Small Fandom Big Bang 2012 Fic: Trials & Smiles - The 10th Kingdom (Part 2)
Trials & Smiles Part 2
The next few days went by with nothing of note happening. It was past her due date and there was still no sign of the baby coming. She was taking long walks whilst Wolf was at work and had bought herself some pineapple rings to see if they would help. She had also bought raspberry leaf tea having read in one of her baby books that this was good for encouraging the birth. Stretching, bending and even jumping had been resorted to this morning but still there was no sign. She wasn’t worried too much yet. The doctors had said that the due date was only an estimate and so far she was only a few days over it. The singing ring’s little rhymes weren’t too reassuring though.
When Wolf got home that evening it was to the smell of spices, the bubble of rice boiling on the stove and the sizzle of frying chicken.
“What’s all this?” he asked, “That meat is certainly overcooked!”
“Don’t worry,” Virginia replied, “I haven’t started preparing your lamb yet. I figured nothing else was getting this baby to come meet us so I would try a curry for tonight’s meal.”
“What a fantastic idea! Nothing like a bit of zing in your food to spice up your evening!” The implication that came with Wolf’s words and his twirl and tilt of Virginia as he captured her mouth in a kiss left little to the imagination.
“Get off!” she cried whilst pulling at his arms to try and right herself. “I’m over nine months pregnant you can’t throw me around like this anymore, I can’t right myself without help!”
He held onto her, making sure that she was perfectly upright and rubbing her bump in apology.
“A thousand apologies my sweetheart!” he mock whimpered and then dodged as she batted at him with her wooden spoon.
“How was work?” Virginia asked as he settled at the breakfast bar to sit and watch her cook.
“I know I should be grateful to Sheila, but she’s very overwhelming and each day that I go in she wears more and more perfume. As if it would disguise the stench of her personal smell!”
Virginia set a drink in front of him and continued with the cooking.
“I seem to be doing alright though. She only ever praises me and there are a lot of lady clients that always seem to enjoy stopping for a chat and leaving a tip.” He pulled out a wad of dollar bills from his waistcoat pocket. “Look!”
Virginia smiled, “You must be doing well if you’re getting praise like that. Now come and sort your lamb out, the sauce is nearly ready.”
They moved about the kitchen in harmonious tandem as Virginia finished cooking her chicken and the sauce and Wolf scared the lamb with the frying pan. It wasn’t long before the meal was served and they were both sat at their little square dining table, facing each other and toasting there evening with a glass of wine for Wolf and glass of milk for Virginia.
“Isn’t this a delight
Oh this is a good night!”
The ring chiming in made Virginia remember the rhymes it had sung at her when Wolf hadn’t been present over the last couple of weeks.
“Wolf,” she started.
“Yes?” he replied.
“Would you say that you are good at the whole, sixth sense thing? You know, like how you knew before I did that we were having a baby?”
Wolf looked at her, wondering what all this was about. “I did know. There are some things that a wolf can sense. Why?”
She had ignited his curiosity and he was now worried as to where this conversation might be heading.
“Well, the ring,” she showed him the engagement ring he had given her. “It’s been singing at me about the baby.”
“What has it been singing to you?” he asked.
“Well, it was something to do with the baby coming when he’s ready and for me to take things steady, so I’ve not been walking too much just in case that was what it meant. It also sang that the doctors are wrong, which is obviously about the due date, but went on to say that the baby has to be strong and it will all be ok. The last one was earlier today when it sang “It will all be ok, you will see, come what may.”
She paused and took a long drink of milk whilst waiting for Wolf to respond. When he didn’t she prompted him with, “So, what do you think it all means?”
“There’s only one thing that could possibly mean,” replied Wolf, thoughtfully, “we’re having a magical baby!”
******
If truth be told, Wolf hated the job he now had. He had been far more at home with the trash cans and dumpsters, loading them into the rubbish truck and dragging them back and forth, running about the streets. He hadn’t been outside all the time, but he had been outside a lot longer than he was now and that had made the time inside bearable. This salon, however, made him feel like he was back in Snow White’s Memorial Prison, except with female gaolers and a stench of perfume and sweat instead of bean stalk and sweat.
