By the time Olivier was ten, it had become clear that he would eventually test as a low-dev. Looking back, he was quite sure that had he known what to look for—what little signs to search for in his personality and actions and the ease with which he acquired any new skill, in the way he was able to take in every aspect of the world around him without trying—he would have realized he was a non-dev. Fortunately, he had always been such a reserved child that even his parents had been unable to guess at that much, leaving him at least a few more years of privacy.
Still, under his mother’s growing assumption that he would be a low-dev—that he would be so close to
perfect
as to overwhelm the abilities of nearly everyone he would ever find himself surrounded by—the expectations they had placed on him from birth had only grown, and grown. Eventually, those expectations had turned into a blanket of misery over his person, and even now, he was a bit surprised his mother hadn’t broken him entirely—not that he wasn’t broken in plenty of ways, thanks to her oppressive, demanding
love,
but it could have been worse.
He could have become a perfect little imitation of his mother’s control. He could have become an unfeeling monster, a shell of the person he was—the one he wanted to be. He could have simply killed himself, and at the worst moments of his life—the days following the public announcement that he had tested as a non-dev, framed as a
slip of the tongue
in one of his mother’s press conferences, standing out as particularly dire—he had certainly considered it.
In the end, Olivier was neither happy nor miserable with his life. It existed. He existed, and he hoped to make a difference in the world, grabbing hold of what little control of his life he had and doing what he could with it. That control, minor as it might be, was what kept him going, what kept him fighting, what kept him—on relatively rare occasions—talking back to his mother.
“I will not quit.”
“Olivier,” his mother snapped, her tone the one she usually reserved for Antoine, currently pouting in a hideous, oversized chair that outfitted his parents home in Roasalia, where they had both be summoned following his bodyguards informing their parents of the Hyrat clones’ visit to his classroom.
Interestingly, his terrible babysitters pretending to be bodyguards hadn’t informed them of Emilia’s association with the clones. Most likely, it was that neither his bodyguards nor his parents cared about Emilia, his mother having already told him to not take the case. Even the fact that she was Secretary General Starrberg’s child hadn’t been enough to convince his mother to at least let him look at her case, something that had Olivier convinced they knew something about the girl or her case that they weren’t telling him.
Regardless, the fact that the Hyrat clones were there to see her would make no difference in their perspective of the situation: he was still not to take her case, and the fact that Dean Vickers was
allowing
Hyrat clones on campus meant he should quit teaching—quit studying—there.
“It is unacceptable,” his mother was continuing to rant as they prepared to leave.
It was much later than Olivier preferred to eat, but Antoine had been… somewhere. The younger man wasn’t saying where, and they didn’t have the sort of relationship where they discussed, well, anything. The awkward dynamic of children ten years apart in age, nearly 20 D-Levels between them. Olivier didn’t put as much stock in the importance of D-Levels as other people—something he had noted was a common occurrence amongst non-devs, the Blood Rain General and Pylenius having both spoken out against using D-Levels for much outside of war—but it had still affected the way his parents had raised each of them.
He
was their power and hope for the future, while his brother just… was. Of course that disregard had turned Antoine against them, made him more rebellious than he otherwise would have been. For him to be gay on top of that? To have no desire to do what their older relatives near universally considered their obligation: carrying on the family line?
Well, that hadn’t added to their affection or tolerance for him, and Olivier had no doubt his younger brother had only shown for the same reason he had: if they didn’t, they would be cut off. That would be inconvenient enough for him, but for Antoine? Just entering his gap decade?
No, for Antoine, pissing off their parents because he’d refused to stop having sex—the only time he ever pouted this badly was when he’d been summoned after investing in a hookup—would mean giving up the freedom their wealth promised them, the freedom of that last decade of fun and joy; the decade Olivier himself hadn’t taken, due to the misery his mother had forced upon him through her selfishness, her desire to cement their family as one of
power.
They didn’t need that power, their family already one of the most well-known law families in the country, and yet.
“I will not quit,” he repeated, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, only to be left holding in a sigh when his mother appeared in front of him, unrolling them with firm tugs, like this small expression of preference, of style, of himself, had personally offended her.
“They shouldn’t be there.”
“They were visiting someone, then arresting someone. Dean Vickers can’t ban them from doing their job.”
His mother knew this, of course. Still, her nose scrunched, giving her the appearance of someone decades older. Both of his parents had been on the younger side when they had him—that whole
obligation to carry on the family line
thing meant they were all expected to start young, lest there be problems—yet his mother in particular hadn’t aged well. Under that black dye, touched up weekly, he knew her hair was largely grey. Creams and serums, visits to plastic surgeons, knotting clinics, and doctors of every sort hadn’t been enough to blur away the wrinkles that now edged her eyes and mouth, giving her the impression of permanent unhappiness.
Olivier… couldn’t really remember a time when she hadn’t been unhappy, but he could remember a time when she hadn’t looked so unhappy. Once, she would have moments of smiling—usually when trying to sidle up to someone important, rarely for him or his brother, especially not for her husband. Now, on the rare occasion she smiled it looked… pained, forced. Part of him suspected that was why she was so insistent he do everything
faster, sooner, now:
she could no longer be the face of the family, her charm no longer as powerful as it once had been. Most likely, she was worried that loss of personal power would lead one of his cousins to attempt a hostile takeover of the firm, as though any of them were any more interested in their family’s strict, devouring legacy than him.
Louis, while older, didn’t have the sort of personality to defy anyone, his life an almost mirror image of the one Olivier knew his parents wanted for him.
Just like the good children they were all expected to be, Louis had married a personable and social climbing woman who would both expand their connection and eventually make him miserable. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but a decade, two, three from now? Louis would be looking down the barrel of a divorce and all the scandal of it, his parents pushing for him to
make it work
and
get his wife in line.
