RP: Chapter One, So You Got Bit

Summary: Meri returns home to Callum, the two begin researching and learning about werewolves together.

The Greenhouse

After leaving Cenril, Meri had a couple of pits stops to make before going back to Cal. They only benefited the both of them long term though. She would find a place where she could grab a couple of things for them to eat over the next few days, some things for her to brave cooking over the next couple days and soup to be reheated for the both of them once she got home tonight. Meri would also make a point to stop by the bakery on the way home too, grabbing some of Callum's favorites. Okay a couple of her favorites too. After she made sure they were stocked up on things to eat for the next couple of days, she would return home with haste thanks to the help of her trusted horse. The soup is packed well enough that so that Kadence does not manage to spill a drop in the rush home. Once home, the horse is stabled, the goods are unpacked, and Meri makes her way into the house with a quickness. She announces her arrival with, "It's just me, Cal." The kitchen is her first stop, the food goods deposited onto the counter as she calls out, "Are you hungry? I got soup! Chicken noodle?" She waits to hear what Cal's response is, whatever the Catalian wants he will get while everything else will be stuffed away in iceboxes and pantries for later cooking and devouring.

Callum was all snuggled up in bed with two doggos to keep him company and give him those psychic good vibes that woofers and meowers give off when their owners are not feeling well. When Meri got home, however, it was as if someone said “Release the hounds!”, for they took off like bats out of hell, barking and yipping, to greet their mother. Cal wasn’t awake before, but he certainly was now. He’d get out of bed, ever so slowly, and took up a rather nice cane he’d had ordered, when he was no longer literally dying, to help him get around the house when Meri wasn’t home. There was no way he’d be kept in bed all day if he could help it, though he’d make full use of it as well as the couch when he needed to rest. “Hey…” He said, still feeling wore out from that wound that’d nearly healed on his leg, “Soup sounds good.” The poor guy hadn’t even had the energy to shave since the whole incident with the witch-hunters. He could’ve technically asked Meri to help him get rid of that scruff, seeing as how she’d quite the skill with a blade, but it’d gotten somewhat past the point of ‘prickly cactus’ and he got to the point of no longer caring about it--it was the least of his worries. “How did things go?”

Meri is greeted by the hounds by the time she makes it part way into the kitchen. It's a little bit later that Cal drags his scruffy self into sight, claiming the couch. The announcement of soup is met with a nod and the dogs are told to go lay down, after being given an appropriate amount of lovin', so that she can take care of reheating the soup. The soup is put on the stove and while they wait those couple minutes for it to get back up to an edible temperature Meri is answering Cal's question. "Went...." Meri sighs. "Not as good as I had hoped." Not because of Khitti herself, as Meri will go on to explain. "Khitti said she thinks she might have found the wolf that bit me. Not too far from where we live...." Meri gives pause on this statement, trying to get a solid read on Callum's reaction to that. It's not long after though that she is going for that satchel that protects a book, retrieving it and offering it over to Cal. "Brought home a little bit of light reading for the two of us though. I figure it would be smart for you to learn like I have to..." But first, soup. Which is what Meri zips off to get, returning with two bowls, one of which is offered to Cal.

Callum sighed as he plopped down onto the couch, laying that cane of his on the floor nearby where he could reach it when needed. He’d take that book from Meri, jet-black brows knitted together with concern. He opened his mouth to ask just -what- it was that they’d be studying until he saw the cover of it. It had some fancy title, but knowing Khitti, it’d basically equate to: The Big Book Of All Things Werewolves And Probably Some Other Random Facts That No One Really Needs To Know About Except Khitti Because She’s Too Smart For Her Own Good. “Oh… yeah. I guess so.” He’d set the book down on the end table then take the bowl of soup from her. “It smells great. Thank you.” When she’d sit down, Cal would lean over enough to give her a smooch on the lips and then he’d get straight to sucking down all of that soup, noodles and all, barely even bothering to use the spoon. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t see a wolf around here and while the dogs seemed to smell -something- different out there, they weren’t really freaking out at all, so it likely wasn’t around. Maybe it’s smart enough not to come around when we’re awake. Surprised Storm and Kadence doesn’t freak out about it, but they’ve been around enough weird stuff lately--especially Kadence--that it likely doesn’t bother them anymore.”

