The play was told clumsily by the children. I couldn’t hear the lines, but I could tell they were stammering on difficult words and sometimes forgetting their lines completely. They tripped on the poorly made costumes and even managed to break one of the seed props.

It was quite funny to look at, but I tried to keep a straightface since the others were watching so attentively.

They ended the story at the establishment of churches and their role in keeping the balance between what the gods had intended their blessings to be for, and what they were truly used for.

Blessings are the powers we were gifted by the gods. Contrary to miracles, which were a manifestation of holy power by gods themselves, any kin could use a blessing from a god they descended from after receiving their baptism as long as they could muster the right emotion.

I was still too young to be able to use blessings as I hadn’t received my baptism, but I knew they were achieved through faith in the doctrines a god taught…

While I was distracted, I noticed the room started clapping and I hurriedly followed suit.

The white haired man came up front to congratulate the actors. He turned toward the room and announced something. A lot of the kids around my age looked excited, while the older kids looked slightly annoyed.

The crowd was dismissed and the others went back to play. I sat there for a bit, thinking.

Now that I was thinking about it, winter is well on its way. Having a religious play was nothing unusual, but this one specifically was designed to familiarise with the gods. Winter had many religious holidays, but it was hard to narrow down which one was to be celebrated at this time...

I had never really dwelled on it when living at the estate as almost all of us were Meiriem or Seeir Kins, but there were truly many gods and probably even more heritage mann received from them. This meant that gods were probably worshipped very differently.

I looked at the man. He had white hair and red eyes. Whose kin was he? His hair was white, so perhaps he was a kin of Solomon, the white Miasma? But then again, in the play Solomon was usually bald and his eyes black. Red eyes might be more telling. Red was the color of life and her hair was always hidden by flames, so perhaps…? But it could also be from another minor god altogether…

I started looking around the room at the kids and tried to guess where their traits came from. Many of them seemed to be of mixed origin, yet you could perhaps tell?

Red, blue, pink, green, purple, silver… Eyes of all of the colours of the rainbow and sometimes streaks of colours mixed in. Some of their hair grew even wilder with different shades and streaks. One of the boys even had dark blue streaks running all throughout his pristine silver head of head like sapphires on a silver crown.

It all meant something. They told a story spanning millennia.

I pondered on this idea. Light pink and blue was always Meiriem, that I knew. Silver eyes and hair was Seeir. My mom had explained that one through and through when praising my eyes… Well, my old eyes. The head maid had always said that green was a malicious colour so probably Diid? Solomon had black eyes, while Fey had red ones… There was a boy with dark blue eyes and crimson hair. What could that be? And what about golden hair like the girl walking toward…

It was the girl from yesterday. The one who had hurt Horsie. I felt an uncomfortable chill run down my spine when I spotted and quickly started walking away. There was no way I would be playing with her again any time soon. Before I could leave the room, the girl grabbed my hand. I turned around ready to smack her in her evil face, but I froze.

She was crying while holding my hand with both of hers. I stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded. She was awkwardly fiddling with my fingers as she spoke to me, her eyes cast downward only glancing at me with her swollen jade-coloured eyes.

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Is she trying to apologize? Useless. The white haired man probably just scolded her and forced her to.

I thought about slapping her hands away, but hesitated. Despite her disingenuous intentions, she was still crying, and it made me feel bad.

She continued talking to me as I stared at her coldly. She tried to pull me along somewhere. I resisted her insistence at first, but eventually allowed myself to be pulled along, slightly curious what kind of phony show of apology she was trying to make.

Snot hanging from her nose, she dragged me through the corridor to the same playroom as yesterday. I grimaced as she headed for the toy box.

She awkwardly dug through the toybox, obviously struggling to find whatever it was she was looking for through the tears and snot streaming down her face. I awkwardly sat down and waited for her to be done.

“What do you think that she wants?”

Darkie asked me.

[I guess she wants to apologize..? But she’s really pushing herself… It’s weird.]

Eventually she took out Horsie and tried to play with it. She could only manage to make it gallop twice before he slipped through her trembling hands as she started crying even harder.

[Now I’m starting to feel like a bad girl for some reason…]

She tried to calm herself. She reached out for my hand which I allowed. She held it as she looked at it intensely. She started lifting my sleeve. For a moment I considered stopping her, but there was no point. She was probably curious after whatever the whitehaired guy had told her.

The sleeve gave way to my skin. The purple bruising, the yellow stains and the scars shone under the sunlight. I could tell from her expression that she was about to explode into tears again, but was trying her best to keep her composure. After looking at it for a moment, she carefully pulled down the sleeve and released my hand.

[I hope you’re satisfied.]

I said out loud, hoping to sound sarcastic, as I flattened the crease on my sleeve.

The girl stood up and started lifting her skirts. I got up in a panic.

What is she thinking?!

[Hey there’s boys in the room! Girls shouldn’t show what’s under their skirts to boys!]

I tried to reason with her, but she ignored me. After pulling up her skirt She pulled down her left sock and I saw it.

From her thigh all the way down to her toes, tiny circular scars spotted her skin.

I had never seen anything like it.

The skin bulged around the spots and the center had a sickening yellow tint. It looked painful. I instinctively tried to touch it, but caught myself remembering how much my own wounds had hurt when others touched them.

Seeing my hesitation, she simply pushed my hand against her skin without a second thought allowing me to feel the deformed skin of her leg. It was tight and taunt as if dried and pulled like a piece of leather. The heat from her leg felt uneven, and the bulges around the browned holes felt as hard as nails in some places. I couldn’t imagine what had happened, but I could imagine how it had felt.

I looked up at the tearful girl's face again. She wiped yet another string of snot hanging from her nose.

After wiping her eyes once again, she looked down and our eyes locked.

In her twinkling jade eyes, I could see myself. Hurt in ways others couldn’t even imagine. Beaten, scared, betrayed, and yet, somehow, still hoping for things to be better someday.

My eyes suddenly felt very itchy. I broke eye contact with the girl, and scratched and scratched but they only itched more. As I looked at my hands I noticed tears had stained my sleeves. I looked up to the girl, but before I could say anything, she hugged me tightly.

I tried to hold it in for a moment, but gave in.

I cried and cried as she hugged me tightly. It hurt. My whole body was sore as I still recalled the crop striking my skin and my own mothers hands around my throat. but I didn’t want her to let go. I didn’t have to feel alone. I could feel her tears wetting my shoulder as I cried in hers.

It was a long while before the tears finally dried up. I could still feel her tears falling against my shoulder, so I brought up my arms and held the girl tightly along with Darkie.

I looked at her golden button eyes as I felt the girl shake as she cried in my arms.

[Do you think it’s ok to forgive her this once..?]

I asked him.

“I think it’s okay to forgive friends.”

I nodded and held the green-eyed girl even tighter.

It was a lonely thing to feel this way. No one should have to go through it alone.