"Hey, Noen…" said a student who had been waiting for him in front of the school entrance.
Noen stopped. "Hey, Thel."
"We heard about it…"
"About what?"
"About… about Lyra…"
Noen's eyes widened, but then he looked down at the ground.
"I'm… really… so sor—"
"It's okay," Noen interrupted. "It's not like you could have done anything about it."
He tried to smile a little, but a tear still slipped out.
"Yeah, but— wait, Noen, what kind of clothes are those?"
— I better not say what really happened… —
"They're clothes that I… um… am wearing in honor of the good mini god bearers from back then. You know, we learned about it in Sacred History."
"Since when where you interested in history?"
"Umm… since the weekend."
"What?" Thel said, then shrugged. "Well, whatever, let's go in. Class starts in two minutes."
"When a field is three-quarters of a morgen in size and a second field is half of that, what matters to us is not what it looks like, but what the—"
— I can't even take these clothes off… — Noen thought.— And for some reason, they don't get dirty. Not at the grave. Not at the old man's place. Not when I jumped from roof to roof… not even when I landed right in that big puddle. Not a single stain. Nothing. And the fact that I cant take it off... Strange. —— It's actually pretty crazy that I'm suddenly interested in gods and history—
"Noen!"
The teacher's voice tore him out of his thoughts.
He flinched and struggled to his feet, looking exhausted.
"Could you please pay attention? I know the death of Lyra, your girlfriend, has affected you… all of us. But at least try to focus in class, okay?"
— Why does everyone who sees me have to remind me of this horror? —
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Ashmere."
— Class is my lowest priority right now. Not like it was ever that high before… —