My name is Polaris, and I am an ice mage. I lead the Cloudgate Crusaders, a guild based in Skypoint, Cloudgate's capital. We are a mage guild of all backgrounds and abilities, and every day is an adventure for us. Sometimes we fight monsters and evil spirits. Other times we settle disputes among the commoners. But either way, we're all just trying to make Cloudgate a better place to live in—
"Skye!"
Skye snapped from her daydream with a startled expression. She stared at her Algebra II notebook, blank in comparison to the jumble of numbers and symbols on the blackboard. As she gathered her surroundings, reality hit her in waves: her name's not Polaris, she's not Cloudgate’s greatest-yet-unheard-of guild leader, and she's not a heroic and brave ice mage. Though Skye may have shared the same straw-colored hair and azure eyes as her imaginary alter-ego, the similarities ended there. An underachieving, socially awkward girl of fifteen should have little in common with a legendary guild leader.
Since Skye was young, her family had homeschooled her. It was her mom's idea to send her to Springs High despite the risks of doing so. Since her mother sent her to high school, Skye had to be careful, because if she wasn't, she could encase an entire room with ice. Not that it had happened before, but it definitely could.
"Nuff' staring off to space, your notebook's blank."
Skye recoiled upon hearing her teacher's grating voice. She glanced up at his scowl and shifted back in her seat.
"And solve the problem on the board," he added.
Shit. Skye wasn't good with numbers, so she zoned out the entire lesson. Because she kept quiet and sat in the back of class whenever possible, the teachers would always overlook her. Then, once Skye got home, her brother Ivan could explain her work for her. He would most likely ask Skye to do his chores in exchange, or for her money, but at least she would have assistance. But Ivan couldn't help her now.
Skye got up, and the next thing she knew, her right hand was full with freezing crystals. The crystals were soaking the sleeve of her sweater, which she tried to wipe on her scarf to dry off. To her dismay, all that did was make her scarf wet. Crap, am I that nervous? Skye thought. Now I have to hide my curse on top of solving some stupid math problem. But in the struggle to contain the ice forming on her hands, Skye hadn't noticed a trail of it emerging beneath her boots. So the next thing she knew, she was slipping, and then she felt herself falling towards a tiled floor coated in a layer of frost—
"Sorry?" Skye mumbled. At this point, the stares of every single person in class drilled onto her while she sat sprawled on the floor. More than anything, Skye wanted to disappear, she wanted to forget this moment, she wanted everybody to ignore her and continue with their lives as if nothing happened. But the stares persisted, and in a doomed attempt to reassure her classmates, Skye vomited up words a million times faster than she could think:
"Hey, yeah, well um— I know you all hate me, and I get why you would, it's because I'm cursed and well, curse-bearers are dangerous, but I swear I didn't mean to cause any harm and I'm not a bloodthirsty killer and I do not enjoy causing mass destruction like the curse-bearers you see on the news, I'm completely harmless and I hate hurting people, so forgive me please and let's pretend nothing happened—"
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Silence. For what seemed like forever, the classroom stayed like that. Then the PA crackled, breaking the dreaded tension:
"Skye Everson from class 10E, I repeat, Skye Everson from class 10E, please report to the principal's office."
Skye ran out as fast as she could.
***
After tentatively opening the door to the principal’s office, Skye was greeted by the sight of a tall and serious-looking man. His clothes were neatly ironed and not a single hair on his head lay out of place. While the girl braced for an angry lecture from him that never came, the man instead remained eerily calm. "Do you know why you're here?" He asked.
At that moment Skye felt like curling up in a hole and dissapearing. "Because I have an ice aura?"
The man, whom Skye assumed to be Mr Avery because of the nameplate sitting atop his desk, shook his head. "No, it's not because you have an ice aura. It's because you failed to control it. Aura-havers are responsible for holding back their auras, because if they don't, somebody can get hurt. You put your class in danger because you failed to restrain your curse, which is why you are here. Do you now understand what you did?"
Skye nodded. "Yes, I understand."
