"Well, I wouldn't want to go right up to the, mm, the big radioactive power plant whatist and give it a lick, but no, we're fairly sturdy when it comes to that sort of, hmm. Mutation? Degradation?" You wave your fork cheerfully. "Not a scientist, remember! I don't think the condition's a cure for cancer, either, though, I mean, you'd think if it was someone would have tried it already, to save their mother or what have you. A little upsetting to think of, hmm, maybe growing wolf bits in your human bits like tumors, that might kill you worse than the original problem." You study your plate, somewhat unhappily. "Don't think I want to think about it," you conclude.
You can sympathize. You change the subject. "What about regular wolves? Can we talk to them? Do they think we're wolves, or flip out, or what?"
"Eh, there's no one answer for that," you say thoughtfully. "Err... there's a some gestures and such that're, hm, mutually intelligible? More than with dogs, certainly. And how they feel about us really depends on, on manners. And then you have all different sorts of families, of packs... Some are skittish, some are curious, some are willing to have some fun. Some are, are, er, fairly closely related." You make an awkward gesture. This tends not to go over well with new fellows. "I have a lot of, of blood relations down south, as I think I mentioned before. 'Endangered' tends to mean everyone gets a bit less picky about who to build the next generation with."
Your eyebrows are trying to hide in your hair. "Whoa there. Are you trying to tell me there are some red wolves in Florida that are a quarter human? Isn't that going to be sort of hellish for them?"
"Not any more than anyone else who's got the misfortune to live in Florida," you point out, which earns you a smile. You continue, "Red wolves interbreed with coyotes, who also interbreed with timber wolves, all of whom interbreed with dogs— case in point, your lovely sable coat— and of course there's the arctic, indian, ethopian, eurasian, etcetera subspecies who can mix it up any time they happen to be stuffed into a closet together. So, yes, I've a number of first- and second-cousins in Florida, but saying they're a quarter human or whatever is, hmm, an oversimplification." You finish your eggs, then study your dining companion. "You're probably mostly eurasian steppe wolf, if you picked up the condition in Afghanistan and didn't turn out the approximate size and color of a bread loaf," you say. "Come to Russia with me in the spring, don't tell your dad, and meet some cousins of your own."
"That's... longer than I'd planned to take off of..." But you're just digging in your heels reflexively, aren't you? You've always wanted to explore Alaska. And Erskin apparently wants to spend that much time with you, which is really, really pleasing. No point protesting the expense, you know your Dad will happily pay, pleased as punch that you're learning to dogsled or whatever instead of getting addicted to painkillers or shooting yourself in the head. He doesn't know exactly what you've been through, but he knows it was bad. He'll be overjoyed to hear you have any sort of future goals at all. So you give Erskin a tentative smile and do a verbal trust fall: "Okay."
You smile back. "Alright! And of course if you get tired of me by tomorrow no hard feelings." You steal the last of his fruit juice.
"Not gonna lie, if you get tired of me I will sulk like a teenage girl," you admit. "But I won't get mean or stalkerish or anything, that's not how I roll. I just hope you don't get tired of me in the middle of the Bering Strait, that would be awkward. Speaking of which, wouldn't it be easier to get to Siberia in the winter? Pretty sure people have dogsledded it."
You blink at him. "Yes, that's my plan," you say. "It's autumn, now, I'm heading north and west, I'm aiming to be in Alaska in the winter, then trot over the frozen bits of the Bering Strait, though now I'm adding 'leaving you halfway across' to the itinerary... Anyway, it's only about fifty miles. Kills you if you aren't prepared for it, of course, and there's the whole problem of getting there and then what you do afterwards once you're in Siberia, but the challenges make it fun. Chernobyl in the early spring, and after that, I don't know, maybe I'll go to India again."
"Oh, okay, that makes sense. I misunderstood, I thought you meant to wait for the ice to break and catch a ship across. Going over the ice sounds really interesting. That said, we could be in Alaska next week if we drove. I don't really want to spend several months naked and eating mice."
"Well, then do your own thing when you're tired of rodents and indecency and meet up with me in Alaska when you feel like it," you say easily. "Nome, maybe, in February. I should be there by then. I mean, I could be anywhere I like by tomorrow if I wanted to, with planes and all, my family has one. But I like traveling on my own four feet as much as I can. If the game's too easy there's no point in playing it, you know?"
