Howl Your Appellations

Getting to Know You

Reese Lanterman

“Huh? Lissana? Who?” the girl whose Appellation is “Boen” asked.  She seems to have forgotten about Lissana due to the shock and trauma that night. Reese looks at Imus for the next course of action. He simply stares and lets her decide what to do. She looks at Boen, her hair all messy and her face all confused. It’s not a face you’d like to see in distress so she decides to tell her about Lissana when she’s ready or if she starts to remember again; for now she’ll tell her a general fact about the girl who saved her life. Reese smiles, her tail moving back and forth like a windshield wiper; she  clutches Boen’s hands a little harder and says, “She’s our Alpha.”

Boen forms an excited and elated grin, “Oh wow! Then I’m deeply in your debt. When can I see her?”Her question made the room feel like the deep sea. Lissana’s whereabouts haven’t been revealed yet, and even though Reese trusts Imus, there’s still a small sliver of doubt inside her. Lissana could be in a very precarious situation and the rest of the pack has no idea how or where to save her from; but trusting Imus has never backfired on them, not even once, so they trust their second in command indefinitely. Imus just stares blankly with his soft eyes seeming like a mannequin’s. Boen senses the tension, “Eh? Ah what’s wrong? Was It something I said?”

Imus slowly stands up and waves, “It’s almost my watch. Boen, you’ll be safe here with everyone. I hope we all get along well.” He gives the both of them a smile and leaves the room to do his nightly duties. “Hmm, this is so fascinating…” Boen mumbles as if speaking unto a voice recorder. “Huh? What is?” Reese asks. Boen blushes and waves her hands in front of her in various directions. Reese finds this incredibly cute and useful for her many many stories.

“Dude, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. If you find us fascinating then say it. We’re like pretty chill most of the time. It’s not like you’re saying anything we haven’t heard before, heh.” Reese twirls and shows Boen a bit of the clothes she wears underneath her poncho; she’s wearing a cream tank top and a utility belt full of art materials. She’s wearing denim shorts with paper sticking out of the pockets. It seems that her poncho has many compartments full of notebooks and books. Her grey wolf tail follows her around as she does her motions.

“Wow, you look so compelling. I feel the same way about you the first time I saw you. You’re such a character!”Boen decides to be honest with her feelings towards Reese, “I think we were meant to meet each other. Do you feel the same way?”

“Wha? What’s gotten into you all of a sudden? Ahaha! You shouldn’t exert too much energy you know? You just woke up and the pain killers are still probably in effect.” Reese blushes and explains. Boen looks at her with stars in her eyes, “I’m sure I’ll feel the same when I get better. But…I’m just really curious if you feel the same about our meeting…”

“Man, you’re definitely a weird one. You lost your leg but you act as if it’s just a normal Tuesday. Hmm, but to answer your question, our esteemed guest,” Reese recalls the day she saw Boen cry. “I think our threads of fate are indeed in a really tight knot. ‘We would inevitably meet’ is what I always think to myself.” Boen tears up to Reese’s reply. She felt an immense weight leave her body, as if her anxieties and doubts about the world has lessened.

“Oh thank god. If looking for you turned out to be another one of my bad decisions I would probably have lost an important part me. ” she says.

“Whoa, that’s a lot of pressure on me then. Don’t worry Bobo, you made the best decision, not just for yourself but for the whole forest too. ” Reese replies to her as honestly as she could. She believes that the outsider is a good person. She knows she is.

“B-Bobo?” Boen blushes. No one has ever given a nickname before, although she does remember someone calling her “little moon”. She couldn’t say at the time but she thought “little moon” sounded cute. She can’t remember who called her that but she knows someone definitely did.

“Ah! I thought you wouldn’t mind. Boen kind of sounds like the word  ‘bone’ you know? I’m part dog so…well I’m sure I’m the only one in this pack that’s going to have a problem with your name but…”

“Ahahahaha~! Alright it’s okay. Call me Bobo.” Boen happily agrees. “Wait you said ‘pack’. Are there a lot of you guys? I’m not too much of an inconvenience am I?”

“Hm? Oh nononono not a bit. Ah well nobody thinks you’re an inconvenience but we do find it strange to have a non-Were in here. There’s about thirteen of us, ah , no twelve. I still keep counting Nike…man…s-so yeah! There’s twelve of us, the youngest ones are 14 and 12 and the oldest is Mei. He’s in his 30s.” Reese explains and looks at the window, a cold breeze reaches her face.

“I think it’s about time for dinner. I’ll grab you something, sounds neat?” She asks.

“Oh! Thanks!” Boen replies, she has more questions but she didn’t inquire further. She knows she’s just trying to distract herself from her main predicament. Reese smiles and gives her an “okay” sign, “Oh if I don’t come back that means I’ll be on duty. We usually have shifts or uh schedules but it’s been really dangerous lately so anything can happen. It’s Beige’s turn to watch over you so don’t be surprised! Okay? Bye!” She darts off, outside of the room and into the hallway.

Boen is now alone in her room, maybe for the first time ever since she was brought there. The temperature’s significantly turned cold and the light from the outside has dimmed. She looks at the stub of her leg and tries to move it, she manages to move it a small bit to the side but it hurt too much. It finally, finally dawned on her that she’s lost a leg. She thinks about ways on how to recover, how she’s going to explain that she has one less leg now to everyone who might question it. She luckily doesn’t have a job that requires extensive use of her legs but she won’t be able to explore as much without the proper prosthetics. She’s slowly throwing herself into the pits of despair, until she hears a light knock on the door jamb.

“Reese?” Boen asks. She immediately realized that it was not Reese because, one, it was a guy with black hair tied up into a small pony tail; two, his Appellation says “Beige”, and three, he didn’t reply but has a bowl of warm hot soup on one hand and a notepad on the other.

“Ah! Sorry, you’re Beige! Nice to meet you.” Boen apologizes. Beige smiles and approaches her, he puts the tray of soup down on the table next to the bed and begins to write on his notepad, “Hi, I’m Beige. I’m mute so you’ll have to bare with my shitty handwriting.”

Boen laughs. “Well its’s a good thing I can understand sign language!” Beige flinches because of Boen’s sudden engagement. He chuckles and blushingly writes, “Well that’s pretty cool but I never learned sign language. I didn’t really had a chance to. It’s the lack of opportunities for me, if you know what I mean. I’m normally a wolf since that’s how we communicate .”

“Oh that sucks, about the lack of opportunities, I mean. So you’ve been mute your whole life? Also you can talk when you’re a wolf even though you can’t as a person? ” Boen asks.

Beige sighs, he isn’t very good or fast at writing anymore but for the sake of answering Boen’s questions, he pushes through, “I lost my voice a long time ago. I don’t remember the details and it’s hard to explain the wolf thing. When I turned into a Were I thought I’d get my voice back but I didn’t. We’re sort of talking telepathically, sorta. It’s hard to explain. ” Boen nods and inevitably agrees.

“Yeah, it does sound complicated. Well I guess we’re the same in a way then.” She states. Beige writes, “How so?”

“I’m handicapped now too.” she replies.