Water and Wind

Freya

 Freya doesn't understand what is happening. First they shot Circe, who sometimes gave her piggyback rides when she was in a good mood and played Leapfrog with her. Then they did something to Nimue, and now she couldn't read Freya stories.

And now this. A man is walking among the children with a stick in his hand. Freya doesn't like his scary eyes or too many wrinkles. He reminds her too much of the bad man in the scary stories Circe told her that made her cry and run to Nimue or an adult.

She is first. She usually is, because she is the youngest. The man jabs his stick under her chin, and lifts it. She doesn't like the feeling - it hurts her neck, so she pulls away. The mean man snaps and a guard comes with a nastier looking stick. It goes straight to her head, and Freya watches as stars dance in front of her eyes. Some kids on the line cry out, but she is too dizzy to do so.

"Now," the mean man says, leaning closer to her. She can count the stubble in his beard, and see the tangles in his hair. "Be a good little girl and that won't happen again. Okay?" The world is spinning under her feet like Arian had just picked her up and spun her around one to many times. Arian, who Freya especially liked because he was nice, and because he shared the same abilities as her, though his were more developed. She wobbles on the balls of her feet. His eyes narrow. "OKAY?" She flinches, and because she doesn't know what else to do, she nods. His tone softens. "Good girl."

He tips her head up even further, but she is still seeing flashes and doesn't care anymore. "Not this one!" He calls, and the guard affirms, his head bobbing on his thick neck at the judge. Her head is dropped back down.

He skips Fay on her right, then several other children, but stops at Alfred and Delinda, separating the two. Freya notices that her group is between the ages of 3 and 6, and Delinda's is 6 all the way to Arian who is... Freya can never remember. 20?

He skips again, then stops at Aeolus and Lorelei, dividing them from ages 13 to however old Arian is. "Three groups." Mean Man says, satisfied. "This makes it so much easier, I think." He comes back down to Freya, whose earth has stopped spinning. But she doesn't like him any more. He pinches her cheek, and Freya wants to bite him. He just laughs. "It's a shame you're one of these..." He glances at the rest of them, and Freya is insulted. She's happy to be like the rest of them.

He sighs and moves on to Fay, tipping back her chin and looking at her eyes. "No." He moves down the line, occasionally stopping to ask their ages. 5 year old Ondina is the first he pulls out of line, forcing her to stand slightly in front of the rest of them and ordering her to stay there.

He moves on, pulling more children until he reaches the end of the second group. And then he turns back. Freya wonders why he doesn't examine the third group. He turns to face the separated first and second group, and for the first time, Freya notices the differences.

Line one, the front line, is all dark-haired and dark-eyed. Golden-haired, blue-eyed children like herself stay in the back line. From there, Mean Man goes down again, but only down the front line. Freya is glad to be a part of the back line. She doesn't like him at all.

This time, he starts a third, very front line. It is all dark-haired, dark-eyed children, but the frontal line is made up of only those children if they are a boy aged 4-6, or a girl aged 7-9. Freya knows this because her friend Sirena is one of them. Still he does not touch the group of older kids.

And then a woman comes to the stage, a really old one with a lot of wrinkles that looks like an elf from the stories. She holds a cane, and her white hair is in a halo over her head. She looks nice, but Freya doesn't trust her. Elves look nice, but they're always the mischief makers, the bad ones. She totters along the line.