![](http://cobalt-company.wdfiles.com/local--resized-images/writing:2025-10-31-paws-for-shoes-paws-for-pumpkins-side-sce/style="margin:/medium.jpg) |
| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | After a long day of a wonderful celebration of worgen, pandaren, and pumpkins, a tired bunny lawyer and a worgen architect happen to meet at an intersection of coincidence and meet cute. 5k~ words. Personal plot RP. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Stormwind's mid-autumn night sky is an atramentous umbrella lit festively by a thousand brilliant stars. The Blue Child is abed in a soft waning crescent, barely visible as a peeking glow, while a strong waxing gibbous White Lady moon sends out her cool light to wash against the warm glows of the city's orange lamps, catching the city on the cusp of this time of year where the veil between realities grows thinnest and most fragile. It's a magical time of deepest possibilities, a time of revelry and orison, where anything might happen.
For one lawyer, what will hopefully happen is a soft, flat horizontal surface and an indulgent late night coffee imbibed on the aforementioned surface, please and thank you oh holy spirits of Hallow's End. The cathedral is about to gong off nine bells any minute now, which isn't that late, but it might as well be. The Paws For Pumpkins is finally over, and the kids are back at the orphanage, and Winnie is once again a free empty coffee can.
She's shed the costume (clad now only in the simple brown dress she had on under it), and temporarily her shoes, holding the sensible pumps that gave her those necessary few inches she needs over some of the older kids in one hand, bare feet on the blessedly cool cobblestones for some sore foot relief, as she stares up at the beautiful townhouses and shops of Restoration Row, her breath puffing out in slow, calm clouds that show up in the streetlamp's warm light that she stands beneath.
The woman is so used to being a wallflower that it's very likely she doesn't think much of anyone taking notice of her there, tucked away on this part of the street, paused in her moment of silent contemplation of architecture.
A wolf does notice her. Or a worgen, to be more precise, a woman with light grey-brown fur and a dress that blends into the shadows. She is not exactly hiding — she simply happens to be a dark creature passing by against the darker shadows.
In any case, the worgen woman pauses, falling still at the image of the barefoot woman illuminated by streetlight, looking at the buildings. For a moment that's all she does, standing there with a held breath, maybe considering the possibility of going by unseen.
Then she sniffs once, perhaps irritated at her own timidity, walks forwards towards the edge of the streetlight, and speaks in her gruff, but possibly still recognizable, voice, "Good evening, Winnie. I would've said hello back at the festival, but you seemed like you had your hands full."
Winnie yelps in surprise, and throws her shoes — backwards, over her shoulders on now High Alert, closer to the way a superstitious person might throw salt over one shoulder than anything else in some mixed messages of the brain. They land with a thump and roll around the sidewalk, near an ornamental bush.
"My hands aren't full," she blurts out. Which is now… true. Even in the relative dimness, her embarrassed blush is evident. "I — I am Winnie, and I — " Wait, she knows that hair, and that voice. Her shoulders come down from High Alert to Medium Alert. "Oh, Merelda? H-Hi. I just…threw my shoes." Yes, that is a thing that happened. "Sorry?"
"Yes, it's me, Merelda. I didn't intend to startle you," Merelda says, stepping around Winnie towards where the shoes have fallen. She's being helpful, or maybe she's deliberately not approaching the woman frightened by a strange worgen on a dark street. "I was just stopping by to look at my… at the architecture, when I saw you there. Did the children enjoy the festival?"
Winnie starts to go to help also, stops awkwardly mid-pose like she's realized that two people trying to pick up the same thing would be bad but also it's her shoes and personal responsibility has her in indecision. "I enjoyed the children." You did what, Winnie? "I - I, no, I mean. I, yes. The children enjoyed the festival. We usually do a neighborhood walk around with them every year and this was really nice as something special. Just, um, a lot of work with so many things happening. Good work. I like work. I mean, I like doing good work." She is still stuck in the weird hunched over pose like she might start to help pick up her shoes. Think of literally anything else to talk about besides work, Winnie. Anything.
