Zeph Malston: The Aether Mage

Zeph used his week off to create more enchanted objects for his friends and family. They weren't anything amazing or mystical, but a few things he thought would be fun or nice to have around. There was a spoon that made whatever was being eaten with it taste like a sweetened mix of raspberries and strawberries. The look on Semara's face when she took the first bite of her morning cereal was priceless. After the surprise wore off, she decided to make some flavor requests. Now there was a small assortment of "Flavor Spoons" (patent pending) in the kitchen drawers.

He also made a sleep mask that used illusion magic to block out light and dampen sound. Eli was more than happy to receive it. It would make napping in the future so much easier. Lili got a hairclip that dyed her hair either all white or back to its natural auburn. The white streak of hair from her frost nymph heritage started to extend further out and gave her a hilarious skunk-like stripe down the middle of her head. Zeph had to do something about it because it was hard to look at her without laughing.

The weekend was approaching and Zeph decided it was time to have a guy's night out. Bernard and Eli needed to take a break from work, and Zeph was tired of being surrounded by estrogen. Alex's presence helped, but even the old dwarf wanted to take a break from being surrounded by women. It took a little convincing to get Bernard to take a break, but Zeph managed to persuade him. Luckily, the countermeasures for the demons were almost done, and Bernard could leave the finishing touches to the other magical engineers.

When Saturday morning finally came around, the entire Malston household was able to eat dinner with each other for the first time in quite a while. Bernard, Alex, Keva, Eli, Bianca, and Semara were already at the breakfast table waiting for Zeph to come downstairs. They were making small talk when Zeph walked in and sat down. The conversation died instantly and everyone went silent when they saw him.

Zeph sat down and took a sip from his glass. "Good morning everyone." He looked down at his plate. Breakfast consisted of pancakes, scrambled eggs, some bacon, and a side bowl of mixed fruit. No one responded to Zeph's greeting an odd silence spread throughout the room. Looking around the table, Zeph saw that everyone was staring at him. "What?" There was no response. "Heloooooo? Anybody there?" Zeph slowly raised his hands and clapped loudly. That got their attention.

"Ah, sorry my boy," Bernard said. "We're all just a little surprised at," he paused and raised his fork and gestured at Zeph, "Well, that." Everyone at the tabled nodded slowly in agreement.

Zeph looked down at his body. "What?"

Bianca facepalmed. "How can you be so clueless? We're talking about your body. You grew up!"

"Wait! I did?" Zeph conjured an ice mirror and looked at himself. "Oh, that. I didn't grow up. I just forgot to undo my transformation." He sighed. "You got me all excited thinking I had a growth spurt." A silver haze surrounded the young lord and he shrank back to his regular body.

"Awww," Semara said quietly in disappointment. Everyone looked at her. "Huh?"

"What was with that depressing sigh Semmy?" Bianca asked and wiggled her eyebrows at the wolf woman.

"Er- Nothing," she said quickly while looking at her plate. The pancakes suddenly demanded her attention.

Bianca smirked. "Why don't you stay like that? Lili and Ivy are spending the day with their mother and everyone here already knows."

Keva didn't hear much as she was still shocked at what she witnessed. It wasn't until Zeph turned into a silver mist a second time that her brain started to work again. When Zeph turned into a cloud of magical gas and then condensed into a handsome black-haired young man with blue eyes, she gasped in surprise and then fainted.

Zeph covered his ears. "Oh right, we forgot about Keva."

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In the forest near Asperitus, Kelbraga was finishing his preparations. The demon decided that the best way to distract Bernard Malston was with more demons. His human followers were proven less than effective, so Kelbraga was using them to summon lesser demons from the ethereal plane. It took some time for them to learn the spell that would allow the followers to use demons as familiars, but it was worth it.

The demons were more like parasites than actual familiars. They would siphon off the energies of their summoner in order to grow in strength and intelligence. Kelbraga neglected to mention this tidbit of information to his followers.

A man walked up to Kelbraga, the demon didn't know his name. After all, it wasn't important. "Lord Kelbraga, all the mages should be done summoning by evening."

A fanged grin grew on the demons face. "Good. Take those that have already finished and go into the forest. Capture some magical beasts. Perhaps we can create a small horde and send it to the city.

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Keva took a long slow sip of her hot tea as Zeph finished telling his story. Alex sat next to her and held her hand. After finishing her drink, she looked at everyone. "I have a few questions."

"Ask away," Zeph said.

"Why am I only learning about this now?" Keva asked first.

Everyone's eyes started to wander, and it took Zeph a minute to respond. "I... umm... kinda forgot we didn't already tell you, and you've been gone so long that it just never occurred to me that you didn't already know. After all, Bernard told Alex what happened the day I got here." Zeph rubbed the back of his head while throwing his grandpa and butler under the proverbial bus.

