Alexander's Accounts - Part 1
Alexander and Artemis are two intresting men who are beggining to love each other. One's a werewolf, the other a human. How do they get along? And just how did Alexander come to reach this world?
Written by fugi88 ( patreon.com/Fugi88 ), commissions open
If you like stories like this, feel free to donate what little you can to paypal.me/fugi88 or patreon.com/fugi88 - It helps a lot!
Part 1 of Alexander's Accounts
A coffee with milk and a croissant. It was against the rules, but i made a coffee for myself too.
Time had just collided with 12:15, breakfast break-time. My time to meet him.
I checked for police officers through the round orifices of the door's window. It always paid to be sure.
I scanned the room. The faux-ancient-Greek paintings drawn on the wall were obstructed by not a single police officer, the ornate brass tables and chairs seating none of the blue-vested arseholes. As such, i let myself cross through the restaurant, built in the likeness of Augustus's dining hall itself.
"Here it is, Artemis", i said, taking the breakfast onto the table where a lone werewolf sat. He was a pretty one, a good one to spend time with.
“Thanks!", he said.
He was quite the beautiful werewolf., holding his muscles in good esteem, the result of the practical work he found his joy in rather then produced on the benches of some random gym. It was true strength that they conveyed, not the synthetic dreams of shallow people.
He wore a shirt and jeans, complimenting the thick hair covering his body. He was sleeveless, revealing the defined biceps and the crisscrossing outlines of veins on his smoke-coloured arms.
Tall, too. Not for a werewolf, but my eye level aligned with the bottom of his pecs. Werewolves had a habit of towering over humans. It's why i came here in the first place, for this feeling of being inferior, submissive, to this kind of body.
I sat next to him to ensure the height wouldn't be too much of an object.
"Let me feel those hands", he said. “Just to understand how precise they are"
I put my palms in his. He used his hands to begin feeling the raw, hairless skin. It sent tingles through me to feel his little pads tracing the lines, the delicate claws brushing along the lines so gently embossed into my skin from a lifetime of folding and unfolding.
“They're good hands", he said with a half-sigh. “I wish i had that kind of dexterity."
“Thanks. Maybe we should go to the little balcony and drink up there for a change…?"
“Yeah, that'd be nice."
We stood up together, i putting the plates back onto the tray. We pushed past the “staff only" barriers and up the stairs, onto the part of the building that can be seen from the street, but doesn't particularly draw attention to itself.
The balcony didn't have the classical theme the downstairs preferred. Whilst it had the same rectangular terracotta tiles lining the floor in a brickwork pattern, they were more tired, covered in dark splotches of stubborn dirt that'd need a pressure washer. The edges were defined by a patchy rusting metal railing, barely safe to fall onto, even for humans.
A lone table sat with two worn chairs. They took half the outwards width of the balcony, having been here since before the restaurant existed, almost risking complete collapse should one fall on them. It wasn't the most comfortable place to be, but it was good enough for the two of us. As we sat, we turned our chairs turned a little towards the street below us through which the morning rush began to swell up.
“How's your house been?", i asked, to break the silence.
“Oh, absolute shit", he said with a little sigh. “Ants have gotten into the kitchen again. I put vinegar down to keep them out, but they… they must remember my house somehow."
“You should really get insecticide", i said, slapping the mosquito which was quite painfully probing its way into my veins. Mosquitoes weren't supposed to hurt, but these were designed for werewolf skin.
“If only it were that simple", he said. “So many damn checks to even get the killing-liquid."
“Well, if you ever want to escape, you're free to stay a night at my place", i said.
"Thanks", he said. He took a sip of his coffee. I did likewise. It was an interesting kind of coffee. It was complex, with a subtle hint of the bitterness, the milk almost entirely covering it, casting a more distinctly tea-like refinement across the whole drink.
I had always preferred tea for its simplicity. I let my thoughts drift, happy to enjoy the time here with my good friend Artemis.
The Chinese were responsible for tea. They had it made in 2737 BC. An Ancient Chinese fort on a typical misty morning, the rolling green hills a backdrop to the emperor, standing there in his ornate clothes, staring out onto the rising sun, boiling a pot of water at his side. A gentle breeze set a blossom of camellia finding its way, drifting, into the water. The emperor simply drank it and from there started the age-old tradition of tea-making, refined over millennia.
