The Hard Road to Truth (TaliesinxLady Alainn)

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Taliesin

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Darren Ellid was finally starting to relax. At least as much as he ever did as a creature that was widely despised and that would be turned into the government if anyone found out what he was. He hadn't noticed any signs of pursuit for a good 6 months at least. During that time he had been exercising ridiculous levels of caution and only spoke to people to hitchhike and get food. Otherwise he had spent his time hunkering in various alleys and rooftops. His one blanket was becoming less effective as the season edged closer and closer to proper winter. He felt like he had been half frozen for the past week while he huddled next to the exhaust vent on a 3 story apartment building.

He had decided he had had enough. Tonight he was going to have a nice dinner and then sleep in a lovely heated hotel room with a shower. So he climbed down from his rooftop lair and went to a nearby dinner. He got a few curious stares as he walked in, still somewhat damp from the last rain shower, a battered old backpack hanging over his shoulders and looking rather bedraggled in general even with his 'I am a nice guy you want to help me' glamour. The waitress was too professional to comment on her curiosity and he just didn't care because it was so nice and warm. The hot meal did wonders to ease that ball of cold in his stomach.

Once he was done he paid with a magical $20 bill, turned down the change as always and asked for directions to the nearest hotel. He had long since lost his guilt over giving people bills that would disappear before they did their accounting for the night. No one sweated that much over a 20 and he never took change so it wasn't like he was completely ripping them off.

He followed the directions from the waitress and quickly found himself a Motel 6. He would have liked somewhere a bit nicer but at the moment he wasn't going to complain. Anything would be heaven compared to his current lodgings. So he got himself a room and tossed his backpack in the one chair before pulling out his one change of close. He stepped into the bathroom and enjoyed his first shower that wasn't a cold rain storm or at a truck stop in far too long. Afterwards fell down into the bed and just laid there blissfully for a few moments before dragging himself under the bedding and passing out almost immediately.

It was an unknown amount of hours later when he awoke. He couldn't hear anything and he was buried under the bedding so he couldn't see anything either, but he was 90% sure there was someone else in the room with him and he had absolutely no idea what to do. So he laid there, ready to bolt, and tried to keep his breathing similar to what it had been before he had woken up. His sudden tenseness had almost certainly given him away at this point though.
 
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Myleen Smithers stiffened as the level of tenseness sky-rocketed in the small room. Gun drawn and held tight against her side with both hands, she dared to take one more footstep and paused. She was so close she could almost smell the offensive elf as he huddled under his blankets. She would not let him get away. Not when she was within arm's reach of him. Not when she had a deadline quickly approaching.

Six months ago, Agent Smithers had taken over this case after one of her colleagues had botched it. All she had to go on was a blurry photograph from a surveillance tape and places where the other agent had trailed the elf. Rather than bounding after the creature like a sloppy bloodhound, Smithers kept her distance and followed the elf with similar sightings on tapes and images from security cameras. She had studied her prey, watching his movements silently, until she started predicting his next appearance. Tonight was the culmination of her months of tedious labour. Tonight was her crowning moment.

She steadied her heartbeat and willed her breath to simmer into nothing, waiting, watching, her peripherals noting every point of possible escape in the hotel room.
 
Darren was no less convinced someone was in the room as the silence continued. It just meant that now it was a waiting game between the two of them, and he had a bad feeling the other person was far more prepared. He took the time given to try and come up with a plan. As with most of his plans it involved a lot of running, but first he had to at least slow down the other person in the room a little. he had a quick internal battle as to whether to try for the window or the door. The window would be a quicker escape but he had encountered trick windows before, so the door was the more reliable route.

Now that he had a plan of his own in order, his own breathing slowed while his heart started pumping faster. Then he moved. He pushed himself up with one arm and grabbed the blanket with the other, half rolling so that the blanket was flung towards the open space in between him and the door, hopefully landing on and hampering his intruder. It was a guess on his part that the intruder was actually there, but luckily there weren't a lot of other spots to be in the small room. He then continued his roll off the bed and darted for the door, thanking everything that was that hotel doors were only hard to open from the outside. Getting out the door would be easy, but then he would have to get down from the 3rd floor and find somewhere to hide. At least he was very fleet on his feet.
 
