Hoa - female, age 17, 'gifted' with magical sight but not a witch (her name is pronounced 'wah')

Nero - male, age 17, pyrokinetic wizard (half blooded)

Hoa came from a sedate Korean family, the kind that her friends enjoyed watching just for the weirdness value of a foreign culture in action. She was always artistic, always thinking, doodling on her jeans (which made her mother angry in that Korean-mom way, a lot of bluster but rarely any true consequences), pretending that sharpies were tattoo guns. She had one older sister and one younger brother, and was content to be the middle child so long as everyone left her to her own devices.

Nero ... Nero. Was aptly named though he didn't know it, had never known his father except that he had abandoned him and his mother. Nero's mother was, for lack of a better word, a raging zealot. She did not tolerate hooliganism or cursing, or in fact art or much creativity at all in her house. So much so that when Nero's elementary school was going to visit an art gallery nearby, she refused to let her son go on the trip for fear that they would be showing him 'heathen naked sculptures' and the like.

That the museum in question had a 'Religious Paintings of the 14th Century' exhibit there as well seemed to mean nothing to her.

Hoa and Nero had grown up near one another, but only when they were at school did they get to interact freely. Nero had to be back home immediately following classes, and his mother who had to work (hard she claimed, doing what -Nero didn't know) called him at his house every day at the same time. Should he not answer... there would quite literally be Hell to pay for it.

Nero attended Church every Sunday, though he wasn't really paying much attention even as a child. Hoa's family was loosely Catholic as well, but hardly would have gone to the same Church as Nero's mother. By the time the pair were in Junior High together, they were old enough to have managed to sneak away from school once in a while just so Nero could enjoy things like other kids.

And frankly, even when they were caught, the truant officers usually waved them off because they'd encountered Mrs. Bowden before. One of them commented (mysteriously to the kids, because neither had seen it) that she was rather a lot like the mother in Carrie, only a little less flakey. Had Mrs. Bowden known that her son was associating with 'foreigners' like Hoa and her family, she might have clamped down and home-schooled the boy.

It was when Nero turned thirteen that something started to happen. Hoa noticed it, but didn't comment while anyone was around. His brown eyes had turned rather red, slowly over the summer. That, and when he allowed his temper to flare, he seemed to actually smolder. His hands began to show an odd side effect, which even he was concerned over, that he had blisters form quite frequently.

Hoa would take a quick look around the class, to see if anyone else was noticing the effects, when he was bothered by a particularly tough math problem. But it looked like no one else in the class had seen, or perhaps they were too involved with their own work. This went on for the first few weeks of 8th grade, and into their first break session.

"My mom isn't going to let me go to camp, I mean, I haven't even bothered asking. She'll come up with something weird like 'there are demons out there and you'll get bitten by one' or something," Nero muttered, as they came to the corner where Hoa would turn left and Nero turned right. "I'd still like to go, but there's just no way."

"It's not fair," Hoa said, biting her lip and blinking at him with her big black eyes. "But I know, she'd get too worried. I mean... I wish she'd let you try out for baseball, I know you'd be better at it than those jock idiots."

Nero laughed, they knew it all too well - the boys that had tried out for their baseball team this year were slow, and even in their coach's opinion they should have gone for football instead. But Nero would have to endure both the next two weeks as well as any given afternoon alone: the school camping program would have Hoa out with five dozen others in the nearby camping grounds in the mountains, and even though he had a little more freedom in the afternoons knowing that his studies might keep him at school an extra hour or so, he wasn't allowed to try out for games and sports, nor other activities.

He was good at almost all of them. Chess, debate, basketball, even leatherworking and the like. But his mother insisted on having him home before she got there from work, and that meant the "five o'clock call" every time. "Why can't I just get a cell phone," he muttered, digging his hands into his deep pockets, and making Hoa pout for him.

"It'll be all right. I don't suppose it would be too cool if I called you from camp, huh?"

Nero laughed out loud, "no, no way! Not only would you be a girl calling me, but you'd be breaking camp rules too! You're supposed to be out in the 'middle of nowhere' for that!"

"Pff, nowhere's for nobodies." Hoa looked at the sky, it would be a nice two weeks, Summer was lingering and Fall hadn't quite bitten into their California locale just yet. They were near the central Valley, but along some strip of mountains that frequently got ignored. They were already in the middle of nowhere, to hear Hoa's sister complain about it. But Hoa, holding out her phone for emphasis, looked at her hand and then at Nero.

"But... if you had a phone... you could set it on 'vibrate' and she'd never hear it..."

"But you don't have an extra phone, do you?"

"My brother just got his taken away," Hoa said, "he was being a dick."

"Your folks'll notice it's missing," he said, glum.

"No, not if I just tell them why I need it," Hoa said. "Look, your mom's a nutter, but mine isn't. They know I hang out with you, if I can get you the phone I'll show you how to use it, and you can keep it somewhere safe. And if she finds it, well, then I'll get to talk to her when I call you."

Nero stood there, dumbfounded, and blinking. If Hoa didn't know better - and at this point she wasn't sure she did - she'd say he was steaming. She jumped over to him, glomped him for a moment, and then sped down the street to her house. Nero stood still, continuing to blink, as his hair sizzled.

***

The next day, Friday, was when the students who were able were headed out to the camp. They had bundled up their stuff, some with full on backpacking equipment but most with a sleeping bag and a rucksack or two (and one or two with expensive luggage that they complained would get dirty), and were waiting on the curb for the busses which would take them up into the hills.

