Chapter 24: The Seasons of My Life

Landslide, Fleetwood Mac.

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“L’s gotten weirdly attached to some guy that happened to find the gate in Glimmerbrook,” Morgyn said, fiddling with the egg rolls on the table. The blond couldn’t quite figure out how these were supposed to work, but Morgyn was also too proud to ask.

Knowing that, across the table with a bowl of sweet and sour pork, Ezio reached over and took one of Morgyn’s egg rolls, just to subtly show the dork how to eat them.

Morgyn’s green eyes glanced up at him, and then the blond wordlessly copied him. “His name’s Don or something like that,” Morgyn went on.

“Don Lothario?” Ezio asked. He had a bit of a reputation out here, if you listened to the right rumours. Either Ezio listened to the right rumours, or had the right friends. Perhaps it was a little of column A and a little of column B.

“That’s the one, yeah,” Morgyn answered, setting the egg roll back down. “I haven’t met him personally. Bad news?”

“You could say that,” Ezio replied. “I hope Don knows what he’s getting into, and makes some smart choices, for his own sake, because otherwise, he’s going to get hexed into next century, and you’ll probably have to deal with L being extra hissy for a few weeks.”

Morgyn made a face. “I don’t think I like this guy.”

Ezio snorted. “He’s cute, at least. Unfortunately, he knows it, and he’s the type of guy where it’s quite unfortunate that he knows it.”

“Yup, I know that sort,” Morgyn said. The blond had met a few over the years and generally, they weren’t great guys to know. On the other hand, L was a grown ass woman and could make her own choices and bad decisions. Besides, trying to tell her what to do ended about as well as trying to tell Morgyn what to do.

Translation: Badly.

“Well, anyway,” Morgyn started, “other than that, things are mostly the same in magic realm. Occasionally something blows up, but it’s a steady thing.”

Ezio looked a bit amused. “You make it sound like it’s boring.”

“What?” Morgyn said. “No… I’d never be bored of magic realm. Ex…cept I’m bored of magic realm. I like helping people, and teaching is weirdly rewarding now that I’m used to it, it’s just, nothing really changes. Everyone has the same issues with the same things day in and day out and the same potions explode for the same people.”

Ezio smiled. “Well, for what it’s worth, I figured you’d get bored of it eventually, and I’m not judging you. How long are you staying?”

“Six years?” Morgyn answered, sounding a little sheepish.

Ezio shook his head. “Oh no, no you’re gonna have to get a job.”

“What?” Morgyn asked, arching an eyebrow.

“A job,” Ezio repeated. “I’m way too broke for that, Morgyn, I can barely afford to support myself.”

Morgyn looked a little concerned. “Is it that bad?”

“It’s gotten better,” Ezio said. “Troi’s office helped me get on medical assistance to help pay the medical bills and for my prescriptions,” of which he had about a thousand. “But the bills are a little bit random, plus food costs factor in, and of course university tuition and the textbooks… you’re always welcome in my home, Morgs, absolutely, I just can’t promise I’ll always have one.”

Morgyn frowned. The blond didn’t know that he was still struggling that much, but then Drake had only been out here with him for the last year. Before that, Ezio had been out on the street, and if Morgyn wasn’t a sage, it would’ve been the blond that’d moved in with him, on no uncertain terms. As it was, it was almost amazing that Ezio had managed to stay on the street for so long. He was good at hiding things, when he so chose to.

Still, he had a point. Morgyn did have some money put away, from the other times the blond had been out here. Actually, there was more money put away than Morgyn knew what to do with, and the blond thought about handing a bunch of it to Ezio. On the other hand, Ezio was more proud than Morgyn was, and would likely reject it. Morgyn could just move in with them, but eventually, the money would run out, and living with sexual tension king one and two was a special level of hell.

“I’ll figure something out,” Morgyn said. “What kind of jobs can you get with a science degree, anyway?”

Ezio made a face. “Your weird interest in science is weird,” he said.

“Nah,” Morgyn answered. “I always had the interest in science, just nothing to do with it.”

“If you say so,” Ezio replied. “Well, depends on what kind of science you get a degree in. Biology would get you work as a doctor, or marine biology, botany… but computer science is better suited to computer engineering and programming. Physics is if you want to be an astronaut, mechanical engineering, or general science, and psychology deals with education and covert ops. You’d make a pretty good teacher. I mean, you already are one.”

