Central City, or Flames-on-the-Coast to some, found itself the same as it ever was when the sun broke the horizon and glinted through the clouds the next morning. As with all old cities before and after, on this world and all worlds, it had the feel of age and old-world charm. In places, it felt a little dirty, a little lived-in, a little smoggy, but a large number of souls here and gone with time called it home. Occupying a small stretch of land between the most deadly biomes the known world had to offer, the city spread out the spanning of centuries, much like fluff growing in an agar dish, and claimed all patches of land between the harshnesses of the varied wildernesses to claim a foothold that could host the delicate mayfly species that was humanity.

Farming towns grew like veins from the city with specks of populations in what the most intrepid people could clear and hold from the wildness. The wildness, ever watchful, was always at the door, waiting for the people to fail to hold the lands they had claimed. Waiting to claim it back-- either with diseased forests or harsh desert sands, ancient awakened monsters crawling from ruins, or ever-eroding coastlines.

Cities did not thrive well in the unconquerable wilderness, and unconquerable wilderness did not suffer cities to live, and it seemed all parties had drawn a cease-fire and started living in, if not harmony, but with less wary eyes aimed at each other. Equilibrium had for now, after much warring and many souls spent, been reached.

What was a city to do if it could not do as a city does and grow out? Good fences made good neighbors. Growing their fences would throw off the equilibrium. Growing out would endanger the food supply. Growing out would upset the neighbors, who only tolerated the lives of the city by the city maintaining good fences. Hemmed in on all sides, the city did what cities do when looking for available space to house new souls. It grew up and down.

The buildings in the center of Central City, which hosted the governing body, the wealthy, and the monied and the powerful, all grew floors slowly over the centuries and boasted of gravity-defying architecture. Buttresses flew, steel and glass towers glinted in clouds, and humanity (and other, but mostly other), climbed ever upward, ever forward, ever skyward, climbing and straining to and grasping for the lowest of the heavens. Tourists brave enough to dare the trip to the city marveled at the engineering feats of the greatest minds who dared to build it. Marveled at the achievements of the city planners. Gaped in awe at the beauty and wonder of those who dared to dream such mastery into existence. It was breathtaking, it was said.

The peripheries of the city, when faced with the savageness of the wilderness and the brutality of grinding poverty -- known by most as the slums-- grew deeper down. Under the planned sewers that piped out millions of people's filth, and even lower than the olden catacombs that hoped to tithe the most evil souls to punishing gods, people scraped deeper and deeper, ever sinking toward the highest of hells. The lost, the poor, and the desperate all dug their way to a warren of safety from each other, scrambling and hiding in nooks and crannies, all hoping to find sanctuary from the depravities of civilization. The slums were avoided by all who could find a way out and exploited by those who could find a way to exploit them.

In the middle of it all, stood a building more grand than most. In this building, past the gilded facades and priceless paintings, and around a table of opulence that would cost more than a few dozen lives in the highest of slums, was a group of seven people. Unusually, all the chairs were filled this morning. It was not a normal gathering for these few, and all knew there was smoke on the horizon -- or "a temperature change in the tides" if one wanted to be inclusive of those in the room who were aquatic, which one always did. The aquatic armies of the bay were nothing to taunt.

A few at the table were visibly on edge. That was also unusual. Most meetings in this room were games of political one-upmanship, of jockeying for light verbal barbs, and a grand dance of tweaking noses and playing on poorly delivered words. Most had sat in these same chairs for decades, if not centuries. Some knew each other better than they knew their newest underlings and had gained familiarity and fondness for one another. It was mostly a gossip circle in truth.

It wasn't, nor hadn't been in centuries, a unilateral council of investigation or planning. Sadly, one of those would have been more favorable than the group that was present.

One, the least of them, the newest of them, and the one none of the others at the table cared for at all, smacked of greed and fear. He opened his mouth to speak anyway.

"It seems to me like the Dominant, in his dementia-addled state, has lost control of his beasts. I don't understand why we were called if this is an internal matter for the flea-bitten." A nasal voice said, addressing people who were all, every single one, much, much more independently powerful than he, and insulting one of the few faction heads who historically would not immediately destroy his magicless people if given the chance --after all, shifters could breed true with humans, so why waste good rutting partners when they could just be dominated instead?

The only reason humans weren't all collared and rutted was that the mages needed the magicless to grow their numbers as well, only if mana wells could be kindled within them. If they couldn't, or couldn't birth children who could, kindle a mana well, well, they were deemed useless and discarded.