He didn’t dare mention any of this to Virginia. He didn’t want her to be disappointed in him and much as she claimed it was his rugged good looks that had landed him the position, he was adamant that he wouldn’t have it if she hadn’t asked for it in the first place. There was no way that he would have set foot in Hair O Dye Namic had he been out job hunting on his own.
It wasn’t just that it was a salon it was more that it was mind numbingly boring work. Even with his complete lack of knowledge of what a beauty salon was or what kind of work a receptionist was expected to do, it didn’t take long for him to pick it up. You answered the phone, booked them in with a time and made sure it was in the diary. There were specific lengths of time for each different item that the salon offered and he had a laminated card stuck to the desk (out of sight of the clients that came in to see them) so there was nothing that he had to remember. Fifteen minutes for a dry cut, half an hour for a wash and cut, an hour for a wash cut and blow dry, an hour and a half if it included a style, and longer still if they wanted their hair to be dyed. The manicure and pedicure side differed depending on the state of the clients nails but was usually put down for an initial time of half an hour. This time was never long enough because Sheila loved the sound of her own voice, but none of the waiting clients seemed to ever mind.
Wolf did. The sound of Sheila’s voice was really starting to grate on him. So much so that he suddenly thought the best way to solve this problem would be to get himself the sack. He could go home to Virginia and bemoan not being good enough to work in such a place and promise to find himself another job. Then he could find himself a job that he could actually stand doing, hopefully with people that weren’t quite as hideous as his current boss. He’d even go back to that gruff old miser of a Texan if he had the opportunity.
That day at work, Wolf had a brainwave. He was obnoxious, he ignored the phone and when he did answer the phone he cut people off purposefully. He booked people in without putting it in the diary and he overcharged people for the bookings they had come in for that day. Another of his jobs that he had been allocated after that first day, was to sweep the floor and make sure the salon looked clean and tidy for people coming in off the street. Today, he didn’t once touch the broom, didn’t pick up any of the used towels and left the magazines and newspapers strewn across the little coffee table and sofa in the waiting area. The coffee and water machines were left to fend for themselves. He didn’t top up the coffee or the cups and didn’t clear away any of the used ones either.
None of this seemed to be noticed by Sheila, who was on one of her long winded whines about the city and everything wrong with it, so he took hold of some of the nail polish and decided to see what it would look like on his nails.
That was how Sheila and one of her oh so important clients found him twenty minutes later. Sat at the reception desk, feet up on the corner as he leant back in his chair with five different vibrant colours of nail varnish lined up on the desk, each with a loose lid. He had finished painting each nail on his left hand one of the different colours and was now concentrating, tongue sticking out the side of his mouth and all, on painting each individual colour onto each individual nail on his right hand. This was proving decidedly more difficult than he had first thought. The left hand had been easy, him being right handed. But the right hand was extremely difficult. He was finding that he was getting more skin than nail each time he tried, no matter how still he tried to hold his hand.
The red streak that appeared across his knuckles when Sheila screamed at him was totally her fault though.
******
When he arrived home Virginia wasn’t there. He knew that she was ok, he would have sensed otherwise. Plus, she had promised to have their neighbour run and get him if she was unable to call herself. The little old lady that lived in the apartment across the hall wouldn’t have managed much running per se, but she would have made it around the corner to the salon to tell him. She went there once a week for her blue rinse - a piece of information that he was quite happy to be able to forget now that he didn’t work there anymore - and she had waved at him from her window as he came into their building so there was nothing to worry about there. Virginia had probably just gone for a walk.
An hour later and he was sat at the breakfast bar, right hand holding his chin and left hand tapping a jig on the kitchen top as he waited for Virginia to come back. The longer she stayed away, even though he kept telling himself that this wasn’t deliberate as she hadn’t expected him home so early, the more he started to doubt his decision to get himself fired.
