Jillian unlocked the front door and slung her suitcase into the living room, where it skidded across the floor and bounced off the couch, closed the door behind her and relaxed into Paragon shape. Her confusion over the closure had wiped the other emotions from her mind for the time being, but the shift was a relief anyway. She usually didn't have a strong preference for one shape over the other—each was useful for different things—but she'd spent most of the semester human and by the end it had begun to wear on her, enough that she'd changed a couple times during her study even though it risked scaring off her subjects. No doubt there was already an irritable email in her inbox about it.
She stretched out along the couch, wings spread so they brushed the living room's walls—this place wasn't really designed for someone her size, but there hadn't been much choice in the matter—and nudged the suitcase with her nose. Really she ought to unpack as soon as possible or she'd never do it, but there was something that felt wrong about that. Something about how it felt like assuming to go and put her things in the bedroom like she
belonged here, because even if she'd moved in at the end of last semester she'd barely lived here any time at all and Willa wasn't exactly used to her presence. In fact something in her almost believed she'd forgotten—
The door opened. She could still see a little in this form, light and shadow mostly, a little color; but there was only one person it might be so she didn't bother to look. She said, "Hi. Some kind of incident at work? I noticed you had the closed sign up."
"No," Willemina said. Well, her tone said
Of course not, but then she always managed to sound like she was saying something you should have already known, whether she meant to or not. "But since you were going to be home today I didn't want to be distracted by anything, and even if I put Scott in charge something always comes up and I have to give disenchanting directions over the phone at the hardware store. It was easier to close."