The Rule

Magical beings always frightened Elise. She had been frightened of them when she thought they were nothing more than creative but horrific inventions of imaginative and primitive peoples. When they explosively reemerged into the world of man, rebelling against an ancient and unjust magical spell placed on them by a small group of gods and men who believed their age was over and the age of man was the next age for the planet to experience they frightened her even more than they did when they were confined to her imagination and the pages of inventive fiction written by authors from all over the world. They frightened all of mankind when they emerged from their mysterious prison and filled the sky and seas with their gigantic and monstrous forms. They then proceeded to wage war on mankind, uniting the governments of the world as dragons raided major cities and the gods of the seas sunk entire navies and took the lives of millions by sinking entire coast lines beneath the waves and entire island nations vanished below hundreds of tsunamis. 

The world Elise had been born in was violently and permanently changed by the reemergence of ancient gods and mythic monsters. Cities vanished and countries were permanently altered, if they survived at all. 2010 was the most eventful year in human history, and people born in 2009 and 2010 had an infancy fundamentally different than young children and young adults who had been born just a decade or two earlier, as they went to school with young demons, angels, and all manner of magical and supernatural beings. Elise was born in 1999 and graduated from high school in 2017. She had heard the rule over 1,000 times during the course of her experience in high school. Despite this Elise had never knowingly encountered a magical being herself. 

The rule was simple: do not attempt to force a magical being to do anything for you. Magical beings punished those who violated this rule harshly. Typically they killed humans foolish enough to violate this rule, but they had worse things they could do to foolish people who decided this rule wasn't worth following. They could easily strip men and women of their freewill and enslave them. Many humans felt they enjoyed this and would do it eagerly if given the chance, which motivated them to repeat it more insistently to their children and their friends.

Elise's automatic reaction to a repetition of the rule was something she hated about herself. Hearing the rule made her begin to feel as if a magical being was near, watching those who whispered the rule. She got so frightened at that thought that she'd begin to breath more frantically, and her vision would blur. Both her therapist and she herself had originally thought that she'd grow accustomed to the repetition of the rule, but she never had. Although over time she began to be able to control her unconscious reaction, at least a little bit so it wasn't as dramatic and as visible. 

"Come on dude. We all know the rule." Complained someone nearby, a boy who looked to be about her age. Assuming that the complainer had agreed to attend the University of North Carolina at Greensboro would be a fair assumption given that he also wore the same lanyard that she did which made his status as a future freshman apparent to anyone who worked at the University and the students of the University roaming campus during the summer, who had likely once been attendants of SOAR, the University's student orientation program during the summer. He was complaining to one of the student leaders, a member of their orientation staff who was dressed in the University's colors to showcase student pride and presumably student leadership. 

The student orientation staff member shrugged his shoulders and responded by saying; "Look I know that you're familiar with the rule but not everyone might be. It's important that you know it because this city has an active community of magical beings and their allies and to them that rule is no joke. If you ignore it you could be forfeiting your life, or worse. At this University we repeat the rule to our students, both prospective and current, because we care about keeping you alive and making sure that the rights of magical beings are respected. If you violate the rule and your life is ended or your freewill is taken from you that's on you. We aren't liable. But if you want to get cheeky I'm glad you're doing it here with me, a human and a friend, and not a magical being who could be decidedly less friendly than me."

Elise wasn't happy with the conversation so she decided not to focus on it and instead to take in the environment. The student orientation staff member had insisted they do this part of the orientation process outside, a decision that while popular in their group had apparently not been popular with other staff members as they were all alone. They were walking outside of what had been called "the quad", a collection of residence halls where they were going to spend the night once the day was over. Elise enjoyed the feeling of the sun on her skin. She smiled as she gradually calmed down and followed the staff member assigned to her and a small group of other attendees of the orientation. She felt her reaction to the repetition of the rule gradually fade away and took time before focusing on the conversation the staff member was having with the group as he informed them to the dining options on campus and led them towards a large building he had called the Moran Commons.

In downtown Greensboro a young man was walking with the sort of speed that hinted that he had nothing on his mind but his immediate arrival at some location of importance to himself. He was dressed in a simple but effective suit, and had a sharp tie on. His eyes were hidden by sunglasses but if they hadn't been no one would have been fooled by his disguise as a human being. Underneath his sunglasses his eyes were the darkly seductive eyes of a demon, the sort of eyes that people had once believed belonged to the creatures tormenting people in Hell, not as part of an intoxicatingly beautiful face of a supermodel or as the final intimidating details which complete the face of a strict drill-instructor. If he wanted to, the young man could destroy part of his suit by unfurling his wings, currently painfully trapped within his suit, since he had only recently gotten this suit from a local Men's Warehouse. rather than having it custom ordered for his specific body-type. But when he got paid he'd go and place an order on another custom suit made to accommodate his unique physical features.