Morgyn snorted softly. Yeah, but that wasn’t what Morgyn wanted to do, probably. The blond’s interest in biology hadn’t waned since Morgyn had asked about it, and if it was a viable route, Morgyn had every intention of following it. Not that the blond had any idea how good at science Morgyn would be, but that was something to worry about later. It wasn’t like Ezio would have an answer to that, anyway. That was something that Morgyn would have to discover independently.

What science the blond had been exposed to, however, had at least been interesting.

“In other news,” Morgyn said, smiling a bit. “How are you and Drake?”

Ezio loosed a groan. That didn’t take long. “Already?” he asked.

“Of course,” Morgyn replied, munching on egg roll. “It’s been a few months since I saw you last. Someone has to bother you about Drake, I can’t imagine your cat’s been doing it.”

Ezio looked incredulous. “I’d have figured by now you would’ve forgotten all about it.”

“Nah,” Morgyn said. “I won’t forget about it until I die. And even then, maybe I’ll be bothering you about it as a ghost.”

“Presumably, I’m going to die first,” Ezio said, raising an eyebrow.

Well, Morgyn didn’t like to think about that. The blond simply shrugged. “Maybe so.”

“We’re still just friends,” Ezio said. “And it’s staying that way. I don’t date anymore, remember?”

Yeah, Morgyn remembered that. The blond also thought Drake would be an exception, though. When you were in love with someone as long as Ezio and Drake had been in love with each other, it was hard to imagine there wouldn’t be exclusive exceptions.

“For now,” Morgyn said.

Ezio snorted, and shook his head. Morgyn was like that. “You do know there’s a such thing as platonic love, right?” Clearly Morgyn had missed this.

“I know,” Morgyn said. “I just don’t think either of you exclusively platonically love each other.”

If Morgyn said so.

* * *

Morgyn had wandered off to go hang out at a bar. Ezio was going home, because for one thing, bars were bad places for Ezio to be. For another thing, he’d gotten tired a long time ago, but that wasn’t surprising. Ezio couldn’t generally stay active for very long before just existing became tiring. It was a strange phenomena, but he likely had his heart to thank for that.

It wasn’t like it bothered him. Ezio had never really had a life to speak of, not that many friends of course. Really, Morgyn, Lilith, and Drake were Ezio’s only friends, probably. L and Simeon could be considered to be somewhere on the list, but maybe not all the same. It was probably sad that Ezio’s only real friends were Morgyn, Lilith, and Drake. Morgyn was his twin, and Drake had saved his life. Strange choices, or maybe not. Lilith was a little less sad, but the Vatores were cousins of the Dussault line. Ezio only knew them because Drake did.

Ezio made his way up the elevator, and then took a slight detour to check the mail, one hand running through his hair, slightly longer than ear length black waves. Idly, one hand reached up and shoved his glasses, simple black frames, up his nose. There was a small stack of envelopes in the mailbox, but looking at it, it seemed to be bills, bills, and more bills. Oh, wait, this was in the wrong mailbox. He paused, turning back around to stuff one of the envelopes into the Rasoyas’ mailbox, and then went back to slowly making his way to the door.

Mayor Whiskers seemed to know he was there already, because he’d started yowling. Ezio sighed, nudging the door open, setting the mail on the kitchen counter. Mayor hopped onto the counter, too, and bumped his head against Ezio’s arm.

“Hi there,” Ezio greeted, reaching over and scritching behind Mayor’s ear. The cat then wandered off to go do anything besides be around a human, as often he did. Ezio shook his head after him.

He and Mayor had met out on the street. Both with no place to call home, they’d ended up taking care of each other. Really; Ezio would share what he found with the cat, and sometimes the cat would show up with fish. One winter, Mayor showed up with a scarf in his mouth, and though the cold didn’t really bother Ezio very much, he still ended up using it.

In fact, he still had it.

Though, now that he thought about it, how old was this cat, anyway? He’d worry about that later, maybe. He’d made it possible for humans to live forever, maybe he could get a cat to do it, too.

