Silver stands floated about with Jorel's every step. They, along with Jorel's swaying, marked wrists and webbed feet that snuggled in those same worn sandals, never left my sight down the divider-distinguishing halls in the homeless shelter. Those hairs were the only way I could keep track of Jorel's place ahead of me in the dark room. Not even the boisterousness outside could brighten it. Many of the people inside could not take part in it anyway; they were homeless and sacrificed almost all their free time daily to get enough food and water.

Sleepers snored about at every turn, sometimes even hanging past their designated divider. Chatterers discussed what to do to get a sufficing meal for the night. Lone thinkers chipped their fingers at the already worn walls and flaky floors, wondering if life was worth it. The torches held one job for their life: keep the dirty walls alit. Cracked windows failed to block cold whiffs of air where shivering children slept. This would be one of many poor homeless shelters endorsed by the rich Cymerian government to keep the desolate off the lively streets.

Jorel and I avoided every person obstructing the way, down the dusty network. I couldn't help but anticipate the "honesty" he had for me, hoping it would clear, like that tangled web of people bunched to live on the first floor of the shelter, the tangled questions swarming my mind. Jorel opened a door at the rightmost wall, exposing a flight of winding stairs.

"I assume you're not used to this life, Justice," Jorel kept the door open for me to pass. I gestured for him to continue ahead of me, and I continued behind.

"It's been a while," I said. Feeling somewhat bad for Jorel, I lied for relatability, saying, "This was home for some of my younger years," when in reality, it was only for a few my first weeks in Morgaul, when I was a young adult trying to pursue expensive education on my own. My younger years were at the Homestead, which wasn't the richest place, but all of us who lived there had a way of keeping a shared money pool and keeping the place and ourselves afloat.

"Blends can have it rough..." He landed on the third floor with me, opening the door. "... Sometimes."

Nodding, I went through the door, finding a lone Cymerian smoking a pipe against the tearing, stained wallpaper down the hall. Jorel went past me, leading us past several metal doors marked with either blue or purple markings. I didn't know what the colored markings meant at the time, but I knew that one meant rented stay and one meant assigned stay. We stopped at one rusted up with a purple marking.

The Tritausen pushed the lock-less door open, revealing a lone, unmade cot, a cornered, tall window, a crowded kitchen consisting of a basic rock oven, gas pipe, and counter island, and a bathroom forced all in one cracking.

Achoo! I sneezed to a side. Some of the room's thick dust must have somehow gotten through my narrow nostrils.

Jorel strode his toes ahead, glancing his icy eyes back down at my half-shriek, then gestured to his messy cot. "It is a little dusty in here," he muttered. "If you would like to sit there, please make yourself comfortable, but after I fix it up first."

I moved to the side of the door as it closed, watching Jorel stretch his tall legs over to the bunched bed covers. It seemed he did not expect me. I expected him at some point or another. Jorel picked himself back up from the made up cot and beckoned me.

"Thanks for the offer," I said, "But I don't want to mess up your clean work."

His beckoning hand dropped, and he gazed across the room at me for a moment, almost as though I was a fool. I did feel like a fool for walking into a stranger's, let alone a Shol Tritausen's, abode without any weapons on me. The silence could have made room for a seamless assassination.

That must not have been his intent, though. "Would you like anything to eat?"

"I would like to get to the meat of the conversation."

"Hmhm," he chuckled, making his way over to the crowded kitchen space, where he ignited the gas oven anyway. "Fine by me. Just in case you change your mind, I'll have something prepared."

What did he think this was? A Justice welcoming party? For one, the room could have only passed for a Caruah spook fest. And for two, my goal was to arrest him after our honest discussion. Perhaps he could have been sucking up to me because he knew this at the back of his mind.

"Thank you again for your courtesy, but I really just want to talk," I said. "Feel free to eat in front of me if you're hungry." While it was rude for a commoner to eat in front of a Justice, it bothered me at no occasion. Besides, his scrawny body told it all, since Jorel must not have eaten in several days. No need to blame him, though. He was in a homeless shelter after all.

The Tritausen checked the violet flame wave inside the center of the brick oven, and then he planted his poor self onto the bed. The emptiness of his room somewhat reminded me of how my room was back at the Homestead, except it had an untidy, honest flare to it.

"I formally welcome you to my humble abode, Justice," he spanned his hand across the room. "At least for now." Motioning me over, he added, "Come, come, sit somewhere. You're nestled by the door as though you're afraid of me."