Coffee was a mockery of this ancient art. It had its own methodology, brewed using its own vulgar methods. It lacked the conceptual purity of a proper leaf-water infusion, the beautiful simplicity tea had. What's worse was just how expensive it was here, more than ten times going rate in my home country. A cup of coffee would be around €1 to €5 back at home, depending how much self-obsession the seller had. Not here. We charged more than ¤50 per mid-sized cup. It was a luxury drink, forced by the expensive import costs and the inability to grow the plant here.
Tea, though, was a flourishing business, even if it was usually sold in those damned cheap mass-produced paper bags. Any-day, i'd always go for the genuine, real, packaged leaves. There was a better market for raw leaves in this country, too.
Artemis, somehow, preferred coffee. He said it better equipped him to handle the trials of the average day.
“So, how long do you have left?", i asked.
He checked his watch. “Not long, around 10 minutes",
I had tried on his watch once. It was too big for it have practicality for me.. The watchmaker must have had a field day putting this thing together after a handful too many human watches.
“So, what do you have to look forward to today?", asked Artemis.
I leant back. "I'll go for another walk"
“Be careful out there. You'll never know what might happen."
I shrugged. “I will."
The city wasn't the safest place for me. I was human in a primarily werewolf world, in the region that had always these preconceptions about humans; too witty, too weak, easily killed. Easy killing makes for easy victims which makes for easy money, they said as a word of caution. Humans attract trouble. Stay away.
Some took it as a word of advice.
However, i had been brought into one of the few districts that were more pro-human. It was part of the deal. Well, “pro-human". They didn't really care that much for human rights here. We were expected to stay in private dwellings and be prevented from “corrupting" the public with our “foreign ways". I had come here by choice, educated, knowing i wouldn't have the rights i was used to, not that i particularly minded.
He stretched out his foot. It touched my leg. I didn't move it away.
He wiggled his toes. I simply did likewise, him smiling a teasing smile at me in response. I simply reflected the smile back at him.
He checked his watch. “I've got to go to work now. Eh."
Exasperated. A little pained.
“Well, come at lunchtime", i said. It was unfortunate the machine forced us through so much work before we could retire. It was unfortunate for him, particularly.
I sat there, watching him move to stand. He left the terrace and i was alone. It's cold here, i thought_._
I checked what i'd carry on me. My sharpened steel chopsticks, one serrated, the other sharp, were in my pocket, my alibis freshly loaded.
I went down the terrace and began my walk out in the city. As always, i reminded myself to keep to the safe, human-friendly borough. Cross the border and they'll have no reason not to shoot you in the head for all the crap your species caused, i remember them saying_._ Their threat always on the edge of my mind, where i kept it, almost pridefully. Risk is beautiful.
I stepped onto the pavement outside. A light drizzle, inviting the cold wind typical of the season, unsuccessful in its attempts to bite me.
It was cold tarmac with road-level brick paths on the outside, protected by a line of rusting bollards. A typical European pedestrian street, imported by the country. I remember such streets back in Tarragona, the modernised recluse of the Romans.
Not many cars passed per day around here. The city, the largest in the country. was no larger than Bristol, with only about five-hundred thousand inhabitants, counting the vast numbers of humans stuck in the same situation as i. The city was much smaller than Sheffield though, densely packed, most living in a flat. The building in front of me was 6 floors in height, normal for our distance from the center.
No, this city didn't command a car to get around. Walking, or at least cycling, would suffice. Cars were used by those going between the outer villages and towns towards the city, mostly for work. The werewolf country was surprisingly advanced in its road system, a fruit born of its high tax rates. It connected the whole country, from the two major cities to the north and south to the many smaller cities, each less then one-hundred thousand in population.
It was most certainly more intimate and gracious than my hometown, which amounted to a smattering of suburbs dropped into the landscape like a handful of finely-diced vegetables would a sizzlingly hot pan.
