The rush of success tingled through her veins like heated water, and darkened the extant flush of her cheeks to a more ruddy shade as she watched and listened to Pylea scrape open a hole for herself, and then dig it bit by bit deeper with the conversational spade Nikodemus inadvertently gave her in his attempt to stop her unintentionally hurtful babbling. It made Ember's own smile slowly fade from the bright joy to one quieter, though it did not disappear completely.<br/><br/>She was too fond of Pylea - and to familiar with her tendency to run on at the mouth when she would have done better to shut up already - to really find herself stabbed by the intimation that she had been slow in her learning to enforce the Contracts.<br/><br/>Besides, Nikodemus was always quite soothing by his mere presence, and he quickly pushed things on from this lesson to one fresh and new, and Ember bent her legs up to hug her knees as she listened, absentmindedly rubbing the soot from her palm off on the side of her calf. His warm, prideful speaking of herself and her friend made her smile, glancing over at Pylea across the candle and delighting for once in the feel of warmth inside, though she couldn't think of anything right now that she could teach her friend. How to be melancholy, perhaps - the other girl seemed always as bright and ready to dance as the candleflame.<br/><br/>"You said six categories, Nikodemus, six... six Seemings? What are they exactly? Despite knowing that not everyone is going to fit the broad categories exactly. Ogres, and Beasts - what are we? What are you?" It was a brash question, that last, yet one that she imagined he would not take ill; they were all admittedly oddities, just as much as the tiny-yet-oversized wagon in which they gently rocked and rolled.