Ezio shook his head, wandering into the living room to fall heavily onto the couch, his head falling onto the back, eyes staring at the ceiling. As he sat there, his head resting on the back of the couch, he heard a door open and close. Then, a shadow fell on him. One grey eye popped open to find Drake looking down at him and seeming rather perplexed.

“Is Morgyn still as exhausting as usual?” Drake asked.

“Yep,” Ezio answered. “I don’t have the energy for this.”

Drake looked amused, loosing a quiet snort, and then went around the couch to sit down. “Did you guys have a good time at least?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Ezio answered. “Went down to the food stalls, stopped by the Warble, went a few other places, and then Morgyn got distracted by bars.”

Drake made a noise at the back of his throat. “I’m glad you didn’t go with,” he said.

“It seemed like a pretty bad idea,” Ezio answered, smiling. “How’s stuff here?”

“Mayor clawed your bed again,” Drake said. “But other than that, nothing notable. Well, Ms. Rasoya did come by to yell at me for being loud. I haven’t done anything today except type.”

“You know her complaints are half valid and half bullshit anyway,” Ezio said. That was nothing new to them.

Drake sighed. “I suppose you’re right. It’s still bothersome.” Geeta had a way with ruining your day. It was either some kind of a talent or one of the most ridiculous skills to hone Drake had ever heard of. Maybe there was some logic in that somewhere that he couldn’t see. That was just as well. “Would you like some tea?” Drake asked.

Ezio leaned back a little on the couch to look at him. “Yeah, that sounds nice, thanks,” he answered.

Drake smiled slightly, moving around the counters to start on making tea. And Ezio couldn’t help but wonder, how things would turn out for them, if Ezio admitted his feelings. It was just as well that he didn’t, he figured. Drake had never shown any interest in him, not like almost everyone else Ezio had ever met had. Maybe there was a reason for that, maybe he did have some interest, and simply didn’t show it. Drake wasn’t a terribly overt person, anyway. That was probably part of how he and Ezio had become friends in the first place. Ezio needed someone that wasn’t terribly loud at the time, and that became even more important later.

Still, the fear that it would irrevocably alter their relationship with each other, and then it wouldn’t work out, leaving them in an extremely awkward situation, overrode everything else. Ezio didn’t want to lose Drake because he went and wanted something more than this. Every time he thought he might tell him, that thought held him back. Ezio would rather things stayed exactly like this, than everything changed and then went up in flames. It hurt. Of course it did. Ezio had just decided a long time ago that the pain was worth it.

“Morgyn kind of asked to move in,” Ezio said.

“Oh?” Drake asked.

“I told the dolt that we can’t really afford it, so a job would be required,” Ezio answered. “I think we could manage fine enough, I just worry too much I guess.”

Drake shook his head. “It’s understandable.” Before he’d showed up, Ezio hadn’t had much of anything for far too long, if one asked Drake. It made sense he wasn’t exactly jumping to go back to it now that he was past it.

“Strangely, Morgyn’s really interested in a science degree all of the sudden,” Ezio said. “I guess the science runs in us both.”

Drake smiled. “Morgyn seems more suited to practical sciences, but you’ve got a decent handle on the theoretical ones.”

“I guess,” Ezio said, snorting. “I don’t normally have time for science around everything else.”

“You do seem to enjoy it,” Drake said, finishing up making the tea and pouring a glass. The rest, he put in the fridge. “Maybe you should find the time.”

Well, maybe. Ezio still had never thought too hard about what he wanted, and didn’t know what that was. “Maybe,” Ezio said, taking the glass as Drake leaned over the couch and offered it to him. He’d worry about what he wanted later, when he had what he needed. Ezio paused, drinking about half the glass of tea, and then set it down on the coffee table. “I’ll go for a shower.”

“Okay,” Drake answered, watching him shuffle off to the bathroom. And then he sighed to himself, and wondered when it was Ezio would come off survival mode and start living.

* * *

If he recalled correctly, she was usually out here at this time of day. Ezio didn’t come out to the Arts Quarter very often, but once in a while, he’d find his way over here. True to its name, the Arts Quarter was home to a lot of art, and Ezio often enjoyed it. He didn’t really have the time to produce it, but he did have an easel and paints. Sometimes, if he was lucky, he’d manage to get hold of a canvas, and he’d paint. Things that were, things that are, things that never could’ve been, things that only existed in his head, things that everyone had somewhere in them. That was what he painted. The life that he never got to live.

