25th Cycle. Year 38 of the Nymphs. Awemonth the 13th.

Magenta threw the dodgeball and hit Steve in the abdomen with a force enough to make him stumble backward. Just as she started to jump and cheer for her team's victory, Steve called out,

"You're too much!" He cried, "You're not a Beast-kin after all." 

Magenta pouted. Clenching her hands she replied, "Fine! I can still win tomorrow! Even if I don't throw so hard."

The next day's recess, Magenta frowned. Steve wasn't here. She found out that he hadn't even come to school that day.

"Don't worry, he'll be back tomorrow."

Magenta pursed her lips in reply.

After school, she went to Steve's apartment.

No one answered when she knocked.

No one answered when she called out.

No one was inside when she picked the lock.

Magenta frowned as it looked like no one had been home for a while. Steve's bag was open next to the couch without any answers completed for yesterday's homework.

So she went to the park. Not there. None of the regulars had seen him today.

She went to the ice-cream shop. Not there. The lady lamented that she hasn't "spied his beautiful blue eyes" for a few days now.

The man walking his dog hasn't seen him either.

"It's been so peaceful these last few days, until you showed up with your ice-cream Missy."

Finished licking her hand, Magenta waltzed into the library. Not there. Even the most fascinating and secluded corners were empty. She whispered her query to the librarian as she borrowed some books, but the librarian just shook her head.

As the sun set, Magenta scurried home, making sure to ask every person she saw if they'd seen him. No luck.

She collapsed onto her couch, not minding that her father was already sitting there.

"He's not anywhere! Dad, you said a man always has to fulfill his promise, right?" She looked up at him with her big brown eyes as he readjusted himself.

"Yes, honey? What's this about? And does it have anything to do with why you're late?"

Magenta rolled her eyes, "I would have called you if I was in trouble Dad. My magic would tell you anyways." She huffed, "Steve promised he'd play dodgeball with us today. But he didn't come to school. And he wasn't at his house. Or at the park. Or the ice-cream shop. Or the library. He wasn't anywhere!" She moved as she spoke, causing her father further discomfort.

He sighed, pulling her up to sit next to him. "You should let us know where you are first."

"But Dad! Steve isn't anywhere! I'm soooo mad at him. Help me find him!"

"MAGENTA CHARLES!" yelled her mother as the front door opened, "Where have you been?!"

"Steve is missing Mum!" As Magenta spoke of her search, through dramatic recount, her parents looked each other in the eye.

"The park does seem less rowdy lately."

"A week or two isn't much."

"Still, if we don't help her find Steve, who knows what she'll get up to."

"We can at least call his family."

As they called Steve's father, his uncle, the school, the hospital, his friends and the police they realised that something may be wrong. Being as late as it was though, they only promised Magenta that they would search for him as soon as the sun rises.

"Not everyone can see in the dark like you."

After struggling with her parents' decision, Magenta stayed in her room. Instead of sleeping, however, she created a magical map, colouring the air into a holographic shape of what she knew the city as. Although there were blank spaces, she crossed off the areas she had been to, noting down what people had said.

When her parents came in in the morning, they found her sprawled on the floor, her map still visible, with pictures of the people she'd talked to and who her parents had talked to popping up here and there with what they'd said.

Magenta's parents smiled at each other warmly before maneuvering Magenta onto her bed. She groggily awoke before they could leave her rest in a proper position though, and demanded chocolate milk.

"When I see him, I will drink it in front of him to show him how mad I am. I won't share it - I won't."

Her mother rolls her eyes and makes her a hot chocolate, 

"Drink this for now. We'll deal with Steve's drink when we find him."

As Magenta sips on her drink, her parents roam around the map she made, praising the efforts she put into it. 

First, they drove over to Steve's house. There was still no one there, even though the door was unlocked. 

"Eh-heh," Magenta ran out of the house and started asking the neighbours if they had seen Steve. None had. She updated her map.

They drove to the police station and filed a missing person's case for Steve as the police hadn't heard anything yet. From there, they had Magenta activate her map and started a systematic search through the streets. 

A number of parents of Magenta and Steve's classmates also lived in the area and were at home that day. A few of them messaged their children at school if they had seen Steve. Worried no's came back. The homestay parents logged into their social media and continued to ask around. Many who Magenta spoke to now knew what was going on and gave her treats to encourage her to keep going, as well as giving her any information or suggestions of where to look. 

Magenta managed to keep her parents searching through the night, keeping in close contact with the authorities. As her parents got more and more tired, Magenta became more willful. As such, when they chanced upon locked doors without answer, and her parents forbade her from picking the locks, she teleported to the other side of the door. Her night vision also helped, where she only searched for children-shaped heat signatures.

Sometime between midnight and dawn, the authorities called her parents with news of Steve. He was found near an explosion that had occurred in East City's Logging Facility. They asked them to wait at the police station while they bring Steve.  

At the police station, when Magenta saw Steve, she started to cry. Whether she noticed the glowing blue sword he had in his hands or not, she walked up to him and punched his arm, berating,

"You broke your promise." She then walked back to her parents promptly falling asleep in their arms.

Back at school the next day, Magenta was as normal as her sleep-deprived self could be. When asked by every child in their year group about Steve, all she said about the matter was,

"Hmph. He broke his promise. I won't be asking him to play dodgeball with me when he comes back next week." And for the rest of the year, although Steve did play dodgeball with Magenta, she was never the one to ask him.

After Steve came back to school, he gave a brief explanation of what happened to the class.

"I was kidnapped when I was walking around alone. In the secret facility I was taken to, someone helped me and the other kids escape. There were bad things going on. So I took the matter to The Council of Turien. They will help look after me and I will work for them in the future to make sure nothing like what happened to me happens again." And he bowed.

He didn't say much else about it to his classmates for a long while. Magenta, however, unlike the other kids, neither asked him nor awkwardly hid from the topic, only complaining he broke his promise and giving him suggestions to not be kidnapped again. Steve just grinned as she walked him home every day.

When they entered the same high school, Magenta sighed. As she ignored his grinning by playing her otome games on her phone while they walked home, he started trying to recruit her into his Hero party. He'd become a Hero for the Council after his kidnapping incident, and they capitalised on his part in exposing the tragedy of what went on in the secret facility. As the small incident was unraveled to showcase a large illegal magic experimentation plot, including the kidnapping and killing of Fairies, Steve ran the forefront of rebuilding the relations between races and saving the Human race in Turien.

But Magenta wanted none of that. She'd always wanted to be a teacher, and Steve sighed as he'd seen her single-mindedly pursue this. Every time he'd ask why in these conversations she'd reply with,

"I need to teach the next generation to keep their promises." And then she'd go back to squealing over her game while he'd face-palm.