Morally Gray

Chapter 2

Levi woke up to Cassidy snuggled against his chest. It was fairly cold in Blair’s cabin. The fire had gone to hot coals, so Levi carefully scooted out from under Cassidy and made his way to the fireplace. He added a couple logs and watched as the coals blazed to life, the fire dancing and twirling. He walked over to a window, seeing the delicate snowflakes make their way to the frost-bitten grass. He opened the front door a sharp, cold breeze caught him off guard. He stepped outside onto the porch, wrapping himself with his cloak. He drew a sharp breath and sat on the snow-covered bench. There is no possible way that the man they had just met was his brother. No, it couldn’t be. He hadn’t seen his brother in 5 years. This man certainly looked like his brother but it couldn’t be. His brother was supposed to be dead. Or at least that’s what he thought.  Levi could hear the slow creaking of the door opening. He quickly gathered his thoughts and looked over to see Cassidy peeking his head out of the door. 

“Oh! There you are! Blair made breakfast, he wanted me to find you as he needed to ask us something.” Cassidy looked at Levi expectantly. Levi shuddered and stood up, walking inside with Cassidy. Levi peered over to the kitchen table, it was round and fairly scuffed. Blair sat on one side, a cup of tea in his right hand, a fork in the other. He looked up to see the two boys, one with a cheery grin and the other with red frost-bitten cheeks. 

Blair motioned for them to join him at the table. Levi sat down goggling at the food in front of him. Breakfast sausages, scrambled eggs, toasted bread, and homemade blueberry muffins that Blair baked fresh this morning. 

The boys scarfed down whatever they could manage into their stomachs. Its not like they starved down in Anthis, but they certainly did not have enough money to buy good food. 

Blair waited and sipped his tea watching the two boys eat like wild animals. Once the boys were finished he cleared off the kitchen table and sat down in his armchair that was situated by the fireplace. Cassidy slumped down on the couch and Levi followed. 

Blair cleared his throat. “Levi, Cassidy, I need your help.” 

Levi lifted an eyebrow, and Cassidy looked at Levi. “What do you mean by help?” Levi pursued, his voice coming across harshly. Blair flinched a bit.

“I need your help to save the people of Anthis.” Blair sat back into the chair, and crossed his legs. “We need to start a revolution.”

Levi perked up. This was something of his interest. “I’m listening.” Levi looked over to Cassidy, then back to Blair.

“I’ve been planning this out for months Levi. All I needed was to remove the camouflage spell I put over my house and for you to come look for me and guess what? Its all going to plan.” Blair explained more in-depth to the boys on his plans and how he one day planned on ruling his own country. 

Cassidy opened his journal, which he kept notes in, and wrote down most of what was spewing out of Blair’s mouth. He had a puzzling look on his face, he looked up at Blair who was catching Levi up on everything that has happened since Blair left. “Blair, how are we supposed to rebel against King Ares. You know he has strong people on his side and with just three of us that’s going to do no damage to him. Unless we-“ Blair cut him off. 

“You didn’t think we were doing this without backup did you?” Blair chuckled, when an abrupt knock on the door startled both of the two young boys. Blair looked up towards the door. “Just in the nick of time.” He got up and walked to the door, opening it up to reveal two people standing in thick coats. 

Levi peered towards the doorway to get a good look at the two. They were both roughly the same height, but they couldn’t have been related. The woman had dark auburn red hair, and was wearing a black winter cloak with strawberries sewn into the sleeve. The other person was a bit odd. He had curly ginger hair, and what looked to be fangs? Was Levi seeing this right? He knew that some people were half-human half-animal, well for goodness sakes Cassidy was part goat. He didn’t know how that happened. It puzzled him. In the muddled water that was his thoughts he could hear Blair say something. He looked up at Blair. 

“Levi! Can you hear me? I was going to introduce you to these two.” Blair motioned to the woman, “This is Thalia, I met her when I first fled Anthis. She’s really sweet.” Thalia waved towards Levi and Cassidy, a cheery smile on her face. Blair gestured to the weird guy with fangs. “And this is my son Arlo, he’s half-fox so he ages quicker than the rest of us.” Levi and Cassidy’s jaws dropped. Levi looked at Arlo, then back to Blair. 

“You- you have a son? Wait if you have a son then who’s the lucky lady?” Levi gave Blair a smirk, he never thought his brother was that much of a lady’s man. He was quite introverted when they were children. Blair looked at Levi with a solemn look. 

“Oh.. well.. she was the most beautiful woman. Her name was Salomise. She absolutely adored the water. But King Ares took her life. He was angry that I had left Anthis and made sure I would pay the price. Being the only Alurra left on this earth wasn’t easy. But I’m getting off track, back to the revolution.” 

Levi and Cassidy introduced themselves to Arlo and Thalia. Arlo told him stories of his parents, of adventures they went on and his childhood. Levi was interested on Arlo being half-fox. “So, can you just change into a fox whenever you want or do you just have common fox attributes?” Levi questioned Arlo, he secretly hoped it was the first option as he never met a fox person before. 

“Yeah, I can change into a fox whenever I want. That’s why I aged so quickly. Foxes usually mature in 6-7 months, and since I’m part human I was only a child for a couple years. But I still have fox ears and canines.” Arlo picked at one of his teeth like something was stuck in between them. Levi peered over to look at Cassidy and Thalia, she was sewing something onto his cloak.