raised an eyebrow and wondered if that sounded odd. He opened the door for her as they got to the diner and then smiled at her. "Ladies first."

Torrie wondered what to say to Kier. She couldn't just tell him that she was a werewolf cursed to die in a year. And she pretty much had come here to help her pack, and then die in a year. What a mouthful, plus she couldn't say a word of it. Torrie hated to lie, and the one she was about to tell was the biggest one she had told in a long while. So she decided to spin the truth, "We came to see the wildlife, and visit a quiet town and, some other stuff, that I can't tell you. It's top secret and if I told you, I would have to kill you.". She smiled and sat up. Her brown hair falling around her shoulders, and her sweatshirt getting all messed up. Attempting to fix it, she decided that she had sat in solitude long enough. "I'm going back into town, I'm kinda hungry. Would you care to join me." She only offered because she felt rude just leaving. and she could tell he wanted to hang out with her, even though he seemed to try not to offend her anymore. She probably could have told him to leave her alone, and just walked away and have been justified. he had fallen on top of her. But there was something about him that made her want to be nice to Kier.

"See the wildlife?" Kier mused. "Well the postal staff are pretty interesting, but you got to come out on the right day because most of the time they're a no-show. And far be it from me to intrude, but if there's anything interesting in this town then I swear you can tell me, kill me, and I won't protest a bit!" He paused, realising that she could be referring to some sensitive business, and coughed, changing tack. He couldn't help letting his eyes pass over her again as she sat up, but tried to make it quick so as not to seem rude.

The thought of going into town with her looking the way he did sent him into a bit of a panic, but if she was only in town with her friends for a short time...well, she could be gone by the evening for all he knew.

"I so most definitely would care," he said, "but I suspect my presence may be a little less offensive if I washed up first. How about this, my place is right on the route back into town. We can walk that way, I'll dip in an get cleaned up, you could go on ahead and I'll meet you up wherever you like. How does that sound?"

Torrie smiled as he made a joke about him being sweaty. She thought about his offer and decided that it would be ok. She nodded her head and said, "Um I don't mind waiting at your house, unless you don't want me to see your place. If so how does the grill sound?" She smiled at him in one of her sweetest smiles, and wondered why he was reacting so differently to her then Zack had. She looked the same, and they were about the same age. Maybe it was because of the setting that they meet in. She stood up, and started walking towards town.

Kier smiled to himself, taking her suggestion as the first sign that she might actually want him to join her for something to eat, rather than her just being polite. And when she smiled he almost had a small palpatation.

"Well I'm not too proud to let anyone see my place," he said with a shrug, "but I warn you it's a sort of 'abandon hope all ye who enter' set-up! But I have tea, coffee and music, which should be enough of a distraction from the mess for a few minutes while I sort myself out."

He stood up and dusted the grass off. The air fell relatively warm compared to the cool and moist grass, and after the initial stress of the encounter the lake felt once again quite serene. He extended Torrie a hand.

"OK, shall we?"

In spite of her normal shyness toward strangers, Torrie found herself putting her hand in his. It was a friendly hold, but upon touching his skin, something went through her, a shock-wave of sorts. She looked at him and her eyes fully studied him. And finally, when she meet his eyes again, it hit her, almost as hard as he had fallen on her before. He was the one she had been looking for. She intertwined her fingers in his and walked with him in perfect stride. "I think I'll manage. I have seen my share of messy things in my lifetime that you wont believe." Her eyes meet his again, and happiness welled through her.

In that moment she though of Roman, and her spirits dropped just a bit. She wondered if he had servied longer, and Laurence hadn't bitten her, if he would have been her mate. This thought had never occured to her beofre. When she thought about his death normally, she was always saddened by his death, and angry too. But this was the first time that she actually thought about it, and didnt feel the same emotions. It was like a huge bolder had been lifted from her shoulders. She smiled once more at Kier.

Kier wasn't sure what it was that had made him offer his hand [ooc: in truth it's because his cheese-for-brains writer thought Torrie was still sitting down and was going to have Kier help her up...], but whatever force was at work turned up a double surprise when she took it and walked with him. On contact, he felt a slight tingle. And not just the kind a guy would normally feel suddenly finding himself walking hand-in-hand with an exceptionally beautiful girl. There was something else, but it was only faint. His senses were not as heightened to it as hers were, so he did not realise what it meant.

It became a little clearer - though still not clear- when their eyes met for the second time, and he could see something of a realisation happening in Torrie's mind also. It was the strangest thing. Kier was not the most emotive person in the world, but it was difficult to get by as a songwriter without being something of a romantic, or without believing that amazing things can happen like the girl of your dreams just falling from the sky. Although perhaps in this case, it had happened quite the other way around! He chuckled slightly; life is like that, rarely playing out as neatly as the songs, and almost always throwing a curve ball.

They were getting quite close to his place now. Content to not entirely understand the situation with a girl he had just met and scarcely knew, he decided to remedy the latter complication.

"So Torrie," he said, a smile fixed to his face, "tell me a bit about you. What do you like doing when you're not sitting by lakes or doing top secret things that you can't tell about on pain of death?"

Mina smiled at walked in.
Her emraled eyes followed the patterns on the wall and the floor.
She slipped into a booth and looked at Jace, a smile playing on her lips.

