Volume 6 - Northern Exchange, Chapter 32 - The Careless Shepherd

“Look for the red truck, eh? Can do. We’ll be seeing you shortly.” A fuzzy paw put the phone back in its cradle and a tall wolf-girl stepped out of the phone booth.

She had blue fur from her ears to her long tail, and wore a thick leather collar that had a bit of chain hanging off it. She had similar cuffs on each wrist and ankle, and a strange leather harness for a top. She also wore black leggings that managed to show a lot of thigh, as well as some feather and fur accessories that looked vaguely tribal. All in all, she looked like she might belong in a motorcycle gang, or maybe in prison. “Alright, sheepy, we’ve got a ride on the way.”

A quiet, timid voice replied, “Oh, okay. Sorry again, Froze.” Its owner was crouched in a corner of the empty train station. She was a pale-haired woman with large curled horns on the sides of her head and she had wool-covered legs that ended in hooves. At first glance, it looked like she was wearing a puffy coat, but it was actually just wool overflowing from every opening in her lacy yellow and orange dress.

“I’m really sorry about turning down all those taxis, but I just don’t think I could handle being so close to a, um, um…” She trailed off and hid her reddening face in her hands.

“A guy?” the wolf-girl offered.

“...yeah. Sorry,” she said in a Canadian accent, turning ‘sorry’ into something closer to ‘soar-ee’.

“Eh, I’m used to this, Kehp. It’s the woman on her way here that you should be apologizing to,” Froze said with a dismissive wave of a paw.

A few minutes later a small red truck pulled up to the train station. A Japanese woman with long black hair stepped out and waved at Froze and Kehp as she approached. She wore a light green blouse and a long grey skirt.

“Welcome to Japan!” Yuisu said in passable, if heavily accented, English. “You are Kehp and Froze?”

“Oh yah. I’m Froze, and this pitiful ball of fluff is Kehp.”

“Sorry for making you come get us!” Kehp said, and bowed suddenly, almost headbutting Yuisu with her horns. When Kehp realized, she jumped backwards, saying, “Oh no, sorry, sorry!”

“It is okay!” Yuisu said with an awkward thumbs up. She was operating at the limit of her English abilities. She had barely used it since high school, and she hadn’t been that great even then. “Let’s go,” she said simply, and started loading the girls’ luggage into the truck.

On the drive to Yuisu’s house, all three women were tucked snugly side by side in the front of the truck. Yuisu asked, “Do you speak Japanese? It would be very good, because the other girls do not speak English.”

Froze shrugged. “A little bit, yah,” she said in English, then switched to Japanese, “I have practicing for a few months now, but probably still a lot to learn, eh?”

Yuisu raised an eyebrow. Did she actually just add ‘eh?’ to the end of her otherwise Japanese sentence? Yuisu nodded, and said, “And you, Kehp?”

She stammered, “Uh, yes, I speak some.” She realized she had said it in English, then said, “Sorry,” and repeated herself in Japanese.

Yuisu sighed in relief, and said, “It sounds you both speak enough to get by. That should help a lot. I was a little worried at first, since the other girls don’t know any English at all. I’m glad I won’t have to play translator for the next two weeks.”

Kehp and Froze nodded along. They had each understood about eighty percent of what Yuisu had just said, but they say immersion is the best way to learn a language.

Before long, they arrived at the house. Agent Will’s black sedan was already in the driveway, but it was such a familiar sight these days that Yuisu didn't think to mention it.

Froze easily hefted all the two girls’ luggage and started towards the porch, earning an impressed look from Yuisu. She seems crazy strong. I bet she could give Haru a run for her money.

“Sorry for making you carry it all, Froze,” Kehp said as she followed behind Froze and Yuisu.

“Eh, it’s no problem. You apologize too much, yah know?”

When Yuisu reached to unlock the front door, the doorknob turned from inside and the door opened.

