Stone Circle When You Think of Love, Do You Think of Pain?

Nikai listened as Ira started to explain about her past. He bobbed his head into a nod a few times as she explained. Nikai wasn't entirely sure he understood all of it: he got that she had been born to Greyback, who'd left -- he frowned as she said this -- and that her mother had died. But what he didn't understand was why she was raised as a lie and humiliated for that. Nikai himself had been adopted, of course, by Valette and Steady, but in his case it had made his life better. He would've surely died if not for them, and he had never received scorn for it. In a way, Nikai's story was a lot like Ira's, except he didn't know who his real father was and had lived a good life under his adoptive parents.

Why were you humiliated and shamed? I mean, uhm... There's no shame in being adopted, is there? Why would anyone put you down for that? And why wouldn't your hard work matter anymore due to who you were born to? Nikai frowned, feeling sorry for what she had to go through. He also wondered how Ira and Greyback got reunited, but he figured he'd asked enough -- if not too many -- questions for now.