He made his way over to where artists normally sold their work, dressed in a loose hooded black jacket over a t-shirt, black slacks, and surprisingly, heels. He found them more comfortable sometimes. It was a strange phenomena to describe but he learnt a long time ago, Ezio Ember was not exactly male, anymore than Morgyn Ember was exactly female. Sometimes he wanted to wear high heels.

He still hadn’t quite made it to skirts, though.

In one hand, he carried a bottle of tea. It was an old soda bottle that’d been repurposed and had the labelling ripped off, but it was good enough. It wasn’t snowing today, but it was still very cold. Ezio didn’t feel it. He never did, anymore.

And when he found her, thick waves of black hair, slightly bronzed skin, dark, rounded eyes, he smiled a little to himself. She was one of the most beautiful girls he’d ever seen in his life. He’d never, ever tell her that. Of course, Ezio had seen her before. It took a while, but he eventually remembered that flash of a smile beneath the rim of a conical hat.

She’d been beautiful then, too, but he’d never told anyone of that particular vision. Even now, he had no idea what he’d had it for. Most of the time, he could figure out the purpose or meaning behind one of those flashes by what he saw and the particulars of how he saw them. This one? He hadn’t the faintest idea what that was about. Perhaps, it was just the universe telling him that, when he found her, he was meant to be around her.

He was trying not to be terribly intimidated by her. It was harder than it sounded.

A slight smile crossed his face, as he practically appeared at her side. She turned around and squeaked in surprise.

“Ezio, hi,” she said, smiling.

“I thought you could use some tea or something,” he said, offering the bottle to her.

She smiled, taking the bottle. “Thank you,” she said. The close proximity to her set off electricity under his skin, the quiet hum of dormant magic.

Her name was Cassandra Goth, and she was, perhaps, the last of the five families.

“How have you been?” she asked, opening the bottle and drinking some of the tea. It was green tea.

“Alright enough,” Ezio answered. He was watching her; she had a habit of being weirdly clumsy, sometimes, and he wasn’t sure why because any other time she seemed to manage everything just fine. And then Ezio was around, and somehow she managed to drop and break things half the time. “How have you been? Any luck selling paintings?”

Cassandra huffed, screwing the cap back on the bottle and setting it on the concrete under her. “Nope,” she said. “I have a weird style, I’m not surprised by this.”

Ezio looked a bit apologetic. Her work was a little on the dark side, but everyone had a dark side, even as they liked to pretend they didn’t. The duality of man was a subject often spoken and theorised about. No one understood it, not really, but humans barely understood anything. The more Ezio understood, the more he came to realise that he didn’t know anything at all.

If he was guessing right, she was a dormant spellcaster. Oh, he knew of her, but he sure had to dig to find that information. The Goths had done quite a commendable job, hiding themselves among the mundane and normal. But there were cracks in their armour. Sometimes, quite large cracks. Bella Goth, as it happened, seemed to be a weirdness magnet. If Cassandra was the Cassandra he thought she was, she was related to the Crumplebottoms and the Bachelors, as well. The Bachelors were mediums and seers, mostly, but once in a while, one would come out a full-fledged spellcaster. Her bloodline was powerful, and whether she knew it or not, her blood sang to the pulse of magic.

He had a feeling she wasn’t named Cassandra just because it sounded pretty.

Ezio shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Cassandra’s gaze fell to his feet for a moment, and then met his eyes again. “Your work is unique,” Ezio said.

Cassandra snorted. “Yeah?” she asked. “Is unique the new polite word for weird?”

Ezio couldn’t help the quiet laugh. “If that’s how you want to look at it, sure.” He wasn’t going to argue with it too much. Cassandra could believe whatever it was she wanted about his interest in her art.

“Hey,” she started, “for what it’s worth… thank you. For helping with my family’s painting.” It’d been gifted to a family friend, who had later passed away, and the painting was to be sent back to the Goths. Unfortunately, her children decided to sell it for the ten thousand it was worth, instead. Ezio’s legal knowledge had come in handy, and he’d managed to wrangle it back into the ownership of the Goths.