The mithrans needed their blood --freedom and free will were not needed.

The kin liked humans to play with, to trick and trap and toy with, but didn't need them. Anyone could be kin should the Lords wish it so.

The covens didn't care about them, as those powers were usually transferred through recessive genetics and never bred true. Conversely, whenever witch-hunting happened, it was usually the humans attacking the coven's children.

The Mers did not care about almost anything that happened on land.

So, by the greed of three peoples and the ambivalence of another three, did the seventh, the humans, go free to develop and reproduce. And this allowed the representative for the weakest to insult them all when the opportunity arose.

That was usual. Today, all of the nasally, spineless man's insults brought an air of normality when a few of the rest were on edge.

"My kind doesn't suffer the vagaries of age like yours do, soulless. But, if you question my authority and think you can rule my Pack Council better, by all means, issue a challenge." A brutal mouth nestled in a brutal face said.

A tinkling chime of beautiful laughter came from a beautiful woman sitting in the chair representing the kin. "Stop trying to foist your thankless job off onto the ignorant little lad, Howard. No one should want it." The kitsune leaned over to pat the ugly man on the arm as a niece would a beloved uncle. Which was funny, if one considered she was older than him by a span of millennia. She pivoted her head to the Mage's council chair. "I was told a thrilling tale of rogue magic, assassination, pitchforks and rebellion, and that you have a witness?"

"Who told you that, I wonder?" Brows furrowed. "Hmm, it seems I may have a mole." A woman with shiny blond hair and a smooth face glared at the red-headed woman, who just beamed a smile back at the first. "Anyway. Back on the subject, yes. Rogue magic was involved, but I would like to point out that it wasn't rogue mage magic, if we're just going by the mana signatures. Honestly, we have no idea what kind of magic this is."

A snarling man at the table scoffed, "You wouldn't know true magic if it transmogrified your underwear into a hat."

The blond rolled her eyes, "Yes, yes. 'Mages are charlatans'. Anyway, I do have a witness." She turned and raised her voice to the door. "Send in the witness!"

After a few silent moments, a young shifter walked into the echoing hall and tip-toed his way to the table. He walked directly to the Dominant, exposed his throat, and then went down on both knees to kowtow his head on the floor. It was obvious that just being in the room with the older man made the younger one terrified, and he had yet to look at any others in the room. The ancient mithran, just by proximity, seemingly made the young shifter want to evacuate his bowels. Thankfully, he didn't. But it was obvious it was a risk.

All in the room who could smell it were inundated by the young man's terrorized sweaty stench.

"This is my witness. His name is Clark. He will tell the council what he told me when I questioned him about the happenings in Valleyview the night of the upheaval." The blond woman said. She then reached for a teapot and poured herself a drink.

The young man, Clark, did not say anything. He choked and sputtered on the floor. A puddle of panicked drool and tears gathered on the floor under his kowtowed face. He tried and tried to speak, but it was obvious he could not, no matter how hard he struggled. He just made gasping and gurgling, whimpering sounds.

"Perhaps, Dominant, if you were to ask him questions, he'd be able to bypass his base kit reactions and speak." The red-headed woman was looking down on the struggling young man with pity.

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"Oh, right." The old ugly man nodded at the red-head. He looked at the youth and said: "Speak, boy. You are mine. Stop being chickenshit and lead us through what happened to your tiny little pack."

Clark gasped and began. He started slow, stuttered, and mumbled, but gained speed and volume as he reached the end. His recounting, while almost delirious and barely followable, was a weird one. The youth acted as if talking about what they wanted would make the questioning and their presence end faster. Sadly, that wasn't how it usually happened. After he was done with his unlikely tale, they all took turns grilling him with questions to see if his story would change.

The Mage chair issued the first question. "So it all started with a mark on their foreheads?"

Clark spoke to the floor, still with his forehead on it, even if he wasn't answering the old shifter. No one told him he could get up, and he didn't. "Yes."

"What did the mark look like?" She asked.

"I dunno. Can't remember. It just made whoever looked at it real mad. If y'all saw it, y'all'd've wanted to kill 'em too." He muttered.

She continued, "What did you feel other than anger? Anything?"

He thought for a moment. Tried to explain a visceral feeling. Grasped for the right words. "I felt like they all had done me a big wrong. Like they had forced themselves on my momma. Like they stole my girl and did her in front of me. Like they killed my pa. Like that." The young man sounded angry as if he were reliving the sight, the feeling, even while face-down in submission.

