***[POV: Angry Fox]***
I ran away from the pawn shop, my legs still feeling like numb noodles from that whole encounter.
What that woman had done to me. With her scent. With getting up close.
With the way the air around her almost vibrated with exciting danger.
"Stupid werewolf hormones."
I muttered accusingly while stuffing the bank card in the pocket of these filthy pants. My fists clenched tightly as I see proof again of just how ruffled and ill-fitting I look to have been speaking to someone like her.
"Stupid Alpha with her stupid perfect suit."
I should never have checked out the reason why the system was pestering me with those pulses. It made me upset. Made me say things I shouldn't have.
The other glyphs were still irritatingly at the corner of my vision since I'd left her presence. In anger, I finally give in and focus on the offensive words.
TASK: Establish Connection with Potential Mate
"You have got to be kidding me."
I snarled and voiced what I could not earlier. Loud enough that a passing pedestrian glanced at me with alarm. They hurried away as I kicked at an improperly discarded paper cup.
"Is that why you made me feel all... all *weird* around her? Now you're some magical matchmaking service too?"
The trash skittered across the sidewalk before being struck by an errant gust of wind. It moved into traffic and a passing bus crushed it under its wheels.
A perfect metaphor for how I feel.
Pressed into a razor thin shape by outside forces. Slotted onto whatever puzzle of fate this con of a system claims to design around life here.
My eyes tick to the completed task above. The 'reward' result listed alongside it. Like a taste of its potential offerings.
"I'm certainly not going to be bribed into it with these magical perks that further make you insert things into my head."
The blue text just glowed as normal. Unresponsive and infuriating. As if waiting for me to calm down and be reasonable.
Just like my wolf waits.
> This is all your fault too, isn't it? You've been acting like it's so normal to just raise my tail happily. To roll over and expose my belly. <
It whined pitifully in my mindscape, looking longingly behind us. As if it could somehow still sense Kyrie Voss standing back there.
> You'd have me turn around and go running back to her? Hug her leg like some pathetic pet? <
As I sent the mental image of a certain 'neglected' merchant's daughter, the beast had the audacity to look like it was considering the idea. My fox spirit form growled at it, but the stupid beast had learned nothing I do in there is actually going to hurt it.
I can only annoy or ignore, because that's how my promise with its Goddess worked.
"Betrayal of intent runs deep in this body and this world's contracts, I see."
I muttered and earned another concerned look. This time from a woman walking her dog. The ugly little creature barked at me, clearly sensing something was off.
The look I shot it made it practically screech - and I kept walking with a brisk pace now that I've inconvenienced its owner.
> I make bad choices when I am upset. Which is why I'm going to ignore you now. Even though I'd rather have you helping me look out for danger. Remember that you're to blame, if I get attacked. <
Taking my frustration out on an animal, on my companion spirit, and even the woman on the other end of a phone. Except that last part was more about upsetting the Alpha.
Dragging her and her person's name through the mud. So she would leave me alone… and I wouldn't have to think about this stupid Task.
I paused at an intersection and looked up at the giant white building. A skyscraper that, if I hadn't met her, it might have taken me longer to guess what was for.
This massive signal of wealth and power seems to exist as yet another thing that pushes at me. Over how 'wise' it would be to just fall to my knees and kiss the heels of the leader of the Rimecoat pack.
My stomach chose that moment of great frustration to growl so loudly that I was certain people across the street could hear it.
At least… I received shifty glances from those streaming past me at the time. Not a single one offering a word.
All too busy with their lives to acknowledge the dirty, hungry woman for more than a second.
"Whatever."
I sigh loudly and stroll toward the side of the nearest building to rest for just a minute.
My irritability to all this was not entirely due to everything pushing me at, and pulling me toward, this Kyrie Voss.
After all, I am well used to holding my temper if necessary. To weaponize. In my old form.
It could well be that, perhaps, I was simply... 'hangry'? - what a ridiculous word!
Mashing together two words so heavily to make a new one. Like they copulated and birthed a concept, but with no vision for its name.
"Like if Helene called her child Helace. Or Jalene. Goddesses, I hope no child ever gets named by combining the *ends* of her parent's given names…"
I shudder at the spoken thought. Ignoring my wolf for only a couple minutes and I've already started this?
The cube glyph at the edge of my vision pulsed, insistently. I focused on it to distract myself… and because I truly am curious what resource or change it might be tracking now.
The grid expanded before my eyes. In the center of the squares that had previously been empty, a new icon appeared.
What looked like a plain white glowing, solid rectangle. In the corner where a number would normally appear was simply | ? |.
The bank card. It had to be, looking like that. It was showing up as a resource like the deer meat had… but the system couldn't - or wouldn't - assign it a 'unit value' or name.
I rubbed over where it sat in my pocket, suddenly thoughtful. It seemed suspicious that the system couldn't quantify it.
How much money was on this? How much access had she given me? Did it not need a 'PIN'?
Helene knew just a little about their function, because as divorced from civilization as they tried to be… there was still a connection to it through the Duskpaw Omegas. Their 'human' compatriots who were less hardy than full werewolves and needed things the land didn't provide.
It was also how the pack obtained so many of the things that let them pretend to be self-sufficient woodsmen. Despite none of them being blacksmiths or any of the important professions of a frontier settlement.
After thinking of this body's former pack, I decide to check the inverted tree glyph next. The pack roster. The change since I'd last looked at it was even more glaring.
In addition to Helene and the mysterious lower white entry connected to the child forming inside of me, there was a new name. Set off to the side, near mine.
Kyrie Voss
A curving dotted line connected the woman's name to mine, with a small symbol in the middle to it that pulsed between blue and white. A symbol that looked an awful lot like this world's representation of the 'love heart'.
Status: Unmarked - Potential Bond
Altogether, it makes out that the system wants to promote this supernatural mating bond with that woman. If not that… then I'd have to accept that it is capable of acknowledging things that I may-
"Absolutely not. No. Not by anyone."
If I was just going to find myself here, subjected to all these things, then my life would be no different than Helene's. Except I would get to be with a woman. With money.
Who is strong… and smelt nice. And did not punch me in the stomach, even though Jace probably might have for… running my mouth.
Frustrated, at the lingering feelings of interest in those flickering orange eyes and so much more… I wanted to march over and throw the card into the nearest 'dumpster'.
But I really was hungry.
And the scent of food cooking nearby was in the air.