We took what we had back to our leaders at the guard and they seemed just as worried and confused as Jesse was.

I was the only one who appeared more interested than terrified of whatever that thing was. Even the higher ups were very concerned.

But it was in my nature to want to learn about anything curious or out of the ordinary.

To be honest, I’d been pretty bored of how sleepy things were in Santo Oso for a while now. A big part of why I joined the guard in the first place was my love of adventure and need for excitement.

At first, my family questioned my desire to join because it was pretty unusual for a fox shifter to join. Fox shifters aren’t generally thought of as great protectors or anything. Stereotypically, we’re known for our inquisitive nature and brilliant minds. We tended to join academic jobs rather than physical ones.

Don’t get me wrong, I did somewhat fit that stereotype. I was pretty bookish, I’d always studied hard, and I was intensely curious about the world around me. But in a lot of ways, I broke the stereotype. I wanted to get out and do things myself, experience the world, do more than sit at my desk and learn. I wanted to learn by experience and I strived to do so every day.

Even I doubted at first whether I’d be a good fit for the guard, though. Ultimately, it was Jesse who convinced me.

He was born for the guard, always wanted to be part of it, and it was expected of him as an alpha wolf shifter. But it took him a long time to convince me I’d be a good fit too. For a long time, I thought maybe he was hyping me up because he wanted to keep me around. After all, we were inseparable growing up, and leaving high school to join wildly different jobs would have ultimately put a divide in our friendship. I knew he was afraid of losing me as he entered the work force alone.

He’d been right, though. The Guard was perfect for me and I absolutely loved my choice to join.

At least, I did at first. In the beginning, it was exciting to feel like the protector of Santo Oso and, by extension, Stelline City. I spent my days on patrol fantasizing about some great threat forcing us into action.

Of course, that only lasted so long. Because there never were any real threats, the guard wasn’t exactly some great adventure, and I’d grown more than a little bored of it all.

So it was no surprise that this odd, unexpected, unnatural phenomenon had me so intrigued.

Since we’d taken it back to our superiors, I’d been buried in research. This was where the stereotypical fox in me came out of course, because I couldn’t stop reading as I tried to figure out what was going on.

Again, at first, I fantasized that this was some mythical, mysterious event… But I didn’t really believe it. I mean, there hadn’t been any magical elements on our planet for thousands of years. Some people doubted whether magic had ever existed at all or was just a concept that developed from old folk tales. Like how lunar eclipses were once thought to be magical events but were actually natural phenomenons.

Which was what I initially believed this to be, even if I wanted it to be more exciting. It was likely some kind of natural occurrence that we were unfamiliar with and I was doing my best to look into whether this had happened int he past.

But the more I dug into it, the more similar situations I’d found, the less I believed it was natural.

I knew it was crazy but as I read about the magical and the mythical, things began to click. Like the fact that it was thought that great magical events generally caused drastic atmospheric changes. So it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that one might, say, heat up the ocean to a degree that actual steam was floating from the surface.

“You’re seriously still here?” I heard a voice say from behind me and looked up to find Jesse standing in the doorway of the library.

“I am,” I told him, as I flipped through the pages of my book.

“Finn, you don’t even work today.”

“I know, but I can’t help myself. Jesse, you won’t believe the things I’ve read about!”

He walked over, the sound of his boots muted on the carpet underneath him. He peeked over my shoulder and read one of the covers of my books.

“‘The History of the Mythical,’ really, Finn?” He laughed. “I’m not so sure that’s going to help you.” He pulled up a chair and sat down next to me.

“Don’t be so sure,” I told him with a mischievous grin, “Whatever is going on, I’m really starting to believe it might be magical.”

He looked immediately skeptical. I could read his face just as well as the covers of my books, he was that transparent.

“Finn, come on. You know how rare magic is, if it even exists at all. Whatever it is, it’s not likely to be magical.”

Now I looked at him skeptically. “Really? You don’t think so? Well, if you don’t think it is, why do you seem so afraid of this thing?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m afraid of it…” He trailed off, but I could tell that he was. Most people were.

“Your gut is telling you that this is not normal, that it’s not something that can be explained away by a naturally occurring event. I know it is, mine is too… And the info in these books tells me it has the markings of potential magic.”

“Yeah?” he asked. “Like what?”

“Like the fact that magic follows geometry very strictly. Spells and events usually fall into distinct shapes, they can be simple or they can be complicated. A triangle, a hexagon, one thousand triangles within each other, even, whatever! Or, you know, it could be a circle…”

He rolled his eyes. “I really think you’re reading too much into this. I mean…” He leaned over me to look at one of the covers of my books, his torso now very close to my own. “Do you really think ‘Magical Events Through History’ sounds like a scientific book?”

But I couldn’t focus on his question. The only thing I could think about was how intensely close to my body he was. How I could feel his breath on my neck…

This had been happening to me a lot lately, practically every time Jesse drew near. And I did my best to hide that it had me flustered.

Though today, I’d clearly done a very bad job.

“Finn?” he asked me.

“What?” I responded, a little surprised.

“I asked you a question…” he said, sounding jokingly annoyed.

“Oh, uh, sorry… I zoned out.”

He laughed. “Of course you did.” He stood up from the chair. “Well, my shift’s about to start. I guess you continue to nerd out about all this.”

“I will.” I laughed awkwardly as he left the room.

Damn, that was close. I had to get it together. I couldn’t continue freezing up every time Jesse got too close. He was going to start wondering about my behavior, which was the last thing I wanted.

Jesse was my best friend in this world, always had been. We had a great relationship, there was nobody I was closer to than him. I didn’t know what I’d do if I lost him.

Which meant I had to stop with these weird feelings.

I wasn’t even sure why I was feeling them myself. I wasn’t gay. Quite the contrary, I’d always loved women! I’d been with quite a few of them throughout my life. Nothing too serious, no real relationships, but I was definitely attracted to them. And never before had a man drawn my attention. I went to the bar, I looked for the women around me. I flirted with women, I hooked up with women…

So why was Jesse giving me the same feelings that women did?

I knew that gay shifters existed, of course, but I didn’t ever picture myself as one. Even aside from the fact that I’d always been interested in women, gay shifters paired up in couples of alphas and omegas… I was not an alpha or an omega. I always considered myself a beta. So being a gay shifter didn't really seem to fit…

But I knew what it felt like to be attracted to someone, to be flustered when they got close to you, to not know what to do with yourself. It was happening with Jesse and I had no idea why.

It wasn’t something I could or wanted to explore though. Not at the risk of losing Jesse forever. I mean, if he found out how I felt, I was sure he’d be nice about it. He was my best friend. He cared about me. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t feel awkward and it wouldn’t put a dent in our friendship.

If I kept these thoughts to myself then I likely would be able to move on from these feelings without Jesse ever knowing. I’d never liked him in the past; whatever this was it was new and it’d likely fade with a little time. I just had to give it that time.

But in the back of my mind, I worried that I was wrong. That this wasn’t fleeting, that if I didn’t take care of this now, feelings I had for Jesse would continue to haunt me…

I couldn’t think about that now, though, it wasn’t going to help me. I just had to redirect my focus in the interim.

Which was fine because as it turned out, I had something fantastic to put that focus into… and that was this weird steam cylinder that was currently sitting out in the ocean right off our coasts.

I found my excitement growing the more I read about old magic. I probably should have been worried like Jesse and the others, because if this was a magical event then we would have no idea how to actually control it or make sure it was safe.

But I couldn’t be afraid when I was so damn excited that something interesting was finally happening in Santa Oso.