Mia returned to the library the next morning. She entered the room slowly, quickly taking refuge once more behind the shelves to the left of the entrance. Her heart raced as she slipped behind a beam to scan the presence of the Vila.

A weight seemed to have been lifted from her shoulders when she saw that he was not there. She had been right not to go back there at the same time, hoping not to meet him. She would never admit that she was afraid of him and preferred to blame her desire for peace as the source of her attempts to avoid a new conflict with this particular individual.

She had already castigated herself enough, torn between her desire to fight and her fear of aggression when she realized that she had not applied the precautions that had been heavily suggested to her. She was supposed to dodge confrontation with Vilas and that was exactly what she did not do the day before. It was stronger than her, she had reached the limits of her patience. Especially when we were talking about a spectacular level of disrespect and injustice like she had experienced. It wasn't simple racism anymore, his hatred seemed strangely personal.

Mia was not at the end of her troubles this morning. As she turned to leave the shelf behind which she had been hiding, her body collided with that of another individual who dropped his books under the impact. He was a young man with a tired face and a hunched figure. He didn't react to the jostling, simply bending down to pick up his books, not even giving her a single glance.

"I'm sorry, I didn't see you," Mia apologized, bending over to help him.

Finally, the man deigned to look her in the eye, a distressed light shining in his eyes.

"Don't talk to me, please," he replied in a voice as low as a whisper.

The blonde stood up, completely taken aback by his response. He, too, despised the human she was and preferred to pretend she didn't exist? Mia was doing her best not to show that his reaction hurt her, putting her pride above all else, but the young man had no trouble deciphering her emotions. He knew them only too well. He got up with a sigh and approached her, leaning slightly towards her face to speak quietly.

"Don't take it personally, I have nothing against you. I know very well how it feels to be confronted with disgust and disdain all day long. I've been through this all my life, and it's even worse since I've been at the Arena. It's just that... if they see me with you, it will give them one more reason to make my life miserable..."

So she was not the only one to undergo this treatment. Somehow, it saddened her for her interlocutor as much as it reassured her to know that someone else understood her and lived the same thing. No one should have to face this kind of situation, for any reason, but Mia knew very well that nothing would change the condescending look of others on their person. Not even fighting back.

"Why do they despise you?" she couldn't help but ask.

"Ah, yeah I heard you went through a portal, you don't know anything about our world... I'm a hybrid child, born of a union between a magician and a werewolf. Different races don't like to mix, I'm what they call... an abomination..."

"I'm sorry," replied the blonde with sadness, not knowing how to react otherwise to his revelations.

"You have nothing to do with it," he concludes, smiling tenderly. "Good luck."

"You too!" she slipped before he disappeared from her field of vision.

Quickly, Mia decided to put this interaction in a corner of her head so as not to weigh herself down the rest of the day. The only thing she kept of the interaction was a mental note to ask Arry about hybrids. The young man's explanations had raised many questions about this in her mind. Today, she had planned to take an interest in the architecture of the castle and therefore returned to her initial plan. She had quickly abandoned her book on the massacre of humans, realizing that it was only a succession of facts and battles that she could not locate or understand since she knew nothing about this world. Might as well start with the most basic thing: her new place of residence.

Rummaging through the shelves filled with books, some dusty and some almost new, she had learned several things: first, the school had been built forty years before her arrival, but started welcoming students only ten years later. It took them a decade to convince races of the merits of the school and to calm things down enough for them to consider sending their children here. Before it was turned into a school, the castle originally belonged to a vampire named Dimitri Vladistok who agreed to expand it and make it the school she knew today. And, finally, the building worked entirely on magic. This last fact didn't truly surprise her, it was the logical conclusion she had arrived at. The castle seemed to have pipes for running water and sewage, and the lighting strongly resembled light bulbs that were operated by switches, but the technology needed on Earth to make these structures work properly seemed to her to be very little necessary when you had access to magic.

"Mia!"

The blonde jumped in surprise and gave Arry an annoyed look. She hadn't seen her coming. Her friend sat down quickly and reached into her satchel to pull out a ticket, which she placed on the table, pushing it toward Mia.

"Here, it's your ticket to the tournament this weekend, you can come to cheer me on!" she explained happily.

Mia had passed several times in front of posters of the tournament stuck everywhere on the brick walls throughout the school, but she was not sure yet that she absolutely wanted to attend. It seems that Arry didn't give her a choice. Anyway, she was still curious about how this event worked and what the students and her friend were capable of.

If they're going to attack me, I might as well know how...

"Saturday, at four o'clock. I can't take you there since I'm fighting, but you can ask Lily to go with you, so she can show you where it is."

Well, at least I won't be alone.

"Are you hungry?" Arry asked. "Let's go eat!"

"Okay, just let me put it all away," she replied, closing her book.

On the way, Mia jumped at the chance to ask her friend about hybrids. She didn't tell her about her meeting this morning, not knowing exactly what the redhead's position was on this point. The event was irrelevant, and she didn't want to cause trouble for the young man.

"I read in a book that races could mix and create hybrids?"

Arry gave her an embarrassed look, clearing her throat before answering. With a glance, she scanned the surroundings to see if the two young women were alone in the perimeter and if other students were not going to be able to listen to their conversation.

"This is a bit of a delicate subject... Only the union of a magician and another race can produce hybrids. For example, a werewolf with a vampire will never produce children. It's because we're genetically close to humans, plus magic. But this kind of union is not tolerated at all."

The redhead seemed to want to stop there, but Mia still didn't have the answer to the question she was asking herself the most.

"Why is this not tolerated? What can it do to them?"

"You won't let go until I answer you, will you?" Arry inquired desperately.

"Ha ha, you're starting to know me pretty well," retorted the blonde with a satisfied smile.

"Well... just know that I don't share their opinion, okay? Hybrids have always been more or less frowned upon since the majority of races cannot mix. For them, it is a sign that it is against nature. Unfortunately, the story does not end there. The only people who tolerated hybridization and even encouraged it were humans. It was seen as a good thing and a way for them to ensure a stronger offspring, more able to fight the other races with more equal weapons. When the war broke out, the rumor that humans were trying to parasitize other races, to weaken them by mixing their blood with their own, spread like wildfire. Once peace was restored and humans were gone, hybridization finally became completely taboo."

Mia wanted to push the conversation and ask her why the humans had been decimated, but she didn't want to make her friend's discomfort last any longer. Anyway, she was starting to have a vague idea of ​​the reason behind this genocide from learning more about Istarea, and she wasn't sure she wanted to learn more. It seemed like it had to do with pure hatred.

Something else bothered her though, now that she thought about it.

"You know, I was wondering...does hanging out with me cause you any problems? I know Lily has no problem with that since fairies are inherently neutral, but not all magicians are... friendly to me."

"Oh, don't worry about that!" she reassured her with a smile. "Those I hang out with have nothing against humans and share my opinion on the subject. Others ignore me, I ignore them back, and that's fine!"

That didn't necessarily mean it didn't affect her red-haired friend, but if it did, she didn't show it. Besides, she was old enough to make her own choices, it wasn't up to Mia to try to protect her on that. She needed friends, keeping them away was clearly not a good idea.