"You, um, were also looking at the architecture? I, uh, I stop by sometimes to look at it when I go along this way. I, um. It's different, but I really like it in a…lay person way. It's. Um. Bold, and um, unapologetic, but not in a loud, mean building look, and I haven't really seen anything like it before. Assertive, but like a good defense lawyer, not an aggressive prosecution lawyer…way. That — that probably doesn't mean as much to you as… um. I don't know as much about architecture to say anything smart about the, um, lines? Building…lines?" She winces and then seems to realize something. "U-unless this was done by a rival of yours in which case, um, wow, it's terrible. Uh, who does b-building lines like that? Awful, hate it, um, 0 stars."
Merelda laughs at that last, in a warm, friendly appreciation of Winnie's joke. She reaches down to retrieve Winnie's shoes, and then pauses before straightening. There's a shimmer, and then it is Merelda the human there, holding Winnie's shoes, her brown dress strangely also transformed to fit this smaller body.
Turning to Winnie, she says, "It's Gilnean, the influence you're seeing — in the shape of the windows, the angles of the roofs. Just… accents, really. Grace notes. I didn't want it to stick out in an uncomfortable way here. Which is to say, I designed these. The whole street. The Fallons redeveloped it."
Merelda smiles, holding out Winnie's shoes. "I'm glad you like them. And I'm glad the children enjoyed themselves. And I… I'm sorry, if I should have waited till the third meeting."
Winnie is riding high on Merelda's laugh for at least a few moments. She did it! She made the pretty lady laugh! Grace notes! She complemented the pretty lady's houses! Is this what success feels like? She's staring at Merelda, which might be a little less successful.
Winnie seems to have trouble accepting the shoes and processing the last few words, as she blinks repeatedly, and then asks confusedly, and slowly as her hands close over her shoes, "To…give me my shoes?" Did Winnie miss something? Is there a Gilnean cultural thing happening? Please hold. Also hold her shoes as she takes them at a glacial pace.
She flails suddenly, sending one of the literally just rescued shoes tumbling back to the ground. Winnie doesn't even dive for it as she dives for her social fumble instead. "Oh, OH! Oh, no. No! I'm sorry — I didn't — I the worgen. I mean, no! No! I mean, I remember you mean about the w-worgen form. I-it didn't, doesn't b-bother me. I, um, spend a lot of time around worgen, um. People. These days."
Merelda, on the other hand, drops to her knees to retrieve the shoes, regardless of any social fumbling going on. She stays kneeling as she hands them back up to Winnie, and says, "That's good to hear — I know it can be disconcerting, and you seemed…"
"I haven't been quite as good as I intended about helping people get used to seeing worgen about," Merelda starts again, and this time maybe she's babbling, though her tone is still self-assured. "For the Paws for Pumpkins festival, I thought of it as something of a costume. Unless perhaps this appearance is more of my costume, but… they both still feel like me. Both forms, I mean. In any case, that wasn't what I… you're doing a lot of work with worgen these days? Legal assistance?"
Winnie in turns stays awkwardly bent over for a way too long period of time accepting her shoe (again). She does seem to forget about both shoes and position as she speaks to Merelda intently, and the longer she speaks, the more she gains a focus that sharpens and clears both tone and demeanor into a confidence of someone who has likely had some version of this conversation maybe more than once, or had to outline it repeatedly perhaps.
"Y-yes, actually. Um, well, with um, paperwork it's slow, but it does usually keep, um, turning. Over the past year and more since the Cataclysm, we've started to straighten things out with the census and residence, of um, immigration. What that means for me is that for seventeen minors, who were in sub-optimal state of care, often in full ward of state or in temporary wardships with extended family, we were able to locate parents or close family members, or last will and testament designated guardians who had been l-lost to the curse, and now have regained sentience." Winnie's beige eyes are wide and soft in the warm streetlight, and earnest fierce believer in her cause. She stops crouching over at least.
