Celeste woke up annoyed. On top of being abducted, there was an elf who liked to knock her out for some reason. She found herself in a chair this time with a rather sheepish looking Kyn sitting across from her. The elf rubbed the back of his head.

"I suppose I have to apologize for my sister again. I offer no excuses for her. But the good news is since you're in good health and seem to be doing well, we will release you and escort you to Feon."

That was the best news she had heard all day. Celeste leaped to her feet, eager to go. After all, it was probably at least half a day’s journey back to Feon, so they needed to get started as soon as possible if they wanted to get as far as they could before dark.

"Has word been sent?" She inquired. "I don't want anyone to unnecessarily."

"I believe so. Jyn, a couple of others, and I will be your escort." He also got up."I just hope you're not disappointed that we'll just be taking a cart and donkey. It's too far to glide there. We'll probably have to stop for the night and camp."

"Whatever gets me there." Yes, she was a little disappointed that they wouldn’t be gliding, but she understood why. It would be hard to keep the magic up that long, even with the aid of a crystal. Maybe someday she would get to ride on an elven glider, but today wasn’t that day.

"Follow me then. They should be finished with the preparations. Just watch your step when we get outside. I find that some humans get dizzy this high up."

He led her into a narrow hallway lined with a few other rooms. She wondered if they had others in them too. After all, she assumed this was an infirmary of some kind, though she hadn’t seen any herbs or medical tools. But they probably wouldn’t keep those in the room. As she walked by one of them, someone banged on one of the doors.

“Please let me out! My babies, they’re crying for me!” Celeste could hear the desperation in the woman’s voice. The yelling was followed by weeping and more banging before it stopped. “The children...they...they’re…”

Kyn gently touched her shoulder and moved her out of the way. “If you would excuse me for a second, Celeste. I need to attend to her before she hurts herself again. The poor woman lost her family in a fire and sees and hears them still. She insists that they’re alive.” He took a key out of his pocket and put his hand on the doorknob. “Please, go on without me. If you keep heading straight, you’ll find the exit. I shouldn’t be too long… hopefully.”

Celeste nodded and headed forward while Kyn entered the room. She heard him say something, but she was too far away to hear what he was saying. It wasn’t her business, though she couldn’t help but feel for the woman. It was hard to lose someone you cared about under dire circumstances. She recalled some kids at the orphanage who always insisted that their parents would come to get them even if they had attended their funerals and any attempts to tell them otherwise just made them upset. Usually, they eventually accepted the truth, but it would take a long time, though she suspected that some always held onto the hope that someday they would see their parents again. Perhaps if she had been younger when her parents died, she would’ve been the same way.

As Kyn said, the hallway led to the parlor of some kind which then led to the outside. She noticed that there wasn’t a door between the inside and outside, just some metal beads that chimed slightly when the wind moved through them. She wasn’t sure how that was better than a door, but elves had a different definition of privacy from what she could recall.

Celeste pushed through the beads and stepped out onto a wooden walkway. She grabbed the railing and looked across the way. There was a round house sitting in the branches of the very tall tree, probably similar to the one she had come out of. Looking to the left and right revealed more round houses, all connected by wooden walkways. Wooden bridges connected one tree to another and once and a while she saw something go up and down thanks to a pulley system. No wonder it was said that elves could go for years without ever having to touch the ground. She didn’t dare look down to see how high up the treehouses were.

“Please tell me my brother did not send you out by yourself.” A familiar voice startled her as it came from right next to her. “Sometimes I wonder if he would have been better of as a Glider than a Healer.”

Celeste found herself backing away from Jyn. She eyed the elf’s hand, waiting for it to raise and knock her out once again. Jyn rolled her eyes. She did raise her hand, but it wasn’t in the same position as it had been the last two times.

“Do not worry, earth-shatterer. I am not going to hit you again.” Jyn put her hand back down. “I do not think I could stand another lecture from my brother about that. I do apologize for the second time. I didn’t expect you to open the door so suddenly and just reacted. I will try to curb my reactions in the future.”

Again with the earth-shatterer name. She had never before heard elves call humans that before. Maybe it was an insult of some sort, though Jyn’s tone was anything but insulting. At the moment, she didn’t seem upset with her, so it couldn’t be that.

“Where is Kyn?” Jyn questioned. “He was supposed to be taking you down to the cart.”

“He had to stop and help a woman in one of the other rooms and said that it shouldn’t take too long.”

