He wanted to scream, the headache was getting unbearable and felt like her hand was pressing into his brain. He gritted his teeth and growled, his tail flailing about behind him as he mentally fought back against her telepathic intrusion with everything he had.

That is until he heard a calm, high-pitch feminine voice whisper peace and ask to be let in. There was an odd nostalgic sense of comfort in that voice. That comfort was enough for her to squeeze through the recesses of his mind. A tingling sensation went through his head as her mana took hold and released her will into his thoughts. His breath quickened and sweat beaded his brow. He felt her presence prodding inside his mind, and even though it brought a weird kind of serenity with it, he still had no clue what she was doing. Then as quickly as it began, he was released. 

She leaned back in her chair and remained motionless for a few moments more before opening her eyes. She puffed out a breath and sighed. “He speaks the truth as he believes it. He believes he is nothing but a disappointment, a failure to himself and others. A freak in the hybryd color system who only garters hate.”

“Shut up! I already said that, and don’t need you doing your creepy magic crap to listen in my head!” 

“Do you know of any family members who display strengths, magic or otherwise?” The archmagus asked.

“Uh, noooo. My mother was a freak too. Just another damn birth defect.” 

The petite woman stared at him, her interesting shaped eyes going wide as she scrunched up her small nose and gave him an odd look. Dammit, she was reading him again, but at least she didn’t touch his head. He caught a few of the others glance oddly at him as well. 

He let out a soft growl that ended with him snapping, “I told you I have no strengths! My coloring is meaningless!”

She gave the magus a confirming nod. 

“We have tests to determine all that for ourselves.” Arrinon gave the boy a complacent look. “But first, before we begin, are there any parents or guardians that need to be contacted?”

“Nooo,” Shilo sneered. “Didn’t me saying, Orphan Wranglers, answer that one for you?”

“Who were your parents? And when did they pass?”

“My mother’s name was Kaya. She died shortly after Nana Juo did. I was five at the time,” Shilo answered. Again there were looks exchanged between the women but this time they included the archmagus as well. “My father? I have no clue.”

“Your father was Elric,” Yeisha said with a sad little smile. “Elric Norin Armanden. I knew him. Well, as a human before my… change. He was a brilliant man. An intellectual whose influential research gave rise to the Hybryd race.” 

“There would not have been humans mutated into the people you see before you if not for the scientific breakthroughs of the esteemed Elric and his Maker-mage colleagues,” the magus added. 

With all the charisma of a public speaker, he went on, “Hybryds are the blending of Dra and Sel’s children. We are humans made anew, with renewed strengths, increased senses, and vigor. Their past human lives washed away like a cleansing flood and thus given the opportunity of a grand rebirth. We are now a truly inclusive society without any of the superficial human tonal prejudices or scorn. A true enlightenment.”

Shilo shrugged. Welp, that explained their odd glances. And since most sensible hybryd adults complain about what was robbed from them by becoming mutants (very few actually volunteered) and didn’t view it as some grand fanatical rebirth, it also helped explain all the scornful looks. Lucky him.

“Yeisha, are you certain this child is Elric’s?” The magus shot Shilo a contemptuous look, as he felt this great Elric guy was incapable of convincing such an ill-mannered bastard. 

Shilo resisted the urge to do something rude with his middle finger.

“Yes, if Kaya had been with child at the time of her rescue from that island—”

“Rescue?” Shilo cocked his head. Then cocked it further when he heard the female enforcer’s scoff.

“Yes, rescued,” Yeisha began. “She was about to be burn—” 

“Burnt out on life, like us all, and in need of a true liberation,” the archmagus finished. He then cleared his throat at the sound of another scoff.

Yeisha sighed. “Yes, well anyway, her pregnancy would have led to a birth well before her mutation if she was pregnant when we found her. Elric had been very strict about his quarters while Kaya was his guest. He confined her to his cabin onboard the ship for her safety and no one else was allowed in. Elric fathered her child, I am sure of it. Which makes this boy, Elric’s son.” 

