Going outside Ruby knew two things, the girl wasn't the result of a spell and she wasn't the trick of her mind.

Ruby began pacing in an effort to clear her mind and think properly, she wasn't supposed to be getting this distracted. She was six hundred years old for goodness sake, she had a lot more experience with weird things than everyone in the shifter pack combined. This was, the weird things she was experiencing in this pack her the first of it's kind.

"Uhm, are you alright?" Ruby's attention was suddenly pulled towards the girl, she stopped pacing and stood there just staring at her.

If she had studied the girl a few moments longer she would have noticed that she didn't exactly look like her sister. But several of her features were so similar to the image Ruby had burned into her mind that it was almost uncanny, the differences between the girl and her sister were small but noticeable enough for Ruby to relax.

"You should never feel smug satisfaction at others suffering, no matter what they've done. Those two have been humbled in ways some can only imagine, it can break a creature. Being placed in a position such as that, they'll either have the mentality of a wronged victim or accept what they've done. You should never let your guard down around such people." For a moment Ruby wondered why she'd said that out loud, she wasn't wearing her Ruby disguise. She was currently Elsie and Elsie had never been introduced to this girl before...not that Ruby had either.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I'm Elsie-Rose, Elsie or ER for short. I'm here helping Topher plan pack boundaries." Ruby didn't want to give much information away, she wasn't sure how likely the girl was to spread conversation that she'd been part of.

"Why would our alpha need your help? You don't smell like one of us so I wonder if you're one of those shifters from across town." Ruby narrowed her eyes, she wasn't as shy here as she played at school.

"Nice to meet you too and it really is none of your business where I'm from and what I'm doing here. Consider my introduction polite chit-chat. Nice chatting with you kid," Ruby said before heading back inside, suddenly she wasn't so hungry. But almost as soon as she came through the door Topher held a plate of food out towards her with a fork.

She eyed him with a smile, several people in the room commented, she took the offered plate with thanks then went to sit at the table as directed by Topher. He seated her between Hollis and one of the other warriors that had been in the discussion yesterday and today.

"I don't think I introduced myself, I'm Sean Sparrow. That was my daughter Sevyn just outside, you'll have to forgive her rudeness. She's often more polite than that." Ruby tried not to frown, it was rude to eavesdrop too. But when she turned her attention away from the apologetic father she realized several pack members were listening to their conversation and the girl herself was standing at the door looking mighty embarrassed.

"No harm no foul, nice to meet you, Sean. You've been contributing some interesting opinions to the discussion, one, in particular, I would like to discuss further with you if you don't mind?" The man seemed surprised but nodded before looking up at Topher quickly.

His alpha seemed to offer a small nod of approval, which set Sean at ease.

They continued their discussion, Ruby wanted to know a little bit more about the points of weakness around the swamp. Sean had adventured all in that area as a child so knew the place better than most other people, Ruby absorbed as much information as she could whilst others offered their opinion and memories of the swamp through their childhood and youth.

From all accounts, the swamp wasn't much of a dangerous place but there was rumour of a legend, one that Ruby wished to learn more about but that very few people seemed willing to discuss. It made her wonder, but being that she was in the alphas house on his good-will she thought better of pressing anyone too much.

The rest of Sunday was spent going over old details, pinpointing where exactly the escape routes out of town were located, where the backup routes were and where the place to keep a perimeter was.

When Ruby collapsed into her own bed later that night she was absolutely exhausted.

Who knew that one weekend could take so much out of an immortal?

The next day at school she could barely keep focus in class, often she was called upon to answer questions. Instead of working through answers she would give them, calling on her endless amount of schooling to answer anything teachers would throw at her.

She noticed several changes amongst the shifter, one being that Sevyn Sparrow was no longer treated as the pack outcast. Students didn't include her in more activities but she walked around school with a confidence, she actually stood out instead of blending in.

To the human student's everything probably seemed normal, Jude and Rebecca were still the power couple of Hillcrest high but there was an undercurrent of whispers as they seemed a little quieter and more subdued than usual.

