Zeph Malston: The Aether Mage

"Aaand send," Bianca said to herself while she messaged the family with a new #cuddlebuddies picture. Now she just had to figure out how she was going to wake up her little brother and Semmy. They looked so cute together snuggled up together on the couch, and the picture would be great teasing material for days to come. Imagining a fl.u.s.tered and red-faced Semara always made her smile. 'Speaking of faces, it's been a while since I've done the old marker prank.

Making sure to use a gentle touch, Bianca drew some whiskers and several other shapes on her friends' faces. Zeph almost woke up a couple of times, but she managed to finish with no problems. Now, she just had for them to wake up. To her disappointment, it was taking them longer than she expected. They must have stayed up late last night. Since it didn't look like they'd be up any time soon, she went ahead and made breakfast.

While Bianca was in the kitchen, Keva and Ashley finally woke up and came downstairs. Alex followed soon after. The two dwarves went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee while Ashley went to the living room to wait for breakfast. The sight of two shifters was both surprising and confusing. It took a few moments before she remembered that the man must be Bianca's brother. 'Hmm, it looks like she didn't need to change her wardrobe after all.' When she saw the marker art on their faces, she had to stifle her laughter to keep from waking them up.

"What's so funny?" Keva asked as she entered the room.

Ashley just pointed at the two sleeping shifters in response.

"That explains the early morning message Bianca sent." Alex checked the message for the first time and saw a picture of the two without any face decorations. "She sent this out earlier this morning. I wonder if Eli and Bernard have seen it yet.

"Should we wake them up?" Ashely asked.

"I think so. At the very least, we should send them to their rooms if they would like to sleep any longer." Keva walked forward and tapped the young fox man on the shoulder.

His eyes slowly opened while he yawned. He was about to arch his back when he felt something behind him. Then he noticed the arms wrapped around him. Zeph remembered what happened last night and concluded that he and Semara must have fallen asleep on the couch. The two dwarves watched him without saying anything.

"Semara," he whispered. "Semara! Wake up." He shook her arm to get her attention.

She opened her eyes and saw a pair of fox ears. "Just a while longer Bibi. I'm still sleepy." Then she drifted back to sleep.

"Not Bibi. Guess again." Zeph said.

"Eh?" She opened her eyes again. Memories from the night before came to her. "Oh, right. Sorry."

"No problem." Then he tried to move, but her arms still held him in place. "Ummm, as much as I like being the little spoon, can you let me go? We seem to have an audience."

"Huh?" Semara finally noticed that Alex, Keva, and Ashley were looking at them. She let go and sat up as fast as she could. Unfortunately, the sudden movement knocked Zeph off the couch.

"Are you okay?" Semara quickly asked.

"Just fine. It's no big dea-" His words were cut short when he finally got a good look at Semara's face. Someone had drawn on some whiskers, gave her a black eye, and put some swirls, stars, and hearts on her forehead.

Semara also saw something similar on his face. The two came to the same conclusion and said in unison, "Bianca!"

"What is it?" the fox girl said as she walked into the living room. Then she started laughing at the pair she pranked. The three bystanders let out a few chuckles of their own.

With a voice full of righteous anger, Semara said, "I'll hold her down."

"And I'll get the marker," Zeph replied.

"Now, come on you two. That's just what you get for falling asleep on the couch. Besides, breakfast is ready and you don't want it to get cold, do you?" Bianca attempted to dissuade them from taking revenge. There was no reply right away, only empty silence.

"Get her!" Semara shouted. With that as the signal, three shifters sprinted around the house.

________

After Zeph and Semara gave Bianca a set of whiskers for herself, along with some extra pizazz, they joined everyone else for breakfast. It was the usual pancakes, eggs, bacon, and fruit. While they were eating, Semara told Zeph and Alex the story about his "Sister" breaking into her closet and ruining her clothes.

"Don't worry Semmy, we'll get her back for that. But at least it gave Ashley an excuse to get out of her room and socialize for a bit." He smirked as the girl gave him a confused look.

"I'm sorry. I didn't think you knew about me. I just learned that Bianca had a brother yesterday." Ashley said.

"Well, I work for Zeph and he told me about you."

"Oh, then allow me to formally introduced myself. My name is Ashley Avery. It is a p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too Ashley," Zeph replied. He was about to continue eating when he noticed an annoyed look on the girl's face. "What's wrong?"

Bianca scoffed. "You forgot to tell her your name."

'Crap,' he thought, 'I should have come up with one earlier. Come one, come on, what to use for a secret identity.' With his horrible inability to come up with a creative name, Zeph said the first thing he could think of. "Kent. My name is Kent. Nice to meet you."

Unlike everyone else, Ashley was looking around occasionally looking for someone.

"What's wrong dear?" Keva asked.

"Are Lord Malston and his grandson going to be joining us for breakfast?" She didn't notice Kent pause nervously.

"Unfortunately not. Lord Malston will be out on business and Zeph is taking a rest day in his room. Events occurred yesterday that warrant him taking some personal time.

Ashley understood the underlying meaning. Their actions were not for her to know. "I see." She went back to eating.

Zeph, now Kent, noticed the atmosphere take a turn. "So Ashley, I heard that you have a boyfriend. Jasper was his name?" His question was said while the girl was drinking.

*prsrttpt*

Juice sprayed out of mouth and back into the glass. She coughed. "I'm sorry!?"

A mischievous smile appeared on both fox-kin faces. "You know, the boy you talk to in your room all the time." Bianca teased.

"H-h-how do you know about that?" the fl.u.s.tered youth stammered.

"Zeph told us that he called you a lot. Apparently, Jasper speaks to him often about you." Bianca's tailed fanned slowly and her ears wiggled. She was clearly having fun.

