A.N.: Family friends, Megan, Maia and Grace got me watching this show because of all the almost-naked-nudity, and after having spent three days watching Teen Wolf nonstop, I have decided that Isaac is my future husband. You are all welcome to come to the wedding; the ritual sacrifice to complete the ceremony will be Allison because she knifed my boyfriend. In place of gifts, please make donations to Grace's 'Shirtless Stiles' campaign!

Anyway, I seriously hate the Hunters; probably a mixture of my loathing for the Hunters in Lords of the Underworld, the hypocrisy of the Superintendent in the novel Lothaire by Kresley Cole, and Alexander Corvinus/Lorenz Macaro in Underworld, I have decided that if there are people out trying to cull werewolves for simply being alive, there has to be someone, an organisation, who keeps track of what the Hunters get up to. Like torturing the high-school principal, killing sixteen-year-olds for having sex with their daughters, putting invasion-of-privacy cameras on every square inch of a high-school…

I am coming around to Allison's dad, though. He always keeps to the code, despite not being a pirate.

The Judgement of Actaeon

01

There were few things in his life that he had the freedom to enjoy. The gentle hint of her subtle perfume was one of them, every time she paused by her locker, right next to his. She had slipped in at the start of the semester, brand-new to town, a sophomore, like him, and the highlight of several of his classes; with the arrival of the other, pale girl with sharp cheekbones and a demure, doe-like personality, she had gone relatively unnoticed, but he'd seen her, and been hooked.

Because she was almost as quiet as he was: she passed undetected through the school day; she was quiet, but well-spoken and very polite to teachers.

He'd bet anything that, if she wanted to, she could have been one of the girls who were like Lydia, the bright, bubbly, popular ones who got invited to all the best parties and had the best stories to tell, went out on dates with different boys every week and laughed in the centre of her clique in the cafeteria. Because she was very pretty.

And it wasn't that fake prettiness, makeup piled on and getting up at five a.m.—he'd heard Lydia Martin bragging to that effect once—to do her hair and choose her outfit out of a huge selection in her closet. She had this deep olive-toned skin that naturally was deeply tanned, almost as if she had some Native American blood, but he didn't think she did; he thought her family must be from the Mediterranean, because she was so deeply olive-skinned, with beautiful soft dark brunette hair the colour of molasses. She had the most stunning green eyes he had ever seen; shining from her deeply tanned face, they were exquisite, framed with very fine, curling black lashes.

He liked best when she would show up to school in a fit of femininity, wearing the seemingly only top she owned that wasn't a white cotton t-shirt; it was a creamy lace top, slightly cropped, with a scalloped hem and pearl buttons at the back. It was only on the days she wore that top that she would pull her hair up, in a soft, relaxed bun at the base of her neck; over the course of the day, with P.E., the bun would become even softer, more relaxed, curls escaping from it. But he liked it best when she wore her hair loose; it tumbled in the most beautiful natural curls, forming sun-highlighted ringlets as the day wore on, around her shoulders. She had several tiny beauty-spots on her throat, and freckles on the back of her neck.

He'd never seen her shoulders bare, but he wondered whether she had freckles there. And aside from P.E., he'd never seen her wear anything but dark, fitted denim jeans; they weren't tight, or 'skinny'; they were a great fit, and the prettiest thing about her was the way she carried herself while she was wearing those jeans, that white t-shirt, the lace top, with her hair up or down.

She had a sense of self-assuredness that seemed transcendent.

He didn't know how she did it, but she had the most amazing concentration of anyone he'd ever met; in the middle of a huge fight between Jackson and Lydia in the cafeteria one afternoon, there she had sat, cheek resting against her fist, eating one of the two daily hot lunch choices offered in the cafeteria, reading. She hadn't looked up, even when Lydia had burst into hysterical tears and her heels had been the only sound in the hall as she fled toward the girls' bathroom. While everyone else had started gossiping about the It-Couple having a huge blowout—again—she had just sat there, reading.

