“So, what’s wrong?”
Emilia asked, immediately switching their group message into audio mode because while the tour guide was definitely explaining the history of Falmíer well, she’d heard it before—actually, she’d heard it several times before, and while Olivier hadn’t confirmed whether he had visited this specific Lüshanian city before, most cities had a pretty similar history.
Most of those histories effectively amounted to: there was a war and the residents of the city sought refuge within the planet, those Lüshanians who were descendants of the First Lowdouran using their irregular deviation to forge a way deeper and deeper, until it made more sense for the city to be fully moved underground, with some of the cities eventually spreading through both the underground and the surface world, once war settled down. As wars had been common on their continent for millennia, this was relatively uncommon and mostly confined to the more central cities—not all of them, though. The capital was located almost at the centre of the Free Colony, but was underground only—that was part of how it was also the oldest of the nation’s cities: virtually every other city that had dared open itself back up to the surface through more than a handful of tunnels had found themselves far less able to defend themselves when war inevitably rose yet again.
From there, the histories of the cities diverged a little, depending on where they were. Mostly, they involved more war. Where Lüshan pressed against Dion, there would be tales of the centuries when they had fought against Dion’s influence, when it had acted as their ruler in all but name, brutal puppet regimes ruling over those cities as the actual Lüshanian government struggled to take back control. Those stories were always more interesting, with prideful tales of the authors and artists who had powered the yanswt—an underground network of creators who were officially censored by the local, Dionese-backed governments, and had instead distributed their works through small print runs and word of mouth, concerts held in secret rooms, artwork hidden within artwork. Most of those tours included museums, where the remains of those works could be seen.
The tour in Ümvrat was probably her favourite, as it wound its way through the network of underground tunnels that the city’s freedom fighters had travelled through, making plans for how to best fight the government with what little power they had. It was so enjoyable, with new locations and tidbits of information being dropped each time she’d been on it, that Emilia signed up for it every time she’d visited the city.
Falmíer’s tour was nice, if boring. As the capital, it was visited by more international visitors than most other cities; as a result, it focused on the broad strokes of the nation’s history. Bits and pieces of the city’s history were there too, of course. It was just… less interesting, bogged down by things she’d known since before her first visit to Lüshan—her father always made sure she was as knowledgeable as possible about the places they visited before they arrived. Usually, it worked. Occasionally, she fucked up with etiquette or social customs within moments of landing. When she’d been younger, it had generally been an accident. Now…
Now, it was complicated, if only because of who she was of her own volition: the Blood Rain General’s student. While that meant next to nothing in Baalphoria—not that many people outside her friends and a few high-ranking government officials even knew—even in the Free Colonies, she’d never have the sort of influence Hurinren had, as the Blood Rain General’s heir. Still, there was something
different
to the way she was perceived when people of the Free Colonies knew who she was—what she was. Most didn’t, but in some places, she couldn’t be the Blood Rain General’s student and not act a certain way, her status as his student—as an important member of the Dionese Inner Court—overshadowing her identity as the Baalphorian Secretary General’s daughter.
Certainly, if she somehow ended up in Kurvion—a small Free Colony that stretched along several hundred kilometres of what was otherwise the border between Dion and the Northern Tribes—she would need to act… superior, due to a long-running feud between her teacher and one of his former friends, a Kurvonian who had chosen his nation over their friendship well over two hundred years ago. Emilia knew she could hold a grudge—occasionally—but holding a grudge for over two centuries was a lot, especially since the pair had never spoken again, as far as she knew. Sure, there had been some tension between Kurvion and Dion since the last Colonial War ended—and while she knew Kurvion had played some role in its end, few people seemed to know what actually happened, and none of them were talking—but not enough to explain why the Blood Rain General still refused to even speak of his former friend, she thought?
Who knew. Probably, she should know given the whole
she would be expected to act rudely towards any Kurvonian she came across, and would be practically expected to take the entire nation down if she ever found herself within its borders
thing. Unfortunately, she didn’t know. Thankfully, that was the only real case she could think of where she would be expected to act as anything other than a culturally conscious version of herself.
That said, something about what Malcolm had said as she idly followed their tour guide was telling her that if they didn’t get out of this city as quickly as possible, the situation here might push her ability to contain herself to being a polite, well-behaved visitor to the limit.
It wasn’t that he was overtly saying what was wrong—actually, as far as she could tell, he might not know
exactly
what was wrong; rather, he just knew that something strange was happening in the Free Colony, with Falmíer seemingly at the centre of it. Great. Awesome. Just what she wanted.
“Will you four shut up?”
Malcolm barked over the arguing of four of the Hyrat clones who had included in the group messages.
