Amy nodded back to Tad as they made their way into the high school that Friday morning. It could be paranoia over something or just a reaction to the battle between Dymixious Drake and the Moon Lake Police Department. Those sorts of things could happen, and both knew it. Tad had seen plenty on the news coverage regarding law enforcement shooting unarmed people in various altercations, and with many of these incidents involving ethnic minorities, primarily African Americans, as the victims of police bullets had raised charges of racism and had sparked certain levels of debate on the issue.
The battle with Dymixious Drake actually fit fairly well with that issue, especially since many of these reports hadn't been about people being just shot at random. There were cases in which these altercations had involved the law being broken and had the end consequence of someone being killed. It was something that in those earlier cases lead to investigations and procedures along with protests and increased news coverage. Moon Lake didn't quite have the immediate outrage over Dymixious Drake's death, but that didn't mean that there couldn't be the potential for people coming to protest over the issue, which would only increase Moon Lake's concerns over the were secret. It'd thus make sense that Moon Lake would have some special meeting to discuss what had happened and to have some procedure in place to handle whatever pressure from the outside that might come as a result of the reports on the battle between the police and Dymixious Drake.
As he waved to Amy as they both turned to head for their lockers, Tad also knew that it could simply be something rather mundane that had little to nothing to do with the battle with Dymixious Drake. The fact that some of the rumors seemed to flutter around different reasons was enough to imply that. In some ways it was like a game of telephone in which the rumor and its start had been retold so many times that it would be hard to say for certain what the true cause was. This only made Tad curious as to what this meeting would actually be about...
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Meanwhile, Teddy and Marci Green were packing in their hotel room at the end of a fairly successful vacation. The pair had been together for quite a long time, but they'd never been able to do much more than kiss, as the unique mono-gendered nature of the werecat strain of the were-virus would make it impossible for Marci to turn Teddy and let them be together in every possible way. The were-cat strain would literally kill him because of the presence of the Y chromosome that marked Teddy as a male. It had led to both of them privately looking for some other were to allow for Teddy's conversion and thus allow them to be together, which hadn't worked out well.
Finding weres elsewhere was hard, and until Marci could get close enough to confirm anything, they'd had to use a lot of "coded" language that wouldn't risk exposing weres. The bigger problem proved to be that when they did find a were, the were often wouldn't turn Teddy because of his status as an agent of the FBI, likely fearing that it was a sting operation by a paranoid agent and not a husband and wife looking for a way to be together. But then they'd gotten a break in that Teddy's investigation into the murder of a Marine Corps officer had lead him to Moon Lake, where he'd found that not only was the town largely populated by weres, but that they would help them with what they'd wanted...
"And we got it," Marci smiled to herself as she looked up to see Teddy packing his bags.
Teddy Green had always been fairly fit, even as a normal human, but after their vacation to Moon Lake and his becoming a weretiger, he looked even better to Marci's eyes. He was strong and flexible. He was also much bigger in other places, he'd gotten some of his lost hair back, and Marci had loved it. The fact that his fursona was also of a white tiger, which was rather rare, even among weretigers, made him even more attractive, which raised Marci's hopes for a family with him now that they could physically mate without the risk of the werecat strain in Marci killing the man she loved. The visit had also introduced them to the weretigress that had so willingly turned Teddy, and that had allowed Marci to scratch the proverbial itch that had come with the fact that she was bisexual, and they'd also learned that that weretigress had developed something of a crush on Teddy and Marci as well. This added to pleasant thoughts on future retirement issues, but that was still in the future.
"You ready, dear?" Teddy asked to her with a small smile as he flipped his main suitcase shut and flipping the locks so that they'd hold. He was privately surprised by how easily everything seemed to latch now. He'd had the suitcase for awhile and to a certain extent carried a bit of "good luck" for him that he preferred it over a duffel bag at times. Over the years with the occasional spilling of mouthwash or toothpaste or some other thing that would be packed, some of those locks had gotten a bit sticky. They worked, but he'd have to put some effort into working the mechanism. Now, though, everything seemed to slide and twist easily.