The camp wasn't very far into the mountains, in fact it was a reasonably nice tourist destination when the other more popular places were full up for the season. There was a lake, complete with fishing and innertubing and rapids, kayaking and the like; it also had a nice set of timeshare cabins, those were being used by the school for the next couple weeks.

Hoa stood nervously and waited for Nero, he had to convince his mother that he'd forgotten something at school and needed it before his first class, so he bolted out of the house and was panting by the time he reached the school. Several busses were pulling up - they didn't have much time.

Hoa explained the basics, and switched the little buzzer to 'off', so it would only make a gentle and almost imperceptable humming vibration. It would be so different from anything he'd ever heard in his own bedroom, that Nero was positive he would recognize it. She showed him the phone list, should he need someone else to talk to, and how to contact her on her own phone. This one, her brother Tai's, had a "Dragonball Z" logo on it, while hers, well, Hoa had gone through several white plastic holders, drawn on all of them, and started selling them to other students.

Finally, they had to part, and Nero went to class. About an hour later, he felt a weird sensation in his back pocket - the phone. It was just between classes, perfectly timed, and it was of course Hoa trying out the system. He figured out how to answer, she was already bored, they laughed nervously and hung up.

The weekend came achingly slow, Nero took the typical ribbing from the sports-jocks and slipped away alone this time. It felt odd to him, because he and Hoa had walked together for so long. He realized that ... well, he wasn't old enough for that. He couldn't be. But...

But she was pretty. Prettier than her sister, and most of the girls in their age group. She held herself with simple style and grace, she didn't fuss about herself like some other girls. Nero was a little angry that he had never complimented her.

As he walked home alone, sullenly, he realized that she was always there with a big grin or a quick snarky remark, a buffer between the rest of the world and his miserable life. He'd never missed anyone so much, as Hoa on the first afternoon without her.

***

He had to find a reasonably good place to hide the phone, while he was at home. He thought about just leaving it on the desk - but he knew perfectly well that his mother would find it and toss it, or yell at him and make him sit and pray for an hour.

Not like she didn't already do that. He schleped himself home and answered the "five o'clock", his mother either didn't notice or didn't comment that he was somewhat subdued and quiet. She'd be home in an hour and a half, as always.

So in that time, he busied himself, and found a spot fourth-drawer-down, far back corner under the raincoat bag, it was folded up and unused until the Winter, so it wouldn't be a place that his mother would go digging until then. He'd never given her any reason to root through his stuff - but she did it anyway, on random occasions.

Sometimes at one in the morning, sometimes just before leaving for work. But the phone stayed there, he'd hear it easily because the side of the dresser was right next to his bed. He would bring it to school on Monday. He dearly hoped that Hoa would call. While he was waiting for his mother to come home and the inevitable prayers and lecturing, Nero studied and then did his chores. They were busywork, nothing more: dusting? There was no dust, ever. He broke out the vacuum and was in the middle of the hallway when his mother got home. And this time, she was actually even smiling when she saw her son diligently at work.

So that night went well. Nero had told Hoa all about his daily schedules at home, and she kept track of them somehow - her brain was squirmy like that. She knew whether they were going to have salad or rice, or if he had to clean the oven. Truth be told his mother was uninventful enough that she had kept to the same schedule of normal events all her life, and was not going to be put off from them now.

Obviously, Sunday morning was not the time for Hoa to call. But she called late in the evening, the first time she could really get away from the camp counceling and activities. They wouldn't take away phones, but they didn't encourage any down time to use them.

Silently the phone went off, and Nero slid his hand into the dresser, muffling himself with his pillow and comforter when he answered.

"I know it's late, how are you?" Hoa said, equally muffled. "I'm supposed to be asleep but there's two other girls calling their friends too, so I don't think it'll matter."

They chatted, Hoa gave a quick rundown of the stuff they expected the kids to do all week, from hiking and swimming and learning crafts to even making some kind of stage production which she was eager to start on. "I wish you could be here," Hoa said.

"I... I wish I could too..." He fumbled for words, "... thank you, Hoa, you're the best."

He knew just the beaming-smile that she wore, right then.

***

It got harder to tolerate life, for Nero, as their school year drew to a close and summer was coming up again. He wanted to force the issue of socialization, he was fourteen now and all the kids his age did things like played basketball and went to the desert for camp outs, and movies.

Movies, now there was something that Mrs. Bowden was adamant on. It was as though the Devil himself would come through the screen and throttle her boy - not that she wouldn't herself, if she discovered that he'd seen one or two on the sly. He'd kept Tai's phone, Hoa's father managed to meet up with Nero and arrange it, mostly because Hoa kept her cool about it all. She explained carefully to her folks just what it was that Nero was going through at home. While they weren't going to perk up and say 'come live with us!' they would never turn him down, either. Tai liked him, though he had to get his own phone again.

And of course, explain just what "Dragonball Z" was. Time passed, and Nero grew taller and odder. His hair, by the next year, had also started getting redder where it had once been quite brown.

All the while, too, Nero's 'glowing' problem seemed to get worse. So much so that finally some other students noticed it in Chemistry. They suspected he had a lighter on him, or something. But it wasn't, when he was having a bad day he just smoked like that. He didn't smell like tobacco, or pot, or even incense, he just ... well, burned.