Myleen was prepared for his tricks. As the blankets obscured what little view she had in the dark room, she aimed her gun where she believed the middle of the elf was and pulled the trigger. The dart was a tranquilizer dart that could subdue a bull elephant. If it hit her target, there would be no struggle until the drug wore off in a couple of hours.
 
Unfortunately for Darren, he didn't have much defense against a gun. If it had been a normal bullet he might have continued to make a run for it. It would have hurt, assuming it didn't hit anything too important, but fear and endorphins would have egged him on. With the tranq, his escape attempt did not make it quite as far as the door. He struggled onwards for a couple more steps but he didn't have the strength to do more than stagger so he had the wall to fall against before sliding down to the floor. A soft whimper escaped as the grey film washed over him. Now that he was unconscious, rather than asleep, the glamour around him shimmered and faded, leaving no doubt that an elf was before her.
 
Sliding her gun into its shoulder holster, Myleen picked her way over the rumpled blankets and felt about the floor until her fingers brushed the soft flesh of the body slumped against the wall. "Got you," she murmured with contentment. She found a limp wrist, held it daintily between her fingers as if it was riddled with some sort of disease, and fastened a handcuff upon it. The other cuff clicked securely around her own wrist. With a grunt and a huff, she tugged the body over her shoulders and departed from the hotel.

Over an hour later, the elf was transferred from Myleen's care to a concrete cell in the high-security ward of the government-run prison centre. The cell boasted one metal cot that took up the entire back wall with a lumpy mattress, one sliver sitting just under the ceiling that served the purpose of a window to let a bit of light into the cell, and a steel door across the small room from the cot with a grated window. A chamber pot sat under the cot and a pail of water with a rag nestled in one of the free corners of the room. There was just enough space between the cot and the door to pace three steps. From side wall to side wall, it was possible to pace five steps.

Myleen sat at a table in the common area with a cup of steaming coffee in her hands and a smug smile on her face. Her keen eyes never left the door of her prisoner. Two guards, a fellow agent, and one of the interns had pulled up chairs around the small table, demanding to know how she had finally caught the slippery rodent in her trap. Myleen tossed her mousey brown ponytail over her shoulder and set down her mug to tell the tale not unwillingly. It would amuse her until the creature in the cell woke up from his little nap.
 
Darren did not have a pleasant time waking up. He was quite sensitive to any kind of drug and a solid dose of tranquilizer left him out for a good 45 minutes longer than the agent had probably expected. Once he was awake he felt nauseous, had a lovely headache and all around felt like crap. Enough so that it took him a few moments to register that he was most definitely not where he had woken up, and a few more after that to figure out where he must be. The brief minutes of awareness before he had been captured felt more like a dream than anything and oh how he wished it had been. He supposed he should feel lucky that he wasn't dead like his parents had been just before he started this life on the run.

His eyes snapped open then, as something occurred to him. He had always assumed his parents were dead, after all they hadn't ever come back, but no one had found their bodies either. He felt a smidgeon of hope that perhaps they were still alive, which he quickly stifled. Elves did not do well with confinement, even if they had been locked up instead of killed it was unlikely that they survived much longer than that. He bit back a whimper as the ache he was mostly able to ignore these days hit him once again. He never knew why his parents had been taken, other than that they were elves. As he grew older he learned that unfortunately that was enough in this world.

He closed his eyes against the tears that wouldn't come and pushed himself slowly up into a sitting position, wincing as the pounding in his head briefly increased along with the nausea. He looked around his cell with the lack of enthusiasm one could expect in this situation. At this point he was starting to wish the agent had killed him. He'd get a break, then. As it was he'd just moved from the hellish world of always being on the run to what he suspected was now going to be pure hell.

A heavy sigh escaped him and he stared dulling towards the door, his brain trying to think through the fog and pain from the tranq. There had to be a way out of here.
 
Having heard rustling in the cell, Myleen glanced at her watch in surprise. Had it really been that long? She shuffled the deck of cards together that she and the guards had been entertaining themselves with while they waited for the elf to awaken and threw the pile to the middle of the table. The rest of her audience had dispersed long ago.

"Call my superior," she ordered one of the guards. "He'll want to see this, I'm sure."

Myleen pushed her slender-framed glasses higher on the bridge of her nose and motioned for the other guard to open the prisoner's door.

"Sir!" he sputtered in fear. "Are you really going in there? With it?"

