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Levi

Two weeks since moving to Mistvale, and I didn't feel a lick of regret. I'd thought I would, what with leaving a perfectly nice apartment in a big city to move to this tiny town where the weather forecast was useless and it rained without rhyme or reason.

But nope, I liked it. Mistvale had a certain charm, and it didn't hurt that there were so many supes around. I was sure this was the first town I'd ever been to where the supes outnumbered the humans.

I wondered if I'd have to pay a visit to the dragon who watched over this town. Did I have to pay him some kind of protection fee?

Wait. He wasn't a mobster. At least, I didn't think he was. Judging by what I'd heard about him at Waves—a club run by a merman and catering mostly to supes—he was a good man. Or dragon. Most of the supes in Mistvale seemed to be .

It was a nice change from city life where you barely saw any supes, and those you did tended to keep their distance. Secrecy was big among supes, and in cities, most places were under some kind of surveillance, which meant they had to be careful.

I'd left the big city life because I'd gotten bored, and I had a feeling Mistvale was exactly what I needed.

As if to prove my intuition right, I'd found Greta, my familiar, on my second day in town.

She'd been injured, and after a trip to the vet, she'd informed me with a bite on my finger that she was my familiar.

Like every mage, I'd wondered since I was a kid what my familiar would be. I'd always hoped for a dog because they were supposed to be loyal and cheerful beings.

Greta wasn't a dog.

She wasn't bad. She was actually pretty sweet, and I was enjoying getting to know her.

But she wasn't the kind of familiar I could take places, especially not around humans, because Greta was a skunk.

Her fur was mostly black, with two strips of white over her back.

Her tail was bushy and a mix of black and white, and she was actually pretty cute.

She wasn't a big fan of people, which I suspected was because of the injuries I'd found her with.

Maybe some asshole humans had hurt her. Whatever the reason, she preferred to stay at home for the most part, and I didn't really mind.

It wasn't like I was going to be using my magic for anything out there.

"Oh, hey, Greta," I said as she climbed up the old-person rocking chair I was sitting on—I'd found it really cheap at a yard sale a few blocks over—and perched on my lap, her bushy tail curling over my knee.

She made a soft grumbling sound as she eyed me, then curled up like a cat, covering her face with her tail.

I had nowhere to go anyway. I could sit here until she was done with her nap.

I eyed my phone as I tried to decide what to do next.

I was running out of food, so a grocery run might be in order.

There was also the issue of my very low funds.

Getting Greta looked at by the vet had dipped into my savings, and so had renting a place and getting some furniture.

I still had enough money to get me through another month, but I needed to start looking for a job. Soon.

I wondered if there were any nurseries in town. Or maybe I could find some rich person wanting a gardener.

As an earth mage, I loved nothing more than getting my hands dirty and helping things grow. Plants were my specialty, but I could boost healing in some smaller animals as well. My connection with the earth gave me my powers, which was another reason why I was glad I decided to move here.

In the city, it was hard to find a place that was all natural.

There was no place untouched by humans. But this town?

There were trees everywhere here, a huge park—that I was pretty sure belonged to a forest spirit of some kind—and a river flowing beside it.

It was teeming with energy, and connecting with the land here was a heady feeling.

I'd been shocked speechless the first time I connected with the ground in my backyard, and grateful to my past self for renting a house with a backyard.

Around forty-five minutes later, Greta woke up from her nap, stretched, and stalked off. She had to have been a cat in a past life, right? She had to be.

Shaking my head, I got to my feet, stretched as well because damn if it didn't feel good, then headed to the small kitchen to make myself some dinner.

I'd planted a small garden in the backyard my first week here, and soon it would start bearing tomatoes, herbs, and some vegetables. I was mostly growing them for Greta, since she preferred to 'hunt' for her food herself, but I wouldn't mind eating some fresh produce either.

I ate in front of my laptop—I'd decided not to splurge on a TV when I could just as easily use my laptop—while watching an old sitcom.

It was the first show I'd watched when I ran away from home and came to the 'human world,' and I had a soft spot for it.

Like most mages, I'd been born in Ravenshire, a secret island where mages had hidden themselves away centuries ago. They'd hidden to keep themselves safe, but over time their reasons had changed, and they'd become rigid and bigoted, punishing anyone too 'different.'

They hadn't done anything to me, but I'd gotten sick of their behavior, especially after they'd almost killed a kid I used to know. So, I'd left .

I didn't regret leaving, not even after everything else that had happened. Maybe I would've been safer if I'd stayed in Ravenshire, but I certainly wouldn't have been happy.

Finn

"If you think I'm gonna let you live after that," Dean, my brother, growled through the headset. I rolled my eyes as I took a few more points off his player, which made him whine, " Why are you so good at this?"

"I'm not. You're just that bad," I said, then jerked away before remembering he wasn't sitting beside me and couldn't hit me like I knew he wanted to. While he was eight years younger than me, he'd grown up into a bulky idiot who had more strength than he knew what to do with, and his hits hurt .

"Fuck you!"

