Foster closed his eyes and rested his head against the train window. A big mess of emotions twisted inside him and he needed some time to deal with them. There was an excitement. Rob agreed to come and live with him. The kid seemed to like him and took to calling him ‘uncle Foster’. Foster was thrilled with that. He couldn’t wait to have Rob with him day-to-day. Then, there was apprehension. Raising a kid was not an easy matter after all. He had no experience, and he expected there to be ups and downs. Even as polite and well-mannered as Robbie seemed he was a growing boy. There were bound to be some explosive changes happening to him in the next few years and that was without adding a werewolf nature to the mix. So he was hopeful, but wasn’t wearing rose-coloured glasses about the situation. Finally, there was the self-disgust. He knew he had discussed it at length with Carl and Nina, and that many important members of Fulsham community supported his decision, still, to his human-raised sensibilities, turning his nephew into a werewolf was just plain wrong. Logically, Foster understood their arguments. It was a community trauma and people raised in the culture of a supernatural town had it so deeply embedded in them, that they saw such move as beneficial both for the community and for Robin. But Foster couldn’t see it as anything else than willingly endangering his nephew’s health. He had gone and done the research - in all the years Fulsham’s records existed no child or adult have ever died from a supernatural transition. There were isolated instances where some individuals did not take well to the psychological impact of having new set of instincts instilled into them. Some have needed therapy and managed to overcome those issues, others however turned to substance abuse as a way of coping. Suffice to say that these people did not turn into the most productive members of society. Foster researched both werewolf transformations - alpha bite was usually an effective method, where the transition was the least traumatic, thank heavens - as well as the few other supernatural races that had the ability to transform others. Newly made vampires were typically the ones that struggled most. Having an additional dietary requirement of drinking blood, while initially an acceptable price for those who were being transformed, turned in a few unfortunate instances into a big burden, where the newly transformed mentally rejected their new need. Those were usually the ones to turn to drugs. Overall it left a bad taste in Foster’s mouth.

Foster opened his eyes and looked at the landscape passing him by in the window. The train had left the city landscape behind and they were now going through the countryside of the South-East of England. Even though Foster had grown up in one of the small towns of this region, he had become so accustomed to the wider, less populated, greener spaces in the Fulsham area, that this landscape almost seemed foreign to him. Here, the train barely had five minutes of countryside between the different towns. Once he’d get closer to Fullsham the ratio would skew more in the nature’s favour. Foster smiled thinking of the possibilities it afforded him to take his nephew out into the nature. That was one of the parts he loved most about being a wolf. He could just leave all the problems of the modern world behind and just be himself amongst the nature and the wildlife. His mouth twisted as if he tasted something sour. Originally, he hoped to take Rob out as a human, spend the summer holidays introducing the kid to his new surroundings, showing him the beauty of nature. Hoping to teach Rob to love it as much as Foster did. Instead, he was going to have the kid spend most of his time off-school in bed, recovering from the bite.

Nobody knew what it was that allowed some supernaturals induce a transformation in another human. It wasn’t necessarily the genes. One of Foster’s friends in Fulsham was a geneticists and all he had to say on the subject was that genetics were more complicated than most people thought. There were still massive parts of the genome that were not understood by science. Nothing in what was understood indicated that supernatural traits were dictated by genes. There was a possible theory… But normally as soon as his friend got on that topic it would go right over Foster’s head. So not genetics. It also wasn’t a virus. Numerous studies have been conducted by supernatural scientists on people undergoing transformation. They have never identified a virus, bacteria or any other microbe that could be connected to the transformation. Then there was the fact that some adopted children would spontaneously gain the supernatural abilities of their adoptive parents… It was all a big mystery. But what mattered to Foster was the fact that the transformation was very taxing on the body. People undergoing it had to spend most of their time in bed, exhausted and in pain. Foster hated himself for forcing this on his nephew.

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He thought back to the chat the two of them had. Rob was very, very confused with Foster’s vague explanations. Foster snorted a laughter at how his nephew’s brain worked. How he went from Foster’s simplistic uttering to talking about refugee camps and sanitariums for disabled people… Rob was a brilliant kid, and he knew more about the world surrounding him than Foster had expected. Foster just knew that once turned into a werewolf Rob would just drink all his new knowledge and abilities in and make them a part of his brilliant self. As much as Foster was beating himself up for caving in to the pack and town council’s demands, he also knew that Rob would grow up to be a brilliant and capable werewolf. He could even imagine him as the next alpha… Foster noticed the goofy smile stretching his lips and tried to erase it. His thoughts turned to more practical matters.

There was still so much to do to prepare for his nephew’s arrival. Once he had gotten his nephew’s agreement he immediately called Jeremy Rightly. The vampire council representative was also a solicitor. Foster hired him to represent him in all the legal proceedings when it came to becoming Rob’s primary caregiver. As simple as it should have been, with his sister’s will being very clear on what should happen, there was also the much more complicated side which had to do with Rob’s inheritance. Foster wasn’t well versed in legal matters, but from what he understood all of Rob’s assets were supposed to be put in a trust, with the companies having been assigned a board of directors or something like that to oversee their management until Robin came of age. In the meantime Foster would be given a sum of money every month to take care of Rob’s living expenses. Foster wasn’t sure how he felt about that part. On the one hand he didn’t necessarily want to be paid to look after his nephew, but as Jeremy explained it to him, the money was Rob’s. Children, apparently, were expensive. Foster was inclined to listen to the man as he had a son of a similar age to Rob’s, so he knew what he was talking about. School supplies and trips, sport and hobby clubs, games, toys and a myriad of other things that the vampire mentioned but Foster couldn’t recall. All in all he decided to listen to the solicitor who had experience raising kids.

There were also other preparations to be done. Sorting out a room for Rob, signing him up to the school in town, informing the teachers about the upcoming transformation so that they could provide Robin with any support necessary to a newly turned werewolf. Revising his own working schedule so that he could have enough time to spend with his nephew. Hiring the medical team necessary to oversee Robin’s transformation. Filling out all the supernatural council paperwork involving an addition of a human into the community. As short as Robbie was going to remain human, it was still vital that all the paperwork got sorted out before he moved in. Supernatural races had certain quirks which meant that their interactions with humans could turn dangerous. Super speed, increased strength, magical outbursts etc. were just some of the problems that humans could face when interacting with supernaturals. Even though all the supernatural children were educated from a young age to moderate their advantages and be always hyper-aware of possible danger they could pose to others, accidents still happened. That’s why there were procedures put in place meant to prevent these from happening. Having everyone aware of a possible fragile human in a town full of supernaturals was one of such procedures.

As the landscape behind the window flew by Foster began coming up with a plan for the next few days. He wanted all the preparations to be finished before Robbie came to Fulsham. Those first few days were for Foster and Rob to bond, to develop their relationship, to get to know each other better. He did not want it marred with paperwork or any other unnecessary distractions. With a smile, Foster begun planning what activities he and Rob were going to do first.