Finally, at the risk of her wrath - because he knew by now that there wasn't any coming from any God or Devil - Nero stuffed his backpack with a sweater, lunch pack, and a towel, and said, "I'm going out, I'll be back in the afternoon," before his mother could leave for work.

This was Summer, a time when there was precious little for Nero to occupy himself when he was little - and now that he was almost fifteen this was the kind of thing that would come up in any home. He had to get out, somehow. All he wanted to do was walk around, maybe even go to the library, or the mall, he'd been dragged through that little mall ever since he was young, always to the same sedate Sears store, never ever to the more interesting places that it held.

Yeah, this time... After he'd gotten around the corner and had a good pace for walking, he headed toward the mall. He hardly knew the way, but he'd put some effort into learning what streets might head where. He pulled the phone out of its hidden pocket in the backpack, and called Hoa.

"I'm heading to the mall, you want to meet me there?" Nero asked, and there was a long, stunned silence on the other end. "Hoa? You there?"

"I'm here, I'll - I'll go, meet me by the bus stop, okay?" She said, and hurriedly got out of 'lazy Summer morning' mode. She dressed quickly and kissed her mother on the cheek as she rushed by, but took her own pack with art supplies and assorted 'things girls need'.

She got there first, the mall was slightly closer to her street than his. But Nero was enjoying his walk anyway, and Hoa took it in stride when they started walking together. They'd hardly walked apart, for so long. Nero had told her, finally just a few months before, that he thought the world of her. Nero was pleased then to hear that Hoa couldn't bear the thought of being around anyone else.

They weren't outcasts at school, though 10th grade was hard on both of them because it was filled with so much stuff to learn. They each had their own schedules, but by now everyone knew they were an item. Not just best friends, not just a casual thing, they were together. Once in a while some other guy would try and horn in on Hoa, and she would just laugh him off. If it ever got more serious than that, Nero would blow a gasket and scare him off with sudden strange pyrotechnics.

People thought they imagined it, it was easy to think that 'seeing red' while angry was an explanation. But it wasn't, Hoa knew.

While they were walking around, most of the stores hadn't opened yet, Hoa asked, "did you know you're glowing?"

"Oh crap not again," Nero said, and they stopped briefly to look at a reflective window. Nero stared at himself, and sure enough it was like his hair was on fire or something. He patted his head down, but it didn't stop.

Hoa started laughing, and Nero growled. "It's not funny!"

"It totally is," she said. She hooked her arm into his, and dragged him away from that window over to another. "Oh if only I could buy that," she looked at a dress, and Nero tilted his head. As the stores started opening, he was just as fascinated by their contents as she seemed, because honestly he'd never even been inside most of them. Sometimes if he was very good, his mother would stop at one of the fast food places and pick up a burger or whatever, but that was years ago. It was like she didn't feel like rewarding him for being a nice son, though it was harder and harder to do.

They reached one shop, and Nero's face grew serious. He stood blinking, his eyebrows started to fume.

"Oh my god, you'd look so good in that," Hoa said, of the mannequin in the Hot Topic window. It had a leather corset-like top, and some strappy belts strewn across its waist, and Nero couldn't tear his eyes from it either. But then he lowered that red gaze.

"I'll never be able to wear that, I ... And I can't afford it anyway, I mean it must be expensive."

"Probably, but - oh, well you don't get an allowance, that's right, but hey. I do." Hoa produced a limited-amount credit card that her family had been using instead of pawning cash off on their kids.

"But Hoa, I can't wear that anywhere!" And though he was still stuck on the attractive piece he wedged himself in the door of the store as Hoa tried dragging him in.

"You can at least try it on," she said, and that did it. He melted into the dark, loud store, and stood with his best friend in the world, as she chatted with the clerk. That clerk couldn't have been but a few years older than they were, but he already was covered in dark tribal tattoos and had several silver studs in his ears, nose and eyebrow. Obviously bewildered, Nero's expression brought a sudden laugh to the clerk.

"Don't let her corrupt you too much, kid, but by the looks of your hair and those funky contacts, you'll keep up." He took down one of the smaller outfits from its high shelf, and passed it off to Hoa. "I'm pretty sure she can figure this out, I don't know about you," he laughed again.

Nero was about to protest, he was supposed to try on clothing, but Hoa was coming in with him? Hoa laughed too, the dressing room was small but not so tiny that she couldn't examine how best to get the leather outfit on her friend. Nero, while he was still definitely enamored of the idea of being close with Hoa, was also still his mother's son: when she tugged on his button-down shirt and pulled it off him to put on the corsetry, he was blushing furiously. But he didn't say a word, and she was proud of him. He stuck it out, and finally after ten minutes of poking and prodding and tugging and buckling... She announced they were 'done'.

"Come on out, I want Jonesy to see you," Hoa announced, bounding out of the dressing room and into the main part of the store. It was only a typical day, there was maybe one other couple in the store, and they were possibly in their twenties trying to look cooler than they were. So Nero knew he didn't have much of an excuse to stop, and stepped from the small room. Beside the two dressing room doors, there was a short hallway with an employees' room that had a full-length mirror on it. He turned to see himself, almost for the first time.

No, it was for the first time. He knew that he'd changed over the last couple years. His hair and eyes, the way he stood. This leather outfit matched his hair, almost perfectly. The belts would look better over shorts - or, Nero inwardly snickered, over a kilt, but he'd never be able to swing that.

