Alex

  Alexandru Horia had been named, he liked to tell himself, after Alexander the Great, even if he was only great in terms of height, not even muscle, let alone achievements.

  In truth, he had been even more painfully average than David-no offence to his friend, who had at least tried to write. They had met in kindergarten, before being separated until ninth grade, when they had also met Mihai. In all that time, there had been no awakenings of magic, no secret inheritance, no supernaturals willing to hurt them.

  Well...there were always services for that. But Alex's parents told him changing yourself just because you wanted power for the sake of power actually made you weaker.

  As such, he had taken it upon himself to always help others whenever possible, and, one day, maybe follow in his father's footsteps and go into forensics. Or take after his mother and build cameras and other means of surveillance.

  Just had to...ignore the asthma. As long as possible. From birth to death, preferably of old age. Shouldn't be that hard, right?

  Mundane science had failed to cure him, and the doctors' incredulousness at him not dying while in diapers had not helped with his already melancholy mood.

  Alex hadn't wanted to be cured through supernatural means because, he argued, taking up the time of mages, priests and the like while there were so many others with worse problems would have been selfish.

  His parents and his friends alike had told him to stop being stupid, but he'd waved them off, smiling and promising it wasn't that bad, really.

  As the ghost's eyes move across the table, from one friend to another, he feels vaguely glad at no longer having lungs. The powers and ability to travel between the multiverse and other realities were nice, too.

  Maybe he should look into travelling backwards in time. With how long it would take him to master it, it would probably be legal by the time it was over. He didn't exactly want to imitate the Doctor, just...see how he had died, with his own eyes. He knew death sometimes messed with memories, but he truly didn't remember feeling tired or lightheaded, which was pretty strange for-

  'Alex?' Mihai elbows him, adding mana in order to be able to touch him, then turning his head to give the ghost a concerned look. 'Why the longer than usual face?'

  What happened to David? His mother is going crazy, and I don't even want to think what she'd do if she could come to our universe. 'Nothing,' he lies easily, his round face still lending itself to smiling, despite the gauntness of his default appearance. 'Just wondering...do you think drinking ectoplasm is be like drinking blood, or molten flesh?'

  'The fuck?' Andrei grunts, looking up from a raw, bleeding hunk of something.

  'Oh, I have these two grave neighbours who are arguing whether they're cannibals, or if they just like the equivalent of blood meals...'

  Right. Put them at ease. Don't burden them with your worries-you're already dead. Let them live.

  ***

  Mihai

  'And what did you do today, son?' Marcel Codrea asks, not breaking eye contact, or even blinking, as he cuts the steak (perfectly rectangular, perfectly cooked. His wife would hurt herself as much as he did beating her if she made a mistake, for she is a proper housewife, and cannot stand failing in her duties).

  Mihai smiles, showing as many teeth as is proper, hoping it doesn't make him look like he is cringing. Again. 'I had a good day, father. Answered the most questions in class, then went to the tennis field and won every match. The coach is thinking of signing me up for a competition with three other high schools.'

  'How did you return home?' his mother, Maria, asks. Both she and her husband are honey-blond, both green-eyed, with flawless skin and teeth. Many people mistake them for siblings. She wears her hair in a long braid, and only uses makeup for special occasions. 'Did you take the bus, or a taxi?'

  'The bus,' Mihai lies. Alex had wanted to go to this animal shelter, because he'd had a nightmare about weres being trapped in animal form, then caught and mistreated. Both he and David had considered it nonsense, but had agreed to go with him. Not wanting his friends to walk, or spend money (they had less than him, so why not help?), Mihai had hailed and paid a cab.

  'Good,' his mother says coldly. 'Then you will not mind if I check your wallet.'

  Now, not cringing is even harder. Maybe he can wash the dishes fast enough to get to it first and put more money in it? Aw, dammit, why didn't he do it as soon as he got home...

  'I hope you are not spending money on frivolities, son,' his father says dangerously. 'The bus is only needed because you are too slow to walk to school on time, and being late is lamentable.' Marcel takes a bite and swallows before speaking again. 'It is your fault for not getting into a school closer to home. Still, at least you've stopped donating.'

  Helping others instead of yourself, especially when it is at your own expense, is abominable in his parents' eyes. 'Of course,' he replies coolly. 'Why be charitable when no one is in return?'

  But the people he helps are, even if some only take pity on the three of them because of Alex.

  'Indeed,' Marcel says, then puts down the knife, grabs his son by the hair, and smashes his face into the table. Mihai's teeth rattle as his nose breaks, making the white tablecloth red.