"Ah." A lot of his behavior suddenly makes more sense. "So if you wanted to be there tomorrow, how would you make that happen? Say, if you hadn't met me, because obviously I would lend you clothes and money and let you use my phone and all. But if you were alone. No phone, no money, bare-ass naked."
"Alaska? I suppose I'd sniff out a few quarters and a working phone booth, wait 'till dark, then call home. Daddy's money, don't you know." The last is said with a snobbish drawl, the kind that tends to get a good laugh from Americans. "He brings the cessna 'round by, hm, morning? Twelve hours? we met at the nearest airport with a private landing strip and take off again for Alaska while he makes fun of me for the next, oh, five hundred years for having gone soft." You grin at the thought, gesture at Bel. "What about you, how'd you get there? Say if you had to do it my way, on your own feet. Do you think you could make it by winter?"
"Nope," you say easily. "No map, no compass, a thousand miles of cornfields in the way? I'd end up going human and stealing some clothes and a car within a week." You shrug. It doesn't bother you to admit that. "Navigating without tools and hunting without weapons is not in my skillset at this time. Phone booths are obsolete, by the way, they're being phased out. You might want to come up with an alternate extraction plan."
"They're being phased out, there's a few left here and there. You get them in run down areas. And of course there's public call boxes in countries like this, you know, along the highway. Solar powered, free, connect to emergency services. 'Help, help, I just woke up like this', etc. Anyway if I needed to make a call somewhere else I'd hunt down some pants— again, along the highway, you would not believe how many items of clothing just sort of exist strewn about the highway— then pop into the nearest gas station or rest stop and beg for use of a land line or something. My human face doesn't do me nearly so many favors as my furry one, though, I can tell you that." You scratch your nose as you study him. "Sorry if this is rude," you say, not managing to sound very sorry, "but I thought you were smart, why would you need a compass and a map and all? You just go west till you reach the coast and then north until the newspapers start saying Alaska."
"That previously mentioned thousand miles of cornfields, which don't sound like a good place for hunting. Cattle ranches, barbed wire fences, everybody's got three dogs and a shotgun. Then there's the Rocky Mountains, and all manner of rough terrain. I could maybe do it in in a year that way. Or I might starve or get shot." You shrug again. "As a human, set me down anywhere in the world and I'll not only find my way where I'm going, but bring back useful intel in the process. Let me have a gun, a knife, and a tent, and I'll live off the land while I'm doing it. But that fat, stupid squirrel you pretty much handed me yesterday is the first animal I've hunted on my own in wolf. I'm starting from scratch."
"Alright, it was rude," you acknowledge. "When you've done something a few times it's easy to forget which bits were the hard bits, starting out, what? Though cornfields are fine for hunting, if you don't mind rats. Which I'm going to take an absolutely wild guess, here, and say you do." You give a wry smile. "Can we get pie?"
"Hell yes we can get pie. Excuse me, ma'am, is it pumpkin season yet?" It's not pumpkin season yet, sadly, but a pan of apple just came out of the oven. Awwyeah. "With vanilla ice cream," you grin. Once the waitress has gone, you say thoughtfully, "I'm pretty sure a hybrid approach would be the best solution. Humans are built for cross country. Do your travel in human form, with some utility and comfort items in a backpack. When you want to eat or scout, drop the backpack, go wolf and use your nose. I'm theorizing here, by the way, let me know if I'm off base."
"That's what might work best for you," you say. "You're very big on tools and supplies. Contingencies. And of course you've got most of your experience in cross-country in human form. If I want to go into somewhere prepared I just get some old rummage-shop hip pack to clip around my neck. Fit in antibacterial cream and a wire cutter and a lighter and maybe a bit of string and you're good to get through nearly anywhere you've been before. A pocket knife and a magnifying lens might be nice, too. But anyway, humans only do about 20 miles a day on foot, don't they? Something like that? Less with a load? I'd find that sort of pace frustrating in very short order."
"That's a pretty relaxed pace for me too, but I'm not in a hurry. Are you in a hurry? Also, how the hell are you making more than 20 miles in a day when you have to stop to hunt all the time and can't carry any food with you?"
