Archive of Our Own ^beta

Artemis treated Sool to his most scornful gaze. “Congratulations, Commander, you have managed to alienate the LEP’s finest officer.”

“Listen here, human,” began Sool, but Butler growled and the words withered in the Commander’s throat. The gnome stepped quickly behind the larger of his officers. "I've seen enough. Send him home," he pointed at the larger human's chest, and four tranquilizer pellets were instantly stuck to his neck. Butler blinked heavily, lowering himself onto two arms as the drugs started to take effect.

The levity Artemis felt instantly evaporated as he judged that something about this situation was wrong. Sool's words implied that only Butler was being sent home, which meant he had further business with Artemis.

Butler made eye contact with his charge, but he was unable to do more than assess that there was a problem before he went down with a thump, heavy enough to rattle the floor.

"There's no need for that, Sool," Holly protested. "He's not dangerous unless you give him a good reason to be."

A smirk formed on Sool's face, and Artemis stiffened. "Grab him," said the Commander, and the burly twin elves stepped around Butler's unconscious body to grab Artemis by each forearm.

All of the others in the room were instantly aware of what was happening.

"Wait- now just wait a minute," Foaly spluttered, shocked. "Nobody at the tribunal-"

"I don't need the tribunal to decide on this, in case all of you have forgotten," the cocky man strode forward towards Artemis and Holly, still shocked into silence. "There was an agreement that the humans would be mind-wiped and out of our hair, and we would let them stay unbothered on the surface. That agreement is over now, and I don't intend on making the same mistake as our late Commander Root." He sneered and made eye contact with Holly. "I'm making an executive decision, and I'm certain the Council will have my back. Mud boy is going to stop being a problem, permanently, and nothing like this fiasco is ever going to happen again. He's going to Howler's Peak."

Holly exploded in outrage, tears pricking the corner of her eyes. "He just saved our hides! You can't do this!"

"Howler's Peak," Artemis mumbled, vacantly. He didn't have the full context, but it sounded like a prison. A particularly terrifying one.

Sool responded in kind, with an air of superiority. "If not for his interference in fairy life, none of this would have gotten so out of hand in the first place. The goblin rebellion, Opal's return, all of this would have been handled neatly. Cudgeon had never been involved before, and he never would have been involved if not for this mud boy." He grimaced unpleasantly. "You're lucky we aren't executing him outright."

"You might as well be," Mulch had a haunted look in his eye, and his voice was full of dread. "Howler's Peak, they'll tear him apart. You're a monster."

Artemis swallowed. He was beginning to feel a shake traveling across his body. This was bad, very bad, almost as bad as it could possibly get. Was this his reward for helping the fairies, no strings attached?

He watched as Holly continued to yell and protest, and even lunged toward Sool before one of the guards roughly pushed her back with his other arm. She legally couldn't do anything to Sool without massive legal consequences, but she had half a mind to do it anyway. If they were taking Artemis, they might as well take her too, but then they would have less people lobbying for his release. Foaly launched into a tirade to attempt to reason with Sool, but the Commander lifted his hand into the air to sharply cut him off, and gestured the elfin guards forward.

They started to pull Artemis out of the room by the arm, and the realization that they were taking him away from Butler, his rock, his surviving thread of safety, had him pulling in the other direction in a futile motion to break away. He made brief panicked eye contact with Holly, who reached towards him in an aborted motion, disbelieving. While the guards were a couple of inches taller than him, being particularly broad and tall examples of the fairy police force, Artemis was still able to budge them just slightly, even as a small human. They responded to this with a swift kick in the shin, resulting in a pained gasp from Artemis and exclamations from his three conscious allies. Unthinkingly, they had solidified into a bit of a team after their latest venture. Root's death had only served to bring them closer, now that they were officially on the same side. It was like a bucket of cold water to see part of the team roughly ripped away so soon, and so unfairly.

“Wait!” Artemis suddenly protested, though the dragging didn’t cease. “This is bigger than a war between the fairies and I, you’ll be involving anyone who questions my disappearance!”

“Humans have disappeared before,” Sool rolled his eyes.

"This can't be legal," Foaly muttered as Artemis and the guards disappeared from sight, though he was fully aware that it was, and there was nothing they could do about it. Not without disobeying direct orders. Mulch had gotten up from his seat to stand beside Holly, whose face was set in a snarl. She shook her head, crushing the tears out of her eyes and looking at Sool's smug face. "This isn't over," She said, still determined.

Sool turned to walk away, unimpressed. Three, soon to be four sprites started to file in to peel the massive unconscious human off of the floor and load him into a transport shuttle to the surface. "Well Captain- sorry, Miss Short, maybe you can start a petition, but I don't plan on changing my mind. For the good of the People, someone has to make the big decisions." Sool stepped out of the room, shoving Foaly out of the way and leaving the three to their wounded prides. He caught a glimpse of Mulch patting the newly appointed Civilian Short on the shoulder, and huffed irritably. Honestly, it was just a human.

-

Artemis somehow couldn't believe this was happening to him. He was in a blackout shuttle, zipping its merry way towards one of the highest security prisons known to fairykind. Howler’s Peak was only a step above the Deeps, which was hundreds of miles underwater. The only reason they hadn’t put him down there was the fact that the water pressure could have easily killed him. That was what he had been able to glean from the guards always surrounding him, who seemed to find a great deal of amusement in poking at his anxiety. He rubbed the side of his head where they had implanted a seeker-sleeper under layers of skin, nothing but a small scar was left behind. The pain of his headache as he awoke with the foreign object implanted onto his skull had made him fully realize the gravity of his situation.

Nobody could protect him here. He was alone.

Alone, and in a place where a human by default had little to no civil rights. A human being convicted and sent to a fairy prison had never happened before, he hadn't even gotten a trial. They weren't required to give him one, because in fairy law, he wasn't officially a person. His media coverage and the fact that he had helped to save the fairy people on more than one occasion were probably the only reasons he was still alive, even if Sool was still convinced it was all his fault in the end. Artemis wasn't sure how he felt about that.

One of the large elves packed into the shuttle with him reached over and rattled his cuffs, making sure they were secure. Artemis stopped himself from rolling his eyes just in time. According to Sool, humans could be dangerous and unpredictable creatures when being transported. Though the boy had a feeling that the cuffs weren't coming off until long after he'd left the shuttle. There was honestly very little Artemis could do against a trained fairy officer regardless. Holly could attest to that, and these elves were over a foot taller than the ex-police officer.

Outside of the shuttle, the environment became harsher and redder, the ground bumpy and covered in rocks. Howlers Peak was heavy with clay deposits and it gave a very angry and hopeless feeling to its surroundings. Fitting, though Artemis was unable to see any of it until the shuttle came to a stop, and he was pulled by aching arms towards the reinforced walls around the prison.

The fairy media were fighting tooth and nail to get a good shot of Artemis, groups of all kinds of fairies covered head to toe in advanced photographic technology stood flashing with bright light outside of the gates. The guards, instructed not to take their time, rushed past the excited crowd to get inside as quickly as possible. Fairies shouted at him from all sides, and a few sprites even hovered above the crowd to shove gel microphones into his face.

"Mud man! What's your plan to escape?"

"Were you the one who got Holly Short out of a job?"

"Where's the bodyguard? Did you kill him too?!"

Artemis felt a bead of sweat travel down the side of his head. Rumors were already popping up like daisies; the LEP official statements were clearly doing him no favors.

The back of his head was grabbed and shoved so he was facing the ground until they finally broke out of the crowd, and the heavy gates closed with a pneumatic hiss. Artemis felt his last hope for freedom escaping him with every step they took closer to confinement.

Howler’s Peak was a goblin prison. That was obvious enough as soon as he saw the inside of the place. Reinforced, fireproof walls. There were shining blue freezing crystals implanted into the ceiling, giving the air a chill that settled itself into his chest within minutes. They were putting him in a prison for goblins, no wonder Mulch had looked so terrified for him.

Dwarves and goblins had a strong rivalry due to gang wars and the fact that their very biology so strongly contradict one another. Essentially, a dwarf and a goblin would have trouble living as roommates. What Artemis knew about goblins was not all but critical information on their biologies. He knew all of the basics and some important details, but what was of higher importance was the fact that he was personally responsible for putting a lot of these goblins in prison. Technically, they could say he was partly responsible for the fact that all of them were still in there, after stopping the goblin triad.

A lump of clothing was shoved into his arms by a belligerent gnome, and Artemis was taken to a private room to change into his prison clothing while they searched through all of his belongings.

He picked up the shirt, and shuddered. The fabric was both wrinkled, and unpleasant to the touch. For all of fairy technology, they couldn't spare any eco-friendly artificial polyester that was decent to wear, not for their prisoners. He was relieved that putting on the light orange fabric revealed that it wasn't too small. If anything, it was slightly baggy, as though they'd anticipated him being bigger. It was better than a long-sleeve shirt and pants being embarrassingly short.

As for the color... well, at risk of disappointing the fairies, orange happened to be one of his favorites. He hoped that spending some time at the prison wouldn't change that. Perhaps the others were already working on a way to get him out. Breaking him out was feasible, with Foaly having designed the security systems of the prison. But it would be so obvious, and so very difficult to sneak past Sool. Holly was a civilian now, so she didn't have any sway with the LEP. Butler was above ground, and Mulch would have a hard time getting a surface visa as an ex-convict. It wasn't looking good.

That was also assuming that the fairies would be interested in getting him out in the first place. He thought they were building a rapport, but for them to break the law just to save him was a bit of a stretch. The best hope Artemis had was the possibility Sool would need him for something. Then, he could wager for his freedom. But until then...

He crossed his arms over his chest, once again thankful for the fact that the shirt was baggy. This was going to be a test of his ability to stay calm under pressure, and even his physical resilience if the goblins had anything to say about it.

It was just a test. If he saw it as an experiment, he wouldn't crack under the pressure. He had been given a sentence that lasted centuries, long for a fairy but a multiple lifelong sentence for a human. But the LEP tended to need him, so he would be out in a few months, tops. It was just about surviving until then.

The door swung open and the guards filed in, without knocking. The corner of Artemis' mouth twitched, his only indication of stress. It was time to be introduced to his lodgings.

The path into the cell block of the prison was pockmarked by guards and dotted with cameras. Artemis was dragged past them, as apparently the guards still hadn't given up on the idea that he might try to run, despite it being hopeless.
He knew that Foaly could design the cameras to be completely invisible, and it was highly likely that there were various hidden ones all around the building. The visible cameras were just to remind the prisoners that they were being watched, discouraging misbehavior. Hopefully, that meant that nobody would try anything, but Artemis wasn't confident that the guards would care. Thankfully enough, Foaly would still be on his side. He could tap into the cameras, regardless of legality. If something illegal happened, the centaur would be more likely to send the information to someone who could possibly do something about it.

Still, what qualifies as ‘illegal’ to a bunch of fairies holding a human being captive was up to some interpretation.

He passed by laser bars, formerly despondent goblins sitting on the bunks of their cells lit up with surprise at the sight of a human child passing by, accompanied by armed guards. At least one goblin had recognition in their eyes, which they licked with a forked tongue to make sure they weren't imagining things. Rough voices called out as they passed, and the guards had an amused glint in their eyes at the way Artemis hunched his shoulders defensively. One of them hit the wall with a buzz baton, and the goblins in the cell next to it jumped away from the sparks. They were immune to fire, but LEP weaponry was something else entirely.

Finally they arrived at a series of empty cells, raspy voices only echoing behind him as they stopped at one in the middle and marched him inside. Artemis analyzed both bunks, and heaved a quiet sigh of relief once he was reassured that nobody else bunked here. The LEP weren't quite uncaring enough to room Artemis with a goblin who might kill him, at least not yet.

"Welcome home," snickered a guard, and they shoved him inside of the room with a bundle of bedding and a pillow. "If you need anything, just ring the bell and we'll come running, ey rich boy?"

Artemis chose not to respond; he was able to recognize when it was a better idea to hold his tongue, at least occasionally. The electric blue laser bars popped out of the floor with a buzz and cast light all over the room as soon as the guard stepped away, and they left him alone in the chilly metal box.

Artemis' arms crossed over his chest once more, hugging his bedding, and he turned around to take in the space. Two bed frames, though only one had a mattress inhabiting it. Cold stone walls, and one bedside table, for all the good that would do him. A small walled-in area in the corner, which he assumed had to be the restroom. Barbaric for a normal fairy to have indoor plumbing, but acceptable for fairy prisoners, he assumed. He scanned the walls with his eyes, one finger pointing where he looked, until he identified that the upper right corner would have the best vantage point in the room. He then proceeded to wave at the hidden camera. Whatever security they had watching the prisoners would get a kick out of that. Hopefully Foaly would too, if he bothered to review the footage. Further inspection into the bathroom revealed there was a toilet of what appeared to be more metal, with a small sink and a toothbrush

A feeling of predictable uncertainty hovered over him, borne from the fact that Butler was absent from his immediate situation. This was the longest he had ever been apart from the man. He swallowed against the shaky sensation of fear, distancing himself from his emotions.