  'You will wash that, too,' his mother says. 'And, since you are so eager to waste money, you can help with the next water bill, pay from your own pocket.'

  'You little liar,' his father sounds more amused than angry, or even surprise. 'You think we cannot read you, especially when you try-and fail-to act like you should?'

  His father drags him out of his chair, then out of the kitchen and the house, into the yard. 'We brought you into this world, boy, and trust me, we can take you out of it. Which we will, if you keep failing. Do you not even think about how you are shaming your family, you selfish little worm?'

  Every word is punctuated by Mihai's head being smashed against the cellar door. By the time the door is opened, he cannot see anything, and not just because it's pitch-black inside.

  His father's words are slurred by the dizziness as he is tossed down the short stairs, knees and elbows bleeding. It is June, so he is wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

  'A human can survive several days without water. I am not sure how long it takes before isolation becomes damaging, but I am glad you will help me find out. I will not thank you, though: there are several friends down there who will love you for what you are, unlike those two leeches milking your wallet dry.'

  The door slams closed, the sound painfully loud in Mihai's ears, before he can defend his friends, or ask what his father meant.

  Then, he hears chittering and skittering. The boy tenses at first, then laughs nervously at himself. Rats aren't dangerous, they're scared of peo-

  'Aaaasgh!' Mihai shrieks, more in fear and shock than pain, as teeth like tiny pickaxes dig into his shin. Shit...what if he gets an infection? What if...what if...

  Alone in the darkness, thinking of every possibility and trying to solve every problem, his magic awakens. It is not unique, not special, but it is versatile and useful.

  Mihai survives until, what feels like an eternity later, like a few seconds later, his father returns, opening the door once more. His eyes, used to the gentle azure glow of his mana, burn painfully at the sunlight.

  His parents are smugly satisfied at this development, especially when it forces him to leave Urziceni and David and Alex behind and go to a magic prep school in Bucharest.

  Mihai meets Adriana in college, while he's running himself ragged, trying to obtain his licence to practice magic. His future wife only has a little magic, and her specialty is reinforcement. Nothing fancy. She can, however, replenish people, objects and wards, or make them even tougher.

  The young woman is a head shorter than him, even in her thick-soled work boots, making them both average height, with long, frizzy brown hair, and green eyes behind a pair of black glasses.

  As she pins him to the wall of the empty workshop, he absurdly worries if she's related to him, or if she's been sent by his parents, or-

  'Wait,' he begins. She's physically stronger than him, muscular rather than curvy, and, though he could easily push her away with magic, he doesn't want to. 'I get that you want to help me, and that's sweet, but I'm really busy tonight-'

  Bullshitting her, that is. Mihai is aware he's a magic nerd with few activities outside study, which only slightly pisses him off.

  'I don't believe that,' she says plainly, looking up at him. 'I know broken things, remember? A healthy mind equals a healthy mage, and you're not powerful enough to ignore that, Codrea.'

  As she says him, she moves closer, and Mihai whimpers. He's always been shit at keeping a poker face under, ah, pressure.

  'So,' she says with a small smirk. 'Wanna do some maintenance work?'

  'No-not here,' he corrects hastily, eyes darting at the cameras and observation wards. 'Um...my dorm is empty right now...'

  Alright, he's bullshitting her again, but at least it's for a good reason this time. "I share my dorm with two jokers I'll have to throw out" is, like, the opposite of a pickup line. Just because she's coming onto him, it doesn't mean he should prove how much of a dork he is. At least, not this soon.

  'Good to know. Let's take a look under the hood...'

  The pun is fucking awful-he's sure she's been waiting to make it since she first saw his new Dinamo hoodie-but, to his surprise, it doesn't make him want to groan, unlike David's would.

  They marry shortly after graduation, though the girls come much later: Adriana doesn't want children at first, partly because she's a workaholic, partly because she thinks they're not prepared for that. Still, they make it work. Not visiting his dead parents (at first metaphorically, soon literally; car accident involving a taxi. At the funeral, Mihai shares his regret that they didn't take the bus) helps with-

  'Thinking about things like that?' Andrei scoffs, pointing a finger at the ghost. 'I'm not surprised an undead's being morbid, but really?'

  'Yes, Alex,' Bianca smirks, rocking back and forth in a chair definitely not built for that. 'Don't try to crash the pity party. We're here to feel sorry for ourselves, each other, and David.'

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  'We'll have to brood on the double for him,' Adriana muses, leaning forward, beer in one hand. His wife is only slightly tipsy (she's on her third bottle), but her eyes are still far away and unfocused. She doesn't even notice how her sizable chest squishes against the table, though he definitely does.