They didn’t care about the money. They wanted the painting.

Ezio smiled. “You’re welcome,” he answered. “But I didn’t mind doing it.”

“I know, it just, seemed a little strange to drag you into it,” Cassandra said.

“I dragged myself into that one,” Ezio argued. Being fair about it, he wouldn’t have even known about it if he hadn’t come into the Casbah Gallery one day to her screaming one of the employees up one side and down the other because they had the painting in question on display, but that was into semantics territory, and didn’t matter.

Yes, so he had. Cassandra frowned slightly. He’d dragged himself into that situation, fixed it, and then refused the money her parents would’ve happily showered him in. He was such a strange person. Whenever she thought she understood Ezio, she found that she didn’t.

“So,” Ezio started, “is this the part where I awkwardly ask you out for coffee, you say yes, we go out, I ramble about nerdy and nonsensical things you don’t really care about, we part ways and you decide you never want to see me again and don’t call me again? Or should we skip all that, and go right to my going away?”

Cassandra startled, looking up at him. Self-deprecating jokes were how he dealt with nervousness, she’d learnt that some time ago, so he was nervous, and he was serious. He’d just asked her out, in that roundabout, awkward way of his.

That was fucking adorable.

“I think I’ll take the coffee venture,” she said.

Oh. That was somehow unexpected. Ezio looked befuddled for a moment, and then nodded. “How about this Saturday? There’s a decent coffee shop in Magnolia Promenade I think will work okay.”

“That’s good for me, yeah,” she answered.

“Okay. Well. I should go back to being a functional human being, and I’ll um. I’ll call,” he said, stepping back.

“Okay,” Cassandra answered.

With one more nod, Ezio turned around and headed back to the Spice Market, with just a bit of extra spring in his step.

* * *

He only had this term and one more left, and then he was done with his degree, and could start working, instead. So far, they’d done very well operating under the strain, but truthfully, Ezio had no reason to think they wouldn’t.

Drake was making a decent amount in royalties. He wasn’t exactly a huge author star, but he had a small, comfortable cult following, a guaranteed percentage of sales. When Ezio bothered to paint, his paintings had a small cluster of collectors that were usually more than happy to buy them. He didn’t make much more than it cost to create them, but it was something, and Ezio had learnt a long time ago not to be too picky.

Still, he did need to pass these classes if he was going to move onto the last two. Ezio was so close to being done with this, and then he’d be bringing home five, six thousand a day, and they could get a bigger apartment if they wanted to, or even buy a house. He wasn’t going to think things like maybe he could afford a penthouse, because he doubted it (though he’d love to get one, as it turned out Ezio loved the city). It was more like, it’d just be nice to live in something more comfortable, rather than cramped.

And to make matters worse, the apartment they were in had a ghost problem, and every so often, Ezio would get a never-ending migraine from it.

He paused on the sentence he was scribbling into his notebook, slid the books slightly across the table away from him, and stretched out. Sitting still in a chair for too long tended to cause varying pains as a matter of course, and Ezio thought he’d been sitting here for about half an hour. He reached across the table, checking his phone. Nope, it’d been three hours.

Maybe a break was in order.

As he thought that, sliding down in his seat, someone came up beside him and sat down. A glance over revealed Lilith, settling down in the seat beside him, setting her books on the table. Ezio smiled. It was nice to see her, but they saw a lot of one another anymore. She and Caleb lived across the hall, but she also attended Britechester. As it turned out, they were working on the same degree programme, too. She was a notable amount of time behind him, but not much. She’d be done in another year or so.

“Nice to see you,” Ezio said.

“Yeah, it’s nice to be seen,” Lilith answered, smiling. “How goes the presentation and paper?”

Ezio answered with a quiet groan.

Lilith loosed an amused noise. “That bad?”

Ezio shook his head. “No, I’m just having a hard time focusing right now.” He didn’t say the bit about how everything seemed to be converging to mess up his life suddenly. He didn’t tell her anything else about the situation with the ghosts and the warnings Makana gave him, nor the mystery leather-bound book and its tales. Actually, he’d almost forgotten it. It’d all started one day, and then suddenly, it’d stopped all at once, and naive little Ezio had forgotten all about it.

