"Chapter 2- Into the Moonlight" by Elsa E. Sjunneson (aka Raven S. Silverwing)

Chapter 11: The Jury is Back

We walked into the courtroom, Dolph and I, to discover that the entire room was filled, people were standing in the aisle, we had to "excuse me" our way to the prosecution seat before the judge came back into the room. We did the sitting and standing thing and then the jury filed back in.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury" the judge said, I had gone white as a snow "do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?"

A man dressed in a grey suit with a blue tie stood up, he looked suspiciously like Regis Philbin.

"We find the defendant guilty on the charge of first degree attempted murder"

Color didn't rush back into my face... it went even whiter. My world started to blur, and slowly but surely voices began to fade and my world fell to black. The last things I saw or heard were Dolphs smirking face, and the cheers of everyone around us.

********************************

I awoke about an hour later in my bed at home, everything was quiet, and I was thankful for that. A boquet of flowers sat by my bed, a letter from the rest of the pack attached to it. I smiled gently and read the card before turning onto my side. I had never thought that I would win the case. I thought I'd muddle through the case and then lose it, but to no great loss. at least they'd be exposed for some better lawyer to decide how to deal with them. However I had won... Oh I had won... The look on Harborveiws face had been, I'm sure, a treat to see. I wondered how everyone was doing and what they were doing. My thoughts turned to Dolph, I wondered what he and the rest of the pack were doing at this moment. Probably celebrating. I could barely imagine what would happen next.. our pack was famous.. how could we continue being the quiet little werewolf pack that we were? Everything would change. And of course, as I thought, it did.

But before we go any further, I ought to give some backround into my friendship with these people, because it is obvious that I had knownWhen I was them for some time before I had been bitten. When I was fourteen I had discovered the fine art of RPG, and had decided that I should do it. My friends became my RPG friends. At school I had always been a bit of a lone wolf (no pun intended) and had never really had many friends... but I did have one thing that I loved. Theatre, and so RPG fit right into my interest zone. Dolph, Kitia, Sharra, Violet, and Chasti were all my rpg friends. We had enjoyed good times and bad times together, I had talked to all of them on the phone at least once, and we all knew each other really well. However my slightly scary past had begun to emerge, and the fact was, I needed help. I was a terrified child, death scared me beyond anything else. My father had died on my at eight, and my mother hadn't lived with me for at least four years. I lived with my grandparents in Seattle, and then Salem Oregon. Finally, at the time when this story takes place, I was living in San Diego. Do;ph lived in San Diego too, my grandparents had just never let me meet him. They didn't like the idea of me meeting someone from online. Even though I had rationalized and everything, they still didn't like it.. But back to our more interesting story.

Chapter 12: May the werewolves meet Good Morning America?

Dolph knocked on my door three days later. I had been doing a bit of homework when I heard the sound of that dangerously familliar voice shouting

"Rhiannon we have trouble!"

I got up from my desk and slowly walked to the door, not really wanting to know why we had trouble, but supposing that I needed to know at any rate. I opened my door and looked at him.

"What the matter Mr. Rudolph Silver?" I replied, looking slightly miffed.

"Uh...have you ever thought of being on TV?" he asked with an uncertain smile. and a very nervous chuckle.

"No, actually I hadn't thought of that... why?" I replied, now becoming even warier than I had been of this "news' that he had.

"The Media has heard about our case and a 15 year olds win of a case... you're wanted on Good Morning America with the rest of the cast tomorrow, and Oprah wants you and I on her show.. Regis Philbin wants us on Who Wants to be a Millioaire and its a bit frightening to think of it... werewolves on modern tv... "

I shuddered as I let him into my apartment. My eyes getting wider with each name.

"So they want.. us... on tv.... Bloody hell.. thats not good... " I mumbled

"No its not.. got any coffee? I could use it" he asked. I pointed to the counter. I had moved out of my grandparents house just after my 16th birthday. I had decided I seriously needed some freedom. So my family paid for my upkeep and I lived on my own. We sat down at my table and looked over the many invitations that we had for different tv shows and such.

"Which should we go on? I refused Ricki Lake, Jerry Springer, and Jenny Jones already.. thinking that it would be a really stupid idea to go onto those shows."

