There is a lot about me you don't know -Tales of Arcadia ENG

23- Order

TRACK 23

You were pacing, I was insecure

Slip and fall I got the calls of the prison I was living in

Yeah yeah and it's okay

I tie my hands up to a chair so I don't fall that way

Yeah yeah and I'm alright

I took a sip of something poison but I'll hold on tight

(Helena Beat- Foster the People)

********

Alice had no idea how she had managed to maintain a calm expression and relaxed voice during the car call she had had with Douxie.

She had started out being so, but already upon receiving -at the first few seconds- the request to censor the entire conversation with her Oval Lithium-Mica Stone -which Munchkin knew full well that it was one among several gemstones she always kept between her pants pocket. It was with the heart-shaped Beryl and a few others, just as around her neck she always had a necklace composed of Pear Boji, Aquamarine, and Jade- had made her realize that something was wrong.

Hearing what the situation was had made her feel a cramp form in her stomach and her breathing quickened only to stop dramatically. Because that was bad. Really, really bad. She should have known that like yesterday. She should have tried to help out like yesterday, too. Holy crap.

Magical creatures, mostly Mages, who wanted to eliminate Human Beings. Just as some Human Beings had wanted to do with magical creatures before.

It seemed a constant circling in shared hatred. A constant bloodshed because of species differences that they could not get over. It was frustrating.

Was it so hard to accept each other? Was it so hard to realize that the world was beautiful because it was diverse and not simply locked into one repetitive, stereotypical category? Because, yeah, it became stereotypical when they forced you to follow a rulebook on which you had to base your entire existence. It was boring. And wrong.

Douxie was right. Something needed to be done. And as soon as possible, too, though she would surely have to ask her teacher to pause her training.

Alice did not even know how she was continuing to smile and pretend to be calm and happy in being surrounded by both Miss. Emerald and by the two witches to whom the woman had taken her. Not with so many thoughts going through her head.

They were both old women, strange but true. They must have developed their magic quite late or managed not to have Bursts somehow.

In any case, one of the two sorceresses, Helena, was very rigid, with a rather closed view of things -and a sour stubbornness. Not counting her long, venomous tongue about certain things, for how much she had gathered- but with a lot of precious stones, also quite peculiar and rare, perfectly manicured, so much so that their Core seemed to glow with purity -and she was the one who had partly taught Miss. Emerald about magic.

The other, however, was Minerva, a kind-looking apparently blind witch with a talent for wood magic only -or so she said- and with a pretty brown Owl as her Familiar. She kept trying to get her to eat some Kataifi as if it were a matter of vital importance -And as if she were her distant niece or the like, which was not possible, especially since her family had never been of that sort, unfortunately- and...yes, those treats were very good, but it was a little difficult to get anything down with a suddenly closed stomach.

"You look a little lost, Alice dear," jumped up Miss. Emerald, leading her to realize that she had become so entranced staring into the void that the two women had fallen into stark silence between one thing and another, the strings of stones attached near to the windows tinkling in the wind. "Something is bothering you, perhaps? Are we getting ahead of ourselves?"