Bad Moon Season Two

Episode One: Serenity

Session Eighteen: 4/15/2015

Will, of the LaPine Pack

Ivy, of the LaPine Pack

Cosgrove, Alpha of the LaPine Pack

Linda Dennison

Roy Blackburn

Lysa Godfrey

Zane Connley

Carter Smythe

Haywood Nixon

Melissa "Sissy" Thompson

Timothy Gruber

Christmas

• Stella and Jarod Jalo spend a quiet Christmas together. Stella's somewhat impatient curiosity about Jarod's extended presence in Astoria is answered when Jarod tells her that he applied for the open librarian position at the University of Astoria. Stella is flummoxed, questioning the abandonment of his career and girlfriend in Michigan (?). Jarod explains that he hasn't been satisfied by his work in a while, and his girlfriend turned out to not be a good choice. He also drops the bomb that not only did he apply for the position, it's already been offered to him and accepted. Unable to come up with any plausible objections, Stella reluctantly acquiesces.
• Warner Pelt's Christmas at home in La Pine is made uncomfortable by tensions between his parents, which aren't hidden so well from Warner's prying wolf senses. A distraction from the situation in the form of two glowing creeper werewolf eyes outside his bedroom window soon presents itself. The situation turns out to be no less tense, however, when Warner investigates and discovers an old boy scout compatriot Will Galdwin. Will is immediately confrontational over territory, but two more mature werewolves, a woman named Ivy Morse and a man soon revealed as La Pine's alpha, Cosgrove, soon intercede to prevent any violence. Cosgrove tells Warner that he's welcome to visit his family, of course, but he can't use his powers while in the La Pine territory. He even offers to have his pack keep an eye on Warner's family for him.
• Thomas Michael Craig is also home with the family for Christmas, with an experience more unsettling than Warner's. Thomas's dad becomes hyperfocused on his computer, probably starting flame war after flame war, while his mom ruins the kitchen trying out her mother's old recipes. Thomas's grandfather barely sleeps, starting and abandoning home projects left and right. They all demand Thomas's attention despite his attempts at isolation, and he is miserable suspecting that somehow his strange experiences following Alice's bite have something to do with all of this.
• Miles Brovik is alone on campus for his first Christmas in Astoria, but Desmond Lancaster and Vanya Simonson ask him to join them for a small pack Christmas. Miles is enrolling at UofA for the spring semester and has a new job with security under Desmond. Desmond warns Miles that the situation at UofA is likely to get messy soon.
• Dr. Elaine Litchfield spends Christmas back in New Hampshire at her family's estate. She and her parents spend most of their time in their separate spheres, which suits Elaine's obsessiveness just fine, especially when she hears cawing in the attic one night. Following the now familiar sound of her insanity, she finds an old crate stashed in the attic containing an old book and a pair of human skulls. She no doubt left these here as a child and is now ready to harvest. However, the packing slip in the crate indicates otherwise, identifying the crate's origin as the Egyptology department of the British Royal Museum in her great-grandfather's name, Elijah Dunning. The book turns out to be a collection of poetry written by Elaine's great-grandmother Elizabeth Dunning heavily featuring death themes, especially death as a beautiful garden. Norse and corvid imagery is a common motif running throughout. Of course, it's no news to anyone that insanity is often genetic.
• Jace Evans spends an almost idyllic Christmas with Davis Monk at the cabin. They're snuggling naked in front of the fire when Jace hears Harris Clayton approaching. Jace doesn't bother to get dressed for his old cam buddy, but Harris is there to because he overheard Volk Yuriev planning to "get rid of" Jace and Davis before the pack heads off somewhere else in the state. Although Harris doesn't know exactly what Volk meant, he's concerned enough to give Jace a map to get out of the area and back to Astoria. Harris refuses Jace's suggestion that he come with them, but Jace tells him that he can still keep in touch through the website.