"Yeah it would, but it'd be funny at least" I commented dryly.

"That is also, quite true." He replied.

"So your mums in the tv and film business what would she say... "

"Gah... I'm thinking the safest to do is Oprah and Millionaire. That way we won't get completley run over by freaks. If we were to go on Good Morning America we'd have to.. HEY Larry Kings on our list"

"Yeah but listen to this... Our contract says "appearances on the full moon only" so I dunno.. you want to tell them what the difference between us and other werewolves is dear girl?"

"why not? it'd be fun!"

"You;re sure about Oprah then?"

"Yep, Positive."

"Alright then... cause I'm going to call today... "

The motto of this story as I should probably put it... never get involved with the media, espescially talk shows.

Chapter 13: Jerry Springer, Oprah, and Good Morning America

As we entered the backstage of the Jerry Springer show, Dolph nervously watched everything going on. Then we all got dragged off to have makeup put on. Just as we walked onstag,e, Dolph took my hand and pulled me back for a moment.

"I just wanted to warn you that this might get nasty." With that he did something that he’d never done before. He kissed me on the forehead. Kitia looked quite floored. So we walked onstage of Jerry Springer and took our seats. Mr. Springer nodded to us all and then we heard "Rolling!" shouted from backstage.

"Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to the Jerry Springer Show, I’m your host Jerry Springer and tonight we have some very special werewolves on the stage. They are the famous pack that went to court with the hunters that tried to kill them. Here we have Miss Rhiannon Wing and Mr. Rudolf Silver, the heads of the pack, with Miss Violet Lister, Miss Kitia Sarrasti, Miss Chasti Burroughs, and Miss Sharra Worthing. First of all I have a question for you about your names, how did you get such unusual names?" Jerry asked turning to us.

I decided to speak up since he seemed to be looking at me.

"We all have imaginative parents I guess. My father was Irish and he wanted to name me after his favorite legend. Rhiannon of the Birds. I’ve turned out to be Rhiannon of the Wolves. Least that’s what the newspapers are calling me" I commented gently.

" I was named after Rudolf Steiner, he invented the school sytstem that I and Rhiannon both went through." Dolph soon put in. The others just had the explanation "My parents were insane"

Jerry just went for this vein of asking us questions about our backrounds and such, but then he asked a question that made our hair stand on end.

"So Rhiannon, I suppose as the head of the werewolf pack you and Rudolf here are dating?"

The entire pack growled.

"To be precise sir. No. We’re just close friends. He’d probably be accused of statutory rape if we were dating sir." I answered sharply. This was the one thing I would not stand for.

"Of course." Jerry replied.

Just then something furry came into my left field of vision. It was Dolph shifting into werewolf form. Soon the audience was screaming "jerry Jerry jerry… " Until they suddenly noticed that Jerry was surrounded by 4 very angry werewolves. Dolph, Sharra, Kitia, Violet and Chasti. I had not net shifted.

"If I weren’t a law abidng citizen and a damn good pagan I’d bite your head off!" He snarled. Jerry looked petrified. I sat there thinking about how amused I was to see this picture sitting in front of me, when I also noticed that three of the security "Bouncers" were inching up on Dolph with pistols.

"DOLPH!" I screetched, shifting werewolf and leaping at one of the guards, snarling ferociously.

The guards backed off. So did the audience. Everyone began running out of the theatre, we shifted human and walked out of the soundstage. Disgusted by out treatment. Now, it was time for Oprah. But Oprah would not come until my Junior year. Sophmore year was filled with intervieiws and getting ready to take the SATs. Then, my day of glory came.

The day we had shooting for Oprah, I dressed in a nice little sky blue dress, with Dolph in his usual t-shirt and pants. Neither of us looked formal, neither of us wanted to. We were the only ones from the pack on this show. It was something of a personal interveiw.

So when we walked into this soundstage, we were greeted very warmly by the hostess of the show, and a few of the other guests. A mythologist, a biologist, and one of my teachers. George McQyill was my Irish Gaelic teacher, as well as my theatre teacher. I adored this man because he was able to take me seriously. Sonething most of my teachers didn’t care for much.

"Rhiannon, top of the morning to ye.. " George began.