Artemis proceeded to busy himself with putting sheets and blankets on his meager little bed. Thankfully, the mattress was large enough for a particularly big fairy, which meant it was well-sized for a newly fourteen-year-old human child. At least, one who was a bit on the short side. He wouldn't have to worry about his legs hanging off of the bed on top of everything else, not unless he was there long enough for a significant growth spurt.

He sat down on the mattress, rubbing his arms. It was cold in prison, which would definitely help to keep the goblins more docile. Artemis, however, was warm-blooded. The chill wasn't going to be doing his emotional state any favors. The bedding seemed thick enough, but he wasn't looking forward to having to deal with the cold, stale, filtered fairy air for most of the day.

The silence became very noticeable. Once the goblins had been told to shut up, even the echoes of activity in the distance faded away, and the only noise left was the constant buzzing coming off of the electric blue bars separating him from freedom. Their light was searing, but without them he would be in total darkness.

Considering fairies were nocturnal, perhaps the bright light was a comfort when they were trying to sleep. They could curl up in the relative darkness of the room with glaring, giant nightlights. Or, daylights. It was daytime, and Artemis wasn’t particularly tired. But clearly sleep was expected of them all.
He sat on the bed, feet brushing against the floor. Well, it seemed that his internal clock was going to have to make some adjustments sooner or later. He pulled his legs onto the bed and crossed them, resigning himself to meditation for however long he had until night fell, and the underground day began.

-

Artemis was startled out of his meditative state from a yell right outside of the bars of his cell. "Wakey wakey, mud boy!" An elf shouted, and a capsule was pushed through a covered tube in the wall to land on the floor near his bed. Breakfast, he assumed.

He looked up to the guard. "Am I not going to be let out for the- night?" He questioned. It was the norm in human prisons to actually let their prisoners outside during the day. The guard scoffed. "Are you trying to die?"

Well, if they were going to be so frank about it.

"Are you ever going to allow me outside of this cell?" His heart started beating faster. He wasn't prepared to spend so much time in one place, alone. It would be an understatement to say that it wasn’t natural for a human to be completely alone for a matter of days, let alone weeks or months.

The guard flipped down his visor, unnecessarily hiding the fact that he was rolling his eyes. "You'll get your time outside. Two days a week, that should be enough." He walked away, muttering about spoiled mud boys and the surface. Artemis' fingers curled into the mattress. His eyes were wide as he slowly turned his head to look back at the capsule on the floor.

Two days a week outside, and aside from that he would just be in his cell, languishing. They weren't required to let him out at all besides those two days. What even was out? He was still underground. It wasn't as if there would be a sun.

He slid off of the bed and onto the floor, grabbing the capsule with both hands and opening it. It was a salad. Fitting. They were fairy people after all, most of them were vegan or vegetarian, and in prison you don't get to be picky. At least because it was fairy food, all of the vegetables were fairly fresh and good quality. They had supposedly picked through it to make sure everything was edible to a human, there was even a choice of different sauces. How kind of them. His accompanied drink was water, which was reasonably good quality as well, to their credit.
Artemis picked through the salad, judging each bit by its nutrient and vitamin content. He wasn't impressed, it was filling but not enriched with everything a human needs to be healthy. Hopefully, they would branch out for a more complete diet. After all, it wasn't like Artemis could do it himself.

The day passed by achingly slowly, nothing happened on Artemis' side of the prison apart from the occasional guard walking past to make sure he was where he was supposed to be. Eventually another capsule was deposited in his cell, which he would only assume meant it was lunch time. All Artemis could do to occupy his time was meditate, or count the fibers in his blanket if he was feeling spicy.

As a guard passed him by for the fifth time that day, he was ready for them, sitting a couple of feet away from the bars. “Excuse me,” he called, attempting to be polite. The guard stopped, posture tense, and Artemis continued. “Is it possible I could get my hands on a few books, to pass the time? If I’m not going to be let out at all.”

The guard snorted. “Yeah, and I’m sure you’re going to use any info you get on us for good, right? We’re not your maids, mud man.”

As the guard stalked off, Artemis felt his heart sink. He supposed it was too much to hope that they would extend such a courtesy to him. So he was stuck, forced into minimalism and days of living with nothing but his own thoughts and the clothing on his back.

Well, if Buddhist monks could do it, so could he. It's just that, at least the monks had each other, and the choice to leave. Admittedly, he wasn't quite sure if this qualified as solitary confinement. After all, he did see and hear people occasionally, it's just that none of them were human and all of them would rather he be dead. If it did qualify, however... if it did... This was very bad.

The second day at the prison, Artemis was beginning to feel the effects of the forced nocturnal schedule. He'd been able to fall asleep from pure exhaustion at the right time, but he woke up feeling strange and groggy. The lighting never changed, and it was confusing his internal clock. As he woke up that day and more salad was deposited into his cell (it kept being salad, it never strayed far from greens) he had the creeping feeling of dread that came with realizing that this could turn into his daily routine for a long time. Given how uncomfortable he already felt, having goosebumps almost 90% of the time, that was a bad sign.

It was a few hours later, filled only with breakfast and then meditation, that the blue laser bars suddenly vanished and sent him into almost complete darkness. It startled him out of limbo, and his eyes adjusted to recognize the dim silhouettes of three guards standing in front of him.

"...Am I going outside?" His voice was flat, designed not to betray his interest. Instead of answering, they activated their buzz batons, and Artemis got up to walk with them without saying anything.

The 'outside' courtyard area of the prison was about what Artemis was expecting. The goblin triad, or B'wa Kell, was the main thing uniting most of the occupants of the prison together, but a number of the goblins came from other hostile subsections. That, or they were there on separate offenses, or simply hyped each other up too much to stay in the same vicinity for too long. Therefore, the courtyard was separated into different areas, so they could maximize time spent outside without having to make all of the other goblins wait their turn. The areas were separated by thick chain link fence, fireproof, and though it could technically be scaled, there really wasn't any point in trying. The seeker-sleeper would just activate mid-climb, or a guard would electrify the fence.

Aside from the fence, the area was dense with grown foliage. Depriving all prisoners of the natural world would be too cruel for a fairy, so the outside area was the equivalent to a garden, albeit an overgrown and slightly charred one. It consisted mostly of grass.

So as to avoid death by fireball or dismemberment, Artemis was separated into a much smaller, hastily assembled section of fence. It felt almost like being on a stage in front of an audience that hated in his guts. As he was directed into the fenced-off area- which was a lot like his cell with slightly fresher air and nowhere to sit but grass- hundreds of eyes with no eyelids turned to stare at him. Needless to say, Artemis was standing in the corner farthest away from the scaley fairies.

After almost two days all by himself, being surrounded by so many hostile people was overwhelming him. His breathing picked up, and he felt a cold sweat at his back, adding to his discomfort. Were they ever going to let him shower? Or were they content to let him waste away like this?

"Hey, mud boy. Hey!" A goblin called out to him from the closest gate, and his eyes flicked over. "C'mere, I won't hurt you," he chuckled, though any illusion of safety was destroyed with the fact that the fairy had a fistful of flames. "You're the mud boy who ruined everything, right?"

Artemis averted eye contact, and deigned to settle himself onto the grass. Grass stains seemed like a small price to pay to feel less uncomfortable. The goblin continued to call out, joined by a few of his buddies, but Artemis ignored them.

Internally, he wished he had the ability to call flame whenever he so chose. It would banish the chill from him and give him some small measure of safety, light, comfort. But right now, it was only the promise of pain. So instead of responding to the continued calls of the goblins trying to lure him within burning distance, he tried to enjoy the time he had hearing other voices and feeling the grass before he had to go back inside.

A mercy among mercies followed him back into the prison walls, as he was allowed to shower and received a clean set of clothing afterwards. The water was lukewarm, but it was fine enough, and he had soap. Fully organic soap. Aside from that, the atmosphere wasn’t particularly comforting. The walls and floor were cold and harsh metal, and he almost slipped and cracked his head open the moment he stepped inside. However, the privacy he was given this time felt like a mercy rather than another punishment.

The joy of cleanliness after his shower was quickly destroyed by dread as he was taken back to his cell to continue languishing. Another request for a book was met with stony silence, and he sighed deeply. Meditation it was.
Having passed the goblin cells, he noted the presence of books on their desk tables. Supposedly, Artemis was considered to be too dangerous to be allowed information that might give him some kind of hint about fairykind, despite him knowing more than enough about that already to be dangerous to them regardless.

As soon as he reached his cell, the day continued predictably. And the one after that, and the one after that, until he was finally let outside again. Two times a week, they said. But aside from that he was just sitting and doing nothing, all alone. It was beginning to cause... issues.

He wasn't curling up into a ball and screaming or anything so dramatic, but the fact that he was alone and so unable to entertain himself was dampening his mood quite severely. Being pushed from his normal circadian rhythm made it worse; he never felt the light of day. He had always had heightened emotions at night time, whether it be from his hidden concerns regarding his family or his determination to prove himself, it was all a part of the process of the brain switching tracks. Now though, his negative emotions were a strong focus.

Artemis sat against the wall, knees to his chest. Stretching had worn him out quickly, and full exercise was already too much effort on a good day. Without being able to control his showers, sweating sounded even more unpleasant than usual.

A guard started walking past his cell, lingering a moment to make sure he wasn't doing anything suspicious. Just the sight of another person sent Artemis' heart pounding, but his wide-eyed stare threw the guard off, and he hurried away. He considered calling out for a moment, but obviously didn't. That would no doubt just make things worse.

He was simply running out of the energy to distract himself. At some point, his brain was going to attempt to do that for him, no doubt with hallucinations of some kind. He shuddered, thinking of his mother’s past condition. Could the fairies heal him of his mental strife, if something like that were to happen to him? Would they even bother?

At some point he would have to resign himself to trying everything he could for entertainment.

He hummed quietly as he composed symphonies in his head. Measures added to already completed works. His fingers itched to touch a piano, or write something down, but all he had was his imagination. He remembered entire books that he had read, even ones he had written himself, and read them over and over in his own mind. Back to front, even backwards, and upside-down. He revised his own studies, posed new theorems, though it would've been much nicer to be able to record them somewhere. A journal, anything, but the guards seemed to think he would use anything they gave him for escape. Perhaps Sool himself had advised them against it. At some point, he caught himself tempted to try scratching drawings into his own skin using his fingernails, but quickly distracted himself from the thought. He wouldn’t lower himself to that after only a few days.

He began describing his surroundings to himself in excessively detailed prose. The shine of the metal flooring, the color of the bars and their buzzing, the seemingly infinite empty cells visible from beyond his own confines. After describing his own bed for a solid twenty minutes, he approached it and began examining the piece of furniture for any visible screws or bolts keeping it together. He successfully managed to locate them, and found them to be impressively tiny, yet still extremely solid. That unfortunately dashed his hopes of being able to take it apart, or any other piece of furniture he was provided.

It was then that he came to the conclusion that he was running out of ideas.

Artemis had a genius brain. One of the brightest ever recorded, certainly the highest IQ in Europe. It gave him options for an active mind, but there was the detriment that with nothing to do, if felt like that very mind would eat itself alive.

To rid himself of the panic that thought brought him, he stood up and began to pace back and forth across his cell, controlling his breathing. He was stronger than his concerns, he was reasonably safe and unbothered, he wouldn’t let himself collapse with anxiety. His brain was like no other, he would overcome this. He could overcome anything.

Artemis glanced warily to the invisible camera he knew had to be on the wall, wondering if anybody was watching. Security, Foaly, maybe even Sool. The Commander would probably get a kick out of it if he knew Artemis was panicking, but it was getting to the point that there wasn't much else he could do. The guards had a strict night and day schedule, though Artemis always had a ticking clock in the back of his mind to tell him the time. He had the mental real-estate, as much as the thought was anger-inducing.

He missed the daylight, fresh air, and things to do. His study, his room, not feeling cold all the time. Most of all, he missed the Butlers, his parents, and he even missed Holly and the other fairies he'd gotten to know. Tears pricked at his eyes. Frustrated, he turned away from the wall and scrubbed at them. He didn't want his weakness to be recorded, not face to face.

Eventually he tired out from the pacing, and retreated to his bed. It would be lights out soon enough, he might as well try to sleep as much as he could to avoid being awake in this nightmare.

The next morning (or night, technically) when he was taken outside, the time in-between felt like a blur, as though he had disassociated on the way to the yard. Once he was finally there, the sights and sounds were more overwhelming than ever. He sat on the grass in his usual corner, arms wrapped around his chest. It felt like he had to hold himself to keep it together, everything was so loud, but if he seemed to be distressed then they might take him back to the silence and loneliness and that would be even worse. Artemis silently cursed himself for giving in to his emotions so soon after he promised himself he wouldn’t become vulnerable so easily, but he was surrounded by people who hated him after being stuck in a cold metal cell by himself for days nonstop, so there was only so much logical reasoning could do for him at that point.

