The ringing schoolbell relieved Sel of her lessons and the pupil packed her things as quickly,as
students pack their things. She didn't want to wait for her classmates after the embarrassingevent of the history lesson. So she finally stepped out of the building, into the beautiful greys and whites of the big city.
A deep breath and finally the stuffy classroom smells gave way to the clear air she had been craving
for hours. Sel took a quick look around and decided to take the long way home today.
After the first few steps along the school fence, she passed
an advertising poster, on it a chimera, fire-breathing and with gruesome fur, next to it the warning "Report all activity.", briefly concise and, even if she thought that the illustration was exaggerated, accurate.
Almost immediately afterwards she arrived at the point because of which she almost always chose this route.The place of the shield. A large marble statue in the middle of the stone square. Impressive and beautiful, it was the ancient symbol of the "Shield of Reason". Since the beginning of its historiography, it had been a large, angular shield studded with metal pieces and a watchful owl on top. Nevertheless, there was an unimportant, but also all the more interesting difference. On other statues one saw the owl sitting sideways, its wings ajar and its eyes wide.
Here, however, the wings were spread wide spread, the claws dug deep into the upper end of the shield. Power emanated from the statue and again Sel felt drawn to it. Her feet carried her in front of the monument and she stared deeply into the owl's eyes. It felt as if the stone-animal was staring back. A shiver came over the young woman, her gaze dropped and again she had lost the duel against this statue. Reading, she roamed over the base of the object,
"ένα από πολλά"
"Securitas in unum"
"Unified into the future"
The unification sayings of the previous incarnations of the shield. "'Out of many one', 'security in unity' and 'unified into the future'.", Sel had already memorised the translations after the first year of school.
At the Academies entry exam she had recite and explain the, and she did... oh, full of heart... such an awkward moment as well.
She exhaled and wanted to look up again, at the owl ... but decided she would rather
to go on. One defeat against a stone bird a day was completely enough. Yet her thoughts still lingered on this statue as she continued on her way. The same was true when she crossed the park, at the end of which her parents' house was.
It is very ironic that an owl, the sign of a kind of Inmati that regularly and repeatedly cut deep into the flesh of humanity was the sign of the of the organisation that promised to protect humanity. As Sel looked up she spotted one of the cameras for protection ... certainly not the first she had passed since leaving school, but Sel hardly noticed these little things. Why should she ? There was never a time or a public place without these cameras. Just as well, after all she was saved by such an camera from a fire in the first school of her life.
But the thoughts came back to the Athenids. Clever Inmati whose powers inspired the Greeks and their predecessors to the Olympic sagas and ultimately to Athena and her family of gods. The Athenids whose sign is the owl. It is said that once upon a time, in the first time of the shield, an Athenid betrayed her sisters in order to protect humanity. But this was never something that could be scientifically proven. Nevertheless, this justification was as good as that the shield carries the owl as a trophy to warn the Inmati that humans are smarter, stronger and will always take what is theirs.
With this satisfying thought, Sel opened the front door ...
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)