By the time Virginia opened their front door she was confronted with a Wolf that was frantic with worry and shame and practically howling at the sun for lack of the evening moon.
“Wolf! What on earth’s the matter?” she asked, rushing forward as fast as she could in her condition.
“Oh!” he whined, “I’ve done it again! I’ve ruined everything!”
Virginia tried to catch hold of his hands to calm him down and caught sight of the red, orange, purple, green and pink varnishes that adorned his now rather pretty nails.
“What on earth have you been doing?!” she asked incredulously, “I know I made you work in a salon but I never thought it would turn you into a girl!”
That stopped the whining from Wolf immediately. “I am not a girl! And it is perfectly acceptable for a man to have a manicure. The male clients of Hair O Dye Namic tell me this every single time they come in!”
“I’m sure they do. I’m also sure they’re probably gay, bisexual, or transvestite. And for as long as I’ve known you, you have been none of those things. They are all part of your genetic makeup and not something that you develop from spending four days as a salon receptionist. The only thing in your genetic makeup other than human is wolf!”
Wolf smiled widely, baring his canines at her as if she needed proof of how wolfy he was.
“Sheila sacked me for using her nail polishes,” he admitted. Blurting it straight out to make it less painful as if he was ripping a band aid off his arm and knew it would take some of the hair with it.
“Well, I guess it could be worse. She could have permed your hair and made you wear makeup!” Virginia replied.
“You, you’re not mad at me for failing again?” Wolf asked incredulously.
“Not at all. Now make me some dinner, this baby is settled in for the long haul and I need some food after that walk.” Virginia kissed him lightly and then made her way to the sofa, spending the next five minutes trying to get comfortable seeing as the bump was bigger than ever before and all her bones ached from carrying it around all day.
Wolf watched her go, saw the sunlight dapple across her hair as she fidgeted about on the sofa and felt his love for her grow even more than he had thought was ever possible.
******
The next day Wolf set out on his own to make his way in the world. He wasn’t leaving Virginia, he was just leaving her at home whilst he attempted to get a job and succeed all on his own in order to support her and their new family to be. He really wanted to get it right this time.
He knew that he had an obsessive compulsive disorder where food such as lamb, rabbit or even little girl was concerned, but he hadn’t eaten little girl meat since before he had been imprisoned at the Snow White Memorial Prison and ever since his session with the psychiatrist he had been trying to overcome his need for lamb and rabbit . At least when it was in its live form. So he decided to try and get a job in a restaurant. That way he would be able to support Virginia and overcome his personal issues. Kill two lambs with one snap of the jaw, so to speak.
“Well, huff puff!” he said to himself, “Virginia thinks this place is nothing like the Nine Kingdoms but she’s wrong! Chances present themselves right when they’re needed here just like they do there!”
With that he pushed open the door of the brightly coloured restaurant stepped into the white tiled, yellow walled, plastic fornica tabled restaurant and presented himself to the food counter with a flourish.
“Hello good sir!” He addressed the spotty nosed, bespectacled, gum chewing boy behind the counter (much to his surprise), “I am here to attain the vacant position for a Server as advertised in the front window.”
He gave the lad his most winning smile and jauntily leant on the counter top. “What say you, good sir?”
The teenager simply stared at him for a moment, then turned and yelled “Brian! There’s a weirdo here for the job!”
He turned back to Wolf and said, “The manager deals with employing people, he’ll be right out.”
Then he continued chewing his gum and staring at Wolf as if he’d never seen anyone like him before.
In all fairness, he probably hadn’t. Wolf was wearing a velvet suit with a white ruffled shirt and he still had painted fingernails. His hair was ruffed up, he had a few days growth of beard and his eyes were as dark as the night. As much as it wasn’t unusual for someone in the Big Apple to express their personality in weird and wonderful ways, Wolf did it whilst giving off an air of danger that got your heart racing even if you had no idea why.