Several Hyrat clones in the area had been included, which was concerning on its own, given it implied Malcolm was preparing for them to be ready to evacuate their group or intervene if trouble found them. Byron and Zane were two of the clones who were also travelling on the ship, while Loren had been included to act as liaison for everyone—although it seemed he was currently busy and hadn’t actually opened the group message yet. Two of the other clones worked in the city. There were more clones in Falmíer, of course, working at the Baalphorian Embassy, but Malcolm had only brought Quinnlyn and Brinnlyn in, the pair of them effectively running security for the embassy and visiting Baalphorians. They would relate information as needed to the rest of the local team, as well as their other two pod members, who were apparently off in another city at the moment.
The most interesting inclusion, in Emilia’s opinion, was Triggar and his pod. Within the group message, they were only listed as [Redacted], so she couldn’t be
positive
it was Triggar actually communicating with them, but she was pretty sure it was. Their pod was working uncover in the city, currently, wearing faces that weren’t their own. Emilia definitely hadn’t known there were any undercover operations happening in Falmíer, and given the yelling of Byron, Quinnlyn and Brinnlyn, they hadn’t known either. In Byron’s case, it probably didn’t matter much—he was on his way to rejoin his pod in Byshire, after having spent the last few decades raising a pod of clones a few years older than Emilia. For the local clones to have not known they had undercover clones operating in the city? That was a bigger issue. Emilia had a feeling it wasn’t as big—or even related—to whatever Malcolm was nervous about, but it was important enough to the local clones that they were still yelling at Malcolm, despite his request to shut up.
For a second, Loren’s name lit up on her Censor, indicating he’d finally joined. A second later, it went dark again. Good decision—listening to everyone yell was giving her a headache, and she’d already turned the volume down quite a bit.
[
Loren:
Should I be worried about whatever that was?
]
[
Emmie:
fuck if i know
]
[
Emmie:
maybe?
]
[
Emmie:
i dont think its common to run ops and not let the top command in the city know?
]
[
Loren:
Uh. No. Usually we let at least the top of the chain know. Where are you?
]
Tuning out the sound of the boys—most of whom were actually men at least a century older than she was—arguing, Emilia explained to Loren what little she knew of the situation: namely that something strange was happening in Lüshan and Malcolm was concerned that they were in the nation at all, let alone in the capital.
“They also sent Cameron to watch me? I didn’t really think too much about it—I mean, daddy has been trying to get us to get along at least a little better since we met—but Olivier is right: it is weird that he requested someone who clearly hates me to babysit me?”
she explained to Loren, forwarding him Olivier’s explanation of how he had even ended up messaging Malcolm, after asking her father why he had sent Cameron to watch her.
The man had good points: she was, in fact, more likely to fuck off just because spending any amount of time around Cameron was terrible, and if she got to mess with the Drinarna officer while she did it? Emilia didn’t want to cause problems for Olivier, but fucking with someone like Cameron wasn’t something she was likely able to resist, and her father definitely should have known that.
“I will go to him and see if I can get a moment of his time,”
Loren told her as she rambled to him, wondering whether her father had actually requested Cameron or not.
“Most of the people you know in Falmíer work for the Drinarna, so he likely went through her father, or perhaps his second-in-command, in order to request someone accompany you through the city. It is possible someone else assigned her to watch you, rather than whoever your father requested—or he left it up to them, thinking they would be more sensible in who they chose. I think finding out what happened may be helpful.”
Loren had a point. If her father had requested Cameron, his thought process would matter. If he hadn’t, then it was possible whoever had assigned her to watch Emilia either
really
didn’t know either of them, or knew them both too well.
Within Cameron’s attention, there was no way Emilia could resist messing with her. As for Cameron, that girl had never been good at taking Emilia’s teasing or taunting. Even from their first meeting, if Emilia ran off, Cameron would give chase. As children, there had been no stakes other than that Cameron’s father had told her to stay with Emilia. Neither of them had wanted to be together, yet Cameron would still give chase, for pride and obedience alone.
Now? Now, Cameron was actually working, even if it was just a student internship. Just as any problems Emilia caused would reflect back onto Olivier, so too would they splatter over Cameron. If Cameron lost her, if Emilia got herself involved in whatever weird thing was happening in the city, it would become Cameron’s problem.
For as much as she and the Drinarna officer didn’t get along, Emilia was aware she was good at her job. Too serious, but even as young and inexperienced as she was, everyone expected her to rise through the ranks at breakneck speed. Cameron was such a good student that no one could even suggest her father was responsible for her promotions, either.
So, what better person to assign to watch her—at least, if the person doing the assigning didn’t know about the lifetime of animosity racketing between them. If that person hadn't known, they might be truly trying to keep her away from whatever was happening; if the person did know? If they knew that Cameron’s presence was liable to run her off, even her best intentions melting under her desire to fuck with the Drinarna officer?
Well, that person might very well be hoping that she suddenly find herself falling into whatever situation was brewing within Falmíer.
Arc 9 | Chapter 366: Great. Awesome. Just what she wanted.
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