Avanth stared out the window of the transport bus for hours. He watched the land roll by and observed the landscape change from greenery to the blazing desert and back to city life. The world outside of the bus turned into a colorful blur as his eyes unfocused and he was taken to a private section in his subconscious.

At some point, Iaelie got up and stared blankly at the other inmates on the bus. Her unblinking eyes stared down the inmate across from her and she flashed her teeth, her chains snapping. Maybe an hour had passed by when Iaelie turned to him and started talking.

"What?" he asked. He forced his mind back into his body and turned to face Iaelie. His eyes unfocused for a second, but a blink cleared the fogginess.

"I never got your name," she said.

"Oh yeah. It's Avanth," he replied. He had based his name on his old nickname "Ava," which he hated.

Iaelie cocked her head to the side, "I've never heard that name before."

He shrugged, "I just named myself whatever." Iaelie didn't make any further comments except her, "Ah, creativity." She faced forward again and intently watched the bus walls. 

Avanth turned to the other person beside him and asked, "Do you know where we're going?" The scraggly female beside him faced him with a slightly shocked expression. Her wide-set eyes were haunted, her hair matted with blood against her head.

"What am I doing here? Why am I moving?" shye asked, grabbing the seat in a panicked state. her already pale hands whitened as she gripped the plastic seats, the faint scars on her fingers stretching.

"What do you mean? We've been on this bus for an hour already," Avanth watched the female beside shake her head. Her wide eyes darted to the moving landscape through the window in front of him. 

"No, an hour ago I was on the cotton fields," she corrected. Avanth frowned, "No, we've been on this bus for a while now."

"Uh, no. I was in the field." The female clenched the seat harder, her arms shaking with the effort. She shook his head hard, strands of loose hair whipping across her face.

"Before the bus, you were in the Ryhun, the holding facility. Remember?" Avanth scanned the female's face. Was she on something? Or what?

Her right eye was now twitching uncontrollably. Along with her constantly bouncing legs, she looked truly insane.

"Holding facility? What would I be arrested for? I'm going to tell the driver to take me back. My ma's going to need help on the fields soon," the female started to get up, but her handcuffs caught on the seat. "Why am I handcuffed?" She yanked on the chains and tried to lift her hands high enough for her to try to bite off the cuffs.

"Like I said, we're being moved to another jail or something." Avanth jangled his own handcuffs linked to the seat. The female's head snapped up at the clinking noise and bared her teeth.

"What did I do?" the female started pulling on the chains harder and growled. Her eyes were crazed, a glazed expression crossing her face.

Avanth was about to respond when Iaelie pulled on his arm.

"Don't talk to anybody here. They're all psychopaths. They're being transported to an asylum," Iaelie whispered, leaning in to converse in private. She tilted her head to the other kids on the bus. He finally noted all their cloudy expressions, like they were high on some type of calming drug.

"We're going with them?" Avanth asked. He discreetly took a glance at the female beside him and she was baring her teeth threateningly. The clanking of the chains continued, the only sound in the bus. The other passengers were eerily quiet, their heads limp over their shoulders.

"Zaele is a city for . . . not normal people. There are several asylums there, as well as a holding center for people with extra powers." Iaelie nodded to his hands, currently encased in the silver cuffs. He turned his palms over.

"How do you know all that?" He took another glance at the inmates and averted his eyes from the guards stationed at the corners of the bus. Their tasers were in hand as they stared out the bus windows.

"I grew up near Zaele, in the next city over. We've heard rumors," Iaelie whispered conspiratorially.

"And you ended up in a holding center in Merim?" 

Iaelie shrugged, "My home has no holding centers for people like us." Avanth frowned. Her eyes darkened with old memories. Avanth had no idea what to say, what could he possibly say to comfort her.

Iaelie's gaze dropped but snapped back up when the female next to Avanth started howling as she ripped at his chains.

"Let me go!" she snarled as she whipped her arms to rip the handcuffs off, but the snap of the chains restricted her movement. That just made her madder.