"Oh sweetie you look great," Hoa said, "we'll take it!" She slapped the plastic card from her wallet onto the countertop, not even once wondering whether she had enough to buy it.

Dumbstruck but more because he did think he looked pretty good this way, Nero merely nodded gently, still appraising himself in the mirror. It would probably take a little getting used to, and plus he'd have to figure out how to put it on himself, but ... Yeah, it looked good. He wore it out from the store, putting his shirt in his backpack and refusing a bag. Obviously, any bag coming home would be a target for his mother's curiosity and anger.

***

It had neared the end of Summer before Nero's mother figured out what that oddly strong scent was coming from her son's closet. When she discovered it was a leather corset, she of course, quite predictably, flipped her lid. Nero had been out in the yard digging a hole big enough to plant a shrub she'd brought home, when he heard her shrieking voice from his room upstairs.

He sighed, knowing this was inevitable. But in the last two months, he'd also become something more. He'd learned to focus - his mind, his energy, his body - in ways that his mother couldn't possibly understand. Instead of letting his temperature get out of control, when he was angry, he stored it up, imagining a place where all his power rested, and then later on he would stand outside on the back porch or past the corner of his house, and let off a gout of flame from his hands.

Or his eyes.

Or his mouth, that one surprised him. He belched what tasted like ash, for a day. Hoa also complained about that one a little...

So this day, he let this ire be tucked away to the brimming point. His mother was practically foaming at the mouth when he stood casually in the doorway of his room. A moment went by before she noticed him, and thankfully she wasn't nearly strong enough to tear the corset into pieces. Before she could speak clearly - it always took a while before she was calm enough to even just say 'go to your room' - Nero pushed himself off the doorframe and grasped the corset into his still-dirty hands.

"Well now that that's out in the open, I'll just get back to digging that plant hole for you," he said. He knew it wasn't going to work, but he didn't know which of her tactics to be on guard against. So he just let her scream at him.

Eventually, by the time the sun had nearly set and the hole remained half-dug, and Nero had gone through all the motions of a normal day (fixing up the dinner table, cleaning the kitchen counters, making sure the trash was out) she'd been following him around the whole time and was exhausted. Her voice was raw, and it looked like she might have even burst a blood vessel.

Nero cleaned his hands up, took his corset and went to his room, after taking a long obvious stare at the kitchen. It was time for dinner, he was hungry. As he went upstairs he heard her muttering to herself, but she did stick a pair of quick dinners in the microwave. Nero put the corset on, and the pair of shorts which he'd gone back to buy a few weeks later. His mother hadn't realized that when he said he was working for someone to get some pocket money, that this was the results.

"Here I thought you were being responsible and working--"

"Since when is earning my own money and doing back-breaking work irresponsible? I wanted it, I needed money." He paused, still standing near the dining table and watching as his mother folded her hands in a tight grip - a mockery of prayer at this point. He sat down, put a napkin over the corset's front (he didn't want to get anything on it, after all) and tucked in to his own dinner. He looked up and said quietly, "you'd rather I have stolen it? Or stolen money from you to get it? Or begged someone else?"

"But this is shameful," she started, but Nero held his hand up and stared at her with his intensely red eyes. Perhaps it was that she hadn't truly come to grips with the fact that her son had crimson-red eyes - eyes the color of embers, flames, the 'devils' color. But she froze, swallowed the bite of food still in her mouth, and stopped speaking.

"It's shameful why? I look good in it, it's a good fit. I don't go out and cause trouble at night, I've got a proper girlfriend that I want to be with for the rest of my life--"

"What?!" Mrs. Bowden exploded, "that's not right for such a young boy - you can't!"

"... of course I can, why would you say that? I'm sixteen years old. I've known Hoa since forever, and I know she loves me too." Maintaining this calm wasn't going to work for much longer. "She bought this for me, anyway."

"Some friend - some whore - bought you clothing, and you dress up for her? That's ungodly!"

Nero sighed and let his eyes flair with color, "mother... Hoa and I are friends, my best friend. My only friend, I think. And she's a beautiful, wonderful person and I never, ever want to hear you call her a whore again." The air around his face cooled momentarily, but the glare that he fixed on the woman was apt to bore a hole into her.

There was a long pause, and Nero noticed his mother's hand was trembling as she put her glass of milk to her mouth. After a moment, she emboldened again.

"You aren't ... homosexual then?" It was almost like she could hardly pronounce the word.

"Why would you assume that, because I'm dressing different?" Nero said, eyes narrow, and wondering how she'd react to that. He was slightly dizzy, and he knew that his hair had started to rise with the heat in him.

"Well the deviants that do one, do the other," she quipped - he hadn't heard that in a while, because the subject hadn't been brought up.

"So first I'm dating a whore, and now I'm gay..." Nero glanced around the room, "... Mother, I'm straight, and I like wearing something interesting. You know, me. My style. It's not yours."

"I know that all too well," she said, gruffly. "It shouldn't surprise me, you taking after your father."

She'd used that as an insult so often that he knew this was the last of the discussion he'd be willing to hold back on. He knew what was coming next, the tirade about how all 'that man' was good for was taking away her good name and blah blah blah.

