The floating television set that Atena's parents had bought was turned on while Atena's mother was knitting and while watching what she had tuned in for. She was more focused on the knitting than what shown on the floating box of electricity, as she's been trying to make a nice poncho for her husband for what appears to be a couple of days. Alice and Azúl have been together for 2 centuries and by human standards, this would make them around 40 years old. They've been together ever since they were young adults, fresh and ready to take on Marte hands together. Obviously, their love was genuine, as they have been together longer than most humans live. In the world of Marte, the ages of human range from 100-140 years old on average if they do not die in war nor by some wicked disease or curse. Dark elves and elves, in general, live far longer than their human counterparts and live to be about 600-700 years on average. After hitting the big 100, which is the benchmark for adulthood, dark elves do not change in appearance and keep their youthful features until they pass away. For this reason, there are laws in place set by the human government to keep a registered account of the birth dates of all the immigrants of different races that enter Saturno. These registered accounts are given a number, which are called your Status Security Number. Before, there were multiple accounts of different races dying inside their houses alone and their corpses rotting for weeks before being discovered by authorities. The gruesome sight of a decaying body covered in maggots and flies was triumphed by the stench that it held and forced the human government to enforce rules and have the 13 States, which was a recently formed country just over 300 years ago, send them transcripts and reports of the lifespans of each different race.

As Alice is knitting the poncho, the floating TV set catches her attention, and she turns up the volume. Good morning folks, and we wish everyone is having a wonderful Tuesday morning. Some unfortunate news has been circulating the internet as the suicide rate for males of any species is at an all-time high. Reports show that the rate per 100,000 individuals, is 1,000. Males of any and all species make up 90% of all of suicides. The newly elected 68th president of Saturno, Eri Stautle, addressed the issue stating that men of every race have been oppressed for centuries throughout our matriarchal history, and that because most of the world leaders and politicians are women, it is time there is more male representation amongst ourselves. While it is true that things have been extremely terrible for men of every species throughout the world's history, there are various groups that are founded from misandry that try to protest, and sometimes violently, the fight to end male oppression...

The magical TV set keeps on floating and Alice makes a complicated face. Although she loves her husband dearly, the fact that women keep their last names when marrying their spouses, while men don't, and the fact that men are treated as pieces of expendable meat, didn't sit well with her. She thinks more about certain injustices men face, such as being the laborer and the breadwinner of the house while having their wives be the one to be the head of the family, seemed a bit selfish. Add to that with how almost everything in media and in history is catered to female heroes, female protagonists, female-centered plots where men are just romantic plot points, all start to flood into Alice's mind. Steam starts leaking out of her ears as she gets overwhelmed by the countless different thoughts swirling in her mind. Before her own thoughts consumed her, Atena dashes down the stairs and goes up to her mother. "Mom! Did you see what happened last night?" "Uhh, what are you referring to, dear? Was it something on the news?" Alice responded. "No, there was a bright light in the sky on my way home from work and all of a sudden I woke up in bed and... and...". "Honey, relax, you came home, ate dinner and went to your room immediately." "But mom! You don't understand! Objects were floating in my room when I woke up and it was fucking cold! But when I went to check the temperature of the house, it was normal!" "Okay, first of all young lady, language! I am your mother, and you will not talk to me in such a vulgar manner!" "UGH! Sorry mom." "Second, maybe your furniture was floating due to some sort of spell you chanted while sleeping? You do know you talk in your sleep? One time I happened to hear you talking about some cute guy that you liked and.." MOM! STOP! It wasn't magic because an object is only able to float under 3 circumstances: 1) Either someone uses incantation magic, which takes a while since the incantation spell is a whole paragraph, 2) An extremely gifted magic user prodigy from Mercurio uses incantionless magic or 3) some other third thing to do with gravity. I know none of these are applicable to my situation because I suck at magic, let alone doing it in my sleep, and I am not some prodigy from Mercurio-" Atena stopped to take a breath of air as she was rambling on and on about this subject and her mother looking at her with worried eyes. "Dear, I think you're going to be late for work." "OH CRAP! You're right mom, I'll talk to you later!" Atena leaves as fast as she came, and Alice lets out a sigh of relief and worry while she watches her daughter leave for work.

Atena makes her way through the same road filled with cobblestone as she always does 5 days a week. The streets are all made of cobblestone and the buildings are made of a mixture of sturdy material and permanent magic. With what happened this morning still fresh in her mind, she thinks about what her mother said. She could be right, and the objects floating could have been due to some magic that I wasn't aware of. Atena thinks to herself. Almost all of Saturno society is run by a mix of science and magic. Cars don't have tires like carriages do in Bosque because they run on magic and float, using a special magic adapter that needs to be refilled every so often. In theory, most people can just use float magic and travel and carry things everywhere that way, but it uses up more of your magic vitality and is less efficient since you need to exert yourself the whole time you're travelling. By using magic cars, only an extremely small fraction of float magic is being used mixed in with electricity. This makes travelling more convenient and less taxing on the person. But no, Atena couldn't make heads or tails of what happened in her bedroom, let alone the hot splash of water right after turning it on. The shower always takes a bit to warm up, unless it was recently used. But she's the only one who uses that shower, as her parents have their own in their master bedroom. This perplexing conundrum only made Atena more confused, and she begins to make a face similar to her mother when Alice was watching the news.

