The moment the words escaped his lips, the boy’s eyes widened and his cheeks burned red.
“You can become a Blessed,” I said, but my words were overshadowed by a loud, worried voice.
“Kale? Boy, where are you?”
Kale tumbled to the ground as gravity reasserted itself. He groaned but hurriedly scrambled to his feet.
“Thank you for everything,” he mumbled in a hurry and rushed to the front desk, where a man who looked like an older version of Kale stood.
The father?
“Probably,” I nodded.
The man looked like he was in his mid-thirties, his face worry-ridden. That did not stop him from scolding Kale for running away from home.
“I am so sorry. I should have known he’d come to hide here.” The father lowered his head and apologized to Tanja over and over again.
The elderly woman regarded the man and waved dismissively. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Adam took care of your boy. That’s nothing to do with me,” Tanja gestured to me as I approached the desk. “It looks like he enjoyed showing the kid a few things, so I wouldn’t worry too much.”
Her attention drifted toward Aureus gliding behind me. She raised an eyebrow at the Earthheart, and then at me, but didn’t say a word.
Come back, I ordered, and the massive Earthheart returned to the inner World.
“Thank you very much.” Kale’s father lowered his head and made sure his son would apologize as well. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry. It was a fun experience.” I winked at Kale. “Don’t you think so?”
My approval seemed to ignite a fire in Kale. He turned to his father and turned into a chatterbox, one worse than Aureus or even Daniel.
“He showed me the Blackstar Hound puppies, Pa! They looked so cute. So fluffy! Even their mother looked so nice!” Kale pointed at me. “The mother looked at him when I spoke too loud, and she just lay back down to rest. He’s so powerful! His Soulkins are amazing…well, the one I’ve seen. But I saw him conjure a flame that split up and turned into dozens of flames. They turned into birds that flew all around me...”
It was hard to follow every word. He spoke so fast, and the topics he spoke about shifted even faster.
I studied Kale’s father. He smiled, seeing his son well and excited, but deep down there was pain. The pain was not alone. It was accompanied by guilt, fear, a sense of unease, and heartfelt regret.
He was unBlessed, just like Kale had mentioned. The father also wore clothes much worse than his son. Their family was probably not dirt poor, but they were not part of the ‘better-off’ unBlessed households either, and I highly doubted the steadily rising prices of goods helped them in any way.
Maybe they were completely different and my perception was skewed, but Kale and his father felt like my family had been just two years ago. Much had changed since then, but the past held onto me like a leech.
“Can I show them a little bit more?” I wasn’t sure if that was the best idea, but something made me ask.
Plans formed in my mind and I brushed them aside as my elderly coworker turned to me with a shrug.
“Your shift’s already over, isn’t it?” She asked, pointing at the clock. Tanja was right; I was already a little late for my studies with Bert.
“But I don’t mind. As long as you check out, you can do whatever you want.” Tanja regarded the father-son duo with a faint but kind smile. “They seem like good people. But don’t give them too much hope. Make sure that old prick doesn’t see the three of you either. He doesn’t like showing people around when he thinks they–”
She didn’t finish the last part, but the content was obvious.
‘When he thinks they cannot afford it.’
Maybe that was the truth, maybe not. Preferential treatment was a weird thing in the Beast Temple. It didn’t exist, yet it did. After all, only those with big enough wallets were treated kindly - by that old man and his idiot cronies. I was incredibly lucky to work with Tanja most of the days, but I learned enough about the other receptionists to know I didn’t like most of them. All they cared about were sales commissions and social connections.
Many cared about that. Not all… but enough to make me feel bad.
The father must have heard Tanja because he stiffened, his lips tightly pressed together.
Only Kale was oblivious to her words.
I wanted to make a change. Shatter the gap between unBlessed and Blessed, for my parents had suffered from the same discrimination as many others. We escaped, but others had not been as lucky.
Maybe I could change that… somehow?