After having tried and failed to gain his attention by taunting him with fire, throwing grass and socks, and hurling threats, the goblins seemed pretty content to ignore him, given that they had realized they wouldn't get much of a reaction out of the human. Now, however, Artemis was more interested in watching them interact, to the point that it seemed to make a few of them avoid looking at him even harder.

Except for one group. The largest goblin of the group seemed... familiar. Artemis' eyes narrowed slightly as he sorted through his returned memories. As the goblin made eye contact with him, he realized: General Scuta. One of the most important goblins in the B'wa Kell revolution, and the goblin that had spun him around to face several fireballs when he'd broken into Opal's main terminal.

The goblin himself licked his eyeballs (a sight Artemis was unfortunately starting to get used to) and it was obvious that he remembered the same moment. It was difficult to tell emotion from a goblin's face, they had no eyelids or eyebrows after all, and were covered in scales. So it came as a surprise when Scuta extended a hand and gestured Artemis closer.

His eyebrows gathered together in clear suspicion. Most of the goblins had already given up, but Scuta clearly had an idea. Artemis was certain that the goblin would hold the failure of the rebellion against him just as much now as he did before, and he probably just wanted to lure him closer for nefarious reasons.

But, Artemis really wanted to talk to someone. To have an actual conversation, and maybe this could give him some information, or Scuta had something interesting to say, or something. He didn't really care, he just wanted to speak to another person.

Gradually, he moved himself across the grass to be within hearing distance of the goblin and his small posse. They all stared at him, and the fear and anticipation of the interaction started to make his hands shake. They were just goblins, they couldn't have anything enlightening to say, but he was desperately in need of some kind of mental stimulation. Any mental stimulation.

Scuta's forked tongue flicked from his mouth, before he spoke. "So the LEP got to you too, ey mud boy?" Artemis paused for a moment, before nodding. He believed he could see where this was going. The goblin chuckled.

"I remember you," Artemis said, unnecessarily. "You're one of the goblin generals. Scuta? You tried to kill me."

"I tried to kill a lot of people," The goblin waved it off, and his buddies hissed and snickered. "You were getting in the way, was what I thought, but Cudgeon made us all look like fools. You almost died, I almost died." He seemed to weigh them as though they were the same, and though Artemis felt that the goblin was clearly in the wrong, he nodded in hesitant agreement that they had both pulled the short stick. It had been close.

"He's gone now, I don't know if you were told. Incinerated." He wrapped his arms around his middle again. It hadn't been very pleasant to watch. The goblins all grinned.

"Goood," one snarled. "He was a traitor, traitors deserve to die..." One of the other goblins pat his buddy on the shoulder.

"So," Scuta continued. "You're in goblin prison. Why?"
Artemis sat up. "The new Commander Sool put me in here, he blamed the rebellion on my kidnapping of Captain Short, and said that our agreement ended as soon as my memories returned." The goblins all hissed, and made generally threatening noises. Artemis leaned back, but quickly realized that they weren't necessarily angry at him.

"Stupid, stupid!" Scuta growled. "The rebellion would happen either way! We're tired of being treated this way, we want more than this, we don't need him!" The boy wasn't certain he fully agreed, not yet.

"Do you see the way you're treated as unfair?" He raised a brow, quizzical.

"There are no ELF prisons, are there?" was the simple reply. Artemis' eyes darted around, to the hundreds of goblin prisoners, then to the majority elfin guards.

"...Point taken."

"We goblins know who we are," the General continued, to the agreement of his fellows. "We know we're not all the brightest."
"Some more than others," One of them snickered, and received both glares and laughs in response. Another goblin pawed him in the snout, and he grinned. Artemis watched, intrigued.

"Nobody wants to hire goblins, because they say we're not bright enough. Who teaches goblins? Only more goblins. Nobody believed we can do anything," Scuta was grimacing, and with his lack of eyelids it looked rather intimidating, particularly with the fact that the fairy was a few inches taller than Artemis.

"Your education system is lacking?" Artemis scooted a couple of feet forward, towards the fence. This wasn't the kind of information he had access to. Was it possible that there was more to this?

The other goblins seemed pleased that the human was genuinely paying attention. "People see little point in teaching goblins when we grow up just to join gangs," One chimed in. From the slightly disgruntled but resigned grunts and frowns of the others, Artemis got the idea that this one wasn't technically part of the goblin triad. "Our brains are too small, they say. Maybe, but then what? We deserve a chance."

Artemis lifted a hand to stroke his chin in thought. "So you don't get a solid education, you're not hired for anything that requires focus or a clever mind, everyone already believes you're good for nothing, so you might as well join the B'wa Kell?" The goblins nodded, licking their eyeballs in slightly delayed harmony, proud to get the point across.

Scuta grinned. "I thought to myself, if the human is as smart as they say, he would understand. I was right," He gestured Artemis even closer, and, curious, he obliged. "The LEP is meant to help, hm?" Artemis nodded, and Scuta continued. "Then they would not put you in here with us." At Artemis' troubled expression, the fairy leaned closer. "Goblins want to be understood, so does the Mud boy, right? Maybe the goblins and the human can understand each other? An enemy of the LEP is my friend."

Artemis felt like this conversation was, perhaps, a huge betrayal to the entire LEP on principle. However, he'd never exactly been allied with them, he'd only ever really been allied with Holly, Foaly, and Root. His consideration must have been evident on his face, because the General grinned wider. Fast as a whip, a smaller goblin's hand reached through the wide enough gap under the fence and pulled at Artemis' arm. He gasped as it was yanked to the other side of the fence, and Scuta quickly reached a reddening hand down and grabbed his forearm, burning his skin in a flash. There was a feeling of almost cold, before the white hot burn of fire struck his nerves and Artemis let out a surprised scream, yanking his arm away as soon as he was able and falling onto the grass on his back. Scuta laughed. "Now we are even!"

Artemis leveraged himself up on his unburned arm, glaring with tears in his eyes. He looked down to the burning arm and stared in shock at the bright red mark, in the shape of a large goblin's hand, bulkier than his own. He looked up at a hint of light out of the corner of his eye; Scuta had blue sparks flying around his hand. With more silent suspicion, Artemis moved forward slowly, and reached his arm just close enough that some of the sparks touched the mark and eased the pain enough to be tolerable. Still, the handprint remained.

The other goblins were still chortling to themselves, and one of them grabbed the chain link to get his attention. "Come back over again, ey? Mud boy looks pathetic and lonely in his little corner." Before Artemis could respond, surprised, the gates began to open, and his time outside was officially over. With one last look to the group, he stood up, the pain in his arm pulsing with his heartbeat. It would be his only company when he returned to his secluded cell.

Rather than ask for medical attention, however, he chose to hide the burn. Artemis could sense the implication of the mark, it wasn’t just a burn of revenge, it represented a connection to the goblins. He could bear some pain if the reward was a decreased chance of attack.

-

Another week passed. Everything was getting worse. A lot worse. Every mental activity Artemis could think of to pass the time was just making him feel more helpless. At this point the only thing he could think of to do was move around and then meditate. He would get up, the urge to move impossible to ignore, and run to each side of his cell before quickly tiring out and sitting back down. A guard passed one time he was doing this, and paused for a moment with obvious bewilderment. Then he shrugged, and continued walking before Artemis could start asking him any questions.

As he was sent out into the yard again, he started walking over to Scuta’s group without being invited, and initiating more conversation.

“How did you start learning military strategy?” He asked, genuinely curious. Scuta grumbled.

“I had a mentor. He is dead now, too much alcohol. I am not as careless,” he glared at the rest of his group and was met with hasty nodding in agreement.

Artemis hugged his knees to his chest. “I would offer to teach you a game of strategy, so I could see your abilities in action. However, I would have no way of accessing something I could use in place of pieces for any board game.”

“Are you allowed no personal items?” The general hissed, curious. Artemis shook his head, and a couple of the other fairies gave each other a silent side-eye at the information.

“You must be creative to have defeated us,” Scuta continued, oblivious to Artemis’ less-than-charitable thoughts about that particular statement. “You can use those abilities here. Be less tasteful.”

That phrasing was interesting enough that Artemis started thinking. In what ways was he still attempting to be tasteful? To keep up appearances? Perhaps he couldn’t afford such trivialities anymore.

Artemis started considering different uses for the food he was given, storing sauce packets under his pillow. Just that small act of rebellion was entertaining enough for a while, but quickly lost its luster as nobody seemed to notice when the capsule was taken back after about an hour. Still, perhaps he could use the packets for something… creative.

-

Sleeping became borderline impossible. The room was always cast in blue, but Artemis began to see bursts of color out of the corners of his eyes, and he knew that they were likely minor hallucinations brought on by the monotony. They existed when he closed his eyes as well, and only served to remind him that this could mean his mind was quickly deteriorating from the isolation and mistreatment.

At some point he had decided to move all of his bedding off of the mattress and set it up in a sort of fort, just to make things more interesting, and to escape the camera in the corner of the room. The guards didn't seem to know what to make of this, but they were more distracted by the fact that every time one of them passed, Artemis would try to get their attention by calling out, louder and louder, and moving his arms in large sweeping movements that would be hard to miss. They would quickly busy themselves with ignoring him and walking faster. He would have to fine-tune his strategy to force interaction.

The burn on his arm hurt for a while, but eventually faded into tingling, then barely felt like anything at all. He found himself pressing it occasionally for the feeling, because at least that was something that sparked some vague interest in his brain.

The other bed frame seemed like a solid addition to the fort.

-

The next time he was in the yard, more goblins were staring, but this time it was less about anger and more a sense of bafflement, or even slight concern. Artemis was starting to look as terrible as he felt. He was getting paler by the day, thinner, and deep purple bags hung under his eyes. When he moved, it was with a sense of lethargy, and there were no more traces of nervousness in his expression. He was simply too tired to be scared anymore. The nutrients he was getting were clearly not enough, he simply was not getting the protein and vitamins he needed to feel energized, and he couldn’t properly sleep when it was so dark almost all of the time apart from those bars and their infernal buzzing.

The goblins didn’t seem to know what to make of this. Whatever he was in for, it had to be bad for the LEP to let him slowly rot like he was. General Scuta, who was hoping to gain an unlikely ally out of this mess, was less than thrilled about it. Though on the upside of things, Artemis seemed more than willing to interact whenever he had the chance.

"You look like you haven't eaten in days," The General stated to Artemis, who sat despondently on the other side of the fence. The mud boy shrugged.

"I'm eating everything they give me, it just isn't a suitable diet, not for a human being." His voice was quieter than last week. The General's tongue flicked out in thought, as Lieutenant Geck responded, "Did you tell the guards?"

Half of the goblins there rolled their eyes, and Artemis sighed. "I told them, they never listen to me. They believe I'm asking for special treatment. Sool probably told them not to give me anything I ask for." He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself.

"Are you cold?" Squa chimed in. He wasn't part of the B'wa Kell, and was only really there for tax evasion. But he was good company. The mud boy shrugged again and settled his head into his arms. It seemed that even though he desired conversation, it still exhausted him so easily. The goblins looked at each other, and wordlessly, General Scuta lit his hand on fire, and a few of the others followed. Artemis glanced at them, warily. But, none of them were reaching towards him to burn him, they just kept the fire burning until the air around the group warmed enough to be comfortable. He closed his eyes, and sighed. "If only I had that ability. It's quite useful."

They seemed proud of themselves after that.

This was definitely going to forge a deeper bond that Scuta could use to keep the genius boy on their side, but it was also just a downer to see him so obviously suffering at the hands of the power that he nearly died several times to help out. Goblins could be careless with each other's safety at times, Scuta himself had gotten a good chuckle out of watching the ragtag gang that the boy had been a part of knocking over his own goblins like bowling pins, but that was because he knew that the LEP wouldn't do much more than put them in prison. A prison that they intended to abolish as one of the main goals of their collective. A few goblins did die from their own panic or stupidity, but the intent was to help goblins as a whole. Hopefully to prevent more stupid, meaningless deaths. They all knew what they were getting into, anyway.

If the human was on their side, at least enough to try and help the goblins after his friends inevitably break him out of the prison somehow, they could reasonably try and help him out while he was still there. After all, if the LEP got him killed first, he wouldn't exactly be useful, anyway.

Yes, that was exactly why the group of goblins were acting as a more efficient campfire for this human child. It was for mutual benefit, not because it was just messed up that they would put a child in a prison made for adults of another species, no, it was purely selfish. That's just it.

-

Foaly was a genius, he really felt like he wasn't given enough credit for how quickly and fantastically he schemed up solutions that would get LEP Retrieval and Recon out of tough situations. This situation was different, but he could handle it. He'd helped save the world as they know it more times than most human computers have counted to ten at this point, surely.

It's just that it was taking a while to think of something that would work, so in the meantime, Foaly was watching.

