Emilia had barely heard more than a few words of Darrian’s fragmented—nervous—explanation about what was happening in Hyr’s fight before she was gone, chancing her suspect aim to spark straight in front of the syn. Their energy bubbled around her before collapsing against her skin—a warm, safe embrace that she was sure virtually nothing could get through. Not unless Hyr willed it.
It followed her as she took Leerin down, toppling her childhood friend backwards as a dozen copies of {Spatter Shot} exploded out of her, seeking out each of their opponents once, twice—three times, in the case of the asshole who she was sure had started this whole thing.
How was she so sure? Emilia wasn’t sure, but she
knew
it had been him leading this disaster.
“What the fuck!?” one of the children she had just killshotted yelled, only to yelp when a raid monitor swiped them up, returning for each of their teammates until it was just her, glaring down at Leerin while the woman stared up at her with wide, shocked eyes.
Clearly, either Darrian hadn’t bothered to tell his cousin she was on board, once he himself found that out through Conrad, or she hadn’t had a chance to read her messages. Considering Leerin had also been included in her message about not letting Hanalea or any of their other Mitine Dyn acquaintances know about her newfound belief in the synat’s abilities, not to mention how badly their group had been doing again Hyr and the people who had joined their side, it was probably the latter—the fight had been too much for Leerin to risk reading any of her messages.
That said, even though she hadn’t finished listening to Darrian’s explanation of the situation, she’d been able to taste the disappointment in his words. Maybe he simply hadn’t told his cousin to expect her to join the fight. Unfortunately, while she’d known through vague messages that there was some sort of tension occurring in the Zentari family, she didn’t know the exact details of it—didn’t know where everyone stood on their family’s apparent move into purism, which, seriously? What. The. Fuck.
“You know, out of all the things I’d been expecting to find on this ship,” Emilia mused, head burning as she kept the aether so suffused with junk skills that it would make it virtually impossible for Leerin to use any skill of her own, “you supporting your cousin after he was mean to my friend wasn’t one of them.”
Under her, Leerin visibly flinched, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to find something to say—some excuse that would temper Emilia’s rage. They’d known each other a long time, though, and the same way Leerin knew there was little she could say to make the situation better, Emilia knew exactly what to say to dig further into her friend’s guilt.
“If he’d been mouthing off at a silverstrain, would you still have stood by him, Leerie?” she continued, voice cold and strained—seriously, it had been a long time since she’d used her Censor like this. Partially, there had been no reason—it wasn’t like she made a habit of joining PVP raids or getting into fights with anyone whose Censor she needed to lock up—but more than that, she’d been worried about the strain it would put on her core.
Now, with Conrad’s energy so tightly wrapped around her? Hyr’s lingering at its edges in case they also needed to step in a support her core, lest it shatter under the pressure?
Yeah, this was the first time in nearly a decade where she’d even felt capable of this much brutality. Hundreds of skills rattled out of her, doing nothing but fill the aether so completely with her will, leaving only a sliver of space for Hyr and Conrad’s energy to support her, that no one else’s could possibly exist there alongside her without her permission. No one’s, save perhaps Conrad’s—at least, among the person surrounding her. If he could push into territory she had claimed as her own, he gave no outward indication of it. Instead, his energy gently pressed against what she had claimed as hers, asking to take over, something she gratefully let him do—whatever terrifying core ability he was capable of was far more suited for this than her junk skills were.
“Emmie…” Leerin started to say, trailing off because she had nothing to say, no way to defend herself.
“If he had stood there, calling some little silverstrain a
silver slut?
Suggested we all be shipped off to Chinsata?”
Emilia knew she was being mean. She also knew it was needed, even Darrian standing silent behind her.
Something
was wrong here—something she didn’t know the exact details of, but was being left to deal with it anyways.
There was no way Darrian—sweet and perpetually friendly, even able to quietly make friends with the most standoffish members of their unit, regardless of their heritage—had allowed Leerin to become this person without trying to stop it. The fact that he wasn’t stopping her—wasn’t defending his cousin—told Emilia that he was giving up—perhaps already had—and was now leaving it to her to brute force Leerin into either coming to her senses or… or what? Completely turning onto the side of her purist cousin?
No—there was no way that Leerin, even if she’d always been less accepting of many of their Free Colonier unit members and friends, would turn to purism. Emilia refused to believe that was even a possibility.
“What happened, Leerie?” she asked, blinking sadly down at her friend. Tentatively, she reached out a hand, brushing a tear from Leerin’s lashes.
“I—” her childhood friend started to say, her own hands flexing and clenching against Emilia’s thighs, tears truly beginning to fall before Emilia was pulling her close, and letting her cry softly into her neck.
“What the fuck happened?”
she signed at Darrian, sending the message off into a group chat that she’d created to include the two of them, plus their gallery of spectators, Sorvell, Wyren and Hanalea having finally stopped their poor attempt at kyra to gape at the scene.
[
Sorvell:
I’d like to know that, too. What the fuck, man? I knew there was some shit happening in your family, but this is…
]
[
Wyren:
You don’t seem surprised a fight started over your cousin being a purist prick.
]
[
Hanalea:
it was not just the one
]
[
Hanalea:
numerous members of that family have been infected
]
In the tiny image Emilia was keeping up on her Censor, Hanalea tilted her head, examining the three Zentari who had joined Hyr in fighting the rest of the group. The older boys looked familiar—probably, Emilia had met them in passing over the years, but they’d been decades younger at the time. Aside from Darrian and Leerin, no one in their friend group had been friends with any other Zentari, the majority of the family standoffish, never really fitting in with the majority of Penns’ residents. They had also been one of the few families to remain friendly with the Drydens. That alone was reason enough to avoid the lot of them.
