Emilia had expected the evening to end with giggles—with her running through the streets as the triplets chased her, intent to catch her and drag her back to their rooms so they could rip her dress off and fuck her full… unless of course Valor caught her. If Valor had caught her first, he would have run away with her, either to help her out of the dress gently before his brothers got to them or to have his way with her alone. Which way he would have gone, Emilia supposed she would never find out.
Having ordered a tasting menu, even Olivier’s slow-to-cook,
theoretically
slow-to-eat meal was finished before her own foursome got to dessert. The fact that his father had never returned—never even let his family know where he’d gone, as far as Emilia could tell, Taelor eventually requesting another clone go make sure he hadn’t had some sort of accident; he hadn’t—had probably contributed to that, his wife growing impressively more unpleasant as the meal wore on. Emilia had a feeling Olivier would have been perfectly content to stare her way while slowly enjoying his meal had his mother not been there. As it was, he might actually have some intestinal issues now for how fast he had eaten, hoping to escape the woman sooner.
More’s the pity—Emilia was quite enjoying watching him and his brother act like children, sending messages to poke and prod Olivier as they bickered. At least when they left, she’d finally been able to take the man in fully. The wide spread of his shoulders, the way the buttons of his shirt stretched just so when he moved, the hug of his pants over his ass and thighs, the almost lazy way he let his hands tuck into his pants pockets so at odds with his usually severe demeanour.
His mother had indeed tried to fold his cuffs back down before he had a chance to put his coat on—impressive that her ranting had made her so unobservant that she hadn’t noticed the cuffs during the meal, nor her children’s behaviour. She had failed—miserably—in her attempts to fold her eldest son’s cuffs back down. Olivier had refused to answer her questions on
how
he had managed to force them into a folded position, her expression growing all the more dour when he told her, quite honestly, that he hadn’t done it and had no idea how they had become so set in their ways.
If Emilia had sent him off a copy of the skill just as the de la Rues were leaving the building, well, that was why she was currently being guided gently through the streets by the triplets, rather than chased.
Almost as soon as the skill had been sent—along with a teasing note about how she wouldn’t tell him how it worked so he could continue telling his mother he had no idea
how
it happened—Olivier had replied to her message, sending her transcripts of each of his classes from the last few years where they had discussed that day’s subject; records of a class she had been excited for and then been too distracted to enjoy.
It was sweet, something she hadn’t realized the man was capable of until that night—not really, anyways. Yes, Olivier had a reputation for taking cases where the underdog was excepted to lose—that was part of why Sorvell had recommended she attempt to woo him into taking her case—but part of her had come to assume it due to a desire to make a name for himself, winning cases that seemed destined to fail, rather than some sense of altruism.
It was annoying to realize she was wrong—not because she was wrong! Emilia was wrong a lot!—it was a consequence of having a wandering mind that jumped to conclusions and moved faster than the logic that attempted to follow its flow. If she’d put more thought into it, she definitely would have realized that the teacher who covered sensitive topics with grace and called out students for their stupid, borderline purist opinion
had
to be a good guy; rather, it was that if Olivier really were a sweet man, trying to make the world a better place, then the reasons for not taking her case…
Well, either he really did hate her and thought she deserved to go to prison—and while Sorvell’s father had definitely relayed to her that Olivier didn’t want her in his classroom, him thinking she was dangerous or deserved jail time had never been on his list of reason why; mostly, he just found her annoying and disruptive—or he truly thought her case a lost cause.
Emilia was trying not to think about that. No, she didn’t think any of her friends would leave her to wither in whatever prison—probably her parent’s house—she found herself in when this was all over, but she didn’t want any of them to suffer the consequences of a decision to disregard her sentence either.
Part of the reason she was refusing to leave Yurndale and Olivier’s class was there was no one else. Olivier might be young, but he was considered by everyone to be brilliant—to be the next big star in the legal field. Forget if he
wouldn’t
help her, if he
couldn’t…
She was fucked—they all were.
