“I do not think it is uncommon to find making finding friends outside your social class… frustrating,” Olivier said, and oh yeah, did he sound frustrated and annoyed or what? “Personally, I have often found there is an air of
desire
and a
wanting of something
that accompanies attempts to become my friend—rare as that is.”
“Hey! I’m trying to be your friend! Yes, I want your big lawyer brain, but those are separate issues!” Emilia said, suddenly panicky that Olivier wouldn’t see it like that. Her attempts to push herself up so she could glare down at him were stymied by his arms around her, holding her against him, his lips pressing to her forehead as he whispered that he knew she wasn’t using overtures of friendship to convince him to take her case. Within his voice, there was a tint of
something
—some desire that she actually would use him that way? No, that couldn’t be it; why in the world would he be regretful she wasn’t that sort of person?
“My cousins have the same issue,” he continued, sounding sadder for them than he had for himself. “I believe Axelle has been quite happy to meet Halen, as he isn’t in need of connections to higher levels of society. It is sad, but there is a power difference that can cause issues. I believe that is why my brother rarely uses our last name, and why he fears the day our mother might turn her gaze onto him, intent to share his person with the world, as she has mine.”
“Same… I rarely introduce myself by my father’s name while in Baalphoria,” Emilia whispered into his skin, thinking of the way that, while the Inner Court was so much more overt about the power structure and machinations that existed within it, nearly everyone searching for ways to extend their influence higher, such things existed in Baalphoria as well. It was just stupider in Baalphoria. Regardless of her last name, she had little power there—not even the power to fight charges of manslaughter when she had clearly been defending herself and Lux. Ironically, being her friend—even one who never set foot in Dion—automatically raised a person’s status in the Inner Court far more than it ever would in Baalphoria. Connections to the Free Colonies weren’t valued in Baalphoria, though, so, in the end, that power—sizeable as it was—was disregarded by most.
For a most of her life, her connections in Baalphoria had been mostly meaningless. Now, of course, there was Halen, and a few decades from now, once they were all settling into their careers? Those were the sorts of connections people should have been seeking: true friendships with their friend group because they were monsters, not because it might allow them to randomly attend parties where Baalphoria’s current elite would be in attendance.
Silly. All Bryce’s family had needed to do was step back and let her become their friend naturally, rather to turn her into a pariah who had graduated without a single friend because of their pushing. It sucked, and Emilia really hoped that one day Bryce would figure out how to say
fuck you
to her parents and find her own path. Maybe, if that day came, they could try to be friends again. Fortunately, as far as Emilia could tell, Bryce’s family were one of the few who weren’t intent to use Baalphoria’s Dyad Containment Laws to lock her away for the rest of her life, so at least she would have the opportunity to take some space from them, if she wanted.
Escaping family systems was a hard task, however. Tilting her head up to stare into the dark abyss of Olivier’s chin, barely visible, Emilia contemplated Olivier, stuck in his own family’s chaos for reasons she couldn’t understand—reasons she would probably have to explicitly ask about to understand. If she asked why he stayed connected to them, when they were clearly horrible, would he tell her? No… probably, he would give her a piece that she already knew. Something like,
to use my family’s archive for good.
“If I could go back, I think I would try harder to make her feel like she could ignore her family… or, maybe come up with some plan for her to pretend she was being a good, conniving child with them?” Emilia released a humourless laugh, admitting that, were something similar to happen today, she had more than enough experience navigating delicate political situations to be able to come up with some plan on how to trick Bryce’s family.
“One does not spend so much time within the Inner Court and not come away knowing how to bend the truth and manipulate people with a delicate touch!” she declared, her chin definitely digging into Olivier’s chest as she smiled up at him. He couldn’t see her smile, of course, but then again, with that gentle rustle over the aether… maybe he could; maybe he had activated {Starless Eyes} to watch her—to take in her movements and smiles.
“I’d like to hear about that, some other time,” the man said softly, worry winding through his voice and coiling within the muscles wrapped so nicely around her—enough tension rattling through him that Emilia was unsurprised when he next words were the clarification of: “If you like.”