She pushed, "And it made everyone who saw it feel that way?"

His throat cleared and so did the anger. "Yeah."

The snarling man broke into the mage's line of questions. "What about the fires? You said anyone who killed a marked person can cast fire now?"

"Yeah." The youth sighed.

"Even if they're shifters?" The snarling man asked.

"Yeah." He answered.

The Coven head, the Crone, narrowed his eyes. "Any shifter? Not just the witches?"

"Yeah. The only witch we had got a mark and died, too." Clark said.

"She couldn't remove it on her own? Did she try?" The Crone's snarling voice sounded perplexed.

Clark shook his head on the floor. "Nah. She didn't get the chance."

The Crone kept going, getting to what was most important to his mind. "The ones with fire now. Do they need to cast through apparatuses, or can they do it unaided?"

Clark answered. "Nah. Don't need wands or nothin'. You just do it by wantin' to. You don't need nothing to do it but anger."

The Dominant interrupted the Crone and followed up with suspicion. "...you? Are you one of the ones that have it?"

Clark, although no one could see it because it was on the floor, got a small, prideful smile on his face. His small act of defiance. "Yeah. They needed killin' so I killed 'em. They'd been needing a killin' for a while now and the mark just made it happen faster."

"Why would you say that? That they 'needed a killing'?" The Dominant asked. His claws silently started unsheathing from his fingers.

"I sent a lot of letters to the Pack Council, beggin' for help, every week now for two years. Everyone who saw what was happening sent letters for help. You'd know our pack was dying if ya bothered to read 'em." Clark's voice sounded stronger than it had during the storytelling and through all the questions everyone asked.

The man who looked like a welcoming death chuckled lightly. The mithran commented, "For someone with his head on the floor like this room is a supplicandus, those are some strong words of condemnation."

Clark replied softly. "I knew I was gonna die the night me and a few others tore apart the alpha." He whispered to himself, "... but knowin' you're gonna die and facin' it brave-like are two different things, though." He sighed. "I think... I think I can do it now."

Clark raised his head off of the floor, pushed up to sit on his knees, and looked into the Dominant's eyes. "They were rapin' kids after killin' their parents. They were collarin' us like dogs, trading us to the outer packs, and if we talked or asked about it, they held our families hostage. Anyone strong enough to challenge the Alpha was killed by the whole pack council-- not with claws and fangs, but with guns or poison. They were stealin' from everyone and lyin' about it. The witch was cursing babies if she didn't like the look of 'em. The alpha wasn't acting like an Alpha but a shitty little human king." Clark sneered at the human representative and then turned an angry eye back at the Dominant. "People are still missing. Kids are still missing. And no one was helping us." He growled it out, showing that he was indeed an angry wolf shifter. There were echoes of fire in his eyes. "It had been two years of hell waiting for you and you not coming to save us. Kill me if you got to, but help what's left of the pack." His voice broke but stayed strong. "That's your job, Dominant, unless you've decided to be a shitty human king, too."

The redheaded kitsune sighed loudly and broke the staredown between the impendingly dead, shit-scared almost-child, and an angry ancient Council member. "Ah, shit. The scared kid has balls. I love that. It would be a shame if he died being a hero." She sighed. "House of Greenleaf offers sanctuary to the remaining pack of Valleyview." The pronouncement rang off the walls of the chamber.

The mithran answered her echoing offer. "The town hub would be lost. The pack there holds the desert and forest at bay by right of will. Valleyview hosts a stretch of the highway to Matique. We can't lose the town or we'll lose the road. The edges are probably already fraying."

She countered. "Then we offer sanctuary to Clark and the others with the fire in their veins alone." She patted the old man's arm again. "You can sort out the rest, Dominant. Don't kill the kid. I'll not see someone with a spine like that studied," she slanted her eyes at the mage, "or killed out of hand. Wouldn't be right."

The old shifter waved a hand to rebuff her offer. He relaxed his shoulders. He smiled at the fox-kin. "No sanctuary is needed for the pup. If the town was asking for help and it went unheard, the killings were justified. No further pack actions are needed to find justice. We'll consider the matter settled. Unless, of course, this pup would like to follow through with his challenge as Dominant. You want my job, kid?" He asked, hopefully.

"No, sir." Clark had leashed his rage, made peace with death, and was looking back at the floor.

"Is there a new alpha in the town? Has anyone asked for the job, yet? You, maybe?" The old man asked, less sharp and more grandfatherly.

