the Current of Events [Drew]

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    The first few days in town had been spent reacquainting herself with the west coast and uncovering old contacts and getting in touch with the local Tribal leaders, explaining why a Sheriff was suddenly in the super-powered capitol of the west coast, and laying up provisions in her beach house. All of it was tedious but necessary and it allowed her little time to try and track the half-breed down on her own, but in a city this sized, that was neigh impossible anyways.

    However, while familiarizing herself with the city, she had caught a faint scent of mixed Ly-Ceen, and followed it to this complex before the wind carried it away. Having returned two days later, her contacts still having left her in the dark, she took matters into her own hands and pursued this single thin lead. Ly-Ceen were not common on the west coast as a rule, most of them having settled in the mid-west, and the deserts of the southwest as well as the vast "empty" lands to the far north in North America. So to find that a young half-cast blood warrior was going to make a name for himself in Jump, well she simply had to meet him if nothing else.

    Stepping from her car, she strode across the parking-lot towards the building where she had last scented him, and took in a chest full of air through her nose, her mind still struggling to filter out the ambieant scents the city had, as all cities did seem to have plasted everywhere the scent of smog, trash and exhaustion. Thankfully Jump was not as bad as Steel City with such things, and she could smell him distinctly, and it seemed that he had come by here recently enough that there was a hint of warmth to the trail. Slowly walking along the sidewalk, she paused at the corner and turned her head slightly, listening, as well as smelling, trying to decide which way to turn, when she caught the faintest hint of odor, a breath of male hair, skin, scent that was unmistakable as a Ly-Ceen and human mix. but it didn't smell half-breed enough for her. Was her information wrong? Or had she just assumed he was a half-breed when her contact had said "mixed blood"? Walking quietly and slowly down the sidewalk after the scent, the thought that an introduction might be some what in order, and an explanation as well could be clunky and hard to justify, she decided it didn't matter; she had the authority, and if he had truly spent any worthwhile time with his elders, he would know it.


    Climbing the stairs to the top floor, Mjolh paused in front of the door where the scent was strongest, her nose twitching one last time. Clearly this was where he was living, but not for very long it would seem, and clearly alone, no other scents could be uncovered at this point. brushing her fingers through her hair once, she snorted to clear her nose, then rapped firmly on the door, her fist striking it like a hammer on an anvil...

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Most teachers would probably have slept in on Saturday mornings, he knew. It was the first day off of the week, and the first day when they didn't have any responsibilities to be up early. Besides, he'd been up half the night chasing down leads, and he'd still come up empty. Damn his internal clock, he'd still woken up at six, like he did every morning. The military lifestyle of his youth wouldn't let him sleep in, regardless of how tired he was. His shower was brief as usual, before he went to the kitchen to make himself some breakfast.

Slapping a half dozen slices of bacon on his electric griddle, he made himself the protein-heavy meal that usually filled his mornings. The unique physiology of his heritage would never allow him to live a mostly vegetarian diet, regardless of what his colleagues lobbied, and he had resolved never to go out for lunch with the Biology professor in particular. Turning his thoughts back to breakfast, he checked the fridge. He was running low on orange juice, which meant he would have to...

Her scent was familiar enough that he completely lost his train of thought as soon as it drifted through the open window. It was faint, but there was no wind on that morning, and the scent of an Alpha female was enough to catch the attention of any Ly-ceen who wasn't nerve-dead. It figured that she would be the one person from his past who was still alive in both worlds. She just didn't know how to die, it seemed, regardless of how reckless she could be in battle. The tricky thing was that she didn't know him in this timeline, and so he would have to pretend that he didn't know her.

Joy. Lying to the one female who liked to beat the shit out of liars. His day was off to a great start.

Taking the bacon strips from the griddle and piling them on a plate, he put one in his mouth and turned off the stove before heading to answer the door, which had just trembled with the force of her knock. Yep, she was definitely just like he remembered her. She'd been his father's mentor, but she wasn't any less powerful for her advanced years. Unlocking the door, he swallowed the meat in his mouth before speaking.

