“Hyr!” Emilia laughed as the syn pulled her along, their hand warm and encompassing around hers as they zigzagged through the maze of halls. “Where are we going?”
“This way,” the little shit said, smiling back at her, their golden eyes tilted with amusement. It was, perhaps, the most childlike she had seen them. Usually Hyr was just so… responsible, and if not for their youthful appearance and clear innocence over various aspects of life, it would be easy to assume they were far older than they appeared.
Now, they were happy—free in a way they hadn’t been before. Emilia liked it, wanted to give the syn more opportunities to be happy and free. Unfortunately, the fact that Hyr had effectively been left to babysit her and Conrad—even if he was currently running about, chasing after the person Hyr had sent them after and seemingly throwing everything at the poor person in his attempts to either killshot them or test all his skills, it was unclear—meant the northerner had also been forced into a position of being the responsible party.
Emilia could take that place, she just didn’t want to. While she had often been forced into a position of authority, it had usually been more out of need than desire. Either there hadn’t been anyone else around capable of leading everyone, or following someone else had been the less appealing option.
Rather, she liked being the follower, trusting her more responsible friends and teammates to keep everyone safe, leaving her to be free—to have fun and let the chaos that often swirled within her out.
For Hyr, though… to see this look on their face more… Yeah. For them, she would definitely suck it up—occasionally—so they could let go and—
Squeaking, Emilia suddenly found herself pressed against a nearby wall, Hyr’s thick arms caging her in as they towered over her. She opened her mouth to say something—to ask what was happening—when the syn pressed a finger to her lips, and she forced the question down. On the map, there was nothing around. The majority of the level’s heroes were now part of the group that was chasing them— Well, technically they were now chasing after the trail Hyr’s core-based stealth ability was setting, quite a distance away from both them and Conrad, plus his prey.
There was nothing around them to hide from, until suddenly, there was.
Not a person, but a skill suddenly filled the aether, the pressure of Hyr’s energy within her pulling her own smaller, weaker, until her knees were shaking and the syn was pulling her closer, supporting her weight with an arm around her waist.
The skill wafted over her skin, tasting and teasing in a familiar way. {Beholden Recon} was a farsight ability, meant for situations where there wasn’t a map or the one available couldn’t be trusted. It was a useful, if difficult, skill to use, especially within the confines of the raid, where it fell into a strange class of skills that could be used but only by people with enough control.
The problem was that, like many skills that allowed the user to see farther—to see around corners or within buildings—{Beholden Recon} was both highly controlled and difficult to utilize. While it was a public skill and anyone
could
use it, it was rare to find someone using it. It was used by law enforcement and first responders, by criminals and nosy parents, and occasionally by people inside raids. Inside raids—assuming the specific raid was allowing their use—farsight skills could be used, but only within the confines of the raid, because the problem with most farsight skills was the same: they could easily be used to violate the privacy of innocent civilians.
On the front, where farsight skills had often been used to scope out enemies, it had usually been left to expand in whatever direction the support sent it. The most useful and expansive skills would either grow until the user cancelled it or they ran out of juice—there had been an entire unit of supports bouncing between areas and units for the express purpose of mapping and tracking enemies.
In raids, farsight skills couldn’t be left to simply grow without stop. Once they hit the bounds of the raid, they had to stop. Needless to say, most users couldn’t stop the skill’s growth with such precision, even in a raid where the boundaries were set and stationary. At least in a ground raid, however, the user could stop the skill long before it got anywhere near the boundary. For someone to be using {Beholden Recon} on an airship? Their use so controlled it was sliding through the hallways and not just expanding without thought, as was more common? Colour Emilia impressed. Definitely not one of the heroes chasing them. A hero who had just joined the raid? Someone they hadn’t happened across yet? Could be either.
This particular raid was open for the next five hours, until midnight. While it had opened earlier in the day, allowing new arrivals to join whenever they wanted—guests could even join minutes before it ended, if they wanted—no one could win until midnight. So, as much as time was growing short to join the raid and hope to win, the occasional person was still joining the raid… and almost immediately being roped into joining the giant group hounding them.
The fact that someone was still blocking the entrance to the next level might have been part of that as well. Occasionally, some new hero would head that way, avoiding her and the Free Coloniers—and the group chasing them—only to die. Regardless of whether they had a grudge with their trio or the mystery guard, it was easy to imagine most of the heroes stuck on the level had come to the conclusion that a group effort would be required to take out any of them.
So, the group grew, and grew, and grew. The last time she’d seen the group, Emilia thought their trio had taken out about 80% of the heroes in it, so the rest were probably either going with the flow or were hoping to take their trio out and then rope the rest of the group—and perhaps their trio as well—into dealing with the asshole blocking access to the next level.
