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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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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.

Marceline laughs, shaking her head. "Nah, they put them back and everyone was fine. Except the Duke of Nuts...but I think he's always been weird."

Jacob wasn't sure if that kind of nonchalance was normal for her or not but he knew that he didn't take eating souls lightly. Still, to each their own. What was weird for him was normal for her and his normal life was weird to the average joe.

"Is there anyone else from your home here? Or is it just you?"

"Just me," Marceline says. And don't tell Finn or Bonnibel this, but so far she finds it to be a huge bummer.

"That's hard," Jacob said, wincing a little. "Maybe someone else from home will show up for you? Someone to share in the daily dose of weird?"