"Well", She said thoughtfully, "I like animals, books, running and, being outside. I also like camping too, and spending time with my friends. They're like my family." She didn't tell him that one of her favorite things in the world was hair dye. She felt he would wonder why, and she just didn't think it was time to tell him weird things about her. She had to make him fall in love with her before she said anything weird about herself. Speaking of hair dye tho, She thought, running her fingers through her hair, 'I should take care of that again.'. She smiled at Kier, as the first few houses came into view. He was actually very cute, underneath his disheveled appearance.

She couldn't remember the last time she had felt this happy. She didn't even think she was this happy with Roman. She had never felt this way before, and it was, 'Oh so wonderful!' That thought made her take a step back, literally. She took her hand from his and said, "I'm sorry. I have to warn you that I'm not what I appear to be. I also have to wonder what you think of me as well." She wanted to know if he was just using her, like if he was one of those sleazy guys, who were always hitting on her until she gave them her signature death glare. Him being that way wouldn't change the way she felt about him. She just wanted to know what he was like so she could know what to expect from him.

Jace sat down across from her and smiled. The waitress came up and smiled at them. jace recognized her as amy. He had become a regular there and knew alot of the staff. "hey jace nice to see you again. And you brought a date. Hello I'm amy and I'll be your waitress today. Can i get you anything to drink? Let me guess for jace a glass of milk?". She said smiling. Jace nodded smiling back. " yes please". Amy was kind of taken back. She wasnt used to seeing him smile. This girl was special indeed. "and you miss...?"

Mina smiled. "Just water."
She brushed her long auburn hair over one shoulder.
She looked at Jace again, still keepingher smile.

Danielle woke up to see that she had fallen asleep in front of someone's house. The scent it smelled strongly of reminded her why she was there.

"How long have I been here?" she asked herself.

She was still in her wolf form. Danielle decided to stay hidden in the bushes until the person she was waiting for came out. She was too curious as to who it was to just leave. The scent blocked everything else out and made her feel the need to find it. She didn't know why she was reacting so strongly to a scent, but her only guess was that it had something to do with the spell. Maybe she would finally find the one person she had been looking for. The feeling that was building up inside her made her want to run inside the house and get it over with, but she knew she couldn't do that. Instead, she had to wait patiently.

While waiting for Jenson to respond, Zachary did the unthinkable, something that surely signalled the end of the world: he turned off his laptop and began to clean his house. Whatever was distracting him had been too much to ignore, and besides, the number of plates in the sink were starting to rival that of Zach's video game collection. The rest of the kitchen wasn't pretty either, and the living room? It was surprisingly decent; things could get in the way of playing as Altair or whoever Zach's character was at the moment. Just as he started to wash the second dish, Zachary's phone went off. Reaching into his pocket with a soapy hand, the device almost took a swan dive into the sink once it was free. Thanking all that were listening for saving his phone, Zach flipped it open and typed his reply quickly, leaving suds all over the keys. "Cleaning the house," he told her. "Please pity this poor soul and help him wash these dishes. THEY KILL."

Smiling a little, Zach went back to his chore. It was a little boring, but the feeling of accomplishment the task would bring overpowered it. Soon, Zachary felt himself singing a very off-key version of "Perfect Weapon".

Kier was a little taken aback, and thought for a moment about what she might mean. Then it occured to him that maybe she was going through the same thought process as him, and it hat just hit her how surreally this was all going, and whether it might mean something sinister.

"Oh gosh, I know," he said, "I'm sorry...look, I swear I don't normally just meet up with...girls, you know, at the drop of the hat like that. I I haven't presumed anything about you either, so really, I know the score. We're just two people going for a bite to eat."

On some small level the normalisation of the situation was disenchanting, but in another way it was reassuring. At least it made clear that this was, after all, real life! Althought he failed to read anything more into her statement that she was 'not what she appeared to be'.

As they came up to his house, he pulled they key from his pocket and turned it in the lock. "Well," he said, "this is me. "You're completely welcome to come in, but I promise there's nothing implied. I'm just gonna clean up and then we can go, or I can meet you at the Grill if that's more comfortable."

"I'm going now, mom! Me and Omelette are just heading to the grocery store, do you want anything!?"

After recieving the instruction to buy bread, butter and a pint of milk as well as his expected energy drink and dorito chips, Luke slammed the door before being half dragged down the steps, out the garden and almost onto the road by the hyper-active husky dog. It was only six months old, and therefore still considered a puppy, but he was fully grown and almost fully strong. With a swift, disiplined tug, Luke pulled him back onto the sidewalk before he was flattened by... Something. There wasn't actually any traffic, but Omelette had to learn that he couldn't just go bounding off onto the road because he may be killed.

"Omelette, you can't go bounding off onto the road like that! You could be killled next time! Flattened by a great big bus, or a car. Think how the driver will feel..." Pulling the husky done the sidewalk before the dog found it's set course and began to drag Luke, the blonde chuckle at how eager the adolescent hound was.

"Geez, Ommy, we're only going to the grocery store... Now that you mention it, how am I gonna hold onto you while carrying the shopping... Clearly didn't think this through..."

Danielle watched a boy walk out of his house with a husky. She didn't know what to do, so she walked out of the bushes in front of them. The husky was full of energy. Danielle didn't know whether it would attack or not. She remained at a distance far enough to where the leash couldn't reach her. She only hoped that the boy could keep the dog under control enough not to kill her. Normally, she would stay as far away from humans as she could, but this boy seemed different. She kept her eyes locked on him and tried her best to ignore the husky in front of her.