Emblems

Chapter 17: Filter

Chapter 17: Filter

LEONE STEPPED INTO VIEW, SMILING gently in the same floral dress. She elaborated, "The four of you are Emblems. And with the current state of the power stream, people are weakening and yet you are not affected. Some people might hold this against you. It's easy to think that you're taking the power away and growing stronger as they're become weaker and weaker by the day."

"Ah," Daniel said. "That makes sense."

"Why are you here?" Amber asked. He resisted the urge to elbow her in the side. They were talking to the head of the Human Delegates, and no matter how friendly she’d seemed during training, he got the feeling that Amber didn’t have a filter for the presence of authority. She needs to show a little more respect. Leone was warm and friendly and maternal, but that didn’t mean that there couldn’t be politics, or other… unsavoury complications.

"Yeah," Daniel agreed, trying to blunt Amber's words. "I thought you had a meeting?"

But Leone smiled easily. "I got out of it when I heard about Felix." He winced. So much for salvaging the conversation. "Also," she continued, "you're not supposed to be away from your tutors now. We'll give you time later, but right now you need to get used to what you'll be doing here."

Amber's eyes narrowed. "We're here because we agreed to what you wanted, meaning that we want to be here. So we can do whatever we want." Now he felt like grabbing her and duct taping her mouth. Lack of a respectful filter – turns out I was right.

Leone's smile didn't even waver. "That works both ways, Amber. We're going to help remove your Demon because we want to, as well." Amber's jaw tightened and Daniel laid a hand on her shoulder. Leone was already being much nicer than he'd thought she'd be about the whole Demon extraction thing; there was no point in pushing her even further. "On that note," Leone said, "you will be continuing your Air training with Sol, but for Metal, please come to us. For now, please go back to Sol." 

He kept his expression neutral, though his eyebrows wanted to shoot up in surprise. The Human Delegates were taking over Amber's Metal training? So Dax the goblin had messed up too much? Goes to show how seriously Leone is taking this. 

"Yes, ma'am," Amber muttered. The Delegate turned away from her and at the obvious dismissal she slunk away like the silhouette of a cat vanishing into the shadows of an alley. Like a stray, let loose, abandoned, homeless, in need of a family. He wanted to grab her wrist or her shoulder, ask her to stop, ask if she was okay, but she was gone before he could even reach out. 

"Daniel," Leone asked as he turned back to her, her tone solemn and soft, her smile faint and barely there but offering a reassurance he didn’t know he needed. "What did you do to Felix?"

"I broke his mental defenses. Why? Is he okay?" He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes.

"He's in the med bay as of now. No, no.” She raised her hands, expression gentle. “He isn't injured. They're just monitoring him to make sure he's stable." Daniel exhaled, but she continued, "I don't understand why you did it though."