“If you’d like to follow me, we can have a little chat slash interview in my office,” the manager said as he came round the side of the counter and approached wolf. He’d done the action with his arm as he’d said slash too, thinking himself funny he grinned and turned around motioning for Wolf to go with him.
From first impressions, Wolf thought that the manager looked like the kid behind the counter, except about fifteen years older. As the chat slash interview went on, he decided that he was right. He hid his dislike of the forced sounding niceties and bad jokes and smarmed his way into a job beneath the Golden Arches.
He was pleased with himself. He had got himself into a job in a restaurant without any questions asked about previous employment. He was a genius. Well, that or the manager was a moron. Either was fine by him so long as he provided for Virginia and their soon to arrive pup. Even if it did mean having to wear a hideous uniform. He couldn’t whine about it, they were letting him start straight away and you got fed on the job! He figured he’d save his to take home to Virginia, surprise her with dinner as soon as he got in so that she didn’t have to cook. Little did he know the consequences this would have.
He was to work the tills, give people their food and clean tables. It was easy work for him, having had the practice within Prince Wendell’s Palace. It was a busy restaurant and he soon found himself at the end of his shift with slightly sore feet, an icky greasy feeling to his hair and skin and a brown paper bag with Big Mac’s, fries and hot apple pies in it to take home for dinner. It was with a jaunty whistle and a spring in his step that he set off home to Virginia.
******
“Hi Honey! I’m home!” Wolf called out in a sing-song voice as he entered their apartment.
“Oooh! Something smells delicious!” Virginia replied as she came out into the hall and tried to block his way into the kitchen to see what the smell was.
“Woah! Woah!” Wolf exclaimed, laughing. “Hold your pretty white mice horses! Let me in the kitchen and I’ll dish up!”
Dishing up consisted of making Virginia sit down at the counter next to him and lifting the food containers out of the bag. Virginia grabbed the Big Mac he handed her and sank her teeth into it with relish.
“Mmmmhmmm!” she vocalised her delight at how much she liked the burger, telling Wolf, through mouthfuls of food, that she had found the food she needed to eat for the rest of her days.
“Look!” she said after actually finishing her food, “This is just what the baby ordered!”
She pointed to her stomach just as the baby obligingly stuck its foot right up showing an irregular bump in her belly.
“Our little pup approves of my new job then,” Wolf said proudly, “I guess it’ll be burgers for dinner all this week!”
******
After working a few shifts on the till and out the front and taking Big Mac’s home for Virginia, Wolf decided that it would be far better if he could just make them for her himself. That way he would be able to make them when he wasn’t on shift and she wouldn’t just have to wait for when he was at work to get one.
The next break he got he went into the kitchen area instead of out the back into the staff area. There was a young, impressionable girl that worked the grill and he decided that it would be harmless to chat her up a bit and get the scoop on how the burgers were made. He was right to think that this would work, he barely had to smile at her and she was showing him exactly how they made the Big Mac’s. Everything was working out just fine until she put the sauce in the burger and told him it was a secret sauce and she had no idea what it was made out of.
Wolf went home that evening with a couple of Big Mac’s, but he stopped by a store and got all the ingredients to make them himself. When he got in, he shooed Virginia away so that he could try the recipe. Then he gave a Big Mac and a Homemade Big Mac to Virginia and sat and tried the same for himself. First he took a bite from the Big Mac, then he took a bite from the homemade version. They did not taste the same.
“Suck an Elf!” he cried out in annoyance, “I’m going to have to find out what that sauce is made out of.”
******
At work the next day, Wolf waited impatiently for the manager to go on break and leave the building. He knew he would leave instead of going to the staff area because on a daytime shift he always went out. The guy was like clockwork. He did the same thing in the same manner every single day. Wolf had no reason to believe that he wouldn’t do the same today.
He was right to believe this. The manager’s break came and he put his coat on and left the restaurant exactly as he did every other time he worked during the day. Wolf watched him go and then took his chance.
“I’m taking my break,” he said to his spotty nosed colleague. Then turned and walked away from the counter and the queue full of people waiting to be served, ignoring the comments of outrage from the other server.