[
Hanalea:
not all
]
[
Hanalea:
just some
]
[
Hanalea:
they will hurt, but be better for it
]
Wyren nodded, while Sorvell just seemed intent to ignore the gloria’s words. As a servant of the Glorious Trio—if one were inclined to believe in their and the Sever’s future telling abilities—Hanalea couldn’t see the future herself, but could be given bits of it by her mistress. Unlike the synat, who gave out information as they saw fit, Hanalea could only ever speak of what she knew if it came up or was directly relevant.
This, of course, lent most people to not really believe anyone from Mitine Dyn could see the future, but were instead just prone to speaking oddly and pretending they could, claiming they’d already know something shortly after everyone found out about it. It was part of the reason Hanalea and her mistress had been two of the least popular members of their unit, with most of their unit only tolerating them because they were brutally powerful.
Emilia had been friends with them, though, mostly content to ignore their personality quirks and taking the same stance she had with the synat members: not talking about their purported abilities and shooing off anyone who bothered talking down to them about it.
Now, Emilia wasn’t sure whether to believe Hanalea’s mistress knew anything of the future or not. If she believed in Hyr’s abilities, should she believe in theirs? Should she be offended they hadn’t bothered to tell anyone else about the situation with the Zentari, if she chose to believe they’d already known?
No, she shouldn’t be bothered. Darrian had obviously known about the issues and chosen to keep everyone else out of it—and she’d be asking him about that once he was done explaining what had happened in his family, because seriously? The guy had always had difficulties asking for help when he clearly needed it, but to let things get to the point that Leerin would fight on the side of purists? What the fuck! This was clearly well past the point where he should have been asking—begging—for help!
Sorvell was of the same opinion, cursing as they each read through the message Darrian had sent them—a message he had sent far too quickly for how long it was. In other words, he’d already had it prepared to send. Had he intended to send it to someone after asking for help, or had it simply been prepared in case this exact situation came up, and he had to explain Leerin’s actions to someone?
Reading through his message—the story of how their family had increasingly turned towards purism since even before the war—Emilia could understand why he hadn’t asked for help. This was complicated, the sort of situation that required a complete cut-off from their family if they truly wanted to escape. Even then, the threats they were holding over their heads—although Emilia could read between the lines and hear the reality that the threats over Darrian’s head weren’t ones he was particularly concerned with—would follow them.
Just as Simeon’s family had followed through on their threats to have him struck from their wills, any inheritance he would have gotten stripped away, should he leave their home, the Zentari’s would follow through a well. The life Leerin wished to have—the one she had worked so hard to achieve—would be stripped away from her, should she choose to stand up to her family.
Emilia could understand how that would stop each of them from moving forward—really, she could. She also didn’t give a shit.
Leerin was her friend, yes, but she was just one person. How many people had she watched her family speak down to, strike out at inside raids and perhaps even the real world, simply because she didn’t want to be forcibly outed as a member of Division 30?
It was selfish in a way Emilia wasn’t sure how to deal with. Even through her decade of hiding away, there had never been a single moment where she hadn’t known, without a doubt, that if an echo attack occurred near her that she wouldn’t go in, regardless of the risk to her life given the state of her knots, regardless of the chance that she’d be outed as a member of Division 30 herself. There had never been a question, just as there had never been a question during the war, that she’d head into battle, with or without the privacy of her CierSuit. Being a public member could be a nuisance, yes, but it wasn’t worth lives lost because she was being selfish.
The fact that Leerin thought her privacy—her normal life—was worth standing by people who had tried to make Hyr feel small, who had even called his own cousins derogatory names because they had supported Hyr over their purist asses…
That
was the real reason Darrian had said nothing. Not because he thought he could handle it himself. Not because it was a difficult decision to make, and he was conflicted over whether Leerin should make it or not.
No, Darrian had said nothing because he knew that virtually every member of their unit would feel the same as her, that they would judge Leerin for not leaving—for putting herself first, over so many of their friends and family. Perhaps he was also worried about his own position in all this, in the judgments that would be sent his way for remaining by her side.
Emilia wasn’t sure what to do with any of this. Neither was Sorvell—although he was definitely doing a good job of showing his distress through increasingly creative curses. Wyren just looked disappointed, and Hanalea… Hanalea was gone, a message sliding into her from Loren, letting her know that he was locking up Hanalea’s memories of her friendship with Hyr.
[
Em:
did you know?
]
[
Em:
about the zentari family?
]
It wasn’t surprising when Loren responded that yes, both he and the upper management of The Black Knot as a whole knew about the family’s increasingly strong ties to purism.
“How concerned should we be that they’re on the ship?”
she asked, accepting a file from Loren about the family. She wouldn’t have time to look through it now, instead setting her Censor to summarizing the important bits until she could go through it properly later.
“Extremely,”
Loren replied.
“We didn’t even know they were on the ship. I will let Samina know there is information missing from our records for the ship.”
Well, wasn’t that just lovely. What were the chances it was a coincidence that a purist terrorist was on board the ship at the same time an entire family with purist ties wasn’t showing up in the ship’s manifest—at least not the copy The Black Knot had?
“Probably not good chances,”
Loren noted, and no, Emilia didn’t imagine they were.
.
!
Arc 7 | Chapter 267: I Can’t Say It’s Likely This is a Coincidence
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