All he knew about her was that she preferred the iPod Classic to one of the cutesy, colourful new Nano iPods that every girl at school wanted; he'd never seen her drink a soda; even if she dressed almost tomboyish, she wore several pieces of gold jewellery: a tiny infinity loop pendant; a tiny pendant of three circles from which dangled three multifaceted black beads; a tiny circle pendant stamped with her first-initial; a gold pyramid-studded cuff of brown leather; and a diamond-studded serpentine ring. He had seen her read a huge, ancient compendium of Shakespeare plays, a cookbook, a lot of Stephen King novels, and P.G. Wodehouse, as well as other books he'd see her with one afternoon and then, never again, she'd already finished reading them by the next morning when she arrived at school in a beautiful black Chevy Impala. His dad said it was a '67.

It was a while before he worked up the nerve to talk to her; in the meantime, she had befriended Stiles Stilinski. Not an obvious friendship; he was about the biggest nerd in the sophomore class, and she was…not. There was this incredible coolness to her that contradicted her surroundings; she was quiet, laughed softly in a rich chuckle, and seemed too…adult for any given situation. He had never seen her rise to the bait once; never heard her say a bad word about anybody or join in gossiping or making fun of Erica about her epileptic fit. He'd heard that she had smashed some guy's cell-phone for recording Erica during her seizure. In fact, Isaac couldn't say he'd seen her interact with her classmates any more than the obligatory hello and the odd group assignment.

Her name was Olive Royea—pronounced 'Roy-ay'—and Isaac thought she was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen.

It wasn't until some weeks after she had moved to Beacon Hills that Isaac ever actually talked to her. In class, she sat with her head down, diligently taking notes; outside of lessons, she seemed inapproachable too, reading.

Then, Mr Harris paired Isaac with her for Chemistry.

That's when it all changed; they had to talk to one another. Though that didn't make it any easier for Isaac; he just kept hearing his father's voice in his head, repeating every demoralising thing he'd ever said, battering his self-confidence. The terrorisation at home extended to school, where he was no more than a shell filling a desk, quiet and unnoticed. Everyone believed him when he said he got his black eyes and bruises from lacrosse, rough-housing in the locker-rooms before practices. Relief enveloped him as he sat down at the table Harris had assigned him to sit at for the duration of the lab; he had no black eye today.

"I…should probably apologise before we start," Isaac said quietly, glancing at her; she was wearing a soft heather-grey t-shirt today, and she was in the midst of pulling her curly hair into a bun at the base of her neck with several pins she kept pressed between her lips. "I'm…not so good at chemistry." Smiling, she plucked the last pin from her lips, tucking it into her hair.

"So when I send us to the E.R. with chemical-burns, I'll blame it on you?" she smiled. She had a very pretty smile. Isaac couldn't help smiling back shyly.

"No, please don't," he smiled shyly. If he ended up in hospital, they'd see his bruises; his ribs were still healing, and there was a huge purplish-black bruise on his hip. Just the thought of… He swallowed hard and straightened out his notebook, noticing that hers was filled with incredibly pretty handwriting, the margins filled with doodles.

"You're Isaac, aren't you?" she said, and he glanced up, nodding. "Yeah, you're on the Lacrosse team."

"Yeah," Isaac nodded.

"Yeah," she smiled, offering her hand to shake, "I'm sorry I haven't…introduced myself before, I know our lockers are next to each other."

"It's cool," Isaac smiled shyly. "It must be kinda hard, trying to remember all these new faces."

"Yeah," she said, sighing softly, looking for a moment very sad. She hitched a subtle smile back on her lips. Trying to think of something to say to keep the conversation going, Isaac jumped a little as the classroom-door slammed, and Jackson and Lydia sauntered into the room, joined at the lips. All of a sudden, he felt very warm, sitting so close to Olive. He could tell how pretty her hair smelled, could count those tiny beauty-spots on her throat, saw that she kept her fingernails neatly filed and painted with clear polish. He rubbed his hands on his thighs, aware that his own fingertips were bruised and blackened. Swallowing nervously, he glanced at her.