Nero stood up, collected his dishes and put them into the kitchen sink, and while his mother was still busily yammering, she'd found her second wind of the day apparently, Nero left the dining room and went to his bedroom. He fixed up a pair of travel bags that he'd originally intended to use for camping - should he ever be allowed - and filled them with the clothing and personal supplies he knew he'd be needing.

And then he walked out of the house while his mother was washing her own dishes.

** Formerly on hoanero2.htm **

Azayah Yazai

Nero walked to Hoa's house knowing that his mother wouldn't follow him, if she even knew that he'd gone. He complained loudly to the night air that she didn't even know how to spell Hoa's name based on how it was pronounced, and they'd never had class albums in her house...

He left quietly, thinking that it wouldn't do him any good to cause the house to explode or burn into ash suddenly. He'd be the instant suspect anyway, since plenty of people had commented on his 'pyromaniacal' tendancies. They never saw him with a lit match, a lighter or even a candle in his hand, but they just felt it on him. But he had to get rid of this energy somehow. He chose the end of a culdesac nearby, where one of the houses was unoccupied and the other was obviously tucked in to bed for the night already. Looking up at the moon, Nero sighed and closed his eyes, and then pushed out all the fire in him up to the sky.

A gout of flame possibly more than one hundred feet tall came from him, a massive pillar, hot enough to leave a huge scorch mark in the middle of the street and slightly melt the asphalt into a lumpy spiral. In a moment it was over, his head buzzed - he felt weakened but free. As he cleared his head, he could feel the pleasantly warm breeze on his skin - he realized that he'd hardly ever felt warm things, because he was already hotter than they were. Nero found his way back to the main road, and walked toward Hoa's home.

On the way, Nero called ahead on that precious little phone, saying merely, "I'm out of there," and knowing that Hoa understood.

Whatever it was that Hoa had told her family about Nero, they knew that he was a good kid inside. They knew that he wasn't interested in banging their daughter and leaving her standing at the prom, or knocked up, or whatever else normal parents worried about. And they certainly didn't have his mother's worries. They were quiet when he entered the house. It's familiar tangy strange smell of burnt milk made him feel far more comforted and at home, than anything in his own house ever had. He'd visited with some regularity but could never stay for dinner, and he'd always been curious what made that smell.

It didn't really even surprise the Song family that he was wearing his 'outfit', they'd seen it once or twice when Hoa was showing him off to her other friends at a very small birthday party. They didn't say much more than 'have you eaten' and 'leave your shoes', and he did that anyway. It was instinct now to remove his shoes and leave them at the front entry, Nero didn't meet their eyes, but he knew they were kinder than his mother's.

He stepped into Hoa's room, glad that it wasn't the first time. He remembered that day - the sun was bright and warm, light streaming in through the lacey curtains and causing a pillar of dust to become illuminated. They played with the wafting dust motes, then. That moment seemed so very far away.

It was night, not a good time to wait for sunlight to catch dust. Hoa patted the bed she slept on since childhood, and tugged the corsetry off of him. Once he could slump, he did so into her arms, where she swayed and hugged him as he sobbed.

***

"Do you think she'll list you as missing?" Hoa asked, as they walked to the mall.

"I don't even know. But ..." Nero glanced over his shoulder, and paused. "But maybe if I just tell Officer Leon instead, they won't worry."

Thus began a day of waiting and worrying. The pair went to the local police station and waited for only a few minutes, then caught up with Barry Leon, who was the school district's representitive. Nero explained what had happened (he wasn't wearing his Outfit, only some normal jeans and a shirt), and that, for the time being, he didn't want to be looked for even if his mother did report him missing.

Leon nodded, tapped his fingers against his desk, and consulted with another few people before coming back to inform Nero that he was in the clear. No one wanted to mess with Mrs. Bowden, but this was one of those things - it was abusive, dangerous emotionally if not physically, for Nero to remain. As Hoa and Nero left to head back to the mall a little later than they'd intended, the officers gossiped about why it'd taken so long for the boy to run away in the first place.

Over the next few days, Nero went to the few houses where he knew people, explained the situation and made sure that they knew the right number if they needed any work done. He still needed to pay for new clothing, and he refused to just lounge around until school started. The Song household was already pretty tidy, but Yi Dae, Hoa's father, decided to have him work on the yard for a while just to keep him busy.

"That boy is such a nervous wreck," Yi muttered to his daughter. Hoa shook her head.

"No, he's not nervous, he's just used to having to do chores constantly." She sighed. "And no, I'm not trying to get out of mine. But he's so used to busywork that it's probably not going to be easy to get him to just sit and watch tv or something."

Yi paused, and then asked mostly in jest, "does she even have a television?"

***

School started and so far as Nero knew, his mother hadn't tried to find him, and hadn't reported his absence. That alone was probably punishable, but again no one really wanted to mess with the crazy woman - she never or hardly ever had anyone over to their house to begin with so the neighbors hardly knew her at all aside from her occasional hair-raising screaming rants.

It was happenstance that Hoa's elder sister was heading to college, and wanted to be in the dorms to be around her friends, but that left a spare bedroom and Nero was happy to have it. He didn't want to give the wrong impression to Hoa's parents, they hadn't been intimate and it might be a while before he was relaxed enough to even try.

And things were reasonably normal for a time. Then, came another class trip into the mountains, and Nero managed to get in on it. It wasn't that anyone was trying to prevent him, except that pesky little 'release notice' from his mother. But when he fell back on the 'trust authority figures' reasoning, he got Officer Leon to vouch for him.