And i walked. I had not any errands to run, knowing i'd be safe here. As a worker, i was still entitled to a minimum wage. I paid most of it back into the rent for the little dwelling i had in the back of the kitchen. I always saved up what little i could, trying to live frugally. It's why i stole the ¤20 of coffee this morning. It felt dirty to be a criminal stealing from a restaurant like this. I wasn't proud of it. I had always believed that breaking the law is criminal, unless the law finds that you were born as criminal, in which case the law is criminal.
I walked past the many sub-buildings and their orifices. It was a long building, its bottom-most façade a pattern of business-fronts and stairwells. It was a good part of the city and all the businesses charged a good rate for their goods. I decided to enter one, a bookshop. Like most of its kind, its front was very much deceptive. It was a cavern i was intimately familiar with, from the mostly unremarkable non-fiction area, filled with books imported from authors of my home realm to the very much immersive “fantasy" area. On the very highest shelves, reclining at an angle which hid their titles from those shorter then the average human, were a selection of erotic books. I had skimmed through one before. They explored the werewolf-dominating-human fantasy, a common kink in this country.
I had found a few books on the far edge of the shelf written in a dialect of vulgar Latin widely known as “Northern Spanish". Titles were stuff like the wildly explicit “un noche con un humano fumifo" (a night with a submissive human) to a more reserved “pafiónes defreguladas" (unregulated passions).
I wasn't here for erotica. I was here for escapism, and what i loved were the historical novels. I imagined imagining myself in Rome during a hot summer.
Everyone around me would be speaking Latin, finding out the latest on each other, on the world, on science. The increasingly orange evening sun would cast gentle heat onto my face as i wondered around the pavilion in the protagonist's sandals and breathed in the evening-tinged air. Sounds of haggling as evening market went into full flow. And i'd be practicing my soft-skills as i navigate the plot, develop as a character, and move forwards in life.
I never liked fight scenes. I always preferred dialogue and hearing how interpersonal relationships were changing, about the other characters. I liked to be able to lean back from the book, close my eyes, and explore the mental image the book made, a personal pocket realm. And i'd store it in a mental pocket, leave it there for when i got bored.
So, i found a different shelf, one away from the predictable plot of the romance shelves and one more rooted in the historical kind of fiction. I looked for the human names, at least it was worth a try. None of the overgrown Victorian names nor the noun-based names. Nothing like “Hombre" or “Timothonio", both surprisingly common werewolf names. I looked for the fiction written by real humans, making sure to check that the publishing house was one of the well-known earth ones. I didn't want to be sold lies of my continent.
I found two books i liked, one based in Ancient Rome, the other in Ancient China. Lonely, hidden in the shelf. Most of the books had the weird names on them. Maybe i should get one for Artemis, not that there was anything. I found my way towards the register, holding my two books. ¤20 in total, too cheap for the joy these things can bring. “You picked the weird ones", he said. “My clientele usually don't concern themselves with the biased human authors."
Not that i cared any.
I stepped out onto the street and read the time from a nearby clock-tower. I had plenty of time to enjoy the town.
And then i saw this little band of three nasty werewolves. They stared at me with a furious glare, eyebrows furrowed.
I stared back at them. I put a little challenge into my glare. You think you can handle me?! You think wrong. You all think wrong, too often
“Hand over all you've got or we'll force you."
Well, the recommended option would be to give away all i've got. That's what all the self-defense instructors i'd been near had said. No. That's not what i want, to be honest.
“You think that just because i'm human, i'm weak, right?", i asked.
“Give us the money already, asshole."
I shook my head in defiance. I stared at them. They were more then two metres tall. I had no chance against them. Keep the hand away from the pocket. There's nothing there. Well, that's what you want them to think. If you do end up drawing blood, do it somewhere to incapacitate. Don't kill. It'll be better for them to be in prison.
The big one looked straight at me. It was silent for now. We were looking for a reaction, from each other. I could break into a sprint, form distance, look for a lockable opening. It'd fail to open. They could then move at me and incapacitate me whilst i stood there.
I could stand here, let them send their force into me. I'd die here if that happened.
Neither would have a good outcome for me. I instead decided to stall them. I moved my left hand down.
It searched for nothing in particular. It wondered my pockets, looking for an object which it knew wasn't going to be there. Yet still it found something. Aha! Perfect!
That's what they were going to think, anyways.