  'Oh?" The iela's smirk widens, azure eyes sparkling. Lately, she's been using her chubby human disguise less and less. Mihai is usually happy that she's more comfortable with herself, but sometimes, she's too damn comfortable. 'You're usually too busy ?adorably worrying for each other to be sad for others, too.'

  'Well,' Adriana shrugs. 'Everything fucking up the world aside, we haven't really had a reason for that, lately.'

  'Hmm~' Bianca purses her lips, then lets out a bell-like laugh. 'Did Mihai tell you about that time after we helped David out? I joked about him being alone with me and my sisters, and asked what you'd do. He said you'd join in.'

  'Oh, really?' Adi gives him a very curious look, which means he can't gesture for Bianca to shut up, then looks back at the iela, mirroring her smile. 'Do tell...'

  'Gladly~'

  'Andrei?' Mihai mouths, knowing the werebear is always paying attention to his surroundings. He's also pretty good at reading faces, so he can probably tell he's asking for help.

  'Get a load of that guy!' Andrei says, head turned away, looking straight at a were by the bar. Wearing a tracksuit, with long, red beard and hair, the werebull (Mihai's arcane sense informs him) is leaning on the yamadium bar, and slowly patiently explaining to the (mentally) tired, blonde vampire bartender he's talking over that having foreign drinks in their selection weakens the country's spirit, which is tantamount to treachery in these trying times.

  'Should try saying that five times fast,' Andrei mutters under his breath, turning back to them with a small grin, eyes narrowed. 'Guy looks like the people I used to beat up for money!'

  Mihai would rather not end up on the couch than hear a story about Andrei taking bribes as a Securist, but no dice.

  'Oh, wipe that look off your face,' the werebear tells Mihai, not pouting, for men like him do not pout. 'I meant back before I was conscripted. Lots of people hated lots of other people, and I loved their money. In fact,' he devours the chunk of meat, twice the size of his head, and polishes off the blood on the plate faster than Mihai can see. 'I'm sure I'll get into the owner's good graces after showing him the door. Maybe even into her pants~'

  Andrei is out of his chair, by the bar ten metres away, and throwing the werebull through the automatic doors twelve metres away faster than Mihai can see, but that's not why the mage is staring at him in disbelief.

  Was the last part a joke? Is he making up for Lucian's absence...? Wait, no. He's not horny enough for that. But, still. He got burned badly enough last time that Mihai is honestly surprised he wants to try again.

  Good for him. Now, if only he remembered to save him from the doghouse. Bros before-

  'Oh no, Andrei!' Bianca gasps in false shock, hiding her grin behind a slim, marble-white hand. 'Do not cause a scene~ Anyway...' She returns her attention to Adriana. 'You were saying?'

  'So what if I did join in?' she replies. 'Feeling threatened by a real woman?'

  'Darling, I would eat you alive. I just don't wanna ruin you for your hubby.' The iela turns to Mihai. 'No need to thank me. You're just too cute together for me to steal Adi away from you.'

  'Thanks,' he says stiffly, trying to cross his legs under the table. Dammit, now Andrei's chatting up the bartender and his wife is, what, play-flirting with his friend?

  He's not insecure enough to feel threatened by that. He knows Adi doesn't mean it, but still, what is the world coming to?

  'You're welcome, sweetie,' Bianca smiles blandly, reaching across the table to pat his hand.

  'Yeah, sweetie,' Alex coos, slinging an arm across his shoulder and snickering at his deadpan look. 'So follow your own advice, and stop looking so moody. The girls are just giving you a hard time.'

  Oh, ha ha.

  ***

  Bianca

  Bianca swallows a laugh as Mihai carefully stands up and goes to the bathroom. Humans are awfully prudish about relationships, especially when more than two persons are involved, but she was just joking. She's no homewrecker, Lucian's palace when she doesn't feel like giving a damn notwithstanding.

  Thinking about her zmeu bo-friend, makes her nostalgic. Which is absurd, really. They'd been together for nearly a month(a record) before their similar urges had drawn them apart a few days after the whole eldritch wave of nonsense had seemingly ended.

  Bianca looks from Adriana, who's already starting to feel unsure about the number of buttons her orange flannel shirt has(she always tries to count things once she gets tipsy, but rarely manages anything besides pissing herself off), to Alex, who's leaning back through his chair rather than in it, arms spread as he eggs Andrei on.

  'Don't pussy out!' the ghost calls out across the room. 'Or I'll tell David you admitted he has more game than you!'

