Thalia’s POV
The morning sun cuts golden lines across the car as I watch my children walk toward Westbrook Academy's main entrance.
Phoenix bounces with each step, her red backpack too big for her small frame. Orion adjusts his glasses and studies the building's architecture with that analytical gaze he inherited from his father. Luna holds her brother's hand, quiet and watchful, already feeling the emotional currents of three hundred new students.
Mixed-species academy. The brochure made it sound progressive—wolves, humans, and other supernaturals learning together in harmony. A chance for my kids to exist in both worlds instead of hiding in one.
My chest tightens with something I can't name. Pride, certainly. Unease underneath it, crawling like a warning I can't yet interpret.
Phoenix turns at the entrance, waves with wild enthusiasm, and disappears through the doors. Luna follows with one last look over her shoulder—those too-knowing eyes finding mine even from this distance. Orion's already gone, probably mentally cataloging exit routes and structural weak points.
My children. My miracles, walking into a world I can't control.
The call comes on day five.
"Mrs. Fenris?" Assistant Principal Morrison's voice carries that particular blend of professional concern and underlying accusation I've learned to recognize. "We need to schedule a meeting regarding your children. All three of them."
I arrive an hour later, stomach tight with dread I refuse to show.
Morrison's office is aggressively neutral—beige walls, motivational posters, a desk arranged to establish authority. She gestures to a chair clearly designed to make parents feel small.
"Thank you for coming on such short notice." She opens a folder thick with papers. "I wanted to address some concerns before they escalate."
"What kind of concerns?"
"Phoenix first." Morrison's lips thin. "During physical education, she threw a dodgeball that knocked another student off his feet. The boy has a bruised sternum. Her file notes enhanced strength, but that doesn't excuse disruptive behavior."
Disruptive. The word lands like a slap.
"She's nine," I say carefully. "Strength control takes time to develop."
"Then perhaps she shouldn't participate in contact activities until she learns appropriate force." Morrison flips to another page. "Moving on to Orion. His teacher reports aggressive behavior in class."
"Aggressive?"
"He publicly corrected Mr. Hendricks about a physics formula. Embarrassed him in front of the entire class." She looks up. "We encourage intellectual curiosity, Mrs. Fenris, but not at the expense of respect for authority."
I remember a different classroom, a different teacher's dismissive sneer. Nobody asked you, wolfless. The laughter that followed.
"And Luna?" My voice comes out steadier than I feel.
Morrison's expression shifts to something almost pitying. "Luna appears to be struggling socially. Other students find her... unsettling. She seems to know things about their feelings before they share them. One parent called to complain that Luna made her daughter uncomfortable."
"She's empathic. It's documented in her file."
"Yes, well." Morrison closes the folder. "Her teacher suggested she try harder not to notice other people's feelings so much. Perhaps some boundaries would help her integrate better."
The phrase echoes through time.
Maybe you're being overly sensitive, Thalia. Try not to take everything so personally. My counselor's patient smiled at sixteen, dismissing everything I tried to tell her.
I leave the meeting with my nails cutting crescents into my palms.
That night at dinner, my children sit in unusual silence. Phoenix pushes food around her plate without eating. Orion stares at his vegetables like they contain equations to solve. Luna hasn't looked up since we sat down.
"Talk to me," I say softly. "All of you. Tell me what's really happening at school."
Phoenix breaks first, her voice shrinking to something tiny. "I didn't mean to hurt him, Mama. I threw the ball like everyone else but it went too fast and he fell down and everyone looked at me like I was a monster. The teacher made me sit out while everyone else played. They kept staring at me through the window."
My hand finds hers across the table. "You're not a monster. You're strong, and strength takes time to control."
"Mr. Hendricks doesn't like me," Orion adds, matter-of-fact but with something wounded underneath. "I corrected his formula because it was wrong. Gravitational force follows an inverse square relationship, not linear. He called me aggressive in front of everyone." His brow furrows. "I wasn't yelling or fighting. I just explained the correct answer."
"You weren't wrong to correct him," I say carefully. "Sometimes people don't like being told they're wrong, even when they should be."
"That's illogical. How do they learn?"
"Some people would rather be comfortable than right."
Luna's silence stretches until it becomes its own answer. When she finally speaks, tears are already sliding down her cheeks. "A girl said I was a freak who reads minds. That I should stay away from normal kids." Her voice cracks. "The teacher said maybe I should try harder not to notice other people's feelings. Like I can turn it off."
The fury that floods through me is volcanic. Ancient and absolute.
I move to Luna's chair, pull her small body against mine. Phoenix abandons her seat to press against my other side. Even Orion shifts closer, his hand finding my arm in rare physical contact.
"You are not freaks," I say firmly, holding all three of them. "You are not disruptive or aggressive or too sensitive. You are exactly who you're supposed to be."
After dinner, the silence returns. Phoenix doesn't ask to play outside. Orion doesn't retreat to his books. Luna doesn't draw. They sit together in the living room, television playing something none of them watch, pressed close like they're protecting each other from something they can't name.
I watch them from the kitchen doorway, and something hardens in my chest like steel being forged.
Disruptive. Aggressive. Overly sensitive.
I know these words in my bones, my blood, the scars that never fully healed. The language teachers use when they mean too much. Too strong or too smart. Too different from the mold they expect children to fit.
Memory floods unbidden—Kieran's cold voice in high school hallways, calling me pathetic. Lysander's friends laughing while I cried, and Lia orchestrating every humiliation with surgical precision while teachers looked the other way or worse, participated with clinical assessments.
Thalia struggles with social integration. Thalia shows signs of attention-seeking behavior. Thalia is overly emotional and disrupts class dynamics.
My children will not become those reports. They won't become cautionary tales about difference, about power that makes others uncomfortable. Their gifts aren't disorders to be managed or problems to be solved.
Later, after they finally sleep, I stand in the hallway between their rooms. Phoenix snores softly, one arm hanging off her bed. Orion's glasses rest on his nightstand beside a physics textbook. Luna curls around her stuffed wolf, face peaceful now.
The broken girl who ran through forests pregnant and terrified never had anyone fight for her. No one saw the cruelty beneath professional smiles, the discrimination hiding behind clinical language.
My children will have what I never did. I will stand between them and everyone who tries to diminish them.
Tomorrow I'll talk to Kieran, and we'll make a plan.