They made a move, towards the arm which performed that little search. One lunged at me. Bad idea. I side-stepped to let him hit the floor face-down.. My right hand found one of my chopsticks, the needle-stick. I searched for a good place. One came to mind quite quickly - the tail-spine connection. Nerves out in the open, just beneath thin skin. Up, call the gods to bear the blood-thirst of Mars. Down. Call Mercury to handle the new messaging system i'd install down there.
My needle went through the skin incredibly easily. Almost too easily. It went straight into the nerves, commanding his foot to fly upwards. I wiggled the chopstick. It almost felt like mixing spaghetti in a pan. He twitched like he was a bag made of jumping beans, without rhyme or reason to any of his movements, save for how they co-incided with my wiggling of the chopstick. The nerves severed eventually, though.
A lobotomy for the back. It must have been horribly painful. Nerve meddling does have a very existential and almost inhuman level of pain. He stopped wiggling eventually, i having cut up most of the nerves. Who has ED now? Who was a bad boy? Wheelchairs don't make for good thugging-vehicles, after all.
Well, there. My chopstick had turned his nerves into an irrecoverable mess of endings and a soup of blood. I felt a strange joy in knowing i had removed a maniac from the streets, perhaps forevermore.
The other had snuck up on me to pounce. Not today, thank you. He made the same mistake, jumping towards me. I pulled out the chopstick, rolled over from my victim, set my hand pointing the metal tool up, and i let his chest fall onto the chopstick. I wiggled it around. Less effective, but it'd still work to keep him from the streets.
Two werewolves down. What about the third? He stared wordless at what i'd done. Well, not for long. I stood up as he walked to me and wrapped a hand around the t-shirt of my back., preparing a well-anchored act of violence. He raised his other hand for a punch. Not that i cared, especially when i had already stabbed the side of his hip and the part just below the bottom-center of his ribcage with my chopstick.
His waiting punch fell in the pain i had caused him. He dropped me and himself.
Now was the time to run. I held the bloodied chopstick. Ugh, i'm going to have to ethanolise this. What bother.
I made my way back to the restaurant, an hour early. Behind me, a scene slowly started as passer-bys watched the thugs bleed out. The ambulances would arrive, followed by the police. I didn't even go that deep. Pathetic thugs.
The various cooks were busy preparing the pre-set meals. the menu of the day. A chef shouted orders out, trying to get the impossible deadline met.
I found the drinks area. I took a clear glass bottle, ornate in its cutting. It was the highest-concentration alcohol in mass consumption in the world, both worlds, even.
Purified Ethanol.
The werewolves had a thing for alcohol. It fit them well. Their bodies could handle much higher amounts then humans, higher concentrations. For a proper hit, a proper drunkard experience, to get what they heard happened to US college students, they had to go for the “real" alcohol, the pure form. A common cocktail was the ethanol-tonic mix, possibly with a squirt of lemon. They'd always dilute the ethanol, just a little. Mainly because it was expensive, but also because it'd kill them quite readily. Not from the toxic effects but from the extreme pain of the destruction of the oral cells as they interacted with the purest form of ethanol. A fundamental conflict between two forces.
the werewolves were very creative with their cocktails; when the alcoholic part is a simple little liquid you can add, like seasoning, to any drink, a lot of drinks can become alcoholic. A lot of tastes become significantly masked by the ethanol.
I'd dilute it, of course, even for this disgusting stick. I read once that the best disinfecting concentration was about 60%-90%. 100% was too much, i guess. A half-cup of water, a quarter-cup of ethanol. Perfect for my soiled chopstick.
I rinsed it under the tap, stirred it in the solution, rinsed again. I did this about 5 times to ensure any of the blood that remained would be sterile of the life to the point it'd make the moon look like it teemed of life. i finished with a chopstick of clean, sterile, steel.
I left to meet me good friend out in the dining hall.
“Hi!", i said. “How was work?"
“Like normal."
“Shit." I fell back in my chair, letting the of the second-hand pain run through me.
We both knew what it meant to have a “normal" day; he'd be going through those damn books, painstakingly converting each sentence into a well-written Northern Spanish one and doing likewise in reverse. It was likely painstakingly difficult to turn those words into something that made sense in the other language, looking for the correct word, if not in the head, in the dictionary. Not that there were many good dictionaries for Northern Spanish.