"Hey Atty!" says a masculine but youthful voice coming from behind her. "Oh! Hey Pippen! How's your morning been?" "Oh, you know, the same old thing every time. Wake up, eat breakfast and straight to work!" Pippen was a halfling that had a human father and an elven mother. He has an older sister that works as a teacher at a high school in Mimas. Pippen was of average height, taller than Atena but not too tall as to dwarf her. His build was lean, with a slim waist and broad shoulders. He works on his body but doesn't eat as much as he should. Pippen was a fairly timid individual and always had a hard time speaking up about things that he wants or doesn't like. Due to this, he often finds himself being walked on and being taken advantage of. For Atena, Pippen was the guy that she really wanted to go out with. They've been friends for 10 years, working together for 5, she's always been into the shy type, and they would both die around the same time. This is one of the reasons why Atena wouldn't even dare think about a relationship with a human. Their lives are far shorter and Atena was looking for someone to spend the rest of her life with, a relationship similar to that of her parents. Although Pippen was a halfling of elven heritage, he will still live the same lifespan as a regular elf or dark elf. "So, Pippen, umm, you doing anything this Saturday? You want to go out for dinner sometime or something?" Atena suggested. "I'll have to give you an answer for that question after work. Does that sound good with you? Sorry, it's just that I need to make sure my schedule is open. My family likes to do things unexpectedly without warning me." "No, I get it, it's fine! Take your time, I can wait!" Atena didn't want to come off as impatient, especially around her crush. The halfling and dark elf walking to work together would be a strange sight to behold, but in Saturno, society is a melting pot and seeing one race with others of a different species isn't anything out of the ordinary. Interracial marriage is also encouraged, as anything that is half-human, tends to inherit all the abilities of the other half of its lineage, while also diluting the weaknesses that a race may tend to be naturally weak to. For example, Pippen is half-elf and half-human, so due to his heritage, he will live as long as your average elf will and won't be as affected by the weaknesses commonly known to the elven race like metallic objects. His ears are also a bit rounder than those of Atena.

Although Pippen knew Atena, in his mind, their relationship right now is a weird one. Before, Atena used to be smaller than she is right now. She used to have a short person complex about it in high school and used to bully others when she felt that they were looking down on her (And not in the literal sense). At first glance, Pippen is a timid and shy person and when he was in high school, even more so. Due to some misunderstandings between the two, Atena would take his shyness and unable to properly communicate, as him brushing her off disrespectfully whenever the two crossed paths. After a while, she unleashed all her pent-up emotions and started ridiculing and bullying the bigger but pitiful Pippen. This happened throughout all 4 years of high school up until graduation. Along with the occasional sexual harassment that he would receive from other girls in the school, he developed an even more antisocial personality towards the opposite sex and therefore, shut himself in his room whenever he wasn't in school and didn't make as many friends as he'd liked. He had developed a mild resentment towards women after his years in high school due to all the sexual harassment, physical and emotional abuse that he received. Fast forward to college (or university in some other countries), he ran into Atena in the same campus. She immediately tried to reconcile with Pippen in the best way that she could. They went out and had a few drinks of elven beer together, reminiscing about high school and other stuff that was left in the past... or so she thought... Pippen never really let go of that resentment, and by that point, it had grown from mild to more on the extreme side. As an adult, he is still shy and timid but there is a hole in his heart where he stores all those negative emotions. This part of his heart is filled to the brim with mixed emotions. On one hand, he is glad from the bottom of his heart, that he "reconciled" with Atena. Although Pippen had developed a fear of women, he still thought that tying loose ends and getting along with one another was for the best. After all, in the real world, hating and fearing the opposite sex doesn't leave him with many options career-wise. Marte is a matriarchal society in all 5 countries where 1 of them is almost all women. Trying to avoid women was like trying to avoid the chill of a winter's night. In this world, you had to accept them and work with them. Pippen wanted to progress in life and be promoted to director and have his own secretary that worked for him. He wanted authority, he wanted power. He wanted all the things that he never had the chance to even fathom before in his life. It was all fear and disappointment that filled his mind and his heart. It was nothing but women constantly catcalling when he walked the cobblestone road to work and Atena always asking to go out with him on a date. He hid it well, and he played the role to a tee. He didn't mind getting along with his high school bully, in fact, Atena and him get along very well now. However, the memories and scars that were left and kept inside never fully healed. It wasn't a matter of wanting to get along with women and ridding himself of this fear of them. No, it was a fact that he COULDN'T. The pain, the memories, the humiliation, the harassment, the sexual advances, the catcalling, his timidness, everything played a factor into who he was. He even blamed himself for the way things turned out. After all, the world and life have consequences, and he had to pay his due. For being timid and shy. For being a man. All these thoughts constantly tossed and turned in his head, 24/7. It was extreme torture for Pippen to have to deal with all this anguish and constant agony over and over again. It couldn't stop and the worst part of it all was that Atena was right next to him. The catalyst that started it all, due to her own ego being threatened by some weird concept that being small was a bad thing and misinterpreting everyone around her. She was a bit rough around the edges, but she had become a better and more mature person after turning 100. But it didn't matter. For Pippen, she was the root of most of the problems that he has to go through. They say going to therapy helps, however, in Saturno, therapy costs an arm and a leg and most of the therapists are women. They would just tell him the same thing that other women tell him when he reacted in a way that they didn't like when they catcalled him. They called him a worthless man that didn't know how to "toughen up". If only he could...

