"Let's see... Jobs are jobs. I don't like these jobs." Riley notes, sticking to Shade's side, trying to forget about what had happened the other day.

As to try and comfort him, the hybrid gently put an arm around his shoulders. "I agree, I don't pleasure in them. But sometimes its mind over matter." His voice was gentle toward Riley but naturaly deep. Not to deep but fairly deep.

"Mind over matter... I've heard that before. What does it mean exactly?" Riley asks, leaning against Shade slightly. He scans the board again, still not exactly wanting to do whatever job they had.

Shade was looking at the board as well, eyes glaring as they scanned it but he still spoke gently to Riley. "Where even though sometimes things could be hard, you just need to try and push through. Taking an example, I pushed through a lot of side effects when I first started taking Clemetenth, or clementine. A poison to dragons, but I still took it and pushed through, I'm able to push past fear a lot better. But consider, most every action comes with a price, that price for me was almost all my sanity. Never push yourself to far."

"Isn't poison not good? It kills humans, right? Wait, wait, I'm sorry." Riley says, putting his hand up to his face. He had forgotten that Shade wasn't completely human.

He laughed, a real but soft sound, and looked to Riley with soft eyes. "It can. That is very true, but clementine is not potent to humans. It can be to dragons, iiin heavy doses that is. If they take a little, it does wonders to help the healing process. But take enough, they get sick. Over dose?" He shook his head, running a finger over his throat.

Riley peeks through his fingers, listening intently. "Interesting... So overdosing not good, a little bit good. But it doesn't work with/for humans." Riley says, repeating what he just learned in a way to show that he had paid attention. It was a habit from when he was in school with other friends.
Riley suddenly laughs. You say that in past tense as if you were a completely different person... He sobers, wondering how he had changed in so little time.

He nodded, but he put a wing around Riley and pulled him close as he noticed he sobered. He didn't know why he had, so he felt like it might have been his fault.

One of the blacksuits raised his shotgun in the air and fired a single shot. Behind the deafening report, everyone was able to hear the ammunition pinging off the bars above their heads. The yard instantly fell quiet, the prisoners clamping their mouths shut to avoid drawing attention to themselves.

Eventually, the screen exploded into static, a fizzing snowstorm that settled into a fuzzy image of a dark figure. The man was sitting in the shadows, but a single slice of light illuminated a flash of teeth and a crooked nose that belonged to the warden. He sat forward and suddenly his whole face came into view. Unlike when he was standing in front of them, they could all look into his eyes now. But you might wish you hadn't. They were like black pools inside his head, vortices that seemed to suck you in. It was like staring into an abyss. Victoria thought she could see planets in those eyes, galaxies of stars. She saw madness and chaos. She saw eternity. She saw her own death.

Then she blinked, and they were just eyes. Dark, yes, but normal. The entire room was cowering before the image of the warden, who resembled a giant staring down at his prey from the vast monitor. "Obedience is the difference between life, death and the other varieties of existence on offer here in Furnace," the image spoke, the voice amplified through hidden speakers to a volume that made the ground vibrate. It was the same thing he had said when the newbie group had arrived. "Yesterday was a disgrace. Fighting in the canteen, a flagrant breach of lockdown rules, and one of my dogs had to be relieved of its pitiful existence because of two broken legs."

Shade kept Riley in a wing, close and safe. But even he was trembling a bit before the image of the warden. He glared up at him, though, with his chin raised and expression like 'oh, sure. Well I'mma take you down.' . 'That dumb dog scared Riley, he was a monster worse than me. He deserved to be put down.' He thought.