The Student and The Scholar

Maahes grinned.

"I can do that!" he confirmed. All he would need was a little air or a guise with something that could climb! Air sounded easier, though. He was rusty with guises that didn't look too much like Alterans.

Elias led him down the path.

Maahes didn't know what he thought the house would look like, but it was fancy. He eyed the house as they approached it, already figuring out exactly how to break into it. If any of the windows were even just a little open, he could...

He caught sight of one.

"I'll be right back!" he informed Elias. He darted over to the ground right underneath the window. With a burst of wind, he pushed himself up in the air so he was right next to it. One guise change later into something really small (a bug) and he was inside the house.

He switched back to his kid guise once he was inside.

All it took was a little bit of looking before he found what he wanted: a photo of Evaline. He committed her appearance to memory, and then checked a few other photos from different angles to really get the guise down. When he was sure he had gotten it right, he shifted his guise to her.

He could have gone through the window again, but he wanted to practice using her guise. So he stumbled around the house for another few minutes before exiting the front door - and heading right to where Elias had been waiting when he first went inside.

"Alright!" Elias chirped when Maahes turned into a bug and went in the window. "I think it's, ah, in the hallway. Framed, I think. There are a million to chose from. But she's the little one. Well, not little, she's actually kind of tall, but the taller ones are her parents. They have even scarier mean faces."

He paused, not hearing anything back, then looked around.

"...Maahes?" he called after anther bout of silence. "Didja find it? You okay in there?"

Complete silence. Elias was starting to get nervous. Oh no, was someone actually in there? Did Maahes get caught? Would they squish him as a bug?!

A minute passed, and maybe another one too. "Maaaaaahes," he kept calling repeatedly. "You okay, buddy? Are you squished?"

But no answer.

He nervously shifted from one foot to another, and even jumped to try to reach the window. But of course, he couldn't. Too short! Argh!

He tried again and again anyways, jumping up and down in an attempt to poke the window as if it would do any use. But then his attempts were interrupted when he heard shuffling behind him.

Elias whirled around with wide eyes, and his eyes widened even bigger when he saw Evaline there, in the flesh, with that tacky diplomatic outfit and her furrowed brows and her glaring blue eyes and her pouty lips.

"Oh, uh, HEY!" he stammered, casually leaning up along the wall like he belonged here. "What are you, uh... Watcha doin' here, Ev? Nice to see ya... here. Ha ha. Just, hangin' out, ya know. By your house. It's real nice here." He patted the wall behind him. "Real nice."

Maahes stared at him.

Pursing his lips together and tilting his head to the side, he tried to figure out why Elias was acting so funny. Maahes had definitely followed their plan. He was sure of it! Elias had wanted him to get inside so he could see the picture. Maahes had. And even though they hadn't talked about meeting up afterwards, it was the scholarly and diplomatic thing to do!

He crossed his arms and studied Elias some more.

And then it hit him.

Eyes widening, he dropped his arms to his side and started to speak-

-only to hear a noise from nearby.

It was probably a bird, but Maahes wasn't going to take any risks. They had to be sneaky. Without giving Elias a chance to protest, he grabbed onto his wrist and pulled him off in the direction they had come from earlier.

When they were finally far enough away, he skid to a stop - still holding Elias's hand.

"Elias," he said, testing out Evaline's voice for the first time, "it's me!"

Elias made some more awkward 'ha ha ha' sounds before Evaline grabbed his wrist and pulled him down the path.

"Listen, Ev, I can explain!" he started to nervously complain in a broken high-pitched voice, knowing her wrath was coming up. She was always so good at concealing her emotions in her eyes, but he had no doubt that she was probably upset. And she was scary when upset.

He tried to stammer out an explanation, but he was too preoccupied by being yanked around. By the time she stopped and turned, she announced that it was her in a voice he couldn't quite place. Was she chipper? Or was this sarcasm? Gosh, why was she so hard to read sometimes?

"I know!" he said defensively, yanking his own hand away. "Why are you even here, anyway? Shouldn't you be with your parents?"

He glanced behind him at the house. Where was Maahes? Oh, no, please don't let be be a squished bug...

Maahes frowned.

If he knew it was him, then why was he calling him Ev instead of Maahes? He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at Elias. Was he trying to get him used to being called that? Odris always said good experiments had multiple trials, so maybe he was giving him practice for when they were pranking!

But Elias knew he didn't really have parents! Maahea had already told him. And Maahes thought he understood then, but Elias might not have after all. Maahes had done a lot of repeating things since they first started talking.

"You're confusing," Maahes declared, still frowning. He followed Elias's gaze and looked back at the house. "Why are you looking over there? I'm right here!"

Elias snapped his attention back at Evaline, sending that she wanted his full attention. She couldn't fool him; she was shy around others, but they have known each other since they were barely walking, and he knew that her patience was was always thin.

Step one to cool her down: just play along and admit she is always right...

