Darcy was definitely cursed, there was no other explanation.

And no matter what Shaun would say, she wasn’t being dramatic!

At first, everything was going well. When she told her parents that Shaun had finally promised to come, they were cautiously happy to hear it.

Her “Mysterious Penpal”, as they called him, had never before managed to find a good moment to come visit her, always stopped by a sudden emergency that required his presence.

Of course, she was fully expecting her parents to be there to welcome Shaun.

All while both vetting him and embarassing the both of them as much as possible.

Which, to be fair, was exactly what they were planning, before a sudden family urgency sprung up a mere three days before the visit.

Darcy was crushed, of course. There was just no way her parents were going to let her meet Shaun, alone in the house! And if this meetup got canceled, who knew when Shaun would get the courage - sorry, the “right circumstances” - to come visit again?

Yet, surprisingly, they decided instead to have her supervised by Grandma.

Darcy wasn’t complaining though! Nona was awesome, the kindest person she’s ever known, and also fully able to “fold any impertinent whippersnapper in half” without breaking a sweat. Even better, Grandma knew the meaning of subtlety, and would only embarrass them a few times before letting them off the hook.

She, quite optimistically, thought that was the end of it. But no. That was just the beginning.

Two days ago, her parents' phones, getting lost right before their flight, and found after their arrival crushed to pieces in their travel bags.Both of them! Thank God they managed to use the phone of one of the relatives to call her and tell her what happened.

Then her phone, the one she JUST got for her birthday, decided to start fritzing on her! Her calls, her texts, her apps… nothing worked! She could swear she didn’t drop it, or make it wet, nothing that could explain why it suddenly decided to give up on her like that.

And today, it was the family’s phone cutting off right in the middle of her call to Nona, as she was getting ready to start her car. She was just complaining about her mobile dying when she suddenly started hearing a beeping sound, and the phone refused to connect to any number!

Now, Darcy wasn’t one to fall prey to superstitions. But a young girl, suddenly all alone in her family home, in the forest and far from civilization, AND with no way to contact anyone?

That made every alarm signal in her head go off at once.

So the very last thing she wanted to hear was a howling sound, coming from the direction of the woods.

Of course, as she felt her heart start to plummet to her stomach, she was suddenly plunged into near total obscurity, only briefly broken up by a bright flash in the distance and the booming sound of thunder.

As she heard a dozen howls start in unison, stronger and clearer than before… Darcy whimpered.

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Shaun felt this day was going to be great!

Well, okay, it wasn’t like it was all going his way. His family did insist on accompanying him to Darcy’s home. Which, fair enough, considering he was going to bring her into the whole Masquerade thing.

And the Dawnsons did insist on coming as well, to “check out Shaun’s human crush”. Which, first, rude! It wasn’t a crush. Oh! And second of course, Shaun wasn’t sure if Darcy had the

room to lodge everyone from his family, never mind an additional 6 werewolves!

But Shaun couldn’t really complain. He was finally going to actually meet Darcy!

No more vague “this spring isn’t good”, with no way to complain about having to help wrangle the dozen newborn pups! Nor having to dodge around the whole issue with the Moon. He was painfully aware that his excuses were paper thin, to say the least.

And, in addition, Papy told him he was going to make sure to nudge things in his favor today! Which means no more sudden change of Moon phase because some dicks decided they wanted to brew their potions with a sliver of new moon light this very day, and didn’t want to wait like everyone else. No more -

The sudden and harsh thump of a shoulder check dragged out a plaintive whine out of him, even as Shaun looked at the culprit. Of course, that only earned him an aggravated huff from his mother and another shoulder check, forcing him to pick up the pace.

Looking closer at the greeneries they were rapidly approaching… they were getting pretty close to the address Darcy sent him, weren’t they?

A long, singular howl from his right quickly caught his wandering mind’s attention.

Without even a second thought, the pack all turned towards the noise, spotting the lanky form of Randulfr. He was on top of a nearby hill, looking down toward a car that seemed stuck on the side of the road.

A closer look told Shaun that the thing was a lost cause. He had no idea what did that, but the front of the car looked pretty totaled, and the wheels were just about gone.

Also, there was an old lady looking straight at them, with the single most unimpressed look on her face he had ever seen. Shaun shared another look with his mother, before shrugging and carefully starting the descent. She probably needed help?

Of course, the last thing Shaun was expecting when he arrived next to the car was for her to pull out of her trunk a monster of a rifle.

The cold feeling of the metallic muzzle against his own muzzle was also unexpected. He tried to open his mouth, while raising his hand to calm her down…

He only heard the noise of the gunshot after he was already on the ground, with a mouthful of lead.

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There was a lot of shouting, after that. Well, first there was a lot of howling, but after Grace made sure to shake her can of silver bullets at the pack, the blessed silver clinking merely in the suddenly quiet clearing… Well, the wolves were much more willing to actually speak like civilized beings.

She did have to help the young, much too imprudent one on the ground to spit out the lead bullets before he choked on them, but she liked to think it underlined that she wasn’t a wee lass out of her league. Even if she had to apologize once she learned who exactly he was. It wasn’t like she was expecting a werewolf visit, never mind what felt like an entire pack just up and moving into their little corner of the woods!

Things were a bit frosty, understandably, but before long her car was being towed by two of the big ones, while the rest were either walking besides, or in one lonely case, trying to make conversation with her. Darcy truly had gotten her tastes from her, because the lad was barely shaken after that shot!

Thankfully for all, it was the work of only a few minutes before her car, along with its canine entourage, were parked in front of her daughter’s home. Though the fact that the lights were out…

Grace got out quickly, hearing the lad scramble to follow behind her as she walked up the stairs in a single movement and gave a firm knock to the door.

There was a long silence. Her hands were already starting to clench, her mind going through the possible culprits, when she heard some movement behind the door, and saw the door be pulled back with abrupt strength, her granddaughter quickly engulfing her in a hug.

“Grandma! Thank God, I’m going to be honest, I was starting to get creeped out, over here! You won’t believe what -”

Of course, considering the gasp that interrupted her mid-sentence, she must have noticed the lad.Quickly turning sideways to keep hugging her granddaughter while allowing her to see her friend, she wasn’t expecting the tightening grip on her shoulders nor the hushed, terrified whisper.

“Nona… There’s wolves behind you. They… they don’t look like the wolves from the zoo. At all”

Grace was midway through preparing her speech to introduce Darcy to the other side of their world when the lad next to them suddenly exploded out of his clothes, gaining a few feet in height and growing enough fur that they could have made a whole wardrobe out of him, the Moon shily peeking over the horizon.

As she felt her granddaughter suddenly slacken her grip and run back inside, she could only sigh. She was getting too old for all this.

The sight of a frying pan flying through the doorway and beaning the guilty looking werewolf right in the face, was admittedly a nice perk.