It's a zoo in here!

Souls and spirits and webs of Magic

Danniel walked the halls of school, seeing the people around him only vaguely. He'd gotten sleep last night, which was a rarity. As usual, he'd been plagued by nightmare after nightmare, visions of the ways he could die. He was a seer, an Oracle. He was a witch with the power to look at someone and see their aura, their emotional state reflected in its color along with large aspects of who they were. He was a witch who saw visions of the possible future; and he was depressed as all get out. He glanced around, seeing his friend, Lance, and giving a brief smile. The kid was only around 5'2", barely standing below Daniels shoulders, and he was the most positive, upbeat, understanding little kid Daniel had ever met. He knew telling humans about magic was illegal, but the kid had been persistent in asking him what was wrong, consistently asking him every time he was upset until he'd broken. And he'd understood, and promised to keep his secrets.

It still shocked him that the kid had confirmed what he'd already known. Lance had thought Daniel was close to feeling crazy, and so he'd confided in him, revealing a dark secret from his past that had explained his aura. It was a strange shade of purple, a shade of the color within the range that usually meant some kind of mental illness. Lance had confirmed he was sick, not telling him how, but telling him regardless. That the small kid trusted him so much was a comfort to Daniel, a comfort because it wasn't something he'd seen. Of things could still happen that surprised him, he could still be alive tomorrow.

At lunch, though, he heard that Lance had been sent home because he felt sick; cold chills and an inability to focus along with pain in his ears and nose. The poor kid sounded like he was shifting for the first time, even though the only thing magical about him was his mother; a witch of long standing who's father had been an impressive member of an almost extinct race of shifters. The dire-wolf clan had grown rare, unable to hunt due to increasing tracts of land being taken by the humans. Eventually, the witches had managed to make a realm for the shifters, a massive undertaking that had taken every witch on earth and a dragon to complete, but the dire-wolf clan was still struggling to recover. Many generations of a forced lack of consistent shifting had put their shifting gene or magic or whatever it was, on the fritz. Many children of the clan were born without the ability to shift naturally active in them. It sometimes took years to get their gift alight.

Danny pondered this as he went to school the next day, thinking it over. Amber, another witch that Lance had befriended, one with elvish blood, had been grinning like a pixie who'd played a particularly good prank all week. That, along with lance's increasingly strange behavior and sudden illness yesterday gave him an idea of what the whole thing was about. He cornered her at lunch, determined to get an answer. He acted as usual, sitting in his little group- Nerissa, Tess, Danni, Sariah and Nathan- while he waited. It was interesting how Lance had somehow managed to befriend most of the draconians in the school, almost as though he had intuited What they were and chosen them specifically.

When Amber arrived, Daniel stood and glowered at her. The others all gazed at her levely, Nathan and Sariah doing so even as they cuddled per the norm. "What?" That was her usual response when someone looked at her like that and the pixie-ish grin faded slightly. "Amber, what did you do to Lance? You know we can't spell humans without provocation, it a law." She gazed back at Daniel levely, he r grin returning as she stood there. "Oh, he'll be fine. I fixed a different broken law. His father really shouldn't have hidden his draconian ancestry from him." She sat down, and we stared at her. "Amber... I've met his dad. He isn't draconian, I would've seen one of the signs. Always a crystal dragon somewhere if you're a witch, an image of Lilliana if you're a vampire, images of whatever animal you are throughout your house if you're a were... Amber, his family doesn't have any signs. They're human."

She faltered, then grinned. "That would be expected if the law was really broken as I suspect it was. It's wrong to still shift but never tell your children. Why would you do tha-" she broke off as a silvery white-grey tabby launched itself at her with a yowl. It hissed as it stood on top of her, and Daniel heard Nathan take an sudden sharp breath. Daniel glanced at him in confusion. Sariah glanced at him in interested confusion before her eyes widened and she stared at the tabby. Daniel also looked at the tabby, now locked tightly in Ambers arms as it squirmed. Daniel frowned as he noticed its aura, indicating it was a were. Only... he glanced at Amber with a sneaking suspicion and she grinned. Daniels face grew pale as he watched her carry Lance away. He sat down, hard, and stared at the railing of the staircase across the hall from him.