"So… Where does your name come from?" he asked, actually curious; he'd known some Olivia's, two Liv's and a Livie in his school-career. But no Olives.

"Where?" she glanced at him, those fine-lashed green eyes widening inquisitively.

"I mean, Olive, it's…it's an old-fashioned name," Isaac blushed, hoping she didn't misinterpret and get offended.

"Well, it's not Biblical," she said, giving him a very warm smile. "My father's name was Oliver, I was named after him. It means 'peace'," she added softly.

"How come you don't go by Liv?" Isaac asked curiously.

"There aren't many Olives," she said softly, glancing at him.

"Usually it's 'Olivia'," he agreed, nodding.

"What about you, where does Isaac come from?" Olive asked.

"It was my grandpa's name," Isaac said, his stomach dipping slightly as he added, "My mom's father."

"It's a good name," Olive said, smiling, her eyes flicking over his face. Glad again he didn't have a black eye, nevertheless he jumped when Mr Harris appeared at the end of the table.

"Now, as I'm handing your latest homework assignments back, please take note of your grade; they reflect the grades you'd get if this was the fall midterm," Harris said, giving Olive a bright smile. "Excellent paper, Miss Royea." With a smile, Olive took the essay back from Mr Harris, carefully tucking it inside her notebook. Harris carefully passed Isaac his paper without comment, but the large red lettering on the front spoke for itself, and Isaac shivered as he looked at the grade, his excitement over sitting next to Olive, paired with her for an assignment, was cooled by the fear of what would happen when his father found out he'd received a D grade on his essay.

And he'd tried; he'd really tried on this one.

He tried on all of his homework and tests, because he knew what trouble he'd be in if he didn't do well.

He was in trouble all the time, just for breathing, but where he could, he tried not to give his dad any incentive to get angry. To punish him. Suddenly upset, he gritted his jaw, swallowing hard, and tried not to let on that his eyes were burning, desperation and anguish over a future punishment washing over him.

"Are you okay?" Olive asked gently, and Isaac started when a hand rested gently on his back, rubbing ever so subtly.

"Uh…"

"You didn't get the grade you wanted?" she asked quietly, green eyes taking in his features carefully.

"Uh… No," Isaac stammered softly. "No, not exactly."

"Well we'd better not get each other sent to the nurse's office during this lab, huh," Olive said coaxingly, smiling softly, and Isaac gave her a faltering smile.

Isaac was good with languages; he always had a high grade in French class. But the sciences? Chemistry was difficult. He hadn't even wanted to take Chemistry; he'd fulfilled the requirement for one science class for graduation; he'd received a B+ average in Biology last year, something he was quite proud of despite what his dad said. When everyone had received their essays back, Harris had them copy down notes and instructions for the day's lab, which they had preparing for all week and were now going to experiment with. Isaac couldn't help noticing how beautiful Olive's handwriting was; compared to his own scribbles, her notebook could have been put in the Uffizi.

"What do you think, have I got a future modelling chemistry eyewear?" Olive teased softly, glancing at Isaac as she donned a pair of protective goggles; Isaac smiled.

"Definitely," he smirked. They started to work on their experiment; he noticed how neat Olive was, carefully arranging each of the bottles and beakers in descending height order, labels out.

"Sodium Borate," Isaac frowned at his notes, carefully memorising the amount of liquid they needed to add for the next stage in the experiment, and picked up the bottle of coloured liquid, carefully pouring a measure of it into the beaker over the Bunsen burner. Picking up the glass stirrer, he sighed and started stirring the liquid.

"Whoa, easy!" Olive laughed softly, and Isaac jumped, swallowing; she had wrapped her fingers delicately around his wrist, stilling his hand. She was wearing her diamond serpent ring today, with a collection of incredibly delicate gold bracelets; one had a tiny gold wishbone dangling from it, another had a tiny silver bead, a hammered gold bar, and a gold infinity-loop. Her hand was warm, her skin soft, and he felt her thumb rub ever so slightly against his wrist. She smiled. "That glass beaker's made of…well, glass."

