Eric slowly stirred as the sun rose higher above Moon Lake, and as he did, he found the thing that he'd found the most attractive. It was Julie laying beside him at the bottom of the Stovall's freshwater pool, her eyes were closed but her long blond hair presently floated out and creating something of a halo. It only made her more beautiful to him as her whole body also glowed with the inner light that identified her as his one true love to him. She also proved it by how she acted and helped him get used to everything that related to the "weirdness" that existed in Moon Lake. Of course, as he adapted to it, what was "weird" became the new normal to Eric, and he loved it.
With that he leaned forward and gently kissed Julie's forehead. The move soon made Julie's eyes flutter a bit and Eric happily found himself looking into her blue eyes with his own. Julie smiled as her eyes opened and she was assured that she was looking to Eric. That only made Eric smile as well, as he couldn't help but feel happy around her. Julie had actually made him feel far more comfortable in more social situations than he ever had before in Minnesota. Even if she wasn't his one true love, he would respect her and like her as a friend for that. But, she was his true love and he presently looked forward to his future with her and their eventual family that they would get to raise.
"Good morning," Eric said to Julie with a happy smile, "Sleep well?"
"I did... once I was assured that you were still there," Julie said slowly and scooted closer to him.
Eric smiled and the two came together for a good morning kiss before the two of them pulled apart a bit to look into each other's eyes.
"Can you tell me what got you so... nervous at first?" Eric asked, "I'm not complaining on what it lead to, but I must say that I am a bit curious."
"It was nothing... just something that wasn't true for us," Julie answered, "because we have our happily ever after... or we will... you joined me willingly... we fell in love..."
"And we know about our first two children once we get through college," Eric smiled as he thought back on the dreams that he and Julie had shared and then brushed some of Julie's hair back so that it wasn't covering her eyes. He was also pleased when Julie smiled back to him, which essentially gave him enough reason to feel that Julie was fight and that whatever had disturbed her in the night had only been a bad dream. He was about to say more when he heard Julie's stomach give a loud gurgle and felt his own stomach gurgle in response.
"I guess it's time for breakfast," Julie smiled slowly and the two began to swim toward the shallow end of the pool. As they did so they moved to transform back to their human forms, with their scales receding back inside their skin and with their tails splitting in half to form their legs and while flukes thickened and regained toes as they became their feet. For Eric it was an interesting sensation and to some extent left him fairly curious on precisely how it worked. The transformation to stage 3 did NOT how the bones in his legs were arranged. The transformation didn't work in the way many would think. Some might think that his tail would work as though his spine was extended, similar to how a whale or shark's tail was, however Eric had had felt that despite the fact that when he assumed stage three he could still feel his leg bones. Every time that Eric had changed, he found that it actually felt rather good, even though his leg bones were held inside his tail. The muscles in his tail were strong enough to let him swim quite quickly, but he could feel that it wasn't like his leg bones had split into many small vertebra when he changed. In that sense it could limit how "mobile" he was in certain movements under water, but it wasn't enough to mean that he couldn't swim.
As such, as his tail split into two legs, Eric was easily able to switch having his body-axis be in the horizontal based on the up and down strokes of his tail to a vertical body-axis and he stood on his two feet. It was painless and it soon brought his head out of the water as he and Julie walked toward the stairs. Julie was quick to join him as her own tail split into two legs, and as the two came out, they found a pair of towels waiting for them as they came out of the pool. The two smiled and collected a towel for each of them and once sufficiently dry they wrapped themselves up. Julie had her towel wrapped around her to that it looked like a white fuzzy dress and Eric had his wrapped around his waist like a white fuzzy kilt.
"So... do you do anything special for Sundays? Or is it simply first come first served?" Eric asked as they made their way to the door.
"Usually it can be something special," Julie answered with a smile and the two made their way in through the back door into the Stovall home. The entrance, however, found that there had nothing done with regard to getting breakfast. There were no pots or pans that were out and nothing was turned on at the moment. They were then soon alerted to the sound of steps going back and forth in the living room. That drew them to the doorway that lead from the kitchen to the living room where they found Melissa Stovall walking back and forth with a large frown on her face and her eyes downcast. That made both of them feel a bit nervous, as both Eric and Julie had some understanding that their parents might have some concerns over how fast the two of them had fallen in love and how deeply they had fallen in love.