  'You cannot say that with a straight face!' the bear growls, half-turning, and Bianca sees his eyes are black and his mouth is filled with fangs.

  Everyone else in the bar is looking between their table and the bar, and have been since Andrei's intervention. She supposes getting lucky with girls they help is a family thing...too bad her father never had his or David's luck.

  Iele were, as a rule, both possessed of senses far sharper than those of humans, and worse at reading people, or at least emotions. They were quite similar to the Fae, in that regard. Bianca's skill at aping mankind came from decades spend among them, with occasional visits to her sisters (by nature, not blood), rather than the other way around.

  Her mother had not spent any time among people between her first and last foray out of the woods.

  Moonlight-over-ebony-pools had not been malicious, at least by iele standards. Just...enthusiastic, and inexperienced.

  So much, in fact, that, while looking for the mage she had wanted to breed with, she hadn't paid much attention whether he was a skilled charlatan, as her sisters called magicians, or a true mage.

  As such, the kind man, whose name Bianca had never learned, for he had forgotten it himself shortly before her birth, had been rather overwhelmed by the bold advances of...whatever he had seen her mother as. She'd been good with glamours. Better than her.

  She'd charmed him, in the human sense of the word, and taken him to the woods and broken his mind and body, and he had been all too eager to go along with it. His mind had remained his, for as long as it had lasted, and he had, apparently, truly loved the laughing woman with silver skin and hair and eyes.

  Bianca had been learning to float and sing and fashion an body of flesh for herself when the Securists had come for her mother, declaring her a rapist and dragging her away, never to be seen again. Her father had unceremoniously been shot after trying to save his wife, teaching his daughter how frail humans were.

  Her sisters, the older ones who had raised her and clothed her and filled the voids in her music, had told her such things were to be taken in stride, for both the world and its inhabitants were uncaring. Still, by the time she was fifteen, she had gotten bored of their...not coldness. The fact her kind helped each other as all made them far kinder than some supernaturals out there, and even some human families.

  Indifference, then.

  As Mihai returns, cussing Alex out when asked how cold the shower had been, Bianca laughed.

  Humans cared both too much and too little, but she loved them, for all their little quirks. She had learned to be like them, finishing what her father had started trying to teach her, over sixty years ago.

  ***

  Constantin

  As Constantin prepares for the convention, he is not thinking about the event, bur, rather, his new verger.

  Rebeca Ghinea is filled with energy, even disregarding the way her magic passively absorbs heat and electricity from her surroundings. The girl's (he is showing his age, he knows, she is over twenty-six) black hair, which would have normally been in one of those bobs he has never been able to see the appeal of, is frizzy, practically pointing upwards, small arcs of blue electricity bursting in and out of existence along it.

  'I'm just saying,' her eyes are wide as she gesticulates at the painted and framed icons on the walls. 'That it's not fair to leave me holding down the fort just because my beliefs might be a teensy bit, uh, niche.'

  More like unorthodox, if one allowed the pun. 'It's not that,' he promises as he adjusts his habit. 'But someone must remain to mind the church, my dear.'

  Rebeca huffs, crossing arms that almost disappear in the sleeves of her black habit. 'Then why not pray for the Lady to send an angel?'

  'Because God expects us to handle our own business.' Constantin truly does not care about what gender the Creator assumes when talking to people. Male, female, both, neither; they are all projections, for the benefit of humanity's peace of mind. He is used to thinking of Him as the Lord, because that is how he was raised, but he knows there are cults that worship God the Mother, or even as a hermaphrodite, though these are looked at askance. They are harmless enough, usually.

  He finds his verger's passion more endearing than anything.

  'If you say so,' she says in a tone that promises the discussion is not over, then looks around, as if someone is eavesdropping on them.

  'Please take a good look. Last week, I found three tiny Satanists in a flower pot. They were standing on each other's shoulders, so they could see out of it.' Constantin isn't usually so sarcastic, but the upcoming meeting with his...siblings in Christ, and everyone else, makes him rather less willing to indulge tomfoolery.

  'Huh?' Rebeca shoots him a confused look as she rummages through her pockets. Must be strange to have ones large enough to contain things, he muses. 'You found three...never mind.' She takes out a battered-looking piece of paper, shaking it until it straightens out as much as it can. 'Please show this to the Patriarch and the others? It might help attract more potential converts!'

  Constantin takes the paper and only needs to peer at it for a few moments before his face falls. 'Didn't writing this prevent you from graduating Theology and Faithcraft until you exorcised a demon without holy tools?'