He had full access to the security cameras in Howler's Peak, obviously he would be using them to keep an eye on the painfully relevant Mud boy. Not all of the time of course, he had a job to do and he was very good at doing it, unlike some people. But, he tried to glance over every now and then, and recorded everything to keep it safe somewhere in case anything happened that he could hold against Sool later. Or maybe against Artemis later, if he did something embarrassing on camera.

From what Foaly had been able to glean from the hours he'd watched across the few weeks the Mud boy had already been there, Artemis was bored. Understandably, considering they didn't bother to give him any measure of entertainment. They'd secluded him, which Foaly had granted was probably the right idea considering how bloodthirsty goblins could be, especially the ones in prison, but it didn't make for a very good school field trip. He was slightly amused as he noticed the mud boy beginning to hide sauce packets under his pillow, and then a couple of days later proceeded to build a blanket fort. How bizarrely juvenile.

Whenever something particularly notable happened, he told Holly and Mulch. The two were between starting as private investigators, and trying to find a way to visit Artemis. The guards at Howler's Peak never let them or anybody else in to see the mud boy, as apparently Sool had expected them to try and visit him, perhaps to help him escape. They had considered that possibility, but that didn't mean it was very fair.

At the time, Foaly was checking through his daily tasks and refining blueprints, leaving the monitor with Artemis' cell displayed on the screen active. Artemis had figured out exactly where the camera was near instantly, the moment he'd first stepped into his cell. Foaly had gotten a good chuckle out of that. Besides, sometimes his little hummed piano pieces were nice background noise.

As of now, the mud boy seemed to be occupied just sitting near the laser bars of his cell and peering outside to try and spot the guards. He seemed to do that pretty often, just looking for something to occupy his mind with. Foaly sympathized, really, he didn't know if he could ever survive himself having so little to do. For now he seemed fine, so the centaur busied himself checking over his latest project.

A zap and a gasp played lightly from the speakers to his side, and Foaly's ears pricked up a moment before his head lifted and turned to the monitor. What was that about?

On the screen, Artemis cradled his hand to his chest, turning it over a few times as though assessing damage. Had he shocked himself with the laser? He did seem like he would be clumsy, so he had probably gotten so distracted looking for any movement that his lack of spatial awareness had gotten him hurt.

Well, it couldn't be that bad, the bars were intense electrical light, but one zap would be nothing more than a superficial second degree burn on human skin at the absolute worst. Foaly didn't design the bars to kill people. Just to discourage them. Still, he felt a bit guilty that he'd unintentionally gotten the human hurt, however indirectly. Well, that was human error, it was what he got for being so careless.

Foaly turned back to his work, frowning.

Another zap followed a minute later, and Foaly's eyes zeroed in on the screen in record time, somehow more surprised than he had been the first time.

Again? How did he make the same mistake twice? Artemis was a genius, he'd gotten past Foaly's technology, and the very rules of the people in ways the centaur didn't even think to look for. How did he make such a stupid mistake twice in a row?

He watched the screen this time, leaning his specially modified chair closer towards it. His project was all but entirely forgotten as he watched Artemis to see what he was doing. On the screen, Artemis sat at a near-three-quarter view in front of the bars, staring down at his hand. His face was a mask of downcast neutrality, and to Foaly's shock, after a minute or two he reached out and deliberately touched the laser bar with one of his undamaged fingers. Predictably, the light grew brighter for a moment while the laser zapped and burned the digit, and he let out another quiet gasp of pain.

Foaly sat back in his chair, flabbergasted. What the hell was the kid doing? It's almost like... it was like he was hurting himself on purpose. Was he going insane? Or did he have some kind of plan?

For all he thought about it, there was no way burning his fingers in sequence sounded anything like a plan, not unless it was some misguided attention-seeking behavior, but the guards wouldn’t care about that.

No matter how he twisted it, it only ever sounded like Artemis was trying to hurt himself. Just... because.

Something was deeply wrong, he could feel it. His back hooves clopped nervously on the ground, and he felt a roiling in his chest. What was driving the mud boy to do this? He could see him at practically any angle, and if anything particularly noteworthy had happened, Foaly would know about it.

He knew that Artemis had been burned by a few goblins, though it was something he hadn't told the others just yet. No need to kick them while they're already down, and he’d been healed soon afterwards by one of the very goblins who did that to him, for whatever reason. The mud boy had also continued interacting with the same goblins after being burned, and almost seemed to have made friends with them. The centaur was still trying to figure that one out.

But this, this seemed more important. Foaly wasn't known for being able to parse emotional problems easily, and he didn't know Artemis very well, either. Holly would know more, or even Mulch, or Butler once they finally managed to get a communicator to him on the surface. For now, maybe it was time to do a little research on humans in captivity.

-

Artemis could swear that it was only getting colder in the prison. Either that, or he was getting much weaker. The difference was gradual, but increasingly obvious. Pacing his cell was getting harder, which went against his expectations. He was getting wobblier as well, falling to the floor, and on one notable occasion falling into the laser bars, which gave him a first degree burn down one of his arms. That time, it wasn't intentional.

He started sitting down while he took showers, and all of his time outside was spent conversing with General Scuta and his group, leaning against the chain link fence to get closer to the fire they were holding.

In a lull of conversation, he watched as a couple goblins engaged in a friendly arm wrestling competition, a few others cheering them on from the sidelines. One, Lieutenant Geck, noticed his interest and grinned to himself.

“Challenge the mud boy next,” he pat the winning goblin on the shoulder, and they all turned to look at Artemis. The human’s eyebrows raised.

“I’m not exactly a worthy challenger when it comes to this, I have never… wrestled,” he clarified awkwardly. The goblin, lovingly referred to as ‘Fork’ by his companions, nonetheless moved towards Artemis’ fence.

“You defeated the rebellion, didn’t you?” He held his arm out, muscles flexing under his scaly flesh. Artemis pursed his lips, looking between the gathered fairies, now staring at them.

“I did that with my brain,” he said defensively, though he had exerted himself quite a lot on that day. Still, he was unlikely to impress. He reached through the fence, grasping the goblin’s hand in a pale imitation of the arm wrestling position he had witnessed with the others. In hardly a second, his arm was forced to the ground.

“Well at least try,” the goblin laughed. Artemis’ eyebrows bunched together.

“I did, I told you I would be no good.”

“Well you have to have a chance against someone,” Squa spoke up, though quite a few of the others didn’t seem so sure. “Try against the loser.”

The decently-muscled goblin who had been named ‘the loser’ didn’t seem all too happy about this, yet moved forward anyway, and defeated Artemis almost as quickly as the previous one had.

“I’ve seen goblins far weaker than these two,” General Scuta interjected, now amused. “Venna, you try.”

Another goblin came forward, and then another, and another, each one smaller than the last. A larger group of goblins outside of their immediate circle began to gather, interested in the spectacle, and it became a challenge to try and find the one goblin who Artemis wouldn’t lose to in an arm wrestling competition. Artemis found himself more engaged with this than he had been in anything for over a week.

“That one lasted for five seconds!” Geck called out victoriously after another competitor had made his challenge against the boy. “We’re getting closer!”

Artemis’ arm was becoming very tired, but he gave a small smile as the next goblin approached the fence, this one leaner than all of the rest. Clearly, he had not been hired for his size. The goblin extended his hand and met Artemis’, and with a short countdown they began trying to push the other’s arm down. After a tense fifteen seconds, Artemis miraculously managed to force the fairy’s knuckle to lightly knock against the ground.

The reaction was immediate and uproarious. Several goblins jumped to their feet and the rest yelled in victory, slapping each other on the shoulders. One ran up and shook the fence, in lieu of being able to tackle Artemis to the ground, which he was vaguely thankful for. Artemis laughed, surprising himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he had done that.

-

He was getting really sick of vegetables. They were all he ate nowadays. It didn't matter how fresh they were, he needed something richer, more fulfilling. It felt like he was wasting away physically and mentally. He didn't feel like thinking about the laser bars.

A part of him felt ashamed that he would do something as stupid as hurting himself on purpose, Butler would be so disappointed in him. But, his brain had to be melting by now, deteriorating with so little stimulation. He felt that if he could just see his family for a moment he would burst into hysterical tears.

One of the goblins was describing a past event, and regardless of how thrilling it might be, Artemis was zoning out, staring at the ground. His cheek had imprints where it was pushed into the fence, as he leaned against it heavily and mindlessly picked at his fingernails with his other hand.

Suddenly, a shadow passed in front of him, and his eyes flickered upwards just in time to see a guard before he was grabbed by the shoulders and lifted off of the ground.

"What-?" He questioned, panic growing. Scuta and the other goblins stood as well.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"Warden's orders," The guard replied simply, and began pulling Artemis towards the prison walls. Only half of the allotted time outside had passed, this could only mean that something had changed. Perhaps whoever was in charge had taken note of the fact that Artemis had seemingly allied with some of the goblins, and wanted to put a stop to it.

But that meant that he would lose his only interactions with other people. That he would be kept inside all of the time, where it's colder, and darker, and nobody spoke to him, and nothing ever changed or got better. This struck a chord within him, and then snapped it in two. He began pulling against the guard and yelling, jerking the elf forward and causing him to spit obscenities in his surprise, then call out in anger.
“Get off of me!” He bit out, surprising himself with his own ferocity as he moved and twisted away in short bursts of violent energy. Two other guards ran over, and all of the gathered goblins turned to stare at the commotion. A few of them even called for a fight. After one guard’s hand pulled at his shoulder, Artemis snapped his head towards the elf’s arm, and proceeded to sink his teeth into it. The guard screamed, and their movements turned from trying to drag Artemis backwards to forcing him down to the ground, inadvertently causing him to tear a chunk out of the man’s arm. One of the guards pulled a buzz baton, and connected it with Artemis' ribs. There was a blossoming pain and the metallic taste of blood, and then blissful nothing.

-

Foaly was fuming. Ever since the commotion he'd witnessed on the cams, he'd been increasingly desperate to get the show on the road with Artemis' release from prison. Sool had been infuriatingly stubborn, and threatened Foaly's paycheck, then continued existence in the LEP. The centaur knew that they would never survive without him, and at this point, he was willing to take a pay cut.

A week ago, Artemis was pulled into his cell completely unconscious, and since then he hadn't been allowed to go outside of his cell to do anything but shower. Once he'd woken up back in his cell, the boy had immediately entered a panic, and proceeded to scream at the top of his lungs until he ran out of breath. Then he just sat there on the floor, unmoving. Upon closer inspection, there seemed to be blood staining the front of his shirt. Now where did that come from? The scuffle had been so quick, he had hardly seen anything.

This sight had shaken Foaly, if he was being honest. He'd never seen someone fall apart so quickly in fairy captivity, but to be fair, he had never seen a human in fairy captivity. Nobody had.

His search for answers regarding Artemis' behavior had led him to a human study (not his favorite, but what else was he supposed to consider?) that put many humans into a room by themselves for an extended period of time, with a device that shocked them if they touched it. The study showed that when in there for a few hours, a not insignificant amount of people chose to deliberately shock themselves rather than continue to experience the boredom. Someone had even shocked themselves continuously, a frankly ridiculous amount of times.

It was baffling, to put it lightly. Foaly could hardly comprehend what would lead them to such irrational behavior. He could just chalk it up to human stupidity or barbarism, but this was Artemis, the smartest, most stuck up and posh human he had ever encountered. So why was he resorting to such extremes?

Why was he getting worse and worse every day? And why did nobody seem to notice, or care?

The centaur heaved a whinnying sigh, and resigned himself to even more research. He'd answered one question, but that wasn't enough. He needed to be able to present a case to Sool, so he needed information. That required more human studies, unfortunately.

It was getting late at the office, but Foaly was well known to take all-nighters when he was too absorbed in his work. It was all for the better, since he didn't want anyone to catch him searching Google.

He started combing the human internet with specific keywords and phrases. Prison, boredom, effects of confinement, long-term confinement, prison mental health, teenager prison, effects of confinement on teenagers. All of this gave him the same basic idea that he already knew. It was bad and could hurt people to confine them, which was obvious. It had worse effects on teenagers, he could guess that. Human prisons didn't seem to have all of their inmates reacting like Artemis did, however, and he couldn't just attribute it to a genius thing.

He glanced towards the monitor, showing a room that appeared to be empty, apart from the twin bed frames covered in bedding that he knew Artemis was hiding under. He frowned, and looked back to the research monitors. He added the term 'solitary' to the list of words, and instantly a large number of additional results crowded his screen. His eyebrows popped up. "Solitary confinement..." he muttered to himself, noting that the words appeared in the same way, all across the search results. "That's some specific terminology."

It was a phenomenon. That was his first indication that something serious was afoot.

Sensing a breakthrough, he isolated the term and began putting it in the search bar directly. Looking for the simple answers first, he wrote 'solitary confinement long term' in the search bar, and pressed enter.

Instantly, one word appeared in large, bolded letters on his screen. 'Devastating.'

He swallowed, and continued reading. 'The long-term effect of solitary confinement is devastating. It can leave individuals with mental illness unable to function in correctional facilities and unprepared to successfully reenter communities after their release.'