He sauntered out the back and made as if heading towards the toilets with a “When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go!” Thrown back over his shoulder. Spotting that they were too busy to care about where he was going (just that fact that he had left them to it at a busy moment), he ducked away from the toilets and towards the manager’s office. Which turned out to be locked.
“Huff puff! Why so many obstacles? I only want to make a burger!” he muttered to himself as he took hold of the handle. It was a simple lock built into an old wooden door structure and Wolf was not a weakling. It only took him putting all his weight into it to break the lock through the frame and open the door. The fact that the manager had locked the office before leaving for his break encouraged Wolf in his searching as he took it to mean that the recipe for the sauce was definitely in there.
He searched through the cabinets and bookshelves that were in the room before he headed for the desk. There was nothing stealth-like about Wolf’s searching. At no point did he think to be tidy about it and leave no trace of him being there. He simply raided the place with a frantic abandon as the need to find the recipe started to consume him.
Once he had ransacked the room in general he turned to the desk, wrenching open the locked draws with a strength he normally only had on the full moon. Nothing. He was about to give up when he picked up the black thing with a tail and rapped it on the edge of the desk to see if it was hollow - the recipe could have been hidden inside it!
It didn’t sound hollow, but what it did do was make the TV screen on the desk come to life. Wolf stared at it for a moment wondering why there wasn’t any sound and thinking how boring the show was until a spark of inspiration hit. When Virginia had taken him shopping to buy bits for the pup she had taken him to a store that seemed to hold everything you could ever want to buy - and she said the 10th Kingdom didn’t have magic! That store told him different! In it had been TV’s like the one they had at home, and screens like this one that she had told him were computers. This must be what they were like when they were working!
Wolf was diligently pushing all the buttons on the computer’s keyboard when the manager appeared in the doorway at stared at him in shock before exploding with a very interestingly large throbbing vein on the side of his neck.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!” he yelled, “GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!!”
Wolf jumped out of his seat in surprise having not seen the manager arrive and quickly came round from behind the desk, edging towards the door where the manager still stood seething with anger, but trying to keep out of hitting distance. He whimpered something unintelligible as he tried to think of an excuse for what he had done.
“You’re fired. Mr Wolf. Gather your things and leave. Immediately.” The manager pointed in the direction of the door as he bit the words out between gritted teeth.
Wolf bolted for the door and legged it. He didn’t want to aggravate him any further. He knew to get out when the going wasn’t so good.
******
“You’re home early,” Virginia said as she came out of the bathroom and bumped into Wolf in the hallway.
She peered around him. “No Big Mac?”
“No. And I couldn’t find the secret recipe either so I won’t be able to make it for you.” Wolf had a proper sulky puppy dog face on as he told Virginia this.
“That’s ok,” replied Virginia as she patted her stomach, “If we need one, you can bring it home after your next shift.”
“Ummm...”
“Ah, what did you do to try and find the recipe?” Virginia asked, getting the feeling that there was more to the story than she had been told so far.
“I only had a look in the manager’s office,” Wolf began, “without his permission.”
“So you’ve been fired?” Virginia prompted him.
“Yes, but it was only because I was trying to get the recipe for you my dreamy creamy love!” Wolf replied hoping to soften the news.
“It’s ok,” Virginia told him, “sometimes you have to do a few jobs before you find the one that you’re good at.”
Taking that to mean that she was neither angry nor upset, Wolf pulled her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly before asking, “Any signs of our pup yet?”
“No, I,” Virginia was unable to say anything further as she was interrupted.
“Pup will come, he’s not late!
Good things come to those that wait!”
“Well, I guess that means there’s nothing to worry about!” said Wolf as he and Virginia both laughed at the interruption.
“Now how about we go to Central Park and play hide and seek?” Wolf asked cheekily.
“In my condition? I won’t stand a chance!” exclaimed Virginia.
“I’ll count to two hundred to make up for it?” Wolf wheedled as he tugged her towards the front door.
A laughing Virginia relented and nodded, following him out of the apartment.
