After his meeting with Ammir, Shirei got help from the tummas with the choice of clothes and decided to return to the park. He placed his new clothes, enclosed in a leather suitcase, on the black wood floor of his house. He knew he would have to hide them before anyone saw them, so he simply put the suitcase under the bed, confident that Dalia's anger would keep her away from his things. He headed towards the canteen, letting the need for food guide him. As he closed the door of the thirteenth house behind him, he sadly noted the absence of his half-sister. She seemed to have lost her usual enthusiasm since they'd argued. He felt sorry for her, but decided to let her think.
The sight of the demigods running towards the table, laughing and joking, contrasted, in fact, with the quiet and solitude of Cragar's not-so-young daughter. The demigoddess sat on the lawn of Kore's garden with a gloomy face, lost in thought. A wave of sadness washed over her as she noticed her own isolation. She wished she could ease her pain and put a smile back on her face, but she couldn't ignore the irresponsible way she had put everyone in danger.
She always did her best to be cheerful and socialize with everyone. She knew she was seen differently because of her father and she herself felt alienated from the other demigods, although she didn't know the reasons for that strange feeling. She wondered if it was her date of birth that was the problem, or the century she had spent in a fictional world that was affecting her negatively. She just wanted to know what was driving her away from everyone she loved.
I worked so hard every day, so why? Where have I gone wrong?
Even her stepbrother didn't want her help.
She was a daughter of Cragar, the god of the dead. One of the six major deities. The only one on par with Emion.
Why am I so weak?
The questions continued to manifest themselves in the form of tears, which gently wet the silent underground garden where she had taken refuge.
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Marina tied her hair in a ponytail as she entered the canteen. She decided to leave out two protruding bangs, which fell onto her cheeks. An aspect that Ognia's children would have defined as 'natural chic'.
Behind her, a warm voice called, "Hey there."
The blonde turned and was happy to recognize the face of a dear friend, "Lilia!"
Torari's daughter smiled at her, before biting into a piece of bread she was holding in her hands. Marina smiled back and followed her with the intention of getting something to drink. She got in line with the raven girl without worrying too much, after all she wouldn't hear any gossip until Shirei showed up there.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"Didn't you sleep last night?" Lilia asked in a worried tone.
Marina lowered her eyebrows and raised her lower lip in a confused expression, "Why do you ask?"
"You have a face..."
Ien's daughter thought about the three times she had woken up in the wee hours to go to the bathroom. After drinking Miula's mead and meeting Shirei, she hadn't had the best of the days. The advantage of this whole situation, or the disadvantage, depending on your point of view, was that by the following morning the problems had disappeared. She had woken up without any hangover symptoms, even though it hadn't been a hangover. She wouldn't admit it.
She hadn't gotten drunk few days before. Absolutely not.
She recognized, however, why Lilia was worrying.
"It's not about that," she admitted with a grimace.
She thought she could hide the thoughts that tormented her easily but, from what she understood, she wasn't that good an actress.
"Take care, lately you're always going left and right."
The blonde furrowed her eyebrows, "And how do you know?"
"I see you," Lilia said admonishingly, "Actually, we all see you."
Shirei appeared outside the canteen as if it were the most normal event in the world. The noise at the tables immediately lowered in intensity, Marina suspected that the topic of the discussions had changed. Ien's daughter turned to look at the violet-eyed demigod. She jumped for a moment, but tried to hide it and turned around hoping not to meet his gaze.
Lilia whispered in annoyance, "Speak of the devil..."
As Shirei walked through the canteen packed with demigods, surrounded by cheerful voices and crowded tables, her sight fell on Marina. Before he could reach her, however, he received some dirty looks from table seven, reserved for the children of the goddess of wisdom. He was aware that he was not allowed to sit there, even though there were no written rules. He simply had to acknowledge that he wasn't welcome, which he did in a matter of seconds. After nodding to the blonde-haired demigoddess, Shirei decided to remain at his empty table, accepting his position as an outsider in the crowd.
Marina looked at him with an expression of displeasure on her face, as her mood changed. She felt a nauseous feeling in her chest from the situation. She hated how the Lilies Park treated Dalia, but he despised even more how Shirei was seen by everyone.
He was the son of the god who was the least admired among the entire fourth generation. Everyone saw him as a subject who should be removed as if he was carrying with him a deadly disease with a high infectious capacity. Marina did not deny that some of Shirei's habits were strange and that his past terrified her, but she did not accept that he was treated like an object and not like a boy. After the brief battle with Salix, Shirei had gained a modicum of popularity that allowed him to be looked at with dubious eyes. Inability to choose meant that they didn't see him either positively or negatively, so there was no reason for the demigods of the Lilies Park to treat him that way.
Ien's daughter wondered if the dynamics were the same at the Daffodil Academy and couldn't help but recognize a serious problem that afflicted them.
Prejudices are the order of the day.
That was a dark truth buried by the constant work being done by Lyceum.
Maybe we shouldn't talk so superficially about the academy, we're no better than them here.