"I'm sorry," Isaac swallowed, licking his lips as he relinquished his hold on the stirrer.

"Early practice this morning?" Olive asked, as he kneaded his eyes. He glanced at her.

"Yeah, and not enough sleep," he said quietly, though he'd never tell her why he'd slept badly. "Maybe you should do it."

"So why didn't you get much sleep?" she asked, glancing at him as she took up the stirrer.

"Just…stuff," Isaac shrugged. "Homework. The internet."

"That's the biggest cause of sleepless nights, I hear," Olive smiled.

"What did you do last night?"

"Sat in Jim's Diner doing homework."

"That's where you do your homework?" Isaac raised his eyebrows at her. "It's so loud."

"Not if you stay late enough," Olive sighed. "I close the place out almost every night."

"Don't they close up at eleven?" Isaac frowned.

"Yep. Sometimes, after work, I'm not ready to go home just yet, so I go, and have dinner, and just…integrate with the rest of the Beacon Hills population," Olive sighed.

"Where do you work?" Isaac asked interestedly.

"The independent bookstore, by the bank," she smiled.

"On Fifth Street? You like to read a lot," Isaac observed, glancing at her. Olive smiled warmly.

"I do. Books love anyone who opens them," she said softly, sighing. "Whole worlds, universes, love-stories, they just…open right up, in a way no person ever could."

"Who's your favourite author?" Isaac asked. He should read more; but he liked BMX, lacrosse, and avoiding getting the shit kicked out of him by his dad.

"Now that's asking," Olive smiled. "I don't know. Different genres, different eras… I have lots of literary lovers." She chuckled.

"Name a few," Isaac smiled.

"Stephen King, Wodehouse, the Russians; Wodehouse, the Bronte sisters, Austen… I could read Charles Dickens all day," Olive smiled sweetly.

"So I take it you're excited we're doing Great Expectations in English Lit?" Isaac asked.

"Yes!" she beamed. "This year's syllabus is great. Dickens, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Tempest and William Blake. No Romeo and Juliet whatsoever."

"You don't like Romeo and Juliet?" Isaac raised his eyebrows again. "I thought all teenaged girls loved Romeo and Juliet."

"For tragic lovers, I prefer Wuthering Heights," Olive smiled. "My favourite Shakespeare play is A Midsummer Night's Dream…or All's Well That Ends Well."

"Yeah, I saw you with that huge Shakespeare book," Isaac said quietly, nodding.

"It was my grandfather's," Olive smiled. "My dad wanted me to have it."

"Family heirloom," Isaac chuckled softly.

"Yeah."

"Did your car belong to your dad?" he asked.

"My mother, actually," Olive grinned, and Isaac raised his eyebrows yet again, surprised. "She had a huge muscle-car phase when she was about my age; she'd read The Outsiders too many times."

"Oh, I know that book," Isaac said, smiling; he'd read it in eighth grade for a book-report. He'd identified with Johnny most of all.

"I'd definitely rather be a Greaser than a Soc," Olive said, in an undertone, as Jackson sauntered past, bumping their table so the bottles and beakers chinkled.

"I'm not so sure," Isaac said quietly. Jackson might be the biggest jerk in the entire West Coast, but his parents would never ever think of laying a hand on him to punish him. Especially when he'd done nothing to deserve it. Isaac didn't even care that Jackson drove a Porsche; he'd just be happy with a mom who made chocolate-chip cookies when he was sad, and let him have friends over and not humiliate him in front of them…

"Really?" Olive glanced at him, eyes inquisitive.

"I know in the book, Cherry says 'it's bad all over', but at least for the Socs, when it's bad, they're having their car-keys taken away for breaking curfew," Isaac said quietly, then clammed up, afraid he'd revealed too much.

"Or getting knifed," Olive said, and Isaac glanced at her. Yeah, he guessed that ass in the beginning of the novel had had it worst of all, but he'd deserved it. "Not that he didn't deserve it."