"Can I help you?" he asked, his nose twitching at her potent scent.

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    As the door swung open, she lowered her hand, and locked her gaze onto his as he spoke, the scent of bacon drawing only a portion of her attention away from him. Her ears almost twitched even as she got an undiluted nose full of his scent, and an eyeful of his frame, and his face. He was an impressive looking type, and an Alpha without a doubt, yet there was something else, guarded and worn around his eyes and something about him simply felt out of step. She could not put a word to it, but there was something most decidedly about him she could not understand or take hold of, and she was rather much unsure if she could be at peace with that notion in the back of her head.

    "Thor's balls boy, you're one half of a mountain aren't you?" she said in mild disbelief, as her arms crossed under her bust-line, and she gazed at him carefully. Ly-Ceen males tended to be bigger than human males on average, but this young male looked like a Ly-Ceen version of one of the impressively sized human athletes that had been popping up the last fifty or more years. Shaking her head again, she took her hand and held it out, remembering her manners; "Excuse my lapse in manners, I'm Mjolh Stoneman, one of the Ly-Ceen Sheriff's for North America, who might you be?" she said as she shook his hand firmly, her eyes locked onto his. hmm, it they were a rather interesting shade...

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"Drew Schultz, good to meet you," he answered, extending a hand to shake hers. "I'm sorry if I was meant to check in or something, but the Ly-Ceen in Moscow aren't as organized as the Americas, it seems."

It was a half truth. He knew full well that his family was descended from the North American tribes, but implying that he was from their relatively sparse Asian colonies would give him a lot more wiggle room to explain why no one had ever heard of him. The Ly-Ceen he had grown up with were mostly among the most powerful warriors of the world, not just the Americas or Asia. Mjolh had been a great General in those days, but to her, they had never happened. Neither had her friendship with his parents. How he would explain his surname, however...

He'd looked into the Schultz line when he'd first arrived, and it seemed that they were mostly based out of Europe in this world, networked around the armistice that had been declared along the Mediterranean. If this she-wolf knew of them, he would have problems on his hands. No one would ever believe the real story.

"Would you care to come in?" he asked, gesturing into his humble apartment. "I was just making breakfast."

He would end up making the whole package at this rate, with two of them trying to eat. His grocery bills were going to kill him long before his enemies ever could. But he couldn't just abandon breakfast because he had someone dropping by. Even at 25, the ravenous hunger had yet to fully dial back to normal levels, whatever "normal" was for someone like him. His fire powers made it even worse than it would be for another of his kind.

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    Nodding at his courtesy, she entered his home then shook her head at his offer of food; "Oh thank you no, I've already eaten, as to checking in," she said lightly as she turned to face him again, her eyes having taken in the living-space in an instant; "that is actually a formality reserved for clan or tribal leaders who move into another territory," she gave a faint smile as she watched him move back towards the kitchen, "So no penalty."

    Schultz... Moscow... Huh... The name was only vaguely familiar to her, having come up a long time ago during a meeting she had been at with leaders from across Europe just before the madness of World War One had broken out and derailed the time of relative peace and progress everyone had enjoyed. However it was a name she associated with southern Europe, and that was just outside of her realm of experiences. until recent years, she had cared nothing for that Mediterranean climate, but now... She would start showing her age soon, being one of the eldest living examples of her race. But thank the powers, not just yet.

    "I was told by leaders in the southwest, that a young half-blood was coming out to Jump to make a name for himself. I am here to... Observe, shall we say, his efforts and progress." she paused as she watched him, then rested her hands on the topmost part of her backs of her hips, tilting her head slightly, her mind working over his words as she continued; "I wonder, what might be the motivation for you to do that, given how closely our blood guards our existence from public knowledge, but then I wonder if you are actually him? I was told he would be about your size, and nineteen, and you are certainly older than that. However I was somewhat remiss in following up for details. Did you come from Moscow by way of the Four Corners?" she asked pointedly, a part of her mind kicking her impulsiveness for rushing off without following up and getting more details. But she had been bored, and needed a distraction. Drew could certainly be one if he so chose to be, and she was in the mood.