Meri's lips turn up into an instant smile when Cal plants that smooch right on her lips. The book Meri brought home is set aside for the time being and the woman is honestly thankful for it, it would be nice to enjoy dinner without diving into research. Cal seems to be of the same mindset, he is even trying to put Meri's worried mind at ease. Was the wolf really that close to their house? None of their animals seemed to react. While they are valid arguments, Meri seems unwilling to accept them. She does not let the discussion ruin her appetite so far, it's been a long journey and this soup smells too good for Meri not to scarf down. "I'll pass your thanks on to the chef next time I am back in Cenril," Meri tries to lead with a bit of a joke, but the humor doesn't stay. Meri sighs slightly. "I don't know, maybe you're right. Maybe it didn't come that close to that house. But maybe the only reason that it did not was not because it was smart enough to not come around....Maybe it was because Khitti chased it away with that big ol' sword of hers." Meri wrinkles her nose up. "And if it is smart enough to not come around when we are awake, what if it is also smart enough to come around when we are sleeping?" Meri's bowl of soup is mostly finished at this point, which is good because as the gears of her mind start turning over this issue she seems less and less interested in dinner. "Khitti and I want to try and catch this wolf if it comes back into the area again." Meri frowns. "And we were also thinking that it would be good if you armed the both of you with wolfsbane..."

Callum nodded along with Meri, first smirking at her joke about the chef, but then it soon disappeared as she started talking about the wolf that bit her. He did his best not to frown, but he couldn’t quite help it when she mentioned the wolfsbane. Somehow, he knew that’d come up. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the thought of the wolfsbane was floating around there, leaving Cal to damn the memory of it and the fact that he knew so much about herbs in the first place. “W-what? Why?” He knew why. Duh. But he didn’t want to answer it himself. He’d let the questions linger there briefly before leaning over and pushing her bowl slightly back towards her face, the frown remaining, “Hey, you need to eat, just as much as I do.” There was another thought in the back of his mind then: if she always made sure she was fed, would there be less of a chance of her changing and attacking people and other things? Did it work like vampires and undead? He didn’t know much about the latter, and even less so the former… but he’d probably find out in that book Meri brought. He didn’t voice these thoughts, though; it’d probably be better for him to find out with that book rather than asking her outright things she herself likely didn’t even know.

Meri lifts a brow and smirks at Cal when he shoves that bowl back toward her face. She is oblivious to these concerns he is having right now, and while it is probably best he learn about these answers that book Meri brought home....she probably wouldn't be offended by him being concerned. Maybe. I mean, it is a valid concern....will my werewolf girlfriend eat my face off on accident. "You know exactly why," Meri states before humoring Cal and emptying the remaining few bites of soup. To be honest, she did feel like she had a wee bit more of an appetite. Maybe Cal was not too far off base with his thinking. With the bowl empty now, Meri pushes it off onto the table and sets her sights back on Callum. "What if that wolf comes here when I am not home? Do you want to end up bitten like me?" Meri is certain the answer to that question is no, that Cal would prefer to stay human. "Worse. What if I am home and this wolf stops in and pays us a visit and I lose my temper, leaving you with two wolves to deal with?" A question she voiced to Khitti too, her top concern. Which is why Meri is not stationary on the couch for long, she grabs that book on all things werewolf plus some other random facts that only Khitti would like to know and begins to flip through the pages slowly. Like very slowly. She's reading the table of contents right now.

Callum did certainly know exactly why and it showed promptly on his face when she called him out on it. But, he let her eat before starting any sort of protesting or anything else--knowing full well she likely wouldn’t finish her soup otherwise--before finally chiming in after she voiced her thoughts, “I don’t particularly want to be bitten, no, heh. But, I guess, if it did happen, the upside of lycanthropy is the fact that you’re still living and breathing--unlike what your sister had to go through.” He was trying to be positive about the possibility of getting his face eaten off by not one but possibly two werewolf ladies. It’s really hard to be, but he managed it and hoped that maybe if Meri bit him, somewhere in the wolfy brain of hers, she only know to gnaw lightly on him. “Meri, that wolfsbane is just as bad as silver. Hell, -humans- should even really ingest silver, but that’s besides the point.” Cal sighed heavily as she thumbed through the table of contents, “I’m not sure where to get it around here, but I guess I’ll have to start looking. Maybe whomever has taken over the apothecary in Rynvale knows--especially since there’s a lycan den not too far from it.” It was bad news wandering around there alone in that forest and Cal had been thoroughly warned about the werewolves AND the dragons in that area before he decided to start selling his herbs and flowers to the former apothecary out there, that crazy Catalian dude Cal got the bismuth skull from.