Now, here it all was again. It was almost like, sometimes, he could almost see through the veil between the worlds, into the other worlds. Was that a thing? Probably not.

“Any particular reason why?” Lilith asked. “Or is it just one of those excess nervous energy things?”

Ezio arched an eyebrow. “Morgyn has that problem, not me.”

“Oh trust me,” Lilith said. “You definitely have it, too. It just takes you a bit longer to reach the edge of your tolerance of it, that’s all.”

Right. He supposed Lilith might know. Ezio had never thought about it. Oh wait! “Speaking of Morgyn, the dolt’s over at our place. Might sneak across the hallway to go spend time with Caleb at some point.” Ezio was going to hope somewhere in this part where neither Ezio nor Lilith were home. That’d be preferable. Neither of them would have to deal with it in that case.

Morgyn talked about how he and Drake were so into each other, but Morgyn and Caleb were about as bad, if not worse. Why Caleb hadn’t said anything, that one Ezio never figured out. Ezio would be just fine with Morgyn and Caleb ending up together. The vampire had stayed, after all. Morgyn had gone on a wild ride of self-discovery and then transitioned and Caleb was still here, still looking at Morgyn like the blond was the most precious thing in the world to him.

Ezio could leave Morgyn to Caleb without regrets.

In the meantime, however, he didn’t really have any interest in getting any more familiar with their relationship with each other than he already was, thank you muchly.

“Good note,” Lilith said, “I’ll try and stay out of the apartment for a while. Feel like hanging out with me?”

“Ah, I have to eventually go to sleep,” Ezio said. “I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, too.”

“How’s that going, anyway?” Lilith asked, flipping through her notebook.

“Fine enough,” Ezio said. “Troi’s got a new experimental treatment she’s interested in me trying, but my insurance won’t cover it yet.”

Lilith made a face, and nodded. “You can’t stay poor forever,” she said. “Sooner or later, something will give. I believe that.”

Ezio smiled. “Yeah,” he said, his hand moving to tap his pen against the notebook on the table in front of him. “Eventually, I’ll graduate, be an attorney, and be rolling in dough, as they say now. In the meantime, it just takes some patience and a strong will to get past this part, that’s all.”

“Well, I’ve never met anyone with stronger a will than you’ve got, at least,” Lilith said.

Ezio snorted. “It’s nothing special,” he said.

“You weren’t always like this,” Lilith said. “I’d say it’s notable. You’ve changed. Maybe we all have.”

“I just got some stubbornness out on the street is all,” Ezio said. Maybe for some people that seemed notable, but he knew that it was more of a matter of necessity than anything he’d decided to do on his own.

But, no, he didn’t think he was still the person he used to be, when he still lived in magic realm and knew very little else. Neither was he much like the young boy in France. He’d changed, yes. Maybe not always for the better, but he had all the same.

“Hey, I’m proud of it,” Lilith said. “It’s better not to try and remain the same. Everything changes, Ezio, even as it doesn’t change at all.”

“That makes no sense,” Ezio said, laughing.

“Doesn’t it?” she asked. “Humans are much the same as a whole, just with cell phones and internet now. But there are so many things that are nothing like they used to be.”

He supposed she had a point. Ezio hadn’t thought about it, too much. He was always too busy just trying to make it to tomorrow, but that was always how it was with him. “I guess,” he said. “Sorry to ditch you, but I’m going to take a break and walk around campus for a bit.”

“Okay,” Lilith answered, smiling. “Don’t get into too much trouble.”

Ezio snorted, standing and gathering his books together. Nah, he never got into trouble. It was more like, trouble found him and he had a little fun with it for a bit.

* * *

The sun was already set by the time he trudged in the door. It was nearing midnight, so he’d eaten something small and then retreated to his room, and Drake didn’t complain too much. Sometimes he looked at him with that weird ‘mom’ look. Drake was somewhere between his best friend and some kind of a weird caretaker, and Ezio was never sure how to feel about it all. Like most things he wasn’t sure what to do with, he didn’t think about it.

Ezio flopped over on his bed, and then heard a plaintive mew. His eyebrows raised up, one hand setting his glasses on the side table, and then he dropped over the edge of the bed. Mayor Whiskers was under the bed frame. “… well hello there,” he said, smiling. He could feel the blood rushing to his head, but he paid it no mind.