Of those who were on this level of the raid at the moment… Emilia thought they’d met about 90% of them. Certainly, none of them had seemed capable of the utilizing {Beholden Recon} so flawlessly. Thankfully, it wasn’t quite enough to detect them within whatever bubble of protection Hyr was creating for them—or maybe the syn were just erasing their existence? Yeah, that seemed about right. It was like they had ceased to exist, only the smallest flicker of their energy remaining. If that flame of light within her went out, would she die? Cease to exist? Be pulled back into the aether, the molecules of her being dispersing? Shifted into a new life?
“Emilia?” Hyr called, their energy a tight hug around her own, holding her to this world, pulling her back into existence.
Emilia hummed into their chest, rubbing her nose against their soft, sparkling shirt, her hands digging into the fabric—when had she even grabbed them?
“vy stra’syn,” they said, continuing to pull her up, up, up. “We will have to practice this, so you can come back more quickly.” Hyr laughed when all she did was nod vacantly into their chest, their amusement growing when the syn tried to tug her away, only for her to bury herself further into them. Their chest was nice, warm, safe. It felt like here, nothing could touch her—like Hyr would be able to keep them both safe from anything that might come their way.
When she finally relented, allowing Hyr to lean her back into the wall, more time had passed than she realized. The northerner didn’t look annoyed or put out, at least. Rather, they looked rather… satisfied? Content? That was nice.
Reaching up, Emilia brushed a braid that had fallen out of place back from Hyr’s face. She’d never seen a synat with their braids wrong, outside of a few exceptionally terrible battles, and even then, they’d been embarrassed to be in such a disarray. Keep in mind, the rest of their teammates had always been far worse off, their bodies bloody and sliced up, their hair and clothes marred in grime. Still, it didn’t surprise her when red began to spread over Hyr’s cheeks as she attempted to put it back where it belonged. They didn’t object, though, only lowered their head to give her better access.
“One of your pins broke,” she noted, pulling the thin, broken pin out, several more of Hyr’s braids slipping free as their blush worsened.
Aether shuddered through the golden pin, having probably been created by the lorn, a caste who crafted various aether-enhanced objects. While she didn’t know the exact details of Nur’tha crafting, it probably drew from the same principles as willbranding, and after a moment of concentration, Emilia had tugged a bit of aether from herself and fixed the pin.
Hyr’s eyes were dark and considering as she rearranged their hair, hoping she was doing it mostly correct—the syn had tons of braids, and she could only guess at exactly how the undersides of each had been arranged.
“Does that seem right?” she asked, voice shaking slightly because… reasons. Several reasons, in fact! For one, what if she’d messed it up!? For another, what if Hyr was too polite to tell her to fuck off with her so-called help!? For another, Hyr was just so fucking close!
Despite their hair being fixed—it looked right to both Emilia and her Censor, but neither of them were experts in synat braiding—Hyr had yet to lean back up or release her waist, the tips of their fingers digging into her just right and far more firmly than they had been before she’d started messing with their hair.
“You used your own aether,” they noted, golden eyes flickering between hers, searching for something—some reason for
why
that Emilia couldn’t easily give them, perhaps.
Part of it was just reemerging habit. Not only had she spent the majority of the day willbrandsmithing, adding little bits of her own aether into the weapons she created to add a bit more stability, power, and protection to each one, but she had always been so free with her aether—so willing to let little bits of it stick to the people she felt affection for simply because she could, because she’d been taught how to release it for smithing.
Hyr… for as much as they barely knew each other, she wanted to keep them safe—wanted to leave a little bit of herself needlessly sticking to them. Very needlessly. As much as the willbrands she created were a bit
different
—special—because of her aether’s presence within them—something that was in no way required or even generally expected when smithing—this, adding herself into Hyr’s hairpin, was completely useless.
It was, unfortunately, the equivalent of an animal pissing on something to mark their territory.
This is mine!
it screamed, and really, she had no right to claim Hyr as her own. They were her friend, and while within her circle of friends, Emilia had always been touchy, leaving her aether behind when she could, with few exceptions, she’d always told the people about it before actually doing it! They’d consented! Hyr hadn’t! Rather, she’d just taken something that could very well have significant meaning to them—to the entire fucking synat—and forced herself into it when she could have just taken aether from the fucking aethernet instead!
Stars above, she hadn’t even checked the integrity of the pin before she fucked with it! It could have had enough aether remaining, despite the break, for no external aether to have been needed to fix it!
“I…” Emilia started, trying to think of what to say—how much of the truth to tell the northerner. There was no doubt they knew how much she was panicking, their gentle energy soothing hers as she metaphorically rolled around inside her head. They weren’t saying anything, though, so maybe it wasn’t as bad as her brain was telling her it could be? Maybe?
A soft, curious and supportive sound left the syn, and as easily as that, Emilia was blurting out, “It’s mostly just something that can be done with willbrandsmithing? I just… wasn’t thinking, and used my own aether.”
Golden eyes blinked slowly at her. “Go on.”
Arc 7 | Chapter 255: This is Mine!(?)
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