The Demon and the Elf (Book 1)

Chapter Seventeen pt 3

One day, Vrona was instructed to escort AE001 to a training chamber. A place heavily guarded without anti-magic walls. It was the place to test the subject's magic abilities while he was restrained heavily by magic suppressors.

She held onto the chains wrapped around his arms and torso and guided him to their destination. A few steps in and suddenly his forehead was met with her hand, forcing a halt. What stopped him though was not her hand as much as the wall that flattened behind it. He had almost ran into an entrance frame on a downstep and she had used her hand to block the impact.

In an instant, she took away her hand and tried to shake away the mild pain, all the while laughing openly and loudly as her reputation met. "You're rather clumsy, aren't you? Accidentally knocking over cups, stumbling in your steps. We can add knocking into walls on that list!" She teased joyfully at something others berated him for.

And perhaps it was because of this unfamiliarity, Vrona could have sworn she saw the slightest bit of a pout from him.

"This is not right," Vrona said, slamming her quill onto an open page of her notes. Ink splattered around, dots speckling the wooden desk.

"What's not right?" Mon barely changed her movement as she sorted and stacked books into a bookshelf.

"The experiments they're doing on him are not ethical."

A brow quirked up. "'Him'?"

"AE001."

"...You've never complained before. What happened now?"

"Well, I got to know him some, and—"

"Ah, Vrona, you can't have emotions or sympathy in this sort of field. Well, truthfully, it was because you had emotions that you were so interesting. But you also had logic enough to detach yourself from your experiments. If that's changed, then..."

Vrona bit down on her lip, a piercing glint in her stare. "Are you going to report me?"

Mon's breath paused for a moment before she harshly let go of the air she was holding. "As long as you're still doing your job, I don't see the need to." Noticing Vrona's slight change in expression, Mon's eyes narrowed. "What are you planning?"

"What if I got him out of here? He doesn't deserve this."

"Vrona, I don't want to report you, so stop giving me reasons to do so."

"What if there were benefits for you, too? Once he escapes, liberty of research. Of course, ethically."

There was a stillness as if the scene was of a painting. Then, slowly, Mon turned to face away. "Do not rope me into your antics. Reconsider your thoughts," she said, and drifted away from the room.

Meanwhile, Vrona leaned forward, her mind in deep thought. A single figure, small, in a lantern-lit littered room.

A few hours later, a face of determination. Steps clacking in a grey corridor. The pang of a metal clasp shifting to the side. A cold, deadened room.

Verona walked up to AE001 who lay staring at the ceiling with metal restraints on both ankles and wrists.

"Hey," her voice as faint as her breath.

The familiar voice caught the elf's interest and his gaze lowered to meet hers.

"Do you want to leave this place?"

Slightly, his eyes narrowed, greying further bleak as he turned his head around the other way.

"...Has someone asked you that before?" With his silence, she understood. It wouldn't be unexpected of the researchers she had met so far in this project to have tested him with this question. And to have tortured him into compliance, making sure he knew his position. But Vrona didn't ask further about it, both for his sake, and for hers.

"Look at me," she whispered, and with moderate hesitation, the elf did. "I'm going to get you out of here. But no matter what happens, you'll have to trust me."

Nothing else was said. And nothing else needed to be said. For there was a goal now, unfettered, riding with determination.

~~~

The next place the world saw Vrona was inside a humble wooden home in the middle of open plains, visiting with a permission for vacation. Her brother set chairs around a small round table and placed clayware filled with tea and a plate of biscuits. Conversations happened among the wind, unheard by no other than the chickadees visiting by.

Weeks passed by after with nothing to change. Vrona was present to see the tortures upon the elf and as usual, she would pull up her notes and start scribbling data. The elf would make no eye contact with her, and her time alone with the elf dwindled.

Soon, weeks turned into months, and still yet, nothing had changed. The creaky clanging of doors continued to echo the same through the long corridors. The windowless rooms remained illuminated with eerie white flames. And the tip of a quill pen continued to scratch the surface of rough paper, leaving ink stains that stained hearts with blackness..

"I thought you were going to do something," said Mon, stirring liquid inside a beaker, the glass making a dull clink in the quiet room.

"...I wanted to. But I don't think I can. I don't have the power or resources to. So, well... I don't know. Maybe I should just give up." Vrona's eyes were dull and deadened. A sort of defeat that didn't suit the vibrant, charismatic youth.

"Hmm," Mon pondered for a moment. "Well, good. You're doing the right thing. It's best to stay compliant."

Mon and Vrona hadn't seen much of each other since their last talk. Until this moment when they were shifted to work at the lab at the same time. Vrona appreciated her acquaintance, but she could have gone longer without a reminder of her failures on her promise to the elf.

To add salt to an injury, she was granted a promotion. A promotion in this circumstance only had meant that she'd been a fruitful accomplice to the inhumane practices done to the elf. She had promised the elf for his escape. Instead, she was adding to his burden.

On one day, what seemed to start off as a repeating day just like the others, a group of researchers of a higher rank let themselves into the room Vrona had stationed herself in. Standing up from her stool, she eyed each of their expressions until the last researcher walked in from the back: Mon.

"What's this? Are we having a party?" A sneer painted on Vrona's face, masking the upbeats of her heart.

"625," A man with a stubby nose started, addressing Vrona by her identification number. "We believe you have gained sympathy for AE001. And we have evidence of it." As the man talked, Vrona glared at Mon who stared back, unwavering despite her betrayal. "We can't have that in our labs, can we?"

Turning her gaze back to the stubby nosed man in front, Vrona's voice remained steady. "I understand. Then I'll step down."

"No, Vrona, I don't think you understand. You've become a liability. We can't trust you with our information." The moment those words were spoken, an attendant to the side raised a glass syringe of pale green liquid, and the others raised weapons and handfuls of magic. "What a shame to lose one of our most talented people. I suggest you don't put up a fight. We'll make it painless."