said he's going
back to a simpler
place + time

❧

Mondays were usually a slow day for Western Sky.

It wasn’t that people didn’t want to ride – it was just the first day back from the weekend and they’d gorged themselves on whatever vices they could find because it was the weekend dammit and they deserved a break.

Rolling the brush over in his hands, Zero reached up and placed his hand on Jumpstart’s mane. A large mare – Zero’s favorite American Quarter Horse in the stables (but he dared not tell any of the other horses that) – she always had a way about her. A way that demanded that even though Zero was supposed to be tallying supplies for their next order, meant that he had to put down his clipboard and give her the attention that she deserved.

With a whinny, the horse leaned into him expectantly as he moved the brush down her soft coat. She was strong – probably could take on a pack of werewolves if she ever got herself in a way of trouble. She wouldn’t though. That was one of the things that Tess made sure of. They were all safe. It was Wolfsbane in the weeks leading up to the full moon – taking special precautions to make sure that no one got hurt. They looked after one another. They were a pack.

His pack. Well, not his per say, but the pack that he belonged to. Honestly, it had been pure coincidence that they’d ended up together. At least, that was what Zero had thought at first. It didn’t take him long to realize that the Martins had set him up with a home – and a job – that was exactly what he needed. Here, he was not just a Stable Hand to one of the more successful stables in the UK, he was also part of a werewolf pack. And Tess? Well, she was the leader of them all.

She was more a mum to him than anyone that he’d ever met. Sure, given her age she probably didn’t appreciate it when he joked about her being his mum, but in truth, Zero had never met anyone quite like Contessa West. He’d grown up alone; always feeling like a part of him was missing. When he was twelve and turned, he wasn’t sure that void was ever going to be filled. Even with a pack and those he could call friends, there were still days when Zero felt like something was still missing from his life. Maybe he would never figure it out. Maybe it was just his imagination. Still, there was a nagging sense that something was gone that he had previously had…

Christ, maybe he really was going crazy.

For a few minutes, Zero stood there brushing his favorite horse, caught up in his own thoughts about what it could be that he was missing. Maybe it was just residual confusion from never being adopted. That seemed plausible, didn’t it? Just a kid with a complex because he was never good enough. Zero laughed, but it felt empty. “Alright, Jump, that’s enough for today. Got some more inventory to do or your boss’ll have my head,” the horse, of course, seemed to understand him and gave a huff before turning her back to Zero and stomping her feet a few times.

This is the reason I don’t have a girlfriend, He thought as he grabbed his clipboard and walked out of her stall, Jump’s enough a lady for me.

But he knew the real reason he didn’t associate with anyone outside of the werewolves. Fear. He was lethal – more lethal than a horse’s kick. Zero shook his head – he didn’t want to think about it right now. Especially not when he saw Tess walking down the stables towards him. Shit, wasn’t he supposed to be done by now? “Hey, Tess,” he held up the clipboard, giving her an awkward salute with his free hand.

@contessa | 652 | Outfit

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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he's leavin'

on that midnight train to georgia

said he's goin' back to a simpler place in time

When she had first come to England, she had only had the purpose of finding her father. Of finding out whether or not he had had any idea that she had existed this whole time. And he had. She had found that out quickly enough. He had had plenty of time to come and see her. To meet her, and he had chosen not to. That was fine. She didn’t need to have a relationship with him. But she had gotten to meet her stepmother, and her half siblings out of it.

Of course, Rachel wasn’t exactly the kind of sister that people wanted in their lives. She turned up when she needed something. Money. She turned up when she needed money, and Tess knew that she would give it to her. She was her sister, after all. But she also knew that Savannah would pay her back for whatever it was that she gave to her sister. Her stepmother didn’t expect that Tess was going to take care of them, but she also thought that it looked better for her to occasionally give Tess money than it did for Daniel to realize that they were paying Rachel all of the time.

When it came to her family, Tess didn’t consider the Sutherlands to be the main part of it. She considered her pack to be her family. The younger ones to be her pups, in a way that she couldn’t explain to anyone outside of the werewolf community. And it was, a community. It was a community of their own. It was one that was rather untouched by the world around them. One that they were and weren’t a part of. Because they existed in that world. The magical world. But they weren’t often included enough in it to really matter. Not in a way that would benefit them in the end.

That was partially what this place was about. It was about connection. Integration. It was about learning what it meant to love something that you couldn’t really understand. She knew that that was important. She knew that there were plenty of people that weren’t going to understand why she did the things that she did. Bu Tess thought that the life that they were living was an important one. It was one that they were going to have to try and make others believe in. If they could see that they were gentle, and kind, and caring, then they would no longer be looked at like they were monsters.

Stepping into the stables she heard Zero before she saw him, and she smiled at what she heard. Tess didn’t think that she was going to scold him in any way for taking care of the mare that he liked so much. She was glad that he had bonded with one of them. That was important. Skye trailed along at her heels and when she saw Zero, she barked happily once before she bounded over to him. Still just a pup she was learning what it meant to mind and walk behind Tess, where she was supposed to be. But, like all of her pups, she would learn, and grow, and find her place here.