******
Not one to give up looking for that elusive job of his dreams, Wolf went straight back out there. He took with him a letter of reference from his previous manager, having got Virginia to write it for him and sign it as if she were the McDonalds manager he had been working for. It was cheating, but his wolfie nature wasn’t bothered by that and he persuaded Virginia by asking her to do it when she was tired and not completely paying attention. The ploy worked. He got himself working in another restaurant. One that was far more posh and upmarket too. He also had used some artistic licence to turn the description of what he actually did at McDonalds into him being a chef.
So it was that he found himself in a kitchen in chef whites with the chef’s hat sat crookedly on his head and delicious smelling raw cuts of meat to prepare and send out to the customers. It was almost too much for him. The meat was juicy and fresh and it was all he could do to not eat it.
The orders soon started rolling in as the restaurant filled up for lunch. It was, first and foremost, a steakhouse so the majority of orders were for the steak. Ordered medium rare, medium well and well done. Of course, the requests from the customers, passed on by the waiters and waitresses, fell on deaf ears. There was only one way that the steak would leave the kitchen with Wolf in charge.
“Well done, indeed!” he huffed to himself, “meat needs to be rare to be appreciated in its full glory!” And with that he sent out another rare steak into the front of house for a customer that wanted well done.
The complaints came in thick and fast; it being New York where people were not afraid to demand what they wanted and refuse to pay should they not get it exactly as they liked. One customer got so mad when he received his well done steak practically dripping with blood that he sent it back and demanded that it be put back on the grill. The waiter brought it back into the kitchens and passed on the demands. Wolf simply took the steak, threw it onto the grill, flipped it and then threw it back onto the plate and shooed the waiter away as he turned to the next one that required attention.
A couple of minutes later the waiter returned but without a plate.
“What?” asked Wolf, curious that the waiter had come up to him but had nothing to give him.
“The customer would like to see you,” he replied.
Wolf shrugged and nodded to him, then left kitchens with the waiter who took him to the disgruntled customer.
“Good evening, sir!” Wolf said with a flourish and a bow as he took off his chef’s hat.
“Good evening?! Good evening?!” yelled the angry man, “Exactly what is good about this?!” he waved at his plate as he spoke. “This steak is raw and I asked for it well done! I demand that you cook it properly for me otherwise I will not be paying for any of our meals!”
The restaurant owner’s ears had pricked at the first words out of the customers mouth and he had quickly made his way over to them to try and defuse the situation. It was a large table of people and he would be losing a lot of money if the gentleman refused to pay. He was unable to get to the table before Wolf responded to the customer by growling.
“Well done is a complete waste of a perfectly good piece of meat!” Wolf yelled back, “it would be sacrilege to cook it any further; you need to eat it as it is! I’m the chef and I know best!”
With that, the restaurant owner reached Wolf. He grabbed hold of his shirt collar and yanked him back from in the face of the gentleman who had gone an interesting kind of beetroot red.
“Leave my restaurant now!” he told Wolf in that oh so familiar tone.
Wolf turned to leave and muttered, “I’d be happy to. Imbeciles.”
******
Determined to keep trying Wolf decided to go away from the restaurant business and the people did not appreciate meat cooked the way it should be. He had proved to himself that he could work in such a business without eating all the food and that would be enough for him. He would now turn his hand to a different trade. He was going to work in the local Animal Shelter.
He was capable of working with meat without eating it, now he would see if he could work with live animals without eating them. He was a good wolfie, he had already proven that, so now he would prove it further and show that his kind could integrate into the working world without any of the issues or stigma that was attached to them.
Virginia had seemed happy that he was doing this but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was turning into a failure in her eyes. She didn’t say it, in fact she always went as far as to say the complete opposite, but he found it hard to believe, after all the times that he had messed up with all the other jobs he had tried to do, that she didn’t think it.
