Chapter 3 ~ Train Ride

Alice didn’t know what to do. If she didn’t go with him, it would seem like she didn’t care about the world, but for all she knew this actually was an elaborate prank. Despite that, in her gut she had a slight feeling that he was telling the truth. She did have doubts but she couldn’t turn this away as long as she had even the slightest belief it was real. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she turned her back and it had turned out to be true.

Alice sighed, knowing she’d had chosen ethics over logic. Logically there was no way in the world that this was true, but ethically even if it wasn’t she should at least trust this guy since he seemed to believe what he was saying. “Fine..” She finally responded exasperated, pulling her arm out of Elias’ grip. “When do we leave?” She wasn’t expecting to see the taken aback expression on Elias’s face that currently resided there. He clearly hadn’t been expecting her to agree, or at the very least he’d expected her to put up more of a fight.

“Really?” He asked, sounding genuinely shocked before visibly checking himself and straightening up, “As soon as possible. We’ll let you get anything you need from your apartment, before we leave”

Alice nodded and continued on her way to her apartment with Elias in tow. It didn’t take long to get there, considering they’d almost been there when he stopped her, and in no time she had a bag packed with the clothes she needed for the time she would be away.  She was surprised that she was told to pack both snow gear and swimsuits, shorts and pants, long sleeve shirts and tank tops. She couldn’t figure out where they were going, there was no where in the world that she knew of that would be both extremely cold and burning hot during the same time of the year.

She had figured out that they didn’t have much time because of the strange cloud of urgency that hung around Elias. Soon she had two duffel-like bags full of clothes and they left the house. Once again she was caught off guard by Elias and his actions. It seemed they were heading to the train station rather than teleporting or something. The only way out of the Iona sector of the country was by train or boat. They were surrounded on all sides by water, a large island in the middle of a continent. Iona was one of 27 sectors of the Confederation of Layzell or the CL. The Layzell was one of five states (like country states not state states) in the world. The five had conquered all of the planet and were finally at peace, they were Layzell, Ophrine, Madeli, Sirina, and Wolfra. Each were very different from what she’d heard, but Alice herself had never left Iona, the island sector of Layzell.

Before she knew it, Alice and Elias were actually at the train station. “Umm, why’re we at the train station?” She asked turning to Elias, confused.

“How else are we expected to leave, fly?” She hated how sarcastic he was. Wasn’t Elias supposed to be a good guy?

“Well I don’t know, I figured we’d be using … magic.” She said, lowering her voice to a whisper on magic so others would hear.

Now this caused a slight,  dark,  chuckle out of Elias, “Normally we would, except I can’t use magic until we’re in the protected area, if I did Alastor would know I’ve found my Lone Paladin and he’d come to try and take you out before you are trained” This caused Alice to shut up. She hadn’t thought about the fact that Alastor and his Cerebri would be after her once they caught wind of her training.

They waited for a while, walking around the train station until Elias finally seemed to decide which train he wanted to board. Once they were on the train, Alice shoved her bags into the cupboards above the seats. It was one of those trains that had little rooms in each compartment, with bench-seats that could also be used as beds. When the train started moving Elias finally seemed to relax, like he’d been rushing to meet a deadline and he’d got there just in time, even though they’d been on the train for about half an hour before it left. About an hour went by in silence, Alice stared out the window watching the Iona scenery pass by. Her town was near the center of Iona, so it took a while to get out over the ‘lake’ that surrounded the island. Though it was more like a sea, which was appropriate since the island was a medium sized sector.

By the time Alice spoke, she was staring out at deep blue water that surged under the bridge. The water was dark, not because it was dirty, it just was. Nobody really knew why the water was dark, but it was almost a midnight blue and it was completely clean. The water crashed against the rocks and bridge in huge waves, more active than it normally was. She watched as the lush ring of wildlife around the outside of Iona disappeared. It was an unspoken rule that nobody built on the edge of the island, the greenery was so beautiful that they didn’t want to interrupt it. And so all the buildings and cities, and towns were in the inner ring, about fifty miles inland from the water.

“Where are we going?” Alice asked, breaking the comfortable silence, introducing a new, more curious atmosphere.

“Somewhere safe” Elias answered vaguely, still looking out the window as Alice had been a second ago.

“But where is the safe place?” She asked pushing the question, she’d agreed to go with him, the least he could do is tell her where. This persistence caused Elias to finally look at her, he clearly wasn’t expecting her to ask again, as if none of the other Paladins had before.

“It’s in Yeno, that’s all I can tell you” Alice was taken aback by the response, Yeno? She couldn’t believe it. Yeno was the most eastern sector, and it was thousands of miles from Iona. It was also one of the most populated, it was on the edge of the Confederation, bordered on one side by real ocean.