"Really...?" This seemed severe. But, human search engines were known for making mistakes sometimes, so he pressed on, and continued to look through search results, clicking on a tab about what solitary confinement does to the human brain. Besides, Artemis could hardly be considered ‘mentally ill’, could he?

'Grassian has since concluded that solitary can cause a specific psychiatric syndrome, characterized by hallucinations; panic attacks; overt paranoia; diminished impulse control; hypersensitivity to external stimuli; and difficulties with thinking, concentration and memory.'

His mouth felt dry, and he could feel his ears pressing flat against his skull. He kept reading, opening articles and processing the information with growing dread. The list of negative side effects for solitary confinement kept growing.

Eyesight deterioration, dizziness, weight loss, hypersensitivity to light and noise, sleep problems, trembling hands, anxiety, depression, hallucinations, panic attacks. It went on and on. Some stood out more than others.

Violent outbursts, he'd seen Artemis fight the guards in the recordings. Depression, that was obvious without even looking for it. Self harm? And suicide. The chance of suicide went up by about 73% for inmates who spent only a week in solitary confinement.

According to the article, it was considered inhumane. It was unlawful to put a human in solitary confinement for more than 15 days, and for humans younger than 21 it was completely outlawed. Artemis had been alone for weeks.

When Foaly got to a section about the heightened effects of solitary confinement on human teenagers, he had to back away from the screen, from the increasing feeling of nausea.

Humans require social contact. The articles and studies were saying it outright. It was something about their biology. They were pack mammals? But Foaly had always assumed they naturally hated each other.

Vitamin D deficiency, he had also seen that. Somehow, it had failed to occur to him. Humans were diurnal, of course Artemis would be suffering from Vitamin D deficiency after spending months underground. Fairies didn't need that much Vitamin D to survive. Humans did. They weren't just treating Artemis like a prisoner, they were treating him how the worst humans treated animals. They were actively torturing him in ways humans deemed to be one of the worst methods possible.

It shortens their lives, it changes their brain chemistry, permanently. How had they made such a grave oversight? Even Artemis didn't seem to fully anticipate the effects, or at least none of the guards were standing still long enough to listen to a word he said, and Foaly hadn't watched every minute of the recording to see if he'd mentioned solitary confinement.

Of course, now all of this fell on Foaly, and he would have to be the one to break it to Holly that the LEP may have accidentally broken her favorite mud boy. If he was being honest, Foaly was concerned about that too. Artemis may be irritating and he used to be dangerous, but he was also an intellectual marvel and really not that bad once you get to know him. Technically Foaly had spent the most time with the mud boy now, if you consider watching him on live camera to be hanging out.

He was also only fourteen years old, which according to his studies, was actually still remarkably young for a human. Maybe they didn't mentally age quite as fast as he'd first thought. At least, the human anthropologists didn't seem to think so, and Foaly knew from experience that being a genius doesn’t stop someone from being a child. He looked back on his own teenage years from time to time, and cringed from embarrassment.

Chancing another quick read-through, Foaly grimaced at the information the studies introduced. He needed to get Artemis out of there before he forgot how to interact with people, or even worse. He would have to tell Mulch and Holly about this, then Holly could tell Butler, because she was the one he was the least likely to kill about it.

Giving himself a moment to think, Foaly considered a few options he hadn't before. What if he didn't only tell Holly and Mulch about it?

He glanced toward his secret blog, that everyone definitely didn't know had him as the anonymous publisher. He had a fairly hefty following. So what if some of this information… found its way into the public consciousness? He hoped that those fairy activists who always pestered the LEP about human civil rights would be quick to jump on this.

The best way to combat a stubborn man in power? The world’s most powerful weapon. Really, really annoying people.

-

“Hey!”

The guard faltered in his footsteps, his chest already filling to the brim with dread and frustration. Every single time without fail, as soon as he passed by the human’s cell, something would happen. It was happening to the others as well. Fowl had become a popular break room topic.

“I would ask where you’re going, but I imagine it would be to continue stuffing your face in the break room, as always,” Came the soft yet oh-so-condescending voice from behind him. The guard tightened his grip on his buzz baton, and started counting down from ten.

The mud boy had managed to figure out exactly what each guard was insecure about, somehow. From trial and error most likely, though most of them didn’t believe they were giving off any physical clues as to what bothered them when he spoke. Unfortunately, it seemed that they hadn’t hidden it well enough.
He liked to hoard snacks in the break room, so what? It wasn’t anyone else’s business. And he wasn’t going to let this filthy human get to him because of it. No, he was just going to keep walking…

“Your mother must be so disappointed in you. Let me guess, does she call it baby fat?”

Nobody talks about his mother and gets away with it.

The guard spun around and stuck his buzz baton through the bars, narrowly missing the mud boy as he leaned back just in time to avoid a smack on the nose.

“Quiet if you know what’s good for you! Prisoner, he growled, patience thinning. His nose flared under his helmet as he imagined beating the human’s face to a pulp, but he wouldn’t get within biting distance. He had heard what the mud boy had done to another guard’s arm, it took a lot of healing to get rid of all of the bacteria, and even then there was still a dent left in its place.

“Very intimidating. Do you practice that in the mirror?” The human sat just slightly outside of range of the buzz baton. Despite the calm way he spoke, he had an excited look in his eyes, which threw the guard off a little. Usually people aren’t excited to be threatened by an authority figure. He growled out his reply, “This is your last chance to shut it.”

“Such barbaric behavior, one might mistake you as a human,” Artemis mocked.

Before the guard could turn off the laser bars and zap Artemis within an inch of his life for that insult, another guard unexpectedly grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Don’t let him get to you, it’s the attention that he wants.” The guard pulled him back, towards the railing and away from the bars.

The still incensed elf turned back to the mud boy, who was now glaring at the both of them, inches from the bars. “Such a bold claim. I could be attempting to escape.”

“Ignore him,” The other guard said, and steered the both of them back towards the direction of the break room.

After that, the guards started to warn each other about what the human really wanted from them. And once they stopped responding to his insults, Artemis’ tactics got bolder.

Every time a guard passed close enough to the bars, a pale hand would strike from between them and grab the passing fairy’s ankle. He received a lot of shrill noises of shock and quite a few zaps for his trouble, but for a while it accomplished his goal of some entertainment and contact. That is, until the guards all started walking at a further distance, too far for his fingers to grasp. He waited until one was nearing him, and reached out so far that his cheek tingled from being so close to the bars, but the man dodged him with ease.

“Wait,” he called out to the guard, trying for the third time that day. “Wait!” He stuck his arm through the bars as far as possible, face so close to the burning blue light that he was receiving another burn on his cheek for the trouble, but the guard hopped over his arm and continued on in silence.

Artemis watched the next guard pass by, two feet too far for his hand to have any hope to reach, and he felt creeping despair start to overwhelm him.

-

Time passed. He didn’t know how much, at some point he had lost count. During a bout of dizziness, most likely. He was getting dizzy every time he stood up, now. So, he had stopped standing up.

A capsule of food was sitting on the floor near the bars, untouched. Just the thought of eating any more salad made him feel sick, so he wasn’t bothering to attempt to choke down more than one meal a day.

Artemis sat against the wall, lazily trailing his fingers through the tufts of hair under his ears. His hair was due for a trim, and though that was the least of his worries, he couldn’t help thinking about it. Butler always trimmed his hair for him. Every time he closed his eyes, he could almost feel the chill of a pair of scissors against the nape of his neck, but as soon as he opened them, it was gone.

The buzz of the bars was slowly starting to drive him insane. They faded into the background often, but not as much anymore. It got to the point that the buzzing sounded like Holly’s mechanical wings fluttering, or the radioactive train in Russia chugging across the snowy terrain, or the low hum of his computers in his study room. All of the memories made his throat ache unbearably.

He couldn’t take this anymore. He was on the verge of losing himself entirely, and the only thing that would witness his breakdown was the invisible camera.

The buzzing only seemed to get louder and louder, tricking him into memories that he desperately wanted to go away. He just wanted everything to stop.

A sob ripped from his throat, and he pressed his face to his knees, hugging them to his chest.

The footsteps of an approaching guard slowed as they passed his cell, and almost seemed to come to a halt before they quickly picked up again and faded away.

For all Artemis knew, it had only been a trick of his mind.

-

Another day, another kind of attention-seeking behavior.

Artemis had decided to risk not only his continued safety, but his ability to eat as well. The next time a capsule of breakfast was deposited in his room, he proceeded to wait until the guard was gone before shoving it into his blanket fort, and sitting by the bars for the hour it took until they came to retrieve it. The guard waited a solid two minutes before he decided to show his impatience.

“Put the capsule into the slot, I don’t have all day,” he grouched.

“I don’t have it,” Artemis replied simply. The guard took a moment to process that.

“What do you mean you don’t have it?” He said much louder, and Artemis sat up straight, internally celebrating this little victory.

“What, is that a problem?” He pretended to examine his nails, indifferent. The guard slammed his buzz baton onto an electric bar, causing sparks to fly out of it angrily. Artemis watched them fall with interest.

“Of course it’s a problem!” He yelled, impatient, then stood up straight as he approached the wall. “Stand against the wall. Now.”

Artemis quickly did as he was told, and watched the bars disappear, leaving the room in relative darkness. The guard pointed his buzz baton at the human, staring at him with suspicion as he entered the room and began to search around for the capsule. Unfortunately, there weren’t many hiding spaces in the room, his fort and the bathroom were about all there was that wouldn’t be very conspicuous. After searching around in the fort for a bit, the guard took the capsule out of it with short, angry movements. He proceeded to kick the fort until all of his bedding was on the ground, and turned to point his baton back at the human watching him intensely.

“If you do this again, there will be serious consequences. I’ll make sure of it.”

Artemis watched the man go, and started thinking of where he could hide it next.

-

Another couple of days past and after multiple attempts to force different guards to play hide and go seek with his capsule, they threatened him with taking away all of his bedding if he tried it one more time. So, Artemis was left with limited options. Still, he could get a lot of mileage out of them yet. He just had to get more creative.

The next guard who passed by Artemis’ cell would be shocked to see a decently accurate, three foot long, four foot wide floor painting of Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, made entirely out of sauce from the packets he had been hiding in his bathroom for weeks. The guard stopped and stared at the painting long enough that another guard making his rounds caught up with him, and discovered Artemis working on the piece of art. The amount of work he had managed to get done between guard rounds was somewhat astounding.

“What in the name of Frond… Hey!” The second guard’s words startled the first fairy out of his stupor and he started spluttering out excuses.

“Well it was just… I didn’t- I don’t know how he did that-” he hastily explained, and was swat over the head by the other guard. Artemis watched, bemused.

“It’s contraband!”

“It’s primarily ranch and marinara, actually,” Artemis replied, quietly, still focused on his work. Abruptly the angry guard slammed his hand on the control panel beside his cell to get rid of the bars, and marched to stand directly on top of the art. Artemis frowned, but didn’t have time to protest before the elf’s baton smacked him in the back of his head, causing him to see stars.

“Get the custodian, I’ll handle it,” he grumbled, and the embarrassed fairy rushed away to follow the order. The elf quickly turned back to Artemis, who rubbed his head to rid himself of the pain. The guard quickly grabbed his arm and dragged the boy back to push him against the wall, arm over his neck. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth, mud boy,” he growled.

Artemis proceeded to go against expectations by wrapping his hands around the elf’s forearm, keeping it where it was. The guard was thrown off for a second as the human didn’t attempt to push him away, but steeled himself once more.

“Where did you get the supplies for this?” He barked. Artemis looked up with an innocent expression.

“Supplies?” He questioned.

“Yes, the supplies!” Shouted the guard, impatiently. Artemis glanced over to the smudged painting on the ground.

“I think you mean ‘ingredients,’” he mocked. The guard harshly shoved his other shoulder into the wall, doubtlessly leaving another bruise.

“Don’t be cheeky with me you little waste, I can go to the warden about the pathetic act you’re putting on and you’ll get what you deserve!”

“Please do,” Artemis urged, and they were interrupted by a couple more guards as well as the custodian before the elf could proceed to throttle him for his insolence.

The sauce painting was promptly cleared away, though the custodian poorly hid how amused he was by the spectacle, commenting on how he wished he could take a picture. Artemis was forced against the wall for the entire cleaning procedure, forced to watch his painting scrubbed off of the ground and the rest of his hidden sauce packets found and taken out of their hiding place, and was only let go once the other guard and custodian were out of the cell. He was harshly shoved to the ground as the last one left, still incensed.

Artemis scrubbed his finger across the ground where the art had once been, and sighed as it came up clean. He wasn’t too disappointed however, as he had gotten what he wanted in the end: some interaction, entertainment, and physical contact. He still felt a bit of a shaky buzz from just being in the same room as multiple other people, and the spectacle was a breath of fresh air.

Artemis hummed to himself as he considered his next step: getting in even worse trouble.

-

The next day, Artemis realized he hadn’t even attempted to stand up since the last time he was pushed to the floor. His legs were weak, and holding himself upright for more than a few seconds felt like a near-impossible task, one he was forced to reckon with as he was retrieved for a shower a few hours after waking up.

