Wind Meets Fire

Ezra's Point of View

My life is one adventure after another, at least that's how I think about it. It helps keep me sane and keeps me moving forward. It helps me forget that I'm nothing more than a pretty pet on a very long leash. But maybe I should....

My mother was a beautiful woman with the sweetest darkest eyes you'd ever seen, and a smile that had the power to warm or break a heart. The blood that ran through her family was strong, old, and due to slavery, was a mix of people and places that had no business being thrown together. We are unique. That's what attracted my father to her. She would say that he was large and strong yet tender. I'd be built like him one day. He reminded her of the wind with how unpredictable he was, but like the wind, he was always there. All too soon they had me. A baby born at midnight, under a full moon, in the middle of a storm.

The machines my mother was hooked up to all stopped working when she went fully into labor and the storm outside grew intense, winds howling so hard my grandpa and uncles couldn't even make it to the hospital. The birth was apparently difficult and my mother almost died. My grandma tells the story that my father leaned over her and whispered into her ear, seaming to give her some of his strength - he willed her to live. When the morning came my mother was wearing a silver pendant with a butterfly made of purples, pinks, and blues inside - my father vanished... just as quickly as he came. Her family was furious, but my mother was never angry or hurt. She would smile fondly whenever she talked about him. God how I loved her.

When I was 10, a darkness darker than darkness crawling across our home. I could taste the cold and my small voice shrunk; unable to call out her name. The shadows that always danced across my walls stood still and the whispers of the wind that came through my open window were now silent. "Run." A voice familiar and distant. I crawled out of my bed and into the hallway to go left towards my mother's room, but something made me turn to the right. I saw things skirting in the darkness both phantasmagorical and frightening. The next thing I remember is a butterfly flying in front of my face and my mother's arms around me.

In the morning I was found outside under the oak tree wearing my mother's pendant. A police officer scooped me up and rushed me towards the street. He was pale. To pale. He deposited me with the ambulance and headed off down the road. I blinked and he was gone. I watched as stretcher after stretcher left the house with bodies covered in sheets... some soaked red like wine. My grandmother arrived at the house and an officer pulled her to the side where she broke down, collapsing on the ground sobbing uncontrollably.

"Your grandson is at the ambulance let us take you..."

"NO! It's his fault they're all gone, it's his fault they're all DEAD!"

She screamed and yelled. Thrashed around and spoke in a language I didn't understand. Finally, she crawled off the ground looking 10 years older. Pushed an officer away. Dropped a ring on the ground. Walked away. Never looked back. And at that moment I knew I'd somehow done something wrong. "Breathe. You will survive." A voice familiar and distant.

Over the next 4 years, I lived in the system. It was hard and I could feel myself grow hard and yet growing stronger. The wind once again whispered, whispered warnings that helped keep me alive. I saw things more frequently but I pushed them out of my mind. And when I was alone, butterflies and moths would be attracted to me - in those moments I felt connected to something... someone.

Right before my 15th birthday, I found myself for the first time in a loving foster home with 3 other foster kids. The house was asleep when I heard it. "Run." A voice familiar and distant. I woke up panicked, sweating, and my mother's pendant burned against my chest through my shirt. This time I didn't go outside my door, and my voice didn't shrink. I jumped out my window and screamed into the darkness. I could feel it again and looking up I saw the darkness slink off the house and follow me. I turned and ran, barefoot until my feet were bleeding, until my lungs burned, until my chest cried out for me to stop. I turned around and saw a figure. Darker than darkness walking slowly down the road and as he... it walked, the street lights would turn off and the world would fall silent.

I knew that this was the last thing my mother saw before she died and grew angry. Angrier than I had ever been and the wind started to grow. It swirled around me harder and harder. Fences shook and signs rattled. The thing then smiled sickly at me and sped up. I cried out in anger and pain as a took a step back.

"Captis Tenebris."

The voice was booming. It filled the cracks within space. His presence shattered my fear and calmed my anger. In an instant, the darkness that seemed so powerful, so unescapable was no longer smiling but was brought to its knees. Writhing in pain, I saw words I couldn't read float in the air around it and the darkness burst into blue flames. The world returned to normal and a hand fell on my shoulder as I slipped out of consciousness.

A few weeks later I turned 15 and was released from the hospital. In the lobby, I was met by my foster parents and a man in a charcoal grey suit. I was so happy to see them and my siblings alive. I gingerly ran up and hugged them all and let the love drift over me, but my foster dad looked sad. The man in the suit walked up and stuck out his hand. He wasn't too tall, only about 5'9, and couldn't have weighed more than 180 lbs. His hair and medium-length beard were snow-white, and his eyes were a shade of blue that made it hard to look into them. I shook his hand and immediately felt the same power I'd felt the night I was saved. My eyes grew huge and he just smiled at me.

"Ezra. I'm Anderson, and you'll be coming to live with me starting today."

Tears started forming in my eyes and just as I was about to speak I felt his energy wrap itself around my throat, cutting off my voice. I removed my hand from his and ran to my foster mother, throwing my arms around her in desperation. She kissed my cheek and whispered how they had tried to stop him, but it all happened so fast. She looked me in my eyes and said she would always love me and I was always welcome. Anderson told me all my things were already at his home and that this was goodbye. One last round of hugs and I followed him out of the waiting room. The wind enveloped me in its embrace and I could feel it drying my tears. "They will live full lives because you are leaving." A voice familiar and distant. Just like that, we drove away and this chapter of my life began.

"You are like Pandora's box - mythical, beautiful, dangerous. Few can ignore you once you set your gaze on them. The gold and gleam hidden in those dark eyes. The breath you draw is sin, and as a sin, men will want you, woman will want you - things fantastical and not of this flesh will want you. There are fates far far worse than living with me my boy. Do you want to die, Ezra? Do you want that nice family to die? Because if you'd stayed with them you and them would have died that night. And if not that night, some other night by the hands, claws, or fangs of something else. You are a fae born Ezra, and as such you are capable of many amazing and wonderous things. Let me teach you."

Across the next ten-plus years, Anderson helped me and several other unique kids harness our abilities and do things that comic books would find hard to comprehend. But it all came at a price. We all owed Anderson a life debt that by his magic would have to be fulfilled before we could be free. We are his chess pieces. Rooks, knights, bishops. All with skills and abilities that make us just as deadly as we are unique. And this is what led me to be at the party. I was staking out a Senator. He had drifted too close to our world by way of his mistress and several people now wanted him dead. I walked through the doors and let my energy do the work. Pushing and pulling, drawing him near. That's when I heard it. "Will he be your salvation or your destruction." A voice familiar and distant.

"Hi. I'm Ezra." 

I leaned up and kissed him. Throwing caution to the wind, and for the first time I felt things I'd never felt before. HIs energy was warm and found itself wrapping around my own as his arms moved to wrap around me. His lips were soft and tasted of cinnamon. I could feel myself melt more and more into his skin. Too soon we felt someone enter our space and broke apart. 

"It's time to go Ezra."

The look in her eyes let me know she wasn't amused. I gave him a shy smile and walked away. Leaving him stunned, panting, and sadly alone. 

Whispering to me as we turned and walked away - "He's cute, but you know better. If anyone finds out about... well... we're risking too much for distractions."