Iaelie pulled Avanth away from the madness beside him.

The guards on the bus jumped into action. The one near the driver whipped out his taser, the only one still in its holster. He also pulled out a thin needle that was full of clear liquid. He extended the arm with the taser and set it to stun as it made contact with the feral girl's body.

Avanth watched in horror as her body went limp and the guard injected the clear liquid into the limp form.

Another guard came up from behind the first guard and help up a stick cautiously. When the unconscious female made no move against them, both guards returned to their posts.

Avanth and Iaelie's eyes met. He was about to ask for an explanation when she shook her head.

The calming drug, he supposed.

The other inmates around them seemed unaware of what had just happened, perfectly content with their half-asleep state.

Avanth quickly turned back to the girl beside him as she twitched against the bus seats. There was a string of drool building at the corner of her mouth, but Avanth turned back to Iaelie. She stared at the people around them and a murderous expression crossed her face. It immediately disappeared, like it was never there.

"How did they catch you?" she asked quietly.

Avanth stared at his feet, "I was selling at the market when the police raided the place."

Iaelie raised an eyebrow, "Why would the police raid the market?"

A corner of his mouth twitched up, "It was the black market." Iaelie's eyebrows raised, "Oh, oh." She gave him a side glance that almost made him laugh.

"It's not what you think. I didn't sell shady drugs or alcohol or anything. My parents had me sell knock-off jewelry, that's it." He waved his hand in the air, trying to pass that fact as irrelevant. It was a half-lie. His parents had told him to sell jewelry, their jewelry specifically, but after the robbery . . .

"Your parents let you sell illegally?" she asked. Avanth knew she meant nothing asking that question, so he shrugged.

"Not exactly," he said slowly, trying to convey his circumstance without actually saying it aloud. "They had asked me to, and even if they're not here, I want to do it." Iaelie nodded empathetically.

"How did they catch you?" he asked, trying to change the subject and get it off him. Iaelie, sensing that, answered his question quickly.

"It's apparently illegal to run a homeless shelter," Iaelie groused. She lifted her arms to make air quotes as she said, "Because I was 'Possibly using the homeless as test subjects."

"What? How does that make any sense?" Avanth cocked his head trying to connect helping with harming. Nope, it doesn't link at all.

"Because of a genetic test I did as a kid for 'mandatory testing', they know my heritage. They thought I was using the homeless as 'unwitting victims' because I'm fae." Iaelie rolled her eyes. "Guess I can't try to help our toxic community."

"That's not right," Avanth frowned. "You didn't do anything wrong. How'd that pass in court?"

Iaelie gritted her teeth, "There are no laws for the fae to have proper trials in court. I was sent directly to jail." In Merim, she added silently. Away from her home.

"Everyone can go to hell," he muttered, staring out the window once again. His social energy needed recharging.

Just as he turned to the window, he caught sight of a black-cloaked figure running alongside the bus.

"What the actual frick—"

He twisted around to press his palms against the warm glass that had been baking in the afternoon sun for hours. He leaned into the window and strained to find the dash of black amidst the blurring green.

Iaelie leaned towards him, looking out the window as well, "What is it?"

"I swear I saw someone outside the bus," he whispered back. Iaelie glanced to the speedometer on the dashboard of the bus and saw the small arrow pointing towards the sixty mark.

"Someone's running at sixty miles per hour?" she asked incredulously.

Avanth's breath fogged the glass as he watched the road for a few minutes. He slumped back into his seat, facing forward again, "Huh, I'm very sure I saw someone there. Like I saw something running with the bus. If we're being chased by freaking black cheese I swear—"

The sound of glass shattering cut off his sentence as he and Iaelie whirled toward the driver's cab.

The splintered glass was all over the driver and the front row of inmates. The guards were at the front of the bus immediately, their tasers and sticks out, poised to strike. But they would do no good to anyone besides the crazy.

