"Martha? Martha Anderson. Is that you?" a voice called out as Martha maneuvered a shopping cart through the woman's clothing area from the K-Mart that was on the eastern edge of Moon Lake.
Martha turned and saw someone she didn't expect to see. It was another woman who looked to be in her early twenties with the curvy sort of body that every female were had. As she came closer, Martha caught an odd scent. The woman was definitely a were, but Martha couldn't tell which were-species she was. However, that wasn't an issue. Given what Samantha and Frances had told her that roughly sixty percent of Moon Lake's population being weres, running into another were wasn't too much of a surprise. Most of the people Martha had met in Moon Lake were weres of some kind, only a few had been normals. The thing that was the surprise was that the woman was very familiar.
"Nellie?!" Martha gasped as the woman approached, "Nellie Lyons?!"
"Yeah, it's me!" the woman smiled and hopped into a friendly hug as if she were greeting an old friend, "What are you doing here? I thought you were in Minnesota! Your husband had a big professor gig there!"
"He had," Martha answered, "but due to some troubles... he lost that job. He was recently hired here to teach, so we moved here..."
"And became a werecat, I see... or smell," Nellie said with a smile, "but... how would that work with..."
"I was already bi when I married William," Martha said slowly, "but I'd been repressing that part of me for a long time..."
"I... I'm sorry to hear that," Nellie said slowly.
"It's okay," Martha answered with a smile, "I'm better now... and still bi, so William is just as sexy to me as he was before... maybe more so now that he's a werefox."
Nellie paused for a moment as if in thought and then her eyes widened as she remembered the reports from earlier in the fall of a rogue werefox and the raised possibility of the WERE Alert being issued and every were in Moon Lake would be mobilized to hunt the rogue with only a few exceptions.
"Your husband was the one the rogue attacked!" Nellie gasped as the two began to walk along calmly to let Martha resume her shopping while they conversed in a friendly way. The two had worked together in Minnesota before Martha "retired" to raise Nate and Eric. Nellie had been a teacher's aid in the specific school that Martha had worked in before and the two had known each other well during that time. However, after Martha retired they had lost contact.
"Yes," Martha nodded, "and when that happened... I had to make a choice on what were to be, as if I stayed with William, I'd become a were and specifically a werefox. But that wasn't quite what I wanted and I felt closer to cats... so I became a werecat, and with that, the two of us have rapidly overcome all of the troubles, both personal and otherwise, that we've faced."
Nellie gave a shrug and figured that there must have been something that had gone on, but was also something that Martha didn't want to advertise to all the other ears in the store at the moment. K-Mart might not do as much business as stores like Walmart did, but that didn't mean they didn't do business at all and the fact that Moon Lake was a small and largely quiet town isolated in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, the store was a place were a great many weres did their shopping here.
"Well... that's good, I trust you're getting to like Moon Lake?" Nellie asked.
"Like?" Martha gave a laugh, "we love it. William has his new position at the college here and I'll be returning to teach. Once I get my certification updated and ready, I'll be ready to teach full time again next fall. Until then, I've got some work as a substitute teacher, which my first gig at will be with the Middle School gym classes. Thus I'm here to get clothing that I can do gym in and still look professional."
"Well... that's good," Nellie answered.
"So what brought you out here?" Martha asked, "I'd heard that you left Minnesota..."
"Oh that..." Nellie said slowly, "Well, John got a job in Seattle that paid better than the one he had in Minneapolis about a year after you had Eric. We agreed to go through with it and we moved here. It was quieter hear and we are close enough to commute in and out of Seattle."
"And joined were society too," Martha commented, "though... I can't..."
"Mink," Nellie gave a smile, "John and I are wereminks, John is based on the European Mink and I'm based on the American Mink And don't be too surprised. There aren't many wereminks in Moon Lake. Most other weres may not have run into us as they go about their days."
"And doing a good Minerva impression," Martha chuckled, her eyes drifting to Nellie's generous curves, smaller than Martha's own as a werecat, but still generous.
"She had white fur and blond hair," Nellie shot back, "my fur is brown and my hair is auburn."
Martha chuckled, "Well... you're looking good. So what are you up to? Are you an aid here too?"
Nellie looked down for a moment and raised an arm to scratch the back of her head. It was great to see Martha again, and the two of them had been friends in Minnesota and could be friends again here too, but some things had changed for her besides becoming a weremink, just as Martha had also changed in becoming a werecat.
"Actually... I kinda fell in love with all the natural beauty in the area," Nellie answered, "I know Minnesota's had some spots... but they weren't near Minneapolis/St. Paul... and there's just something special about Moon Lake that Minnesota just didn't have. I've actually taken to painting the scenes around here... the old buildings, the forests, the views from the mountains around it. It's beautiful and I've just had to capture it in paint. I haven't made much in the way of sales, but John still has his job and I've felt far more pleasure in painting than anything that I'd done in Minnesota."
"Well... there actually is something to Moon Lake and everything around it," Martha commented, thinking of the meadow that Douglass and Dawn had lead her and William to, "Maybe it is the result of our becoming weres... this sort of connection to nature that wasn't there before."
"Perhaps," Nellie commented, "How are Nate and Eric? Nate was pretty young and Eric was in diapers when John and I moved here..."
"Doing well," Martha gave a smile, "Nate was originally going to be our family's were... before William was attacked, and he went through with it, and is quite possibly the happiest werewolf around. Eric is doing well too. He'd grown rather shy in Minnesota, but he's found someone that's fixed that..."
"A friend?" Nellie wondered.
"True love," Martha answered, "He met and fell and in love with a young weremer, Julie Stovall. They recently affirmed their love to each other, he became her merman and when you see them together... it'll make your heart melt."
Martha paused to look through a couple of sets of wind pants that were on display for whether or not they looked professional enough. A part of her mind also considered checking to see if they actually had woman's khaki pants, since a good many professional sports couches had also worn them from time to time and they would look more professional, but that would definitely require moving to a different store that focused more on professional clothing, which K-Mart really didn't do. Nellie only shrugged behind her.
"Well...I'm sure he's happy," Nellie commented after a moment.
"They both are," Martha answered with a smile and put the wind pants in the cart, "Eric with Julie and Nate with the were that transformed him."
"Oh, and who's the lucky lady?" Nellie wondered.
"Man, actually," Martha answered, "William and I learned that Nate is gay... which was a surprise as we didn't suspect anything in Minnesota... but he's happy and that's all that matters."
"You..." Nellie began and then smacked her own head, "Of course you're okay with it."
"And William was okay with it too," Martha answered, "but as I said, Nate has found a boyfriend in a werewolf named Alex Ramsey and seems to be very happy with his first real boyfriend. And as a mom, his happiness makes me happy."
Nellie smiled again as they caught.
"So, how about you?" Martha wondered, "Do you and John have any little minks running about?"
"Twin girls that will start third grade next year," Nellie answered, "if you get your certification... you might teach them if you get the same grade to teach as you taught in Minnesota."
"Maybe... it'd be nice to meet them," Martha commented, "and catch up with John too. He can tell us about his job and we can all catch up. I'm sure you'd love to see who Nate and Eric have both turned out."
"That would be nice," Nellie smiled, "Old friends... together again."
"And you can show us your paintings," Martha added.