It was just a matter of time before they came to a crossroads—they all knew it would happen eventually, even if a few of them had whispered that maybe, if they were lucky, the straight path would hold. Sure, there had been tight spots to get through, drops and stumbles and a few of them would definitely have bruises from where hands snatched at them, keeping them from falling to their knees. It wasn’t a great going, but it wasn’t terrible either. It wouldn’t last. Even pushing aside superstitions about the aether hearing such whispers and taking up the challenge of crumbling hopes to dust, their luck wasn’t that good.
For nearly twenty minutes, their group had been going straight, straight, straight, the path growing more and treacherous as they went. At the very least, Mikhail was no longer with them because even Darrian was having a time of it getting through some of the squishier passageways they were coming across, and Mikhail might not have been as tall as he was, but he was far bulkier. The guy also couldn’t use {Hidey Hole} well enough to be trusted to utilize it to alter the physical world a little so he could get through tighter spaces, and while none of the bigger members of their group had been forced to use the skill to temporarily make the path a little bigger yet, they all knew it might be coming.
Halen had made a similar comment, about it being good Mikhail hadn’t ended up taking this route into the city, the first time they had been forced to drop to their knees and crawl through a tunnel, those of them who couldn’t sustain defensive skills to protect their skin coming out scrapped and bloody. Fortunately, someone had had the sense to suggest they wear the bodysuits that had protected them from school classes on, well, war under their clothes, so no one was too badly beat up. Still, Lux had ditched the pants she’d worn over the bodysuit due to how tattered the fabric had become during her crawling, the fibres catching on every little spike in the black rock that had closed in around them, tighter and tighter until a few of them had been breathing so hard that Halen’s stalking function had been flagging them as nearing a panic attack.
Then, Emilia’s voice had been in all of their heads, giving them a play by play of her bickering companions, which had somehow diverged into an argument about whether one variety of sweet bun found in Falmíer was better than another—apparently it was so contentious that this was the second time they’d argued about this particular topic.
“Can’t they just have different opinions?”
Mikhail had asked while his group waited to be let into the diplomatic entrance of the papers checkpoint.
Cue BJ and Levi beginning to argue in all their heads about whether one variety of luxury cookie found in the Penns was better than another—a long-running disagreement between the two. Darrian wasn’t convinced Levi actually cared, so much as he wanted an excuse to not be tasked with going to the bakery. Given every time he was tasked with going to get cookies he returned without any of the cookies BJ preferred, it was rare he was tasked with doing so. Even the few times someone else had ordered ahead and Levi had only needed to pick up the cookies, somehow, BJ’s cookies didn’t make it to him. The owner of the bakery insisted they had included BJ’s favoured cookies, yet, no cookies. It wasn’t even like any were missing from the total cookie count, nor as though Levi had bought extra cookies from the bakery—Emilia had hacked into his bank account, just to check for mysterious, cookie-related charges as well—or even stolen any, Coral having once gone to discuss the issue with the bakery owner, who insisted that he had no unaccounted for cookies.
Regardless, the sweet bun and cookie arguments had allowed those in their group who were struggling with the confined space to push their way through the panic and pop out the other side.
The fact that the tunnels hadn’t yet been so tight that
he
couldn’t get through them, however, was somewhat concerning. While there was no guarantee they’d run into tighter spaces while working their way through the cave system—Valor had spent some of his time waiting for the rest of their group to come out of one of the tighter tunnels running a recon skill, revealing that there definitely were more tunnels big enough for humans working their way through the stone surrounding them. There was no guarantee they’d come into contact with those tunnels, but multiple tunnels still made it a cave system, as opposed to a single tunnel.
The point was, if they came to a point where the way forward was even tighter, those in their group who were already struggling with the tight darkness might panic. Personally, he wouldn’t have much of an issue with using {Hidey Hole} to push forward, but others…
Well, it was bad, to say the least. They were also still doing it. Part of it was that now that they knew The Black Knot was already aware of the situation they’d finally contacted Grenner, trusting that he at least would prioritize helping Emilia over telling the rest of The Black Knot and the Baalphorian government that their group was attempting to illegally enter Falmíer… after illegally leaving Baalphoria and then making their way illegally through a collection of Free Colonies. They’d been right; Grenner was a mixture of unimpressed with their decision to come to Lüshan and grateful they were there because things were… messy. Among their myriad problems, the most pressing on the clone’s side was that the papers checkpoint had been at a near standstill for hours—since about the time Emilia had run the Drinarna officers that they now knew to be involved in Olivier’s disappearance.