"Of those, seven of those guardians cannot maintain a human form for significant periods of time, or in one case, at all. I still, in all cases, successfully placed the guardianship of the minors with those worgen guardians, because in all cases, with no exceptions, the attachment of the minor to the guardian, and the guardian to the minor, was as full and clear as with any human form guardian. The minor risks associated with the worgen form that require additional caution do not outweigh the benefit of a guardian who is fully committed to the care and well being of a minor in his or her care, full stop," Winnie argues in a courtroom of…an…empty street. Well, for a second there, she sounds impressive. "Maybe for some people the form is alarming. But I'm not one of those people."
If only she wasn't still very awkwardly holding onto her shoes.
"That's truly impressive," Merelda says, rising slowly, so that maybe Winnie will do so as well. "There's been so much chaos, after how we had to leave Gilneas. There was no time for records or orderliness. It took me some time to even find my parents, and we're all of us adults. I've been watching out for my own pack, and for the lost when I encounter them, but for children especially, it is so easy for them to fall through the cracks if they do not know who to go to for help."
"And… I have known a number of our kind who do stay in worgen form full time," Merelda adds. "I don't know if they struggle to maintain human form, or if it is simply a choice. You might recommend them to consult with the Cenarion Circle, if it is the former. If they have had trouble with the Ritual of Balance, then they may need support throughout the chaotic years of raising a child. Not that I have any firsthand experience of that, but…" Merelda blinks. "…perhaps I do, a little."
Winnie nods sharply. "The Cenarion Circle representative and expert witness testified in court that the defendants all succeeded in the Ritual of Balance as per the court order for qualification of guardianship under provisional guidelines, and that they may find the human form 'easier over time, but that it is not an indication of their control over the worgen spirit,' which is sufficient cause for the court to rule in favor of guardianship," Winnie says, a with a sense of underlined support of her argument. Her…argument?
And that, combined perhaps by the freezing of her toes on the cobblestones, seems to trigger a realization that she is not in court or in any sort of court-adjacent activity, and she cringes back. "I — um, not that you… sorry. I… W-we did a lot, um. Research. T-to make sure. I-I take the well-being of the children seriously so… I. Um." She looks down at her shoes. "I-I should put on my shoes?"
Is that a question?
"It might be a good idea," Merelda says with a faint smile. "The children are lucky they have someone like you who cares so deeply. The parents as well, for that matter. There's nothing in a worgen that makes them love their children one iota less than an uncursed human would, and I'm glad you see that. If the families do need a place that might be more welcoming of eccentricities, I could make recommendations."
Merelda takes a half step back, and adds, "And why did you have your shoes off, if I may ask? If I may not, feel free to dodge the question."
Is that legal? Winnie's not usually allowed to dodge questions. The Judge would say Counselor in that Judge Voice. She uses the lamppost to balance as she puts on her shoes, one by one. "Oh, um, my feet? Hurt. The shoes are, um, comfortable?" Is that a question? "They're comfortable. But I've been walking and on my feet since, um, seven this morning, and it's —"
In the sort of unhinged timing that happens sometimes, the Cathedral chooses this time to gong out the first bell of what will be nine.
Winnie startles with a jolt, and only by the grace of the Light doesn't throw her shoes anywhere else, mostly because both are on the ground, and instead shoves her foot — halfway through the shoes — deeper onto the shoe, with such force instead that it hurts, and she yelps, and hops like a hurt bunny with a sore paw. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!"
Merelda takes an involuntary step forward at the yelp, raising a hand towards Winnie. A faint shimmer of green — not fel green, which has to be specified in Azeroth, but a healthy, living green — swathes her hand in a mist. This is not a battlefield, however, and Winnie is not under attack, so she pauses.
"Let me help?" Merelda asks. "I am not a healer by profession, but I have trained my abilities under a respected elder of the Cenarion Circle, one Silvershade."
"I'm help," Winnie says, hopping a little closer to the lamppost, her hurt foot lifted up off the ground. That doesn't make sense, Winnie. "I mean, I - I, yes, I need, um, help, yes, you may, um, yes? Please, help?" Nailed it. First try. Doing great.
