#lafistory

Most people have only enough magic to do one specific thing very well, such as that person at work who always makes the best coffee even though the coffee machine and the beans and the water are the same as how everyone else makes coffee.

Some people, though, have enough magic to be aware of it and to use it.

In the past, magic ran rampant and unchecked. But, like with every other thing in the world, someone decided they wanted to control it under the guise of keeping it under control. Now, magic runs in families most often, with the rare exception who quietly disappears from their normal life once the hunters find them.

Mages now usually fit into one of three categories: non-combat mages who stick mainly to small spells or domestic magic, hunters who specialize in combat or other offensive/defensive magic (often tied to a base of the network of hunters that police all mages), and witches--the ones who create monsters, who take advantage of others’ lives for their own gain.

so it started w/ single mom f-64 w/her son tao and widower m-21 with his son takeo. tao and takeo, of course, are best friends almost at first sight, and their parents meet through them.

but anyway it mutated.

eventually, after a lot of thinking over several hours of riding shotgun and occasionally being the navigator, this is something of what it became.

--

She’s a musician with a son from an ex-boyfriend. They’re quite well-known around the neighborhood for sitting in the nearby park while she plays guitar and teaches him songs. (His favorite is her version of “Cherry Bomb” because she lets him shout “CHERRY BOMB!” whenever it comes up in the song.) When she gets a new job, she has to send him to daycare. This one appeals to her because, despite its apparent quality, it’s quite cheap--for her, anyway.

He lives with the rest of his family on their sprawling property. They’ve got a secret to hide, and he has an orphaned nephew to take care of. After an accident that killed his parents and two of his siblings, the family is left leaderless and sometimes divided. And the nephew needs someone to take care of him--away from the fractured household. He looks for a daycare nearby, and when his nephew makes immediate friends with another boy, an exuberant, adorable one, he decides that that daycare is the one for his nephew. It helps that his nephew’s new friend has a single mother who has zeal--and beauty--equal to her son’s.

When they start going out, he makes sure she never meets any of his family other than his nephew. But things spiral out of his control on the night of the full moon. He stands her up for a date, but it is completely out of his control; he’s being hunted. When she finds out, she doesn’t stand for it.

The hunters have the wolf surrounded, weapons trained on it--silver bullets, all. He knows that he is finished until a familiar voice shouts, “Home run!” The hunters are confused, they turn, and a bat cracks the leader in the back of the head. Girlfriend to the rescue--until one of the other hunters, younger and far more panicky than the others, turns and shoots her, too late for his senior’s shout of “That’s its mate!”

The pack bursts in to save their own, and they bring the injured woman with them. She wakes with her boyfriend keeping vigil next to her.

As she recovers, questions rise: do we allow her to stay, what about her son, etc. As she recovers, she learns: her boyfriend’s nephew is the alpha. His dead mother was set to be the next alpha until she, her younger brother, and their parents were cornered and killed, leaving only the toddler in the direct family line. Since then, the oldest of the family and the de facto leader until the alpha comes of age is his uncle.