  'Misogynists!' she spits, crossing her arms once more as she glares at nothing in particular. 'They pretended not to like the way I expressed myself, but I knew the truth, oh yes I did...'

  Constantin can't present something containing phrases like "God the Mommy", unless he pretends it is a joke, which would be a lie...at least, not with a straight face. Hm...

  'You know what, Rebeca?' He asks with a smile, creating a pocket universe with his faithcraft and placing the paper inside it. 'I know several people who won't even know how to react to your work.'

  'Yes! Thank you, Father!' The verger grins, hands balled into fists as she bounces up and down. 'Together, we might be able to get rid of the fossils in charge!'

  Constantin himself could be considered a "fossil in charge". Yes, his church is in a small town, but it is close to the capital he often works in, and he has been a priest since before David's birth. He is actually several years older than Romania's Patriarch, Lauren?iu Zarnea.

  Thinking of his son's birth fouls his mood, which he does not need before even getting to the convention. Andrei might have come clean, in the end, but it had taken David's near death for that. But then, Constantin isn't surprised. The man has always been a coward.

  Serving the Party rather than dying and denying them a tool. Not taking the woman he had left heavy with child to a hospital. Running from fatherhood. Constantin would believe the man would go to Hell, but Andrei isn't Christian enough for that.

  Truly, he isn't sure if the werebear believes in anything. Constantin has met agnostics and atheists who at least believe in humanity and its potential, but the werebear isn't just non-religious. He is faithless. He drinks and fights and works and hoards money like the men who'd never make it to Heaven, and for what? He just lives because he doesn't want to die, and that makes him an animal more than his nature did.

  Some days, he had half a mind to take some silver and-

  'Father?' Rebeca seems hesitant. Why...? Ah. He must have let his emotions show. No need to burden the girl with his...sinful thoughts. He told David to forgive his biological father, anyway, all those years ago. He knows many who would be cynically amused by his hypocrisy. 'Aren't you leaving?'

  'In a moment, my dear. God help us.' They both cross themselves, then he is out of the church.

  Travelling from Urziceni to the North Pole takes only slightly more than a second when he exerts himself. Constantin's faithcraft makes him physically equal to his son in all respects, even providing endless stamina when needed.

  The Syncretic Convention takes place somewhere else every year, but it is always a neutral place, both politically and metaphysically. No one wants to wreck the Vatican or Mecca, except, of course, everyone who does. Said people are, coincidentally, both suspiciously unlucky, always being caught in mysterious accidents, and lucky, because they always escape unscathed.

  As Constantin draws closer to the site of the convention-a circular area the size of Pite?ti, covered in a glamour that makes it invisible to mundane humans but is useless to his blessed eyes-he dearly, dearly hopes Angus Murphy won't be present.

  Constantin crosses himself at the thought of the Irishman, muttering a prayer as he grimaced. He has not seen the Catholic in a decade, because either or both were been called away to respond to an emergency or another, but just because something is unlikely, it doesn't mean it's not going to happen.

  Actually, it is more the opposite...

  Constantin decelerated to a jog, taking in the gathered priests, rabbi, imams, monks and so, so much more. It looks like the reptilians had even sent an observer! And...ah. Suzana and Lauren?iu have arrived before him.

  The weresheep waves at him with a blocky-fingered, wool-covered hand, standing under the Romanian flag next to a square-jawed man whose severe expression is only accentuated by his mitre and white beard. The Patriarch, who has not yet started mingling with the heads of the other Orthodox churches, greets him with a curt nod, his gilded, purple-trimmed, diamond-white robes almost blinding in the sunlight reflected off the snow.

  Thank God, Angus hasn't made it. He is always the first to arrive and the last to depa-

  'TOP O' THE MORNIN', YA CUNTS!' a cheerful voice bellows as its owner lands boots-first in the middle of the gathering, folding the North Pole in half. The halves rise by nearly ninety degrees, and begin to shatter, before the newcomer laughs, clasping his hands and sending out a wave of faith.

  The land restored to pristine condition, Angus Murphy grins. Bald, with a goatee red as blood and half the size of his head, the Irishman is well over two metres tall. His blue eyes roam across the gathering, first taking in the Pope, then settling on Constantin.

  'Costiiii~' Angus' grins broadens as he spreads his arms wide. 'Missed me, corpse-fondler? God would fuck me blind if I didn't come now! As She should do to you...' the priest's grin becomes sharklike as he crosses the distance to the Romanian, his green-trimmed white robes shining like fire. 'You fookin' heretic.'