Chapter 8: Chapter EIGHT

Mia had been at the Arena for four days now. The fairies had left the room in the infirmary for her to use as her bedroom, for lack of being able to place her elsewhere. She wasn't complaining: it was the only wing of the building that was completely covered in wood and parquet, which made the place much warmer than the old brick that made up the rest of the structure. And, above all, she was safe among the fairies. She wouldn't go so far as to say it felt like home, but the transition between her world and Istarea seemed smoother there.

Vassili had sent her a short note the day after she woke up to let her know that everything was settled and that she could stay at the Arena without fear while waiting to find another solution. It also surprised her that the Headmaster of the school, since there had to be one, hadn't asked to meet her. Maybe he didn't have the time and preferred to trust the professor. Anyway, it was a relief for her since the prospect of meeting him and answering his questions under his inquisitive eyes - at least, that was how she imagined it - made her nervous. Regardless, she now had a place to live.

Aside from her dull anguish of being mugged in the hallways, she wasn't complaining. She appreciated discovering this new universe, and, even if her old life and her loved ones missed her tirelessly, the blonde was not the type to cling desperately to the past. Everything was still too new for the feeling of the inevitability of her prolonged stay in this world to truly hit her. For now, it was almost like a vacation.

Carpe Diem.

The similarities between Earth and this magical world were many. Mia suspected that they probably didn't speak English, but she was relieved to understand their language when she thought about it. She didn't even dare to imagine what it would have been like to arrive here with a language barrier. As for the food, it was relatively similar except that it was much healthier and there was no junk food or ultra-processed food. She still had a lot of questions about this world so strange and so familiar at the same time, but she didn't want to harass her two new friends and find herself alone not even a week after her arrival here.

Every morning, she found a new outfit in her closet. Usually, it was a short-sleeved dress that came just above her knees, in various pastel shades. Mia wasn't complaining either: she had always liked the comfortable look of dresses and the style and colors seemed perfectly appropriate for the spring weather at school.

Her days consisted of walking cautiously around the castle or the gardens when Arry and the other students had class, and seeking Lily's company in the infirmary when she was off duty. Although curious to see the magic of the fairies at work, she had decided to be as discreet as possible so as not to cause any problems. She also avoided going out of her quarters as much as possible when the other inhabitants of the castle were free, preferring to avoid the sometimes curious, sometimes haughty, and contemptuous gazes that were directed at her. She hadn't yet dared to visit all the rooms, not really feeling at ease there yet. This was particularly the case for the library, although she felt that her curiosity would soon push her to cross the entrance, at her own risk.

Nevertheless, she had been able to discover some useful information: the sectarian attitude of the different races was generally not an understatement, although the school did its utmost to promote the rapprochement of races by offering group activities (especially on the billboard that she had been able to observe in more detail on her third visit). On these same posters, she learned that the school management was very attentive to the possible violence arising from meetings between the various occupants since this was strictly prohibited and heavily punished. Technically, she was safe there. Technically.

It was also clear that the negative looks of other students on her person did not diminish with the passing days, although they seemed hardly less intense. Sometimes she passed a few students who snorted disdainfully as she passed, others who insulted her by saying words like "dirty human" or "weak", and a handful of occupants who went so far as to profane her with death threats. Usually, she would try to ignore them after giving them a dark look that she was beginning to master and hold her head up paying no attention to them, then quickly run away with a beating heart to an empty place in the castle to regain her calm away from their menacing eyes.

After four days, these attacks were starting to seriously hit her nerves. Not out of fear - although she couldn't deny that it worried her - but because her nerves of steel were slowly turning to rubber. Mia had never been the type to passively be bullied without sending the blows back, something she was trying to avoid here at the Arena. Besides, it was getting harder and harder to think of them as bloodthirsty beasts when the only thing she could see of these creatures were faces and bodies resembling her own. Fake humans that seemed harmless at first glance. She had to quickly force herself not to answer them with acidity and risk having her head ripped off.