The language changed too quickly to be bound within the two covers of a dictionary, after all; it was in its renaissance phase, borrowing words left and right, standardising a lucky few, eventually dropping the rest. It was quickly becoming as foreign to English as Japanese is, and they said it was a good thing. My hopes to learn the language were being smashed right in front of me as i heard each new word spread into the language.
“How was your walk?" He asked.
“Oh, nothing much. I got some books, met some werewolves, pushed the violence out of them."
“Wait, so you got into a fight?!" asked Artemis, reading past my intentional clutterwording. “I told you to be careful."
“I got books!", i said, trying to distract him. "Real, human-written books!"
“Anything on Ancient Greece, real facts?", he asked, successfully distracted.
“No. They didn't have anything."
“Oh", he said. “But the fight…? What happened?"
Not successfully distracted.
“They asked for the money, i said no", i said with a nonchalant shrug. “So they tried to attack me. They were pathetic."
He shifted in his seat. “And how was their fighting?"
"Barely worth mentioning. I gave one of them a… lower lobotomy."
He shuddered. Such things were very unsettling to werewolves, imagining yourself crippled through what was your only weak spot. Such a design disaster on the part of Prachet-Irving. “You shouldn't be so blasé about this."
I captured a quick breath and gave a little shrug. “Did what i had to."
“It'd have been easier to just give them a small bit of cash and say it's all you had."
“They'd continue robbing others, though."
“That's better then you being almost killed! How many were there?"
“3."
“Don't ever do that again", he said. “Ever. You could've died."
“Fine.", i said. “Anyways, how was your job?"
Let's get distracted again. I liked it better.
“I made a mistake with a translation. I wrote down 'piel' instead of 'qafra' and they thought it was too English."
"Qafra" was an Arabic term imported to replace how “piel" sounded a little too much like “peel". Northern Spanish was full of these little dialectisms. Without the governing hand of the RAE drawing over the language, it had fallen into a serious state of disrepair. There were at least three separate orthographies and each had their own internal arguments over how to spell different words. For quite a while now, this extensive borrowing had been accepted for expanding the lexicon. Standard Spanish, though, still reigned very much supreme, right?
“And they seriously have a problem with it nowadays?!"
“Yeah… you know how the north are these days, always pushing their little movement away from the south", he said. "ugh."
The north was certainly quite the distinct place. They had went for promoting their own language over English, had went for promoting their own businesses over the south's, had went for so much, just to develop their own ways separate from the south. It's like an addiction, i guess; one little bit of independence and the rest is oh-so-close, oh-so-fine, oh-so-tantalising.
And the two were as-yet intertwined like the two halves of our earth, the sea and land, two massively different realms, which yet together formed a different whole, something better, something stronger, something self-dependent, something that was _everything. _
I didn't believe in Northern independence. The south had all i needed and with the north, everything i could ever want. Yet still, they found reasons to disagree.
The north very much insisted on its very own identity. From the start, it spoke its own Spanish dialect brought on by the soon-to-be-Mexicans who heard wind of the werewolf society.
“Oh, it's time", i realised, checking my own watch.
“Yeah", he said, with a hefty sigh. Back to work for him, too.
I made my way back into the kitchen, where the hierarchy was suffocating. I was close to the bottom, just above the floor-cleaners and vegetable-scrubbers. I had the control over the aesthetics and various dining-room details, being one with an eye for such things, but never over the actual food.
Dicing vegetables into tiny cubes, carving ornate patterns onto watermelons, using a small machine and a tiny knife to shape pasta into intricate surface-maximising forms, and creating a beautifully well-diced stir-fry. I did so much here. Possibly too much…? The pay was good enough to let me do this tedious work. The life here was so simple and beautiful.
Today, the menu of the day included only one human-required dish; the artisan-arranged nachos. I wasn't responsible for anything but the final presentation, ensuring the guacamole and the vegetable complementing it were placed to the highest degree of aesthetic beauty.
The shouting of the head chef was almost overwhelming, but i didn't mind. He didn't shout at me too often.
It was, after all, my job to be here, and after all, the thing i had chosen. Why would i ever complain?