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Drew blinked at her words, his mind going to his father at once. A half-blood, 19 years of age... It could only be Will, couldn't it? Is that why he had come to this city? He had a lot more questions than answers, but he couldn't ask any of them. He'd been mistaken for his father, which had happened a couple of times before, but never in this timeline. Taken off-guard, he spoke before he really thought it out.

"No, ma'am," he said automatically, forgetting that she was no longer the General, but a simple sheriff. "I'm 25, and I've never been to the Navajo nation territories before. Besides, I'm not exactly a half-blood."

The reservations in the Navajo nation were home to more than a few Ly-Ceen clans, and it was where his father's Clan had come from, but he had never been there personally. Until he came to this timeline, he had never even been to North America before. But he'd been sloppy in displaying knowledge of that area of the world, because she could always wonder why he knew. He couldn't very well tell her the name of his father, now could he?

"Why would they send you all this way without at least a name?" he asked, closing the door and heading into the kitchen. "Did they expect you to follow your nose across a mountain range?"

Turning the stove back on, he continued cooking, adding some eggs and ham to the skillet for the burritos he was making. The crackling hiss of the food sent more of the delicious scent through the air of his apartment, perhaps distracting his guest from the relatively sparse furnishings. He didn't make enough money to justify buying a lot of extras, so there was just the couch, the bookshelf, and the stand where he kept his guitar, across from the desk in the corner where he worked.

The desk was scattered with sheet music, the files for his students' work stacked neatly near the top edge. His lyric writing was in a neat script, but it was Russian Cyrillic instead of English.

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    Mjolh nodded once, before her head tilted to the side slightly, and she replied; "Well I found you with my nose didn't I?" she smiled playfully before she leaned against the other side of the kitchen counter and went on; "Honestly I was rather impulsive in taking the information, and I don't know if the Elders wished for me to make contact or now, however, I must wonder, if what you say is true, then might there be the chance you are another mixed blood who has come here recently?"

    If what Drew had said was true, then she would need to contact the Elders at the Four Corners and get the information as to who it actually was that had garnered such visibility from the local Clans. It was not Drew as she had first thought, or at least, no one else had tried to contact her about him. Assuming he was being honest with her of course.

    "Drew, I am going to be level and transparent with you, and I expect he same in reply," she paused before sanding up to her fullest; "And if I find out you have lied to me, I personally promise, it will be the last time you do." her voice was calm, but held a suddenly razor sharp undertone to it as she sized him up again. Turning her back to him, she slowly strode to the middle of the sparsely equipped home, her voice clear; "It seems to me, there are two of you here, yourself, and the boy I was actually looking for, and me being in a hurry to leave Steel City, should have followed up with more information before I came, but ah... I miss the simpler times, when politics and blood letting were mostly the same thing." she waved her hand over her shoulder before turning and fixing her gaze sharply upon him; "My question to you Drew, is simple: Why did you come here?"

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"I have only just met you, and you are already threatening my life?" he inquired, lifting an eyebrow at her. "At least buy me dinner first."

He had grown up among Lycans, and he knew that they tended to be more direct and violent in their interactions than most humans. He also knew that females were often turned on by violence, which would have made the situation more awkward for a human, if they had realized. Fortunately for all involved, he was no hormonal teenager. When he'd known her, she'd gotten her kicks by seducing young up and coming males. He'd always suspected that she'd once had her way with his father, but he'd never had the stomach to ask.

Looking back over to his breakfast, he scooped the finished eggs out of the skillet and dumped them onto the plate before turning off the stove top. The hot sauce was pretty mild, but it added an extra something, and he was glad he'd tried it. Sauces were a luxury in other parts of the world, but here it was almost expected.

"Unless my business is somehow illegal," he commented, still assembling his burrito, "it remains none of yours. Suffice it to say, I am not here to make trouble for the nation. I am not such a fool as that."