Meri wasn't book smart like her sister, so she was already starting to feel overwhelmed with this research project and she has not even gotten past the start of the book. Would she need to read this whole thing from start to finish? Ugh. Meri resigns to doing just that, but she is not going to burry her nose into the book and tune Cal out mid conversation. The woman turns to page one after scotching closer to her husband to be. She is definitely being more cautious and gentle than she would normally be, not wanting to aggraviate any of Cal's injuries. Moving closer serves two purposes, one it allows to her cuddle up to the guy. She likes doing that. Secondly, they could read the book together. Cal probably is a faster reader than Meri is, he'll have to show the blonde some patience with the page flipping. Meri sighs, "I mean, I am not saying we go crazy with the wolfsbane. But I think you should have some sort of plan in place for....just in case. Maybe you can even whip up a diluted mixture just in case you ever need to use it on me. So maybe it won't straight kill me or anything..." Does it work like that? Obviously Meri thinks it does. "But you're not going out to Rynvale without me," okay, Cal could if he really wanted to. Meri did not become a control freak, though she is being more protective than the norm. For obvious reasons. "Once you're more healed up we can see about wolfsbane in Rynvale?"

It didn’t take Cal much to notice that she was starting to get frustrated with the book. “While you’re out doing guild stuff and whatnot or whatever else, I could always read ahead in the book and summarize things a bit for you. Since I’m stuck here for a little while longer.” He’d let her adjust herself as she needed to on the couch before he made himself more comfortable too, sitting at a slight ankle to let his leg stay elevated somewhat on the other side of the couch while he leaned against Meri to peer over at the book. “Not much else I can do. I could send for someone to bring me a few books on herbs--not like I couldn’t use a little brushing up anyway. I’d be able to find out what I could mix the wolfsbane with too to make it less potent.” Eyeing the table of contents with her, Cal smirked somewhat at one of the chapter titles and flipped to the page, further into the book. ‘So You Got Bit: What To Expect When You’re Expecting To Turn Into A Werewolf’ was the title. “Where the frak does your sister find these books at? What a weirdo.” Somewhere underneath all those prickly Catalian layers, he was grateful for the things that Khitti had done to help them, but yeah… she was frakking stranger than most of the things in Vailkrin combined.

Cal was not off-base, Meri did not really want to do the reading thing. At least she was not interested in reading the thing cover to cover. If there was one person that Meri trusted to summarize the book for her, it was Cal. Okay, Khitti too, so two people. 'What a weirdo' earns a good ol' chuckle from Meri, who twists to plant a smooch to Cal's unshaven jaw. "Oh yeah, like your one to talk, weirdo," Meri teases. If Cal wanted to send for someone to bring him some books, Meri did not mind, though she would of course make a point to collect these things for Cal to when she did have to stray from home for whatever the reason, be it guild or adulting errands. "You can help me read the book, summarize parts of it. Other parts it might be good for me to read though, yeah?" She would trust Cal to bring the more important bits to her attention, if it was a chapter she happened to be skipping over that he decided to review instead. Meri smiles faintly. "For now, if you're not too uncomfortable, I think I am content to sit here and read a bit with you." And for a moment it might seem that Meri might actually shush long enough for them to get to reading, but is soon hearing her voice again. "Thanks, bye the way. You have been very accepting of this and I am sure it has not been easy for you to process...Once you're healed up. I think you should take up archery with me. Or maybe I will buy you a blow gun." For wolfsbane reasons, obviously. Depending on how much Cal objects to these crazy ideas of Meri's, maybe they can finally get to reading Chapter 1: So You Got Bit.

Callum’s smirk returned as she kissed his jaw, to which he gave it a bit of a scratch when her face was away from his, “Yeah well. Maybe. You’d think -I- was the werewolf with all this hair I’m sprouting.” She’d agree to him reading the book and summarizing it for her and then voice her thoughts about him learning some kind of weaponry with her when he was better. “What? No. I’ll just, you know, throw it in a big bowl of wet dog food and you can eat it that way.” Insert innocent grin here. He was half-expecting her to chomp into his shoulder right now as punishment for his joke. Eventually, he’d sigh again and nod, “Alright… alright… We’ll figure out -what- I’m learning when the time comes. Too bad I don’t have mind powers like you so I could just shove the herbs down your throat that way, if it came to it; I don’t think there’s much of a magical way to go about it, otherwise.” That thought was disappointing. Meri was right about one thing: Cal really did not want to learn how to use a bow or a blowgun. Maybe a crossbow? Those things would do the work for him, mostly. Oi. Decisions, decisions. “And considering all the other things I’ve had to process lately thanks to that family of yours, I guess it’s not -entirely- out of the ordinary for my woman to suddenly be a wolf-lady. You were always kinda bitey with your words anyway. Now you’re all bark -and- bite.” There was another innocent grin before he set to reading that book with her. Seems like Cal’s feeling a lot better now.