Alice had been expecting one of the more deserted sectors like Bero or Eira, which were known as the desert sectors. Bero was blazing hot and Eira was ice cold, one the most south and one the most north. She expected since that since she would be learning magic, that she assumed people weren’t supposed to know about, it wouldn’t be in the most urban sector in the country. “I told you that's all I’ll say,” Elias interrupted her thoughts, obviously sensing another question coming, and shutting it down before Alice could even ask.

Following the extremely short conversation was a more edgy silence, no longer comfortable. It was clear that Elias didn’t like that Alice had pried, and Alice didn’t like that Elias wouldn’t tell her much. They both knew it would be an extremely long train ride, despite the trains being some of the fastest in the world, it’d still take at least a day to get from Iona  to Yeno. Alice thought of what it’d be like in Yeno. She’d heard it was warm and moist, and that the cities were beautiful, since the architecture was so well done. Though she doubted she’d be able to spend much time enjoying the city once they got there.

By the fifth hour, both Elias and Alice had figured out that neither would crack and finally say something. Even though Elias was supposed to be the good brother he was still just as stubborn as Alastor was, and he wasn’t going to be the one to break the silence. In Elias’s opinion, he was the one that was going to teach Alice how to save the world so he should get some respect out of her. To him, this meant when he said something, not to question it or try to get more information. On the other hand, Alice thought that since she was letting Elias teach her and use her as his Paladin, she should be able to know what she wanted, and he should answer her questions without being vague.

Approximately another hour passed before Alice’s stomach began to growl. It was around 6:30 which was when Alice usually ate dinner. Alice however persisted and refused to ask Elias about getting food, and she was just glad her stomach wasn’t audibly growling yet. Though based on the new occasional glance that Elias sent her way, he could sense that her stomach was empty and she needed food. When the clock struck 7:00pm Elias stopped random glancing at her, when her stomach betrayed her and validated his suspicion.

“You’re hungry”  Elias stated plainly, addressing her stomachs cry for attention..

“No. I’m not,” Alice relented, it may’ve been petty but this whole adventure was probably going to change her life, and not necessarily for the better, so she thought she deserved the right to have at least some control over what was going on. Unfortunately she didn’t get the control she desired because right as Elias was going to protest, Alice’s stomach once again audibly growled, this time louder before, causing Elias to give out a slight laugh.

Maybe it was an attempt to lighten the mood but whatever it was, the laugh led into Elias’s next comment, “Well I think your stomach thinks you are, and your stomach is boss.”

He stood and extended his hand for Alice to grab. “I’m sorry but that really is all I can tell you. If I told you more if Alastor and his cerebri try to get the information out of you, there is a chance that they could learn more than I’d like them to.” Alice was genuinely stunned at the sudden apology. Elias didn’t seem the type to apologize for much, he seemed more like one of those people that didn’t apologize much, even if they were sorry. He seemed like even though he was super charismatic, he didn’t really have many social skills.

Alice sighed and silently accepted the hand, allowing Elias’s strength to pull her up, even though she could’ve done it herself, “Fine I am hungry, where do we get food?” Alice ignorantly asked, she’d never ridden on a train before so she didn’t exactly know what to do or where to go. Elias however, had been on trains many many times while he found and recruited each generation of paladins. In fact he was on one of the earliest trains, and he’d been using them for travel ever since. Elias found it easier and safer than teleporting, since he and Alastor were brothers, there was a slight magical connection so they could sense where each other teleported. Because of this, Alice’s ignorance made Elias smile.

“In the dining car, Alison” The amusement and slight tone of superiority in Elias’s voice, especially as he voiced her full name, made Alice cringe. She hated being called Alison, nobody had called her Alison since her parents died when she was fourteen, not even her grandmother, who’d raised her after that, had called her Alison.

“Please, call me Alice, not Alison.” She requested as they walked through the halls of the passenger cars.

“Why? Alison is a nice name.”

“I just don’t like to be called Alison.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, nobody has called me Alison for a long time.”

“Is that why you came to the cafe?”

“What?”

“Is that why you decided to come to the cafe? Because I called you Alison in the note?”

“I don’t know. Nobody even knows my name is Alison. I guess I just wanted to know who else knew.”

Alice could feel Elias smiling, despite the fact that he was walking in front of her. That seemed to be where Elias wanted to end the conversation since he didn’t reply.  They continued to the dining hall and after dinner was over, returned to their compartment to get some sleep. The rest of the train ride was dull, small conversation was exchanged mostly but not much since they didn’t really have anything to say. Soon they were in Yeno, and Alice was once again gazing out the window, marveling at how busy and urban it was. Once they got to the train station that Elias had booked for them to get off at, they unloaded Alice’s things and shuffled out of the train like everyone else. “Okay… where’s the ‘safe place’?” Alice asked, with air quotes around safe place.

At this, Elias definitely cracked a big grin, as if he was excited to show her. “C’mon, I’ll show you” He extended his hand, which she now almost immediately accepted, excited to see this safe place that he’d been talking about. And then they were off, traveling through the city to the place where Alice would start her training.