"Yeah," Isaac agreed, with a faltering smile. Clearing his throat, he asked curiously, "So where did you move from?" He wondered if her rich olive-toned skin was naturally that dark, or if she had lived somewhere where the sun was even more constant than this part of California.

"Arizona," Olive smiled, and for a second, she looked inexplicably happy.

"Why did your family move to Beacon Hills?" Isaac asked curiously. Her smile faltered, her green eyes darkening with emotion.

"Not…my family, it's…just me, now," she said softly. She sighed, eyes on her notebook, but she glanced up, eyes wide. "Don't say anything, please?"

Isaac frowned. "I wouldn't know what to say." Whatever she'd thought she revealed, he obviously hadn't picked up on it; she'd said it was just her… Did that mean she was living with extended family? A foster-home? That might explain why she didn't go straight home after work. Something he wished he could get away with doing.

The lesson ending, Isaac glanced at the clock, anxious to get to practice, and Olive checked the time, too.

"I didn't think this would take so long," she said; while everyone else cleared up their tables, they sat going over the last few details of their experiment.

"I don't mind. I like being at school when no-one else is," Isaac said quietly. When there was nobody actually in the halls, it felt less like he was being completely ignored. Even if people noticed his black eyes and caught a glimpse of a bruise if his t-shirt revealed his torso when he removed a sweatshirt, nobody commented on it; they believed his stories that he'd taken a hit during Lacrosse practice.

"Viscosity, elasticity and tensile strength. Anything else we need to cover? Besides our noses—this stuff is disgusting!" Olive said, pulling a face as she ran the beaker of green goo under her nose. "Okay, seriously, we could've saved all this time and energy by taking a sample of this from the floor in the boys' locker-room."

"How do you know this stuff grows in there?" Isaac smiled.

"Well, I have heightened senses, see," Olive smiled. "That, and I had to go and see the coach to hand in my results from my physical."

"What team are you on?" Isaac asked curiously.

"Well, it's not so much a team—I do gymnastics," Olive said, glancing at him.

"We had to do a few weeks of that last year," Isaac grimaced.

"It wasn't to your taste?"

"There was a lot of falling."

"I love falling," Olive said, her gentle voice rich with enthusiasm.

"Which is your favourite apparatus?"

"I love them all, but…the vault," Olive said thoughtfully.

"Where you run full-speed into an inanimate object?"

"That's the one," Olive chuckled. "Okay, and floor—lots of flips. And the uneven bars."

"That requires a lot of upper-body strength," Isaac remembered.

"Yep. I could take on any one of you lacrosse boys in an arm-wrestling competition, any day," Olive teased.

"It wouldn't be much of a competition with me."

"Oh no?"

"No, my arms have the strength of a toothpick."

Olive laughed. "I'm sure that's not true."

"Coach doesn't make me weight-train as much, because I never actually play," Isaac said, sadly. He loved being on the Lacrosse team; it was the only time in the day where he ever felt connected to anybody else in the entire world.

"I'll bet if you'd wanted to, you could've made first-line," Olive said, giving him a gentle, thoughtful smile. Isaac tried to smile back.

"Not with McCall," he said quietly, gazing at his notebook as Olive started clearing up their table. He didn't know where McCall had come from; he certainly hadn't been that good on the Freshman team; maybe he'd been training over the summer with Stiles. He had a best-friend to train with. He cleared his throat softly. "So, you and, um…you and Stilinski are pretty close."

"I guess," Olive said gently, wiping out their beaker into the trash, wrinkling her nose.

"You seem to be," Isaac said thoughtfully; he hadn't heard Olive laugh much, but when he had, it had always been around Stiles Stilinski, the Adderall-addicted ADHD kid who sat warming the bench just as he did. "Are you two…?" he swallowed, glancing shyly at Olive, whose eyes widened slightly.

"Oh!" she laughed softly. "No, we're just friends." She glanced at the clock again. "Hey, if you need to get to the locker-rooms to get ready for practice, I can clean up."

"Are you sure?" Isaac asked shyly, and she gave him a smile, nodding.

