The Work of the Natives- A Work in Progress

Chapter 2: The Library

"What do you mean 'oh, of course'?" I ask. Maybe his family was very encouraging of his abilities, or maybe they gave him herbal enhancements, or something of the sort. He can't have meant-

"Whenever I'm around them, my powers get a lot stronger. I could hardly use them when I was little. But being around them has made me so much stronger. That's why I wanted them there when I took my test. I would have done a lot better if they were around. But I think I did fine without them. Good enough to get into this school, anyways." He's serious.

"So what you're saying," my voice trembles a bit as I talk. I reach forward to touch his arm. Contact usually gets the truth out of them quicker, "is that your family enhances your powers. Just by being around your family, your powers are 'so much stronger' than they are when you are not around them. Is that correct?" He nods again. "Do you think that it may just be when you're in the countryside that you are really free to use your powers to their full potential?"

Jason has the gall the smirk at me, pushing his brown hair back, out of his eyes. "No. It isn't the countryside, it's the Natives. I can draw power from them. It doesn't hurt them or anything, and it took me a while to learn how to do it. But I can draw in the colors around me and in them and use them to make myself stronger." He raises an eyebrow at me, as if this is a normal thing to drop on somebody.

After a moment of silence, I turn to face Jason. "Don't tell anybody else what you just told me, okay?" He looks up at me, confused.

"Why?" He asks, a kind of anger flaring up in his eyes, before being replaced by fear. "What are you going to do?" I can feel the thoughts running through his head; the enslavement of his family and their village. Shackles. Whips. Me standing on top of all the suffering. Chika really painted a picture for him, didn't she?

"You have the right idea on what might happen to them, but not the right person. For that kind of power, most people wouldn't hesitate to harvest the organs of the ones you love. I will not, but I can't save them if you go running your mouth to everybody you meet."

Jason's eyes narrow at that. "I'm not an idiot, you know. I know better than to tell a bunch of people I don't know." I raise an eyebrow. His face flushes at the idiocy in his last sentence. "You're different!" He blurts out. "I trust that you won't tell anybody. I trust you." Trust me, huh? Is that a Color's way of manipulation. I did just see the pain rattling through his mind, caused by a monster in my skin.

"Right. Anyways, I'm going to need to do some testing on your blood, as well as some spit and urine. You can go behind that curtain over there to do what you need to do." I hand him a cup and a tube and send him behind the curtain with a, "Don't get them mixed up." After a few minutes, he hands the tube and the cup back to me, grumbling about, "How stupid do you think I am?" and, "I bet I'm smarter than you," which I sincerely doubt.

I store all his samples in my desk, lock it for fear of the petty thieves in this school, and turn to face him. I look him up and down. He's wearing an unbearably shiny golden chestplate, with the Academy's crest on it. I'm sure the school just gave it to him to make him fit in. Under that, he's wearing a T-shirt made from some sort of pinkish crystal and silver thread. His pants are tightly fitted to his leg; black stone with bits that reflect back at me. All in all, he's quite a bit shiny. Under all that shine, though, he looks muscular but with a lean build. He is quite tall, towering over me at what looks to be about 6'3". My eyes make their way up to his face and are not disappointed. He is quite aesthetically pleasing. His cheekbones and jawline are sharp, and his skin is quite tanned, probably from being out in the Native Lands. His hair is a brown mess; parted on his right side, the left side falls into light curls on top of his head, which end by his temple. The right is gelled back, as if he couldn't keep himself from pushing it out of his eyes every other moment. My eyes then land on his. Emerald green, with that hint of mischief and the other emotion I can't quite place. Overall, a very attractive boy, though most Mages are.