"Sorry, not sorry."

"I'd smack you if I could, you know that right? I'm keeping a log so I can do it all at once the next time I come home."

A pang of sadness squeezed my chest, and I shook it off, doubling down on our fight.

Watching Penny, my younger sister, go off to college had been tough, but at least I'd had Dean. Now, both my siblings were away from me for the first time in my life, and I didn't like it one bit. If it weren't for my dads, I'd probably go crazy worrying about Penny and Dean .

I'd looked after them since they were babies, and even after our dads had adopted us, after they'd given me the opportunity to be a kid for once, I'd still taken care of them in my own way.

But now Penny was off learning to do what she did best: being nosy. She was going to be a crime journalist one day, and I knew she'd be wonderful at it.

Dean had taken a year off after high school to decide what he wanted to do—and so he could get his powers completely under control—and once he'd decided he wanted to be a doctor and help people like our dad, it hadn't taken him long to get accepted by a great medical school.

He'd only been gone a month, and I already missed him terribly.

So did my basilisk side. He usually felt like a whole other person inside me, and generally stayed quiet, only piping up when he felt like 'we' were in danger, or if he was curious about something.

"Ha! Got you!"

"Shit!" I scowled at the screen, then dropped my controller with a sigh. Well, I missed him most of the time .

"You got distracted," Dean informed me, like I hadn't already noticed, and I sighed.

"I know. It doesn't count."

"Oh, it so does!" he said, then paused. "Finn, I gotta go. Same time next week?"

Biting back a sigh, I agreed, and we wished each other good night before logging out of the game.

Standing up, I stretched, then returned the headset and console to their spots before making my way to the kitchen, where my dads were working side by side with an ease that only came from sharing the space for years.

"Can I help?" I asked, and Dad smiled, then waved toward the table. He'd tied up his long, blond hair into a ponytail, and his green-brown eyes were warm as he glanced at me.

"We're almost done here, so why don't you set the table? Or would you like to eat in front of the TV?"

"The table's good," I assured him as I grabbed some dishes and went over to the dining table, doing my best to ignore the empty chairs.

"What's for dinner?" I asked, though the spicy aroma told me it was a curry of some kind.

"Veggie kofta in gravy with roti," Papa said, his brown eyes sparkling, and my mouth watered. While both my dads were good at cooking, I loved the Indian food Papa made.

"And salad," Dad added, and I tried not to wrinkle my nose. Fan of salads, I was not.

I carried the food to the dining table as Dad and Papa cleaned up, and then we sat down to eat.

"Anyone hear from Penny today?" Papa asked, and I hummed.

"Yeah, we texted for a bit this morning. She's working on some big assignment for a class," I said, then stuck a piece of lettuce into my mouth and tried not to make a face. I liked eating the salad first so I could wash the taste away with delicious, cooked food .

"Looks like she's going to have a busy few days then. Raph." Papa turned to Dad, who gave the food all his focus as he folded up a piece of roti, scooped some of the curry, and deposited it into his mouth.

"Angel," Papa repeated, and Dad sighed.

"I won't send her any cat videos today."

"And?"

"Or any pictures of Neya and Pads."

"Good. We can talk to her on the weekend, all right?"

Dad nodded, a pout on his face as he continued eating, and I hid my smile behind my hand.

Penny was Dad's princess, and she'd always be that, no matter how old she was.

He didn't treat us differently or anything—we all got the cat videos, but only Penny got the pics of Padfoot, our husky, and Neya, Dad's squirrel familiar—but I knew he missed Penny just as much as I did.

I was also sure he was going to start texting Dean too, now that he was all settled into his routine.

After dinner, I cleaned up and did the dishes while the dads took Padfoot out for his evening romp around the backyard. I enjoyed our daily routine. It made me feel calm and settled in a way very few things did.

Even though it'd been more than fourteen years since me and my siblings were kidnapped and held for our blood, I still didn't feel 'normal' most of the time. I didn't think I ever would .

There was also the fact that I absolutely hated my supe heritage and wished I'd never found out what powers I had.

Add to that being away from my siblings since the first time they came into this world.

..and yeah, I was struggling big time. I was good at hiding it, though, and in moments like these, I could just let it all go for a little bit and enjoy being around the people I loved.

"Woof!" I glanced down at Pads, who gazed up at me, his tail wagging rapidly. His gray-and-white body wriggled in excitement, and I smiled.

"Hey, Pads. What's up?"

Padfoot started off on a long-winded reply in the way only huskies could, and I nodded along as if I understood him perfectly.

I only did it because it made him happy—and it also made him shut up faster, which was appreciated—and though Dean liked to tease me about it, I'd seen him do the same when he thought no one was watching.

Neya skittered into the kitchen and chirped, and suddenly, Pads didn't care about telling me about his backyard adventures.

Instead, he raced off after Neya, still as spry as he was fourteen years ago when I first met him.

Dad had made sure of that. If it was up to him, Pads would live as long as us, and enjoy every moment of it.

It was good to have a healing mage for a dad.