Midas Journal 20

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I'd like to make a small note that I've added "liked it" and "didn't like it" reaction buttons to the posts on this website type place as yet another of my continual efforts to feed my desire to see feedback both positive and negative from anyone reading my stuff.

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Entry: May 9

I didn't really mention last night how my own set of new memories dealt with everyone who was changed. It's not a big deal, really, they boil down to meeting each of them as a girl in the first place. But I didn't really know how or how much their memories had changed, so I was going to call someone to ask them about it. Just when I was getting my phone out to call, though, someone else knocked on the door.

It was Lue. “Hey, wanna go out shopping?” she said, chipper as ever.

“Um..maybe? Could we talk inside for a minute?”
“Mmm...yeah, okay,” she said with a nod. I led her into the living room. “Soo, what about?”
“I'm not exactly sure which question to ask,” I said. “Uhhh, do you...are you aware of anything, different, happening yesterday?”
“Hmn.” She put a finger to her lip like she was thinking. “I didn't eat breakfast yesterday, I think it was maybe a little cloudier than usual...also Brian turned you into a girl, right?” she added the last part with a wide grin.

“You knew that was what I was asking about,” I said, slightly annoyed. “What exactly do you remember or know about that?”

“Well, I know what all actually happened: I have my whole old life, you changing me and having the new life with a bunch of new memories stuck in, and yesterday morning I had another big injection right about when I was thinking about having breakfast, and then sort of forgot about it until lunchtime. And then on top of all of that, as soon as I got through remembering the new version with you as 'Kaela' I got a very firm impression that Brian did that by using a power like yours that only works on you.” She took a small step closer and reached a hand up on top of my head to ruffle my hair a bit. “He did a really good job, too, you're even cuter than ever before!”

“Oh, u-uh, thanks?” I said, not entirely sure how to respond to the physical contact. My tail started wagging on its own. “It's, I feel a lot more comfortable being called cute now I guess.”
“That's good, 'cause I'm not gonna stop any time soon. In fact...” She gave a toothy smile, showing off some long, sharp canines, and her ears stretched out into wolf ears, along with a tail pushing its way out of her back, all of the fur the same light brown as her hair. “Can we sit down for a minute? I have a proposal for you.”

“Sure, I guess,” I said, and allowed her to lead me onto my couch. I was a little wary of nearly any new idea Lue had, but it probably wouldn't hurt to at least hear her out.

“Well, I'm sure you know that I'm the alpha sort,” she said. “I was an alpha in my old life and I'm pretty much primed to be the same in this one. That hardly means much of anything if I don't have a pack, though. And, since you're officially a werewolf now...”
“You want me to join your pack,” I said, my ears drooping a bit. To my new set of memories, the notion of joining someone's pack means having to fight them. The would-be pack joiner fights the would-be alpha so each can decide whether the other is strong enough to be worthy of the new relationship, and the alpha uses the results to decide what position to give them.

It's a traditional kind of notion and a lot of modern werewolves don't really join packs at all because they aren't the fighting type; I was getting ready to say that I was in that category but Lue interrupted me. “Yep! But I don't wanna do it the old-fashioned way. We don't live in a world where strength in battle is the most important thing, and we haven't for years.” She leaned back on her own arms, crossed behind her. “Frankly I gave up the idea of challenging joiners to my pack decades ago, and just invited people I already liked. But now that I'm young again I have to be a little more careful than that, so I got a much better idea.”

“Uh-huh...” I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like this idea.

She leaned forward again, coming closer to me than before. “I don't want anyone in my pack who doesn't trust me or at least like me a little bit...and it's good if I like them, too. But you can hardly trust what someone says or even does to not be deceptive.”

“Um...yeah...” By now she was leaning almost uncomfortably close to me. I pushed myself back against the armrest instinctively.
“But werewolves are animals deep down, you know. Our instincts are strong, and our minds tell them an awful lot about our own opinions.” Her face was less than an inch from mine. “So if you can access someone's instincts, they can be so much more honest about who we really trust.”

Just when I was ready to slide out to the side onto the floor, she grabbed me into a hug and moved her head over my shoulder, giggling slightly. I cautiously returned the hug, which felt a lot less awkward than our position a few seconds earlier. “See?” She said from next to me. “You'd never let me get this close without trying to push me off or get away if we weren't friends, right?”
“Y-yeah, I guess so,” I said, feeling relieved. The whole lead-in to that hug had seemed like she was going to do something more extreme somehow.
“So,” she said, pulling herself back enough to put her face in front of mine but not releasing the hug, “my test for joining my pack is simple. We pet each other.”
“Um..we what?” Whatever relief I'd felt slunk back.