“Aha! Excellent timing!” Agent Will said as he stepped out. “I was about to leave, but I can make some time to meet the new exchange students.” He strode forward with a hand outstretched. When he saw that Froze still had her arms full of suitcases, he approached Kehp instead.

Kehp locked up. Every muscle in her body tightened and her lavender eyes went wide and vacant.

Agent Will was oblivious as always, and he came closer. “You must be Kehp. I’m Agent—”

He couldn’t finish his introduction, because Kehp’s fight or flight instinct kicked in. Luckily for Agent Will’s cranium, the horned girl chose flight. She leapt up and backwards several feet, landing on the thick wooden porch railing. With the strange surefootedness only sheep and goats seem to manage, she stabilized her balance and then sprung away again.

With a couple bounding jumps, Kehp clambered up onto the shingled roof of the single-story house. With the grace of a mountain goat, she could stand securely despite the steep slope designed to keep winter snow from sticking. She bounded away around the side of the house, getting more distance from Agent Will.

In English, Froze muttered, “Not again…” then she yelled, “Get down from there, Kehp!” Froze dropped all the luggage and took off at a run around the corner, chasing Kehp and yelling.

The inside of the house was bombarded with the sound of hoofsteps on the roof and shouting from outside. Between Froze’s gruff voice and the foreign language, it sounded a lot like barking and howling to the four liminals inside. Haru, Tsuen, Mara and Quess all looked up from the TV just in time to see a blue wolf run east past the window with her terrifying fangs on display, following the direction of the hoofsteps overhead.

The girls jumped up from their seats, but they all came to different conclusions about the situation, and different decisions on what to do.

“That wolf’s chasing someone. We need to help them!”

“We’re under attack! Everyone run!”

“Those must be the visitors. Let’s go meet them!”

“Aww, I missed that dialog. Let’s rewind the movie.”

In the end, their intervention wasn’t needed, since Kehp calmed down on her own eventually. She climbed down from the roof, then spent several minutes apologizing repeatedly to Yuisu, who had met up with them on the back side of the house.

“I’m so sorry, Yuisu.”

“I know.” Yuisu said, then thought, I knew the first hundred times you said it. “It’s no problem. You didn’t hurt anything. But can I ask why you freaked out and jumped on the roof?”

When Kehp just fidgeted bashfully, Froze answered for her. “She’s always timid, but she’s especially uncomfortable around men. She needs time to work herself up to talking to them, or even being close. That’s why we couldn’t take a cab from the train station. As luck would have it, all the cab drivers were male.”

“Huh, okay. Sorry about that, Kehp. I would have warned you about Agent Will if I knew. I can let him know he should leave.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to be such a bother, and I’d hate to not properly meet and thank the coordinator that arranged all of this for us.”

“It’s fine. He was on his way out already, and Agent Will is a dork and a flirt, so not meeting him might be for the best,” Yuisu joked to try to lighten the mood.

Froze added, “I can pass on your thanks to him, Kehp. You take it easy.”

After Kehp nodded in agreement, Yuisu said, “Well, while I have you two here, let’s talk sleeping arrangements. You wouldn’t happen to be a couple, would you?”

“Us? A couple? Nah,” Froze said calmly.

Kehp was less calm. She stammered, “Uh, a couple? Us? No, not unless you count, um, sorry. Nevermind.”

Yuisu raised an eyebrow but continued normally. “Ah, okay. That would have made this easier. You see, we’ve only got one guest room. You could share it, or one of you could sleep on the couch.” She propped her chin on her hand. “Though Quess hasn’t been in her room very long, and she doesn’t really need the space, since she’s been small most of the time. Maybe we can work out a trade…”

Froze’s nose twitched and her magenta eyes focused on Yuisu. “Oh, yah... Why don’t you just share a room with your girlfriend? That’d free up a room, eh?”

Yuisu blushed a bit and said, “Oops, the thought hadn’t actually occurred to me. That could work. Wait a minute… How’d you know about me and Haru?”

“Oh, it's pretty obvious, yah know.” Froze grinned, showing her long, sharp canines. “I can smell her all over you.”