While his parents went through their respective days with regard to Yvette's hearing and Martha getting dressed, Eric Anderson had his morning at school. While he had nearly been tardy to his first period class, a good part of him felt it was worth it. Julie had kissed him and the memory of it felt surprisingly good in his mind. It had cemented that their relationship was becoming more than simple friends and classmates, and a good part of his mind wanted it to be more than that. The dreams he'd been having of late had taken a lot of that even further with many of them not only being of Julie but of Julie turning him on a weremerman. Some had been with both of them as adults while others had been with the transformation having already occurred in the dream's time frame and he was simply laying on a beach or a beach-chair beside a pool with Julie by his side.
Though while he looked forward to having a healthy and even romantic relationship with Julie, as apart of his mind figured it'd be something else to learn, he did know that there were plenty of other things that he'd need to consider. Julie was a were, a rare type in Moon Lake, but a were nonetheless. And in this he remembered the warning that his parents gave him when he had asked them about love and if what he felt was love. If he was to stay with Julie and did ultimately marry her, being with her on a physical level would lead to his transformation. Just as his mother became a werecat by having sex with the Twists and as he figured Frances became a werecat by having sex with Samantha. Having sex with Julie would turn him into a weremerman. Eric knew that.
The knowledge only raised more questions in his mind regarding the choices he should make. A good part of him did wish to remain human, but that part wrestled with the fact that Julie was a were and that he liked her very much. A part of him was even certain that he was falling in love with her. It would mean that he'd end up becoming a were anyway. It left him with two real options, either find or develop a vaccine that would prevent him from giving up his humanity or accept that he would end up a were-beast just like the rest of his family. Both had their minuses. The first would mean that he'd need to get a job as a geneticist to find specifically what it was in were-beasts that passed their condition on and then develop a vaccine based on it. That would take time and would also mean that if he did decide to become a were-beast later, he would be unable to. The other had all sorts of other questions to be answered, such as did he have to be a weremerman to be with Julie? Would she mind if he became another kind of were? He was certain that all were-beasts could interbreed with each other, but that had the question of how the child's were-species would be determined. Would their species hybridize the way mules were born from breeding horses and donkeys, or would they have some other mechanism such as how werecats kept their biological lines running... when the male child would be the were-species of his sire and a female child a werecat.
These questions went through his mind as he went through his morning classes along with the odd daydream of walking with Julie. At times it served to distract him from some of his school work as in one of his morning classes, a teacher had asked him a question and he had to ask for the question to be repeated as it had distracted him from his thoughts... or rather that his thoughts had distracted him from what he was supposed to be focused on. The teacher repeated the question and issued the warning that his thoughts were to be focused on the lesson and that no matter how smart he was, he would never succeed if his mind simply wandered. Eric did answer the question and apologized for letting his mind wander.
"What were you thinking about, man?" asked a classmate as Eric left that class.
"What?" Eric asked back.
"Your mind was clearly elsewhere," the classmate told him, "your eyes were blank and the teacher had to repeat the question."
"It was nothing," Eric said defensively, "Just thinking over some things..."
"Like your dad and rogue that attacked him?" the classmate asked.
Eric figured that some local news had covered the whole issue with Yvette's actions, or that the classmate he was talking with was the son of one of the police officers that had been involved in the case. He didn't know for sure, and since he lacked the enhanced senses that weres had, he couldn't tell by scent.
"No," Eric answered, "She got caught and my dad is doing fine... adapting quite well to being a werefox."
The classmate shrugged and gave a small smile, "Well... that's good, but where you thinking about? And don't say nothing."
Eric sighed, and then said, "Julie... Julie Stovall... she's been friendly to me and helped me get used to being in Moon Lake. She's smart and..."
The classmate patted his back and laughed, "You ought to date her with lines like that... you're lovesick, man."
"We actually have our first date after school, today," Eric answered.
"Well good for you," the classmate smiled and walked off toward his next class.
That left Eric alone for a moment. His next class was a study hall and met in the library. He walked along and made his way there. The teacher took attendance and let the students get to work on either homework or look at a book. The library had computers for students to use, but generally study hall students were encouraged not to use them and Eric wasn't really that interested in that. The school's library had a copy of the handbook that Samantha had given to Nate when she first introduced the Anderson family to the truth about Moon Lake. Eric hadn't looked at that handbook, but at present with his questions and curiosity raised by the knowledge of who he was dating and the events of recent dreams he had had about Julie had made him reconsider that. If only to know more and keep his choices open.
The handbook contained a lengthy list on all the were-beast species that resided within Moon Lake, which included references to species and variants within that species according to the table of contents. Much of that included issues that were commonly found in nature, with a double recessive gene in the Bengal Tiger producing white tigers or a different recessive gene in Leopards and Jaguars producing a melanistic Leopard or Jaguar, which people called black panthers. Though, something in the way things were layed out in the handbook that many of the entries were written long ago and probably heavily influenced by either more "spiritual" looks at science or how things worked or simply out of date scientific concepts that modern scientists had moved past.
"They could certainly stand to update this," Eric thought as he glanced through the entries for werecats and werefoxes in the handbook.
Both carried information that his parents, Frances, and Samantha had explained to him on werecats and werefoxes, but something in the wording of the entries seemed like the writer was either angry or irritated. Not to mention that the illustrations provided weren't much more than black and white etchings that depicted fully transformed werefoxes and werecats in 19th century clothing. The illustration for werefox vixens looked like a dancing girl in an old west saloon. The explanation between male "werecats" and werecats was also confusing. All werecats were female, according to what he had been told and based off of the Domestic House Cat. Male "werecats" were all based off of the wild cats from the sub-family Felinae with the exception of the Domestic House Cat for these males, and in pure theory they could be listed by their individual species, such as a werelynx, but because there were no female "werelynx" and these males were homosexual, or at least bisexual, they were grouped with the werecats. From the way his mother described it, the males were grouped in and were simply referred to as "werecats." The handbook tried to make the same conclusion but was far less clear. It also made the breeding for werecats somewhat unclear. Some lines referred to female children being werecats while male children matching their sire, while other lines made weak references to hybridization.
"Are you okay, Eric?" came an adult's voice.
Eric looked up to see the study hall teacher looking down at him.
"Yes, I'm doing well," Eric answered and wanted to go back to reading as he was now flipping to a the handbook's entry for weremers.
"Are you looking at joining us?" the teacher asked as he noticed what Eric was reading.
"Just researching some things, sir," Eric answered.
"Okay..." the teacher said slowly, "just remember that these things are your choice. What happened with your father and that vixen is rather rare here in Moon Lake. Just because he was changed... that doesn't mean you have to."
"I understand," Eric answered, "thank you."
With that, Eric looked in on the handbook's entry for weremers. The etched image looked like people in the various stages of mer forms in the bathing suits from the early 1900s. The only image of a weremer in the final stage, the typical mermaid or merman form, was a male, which Eric thought made sense. He didn't know when the bikini was invented, but he didn't think it was in the early 1900s. The rest of the information that was presented information on their pod structures, usually built around the family. When a mermaid married a merman, she would join that merman's pod and leave the pod she was born into. If a mermaid/merman turned a normal into a merman/mermaid, that new merman/mermaid would join the mermaid/merman's existing pod.
However, it made no reference whether or not a merman or mermaid could be involved romantically with a different kind of were, which in the end didn't answer his real question. Whether or not he would have to become a weremerman to be with Julie. While a part of him was growing okay with the idea, Eric did want to keep all his options open.