“You know, a little scratching behind the ears, fur tickling? No big deal, just long enough to see what kind of a reaction you have.”

Lue put her hands on the armrest and pushed herself back a little more, smiling down at me. “So, what do you say, Kaela? You want to try and join my pack?”
I blinked a couple of times, surprised. Here I'd been expecting her to start the 'petting' with or without my permission or say or do something to bully me into it. Well, sure, she'd probably pout or cry or something if I told her no, but it felt...an awful lot like she was really asking me if I wanted to. And she wasn't being impatient about getting an answer, allowing me time to process that surprise without saying anything or getting any closer. I thought, well, she's my friend after all, and this isn't exactly going to hurt. If she was able to show restraint in asking she'd probably keep this 'test' as short as possible, too. And...I wouldn't really mind being in Lue's pack. It probably doesn't mean a whole lot more than just staying friends as usual and she could feel good about 'having a pack' or whatever.

Eventually I brought myself around to the idea. I slowly nodded and said, “Okay. Just...keep it short.”

“Sure, sure,” she said, nodding back. “Hold still.”

First she leaned forward into the hug, and then she pulled me back a bit so we were both more upright on the couch. Next she reached her hands up above my head and behind where I could see. I had to bite back a reflex to duck back when she did that, but soon after I felt her hands on my ears, gently scratching behind them and rubbing their fur.

It felt..good, in a very similar way to how Brian's hands had felt. But it was different somehow, maybe just because her hands were smaller and had a different texture. I felt calmer after a few seconds and relaxed even though I didn't know I'd been tensed up before. “U-um..” I tried to say something, but it was harder than usual to form words; instead I just leaned forward a little bit.

“Mm.” Lue smiled back at me and used one of her arms to gently pull me closer.

I could feel my tail swishing back and forth across the seat of the couch behind me, and I slowly wrapped my arms around her in a light hug and then pulled them tighter. Then something touched me near the base of my tail and I jumped a bit, half-letting go of her. When Lue pulled me close again with her arms and the thing that had touched my tail slid across it toward the back, I realized that it was actually her tail. “Mn—mrf?” I tried to ask something but found my attempt to talk coming out as something of a soft bark. Lue just started scratching my ears again, and continued wrapping her tail around mine.

I think it's hard to overstate how sensitive my tail actually is; I think it's because it comes right out of the spine, so having something rub across that is like being tickled right near the middle of the back, but it's even more since the whole thing is covered in fur. The point is that once Lue's tail was doing that and her hands were still rubbing my ears I had a very hard time concentrating on anything except for those two feelings for a good several seconds, and the thing that finally brought me partially back to awareness was the feeling of her cheek rubbing against my nose...or, well, actually my nose rubbing against her cheek.

I made a soft “eep” sound and instantly tried to push myself off of her with both hands on her shoulders. Lue let me fall backwards and land on the armrest, and giggled softly while I sat back up. My face was burning. “W-what the heck was that?!” I said, snapped entirely back to reality by now.

“It's like I said, Kaela,” she gave an open-mouthed grin which showed off some very sharp teeth. “We're animals deep down. Anyway, that's enough to put you through I think,” she said with a small nod.

“Um..so did I pass?” I said.

“Heehee, of course,” she said. “You've always been so hopelessly honest about everything, even before being a werewolf, there really wasn't any doubt in the first place.”
“Wh—you mean that whole—that—was pointless?!”

“Of course not,” she said. “It's embarrassing, right? So it's not fair if I only do it to people I'm not totally sure about already, I have to do it for anyone joining the pack. Anyway, you get a turn too.”

My head turned slightly sideways. “A turn at what?”

“Petting me, of course!” she said. “I did say we pet each other, right?” I remembered now with a slight shock that she had said that.

“Err—I—you, don't really have to,” I stuttered.
“Shh, no complaining. If you wanna be in my pack I've gotta know you know you can trust me, too.” She leaned closer to me again. “Anyway, you'll set a really bad example as the first person to join the pack if you don't do the first thing the alpha asks of afterward, right?”

“Ugh, fine...” I couldn't believe I was doing this, which probably showed on my face.
“Just 'till you get a meaningful reaction out of my animal side, yeah?”

I carefully reached around her head to where her ears were and went to rub behind them a bit. Her fur was a different texture from my own or even Brie's. It wasn't scratchy or unpleasant to touch but it was decidedly rough. Once I started to feel it I couldn't help running my hands along the rest of her ears to feel more of the interesting texture. I picked up the sound of Lue's tail whapping against the side of the couch just before she suddenly grabbed me in a tight hug, her ridiculously strong arms nearly choking me for a second before she loosened them a bit. Then I kept going.