The Cathedral finishes its last three gongs. Nine o'clock.
The shimmer coalesces, and then flows through the air to wrap gently around Winnie's hurt foot. It clings there, slowly healing. Merelda glances up in the direction of the Cathedral briefly, and then back to Winnie.
"If you're headed home, I could walk with you for a ways," Merelda offers. "Not that Stormwind City is terribly dangerous these days, but…" Merelda glances down at Winnie's foot.
Winnie makes an audible sound of relief as her foot heals, as she gingerly puts it back down on the ground. There's another groan that pushes the boundaries of relief into another sort of sound. It's quiet, and if Merelda had regular hearing, she wouldn't have heard it, but unfortunately for Winnie, the lawyer's little, "Oooh, yeah…that's gooooood," is very audible. She is now a little lopsided in the other direction, temporarily, until the heal slowly spreads to the other.
Winnie glances nervously towards what must be the direction of her home, and embarrassment sinks its teeth into the bunny lawyer. "I'm dangerous." That is probably the least factual statement she's ever uttered. "I - I mean, I, I'm usually not, um, dangerous. To me. Or. Anything. Anyone. I…sorry?" She twists her hands together, fingers rolling over each other in a way that might almost be painful. "I-it's not you? It's um, I guess… I… don't live in the nicest place? You know, 0 stars building lines," she jokes weakly.
Merelda chuckles, and there's a satisfied smile on her face as the healing takes and then fades away.
"I wouldn't mind. I've seen all kinds of buildings. I do renovations, sometimes. That's not to say you'd want — I did some renovations for Falrevere a few months back, for instance. And if it's a difficult part of town, all the more—" Merelda trails off, and looks in the direction of Winnie's home. "I have just spent a fair amount of time defending a village from demons. I don't think theres a part of the city I'd find daunting, tonight."
Winnie, who has struggled with her shoes not once, not twice, but three times tonight, says, "Oh." Her shoulders reduce from Medium Alert to Low Alert, as she looks bashfully impressed. Wow, pretty lady strong. Hehe. "That's… amazing. You… wow." She is an articulate, well-accomplished lawyer, she swears. "Wow."
"Well, I…" now it's Merelda's turn to have a little blush on her cheeks. "I wasn't alone, exactly, but it's… my druidic training. Not a thing I ever would've really considered before the curse, despite Ozzy's enthusiasm for the harvest witches. Now, though, given I could already change one form and we had our tie to the Circle…. learning more seemed prudent. And it has been useful, at times."
"Wow," Winnie repeats. Winnie, another word. Anything. "That's…" You also already used amazing. Oh, no. These may now be the only two words Winnie knows in all of the Common language. She makes a buzzing sort of sound, and maybe to just buy herself some time, she starts to… scoot… in… the same… direction… as she looked before. Oh, her house. Probably.
The fact that she doesn't seem scared of Merelda so much as awed suggests she probably does want Merelda to come with her. "Druid!" Winnie eventually blurts, which is, we will have to allow, at least another word besides wow or amazing, and we are calling that a win(nie).
Merelda falls into step (scoot). She looks over at Winnie, some mixture of pleased and faintly nervous in her smile. "Yes, so if you should ever need a druid, for reasons legal or otherwise, I might be able to help. I am still a student, though, and I'm not sure exactly how long the kaldorei require to graduate. They might consider us always students. Perhaps that's not a bad thing, there's something to be said for always learning."
As they continue along, Merelda adds, "They likely will consider us students a while yet, after what happened in Surwich. I don't know if the news has reached here, or if it's considered a minor note in the Stormwind cycle. One of our druids, the one overseeing the revitalization, fell under demonic influence."
"Oh," Winnie says, fidgeting with her hands, twisting her fingers rhythmically now. It doesn't seem like it hurts, so much as something that she does as a way for her hands to stay busy, as someone who doesn't quite know how to relax. "Oh, I'm so sorry. There were, um, there were kids there, weren't there? I - I know there were families moving there. I - I hope, um… well."