“I would like,” Emilia told him, pushing her enthusiasm down because she
loved
talking Inner Court drama.
It was a bit annoying, as there was an implicit understanding that she would use {A Private Moment} if she talked about it with people who weren’t directly part of the Inner Court’s power structure and obligations of secrecy, just to be sure they wouldn’t spread what they knew any further. It wasn’t
required
, but if something she told outsiders slipped further into the world…
Well, she’d feel pretty fucking bad if it resulted in a shift of the current balance of power—up in the air as that currently was in the wake of the late ryohuang’taiung’s death, not to mention whatever she’d witnessed earlier with those ryohua. At any given moment, there were dozens of factions within the Inner Court, some with power, some the dredges of former groups who had lost their power in failed attempts to seize more—although people who fucked up that badly tended to lose their lives during their downfall, vicious as the Inner Court was—as well as new, rising factions. Most groups would fall from power, even the crown's power waning and waxing with each ruler, each consort, each child borne to them and any relations they’d left alive.
It had been millennia since the current royal family had taken power, but in that time—and Emilia was in no way an expert on the history of the Dionese crown—there had been dozens of heirs killed off so younger siblings and more distant relatives could take power. The last Colonial War had only drawn to a close after the then-ruler—the current Emperor’s cousin—had been killed, peace following under the young Emperor and the Blood Rain General.
Over two hundred and fifty years later, they still held most of the Inner Court’s power between them, although every year more people were realizing that the Emperor’s mind was no longer entirely there and his daughter—Emilia’s friend—had been taking more and more for herself with the aid of the Blood Rain General, Hurinren, Yujao, and the late ryohuang'taiung. Unfortunately, Kiarna, the Princess Supreme—some Dionese ruler had decided long ago that taking on the joking moniker of
Supreme,
gifted to them by a then-highly-purist Baalphorian government, was the perfect way to stick it to Baalphoria and forever leave a reminder of their purist inclinations on their tongues; Emilia was unconvinced it was successful, as she doubted most even knew the origin of the term—was young. Many considered her too young to be taking on the role of ruler in her father’s stead, and attempts to manipulate her had been growing the last few years.
Ironically, as her father had taken the crown when he was barely ten, at thirty-four, Kiarna was far older than he had been. Granted, from what Emilia had heard, the Emperor had also been subject to unending attempts to manipulate him, it was just that the Blood Rain General had already cemented himself as the one pulling the Emperor’s strings. Fortunately, her teacher had never really used his control of the crown for anything bad, and instead, had been intent to let the too-young Emperor grow into himself before—mostly—relinquishing his control of the nation. Now, everything was shifting. Not only was the Emperor aging and losing his grasp on reality, but the Blood Rain General was approaching three hundred, and while his genetics might allow him to push further into his three hundreds than was common…
Well, the Inner Court was already a ball of tension, and it wasn’t likely to relax even when the power vacuum left by the late ryohuang'taiung’s death settled, as he had been bolstering the Princess Supreme’s security with trusted ryohua more and more. The chances of anyone taking a slip of information and using it against Kiarna was high, while when it came to the Blood Rain General or Hurinren, hardly anyone would dare touch them—or Yujao, given Hurinren would happily wipe out the entire nation for that boy. Everyone else, though? All their friends and weaker allies? Information was the currency of the Inner Court, a secret on the tongue more effective than a knife to the throat.
Not only that, but if the power of Dion’s Inner Court or crown shifted too much, the continent’s current balance of power would be liable to shift as well.
Currently, Dion and Baalphoria held the most power, although both had their own hurdles to gaining more power. In Dion’s case, they had made enough enemies of their southwestern neighbours during the centuries before the last Colonial War that many of their relationships were still tense. In Baalphoria’s case, millennia of being the little shit of the continent had left its mark, while their lack of both any hereditary power—outside of The Black Knot’s ruling families, which wasn’t exactly the most useful in international relations—or core use left them outside many of the shared spaces and relationship structures of the Free Colonies.