Nero and Hoa packed up what they had, Nero had continued to work for spare cash around the neighborhood and paid for his own longjohns and such. It would be his first trip into the woodlands, so Hoa had told him all about the experience she had before. He was so looking forward to it, the Songs thought he'd probably have exploded if they took him to Disneyland.

And speaking of explosions, Nero had been calm, hardly ever warmed up. Some part of him hoped that all his fiery energy was just a bad dream, a phase, imagined like an invisible friend. He knew it wasn't any of those, he knew it was real, but he could hope that perhaps he could be normal. He could still produce an open flame from his finger - something Hoa had encouraged him to learn because she didn't want him accidentally doing it. So, reality was just that side of weird for him.

The busses came and picked up the bleary-eyed kids, and drove up into the mountains. Nero had almost never even been on a school bus before, but he followed Hoa into the back of the second bus, and they huddled together with him near the window, and she on the aisle. Hoa contributed to the delightfully gory conversations around them, about bus accidents and horror stories in traffic.

Nero actually liked the rustic feel of the place when they arrived to the camp site. It was obviously well-used, and fairly old, but the cabins were warm inside and there was a plentiful supply of things to keep large groups of teenagers busy and exhausted. While Hoa did have to sleep in her cabin with the girls, this time around Nero didn't get any guff from the guys in his cabin. He was awake before any of them, eager to do things, happy.

He kept seeing things in the corner of his eye, though.

Odd things.

When they had an afternoon to hike and relax in pairs and groups, Hoa and Nero went off exploring. The woods weren't packed tightly, but there was plenty of distance they could get away from the trails should they wish to. "Oh, there's this rock," Hoa said, and quickly scampered up a hill. Nero followed her, and sure enough there was this rock. It was exactly the kind of rock that Nero thought Hoa would like: it had a flattish top, a nook underneath it, and a curved side so you could climb up it easily.

A place where, if she imagined hard enough, she could see a family of lynx or wolves living under the nook. Or a cougar standing proudly looking over his territory. Nero ignored the few bits of scraped-in grafitti, there had been plenty of other people here on this rock, not so many wolves or cougars.

They sat together, the rock top was warm but it could probably get a bit chilly out here. As it was turning from fall to winter, particularly sharp breezes had come through the camp on the first day. But it was still sunny today, and they both enjoyed it tremendously.

Until there was a strange noise in the bushes nearby. Nero stiffened up and Hoa held his hand tightly, glancing around his shoulder. She whispered, "it could be another jerk from our school," but she didn't sound convinced. Nero was more worried that it was a wild animal - they were frequently reminded and warned, that there were snakes, cats and indeed some number of wolves in the area.

But this was no wolf. This was... a man. Slender in build, he sneezed himself out of a shrub, stood stunned for a moment and then looked up to see Nero and Hoa.

Hoa saw it first: that strange look. The man wasn't a camp councillor, he looked more or less vagrant, but he had a look that Hoa couldn't mistake.

"Who are you," she breathed. But he wasn't listening to her. Instead the man was intent on Nero, fumbling forward step by step and wringing his hands. The man looked up from the slightly lower area where the bushes he'd been hiding in was, seeming far more frail than he really was.

"It is you, it is," he said quietly, hoarsely. He dragged his long fingers over his odd hat, and took it off to reveal darkly red-brown hair, straight - and surprisingly (to Hoa anyway who fully expected it to be ratty and dirty) shiny and clean. He had a well-trimmed beard, in fact it wasn't that his clothing was shabby or worn - it was that they were just odd. He had pants that might be mistaken for parachute pants if no one looked closely - they were flowing and possibly even fine silk, and in a pale white and blue pattern. His shirt was tucked into them and he wore a vest of darker blue, below a knitted sweater, and it looked like his cap was a mix of knitted material and leather. Not normal, except perhaps at a "ren-faire".

But he also had a feature that Hoa was halfway sure Nero didn't recognize. He had red eyes, and Nero was famous for hardly looking at himself in mirrors.

"I thought I must be mad, but I found the place... and here you are..." He did seem a little mad, to both Nero and Hoa. They exchanged a worried glance, and both of them stood up. Hoa still stood a little behind Nero, but not because she was particularly afraid. More that the man didn't seem interested in her, she wanted to keep out of his way.

"Who are you," Nero repeated Hoa's words, and the man stiffened up and furrowed his thin eyebrows.

"Why, Nero, I know you can't be expecting to recognize me, but... I'm your father!" He slapped his own chest, "I knew you'd be here! The scryings were right!"

"Scryings?" Nero said, and his cheek twitched. Hoa gripped his hand, he gained control over himself again. "Scryings, what? Who are you really? How do you know my name?" Nero leaned in a little, getting a weird tightness in his throat.

"I think he's telling the truth," Hoa said, carefully. Nero pulled his hand out of hers and turned a bit angrily, but she shook her head, and looked over his shoulder. "You two... He looks like you, Nero. It's pretty obvious to me." She squinted, was it her imagination, or did he kind of have a strangely fey look about him? It wasn't in his very human appearance, more the way he stood, or perhaps she was just imagining it.

"Ah, the girl has the Sight..." The man nodded slowly, "interesting, interesting..."

Of course that got Hoa interested, but Nero was staring intently at the rock below his feet and thinking hard.