"Mom?" Julie asked, making Melissa stop and look to them with wide eyes, "Are you okay?"
Melissa looked up with some surprise and then backed down, "Everything's fine..."
Julie glanced to Eric before moving to approach her mother, who was clearly looking nervous about something, "Are you sure, mom? If you're worried about me and Eric... I took my birth control pill later yesterday, so I'm good until this afternoon... if that's what you're worried about."
Melissa gave a small smile, "It's not about you and Eric... In fact I'm quite happy that you and Eric found each other and that you didn't have to wait ten years to realize who your one true love was..."
"Then... what is it, mom?" Julie asked, her own voice becoming a bit nervous.
"Some of it is with your father's work," Melissa said slowly, "normally a Sunday is a day off from the daily grind... but apparently something is going on that has him having to attend an emergency meeting this morning. Something about the FBI coming here because of some contacts to some criminal."
"I'm sure it's ultimately nothing," Eric tried to assure her as he stood by Julie.
"That may be," Melissa gave a weak smile, "but it's also something that relates to the were secret... It's one of those things that we all generally fear, be we born weres, like Julie and Martin were... or became weres like you and I did, Eric. We don't want to be rejected because of what we are, simply for the fact that we're different and so connected to so many legends that are wrong... About the only weres that are really treated well are weremers, but even there the treatment in the media isn't completely accurate."
Eric slowly nodded. He remembered being somewhat afraid when Samantha and Ben Twist revealed the were secret to his family. To see Ben grow in size and muscle, along with fur, fangs, and a muzzle was enough to bring out plenty of potential fears, and at the time, his parents were also fairly nervous on it. The only one who'd been eager on that had been Nate. Though in the end, things did change as his father became a were and became quite happy with the were he became, as did his mother. They were both happy to grow fur, tails and pointed ears and all that. Nate, of course, was ecstatic to become a werewolf, and in falling in love with Julie, Eric was overjoyed to be a weremer with her.
However, the fears he had at first would be present with other people and it would take time to show humanity that weres weren't necessarily the psychotic monsters they were depicted as. Could there have been some rogue weres in the past? Sure, the fact that Yvette Smith had gone rogue and gone after his father and Jenny Jenkins was proof of that. Could weres have had conflicts between themselves in the past? He was fairly certain about that too, as some of the things that he'd found seemed to indicate that many were groups evolved or emerged in different areas. Werewolves emerged in Europe. Werebears in North America. Werefoxes in Asia, and mainly Japan. Weretigers in India. Werelions in Africa, and specifically in eastern Africa. Wereleopards/panthers in western Africa. Werecattle in Greece, and specifically Crete, and Werehorses in Persia. Werecats in Egypt and werewildcats (male werecats) in Romania. He'd found nothing that would give an indicator on where weremers first appeared, one source claimed Denmark, in accordance with "The Little Mermaid," while others claimed Scotland in accordance with the Selkie, and a few others claimed on the Caribbean and the south Pacific, but nothing was definitive. And many of these were groups ultimately moved from where they originated and spread as they did so, which could well mean that there were conflicts when they first interacted. As that did reflect how different groups often didn't get along well when they first met. And all of these things could mean that human legends wouldn't treat weres well if discovered.
"Well... if it goes that way, we'll have to hope that the world has grown from where it was in the past," Eric managed, "if it gets that far..."
"And I'm sure dad will make sure that when the time comes the time will be right," Julie added.
"The time..." Melissa spoke slowly and turned away at that moment, her voice falling off at the end and telling both Eric and Julie that her concerns really weren't about weres being exposed, but rather something else.
"Mom?" Julie asked.
"Would you like a brother or sister, Julie?" Melissa asked.
"Your pregnant?!" Julie almost jumped up and down with joy.
"I don't know... I don't think so..." Melissa said slowly, "but it has been something on my mind... and because your father was so horny at the dance last night... I never got a chance to take my pill last night... and now... I don't know... I wanted to talk to your father, but this meeting came up and... I don't know what to do."
"Well... if it means anything... I wouldn't mind having a baby brother or sister," Julie answered, "and you know Dad would support you if you are pregnant."
"You're..." Melissa began when her voice was cut off by the sound of gunshots. They were muffled a bit by the fact that it wasn't too close to the Stovall house, but that didn't mean that the shots went unheard.