So, there i stood, the pastries under my hand, and i worked. I had a good three hundred to carve, so i used the pattern i burnt into my muscle memory a while back. Maximum efficiency and you'll get to meet Artemis soon! , i said to myself, little phrases pushing me through the tedious parts.
I was thankful my job was based off batches and not time spent working. It was better for efficency, i think.
“So, you don't have anywhere safe to live?!", i asked Artemis.
“Well, it is safe, there's just no heating. No cooling, either", he said. “It's fine, honestly. Well, for now"
“Soon it'll be summer and you'll get heatstroke", i said.
“Eh, everything in life is a risk", he said. “Needn't worry, i'll be fine."
Werewolves were better at heat regulation then humans, being coated in a thick coat of hair. It was common to reduce both in hair and clothes for the summer season. It was, however, arguable that humans were much better then werewolves in that regard, being able to quickly switch between clothes so seamlessly and fluently.
“You'll kill yourself like this", i said. “Take care of yourself!"
“Honestly, i'll be fine", he said.
“I don't think so", i said. “How are the ants, anyways?"
He shifted weight to let himself give a little sigh. “I think they're multiplying"
“Well, that's bad. And you know how it is with the summer…!"
“Fuck, i forgot they love the heat."
“And you know how it gets with the food waste bins in the center of the building…!"
He took a breath as a disgusting memory flashed into his eyes. “Fuck…"
I looked at his toned body and had a lecherous thought. “You'd be better off in my place for the summer."
“And how many beds are there?", he asked.
“One, it's a small room."
He leaned back a little and took in an excited breath. “Oh… so we'll be sleeping together?!"
“Basically, yeah", i said.
An unchaste gaze formed on his face, spreading itself to mine.
“Hmm", he said in an affirmative thinking-tone. “I'll accept."
Those words sent a shiver down me as i realised just what we'd agreed to. I could imagine his body grinding against me in the dead of night, deep in a wet dream.
The sun was moving down and we hadn't the care to do much this evening. We hadn't anywhere fun to visit on this Tuesday day. We instead walked through the kitchen's doors to find a way into a back-area, through a large pantry lined with nonperishables, past a blast-therm door, and into a steel-lined space. Instead of chilled foods lay a bed, a small desk, a light, and a few shelves. It was almost cramped, especially
"It's tiny!", exclaimed Artemis.
“Keeps the heat easy to manage", i replied plainly.
“At least it's tidy", he commented, looking about the abode. “What do you do in here all day, anyways?"
“Nothing much. I like to read, but i prefer the outside", i said.
He found a seat on the bed and looked at me, our eyes now level. I took off my shirt, slowly. It can get quite hot here, so it was a good precaution. I was thin and stout, my muscles only a faint series of suggestive lines. I wasn't unfit, merely unremarkable.
He, likewise, took off his thin shirt. It revealed chiseled pecs, each holding a single olive-brown nipple. His abs were slight yet clear and bordered on the bottom by a sharp v-muscle pointing towards his reproductive organs.
His ribs showed on his sides, giving his thick thighs some context for their raw power, his calves delicately proportioned.
I sat next to him, to feel his shirtless presence so close to me.
“You're beautiful, y'know?", he asked. “I almost forgot why i went after humans like you."
“Thanks", i said. "You're beautiful, too."
Was i drooling?
“Of course", he said.
We looked into each other's eyes. I put my hand on his ribcage. He did likewise. I squeezed a little. I could imagine the other places his hand could move.
“Maybe we should read a book together", he said. “Something about Rome."
We all like to imagine, i guess.
So, i took my new book and we, sharing a grip on the book, took turns reading out little passages. And we voyaged together into Ancient Rome, our imaginations pushing us down a Roman road in a rural part of Italy.
Us, walking down it. We met so many people on the way, each with a different story. The novel was set like this; the fresh smell of pine in a late-summer evening the background to a hundred meetings. It was almost a tragedy, the stories all revealing Pompeii, a place of a thousand hopes. And we had decided to move there, for some reason, even if it was a few years before the explosion would come. We didn't know the eruption would come over
Artemis pulled me close to him so we'd be more comfortable. I budged up against him.
We burnt the night up together, reading like this, watching ourselves follow a story. He checked his watch.
