He’s an ugly mess. Burns and blood mixing together with mud and smoke. Nasty really, if it was a year ago she’d have avoided him. She’d have avoided him and told her da’ that there was a dirty street urchin in the sewers.

She wasn’t the nicest when she was little. Given, she’s not sure she could call herself little when that was less than a year ago.

It’s sad to think, that in one year so much would change. Bloody Nicholas and his war, dragging her da’ in it when he had no business to be in it to begin with.

Back then, fear is what pushed them. Fear and anger. The disease was new, riling people up with all sorts of thoughts and misgivings. Nicholas had a solution that her da’ just leapt at.

It’s over now. The entire war. Everything.

It is all over.

So she wanders around, not sticking anywhere because her appearance was striking. Her magic more so. The disease is still a nasty little thing after all, godling forbid if a nephlim is in the area. They all might catch it.

That’s how she finds the kid. There is smoke, a fire in one of the neighborhoods and there’s yelling. Who knows who is yelling, but she can guess. There’s this new law after all, made just for Nicholas and his kin. The little monsters that have too much power and-

The boy keeps shifting, his eyes flashing between the red of a demon and the green of an emerald.

“Hey now, what are you doin’?” She reaches out and the boy just stares with wide eyes. He doesn’t even flinch, just watches. There’s blood all over him, a dark murky swamp that drowns his small frame. The disease wafts off him, an uncontrollable surge and she knows exactly how to control it. She’s seen her da’ do it. She’s seen Nicholas do it.

“Who are you?” The question is asked in this high pitched voice, forced. The boy even tilts his chin up higher, as if saying he’s bigger. It’s cute, really. The kid trying to be something he isn’t.

She touches his skin and she can feel it. The disease swimming in his blood stream. Over flowing.

“I’m Ivory, who are you?” If she can find one of the cuts, she could take the disease. Take it and make it hers. Make his magic hers. It’s tempting, in a way nothing else has been since her da’ died.

Her da’ always said power made people hungry. She never understood, not back then.

She understands now. After months of nothing, of everything falling apart beneath her feet and being unable to do anything-

She understands.

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Power makes people hungry and the kid has so much power.

“Riozar. Are you- are you with them?” The boy pulls his arm out from under her hand, tugging it close to his body as he stares. Another flicker of color passes his eyes, a strand of hair grows long and dark for a split second.

“No, I can’t say I am. Do you know who they are?” She smiles at him, soft and understanding and resolutely does not reach out again. Patience is a virtue, her da’ always said.

He’s said a lot of things, really. She used to think he hung the moon.

The boy’s eyes well up, tears going unshed as he warbles out, “No, they said- they said- I want sissy.”

“I don’t think you’re going to get your sissy.” The words escape without her consent and she’s tempted to apologize for a second. The boy just stares at her, his lip wobbling as if she just said the most dreadful news. He’s still covered in blood, and suddenly she’s not confident that it’s his.

“What happened?” It’s not an apology, but it gets the boy to press his lips together so they stop wobbling.

“I didn’t do it! Daddy said to go away and I did, I did.” The boy leans forward, voice this desperate little shrill and it’s really all she needs to guess. “He said sissy would follow”

Hybrid magic, that’s what the boy was. Probably his sister too. She glances over to where the smoke fills the sky. She glances back at the kid, reaching out, “Come on, we should probably go somewhere else.”

The kid shrinks back, eyes wide as he babbles, “No, I can’t. Sissy might come or- Daddy will come. And mommy! And-“ He glances up towards the street, as if suddenly his family is going to appear.

She falters, watching and wonders how long the kid has been sitting in the dirty sewers waiting for his family. It couldn’t have been long, but when you’re by yourself the minutes drag into hours. Waiting is an excruciating pain she’d never wish upon anyone.

The proper procedure for this would be for her to report him, especially if they already know there’s two kids. If they recorded one kid dealt with and the other missing, it’d be a witch hunt. It’s better to deal with the hybrids before they become dangerous, volatile.

She’s read the newspapers, she knows the laws. Her presence was tolerated, the hybrids were extinguished. For good reason, she remembers Nicholas. Someone who had too much power and he had let it get out of hand.

That’s why Nicholas is dead and her da’ is dead and-

Everyone is dead.

But her. She’s not dead. Instead she’s crouching in front of the entrance of a dirty sewer staring at a mere child whose crying. She offers her hand, smiles and says, “How about we go look for your family then?”

Proper procedure says she should put the kid in front of the firing squad and let it be done.

She should, she knows how they get. Firsthand experience. She’s seen how it ends for other people. Really, she could blame Nicholas for her da’.

The kid watches her, entire face falling apart. Tears and snot stream out as the kid loses the battle with himself. There’s a moment of hesitation and-

She’d never understand what could bring a kid to grab a stranger’s hand and hold it like a lifeline.

Fear, she supposes. The same fear her da’ felt way back when.

She tugs and the kid falls out of the sewer and continues to slide straight into her life.

His magic buzzes under his skin and-

Proper procedure says she should sacrifice the little boy.

Proper procedure could go fuck itself because proper procedure also says the she needs to have a medical license to take someone’s disease. It’s why she’s been falling apart, unable to even stand on her own.

Her grip tightens on the boy because, suddenly she doesn’t need to worry.

She’s got all the magic she could ever desire, in the form of a sniveling boy who most likely just lost everything he ever had.

The world is a cruel, cruel place. And just think, a year ago she was in his place. Except there was no hand reaching out to grab hers when the massacre ended.