Editing Eldramin (section)

== Chapter 24 ==
''Fannara''

“My name is Fannara Renae Harpson.”

“Your ''legal'' name.” 

I crossed my arms and leaned back in the metal chair, glaring up at the chairman. “All of my ''legal papers'' say Fannara.” Jasper Keleth lowed the extended telecom to give me a sour look. 

“Your birth name then.” 

“As far as I knew, Fannara was my birth name.” 

He let out a frustrated breath and glared at me in silence. “Do we need to redo this entire questioning?” The thought of this process starting over sent me into a momentary panic that I didn’t cover in time. Chairman Keleth took that as a sign for him to continue the questions. 

“One last time, what is your name?”

Reluctantly, I answered. “Isabell Renae Harpson.” I hated that I was going along with this. 

“How o-”

“-Twenty, my birthday was four months ago, my parents are Kayden and Marcy Harpson, I have three siblings, Elihron [insert middle name other than Bobbert], he’s three years older than me, Jayson Zaylen is four years younger than me, and Faith is six years younger than me.” I paused to take a breath and then answered what I knew would be the next question. “And no, I do not know how I escaped from the Deraal’s fortress.”

The chairman’s look of annoyance gave me the satisfaction I’d been hoping for. It was about time I got to have something go my way, for the last several hours I’d been stuck in this room, I’d been asked the same questions over and over again, each time followed by Chairman Keleth trying to trigger memories of the escape. His method of choice? The tapes from the day I “died”. 

It certainly triggered something each time, but it wasn’t the memories he wanted.

I squeezed my palms as I watched him turn around to restart the five minutes of footage. There was something distinctly unpleasant in rewatching probably the worst day of my life over and over again, but I knew there was no way out of it. 

As the minister of defense, Jasper Keleth had decided that it was critical to learn how I managed to escape captivity, hoping it would mean Eldran soldiers could infiltrate and take her out, theoretically ending the war. But the memories weren’t there. 

I couldn’t explain it, it was like a hole in my memory and nothing was helping to fill it. 

Footage from the bodycam of one of the soldiers filled up one of the walls in the little room I was in, showing an uncomfortably familiar scene. Footsteps and indistinct orders fill the silence as the soldier and his squadron navigate down a series of hallways. At each stop, more and more of the group of soldiers get diverted into fighting off Jana’s forces, angry dragon Shifters that towered over even the tallest Eldran soldier. 

Finally, only two other soldiers remain with the one who the footage comes from. They turn a corner and enter a roofed courtyard sprawling with strange plants and divided into sections by gem-fire paths. The soldier stops as he sees what’s at the end of the path he’s on. 

There stands Deraal Jana, a towering giant, clutching the arm of a small child so hard her nails draw blood. That child would be me–or was me. The Deraal stares at the soldiers, tightening her grip on…me I suppose. What’s interesting is that it looks like Jana considers giving me back until the soldiers notice what’s happening to me. 

The blood pooling out of my arm starts turning darker and darker until it’s fully black; then it starts coming out of my eyes. That’s as far as I’ve gotten in the recording before, usually slipping away before I can finish it, but this time, I try to stomach it and see it to the end. 

Little eight-year-old me touches the blood running down my face in horror and then something weird happens. For a second you can see my eyes change from their old hazel to a pure black, before my hair follows suit, changing from blonde to black, and I topple to the ground. 

Jana’s look of confusion and slight horror are elements I found extremely surprising. She’s immediately rushed by the soldiers. The following fight is almost as confusing as it is loud. Yelling and gunfire give some hint of what’s happening right before one soldier shouts “the girl-” and the footage ends. 

I shuddered and continued to squeeze my palm as the chairman reopened his telecom and prepared to ask me the questions all over again. The first few times, I’d blacked out while watching and been sent through random memories from before Jana took me, but this time, the only thing that felt different was my stomach. It was not a fan of this whole thing and neither was the rest of me. 

“Now, name?” The questioning repeated itself, but this time I let him ask all the questions before answering and didn’t try to outsmart him. I still didn’t have the answer he wanted, so the video started again. 

I felt like I was on the verge of tears, this was horrible and I almost wished I’d black out again and get lost in some pointless memory about a lost sock. Squeezing my eyes shut, I wished for this whole thing to stop. The footage only got a few seconds in before the door to the room slammed open. 

“Now isn’t a good time.” The Chairman sounded annoyed, and while I was curious as to who had come in, the video hadn’t been paused and I didn’t dare watch it again. 

“What you think you’re doing here? There is no way any of her doctors approved this.” I turned my head and looked as I heard Ana Keleth’s voice from the doorway. She met my eyes and, seeing the silent plea in them, pushed past her husband to yank the power chord out of the device that was displaying the recording. 

Jasper Keleth wasn’t as pleased about that as I was. 

“What do you think ''you’re'' doing here? You can’t just barge in while I’m doing this kind of work.” 

I had never seen Ana so angry as she scowled at her husband. “Jasper, you have no authority over me, don’t even try that.” She gave him the meanest-looking side eye I had ever seen in my life and turned to me. “I’m here to let you know that your brother and Via will be here within the next few days, so you don’t need to do anything else for right now because the ''adults'' who are coming ''very soon'' will have better ''answers'' to any ''questions'' we want to be answered.” Her message certainly wasn’t only for me. 

I nodded, and Ana grabbed my arm, pulling me up from the chair and leading me to the door. Before I had fully registered what was happening, I was being nearly dragged down the hallway and out into the plaza outside the government building I’d been in all day. Apparently, all day wasn’t an exaggeration. 

The sun was nearing the horizon, bathing the central plaza of Elquar in golden light. A smell of rain lingered in the air, and small puddles on the intricately paved ground whispered of Spring. 

Ana took me back to the hospital to get checked over again, making sure the day hadn’t severely affected anything that the nurses and doctors had been spending weeks repairing. It hadn’t and, miraculously, they discharged me. Well, they discharged me with conditions. 

For the next week, until my actual family returned to Palendine, I’d be in Ana’s care. Half of me was tempted to argue that I was an adult and should be allowed to return to campus and finish the semester, but the other part of me knew that if something triggered a memory and I passed out somewhere, not even Ari would know what to do with me and having an adult around would probably work better. 

So, my absurd amount of flowers was tossed, the few cards and other items that I cared about were packed, and my stay at the Elquar hospital was over.