I'd had a suspicion ever since she got home. She was skittish and didn't want to look me in the eyes, meaning something must have gone bad at school. I wasn't exactly sure what, but it wasn't something good. Fortunately, like most kids her age, she had one big weakness.

Sweets.

I mean, to be fair, I had the same weakness. I had a massive sweet tooth. But still, it's very hard to resist the allure of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. I could hear her pacing in the other room, clearly smelling the cookies as I left them to cool.

"Amanda, are you there?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I am!"

"Do you want a cookie?"

"Yes please!" I put two cookies on a plate, thought for a second, then put two more on. What can I say, I like cookies too. I walked out to the living room, sitting on the couch. Amanda came in after a second, averting her gaze. Well... that spoke volumes.

"Hey, you need a hug?"

"Mmm.... I think I'm good." I set the cookies down next to me.

"Then what about a bunch of tickling!?!" I grabbed her, pulling her on top of me as I fell backwards onto the couch. She laughed, unable to help herself.

"Ha ha! No, no, stop it! Ha ha!" I did, after a few seconds, giving her a big squeeze.

"You know you can tell me anything, right? I'm here for you." Amanda was silent for a bit.

"I'm worried you'll be mad."

"Just tell me what happened, okay?"

"Okay..." Amanda looked me in the eyes. Yep, red. I had a feeling. "...Something bad happened at school."

"What?"

"...I hit someone."

"Oh?"

"Michael was being mean to Abby. So I hit him."

"You know we try and use our words before our actions."

"I did try and talk to him! But he just laughed and pushed me."

"I see. So he was being a bully?"

"Yeah."

"I see." I stroked Amanda's hair gently. "...Here. I'm going to tell you something important, okay? I'd have told you earlier, but I think it would have confused you."

"Hmm?"

"There's... a lot of messed up stuff in this world. And yeah, the whole eye color thing is useful, in general. The problem is that we don't control how the eye color manifests."

"What do you mean?"

"Well..." I sat up, sitting Amanda next to me. "Here, let me put it this way. Think of an adventurer in one of those fantasy stories you love to read. They fight orcs, goblins, undead, all that other stuff to protect other people. Right?"

"Yeah."

"Now, think of this. Are their eyes yellow, or red?"

"Yellow," Amanda immediately responded.

"But why?"

"Because he's protecting people."

"But in the process of protecting people, he's hurting the orcs, goblins, and everything else." Amanda tilted her head, thinking. "There's lots of other cases like that too. When we do "evil" actions, but they're for a good reason."

"...So red eyes aren't necessarily bad people?" I chuckled.

"No."

"...That is confusing."

"Hey, don't worry about it. I'm still confused by it, and I've been around for much longer than you have." Amanda giggled.

"So... am I in trouble?"

"No." I ruffled her hair. "It sounds to me like you were trying to protect Abby, and you tried other stuff before you started hitting Michael. Next time, though, try and let your teacher know first, okay? I don't want you getting in trouble for defending your friends, and they should be able to get Michael away."

"Okay. Thanks." Amanda leaned into me, and I gave her a big hug.

"You're welcome. Now... how about those cookies?"