"Yeah," Marci gave a small smile and lifted up her own bag.
Teddy nodded and they turned and head out the door. Their first stop was the rental car that they'd gotten when they first landed in Seattle. Digging the car keys out of his pants pocket, Teddy pressed down on a button that released the trunk and let it rise up with a "clunk" noise. Teddy then handed his bag to Marci who set about placing their bags in the trunk of the car while Teddy walked toward the motel's front office where he could turn in their room keys and check out. As she slammed the trunk down, Marci paused to smile as she looked out at the forest that loomed over much in Moon Lake. Many of the trees weren't exactly native to Washington State, but it did still carry a natural sort of scent that was very different from what she and Teddy normally lived with.
It wasn't too long before Teddy returned and the two moved to climb the car. Both looked rather pleased with themselves and with what they'd found.
"Well... back to the grindstone, eh?" Teddy quipped with a small smile.
"I suppose," Marci commented, "but now with something special to look forward to."
"Eventually retiring here," Teddy commented, "or at least when it gets to a point where things can't be hidden..."
Marci nodded and glanced over to him as he backed up the car and began to drive up toward the center of town where they could then make the turn onto the road that would them back to Seattle. She knew that weres had the potential to live for centuries with old age not being a factor until close to four hundred. Weres could and plenty of times did die sooner than that, but that had usually related to their a violent death or continually having to rely on a were's high healing capabilities to injury, disease, and parasites in repeated fashion. That later sort of thing could be taxing and in many cases did drive down a were's normally considerable lifespan. Her mothers had told her that much while growing up. However, as medical science advanced and other means of avoiding parasites and treating disease came about, the more likely that weres would live to see several centuries go by without aging much, which was something the Greens had discussed on briefly from time to time, but was now a major issue.
Before, it would only be Marci and in theory as an attorney, she wasn't exactly chasing bad guys or engaging in actions where she would risk being killed. In this, Marci could play to some amount of cosmetic surgery to play for a longer youthful appearance and keep with her job as an attorney, which she actually did like, particularly when the practice she worked for championed the little guy. However, she knew that Teddy couldn't do that so easily. His work with the FBI raised the greater potential for more violent altercations that would require greater energy and it might well be hard for that to be covered up. It was something that outside of a place like Moon Lake where weres could live openly could be rather difficult, particularly with regard to many of the details of modern life, which often required the use of social security numbers and other sorts of identifiers stay organized.
"Especially as while I was never in bad shape... I was never in as good of shape as I am now," Teddy commented to her, "and while there could be plenty of diets and exercises that could explain all this... it wouldn't as quickly things are now..."
Marci slowly nodded, "I know... though maybe you could say you were doing them all the time and just dressed in a way that would hide it. You know... like on the days when you've found me in sweats... They hang loose enough that my... curves aren't as obvious."
"Given that I've had to buy a whole new wardrobe... I'm not sure we could do that," Teddy commented, "not to mention that having my hair back would be a new thing."
"I'm sure we could think of something... an unusually good response to some of those pills that they sell for people to regrow their hair, for example," Marci suggested, "and then... unless you get promoted up the chain of command, you aren't too far from the point of being eligible to retire. From there, we could move out here."
"That'd sound nice," Teddy smiled as he looked into the rearview mirror and saw Moon Lake disappearing behind them. He loved Marci, dearly, and would always defend her, but he'd always known that as a werecat that she'd had to hide a lot about herself for the sake of making sure that no one found out and overreacted. It was something that he always worried about from time to time, particularly when Marci transformed while in their apartment. Even if Marci couldn't help but spending some time her werecat form, that didn't ease his worries that someone would see and draw the wrong conclusion. But Moon Lake was quite clearly different in that the town had likely been founded by weres and served to protect their interests and letting them live rather openly, which would likely make many things easier to handle and thus why the pair of them had agreed to the idea or retiring to Moon Lake.
"That it would," Marci agreed, "it'd be nice if every place could allow for weres to live free and openly... but... a place like this would be start..."