December 28th, The Oak Moon

• Stella and Miles are patrolling the pack territory on the morning of the full moon. Miles say very little, but Stella is naturally chatty and nurturing toward him as she concerns herself with how Miles is settling into Astoria. Miles seems to have some sort of complex around this, as he warms rather quickly to her mothering ways.
• Jace and Davis get out of a semi nearby, having hitchhiked their way back to Astoria. They're near the House of Running Water and start walking the final distance back only to be intercepted by the faux mother/son patrol. Stella is elated to find the missing students, but she's surprised when Jace dismisses his time in Volk's pack as relatively pleasant with very little torture involved.
• The four return to the house, where much of the pack is hanging out. They question Jace about what's happened to him, but he has very little to tell. Stella settles Davis into a chair to ease the stress on his prosthetic. Finally, Jace, having seen Henry's Harley outside, asks where he is, since Jace has been carrying Henry's keys around since the hospital raid. Stella drops the bomb as gently as possible that Henry died the night of the raid. Jace is at first outraged that he's spent the last month among Henry's killers. Warner takes the brunt of his rage when he reveals that he was with Henry when he died and couldn't save him, but despite Jace's demands, he doesn't know exactly who put Henry down, though he knows Miranda Barnes and Gabe Gerhardt were a part of the fight. Jace quickly retreats to a private room. Uncertain what the reaction might be, Davis follows to comfort Jace, who breaks down into tears as soon as Davis touches him. The pack is stunned.
• Thomas and Jerome Tate arrive at the house to the pervasive awkwardness left in the wake of this scene. Stella shares the news that her son will be staying at the UofA, and the pack is surprised that she is mostly opposed to it. She explains that she doesn't want to have the pressure of hiding her new life from Jarod, and he's already pried because of her fight with Volk last semester. The pack discusses whether she should tell him the truth or further her deception concerning Volk, perhaps by claiming drug problems of some degree to explain the circumstances. Thomas reasons that giving Jarod a simple explanation will throw him off the track of finding out anything closer to the truth. The pack is further surprised to find out the Stella hasn't been with a man since her husband, which derails the conversation, especially when Jace emerges from his room to suggest that she might have a little something with a certain childhood friend/drug dealer of her acquaintance. A few notice her hastily concealed embarrassment at this mention in front of Desmond.
• As the Oak Moon rises, the pack prepares for its run. Desmond explains that during the Oak Moon, the barrier between the physical and spiritual world thins, so the pack is more likely to interact with spirits. Indeed, as the pack runs, they are joined by a large spirit wolf. Her appearance startles the longer standing members of the pack, and it is later revealed that the spirit wolf looked exactly like Amarissa's form.
• She guides the pack toward a strange buzzing sound but parts with them as they find a grotesque spirit shaped like a man with chainsaws for hands near a collection of houses along the John Day River. Greasy spirit smoke fills the air. Recognizing its inherent wrongness, the pack falls upon the spirit and disperses it, cleansing it from their territory. When the pack returns from its run, Amarissa's spirit wolf has departed.