“Hello Zero.” She laughed at the mock salute, “Skye, leave Zero alone…” The border collie loved all of the wolves though, the ones that she knew were a part of Tess’s life, and world. The ones that were here, on this land, in their home. They were Skye’s pack too. “How is the inventory shaking out?” There was a bit of a smirk to her words, because she had heard him, after all, but she wasn’t about to call him out on it. Not when she knew that she had spent a many hour in Rain’s stall doing exactly the same thing. But her painted mustang was outside today, and she was less tempted to spend time leaning against her as she had when she had been younger.

@ pup • 665 • contessa's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

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midnight train

[attr="class","reasonsmallzero"]to georgia, and he's goin' back to a simpler place and time.

[attr="class","reasonbodzero"]“Hey Skye,” Zero said as he leaned down and gave the dog a scratch behind his ears. He got on with animals. Maybe it was the werewolf side of him — the natural, animalistic side — but Zero sort of felt like he understood animals more than he did humans sometimes. Humans were complex and fickle. They changed their minds so often. Animals, on the other hand, were quick to choose loyalty. Zero sometimes wondered if it would be easier for him if everyone was a werewolf. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel so intimidating trusting a human being.

But he trusted Tess.

He was definitely supposed to be done, Zero thought as he looked at the boxes behind him. Tess probably wasn’t going to be pleased, but at least he did his job most of the time. There was a silver lining to every werewolf’s plight, wasn’t there? At least, he hoped so.

Trouble was, he got so caught up with the horses that sometimes he forgot to do the other stuff. They just seemed to need him more than a few boxes and counting. But this was a job — he knew that better than most people — and he needed the money. He needed Tess to know that she could trust him. And…as much as he was hesitant to admit it, he needed his pack.

Being here in London with Tess and the other werewolves was like nothing he had ever experienced before. Zero had been so used to running as the lone wolf over the years that he hadn’t realized what he was missing until…well, until he’d found it here. He supposed he had the Miller’s to thank for sending him across the pond to work at Western Sky. Because without them, he’d never have met Tess. He’d never have met any of the wolves that he knew. Not Lyra, not Teddy. He’d still just be…Zero.

He’d gotten the nickname at the orphanage. The loner boy — the one that people sort of avoided. At the time, it had bothered him. After all, what adolescent boy wanted to be called Zero? Nothing. But, over the years, it had grown on him. Because it was more than just the absence of everything. Zero was the beginning. It was the start. You had to start at zero and count up. Growing older, he understood that and began embracing the previously derogatory nickname.

“I…er…” Zero grinned at her sheepishly before running his hand through the side of his hair. It was probably better to be honest. After all, she was going to figure it out anyway. It wans’t like he’d unpacked half of the boxes that he was supposed to. “Little slow. Jump here has it in her head that I work for her. You should probably take that one up here with Miss West, Jump.”

He could blame it on the horse all he wanted, but the truth of the matter was that Zero hadn’t done it. He could take responsibility for that. “Just a little slow today,” he admitted as he handed over the clipboard detailing his lack of progress. “But so far looks like we’re in good shape.”

[attr="class","reasontagzero"]@ tess | 531 | OUTFIT

[attr="class","credzero"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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HE'S LEAVIN'

ON THAT MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO GEORGIA

SAID HE'S GOIN' BACK TO A SIMPLER PLACE IN TIME

Coming here had meant that she was looking for something that she couldn’t have found on her own. And she knew that it was more complicated than that. Tess knew that things were not that simple. But she also knew that it was high time that she tried to figure it out. And so, she had come. And then she had never left. It had just seemed to make sense to her to be here. Like the Great Spirits had had some plan that she didn’t know about. But that was her destiny nevertheless. This was where she belonged, and she felt like that was truer now than ever before.

Now that she had her pack, and now that she had found all of these people that relied on her, she knew that she could never leave them. That they needed her here, and maybe it was for them that she had been sent here in the first place. She seemed the type to know that things were not going to be perfect. There had never been any of this that had been ‘perfect’, but this place seemed as close as they were going to get sometimes. This was perfection. This was her own type of everything being just how it should have been all along. This was everything that she wanted it to be.

And Western Sky had become more than just a safe haven for horses. Contessa had taken in her pups with that same frame of mind. That she could heal them. That it was their spirits, more than anything else, that she needed to help, and she thought that they were going to be just fine. That they were all going to grow, and mature, and change, and that was what she wanted for them. She wanted them to find a peace within themselves. That meant that she was doing her job properly. That meant that they had learned who they were, and how to communicate between both halves of themselves.

There was something about finding the peace that they were looking for that Tess knew wasn’t going to come naturally to all of them. Learning who they were was a part of growing up though, and even if they had been changed as an adult, it was a learning process. Zero was older than some of her adult wolves. At least in her mind. Tess based everything on wolf years. Because that was when their lives had all changed, and the longer that you were a wolf, the better understanding you had of all of it.

A smile crept onto her lips as she watched Zero with the horse, and then chuckled when he fessed up to the fact that he hadn’t actually been working. “I think they all believe that sometimes. And I also believe that, in a way, we do.” The horses relied on them for things that they could not provide for themselves and there was a sense of balance in what they did, and what they took. She reached out to take the clipboard from him and she looked it over. He really hadn’t made all that much progress, but that was okay. It was a slow day around here. “Why don’t you go turn Jump out in the front paddock with Rain, and I’ll help you with the rest of this? We’ll knock it out quick enough.”

@ zero • 567 • contessa's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0