She looks up at Merelda with wide, awed bunny eyes that also seem older than usual in her youthful face. "That must have been awful to see. You're still going to keep trying though, aren't you? I - I can tell you are. I spend a lot of time with people who… are ready to give up. I know what it looks like. You don't talk like you've given up. Which is — that's really, really amazing. To have watched that kind of thing happen twice now, a-a place you've been lose a leader, and you just… keep regrouping, and learning, and getting ready to keep going. Th-that's incredible."
"Yes, I think it'll keep going," Merelda says firmly, looking over to meet Winnie's eyes. "The dream was a good one, and now at least we know a little more of what the druids will be up against. There was a group of us there, not just druids but worgen from a few different backgrounds, and we kept the civilian losses to none, thankfully. And we… well, all of us were alright, in the end. One of them was Ozzy, my… well, I realized I do think of her as my daughter, though she's really only a little over a decade younger than I am. She's the one who was my ward before, who grew to majority while we were worgen. " Merelda smiles faintly, a touch wistfulness in her expression.
Then Merelda turns to look at the passing buildings, as the two of them head towards a part of town that may not score well in architectural competitions. "I don't know that I'll live there. It would be hard to maintain my career in such a remote place, and transportation is rather iffy. But I shall support the effort, in the ways that I can."
The buildings in general this way likely don't score well across any metrics except financial burdens, and perhaps for some lawyers a reasonable commuter walk to her legal offices. Smoke from the dwarven district billows across to cloud the air, and the fortress walls block out view and sunlight both, as cheaper materials become commonplace, and the alleyways grow more narrow and more likely to contain either a knockoff purse or a cutpurse.
Among those buildings is a shabby, but stringently up to legal code, gray stone and Stormwind oak apartment building that will win no beauty competitions. Three squat stories, it occupies a middle street without any pretense or apology, doing little to distinguish itself, but having no interest in the ignominy of squalor either. No, it merely wants to blend in with the rest of this Old Town street, left alone, unchanging through the years, and so long as it stays to code, that's what it intends to do.
But one has windows that stand out for being different from those around it — they are reinforced, and sturdy enough that if one were inclined to try to throw a brick at it, or attempt to force it open, one would meet with failure or a guard before the lawyer who lives within.
"You… you do have to live close to work," Winnie says, looking up with a sigh at her own place. She twists at her hands harder, stopping at a street lamp that still works; several nearby do not. "Um. This is where I… live close to work."
"It is a reasonable thing to consider," Merelda says, her gaze traveling over the building determined to survive the years. "Commute time is lost time, after all. And the building seems very sturdy and serviceable, what one most wants in the safety of a home." She tilts her head towards the reinforced windows. "Yours? Are there still… troubles, from the old cases?"
Winnie's surprise registers only a second and then she flits through a slump of shame and resignation. "Um, well, sort of. That's, um, remember I mentioned the case with the…" Her voice lowers to a very, very low whisper. "Death knight?" She stops whisper-whispering. "It was a really big case, and people are still… um, angry. I got all the extra security things done at the time, so it's… still good? At being security things? So there's not a good reason to take them off or anything. A-and no good reason to move out of the place. And at least here I know even if my neighbors don't all agree with what I did… i-if there's one good thing about living with the lawyer who did that one case it's that she k-keeps the building up to code," Winnie says with a swing of her arm in an attempt at good-ol' humor.
"And it does seem to be that," says Merelda, sweeping again her practiced glance over the building. "And you're right, of course, there's no need to remove security, once added. I'm glad it is somewhat less than it was, but still… it seems a misplaced anger, to me. One might just as well be angry at the law itself, for its impartiality."
Merelda pauses then, and looks up at the reinforced window as she says, "If you should like, you would be welcome at my family's household. Or elsewhere, perhaps dinner sometime, when you've a break in your cases for refreshment?" She looks to Winnie with a quick dart of a glance, and adds, with a touch of a joking tone, "I feel that I would prefer not to rely on chance or another noble wedding for our next meeting."
Winnie laughs at the joke, hahaha break in her cases, hahaha. Oh, wait, that might not be the joke.