"Absolutely," she said, smiling. "Go. I've got this." Isaac packed up his things, biting his lip.

"So…we should probably…meet up to write the report," he said shyly.

"Oh, yeah," Olive smiled. "Well, um… I have gymnastics later tonight…actually, almost every night."

"I have work, too, after practice," Isaac nodded. "When are your free periods?" Olive tugged her schedule out of her backpack; it was unusually neat, compared to his own crumpled, scuffed one, which he tugged out of his pocket and unfolded. He noticed she was taking the obscure Classical Civilisations class, as well as AP Latin and Algebra 2; he was still on Geometry. They had no free periods at the same time.

"Okay, maybe…lunch?" Olive suggested, glancing at him, and Isaac flushed, nodding. "Tomorrow?"

"Yeah, that sounds…good," Isaac said shyly. Olive smiled.

"Good. I'll wait for you after English," she said warmly, and Isaac nodded. His week was looking up! For the first time in years, he'd actually be sitting with someone at lunch.

"Have a good time at gymnastics," he said quietly, and Olive beamed as he shouldered his bag, picked up his lacrosse stick and made his way toward the door. "Thanks, for…clearing up."

"You're very welcome," Olive smiled.

Her senses were heightened; and she could get impressions off of people.

Isaac Lahey had to be the most physically and emotionally battered kid she'd ever met; the incredible sense of fear and despair that had washed over him upon receiving his D-graded essay had hit her like a train. He had been so upset about it, somehow afraid of whatever it meant to him to receive that grade, his hands had been shaking, and he had gone white, almost crying with desperation. Despair.

But god was he cute.

Today was the first time she had ever heard him speak, at all. He was so painfully shy, she hadn't felt comfortable forcing him into conversation by saying hello every time they made eye-contact at their lockers, which was often. She didn't have to have heightened senses to feel Isaac's eyes on her; and she liked looking at him as much as he seemed to like looking at her. Of all the kids at Beacon Hills High, she found Isaac Lahey the most…enigmatic. Everyone else was so predictable, falling into the pre-designated cliques that had dominated high-schools since the 1950s.

But Isaac? The cute boy with incredible blue eyes, skinny but tall, without an ounce of self-confidence, could pass through an entire day without speaking or being addressed, by other students or even teachers. And nobody noticed. She would know; they had several classes together. And she loved to sneak glances at those pretty eyes, those lovely lips, wondering exactly how bad it was at home that he came to school every other day with a fresh bruise. Because she knew, from the impression she got from him, they weren't from lacrosse.

She cleared up the desk, putting away their equipment, washing out the beaker, and when she made her way out of the classroom, she tucked her earphones in, turning on her latest playlist, and went out to her car. She knew it was probably illegal to listen to earphones whilst driving, but being in cahoots with the Sheriff, sneaking him curly-fries whenever his son wasn't looking, had its payoffs. She didn't know how she'd gone so long without a Stiles in her life, but he had to be the most hilarious, out-there person she'd ever met, and with his obsession with eavesdropping on his father's business calls, his knowledge of the police code and his enthusiasm and bubbly personality, he made for an interesting friend.

Jamming her key into the ignition of her beautiful '67 Chevy Impala, she reversed out of her parking-spot and lurched out of the school parking-lot. She had to have dinner early before gymnastics practice later tonight; today was one of the few nights a week she didn't have work, and she enjoyed that thought, planning to come home after training to watch some television she hadn't caught up on yet, eat some contraband Ben & Jerry's and have a long bath.

There were things to living in Beacon Hills she hadn't realised she was going to be able to enjoy; long walks in the woods, the independent bookstore and watching Isaac Lahey during P.E. were three of those things. Making her way through a small tub of Ben & Jerry's little by little on the weekend was another, as was breakfast at Jim's Diner and…not having to try.