At first, he attempted to walk with the guards to the showers, but quickly realized it was in his better interest to go completely limp and let them drag him there by force. Less effort, and more physical contact. The guards however, were not happy about this, and he would note bruises starting to form on his forearms once he was returned to his cell.

Artemis sat on the floor and waited for his hair to dry completely before he dared attempt his next plan. And his last, as far as effort was concerned, he would soon be in no shape at all to cause much trouble, as his physical faculties were failing him also as fast as he was mentally breaking down.

No human being was ever meant to be secluded for so long, particularly noone as young as 14 years old. He was just as aware as any renowned psychologist what horrible side effects long term solitary had on a young mind, but he was powerless to stop those very effects from causing him to develop harmful coping mechanisms to cope with the strain.

Even in the shower, far away from his electric bars, Artemis had heard their buzzing. An auditory hallucination, no doubt. He would hear the yowling of trolls occasionally echoing in the distance, keeping him from sleeping. Invisible fingers ghosting his forehead, and pain in his chest, shadows in the corners. None of it was real, nor was it keeping him away from the temptation of taking drastic measures to cause enough of a distraction for guards to be stationed around him at all times.

Artemis carefully wrapped a blanket around himself and pushed to a standing position on the metal wall. This blanket had many torn, frayed fibers, after he had picked at it for days on end. Unlike his fairy polyester clothing, it was made out of a more comfortable cotton, meant to trap warmth inside of it for goblins that couldn’t easily regulate their own body temperature.

Artemis leaned against the wall for a long moment, then all at once used what little energy he had left in his legs to push himself into a run, colliding directly with the electric bars and causing sparks to fly in different directions from the point of impact. He held himself against the bars stubbornly for a solid five seconds, leaning against them until the burning was intense enough that he let out a cracking scream of pain, long enough that the sparks ignited the blanket and it burst into flames. Artemis quickly threw it off of him and landed on the floor on his back, panting in exertion. Just seconds after the smoke hit the air, coolant sprinklers quickly put it out, and an alarm sounded from just outside of his cell as the electric bars shut off to allow easy access into the cell for the coming guards.

Artemis sighed as the coolant hit his burns and doused the burnt remains of his blanket, and the footsteps of guards pounded in the distance. He stayed awake just long enough to see one standing over him, and feel a painful touch on his burned wreckage of an arm.

-

Holly stared at the screen with such intense focus, one could almost be tricked into thinking that something was actually happening on it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

For all the extra power Foaly was diverting (not a lot) into keeping that screen active 24/7, the footage showing Artemis’ cell had been extremely uneventful, and devoid of Artemis for the past couple of days. Either the mud boy was moving around only when Foaly wasn’t looking, or he hadn’t left his bizarre blanket fort in all that time.

After that absolute mayhem broke out in his cell a few days previously, causing Foaly to pace around his office in a fervor and grill himself on what he should do about it, he had finally decided to fill Holly in on everything he could. That could have been an escape attempt, or at least that was what everyone was assuming it was. Foaly saw it as something else: a desperate attempt for interaction. That was what all of the mud boy’s little escapades had been, this one was just the most severe.

More guards had been stationed around his cell, so technically he had gotten what he wanted, yet paid a hefty price for it.

“Have you told me everything you know?” Holly asked for possibly the 5th time in the last hour. Foaly sighed.

“Yes, I have. And nothing new has happened for days now.” Foaly tapped the screen, as though it were the glass of a fish tank. He supposed that would make Artemis the fish. “The only reason I’m not panicking more is that I know he’s taken water bottles in there with him, so he probably isn’t dead.”

“Probably?!” Holly was putting on her ‘I’m going to maul you’ voice, so Foaly was quick to reassure.

“Definitely! The seeker sleeper would be able to detect if he was dead, and he’s not dead. He’s just hiding.” The centaur sat heavily in his chair, and spun towards another screen, pulling up a few windows with information on human captivity. “He’s definitely depressed, I don’t need to be a licensed psychiatrist to tell you that. I’m absolutely certain that there’s more to it, but I need to get close enough to say for sure. Overall…” he trailed off, adam’s apple bobbing along to the rhythm of his anxiety. “It’s… well, like I said, it’s devastating. I don’t think there’s a fairy doctor that can fix what’s going on with him, aside from the burns anyway. I’m not even sure a human doctor can. The only thing that will really help him is being on the surface with his family.”

Holly glanced at the door, then back to Foaly. She technically wasn’t supposed to be in Police Plaza as a citizen with no acorns, but she was only really there as a visitor. If family could visit, and Foaly declared Holly as family, then, well. Nobody could really stop them.

“I’ve gone to the tabloids, I’m not sure how much that’s going to help. Your blog post is probably going to get more attention than those anyway, and be more believable too.”

“You could get a TV interview,” Foaly suggested, brightly. At Holly’s immediate expression of distaste, he sat up and pressed forward. “No, really. They’ve been practically begging to interview you on every talk show, you’ve been big news ever since Artemis’ first appearance. If you went on a show to talk about what’s happening, it’s technically not illegal. You didn’t sign anything, anyway.”

Holly scratched the back of her head. While Foaly did have good points, she just wasn’t really the kind of person who liked having an audience. Talk shows always seemed fake anyway, and she was pretty sure fairies had gotten the idea from human media drama.

Suddenly, there was a sound coming from Artemis’ screen, and both fairies instantly turned to watch. On the screen, a guard had turned the laser bars off and approached Artemis’ bed sculpture.

“Alright, mud boy. Are you still alive in there?” He tapped the metal frame with his buzz baton, making a loud, resonant sound. After getting no response, the guard ducked so his head was no longer visible, looking into the bed fort. He reached in, and started tugging Artemis out by the arm.

The limp form of the human was dragged outside of the fort, face turned towards the ground. It was unclear whether or not he was awake, his hair was a mess of loose black curls- Holly didn’t know he had curls in his hair- and he was completely unresponsive as the guard finished dragging him most of the way outside, and dropped his arm to slap against the hard ground. The only thing visible under the man’s protective helmet was his frown, which only became more pronounced as he poked the teen’s arm and continued to get no response, aside from his head lolling limply to the side.

Even with the camera’s considerable distance, it was clear that Artemis had suffered terrible burns down one side of his body. She could see the pink tint of his skin through the screen, and though they weren’t nearly as bad as they had been before a warlock had seen him, they hadn’t been able to completely erase the damage without risking making his already considerable mental health problems even worse. The long term effects of fairy magic tended to do that to humans.

Holly’s eyes were wide, and without noticing, she had started hugging herself. It was just shocking to see Artemis in such a state. She’d known the boy for a couple of years now, and had never seen him like this. She would be surprised if anyone ever had, he hadn’t been destroyed this badly until the fairies had gotten to him.

The thought of it sent an uncomfortable wave of nausea through her stomach. With a renewed sense of purpose, she looked at Foaly and nodded. A guest appearance on a fairy talk show was a small price to pay when they didn’t know how much time Artemis had left.

-

Artemis had officially given up on bothering to breach full consciousness. He had no idea how long it had been, he slept too much nowadays to tell when the night began and ended. He had started in his bed fort, but a frustrated guard had at some point entered the room to try and force him awake by pulling him out and onto the floor, so now he was on the floor covered in a sheet. It was quite pathetic. He couldn't bring himself to care.

His plan had technically worked, and yet the presence of guards consistently outside of his cell wasn’t doing him many favors when he felt too physically weak to try and provoke any reactions out of them. That and the fact that they all seemed to deeply detest him were not doing him well, though he could hardly blame them at this point.

It was a state somewhere between meditation and unconsciousness. He was only semi-aware of his surroundings, only waking up fully when he was pulled to his feet to go shower, or when the guards threatened him into eating something. Though eventually, they either stopped, or Artemis had slept through their attempts to rouse him.

The right side of his body tingled horribly, particularly his cheek, ear, and arm. The healing he had received while unconscious had done away with most of the pain, but replaced it with an awful buzzing underneath his skin. Either that, or he was hallucinating the feeling of the bars again. The burns sapped his meager energy and left him with a perpetually emptying desert oasis of motivation.

If Sool would suddenly need his help one day, he felt that his current state was so terrible he might not even be able to provide it. Out of the corner of his eye he always saw someone coming, but most of the time nobody was there. He thought he smelled his mother's floral perfume, but it was only his own imagination. Butler's voice was his imagination as well. There was nothing but him, and the floor, and occasionally a guard.

As a capsule of food attached to a thick rubbery cord entered his cell, Artemis could have sworn he saw Butler’s familiar calloused hand on the other side of the bars. He wasn’t far gone enough to believe the man was actually there, but the reminder served to send another spike of pain through his chest.

The fairies would see him rot, he was certain. He was also half certain that he might deserve it.

At some point he became aware of a blue glow much closer to his face, and voices above him conversing in harsh tones. He partially opened his eyes to see what appeared to be a gnome warlock standing above him, in a tense debate with a couple of guards. Belatedly, he realized that they had tried to heal him.

“...You have to be kidding, you bring me the human equivalent of road kill and expect me to…” the medical warlock’s voice faded in and out.
“We need a professional…”

Interesting, so they seemed to notice something was wrong, but they hadn't cared to notice any of the signs, or pay attention to him whenever he tried to explain what it was. It was far too late now, he reasoned, and closed his eyes again. He felt multiple fairy hands pulling his torso half off of the floor by his arms, but his head hung low, and when they let go he simply flopped back onto the floor, quickly losing consciousness.

Well, so much for planning.

-

The next time something happened, he was again teetering on the edge of consciousness without fully committing to it. He heard footsteps, and recently he had started to ignore the uncaring guards as they walked past, but this time something was different. It sounded strange, distinct.

He then realized, it was because they weren't footsteps, they were hoof steps.

Four hooves were clomping down the hallway, and a voice accompanied them, one that he could barely make out over the muffled underwater quality of his hearing and the ringing in his ears that returned as soon as he moved too much, to try and peer towards the blue laser bars.

The owner of the hooves appeared, and though he could only see their heavily shadowed bottom half along with those of the guards that accompanied him, he knew exactly who it was.

Upon seeing him, Foaly's voice went deadpan and whatever he said caused the guards to fidget in place. The electric bars vanished and sent the room into complete darkness, as the sound of hooves clopping against the ground approached and stopped inches in front of him, before Foaly's equestrian legs bent so he was kneeling much closer to the ground. The silhouette of his hand waved in front of Artemis' squinted eyes, and his proximity made it easier to tell what he was saying. "Are you still in there, mud boy? Blink twice if you can hear me."

Artemis clenched his eyes shut, then repeated the action pointedly. He shifted slightly, trying to get a better view of the centaur's face. "Foaly?" He whispered, voice rough from disuse. The man himself had a hard set to his expression, which quickly switched into a more jovial one once Artemis focused in on him.

"Good to see you're bright-eyed and bushy-tailed," He replied. "I've been making Sool's life hell the past couple of months, but he only really started buckling once the media found out what was going on in here. I wonder how that happened?" He chuckled, but even to Artemis' ears it sounded forced.

The boy opened his mouth as though to respond, then closed it, clearing his throat. Foaly took this as a queue to continue. "I intercepted the report that you stopped moving around and the prison warlock couldn't figure out what was wrong with you, so I was able to strong-arm my way into being the human expert they sent in to do a check up. A couple weeks of research, and I could get my bachelor's in anthropology, on top of the PHDs in things that matter," He joked.

Artemis closed his eyes, a sort of unintentional power move. Foaly reached down to pull one eyelid back open and shine a light directly into the light blue iris. His pupils immediately contracted to their smallest size and he bucked, shocked by the sudden bright light after literal months of dimness.

Foaly patted his head while Artemis blinked stars out of his eyes. "Vision might be suffering," He described out loud, like he was taking auditory notes. He lifted Artemis' arm and ran a finger over the largest burn scar. "This healed up well, but I see you've got some fresher ones over the rest of you,," He said, darkly. “It looks like nobody’s been bothering to heal the ones on your fingers.”

Artemis zoned out a bit as the man took out a device that shone a bright light over his arm. "An x-ray," he explained. "You don't have any muscle damage from the burns, but they've atrophied pretty badly, and I'm willing to bet it's all over you. Not to mention the paleness, shakiness of the hands and in general, you can't even stand. Definitely some severe Vitamin D deficiency..."

He kept taking notes, and a few more x-rays, all while talking out loud. Artemis was almost overwhelmed by all of the interaction, yet at the same time there was a sense of euphoria attached to just hearing someone who didn’t hate him talk, and touch his arm. Seeking that feeling, he reached a pale, shaking limb to rest on Foaly’s knee. The centaur didn’t comment on it, instead choosing to continue.

"I'm going to do a blood test- it won't hurt at all, not like your human ones- but I'm pretty sure you have some severe iron deficiency too. It would explain why your hair looks thinner, and a lot of the exhaustion, aside from the whole solitary confinement thing." At those words, Artemis looked up, wide-eyed. So Foaly knew? Had he known the whole time?