"Of course, Sergeant," Agent Smithers snapped. "You wouldn't have anyone say that the military is inhospitable, would you?"

The guard unwillingly went for the keys and unlocked the cage door. It creaked open just enough for Myleen's slim figure to pass through. Glaring at the elf over her glasses, she leaned against the side wall as the door clanged shut quickly and folded her arms over her chest. A frown accompanied her particularly "friendly" stare. She studied the creature, fully seeing him for the first time in this venture. It was amazing how she could have pegged him so accurately with only fuzzy sightings to go off of, but even those vague images hadn't prepared her for how... fragile the creature appeared. She almost pitied it. No, she did pity it.

'It's a trick,' she reminded herself and steeled her nerves against any further attempts the elf might make to get her to lower her guard. 'He just wants me to fall prey to his charms.'
 
Darren stiffened slightly as the door opened and he squeezed back as far as he could against the wall and into the corner away from the agent who came in. He gave her a brief looking over, deciding she was probably the one who brought him in. Quite suddenly, he found that he hated her a great deal for putting him into this place and it made it easier for him to decide to use his magic. Generally he only conjured small bills and used small glamours to take the edge of the distrust people naturally had from someone as scappy looking as him. No matter how hard you tried you never looked quite presentable when you were on the run. In this situation however, something a bit stronger was in order.

"So you must be the one in my room." His tone was soft, almost matter of fact, but so thickly laced with magic that even a mundane could probably taste it. "You were quite impressive." To Myleen, depending whether she had any kind of gear to dampen magic, he would now be seeming to be quite a bit more attractive, and she would very much like to do something, anything to make him happy.

~~

In the main office General Stone had just gotten off the phone when his secretary came in. "Sir, we've finally caught the Ellid child, and now he's awake." The general straightened immediately and a pleased smile broke out on his face. "Have we now? It's about time. With this we have the full set to put to use." He stood up and strode towards the door, humming a tune to himself.
 
Myleen raised an eyebrow. Though she knew the elf would use his dirty magic in any way he could to take advantage of her, she still felt herself swayed by his words. His voice... so sweet... Myleen shook her head to try to clear it.

"Thank you," she replied. "I shouldn't take too much credit. You're the one who made it easy for me."
 
Darren winced a bit at the reminder at how easily he had been caught. He knew that he would be in very bad straights if he ever got close to any of his hunters. He didn't fight. He rarely used his magic unless it was for his usual bills and glamour. Only in this sort of situation would he ever think of using anything more. "Well, running is a bit hard in confined areas." He could see her resisting the magic and 'pushed' her harder. "You are obviously good at getting around though." Now his voice held just the slightest suggestion as well. If he could get her to open the door, he could glamour the guards as well and perhaps get them to lead him out.

~~

"Do you really think having the child will turn the tide?" The secretary asked curiously.

General Stone chuckled. "The parents can hardly continue to refuse us now that we have him, and he...well he is a child. Breaking him should not be too hard, and then we have access to 3 magical power houses. Just imagine the things we will be able to make. No more pitifully siphoning off magic and only getting a fraction of the potential within them. We'll be able to outfit our entire force with magical gear, create new weapons. The possibilities are endless." His stride was quite speeding up and they were now reaching the main area where some of the agents and lesser officers were, where they had to fall silent less they reveal national secrets. Another few minutes and he would finally see the boy that had given them so much trouble until now.
 
"I do my best," Myleen answered, meeting the elf's eyes with her own steel grey gaze. Just then something cold hit her fingers. She looked down at her hand, only to find it grasping at the door lock. 'How...?' Her head jerked up, eyes wide with understanding. Thank goodness it only opened from the outside. Without thinking, she crossed the narrow space and smacked the elf across the cheek with the back of her hand.
 
Darren recoiled in from the blow, putting a hand to his and staring up at Myleen in shock. Partially because he was unused to violence with his magic to hide him and keep the average human friendly, but mostly because she had completely broken his glamour and turned against him. He didn't have much experience with agents aside from running away or otherwise avoiding them. He'd never been close enough to realize they all got special training, and occasionally gear, to counteract magic. He realized now he should have assumed that, but he had just never thought about it. He had hundreds of escape plans in different cities but none of them had ever involved actually engaging with those chasing him. Perhaps he had subconsciously known that he would already be lost at that point.

