Beginning of a Magical Roadtrip

All things considered, the day had been going much better than Cynthia had expected. She woke up to her left knee aching somewhat, but the residual soreness of her formerly—a few months formerly, not that it was nearly as healed as she would have expected by now—dislocated shoulder had faded into the periphery. Even better, this healing allowed her to shove the sling that had unfortunately become an everyday edition to her ensemble into her bag, and quickly and easily make the argument that she was, in fact, the best choice to loan the camp van to for the bimonthly non-essential shopping trip. Her driving was, frankly, adequate at best for a 16 year old, but people tended to assume that she was responsible enough to be trusted with such things.

Thus, with the sling—the easiest counterargument against her taking the van—gone, she was free and clear. Making her argument at 7 am, before anyone who could tell her no was awake enough to think up a coherent argument, may have also been part of her success. 

As soon as camp was out of sight, they pulled the van to the side of the road. That was when things began to go slightly awry, as when she reached towards the backseat, Cynthia's hand brushed across something that both felt and looked a lot like hair. This was, in fact, because it was hair, and when they turned around it was to find that said thick curly hair was attached to a young boy, around 12, who was sheepishly grinning and holding out Cynthia's cane which they had been reaching for. 

"Sorry if I startled you!" the boy chirped, a smile that could have looked sheepish if one didn't know him well plastered on his face.

The boy in question was James Likely, and he had been visiting camp every summer and a few spare weeks during the school year for longer than Cynthia's two years. He was one of the less powerfully magic (but still distinctly supernatural) children at camp. This hadn't been particularly difficult to figure out, given that last year James had gone through a phase of showing off his party trick of summoning a rainbow between his hands to anyone who was within five feet of him for more than three seconds.

He's probably here because he wants to tag along and make a call, Cynthia thought, restraining her sigh to the inside of her head. James, unlike many of the campers, was still on good and, perhaps more impressively, communicative terms with his parent, who he spent the majority of his time with, so it was fairly common for him to try to make his way out of camp to make a call to his dad. 

Cynthia sighed again, and let it be audible this time, before patting the seat beside her. "You can take shotgun if you want, just prop the cane up behind my seat and don't touch it again unless I tell you to."

"Got it, sorry!" James replied, quickly setting the offending object down before proceeding to attempt to squeeze his way to the front seat without exiting the car. It didn't quite work as intended, and his knees nearly found their way into Cynthia's face multiple times, but he eventually did make it to the intended seat. It was a balmy late spring day, which shouldn't have necessitated such acrobatics to avoid stepping outside, but honestly it was entirely as Cynthia should have expected from James. Once in the seat, he proceeded to struggle with buckling the seatbelt with the added complication that he was trying to sit sideways in order to directly face Cynthia. 

As soon as he was clearly as stable and secure as he was going to get, Cynthia shifted the car back into gear and resumed driving.

"Just so you know, I'm planning on taking my time with the errands. Going to go about a day's drive out before heading back, so if you object you should let me know now so I can drop you back and you can hide away on the next van," Cynthia announced.

"Oh, well I'd be lying if I said I expected that, but I don't mind!" James responded, hesitantly reaching a hand out towards Cynthia before realizing that both of her hands were currently occupied with the steering wheel and retracting it. "I don't think we've been introduced before, I'm James," he tacked on.

"Cynthia Pierce, she/they. We've met before in passing," Cynthia replied.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see James jump a bit, and then do a quick double take. "Oh shit, I'm sorry I didn't recognize you then!" he paused for a minute, just long enough that Cynthia began to think that he might've decided that conversation was a lost cause. Just as her hopes began to rise, he spoke again, "I think it's your hair. It looked really different last summer, right?"

James was right. Last summer, her hair had been shoulder length, usually loose, and her natural shade of light brown. Now, it was a few inches shorter and pulled into a stubby ponytail. Also, a few months ago, she had decided to dye it a dark green, although by now her roots were showing by at least an inch or two. Overall, it wasn't a significant change, but it would explain James not recognizing her.

"Yes, it was different. That could explain it."

"Oh, shoot yeah, I knew I forgot something else. He/him works for me!" James replied, and he looked ready to jump into a running commentary on their surroundings, and Cynthia was contemplating how much longer that would make the ride feel, when James spoke again.

"Do you… want to talk later instead? If we're going to be on the road for a while, it's totally fine if you want some quiet time for a few hours."

Cynthia didn't quite know how to tell the boy that she had planned on silence for nearly the entire ride, interrupted only by her own thoughts. So instead, she nodded slightly, and watched out of the corner of her eye as James rotated himself to have his back to her, and face directly out the side window. As promised, he was mostly quiet for the next few hours, only speaking to occasionally explain fun facts about birds that he could see out the window.