It was another two hours before Naira locked up her lab for the evening. One of her students had stopped by in a panic after their reaction had nearly started a fire. An hour of working through it had uncovered a simple arithmetical error. That oversight had offset the required reactant mass by an order of magnitude. End result? A highly exothermic reaction with ten times the amount of reactant it needed. The petri dish had melted and fused with the surface of the lab table.

After that emergency had been dealt with, setting up her own experiments had gone smoothly. So now began the evening walk to the bus stop. She missed the 1600 bus and had to wait for the 1615. It wasn’t an unpleasant wait as this was a well-lit and well-kept part of Ciphus. Besides, people gave her a wide berth when they saw her there, unless they happened to recognize her. No one did tonight.

The bus arrived, and her favorite spot was available. Two stops later, a family of three boarded, and from the looks of them were soon to be a family of four. A well rounded Snepard female awkwardly took the seat beside her. Naira remembered well the struggles of the later stages. The woman’s husband took the seat beside his wife, filling the row. Their child, a young boy of maybe five years of age stood in front of his mother clutching a stuffed bird to his chest.

The pregnant woman cleared her throat. Naira glanced up to find the mother looking at her. Naira offered a smile.

“Any day now?” she asked.

The woman knit her brows, looking down at her stomach as if just now remembering it was there. “Oh, yes, baby’s due at the beginning of Harvest Season.” She looked up again, “Listen, we’ve been walking all day, and my child could use a seat. Do you mind?”

Naira’s smile widened. “Of course not! Would he rather sit in my lap, or between us?” It had been far too long since her boys had fit in her lap. She missed that stage of life.

“Actually, he’s been told not to trust strangers.” The emphasis on strangers told Naira that the woman really had a different word in mind. “Your legs are much better developed than his, so he’d be better off with the whole seat. There’s plenty of standing space along the pole overhead. Surely you don’t want to stay crowded in the seat by us?”

Naira’s smile wilted.

Honestly, what had she been expecting? If Alain had been here, he would have given up his own seat before letting Naira give up hers. But he wasn’t, and while it was a stomach-bittering thing to be treated like this, the last thing Naira wanted after the last 20 hours was to cause a scene. Not when Alain’s safety depended on her ability to play this game without being caught. Forcing a nod, Naira stood up and moved to grip the closest ceiling strap.

The little boy watched her go, rocking in place in front of the now empty seat as he continued to stare at her. She gave him a smile and before she could catch herself, said, “It’s okay.”

The boy continued to fidget with the plush bird in his hands. Then he spoke, “Mommy? Why’d the doggy move?”

“Because she shouldn’t sit with us. You need to sit with us, ok? So sit down in the seat.”

He looked back to Naira. “Can I ask to pet her?”

“No honey, doggies bite,” his mother said before patting the seat beside her. “Now sit down.”

Naira blinked and stared out the window. Such an awful mindset to teach a child.

“She has red and blue feathers like Cresty,” the boy said, excitement in his voice.

“Max, you need to sit still and ride quietly. It’s been a long day and we’re tired from all that walking, right?”

The husband finally chose this moment to chime in, “Mommy needs to rest, and we’re almost home, so stay in your seat, ok?”

When the family quieted, Naira risked a glance back at them. The mother had one hand against her belly while the other gripped her son’s arm as if the slightest bump would toss him out the window. Her eyes were closed, and she did look tired. The husband met Naira’s gaze for a brief moment before biting his lip and staring out his own window. Then there was the child who had turned in his seat to examine her in innocent fascination. It was far preferable to most stares she drew in public.

Reaching up, Naira flicked the feather dangling from her hair braid. The boy’s eyes lit up, and he held up his little stuffed bird. It had a yellow body with a spotted front, and a large blue crest of synthetic feathers fanned out comically from the back of its head.

Several other passengers on the bus watched this interaction. There was even another Mnolf seated awkwardly in the back corner, with their coat stuffed between them and the passenger beside them. Everyone, including her fellow Mnolf, looked away whenever Naira met their eyes. Some gave her looks of pity, others disgust.

What an environment for a child to grow up in…

And yet, the boy remained oblivious to it, eyeing her like she was some magical creature from a story book. His mother’s eyes had held distrust. But this child? There was some distrust, yes, but there was also wonder. Naira knew which reaction she wanted to feed.

Reaching up, she detached the feather from her braid. It was real, which meant it wasn’t cheap, but she did have more at home. Besides, it was still cheaper than metallic jewelry.