He turned up for his first day at lunchtime and was immediately shown the ropes for feeding the animals that were in. Lorna, his trainer, was an upbeat young girl that didn’t seem to have an off button. He found that he was able to spend the entire time he was with her simply nodding, saying yes or no or just humming in response and that was all that was needed for her to keep on talking or launch into an entirely different topic.
He didn’t mind too much to begin with but as the day wore on her incessant chatter started to get weary and he began to wish that he had shut her up from the get go. Apparently, if you didn’t get her to stop talking when you first met her, it was impossible for you to get her to stop. Ever.
He found himself returning home after his first day with a need to sit in a dark and silent room on his own, preferably in a corner with a slight rocking motion. This need didn’t last long once he got through the door and saw Virginia. She always made him feel better.
“How was your day, honey?” Virginia asked in a sweet and very fake southern accent.
“Huff puff! Don’t do that! You sound just like Lorna, the Incessant Chatterer!” replied Wolf with a grimace.
“Who the What Now?” asked Virginia.
“My trainer at the shelter,” replied Wolf, “she does not stop talking!”
Virginia laughed, apologised, sat him down with a kiss and a ruffle of his hair and told him to stay there while she fixed him his dinner. Wolf did try to dissuade her and make it himself, she seemed so tired and the pregnancy dragging on was getting her down, but she wouldn’t hear of it having been sat down the majority of the day she felt like she wanted something useful.
She went to cook a steak for him, thinking that they had some in the fridge, but found that it was all gone. Not wanting to disturb Wolf, who was now engrossed in something on a British channel that appeared to be about sheepherding, she picked up her purse and keys and left the apartment for the small store down the road which would have steak even if it wasn’t particularly good steak.
She was next in the queue at the till when she felt a twinge and gasped, more in shock than in pain. Maybe it was time for the baby after all! Her thoughts of birth were interrupted by the embarrassment of her engagement ring piping up in song right there in the shop. She quickly shoved her hand into her pocket and looked round behind her as if searching for where or whom the noise was coming from. The clerk and the customers around her were all looking around puzzled too and she was glad to note that the ring being plunged into darkness had meant that it had also shut up. Mid song too, which was previously unheard of.
She was able to buy her steak and get back to the apartment without another peep from the ring, which was a relief. It had also put the twinge completely out of her mind. She cooked her tea, barely showed Wolf’s the oven and then dished up and snuggled up to Wolf on the sofa so they could finish watching the program together.
******
Wolf spent the rest of the week finding his feet in his new job. He seemed to have found the dream job, everything was going well. His customers didn’t answer back or complain; at least, not in a language that his boss understood. He didn’t mess up in any way and that meant that he wasn’t letting Virginia down.
That is, until he started on the night shift, went outside to fetch the goats in and got greeted by the full moon. With so much going on, getting the new job, actually being good at it, keeping Virginia happy and waiting for the birth of their pup, he had completely forgotten to keep track of that time of the month for him. Normally he was careful to note when the full moon would arrive but it was suddenly upon him and he had taken no precautions against it.
There were no pills to take to help him through it, but careful mental preparation always made it easier to overcome the big bad wolf. He had done none of that, and now the goats were at his mercy.
******
Virginia had forgotten about the twinge when the ring had tried to embarrass her in public (not least because how would you explain that ring to any other human being?) and she hadn’t had another one since to remind her of its occurrence. Tonight, though, she was having more than twinges. It was finally happening; she was having full on contractions.
She immediately got her bag and left the apartment to get Wolf from work. The contractions were still far enough apart that she felt confident she would be able to get him herself before they had to go to the hospital for the main event.
There was something odd about the shelter when she reached it. There were far too many people about for starters. The place was supposed to be shut; the night shift was just to have someone there to ensure the animals safety. These people seemed to be carrying animals out of the shelter, and the animals were looking limp and unmoving.
“Oh no,” Virginia said to herself as she looked up to the moon, “we forgot what time of the month it was!”
With that, she turned and headed back towards their apartment, but detoured into Central Park to see if she could second guess where Wolf would have gone.