Breakfast continued with the two foxes having fun at someone else's expense. When it was finally over, Ashley ran back to her room with the speed and heavy steps of an embarrassed pre-teen. While she escaped up the stairs, a kitten passed her on the way down. Rin arrived in the kitchen and went right for Zeph.

"G' morning little miss fluffybutt." Zeph bent down to give Rin her morning scratches.

"Gnya."

"Oh, right. Thanks for reminding me." Zeph got up. "I left something in the saddlebag on my back. I'll be right back.

Bianca finished the dishes as he left the room. "Where's he going?"

Alex took a sip from his second cup of coffee. "He went to get something from his manacycle. Last night, when we all went to the labs, Bernard presented us with-"

"She left the moment you said manacycle," Semara interrupted.

__

Outside, the fox man was pulling a block of ice out his saddlebag when a gust of wind blew his hair back. His sister arrived in a whirl of dust. Her eyes were wide and she began inspecting his bike. 'Dear God, are those sparkles? That's got to be an illusion." He thought as he looked at the excited woman.

Bianca reached out to touch the bike but stopped short of contact. Her hand glided above the polished silver body, her attention solely on the majestic modern machine in front of her. "It's so beautiful. Reinforced shielding, inertial dampeners, quad ambient mana intakes," she continued listing off features.

Zeph followed her as she inspected the bike. With an abrupt turn, Bianca was face to face with him. "Can I?"

"Uh… sure." He had no idea what she wanted but figured it was best to agree. She squealed happily before rushing to sit down on the bike. Bianca had talked about how much she liked riding her manacycle, but he clearly underestimated her enthusiasm for the machines.

"It's like sitting on a cloud." She turned to him and held out her hand. "Keys?"

"Doesn't have any. Check this out." Zeph placed his hand on one of the bars and ran some magic into it. The bike hummed to life and settled into a gentle rumbling. Manacycles were far quieter than their earth counterparts, and Zeph wasn't sure if he liked that or not. After all, the roar of an engine while you cruise down the road was part of the experience. Without it, something was missing. Then again, it was nice not noise blaring when he wanted to relax.

"What are you waiting for?" Bianca smacked the seat behind her.

"Okay, but just for a little bit okay, once or twice around the block." He sat down and put his hands on her sides."

"Sure thing," Then she took off, accelerating as fast as she could out of the driveway on to the road. The enchantments on the bike kept Zeph's head from whipping back and made the quick turns Bianca made from bothering him. "This is awesome," she shouted. Her hair and tail were whipping in the wind.

"You don't need to shout, there's a spell that keeps the wind from drowning out our voice."

"OH, cool." Then the two enjoyed the ride while making small talk.

'I always wondered why dogs stuck their heads out the car window, but I think I'm starting to get it.' the young lord thought as he closed his eyes to focus on the wind flowing past his ears and tail.

One l.a.p turned into two. Two turned into three. After the fifth run around the neighborhood, Zeph had to interrupt Bianca's fun. "We should be getting back now, okay."

"Okay. Then let's make this last run awesome."

"Awesome how?"

Bianca answered turning the throttle. "By going as fast as we can of course!"

The scenery blurred into a streak of greens, greys, and whites as they sped past trees houses and everything in between. Bianca was screaming in delight the entire time.

__

Semara was back in the living room after washing her face. She started working on the pile clothes again. Those buttons weren't going to sew themselves back on. If only she was as good at telekinesis as Zeph was. Then she heard the front door open, and Zeph and Bianca arguing.

"I'm telling you I had it handled," Bianca said dismissively.

"And I'm telling you that you shouldn't speed like that in a residential area. You could have hit someone."

"I had my magic sense active. No one else was around."

Rin to Zeph, meowing loudly. "She's upset that it took us so long. She's been waiting to eat this fish since last night," Zeph translated.

"Sorry about that girl," Bianca bent down and picked her up. "I'll fix it up right now."

Zeph followed her into the kitchen and put the fish into the sink after melting the ice surrounding it. After quickly cooking the fish and feeding Rin, they joined the others in the living room. Bianca was bouncing on her toes as she walked to Alex.

"Alex, can we borrow your bike today?"

"I don't see why not. Here, let me give you a key," the dwarf held out his hand and conjured a simple key made of crystal. After filling it with his magic, he handed it to Bianca. "There you go. Just use the magic I stored in this to start it up. It'll last for a few days. Remember, the bike is locked to my magic, so don't lose that."

"Sweet." Bianca spun around to look at Zeph and Semara. "I know what we're going to do today!"

He couldn't help himself. "Try to take over the world." Zeph chuckled.

"No, what?" Bianca's left ear flattened as she tilted her head in utter confusion.

"Nothing, just an old reference," he waved it off. "So, what do you have planned?"

"Let's have a shifters day out!" Her excitement was palpable. Also, the bright spotlight shining from above while she held the key over her head let everyone know what she wanted to do.

"Okay, so riding manacycles it is. You in Semmy?" Zeph asked.

"Sure, just let me put these clothes up."

Bianca was already planning their travel route. A floating map was in front of her while she highlighted streets and marked stopping points. Zeph noticed that an ice cream shop was on the list of places they were going to visit.

"Don't we have ice cream at home?" he asked.

"Not like this. Besides, Semara loves ice-cream, and we haven't been to our favorite spot in a while."

"Okay, sounds like a cool place to chill out."

"That was pretty lame. You need to work on your sense of humor."

"I was just trying to make a joke you could understand. Not my fault your standards are low."

Bianca flicked him on the forehead. "Bad brother."

Semara came back down and joined them. "Before we leave, you two need to do something."

"What's that?" Bianca asked impatiently.

"Clean your faces. I'm sure you don't want to be out in public with marker whiskers and doodles."