Yes, because you and your kind are considering to kill me, I thought, inching toward the windowed wall, my eyes never leaving Jorel's sugary face. For a second I doubted my reason being there, only to force the truth out.

"I didn't come here to get friendly," I said. "I want the truth about you and your tribe."

Not so surprised, he nodded, "The meat — okay. Many say you're an honest woman, Justice Celt-Sone, so you expect honesty. Well, here it is: my tribe ordered me to follow you. You're the only Tritausen Blend in Cymerian office right now, so they thought it would be convenient to use you to stop Doson from invading Traudes."

I still wondered, Why me? They could have at least attempted to collaborate with the High Counsel for all I cared, even if the Counsel did not want to listen. Then again, the Shol tribe could have consulted the Mitsen tribe to take indirect control of Cymel.

"It's not that easy," Jorel said. After thinking a little more on the other Tritausen tribes, I realized he had read my mind.

"Are you Bonded to me?" I said.

He admitted with a purse of the lips. "Yes."

"Without my consent?"

"... Yes."

Of all the hours since we had last met, I could not sense any trace of Shol left on me or anything. He didn't even call me out on my poor lie I told him earlier. Indeed, he must have been a well-practiced Shol user after all. "You should be aware that Bonding, let alone using Shol powers as a commoner in Cymel, without another receipient's awareness is against Eltreisian law — not just here."

"I am aware of it. The Shol Elders gave me permission to do so."

"Your assigned people would be the Dosonites, then, if I'm not mistaken."

"You are half-Dosonite."

My mother's Dosonite face invaded my stream of thought. Deep down, I resented her existence, but at the surface, I admitted the truth with a shake of the head. "That doesn't change the fact that you all could have collaborated with the Mitsen tribe."

"The Elders did, and that's how the Dosonites gained access to Shol-Et in the first place. The Mitsen negotiated that, through Dosonite research, the Shol would be able to take control of Doson again. But then Dictator Odon Glauss managed to find some truth about Shol energies and switch the control... At least that's what the tribe tells me."

"Because of this, the Mitsen abandoned you all to protect themselves," I finished, recalling a Dosonite-infected news article I read several years before, remembering how vengeful I felt toward Cymel alike for promoting me to Justice as a result of Mitsen order. "That still doesn't give the Elders a right to infringe our laws."

"You're right, it doesn't." He leaned back. "Honestly, I don't agree with my tribe's orders to follow you. I don't agree with them planning to murder the Blends. And I certainly didn't agree with them assassinating Dictator Glauss." He peeped over his shoulder at the reddening oven bricks behind.

He was talking about Dictator Odon Glauss of Doson, the father of Dictator Ven Glauss and Losse's paternal uncle. His assassination definitely brought the worst in a lot of people, including when the resulting Shol Blackout happened several years ago. I remembered the ringing noises of the Blackout, the excruciating pain I felt throughout my body, my worried, weeping dad...

"Well, then why do you follow their orders anyway?" I said. "If you don't agree with them, why do you continue?"

He turned back to me, suppressing a clear sigh. "They're all I have right now. I do my best to convince them out of some decisions, but I'm just a commoner to them. I'm not an Elder. I can't make much of any decisions outside of deliberately defying them, and that would come with a penalty. I wish I could stop them from what they do, and I wish I didn't have to follow their orders sometimes. In the end, I'm one to wait it out." He glanced back at the oven again then raised a finger to me, standing. "Excuse me for a moment." Ready to cook so timely, he walked over to the oven.

Every crack in the tall, busted window I looked out of had its minimized view of the many crowns of people's heads below it. Cymerians boasted about with their flamboyant money, Dosonites sprinkled there and there interrogated them, and Blends worked hard to keep the interest flowing. I wondered how Ira fared in the nightfall's crowd. She, no doubt, grew uneasy in all the noise, and before long, the mountain Tritausen would begin their nightly lamentations.

Clink! Jorel pulled out a metal pot from a lower cabinet. Turning back, twinging my nose, I observed his simplistic cooking, from his quick retreival of flour from the cabinet and water from a pump trough supposed to be for bathing, to his kneading process. For some reason, I always found it strange that some Tritausen had more sapience than others. No wonder they had a textbook-reverencing title: the Great Beasts. And I would have added that they were Great Beasts having a great time getting along with each other. But who was I to blame? I had a great time getting along with my fellow, spitting Eltreisians, leave be my mother.

We all had our place of deceit.