Wordcount: 804
Summary: In which, the Writer complains about the plot of The Wolves We Are and Christopher points out it’s all her fault, but helps fix it anyway.

NOTE: This is a MuseFic in which the Writer, the Muse, and her fictives work to create the rough draft of a story (or just worldbuild). There will be spoilers for the story being drafted, which will most likely contain plot holes, retcons, and other inconsistencies.

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The Writer was curled up on her couch with a cat, two dogs, and a laptop. Her yet-another-werewolf fictive was on the floor petting the third dog who was Being Awesome as only boy corgis can be.

“I can’t figure out why this story isn’t working.” The Writer sighed, glaring at the draft of The Wolves We Are, “I actually outlined the plot and everything.”

“Maybe that’s because the plot doesn’t make sense.” Christopher said, skritching the corgi behind the ears. The fictive’s hair couldn’t decide if it was going to be sandy brown or black, finally settling on a dark brown with only occasional blond flickering.

“It does too!” The Writer objected, “I made up index cards and background motivations and–“

“And it’s not working.” Christopher looked up from the Totally Awesome Corgi, “Right?”

The Writer glared for a moment and then sighed. “Right, but why?”

“Okay, rough sum-up of what you have so far: twenty years ago the first alpha was dragged off and tortured into renouncing kinship. Said alpha, now human, joins the pack of hunters that kidnapped him and plays merry havoc with the pack to the north in the interim. Then, captured by the pack when they wipe out the pocket of hunters, he’s send south to kill off the new alpha, with the promise of renewed kinship vows if he succeeds.”

“Seems a plausible motivation to me,” the Writer said as the cat wandered over to sit on her laptop. “Hey, I need that, get’off.”

“Plausible, but unrealistic.” Christopher shoed the other two dogs off the couch and sat down, scooping up the attention seeking cat. “First of all, twenty years is nothing to werewolves, but it’s a heck of a long time for a human. It’s unrealistic to think he’d be actively fighting alongside the hunters that long.

Secondly, it’s not long enough for werewolves to have forgotten about him. As the area’s ‘problem solver’ I’d be well aware not only of his apparent death but also of the hunters that were bugging the northern pack. I’m really not that bad at my job.

Third, you’re asking us to believe that the northern wolfpack wouldn’t recognize the scent of the southern pack’s missing alpha until they have him in custody. And fourth, that his own pack wouldn’t recognize his scent when he was lurking in the area.”

“Where were you when I was plotting the first time?” complained the Writer, shuffling through her index cards trying to find another way to sort things out. “Damned plot holes.”

“Hey, don’t blame me for your lack of MuseFic,” Christopher objected, “so how are you going to fix this?”

“Well, let’s see,” the Writer frowned, “the Hunters are empowered by the Silverwitches—”

“Of which there are none.”

“—of which there are few. So we know that the Silverwitch from Mira’s story could slow her aging using the silver, so let’s imbed that as one of the hunter medallion’s powers. So we could bump back the alpha’s capture by, hmm, quite a bit actually. Meg has been living there thirty years or so, but nothing said she had to have been there when the first alpha was around.”

“Roughly forty years would probably do it,” Christopher said, “I’ve been here less than that, per my backstory, so I’d have heard about it, but it would have been under the last problem solver’s watch.”

“And his ‘death’ was setup to look like an accident, so it wouldn’t have kept their attention for very long.” The Writer rearranged the index cards and scribbled some notes in bright green marker. “Now we’re down to why they don’t recognize him.”

“You could put a Somebody-Else’s-Problem field in the medallions, I suppose.” Christopher leaned over to look at the notes. “Hunters are only human, so it would be pretty hard to keep us from simply wiping them out. Silverwitches can fight back directly, but Hunters are forced to use ambush tactics—that could have masked his identity.”

“This is going to be one heck of an infodump.” The Writer looked over her scribbles, “I wonder how much I can leave out and have people infer from other baron’verse stories.”

“Since there aren’t any other stories yet— not much.”

“Dammit.”

“Hey, you’re the one that wanted to write something longer than flash fiction and more coherent than a NaNo novel. I’m just the ficitive.”

“Yeah, well next time you see Giant Plot Holes of Doom, do something other than derailing the story with witty banter- eh?”

“I plead the fifth.”

“Yeah, you and Theo both, now gimme the cat—I have stories to draft.”

Christopher handed the cat over who happily settled into her customary shoulder-cat position, peering down at the screen and offering helpful commentary. Mostly in the form of ‘needs more cats.’

And lo, there was story.