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Marte to Pippen, you there?" Atena waved her tiny hands in front of Pippen's face as he was starting at the cobblestones on the ground as they were walking to work. "Oh, sorry Atty. I was just thinking about my schedule and if I could fit a date into it. Because I really wanna go out for dinner some time with you", Pippen says with a bright smile. Atena's eyes widen, as if she was a little kid who just opened their Christmas present on Christmas Day, and she moved closer to Pippen. "Really? You sure you wanna go out with some tiny elf like me?" Atena was fiddling with her fingers and turned away when she felt her cheeks go red from embarrassment. After being rejected all her life from the opposite sex, Atena's mind wiped all of that out from existence at the thought of finally going out with the man that she has liked for decades. To Atena, she bullied Pippen because of her complex and because she liked him a lot. But after hearing her peers and fellow girls talk about how guys are totally gross and whatnot, she hid her feelings and bullied him instead, in order to hide her hidden emotions and to make a good impression with her peers. Atena never admitted it to anyone other than her parents that she was deeply in love with the halfling. She was always aware of the bullying and addressed it to him by apologizing constantly when they ran into each other again in college, but she could still sense that not everything was fixed after reconciling. I mean, how could things be completely fixed? Marte and its inhabitants were complex. From the rules of each country to the society and social structure of each class of citizens. Being an adult was long, hard and complex. It wouldn't surprise her if Pippen did hate her on the inside, due to all the trauma that she had given him throughout their high school lives. Her past haunts her as well as depresses her. She constantly regrets all the bad things she's ever done to Pippen and the others that she had bullied and harassed during her adolescence. She is trying her best, and honestly, she wishes she could turn back time and redo their whole friendship all over again. Just wishful thinking as always. She knows how hard guys like Pippen have it. They live in a women's world, after all. All of the leaders of each country or women and the wages are skewered in favor of women. Men can't even go to the supermarket alone without some girl trying to hit on him. Men are the first ones to be sent to war and the last ones to be thought about when it comes to overall species rights. Not to mention the poor treatment they receive from other species of women that talk down to them all the time as if they couldn't think for themselves. As if they were just slaves to lust and pieces of meat at the same time. Some women have even uttered that men were born to please women and serve them. These nasty ideals and beliefs have made Atena ashamed to even be a part of the same biological sex as those who say those things. But what can she do? Saturno is a country where humans come first, and the immigrants second. Even though Pippen and her were technically Saturno citizens, born and raised, the fact that they weren't human already set up prejudices towards them from their human peers. And that's just the tip of the iceberg....Saturno is one of the richest and most developed nations in the world and that's why everyone wants to immigrate here. Even though she loved Bosque, she knew that the style of life that she was accustomed to would be far better in Saturno than in the 13 States. She wouldn't have to worry about certain uprisings and constant civil wars in nearby states either...

Atena and Pippen both looked at each other in the eyes after the confession by Pippen. His eyes were full of assurance that the date would happen while Atena was still blushing. "So, Atty, what did you bring for lunch today?" Pippen said to try to lighten the mood. "OH! I just have some leftovers that my mom made for me. I think it was a lily pad salad with some berry tomatoes roasted inside Canta leaves. What about you?" Atena responded, a bit surprised by the sudden question. But she was kind of happy that she could show off to Pippen that she has been eating healthier recently in order to lose some questionable weight she had gained from binge eating chips and cheese. "I made myself a veggie omelet with some fruit. Even though I'm a halfling, I don't really like meat as much as my father and I don't even have that much of an appetite to begin with so this much should be fine. Although, I would like to be a little bit leaner." Atena was about to tell him that he looked handsome the way he was and that he needn't worry about his appearance as he was already perfect in her eyes when they finally arrived at work. Minerva arrived the same time as they did but was dropped off by what appeared to be an older lady that had a rough looking face with eyes that stare into your soul. "Hey guys! Sorry I couldn't walk with y'all to work today but I kinda woke up late." Atena and Pippen both told her it was fine and that they should focus on the long day ahead of them. Before Minerva got out of her car, Atena did notice that she was wiping away the last of her tears. How odd she thought. Angels only cry to heal wounds. So why did she wipe her tears with her arms? As the 3 head in for work, the secrets that they held were covered by a facade that had faint openings to let just enough of the truth be shown.