His mind's swirling helped stave off the pain but once he reached a resolution the stinging in his cheek hit him as if he'd been slapped again. He bit his lip and the fire that anger had briefly put in his eyes died. He hadn't quite given up but at this moment he saw no way out. That being the case he turned his head away, hiding the tears that came closer to the surface and showed off the bright red mark on his cheek. He had fair skin so it looked much worse than it probably was. "violent." He winced as he murmured to himself and hunched. He was now in a ball that seemed far too tiny for his 6'.

~~

"He's in the first cell block sir." The guard saluted as the General went by.
 
It was as if all of her pent-up frustrations, anger, and stress from the past six months had been released with that single action. It felt good, but at the same time it confused her. Normally one to advocate violence as the last resource, the blow surprised her. She pulled her hand away quickly and held it to her chest, the red splotches on the back of her hand still tingling from the impact. Her eyes travelled back and forth from the crumpled form on the bed to her stinging hand.

As the sound of footsteps echoed outside the cell, Myleen's smug smile returned to her face. She slipped her hands behind her back and resumed lounging against the wall.

"Ah, here comes your congenial host to welcome you."
 
Darren warily raised his head at her words, glancing between her and the door before it started to slide open to reveal General Stone, who had left his secretary outside.

Stone motioned for the door to be closed without ever taking his eye's from the huddled form in the corner. After a few moments a pleased smile grew on his face and he nodded to himself before turning his approval onto Myleen. "Excellent job, Agent Myleen. As usual you live up to your reputation." His smile was almost as possessive as it was proud for a moment. "You've done us a great service today." His eyes drifted back to the elf, consideringly. He was a bit surprised that it was so silent. Ellid Jrs parents had quite the mouths on them, at least for the first few months. Darren did not feel or act the same in the least. He was a wild animal, ready to bolt at any moment. Stone supposed he shouldn't expect anything less from someone who had been on the run for the past 8 years.

"So Darren Ellid, we finally meet."

Darren had been staring blankly at the wall next to his head, ignoring the both of them as they seemed intent on ignoring him. When he heard his name he looked up, trying to hunch up even more though he could hardly get into a tighter ball. "The pleasure is all yours." He muttered dully before returning his gaze to the wall.

Stone raised an eyebrow and chuckled. Well, that was a little more along the lines of what he expected. "Indeed, though your time here need only be as unpleasant as your behavior."

Darren's more passive expression suddenly flashed to a mask of bitterness and anger. "Go away." Again, his voice was laced with magic. Even stronger than when he had been trying to control Myleen. If the cell wasn't reinforced the guards outside may have started running away. As it was even with the anti-magic accessories General stone was wearing he would feel the desire to run and there was the faintest crackle from a couple of the weaker ones.

The pressure in the room abruptly vanished as several other expressions crossed Darren's face: confusion, surprise, fear and excitement all rolled into one.

General stone was both pleased and annoyed. "Ah yes, you are definitely your parents child." He shook off the remaining urge and glanced over at Myleen. "I think he needs some lessons on proper behavior, see to it." He turned and ordered the guards to let him out, leaving the two behind while he set off to put other things into motion.
 
Myleen had more or less remained motionless with only a robotic "Thank you, sir" in response to General Stone's praises as she observed his exchange with the elf. Everything passed as normally as expected until a crippling power emanated from the elf that stole Myleen's breath.

"Go away."

In just those two short words, Myleen wanted nothing more than to run from the cell. Her anti-magic accessory could not fully protect her from the onslaught as the general's powerful gems protected him. Pupils dilated and body trembling as she struggled to gain control, a wild look consumed her eyes as she lost the battle against the elf's magic. Then just as suddenly as she was assaulted, the threat ended.

Chest heaving, she leaned more of her weight against the wall to keep her balance. General Stone was addressing her. "Yes, sir," she mustered with as unaffected a voice as possible. Though she was unclear as to what the general's motives were, she knew perfectly well what kind of proper behaviour he wanted the elf to exhibit. The question was, how to make the elf submissive? Catching was one thing, controlling was something else entirely. One thing was certain, she needed better anti-magic equipment if she was going to be spending more time with this elf.

She frowned at him as thoughts mulled about her head. If a wild animal could be trained just by feeding it.... she contemplated the idea for a moment.

"Are you hungry?"
 