A small town like Beacon Hills meant certain things weren't appropriate; like mini-skirts, and there was a certain dress-code that went unspoken within small towns; red lipstick at school, showing your bra, ultra-fashionable outfits as seen on magazine editors, sheer tops and body-con dresses… It was like, and she hated the comparison, but she and a friend had laughed their asses off reading Twilight and New Moon, Rosalie Hale turning up at the small-town high-school prom in a down-to-there red gown, driving a hugely expensive red sports-car.

Here in Beacon Hills, Olive could get away with going seemingly bare-faced, limiting her makeup to toner and a little smudged brown eyeliner; she could wear jeans every day of the week, and nobody sneered if she wore another plain t-shirt. She had bought another pair of colourful Converse knock-offs because she loved being able to wear them, now having a fuchsia pair, a turquoise and a sunflower-yellow pair. Her last school had been…high-maintenance. And she had partied way too hard. The kids she'd been forced to befriend—and, in all honesty, had enjoyed spending time with—had been high-maintenance, and loved to party, so she had learned to as well.

But Beacon Hills was more at her speed. The kids she'd become friends with since moving here were…much more her speed. That wasn't to say she was a nerd, as Stiles jokingly called Scott; the actual term was that Scott had, by association, 'Scarlet-Nerded' him. Olive personally thought they were both as bad as each other, and it was flattering but untrue that she was now their bad-girl friend who drove an old muscle-car and lived out in a cabin in the woods.

It wasn't a long drive from school to her cabin, but it was a countryside road through the woods, a few of the trees touched with the barest hint of ochre and burning fuchsia, pumpkin-orange; it was going to be beautiful when the trees truly started to turn. She could remember this town from when she was a kid, coming to visit family-friends during the summer, mushroom-hunting in the fall; the thing she remembered most was being taught how to swim—the wolf-paddle, not the doggy-paddle.

Her little cabin stood in the midst of several old trees, including an ash, an oak and a beautiful horse-chestnut, a gentle slope going up behind the cabin, littered with dropped leaves, twigs; in the spring, she expected wildflowers. She had already heard hedgehogs at dusk, and caught sight of a badger and a few racoons on her late-night jogs. The porch had been littered with debris when she got here, the inside of the cabin dark, dreary, and she had spent a lot of time putting the cabin together just the way she wanted it. Now, a timeworn rocking-chair stood in front of the two windows of the dining-room overlooking the porch, while a cast-iron marble-topped little round table full of potting equipment was tucked in the far corner, and her favourite old Kokopelli wind-chime from home in Arizona dangled by the porch-steps; knowing there would be very little in there, she checked the mailbox attached to the wall by the door, delightedly surprised to find several letters, a parcel and a magazine inside.

Built in the 1860s, the cabin had been the favourite hunting haunt of her long-dead relatives, and if she had wanted, she could have moved into the Big House; there were no renters in there at the moment. But she had seen the cabin and fallen in love with its rusticity, its simplicity; she loved its character. Inside, she had removed several of the more traditional features of hunting-cabin décor, and started with a blank canvas. This was the first time she had ever had a home of her own; she had bounced from family-friend to family-friend for the last few years, but this cabin? This belonged to her, and nobody could take it from her. She had put a lot of thought into decorating it just the way she wanted, and given she'd only lived here a month or so, she was still touching things up, improving things, painting, putting photos up, making the place her own.

She watched a lot of television that gave her ideas for decorating her space; Gossip Girl, despite having horrid plots and dialogue, had sumptuous set-designs, and Pinterest, the bane of her existence, had lots of ideas for redecorating; combined, she had spent quite a while pulling together inspiration-boards for each area of the cabin. The downstairs was open-plan, except for the large bathroom and an equally-large storage-room, both on the left-side of the cabin; a floating staircase led up to the only upstairs room, her bedroom, and a little airing-cupboard for linens. The first room she had decorated was her bedroom; then the bathroom, and the downstairs was coming together, each different area—the kitchen; the dining-area; a desk for her homework and crafts; the living-area—a different theme that segued seamlessly into the other. She dropped her keys into the little hand-turned clay dish on the tiny occasional table inside the front-door, punting the door closed with her heel as she went through her mail. A Birchbox—the subscription her friend had gifted her for her birthday would run out in a few months—a copy of this month's National Geographic, and a letter from Arthur; she opened that first, everything else put on hold for the minute.