But! Emilia wasn’t going to think about! She had class transcripts—all politely redacted of names of students because some of them said impressively stupid things—to go over. Valor and Baylor’s arms were hooked through hers once more as she walked, barely retaining where they were going as she read and read and read. Taelor trailed behind them, as always. There when they needed him, a silent protector in their shadows.
They walked far longer than needed, leading her around the dark, increasingly quiet city while she read. In the back of her mind, Emilia wondered if they were still hoping to hook up. She wouldn’t say no—she rarely said no to anyone, let alone people she’d already fucked—but her brain was just so full, her Censor annotating each of the transcripts for her and sending them off to Olivier when she finished with each.
He hadn’t responded to any yet—and Emilia had no idea if he would—but she liked the idea that maybe he would read them. It might not be tonight or even anytime in the next decade, two, three, but maybe, one day, he would think of her in a vague, unformed way and ache for her thoughts. He would absently reach for an essay she had written for his class—all written partially out of interest, partially out of a sadistic urge to annoy him, partially out of a desire for him to notice her, to take her case, to take her—and then want something new, something like these silly transcripts she had marked up with her thoughts and arguments and insults.
Olivier wouldn’t truly remember her, the annoying little silverstrain who had stalked his classroom for months, but his Censor would. It would take that soft, unknown nostalgia for his most annoying student and bring her to him.
Ah~ it was a silly thought, Emilia knew. Something about being trapped with the man in the bathroom, though… there was something about him. It wasn’t just that he was like her, a non-dev facing the pressure of society and himself to be the best he could—although, only
his
parents were putting pressure on him, Emilia’s parents would support her even if she wanted to fuck off to Zironia and try to join their weird ass, non-dev lecturer’s little
intellectual
cult—because she knew a few non-devs, and they were all alike like that.
Even when their parents and guardians weren’t putting pressure on them, they did it to themselves. If you have the potential to be perfect—to be virtuous and brilliant, innovative and a positive force in the world—shouldn’t you spend every waking moment trying to be all you’re capable of?
Andre was like that, fighting with himself and his nature and the reality that he would one day be in charge of The Black Knot and their violence when he himself had no black knot to ease his guilt. The Blood Rain General was like that, even if age had allegedly tempered his intensity some—and what a truly terrifying man he must have been when he was young and even more intense! His student and heir, Hurinren, was terrifyingly intense, so much pressure put on him by the expectation that he would be
even better
than his teacher that Emilia wouldn’t be surprised if he worked himself into an early death.
So, what was it about Olivier that had her aching for him to remember her? It was a new feeling for her—if anything, she often found herself hoping people would forget her, wanting to keep some semblance of a normal life and her privacy despite the reality that, one day, she would do great things and probably end up just as famous as Olivier was, as Halen was becoming.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t be
famous for absconding to the Free Colonies after being found guilty of manslaughter,
but, well, that was looking increasingly more likely.
Maybe she should try to make a name for herself before that happened? Or, maybe she would take credit as the anonymous person behind the news s on her case? Annoyingly, privacy laws were effectively
forcing
her to remain anonymous, so no mainstream media would reveal her identity, even if she asked, but she could reveal information online?
Technically
, that would still be illegal, and she could get in trouble for it, but…
But, it was just so stupid! Emilia understood the need to protect vulnerable people from the media—from their own ill-advised attempts to clear their name by revealing their name and person—but why was there nothing she could do to prove she’d thought through the ramifications of revealing herself!? Oh, wait! There was! She’d even passed the stupid consultation phase, only for the stupid ass prosecutor to refuse to release her from the privacy law anyways!
Probably, the asshole realized that if she were allowed to tell her story, the public would turn against the government and realize how stupid this whole situation was, something there were already whispers of—only whispers, though. As it was, the government was encouraging journalists—secretively, of course—to publish interviews with veterans who had faced the Blood Rain General’s brutality during the last Colonial War, to go over outdated research on how low- and non-devs really did deserve so much more scrutiny than the average person, to imply that non-devs left without consequences for even the smallest of crimes were more likely to do something like take over the government—or worse, try to start a new Free Colony.