Foaly looked back at him apologetically. "I only found out about that recently. Human beings, a social species. Who knew?"

For a moment, Artemis almost felt like laughing. Rather, a wave of dizziness compelled him to close his eyes again.

"He looks really bad..." A guard said, further away.

"Oh, does he?" Foaly snapped back, and was met with silence. "Maybe it's because he's been starving to death, emotionally and physically. That could be it. Or it could be all of the other gross mistreatment." He sighed, lowered Artemis’ arm to the floor, and the boy felt the vibrations of Foaly’s hooves walking over towards his bed fort, as though the centaur was inspecting it. "Honestly, he has so little to do that he's playing around with furniture. Could one of you goons come over and put this mattress back on?"

Shuffling and footsteps went around him to the fort, and he could hear the guards taking it apart, with the creak of the metal bed frames punctuating the movements.

"Someone bring in the stretcher, he's going to need serious medical help. An iron infusion definitely, and some heavy Vitamin D supplements..." He started going down the list, the guards beginning to grimace and wince the longer it went. They had really messed up. Badly. Mostly Sool had, and the Warden, but they weren't innocent just because they were doing their jobs. There was a half-dead kid on the floor, and they had done nothing but make it worse.

When the stretcher was rolled in, Foaly ordered the two guards to be careful pulling him onto it.

"At least you're not walking on those legs on top of everything else," he said to Artemis, with a hint of anger in his voice. "We don't need you to develop rickets, without any sunlight or Vitamin D in your food, your growing bones would start bending like rulers."

It was with that ominous statement that he was guided on a hovering gurney towards the medical wing, Foaly clopping along in front of two thoroughly scolded guards. Sounds were finally becoming too muffled for Artemis to properly make anything out. He saw the light changing behind his eyelids, and blacked out as an oxygen mask was placed over his face.

-

The first time Artemis woke back up, it was only for a few minutes. It was cold, and his arm hurt, and nobody was around. He tried and failed to open his eyes, and was therefore unable to view his surroundings. It all became so unbearable so quickly, that he had hardly a choice other than to fall back asleep.

The second time he woke up, he grew conscious of sound before sensation.

“So you’re just letting him grab onto you like that?” An unfamiliar voice came from about half a room’s distance away, bemused.

“What am I supposed to do, shake him off? You come over here and tell him he isn’t allowed if you think it’s such an issue.”

The second voice was much more familiar: Foaly again. Artemis gradually became aware of the fact that he was conscious, laying down on soft sheets and gripping what felt like someone’s wrist.

“It wouldn’t matter if I did, he’s dead to the world right now. Isn’t he supposed to wake up soon?”

“I’m sorry, which one of us is the human expert again?” Foaly scoffed, and the other fairy grumbled to himself as his footsteps retreated to the door. Or, where Artemis had to assume the door was, considering he still couldn’t expend the monumental effort it would take to open his eyes. Yet somehow, his hand was still resolutely gripping the centaur’s wrist.

After a moment, Foaly’s arm twisted in his grip, and he felt a solid- and slightly hairy- hand holding his own.

“What are we going to do with you, mud boy,” the centaur sighed, sounding defeated.

The warmth of the physical contact chased Artemis into another dreamless sleep.

-

The third time Artemis woke up, he felt almost okay. Exhausted, but decently comfortable. After prying open his eyes, he was faced in the direction of his toes, not that he could see them. His entire body was drowning in layers of blankets, colored a soft gray. The room around him smelled like soap, a smell that belonged to hospitals and infirmaries. Given his situation, he had to assume that he was still in the prison’s infirmary, and this was confirmed to him when a quick glance to the floor demonstrated the fact that it looked exactly the same as it was everywhere else in the building.

“He’s awake,” a tired voice called out from nearby, and footsteps knocked along the floor. Artemis’ eyes darted around. The blankets went from comforting to stifling in an instant, and he started trying to push himself upwards. A sharp sting in his arm drew his attention to an IV attached to him, and he stilled, examining the line and his limb. Judging from the light yellow bruising around the IV’s insertion point, he had been there for at least a few days. Evidently, they had trouble at first with his human biology when inserting the device, seeing as there were hints of multiple needle marks in his skin. Not only that, but there was another bruise on the same arm closer to his forearm, though this one was dark brown, almost black. He quickly recognized it as the result of an iron infusion: Hemosiderin.

A shadow on the floor caught his eye as a gnome approached his bedside, and Artemis stared at him warily.

“If I didn’t know better, I would say you were half koala,” the gnome raised an eyebrow, continuing when Artemis didn’t react. “The way you’ve been grappling onto people in your sleep. I’ve never met a clingier patient. Could you tell me your name and the last thing you remember?”

Artemis blinked a number of times, hardly caring that he was making a fool of himself with his blatant disorientation.
“...Artemis Fowl II,” He croaked, somehow surprised by how rough his voice sounded. He swallowed dryly. “The last thing I remember is being wheeled away from my cell on a gurney.”
He could vaguely remember a few things that might have happened while he was only partially conscious… but that was not of critical importance to this man.

A few basic tests were performed by the gnome, having him test his reflexes and eyesight, all of which were not ideal. Artemis’ eyes felt painfully tight, and he was quite nearsighted. His reflexes had never been that good, neither had his muscle definition, but he felt even more physically useless than normal. It was as though the iron infusion had filled his arms with actual molten metal, and now they were too heavy to lift for more than a few seconds.

Eventually, the haze of confusion and drowsiness began to fade, and was swiftly replaced with mounting panic. “Where is everyone? Was Foaly here? Have I had any visitors?” His questions were rapid-fire, and a paper cup full of water was shoved into his hands before the gnome deigned to answer any of them.

“Drink that, listening to your voice is giving me a headache,” the fairy grouched. “Mr. Foaly will return soon to check your readings, and I’m certain he will provide you with an update. Honestly, you’ve received better care here than you would on the surface, so don’t bother complaining.”

Artemis absentmindedly held the paper cup up to his lips and tried to sip slowly. The water was refreshing, but he had too much on his mind to feel properly relaxed. Despite the medication almost definitely present in his system, he was beginning to feel once again overcome with stress.

Could they use his situation to sue the fairy prison system? Such a thing had never truly succeeded before, let alone in a case like his. However, Foaly should have power in this situation, he seemed to know most of what had happened, so they could at least cause a public outcry…

“There he is!” Foaly clopped in through the doorway, looking far too chipper for the intensely stressful radius of effect Artemis’ presence was filtering through the entire infirmary. “Wide awake, just as I was telling you,” he spoke to the visibly irritated gnome doctor without even sparing a glance. “Barely a couple of months into my research and I’m already a revolutionary of human modern medicine.”

Artemis’ eyes were wide, and he quickly put the cup down, accidentally splashing a few drops of water onto the sheets. A friendly face felt like a more powerful medicine than all of the morphine in the world, not that fairies were likely to have an abundance of that in a prison infirmary. He opened his mouth for a moment, then closed it, having not thought of anything to say. He was simply too overwhelmed.

Foaly’s brow furrowed. “Er, you’re actually still there, right? The bars haven’t fried your brain or anything?” He glanced towards a nearby elf nurse, who raised his hands defensively. Artemis shook his head slowly.

“I’m fine…” he mumbled, throat still sore. Foaly grimaced.

“Right, I’m sure you are. Well I’ve got a few things you should know, so listen up.” He walked over to the human’s bedside, pulling up a chair with his back hoof. Artemis glanced down to the piece of furniture for a half-second, just long enough to register that it was designed specifically for centaurs.
“First off, I had a talk with the warden, and a few things are going to change around here.” Foaly lifted a laptop off of the empty medical bed behind him, and pulled up a document covered in links and notations. “This is everything I compiled from the media focus and public protests surrounding what’s been going on in here, after my blog entry and Holly’s talk show interview.”

Artemis’ eyebrows raised. So they had already gotten somewhere? “A talk show?” He sounded slightly incredulous. Holly never seemed the type to agree to something like that in a million years.

“I know, right? I convinced her to, don’t ask me how,” Foaly frowned and cleared his throat. “Seriously, don’t ask me how. The important thing is, the warden wasn’t happy when I presented him with this information. Neither was Sool, especially not when I showed it in powerpoint form. Sool is unwilling to compromise on much, but the warden agreed to making a few changes so there aren’t as many blatant civil rights violations going on behind closed doors.”

Artemis processed the information as he slowly lifted himself into a sitting position. He swallowed a few times, massaging his throat. “So… I suppose freedom is still far out of reach.”

“For now. We’re working on it,” Foaly assured, though he didn’t sound very happy. “What I’ve gotten you are regular checkups, visitations, more socialization, and some other entertainment. Plus the vitamin supplements and less dietary restrictions, I mean whose idea was it to just feed you salad? I swear, sometimes it feels like gnomes and elves think every other species subsists off of dry spinach and carrots,” he scoffed, though it seemed like he was rambling to try and fill the silence.

Artemis breathed in through his nose, and closed his eyes. “Thank you, for…” He stumbled over his words a bit, and would have been taken aback by that if he had not already been overwhelmed. “Just, thank you.”

To Foaly’s credit, he didn’t seem to know what he was doing either. However, something about this situation had him putting on a brave face. “Don’t thank me now, mud boy. How about you wait until you’re out of this place, and then you can thank me all you want.”

That got a feeble smile out of Artemis, though it quickly melted away as he continued to think. “Sool… he’ll ask for my help, won’t he?”

It had to happen. Otherwise, the chance of him getting out any time soon was very low, and he couldn’t bear to consider it. Foaly’s mouth twitched as he considered the reply.
“Well, it’s the absolute last option Sool would consider. So really, our best chance is to make sure he only has one option left.” He grinned. “Sool has all the chips, but we have the better hand, if we’re thinking about this as a gamble. The better hand always wins, right Fowl?”

Artemis hesitated long enough that Foaly’s ears lowered slightly from their confident position, only to prick up again as the boy answered.

“Right. In the end, we will win. It’s a waiting game… only, I’m not certain how much waiting I’m capable of at this point, Foaly. I have never felt this way before. I’ve felt like a criminal, but not like this.”

Never like this. He had always been two steps ahead, but now there was nowhere to go. Dread was creeping over him, rising like the tide. He startled as Foaly awkwardly placed a hand on his shoulder, and grabbed it before the man could pull away from the surprise. Foaly exhaled through his nose, exasperated.

“Despite it all, you’re not alone, mud boy. Now would you lift your arm? Someone needs to switch your IV port.”

-

As soon as Artemis was able to eat without them worrying any food he got down would just come right back up, he was given a light chicken-flavored soup. Unfortunately, it was the best thing he had tasted in months. After he finished, he took one of the pillows on his bed and proceeded to try holding it tightly, applying pressure to his arms and chest. It was supposed to be a therapeutic way to fight touch starvation, something that he felt he sorely needed. It must have been the reason his ribcage felt so empty.

The doctor and nurses entered and exited the room regularly, and Artemis figured that there was more than one room created for the purpose of treating injuries, considering the absence of any goblins. They were likely still attempting to keep the other fairy prisoners away from him, and though he saw the logic in that, he regretted their absence. Artemis felt the strong desire to see and speak to more people, conflicting with how overwhelmed he was whenever he was near them.

Foaly was running out of excuses to stop by the prison by the third day he was awake, and Artemis felt doom beginning to close in on him. Soon he would be taken back to his cell, and he would have to see if the prison had truly decided to make changes to his living situation. He hoped that there would be at least one positive change, as he was already hanging on by a thread as it was, clutching onto his pillow for dear life and only able to speak in hushed tones for fear of being threatened with his current luxuries being taken away. It was unlikely, but still possible.

“How is Holly?” He asked Foaly a question that he had been pondering far longer than he would easily admit. “Is she recovering from everything that happened?”

“She’s fine, she and Mulch are actually working together as Private Investigators right now, but she isn’t sure what she wants to do long term,” Foaly responded casually as he tapped away on his laptop. Both he and Artemis knew that the centaur avoided mentioning Holly’s general emotional state.

“These times must be very hard,” Artemis said quietly. His disarmingly subdued tone kept taking Foaly off guard, though he was trying not to show it. This version of Artemis was a lot different from the cocky teen who ran circles around them for over a year (despite never being very physically capable of such a feat). At times he seemed more like a kicked puppy… or, well, a child.

“Holly is tougher than us all, she’ll always pull through. You should focus on yourself, you should be pretty good at that, right?” Foaly joked, then coughed as Artemis chose to stare at his pillow rather than reply. “I’m kidding, you know.”

“I’m aware,” the teen said as a mild reassurance, then fell silent for a moment longer. “Will she be visiting? Will you, or anyone else?”

“The other humans can’t,” Foaly started, wanting to clear that up immediately. Artemis hadn’t dared to hope. “I know Holly is planning to, and Mulch seemed a little interested, but I wouldn’t count on him walking into a goblin prison willingly. I’ll be visiting at least twice a month for your health checkups, otherwise they would have to justify finding someone else who claims to be a human expert. Good luck with that,” he snorted. “It’s me they want to keep an eye on, anyway.”

