Race

Mari is a mixed-race girl of half Companion and half Earth Walker origins and at first this mixed identity is the source of her greatest problems in life, but, as Mari learns to embrace and accept all of herself, her resentment at being an outsider to both races fades away and is replaced by a desire to alter the fictional world in which she lives in so that both races can live together in peace.

Mari spends the first eighteen years of her life hiding the truth of her origins from the rest of the Earth Walkers, and this causes her to feel isolated and alone. The secrecy includes dying her hair black and wearing a mixture of clay and dirt over her skin, to make it appear darker and to obscure her fine and delicate features, which marked her as half Companion. The disguise allows...