"Good," Mr Avery said flatly. "So can you tell me why none of the staff at Springs High School knew you had an ice curse beforehand?"
Skye shrugged. "I don't know why, but I forgot to bring it up. I'm sorry."
Mr Avery gestured towards a chair. "Please take a seat while I call your parents. You're not in trouble, I just need to inform them of what had happened so we could work out a solution together."
The principal talked on the phone, but Skye couldn't hear the other end of the conversation. She didn't want to hear. What if Mom and Dad are mad at me? Skye worried. It's not like I wanted to cause an accident. No, it was out of my control, and I wish I had never started it.
But on the other hand, Skye thought, they have every right to be mad at me. I deserve it. I iced the classroom, I put people in danger, I broke Mom and Dad's trust. They sent me here because they trusted me, and I betrayed them. I'm the worst, really.
Mr Avery hung up the phone and announced the good news: that Skye wasn't going to get expelled or face legal consequences. Skye didn't care if she got expelled or not, in fact, she almost wished for it because Springs was that mind-numbingly painful. But she wouldn't want to let her family down after all they had done for her, so every day, at that dreaded school, Skye sat through her lessons. Every day, she endured the gossip and the stares. Every day, she endured the rude teachers and her failing grades, pretending they didn't bother her as much as they did, all because Skye would never forgive herself for being a dissapointment to her family. But here she was, at the principal's office, the delinquent.
But at least the damage Skye's ice curse caused was light. At least nobody got hurt. At least she wasn't a monster. Not yet.
And then the next thing the principal said took any bit of hope Skye had left in her, crumpled it up, and burned it to smithereens: "Your appointment at Halifax Aura Correctional Facilities at Thunderport is scheduled for Wednesday at ten."
Skye may have looked calm, but inside her mind she was screaming. While on call, Mr Avery had mentioned over and over how he didn't want to punish Skye unfairly, how he cared for all of his students and one of them being cursed won't change a thing, and how he's looking for a practical way to prevent future incidents all while taking her well-being into account... only to send her to a literal torture center out of all things. What. The. Hell.
***
Wednesday came a week after the incident. Skye took the bus with her family to Thunderport, one of two major cities in Cloudgate. At Thunderport, the Eversons checked into a large office building, and inside it was a vast room full of chairs facing a platform. Skye occupied a seat at the end of a row, with her mom, dad, and brother sitting on the chairs to the left. On Skye's right-hand side was a door with a sign. The room was crowded and noisy, and Skye's senses were overwhelmed, but she still had some important things which she wanted to say:
"Mom?" Skye asked, turning to her left.
"Yes sweetie?" Her mother replied.
"I'm sorry for icing the classroom the other day. I don't expect you to forgive me."
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Her mother gave a sympathetic smile. "Oh, Skye, I should be the one apologizing, not you. I enrolled you in Springs High and put you in a situation you were unprepared for, and for that I'm sorry."
"Huh?" Skye wasn't preparing herself for that answer. "By the way, how come Ivan goes to school, yet I have studied at home until this year? We're both mages— wait, no, I take that back. We aren't mages. Mages don't exist anymore."
"Mages?" Skye's mother echoed. "That's what you and your brother would have been called back when magic was legal, right?"
"If we could train our auras." Skye said regretfully. "But nowadays, that's not even a choice. I wish it was, though. Maybe if I became a mage and trained my aura to not destroy everything around me, I'd be more than some useless ice girl..."
"But you're not useless! Don't say that about yourself!"
"Then how come Ivan is able to pass for a non aura-haver, yet I can't? What makes it easy for him, yet so hard for me?"
"Good question." Maia replied as she gathered her thoughts. "You may both be aura-havers, but remember, you and your brother's abilities are completely different from each other. He casts illusions, you're a cryokinetic. Because Ivan's aura manifests on a mental level instead of a physical one, and mind-manipulation auras only work through eye contact, it's easier for him to hide his curse. All Ivan has to do is avoid eye contact, and there, no aura manifestation."
