Twilit Mage

Chapter 26: The Invisibles

Raoul flung himself onto his bed without bothering to take off his shoes or turn on the lights.

His heart was hammering against his chest. His head felt heavy. Every part of his insides was burning, burning with frustration and a feeling he couldn't quite put into words. All he knew was that he hated it. He hated the feeling. He hated himself for feeling this way. He hated everything.

Fit in. How he despised those words. How he had always despised them. How many times had he heard them in his life, thrown at him by people who couldn't accept he was different? Fit in. Be like us. We're not taking responsibility and blaming you for being an outcast.

Something caught in his throat, something dry and uncomfortably heavy. He didn't want to fit in, damn it! He didn't want to keep getting told who to be by people who only accepted people who were just like them! He didn't want to pretend to be someone he wasn't. Why couldn't he just be himself without fear?

And Mercy...Mercy was the most frustrating of them all. He had been so happy to have met her, so happy to become her friend and finally find someone who was just like him, someone who should never have existed according to their rules, just like him. And...he had grown to like her so much. Mercy, who was so warm and kind and brave, who laughed at his nonsense when everyone else would have judged him or left him alone. Mercy, who had given him hope that maybe there was someone out there to accept and understand him completely, after all.

He had wanted her to agree with him. He had wanted her to understand this, more than he had ever wanted anyone to understand anything. And he had hoped. The signs had all been there. They had understood each other so well. They had seemed to be on the same wavelength...but when it came to the most important thing, their waves didn't meet at all.

Damn it.

Why was she okay with this? Why did she just accept it when people told her to reach out and fit in when all they really did was blame the victim? She of all people too, the same girl who had chased a thief on a mall railing and followed the school bus through the Otherworld by herself...why had she suddenly become such a doormat?

Couldn't she see? Couldn't she see that he had suggested this entire plan only to help her without making her hide herself? Prove her worth with a bang...that had been the plan. So that she wouldn't have to break her neck trying to fit in with people who didn't want her to exist at all.

After all, even if more Twilit Mages like them could get into the Dark Mage world, if they all had to hide their true selves, what would be the point?

Closing his eyes, his thoughts drifted back. Back to the day he had first met Mercy. Further back to the first time he had met Sullivan Blake. And even further back, spiraling past years of eating lunch alone in middle school, whispering elementary schoolers, and teachers who gave him all the blame, down into his childhood.

~ ~ ~

"Hey," Raoul said, suddenly looking up from his Lego house, "why aren't you in magic school?"

Finn, a scraggly teen who had been busying himself with trying to turn a bundle of dry grass into a flower bouquet, paused and looked up from the table, blinking at his little brother in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"I heard about 'em." Raoul floated the house and turned it upside down, using air cushions to support it in its wobbly position while he continued building the other side. "They're high schools where you learn cool magic and stuff. You're in high school. Why aren't you in one of them?"

Finn hesitated. For a moment he looked Raoul up and down, as if trying to figure out if the answer was fit to tell a six-year-old, then he lowered his gaze and sighed. "That's because they're just for Light and Dark Mages."