"Oh sorry," he said real casually, deciding to not let the nervousness show in his voice. "Real nice house, ya know? Anyways, you're right, I am confusing. You know me. Confusing. Hah."

Elias twiddled with his thumbs and tried to read her body language. Mixed messages. That wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

"Aaaaanyways," he started again, drawing out the syllables. "No idea why you're here, but, uh, let's catch up sometime? Yeah, definitely. Catch up. With your... stories. So fun. But I'm just gonna... yeah, I'm just gonna walk back now. See ya!" he said as he took some step backwards, casually walking back to the house.

He had to figure out how to rescue bug Maahes.

His frown deepened.

"But there's nothing there!" Maahes protested, chasing after Elias. Why was he going back to the house? He had already finished what Elias told him to. Going back to the house was just going to get them caught!

Elias didn't seem to be paying attention at all, so Maahes decided to take matters into his own hands. He grabbed onto the other boy's wrist and tugged on it. He couldn't let Elias go back and get them caught before they could even start doing his pranks. All the sneaking would be for nothing.

"I'm not letting you go," he declared.

Elias would be lying if he thought Evaline being awfully calm hadn't freaked him out.

Her grabbing his wrist and declaring she wasn't going to let him go was rather ominous. He had expected her to lecture him on and on about how wrong it was to sneak around her house of all places, but she wasn't doing any of that, and it was starting to freak him out.

"Um," he stammered, feeling his cheeks flush pink a little. "Okay..?"

Better to just let her do and say whatever she had in mind mind, and he'll deal with Maahes later.

Maahes was happy that Elias wasn't going back to Evaline's house, but he still wasn't sure if Elias wouldn't go back there later - or if he would do something else to get him caught.

Letting go of Elias's hand, he crossed his arms and gave him a very serious look. It was the same kind of look that Odris always gave him when he did something wrong. It made him feel guilty, so maybe it would make Elias realize how big of a mistake he had almost made!

"You shouldn't go there!" he informed him. "There's no one there right now, but it would have been really bad if there was. You'd get in trouble."

Evaline? Expressing concern for Elias?

This was getting suspicious...

She was mad, right?

Was she okay? Maybe sick? Hit her head? Something?

He drew his hand close to him and looked at her up and down, confused by her words and body language. Crossing her arms and giving him a serious look was common in instances like this, sure, but... Hm. Well. Maybe she came back a new person from her very short trip? Who knew. This girl could be hard to read sometimes despite knowing her for ten years.

Or maybe she was talking about her parents.

Yeah. Alina and Everett were pretty scary. Even she was scared of them. Yeah, that made sense.

"Good thinkin', Ev," he said with a nod, trying to be as casual as possible so she wouldn't detect anything out of the ordinary. "It'd be bad if they caught us both."

He squinted at her, deciding to take a risk.

"Why are you back, anyways?"

Maahes blinked.

He stared.

Alterans were weird. Or maybe it was just Elias. Tilting his head to the side, he looked Elias over to make sure he hadn't hit his head. When Maahes had fallen and done that once, Odris was really concerned until he remembered that Maahes had a different kind of head than Alterans did. He said it was really, really bad if they got their heads hurt.

He reached a hand over and poked Elias in the forehead. It didn't feel funny. It felt normal.

He poked the side of Elias's head to be on the safe side, too.

"You didn't say to stay," Maahes pointed out, drawing his hand back. "I looked and then I came back!"

Elias scrunched his nose when Evaline poked his face. Stiffly, he stood up straight and let her poke him while her big, blue, curious eyes looked up at him. This was so weird.

And he had no idea what she was talking about, either. It was so unlike her to say stuff that didn't make sense.

"Are you okay?" he asked, now genuinely concerned. "You're not making any sense..."

Maahes frowned.

"You're not making any sense!" he shot back, starting to get really upset. Why was Elias acting so weird? Maybe he had hit his head, and the poking wasn't a good way to test it! Maahes couldn't figure out why else Elias would be acting the way he was right now.

"You said you knew," Maahes protested. "But you're acting like you don't know, and it's really, really confusing."

Naturally, Elias recoiled when Evaline seemed to blow up in his face. And naturally, his brain started to ask himself: oh man, what did he do this time?

You said you knew, she said. But you're acting like you don't know, and it's really, really confusing...

...

What could she be referencing???

Honestly, it was just like her to be this upset and skirt around the issue. She was usually bashful around others, but with him, she was always so dramatic. Pffft. Girls. Although, Mel wasn't like this. But Mel was basically part of the boys!

"Uhhhh," Elias droned, stretching the syllable as his brain lagged behind, trying to guess what she could mean. "Are you still upset that we pranked you...?"

That was months ago, but again, it was just like Evaline to keep this inside until now.

He frowned.

"But you didn't prank me!" Maahes exclaimed. He crossed his arms and puffed out his cheeks in irritation. Not for the first time in the past few minutes, Maahes was convinced that something was wrong with Elias. "And who's 'we'? I just know you!"