“Where do i brush my teeth?", asked Artemis, pulling apart from me. It was about time it'd be time for bed.
“In the staff bathrooms, to the right as you walk past the vegetable-fridge", i said. A disturbing amount of clinicality in my voice. “There are free mentofruit"
Mentofruit, i thought, as Artemis was walking away.
They were one of Samuel's earlier experiments, trying to perfect Agent Yellow for his grand experiment. The DNA of a mint bush and horse chestnut were mixed. The end results, most of them, were toxic to the point of causing death to all his test-subjects. But one survived; a chestnut-like shell, with a taste and texture much like a more rigid mint. They were really good for brushing teeth in a pinch; the spikes were strong but flexible enough to get in the spaces they needed to whilst still providing good brushing.
Not as good as the electric toothbrushes, but certainly great. And they grew like nothing else in some districts, pure convenience simply growing on trees. If only money was so easy.
Artemis came back after a few minutes. His breath smelled like mint, surprisingly strong. He handed me a mentofruit too,
We approached the bed. It sent butterflies in my stomach to know i had finally found the excuse for us to sleep together, and i would be sure to make what i could of it.
I was the first to enter the bed. I had somehow hit one of the few cold portions untouched by our warm buttocks. Artemis, next, came into the bed, the light having been turned off. He shuffled in, budging against me. It wasn't long at all until he used his hands to wrap my body and began spooning me. It sent tingles in me to finally have so much contact with my friend. And all he did was pull me closer, interrupting me from my thoughts. And there, embraced as his little spoon, i relished every last bit of contact.
His rhythmic breathing set a pace for me to follow, and we fell asleep, in peace.
The end of Alexander's Accounts, part 1; read the next part to understand what happened to the thugs
Some notes:
Indebted and Alexander's Accounts go hand-in-hand. Different parts of the world are built. AA Part 1 explains why Ethanol exists in most werewolf bars, and Indebted explains the other way it can be used. AA will introduce us to the north and the experienced outsider's perspective, whilst Indebted II (La Tramuntana) gives us a more detail-oriented view. The original Indebted series explains why the North is different. I suggest you read all series for the most complete understanding. The best order would be Indebted, Alexander's Accounts, and then La Trumantana. Either that or read the parts in chronological order.
My rant on Alexander
Alexander is very much a more contemplative character than newbie
I've decided to focus more on the internal monologue and thoughts, more on characters than on plot. That's how romance stories work.
Alexander's much smarter than i am, TBH; i had to search things up to let his monologues make sense and be realistic. He's also more mature, having my foresight for how his actions will turn out pouring into him, subconsciously influencing his actions. He is who i am not. He is mature, socially adept, and very much on top of everything. I produce furry porn which isn't even “furry", whilst my exams are just around the corner. I really hope you enjoy his opinions and personality because they differ from mine and are certainly very telling.
Indebted, i think, struggles a lot with how action-filled and plot-filled it is. The characters are relatively shallow and lack substance, the protagonist's power to control the plot removed by the more experienced humans around him. He's me, really, lost in a new world, with no need to be responsible for himself. He's me self-inserting and he suffers from it.
I think i've been reading too much Worm and i was tempted to shove in the cold-blooded fight scene. Eh. Every character needs a moral struggle.
Obviously, the ideal concentrations come from a real scientific source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7132458/
Alexander is an unreliable narrator in some ways. He's not quite an expert and he gets things wrong, like numbers he saw years ago.
Alexander's room is smaller then mine. That's kind of surprising given that my room has less than a metre of space between the edge of the bed and the desk. I like simple living though, so i don't mind.
I've heard new authors often turn to dialogue because it's so appealing and easy to carry story over with. I'm trying to teach myself how not to overuse this beautiful tool through this story; if you want to see true overuse, have a look at indebted part 3 ;_;
Ok, yeah, it's a bit overused to end chapters with falling asleep but i think it works here; the protagonist needs to be shown as having take the next step in his relationship.
Yes, i do carry a pair of chopsticks with me everywhere. They're plastic and not sharpened so i won't be crippling anyone, but they come in useful when i want to eat single-handedly or exhibit my minimalist principles (which is why i tend to write this series through markdown, a version of plain-text that allows some basic formatting without going overboard