In other words, while Polianna might be able to get her group through the diplomatic entrance with arguments that Mikhail’s Censor was acting up and was set to send emergency aid requests to members of their friend group, resulting in Coral and Polianna coming to help him, and that to help him, they needed to get him to the embassy so he could use a Virtuosi Rig there, there was no way that would work for the rest of them, even if they turned back and tried to get into the city legally.
There was a chance it might not work for those three or the clones who were now part of their group either. At least with their small group, they might get in, just so they wouldn’t escalate the issue to Polianna’s mother, who worked for Emilia’s father, or worse, to the secretary general himself. No one wanted the Baalphorian government asking why the city was unofficially locked down. For the moment, Coral’s readings of the situation seemed to imply the Drinarna’s higher ups were trying to keep everything quiet, barely even letting regular officers know what was happening, so they were all hoping at least their group would get in. A little help was better than none. In the meantime, their group was going to continue pushing forward; there were no other options, and the way the situation was going, it seemed like Emilia might actually need them.
After all, from what Coral was reading, it seemed like the faction of the Drinarna responsible for what was happening hadn’t even let Wander Fulbrun or anyone else higher up the chain know that Emilia was in the city. Grenner agreed that it was possible Miles hadn’t bothered asking Wander Fulbrun himself to assign someone to watch Emilia—after all, they were all aware it was a silly request, meant to both bring his child joy and annoy her as she travelled, rather than a serious request. Unfortunately, whoever Miles had contacted was likely part of the corrupt Drinarna faction, and was therefore covering up how out of control things were turning out. No one was saying it, but that lack of communication through the chain of command likely meant that Emilia—as well as Olivier and his class—were at even more risk of being killed by the corrupt Drinarna as they attempted to cover the situation up. How this was going to work when The Black Knot already knew about the situation, Darrian had no idea—although, maybe the Drinarna didn’t know that The Black Knot knew? Should someone tell them? Or would that just make things worse? They surely must realize the clones knew what was happening by this point?
Darrian had no idea what the corrupt Drinarna were thinking, at this point.
What he did know? People did and said stupid things when they were stressed. Take Mikhail, for instance, who even not there, had still taken the opportunity as they stood at the first crossroad they came to, Valor and Taelor running recon skills to see if they could determine if one route was better than another, to say something stupid.
It was in no way the worst thing he had ever said—fuck, it might not even be the worst thing he’d said that day. Still, tempers were fraying, the darkness further eating at everyone’s patience. Fortunately, Halen had been fast enough to temporarily disable their group relay, so Mikhail wouldn’t hear a few of them telling him he was a stupid, terrible person. Still, even Simeon’s calm had shattered for a few minutes as they waited for the recon skills to come back with more information, the silence a stretch of tension between them. In the distance, water dripped and the rubble of the cave system occasionally shifted, stones falling and sending their hearts tumbling through the eerie atmosphere.
It was probably just the world shifting naturally. The aether was always shifting about, so of course it would cause the soil and water to move with it. There were definitely unseen bugs and creatures down here as well, poking their claws into the cave to dig their way to the surface or make themselves a new home. It could just as easily be their own existence there, their weight and pounding hearts sending the world into motion, their crawling and walking sending vibrations into the earth until they dislodged rock metres away that was already hanging on by mere atoms.
Still, creepy as fuck, and Darrian instead contented himself to thinking back on Mikhail’s words and considering why he was one of the few people who didn’t seem upset by them.
Part of it was that Darrian wasn’t convinced the other boy had meant any harm; rather, his sentiment had just come out wrong. The obvious implication behind Mikhail’s words had been that they should leave Emilia to her fate—she had made this mess, so she should deal with it herself. It was the most straightforward of interpretations, yet, for as much as Mikhail could be blunt and straightforward, he often stumbled over articulating his feelings properly.