"So," he said, flatly, very like the way he'd spoken to his mother not three months before, "if you are my father, what now? What did your scryings tell you to do once you'd found me?"

The man froze, more because of the tone of Nero's voice, than anything else. "Well, I ... I know, I can't expect to stand here and become..." He muttered something that neither Nero nor Hoa caught. Then, he looked up at his son and gripped his hat in both hands. "Nero, you're a wizard, like me. She'd never be able to help you become what you truly are. I knew since you were a few months old."

"And so that's why you left?" Nero spat.

"I left because your mother was impossible to convince..."

"A wizard?" Hoa interrupted, and Nero glared at her. She ignored his angry scowl. "He's - the fire, he can make fire. That's what you mean?"

"Oh that ...well, it's my family's magic, I'm afraid." He grumbled a little, "it's always what got us into trouble, that pyromancy. But it's more than that, Nero, you ... You have the potential to learn magic! True magic, spells and curses and hexes and all!" With that, Mister Bowden, who still hadn't announced his full name - and Nero didn't really press him for it either - pulled from his odd vest a gnarled wooden wand. "Magic!" He waved it, a swirl with a loop at the end, and a stream of red light came from the tip.

Nero had to fight himself. He was a demonic creature. No, he wasn't - he was merely... merely? He was a magician, like his father? He was evil, his father had left - but ...

Nero sank to the ground, trembling. His fists balled up, Hoa felt the warmth coming from his body and backed away a step just in case. "Why does this have to happen? Why can't we just be normal..."

"I don't wanna be normal," Hoa quipped, and though it took a moment, Nero chuckled. "Come on, Nero, I want to see what he's talking about. A wizard! ... Well I was going to say like in Lord of the Rings or something, but you'd never have read that..."

***

Over the afternoon, the senior Bowden, whose name was apparently Carrow, explained to the pair how he'd had to leave his wife and young son. That he'd met Beth and fallen in love even though she was quite the hellfire-and-brimstone kind of Muggle. It wasn't that Carrow wanted to deceive her, far from it in fact. He wanted to learn more about the Muggle world, or at least have a good conversation about good and evil. It turned out that his idea of 'conversation' went as far as showing Beth that he could perform magic, and by that time she was pregnant with Nero. It was right about when Nero was born that a great evil began to roll over Europe, and though it was far away - it was Carrow's original home. He couldn't refuse the requests for aid, he was an adept duelist and tactician.

"It was a hard time for everyone," he said, "the wizarding world was completely thrown into shambles. Two camps, dark and light... it was, well, it was something I just could not ignore. I had to go fight for what I believed in."

"But you left me," Nero muttered.

"I had to, oh, son... oh Nero the things I've seen." The man's red eyes were haunted, indeed. That was something that Hoa kept coming back to: she saw something in or perhaps through him that she couldn't shake or understand.

"Sir," she finally said, "what is it around you? There's... it's almost like a shiny leash."

With that said, Carrow jolted back a little and pursed his thin lips. "... I suppose it is a tether, at that." He finally said, "it's a geas, of sorts..."

Always compelled to wander, it was a strange force of will that he had to work around. In a battle with a dark wizard, he'd apparently been targeted with this weird blocking curse. He could not return where he most wanted to be, but he could appear there if he hadn't been before. It had taken some effort to arrange for scryings and wizardy to get him here, at the edge of a woodland campground, where he hadn't been before but where he most certainly did want to be.

"Well that's a lousy curse to be under," Hoa said, she didn't want it to sound too callous, "is it possible to remove it?"

"None too likely," Carrow said, "but I suppose anything is possible, after all I've got my son back!"

"Hardly," Nero said, broody and cold. "Look. I appreciate knowing where I'm from. I appreciate knowing where I can go to get help. But ... you're still not part of my family. Hoa - Hoa is the only family I've got, really. I know she likes you," he glanced between them, and Hoa gave a weird little guilty cough, "but I don't. And maybe it's just because I'm still a teenage idiot, but I really don't want you in my life. Maybe you could teach me plenty. But if you can't ... go where you want to be, then... I don't know. I just have some issues, is all."

Carrow's mouth opened and closed a few times, but finally he lowered his gaze and held his hat close to his chin. "I understand," he said, quietly. "I didn't really think to become your father again, but... But you do need some proper schooling. And ... well, that's where this place came in handy!"

"This ... place? A camp?" Nero groaned.

"No, no, Wonder!" Carrow announced. "It's just there, just there -" he gestured around a bulky and half-broken tree. It was the kind of tree that garnered pity from anyone who saw it: it had to have been struck by lightning at least once, been toppled halfway off its hillside perch, but somehow regained roots on lower ground. Now it dangled at an angle above what looked to be a small path.

"That... wasn't there a minute ago," Hoa said, "in fact it wasn't there last year when I was here..." She was the first to take steps toward it, but Nero didn't budge.

"Wonder is a small town, but it's a Wizarding town," Carrow said. "I ... well, I can't go back to it, but I can at least show you one way to get there. You won't find it on any Muggle map."

Nero stood gazing at his father and Hoa, who was all ready to dive down that path just to see where it led. That was so like her, she wasn't spontaneous so much as willing to try. But Nero got a weird feeling in his gut. "What will the camp ... do? I mean... runaways? Hello? I'm already a runaway. And Officer Leon will be pissed."

