I don't own Night World. Jez is 8, Morgead 9. (You can figure out for yourself whether it's post or pre Huntress!)

Jez and Morgead: Seasonal Fights

Morgead POV (Well, technically, 3rd Person...)

Winter

Morgead waited outside Jez's house.

Although the snow was thick on the ground, and everyone who passed had great big coats on, Morgead was standing still, in a thin jumper and long trousers, but no thick coat. He wasn't cold. His vampire blood stopped him from feeling any human weaknesses like cold. His body didn't need the reaction of shivering.

The door opened and Jez peeked out warily. She groaned when she saw the snow and came out. She was wearing a coat, but it too was thin. She shut the door and walked over to Morgead, her expression one of annoyance.

"I am sick of this snow!" she said angrily. She kicked at the snow. Unfortunately, she kicked a bit too vigorously and it flew up high in the air, and landed on her head. She shrieked and kicked the snow again, as if in punishment, but not as hard. She moved closer to Morgead's side. "Couldn't we just skip school?" She turned to Morgead, who was fighting a smile. He knew that if he smiled, she might as well start kicking him.

He looked at her when he was sure that he wouldn't burst out laughing. She was gazing at him seriously, but with a hint of excitement in those cerulean eyes you could just get lost in...

He forced himself to turn away, took a deep breath to calm himself down before looking back at her. He smiled.

"That's a great idea," he said. Jez smiled back at him and took his hand.

"Come on then! I want a race!" she said, laughing she started running and pulled Morgead along behind her. He followed her, still holding her hand and letting her take the lead.

They ran for about twenty minutes, until they reached Muir Woods. Morgead knew she loved being in forests. She slowed down, still keeping hold of his hand.

"I've got another idea. How about we play hide-and-seek?" Jez said.

"Sure, Jezebel," Morgead said. He smiled and let go of her hand, disappearing in the forest. He didn't see the small smile on Jez's lips before she started looking for him.

He went to a tree that he knew. It was hollow, and usually had a couple of owls and squirrels nesting in it. He chased a squirrel away and startled a couple of nesting owls, who took off in fright. Morgead was tall for his age, but he managed to fit through the hole. The interior was surprisingly large and warm, with no snow. He relaxed against the bark, wincing as a couple of splinters dug into his skin.

As usual, when he had some time to himself, he thought about Jez.

He couldn't help it. She was his best friend, always there for him. He was closer to her than his mother, but of course, that wasn't difficult. Even her uncle Bracken was kinder to him than his mother.

He shook his head and focused on his surroundings. Were those foot steps? He had to fight the urge to look outside.

After about ten minutes, though, he couldn't stand it anymore. He couldn't just sit and not have anything to do; it wasn't in his nature. He half stood up and crawled to the entrance to get out, before realising that Jez was a few feet in front of him.

"I found you," she said. She looked at him with a strange expression on her face. "I think I need to teach you the rules better."

"I got bored," he grumbled. "You need to learn how to find people. It wasn't that hard a hiding place."

Jez crossed her arms. "Well, I had this whole forest to look through! You think I would just be able to know where you were hiding? It's not like we've got a connection that lets me know where you are, every minute of the day!"

"Whatever," Morgead said, rapidly loosing interest. He kicked at the ground.

Jez stared at him for a minute, then sighed in defeat. "Okay, fine. What's wrong?"

Morgead looked up at her, surprised. He sometimes forgot how well she actually knew him. "Nothing's wrong," he said experimentally, testing her.

"Uh-huh. Something's definitely wrong. You wouldn't give up an argument as easily as that if you were fine. Something's wrong, and I want to know what it is," she did a mock-pout, hoping to force a smile out of him.

Morgead was fighting a smile. There was no use. She knew him too well for him to fool her.

"My mum," he said. Jez's expression suddenly turned sympathetic. "She left a week ago, then came back yesterday, didn't talk to me at all apart from to tell me to move out of the way of the TV, and she left this morning. I don't know when she'll be back." He looked down again, fighting the tears. "You have no idea how lucky you are, Jez. At least you've got somebody."

"Morgead," she said sharply. "I've told you enough times. You aren't alone! Whenever your mum is off doing whatever she does, and you don't want to be alone, you come to my house. You can stay there as long as you want."

Morgead glanced up at her. "I know that. I just sometimes think that your uncle doesn't really like me much."

She laughed. "Oh, he likes you, Morgead. He's just still sour from the time you dared me to dig up the rose bushes. Apparently they were prize winning." She rolled her eyes. "Why a couple of dead leaves and a wilted flower is prize winning, I don't know. I don't get flowers."

"I don't get why he's so obsessed with them."

"It's just a stage," Jez said, shrugging. "He'll get over it."

They just stared at each other for a moment, until Jez smiled and walked closer, putting her hand on his arm. "Don't worry about it. She'll come back. She always does."

"Maybe I don't want her to come back," Morgead muttered, before turning away.

"Where are you going?" Jez shouted.

"School," Morgead shouted, without turning back. "We really shouldn't miss it, as much as we would want to."

After a couple of seconds of stunned silence, in which Morgead didn't turn back to look, something hard and cold hit the back of his head. He turned, and saw that Jez was shaking water from her hand, looking very pleased with herself.

"Did you have to do that?" Morgead said exasperatedly. Of course he loved her, but she could be such a pain sometimes!

"We are not going to school! We're going to stay here and have a snowball fight."

Morgead gave her an incredulous look, before bending down to scrape some snow from the ground.

He didn't see Jez grin happily. This was going to be a good day.

Well, Seasonal Fights is finished! I'm sorry that there was only one post-Huntress. Summer was originally going to be post, but it really didn't work, so I changed it to pre, and this one was vital for Memories (they kind of just tie together perfectly). Also, there was more insight in this one into Morgead as a young, vulnerable child (which must have been at some point!).