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Arc F1.9 | Chapter 34: An Ally, Maybe.

Halen could be such an idiot. Usually, it ended with him and Emilia rolling around, throwing fists and skills at one another, or their sides of the class embarking on missions to destroy the other side.In a rare turn of events, Halen being an idiot was working for them.

There was nothing quite like someone saying some so… random to break the tension of the moment.

the bone pulled said, more question than statement. Her eyebrows pulled together slightly, a small frown tugging at her lips. Somehow, her eyes barely changed in size, the too big quality of them remaining, as though they were gaping wounds in her head.

How was this what they were talking about? It was better than fighting—Rafe had not enjoyed being the one to fight the woman, given a single miss in the defensive skills that had been protecting him would have resulted in his death—but weird. It was, somehow, even weirder that Simeon knew the answers to the questions the woman had aimed at Halen—or, maybe it wasn’t so weird? Halen had this weird obsession with hair—seriously, he’d even told Baylor off for cutting off the hair of the teenager who was travelling with them. So… maybe Simeon had gone to him for a skill in keeping his own hair perfect?

Simeon had always been such a kind soul that the idea of Halen not having moderately peaceful chats with him while making something for him in an exchange of favours—skills for willbrands, although Rafe was almost positive no one in their class was keeping track of things like that. Vengeance owed? Definitely. Favours? Not a chance… although, now that he was thinking about it, there was who had definitely kept careful track of ever favour exchanged and owed—every bit of money, as well.

The bone puller seemed sufficiently distracted by the conversation about hair and how to manage the more common in Lüshanians, and really, enemies talk about strange things, but if this woman wasn’t coming to the same conclusions they were about their goals being the same, he would be shocked; at the same time, having the same goal didn’t mean they were on the same side.

Regardless, Rafe took a moment to let his gaze slide towards Janie and whatever the fuck was happening with her. Her vitals pulled across his vision, and within them didn’t seem right—seemed almost too muted for what was happening. The problem was, they didn’t have enough data points to confirm as much.

There were some, however, and regardless of Halen being distracted by the conversation—mostly, Halen and Simeon seemed to be testing the woman’s reactions to various pieces of information, getting a baseline for her expressions, body language, and aether fluctuations so they’d be better able to read her, once they got to discussing more important things—Rafe pulled a collection of those data points up for him and Halen to look at.

Oddly, a moment later, Halen also added Leerin to the relay. A few seconds more, Simeon was added; presumably, Halen and he had exchanged a few messages, Simeon almost immediately agreeing that Janie’s reactions seemed to be

[Simeon:]

[Leerin:]

[Leerin:]

A collection of specific examples from their past slotted into the relay, and yes, even without Leerin needing to tell him exactly what she had seen in those memories, Rafe could immediately see the cracks in Janie’s friendship with them and her reliability—also, since when had she and Halen been chatting in a way that was conducive to such discoveries? Clearly, the other boy had been walking her through figuring out the system that managed the xphern transmission network, but this sort of conversation was more… chatting. Leerin and Halen was weird.

the bone puller asked, tugging all of their attention more fully back to her.

In the background, Halen continued going through the data points Rafe had pointed out as potential examples of how the various members of their group, including Janie, had dealt with the situation and stress before their groups had first split up, upon entering Falmíer.

From what he could see of it, Janie had actually been one of the calmer members before then: when Emilia and Valor had tumbled off the aetherstream along with Rafe, Levi, and Leerin the girl had barely blinked; when they’d been attacked in the cave system she had barely seemed to care they were killing their attackers; when they’d been disconnected from the aethernet, and everyone’s stress had risen that tiniest bit more, Janie’s… hadn’t.

Simeon wrote into his text box—he and Halen had mutually decided that Simeon should reveal some of the more delicate bits of information to the bone puller, the boy always a bit better at reading the fluctuations of the aether around and within a person when they were talking directly to him. While this was in no way comparable to Coral’s ability to read emotions, Simeon had sat with her at times, reading those fluctuations; as a result, he could at what a person was feeling, as long as he was paying active attention to reading the aether. It had little-to-no nuance, but generally—and especially with long conversations and big emotions—Simeon could land to what the person was feeling.

If they were disgusted, he would read them as upset; heartbroken as sad; elated as happy; fearful as worried.

Combined with other indicators—such as tone of voice, word choice, and body language—this meant that, as long as the person weren’t skilled in manipulating people, he could get to determining whether the were being felt by someone.

A collection of his guesses on the bone puller’s emotions came through as he explained bits and pieces of what was happening in the city below to the woman: little surprise to know that there were criminals causing problems; some concern that they had kidnapped a foreigner; a lack of surprise to know that they were pretty sure a few factions within the government were taking advantage of the chaos to try for something—potentially a coup, but that was nothing but a guess on their side.

In general, it wasn’t surprising for them that she would know these things, something about the woman suggesting she was well-educated, while the fact that she had been able to keep her abilities a secret lent to the idea that she was also part of one of these factions.

When it came to some of the other stuff? That was… not necessarily surprising, but certainly quite informative.

The amount of shock that rattled through her when she learned that numerous people—thousands over the past few hundred years, based on information from Vtraní—had been kidnapped and held captive by Fräthk, seemingly without the Drinarna who worked the streets giving a single shit was so palpable that Simeon had to stop his story and ask if she was okay. A hand had slapped to her mouth, and according to Simeon, she wasn’t faking it: the bone puller, who had massacred everyone who had been working in this room, truly felt sick to her stomach at the reality that people—children—were living lives like that and seemed to care.

she said, firm—and truthful, according to Simeon’s reading of her. Also, telling. While first names were far more commonly used in Lüshan, as Chief Drinarna, it would have been more expected for the woman to use his full title and last name. Could be nothing; could show that the pair are connected, either as friends or allies, or through a lack of respect on the bone puller’s part.

Simeon wrote out, slipping in that their kidnapped friend had helped a number of the captives escape, one of whom had been a captive virtually his entire life and seemed to be approaching three-hundred.

she asked, eyes flying between Simeon and Halen, still diligently casting each of the moments Rafe had tagged into an analysis function, in order to compare some of the things seen within them. The other boy had also started running the data through a function, looking for upward trends in all of their data—something about wanting to see how all of them were handling the situation. she guessed.

Halen replied.

Big blue eyes blinked at them. Once. Twice. the woman said, everything about her demeanour relaxing, as easy as that, apparently.

Leerin noted, the first thing she’d said to the woman.

the bone puller—Euphenial—said.

Leerin finished, nodding and telling Euphenial, the woman’s eyes a little wider with shock that Leerin had known what she was going to say,

Euphenial breathed out, barely more than a whisper, and even if his black knot kept him from emphasizing with the woman, Rafe could appreciate the pain she was in. This woman had been born with a horrifically powerful and coveted irregular deviation; she wasn’t wrong that, had more people known about it, would have attempted to force her to use it. If she refused, they would have killed her—viewed her as something that could turn against them, due to that lack of —or made her into a monster some other way.

It was quite a terrible fate.

the woman continued, sparking both Simeon and Halen’s interest. As Halen was still busy with analyzing the data, Simeon was left to ask her about what sort of things she do, but not before Rafe cut in.

he began, ignoring Leerin’s snort and comment about how unlikely that was at this point. he continued, catching the bone puller’s eyes, something within them reflecting the reality that she too knew how the situation becoming would make things so much worse,

the woman asked, but something told Rafe she already knew—and when her answer to his next question was almost immediate, his assumption was all but confirmed.

Euphenial’s lips twitched.