Arlo was quite furious. It wasn't the kind of fury that went with something not going to plan. That was easy to rectify, a bit of manipulation of the right people at the right time and things would eventually resolve themselves.
That was efficiency, part of a job that he had to do in order to maintain order and the hierarchy.
But this, this is not something he can simply fix with a few words and his ability. And this had a name. John.
John was a cripple without fear of his betters. But he had suspicions. And that irked him. He should not have to suspect. Positions in the hierarchy should be assured. But now the hierarchy was in a minor state of disarray.
As King he should be able to fix it. Except he didn't have the faintest idea as to how.
So yes, John aggravated him.
If John had an ability, he should have been slotted into the hierarchy with his peers and that should have been the end of it. It should not have been given any more thought.
That was...until the fight at Wellston's Turf.
And then, Arlo was just afraid. He would never show it, but he was afraid of John.
Isen had been right, they'd had no idea what they were dealing with, what they would unleash when they started prying for information.
There was no efficiency to this problem, no simple solution. He simply had to leave it alone. Something he had never done before inside the confines of Wellston, since he had taken over as King from Rei.
Distantly, whenever he thinks of John, he also thinks of a text he once read, of an old Chinese philosopher who had sat under a withered old tree. He had spoken about people and the way they should treat each other.
It made the note that humans should not judge others for things they cannot help.
But it felt, at times, that judgment was all he knew.