Still reading, she plugged her iPod into her small but powerful stereo on the inbuilt shelves to the left of the large fireplace, music issuing instantly from the two very large three-foot-tall speakers at either end of the living-area; tugging her sneakers off, she sank onto the cushioned piano-stool under the floating stairs, frowning as she read Arthur's letter, and after she had finished reading it, glanced up, taking in the trinkets arranged on top of the upright piano; one of her music-books open to a Chopin 'Nocturne'; three photograph frames neatly arranged with two candlestick holders; a shot-glass filled with seashells from Carmel when a seal had come up to her to say hello, and a trio of crackle-mercury mushrooms. The mushrooms had reminded her of Fantasia, and Fantasia always reminded her of Ruby, so she had them on the piano, because she had been taught to play on this piano by her stepfather.

Arthur's letter was a lot to take in, yet at the same time, wasn't anything she didn't already know. With regards to the contents of Arthur's letter, she hadn't come to Beacon Hills unprepared. She knew what was happening, even if nobody else would ever dream of it.

She folded the letter carefully, tucking it back in its envelope, and sighed, plucking at the knees of her jeans before squatting down, tearing up the faded pink and purple diamond rug covering the natural wood floor; she reached for the small ring attached to one of the short floorboards, lifting it carefully, and revealed a narrow cubby in the floor, filled with several different things, not least of them a sort of apothecary-box made of mountain ash that contained samples of every kind of monkshood in the world. She picked up a second box made of mountain ash; it was a small, hand-carved lockbox, and she stored the letter inside it, along with a previous three years' worth of unsealed, plain white stationery.

Her kitchen was tiny; there was no oven, but a narrow built-in white-tiled cabinet contained several drawers and a very large white porcelain basin under an old-fashioned window, and a tall, narrow cupboard to the left of it, containing the small refrigerator she had bought, with shelves containing a KitchenAid, a handheld blender and most of her mixing- and serving-bowls. On the perpendicular wall, she had used washable wallpaper that mimicked colourful antique tiles, and had brought in two tables, both narrow, wooden, with two small drawers apiece; the one on the left bore a thick chopping-board and a selection of rubber-seal jars and tins, a pot of utensils and a knife-block; the other contained a miniature oven on the lower-shelf, while a large twin-burner camping-stove stood on the top, with a removable cover. Around the whole kitchen-area, a shelf had been put up above a border of patterned bluish-purple tiles and, above the sink, a clothing-rail with hooks, and above the tables, a strip of white-painted wood containing lots of little hooks. The shelves contained her glasses, jugs, measuring-cups, bottles of vinegar and sauces; the hooks bore her saucepans, whisks, colanders and cooking utensils.

A friend had recommended she watch Rachel Khoo's Little Paris Kitchen, and she had taken her inspiration for the rudimentary kitchen straight from her home; though the door of Olive's cupboard was painted with navy chalkboard paint. A third narrow table created a sort of corner for the kitchen-area, with two woven-seated chairs, creating a sort of island breakfast-bar where she could knead her dough for fresh bread (or clay, for her food miniatures) that led to the dining-area under the huge window overlooking the porch and the woods.

She was preparing dinner for herself when suddenly something came barrelling into the room.

"Stiles!"

"Hey!"

"Don't you ever knock?"

"Uh, no," Stiles stammered, wide-eyed, and he glanced over his shoulder as something heavy and incredibly pale lurched through the doorway.

"Derek?"

A.N.: Please review. I was uncertain where to start with this fic, but I thought introducing Olive from pre-bite Isaac's perspective might be a nice change to having Scott or Stiles fall head over heels for her as soon as she steps foot in school. So this is an Isaac-OC fic, in case you didn't realise, and I'll be charting the story through until the end of season two, with changes made due to Olive's personal history and her friendship with Stiles. And now that I've finished writing this chapter, I can get back to writing Pleiades!