Plus, the woman didn’t want children, and while Louis’ younger sister had already taken care of that pesky
next generation
problem, Louis had actually wanted them. Yet, he had married the woman to make his parents happy, even though his want of children likely would have been taken into account had he bothered to ever express that want to his parents.
Louis, for all the Olivier loved his older cousin, couldn’t even stand up for what he wanted when it would be easy to do so, and the idea of him trying to take over their law firm was actually rather humorous.
Henri, closer in age to Antoine, still had years left in his gap decade, and Olivier did wonder how his mother thought the sweet man might manage a takeover when he wouldn’t even understand the laws he had to press in order to do so.
To his mother, twins Clovis and Axelle might be the most likely to try anything, just out of schooling as they were. While the woman had already been pushing for him to study harder, graduate faster, before their graduation two years previous, it had been worse since then. His twin cousins were just as much behind
his
plans for the future of the firm as any of his other cousins, even the ones who were tucking themselves away into far corners of the firm, learning what they needed so they could support him in the future. Not that that was a hardship for any of them, Axelle in particular being so happy at her new job as general counsel at Hail that the rest of them weren’t sure what to do with her suddenly cheerful personality.
Even his less seen cousins, like Louis’ sister Gabrielle, currently raising her kids in an outer district of the city, had no interest in doing anything other than support him. Those with kids were raising them to be better than they were, trying their best to be better parents than their own. One day, those kids would be given more options than they were, even if it wouldn’t be perfect until they held more control, until they could tell their parents to fuck off and not risk that they would lose the power they had collectively sacrificed their childhoods to earn.
For the time being, they had to behave, had to marry who their parents demanded, raise their kids in ways that wouldn’t completely upset the older generation. One day, however, things would be different.
“Mom, give it a break,” Antoine groaned as their mother continued ranting about how Hyrat clones should be banned from schools—and wouldn’t that make training to make sure lawyers could interact with them without pissing themselves more complicated. “Some girl got drugged, and I’ve heard the shit people are doing with that drug. She could have been assaulted in horrific ways, and yet you’re standing there, saying the clones shouldn’t have been able to come onto campus to deal with that?”
For all that his younger brother was generally lazy, content to party and fuck and piss off their parents as far as he dared, Olivier thought he’d make a good lawyer one day. Certainly, he had a knack for getting straight to the point and leaving his opponent with no way to rebuff his points.
What was their mother supposed to say?
“No, they shouldn’t investigate potential assaults and druggings on campus? They should let criminals chill out there, getting away will all sorts of shit because as long as they refuse to leave the campus bounds, they can’t be touched?”
This, of course, didn’t stop their mother from huffing and instead turning the conversation to how her youngest son shouldn’t be in places where he can see so much.
“I said
I’ve heard
what the drugs do, not that I’ve seen it,” Antoine muttered, blue eyes narrowing as he glared at their mother’s back, the woman moving on from straightening Olivier’s clothing and to her husband, who had been quietly lingering near the door.
Drewth Mjuna—now Drewth de la Rue and never
Mjuna
in public records—had married Judith de la Rue for the same reasons every member of their family married: connections. The man was quiet, dutiful, following his wife’s oppressive lead with barely a word. He… existed, but he was always like this: distant, standing apart from the rest of his family, well aware that he was there only for his good breeding, for his respectable record in court, for the connections his family offered through loose ties to the Grey Sands, even if they’d never made use of or even publicized those ties, although there were rumours.
“For the future,”
his mother would say before making it very clear they were never to speak of anything that could confirm the rumours of their heritage, generations removed, to anyone.
The man—his father, although Olivier struggled to ever think of the man who was barely more than his mother’s shadow as such—let his wife fuss over him as she ranted, turning her words away from her sons and onto the general state of everything. The weather wasn’t nice. One particular client had been annoying and hidden things from her, and now she was going to have to pass the case on to a younger associate, so she didn’t damage her reputation when the case was lost. Two
hooligans
had zoomed by her just as she was exiting the courthouse.
Silently, Olivier’s father listened, nodding occasionally and both giving the impression he was intently listening and not hearing a single word. Judith de la Rue didn’t need him to acknowledge her words, only be the person she complained to, the person who would keep her secrets.
Watching them always made Olivier think of the woman his mother would eventually pick for him. Would she be just as quiet as his father? If she were, Olivier wasn’t sure how they would function—one of them would need to be able to fill the silence, and while he was good at lecturing and speaking in court, in social situations he was never sure what to say. On the other hand, someone like his mother—someone whose personality and voice would fill the world up and leave little room for him—seemed just as miserable.
It didn’t matter, he supposed. There was no changing his fate, not unless he wanted the entirety of the future he had laid out for himself and his cousins to collapse. Plus, it was an open secret that most of his family members kept other company—had lovers, and even more permanent, secret partnerships. As long as the press didn’t find out, they could sleep with whomever they wanted.
Unbidden, a bright smile and purple eyes flecked with silver flashed through Olivier’s mind, and no, he couldn’t do that. Not only could he not even work up the courage to talk to the bratty little silverstrain, but someone vibrant like her didn’t deserve to be caged like that.
Emilia wasn’t the sort of person who could find happiness as a secret lover, nor was she the sort of person who would do well in the cage of prison.
“Let’s go,” his mother snapped, dragging Olivier out of his spiralling thoughts of how broken Emilia might be, when she was released after a decade in prison. “We’re going to be late,” she sighed with all the energy of someone who was placing all the blame on everyone else, as though her ranting and fussing over their clothing hadn’t been what had kept them from leaving nearly twenty minutes previous.
Arc 8 | Chapter 284: A Little Family History
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