In terms of other nations, while Seer’ik’tine did have a significant amount of influence, the fact that the diplomatic centre of their world
could
be moved near anywhere kept its influence from growing too large. Most of the other nations’ growth in power was stymied by their strained relationships with Dion or Baalphoria. There were a few that didn’t seem to care too much about expanding their power, Falrion and the Northern Tribes in particular, although given their perpetually ebbing and flowing conflict with one another, perhaps they were just preoccupied with other things—not that it was
the Northern Tribes
involved in that whole affair; rather, it was a few tribes, but Emilia had often had the sense that it took a collective consent on the part of all the tribes to change foreign policy?
It was part of why Halvery had ended up its own, excised Free Colony. Back when it had been part of the Northern Tribes, the specific tribe had wanted to expand foreign trade, but whatever group of tribal leaders—Emilia
thought
she had heard them called hy, but the northern language wasn’t officially recorded by the OIC, so there was no official guide on the language, while the culture was virtually unknown to foreigners—made decisions on such things had said no to more foreign trade. So, the tribe had left. As far as Emilia knew, the Northern Tribes hadn’t put up much of a fight in stopping them, nor in keeping them from slicing away a piece of their giant nation, which stretched across the entire continent. Now, that piece sat north of the Rind Mountains and had some trading with Baalphoria and Lu Ros. Maybe a little with northern Dion? Unknown; Emilia had far more knowledge of the political and trading situations as they related to mid-continent nations—that was where she had spent the majority of her life, travelling with her father and generally making a menace of herself, after all.
“Did you enjoy travelling with him?” Olivier asked after Emilia had taken the opportunity to babble about all this, explaining the reasons why she’d totally tell him all the secrets—seriously, most of her Baalphorian friends either didn’t care or didn’t want to know things that could
potentially
make them ideal targets of kidnappings—but couldn’t do so without her own instance of {A Private Moment} running.
“I did!” Emilia cheered, perhaps a tad too loud. “I love learning about different cultures and meeting new people—making new friends. I dunno. There’s just something different about getting to know Free Coloniers? Like, connecting with them can be more intense? I mean, you have to actually ask questions and work to understand their world and way of thinking? In Baalphoria… sure, you can talk to people, learn the more nuanced bits of their life and history, as well as the Baalphoria they’ve experienced. The thing is, you can look most of that up with your Censor? Everything is right there, inside your brain. Answers exist in studies and news articles; in books and other media. People only need to search for the difference in culture between the various regions of Baalphoria—not that most people bother.”
The agreeing sound Olivier made sent a happy vibration through Emilia. Seriously! Olivier being mean was just too enjoyable, and he wasn’t even being
that
mean! Mostly, it was just vibes and short, snippy comments. If the man really let go? Fuck, what a glorious day would that be. What Emilia wouldn’t give for him to give in and tell the world exactly how pathetic he thought most people were, probably for beautiful, petty reasons—especially since, nice and polite as the man was, it would be followed by him treating them with perfect, brutal manners. It was something she enjoyed about the Inner Court: that ability for members to cut deep with carefully placed words.
Fuck, she’d seen the late Empress do nothing more than brush her fingers over the cuff of an Inner Court member’s sleeve and leave them fleeing the room so they could vomit into a nearby plant. Apparently, the man had been attempting to seduce Kiarna—she’d only been seventeen, gross fucker—and the Empress had witnessed him touching the young princess’ clothing. He later killed himself, knowing the late Empress would let no such threat to her lone child—to the only child the Emperor had managed to sire after hundreds of years of trying—stand.
“We should go back to your story, though!” Emilia told him, nodding into the soft skin of his shoulder and attempting yet again to memorize the feel of him against her. She really hoped she’d remember all the fine details of his relaxed, highly snuggle-able body once {A Private Moment} released. “It isn’t every day that one gets to learn such secret stories!”
“Indeed,” Olivier said, before returning to his story and the transcripts of the high eminence’s questionings, pulling his copies up both himself and Emilia, so she could follow along as he explained how his aunt had handled the transcripts of the many hours worth of questioning.
Arc 9 | Chapter 353: The Power Dynamics of the Small and the Large
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