Later that night, I reunited with Ira, who ventured not too far off from the archway entrance leading to the Homestead fields. Following a trivial search for a trivial being, a generous officer traced back a child, who was concerned for Ira's fear constrained to a pillar's distance, as the Trau's liberator. Leading angsty Ira with her yelping and stomping, the officer handed her back to me. Either Ira understood her misbehavior or feared to return to Cymel-Seson's narrow, clustered roadway of nightly crowdiness. I was just glad the trivial matter ended — for now.

Now a more serious matter began, for Jorel lied somewhere within a stationary, metal-framed carriage roofed with a vinyl canopy ahead, protecting his vague identity from swelling crowds of attention. Unlike Ira, the snowy Trau restrained to the carriage stood by for direction, unmoved while people noised around it. Other than my desire to flee from the Shol Tritausen's possible wrath, Ira's frequent yelping and tramping gave me more reason to call it a day and depart.

"Now that he's in custody, I intend to take my leave," I told Gondes. "There's a crowd building up."

"You don't wanna question 'em or anything?" He scanned surrounding inquisitors gathering and scattering officers hoping to deflect disturbances.

"I might, but not right now. I have another matter to attend to."

For a second, he stared into my face, composing his lingering anxiety with a smile. "A'right, see ya, Justice." Then, he turned for the carriage driver seat, taking up resting reins from the carriage footboard, leapt up, and after situating himself, yanked the reins, to which his graceful Trau obeyed to the nudge without rebellion, hauling the carriage ahead of the crowd. "Out of the way!" Gondes yelled to obstructing bystanders on the way down the torched, brick road. Off he, the Trau, and Jorel went for the Cymel-Seson House of Resolution. I planned to visit him later.

Meanwhile, persistent bucking and whining bested my ungraceful Trau. "Ira," I scolded, rubbing her tense back. "Now, now. We'll be home soon," or so I thought. I mounted her with a struggle, for her sore back resisted me. Watchers used this stalled time to bombard their long awaited comments and questions.

"Justice! Are there any plans for a petition against Nodus 1718!"

"You need ta do somethin' 'bout that King's spoiled ass!"

"We want freedom, not dismissal!"

"All these damn Blends are ruining our country!"

"Get out of Seson!"

Krr! Grunts rustled Ira's throat after each outburst, and she stepped in place, doubting my several tugs to her reins. Remaining officers nearby intuited increasing tension, moving their way toward the crowds to hold them back by hand. One Blend shouldered and handed his way through the crowd, managing to reach his hand up for my thigh.

"Hey! What happened at the Frontier today!" He led by example, giving others around him the idea to do the same.

"Back up!" I commanded them. "I have nothing to say on it right now!" Struggling to keep balance despite my Trau's stamping and rearing, I clenched the reins tighter, sighting behind the crowd a swarm of protestors storming over, carrying violet torches in violet clusters. A few of them felt it appropriate to wave cooking spoons and farming shovels, suffocating me with their shouting, expecting me to hear them with open arms, without any apprehension.

"Glory to the Mitsen!"

"Don't you know the Demon's trying to cross over our borders!"

"We should have a society where we can have powers too!"

"Who was the one who got arrested!"

Their spark in energy confused me with each turbulent demand. Then, a sparking, cold sensation hit my calve and streamed down it. Spit — cold, slimy spit had hit my leg. I knew how spit attacks escalated after a few pitter patters. They would have shot like arrows in a battlefield.

"Back up!" Sparking fury voiced my command as another spit ball hit my cheek. Those Eltreisians, I thought. "Back!" I pulled leaping Ira's reins. "Up!" Spitters distanced to their advantage, shooting their saliva as far back as their leaning against meshed porches and shattered clutter. By now, the crowd swallowed most of the officers into its stampede.

A crimson glow glistened on my thigh. That same Blend raised his now crimson-glowing hand for me. "Tell us what happened, Justice!"

I stomped my new sandal right for his threatening hand down hard, forcing him and his Shol-traced hand to fall right back into the crowd that muffled his pained grunt. Wiping the spit from my cheek with the back of a hand, I tugged Ira's reins once more with the other in urgency, and this time, she cared not who stood in her way. She bent forward from her rear and hopped into a wind-bursting dash.

"Ira!" I called out, but her instinct overtook her senses, for even her own cries joining the commotion scared her out of her bolting body.

I didn't want to even look back at who she trampled. Cans and bottles her feet kicked about clanged and crashed, thrown wherever her might pushed them. Torches and awnings disfigured in my sight as wisps upon passing through the narrow road, heightening my roused rage and sharpened vision, and the leftover spit on my skin swayed with the blunt wind. Up ahead, my eyes focused on a Tritausen juvenile happening to lug a wooden pail. To me, she would have been stamped within moments. Like a strained muscle after a hard day of fighting, I jerked up my burning, rubbing hands for the leather straps.

Kraay! As though she leapt over Traudes, Ira sprung over the oblivious slave bumbling below her, almost throwing me off her back upon thudding to a land and cutting to a full, exhausted stop, heaving off the diminishing dread. My passive, still stare remained ahead, ignoring the fearful people snooping out of their safe spots against wall crevices and alleyways. I looked back, finding a road of boxes, grains popped out of their bags, papers, random items thrown haphazardly, giving way for only a few bewildered faces to peep out.

The Tritausen slave we avoided stood there, pail in hand, wondering what just happened. Where the hell is her parents! My mind went.

Dismounting the disturbed Trau, who whimpered low trills, I released my burned hands from her reins. "You should be used to this by now. It's no different here than it is in Cymeria." Not minding my reproach, for her bewildered eyes wandered at the street's displacement, Ira huffed.

Not too long after that, I apologized to the uninvolved bystanders swept into the chaos, and I especially made sure some officers escorted the juvenile, happy to not become a stamp in the road, back home. It was already late, and mountain Tritausen cried afar. But Ira worked herself up so much that it did not bother her, for she was too exhausted to react. Back up the road, I cleaned up cans and bottles and boxes and wall mottles, with the help of selfless citizens I should have been paying back alone, too exhausted to press charges against the mob. At least none of them got trampled.