Goodbye Maggie

Athol came to a halt in front of a large boulder.

The black ice underneath Jane's worn leather boots was nearly invisible, causing her to fall into the boulder unexpectedly.

Athol snickered before pulling Jane to her feet by her dress.

The elderly woman then emitted a wisp of soft, lavender radiance from the palm of one of her wrinkled, old hands.

With this new light, Jane could now see there was not only one boulder, but many. They formed a circle about twenty feet in diameter, with the largest having the shape of a door cut into its rugged mossy face. This was the boulder that the two women stood directly in front of at the moment.

Jane couldn't help but smile through her sorrow at the sight of the shelter. She had grown up in a place just like this after all. It made her heart ache as a child when she'd found her brother couldn't experience this type of safety; No, instead he had to lock himself up into a one room cottage all alone, working like a mad scientist for another way.

She remembered all the hours they had spent playing in the fields during the day and running around wreaking havoc on the stores of their small town. She remembered the muggy summer nights when they would sit on their cots side by side before they drifted to sleep, only for the dreaded search once a week, where Jane and her mother would go to the shelter to hide from the guards with the other outcasted elves whilst Anselmo had to stay huddled in the house, knowing any one of those days he could have been tortured and killed simply for being a halfling.

Her thoughts were broken when Athol placed her hand on Jane's forehead. She felt the familiar, tingly warmth of the blessing seeping into her flesh, Athol then did the same to her own head. Jane watched in wonder, as her chocolate brown skin turned to a deep midnight blue as the cool violet light burned vivaciously inside her skull.

Once the glowing ceased, Athol lifted her right hand, which still burned blue with the magic she had used to bless them, placed her hand on the stone, and after a few moments of silence, the knob of the stone door swiveled on its own. A soft transparent hue of lilac pink seemed to fall over their surroundings before the door opened.

The contents of what was behind the door was now clouded by what seemed to be bright blue sapphire shadows: figures of people, animals, objects, all running, crawling or flying through the air in ways not explainable by logic.

Jane had forgotten how odd of an experience entering an outcasts shelter could be. Her senses were jumbled, her mind blank and digits slow to obey her. It took Athol's firm shove to push her through to the other side into the swarm of shadows.

Jane could feel Athol behind her; she could hear the stone door slam shut, the chains and locks wrapping around the entrance to seal them safely inside. Despite this her eyes could see nothing for a good while, until the shadows drifted away. Her vision was cloudy, but she could now make out the familiar structure of the shelter. They were rumored to be the same throughout the entirety of America.

Upon entering, they saw low ceilings hanging with icicles and stalagmites, the mossy smell of gremlins, goblins, elves, and sprites, and cramped walls lining the winding tunnels of the underground hiding place.

Suddenly, the shadows were gone and her vision was clear.

Athol shuffled past her into the dark of the tunnel fearlessly with nothing but the faint light of a fire spell floating above her palm. Jane followed in suit cautiously. Her legs were still shaking and her eyes were burning from her tears, but her body otherwise seemed to be functioning fine for the time being.

After a mere five or so minutes of walking hunchbacked through the dark tunnels, the scent of tobacco and fresh meat hit Jane right in the face, just before she turned the corner into the gaping cave of the lake room.

The ceiling was upwards of one hundred feet high, with rocks and small cliffs lining the sides. Multiple stone platforms stood at different levels over the crystal clear water of the lake, which took up nearly all of the floor space of the cave.

Jane hid behind Athol, like a puppy cowering behind its mother. Then, without warning, Athol yanked Jane's hand and marched into a crowd of outcasts.

As they neared the clump of people, the cool --yet humid-- air filled Jane's eyes, leaving her vision yet again impaired.

The two stopped in front of the group that was trying their best not to slip on the slick rock beneath them.

Most of the pack didn't even look up from their meal, tearing viciously at their meat, blood spewed everywhere, (especially around the Werewolves and Cliff Trolls, who used their fangs to scarf down whole rabbits and ferrets leaving nothing but the skin-- Like how someone would typically eat a baked potato.)

Athol patted Jane on the shoulder before disappearing into the crowd so she could chat.

This left Jane alone, standing almost sopping wet amongst a cloud of intimidating strangers.

Suddenly, she felt a pull on her skirt, and looked down to see a little girl, no older than five with pale freckled skin and thick, wavy, chin-length black hair. She grinned up at Jane, her tiny mouth creasing into an ecstatic grin that revealed her set of bright white fangs as sharp as any knife.

"Athol told me a lady was comin' to rescue us?" The child made eerily good eye contact for her age. Paired with her oddly confident posture, she came off as quite fearless;whether this stemmed from naivety or trauma, neither mattered to Jane.