“I see.” Artemis covered the lower half of his face with the pillow, closing his eyes. “When I get out of here… I’m not certain what will happen, Foaly.”

The silence weighed on them both.

-

When Artemis was given a pair of crutches and told he was to be marched back to his cell, he almost feigned a fainting spell just to prolong his infirmary visit for just a moment longer. But he needed to see if anything had changed, he needed some kind of enrichment or he was going to go completely mad.
He only managed to make it halfway with the crutches before the guards on either side of him had to lift him by the arms to get him back to the cell. When they got there, Artemis was taken by surprise.

Rather than the empty room part of him had been expecting, he was surprised to see all of the changes that had been made to his room while he had been incapacitated. The floor and ceiling were the same, but there were some noticeable decorations on the walls, such as posters showing grassy nature views from Ireland as well as a rather large image of the night sky, and a small potted plant on his bedside table. Aside from that there were art supplies, and an entire book shelf with a few volumes already stacked within. There were a few more blankets on the bed, some fairy massagers on a small shelf meant to help him fix his atrophying muscles, and even an electric keyboard. Artemis blinked at the instrument and the note attached to it, written in familiar handwriting.

“I hope your playing is better than your humming,
~Foaly”

Artemis felt a smile tugging at his lips, even as his cell’s new steel bars rose out of the floor behind him.

-

Surprisingly, it took a lot of effort to feel motivated enough to move around, even while he had more entertainment in his cell. The feeling of hopelessness was like a disease, one he wouldn’t be getting over easily. However, Artemis was content to read for most of his time, though every time a guard passed by he would look up and stare at them until they were gone.

Thankfully, Foaly was right that there would be more meal variety provided to him. This time there was meat, though he had to guess it originated from some kind of burrow animal. He didn’t exactly have the luxury of being too picky. He was provided with bread and potatoes as well, and his daily vitamins. As he popped the pills with a splash of water, his attention was caught as he heard the laser bars of the other cells deactivate around him, deepening the silence of the building until he could hear calls of the goblins in the distance.

Artemis sighed and picked up his book, rejecting the sounds of the rest of the prison with an air of despondency.

“Hey, psst… mud boy, look,” a voice muttered, and Artemis’ eyes shot up to locate its owner, a familiar goblin grabbing onto the farthest right bar of his cell.

“Scuta?” Artemis replied, shocked.

“Yesss,” The general hissed, looking pleased with himself. His tongue snapped out to taste the air. “The guards are no longer guarding the human’s cell. I see you’re not dead yet?”

“I gave it my best shot,” he half-joked in surprise. “They called for help and I was taken to the infirmary, now my conditions seem to have changed.”

The goblin hunkered down and turned to gesture down the hall, soon being joined by two other goblins that Artemis recognized from his hours out in the yard. They seemed pleased to see he was alive, and Artemis couldn’t help but be slightly taken aback.

“It’s nice to see you,” he admitted, and stumbled off of his bed to sit closer to the bars. The goblins seemed even more pleased, no doubt figuring that they were maintaining an ally.

“The guards can be cruel, but no goblins are murdered in prison,” Squa said, air hissing out of his nostrils. “But we all saw you were rotting in here, even the other goblins, the ones who still hate you. They don’t know how to react.”

“I say you’re one of us,” Lieutenant Geck posited, sounding confident. “A human who kidnapped an LEP officer and is treated like less than scum by the prison guards, you might as well be goblin.”

Squa interrupted, popping up from behind Geck. “Is it true you started a fire in here? We all heard the alarm go off, we have been trying to figure out how. It’s definitely very goblin of you.”

Artemis didn’t know how he felt about that. He much preferred to be human over a goblin, practically speaking (and aesthetically, though he wouldn’t say that out loud), but he also felt somewhat appreciative of their inclusion, misguided or not. “That’s an interesting way to look at it,” was what he decided on. To his credit, Geck seemed to take it as a compliment, licking his eyeball proudly. “I did start a fire using a blanket, though it went out very quickly. I just wanted to see what would happen,” he lightly fibbed.

Scuta snickered and grinned, all razor-sharp teeth. “This prison won’t last forever, you can count on it. All of our worries will turn to ashes, just like that blanket.”

That was comforting, in an ominous sort of way. Artemis tilted his head noncommittally. “Would any of you be interested in learning chess?”

“I would,” Geck snorted. “If you’ll agree to learn how to sharpen those claws of yours.”

Artemis blinked down at his overgrown manicure, and chuckled nervously.

-

Artemis was trembling, an occurrence that wasn’t altogether too uncommon for him these days. However this time, it was for a foreseeable reason.

He had been taken unceremoniously from his cell in the middle of marking a page of his newest musical score, and told that he would be having a visitor. There were really only two options, either this was Sool coming to finally ask him for his help for something Foaly may have set into motion, or it was Holly.

As the door opened and the ex-recon elf walked through the door, he couldn’t bother feeling disappointed. Artemis sat up stiffly in his chair, and though he didn’t convey it much through his expression, he was genuinely excited to see her. As Holly saw him sitting at the table in the center of the room, her eyes widened in shock for a moment before she carefully smoothed her expression back into a reassuring smile. Artemis attempted one of his own, and both of them were equally unconvincing.

“It’s nice to see you, Captain… er, Miss Short? Holly.” He stumbled over his words and clasped his hands in front of him, internally beating himself up over the pathetic display. “I apologize.”

“Don’t apologize, Holly is fine. Bonded by trauma, remember?” She sat down across from him, and immediately reached out to grasp his hands. Artemis blinked in surprise at the forward gesture of comfort, but he wouldn’t complain about it. He had felt the desire for contact with another person like an ache, recently. Would Holly have known?

Holly’s smile grew a bit tighter the longer Artemis stared at her in silence. Abruptly, he shook himself out of his absence of thought with a minute jerk of the shoulders. “How is your PI business? Foaly told me about it. I hope losing your rank hasn’t harmed your reputation.”

“What reputation?” She joked, then shook her head, squeezing his hands. “The business is fine, I don’t have to worry about money and I’ve never cared how people see me. Mulch is doing fine too, he was surprised to hear you were still alive.” She said it in a joking tone, but couldn’t help dropping her smile. “Artemis, I know you’re not doing well in here. You look…” she trailed off.

“I imagine I don’t look very healthy. I don’t have much access to mirrors, though that is probably for the best.” He glanced down at his hands, frowning, hoping they weren’t too clammy. One of them was visibly pinker than the other, a remnant of his past burns. Holly seemed to take that as an indication that he was unhappy about the contact, and began easing her hands away only to be surprised as Artemis held on tighter as a response.

“We’re doing everything we can to get you out,” she reassured him, a determined glint in her eye. “Everyone who needs to be informed is being kept up to date.” The implication was clear: Butler was being told as well. Something about that was comforting to him, even while it opened a hole in his chest. “Foaly says that Sool has been complaining nonstop about the accommodations they’re making for you, but he’s threatening his own position if he ever takes back his word.”

“Holly…” Artemis tried clearing his throat as he felt it trying to close up with poorly repressed emotion. There was simply too much of it to contain. “I don’t know…” his breath hitched, and he left his thoughts unfinished. He didn’t know many things, he didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know how long he could go before seeing his family again, he didn’t know whether or not this pain was ever going to go away… more or less.

“It’s going to be okay,” Holly assured him with enough confidence for the both of them, and Artemis was left blinking rapidly in the wake of her determination. How someone could be so optimistic, he could never truly know. All Artemis ever had was desperate hope, but even that seemed to be leaving him.

Holly continued clutching his hands as he lowered his head to the table, to hide his face.

-

In the middle of a night of troubled rest, Artemis was abruptly woken as he realized he wasn’t alone.

Just outside of his cell, a guard stood in the darkness, a large and dark shadow at a standstill. Artemis had to wonder how long the man had been standing there, and what he wanted.

After a long moment, the slot into his cell opened, and out of it slid a package. The guard vacated the area immediately after depositing the goods. Curious, Artemis slid out of his bed and crept over to the bundle.

As he took apart the meager polyester covering, he uncovered its hidden contents. Though it was even darker than usual, given that he was meant to be sleeping, Artemis recognized the contents as soon as he picked up a paintbrush, placed delicately next to a small set of jars.

-

“Your claws are sad and small,” groused Scuta, tilting Artemis’ hand around. Another goblin had used his own claws to sharpen Artemis’ longer fingernails, in a mimicry of some kind of bizarre manicure.

“They are normally much shorter than this,” Artemis explained, vaguely amused. He hadn’t dared start biting them, his father had been so belligerently against the idea of it when Artemis was much younger, that the habit seemed inconceivable to him at that point. “They aren’t generally meant for violence, or self defense.”

“You are a human, you need every tool you can get,” Scuta said stubbornly, and dropped his hand. “But yes, they’re weak. You can’t slice down, only scratch.”

Squa moved forward into a crouch to join the conversation, to Scuta’s general exasperation. “We all saw what you did to that guard with your teeth, though. A goblin hasn’t dared get a shot in like that for a while. You surprised them, they thought your teeth were too blunt.”

“They’re multi-purpose,” Artemis muttered, unhappy recalling this incident. “For crushing, grinding, but some tearing as well. Humans also have a high amount of bacteria in our mouths, which makes infection very possible.”

“I bet that’s what happened, we didn’t see that guard for at least a week afterwards,” Squa grinned. General Scuta proceeded to butt his way back into the conversation.

“Enough talking, try scratching me,” he held his arm out. Artemis stared at it, somewhat aghast.

“I’m not certain that would be a good idea,” he said, hesitant. Scuta growled.

“Don’t question my logic, just do it. You’re not even strong enough to hit flesh. Do it!”

“Slice across, not down,” Squa suggested. And Artemis grimaced slightly, but decided to go along with it for curiosity’s sake. He slid his hand back through the bars, and proceeded to swipe diagonally down Scuta’s arm with as much force as he could muster. It barely grazed him.

“Try again! From your shoulder and elbow,” Scuta barked, and Artemis sighed as he extended his arm again, considering the action for a moment longer before swiping with more power, and leaving a visible scratch across the goblin’s scales. The fairy grunted, pleased as he examined the result.

“You will do that again when you fight. They won’t see it coming,” he said, more as a command than a suggestion. Artemis sighed again, but wouldn’t admit that he was considering it as a logical possibility.

-

Foaly was concentrating on rewriting code on one of his oldest computer programs when he heard the notes playing from Artemis’ screen, on low volume. When he glanced up, he found the human was sitting at his keyboard, gingerly playing the piano accompaniment of a sonata. The burns on his fingers had faded enough that tapping at the keys was no longer painful, evidently.

Foaly hummed happily to the now familiar tune, and continued typing away on his keyboard.

-

Before her visit, the last time Holly had seen Artemis was fresh out of a traumatic situation, where they had just defeated Opal after she had put them in direct danger of being brutally murdered by a pack of wild and hungry trolls. He hadn’t looked particularly healthy then, but this was infinitely worse. If that version of Artemis was bad, this version of him was practically already dead.

She had expected him to look like he wasn’t doing well, after all she had seen the footage of him at his worst, and even from a distance it was obvious he had lost weight and been depressed. However the image of him with those healing burn scars, gaunt cheeks, heavy bags under his eyes, the way his clothes hung off of him and his shoulders drooped… even the spark of intelligence in his eyes was dampened by how dull they seemed in the prison lighting. A word came to mind: ‘inhumane’.

Holly’s stomach was roiling, sweat glistening on her forehead. The stress was a heavy weight on her shoulders. How could the LEP be involved in something like this? Sure, in the past Artemis had been a nightmare, but even then the most he tried to take from them was their gold. It was like Sool was trying to suck the human’s soul right out of his body, and it seemed to be working. The worst part was, the man simply didn’t care.

Artemis was a genius, and he was a teenager. These things weren’t mutually exclusive, that was becoming very apparent.

Holly’s talk show appearance had gotten fairies talking, and for once the media was in Holly’s favor. Fairies had taken to standing in front of the prison with signs, protesting the unfair treatment. A large swathe of them were goblins as usual, but not exclusively. In fact, almost every species of fairy was represented in the crowd. Human civil rights had always had its supporters, but Holly had not bothered to listen until it became relevant to her current interests. Now, it was the only reason they had a hope of getting Artemis out of there.

Mulch caught her attention with a call from the other room, “Hey! You’ve got a call!”

Distracted, she picked her communicator up from the desk and opened the line Mulch had patched over to her, relieved to see it was only Foaly. Then, dread hit her all at once. Was this just a normal call to check up on her, or was it another update on Artemis’ condition? Had something else horrible happened? Was Butler finally deciding to storm the fairy government by himself?

“Hey Holly, I’ve got good news,” Foaly started, sounding a bit out of breath. His voice had a bit of a hysterical edge to it. “We’ve got a kidnapping.”

-