******
Wolf had lost it on sight of the full moon and when he came back to himself he had been surrounded by blood and fur and had simply fled, setting off the alarm as he left to alert people to what he had done. He didn’t particularly want to get caught, but he also couldn’t stand the thought of the mess he had made being left until morning.
Distraught with himself for being so stupid, he ran into Central Park to hide, not wanting to go back to the apartment and admit what he had done to Virginia. He wandered amongst the trees, pulling his dark jacket around him as much as he could to hide the bloodstains on his white shirt so as not to scare anyone that he might come across. Although, at this time of night he was probably better off looking scary should he bump into anyone, it would keep him safe if they were more scared of him than he of them.
******
Virginia wandered through the park, trying to think back to what he had been like at other full moons when he had forgotten to prepare. She was trying to put herself into his mindset so that she could work out where he was, but it was getting more and more difficult as the contractions started coming closer together.
She should, really, go to the hospital. But she just couldn’t do that; not without Wolf. The baby, pup, child whatever you want to call it just couldn’t be born without the father there. She was starting to get frantic and decided that, whether it was dangerous to be out in the woods at night or not, that’s where she was going and she was going to call for Wolf at the top of her voice. He was not going to miss this birth if she had any say in things.
Then inspiration struck. If Wolf was experiencing a bit of Jekyll and Hyde syndrome and Hyde had come out to play, which was the only explanation for the dead animals, then once he came back to himself he would want to go somewhere comforting and familiar. If he was too afraid to go back to their apartment for fear of how she would take this, then maybe he had gone back to the spot in the woods where they could get back through the mirror.
With that light bulb lighting up her evening and the latest contraction finished, she headed off in that direction still calling out his name to the air around her in the hopes of finding him sooner rather than later.
******
Wolf hadn’t been wandering to anywhere in particular. At least, he hadn’t thought that he was. But the shimmer in the air in front of him told him that he had wandered to the spot where the travelling mirror had let them into this kingdom. He sat down in front of it and contemplated going back to the nine kingdoms and leaving Virginia as punishment for failing so badly. He would never mate again, but how could he stay with her and bring up his pup if he couldn’t behave in a decent manner or hold down a steady job?
He sat back and howled to the moon in anguish.
Drawing breath to howl again, he heard what at first he took to be a howl in reply. He stopped and listened. Ears pricked and head up. Then he heard it again. It’s wasn’t a howl, it was someone calling his name. The call came again, this time closer and he realised it wasn’t just anyone calling his name, it was Virginia!
He was about to turn and run away, not wanting her to find him like this, still feeling like he had let her down, when he heard her next cry and it ended in a scream of pain. The cry tugged at his heartstrings and he was unable to turn away from his mate. He ran in the direction of her voice and found her, nearby, bent double and clutching her stomach.
“Virginia!” he cried as he rushed to her side.
“The... baby!” Virginia gasped, “Call...ambulance!”
Wolf sat Virginia down and fumbled through her bag for her phone as he held her with his other arm. On Virginia’s instruction he dialled 911 and asked for an ambulance, quickly explaining where they were and telling them to follow the sounds of Virginia’s cries. At which point Virginia cried out again and Wolf dropped the phone to concentrate on helping her.
The moon shone down on where they were, giving them light to see by, but its usual effects on Wolf had completely disappeared. The reality of the birth put all of his own problems completely out of his mind.
He laid Virginia back onto the ground using the bag as a pillow and spoke soothing words to try and keep her calm. The ambulance seemed to be taking a long time to get to them and he had the feeling that their pup would be born in the park. Neither of them noticed the ring singing about the significance of the birth happening under the full moon.
The ambulance men arrived just in time to help complete the birth and Wolf and Virginia held onto each other as their newborn’s first cry sounded out in the air of Central Park with the answering calls of the surrounding wildlife.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
******
AN: Many thanks for reading and many many thanks to both of my wonderful artist’s, princess_vevay & jungle_ride and my super-awesome Beta glitterfics
For a sneak peak at Simon Moore’s ideas for continuing on the tales of the 10 Kingdoms see here
Part One