Picking up his plate, he took a large bite of his breakfast and chewed thoughtfully before swallowing. It was an effort not to sigh in relief from the experience, hungry as he'd been. He really needed to work on eating bigger meals at night to adjust to the sleep schedule that living a human life required. He was always ravenous when he woke up in the morning. Perhaps if he was adequately fed, he might be more easily able to ignore her threats and rudeness, but she seemed to have forgotten that there were two Alphas in the room, regardless of how powerful she was.

"I don't know if you've gotten too used to dealing with humans," he said, putting the food down to pick up his juice, "but try to remember that manners go a long way, especially among Alphas. This apartment is my territory, Sheriff."

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    Mjolh cut him a sharp glance as she half-turned away from him, facing the only interior door, which surely led to the bedroom, and the bathroom by extension. Human architecture was anything if not predictable in the logic it used. Her rosy hued lips parted in another wolfish smile as she replied; "In the old days, dinner came after the seduction was complete... Besides, I find threats to be empty promises of what will never come." She pivoted lightly on her heel and turned her back to him, her head swinging around, taking in the space a second time, this visual sweep much more detailed and focused than before. Hum, a music teacher it would seem, if the scattering of papers on the desk was any sort of tell.

    'Explains his composure.' she pondered before facing him once more and tilting her head slightly; "I prefer explaining the brand of causality I am capable of dispensing, should it be needed." she said with a tease in her voice. He was rather striking, and dashing, and it had been some time since she had availed herself, and even longer since it had been with an Alpha worth a damn. He was shaping up to be worth two or three good damns if he was being as honest as he looked to be. Crossing her arms under he bust-line once more, Stoneman squared her shoulders and lifted her chin slightly, the knowing smirk still on her lips as she gave him a final appraisal.

    "Don't be touchy boy, it ill-becomes you and your potential, and your clear achievements. But I wonder what unnamed battlefield you strode through, there's not been a decent war our blood's been in since the last race war in the fourteen hundreds." she eyed him one last time before nodded at him; "I'm intruding, and I do wish to express my regret at taking away from your personal time, but you understand that it is my job to ensure the safety of our kin. But personal or not, I need to understand your reasons for being here, just as I do the others who have come to Jump." the fact that she had been the last of the Ly-Ceen to leave Jump, back when the city was still small and unimportant fifty years ago was not forgotten to her. Given how thickly populated Jump had become with super powered humans, and others of great power and abilities, it had been decided by the Ly-Ceen Elders to leave this city to the humans. Now there where three of their blood in the city, and no one knew why the first had even come here. That was problematic.

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Drew grunted in reply to her inquiry, the polite veneer of his expression dropping for just a moment to show his war-cold eyes. He'd never been able to fool her in his own world, and he doubted that this one would be any different, but he wasn't ready to tell the Nation all of his business just because she was being nosy. He didn't want to have anything to do with the Council, considering the things he couldn't explain. If he told the truth, he'd just as soon be called a liar and be held for questioning. Even if it wouldn't have been the first time, he didn't really relish the thought.

"Repeating the question doesn't make me any more likely to answer it," he said, putting his glass on the counter. "This is not a police state. If you think it is worth wasting the Council's time reporting a music teacher because he moved in to a new city, then do it."

He paused for a few moments, the barest of shimmers in his eyes as he locked gazes with her. The coldness in his eyes was not the sort of a bloodthirsty murderer, but simply of one who had grown used to violence. In short... the eyes of a soldier. Realizing it, he sighed and turned away, walking back into the kitchen to scoop up the last of his breakfast. At least if he was going to be arrested by the Ly-ceen council, it would be at the hands of someone he knew to be honorable.

And damned if he was going down there hungry.

"Sheriff, all I want is to live here in peace," he said, glancing back over with a sign. "If you are determined that I cannot do that, I suppose I will have to move on. Is that what you want from me?"

He wasn't typically one to start a fight, but the female had caught him off guard, and it made him feel defensive, especially knowing her reputation for sniffing out the truth.