Session Nineteen: 5/13/2015

Monday, January 7th

• Jace Evans is awakened early when Dean of Students Tessa Edmonton arrives at the loft with coffee in tow. Barely clothed, Jace sits with her in the lower floor of the loft and awkwardly talks around the issue of why he's been missing for the last month. Tessa assumes it's had something to do with Henry Mulgrew's tragedy, and Jace tells her that he wants to talk to her later after he's had time to gather his thoughts. In the meantime, Tessa tells Jace that she's taken the liberty of enrolling him in spring classes and scheduling make up exams for his missed fall finals. A naked Davis Monk stumbles downstairs, much to his own consternation, and retreats upon seeing the dean, leaving Jace and Tessa with more awkward conversation about Jace's sexual habits.
• Over at ATO, Stella Jalo and the higher ranking brothers are discussing the upcoming rush week. Danny Marin is among this year's ATO rushes. While ATO president Deacon Alders goes over the schedule, Carter Smythe is more concerned about the reputation the frat has gained since Fall's series of disasters. Many students have been gossiping about an ATO curse, which is hurting the frat's social standing and leading to further rumors that Dean Edmonton is considering replacing the local ATO chapter with another frat. Stella, who knows full well that the weirdness isn't likely to end any time soon, can only muster the suggestion that no one else die.
• Dr. Elaine Litchfield and Warner Pelt are waiting for Vanya Simonson to join them on a run, but when she texts that she can't be there, the pair head out. Vanya mentions in her text that Warner isn't competing in Cross Country this semester, and when Elaine asks him about classes, he dodges the question. Because it would be sane to notice this omission, Elaine doesn't.
• Miles Brovich is brushing his teeth in his new dorm room when he smells fear emanating from the other dorm room sharing his bathroom. He knocks on the door and hears faint whispers. When he opens the door, he finds Thomas Michael Craig having a nightmare. Yep, it turns out that Miles has inherited Teresa Cantu's previous dorm room. Miles leaves Thomas to his sleep.
• After her run, Elaine is crossing campus and something odd catches her attention. At this point, you would think she'd be more likely to notice when there's nothing odd around. At first, she can't put a finger on it, but after investigating, she realized that the quad is a very weak locus. She lacks the skills to determine much more about it, though.
• When she gets to her office, she finds Linda Dennison waiting with tea. Linda coyly shows Elaine her class schedule to reveal that she isn't taking any of Elaine's classes this term, then she not so coyly asks Elaine out. Proving for once that she can think with more than just her head, Elaine accepts a lunch date.
• Miles shares a computer class with Jerome Tate and Renee McDonnall and discovers this to be an excellent vantage for pack drama when Danny Marin also enters the class. Renee tries to get Danny to sit with them, but he awkwardly sits elsewhere when Jerome doesn't also invite him. When Renee goes to sit with him instead, Jerome growls.
• Thomas is walking through the quad when he, too, notices something off. Recalling that this is the same area where he once saw dead Teresa, he investigates. He examines the quad in the reflection of his phone and sees words crawling across the ground. When he tries to read them, they skitter out of sight, but he tracks them to their source: the fountain in the center of the quad. As he sits at the fountain, he observes that the words fade as they reach the edge of the quad, and foreign feelings wash over him. The panic of needing to get schoolwork done cascades into regret over poor work done.
• Thomas is interrupted by some dude named Roy, who confirms that Thomas is one of Warner's friends. He further confuses Thomas when he asks him to tell Warner better luck in the next fight. When Thomas says he knows nothing about any fights, Roy tells him there will be more tonight at the Cannery.
• Elaine and Linda head to their lunch date, where Linda makes small talk about the dig. Elaine is direct about the dig taking up much of her time outside of classes and somewhat less direct in using the dig as a shield against seeing Linda regularly. When Linda tries to get Elaine to agree to come out to Crossroads with her, Elaine is noncommittal.
• Jace also has a lunch date, his with Dean Edmonton in her office. He asks Davis to come along and wait outside, though, just in case. The dean is surprised when Jace starts the conversation by asking her why she's been so good to him since approving his transfer to the UofA when he doesn't feel his deserves the treatment. Tessa simply tells Jace he fulfills something for her, and she is genuinely fond of him. Jace tells her that because of her trust, he can't lie to her about all the odd behavior from the Fall and his absence over Christmas.
• Jace launches into a full explanation of everything supernatural that has happened in Astoria since the werewolf attack at ATO's Bonfire party. He outs a few werewolves, including dead Henry Mulgrew and missing students Harris Clayton, Miranda Barnes, and Gabe Gerhardt, but avoids naming any of the active Astoria pack. Tessa thinks all of this is an elaborate joke, so Jace calls Davis in to confirm his story, explaining that the Monks are a family of werewolf hunters. To further prove his point, Jace changes in front of her. Predictably, Tessa is shocked but asks if there are werewolves other than Jace on campus, which he confirms. He asks Davis to give her one of his hunter sprays so she can protect herself, then they leave her to absorb the wereinfodump.
• Aware that he has another Herculean task, Jace clears his calendar for the rest of the day and reluctantly calls the pack out to the House of Running Water to tell them what he's done. Attempting to preempt the lengthy conversation by telling the pack right away that he doesn't really care what they think doesn't work so well, making some of the pack question whether he should even be a member. Pointing out that it was Aedia Randall, the pack's former alpha, that agreed to let him in doesn't help matters either. Few in the pack accept that Tessa is genuinely important to eternally scornful Jace, and Elaine accuses him of endangering the pack for his own gain.
• The sun crosses broad swaths of sky and eventually gets tired and sets before the pack's conversation turns to how to be a better pack. All commit to increasing their involvement in pack necessities like territorial patrols and outreach to other packs to shore up their missing knowledge.
• As the night wears on, Warner leaves because he "has some place to be." Thanks to Thomas, though, the pack is on to him, and deciding that a little release after the day's pack building exercises is warranted, most of them head out after Thomas to see him fight. It turns out that the Cannery is full of recognizable faces from school, and Jace and Thomas quickly fall in with some of Jace's outer circle, Sissy Thompson, Carter Smythe, Lysa Godfrey, and less familiar Haywood Nixon among them. Thomas quickly realizes that no one is playing bookie to the fights, so with cash openly fronted by Jace, he runs the bets for the night, turning a sizable profit.
• Linda Dennison, apparently taking over Reese Tavis's previous role as ever present stalker for this season, quickly finds Elaine when she arrives.
• Behind the scenes at the fighting pits, Warner discovers that Olivia Saenz also knows about the fights. They haven't talked since Warner outed himself to her, but Olivia makes it clear that she still wants to see him when she playful asks him why he hasn't called.
• As the fights start, Buster the Wolf gets overexcited by all the violence, and Stella quickly loses control as he comes running out to play. Too much release, Stella, too much!