Darren almost didn't hear what else the general had said. He had immediately fixated on the mention of his parents. Obviously the general knew them...or knew of them, his pessimistic mind added. There was nothing in the way the general had spoken that indicated his parents were anything other than dead. The second brief blooming of hope bleed away, destroying the excitement he had felt at how very nearly he had broken through the protections these agents seemed to have.

Myleen speaking briefly pulled him out of his thoughts, though his dark mood remained strong. He stared blankly at her for several moments. Sure, he was sort of hungry. The rush of magic had done a lot to clear the mugginess from his head and the other minor effects of the tranq but he was in no mood to be agreeable. "No thanks." He said dully, not really answering her question. He was contemplating the pros and cons of starving himself rather than remaining in this cell. All of the emotional upheavals in the past couple of hours had really taken their tole on him.
 
"Very well." Myleen turned to go. A knock on the door soon had it sliding open for her to pass through.

"See to it that the elf has no food to eat until I give orders otherwise," Myleen said with a sly smile. "If he wants to starve himself, we'll help him."

She left the prison ward in a search for a stronger talisman. There was no way she would approach that elf again without proper protection. Her mental strength had supplied her through trials others had failed of, but it was no match against the magic Darren Ellid wielded. For the rest of the day, Agent Smithers shopped the lab for anti-magic accessories to line the pockets of her grey woolen suit jacket and pencil skirt and snatched a bite to eat in the cafeteria before heading to her office which was located on the top floor of the building where the elf was housed. She was in desperate need for a power nap. Slipping her sore feet from her pumps, she kicked them under her desk, removed her jacket, and traded her skirt and blouse for sweats and a hoody. She set up her sleeping bag in the middle of the room, silently laughing to herself that she had no more room than the elf so many storeys below in a prison cell. Her glasses came off and were set on her desk.

A sigh, a yawn, and in moments sleep claimed Myleen.
 
Darren let out a soft sigh of relief as the woman left, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. He should be exhausted, and in a way he was, but not in the way needed to get to sleep. Emotionally, he was tired. He had gone from thinking that he was in the clear to finding himself where he had successfully been avoiding for years, along with the other upheavals in the past hour. He huddled miserably in the corner an hour or so before he couldn't take it anymore and stood, pacing the tiny cell over and over. That was the worst thing about the cell, aside from it being a cell. He could hardly move at all. He'd seen bathrooms bigger than this.

The hunger was a mild annoyance at best compared to that, at least for the moment. He'd had a nice meal just before he'd been picked up thankfully, though the more he thought about it the more that would only prolong his time in this cell. His mind was chasing itself in circles, trying to think of some less deadly way to get out of this cell. After hours of pacing he realized the sun was starting to come up and reluctantly came to the conclusion that until he learned more about this place and it's patterns, there was no way he was going to be getting out.

For the whateverth time he wished he could cry, but was somewhat grateful as well. He was sure he was being watched and they didn't need to see him like that. With a frustrated sigh he threw himself down on the cot, once again curling up into a tiny ball. His brain was still running 100 miles an hour, but it wasn't too long before he passed out despite that. Interestingly enough instead of looking more peaceful while he was asleep, as most people tended to do, Darren just looked more upset. He couldn't hide from his emotions in his sleep, and especially his dreams. His sleep was punctuated by whimpers and cries, often in elvish.
 
Sunlight streamed into the office window, rousing Myleen from her deep slumber. She blinked rapidly at the bright light and brought a hand up to shield her eyes. The other hand groped along the surface of her desk to find her glasses. Once they were set in place on her nose, she sat up fully, stretched, and glanced at the clock on her desk.

"Did I really sleep that long?" she cried, now alert. It didn't take her very long to get dressed again and find her pumps under the desk. Clasping them close to her bosom, she dashed out the door to the elevator. She managed to put one shoe on while she waited for the door to open and the second one fastened on her other foot as the elevator took her to the lowest level. Her hair probably looked a sight. She frowned, smoothed the matted strands as best she could, and hoped she looked more or less together. The guards didn't bat an eye as she passed them. Good. She was presentable.

Settling her features into a no-nonsense expression, Agent Smithers prepped herself to face the elf. The cell door opened. She walked in. It clanged shut behind her. She blinked twice to adjust her vision in the dim light and plastered a sarcastic smile on her lips.

"Good morning, sir. How did you sleep last night?"
 
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