"Yeah, you're right," Skye agreed. "Almost forgot about that."
"In addition," Maia added, "your brother claims that if he's in class, and if he accidentally casts an illusion on the teacher, the teacher wouldn't know who had casted it because multiple students would be staring at him or her at the same time. And Ivan also claims that if he accidentally casts an illusion on a single person, he can easily convince them it's all in their head."
Skye nodded.
"But" Maia added, "I don't think that's the only reason you're homeschooled and Ivan isn't. I think personality differences also play a role. For instance, your brother's a great actor. He can lie his way out of trouble, he can get people on his side, and he can adapt to whatever situation he's in. No wonder he's an illusion-caster— nothing is what it seems with him. However, while Ivan may not look all that serious, he's actually quite in control of himself. He's able to put his feelings to the side whenever the situation requires, which helps him since strong emotions trigger auras. Because of that, your brother doesn't need to avoid eye contact to suppress his aura. He can act like he's aura-free just fine whenever he wants to."
Skye crossed her arms. "And what am I? A hysterical mess?"
"What?! Not at all!" Maia exclaimed. "Okay, you are a bit more sensitive. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. You're also more genuine, and I'm not so sure I can say the same about your brother. Though he's great at many things, I've noticed he's always putting on this mask of confidence, and he's always escaping his problems and ignoring how he feels. Don't get me wrong, he has his own strengths, but sometimes I wish your brother was more like you."
"Really?"
"Yeah, really," Maia said. "And not gonna lie, you're the more caring one of the two. Which reminds me, remember when I told you about the man on the moon?"
"I think so?" Skye paused. "Yeah, now I do. When we were kids, you told us that whenever we felt scared or lonely, if you looked at the moon, its craters formed a smiley face. That was the man on the moon. He would watch over you and keep you safe whenever you felt fear."
"Exactly, that was it. Ivan was eight at the time and you were six. The whole thing was supposed to be a feel-good story, but the response from your brother was hilarious. To this day I still laugh at the memory of him flipping off the sky and yelling, "stop spying on me, creepy old man!" I told him not to make that gesture, but it was kind of funny. Oh and," Skye's mom continued, "your reaction was priceless. You were looking at me with the most heartbreaking expression and asking, "but what about the man on the moon? Surely he isn't lonely up there?" I tried to tell you that he had the sun and the stars, and as long as you were happy he was happy, but it wasn't enough. So I told you he was accepting mail, and every night, for two weeks straight, you would drop off letters and drawings and gifts on the porch. I never told you that the man on the moon was just a story, and it was your dad and I taking the gifts, not him, but eventually you caught on."
"Oh." Skye giggled. For a moment she forgot that she was sitting in a stuffy office building. But then she glanced over Maia and saw her brother's empty chair. "Speaking of Ivan, where did he go?"
Maia briefly panicked. "Oh no! Ivan! Where are you?!" She called out, only for him to come bounding over three seconds later before squeezing his way between the row of people in the seats. Skye and her mother let out sighs of relief.
"So there's this cool grandma on the next aisle, her name is Juliana, she has thousands of grandchildren, and she bombs abandoned houses for fun—" Ivan announced.
An elderly woman shot a warning glare at Ivan. He stared at his lap in embarrassment, and the rest of the family exchanged confused glances.
***
The chatter died down as the lights dimmed a few minutes later, leaving only a strip of platform illuminated. The distinct sound of the clacking of high heels could be heard as a woman with a bobbed haircut walked onto the platform, wearing a headpiece with a microphone attached. Then she spoke in the microphone, her voice echoing throughout the room:
"Welcome to HACF. My name is Sierra Halifax and I am Martin Halifax's wife. You may know me as the co-founder of Halifax Industries."
The crowd fell silent, and a moment later, she continued speaking:
"Our vision is a Cloudgate free of curses, one where magic-induced accidents are no longer an issue. But we aren't just looking to protect non aura-havers from curses. We are also dedicated to leading those unfortunate enough to be born with them to as much of a normal life as possible."