"Oh." Wait. "Oh. Really?" Did she say that part out loud? She might have said that part out loud. Don't sound so surprised Winnie. "I, um. I don't… get a lot of…breaks? But I do break. Er, eat. Break to eat food. I eat things. Dinner?" Is that a question?
"Dinner," Merelda agrees, and she turns to look at Winnie more fully now. There's something slightly softer, more vulnerable in her eyes, but her tone is even and matter-of-fact as she continues, "Even when I'm deep into a design, or buried under the family accounting, I still need to eat as well. We have that in common. Maybe we could spend some time talking about… the cases you have that are permissible to speak of. And my druidic expeditions. Or how things are going with re-establishing my house and livelihood in a new nation — whatever you find most interesting. If you would be interested?"
"I am interesting!" Winnie says quickly. "No, sorry I — " Wait. That… actually might be true? But, not what she meant to say. "Interested! Interested," she repeats. She smiles winningly. Well, maybe nervously, but attempting to be winningly. "I have, um, a calendar. I don't have it on me. I'd have, to look, and get back to you. I know that sounds like a - a brush off, but it's not. It's a real calendar. I really do have to look. I will write you? With a list of dates. Some might be sort of…weirdly exact times? Like a 5:48pm to 6:24pm. But sometimes that's… what it looks like. And I will have to leave… exactly at that time."
"I'll wait to cross-reference your times with mine, then," Merelda says with her own take on a winning smile, as she brushes a red curl behind her ear. "My own calendar does have some fixed points I'll have to navigate around, but a considerable portion of my work is alone, and thus a little more time-flexible. I am confident that we shall find a workable time, whether it is a thirty-six minute one or a forty-eight."
Winnie breathes out an audible sigh of relief, and gets visibly distracted by the red curl. Pretty lady, pretty hair curl. "Good. That's…that's good." Another word, Winnie. Something that isn't good. "That's great." Eh. Sure. "Really. Then… um. I'm glad you startled me into throwing my shoes tonight," she says, and oh, yeah, she's making little finger guns and everything. She is definitely not as young as she looks.
Merelda gives a surprised laugh, and her warm smile lingers. "If I startle you again, I'll do my best to make sure the outcome is at least as pleasant." She takes a step back from Winnie, nodding in farewell. "Until next time."
"O-oh, um, Merelda. I should say, um, I would have thrown them no matter what. It, it wasn't you. Not either form. I… I just startle? You could have been a bunny rabbit, and whoosh," Winnie says, and mimes the same throwing her shoes over her shoulder exaggeratedly. Well, actually, maybe kind of accurately. "Even if you show up in a bunny costume next time… there's a risk. So. Don't worry too much. Okay. Um. Bye." She gives a shy, awkward little wave but with a real sweet smile, and then starts to walk off towards her apartment, watching Merelda dazedly with a wallflower's honed skillset of the backwards scoot, scoot, scooo — .
And then stops, and rushes back towards Merelda in a panicked realization. "Wait! I don't know where you live!" Oh, yeah. That would make writing her with a schedule difficult. Probably should have gotten that information before you said goodbye to her and everything.
"Oh, goodness, you're right, that would've been awkward," Merelda says, startled herself into another laugh. She pats her skirt, like it might reveal an address, but then her intention becomes clearer as her hand slips into a cleverly concealed pocket and she retrieves a small rectangular card. It's a professional contact card, noting Merelda's name, qualifications, and the location of her office. She steps forward to offer it to Winnie with her right hand. "I'm there much of the time, at least, so I'll get word promptly."
"Wow, I have her card," Winnie says, out loud, probably also handling the business card with a little too much reverence, but she is a professional business lady herself. "I mean, yes. This is good, I will do that. Writing. Words. I will word good." Will you, Winnie?
Maybe just try to… "Okay, bye again!"
"Bye again," Merelda says, still smiling. As she turns to go, she adds over her shoulder, "and watch out for bunnies."
Winnie giggles. Little does Merelda know, but actually, Bunny Lawyer is always on Bunny Watch.