A dark figure leaped through the now-open windshield and shot a dart gun at all six guards stationed on the bus. They whacked the driver's head with the butt of their gun and stepped on the brake of the bus.

When they slammed to a stop, the cloaked personage froze for a second and continued toward the chained prisoners.

Like a signal was sent out, a dozen similarly cloaked figures swarmed the bus and whipped out some sick-looking daggers. They spread out and in unison, started hacking at the iron chains of the drugged captives.

The original one of the group headed straight for them, noting their silver chains.

"I flipping knew it," Avanth muttered under his breath. Iaelie smacked his knee.

When the figure reached them in the far back, the other cloaked figures were dragging the bodies out of the bus and into their van, parked next to the bus for easy access.

"Why aren't you drugged?" the figure asked, a deep monotone voice coming out from under the cowl.

"Special agents of the king. We're on official business posing as cheese undercover on a bus full of potatoes—" Avanth smacked a hand against his mouth, stopping his nervous nonsense. Iaelie shot him a look.

"Ok, what the—Maybe you are one of these rescuees," they pulled out a silver dagger and started sawing at the silver chains attached to Avanth's wrists.

"Wait, no I'm not. You see, when I get scared I tend to say some crazy shit because I'm pretty sure I'm cyborg and just, y'know, malfunction? And yeah, so I pretty much—" His heart was racing and he was sure sweat was beading on his forehead. Was this some kind of prisoner heist?

Iaelie patted his knee, "We're not going to the asylums. We're heading to a stronger holding cell."

The person in front of him ripped off the chains in a single pull after sawing half of the silver.

They started on Iaelie, but she held up a hand. She closed her eyes and yanked really hard on the chains, bringing her arms apart to strain the silver and the shackles shattered.

The person in front of them dropped their dagger and kept their focus on Iaelie.

"How?" they simply asked.

"We're fae," Iaelie replied, motioning to the silver chains piled on the floor and their ability to think coherently against the travel drugs. The figure didn't move and stood still with preternatural stillness.

They whipped off their cowl and revealed a stunned female face. Her hair was pure silver and shone under the bright fluorescent lights of the bus, deeply contrasting her dark cape. And Avanth saw the importance of removing the hood.

Peeking out from her head of silver hair, pointed ears stuck out of her head.

"You're fae," Iaelie stared open-mouthed at the female in front of them.

The female looked behind and whispered toward them, "Look, we don't have much time. I'm sure the city has reinforcements coming in for this batch of their prisoners. We have to go." Without the shadow of the cowl covering her face and the strange voice changer, she sounded like a teenage female.

"Who are you?" Avanth asked motioning toward the other cloaked figures behind her still transporting the prisoners.

"I can't explain right now, but if you would just go with me—"

Iaelie crossed her arms, "How do we know if it's safe to go with you?" She stared down the female looking down at them, neither of them bothering to get up even after the chains have been removed.

The cloaked female sighed and said something unintelligible, but Avanth had sunk into a quiet space in his mind. Anything besides the quiet, dark room disappeared and a single command glittered into existence.

Come with me.

Avanth had no choice but to follow the female into the van and to wherever she was going to take them.

. . .

"My head freaking hurts," Avanth complained as he rubbed at his temples. He contemplated banging his head against his palm, but he couldn't afford to lose any more brain cells.

Iaelie was still passed out next to him on the floor of the rather large van. The sprinter had chairs lining the edges of the vehicle with the floor covered in blankets for those prisoners that couldn't sit up. Which was a lot of them.

The female was sitting across from him, monitoring the sleeping figures on the floor, "Hm?"

"Did you smack my head or something?" he asked, closing his eyes to hopefully stop the room from swirling.

"No, not at all. We can't hurt any of these people, including you, unfortunately. You guys are under our protection now, well technically, only they are." The female waved her arms over the limp bodies littered around the plush floors of the van.

She rested her elbow on the armrest of her seat and propped her leg up on the other side. "We were going to take that whole bus of people to a warehouse in Gaeoles, but with you two on board . . . we're stopping in Zaele after all."