Jyn sighed and nodded. “I will take you down to the cart. It will not take him very long to catch up. If it is the woman I am thinking of, she does not take too long to calm down whenever she has a fit like that.”

“Why is she in an infirmary instead of an asylum, or what is it called in Elvish…?”

Jyn scowled a bit. “Our Rests are nothing like your rat-infested, putrid places where you dump your mad or supposed mad. We take care of our sick, whether it be of mind or body, instead of dumping them someplace where we can forget that they exist.”

Celeste wasn’t sure how to answer her. She knew asylums were not pleasant places, not that she had ever been near one, and there was probably a reason most family members of “mad” people tried to keep them at home. Usually, they didn’t end up in the asylum unless their family dumped them there or they got arrested for being too dangerous. But as corrupt as the Guard was, she wouldn’t be surprised if some people had been thrown in one for madness and they weren’t mad. Derrick swore that was one of the changes he would make to the Guard once he was running it if he could make it that far. He had the confidence he could, but both Celeste and Owain were unsure.

When she didn’t reply against her accusation, Jyn turned around and huffed a bit. “I am sorry. It is not something in your control. I know you are not to blame. And the building you were in was a Rest. Did Kyn not tell you that?” She started to walk ahead of her.

No, Kyn did not mention the detail that after being knocked out, she had been put in an elf version of an asylum. But that would explain the lack of medical supplies she didn’t see in the room and the door being locked from the outside. She should’ve guessed by the presence of the woman who still saw images of her dead family. But sometimes they kept mad people in infirmaries to treat wounds they either inflicted on themselves or accidentally acquired during a fit.

“Wait, you thought I was mad? I’ll admit that I was a bit upset and panicking when we first met, but I didn’t think I came off as hysterical!” Celeste caught up with the Glider. “And you knocked me out because…?”

“I thought you were going to get violent with me, so I figured it would be easier for both of us if you were not conscious when I brought you to my brother. That way, I would not have to hurt you. Of course, then he chided me for bringing you to him and not a healer first.”

“He’s not a healer?” Celeste was now starting to get worried about the “checking over” he talked about. If he wasn’t a proper healer then…

“Yes and no. He has healer training, but he specializes in the mind over the body. He works closely with the other healers, so he had me bring you over to them so they could check for injuries.”

She released a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. It made her feel a bit better that trained healers were the ones that did the actual examination. She just wished she had been conscious for it.

“Wait, you still haven’t told me why you think I’m mad.” She pointed out as Jyn came to a handle and started turning it to bring a large basket up. The elf signaled for her to step in once the basket came up. Once they had both stepped in, Jyn started to lower them down. “I know my story might seem untrue, but even you said you saw no lies in me.”

“People can lie to themselves so often that they believe the lie is true. You can only see that someone is lying if they are aware of the lie.”

Celeste pondered over that statement until they settled on the ground. Jyn led her to an area where a cart with a donkey team was waiting. There were two elves, also twins, loading it with bedrolls and sacks.

“This is Roth and Yoth.” Jyn stated. The elves gave a wave and continued with their loading. “They go to Feon the most, so they know the area well.”

“Though I’ll admit, we’ve never taken passengers before,” Roth said as he sat down and picked up the reins. Jyn helped Celeste up into the cart. “Though if your brother doesn’t show up, we’re leaving without him.”

It was about that time Kyn came running and pulled himself into the cart. “Sorry, it took a bit longer than I thought.”

“I think you just wanted to miss packing,” Yoth commented as he took a seat next to his brother. “But if we’re all here, we should head out. I don’t think bandits will be a problem, but you never want to take a chance. Even with this.” He patted a reed. “It’s amazing how much a small metal ball propelled through a reed at high airspeeds can scare someone in armor.”

So that was what had happened when Jyn had first met Celeste. If it made that much impact on the ground, she hated to see how it would hurt a person.

“What about the camps? Are we likely to meet anyone from them?” Kyn asked. “Because that might be a problem.”

“Not likely. They don’t go to Feon anymore. At most, some scouts will see us and report our movements, but they know us by now, so they won’t think much about it.” Yoth offered a smile. “Don’t worry, we’ve done this plenty of times. It’s the destination that’s much more worrisome in my opinion.”

When Roth snapped the reins, the donkeys started. At least progress toward home was being made, so Celeste sat back and tried to relax. She needed to figure out how to explain this to everyone back home.