When Arry wasn't busy in class, the two young women spent all their time together. The redhead made it a point of honor to integrate Mia as well as possible into their universe. And, at least, it was distracting her from her newfound popularity. Oz had ended up abandoning his distrust of her by sharing more and more time, but the blonde was always careful to also greet the wolf when she joined her friend, at the risk of him getting offended.

"Don't you miss your loved ones?" Arry asked as they strolled through the garden in the late afternoon.

"Yes of course I do but..."

Her heart sank thinking of her friends and relatives. At times she almost felt guilty living a new life here as they mourned her disappearance, but that prospect was quickly replaced by the certainty that there was no point in moping about her fate and that she would do better to learn to live here by learning as much as possible about the subtleties of this world.

The blonde strongly suspected that her relatives must be in complete incomprehension, even in denial, waiting for her return. After all, if she had understood this story of portals and travelers between the two worlds correctly, her body had disappeared from the surface of the Earth and therefore had not crashed lifeless at the bottom of the building. The most probable explanation for outside investigators was that her friends had completely imagined her downfall because of alcohol and that the young woman had simply run away or had been kidnapped.

Anyway, she didn't really have a choice. She might as well think about her survival and her current worries before being saddened by her pseudo disappearance on Earth. She could not convey any message to her loved ones and would probably never see them again. Even if this thought did not delight her, nor was it imprinted in her head yet, she had other things to worry about right now. The least she could do for the people she loved was to stay alive in her new reality.

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For the moment, she still had the vague impression of being trapped in a dream, torn between the desire to discover more and the fear of dying if what she was experiencing was indeed reality. Even if a small voice in her head reminded her that she had already almost died and that, maybe, she was in fact in the afterlife. The events of the last few days had created in her a veritable whirlwind of mixed feelings and confused thoughts. Every time she tried to think about it, she found herself even more lost than before.

"I try not to think about it," Mia continued.

"I'm not going to pretend that I know exactly how you must be feeling, but I understand that it can be difficult. I was raised in a small, very supportive tribe. Between my brothers and sisters, my cousins, my uncles, and aunts... Coming here alone... at first, I had a lot of trouble getting used to it. Of course, I can still see them when they come to visit, so it's not the same, but... sometimes it's complicated for me."

Mia gave her a contrite smile, not being very comfortable with the situation. She had never been good at comforting people, let alone knowing what to say to them in such cases. Usually, when her friends were feeling down, they would just have fun with a bottle or two of booze. Suffice to say that empathy was not her first quality. That was why she'd buried herself in studying dusty old books, where she wouldn't have to deal with other humans and their complex emotions too often.

"Sorry," Arry apologized, "it's a bit of a depressing conversation. Especially since I shouldn't complain with Oz by my side..."

"No worries," Mia replied lightly, relieved at the change of subject. "By the way, I know you're a magician, so... how does magic work? How do you choose a specialty?"

She had heard several conversations about mastering specialties over the past few days. To her, it was like gibberish. It was time for her to understand the intricate workings of this world if she was to stay there, instead of constantly running away from a possible altercation. And then, her curiosity was starting to tickle her a little too much. The only certainty she could have was that gaining new knowledge and information about her surroundings was never a bad thing.

"Specialty? Hmm... that's a bit complicated. There are several clans, and each clan has a chosen one: mastering the elements, animal metamorphosis, spells, and controlling nature among others. In each clan, each family has a specialty, and each individual chooses how they want to use their magic. Generally, you stick to your specialty, it's hard enough to master it like that. For example, in my clan, we master the elements. My family specializes in firebending," she explained proudly.

That explains her red hair, Mia chuckled inwardly.

"And when two parents are not from the same clan, what happens to the child?"

"Very good question!" Arry exclaimed. "Most of the time, the child will follow in his mother's footsteps. Fathers do not have a very decisive role in our families. If both parents are from the same clan, say elementalists, the child will usually take the specialty of his mother. He may prefer his father's specialty, but that's rare. With us, it is rather the women who lead."

"That sounds nice!"

"Yes, it has its advantages, I admit," she retorted, sending her a wink.

"And what about the other races, how does it work for them? Do they have a hierarchy?" Mia asked.

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