Dani was sitting cross legged on the love seat when Dra finally came back to the house. She stomped in to the house, slamming the door.

"What in the world happened to you?" Zammi exclaimed, just seeing her daughter. Dani opened his eyes and look at his older sibling, his brow wrinkling. She was dripping wet and shivering, looking more pissed off and angry than before. "Did you fall in a river?" Zammi demanded.

"No, I just, got into a fight. With Esha. Who is still an asshole." Dra muttered, looking away.

"Well, why were you fighting with Esha?" Zammi asked. "He's much stronger and older than you, Dra! You should have expected to lose."

"I just wanted to try, okay? I have nothing to lose, so why not?" Dra countered.
"Because, for all I know, you could be sick right now!"

"I'm fine, but thanks for the vote of concern."

"Don't get the rest of us sick. I'm not up for it." Dani told her. Dra just snapped at him. "What? It's true. I don't like being sick."

"I'm gonna purposefully cough on you now." Dra muttered.

"Please don't." He asked. Dra snorted, and Zammi glared.

"If you have the energy to yell at your brother, go get few eggs from Apep for some dinner." Zammi scolded.

"I'm going to take a shower first. And I'm not hungry."

***

The next morning, Dra wasn't on her petlatl and she wasn't down stairs at the table. Dani looked in the living room, and in the bathroom, but only Zammi was there, fixing her long hair with a snake shaped pin, at the vanity.

"Have you seen Dra lately?" He asked her.

"Not recently. Why? Is there an issue?" Zammi asked, in the middle of doing her hair with golden pin.

"Uh, I just can't find her. I'm sure these no problem, I just thought she was going to teach me today." Dani tried to pass it off as nonchalantly as he could, but Zammi still frowned.

"Yes, she should be." Zammi muttered suspiciously. "She's not out hunting, is she?"

"I don't think so, she ate dinner at like, eleven last night." Dani recalled.

"That wouldn't really change the fact." Zammi muttered. "In our origin, we metabolize food much faster than in our shifted form. By the time we have returned to our shifted form, we are hungry again."

"Right, 'cause snakes don't need as much food as humans." Dani remembered. Zammi made a 'kind of' gesture, and turned the corner into the library, a room Dani hadn't spent much time as he wanted to in.

"Get down from there!" Zammi snapped, scaring Dani.

"What?" he asked, confused why he was in trouble.

"Not you." Zammi pointed up at the ceiling where a very disgruntled Dra hung from a hammock that had defiantly not been there when Dra had shown Dani where to find the books about mythology.

"Why is he still here?" Dra growled.

"Why wouldn't he be?" Zammi said, confused. Dra glared at him.

"I thought you wanted to go home. You don't really care about us. You'd rather be back in Arizona, with your adoptive mother, and just forget about us." She spit, and Dani felt his anger swell a bit.

"All I wanted was to call Marble so that she didn't call in the National Guard to look for me. You don't know how she is." Dani corrected, trying to choke down his rage. "It would be really embarrassing for me to go home with an armed guard, and hard to explain."

"Explain what? How this really young looking person is our mother and how you might be able to transform into a snake? Yeah, that would be wild." Dra mocked sarcastically.

"I was actually looking forward to our lesson today, but if you're too stubborn to actually get down from there, I guess I'll just have to ask someone else to do it." Dani snapped.

"Once you stop being a complete asshole about it, I'll get down." Dra growled.

"Will both of you just stop being so petty? I can't believe that you two are doing this. You are young adults. Stop acting like five year old's." Zammi rubbed her temples, her eyes closed.

"Fine." Dra pouted, gracefully flipping down from her perch. "Let's go then, Dani." She walked towards them, like she was going to leave the house.

"Ah, ah, ah." Zammi shook a finger at her. "Not until you have some breakfast. You too, Dani. And remove that ridiculous thing from my ceiling, before it causes cracks in the plaster."

"I'll do it later." Dra waved away her mother's complaints, walking into the dining room. Zammi rolled her eyes.

"There's torta de tamal on the bread board!" Zammi called to her. "You go get some too, Dani." She said, and sighed once again, looking at the hammock. "She's going to be the death of me."

***

Dra wasn't in a much better mood after breakfast, and it showed in the way she snapped at Dani when he moved. He was getting fed up with this, as his plaques, although they had stopped itching after learning how to shift into his partial origin, had begun to flake and ache again.

"You're concentration isn't focused enough!" She'd finally snapped.

"I wonder why I'm having a hard time concentrating." Dani had responded, waspishly. "It can't be anything you're doing wrong now, right?"

"Don't be a jerk." Dra had snapped, looking murderous. "I'm helping you because I have to. The sooner you learn this, the sooner I am released from this."

Trying not to hurl a response back at her, Dani had closed his eyes again.

Like Zammi had tried to explain, Dani had thought of letting go of the ground, freeing himself of the anchor that was the ground, and becoming part of wind.

The day was hot, so Dani's tee shirt was neatly folded on the ground next to him, while his bare torso sweated and itched from the sunlight. However, he refused to scratch his plaques or acknowledge they existed.