Session Twenty: 5/27/2015

• Buster the Wolf tries to return to the warehouse to break off a piece of slab of meat Carter Smythe, but Dr. Elaine Litchfield quickly intercepts with the strong newspaper to the nose approach of a snout full of silver mace.
• Hearing Stella's howl of pain and rage, Jace Evans and Miles Brovich drag her back outside, where Elaine promptly administers a dose of belladonna. Unfortunately, it's a dose sized for Henry Mulgrew, which throws Stella into a bout of seizures.
• Back inside, Warner Pelt is suffering a beatdown in the ring from Kaleb Jackson, riling his wolf up.
• Thomas Michael Craig is the only pack member left in the crowd to notice two of the fighters stalking a college couple. Alarmingly, the fighters have fiery eyes. Thomas quickly joins the couple and diverts them toward the makeshift bar. The fighters, who seem to be avoiding overt notice (good luck with those fire eyes), don't follow.
• Warner, who is struggling with his wolf, enlists Kaleb's help to drive the wolf away, in the form of many painful punches to Warner's face. When Kaleb finally lays Warner out his a final blow, Warner bursts into laughter. Kaleb is completely taken aback, but Warner gains his approval when he gets to his feet and challenges him to drink.
• Outside, most of the rest of the pack drags a dying Stella to her SUV to get her out of sight. Much to everyone else's chagrin, Elaine insists on administering wolfsbane to counteract the effects of the belladonna. Jace is already wondering if Elaine is starting to go off the deep end, so when her wolfsbane treatment doesn't produce an immediate result and she shifts into a death crow in desperation, he takes refuge in the rear of the SUV. Against all odds, further medical treatment from Elaine manages to stabilize Stella.
• With Warner being dragged away by Kaleb, Thomas is without the rest of the pack while collecting a tidy profit from running the night's bookings. As the spectators disperse after the fights, Thomas catches sight of the two fiery-eyed fighters dragged the college couple into the back of the warehouse. He notices the heat in the warehouse rising. Although he tries to sneak after the fighters, eyes lit with fire seem to be exceptionally good at seeing into darkness, and the fighters attack Thomas for following them. Thomas tries to throw ice water from the beer tub on them but instead topples over as the fiery eyes give him a taste of what Warner got in the fighting ring.
• As the warehouse clears out and becomes silent, Jace goes inside looking for Thomas. The blood smell is strong, and he follows it to two corpses--the college couple--and Thomas lying unconscious under the beer tub. Jace calls the rest of the pack in, and Elaine investigates. The two college kids were killed with surprising force, but the girl was dead before other trauma to her body. Jace gets Thomas to his feet, and the pack decides to leave the scene as undisturbed as possible and call in an anonymous tip from Astoria's last remaining pay phone.

