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!
next
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)