The room was silent after that and Carina thanked the Mother for the quiet that she used to pick up the shattered pieces of her serenity and put them back together. Hopefully the humans would be less loud after lunch and she could hold onto herself better in the lack of yelling.

It wasn’t better, if anything it was worse and Carina concealed a flinch with every shouted question. She wasn’t used to being yelled at so much and sort of wanted to break her serene mask and let ...