Astronomical (girlxgirl)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two (Rose's POV)

As much as I felt the weight of my parent's expectations rest on my shoulders, I was glad that they could be reasoned with.

As I walked home after detention – leaving Nate and Annie my car – I knew Principal Jones would have mind-linked my parents the second I stepped into his office.

Before my Father could begin his quiet tirade, and Mum could back him up, I opened my mind to share my memories of English class this morning, Mr Mosley is a worthless sack of shit – I don't know why that school still employs him as a teacher. Did you know he also gave Helen detention a few weeks ago for being unable to answer a question in class? He said she hadn't been paying attention to him, but really, she just couldn't get the fucking words out when he pressured her to talk in front of everyone...

Mum and Father shared a look that I knew meant they were conferring privately between themselves, "We know, Rose – Andrew had spoken to us multiple time about his concerns for Mr Mosley's style of teaching..." Mum responded slowly. I wished that Andrew, as the principal, would stop talking about how horrible Mr Mosley was and do something about him.

"Be that as it may, please don't make a habit of antagonising your teachers – no matter how much you feel they deserve it", Father continued.

I nodded, feeling my chest loosen a little to know they listened to what I had to say and didn't just pull me out of school altogether.

In a rare moment of seriousness, Mum had told me that I had to learn to follow the rules - human and werewolf. Then she had ruffled my hair with a wink, "but only if those rules are reasonable, and do not cause harm to others..."

Over the years, I had interpreted that to mean I had to listen to my elders and authority figures - but not with blind obedience that turned me into a zombie and curtailed my critical thinking.

Some rules are made to be broken...

I followed Father to his office, to sit in on a meeting with Benjamin about the progress of our pack's training.

Our pack lived in a reasonably peaceful area and didn't have any problems with the wolves around us – but we still trained a small group of highly competent warriors just to be on the safe side.

My Father did not consider lone wolves to be a danger to our lives; those rare wolves who chose to live outside of a pack were harmless.

I remembered the bitching of old Charlotte a few years ago that those who didn't want a pack threatened the cohesion of our whole species. Father had responded that any wolf was free to live as they wished to, as long as they didn't encroach on the territory of any packs and didn't reveal us to the humans. Nate's Grandma Lottie was a traditionalist, unable to fathom why anyone would choose to live without the security of a pack.

"It is the Ferals we need to focus our attention on – those who have given in to their baser instincts and cannot be reasoned with", Father had explained. I had thought of Annie's brother at the time and agreed wholeheartedly with his words.

I had heard Mum admonish Amos for calling a wolf found near the border of our land a 'rogue' – she said the term was derogatory, contributing to the stigmatisation of those who lived outside of the standard pack life. At the time, I hadn't understood all of her big words, but I knew not to shit-talk lone wolves from there on out.

Ben was already seated in Father's office when we came in – his muscular frame folded awkwardly into one of the chairs in front of the desk.

He smiled glibly when he saw me, "Ah, Rose – I haven't seen you at training for a few days now. I thought maybe you had chickened out and decided to take up knitting with the other women".