A Rational Magic || ONC2022

Eight || A Rational Explanation

"This is entirely your fault!"

"I didn't make the hill collapse!" Lani shouts back, waving her hands about her head as if to bat away flies or something like that.

"We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you and your stupid magic!"

"Yeah, magic that does actually exist!"

Sure, sure, I can see the wings. I saw Adalia's glowing, and I heard her 'spell'. But I don't know if I want to believe it.

Prove it, I want to say. Prove that you can fly with those wings.

Because it should be impossible. They are human-sized, or close enough — Katriel is shorter than both of us, which could be normal or not depending on his age — and their bird-like wings can't be enough to lift them with. Particularly not Katriel's, since both are way too small when contrasted against Adalia's, and one is all twisted.

It's obvious he could never fly.

The fairies aren't acting anything alike. Adalia wanders around the space we're all standing in, trailing an arm around through the air and muttering every so often. Her words send little grey-green sparks flying up over her head to mark out some sort of boundary nobody else here can see. Not even Katriel, apparently, as he's watching her with a confused expression clear upon his face.

"So where did you come from?" Lani asked, aiming her question at neither fairy in particular.

"Look in the well and you might catch a glimpse," Adalia sighed. "Azaevelum."

"Azae... what?"

"Lani, be quiet."

It's the best way to get evidence at this point. Prove everything wrong, prove that we're definitely having some kind of hallucination.

I don't like the unknown at all. Xenophobia is what Dad calls it, in its original 'form'. Not the fear of strangers, or of foreigners, but anything unknown.

Things just... need an explanation. Or evidence of their existence. I really can't handle it if something doesn't make sense rationally, not as well as Lani can.

So I go and peer down the well, and sure enough there's something glowing down there. Lani joins me when I'm gripping the stone edge so hard my knuckles go white, and she laughs long and hard.

"Explain that, go on!"

"Bioluminescence."

"I... what?"

"The production and emission of light by a living organism," I reel off, definition practically memorised by now. "It's a form of chemiluminescence, and it's why fireflies glow like that."

"Is there like a physiluminescence or something?"

"Wha... no? I'm not just sticking the start of the three science subjects on the front of 'luminescence', Lani!"

"How do you know this?"

"The Internet, those science books we both like... you know, Frightening Light? There's definitely a chapter on it..."

"Wait, yeah, I remember. But that's obviously not what's happening here, Anya." Lani is absolutely convinced by this, isn't she? She's always been a little easier to sway than me, I guess, but even so... "Come on, admit it, you were wrong."

"I don't... I don't..."

Deep breath, deep breath, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four-five-six-seven, one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight. Repeat, again, and again, and again... and you're calm. You're fine.

"Alright. But why would we need to worry anyway?" I turn to Adalia, who's watching us both closely. "You're not just gonna let us go, right?"

"I don't think we can."

Somehow, even Katriel looks surprised at that. And really, as a fairy, he should know more than he seems to about why they might not be able to let us go.

"You're not going to kill us, right?" Lani asks, only a hint of worry in her voice.

"No, no! I... I just don't think... let me look at you both."

Side-by-side, it could be impossible to tell us apart. If I removed my glasses, one might struggle... a stranger would, anyway. Anyone who knows us knows that our eyes show that we're more like mirror images of each other, not identical twins.

Blue-and-green, green-and-blue. Left-and-right. Lani, and me.

It's when she's looking at our eyes that hers widen (both the same, both the same sort of brown as the trunks of the trees around us). She opens her mouth, closes it, and opens it again.

"Exactly what I was hoping for," she groans, and her words are drenched in sarcasm.

"Oh. Great. More 'chosen ones' without a fully developed prefrontal cortex."

"You what?"

"More teenagers," Lani translates, then laughs. "Not that we're even teenagers. We only turned twelve at the end of May."

"I suppose that is what's going on, isn't it?" Katriel sighs, giving Adalia a hard stare. The older one almost seems to shrink as he does so, which even he seems surprised by.

Honestly... I think this whole thing is surprising him. He seems young, so he's probably not actually done anything like this before. I mean, the well seems really deep, so maybe that's it. He definitely can't fly, meaning there's no way he'd have gotten up here.

And, well, Adalia could probably be strong enough to lift him...

That's actually kinda rational, which is the first part of this that has been.

"If you want to call it that."

"Well... we can't!" I don't really know why I'm the one deciding what we can and can't do when the person in front of me can do magic and we're clearly in their domain. But it's true. "We're kids. We're not heroes. And our aunt's probably freaking out already, who knows how long we've been here, and we need to go home."

"You have to—"

"Adalia, let them go."

"Uh-uh. Kat, you don't know why, but they've got to come with us."

"Then tell them."

"I can't."

"We could come back?" Lani suggests. "Like... give us a week to get ready, and we'll come. Promise."

Nobody speaks for far too long. As much as I hate to admit it, I'd much rather have a week to think and prepare before jumping headfirst (or feet-first, I suppose) into a completely different world. But I can tell that Adalia hates the idea, and I can also tell that Katriel agrees with Lani.

So Adalia makes her decision.

"Okay. But Kat, you're making sure they come back."

"Hold on, you're not just leaving me here—!"

But she is. Even as we all watch — her younger brother in absolute horror and the two of us in presumed confusion — she leaps into the well and vanishes.

And again, there's silence.