“Mn-mrf! Y-you're, getting there,” she muttered into my ear. “Need..little more...rf! T-tail, maybe?” It was strange hearing her have trouble talking, but I remembered what had just happened to me a moment ago. I then understood what she was trying to say and reluctantly brought my tail around toward her back. I gently touched the base of her tail with the tip of mine, drawing a sharp bark from her that made me jump again. She was still holding on to me, so I couldn't jump back, but I jerked around a bit.
Lue's arms loosened; I'd stopped petting her ears for a second. “S-sorry..ag—again,” she said. I started rubbing my hands along her ears again and her grip tightened. Then I gently lay my tail across hers. She shivered slightly but only made a soft “Mmm” this time. So I let it run gently up and down hers for a bit. It was a similar feeling to her tail running across mine, and strangely addictive. I could feel my tail starting to wrap around hers instinctively to touch more of it as they both moved, and when Lue barked again even that didn't shake me out of it.

She made a sound like “Mm—ma—aah—aaaah” and though I couldn't see her face I got the strange sense that her mouth was slowly being opened against her will. And then that was confirmed as I felt a cold tongue running itself up my cheek.

“Ack!” I pushed off of her as hard as I could but she licked me another two or three times before loosening her grip enough for me to get away. It felt like a big, long dog tongue rather than a human one, which was especially jarring. This time I fell over backwards and upside-down beside the couch, and had to let my legs down to the floor before I could work on getting up. “Ugh—gross—are you just messing with me with all this?!” I said, starting to go toward the kitchen to get a paper towel or wash my face or something.

“Eheh, no, sorry..” I paused, seeing her face was bright red and actually looked worried. “I, uh, I was trying really hard not to have that extreme a reaction,” she said. “I guess since it happened anyway you know how I really feel about you, huh?” Her expression turned to a nervous grin.

“You think I taste good?” I said, going the rest of the way and starting the sink.

“No, silly!” She got up and followed me. “You know what it means when a dog licks someone, right? Don't you have werewolf memories now or something?”

“Y-yeah, but none of anyone ever licking anyone else,” I said.

“W-well, that's because obviously it's not socially acceptable for humans! S-so, for a werewolf's animal side to override that, y'know...”
“I get it, I get it.” Once my face was clean, I looked at her. “Just don't do it again, okay?”

“Well, of course not. We're done with the pack test now,” she nodded. “Of course, there's no reason we couldn't ever pet each other again...”

“Nope, nope.” I shook my head violently. “I'm pretty sure I'm in love with someone else at this point.”

“Aww, it's not anything like that,” she said. “I just like the way it feels. Anyway, I'm thinking of making you my beta.”

“R-really? That high?” I think it should be clear to anyone I'm not a very dominant person.
“Sure. You're one of my best friends, I wouldn't even have a new gig like this if it weren't for you...aaand, more importantly, you've got a nice, sane perspective on things. I have all kinds of crazy ideas and it'd be nice to have someone around to say which ones are too crazy. I think you're the only person I can trust to handle recruiting on your own, too.”

“You want me to get people to join your pack?” I said, leaning against the counter.
“Our pack. If you're serious about joining you gotta own it. Anyway, I'm not saying to go out of your way to find people, buuuut if there's a werewolf you know and think would make a good addition then you have the right to test them yourself instead of having to bring them to me.” She bared her teeth in a grin again. “All last week I was tempted to pitch this idea to Brie, you know, but I thought something like this might happen and then maybe you'd like the opportunity to invite her—or him, whichever.”

“Well, that's...considerate of you, I guess.” I had to push off a mental image of her petting Brie. “Um..I guess if that's taken care of we can go somewhere like you wanted?”

“Hmm.” Lue leaned back a bit and stared through the doorway to the living room. “Actually, this is a pretty nice place you have here. Maybe we could just hang out here for a while instead?” I hesitated to answer for a second and she added, “No unsolicited petting, I promise.”
“Oh. Okay, sure then.”

I found out today that Lue has never played a video game before. Apparently she'd never touched one in her old life (as a person who grew up before they existed, I guess), and growing up her new life had hardly seen them, either. So probably she spotted what I had and decided she wanted to try it today for whatever reason. It turns out that never touching one before made her very bad at it, but we still had a lot of fun together anyway.

I guess this means I have a pack now, which feels nice somehow even though it's a little weird; I mean it's not the kind of thing I would've seen myself saying two weeks ago—or, like, the day before yesterday for that matter. At least I have some idea of how people's memories were shifted by my becoming Kaela now, which is probably good going into next week. I feel like I should at least go through a couple of normal school days like this, and anyway it's basically up to Brian when I change back as far as I can tell.