Grasping for words, Jane finally brought herself to respond.

"I- yes; I wasn't aware that- she notified you of this.." Jane stood on her toes to scan the crowd. She caught sight of Athol holding a goblet of golden liquid, engaged in serious conversation with an older swamp gremlin; but alas, she could not get her attention. Jane was on her own.

She sighed, sinking back into her feet. She refixed her gaze on the girl

"It's true, I'm embarking on a quest to rescue as many orphans and young outcasts as possible…. But, you are already in a shelter are you not?"

"Well yes, but you're here to rescue us from prison."

"..Prison?" Jane's tone had a touch of shock entwined within her words. Yet, she strived to keep her mouth child friendly for the time being.

Suddenly, Jane remembered that she had eavesdropped on a conversation between Anselmo and Athol a few moons back. Athol had explained how Whick (one of the elders of the shelter) was planning on freezing any child who showed any sort of disability until the war was over, simply because they needed only the most functioning members of society during times of war.

Jane had remembered Athol being incredibly distraught at the news as she claimed,

"Seemingly dull brains have the best use for magic in the riskiest of times." Jane had to admit it did make sense. Growing up, Lilith was constantly paranoid about the strangest of things. She had the most complex, seemingly stupid, rituals you could imagine. Yet, Jane couldn't count all the times that had saved their lives in moments of danger when playing in the woods as children--even if it did cause her to struggle in everyday life.

Jane snapped herself back into reality. She looked at the child directly in her striking olive green eyes, bent down and lightly gripped the childs arms.

"What do you mean prison, and ..why are they sending you there?"

"The cold place they said."

The girl's eyes drifted as she said this, and Jane could feel a shiver run through her arms.

"And what's your name, little one?" she moved her eyes along with the childs trying her best to keep her grounded.

"Maggie… Maggie S." she chirped, her vitality seeming to have returned. It was strange, Jane thought, how quickly one's mood could shift from merely thinking about something. She loved that about magic. After all, it was essentially the manipulation of energy via the mind. Technically a mere thought evoking emotion in oneself could be seen as a form of magic.

"And why, Maggie, are they sending you to the cold place."

Maggie's nose wrinkled in disgust.

"They think I'm no good, can't do things their way, gotta lock me up cause they're scared!" she snapped.

Jane nodded as if she understood, when in reality she too was slightly afraid of this child, or maybe she was afraid of what the child would become in the future if she wasn't on the right side of the fight. She could see why Whick would be looking for a loophole to kill her off.

Jane then stood up, placing her hand on the child's head. She sent a prayer to Lilith, begging her to grant her some form of power at this moment.

Jane couldn't stand by whatever Whick was trying to do; she didn't have enough knowledge to prevent Maggie from being frozen at all, but she could try her best to bless the kid in some way. She saw a slight flicker of red glow out from under the girls dark brown hair. Jane nearly jumped.

"That was strange." she muttered

"What?"

"Oh, um, n-nothing." Just as the red faded away and the blessing was complete, Jane whipped her hand away from the girl.

Maggie skipped off, seemingly bored of Jane.

Jane stood there, shocked… her magic was never red. She didn't even know the magic code for red. She silently cursed herself for slacking during her tutoring sessions with Lilith when they were teeneagers. She shook the thought from her head; she couldn't handle thinking about Lilith, at least not right now.

Looking over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of Athol yelling at some man with yellow skin and wispy white hair. His eyes were cloudy and murky green like a swamp; in one of his hands he held an icy blue crystal which shone with a white aura. A small silver plaque was placed on its side, engraved with the icelandic rune Isa (ice) and the rune Mannaz (humanity). She watched the crystal silently as the runes on the plaque flashed blood red before melting into a new shape. Jane smirked a bit as she saw this, she had no idea what she had done with Lilith's little bit of magic that had been left on her, but she desperately hoped it would help Maggie and her friends' stay in the ice prison be a temporary one.

The rookie mage beamed with pride at the new symbols on the blue crystal. Isa, the rune for ice, remained the same, but the second had shifted into a sort of rigid letter c, its legs bent outwards, like a defo rmed horseshoe. Jane had no idea what this meant, but nevertheless she hoped for the best.

Jane held her breath as she watched the wrinkly yellow man grab Maggie by the hand and drag her into the water with Athol chasing after them in a fury. It was with one small splash that Whick threw the child into the sacred lake with the crystal, his face contorted into an expression of shock and confusion when the water beneath her turned fiery red instead of blue. But still, Maggie was gone; unrightfully gone, gone in the name of "safety".

"Sometimes the shelter is the most dangerous place you can hide," Muttered Jane.