Keva glared at the two old men. "Is that so?"

'DAMNIT ZEPH!' the two thought at the same time.

It took half an hour for Bernard and Alex to placate Keva. Then it took another half hour to answer her questions. She didn't have too many. Mostly, she wanted to know what his life was like, some of the facts about his world that were different from Ern, and if he was happy with his life now. When that was over with, Bianca stood up and approached Zeph.

"I know this off topic, but..." Bianca looked Zeph right in the eyes. "I thought you were going to make your grown-up form a fox-kin."

"I am. This was just a trial run. I'm still experimenting with shaping and controlling a larger body of Aether. I've mostly stuck in my room so I don't embarrass myself. The abrupt leg length caused me to fall down more times than I'd like to admit. I think I've got the hang of it now, though." Zeph closed his eyes and focused a few seconds.

His hair turned a golden, while two ears and a tail of the same color appeared on his body. The edges were tipped white. Zeph looked at his surrogate family with new eyes that had red irises. "How's that," He looked at Bianca with a gentle smile, "sis?"

Bianca didn't say anything. Instead, her body moved and hugged him tightly and even her tail wrapped around him. Tears of joy threatened to leak out of her eyes. It was almost as impactful as the first time Zeph turned into a fox-kin shifter and reminded her of her family. The last few months were wonderful, and she developed a sibling bond with Zeph. But, there was something about him being a fox-kin that seemed to tug on her heartstrings more than when he was human. It might be instinct, or it might just be seeing another fox-kin that looked at her with care and affection and didn't want to use her for some political purpose.

The others looked on and smiled, letting Bianca enjoy this moment. They were aware of how lonely she'd been. The girl kept to herself mostly since she left her family and the only people that really got close to her were in this room. It wasn't until Zeph arrived, that they all started acting more like a family.

After a long hug and a pat on the back, Zeph stepped away from his surrogate sister and did a little spin to present himself to everyone else. Golden hair and ruby eyes were one of his favorite combinations in fiction when it came to fox people. It also had the added benefit of being so different from his regular black haired and blue eyed human form that it was almost impossible to connect the two. While his human form was more masculine with rugged good looks and a strong jawline, his fox-kin form was slimmer, lithe, and softer to match with Bianca better. To easily explain it, his human form was a handsome young man, while his shifter form was a pretty boy.

"So, what do you all think?" Zeph asked his audience.

"I think it looks good, and you resemble Bianca well enough," Bernard said.

"I approve little dude," Eli gave him a thumbs up.

"I think it's a fine form," Alex answered.

"A little skinny for my taste, but you look handsome," Keva said.

Semara was quiet and continued to stare at him.

Bianca walked over to her friend and grabbed her shoulder. "Semmy, are you okay?" She shook the wolf-girls shoulder.

"Yup," Semara nodded.

"You look a little distracted," Bianca said.

"Uh uh," the wolf-girl replied.

The mischievous smile made its way across Bianca's face. "So, you think Zeph did well on his transformation?"

"Yes."

"And it's pretty s.e.xy isn't it?'

"Yeah... WAIT WHAT?" Semara paled. Bianca started giggling. "You tricked me, that isn't what I meant." She looked at Zeph. "I didn't mean to say that."

Zeph grinned and used his tail to point at her while he crossed his arms and gave her an accusatory look. "Your tail begs to differ."

Semara's eyes grew wide and she turned to look behind her. "Traitor," she whispered. Standing up and turning quickly to hide her reddening cheeks, Semara started walking to the kitchen. "I'm going to get a drink."

Bianca continued laughing until Zeph got her attention. "As much fun as it is to mess with Semmy, I forgot to give you this." Zeph held out a small ring with a small ruby on it.

"What's this do?" Bianca asked.

"Put it on and find out," Zeph said, and Bianca glared at him. "I promise it's not a prank.

"Okay, I'll trust you." Bianca put the ring on and felt a tingle of magic. Zeph then conjured a full-length water mirror for her. Her hair turned golden, along with her ears and tail. The white tips remained and the irises in her eyes changed from bright green to ruby red.

"There, now we can go out and keep your identity hidden," Zeph said.

"What do you mean?" Bianca asked.

"Remember when I went out on those extermination patrols? You and Semara were seen with me. So, I made a couple of disguise rings for the two of you for when we go out later. The rings will turn your hair color whatever the two of you want and I can always change myself to match."

"Huh, good thinking. I forgot about that."

"That's not the only surprise right Zeph?" Bernard said with a knowing grin.

Chuckling for a moment, Zeph called Rin to come into the room. An orange blur barreled into his c.h.e.s.t and curled into Zeph's arms. "Rin was watching me shapeshift and wanted to do it too, so I helped her work on a new form as well and figured I might as stick with the theme. An orange fox cub let out a happy little bark at Bianca and started wagging its tail.