Later That Week

• Miles and Thomas pay a visit to the UofA quad to investigate the locus there. Miles, not to be outdone by the recently discovered fiery eyes, has wolf eyes of his own to see a tree laden with spirit diplomas in the quad. Thomas discovers that he can see into Shadow (yep, that's a mystical Shadow with a capitol "S") at night, and he sees a raccoon looking suspiciously like the UofA's mascot the Bandit. The bandit raccoon can't communicate with Thomas directly, but he does seem curious about him. The two sort of agree to meet up again before the bandit scampers off. Miles and Thomas speculate that the bandit might be a raccoon spirit who started eating the smart spirits of the quad locus and started educating himself. The pack really needs to learn more about the supernatural so they can fact check some of this ridiculousness.

Friday, January XX - The day of the ATO Graffiti Party

• Thomas, Warner, Renee McDonnall, Jerome Tate, and almost invisible Danny Marin are playing video games at Jerome's. Renee is still throwing shade at Warner, but they're at least able to be in the same room together now. Danny mentions that he's rushing ATO, and despite some ribbing, insists that the group come to ATO's Graffiti Party later that night to support him.
• Linda Dennison also prevails upon Elaine to come to the Graffiti Party using her usual honeypot allure. This during one of their morning afters. Stay classy, girl.
• Stella is setting up for the party with the rest of ATO when Bro President Deacon Alders brings this year's rushes in (2013 ATO Rushes). During the small talk, it's mentioned that one of the rushes, Viktor Harmon, has been missing along with his girlfriend Joelle. That industrious ATO curse is getting a head start on the new crop of kids.
• Stella has some other party prep to do, which requires a visit to childhood sweetheart/drug dealer Dane Ryerman. She discovers that she has something in common with Jace when she arrives at Dane's house to find the two of them smoking some weed after some post-business business. Although Dane leaps up to put some clothes on, Jace just sits amused on the couch while Stella storms after Dane. Stella is astonished that Dane is sleeping with a "boy" who's young enough to be his son, but Dane is more taken aback by Stella's conservative attitude.
• As the fight escalates, Jace finally puts on some clothes on and interrupts before Buster the Wolf gets involved. He fails to smooth the situation when he assures Stella that there's nothing emotional between him and Dane; he just sleeps with the man to ensure preferential treatment. The pressure's off Dane when Stella is more concerned with Jace prostituting himself for drugs, and her insistence that something bad must have happened to Jace sets him off. Their fight spills out into the street in true trash-being-aired fashion. Jace attempts to explain to Stella that his relationship with Dane is just two adults giving each other something they want--the basis of all relationships--but Stella is insistent that the situation is fucked up. Eventually Dane tells them to leave.
• Distraught, Stella heads out to the house to vent with Vanya Simonson about what she just learned. Vanya, who herself has a bit of a flirtation going on with a student-aged wolf pup, finds Stella's objections to 21-year-old Jace sleeping with older men a little strange and asks if it has more to do with it being Dane and also Dane sleeping with men. Stella denies it, but deep down inside there's something there. Vanya is also a little concerned but unsurprised by Jace's activities. Stella eventually calms down but resolves not to see Dane anymore.

Episode Two: Motherhood

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