It was a decent building, complete with the requisite little problems that would begin to drive one crazy somewhere in the second month. Beth had secured a ground floor room, though sadly she had a window which she couldn't fit through. The girl had a stocky skeleton, even if her limbs were slight.

The unpacking process had been painless, with a minimum of bloodshed and a lot of unnecessary clothing. Not that Beth thought it was unnecessary, but hey, she has poor judgement.

She'd chosen a simple outfit for today, a sundress and a flower-patterned headband, both using a sunflower motif. On her feet were hemp sandals, the same sun-bleached shade as her sandy-blond hair. (Which wasn't actually blond, but a summer in the sun will do that to a mousey-haired girl.) Her eyes, too, carried out the yellow theme, shading from dusty green to dry-paint yellow. Not a natural eye color, but it could be mistaken for an effect of her clothes, which went very well with her tanned, sun-bleached body.

She was sitting, rather quietly, in some sort of lounge area. She had no idea what it actually was, but the couches were pretty nice, if old. She had a book open on her lap, but her eyes were unfocused. Day dreaming, mostly, with a side order of memories. People who were less obsessively prompt than her had been trickling in all morning, passing through. She'd mostly ignored them, or at least she hadn't looked at them with her eyes.

Conan liked to sniff around the lounge.

He didn't live at the school—no, it was too expensive for that—but he still enjoyed prowling through the buildings like a curious cat. There were a lot of magic creatures around here, and it completely drew his attention, rather like a moth was to a flame.

Not only that, but—

There was another wolf there. He could smell...her? He believed so, but wasn't so sure.

There.

There she was.

He moved closer, hesitantly, and tripped over nothing at all. Caught himself, thankfully, but still made a rather undignified yelp.

Way to look graceful, St. Clair.

Beth's eyes unfocused for the hundreth time as she caught a new scent. Someone else moving in, it seemed. Young, male, werewolf, wait a sec, werewolf? The identification was a natural thing for her, something she hadn't learned, but she hadn't known it was that extensive. The scent was somehow familiar, too.

She glanced up, startled, in time to see the utter gracefulness of her fellow were. She couldn't help it- she giggled, though there was an edge of nervousness to the sound. "Are you okay?" If her scent says young and female, her voice confirms it.

Hm. She seemed innocent. Sounded young. A female—he hadn't seen many female were around here. He shot her an embarrassed look, before grinning suddenly.

"Well, it was a good trip." Leave it to Conan to be completely cheesy and quip a horrible pun. He sidled towards her, slightly wary; despite the fact that she was a girl and that she was young, she could still prove a threat.

Not that he would be a particularly good match. He was a lover, not a fighter.

Beth giggled again, hopelessly wishing her sense of humor didn't betray her by finding things that really weren't funny funny anyway.

People being wary of her never ceased to be a novel experience for Beth. It was always so tempting to snap at them, just because she could. She grinned at the other were, partially in humor and partially in, well, the showing of teeth. "You do that often?" The tone isn't that nice and it isn't that mean. It's just curious, almost offensively lacking in emotional content.

"Go on these little trips? Oh yeah, all the time. I can bring you back a..."

Wait.

This was a girl.

That he was talking to.

Immediately, the blush appeared. The stuttering halted his words. He tripped, again, almost, then just gave up and turned around.

It would be easier to talk to her, this way.

"..a post card."

Blink, blink. Try as she might she just didn't quite grasp why anyone would care about what she was doing while she talked to them. Tentative smile, small. "Um..." And now, something completely irrelivant. "Would it have a picture of exotic carpet climes? Those're nice." Carpets are nice. The foriegn ones are pretty.

"Carpets? Er. Yes." He tended to stay away from them when he was in his wolf form, for unfortunate reasons. It had to do with visiting his neighbor's dog and getting blamed for the dog's accident.

As if he would do something like that.

"They're. Um. Colorful. At least the colorful ones are. Colorful, that is." He could kick himself.

Why were some people incapable of carrying on a coherent conversation? Beth didn't know, didn't really care, but disliked intensely the necessity of carrying both ends. Stupid boys.

She smoothed her skirt down, laying the book aside, as a way of reassuring herself that she at least looked okay. "My favorite color's yellow." As if you couldn't tell by the yellow-and-sunflowers outfit.

Idle, meaningless conversation. It's a talent.

He couldn't, because he declined from really looking over the outfit. Instead he raked his fingers through his hair, almost irritably. One day he would just have to face up to his fears and just stop being such a frightened little boy.

Must be something wrong with him. He could get on with guys just fine, but when girls were around he just seemed to swallow his tongue.

With a sigh he turned to face her again and flopped against the wall.

"Yellow, huh? I-I never really thought about, er, what color I like the...best." Cue awkward pauses and stumbles, well, he was only humanoid, anyway.

Okay, waaaay too freaky for Beth. Beth liked things normal. Most of the reason she talked to strange people was to try to fit them into the 'normal' category.

It didn't work a lot.

Colors were normal. "Well... what do you wear a lot?" She was hoping it was blue. Blue was a nice, safe, normal color. Blue was sky and, as already mentioned, normal. Beth really liked normal.

Freaky?

Hardly.

Shy and nervous?

Down to a pat.

"Solid colors." What a weird question to be asked. He shifted from one foot to the other, adjusting his weight. "Blacks and whites and grays—sometimes blues." Familiar territory, though. He knew what he wore. He didn't know anything about carpets.

Normal?

Not quite.

Hey, he was a werewolf. He couldn't eat with a silver fork without getting highly uncomfortable.

That's the problem, see. In the normal world, Beth's the scared one. Someone else is taking her niche and it's making her sense of what's right itch. It's like someone else sitting in your seat or sleeping in your room. It upsets the natural order.

