Darkened Souls {HAITUS}

2

Content Warning: Slight Verbal Harassment, Mentions of Racism

Another day of school. School took forever and it was never that beneficial to me, I have early onset trust issues with humans. While bullies are frowned upon and punished immediately if they were caught, that didn't ever stop them from going after me. I didn't like most of the human kids. Neither did the rest of the 'humanoids' in my class.

All the teachers here are humans. For some reason that seems to give them a right to be quite forwardly racist. I'm the quiet kid, the nerd, the one who gets things done, and I sit in the front of the class simply because of the fact that I'm 'a highly dangerous Enderkin'. That doesn't just... happen. That's them keeping one eye on me at all times, and honestly it makes me feel uncomfortable and I started to just hate everyone because of the pressure, I brushed one of the kids who routinely made fun of my for my height a bit too aggressively, and now here I was, in front of the principal. At least he showed some respect. He was possibly the only adult in these buildings during school hours that wasn't wretchedly racist.

I liked that about him. He respected my distance, he never looked me in the eyes to get my attention like my stupid math teacher. God, did I hate that woman? He didn't even touch me, knowing full well that that was another one of the things that made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. I could tell that he also knew of my obvious jitteriness around humans. I was inwardly racist as well, I'd realised that long ago, and accepted it. I just couldn't stay off of the edge of my seat around humans, or really anyone for that matter thinking about it.

Perhaps I wasn't as racist as I previously thought, and I'm just an anxious freak?

"Sounds about right," I said without thinking.

"What sounds right, Ran?" I looked up towards his face.

"Oh, sorry I was just thinking out loud."

"Ah. What got you in here today, Ran? You don't normally pop up here as the culprit."

That was true, this was a special day. I got to be the one in the chair. I could almost hear that ginger boy cracking up about the situation. I shook my head a little, smiling at the floor now.

"I 'pushed' someone on the playground." I made sure to make air quotes with the word 'pushed'. Principal Rowan was nice like that, he'd know exactly what I'd mean.

"Ah, I see." I realised then that he had a habit of using the annunciation 'Ah'. Interesting. "Well, there isn't much I can do in this situation, now is there?" He chuckled to himself, seemingly satisfied. My brain wandered to Fable and subconsciously wondered if he was okay working by now. He'd been back to work these past couple of days and I don't think that he's been taking it in any sort of a good way.

If anything it seemed unhealthy to be working only a few months after a beating like that, but I wouldn't start a row about it now. What was the point anyway? He's got Boo and Bale to back him up. The only reason Boo would be there with him is for the extra muscle strength that had conspicuously disappeared from Fable's arms. I wondered if that Iris girl would take notice. She always seemed to, I was guessing something was going on between the two of them that neither wanted to talk about or accept, but I'm his little sister, give me some credit. I know his personal life.

It was then that I realised that I had spaced out in my company again. I can see the worry on the way that his lips pressed together in a line, but I don't comment on that. I rub the back of my neck awkwardly.

"Well, this has been a fun little chat, but if you could just hand me the pink slip and give me my leave...?" I asked.

"I've noticed something about you, Mara." I froze. "You seem to take in the most about others, while expertly keeping most at the bay of their questions, and you don't even have to point out the racism excuse and how you'd be different in every fundamental way than a human, but you like, dodge them with an extra inch to spare. It's seriously impressive." I know that I'm flushing from the praise now, my cheeks are hot. "Not to mention that you are wise beyond your years.