Ruby wondered how long their reign of tyranny had continued unchecked within the school, it must have been a shock for many.

"Welcome back to another Monday afternoon class! Seeing as you've all had time to settle into the school year I'm going to start giving out assignments, this year there will be a focus on Samson's history. So I'd like you all to split off into pairs and pick something of interest." Ruby groaned, Samson wasn't that big of a town and she was sure the history of it was relatively short but Topher seemed ridiculously enthusiastic about it.

She watched as everyone paired off until not so surprisingly there was seemingly just her left without a buddy.

"I see Ruby doesn't have a partner, does anyone else not have a partner?" Topher asked Sevyn raised a reluctant hand from where she sat.

"Great! There's our last pairing, Ruby you'll be with Sevyn. Introduce yourselves and let's get researching, we're all going over to the library by the way so pack your stuff up and we'll head out." The library wasn't so bad, Ruby could use this opportunity to do a little extra research as well as...unbeknown to a lot of people there was almost always an extra room with mythical texts in it to supply the local population of non-humans.

"Hey, I'm Sevyn Sparrow. We've never really had a chance to talk before." Ruby eyed the girl suspiciously, she seemed totally different from yesterday. It made her wonder if Sevyn was bipolar or if she had just taken an instant dislike to her Elsie appearance.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Ruby. So do you have any suggestions on what to research? I'm still new to town so really don't know where to start." Ruby gave an apologetic smile but Sevyn seemed to take it all in her stride and gave her a broad smile and shrug.

"That's okay! My dad is really big on the history of the area so we can always pick his brain...I mean, I can always pick his brain." Relieved that she wouldn't need to put as much into this assignment as she had initially thought, Ruby and Sevyn walked towards the library together. Ruby tried to keep herself in check as Sevyn spoke animatedly about several things, in particular, the history of Samson and it's people.

In the short time, it took to reach the library Ruby and Sevyn had decided on a research topic, one that Ruby found fitting.

"So girls, have you decided on a research topic?" Topher asked as he came towards the table Sevyn had picked out. Everyone else had sat at the tables out in the open whilst Sevyn had picked one closer to the rows of books. Ruby thought it a good sitting place as it avoided the main foot traffic in the library so they were able to get more reading done.

"Yeah, Sevyn was telling me about the Cavendish swamp so we were thinking of doing something linked with that. Do you have any suggestions on how we could narrow down our research topic?" Ruby asked she saw the quirk of Topher's lips as he controlled the smile. She knew or suspected he wanted to laugh at the rhetorical question, he'd been there yesterday while Sean Sparrow had run 'Elsie' through much of its history.

Ruby knew Topher had picked the topic on purpose but, she was still trying to figure out why.

There was obviously something more to the swamp than it's musky smell and recent sacrifice victim but he wasn't going to make it easy for Ruby...either that or he didn't know.

"Well, I guess you could start with early records of strange goings on when the area was settled a few hundred years ago. I should have added, you have until next Monday to form a question. Consult with me through the week and we'll see how well you're both moving along. Okay?" Ruby nodded, Sevyn thankfully stopped talking for a moment as she absorbed what the teacher had said. She seemed to have immense respect for her alpha as any young shifter should, but the way Sevyn looked at him...like the sun shone out his *ss.

It was amusing.

But Topher left them with that thought, he gave Ruby a knowing look before leaving which made Ruby laugh suddenly.

Sevyn seemed a little confused but Ruby offered no explanation as she carried on reading, high school was now feeling a little more bearable now that the awkward first week was out of the way.

Both girls worked in companionable silence until the bell rang to signal the end of class and the school day. Ruby wasted no time in packing her gear away, "so I'll see you tomorrow Sevyn? I've got to get home and help my dad out with some things." Keeping things vague always worked well for Ruby, very well in most cases.

"But...I was hoping we could get an early start on this research thing? Most teachers like to load us all down from the second week. Can't you go help your dad later?" Ruby gave Sevyn a long, hard look that she hoped communicated how stupid the questions were. Besides, Ruby had to go home and change. Elsie had a training session with the pack this afternoon and she needed to be gone ten minutes ago.