"No, sir. And I couldn't hold it, sir. There was one of us who coulda, but he's gone now. Missing or dead like the rest."

"Well, I'll see who I've got and appoint one. We'll try to get Valleyview sorted." The Dominant said. "You can go now. I expect to see you in my office to discuss this after the council meeting is over."

Clark nodded and quickly got up to sprint for the door he had come through.

The Crone ground out, "That's fine and a happy ending for most, but what about the magic? Who started this?"

"It's not mage magic." A pause. "Well, that's not entirely true. It's not just mage magic. It's kin magic, mage magic, and witch magic, with a few other unclassified kinds tossed in. I don't know how to even categorize it." The blonde woman said and tossed her hands in the air. "It's mage magic because it needs no apparatus. It's witch magic because of the mark. It's kin magic because of the compulsion." She trailed off in thought. "If I didn't know better, I'd say we either had a mixed-race group of underground cultists who can cast in perfect tandem, which is stupidly impossible, or a rogue entity as powerful as a godling on the loose who cares about backwoods towns and the happenings of shifters. But we all know that's stupidly improbable, so... "

"He did say to watch for impossible things..." the mithran muttered.

"Who said what?" The so-far silent sea representative said. She had been bored during the tale of the dogs and bored during the follow-up questioning. Only a fool would be bored after anyone utters the word 'godling', though.

"My progenitor. When the wards around God's Fall went off. He suspected something got in. It might be this. Whatever caused this." The mithran respectfully answered while gesturing a hand at the center of the table, as if everything was listed on its top.

The snarling Crone asked, "Is he going to grace us with his presence soon to tell us what he's found, or is he still terrorizing the rude humans in the city streets?"

A shrug, "He's missing. Probably moved on. Surprisingly, he doesn't keep those he deems as lesser than him informed. And to him, we are all lesser." The mithran grinned.

The lady --with delicate fins on her cheeks, shining blue scales on her forehead, and purple undulating tentacles for hair-- responded, "That's actually why I'm here. My people have noticed that the flows of magic, both above and below, have bent and are pointing away from the city. As if the flows have reversed and instead of absorbing ambient mana, something is generating it and expelling it into the tides, no, the... environment, the air. We have yet to pinpoint where it originates. It hasn't affected the waters yet, but they fear it might. You say something broke through the cursed cavern?"

"He was investigating it, last we spoke. He may have other leads that led him away from the city. Valleyview is on the other side of the city than God's Fall, so maybe it passed through and wreaked a little havoc on its way past? He probably followed it that way." He shrugged.

She turned and asked the kitsune, "What does your King say about it?"

"He is currently indisposed. He sends his regards, I'm sure, but he is taking care of matters elsewhere that are unrelated." For some reason, the kitsune glared at the human. When she realized that the glare was noticeably on her face, her face instantly cleared and she smiled sunnily. "We do, however, have another Lord in the city. I could send a representative of the council to ask their official opinion on matters if that's what the council wishes."

"The Sea will also send a representative, not because it is needed, but because we are curious. It has been an age since a new Lord emerged from hiding. In any of the lands. If the King isn't available to introduce us, that is, when we decide to do so." The finned lady tilted her head in ponderance.

"I will share the contact information we have for their seneschal. Weirdly, their Court does most business through email."

The nasally man barged into the conversation. "The humans will, then, too. Just in case you were wondering. Give me the info, too."

The kitsune snorted. "I say this with the least amount of respect possible, but it must be said, nonetheless. If you don't bargain for safe passage and prematurely approach a Lord in their lair, do not come crying to me when your representative gets stolen, gets hexed, goes missing, or dies. If you throw your people into danger to assuage your tiny ego, it's nothing to me and mine, but we will not be ruling in your favor when you inevitably ask for redress because you stepped on the new Lord's nerves. Let it be known that they are favored of my King and he named them of us, so he will be siding with this new Lord in all matters of note, as well."

"Well, well... that's interesting. He truly named them as his? Is the old cad going to settle down and have little baby fairies?" The Crone didn't snarl the question but said it with a mildly warm but absent look on his face. Like he cared but was trying his hardest not to show it.

"Don't say that word. And I think that's what he has planned. You do remember how he got to be a King, don't you?" The redheaded fox lady asked as if leading someone to a foregone conclusion.

"Well, all the lost gods' speed to him, then. Maybe this time it won't be as bloody and sad as the last."