It was, quite honestly, insane. If relations between Baalphoria and the Free Colonies were better, she might have tried having her story published abroad. Unfortunately, using the foreign news to spread her story would probably just make everything worse… and she’d still have the government’s enforcers knocking on her door, demanding to know why she’d breached a privacy order before they arrested her and had a monitor placed on her Censor.
Emilia would kill anyone who tried that shit on her, so, probably best to not contact the media, domestic or foreign. Anyone touching her Censor without consent was liable to lose their lives, and—
And Olivier had sent her another message. It was a reply to her first annotated transcript, his own thoughts and comments calmly noted down next to her own rambling, unorganized ones. There were several articles attached, along with another transcript for a class that had nothing to do with the subject of her missed class, instead covering a topic she’d veered towards on a tangent.
Olivier, who was always so good about dragging here back from her in-class tangents—shockingly good, actually, most of her former teachers having so little patience for her that her friends had unofficially taken it upon themselves to pull her back before she annoyed the teacher so much they issued her a punishment for
disrupting class
—had sent her a transcript so she could happily engage with her tangent.
What was she even supposed to do with that? With the small ache inside her heart that not only was he reading her thoughts as she sent them to him, but that he apparently accepted her wandering mind, at least when it wasn’t going to disrupt his class plan.
Olivier’s eyes, dual toned and cutting in the shimmering light of the restaurant, shuddered through Emilia’s mind, his voice teasing and a little cruel as he bickered with his brother over sex, all while staring her down. He had been flirting—tempting, teasing—her, Emilia was sure.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure what to do with that—what to do with him. What she did know was that there was something about the man that called to her—that had been calling to her since the moment she laid eyes on him.
No, since before that.
Emilia had wanted to know more about the man since the moment he installed her function, over a decade earlier. Guilt had kept her from doing so, even in a more normal
stalking him on the aethernet and in the news
way that so many of his fans had done since he was first announced as a non-dev when he was only sixteen. There was no way to describe how glad she was for that guilt and self-control now, having effectively confirmed during dinner that his being outed had been all his mother—that Olivier himself would likely have lived for decades longer without revealing himself, had he any part in the decision.
Then, Sorvell had sent her to Olivier’s classroom, and even before pushing that door open, it had felt as though she were on a precipice—one that’s importance she wouldn’t yet be able to see, the bottom of the jump she was about to make mysterious and black and barely a single error away from shattering.
It had been a strange feeling, and looking back—trying to work out if it had been stress or over a decade of anticipation at meeting the man making her feel so odd—Emilia didn’t think it was anything more than what it was: a feeling that she couldn’t explain, an answer to a question she hadn’t asked, and yet needed the answer to nonetheless.
Strange, to think that this—that somehow making this man take her case, making him help or maybe even like her—was an answer to a question she knew nothing about. It wasn’t the first time Emilia had experienced such odd feelings, but usually, they were much smaller; a feeling to go here or there, to go talk to someone, to avoid a specific food—that last one had resulted in her being the only one not to get food poisoning at a school event a few years previous.
Usually, those feelings led to good things. More often than not, they led to things that were good, but that had consequences attached—she’d been accused of poisoning the food as a prank, for instance.
Emilia wouldn’t regret following such feelings the night she killed 'ariah, letting herself be pulled along to Lux just moments before he arrived, fully intent on killing her and then himself. Still, it was a double-edged sword.
Lux was alive. 'ariah was dead. Emilia would likely find herself sentenced to prison, and then all of their lives would be ruined when they helped her run.
Nothing would make her regret saving Lux, yet she couldn’t deny, as she stared into the yawning darkness of Olivier’s attention, help, friendship, that whatever waited at the bottom was dark and destructive.
A monster, waiting to snap.
.
!
Arc 8 | Chapter 293: The Fathomless Unknown
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