'Become the wind,' he thought, trying to loosen his muscles. 'Leave the ground, and make yourself a part of the wind, and what the wind is. Be a free spirit.'

'Be a free spirit.' The phrase echoed in his mind. Dani recalled something Zammi had said to him only yesterday. 'Take the leap.'

"I will always catch you." A voice, not Zammi's, not Dra's, not any one that Dani recognized, purred. It was a sweet voice, an old kindness seeping from it.

Dani's eyes shot open, and he looked around, but like he expected, no one was there. Only Dra, who was staring at him with complete loathing in her green-gold eyes. She quickly traded that for confusion as Dani turned his head every which way, trying to determine where the voice came from.

"What are you doing?' Dra snapped, although her voice lacked some of the conviction it had earlier.

"I thought I heard a voice." Dani said, realizing how crazy it sounded. "Maybe it's just me."

"You never know." Dra shrugged. "The gods could have spoken you." Yeah, Dani realized, her tone was defiantly much less angry than before.

"Are we... good?" Dani questioned hesitantly. "About the whole, family thing?" He didn't want to bring up Marble's name, or Arizona, for fear that she'd leave him alone again.

"I mean, sure. I know that if you want to stay here longer, you have to tell them that you're okay, but I just didn't think you'd have to do it so soon." Dra said, although Dani wasn't quite sure that was true.

"Okay." Dani said, a little concerned, but didn't push it.

"You still having trouble with this?" Dra sighed, sitting next to him.

"Yeah." He muttered. 'This is a olive branch, Dani' He thought. 'Take it.'

"Why don't we take a break from this, and learn some cultures of the other Silver Mages you're gonna eventually meet?" She suggested. "It might be easier to learn how do to a full shift before a wing shift."
"Really?" Dani complained to her. "And you made me do this first?" Dra gave a little shrug, but gave him a small smile.

"So, I feel like the broadest category is probably-"

"Werewolves." Dani interrupted. Dra glared at him.

"No. The yokai, Silver Mages from Japan." She deadpanned.

"Why do they have a special name?" Dani asked her, and she rolled her eyes,

"I was getting there. Yokai is what the folktales from Japan call them. They are much like us, but are less about shapeshifting, and more about having elemental control, like the yuki-onna. One of the most commonly known yokai is the kitsune." Dra told him.

"The nine-tailed fox?" Dani asked, remembering something about that in an English assignment he'd once done. "Is that also why you watch anime?"

Dra rolled her eyes. "No. Shut up."

"But it is the nine-tailed fox, right?" Dani pressed, half teasing, half serious. Dra nodded, confirming his answer.

"Yeah. But they're shapeshifting. Something like the yuki-onna, is more elemental. They have a limited power over something in nature.

"Like dryads?" Dani replied.

"Actually, basically. Although dryads hate being compared to the yuki-onna. Don't know why. Unfortunately, dryads can't travel far from their host tree, so they don't get a lot of say." Dra told him.

"Wait. Aren't there dryads in this forest?" Dani looked around for any sight that a creature was poking out of the tree, eavesdropping on their conversation.

"No. They live mostly in Greece." Dra deadpanned, looking unimpressed.

"Oh. That's just a little confusing."

"Please stop looking around like an idiot. You're making me feel bad." Dra pleaded with him, and Dani stopped with a sheepish smirk.

"Any other interesting things that I should know?" He asked.

"You probably won't need to know any for a while, but it's good to start early. Start reading about the Shifting class of Silver Mages tonight. Shifters, like us, are pretty common, although we're usually more powerful that elemental class Silver Mages, because we've perfected our abilities." Dra told him, and Dani nodded.

"Okay. Anything else I shou-?" Before Dani could finish his question, Zammi landed right in front of the two.

"Thank goodness I found you two. Dra, tomorrow, you must start teaching Dani how to complete his full shift." Zammi looked frantic and panicked, her hair escaping her pin in a wild, white halo around her face. It contrasted her tan skin, bringing some faint scars to Dani's notice.

"Why?" Dra looked worried, spurred by her mother's panic. "What happened, is something wrong? Is there a problem with-?"

"Nothing like that." Zammi interrupted. "But I have received a message from the Silver King."

"What's going on?" Dra looked even more panicked. "Is he abdicating?"

"Dra, where do get these ideas?" Zammi said, shocked. "No, the King is merely calling a meeting."

"Why do I have to learn to fully shift for this?" Dani said, not quite seeing Zammi was going with this.

"Because, my dear," Zammi said, her eyes shining. Dani gave a little start, for she'd never called him that before. "You must show that you are a Silver Mage, even to the King himself. Oh, you two have a lot to cover. But we leave in three days."

"Okay. Understood." Dra ran a hand through her hair. "Thanks for the head's up, Zaza."

"Yeah." Dani repeated. "Thanks... Zaza."

Oooh! The first meeting! And Zammi's being affectionate! That's so cute! Anyway, I'm supposed to be doing my geometry homework, but I couldn't care less! Fun fact