"And the rest of the day to yersekf sir!" I cried with a perfect Irish accent. Dolph chuckled and walked over.

"To whom do I owe the plreasure of meeting dear Rhiannon?" Mr. McQyill asked, a smirk on his face.

"This is my dear friend Dolph Silver. Dolph this is…. " I was cut off by Dolph saying something.

"Mr. McQyill, what a pleasure to see you again. I haven’t seen you since my days at the Waldorf School!" Dolph said with a grin.

"Well well.. if It isn’t Rudolf Silver…. How is your younger brother fairing? I left the school last year.. so I never had the pleasure of teaching him." Mr. McQyill asked with a slight Irish accent to his voice.

"My brother fairs well. He’s rather sad to have missed you, but if I were you I shant have missed him." Dolph replied with a rogueish grin. I just laughed, Dolphs brother, :Ledbetter, was another of the strain of gentlemen who were a bit odd. The difference was that Ledbetter was evil, and Dolph wasn’t. Wait.. let me take that back.. Dolph IS evil. Just in a different way.

I enjoyed watching the reunion of my two friends, before we were all ushered onto the stage, and we took our seats. Yet again, Dolph looked slightly protective of me, as if he didn’t want anything bad to happen to me and he was going to protect me to the best of his ability.

I myself had my own worries, I was going to be asked things that I probably didn’t want to answer, but before I had time to think, Oprah came onstage and opened the show.

"Hello everyone, and welcome. Today I have a story that will make everyone here remember their childhood friends, and then remember their mythology. Best friends since they first met, Rudolf Silver and Rhiannon Wing were students at the same school for many years. Never meeting until Rhiannon met him online. They became fast friends and wanted to meet, but their schedules clashed constantly. Finally one day, very recently in fact, they met on a road in Oregon and joined the same pack of werewolves. At this point, Rhiannon is now.17 and Rudolf is an age that I can’t quite place."

"22." Dolph replied with a smirk.

"At any rate. Rudolf and Rhiannon have become quite famous because they are werewolves of a very special kind. They are out, and they are ready to fight the discrimination that is placed upon them. Werewolves have always been considered to be the bad guy, and when Rhiannon was 15, she fought for their right to not be assaulted. She won her case. Now she is in her Junior year of High School and plans to finish and go to college and then on to Law School. Mr. Silver is another story entirely. Finishing his college years, he is going on to Medical School this upcoming schoolyear. The two of them are very ambitious. But nobody in their right mind would stop them. Nobody in their wrong mind would either." Oprah finished her opening and then the camera came onto us all.

"So Rhiannon, what are your plans for Law school?" she asked with a smile.

"I haven’t really got any at present. I’ve been thinking about criminal law, since I did so well in my first case. But there is also another type of law that interests me…" I replied softly, my eyes scanning the audience.

"Oprah, shall we get on with the werewolf stuff.. That is why we are here." Dolph intejected politely.

"Oh of course.." she replied. "So what exactly was it that drew you to werewolves?" she asked.

"We weren’t drawn to them, they were drawn to us. When we understood the proper information, I was bitten. I bit her, she uh.. asked for it." Dolph smirked.

"Did she now? How exactly do you ask to be bitten? ‘Bite me’?" Oprah laughed along with the rest of the audience.

"Actually, thtats what I said, and I did indeed get bitten." Rhiannon replied.

Dokph was fighting uncontrollable laughter.

"Well… that’s certainly interesting.." Oprah said. Looking rather confused. So our interview went with Oprah, we confused her, she asked questions that we thought were stupid.

Chapter 14: Closing Statements.

There are more tales of my life to be told. As I sit here in my office looking out the window waiting for Dolph to come pick me up from work, t can’t help but think about the four year fiasco that shaped my life… of course that comes much much later, after law school, after Dolph and I… Well you can probably guess the outcome of that my dear reader. I don’t need to explain. My cublings are in elementary school, my law practice is one of the most presigious in the country. What else could I want?

Ah.. I know… I want to go back to the Oregon woods, with the crystallized crunch of new snow under my feet and the sound of owls, wolves and small children in the distace. I want to see the moon at night again, under the stars and the tops of the trees. That is what I could want. And so ends the tale of the Werewolves… for now