25th March, 1891 — Skeeter Home, Bartonburg

How she had gotten away with it at Christmas Morwenna would never know but Mason was home for the Easter holidays and there was very little she could do to conceal the fact that in the next half an hour or so she would need to excuse herself. There was a possibility, however slim, that she might be able to feign illness - she certainly looked peaky enough after last night - and sneak down to the cellar, soundproof the room and pray Mason didn't try to check on her at any point before dawn.

But then it would never end. Or he would find out in the worst possible way, see her at her worst and Morwenna wasn't sure her heart could endure that. This was better. This had to be better. If only she could find the words.

"There's something I need to tell you," she said, more or less out of nowhere as they sat drinking tea in the sitting room. Morwenna would have preferred to wait until her son had had chance to settle into his old home but from her armchair she could see the blazing orange glow of sunset diminishing in the sky and she knew there was only so much time left. "And I warn you now dear you're not going to like it."

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Mason Skeeter | @"Elsie Beauregard"

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MJ knows my soul rings to the rune of this iconic hat

Truly relieved to be home for the Easter break, Mason was relishing in the time off from both the students and the grading. Ugh the grading, it was honestly the worst part of the job. Mason enjoyed the lesson planning and the teaching, working with the students to better their skills and understanding. He enjoyed watching them grow as both students and humans, but marking their work was just tedious.

Eyeing his mother carefully from his perch across from her in the sitting room, Mason rather felt either she looked like she was coming down with something, or was on edge for another reason altogether. Her announcement that she had to tell him something didn't quite come as a surprise, as she seemed poised for such, however he wasn't sure about how she said it.

Mason quirked a curious eyebrow in her direction over the teacup he'd just lowered from his lips, "Mother?" He questioned slowly, sitting up a little straighter for some reason.

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magic by MJ the magnificent

It was now or never, she decided. If she waited any longer she would either need to make her confession while chained up in her own cellar – which would probably scare him more than the transformation itself – or she would chicken out and never gather her nerve again.

She stared at him for a long moment, unspeaking, trying to memorise the look on his face in these, the last moments that he would look at her simply as his mother and not as a lying monster from children’s nightmares. He looked confused but caring and she felt a tear beginning to form.

“For a few years now there’s been a…a…change in me that I’m sure you must have noticed,” she began, turning her gaze away to instead stare into her teacup. Perhaps the leaves were telling her to stop and she didn’t even know? She had always thought of divination as nonsense but at this point any excuse was a potential way out of this horrible moment.

“Quite a drastic change and one that I have been trying to keep from you.”

  

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MJ knows my soul rings to the rune of this iconic hat

Mason had noticed a little decline in her health over the last couple years, but she was as stubborn as the night was long, so he'd chosen not to comment least he get glared at.

"You should know you can tell me anything, Mother." It had been the two of them for just as long time now, they didn't have much choice. Mason was however, a little apprehensive about what it was she thought she had to keep from him for years.

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magic by MJ the magnificent

Could she? Her son was the very best of men with a kindness and compassion that astonished her at times; quite where he had gotten his easy-going nature from, she did not know, but she did know that no such trait could be levelled at her door.

Would she take this sort of news in her stride?

Yes, she thought. She would it if was Mason. Hopefully the same was true of him. But how did one simply say such a thing? Elinor had been different – she had guessed based on evidence but it felt tremendously awkward to just say the words aloud, and not a little bit devastating.

“A few years ago, just before I became the head of department actually, I was…I was bitten.” Morwenna took a healthy gulp of brandy and immediately deduced that she would need more. “By what I thought, at the time, was a wolf,” she topped up the glass. “It wasn’t.”

  

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MJ knows my soul rings to the rune of this iconic hat

Watching her carefully, Mason, could not have expected what came out of her mouth next.

Bitten. By a wolf, at the time.

So not a normal wolf.


"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" He said quietly, calmly. The news was shocking, of course it was, but she had waited years to tell him. Mason digested the news slowly. His mother was a werewolf. If she hadn't been terrifying before, she very well was now.

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magic by MJ the magnificent

Despite all the times Morwenna had thought about how Mason would respond she had not been prepared for the actual response: unceasing calm. It was far more unnerving than if had had become furious with her, or if he had immediately left the house intending to never cross its threshold again.

She closed her eyes to keep the tears from forming, let alone falling. The very last thing she deserved at the moment was any pity and she certainly owed him the truth without letting her emotions cloud the situation.

“I didn’t know how,” she admittedly plainly. “It always felt like I’d be telling you for my benefit, not for yours, and I didn’t want to put that burden on you.”

  

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MJ knows my soul rings to the rune of this iconic hat

Didn't want to burden him. Mason nearly rolled his eyes at that, but thought better of it, lest he earn himself a swift smack to the back of the head. "We're a team, you and I, it's been just us for a long while. We need to be on the same page." Mason was still eerily calm, perhaps a little bit from shock.

"Does anyone else know?" He wasn't sure if she had registered with the ministry or not, but something told him no and he would respect whatever choice she had made. Obviously she was smart enough to be careful during full moons and secure herself away, otherwise this would have come out much, much sooner.

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magic by MJ the magnificent

For a moment Morwenna considered lying – it felt like a further betrayal to admit that she had told others before her son, but she doubted it would do much good at this point to carry on deceiving her son. What made it tricky is that he knew Nora and would likely have to have an awkward conversation with her at some point in the future. (It also made it incrementally less likely that he would ever consider courting a girl who had kept his mother’s secret but that was not worth worrying about at the moment.)

“Nora guessed. She sees me every day and has a sharper mind that most of my staff,” she admitted, unable to resist a small jab at her department’s expense even now. “And there’s a young man in London who has managed to avoid being found out by the Ministry so far,” partly because of her influence, partly his own cunning. “Though he’s far from dangerous,” Morwenna added, as though she could be sure of any such thing.

As though she wasn’t the worst kind of dangerous herself – the kind that didn’t believe it herself.

“I’m as safe as I can be, I promise.”

Mason Skeeter| Elsie Kirke
I'm so, so sorry! Feel free to wrap this up fast and next time I will not be a screw up...I hope

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MJ knows my soul rings to the rune of this iconic hat