"Wait, why?"

"There's a professor who lives there. He was enslaved by the republic because of his ability to walk through solid objects. He played spy for a few years, but basically he teaches young fae to blend it, to not face what he went through. You might need that training." 

"So, basically magic school?" he asked, eyebrow raised. Being magic was bad enough, but practicing it as well? That was practically a death sentence.

"Not exactly, more like training. To control your powers," she explained. Her dark eyes pierced his and he countered, "But still practicing."

"I've taken some of his lessons before, they really help," she motioned to her forehead. "My power is dormant now unless I will it to be otherwise."

Avanth ignored the little hint she sent his way, "I thought the fae were almost extinct."

"That's what they want you to think. Most powerful fae are gone, yes, but the fae do remain. Most of them just have no powers, only markable by their pointed ears, but they have no magic. Only that inhuman strength and speed." She nodded to Iaelie knocked out beside him. "But she has that extra strength. That's her power, an added ability."

"What is your power?" he asked, glancing at her forehead where a circlet of thorns lay. It seemed like it was just a style, but the way she wore it indicated something more.

"Why don't you tell me yours first?" She tilted her head innocently. Avanth smiled, "No thank you."

She huffed, "Ok, fine, what's your name?"

"Avanth, and that's Iaelie," he added nodding toward the sleeping form beside him.

"Cool, I'm Daxelle," she glanced at the analog clock mounted on the wall and murmured, "Only a few more hours."

"So we're really going to magic school?" Avanth asked again, needing to be sure. He had spent his whole life repressing his magic, and now he was willingly bringing it back up? 

Daxelle snorted, her shoulder-length silver hair moving with her small head shake, "Yeah, you guys are. With me. I need to make sure you guys don't run off or anything."

"Are we your prisoners or something?" he motioned to everything around him. "Because you forced us on the bus against our will."

"No, not our prisoners. We just needed you off that bus before reinforcements came and sent you on another bus to Zaele," her expression softened. "But we want to help you. No one should suffer because of who they are."

He averted his gaze and from the corner of his eye, saw Iaelie stir.

She jumped up on the moving van and stared at the bodies around them, "Holy gods, why does my head feel like shit."

Avanth burst out laughing as Iaelie turned to glare at him.

Daxelle grimaced slightly, "Sorry, I think I pushed too hard. I might have hit a nerve or something. This is why I need training."

Iaelie glanced at him, "Training? Pushed? What the hell are we doing here Avanth?"

"We're going to magic school like Harry Potter. We're wizards, Iaelie," he grinned and mimicked waving a wand in the air. "Expelliarmus!"

Daxelle gave him a long look and turned to Iaelie, "Is he always this annoying?"

She shrugged, "I wouldn't know, but it seems like it. Gods, we have to deal with him forever now right?" Daxelle sighed, "Apparently." They both gave him exasperated looks with which he countered with a whispered "Crucio."

"Go to hell," Daxelle muttered, but added a small, "Protego."

Avanth grinned and hissed, "Har-ee Pott-ah . . ."

"You should both shut up," Iaelie shook her head playfully. Avanth dramatically fell limp over the armrest and immediately snapped back up again, turning to Daxelle.

"She's a Harry Hater," Avanth said simply with a large grin. Iaelie gaped at him and snapped, "I am not."

Avanth hummed, "I don't see any love."

"Oh, you're terrible," Iaelie flashed him a venom-filled smile and leaned back into her seat.

"Why, thank you," Avanth said, taking a mock bow. She rolled her eyes and flipped him off, trying to ignore Daxelle and Avanth debating houses and being overall fanpeople. Avanth saw her settle into her seat and enjoy the last few hours of peace before everything changed. He decided to follow in her example and try to appreciate his freedom from his power before freaking magic school ruined it.

january 27, 2022
𝖙𝖊𝖊𝖍𝖊𝖊, 𝐁𝐚𝐢
© azalyme ₂₀₂₂