Walking quietly, she crouched down in front of the boy. With hands trained for working with volatile reactions, she added her feather to his toy’s crest. His eyes went wide as he touched it, no doubt finding it to be softer than the fake feathers. He looked back at her, and she was pleased to watch wonder win out over distrust. His grin widened in pure delight. Raising her finger to her lips, Naira gave him a toothless smile and a wink. 

She caught the dad moving in her peripheral and glanced his way. He was also staring wide-eyed, but not for the same reason as his kid. Naira kept the finger to her lips, then made a silent chomping motion with her mouth. She probably shouldn’t have, but it felt good to do so anyway.

The family got off the bus long before her stop, and she resumed her seat for the rest of the journey. The bus hemorrhaged passengers with every stop after that. Slowly, the ratio shifted until the bus was carrying mostly Mnolfs.

As they neared 118th Street, Naira pulled the cord to request a stop. There was no bus stop here, but the driver pulled up to the public mailbox for District 11. She rode this route daily. At this point, every driver on the route knew her, and knew where she liked to be dropped off.

The mailbox itself was so covered in graffiti, the little bits of original color underneath looked like dirt on a canvas. A fresh padlock was installed on the door in the back, so someone had replaced it since this morning. The door itself was so bent out of shape, you didn’t need to get rid of the padlock to grab at least some of the mail inside.

Naira counted as she walked. Nine homeless, no change there. Four teenagers on Widdleton Way, and five on Parkton Drive. The first group was playing basketball with a trash can. The second were huddled under a flickering streetlamp, their eyes betraying the prismatic glow of Fractal. Of those, one was laying out on their back, reaching out towards the streetlamp as if they could grab onto the light itself.

Two police cruisers parked on Sedgman Circle. There’d been a double homicide in that cul-de-sac last week, likely gang related. The cruisers were new, and the officers’s presence was as likely to deter crime as a well-lit mouse trap in the center of the room was to catch a paranoid rodent.

Her hand gripped a Firum crystal as she walked, and she jumped when her neighbor’s deerhound collided with their chainlink fence. The snarling creature dripped saliva, snapping at her even as it worked to extricate its antlers from the fence. Her heartbeat recovering, Naira used her free hand to fish out a small Terrum crystal.

Snapping it inside her palm, she had no Prism in her system to direct the magic, but she didn’t need to. The moment she laid the cracked crystal beside the fence, the deerhound began to calm. The sweet floral scent of Nature magic reached Naira’s nose, and she felt the pleasant, gentle touch of its aura. Of all the elements, Terrum was by far the most inherently calming. It was a shame people thought Necrum was more effective. Necrum calmed too, but Terrum wasn’t addicting or harmful to the body.

The deerhound calmed enough that Naira risked reaching up to the fence. It sniffed at her fingers, then wagged its stubbed tail. She scratched at its ears, and it once again stuck its antlers into the gaps in the fence. It stomped a front hoof and leaned into the fence, trying to extend the petting. Poor thing was kept as a guard animal, and intentionally encouraged to be aggressive.

It wasn’t a new animal. It had lived here for several years now, and every night, it still rushed the fence as if it had never met Naira before. Once, she’d assumed she could soothe it without the help of Nature magic, but that had resulted in her nearly losing a finger. Deerhound teeth weren’t serrated like some of Fanitom’s nastier creatures, but they were still sharp and pointy with jaw strength like a vice.

Nothing else jumped out or surprised Naira before she finally arrived home. She checked the mailbox, but of course nothing was there. The mailman knew better and would use the slot in the door.

The gate for the front sidewalk was a laughable thing she could easily step over. She opened it anyway. It creaked with the same awful metal on metal grinding sound she’d heard when the detective’s car had hit the street that afternoon. Alain kept saying he would replace the gate with something prettier, but he had never found the time.

Her heart caught, and she didn’t even bother to close the gate behind her. A scent had reached her, bringing with it a memory of her sons chasing each other through the yard while her husband warmly welcomed her home.

Naira sprinted for the front door.

She got the first lock undone, then dropped her keys while working on the second. Her shoulder was already pressed to the door as she unlocked the third lock, the one in the actual door handle. The door swung inwards, and she almost slipped on the letter laying just inside the door. Her pouch crashed to the ground, forgotten as she cradled the source of the scent.

She left a trail of blood across the top of the envelope as she slit it open with a finger. Inside was a folded letter, and a clump of russet brown fur. Kneeling there on the floor, only partway through the wide open front door, she reverently dumped Alain’s fur into her palm. Her body began to rock as she clutched it to her chest. A howl clawed its way out of her throat, only to be drowned in the wail of a nearby police siren...