Big fat hairy deal, Shilo thought. His sperm-donor having an official name meant nothing to him. It didn’t make the guy any more real or substantial. What was a name after all when the man was never around? His mother had only referred to his father as a demon or half-demon, or some other farfetched deranged fantasy, so an actual name meant nothing really. 

“Am I being punished for something?” He asked tartly, “Can I go now?”

“Oh, heavens no,” the archmagus said with a smug grin. “With such a discovery as yourself, one who is a blacken hybryd but yet has no identifiable strengths, there a test that must be taken and research to be conducted. We must investigate the abnormality that led to such a flaw in the Maker-mages grand plan of shades representing the strength of the individuals.”

Shilo thumped his forehead on the table.

“Unless, of course,” the archmage mocked as he leaned forward on the table. “You are not being forthright about yourself?” 

“Um, are you certain your mother never displayed any power to you?” Lytah asked, there was an odd catch in her voice. But if she was tuning into his emotions, she was probably picking up on Shilo’s growing hostility. “Be it magic or otherwise?”

“Otherwise?” Shilo snorted. “My mother was scrawny and short, certainly no ox. And magic? She had none. If she was a magic user she wouldn’t have died…” Shilo trailed off, he didn’t remember much about that day, only blood. Nothing magical. Death just hunted her down using the teeth and claws of the horned beasts of the forest who stalked her like prey. “If my mother was a mage, she wouldn’t have been killed by some wild animals, now would she?”

“Wild animals? How’d you survive?”

“Yes, yes, very sorry for your loss,” the archmage said offhandedly, cutting Shilo off from answering. “I will need a few days to set up suitable examination procedures and then we’ll begin. In the meantime, Lytah will you be so kind as to escort the young man back to your quarters? He will be in your care and I will fill your husband in on the details. If Romin takes issue with that, then do kindly remind him of Council rank and hierarchy. He can address his concerns directly to me if he feels this task is beneath him.”

Lytah shot Shilo a troubled look and mumbled her agreement. Shilo tried arguing his case to leave, which again only fell on deaf ears.

“Archmagus,” Yeisha said. “I would have no issue taking the boy in.”

“Lytah, as we all know, has helped others before with spectacular results.” 

Lytah cringed at his words. 

“Albeit, the results will differ since this young man confesses to being a nothing. But she can detect any nuances in the boy to help distinguish if the boy’s blackness is really a fluke in the system or if he is something more. Then there is your professed closeness to Elric. You might feel the need to alter facts concerning the boy in an effort to make him appear more presentable.”

“Sir, I’d never—”

“Tut, tut. Besides, Yeisha, it would be unthinkable for a distinguished single woman such as yourself to house such a delinquent urchin. Lytah is not alone, the observation of the boy will be overseen by her husband, Archmage Romin Brinin, at his residence. I will inform him of all the necessaries needed for dealing with this.”

“They have a young child, sir. And if you are so concerned about this boy being a delinquent, wouldn’t it still be better for him to be in my care? I mean, I am hardly helpless, and I seriously doubt—”

“I seriously doubt you are as perceptive as Lytah,” the man growled, giving Yeisha a hard stare. “Unless you’re now practicing Sensitive magics along with your water conjurings? Are you proficient enough to be of a higher level than her? I think not.”

The archmagus rose from his chair and gestured to the two women. “Ladies, a word please, outside in private.”

“Wait!” Shilo hopped up. 

Both enforcers stepped forward causing him to quickly return to his seat. 

In a calmer voice, he implored, “Please, I can’t stay. I have someone waiting for me. Please, I need to go.”

“Who? You said yourself, your mother passed away and you have no guardians.”

“Yes, but I am the guardian of a young girl. Please, she needs me and is probably worried.”

“Is she your sister?”

“No.”

“Then, she is of no concern to us.” With that, the mage escorted the two women out the door.