Luca di Silva had always been an...interesting child. The first month of his life he would cry and scream for what seemed like the entire day. The only relief his poor mother had was when he finally cried himself to sleep. As time went on, he started to cry less and less, to his mother's relief. Eventually he settles into a extremely quiet, curious child.

He seemed to be delighted by every new thing he learned. The strangest things would make him laugh, like a bird at the windowsill, or certain story books.

When he started to crawl, he couldn't seem to stop. His mother would turn away for all of a second and he would take off all over their apartment. After the first few times, when she was terrified that he would hurt himself, she started to make a game of finding him. She would call out his name and followed the resulting giggles to his newest hiding spot. She would always find him, but he liked to hide in the oddest places.

Under the couch, behind the TV set, in a cupboard, on the bookshelf, in a large stew pot, etcetera, etcetera.

The only thing is, she knows everytime she looks at Luca that he won't be able to be a child forever. She's known this since his hair grew in bright, bright blue.

She knows what that can mean.

It's not always true, but people with high flame purity can have it manifest in...conspicuous ways.

It was funny to see her son look so shocked when he found a mirror for the first time, though. He seemed incredibly disbelieving, and he kept trying to tug it down to look at it himself. She took many photos.

When he was two years old and in his 'why' stage, she started telling him flame lore every night before bedtime. Not just the things that everyone knew, but also the things that had been passed down from her family. The things that only a few had knowledge about.

Luca had looked confused at first why these stories had replaced his usual fairytales. For about a week after she showed him her own mist flames, he was extremely quiet, more so than usual. She worried, but couldn't think of a reason for his silence. Fortunately, he returned to himself fairly quickly. After that, he had a spark of determination in his eye every night during storytime.

xxx

Luca didn't know why he had been reborn. His last memories were blurry, but he knew he had been in a car accident of some kind. He remembers the taste of iron in his mouth and snowflakes falling on his skin. He remembers the sounds of screaming falling away to peaceful silence. He remembers darkness.

And then, he remembers light.

It was hard (so, so hard) to accept his new reality because he did not want this. He didn't want to live again in a world that had wanted to grind him down until he felt the ache of exhaustion in his soul.He screamed and screamed denial of this reality until one night, where his (new) Mama held him close and started crying, too. He couldn't understand her, she sounded a bit warbly and wasn't speaking a language he could understand, but he could tell she was worried and exhausted. He could tell that she loved him.

She didn't ask for a son like him, either. He couldn't blame her for his existence, no matter how much he wanted to.

So, he decided, if he was going to live again, he was going to do it right. He was going to be happy, and he was going to make his Mama happy, too. He had never had one in the Before, so this one he would keep.

He was alive, his Mama loved him, and the Before couldn't hurt him anymore.

It was weird, though, his hair was blue. His Mama's hair was black, and her eyes were a very pretty blue, but he had blue hair and brown eyes. He knows he wasn't adopted because of memories he would rather not have.

Really, the birthing process is traumatic for all parties involved.

He knows that his Mama wasn't dying it, either. He would remember that even if she was doing it in his sleep. He even checked his roots in the mirror to be doubly sure.

Sometimes he would catch Mama looking at it, and she seemed worried. She also made sure he was wearing a hat every time they went out. He couldn't ask her, though. He had no idea how to speak her language! He had only known English and some German in his last life, and this sounded like neither of those. It could be Spanish, but it didn't really sound like his neighbor from Before's telenovelas.

It took him ages to start to learn enough to communicate with his Mama. He was two years old by the time storytime made even a little sense, and that was with picture books! Thankfully, once he got started, his new brain seemed to pick up the language - Italian - with lightning speed.

Then came the really weird stuff.

Flames?! Really?! Like that stupid anime he watched online to de-stress?!

What?!

He thought his Mama was just a fan when she first started telling him about "the seven flames of will." Then, she set her hand on fire. And turned the fire into different objects.

It was one thing to be reborn. It was another thing to be in KHReborn!, okay?!

So he thought about it.

And thought about it some more.

If his Mama was telling him about flames, that meant she had ties to the Mafia in some way. However, he hadn't seen any evidence of that. She didn't go out at odd times, nor did she have suspicious friends come over. She also didn't seem to have a job despite living in a very nice two-bedroom apartment with a child.

So, he could reasonably assume that she was connected to the Mafia in some way, but was removed enough to not take any jobs or be connected to a famiglia. They were well-off enough to live comfortably, but not so wealthy to be suspicious. Unless she was hiding it.

Ahh! So frustrating!

Whatever. If Mama wanted to tell him juicy flame secrets that he already knew, that was fine. She would get to the good stuff, eventually.

She also started him on meditation, which, okay, he understood, but he thought it was pretty obvious what flame type he was. He had blue hair.

(He wasn't quite over that, yet. He kept getting shocked whenever he passed a reflective surface., and then Mama would laugh at him. It was pretty, though. Maybe he should grow it out…?)

So it really wasn't a surprise when a year later he burst into blue fire that was edged in indigo.

Suddenly, he felt like he could sense everything. There was his Mama with swirling indigo and a lick of steady yellow, like sunbeams on a foggy morning. He could feel the dull, muted colors of his flame-inactive neighbors. He could breathe in the colorless fire of the air around him. It was weird, but if he thought about it, it made sense for someone with a background from a world without flames to be sensitive to them. At least, he thought so. It's not like he could confirm it, but it felt right….

The, uh, orange, though. That was a surprise to his Mama. He had his suspicions before this when he was to be able to feel/sense/touch his love for her.

For his Mama, it seemed to have shocked her very, very badly.

"Oh, no," she said. "That's….not good."

And then she was quiet for a long time.

xxx

"Oi, Silva!"

The bartender slammed his hand down next to the sleeping mans head. With a squawk he jumped up from his seat and promptly tripped to fall on the floor in a heap. Quiet laughter from the rest of the occupants of the bar carried over. From the human lump on the floor came a long groan, and then a muffled grunt that could have been anything from a response to .

Slowly, the man oozed back into his seat and looked up pitifully at the bartender. The effect was somewhat ruined by his skewed, oversized sunglasses. His black hair was half falling out from it's bun at the back of his head to brush his shoulders. The bartender just gave him a flat look.

Lucas sighed. "Yes, Marco?"

Marco pointed to the bar stool next to him. Slowly, Lucas turned to look and calmly met the disgusted expression of his tiny boss.

"Ah, captain. How long have you been there…?"

"A while, kora."

"I see." Lucas looked over again to Marcus and whispered, "this is real, right?"

A kick came flying at his head, and Lucas once again collapsed to the floor.

"Don't ignore me, kora!"

Lucas just whimpered from his human puddle.

"Get it together! It's all hand on deck today, so I expect you at your post within the hour!"

Lucas sat up and pouted at Colonnello. "What, why?"

(he already knew)

"Important guests. Don't screw it up." He scoffed, "That might be difficult for you, though. Weakling." Colonnello hopped off the barstool and marched out of the bar. The crowd respectfully cleared a path for him as he stomped by.

Behind his sunglasses, Luca rolled his eyes. He slowly got up to a standing position, re-trying his hair along the way. Putting some money on the bar, he meandered out, hissing at the sudden rise of noise when he left the sound-proofed walls.

He lowered his glasses slightly to squint at the large balloons bobbing in the distance. He could just make out a giant fedora and curls springing out from the sides.

He heaved a sigh and shoved his hands in his jeans' pockets. Behind shaded lenses, eyes flashed orange for a fraction of a second.

"Important guests, huh…. What a tsundere."