If Darrian had to guess, it was more likely that Mikhail—who seemed to like and respect Emilia with a near reverence at times, especially in the decade and half since she had helped figure out the source of his difficulties—had meant to say that Emilia could take care of herself.
“Emilia can take care of herself, and while us being there to support her was great, if we aren’t around, she’ll figure it out”
—that was what Darrian figured the other boy had been trying to say… not that he was telling his suspicions to anyone but Levi, who had long ago decided to just ignore everything that came out of Mikhail’s mouth and was therefore one of the few people in their group wasn’t upset.
In his own case… it wasn’t that Darrian was close with Mikhail and therefore understood him well or anything, the way Halen and Codeth—who were mostly just rolling their eyes at everyone being so upset when they all knew what Mikhail was like—were. Neither, however, did he dislike Mikhail the way he knew a few members of their friend group did, something that he knew was more a deflection of their frustration with Leerin onto Mikhail than an actual dislike of him. It wasn’t fair to Mikhail that everyone turned the dislike they couldn’t actively show to Leerin onto him, but Darrian knew it was because they were similar in the things that could make them tiresome to be around at times.
Just as Mikhail could be annoying and blunt, so too could Darrian’s cousin, although, at least Mikhail was nice under all of his difficulties with communicating and understanding situations. Leerin was just… unhappy, never quite managing to grasp hold of any glimmer of joy for more than a few hours. Then, the joy would fade, and misery would come back for her.
Darrian had spent all three decades of his life trying to help her. It wasn’t working, and he knew all his friends’ patience was growing thinner as their gap decades stretched before them. The next decade of life was supposed to be their last chance at true freedom, and while he doubted any of them would let adulthood drain them of their cheer and chaos, at the same time, Leerin was effectively a cloud of doom hanging over them.
Previously, he had assumed he would have another few years to try and help his cousin. They could leave the Penns, was the main thing. For as long as he could remember, their family had been growing increasingly intolerant, even as the pair of them befriended more and more people who were
different
. Their intolerance wasn’t quite to the point of purism—at least, he didn’t think it was. It wasn’t a secret that he had been vocal about his support for those who purists viewed as a stain on the world, once getting into a screaming match with another of his cousins over some remarks about trying to visit Chinsata to
fuck around with a few silverstrain slaves
. Darrian had punched him, in the end—broken his jaw. It had been quite satisfying; it had also resulted in both he and Leerin being slightly removed from their family. They weren’t actively shunned, but neither were they openly given information about the rest of their family’s current beliefs anymore.
Combined with the high expectations and negativity that had already existed within the Zentari family, Darrian was sure that, with a little distance, Leerin might be able to let go of the damage growing up within their grasp had done to her. The question was more if they could get far enough during their gap decade and whether a decade would be enough—as well as whether Leerin would even let herself be happy.
That
was the most frustrating thing: Darrian wasn’t even sure his cousin
wanted
to be happy. Sometimes, it felt as though she were dwelling on the negative aspects of every situation, never bothering to see the beauty or joy in anything. Even now, as they began heading down the path that Valor had mapped, which appeared to lead to another steep drop and at least going down was getting them closer to Emilia—at some point, they might be close enough to the top of the city’s ceiling to open a hole and go in that way, after all—Leerin shot down Samina’s attempts to admire the tunnel.
It was beautiful, under all the creeping darkness, but Leerin couldn’t see it, her snide remarks to Samina not quite reaching into the territory of telling her she was stupid for thinking anything positive at the moment but getting close.
Darrian knew that patterns were challenging to escape from, and Leerin had thirty years of making the world out to be more miserable than it actually was under her. Still, there had to be a way for her to escape—for her to find happiness—if only because Darrian didn’t want to have to choose between her and their friends. He knew which he would choose—had known since he was a young teen, if he were being honest—but he didn’t want to choose, he just wanted Leerin to figure herself out. His cousin could find happiness, he was sure—with them, with new friends, with herself alone. No matter what, he knew she could do it.
She just had to.
.
!
Arc 9 | Chapter 417: The Cookie Conspiracy
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