"Call him," Hoa urged, "Just call him and tell him you'll be all right... And maybe I should call my folks too..."

***

Because he was a wizard and all, Carrow didn't have any trouble sneaking around with an invisible glamour over him, to retrieve the pair's things in the camp. It also wasn't hard at all to blur the memories of some of the campers or staff who wondered where the pair had got to. He dropped off their packs and clothing at the edge of Wonder, for he couldn't go any farther in. Been there, done that.

Hoa's family was a little surprised to hear of some strange new town, but they did trust their daughter to keep them updated. After all there were phones in this new town - television stations and all the modern amenities, but it was made for people like Nero.

Suddenly, Nero knew where he belonged.

Walking down the main street of this oddly elusive township, Nero got the strangest and most welcome sensation he'd ever felt. Even sitting with Hoa in her room that one day, it paled by comparison. This was where he should be. This was where people like him lived, and learned. They found instructions in both their packs, written in Carrow's scribbly hand, about what to do, who to contact, where best to stay, and more: how to try and get ahold of him, should he be needed once more. Hoa knew that Nero's father meant it when he said that he would love to get to know Nero, once he had it in him to desire the same.

Nero went to the wizard bank, not the normal one, and found that his father had been sticking away bits of gold here and there all through Nero's life. Whatever it was that connected the wizard's bank up to a world-wide network of deposits and interest, he didn't know. But it was of great relief when they learned he had enough money to afford them a little apartment near the high school.

Wonder's Wonders. Even Hoa laughed at that, but it was clearly the source of some pride among the people of this town. And, even though she herself wasn't truly magically enabled, it was enough that Hoa grasped every concept that the wizards threw at her - as well as her gift of Sight. They allowed her to take more normal classes, but didn't feel it necessary to push her to end her schooling early. The school was in session and would continue to be all year, which to both Nero and Hoa was a bonus. It meant they weren't going to lose anything if they missed their own high school classes.

Nero was urged to buy a wand, but in the small shop dedicated to such things, he didn't manage to find one. Instead, the pyromancer stuck with what he seemed best at - manipulating raw energy. There was another pyromancer in town, and though it was more informal, Nero got the chance to learn far more about his talent by using it with a real pro. Nero's grades were better than average, he still preferred 'normal' classes to hexes and spellcraft, but he got the hang of verbal and hand-casting quickly enough. He would never be on a par with many others who had been trained since childhood, but he could easily get a job using some amount of magic and a lot of elbow grease.

Hoa was almost tempted to try her own hand at true magic, but refrained - it wouldn't be too good on him, if she showed him up in a magical realm! But Hoa held her own the whole year out, getting a stunningly good grade in Magical History as well as Artifact Recognition, Arithmancy, and art. Of course art - she decided that she'd need to buy tattooing equipment from somewhere, as she became an apprentice to the one professional inker in town.

It was there, just after their graduation together, that they both got their first tattoos - little skull-and-crossbones, to match each other on their shoulders. They would bump them together, Nero laughed that the skulls were kissing. When they got their first complimentary face piercings, however things went a little less smoothly - Hoa's spike risked getting caught in Nero's loop... But they didn't much care, as they kissed it out.

Not too much later, on an early June day, several dragons flew overhead. It was unbelievable even for this town to have such magnificent creatures grace their skies. But these were local - these were tied intimately to a trio of girls from the prior year's graduating class at WW. And it seemed they were on the prowl for new people - people that were required to help raise other dragons.

"You seriously think so?" Nero asked, looking up at the two heads on the one dragon. He was a big, big fire-magic caster, and Nero had instantly been attracted to him for that reason. Zenhaly appreciated the attention, actually. Hoa meanwhile was caught up with a sleek yellow and violet marked dragoness, intoning that she adored the 'racing stripe' along her side.

"I totally think so, we should go and see what happens!" Hoa said. They were taken quickly and without much fuss to Azayah Yazai. It was a magical place itself, but the dragons were very different from those sleek-hided ones that the Witches had.

"They're fuzzy!" Hoa squealed, "how adorable!"

They'd hardly been around for a day or so, when it was announced that both clutches of eggs on their warming beds of sand were breaking open. Hoa was instantly attracted to a brilliantly white hatchling that had rich teal fluff on her head and tail. Whether she even noticed that everyone's minds and hearts were opened by a ritual done minutes earlier, it didn't seem like it mattered. This pair was sure from the start.

I like you, ooh what's that pretty little shiny on your face? Cariazh patted at Hoa's face with her big soft paw, making the young woman laugh and cuddle her newfound friend.

It was a slightly different look and feel for Nero when he caught the eye of a red and brown male.

Do that thing. With the fire. I want to see it... you glow nice and warm. Raozh was his name, and he was born from the second clutch. Nero had to look around a little in confusion - had he just felt someone's voice in his brain? Of course you have, it's me silly. Right here. The cat-sized dragonet bumped Nero's ankle and enjoyed the bright flames of happiness that Nero produced on finding him.

***

Time passed quickly in Wonder, and even as Hoa was keeping up her tattoo parlour apperarances she was also taking care of a rapidly growing dragonet. Neither would be very big, but Nero's Raozh would be as tall as a Shire horse, and had the attitude to go with one.

Cariazh was lower to the ground, but still more than big enough for Hoa to practice riding, and eventually they both took to the skies as riders!