"That's nice...." Trail off, because while Beth is good at random conversation, she isn't interested in it.

She inspected the fabric of her shirt, hoping for inspiration. Nothing appeared. "So... er. I'm Beth." Trying to hold onto normallity and failing, more like.

That'd be a strange name.

"Beth? Nice to meet you. Is that short for anything, like Elizabeth or Bethany? I knew a Bethany."

Ramble time, he didn't like awkward silences.

"She was in my eighth grade. Drew like a fucking Picasso. You know, in his blue stage." Did this girl cuss? He hoped she did, otherwise he'd be pretty embarrassed.

More than he was, at least.

"I'm Conan."

He looked closer at her, as if searching for signs of werewolf-ness. Scratches, maybe; he wanted to ask but didn't know how.

Strangely enough, Beth was more comfortable around people acting offensive than around people being nice and/or scared of her. The first was the natural order of things. The second was strange. "Bethany... my grandmother was an Elizabeth, but my dad didn't want an Eliza, so they compromised on Bethany." Too much information? Quite possibly.

"Nice to meet you, too...." Trailed off again, trying to formulate another question. "Do you have a calendar?" Well, that's roundabout way of asking things, but it was the best Beth could come up with. She didn't think well on her feet. So instead she was going to ask about the phases of the moon and hope he got it.

It wasn't the best idea. Poor confused Beth.

The eyes might give it away, what with the yellow. If one bothered to look at them, even taking the clothing into account, you got 'unnatural' as the verdict.

"Calender?"

Another odd question.

"Sure. It's one of those old fashioned ones with James Dean." Was it possible to hero-worship a dead guy? Sure, if they could pull off a peacoat like Mr. Dean.

Round about, totally. He had no idea what the other was going on about.

"Bethany. Do you draw like Picasso?"

He wondered if she knew what he was going on about. Too much information? Nah. It could be worse.

"You've got neat eyes." Happenin', dawg.

"In a coat he borrowed from James Dean...." A quiet mutter to herself. "Who is James Dean?" She knew the lyrics mentioned him. Didn't know the guy. Very specific knowledge of pop culture, was Beth's.

There was a point, wasn't there? Yeah.... "Does it have the phases of the moon and stuff?"

"Not really. Don't draw. I'm an English major." As if that explained everything, even the eyes. Which it does. Guess how well Beth handles compliments, and, yep, again with the non-existent tolerance. Poor confused chit.

She was talking it short bursts, as if her mind was trying to keep up with her mouth and not really succeeding.

He blinked. Hard. As if someone flung a speck of dirt in his eyes. Squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, blatant disbelief.

"Who...is James Dean?" It sounded as if the words wounded him.

"He was an actor. He was a photographer. He was this world's greatest rebel—who drove a little too fast. He was the one who made flipping up collars so in, back in the day." Conan was a fan, could you tell? "'Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today'. He was fantastic. Amazing."

—the phases of the moon question cut him short, and he closed his mouth with a snap.

"Er."

He knew what she was getting at.

"Um. Well. Yes."

He circled the days that were full.

A shrewd look. Sneaky way of springing that on him. He had been prepared to go on about James Dean for a bit longer.

Having multiple topics going on at one time was awkward. Luckily, Beth was pretty good at awkward, even if she didn't react very fast to stuff.

Those two facts were probably related.

"Oh... I suppose that explains it...." Which it was a bit unclear. Probably both. "How long've..." Two questions there. How long had he liked this 'James Dean', how long had he been... what they were. Heh. Were.

He only heard the second question.

"A couple of years now, I think. I stepped on his tail."

To anyone else, that would have made no sense.

"How did yours come about?"

He could beat around the bush, too.

Beth had to chuckle at that, at the evidence that her working on graceful movement actually wasn't in vain. At least she hadn't stepped on anyone. "Someone took a bite out of my ankle. This spring." It had been late, she'd been walking home, there'd been some tall grass, and that was life.

The scar was still there, two lines of white dashes on her left ankle. She didn't limp anymore, thankfully. That'd stopped after the rapid-healing set in. Nifty power, that.

"Um... does it get worse after a while, or better, or...?" Most of her senses had settled down, except for sight. It kept going black-and-white, which she hated. Smell was stronger, hearing was stronger, touch and taste were stronger, but sight wouldn't behave as she wanted.

The changes were, somewhat, an affliction in her mind. As usual, she isn't conveying her thoughts clearly.

"Really? I got bit on the ankle too." Stupid dog. Not Beth, the one that bit him. "Maybe we offended the same wolf. One that has a taste for ankles.

Okay, maybe he couldn't beat around the bush.

"My senses got better, and I have healing powers like you wouldn't believe. I didn't know we were allergic to silver, though. Sat on a freakin' knife and ended up half-way across the room." Unpleasant memories, he couldn't sit correctly for a week.

Beth mustered a half-smile, memory of the incident making it hard to maintain a happy exterior. "Heh...." Monosyllabic goodness.

Waitasecond. "We're allergic to silver?" Plaitive. Beth liked silver jewelry. She had a lot of it. Being allergic to her accessories was not on her list of 'things that make Beth happy'.

"Terribly. I'd reccommend, ah, not eating with silverware. I'm sure it would make you highly uncomfortable."

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. One word answers weren't his dig, he didn't like awkward silences. He always felt obligated to fill them with senseless chatter, and he knew he was going to do something like that if the girl didn't give him long answers.

That tended to be embarrassing, especially with his stutter and his tendency to 'er'.

"Oh." Short again. Poor, poor Conan.

"Does it have to break the skin or touch the skin or...?" Don't blame her for being uneducated. She was busy learning.

Fidget, fidget, tapping fingers, stroking fabric smooth, blinking and looking at shadows and lights and then Conan again and finally back down to the book in her lap which she closed without noticing and should probably put down.