Normal? Unfortunate enough to be born with a curse? Skye thought. There's no such thing as normal. Everybody's different in their own ways. Also, not so long ago, being born with a "curse" was a good thing. People loved mages and looked up to them as heroes. Now these Halifax people are trying to hurt me only because I have an aura. It's messed up, really.
Sierra paused. From her coat pocket she produced a syringe containing a clear liquid, and she held it up to the audience. "Here, we utilize shock tags to deal with aura curses, and this is how we tag our clients. We inject our solution, engineered with cutting-edge technology specifically designed to help you suppress your aura while being as non-obtrusive as possible, into your left arm, or your right arm if you're left-handed. The solution will release a shock whenever your aura manifests, so as long as you have self-control and avoid situations that trigger your curse, you have nothing to fear. Like any injection, our method of tagging only hurts for a moment, and it's more efficient than surgically implanting the device as our competitors do. However, the effects of our tags wear off after five months, so by then you'll have to return for a new dose."
Skye felt sick, but despite her silent protests, Sierra continued monologuing. Doesn't this lady know what she's saying?! Skye screamed, but silently. Doesn’t she know what she's advocating for?!
"There are multiple studies backing up the effectiveness of tagging," Sierra continued. "According to a recent survey conducted by the Public Safety Department of Cloudgate, 81% of our clients reported a heightened sense of control over their curse since they received their injection, and 67% noted a significant decline of magic-induced outbursts from themselves. So if you think that we're forcing some cruel and unusual punishment onto you, think again. Consider all the people you'll protect by getting tagged."
Suddenly Skye needed to go to the bathroom. Maybe she could hide on the toilet, as pathetic as that sounded. For a second, the temptation to push Sierra off the platform, scream about how cruel this whole system was, and make the crowd rebel overcame Skye, but then she remembered she didn't have the guts to pull that off. Plus she genuinely needed to pee.
"I'm going to the bathroom. It's an emergency." Skye whispered to her mother. Though she wasn't sure if leaving her seat was against the rules, she knew she could slip by unnoticed. The door was near, the room was dark, and everybody was focused on Sierra's presentation.
"Alright, but be quick," Maia whispered back. "We don't want you to get in trouble for hiding."
Skye tiptoed to the door on the right-hand side of her chair. The door had a sign displaying the symbols for lobby, elevator, drinking fountain, restroom, and workroom, with arrows pointing right or left next to each symbol. She turned the doorknob with a shaky hand, revealing a corridor that split off in two directions. Then she traveled down the corridor on the left. At the end of it was what she thought was the bathroom door. Skye gave it a shove.
Shit. This isn't the bathroom.
Before her lay boxes and shelves with empty syringes and vials upon vials of clear liquid. The vials were being attended to by a dark-haired boy who looked to be around the same age as Ivan. But this boy wasn't just handling vials; he was firing off electric sparks. An aura-haver, Skye thought. A wielder of electricity.
As the boy turned his head away from the vial he was holding, he glared at Skye, his violet-colored eyes with tired dark circles under them turning into slits. "What are you doing here?" he asked, visibly annoyed.
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"I was looking for the bathroom and ended up here. Sorry," Skye said, embarrassed.
But the boy remained hostile. "I don't care that you're sorry, just get out of here."
"Wait," Skye piped up, "Is that a lightning aura?"
"Just leave already, I don't have time for this nonsense!" the boy shot back. "Don't you see that I'm busy?!"
"If you're actually an aura-haver, I won't tell any of the people here," Skye assured. "In fact, I have an ice aura. I don't see why you're hiding from me."
"Doesn't matter, you're still cursed," The boy said coldly, spitting out the last word like a dead fly in his mouth. "You should be going over to the meeting room and getting yourself tagged."
"Speak for yourself," Skye retorted. "You're just as cursed as I am."
At this point, the boy’s jaw and fists were clenched in visible irritation. "How about you leave me alone and let me do my damn job?!" He snapped.
Skye backed out of the workroom. "Fine, I'm leaving!" She announced, shutting the door behind her.