Mayor meowed in response, and then stood up and came out from under the bed, bonking his nose against Ezio’s.

Ezio scrunched his nose up. It was a good thing he wasn’t allergic to pets, or Mayor’s habit of bonking into his face would be more torturous than it already was. It wasn’t like he’d mind it. Not enough to change his mind about keeping the cat, at least. He and Mayor were both strays that had adopted each other, and Ezio wasn’t going to turn away from him now.

Mayor turned around, and meowed at him again. Ezio tilted his head slightly, and then scooted back onto the bed, leaning over to grab something off the side table. Then, he held it out, a little stick, and pressed a button. A laser aimed at the floor, and Mayor’s interest was immediately piqued. Ezio smiled, making the light bounce across the floor, watching the cat follow it, his little butt wiggling in the air just before he pounced.

Ezio wasn’t a huge fan of animals. You ran into a lot of them out on the street, from rodents to stray cats and dogs, occasional rabbits and deer, possums… Mostly, the animals minded their business, and Ezio minded his own, and their paths very rarely crossed. With Mayor, it was something else. He always seemed to be a little bit smarter than other cats. He’d been out on the street a long time, Ezio thought, and he’d figured out how it worked a long time ago. In some ways, it was almost like Mayor Whiskers was trying to teach Ezio how things worked on the streets.

He’d never told Drake or Morgyn, but he’d gotten shot more than once out there. There were street gangs, of course. And sometimes, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why no one had yet to connect high poverty levels to high crime levels, that Ezio didn’t know. Maybe the truth was, plenty of people had. The people with the power to change it simply didn’t care enough.

Ezio said that he was becoming a lawyer because he wanted the money. While he was sure that was at least part of his motivation, he thought maybe there was a little more to it than that. That maybe he wanted to save some of those kids out there on the street, and give them the chance to make something good out of their lives, despite the shitty hand that they’d been dealt. Violence begat more violence. Crime begat more crime. The only way for the cycle to end was for it to be deliberately broken.

Ezio didn’t know if he could break it, but he wanted to try, if nothing else.

Mayor went a little dizzy, as Ezio idly ran the laser in circles, and he laughed. “Sorry about that,” he said.

Mayor, surprisingly, didn’t seem annoyed, just went to chasing his tail as Ezio turned off the laser.

“Come here,” he said, setting the laser back on the table and scooting back on the bed.

Mayor looked up at him, tilting his head, and then padded over and jumped up. Ezio gently ran a hand along his fur. Mayor was quite good at keeping himself clean, but Ezio dreaded the day when he wasn’t so good at it anymore. Not because he thought bathing the cat would be a problem; more because it’d mean Mayor was in his twilight years. Ezio didn’t know what he’d do, if Mayor got there before he did.

“Hey,” Ezio said, softly.

Mayor looked up at him and tilted his head. It was almost like the cat could understand Simlish.

“Someday, do you want to be my familiar?” Ezio asked.

Mayor, of course, twitched one ear and then nuzzled Ezio’s hand and purred. He didn’t know what a familiar was, no doubt. Or maybe he did, and that was why Mayor wouldn’t leave him alone, when they were out there on the street.

Ezio smiled. “I’ve never bound a familiar before,” he said. “Not a cat, either, for sure. I don’t think it works any differently than with any other familiar. I wanted to get a Veild, but you know what, you’re better than a Veild.” Even if only because Ezio knew Mayor, and had bonded with him.

Mayor jumped from the bed, onto the side table, and then padded across the room to hop onto Ezio’s dresser. He always did sleep up there. Ezio didn’t have any hope of getting him to sleep on his bed with him, but Mayor wasn’t that kind of a cat.

Just like Ezio wasn’t terribly affectionate, either, he supposed. They suited each other in a weird kind of way.

“Night Mayor,” Ezio said, standing up and shuffling across the room to turn off the light.

Mayor made a quiet murring sound, rolled over onto his back on the dresser, and promptly fell asleep.

Ezio envied the cat that. He simply smiled to himself, and climbed into bed. And he’d just hope that nothing woke up him prematurely, and the terrible future that was coming would wait just a little longer.

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