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Jacob mostly kept to a set schedule on the island. Wake up, teach his class if school was in session, work on anything at the Homestead that needed repairing and head home to spend time with Belle. It was a bit predictable and occasionally broken up by going to see Bella and the baby or Coraline but it was his life and he loved it.

The island, of course, occasionally decided to throw a wrench in those plans and if his way home became a swamp or there was a freak blizzard, Jacob tried to take it in stride and just keep moving on. It wasn't anything new after three years and some change, right? Except today. He'd pulled open the door to his and Belle's little house expecting to see his wife working on some new invention...and got greeted with a complete decor change.

So the new carpet was nice. So was the air conditioning, which wasn't available in abundance on the island (being inside a room without feeling hot and sticky and without the air so thick that he could breathe without drowning was a novelty) but he couldn't figure out how it got here. Was this some trick? Some temporary decorating change that was going away whenever the island's wacky magic decided to swing back to (relatively) normal? Jacob didn't know. Smarter people than him had been stumped by the island and he had never professed to be into researching or anything that involved reading or sitting still for very long.

But the biggest change about this place was the little undercurrent of power he felt. There was a little ripple, a little spark in the air and it just felt different than he'd felt in the three years since he'd shown up on the island and resigned himself to not being able to shift anymore. Maybe he'd learned to live without that part of himself but he'd never really accepted it and he sure as hell had never rejected it. Could it be? Was the wolf still under there after all and he was finally in a place where he could access it?

He turned the corner away from the front desk and let loose on his control, feeling his body shift and change into the wolf he hadn't been since showing up on the sandy beaches of Tabula Rasa all those years ago.

Finally.

[[See Jacob either before or after he shifts into a wolf - don't worry, he's not going to bite.]]

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Jacob didn't recognize the other animal except to know she, too, wasn't quite human. He made a curious noise in the back of his throat and ran off before circling back, clearly wanting to play. It had been too long since he had this form to shift back yet.

Marceline can talk in this shape, but she doesn't need to. She's run with wolves before and this guy's pretty clear on what he wants to do. She moves to all fours and starts running too, laughing as she readies a pounce.

There was a part of him (a small, very quiet part) that questioned the logic of two animals running around a hotel and wondered how to get outside. The rest of him was content to play chase with this new animal, drawing close to her and feinting away at the last minute as he tore off down the halls in a massive, elaborate game.

It's hard not to keep laughing, howling a little as she searches for more wide open spaces. This is fantastic and strange, but she loves it.

After a few more minutes of playing chase, Jacob shifted back so he could actually talk to this other girl slash animal thing. "Hey, so, sorry but I don't have vocal chords as a wolf. I'm new here."

Which was more than kind of obvious but still, he'd never been known for being eloquent.

Marceline grins and shifts back, floating slightly off the ground. "No worries. I'm Marceline. The front desk give you the spiel yet?"

"Um, no, not exactly. I was too excited about getting to shift. I've been somewhere for three years where I couldn't," he explained.

"And it was too much fun to pass it up. What's the spiel? Stuck here, I'm guessing?"

"Well, not everyone. I can go back and forth through the portal in the back of my fridge, but maybe I'm weird like that." Marceline grins and turns a half-loop in the air before moving to stand on the ground.

"It's kind of a big ol' portal. They call it the Nexus Hotel, so you can always crash when you like and go through random doors and see what kinda junk happens."

That was slightly different from the island schtick and it was enough to have Jacob intrigued. Could he go back and forth? Had he found a way to be somewhere where he had powers but could still go back and check on the island too?

"So you can go back and forth between here and home without any problems? Can everyone?"

Marceline shrugs again, then shakes her head. "I think some people can. Some people can't. Or won't. But hey, this is so way better than going through the Nightosphere."

Jacob had no idea what that was. "I'm going to have to take your word for it," he said, flashing her a grin.

"But this is good, this means I might get to go home again. I haven't been home in over three years."

"Wow, that's way long. Where were you the whole time?" Still listening, Marceline picks up a red apple from a decorative bowl and takes a bite, drinking up the red.

Jacob had never seen anything like that, someone who could just drain the color out of something but with all the weird things he'd seen in his life, that was hardly something to freak out over.

"Yeah, I was on this island. Basically people get stuck there from all over," he explained. "And you can't leave unless you just...disappear and don't come back. So I guess I finally disappeared from there."

"Weird," Marceline says. After a moment, she offers him the apple. "I just drank out the red, but it'll still taste fine, if you want it. Vampire and all."

Edited 2014-05-22 00:08 (UTC)

"So, you're a vampire that only drinks colors?" Jacob asked, trying to follow that. Vampires drank blood, not colors. Then again he was a werewolf that didn't change on the full moon. Weirder things had happened.

"Naw," Marceline says, shrugging. "I drink blood sometimes, but it's way messy, you know? Besides, I gotta watch my girlish figure."

She tilts her head, "What, your vampires don't do that?"

"No, they drink blood," Jacob said. He skipped over how surreal it was to be comparing types of vampires, as if they were something on every street corner, because his life was just that weird.

"The ones I know drink from animals to keep from drinking from people."

Marceline nods, thinking it must be a giant pain, but that it makes sense.

"There's only one human left where I'm from, and I'm pretty sure he's a teeny bit afraid of me still."

"Only one? What happened to all the others?" Jacob had figured that humans would always be the default population. They had to feed the vampires if nothing else, right? So how could there be a world without humans running it?

"The Mushroom War," Marceline says off hand. "But we have the candy people, and the why wolves, and the Ice King. So there's plenty of folks."

"Okay, so you're going to have to break those down for me. Let's start with the why wolves, what's that about?" he asked, wondering if they were anything like werewolves or shifters the way he was.

"Well they're wolves but instead of shape shifting, they just want to know about everything," Marceline explains, laughing a little. She thinks they're a hoot, personally. "Veeeery dignified."

Jacob laughed so hard he snorted a little.

"Asking questions? Really? That really strikes fear in the hearts of men everywhere, I bet. And the vampires all drink color like you do?"

"Well, my ex did. But he was also just kind of a jerk. My dad eats souls but...Also a jerk."

Marceline shrugs and rolls her eyes.

"My friend punched him so hard he spat them back out."

"Eats souls? I'm guessing that's not something you recover from," Jacob said, wondering if the girl's dad was anywhere around. If he was, that might be something to be on the lookout for since he had a very nice soul he'd like to keep for the rest of his life.