"Sorry, I can't." It looked as if Sevyn was ready to argue with her but no matter what, Ruby wasn't sticking around any longer.

"Go home, girls! What is this? The bell rang five minutes ago and you're still hanging around, I would have thought you'd have better things to do." Topher exclaimed as he came back towards their table clapping his hands loudly when he nudged Ruby away from the table and took all of Sevyn's attention she ran whilst her partner was distracted.

She'd need to think up better, more pressing issues to leave school on time in the future.

"Hey, Ruby! Can I get a ride with you today?" Ruby frowned as she approached the hand-me-down car that Oliver stood next to. She knew for a fact that Oli had driven his new car to school but didn't see it anywhere in the student parking area.

"Someone thought it'd be funny to hide it." Groaning, Ruby opened the driver's side and climbed in. Why in the hell would Oliver lend anyone the keys?

"I know, you don't need to give me sh*t about it. Someone took my keys while I was training so I'm kinda exempt from the stupid rule this time around...theft doesn't count as a stupid act. Does it?" Ruby laughed, she supposed it wasn't part of the stupid awards but also cringed.

Among the protectors, there was an award for the stupidest thing done on assignment, most times Oliver won it with much protest. But he was often the one to mess up something huge, Ruby wondered briefly who would have the honor for the work in Samson.

"So what are you doing this afternoon? Do you need me to come along? Sounds like everything is going well with Topher and his pack though, I guess Ben and I can continue doing perimeter checks." Ruby didn't say much, she wasn't the best multi-tasker in the world and if she had to drive AND think about complex things such as job delegation then she was likely to crash.

"I think Salix and Yeva are here tonight so we need to go over their profiles. At least I think at least one of them is here soon, maybe it's Yeva." Ruby pulled into their driveway and noticed a new car already, it looked like something Salix would drive.

The pit of Ruby's stomach dropped out at the thought of suddenly being in the same house and space as Salix, the guy who had broken her heart years ago.

"Ben? Salix? Yeva?" Oliver yelled from the doorway as he cracked it open, Ruby pushed past him and headed to her usual place.

The kitchen.

She was mildly surprised to see that it was just Yeva and Ben sitting at the kitchen counter, but when both women laid eyes on each other Yeva let out a delighted squeal before jumping up to pull her best friend into one of the tightest embraces she'd had in a very long time.

"Oh my gosh Letti! It's been forever, we're finally on assignment together. So, give me a quick rundown. Ben says you have to go soon, I can't believe you've been running around as yourself." Yeva's energy made Ruby's head spin, she was so energetic and refreshing.

"I'm mostly going by Ruby while at high school and then when I deal with the shifter pack then I'm Elsie and it's Elsie that is my real image. See," while Ruby spoke she removed the necklace that held her Ruby persona. It was a delicate thing but was robust enough to withstand the most robust movements.

"Oh! I haven't seen this face in such a long time! Wow, you're still beautiful! Okay so I'm your cousin, I've recently lost my parents in a car accident so I'm an orphan. Their death has sent me into a dark head space so I've been shipped out to the country with dear old uncle Ben and his simple country bumpkin children." Ruby took in all the information, it also seemed plausible but they didn't look anything alike unless Yeva had another persona stored somewhere.

"Okay, we'll talk about this later on tonight. I need to go and change then head over to Topher's place, Oliver and Ben can get you up to speed with everything." Ruby wanted to add more, she knew Yeva was understanding and knew that Ruby was as enthusiastic to see her but right then she needed to go and work.

Running upstairs, Ruby ran into the one person she was hoping to avoid.

"Ouch, watch where you're going." Ruby rubbed her head, instead of running full force into Salix's back or front she somehow caught an elbow to the forehead and knew it'd bruise eventually.

"Salix?" Ruby asked, hoping to hell it wasn't him.

But when they caught each other's eye she knew without him having to say anything, there was still that look of hate in his eye that she'd seen last time. Ruby still wondered what she'd done to cause him to think so ill of her, after all, they'd been in a romantic relationship for thirty years before he up and left her.