The Morningstar Brigade

Chapter 3

III

URIEL

169 A.E.F.

Outside Sanctuary Chapel

"I thought I told you to leave my house alone," Uriel, now just over twelve, said as he walked up behind a crowd of older kids. He tried to look tough as he approached the motley group, but his voice had cracked halfway through his warning and he'd already tripped once as he attempted to saunter over.

"Well, well, well," said the largest child, stepping out from the group, "If it isn't the Fisher's precious little charity case." He condescendingly plucked one of the silver hairs from Uriel's discolored streak and tossed another rock at the stained-glass window.

Uriel sighed and shoved the greasy hand from his head, quickly moving to fix his mussed-up hair. He kicked the side of the larger boy's shoe. "I told you can't do that. You're going to break it," he repeated, trying to force an intimidating frown to spread across his face. Despite his best efforts, however, his soft and friendly default demeanor weakened any effort to show the resolve lying behind it.

The large boy turned back to Uriel, smirking as gave him a shove. "Listen, we aren't gonna hurt anything, we're just having a little fun. Why don't you just go back inside?"

"Cut it out," Uriel growled, regaining his balance and marching towards the large kid. "I mean it. That's enough."

"What're you gonna do?" the boy snickered, lifting another stone.

"I said stop, James," Uriel ordered.

The group stopped throwing rocks and all eyes turned to the two opposing adolescents. James glared at Uriel. "Let me go."

Uriel's eyes hardened and met the James's gaze without blinking. "Not unless you stop throwing rocks at my family's home."

The child raised his eyebrows and laughed in Uriel's face. "Home? Don't be an idiot. You don't belong here, and neither does he. My dad said that the Brigade sends people like him out to tell fairy tales where they're the heroes because they're scared of what we might do if we didn't believe them." He lifted the stone again. "So I'll throw rocks if I want to. Because you aren't going to do anything about it." Then a mean grin slid across his face. "And you know he isn't even your real dad, right? He just takes care of you because no one else wanted to. And I bet he's stuck in this chapel because no one wanted him back at Morningstar Keep," James sneered. "Hey, maybe you are related after all."

Uriel grabbed the boy's collar with one hand, jerking James's head down in front of his own. The pads of his own fingers sizzled too quietly for the son of the Fisher to notice, but insistently enough that a bead of sweat began to form on James's brow as they made contact with the cloth. He raised his eyes to meet his adversary's as a hot spark ran silently down his spine. "He is my dad," he said, his voice slowly rising, "and you're going to stop throwing rocks. Now."

The large boy pulled away from Uriel's grip and slung another stone that went sailing through the center of the small blue-and-green circle on the window. It left an ugly hole. Cracks began to spread from the impact and more shards of glass fell to the ground. "Or what?" he asked, turning back to Uriel with a greasy smile.

Uriel's eyes went wide with anger. He launched himself at his foe, jumping onto his front and punching him across the face as they fell to the ground. The other children ran away yelping as Uriel and the boy wrestled in the grass. The two small bodies became a furious mess of dirt, grass and sweat as they tumbled over each other angrily.