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12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbE8eE6na6i
If Marion spoke so lightly of it, it was because she was a mage, one of the best, in fact. Her reputation was well established. So, she had no trouble broaching the subject. Despite all her love for him, her only child, she didn't understand, and there was no way she ever would.
She had no idea what he was feeling, his anger, his deep sense of injustice, his sense of misfortune, his humiliation, and above all his powerlessness. This appalling powerlessness to change what was.
He wished he hadn't been a disappointment to his mother, worse, a disgrace, but he was. He couldn't understand how anyone could be born the way he was, but that was the way it was, and nothing could fix it. To his misfortune, to his mother's misfortune.
However, he could divert the discussion by tackling another that was particularly close to his heart, and in a way that seemed even harder to deal with.
“I don't know how many times, you've said that to me. But why always grandpa? Why not... my father?”
Although Marion had expected Conor to broach this subject, which happened to be one of the most delicate for both of them, she never knew how to behave or even what to answer, and remained in a tense silence, impossible to break.
Mother and son looked at each other for a long time. It was so intense that Conor finally turned away when he saw the tears welling up in his beautiful witch's eyes.
“Don't worry, Mom. I won't try to wring the truth out of you this morning. I've got too much to do, and too many things filling my head.”
Conor stood up.
“Well, I'm going to take a shower and eat this damn breakfast before I go to that school that only keeps me around out of pity, and also for you. But I think their patience is about to run out.”
Conor stormed out of his room.
A few minutes later, Conor walked out of his building, down the stairs and past the concierge's observation room, Suri, an ageless Japanese woman who was still watching him with her shifty little eyes.
“Oh, young Conor. I see you still haven't changed!”
“Good morning to you too, Madame Suri.”
“I wonder what your problem is!”
With this old woman always in the same place, constantly dressed in the same dark, shabby clothes, it was best never to start an argument, but it was hard, really hard.
“I don't think that's any of your business.”
“I don't even have to ask to know.”
“Thanks for your concern!”
Suddenly, a shadow passed, startling Conor. It was a black bird with glowing eyes that had landed on the railing of the staircase.
The young man was terrified by its avid gaze, the cold, black aura it exuded.
“What the...?”
“Oh, it's a Reg,” the conciliator informed him, sniffling.
“Yes, I know, but what I want to know is, what's he doing here? Normally...”
“Normally, these awful beasts and rabid gobblers are only found near an ocean of flesh, death and black magic. Birds of misfortune in all their splendor.”
Another bird descended to perch beside its companion.
“They can only live in flocks, and a flock numbers at least a thousand.”
“What do they want?”
“I don't know. A whole swarm has taken up residence on the terrace of our building.”
Conor looked up and saw Regs hovering in the space of the building and others landing on the edges of the terrace.
“But why are they there? There's no ocean of darkness here.”
The concièrge giggled as she swallowed a piece of meat dripping with oil.
“Who knows, kid, maybe they're here for you.”
“Very funny.”
Madame Suri laughed louder, she was only joking, but this didn't make Conor laugh at all; on the contrary, her words worried him, for they really were sinister beasts, of the worst kind: incapable of being hunted other than by astronomical power, they only ever landed in a place where misfortune reigned and black magic was in frightening abundance.
There was something in their building, in their neighborhood that attracted them, that they coveted, that they worshipped, however, everyone was obviously too scared to try and find out what.
“Given your peculiarity, you never know,” the concierge added with a malice that made the young mage cringe. The latter had heard enough. He arranged his satchel.
“Good day to you too! That is, if it's possible!”
After angrily hurling these words at him, he left.
***
Twenty minutes' walk for a normal person from his apartment building to the academy, but much less for “real” mages.
Most students got there on the back of their magical creature, or at full speed, or by teleportation, or even with a chauffeur, and yet....
No one did as the young man did, because he wasn't like the others, and that distinction was anything but a good thing.
He felt out of place, and not just at school.
Two girls in their twenties, arm in arm, passed by and looked at him distractedly at first, but when they realized what they were seeing, they gasped and even stopped for a moment to follow him with their eyes.
“And to think I always took my little cousin for a little monster.”
“And I'll never complain about my boyfriend again.”
Conor pouted and muttered.
“I hear you, bitches! Go to hell!”
As he crossed the streets, people turned on him. And it was because of his look, not the one he would have liked to have, like any normal teenager, no, it was rather a look so repulsive that even he was sometimes frightened and disgusted by it.
He was wider than average, not to say fat, and short to boot, his inky-black hair wasn't of the best quality, despite all the care he and his mother took with it, and finally his eyes, so light gray they were transparent, were always clouded by dark thoughts.
The girls felt so sorry for him that most of the time they left him alone. In fact, they never even saw him. In other words, he was completely invisible to them. Not so the boys, who saw him as the perfect victim, and therefore the ultimate whipping boy.
Arriving in front of the huge doors of his famous establishment, Conor stopped and took a deep breath. This was an ordeal he had to go through every day, crossing the magical barrier that protected the whole place and allowed only those with magic to pass through. Everyone else passed through it effortlessly, without even realizing it existed, whereas for Conor, of course, it was a completely different story. It was a very bad time to spend and he had to endure it every day.
Most of the students didn't even bother to watch him do it anymore. But some still wasted their precious time watching him cross the barrier. In rare cases, it had become a ritual for them, especially if they, too, belonged at the bottom of the pile; as with these three.
“Still not tired of coming here, failure?”
“I have a feeling it's getting harder and harder for you!”
“Hey, Failure! You know you became a legend a long time ago?”
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