by T. Wyse
"Well, we expect a real visit in the future then!" Wendy demanded, hands on her hips.
"I will. I promise." Amelie smiled, glancing at her pouch of tasks. She continued on to the kitchen, her two friends had begun the process of cleaning the floors of the cafeteria.
The note had been to the kitchen staff, to give Amelie two full loaves of bread, to share with Kechua. The youths managing the great pots looked at the note, and nodding, doled out the ration without question. She left the kitchen, savoring the smells of the bread, a little sad that they would be cooled by the time she arrived to meet the boy. She passed through the cafeteria, without waving goodbye to her two adopted friends, not wanting to prolong the process any more.
Lyssa waited for her at the doors once more. “I need to return this.” Amelie shifted the white and blue patterned backpack off of herself, and presented it to Lyssa.
“No, keep it.” She forced it back into Amelie’s hands, tucking the bread inside. "I remember the boy who this used to belong to...who it still belongs to." She corrected herself. "He was a big fan of yours, maybe even more so than James. He had this made by his mother, after he saw you were wearing it, in one of those follow up stories when you were going to school with the other children.”
“Very gifted young man him, just started here. I’m not sure if you would recognize him, but you’d met him before.” Lyssa smiled, her breath withheld. “He was the boy you saved out of the sky, plucked from the heart of that tornado. Keep it, and know that I can’t imagine he could want anything more than for you to use it.”
What a funny world, Amelie thought, looking at the backpack before her. She had seen impossible things, Ushers and Aspects, the world turned aside, corruption from soiled knowledge, and yet the world still managed to surprise her, to make even someone like her feel small.
Amelie reached for the door, the woman silent. "Though he’s not on the map, If you see James..." She trailed off, her facade of confidence breaking, her voice faltering.
"When I see him, I'll tell him that you're running this place even better than he was." Amelie grinned, nodding at Lyssa. The woman gave a scolding chuckle, but said nothing further.
Amelie took to the skies again, seeing Melissan in a crowd of people, admiring the little mice upon her shoulders. It served as a distraction to allow her to fly freely away. She took a swooping survey of the academy below, its white bones shining along with the glass in the waning light of the day.
"They'll be fine, right?" Amelie asked, worried. “Collette and Professor Barret?”
“The man will be, I worry about the small one.” He crackled, his voice piercing through the wind. "If she does not falter, if she does not lose her intensity, then she should thrive. It is difficult to retain a perfect mind however."
"They'll be fine. I know they'll be fine." Amelie said, silencing his doubts.
Amelie caught the wind, sending her eastwards, the sun shining upon her back. She rode back towards the place that her journey had truly begun, her small detour at an end.
Table of Contents
1 As the Crow Flies
2 The Wave
3 Meldice’s House
4 Fealty
5 The Absent Garden
6 Travelling Tales
7 Arrival
8 Timothy’s House
9 The School
10 The Glass Tower
11 The First Night
12 Life in the Menagerie
13 The Second Night
14 Normalcy
15 Another Day
16 The Tower of Books
17 Ignorance From the Mouths of Babes
18
19 Decisions
20 Flying Away
21 Wind of Remembrance
22 New Dawn
