Right

Both left and right look identical. Long hallways with a lot of paintings and stone grotesques that are still staring at you. “Would you stop that, its fucking creepy.” You say it under your breath and look down to avoid meeting those stone eyes. You look back immediately because if you don’t you’ll feel those eyes staring you anyway, and see them not staring at you. Which is so much worse when you think about it, stone wolfs staring at you is better than stone wolves hearing you whisper.

You push the creepiness aside and check the corridors again. You shrug and figure walking the same way you did when you went to class would be the smart decision. You know what’s in that direction at least.

You start walking avoiding the grotesques not looking eyes. Instead you check out the paintings, not like there is a lot else to do. They were mostly landscapes, lots of forest, mostly dark ones, some plains, mostly empty ones, and the occasional portrait, all of which looked old. Though not as old as they used to be, they also looked cleaner than they had been. Someone must have cleaned them while you were gone.

You see something flash in the corner of your eye and stare at a painting. It was one of the dark forests. You didn’t know a tiny bit about art, you could tell the difference between a kids drawing and an adults, sometimes, you’d seen a few paintings by kids that were amazing and a few by adults... You revaluated you knowledge about art.

The exterior of the painting had bright greens, blues and some delicately painted flowers. The trees at the front had a deep brown with a slight red tinge, you didn’t know what species the trees were, if they were even real tree. Their leaves also had a slight red tinge. The trees further back were much darker, the brown giving way to black and the trucks bleeding into one another in the darkness.

Something moves in the shadow. You take a step closer to get a better view. There’s a noise now, it’s barely audible just a deep rumbling. The movement happens again, you can’t see what the shape is, is just a slight darker black than the shadow.

The noise get loud enough for you to recognise it. It’s a growl. Its so deep, you can feel it in your chest, almost like your heart was beating along with it, or the growl was matching your heart.

You’re almost touching it you are so close, trying to identify what the shape is. There’s a light now glowing softly. The shape moves behind it, getting larger. Another light joins it and the growl get louder.

A great white paw emerges from forest. Then a snout with yellowed teeth breaches the shadows saliva dripping from the canines. It’s perfectly divided in white and black matched as the other paw comes through, darker than the shadows it moved through.

It let out a breath and steam billows from its nostrils. It’s snout curls into a threaten display, its teeth bared and beginning to gnash. You don’t feel threatened by it, not like some paint could hurt you, right?

The wolf fully comes out of the forest and begin patrolling before it. It’s eyes never leave you as it moves, the change from the white side the black stark as even the colours around the wolf shifted getting lighter and darker as it neared.

You don’t really feel your hand moving as it raises. You only notice it when it enters your eye line.

“Hey.” You jump back thinking the painting just spoke to you. “Sairy.” Standing next to you is Aimil, her amber eye regarding you far more critically than they have before.

“No, no its fine.” You look back at the painting and see the wolf staring at Aimil.

“Have nea see you around.” Aimil walked over and stared at the wolf.

“What?”

“All paintings have animals wondering around, haven’t seen this one before.” She tilts her head as she looks at the wolf. “Nae friendly is he?” She moves back and the wolf disappears into the forest again, the growling doesn’t stop however.

The both of you stare at the painting waiting for the wolf to come back. When it doesn’t do so immediately you become aware of the fact a very pretty girl is very close to you. Your mouth gets dry and you swallow. The tiny audible noise makes Aimil’s ear twitch and you can hear her sniff.

The noise pulls your eyes from the painting to her face. Until this moment you hadn’t really checked her out. You’d looked at her and saw the freckles the amber eyes and the red hair but you hadn’t really seen her before. It was, well, wolfish, hard angles and sharp cheek bones. Even her eyebrows were sharp. The freckles on her face were perfectly arranged across her upper cheek and nose. Her eyes, aside from being amber, were large enough to make her seem easy to read.

While you were staring at her you saw the colour of the freckles on her cheeks get a little darker. She turned to look at you. And now you’re both staring at each other. You feel a warmth in your cheek when you see her eyes dilate and feel very good about yourself. Way better then when you had sex with Morgan. Knowing that she finds you attractive is… intoxicating.

“So…” You don’t know what you should do in this situation.

She takes a deep breath, and you see her nose crinkle slightly. “Smell different.” Lean moves back and takes another breath. Her eyes move down to your crotch and she sniffs again. You feel very bad about letting Morgan ride you. “Why don’t you smell?” She looks inquisitive but not upset.

“What do you mean?”

She shrugs, “It’s a werewolf thing.” She takes another sniff then discards the thought. She steps back and you feel a little sad about that. There is a pause between the two of you as you look into each other’s eyes.

“My mentor teleported me back here.”

“I thought you might be lonely.”

You both speak at the same time and lapse into silence once again. You both smile at each other. “Smell better now.” She’s grinning at you and you become aware of the fact your pants have gotten slightly tighter.

You shift to try and hide your semi make her smile more. “About your duel tonight?” You still feel like that was your fault, she was defending you after all.

“I’m a werewolf who got challenged to a duel by a bitch who doesn’t know how fast I can move. The second it starts I’ll smack her onto her ass and get a collared bitched for a day.” She’s grinning at you with unbridled confidence. You don’t know anything about her so you can’t say anything about her chances, all you remember is the fact Tenebrae fractured your skull with one swing the second the fight started.

“Where is the main courtyard?” You don’t know the chances of being with her for the hours until the fight and missing this seems stupid, win or lose.

“Don’t want to take me to your common room?” Looking at you with those dilated eyes you are doing your best to not forget Morgan calling her ‘cutie’.

She takes a step closer and –

“My mentor has a rule that if I bring any cuties back to the common room, she gets sloppy seconds.” You rush out before considering what you just said.

Aimil just stares at you. Those wolfish features are looking torn between two options and you one of those options is causing her to bite her lip and look at your lower half. You could undoubtedly choose what to do here, all that matters is how you feel about Morgan meeting Aimil.