The Non-Human Society

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety Six - Vim - Lumen's Vote

      Renn's scent still lingered strongly in her room.

Which really shouldn't be that surprising. After all she's only been gone a little over a dozen days, and she'd been sleeping and staying in this room for months. Add that to my ability to smell stuff so well and her natural scent being... well... a little stronger than a normal creature's, being what she was, such a thing really shouldn't surprise me.

Yet it did all the same.

It was about time for dinner. Which told me I'd hear the answer soon... or at least the general consensus. They might not come to a final vote just yet... this was important, in its own way. And they weren't just voting on Renn, either.

I had closed Renn's room's windows, and the curtains. The storm was still here and roaring strong, and it was accompanied by lightning. I wasn't in the mood for the room to be lit up again and again incessantly. The two candles I had lit illuminated the room well enough.

Honestly I wanted to just sit in the dark, in silence... but I knew better than to let myself indulge in such a thing.

Most of my day had been spent dealing with Thraxton's family. Thraxton himself I had been able to entrust Brandy and Gerald and the rest to, so they could negotiate the contract between the Animalia Company and Lumen. Yet because of the precarious nature of it, Brandy and the rest didn't want Thraxton's children or wife involved. I couldn't blame them, but it wasn't like they didn't know we were... well... special.

Luckily I had been able to let a few of the other members deal with them, but I still ended up spending several hours today with Thraxton's wife and children. They were honestly... typical noble types, those who had been sheltered and pampered most of their lives, but they weren't bad people. A little strange, but not the type of high-class nobles I usually found myself detesting.

Really they had been fine. I was just... not in the mood to deal with such people or things. Not in the mood at all.

Humans, especially human children, always treated me like some kind of special existence when they learned what I was. I've long since grown to not get annoyed over such treatment or their unrelenting questions, but right now I was far from the calm and even-natured man I usually was.

My mood was sour and I was angry... and it honestly wasn't fair to the rest of the world that I was in such a bad mood.

People usually got hurt or died when I was like this, so I needed to be careful.

Thus my hiding in Renn's room... and my attempts to not get involved with Thraxton, his family, or the cleanup of Lumen and that creature's corpse.

I sighed as I leaned forward, to rest on the top of the chair's backrest. I was sitting on it the wrong way, but it was more comfortable for me to do so. The shape of the chair was just... a little odd. The kind of odd that made one feel just uncomfortable enough to notice, yet not have an actual reason to give for it.

The door to Renn's room was open, but only so that I could hear any voices or footsteps to let me know that the rest of the Society had finished their meeting. I wasn't really... restless or too worried over their vote, but at the same time I had to admit I wanted to hear the results.

I had a feeling as to what they would vote to do with Renn, but I still wasn't sure if I should get upset over it or not.

Scratching the spot behind my ear, I studied the large armoire not too far from me. It was still full of Renn's clothes, and likely the real reason her room still smelled so much like her. Some of the stuff hanging in there and upon the large open doors of the thing was stuff she's worn nearly every day for over a year. While traveling, on top of it all.